The True Power of Your Potential

You. Yes, I'm talking to you. You have unlimited potential. But to tap into that unlimited potential, first you've got to tap into the power of personal growth in your life. In today's episode of the Agent Leader Podcast, I'm going to share a little of my story of personal growth. And I think you'll be able to relate to it in your life as well. This episode of the Agent Leader Podcast is brought to you by agentsofgrowth.net providing purposeful and intentional business for insurance professionals. You can Visit them at agentsofgrowth.net. Hi there, friends. Welcome to another episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly and I am always excited, always excited that you've joined me and spent some time out of your busy day to join the Agent Leader Podcast. Well, as I mentioned in the open, I want to talk today about the power, your personal growth, because I can tell you that there's been no bigger thing in my own life than understanding personal and professional growth. And maybe you're like I was many years ago, and I really had no clue what that even meant. What do you mean? Personal growth, professional growth. But when you understand it, again, I think it's the most important thing that you could ever start to integrate in your daily life and it'll make significant changes and results in your business and your career. See, potential is such a powerful word. Potential inspires hope, optimism, and future success. And when I think of maximizing my own potential, I envision living each day with intention and purpose and passion. I think about my own daily growth and development. But, you know, it wasn't very long ago when I wasn't doing anything to maximize my potential. In fact, this was about 2003, and maybe some of you had heard this story, but probably many have not. I was a 25 year old with what many from the outside would describe as unlimited potential. I was employed as a sales producer for a large Midwest insurance agency. I was college educated. I was newly married. In fact, we had a baby on the way later that year. And from the outside world, I was a very happy and confident young man. But internally, internally I knew I wasn't growing to be the person I was created to be. Have you ever had a moment when you realize that the perception of who you are is not in alignment with the reality of who you are? Are people think of you differently than you think of yourself? Well, I had that moment, that moment of awakening in 2003, and I remember this very clearly. It was a hot summer day. I had to go get some Gas. I was on my way to go see an insurance prospect. In fact, this insurance prospect was about eight miles away. And I slid my nice little debit card through the gas station pump, and I saw the notification that my card was declined. I then proceeded to pull out a credit card which was declined, another credit card which was declined, and then even another credit card. You guessed it, it was decline. You know, I talk to people all the time, and I'm sure you have too, of hearing stories of people who have overcome difficult tragedy in their lives. Maybe it was a difficult childhood experience. Maybe someone overcame a difficult or serious health issue. Maybe you or, you know, someone who's. Who's lost a loved one. You've probably experienced some of these situations in your own life. And I think we all have these external challenges, right? In the sense that we're going to go through these difficult obstacles in our life. But I want to talk about facing what I believe is the greatest challenge of them all. And that's the challenge of yourself. And that was the challenge I was facing in my life. And I've come to realize that I'm not alone in the struggle. In fact, I started sharing some of the story on stage and in training workshops. And I often thought, man, are people really relating to this. But I had people, every event, coming to me and saying that story meant something to me. I think we all, in our own little way, struggle with aspects of this. And, you know, here's the thing. I truly have had so many great gifts in my life. I've been raised by two wonderful parents. I have great siblings. I was raised in a good, you know, small community with good education. I mean, again, nothing was perfect. I had my own obstacles and challenges. But it was a very blessed life. It really was. And you know the two words, though, back on that day of 2003 that I was talking about, the gas station, I used to say it was unlimited potential, but it really was unfulfilled potential. I think we all have moments in our lives that will be etched in our memories forever. And this was a day again, back in 2003 that I'll never forget. Because after my cards were declined, after I realized I had no money to pay for gas, I pulled over to an adjacent parking lot, I slumped over the steering wheel, and I just. I just wept. I mean, I wept and I wept and I wept, and if you know me at all, and my kids would attest to this. I have kids age 13, 10, 7 and 4, and one on the way, but especially my older kids. They say, dad, I don't know if I've ever seen you cry. That day I wept. And it wasn't just because I was broke. It was because it was more than that. I was broken because as I said earlier, I was blessed in a lot of ways in my life. And here I was, fully equipped, fully educated, fully resourced to be the person I wanted to be. But I was letting down my family, my friends, and most of all was letting down myself. That was the moment when I realized I had to start making changes my life. When I got home that night, I knew it was time for me to grow up and start making better choices in my life. And I started searching for something. I didn't know what it was. I didn't really know where to begin, but I just started searching. And a few weeks later, I stumbled upon an audio recording from someone who became my very first personal growth mentor. If you haven't heard of the late, great Jim Rohn, go do it. Go to YouTube. Don't go right now because you're listening to this podcast. But when you get to your office or your home, go Google Jim Rohn R O H N and listen to some of his wisdom. But Jim said a lot of things, but one thing that stood out is he said for things to change, you have to change. He didn't say for things to change. Go find some magic secret thing, right? Or go do this one thing now. For things to change, you have to change. And I realized the changes that I needed to make would never come from an outside source. The changes I needed to make to improve my life, my business, my results would have to come from within. So I want to ask you a few questions and go through some ideas here. And again, I hope my story will relate to you. I share it not out of as you can tell, this isn't something I'm proud of to say. Hey listen guys. I was broke at a gas station after being college educated and fully employed. But I was My first question I want to ask you is what are your intentions? Because the first thing I determine in my life is that I would have to become intentional. No one gets to their desired destination on accident. I started to look for ways where I would stop waiting for things to happen and again begin to start making things happen. Right? There's a difference. I'm not going to wait. I'm going to go make it happen. Now. Making changes in your life will require sacrifice. And we think of the word sacrifice. I got to go. Sacrifice. That's a pretty heavy Word, isn't it? But the reality, and this was true for me, is that a lot of the sacrifices I was making were very small. Again, I was 25 years old. I was newly married, had a kid in the way, but I was living, you know, kind of my own life. And so some simple things that I did instead of staying out late at night, like, instead of, you know, why wouldn't you stay out late? Well, I went to bed earlier and got up earlier because I was more productive. Instead of watching tv, whether it's the latest episode of Survivor or watching the pre game, the game, the post game, and the highlights of the game that I'd already watched, I began to read books. I began to dive into some different information to put in my head, and this was a huge one. Instead of focusing so much on myself, I really began to start to focus. And again, this was a process on the needs of others. My great mentor and leadership expert, number one leadership expert John Maxwell, says it best. He says, you have to give up to go up. And it's amazing what even small sacrifices can do for your results. All growth, your growth will only start when you become intentional. The second thing I want to talk about is that consistency creates positive habits. You know, I've heard this phrase too. It said, if I wanted to become motivated, I attend an event. If I want to grow, I engage in a process. Now, probably just like you, I've attended hundreds of events, workshops, keynote speeches, webinars, training sessions, all kinds of stuff, right? And I've taken countless notes at these events. But maybe as you've experienced in your own situation, motivation doesn't always last. No event, no book, no podcast. As much as I love these things will change you. You must create habits that will bring positive change. I had a speaker tell me once that writing leads to wealth because it brings clarity to thought, improves communication, helps you become a person of influence. This was 10 years ago, back in 2007, when I first heard that writing leads to wealth. And I had always thought that writing would be beneficial to my insurance career. But it wasn't until 2010 when I finally began to write almost every day. It wasn't easy at first, but after a few months, it became a habit and I began to start to see some results. And in 2011, I started my very first blog, my insurance blog. It was called are you ready for this? Insurance Tales. And that was created a year later. So in 2011, I started that, and then a year after that, 2012, I was actually named one of the top 12 young agents in the country. Why did I get that recognition? Was it because I was like the biggest producer in the world and was just taken everything by storm? Well, kind of. No, no, it wasn't really that. It was because my influence, I started to grow my influence through my daily writing, my blog post and my contributions to insurance industry publications. And over time, writing has allowed me to connect with more people and improve my speaking skills. All because I began to take consistent action. Right. Again, this, this started, this writing part started over six years ago for me now. Right. It hasn't been that long, but in six years you can, you can have tremendous gains. Whatever it is you want to do, consistent, positive actions will bring you long term results. See, motivation may get you going, but consistency will keep you growing. So my question to you is, what daily habits are you doing to take you from where you are to where you want to go? What daily habits are you doing to take you from where you are to where you go? And here's the thing too. Just think about this. I've said this before in different with a podcast or trainings, but the secret to your success is found in your daily agenda. I love that phrase. The secret to your success is found in your daily agenda. What if you replace one bad habit with a good habit? I'm not saying all your habits, we all have habits, some good, some bad. But just eliminate one bad habit, one habit, you know, that probably isn't serving you well. And you think about this in the compound effect of consistency, it is so powerful. If you got rid of one soda a day and added, I don't know, a glass of water, right, instead of a soda, I'm going to drink a full glass of water. When you think about just the calories and the sugar. And again, I'm not here to get on a nutrition kick. I'm just giving you an analogy that you can understand. It makes an incredible difference. One day you don't Notice anything but 365 days a year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, it makes incredible changes. That's the same thing. With consistent habits. What will you do in your life and your business? The next area of personal growth I want to talk about that can be so powerful to you is to understand this, that you are who you surround yourself with. Speaker and author Charlie Tremendous Jones said this. Love this quote. And first of all, if you get to a point in your life where your nickname is Tremendous, you've done some things well. So Charlie Tremendous Jones said this. He said, you will be the Same person you are today in five years, except for the books that you read and the people that you meet. It's also been said that you are the average of the five people you hang out with most now. When I first heard this, I realized I had to start making some intentional changes in my own inner circle. I had to start analyzing my friendships and decide who are the people that would support me to help me to get where it is I wanted to go. Now I'll tell you, some of these choices were really difficult. I'm guessing you may have some close friends, maybe some people in your immediate or distant family that maybe are fun but you know, aren't really good for your long term results. I know I had some close friends who were fun, but they weren't helping them, helping me to become the best version of who I wanted to be. And I realized that although I was a product of my current environment, I had the ability to move to new surroundings. We have the ability to move to new surroundings. So I did. So what is your environment? Is it conducive to your growth or is it not helping you be the person you want to be? So you can't grow yourself or your business when you don't feed yourself the right nutrients. Let me give you a quick analogy. I live in Illinois and in fact right now it's springtime. You know, this is the time it's fun. Farmers are out and planting the corn. And it's amazing to see how corn is planted right and just done. It feels like it's just done so quickly and get the machinery and, and you see them out there planting in the field and like a couple weeks later you see these, these little, I call baby corn, right? And, and, and in a month it's going to be like knee high corn. And like by mid June you get in July, it's over your head. I mean, it just grows crazy, right? Because the one thing about where I live in central Illinois and if you've driven through it, you know, it's flat and people say it's boring. It kind of is. But it's, it's, it's really conducive for great corn and soybean growth. Great soil, great environment, great wind. We have plenty of that. But here's the thing. If I took that kernel of corn and I planted it in different areas of the country, maybe in the mountains or in a very cold environment, or even Florida in the sandy soil, it's not going to grow because it's not in the right environment. And it's the same thing when I talk to insurance professionals. If I took two professionals, let's just take one insurance professional and one insurance professional surrounded by people that don't support, don't encourage, don't motivate, don't challenge, don't give them help with resources and equip that person, then that person's going to struggle. Whereas if I take that same person and put them in a different environment, you'll have vastly different results. So who do you surround yourself with? Do they inspire you? Do they motivate you? Do they challenge you? Do they love you? And if not, then maybe it's time to change your environment. One of the last things I want to talk about is this. You got to get uncomfortable. You got to get comfortable. Excuse me, being uncomfortable. And this is huge with personal growth. See, people don't resist change. They resist being changed. Over the past year, I've worked with many organizations or people who desire to make positive changes and their life and their business. Oh, Brent, help me. I want to make some changes, right? I want to make some changes in my life. And then we start talking about what that may look like. Here's some ideas. What do you think you need? Well, I need to do this. And then we get to it. They decide, maybe I don't want to do that. The key word when people say they desire change is desire. I think we all desire to have more, to do more, and to become more. But the problem is desire is not the same thing as action. See, significant growth is never comfortable. Many of us live each day in desire to stay comfortable. And there's nothing wrong with having a level of comfort in your life and your business. However, when comfort turns to complacency, you'll never grow and achieve the things you really desire in your life. See, growth requires a series of stretches. Every small stretch leads to your next stretch. Let me just give you an example. In my life, in 2004, I ran my very first marathon. And I should probably say it's my very last marathon. Unless something changes. Changes. I'm not really excited about running another one. But I did. I ran 1 in 2004. And when I began training, even though I was younger, I couldn't even run three miles in a row. I really couldn't. But after several consistent stretches in my training, 3 miles to 5 miles to 10 miles to 15 miles, I was able to complete the full 26.2 miles. Not fast, but I finished. See, every stretch you have in your life is going to push you a Bit further. But you've got to take the first stretch. It's like people tell me, I want to get so much commission dollars, I want to have a, you know, I want to put $100,000 in my account. Great. I want to do 200,000. Great. Whatever that is for you. Well, you got to start with something, right? Especially in this business. You see, you got to take your first stretch. And a few weeks ago, I had the tremendous opportunity to stand on a stage and give my story part of what I'm sharing right now in front of 2,500 people. Now some people ask me how I could carry that out in such a short time and how I could speak in front of that many people. How could you get up in front of that many people on that stage? I would be caught dead in front of 10 people. And I know that's a great fear. Public speaking, I have no doubt. But the short answer to that is, well, I've been stretching for a while. I wouldn't have been able to do that probably five, six, seven years ago. See, life is a series of stretches. And I started to think back. Here I am in 2017 with the opportunity to share the stage with John Maxwell and Seth Godin, and in front of 2,500 of my peers. It was a big event. But in 2005, 12 years prior, I joined Toastmasters. And Toastmasters is a speaking club with locations all over the world. And over the next several years after I joined, I gave numerous speeches and table talks and more to learn and develop my speaking skills. I attended most meetings, not every meeting, but most meetings every other Friday at 7am every other Friday. And I had a 30 minute drive to get there. That means I was out the door every other Friday at 6:30 in the morning, by 6:30 in the morning on a Friday. Now, some people would say, well, I'm not doing that. I wanted to stretch because I wanted to speak. And then I started thinking, well, in 2011, I gave my very first live presentation in front of seven people. Seven people. I knew it was a great way for me to grow in my insurance business and gain influence. If I could get up and stand and speak, it was a great way. I thought if I can get up and stand and speak and create influence in front of a group, it's going to help my business. And so I continued to give small presentations over the next couple years. I had the desire to speak and gain influence and share my thoughts to help others. But I'll tell you, many of those times, I was terrified. But I stretched. In 2013, a couple years after that, I gave my very first real presentation. It was a paid presentation in front of a hundred insurance agents. In fact, some of my former people I worked with for 60 minutes. Again, I was terrified. I really was terrified. But I knew I had a stretch, so I did it. This leads me to today. This leads me to today. I talked about that I had the opportunity to speak on stage at this event. Now, I almost didn't apply to do this. I almost didn't apply to have the opportunity to speak on stage because I was intimidated by the sheer size of it. However, I knew that although I've stretched the past, I needed to stretch further. And after submitting several videos and practicing literally hundreds of times for a three minute presentation, I was selected to give my story and share the stage with some of the world's greatest thought leaders. Now, I'm not sharing this story to boost my own ego. I'm really not. But I know that somewhere in your life right now, you know somewhere deep in your heart, in your soul, there are places that you need to stretch, that you've been complacent, that you've been holding back. But maybe it's due to fear, doubt, confusion, whatever it is, you haven't stretched to what you fully are capable of being. And you know it. And we all have situations like that. There's areas in my life I still know where I need to stretch. So here's what I want to tell you. I want you to think big, but start small. Think big, start small. So here's what I've learned. If I didn't stretch back in 2005 in my local Toastmasters club, or in 2011 in front of seven people, or in 2013 in front of 100 people, I never would have had the confidence, confidence or the skills to stretch in front of 2,500 people. See, again, life is a series of stretches. Every stretch pushes you forward into growth. Abraham Maslow said this. He said, in any given moment, we have two options. To step forward into growth or step back into safety. See, you must stretch. You are wired to stretch. You were created to stretch and become the person you were designed to be. You are fully equipped and resourced, but you have to start. You've got to take the first stretch. Now, today, this leads me. Today, I just want to wrap up with this. Is that my purpose as a passionate speaker? I'm also a faculty member for a new organization that you definitely need to check out. It's called Agents of growth is to help insurance agencies and agents reach their full potential. And I'm fortunate to be partnered with the faculty of certified leadership trainers and coaches who not only have years of insurance experience, but are committed to helping insurance professionals succeed as much as I am. So here's how I want to I want to end this. I want to ask just a question or two for you. Number one is are you ready to grow? Are you ready to grow and make changes in your life? Are you ready to maximize your true potential? Are you tired of being complacent? Are you ready to be more? Are you ready to do more? Are you ready to have more in your life? And if you are, if you think that you are, you need to start being intentional with these things, right? Change doesn't happen in a day. Change happens day by day. Hey, thanks for listening to another episode of the Agent Leader podcast again. My name is Brent Kelly, and if you want to learn more about me and my services and how I can potentially help you, you can find me@brentmkelly.com that's brentmkelly.com I will see you on the next episode of the AgentLeader podcast. And until then, be passionate, be purposeful, be persistent. Thanks. Be well.