Skill Stacking and the Curiosity Advantage with Brett Young

Foreign.

Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. This is the podcast for independent insurance agents and leaders to grow, to develop, to challenge your thinking, the status quo, and ultimately become that best version possible. So delighted to be with you on this episode. Excited to be here to bring in a very dynamic guest, someone who I've had some back and forth conversations with over the years and wanted to reach out to this fine gentleman and bring him onto the podcast. If you are a social media person, certainly I see all the time on LinkedIn, you'll see videos and I love the tagline from this guy or what he's got on there about helping agencies break through the million dollar plateau. I want to hear about that. But without further ado, my guest today is Brett Young with Herb and Young in Cold Florida. Brett. So, Brett, first of all, welcome to the podcast.

Oh, thank you. Let me tell you, it's an absolute pleasure to be here and anytime. Being in your presence, Brent, is an absolute privilege. So I appreciate it, man. Thank you. And it is, it's only 50 degrees today and only half of the Floridians decided to call into work. So we're doing pretty good.

You know, it's funny you said the 50s, Brett. So I, I live in Illinois and I see next week we're supposed to be in the 50s, and that means here it's short weather. So that's what we think. And don't judge 50. Yeah. So obviously it's all context and perspective. But again, so excited to have you on here, Brett. And like I said, all kidding aside, I mean, you are a very influential person out there that we see. And I love a lot of things that you talk about with culture and mission and things you're doing with the agency. And we may go all kinds of places here. But first of all, just if you would, for the audience, give a little background. Who are you? Tell me a little about the agency and yeah, just share what's most comfortable to.

Thank you so much. Well, my background, let's see, I got in the insurance business about 20 years ago, which is wild to me. I started in the network marketing space, believe it or not. And so I, I would have considered myself a network marketer more than an insurance agent, but I was marketing insurance products, ancillary employee benefit product. I built a team across the country, then I got into employee benefits, did a decent high level, started to get to the point where I was, I couldn't scale. I was kind of capping out a little bit based on if I, if I wasn't spending My time signing apps, I wasn't making money and you know, so I was attracted to the team building side of network marketing, but it was a price point that was really low and it was just something that wasn't working for me at the time. So met some really good mentors in the space and learned a lot about leadership and team building and culture and how to lead a voluntary army and some of the best leaders that I know. And I met a guy in the property and casualty space who had retired as a CEO and bought into this agency and he spent two and a half hours with me. I asked him what his Tuesday would look like. My dad told me, if you want to know what business you want to get into, ask somebody that's successful what their Tuesday, not their best day, not their worst day, what a Tuesday looks like. And he told me, I play golf on Tuesdays, man. And he told me about. Obviously I knew about residual income because I had been in the business, but a property in casualty had an escalating price point which I didn't have. I could write something that was $1,000 or I could write something that's $5 million in premium. They had to buy it. And where I was in, they didn't have to buy the product that I was marketing and then they had to buy it from an agent. And in our world that wasn't the case. So I looked at those three components and the last part of property and casual is, you know, when they need to buy it. Right. Because there's an expiration date on it. So I saw those components and said, you know, hey, what, what in. What if we took this concept of team building and culture and what. Everything I learned about leadership development and, and brought it into the property and casualty space. And that's what we did. And so Urban Young was birthed about 15 years ago. We are a scratch agency. We started one policy at a time. Personal lines, a hundred dollar policy. I still remember it to this day. And fast forward to today. Last year, this calendar year, we eclipsed a hundred million in premium. I have two unbelievable business partners that have been with us the whole time. We've been, we built the business together. We have about 80 team members and 14 offices now. We just opened Georgia and North Carolina. Super excited about that. And today I spend my time helping producers become agency owners and agency owners become team builders. I just fundamentally believe that the basics of what I learned in a network marketing space has translated very well to becoming a team builder and building teams instead of just becoming a Good insurance agent that's good at selling insurance policies. I haven't sold an insurance policy in five years. I don't plan on it. But I think the, the beautiful part of that is it's a means to an end. And if you want to build a big business in this, in this space, in the personal lines space, it is a leadership development game. And there's a lot of cool things that can transpire if you'll, if you'll step into that identity.

Wow, good stuff. I mean, a lot of things I could, I could comment on there, Brett, and thanks for sharing that, that background. And you know, one thing I share on this podcast all the time, I share in our trainings, is that, in essence, what is the purpose of leadership. And everybody could have, you know, a different definition on that, but I said in a simple way, my belief is that it's really all about growing and developing your number one asset, your people. You know, I mean, it's, it comes down to that. So that's why I'm so excited to have you on here, because I know that's a big passion of what you all do and what you share about the. By the way, if you're listening to this podcast and you're not watching the audio, Brett also has much better and thicker hair and a much nicer beard than me. So someday, someday it's AI, you know, well, you know, whatever. So. Well, I, I would. I, I do. All kidding aside, I want to dive into a few things on here. One thing that I've either you shared or I've seen is about being a people first leader. And I just talked about, you know, this, this idea of leadership. When you think of that, when you think about developing people, I know this is a broad question, like, what does that mean to you? Like, you know, you talk about beating team buildings, but what does people building mean to you? And maybe even how are some things, or what are some things that you do to, to do that successfully?

Yeah, great question. It's. It's skill stacking, right? Someone who comes into the organization has a. They may have some basic skills. And so development to me is stacking more skills, right? And if we can stack skills, we become more valuable in the marketplace. We make more money. Progress equals happiness, in my opinion. That's what we believe here at Urban Young. And if we're seeing progress, we're excited about what we're doing. So now there's a lot of skills associated with that. It could be in all different areas, but, you know, the, the Main component for us is, is somebody better for working with you? And if you can answer that question as a yes, like the intangible, but also the tangible, then you become an attractive leader. Right. People will sign up because they want mentorship. I know when I was coming through the ranks, like I worked for free all the time just to get around the best leaders because I was better for being around them. Right. I learned from their etiquette, the way they held themselves, the way that they talked, their pace, the way that they interacted with people. When they spoke, I listened. I learned from their stories, their experience. Right. And so there was power in me learning by being in proximity. And so, you know, this cool thing about leadership becomes a really big competitive advantage because if people are better being around you, in my opinion, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a beautiful trait because I agree with you. I think if you want to build a good company, you should have good people at your company. If you want to build a great company, you need great people. Right. And you could take a look at any organization in this business and it's truly predicated off of the quality of the individuals that are at the organization.

Yeah.

Wow.

Really good. I, I'm, I don't know, we could go deep as you want here, but skill stacking, I, I, I love it. And I, you know, just, just the other day when we do our, our training sessions on Tuesday, so two days ago, but we talked about, you know, skill development and, and I guess, I don't know. Again, this is a broad question, but maybe it's from a leadership or even the employee, right? Whether it', service, I don't, I don't care. From an agency. Why do you, first of all, maybe you don't agree, do you agree that too many people take skill development for granted? And if so, why? Because I think what I see and I'll give my perspective, give some time, maybe digest that question is there seems to be, in my, in talking to some agencies and people in agencies, there's this assumption that because I breathe air, drink water, talk to people, that I'm getting better and maybe, but better at what? How so? Maybe my question is where do you see the gap? Right? Where do you see the gap and what you do at skill stacking and why so often? And again, this isn't to bash any other organizations, but why many fail to do so?

That's a good question. Really good question. I think it's a fundamental human psychology lesson. I think what we see More than anything else. And the reason I say we is just because my partners and I have come from the same camp and believe the same thing, locked in cadence. But the philosophy we have is usually not conditioned to put us in a position where we're trying to progress. So the way I would describe philosophy is what I believe, how I hold that belief, and then how it impacts the behaviors that I. That I do on a normal day basis. And so let me give you an example. Most of the time, curiosity is not a philosophy, right? We're not taught that curiosity is one of the fundamental principles of getting better in life, Right. You know, we consider ourselves a personal development company that just so happens to sell insurance, right? And I learned that from the network marketing space. If people can, Can. Can grasp this idea that we are a. You're a development vehicle, that your. Your. Your vessel is meant to continually progress and continue to get better, it creates this thirst, this curiosity for knowledge. And if you talk to anyone who has progressed through their craft, they'll. They'll tell you that the more that they've progressed through their craft, the more they realize that they don't know what they know, right? When we're younger in our craft, we. We. We learn one skill or we learn how to quote insurance, we learn how to sell a policy, we learn how to sell a couple dozen policies, and then we go, man, I. I know this craft. I've learned the skill. And then you get into the nuance of, okay, well, how do I increase conversion? How do I apply leverage? How do I buy back my time? And then you go, oh, my God, this is way more. This is way deeper than what I. What I originally thought of. Again, I think it's the lens in which people look through. So what we try to do from a leadership perspective is work on that lens right before we start throwing skills and trying to, you know, you want to sort, not convince. And so many times as leaders, we try to convince. This is important. You should learn this, you should learn this, you should learn this. But it doesn't work, right? Because at the end of the day, I can't get somebody to change. They have to change themselves like that. There's nothing I can help influence them to want to change, but they always make the decision. So if I work on the foundational philosophy about the way somebody thinks, the way that they approach their life and how that is so important and impactful, then I can start to shape behaviors. But if we go straight to the behaviors and we go straight to the skills, what Ends up happening is we rule by accountability instead of inspiration. And I just fundamentally believe that I want to work 70 to 80% on inspiration, 20% on accountability. Because if I can get somebody excited to learn this, if I can get somebody curious by nature, if I can get them to understand this, this unlocks the world to them. If they can just be thirsty for more information and more skills, then they're running out in front, right? I'm just fanning the flame now. I'm saying, what resources do you need? And I think, you know, and obviously there's. There's a place for accountability for sure, with all of us. But so much of leadership becomes management. It just. It becomes, how do I get somebody to make their calls today? Right? How do I get this person to follow up? How do I get this person to do X? And it's like, cool. That's the behavior. But let's back. Let's back up a second. Like, why don't they want to do that? Why are they not doing that? Why are they not reading salesmanship books when they go home at night to get better at sales? And instead of you, why. Instead of following your sales process, right? Like, there's just this. There's this gap that you asked between somebody wanting to get better and wanting to learn and then somebody needing to perform. And so, you know, that's worked well. Cause that's what happened to me. Somebody changed my life. They gave me a book. It helped me learn that, oh, wow, I can get better. But I think as leaders, it's very helpful if we take a step back and focus on the philosophy relative to just focusing on the skills that we want people to learn.

Yeah, I took about two pages of notes there, Brett, just so, you know, so. Which means I could have a lot of FOP questions. So I'm going to try to condense this. But first of all, what hit me, I'm a father of five kids, and I always think about, you know, young kids ask the best question of all. Why? You know?

Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, why?

Why, dad? You know, it's funny as a day. Well, because. Because. And all of a sudden you're like, that's a good question. Why do we do that? You know, and so it takes me back to that. And one comment I want to make, Brett. It's.

It. It's.

It's so powerful. And it aligns very much with things that we talk about. You know, we say that, you know, people want results. Well, you need to have the right behaviors. But if you don't have the beliefs that align with those, you're right, it becomes like, have to versus want to. And even when it comes to accountability and, you know, if you agree with this, it's, you know, not just what we're accountable accountable to, but why that matters. I share this silly story all the time, but people can get it. I remember 20 years ago when after our second kid, about 20 years ago, I started adding on a few lbs, the belt got a little bit bigger and all that kind of stuff. And most people are like, hey, I need to lose £20, right? This is maybe a silly example, but it wasn't until. And again, this isn't to pick on this guy, but I just remember I was at a basketball game and I watched this guy about 20 years older than me struggling to go up the stairs. And all of a sudden the why was this isn't about £20. This is about me being an energetic, mobile guy that becomes a dad and a grandpa that I'm proud of. So my point is when you tie that into the belief, right? And some of that, like, it changes it. Now, I want to be accountable to that. And if someone came to me and said, hey, Brent, I thought you wanted to be an active grandpa. I'm like, yeah, I do. And that changes from I have to. To I want to.

Come on, talk to me. It's. And you know, it's. It's. That's such a cool example. And I just, like, I can see who's going to be successful in the organization, who's not. Because we're conditioned to it, right? We're conditioned that this. Okay, you're just using different words. Okay, yeah, I've heard this before. It's rah, rah, positivity. What's funny is I just look at those people's paychecks and they don't make as much. So, I mean, I don't know how you want to, like, spell it out. Like, I've watched people resist and they stay broke, and I've watched people lean in and become wealthy. And the reason for that is there's. Everything is always changing. The only constant, in my opinion, the meta skill is I have to be able to see a problem, and then I have to know how to go get a resource, bring it in, consume it, and apply it. That skill never changed. That is the meta skill. And so personal development and learning how to do that over and over and over and over and over. Today, I'm dealing with problems that I never dealt with 10 years ago. I'm dealing with problems today that I didn't deal with two years ago. So you might say, well, how did you learn all this? Well, I didn't. You address a problem, you. You hit a plateau, you go get a bunch of resources, you filter through the bs, you find what works, and then you know how to apply it based upon experience. It is the meta skill. So in a world that's always changing and we're sitting here playing whack a mole about what's the best way. And even this podcast, somebody's listening to this podcast, they go, maybe, maybe this guest will give me the one thing that I'm missing. It must be the information. It must be. I haven't listened to enough podcasts. I haven't read. No, it's just everybody's problem is contextual to what they're dealing with. But there are thousands of people that have dealt with the same problem, and you have access to be able to go get that information. And then you have to learn the skill of being able to apply it. And so when we think about personal development, it's not this positivity going to Tony Robbins, great, do that. That's fine. I'm talking about practical. Learn the knowledge and then do activity. Knowledge. How do I consume it and apply it and repeat that process over and over and I stair step my way to bigger problems. Bigger problems. Bigger problems. Because the bigger the problem that I can solve, the more money that I make, right? That's a philosophy. That's the way that I think. So I can look at the day and be like, God, I can't believe I have to deal with all these big problems. No, thank God. Because if I know how to solve these problems, I get paid a lot of money, right? And so that type of thinking tied back to what you're saying is the difference between someone saying, this is too hard, I quit, or someone leaning in and going, man, I like this game. This is cool. If I can solve this, I'm going to do better than I did last year, and I want to be part of that game. That game fires me up.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. All right, you, you, you keep going. Brett, this is great. You said something earlier, and I want to go back to it. And again, maybe this is the, the philosophy part of things. I, you know, I had this conversation actually just a couple hours ago. I was part of a team sales meeting, and there was a younger producer, and she was going through some stuff and asking questions. I said, it seems to me that you may have one of the most important attributes of success. And she said, what's that? I said, you seem to be insanely curious.

Oh, come on.

And. And you used that word earlier, and it just hit me. Because what you said, Brett, is again, I hope people are thinking and writing this stuff down, because again, you're right. Problems are going to change. I mean, gosh, five years ago, I didn't know what AI was, and now we're all trying to learn how do we do it or whatever. It's going to change again. There's going to be something else. But the philosophy behind it is, I'm insanely curious. What is it? What does this mean? How does it impact my clients? How does it impact me? How do we use it effectively? Is it important? Right? These are all questions that you ask that you filter through, that you said you can then apply for again. Specifically, I work with insurance agencies, with leaders, with service people, with producers. You said it very well. And I say this initially of our camps, the ones that come here, that go, yeah, I know it all. I'm sorry. Like, it ain't gonna work. And not because of us or anything, whatever. It's because you've got to be insanely curious. And I'm gonna say one more thing, because success leaves clues. And I want to hear your feedback on this.

Amen.

My first experience was this. I. I went and spoke at an agency that I worked at for a while, not very long, and I was scared to death to go in there, because it was one of those, who am I to be speaking to these people? Especially some of the people that had big books of business, that were older than me and wiser than me and all that kind of stuff. And what's interesting is I got done, and, you know, the people who came to me to ask more questions, people

that were the most successful, Ooh, come on.

You know, they're like, not that they need it. They wanted more. So, I don't know. I'm sure you see that every day, right?

It's great. That's great. Whenever I go to these conferences with my two partners, which, by the way, one is my brother and one's my brother from another mother, I couldn't. I just can't tell you how valuable it is to run with people who care about you and you care about them, and they have your back and you've got their back, and we're just, you know, we're so much better together. She can't say enough of it. But we were taught from mentors, always Sit in the front row. Always sit in the front row. And so, you know, dress for the. Dress for the gig you want, not the one you have. And always sit in the front row. And, you know, a lot of times you go to these conferences or whatever, people think, well, the new people are going to sit up front. It's like, I'm getting there early and I'm sitting up front. I don't care what is that? Because that's what got you to where you're at, and that's what's going to move it. Because that's a meta skill, that's a philosophy, that's a way of thinking. It may be a different conference, different subject, different topic, different season of my life, different season of the business. But I know that is part of curiosity, right? If I'm sitting in the back, I'm not as curious as if I'm in the front. Just that action alone sets the tone with what I'm going to get out of the event. So I agree.

Great stuff, Great stuff. Well, listen, I. You've mentioned something I'd love to hear from an agency perspective, and you can use as a chance to brag a little bit. You know, you talked about the growth you guys had starting 15 years ago, where you're at, would you say, 14 offices now, Brett, you know, 80 people. I mean, that's. That's awesome. So I'm sure there's a multitude of things, and maybe you've hit on some of this with some of the stuff with leadership, but the agent leader listening to this right now, what would be an area or areas that you felt that your agency has had success that others can learn from?

Oh, that's a great question. So, number one thing, we developed what's called a core team early. If you have five people, five people in your organization who are crusaders, who believe in the mission and that are lock and step and that are ride or die, you can build an empire. You don't need hundreds of people. You just need five core people, man. Five core people. So what we did was we spent an enormous amount of time making sure that we connected and integrated our lifestyles together. We didn't just work together, we played together. Well, I knew spouses, we knew girlfriends, we knew wives, we knew husbands, we knew all. And we had a monthly dinner. We would do a monthly dinner, and we would change houses, we would get together every single month. It was a personal development dinner. We'd read a chapter of a book, but we just spent fellowship. And what ended up happening is we started to think the same, we started to share philosophies, we started to have debates, we started to grow together. It's like a vine that all of a sudden starts to intertwine. Because what happens in an organization when you're moving fast is decisions have to be made all the time. And when you have a split opinion on decisions that happen, what ends up happening is you have a fractured culture. You can't understand why this person doesn't agree with this and this person doesn't agree with this. But what a core team allows you to do is it allows you to have a united front. And so when you're trying to move a large group of people do this now early for all the new agents, you gotta do it early. You can't just listen to this and go, man, I got 12, 15 people, I'm go back to my organization and start doing culture. It doesn't work. It's not genuine, it's false. It takes years. Here's the good news, nobody can rip it off. It's not a me too product. And nobody can go just do the same thing. Like it can't be replicated. So it becomes your greatest asset. But so if you can develop this core team that behind closed doors, you have flat out arguments, I mean, I can't tell you we've had flat out arguments to where the drinks are flowing. And we're having debates on umbrellas, we're having debates on sales philosophy, we're having process. We could not disagree more. But as soon as we walked out of that house and we showed up on Thursday morning, if anybody would have asked anything, we all had the same answer. We were united. So then we'd add another employee. Then they would start to think like the group because it's group think. Then we'd add another employee, they'd start to think like the group. It would be group think. Culture means there's a set of behaviors that are default because you belong to that group, right? It can be cultural with a country, it can be cultural with a nationality, it could be culture. When you live in Florida, it could be culture. If you're in New York, it could be culture. In a company, there's default behaviors that just happen naturally. If you drop somebody inside of it, it's sociology, right? It's like we become our environment. And so you can use that to your benefit when you're building teams. And the number one way, the number one way that I have found more than anything is you develop your core team, right? I had a Mentor of ours, he worked with. I mean, he had. He had an organization is a billion in sales, right? He grew two separate organizations that did over a billion in sales. And they asked him, how many people do you work with? He says, I work with five people. I work with five people. That's it. And he just beat it into our heads, because if you have that united group and you have that crusader front, everybody else just falls in line. If you break that, if it fractures, if it splinters. And by the way, this has happened to us and multiple times throughout our journey, it's like it spreads and it becomes toxic, and you have to rally back together. So when it's working, you can go really fast. There's no friction. We can go faster together. If you want to go. What's the term? If you want to go far, go together. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you have that, you can move at a really slow, strong pace because there's not friction inside the organization when you don't have it. It's like you can't even get three decisions done because you've got anarchy. Because somebody doesn't like it, then they talk to this person. They won't do it. Now you're having to hold people accountable, and it just becomes a really big problem when you're trying to get organized effort, which is, in my opinion, that's team building. Like, am I. What's. What's my ability to have organized effort? Or you could call it leadership, but fundamentally, that is one of the biggest takeaways I could give to somebody that's been really helpful for us over the years.

Well, I hope people are listening, taking notes, and leaning into that, because you nailed it, Brett. And, I mean, you said it way better than we haven't said it, because you're living it. But I'll tell you, and this probably isn't going to surprise you, as we talk to agencies that are interested in learning more about us or potentially working with us, we do an initial assessment. And this isn't, again, to pick on agencies. It's what we see. And sometimes I'll get three or four or five leaders, and I'll ask a question, and some of It's a rating one through 10. And I'll have one person. It's like two. Another person. Like, I think we're an eight. Well, to. To your point, again, you know, like, the. The. The problem, and you address this really well, is in my approach, we can keep it super simple. Like, you know, it's like at home if mom and dad have different stances on things, the kid's going to go to whoever's the easiest or what the most convenient.

Yeah, right.

And, and again, it's just. That's what happens. And it's like an organization. It's like, well, Brett said this, but John said this and Sheila said that. And think about the chaos and confusion.

It's tough, man. It creates really big problems and it's hard. It's. It's just. And it happens. We've had multiple situations where it happens and you got to rally the troops back together and you've got to build trust and all the things that seem like they don't matter because we're so busy trying to figure out what technology stack we're going to use, it's just so insignificant comparatively to the people skills that are required to get people to move in a direction. So, yeah, God, it's. It's well said, man. Well said.

Well, no, I mean, you said it. And it's just. I love how you phrase it because, because my thought to the leader, just to piggyback on what you said, is that, hey, we don't have to agree here, right. In your case, it was getting together on a monthly basis or whatever, breaking bread, which is awesome, by the way. I love that we don't have to agree here. In fact, let's, let's knock it out. Let's, let's, you know, hey, now I think this and that I said, but when we go here, we got to be on the same team. And that's what you guys are doing with that core group. So I love that. All right, I want to. Oh, go ahead, go ahead, Brad.

I would just say one thing that, that somebody could learn through something that I made a mistake on. On that is you may think that's obvious as the leader, but it would be in your best interest to articulate that because some things that are unsaid go unnoticed or un. Not abided by and. Cause somebody just might not understand that. And so I, for a couple instances in this journey, I've not articulated that well because I just thought it was understood. And then it doesn't go the way you want it to go. You're just better off making sure everybody understands. If someone's going to be part of that inner circle and you're going to have conversations that are intimate and they get it to shape the company and be a part of that, most people do, then there's just a certain level of trust and loyalty that comes with that. Not For a sense of loyalty, for the, for the sake of loyalty. But loyalty from a sense of order and, and creating, and creating a cohesion that helps everybody attain what they want to attain. And I can't say enough about that. That, that core group in the beginning of the organization, they're some of my best friends. A lot of them have gone on to open up agencies with us under the brand, and they've gone on to be, you know, very successful. And they're, they're now living out exactly what we did 10 years ago. But without those guys, I mean, we wouldn't have Urban Young. It truly is, we built it together. But ultimately I think it's from having pasta dinners on a Wednesday night just consistently and becoming better together. And it's, it's underrated. It's underrated.

It's great. Great. Thanks for sharing it. Problem solving, you said it earlier, right. And so, you know, listen, I, I, I believe you're human, Brett. And so that means that you deal with problems and I'm sure there's multitude of problems. But again, the agent leader listening again, I think we can learn so much from each other. Um, I'd be curious from your perspective, like, what is, and whether it's a today problem. Maybe it's something you dealt with, addressed, and moved forward from. I, I don't know. But what would be a problem or challenge that has, I want to say, most impacted you? That's up to you, but certainly it's impacted you in the agency. And how have you dealt with it or how are you dealing with it?

Damn, that's a really good question, Brent. That's a doozy right there. Um, yes, a lot of challenges, a lot of problems. The velocity of the problems now are, it's so crazy, man. It's like each level has this different season, and in some seasons, man, you just, you just holding on for dear life. So if, you know, if you're listening to this podcast right now, man, like, you might be in that season, man, I just would love to tell you it's normal and everybody goes through it and there's nothing wrong with your business, there's nothing wrong with you. It's just, man, like, you know what comes up, one comes down and there's seasons for a reason. And sometimes just being resilient till you get to the other side is enough. But the velocity of problems that exist now. I just told my wife this literally a couple of days ago. I said, what used to happen in a year, then it happened in a month, and now it happens in a week. And then I feel like every day now is one of those, like, it's. So I get like, the really good situation that happens. That's like, mind blowing. Opportunity, unbelievable. And then I get the problem and the challenge that's like, well, gosh, that's. That's. That would have broke our back 10 years ago. And so I guess in this season, I think what's most impactful for me, Brent, is I'm learning to have the. Learning to. I'm learning to normalize to that because it's hard because I'm so used to judging where we're at based upon what problems we're facing. I'm so used to judging where we're at based upon all the wins that we have. And. Right. If we have a bunch of wins, I feel like we're doing good. If we have a bunch of problems, I feel like we're struggling. And when it comes at you at such a velocity that you're not used to. In the beginning, it just really knocked me off guard because I'm like, man, this is. I'm not used to this. Like, is this normal? Like, is this. Is this right? And now it's starting to be like, okay, cool. Like, this is. This is exactly how it was yesterday, the day before and last week, and like, okay, I guess this is normal now. So I don't know if there was a specific problem that was most impactful for me. I think it's the amount of how frequently they happen at what stage of the business that you're in and what I used to, you know, obsess about for three months because one situation happened. Now I'm over it in one day because the next one's coming and the next one's coming, and you just normalize. So again, it's that development section to where you're like, okay, let me borrow from people who have been here before. Like, is this normal? And they go, yeah, it's very normal. Like, that's how it is. And you're like, okay, cool. There's nothing wrong with me. All right, I can live with that. I like that answer a lot better. So I think learning that if I were to go back in time, it would have been like, hey, look, you can basically measure the success of your business by the velocity of problems that happen in a short duration of time and your ability to not even overcome them, but just be able to sit in the seat and have them sit with you. So I don't know if I have a specific one but that would be the one I'm dealing with right now.

No, I love it, Brad. I think it's well said. And I was thinking about that with agencies, because when I gonna have the opportunity to work with agencies. And again, just putting the scope out there, it might be a million dollars in revenue to 100/4 million dollars in revenue. They all have problems.

Yeah.

They may look and sound different. And I, and I, I'll just say this, and maybe this is my frame. I'd love to get your context. And I have one more question for you. Is going back to what you said earlier to me, it's, it's, it's how you contextualize things, right? Like, is the problem, like, oh, I'm a disaster, it's over. Or is. I know this is cliche, but. But is the problems and the velocity of problems, as you said, Brett, are those true growth opportunities? Yeah, I mean, like, wow, what a pleasure. Now I know that. Oh, easy for you to say. But what a pleasure to be able to address this problem. Because if I wasn't here, I wouldn't be able to.

The only value that we provide is being able to handle a problem, overcome it, and then help somebody else with their going through it. Right. Yeah. Okay, so let me give you, I'll give you my worst. I'll give my most embarrassing mistake problem that I've had in this role, and then I'll give you one that just happened before I returned the camera on, which is just a great example, but one, I didn't, I didn't check financials. I check financials every quarter. Building the business and doing the deal. And, and our accountant didn't put all the credit card transactions on the P and L. They usually. They did it at the, they were going to do at the end of the quarter. They didn't put it on. So I'm making decisions. We end up hiring four people in December, our slowest time of the year, because I thought cash flow was pretty good. We didn't have a CFO at the time, and all this stuff. And long story short, we ended up being way overextended. I got four new humans in here who've changed careers. I can't afford it. We can't afford it. I made the call to approve it, and I found out later on that there was $180,000 worth of expenses that were not on the statements. They were not on the P and L. And so from that, I was devastated. Number one, I was embarrassed. I was like, you know, I'm the one making the call. And, and, and I learned at that point, I review a profit and loss at the end of every month, period, End of story, no questions asked. Right. Being a CEO requires you to own the result. It does. You can't pass the buck. You might not have to know everything that's on there. You can have somebody help you, but you have to be able to look for patterns and discrepancies. And I should have noticed that. And I missed it. I missed it because I assumed it was fine. Right. And so that was a big mistake. Ended up having to go into a credit line. It was a whole deal. Took, you know, eight, nine months to dig ourselves out of. We kept all four people. But I learned a very valuable lesson. That $180,000 problem could be a million dollar problem if I didn't check it at 180,000. Right. So I look at it and go, okay, great. Well, I'm not, I'm glad it was $180,000 issue, not a million dollar issue. Right. Which it probably was inevitable. If I didn't learn that, then it was inevitable going to happen again. The other thing that just happened, you know, just, you know, we just bought an agency. We bought three agencies last year, which is really cool. We've made tons of mistakes doing that. We thought we kind of knew what we're doing. We just bought one this last year and they didn't have the PEO commissions. That was a affiliate contract in the apa, in the agreement. Right. Because it's in the customer list, it's not in their ams. And so now the PEO has given us a hard time that it's, we didn't purchase that business. Right. And you got to close the bank accounts. It's a bunch of money. And, and so now they want to tell us that we're not owed the commissions. So like, okay, great. You know that that's a problem that costs money, right. But you do I think that that's going to happen again. Absolutely. Do I think most agents that you purchase have that? Absolutely. So it's like, yeah, that sucks. Let's see if we can get around not having to take that one straight to the chin. But either way, problem solving costs money usually. Otherwise it's not a real big problem. Right. It's either embarrassing, it hurts our ego, or it costs us money. And you have to touch the burner in order to find out that you're not supposed to do it anymore. And so it's like, am I frustrated with that happen? Yes. Do I think someone's being unreasonable? Yes. Is that the way the world is sometime? Yes. So, you know what? Regardless of the result, bet you we won't do that again. Right? And how would I have known that? I didn't know that. I mean, it's just, you learn through. You learn through doing. You can. You can take your time and try to know everything before you start, or you can just make a lot of mistakes quicker than everybody. And that second one usually pays more money than the first one.

Yeah. Oh, good stuff. I. It takes you back to a mentor years ago, and I say this all the time. It's like he told me. It's like, hey, Brent, you can't improve a result till you get one. And, you know, part of that is from. Is from mistakes. And first of all, let me just say this. Huge kudos. Not only. I mean, to go through that and share two different stories, but to share it on a podcast, to me, shows great leadership. You're not going to say that, but that's, you know, to me, one of the aspects of being a great leader is being vulnerable. And you mentioned ownership of that, having accountability, which is critical. And again, I'm sure there were things that happened that technically weren't, quote, your fault, but it's, hey, I own it. Right? And the other part of this, too, and I hope the listeners get this, like, this is an example of the collective genius. And of course, a podcast platform is a great place to do it because you can share it with multiple people, but I know you're part of organizations and networking groups and all this kind of stuff. Like, isn't it great to learn from the mistakes of others?

Oh, God, it's so much less expensive, right?

Like, hey, I'm glad you did all that.

Right?

Because now I know not to do that. But, I mean, not kidding, because it's true. But the other part of that is, I think you're right. I mean, it's the idea that the only way you're going to make these mistakes is that you're moving forward. And that's part of the journey. It's part of the journey. So. Hey, Brett, are you ready for my final question?

I love it, man. It's been fun.

You've been an awesome guest. And try to keep this to about 45 minutes or. But we'll see. This is great. I could. I could. I could chat all day. I love these conversations. But this is more personal to you, and it's a question I ask on. On pretty much every interview is, let's say right now, you said you've been in the business 20 years, right?

Yeah. Yeah, about that, pretty much.

So let's say that this is hypothetical and weird at the same time, but let's say you, you head outside here in a few minutes after we hop off here, and you bump in to the younger version, the 20 year younger version of Brett. You're like, wow, what a handsome young dude right now. You're a handsome older dude. Not that you're old, but, you know, more experienced dude now.

Right.

But you run into the younger version of yourself and the younger version of you, of you says to the current version of you, Brett Wise, Brett, if you could give me one piece of advice, knowing what you know now, what would you tell the younger version of you?

Keep the intensity, but relax, you win. You know, think about how much time we spend worrying, is this going to work? Am I good enough? Like, am I doing the right things? Should I be doing this? I made the decision early on and as Ollie I was only going to do this like it was it like. And so there's been pivots along the way, but, like, the decision was done and I knew that that was decision. I was very conscious of my definiteness of the decision. But even in the definiteness of the decision, like, I was willing to go to my grave and not have this work. But even in the definiteness of my whole entire life, being able to put that in completely, all in the amount of effort and wasted energy on worrying about things that are not in my control, it sucks the life out of the. It sucks the joy out of the journey and the experience. I just believe that there's something bigger than us and we are not. It's not our job to understand how we get there. It's our job to show up every day and give it everything we got. Like, we are his hands and we have a very small role in what's required in order to make this thing happen. But we've got to make sure that we do that. If you can do that. If I could do that, if I just would give myself the advice of just saying, just show up and do the work. Just show up and do the work. Just show up, do the work and be curious and just do that over and over and over again, which I did. It's just. It came with the mental anguish of always wondering if I was good enough and if I was on the right path and if there was something else that I should be doing. And all this thing that was just noise and I've had an incredible experience. It's been a joy. But I feel like what's really exciting now being 41, is I'm just, I'm in so much in more of surrender. And it's not like I don't have problems. The problems are very big. Like, it's not like all of a sudden you get a big size agency like you said. No, the pressure gets. It's more like if you think that you're going to grow your way out of problems, it doesn't work. You just get bigger ones. You better love the game. But what I have embodied now is that this is just, this is not my. It's not. I'm not in control. You know, I have one very small piece of this puzzle is to show up for my team, be enthusiastic and do my best. And after that, you know, it. The cards are the cards. It is what it is. So that's, you know, that, that would have been, that would have been good advice because it would have made me probably enjoy it a little bit more.

That's. I know a lot of people take a lot from that, Brad. So I appreciate that. And it just. And I don't know if I have this phrase right. I, I hear things because again, I'm all about planning and vision and I love that. I think it's an important part of it. But I just wrote down. And I don't know if this is. I heard this somewhere. It just came to me. It's like, don't be so worried about where you're going that you forget where you are. And, and it's just, you know, because it's, it's true. I mean, all of a sudden, and you said you're 41. I mean, we're all. Everybody's at different ages, obviously. Like, I just turned 48 and you're like, wow, like, did I miss it? Did I miss some of that? Like, you know, like all the. Again, I don't care if it's at work or at home. And it's like, oh, I gotta go do this and I gotta do this. And I was like, you don't have to do it. You get to, you know, like, I don't have to go pick up my kids for school day, I get to go pick up my kids for school today.

I love that.

And that is a context.

The moments I like. I just. You asked me some of these questions, Stan, you're going back in your Rolodex. And it's like when I take a look of like the Timeline of what's happened over the last, you know, 15, 20 years or just what stands out to me is these, just these moments, these moments and they're usually connection with the people that you're doing it with. They're usually just these high emotional states of joy or these high emotional states of challenge. But I don't remember the nuance, I don't remember the technical. I don't remember the stuff that I was worried about. I just remember these, these moments. And you know, in this next, you know, part of my career, I'm thirsty for more of those moments. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I knew this was going to be awesome and it was. I really enjoy this, Brad. Just so people again, reach out, know about you, your agency, where they connect with, connect with you, where can they find you, all that good stuff.

I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, LinkedIn's really great. Obviously that's a great place to connect and, and share ideas and, and network. So hit me up there. I'm pretty active on Instagram, so Instagram, please. If you want to connect on there, that'd be fantastic. And then if you, you know, urban young is urbanyoung.com and that is urb erb and young.com not urban, but Herb and young. And if you must know, Rod, Herb is, you know, the more handsome, older, better looking guy. He's the fierce guy. And then my brother's the other young, so. But yeah, I look forward to connecting with all the agents that are, you know, obviously huge followers. And I just want to say thank you, Brian. I mean, I have the utmost respect for what you guys have done and specifically you and watching you through socials and when you talk, I listen. So it's been an absolute honor to be, you know, in your presence to appreciate it, man.

Yeah, yeah, likewise. Again and again, great having you on here. Love the conversation. And I just, most importantly, I know you're going to add a ton of value to those that are listening. So appreciate that for all the listeners out there. Again, thanks for listening. Agent Leader podcast. Wishing you all the best in your success. Thanks so much for listening. 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 bookacallsitkins.com book a call, 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.