Brent Kelly argues that insurance professionals obsess over end goals and miss the journey. Using the compound effect and a car-trip analogy, he shows how small daily adjustments matter more than fixating on a distant destination. 2020 was hard, but the progress you made deserves recognition.
Chapters
Hi, Brent Kelly here of the Sitkins Group with my Pro Fit tip, Professional Fitness, to help you and your agency become your best version possible. Well, summer season is upon us. It's now July. And if you have younger kids like I do, or maybe you've raised kids already. There's a common phrase that kids like to ask on a car trip, right? If they're heading somewhere, the beach, the lake, Grandma's house. I don't care what it is or what do they ask, Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Dad, are we there yet? At some point you're saying, just be quiet, right? No, we're not there yet. You know, as adults, as insurance professionals, we often ask ourselves the same question. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? I had goals for this year. I have dreams in my life, whatever it is. I have aspirations. Am I there yet? And although I would ask each other and every one of you to have dreams and goals and aspirations, just like kids, I think sometimes we're so worried about the destination and if our. If we are there yet that we forget about the importance and the significance of the process. The journey. Should you have heard the song Life's a journey, not a destination? Well, it's true. It's true. And a couple things that I want to point out. I have good news and bad news for you as far as thinking about the process and the journey. Here's the bad news. First. The bad news is that you'll never actually reach your final destination. Well, until maybe we are officially done on this in this world. But what I mean by that is that if you ever get to a point, you just go, I'm done. Well, what's left, right? There's always more things to learn and accomplish and grow. We always talk about that, about being your best version possible. So the bad news is you're never actually going to get to your final destination, at least again here on this earth. But there's good news. The good news is that the power, the magic, the good stuff happens on the journey, on that destination right there prior to the destination, the journey, the process that we go. So my guess for you is that 2020 has been a really challenging year. I know. It has been for us, for everybody. You have to look at things differently and approach things differently, what's going on in the world. And I think sometimes we focus on. I've heard this from insurance producers and agencies about how we're not quite to our goals yet or we're going to struggle to get to our goals or this is going to mess up. I get that. But at the same time, my guess is that you've also accomplished some things that maybe you haven't appreciated. You know, kids in the car because they're so worried about getting to the destination, they sometimes don't look out the window and see something that might be the coolest thing that was on the way. They miss it because they're just worried about the destination. We do that too as human beings. We do that as insurance professionals. We're so worried about three years from now we're or the end of the year that we don't take a moment and stop and go, you know what? This is really cool. This is really neat. The other part of this is the learning. That's the magic, that's the power, is how you can adjust and adapt and grow. Darren Hardy talks about in his book the Compound Effect. I love this, that if you take off from Los Angeles and fly to New York City, right? So Los Angeles and New York City, that just being 1% off will lead you 150 miles off course, right? So you actually end up 150 miles from your final destination of New York City. The same thing is true with us as human beings. We always need to evaluate and adjust. And if we don't take the time to do that through the journey, through the process, we'll never get to that destination we think we're going to get to anyway. So my challenge to you or thought to you is as we head into this holiday weekend and as you enjoy your summertime with your family is this. Don't forget to learn from and appreciate the journey that you're on. If you're always worried about where you're going to be, you're not going to be. Evaluate and appreciate where you are today. Be present in the moment, appreciate it and learn from it. I wish you all the best in your success.
