From Insurance Agent to 7-Figure Exit: Leadership Secrets Revealed | Mick Hunt DSH #963

Things that people can do right now.

You know, I tell people when I speak all the time, you don't have to hire me.

Like, I'm going to start now.

And, you know, there are a lot of speakers that say three, fourth century of their speech, all right, here are the top five things that you should take away.

Like, I'm giving that to you the moment I come on stage, right?

The moment I walk out there, let's get ready to write down.

We don't need fluff.

Let's just go.

And to me, that's why I've been able to stay busy.

All right, guys, we got fellow podcaster Mick Hunt here.

I think we always go back and forth in our category, number one, number two.

So it's good to meet you, man.

It's a fun little rivalry, right?

Yeah, a little friendly competition.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

That's how I found you, man.

There it is.

Apple Charts.

You're always up there.

I love it.

I love it.

And you're doing an amazing thing, too.

So I'm glad that we're there together.

We can be friends and still do what we do, right?

Like, you don't have to hate each other.

Nah.

That's the beauty of it, right?

That's why I like friendly competition because it pushes you.

Exactly.

Yeah, but what's the core of your show about?

What message are you trying to push, mainly?

So it's all about being fueled by your because.

You know, like Simon Sinek many years ago did the start with why.

And I feel like why is great, but it's also very superficial, right?

Like I could probably guess your why, but I can't guess your because.

And your because is your story.

It's that thing that really fuels you to individual success, business success.

And so we talk about your because, how to find it, but then also how to overcome the obstacles that we all are going to overcome, right?

Success is never easy for anyone.

And so, you know, me and my guests, we talk about tips and tricks that people can start implementing in their day to day.

I love that.

Once I found my purpose, which took me 26 years, by the way, my life changed, dude.

I wake up so fulfilled.

Now it's crazy.

Right.

And to me, that's the key.

You just said it, fulfillment, right?

Like people talk about happiness.

It's not happiness.

It's fulfillment.

Right.

And that's why I love what you just said.

Yeah.

And it's hard.

I've seen some people never find it.

Like I've seen old people, you know, on their deathbed, like with a lot of regrets.

So it's, it's scary.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's super tough.

Like I found it through podcasting, actually.

Really?

When I started this show, it was just about how to make money at first.

Like that was the main thing, just have on really successful people, teach people how to make money.

But that got boring real quick.

You know what I mean?

100 episodes in, I'm like, let's let's explore some other stuff.

The fulfillment, right?

Because now you've recently moved into the self-improvement education category, which is what your podcast was anyway.

Yeah, it wasn't marketing.

Right.

And to me, that's the beauty of why we podcast.

It's why we help, right?

Because it's not selfish.

You could easily just have a solo podcast and talk about whatever you want.

But what I love about Sean is that you are actually trying to help people.

And the guests that you bring on are trying to help people.

And that's

to that.

And it's topics that you would never really talk about because it was kind of looked down on when we were growing up.

Right.

Like whether it's money, religion, spirituality, health.

Right.

Like people are scared.

We're scared to talk about these things back in the day.

Right.

No, wholeheartedly.

So kudos to you, dude.

Yeah, you too, though, man.

I think podcasting is such a good form of spreading positive messaging.

Wholeheartedly.

Because it's so authentic.

Wholeheartedly.

You can't be fake for podcasts for a long time.

Not at all.

Not at all.

Because your listens will tell you.

Yeah.

Right.

Your listens will tell you.

You don't stay where you and I stay with having fluff.

Yeah.

Right.

You could put on a show for a few minutes, but podcast for an hour a week, two hours a week.

No, you're not hiding.

Not at all.

You know what I mean?

No skeletons are coming out of your closet.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

But before you got into podcasting, I know you had a successful business, an agency that was doing 3.2 million a year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, I started my adult life in the insurance space.

Right.

And so I was a sales manager for an insurance agency owner.

And, you know, he had plans on being the biggest, baddest agent in the country.

And so my first day, I was like, great, how are we going to do this?

And he looked at me.

He's an Italian guy.

He looked at me and said, that's why the fill in your favorite four-letter word, I hired you.

You better go figure it out.

And so I did.

And so for seven years, we were the top rated nationwide insurance agency in the country.

But what I realized, you know, he's going on trips to Paris, to Rome, to Banff, Canada, to Atlantis.

And he's sending me on trips to Atlanta.

So Atlantis and Atlanta are not the same places.

But it was cool.

But what I realized was I was helping him live his dream.

And then I had my own dream.

Right.

And so I started my own

insurance agency, no mergers, no acquisitions.

In three years, we're doing 3.2 million, a little bit more than that, actually.

Nice.

And ended up selling to a large broker, something I never envisioned.

But, you know, this was before, you know, 10, 12 times EBITDA was fashionable, you know, like I was getting those numbers and it was like, wow,

that literally, I'm not going to say it changed my life because my life was changing and evolving daily, right?

Like that's what we do, but it validated all the things that I had been doing before that to get to that point.

And then, you know, I took over a large brokerage, inherited about 50 million of revenue and four years grew it to 70 million and had a really good financial exit there and said, you know what?

I want to show other people how to do this because I feel personally, from a business standpoint, we make scaling and growing harder than it has to be, right?

And you're the epitome of that, right?

Because you've grown and scaled rapidly.

And it's usually the simple things and saying focus on the main thing, right?

Like Daniel Donald said, keep the main thing, the main thing.

And that's what it is.

And so that became my passion to help others do that.

Absolutely.

Yeah, not falling for shiny object syndrome, right?

That's something I've been avoiding the past year and it's paid off.

Right.

Because I used to chase every new investment, every new opportunity.

And it's tempting to do that because of social media, man.

But once I stopped doing that, which is ironic, I've made more money.

Oh, for sure.

For sure.

Because this, you know, we call it the digital era.

I call it the distraction era.

There's more distractions out there more than ever.

And all distractions aren't good.

So you just have to stay focused on who you are, what you do, and what the values that you bring.

Yeah.

I love that you had some experience before the company because it's kind of looked down on to get a job now.

Right.

Like there's that whole movement of like kind of shitting on nine-to-fiveers or whatever.

But I think it's important to learn from someone before you start your own company.

Oh, for sure.

And, you know, I told you this and you know that Les Brown is one of my mentors and one of my personal coaches.

And, you know, Les taught me, there's this old saying, experience is the best teacher.

It's not experience.

It's wisdom.

Right.

Like experience is going to cost you money.

Experience is going to cost you trials and errors, right?

Wisdom gives you the shortcut.

And there's nothing wrong with experience, but it's not the best teacher, right?

Like if I play sports and I have experience missing free throws over and over again, what did I gain?

Right.

I learned how to not make free throws.

But when you have someone that can teach you the proper form and the technique and can shortcut it, that's wisdom.

And so to me, wisdom is the best teacher that you could ever have.

Powerful.

Yeah.

Cause you're paying for all the time they spent learning it.

Exactly.

Yeah.

How did you get in touch with Les?

Because that's one of the goats right there.

Les is the goat for sure.

It happened like we were speaking at the same event and we exchanged numbers.

And it's one of those things where like, yeah, okay, like he'll, he'll, he'll call me.

I'm not going to message Les Brown.

I'm going to call Les Brown.

But he actually reached out.

And then I, he invited me to one of his masterminds.

And like literally ever since then, for the past two years, Les and I talk four times a day.

Damn.

We start our days off talking to each other.

When one of us goes to bed at one o'clock in the morning, we call each other or message each other.

But I mean, the the best investment that I ever made was in myself and taking the time to learn from Les Brown.

I mean, the things that he's taught me that I'm able to then impart into my podcast, into my speaking, into my coaching businesses.

Like it's, it's crazy cool.

Incredible, man.

So you're speaking a lot right now.

I am.

I am.

Definitely speaking.

I would say I'm usually at two engagements a month in person and

probably two to three virtual sessions a week as well too.

Speaking is great because you get to impact a lot of people.

You get to experience cultures because you get to travel the world,

meet some great people.

The energy is great.

I love that business model too.

Yeah.

And it's great.

And it's just like you said too, right?

Like you have to have a message or messages that are relatable to people to stay booked.

Right.

Because you can go speak one time and then never get hired again or never get asked to be brought again.

Yeah.

So everything that I do, man, it's about things that people can do right now.

You know, I tell people when I speak all the time, you don't have to hire me.

Like I'm going to start now.

And, you know, there are a lot of speakers that say three, fourth century of their speech.

All right, here are the top five things that you should take away.

Like I'm giving that to you the moment I come on stage.

The moment I walk out there, let's get ready to write down.

We don't need fluff.

Let's just go.

And to me, that's why I've been able to stay busy.

I love the speakers where you could take immediate action.

Right.

Like you, like Hormozy, stuff where you could just implement right away.

Right away.

Yeah.

Like his book, dude.

Holy shit, that changed my life.

Right.

100 million offers.

Yes.

Wow.

That might be the best business book I've ever read.

Absolutely.

It's one of those things that I read and I was like, oh, even though, yeah, good businesses, I feel like I have a good model of what I do.

But I learned like four things immediately that I tweaked.

And it's allowed my business to scale as well, too.

Just making your offer as good as possible.

I've only gotten two refunds since that book.

Wow.

Because I made my offer so damn good that, like, why would you want a refund?

Exactly.

And that's the way it should be.

Just give as much value as you can.

Absolutely.

Because people, on the other hand, will take that victim mentality.

And if they're getting a lot of refunds, they'll never put the blame on themselves.

Never.

They'll blame it on the customers.

Always.

But if you're getting a lot, I mean, you're probably doing something wrong.

Wholeheartedly.

Yeah.

Wholeheartedly.

You working on any books or anything?

Absolutely.

I'm in the lab right now.

So this will be a Sean Kelly exclusive because it's like literally just came up with the title two weeks ago.

And so the title of the book is going to be How to be a good leader when you've never seen one

because i feel like this generation right so we'll take my age bracket so i'm 45 almost 46 so we'll say 50 and under right

who's the leader that we have or the leaders like if i said sean name me your top three leaders for under 50 yeah for me it was garyvee Yep, I'd say Elon Musk, who would be third?

Because Tony is kind of the old, Tony Robbins, kind of the older crowd, right?

Yep.

And then, and here's what I'm going to challenge you.

And this is why I'm writing the book.

Because I'm saying you're naming probably more influencers,

which is great.

Like, they are great influencers.

They are great people to follow.

But do we know if they're great leaders?

And I'm not saying that they're not, right?

But usually when I ask people, they're telling me the popular social media folks that they follow and they're great follows, right?

I follow a lot of great people as well.

I follow you.

I'm not saying you're not a bad man,

but but I follow you too.

But what I'm saying is, like, when I grew up, right, like you could look at a Brian Tracy, a John Maxwell, um, even a Tony Robbins to a certain extent,

but those are still the same leaders that we have.

And so, like, my kids don't relate with that style.

I see what you're saying, right?

And so, we're about to have 2.7 million people retire in the next three years.

Wow.

400,000 of those are going to be C-suite leaders.

Who's going to replace them?

And who's their leadership example?

And so I'm writing a book that's going to give some principles, some pillars of, hey, if you've never seen a good leader, here are the things that you need to work on to do to be a good leader.

Because the world continues to evolve, right?

Like how I was led is probably different than how you like to be led, right?

Because it's generational difference and there's nothing wrong either way.

But that's what my book is going to be about is how to lead the modern employee.

What are the principles that you need to have as a leader?

Because for me growing up, there was no such thing as remote work, right?

There was no such thing as hybrid work.

Well, now that's a thing.

And you have to lead a little bit differently.

Right.

Right.

Like the 25-year-old that's looking to be promoted in three months, right?

How do you lead that person?

You know, you made a point earlier, right?

People kind of shun nine to five and think you should just start as a business owner.

Well, those people are going to come into your work at some point, even though they want to exit and start their own thing.

They still need that experience.

How do you lead them?

Right.

And so that's what the book is going to be about.

I love that.

Cause, yeah, there's some crazy stats now where like people are getting jobs on average for like a year now.

Right.

Before when your generation and even my parents, it's like 20 years.

Right.

Like you worked at the same company for a long time.

And sometimes in the same position.

What's crazy is I know people in the insurance space that came in as customer service reps.

Right.

25 years later, they're still customer service reps.

Wow.

Right.

You're not going to do that.

No.

You're not.

My kids aren't going to do do that yeah you gotta start and then evolve right i couldn't do the same thing for 25 years no no you need to grow right when it comes to leadership uh because you probably manage hundreds of employees right what were some some big lessons there you learned along the way listen the the big thing is listen because you can have a style or an approach but if you're not listening to your team You don't know the culture that you have.

And so one of the things that I tell leaders today, and I don't care what size your company is, is take time to meet with your people and listen, right?

Like we have this big thing now, like more meetings is a bad thing, unless you're the CEO of the company, right?

If you're the CEO of the company, you need to be meeting with your people and listening to them because that's your culture.

So I would say the first tip is that.

The second tip, I would say, is master something as a leader.

right like a lot of times we want to be really good at a lot of things maybe even great at a lot of things but and i know you've heard me say this right but bruce lee says i fear not the man who practices over 10,000 kicks.

I fear the man who practices one kick 10,000 times, right?

And so for me as a leader, have your one kick.

Like, what's your one kick going to be?

And master that.

So you like one specialty.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

That makes sense.

Because the employees have to respect you.

Exactly.

That's important.

Right.

Because if they don't respect you, they don't care what you say.

At all.

At all.

So there's that balance of, because a lot, the typical, you know, boss wants to be feared, but I feel like that's shifting too, right?

No, that's not the thing, man.

Like, that's, again, that's where listening plays into everything that you can do.

Like, if you're a leader, if you're watching, if you're listening, the best thing you can do is listen.

Like, have conversations with your team members, not just your senior leadership, but the person that opens the door.

Have conversations with them.

Because, again, I'm going to say this again.

That's your culture.

I hate when I hear people talk about their culture or brag about their culture.

If you have to talk about it, you don't have the culture.

If you have to talk about it, you don't have it.

How do you deal with jealousy within the workplace?

Because a lot of people, whether it's salaries or job titles, they get, they seem to care about those things, right?

So my third tip would be be transparent.

Have expectations, roles, responsibilities, and career paths and be very transparent about how you get to the next step, what you're looking for, what do you expect out of your people,

and then live up to that.

So if I tell Sean, hey, for the next three months, you know, I need you to make 50 sales and do this and that or retain 100 customers.

And if you do that, you're going to be eligible for this promotion.

Do that, right?

Like, if I tell Sean that, then it's up to me to then live through with that.

Because if I set Sean up with a goal or a standard and he's doing it, well, then now Sean's going to be looking for a new job because I didn't live up to my end of the deal.

So be very transparent with expectations, with career pathing, and then more importantly, you as a leader follow up to that.

Yeah, I think setting goals for each employee is important, right?

Some sort of purpose to look forward to, or otherwise they're just going to waste their time.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

People are just built like that.

Absolutely.

How can I work the least for this money?

Because if there's no incentive to make more money, then why work harder?

Right.

And why should you be upset if that's their mentality?

Right.

You, you fostered that.

Again, that goes back to your culture.

Facts.

Yeah, but people won't put that together.

Right.

Yeah.

That's funny, man.

Are you building a team right now or are you kind of doing stuff on your own?

Yeah.

So I have two different consulting companies.

So one is in the insurance space because that's where I came from.

And so, you know, we've got like 13 employees on that side.

And then under my Mick Unplug brand, I have a team of nine that do different things.

So I've got my CEO, my chief engagement officer, runs my day-to-day.

I've known her for 25 years.

I think we've worked together.

We started in the insurance space together.

So I've got a team on the MC Unplug side that's handling like my speaking engagements, executive coaching and things like that.

And then we've got a consulting firm on the insurance arm that helps businesses with strategies and growth.

Nice.

Did you get a formal education?

University of North Carolina.

Wow.

I am a Tar Hill.

Let's go representing the colors.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So University of North Carolina.

One of the things that I would say changed my life.

I've always been driven and determined, even as a kid, but it was the connections and mentors is what college really got for me.

So education, yeah, I did learn some things, but it was really about the relationships that I established and the mentors that I was actually able to gain from there that I remember the most.

And you can leverage the alumni status too.

Exactly.

There's probably some huge UNC business moguls.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I would say Michael Jordan.

Nah, yeah.

UNC guy.

Nah.

Message him on LinkedIn.

Right.

Right, right, right, right.

Right.

Nah, but yeah, I mean, a ton of businesses.

You know, UNC has one of the top business schools.

I actually have an MBA from there too.

Nice.

So they have one of the top business schools in the country as well, too.

So a ton of relationships relationships there.

Yeah.

I see it almost like

you should see it as like a networking mastermind these days.

That's, that's it.

That's it.

I mean, networking is the key to success, right?

Like I will say, you know, the old adage, your net work is your net worth.

But I would take it a step further, right?

Like your circle

is a representation of you or the person you're striving to be.

Right.

And so I always go into my circle and I evaluate my circle.

So my close group two to three times a year because I have to make sure I'm benefiting my circle, but then also my circle is benefiting me.

And by benefiting, I don't mean financially or anything like that, but am I learning?

Am I getting a, am I getting better as a human?

Yeah.

And so your net working skills needs to start with your circle.

Like who are the people that are going to push you and drive you?

Yeah.

Right.

You know, they, I had an interview with one of my good friends and one of my accountability partners, Carlester Crumpler, and we talked about iron sharpening iron.

Well, when people hear that, I think what they think is iron polishes iron, right?

Like, you know, I'm going to pump Sean up and we're going to do some amazing things and you can do it.

But to sharpen something, there's friction.

There's sparks.

There's fire.

So like, I need to challenge Sean and Sean needs to challenge me to get better.

That's that friction that we have to have.

And so, you know, networking should always start with just that.

Like, who are the people that are really going to push you?

And then from there, what other circles are they in?

Because they're probably in the same type of mindset and mentality as you absolutely and that's why i care about where i live too the community right because you want to be like i just moved and i wanted to be not at the top of my neighborhood i wanted to be one of the poorest houses right because that would motivate me exactly and with the friend group stuff that that's been tough for me because i've had to cut out friends because they're not evolving with me and they see it like i strewed them over but like it's not like that No, you know what I mean?

No, and there's nothing wrong with that, right?

Because, you know, I've had to do that exact same thing.

And I do it.

I go through this exercise twice a year where I look at my circle.

And again, am I benefiting?

Am I receiving benefit?

Right.

And it's okay to move people from your inner circle to an outer circle.

It doesn't mean they're no less than a friend, but if we're not moving in the same direction or you're not moving me to a direction, I can't, with the person that I'm trying to be, I can't spend time, energy, and effort with you as much as I have been.

So there's nothing wrong with that, bro.

No, I agree.

But then you get people saying you're disloyal, which I feel like I am loyal by doing that.

You know what I mean?

Right.

Like I'm being honest with you.

Right.

And then it's like, hey, well, then let's go on this path.

Right.

Like, this is where I'm going.

You're showing that you're not trying to go there.

Yeah.

If you're, if you think I'm disloyal, let's go.

Let me show you.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, some people are just content with their lifestyle, right?

I'm not like that.

No matter what level I get to.

Like, I always want the next thing to impact more people.

So that's the mindset I have, which is a very rare mindset.

So that's why I've had to cut ties with a lot of people, to be honest.

Yeah.

Not a lot of people think that way.

I get it.

But again, that's what makes,

I don't want to say the elite the elite, but it's, it's kind of true, right?

Like people that are aspiring to be an elite one of one, that's what happens.

Absolutely.

Who's been your favorite interviews?

I know you have, you've done a ton, right?

I have, man.

Like, you're putting me on the spot.

I get asked this all the time, and I never know how to answer it because there's so many new ones.

No, I mean,

I love,

I love all of my interviewees, man.

Like, so,

you know, know, I didn't want to start a podcast,

but Les Brown and Kenny Anderson kind of made me start it, right?

They were like, hey, if you do it, I'll be a guest.

And so I'm always going to go back to those two because they're the ones that kind of sparked me to do it.

So, Kenny from TNT?

Kenny Anderson.

Okay.

Kenny Anderson.

Point guard, Georgia Tech.

The guy from the show with Shaq and Charles Barkley.

Nope, that's Kenny Smith.

He's a Tar Hill.

So Kenny Anderson,

point guard, Georgia Tech.

He played for the Nets.

Okay.

He played for the Synod Tanks.

I grew up in Jersey.

I used to go to the Vince Carter, Jason Kidd games.

Was he on that team?

No.

So Kenny graduated college in 91.

So he was the number two overall pick.

Got it.

In 91, 92.

But he was my favorite college point guard of all time.

Wow.

And I'm a UNC guy.

That's saying a lot.

But Kenny Anderson was my guy.

I call him my GOAT.

He was my college basketball GOAT.

Damn.

Right.

UNC's got some legendary point guards.

We do.

That's a statement.

But Kenny Anderson is my guy.

And I know he'll be watching this.

So, Kenny, you know, I got you.

You got him over MJ?

College, he is my goat.

Damn.

He is my goat.

He literally is my goat.

Like, you should go watch some Kenny Anderson highlights.

I will.

I'll watch this highlights.

There's, you know, because I'm a UNC guy, I hate Duke.

I hate Duke.

But there's a moment where he was breaking down Bobby Hurley like nobody's business.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

Kenny Anderson is that guy, man.

You think USA will win this Olympics?

i just saw their game against canada last night yeah i think we will i it's gonna take some time for the for them to gel yeah right like that's one of the disadvantages that we have that most people don't think about right like national teams kind of play together a lot a lot yeah right like we have a new team every season and and you it takes time to gel even though you have some elder statements it takes time to gel but i think they'll be okay

yeah they were looking first quarter against canada they were downtown turnover machines yeah yeah because they're used to being the best player player on their team.

So they're not used to, you know,

that kind of touches.

Nobody's backdoor cutting and all that, right?

It's just like, all right, I got the ball.

I'm going to shoot.

Yeah.

A lot of ISO.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what they figured it out.

The second unit came in really, really strong.

I thought so, too.

Canada was looking nice, though.

They might go pretty far, I think.

Yeah.

They just, they need duff.

Their starting five is strong.

Yeah.

Starting five is great.

But yeah, I can't name anyone on their bench.

Maybe Kelly Olinik, who's decent, but that's about it.

He had a good second quarter.

Yeah.

You a big, uh, you still watch hoops?

Yeah.

I love hoops.

Basketball is my first love.

You still play?

No, so true story, I tore my calf muscle a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah, so I'm limited on hoops.

I'm the guy that's going to stand in the corner and shoot threes.

Yeah.

Once you get in your 40s, if you don't develop a jumper, you're kind of screwed.

Yeah, your hips don't move like they used to.

Your vertical went from, you know, my vertical was 24, now it's like 10.

Damn.

24 is not bad, man.

So you were dunking.

I could grab the rim okay i could grab the rim i'm not tall so yeah yeah i could 24 yeah that's not bad no i mean it's not great it's not bad it's not nba worthy yeah but what i was what i really was saying was now it's 10.

i feel that man well uh what are you working on next and uh where can people find you man working next i'm building a community so soon to be announced the mc unplug community um where i'm going to have different levels of membership but we're going to do things we're going to offer some self-paced courses on leadership, on self-improvement.

We're gonna have some invites.

So like some of my guests, so like actually Les Brown and I are probably gonna do a 30-minute segment every month.

Nice.

Right.

Like he and I are just gonna come in and talk shop, do some Q ⁇ A.

I've got some other really great dudes that are in my circle, like Robert Irvine, Ken Coleman.

So some of those guys will come in.

Meryl Hodge will come in and just hold shop.

So I really want to build a thriving community that's helping people.

Love it.

All right.

So that's what's next.

But following me, Mick Unplugged Everywhere, Mick Hunt on LinkedIn.

But that's me.

Cool.

We'll link it below.

Thanks for coming on, man.

I appreciate you, brother.

Great meeting you.

Yes.

Learned a lot.

And hopefully, you guys did too.

Stay tuned for the next episode.