RHS 172 - Everything You Need To Know About IndieTech and Other Crazy…

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Speaker 6 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 6 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 8 Today we have an absolute tremendous, triple tremendous episode for you. An episode that's, as always, all over the place.
When I have have Jason Cass on the show. Cass and I are,

Speaker 8 you know, if you're a new, you listen to the show, Cass and I have been friends for 10, 11, 12 years.

Speaker 8 And just, when we get together, it's like two good old buddies who've known each other forever just rapping about things they enjoy, which some of that is business, some of it is life, a lot of it is insurance, a lot of it is leadership, a lot of it is where we see the industry going and just, you know, lots of hopefully fun, fun times for you to listen to and tremendous value as well.

Speaker 8 So enjoy this episode. Cass also has a big announcement on his Indy Tech 2023 conference, which is going to be basically

Speaker 8 an insurance technology conference dedicated to the independent agent. Like if you have questions about technology, what's coming, what's here, how do you piece together the different

Speaker 8 pieces of how do you piece together the different pieces of your tech stack? What does that look like? What does a customer journey look like? How are the best doing it?

Speaker 8 Indite Tech 2023 is a tremendous conference. We talk a little bit about it at the end, so stick around for that.
Before we get there, guys, I love you for listening to this show.

Speaker 8 A rating review on iTunes helps me just grow more listeners, helps us get better guests in terms of

Speaker 8 not better guests like in the industry, but when I try to reach out to some people that are outside the industry, seeing ratings, reviews, stuff like that

Speaker 8 helps some of these kind of out-of-market, big-name people say yes to coming on the show.

Speaker 8 So that always helps and just, I appreciate it. Strokes my ego.
If you love the podcast, you're going to love the blog. Go to findingpeak.com, findingpeak.com.

Speaker 8 That's finding peak, like finding peak performance, findingpeak.com. Stick your email in there.
You get an article a week, sometimes two.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I just really enjoy writing again and creating, sharing those thoughts. That's a good place to do that.
And last but not least,

Speaker 8 at least financially, the people that make this podcast possible is Tivly. Tivly.com,

Speaker 8 the number one commercial insurance lead generation platform in the industry.

Speaker 8 Guys, if you want to create a baseline of consistent business that you just know is going to come in, that you can basically take to the bank every week, every month, there's no better way to do that than Tivly.

Speaker 8 T-I-V-L-Y.com. They used to be commercialinsurance.net.
You may have heard that name. They're Tivly today.

Speaker 8 We have been partners with them for, geez, probably more than two years now. They are just part of our business, great partners for us, and love doing business with them.

Speaker 8 And love that they decided to be a sponsor here in 2023. So check out tivly.com if you want to write more commercial insurance tomorrow.

Speaker 8 All right, let's get on to this absolutely tremendous episode with Jason Cass.

Speaker 8 I'm going to sham

Speaker 6 Thing. So, what's up, brother man?

Speaker 7 Oh, you know, just

Speaker 7 all the problems. Life.

Speaker 6 Well, you know, it's

Speaker 7 people are the hardest part of every business. I know that's not like a new thing.

Speaker 7 Right. But it's real.
But it's very real. You know,

Speaker 7 it's funny, you know, at Rogue, you know,

Speaker 7 we're very different in the way we do business.

Speaker 6 Do we want to do this now or do we want to record this?

Speaker 6 Oh, it is recording. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
I forget you do that.

Speaker 7 I'm sorry. I always forget that you're like

Speaker 7 the worst podcast host ever on the text stuff. Like verbally, probably perfectly fine, but like you always come in, your headphones don't work, you can't hear anything,

Speaker 7 you don't know what's going on. You come in, you're like, it's

Speaker 7 surround yourself with all these people.

Speaker 6 You are the only person that does the starts the recording when you get on, though, for real. I don't, I, I don't have other people that do that, so it's a surprise, but I love it, by the way.

Speaker 7 Sorry. Because all those people, because

Speaker 7 you know, I know what I'm doing. I know there's all these new, these new guys out here or all the podcasting, you know, superheroes, but you know, right?

Speaker 6 Hey, let me, let me ask you a question real quick. I'm being serious.
Get close to that mic. Get close to that mic and talk.
Check one, two, check one, two. Go away from it.
Go away away from it.

Speaker 6 I don't think it's working

Speaker 6 this mic's not working i don't think it's on you're i you when whether you're far away or close it's not making a difference and it sounds a little echoey hello there you go

Speaker 7 all right i'm not i'm not gonna say no no no i'm not on the podcast

Speaker 7 i'm not gonna say anything I'm not going to say anything.

Speaker 6 Let's just roll on.

Speaker 7 This is the worst intro to a podcast ever.

Speaker 6 But dude, I think people are used to it with you and I.

Speaker 7 No, you know, it's, it's, uh to get to get back to your point you know or to get back to the point about people no no it's fine it's just

Speaker 7 it's like you know we're we're we're

Speaker 7 we're building something that is both

Speaker 7 at its core would look very very familiar to what most people are used to in an independent agency i mean the the core philosophies of what we do and this is what makes our industry so unique is that while i think so many things we do are completely innovative and different.

Speaker 7 And we don't hold some of the ideological boundaries that hold so many agencies back. We don't abide by them.
And I think that's amazing.

Speaker 7 There's so many other aspects of our business that if you were to take a look at them, you'd be like, oh, that's how everybody else works.

Speaker 7 So it's this weird dichotomy of one foot in all the things that make our industry amazing and aren't broke. And it's exactly after you run the business.
And it's the way every

Speaker 7 insurance agency business runs. It's these core set of things that would look the same no matter what the business is.

Speaker 7 And then it's having this other foot where we think about things different we move different the time things take is different everything about it is different and

Speaker 7 and finding people who are able to live with one foot in each one of those buckets is very very

Speaker 7 very difficult and you know you find industry vets who you who you think um

Speaker 7 you know, uh understand the traditional side and all this. And then they look at the

Speaker 7 other part of our business, the other bucket, and it like blows their mind. They like can't wrap wrap their head around it.

Speaker 7 And then vice versa, you get these young people who see the new stuff and they're like, oh, this makes sense, this makes sense, this makes sense.

Speaker 7 And then you try to show them next year and they're like,

Speaker 7 what,

Speaker 7 you know, that's like the reaction, like literally, like, and people like start shaking. You know what I mean? And look, there's nothing wrong with next year.
That's not a knock on them.

Speaker 7 It's just, you know, there's a traditional side and having people.

Speaker 7 you know maybe and this is going to sound completely egotistical i don't know that i mean it to be but like i think one of the things that i'm able to do uniquely is have a foot in both buckets and have respect for both sides both the innovative and the traditional side we talked about that that's the exinnible uh thing that remember we used to talk about we were able to see both ways yeah but cass i'm i'm realizing more and more man that is a very unique characteristic and i don't mean it to be like doesn't i don't mean that like it makes me better or special whatever 100 right Because I don't know that I would be,

Speaker 7 I don't know that I would be, and I think in that space, that in between space, I think I am an A player, but I don't know that I would be an A player fully digital.

Speaker 7 And I don't know that I would be an A player fully traditional. So, you know, that I don't mean it to be right or wrong or better or worse.

Speaker 7 Just I have found that there aren't a lot of people who can have, who can. operate at a high level with one foot in both buckets.
It's, it's, and it's the person.

Speaker 6 Ryan, it's the exenial, man. We're caught in between that generation.
We were forced, you know, to be analog when we were born. And then we were, grew up that digital.

Speaker 6 You're starting to really see that now. And I agree with you there on that.
I agree with you emphatically. So, how are you doing, buddy? Besides that, a bit of personal life going well.

Speaker 6 How's them kids? I see you've on with, I mean, the bills look at their ass fucking choked, but you know, that was a tough way to end the season.

Speaker 7 What the hell, bro? Yeah, there's just there were a lot of

Speaker 7 issues internally. I don't love the offensive coordinator.

Speaker 7 Um, you know, we, we, we didn't, we didn't invest in our offensive line, and and at different, you know, towards the end, the line really got kind of picked apart. And,

Speaker 7 you know, we also lost Von Miller. We lost Micah Hyde right there.
There's two of our highest paid, those are two perennial pro bowlers, highest paid players on our team.

Speaker 7 Neither one of them are on the defense. So we had to go back to the beginning of the season.
We were playing a very aggressive, we put a lot of pressure on the quarterback.

Speaker 7 Second half of the season, without Micah Hyde as a backstop and Von Miller putting pressure, we went back to the Ben Don't Break defense that we've always had with that, didn't really get any pressure on the quarterback.

Speaker 7 And, you know, you watch, you watch the game against the Bengals, Joe Burrow, Joe Burrow, it was like a day in the park. It was like he was playing two-hand touch.
He dropped back, survey the scene.

Speaker 7 I think I'm going to go to T. Higgins this time.
You know, it doesn't matter. I got 15 seconds back here.
Ryan, Ryan, I think you have the look of a quarterback.

Speaker 7 I think you kind of look like the Burrow, the Tom Brady, that look. I think, and then

Speaker 7 they're just about you, bro. I think you missed it.
I think you missed it, dude. What's oh, I mean, that is very nice of you to say.

Speaker 7 I mean, considering my mental, considering my mental anxiety I have at this moment, I'm going to take that and I'm going to bask in it because it makes me feel very, very good. But, um,

Speaker 7 and uh, no, I'll be honest with you, as a football player, I was all defense. Really? I was all defense.
I loved hitting people. I loved it.

Speaker 6 Did I tell you a funny thing I just found out two weeks ago? Eric Garcia, he said, Jason, I said, hey, you're wearing that two-lane jacket a lot. Why are you wearing that two-lane jacket?

Speaker 6 He said, I went to that school. I said, really? He said, yeah, I played football.
I said, you played football?

Speaker 7 Eric Garcia, right? Yeah.

Speaker 6 You guys know Eric Garcia. And I said, what position do you play? He said, defensive end.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Shit fucking rocked my world, dude.

Speaker 7 I was like, are you freaking serious? I knew that. Yeah, he told me about that.

Speaker 7 I don't think we talked about it in the podcast that I did with him, but

Speaker 7 we had talked about that at a different time. Yeah, I knew that about it.

Speaker 7 Cause it's funny, you know, it's funny when you see, it's like, it's like you see these football players, you know, and when they're in their career, they're monsters, absolute silverback gorillas, you know, I mean, just people you do not want to mess with.

Speaker 7 And then you see them like five, 10 years later, and, you know, and they look like normal people. They look like, I mean, dude, look at Will Shaw, right?

Speaker 7 Like, Will Shaw, I mean, he's fit dude and he's big and you see him and you're like, yeah, that's probably not a guy I want to mess with.

Speaker 7 But like, you see him in his pictures when he was playing in pro football and he looked like a monster. You know what I mean?

Speaker 7 And you're just like, you know, now he looks like a, you know, a fit regular size dude, you know,

Speaker 7 but it's just, um, it's just wild, you know, whatever. But yeah, no, my thing in football was I

Speaker 7 loved. hitting people.
I just loved it. I just just smearing some, some offensive little, you know, I always thought of the offense as all the chicken shits.

Speaker 7 You played offense if you were a chicken shit. You know, if you were a man, you played defense.
And again, that's a very biased opinion, but that's the way that I thought about it.

Speaker 7 So, like, I thought these were all the prima donnas and the little,

Speaker 7 you know, the primpers, and just coming out of nowhere and just absolutely smacking one of those guys and putting them on the ground. That was heaven on earth to me.

Speaker 7 If, if, if, if heaven exists and I get to go there, right?

Speaker 7 I probably believe more in the first one than the second at this point, but

Speaker 7 if that happens, part of my experience there will be me getting to just smear people again on a football field. That'll be like a thing that I get to do.

Speaker 6 So I'm listening to a TikTok with Deion Sanders, and this is just this morning. And they're talking about what he looks for in recruiting.

Speaker 6 And he said, basically, to say it quickly, he said, in a quarterback and an alignment, he says, I want someone who has a 3.8 GP or more, alignment 3.5.

Speaker 6 They need to have a solid mom and dad foundation. You know, they've got to be level-headed.
And the guy says, well, what about defense? He's like, Deion Senator's like, oh, defense. That's shit.

Speaker 6 He's like, I'm looking for a guy that's got a single mom and is trying to take out the world and prove something. That's what I want on a defensive guy.

Speaker 7 You know what I mean? It's true.

Speaker 6 As long as his GPA is over 2.5 and he can make the team, that's what we need.

Speaker 7 It's 100% true. I mean, it was, it was funny.
You know,

Speaker 7 so I was in a lot of like the honors. I was always a weirdo on the football team because I was in like a lot of the the honors classes and stuff.
Well,

Speaker 7 on the offense, you're 100% right. All the other kids, like there was like two or three other kids on the team that were in honors classes, they were all on offense.

Speaker 7 On defense, these kids were like in detention every other day because they like couldn't pass a test.

Speaker 7 And like, you know, half of them are have like drool coming down their face just and they don't even realize it all the time.

Speaker 7 But man, those sons of bitches are not people that you would want to see like at a party, you know, and have mad at you. That's what Dion said.
That's what he looks for, man. Oh, you want

Speaker 7 the crazies, you know, you want the guys you know there was this one kid uh one of our defensive tackles it was he would be like crying on the field and just murdering people just just but crying and i'd be like what the man he's like i don't know sometimes i just get so pumped up i start crying and i'm like what is wrong with you you know it's like stuff like that you're like but truthfully on defense you just your body is a missile you know what i mean it's different and offense there's all these skills and you got route trees and i would just be like bear out go swing wide go you know what i mean like because i called the plays and um i'm like one of the only ones that could like take the hand signals from the coach and translate them into words and and you know and i would it would be like two or three little calls and they would know what that meant and then you know the the offense would come up and i would bark out you know you know basically what the strong side of the of the offense was and um

Speaker 7 and like that was it and then you just attacked it was that was the whole thing and you know sometimes you know um

Speaker 7 it's funny because a lot of i i you know i when i tell people that i played football or people ask hey did you play any sports and i say i play football and baseball um you know like oh you must have been like a tight end or a quarterback or something i'm like nah no

Speaker 7 no no you look like the quarterback dude there's this whole other side that i don't show very often that is coming out more and more the deeper i get into this entrepreneurial journey that is like I

Speaker 7 in a I would have been like if this were like the 1500s I'd probably be already dead because I would have been on a fucking battle force somewhere with some broadsword and a fucking wooden shield, just like murking people.

Speaker 7 That's really like what, like my day-to-day mentality is like, that would be it, right? I fight like a very murderous nature. And in order to do that, I try to be overly nice.

Speaker 7 But like, my general sense is like, you're a dipshit. Get the f out of my way.
And you don't know what you're talking about. You move way too slow.
You're a bureaucrat.

Speaker 7 I don't give a fuck what you say. You know what I mean? Like, that's what I'm, that's what's going on in my head.
And then what comes out of my mouth is like, oh, that's a great idea.

Speaker 7 Thanks for contributing. I'm, I'm really happy that you're here today.
In my mind, I'm like, this fucking idiot, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. This moron needs to get out of here.

Speaker 7 I'm mentally like, like,

Speaker 7 like, like, what was that? Like, Dr. Evil, like pressing the button and having their chair like fall into the fire pit.

Speaker 7 Like, mentally, that's what's going on while this person's barfing this remedial bullshit on me.

Speaker 7 You know, it's just like,

Speaker 7 talk about painting the picture. Oh, my God.
Sometimes I can't take it, man. I'm just like,

Speaker 7 I, I, I, uh, I actually said this to, I, so, uh, the day that we're recording this is the same day that I have my weekly meetings with Matt Masiello, who's the CEO of SIA. Who, yeah.

Speaker 7 I, dude, I, you know, and I'm not just stroking his ego. I honestly think he's one of the best executives I've ever worked for.

Speaker 6 He just, I've heard that from other people. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah. He just, dude, you know, I've said this before in the show.
And again, I am not, I promise

Speaker 7 everyone who's listening, I'm not stroking his ego, doesn't need it, you know, and I don't need it to get any juice with him. It's not, it's not whatever.

Speaker 7 You never know what you're getting, you know, you never know what you're getting when you get into an organization until you get in there. And

Speaker 7 I have just found him to be a really good mix of understanding the entrepreneurial mindset and managing to

Speaker 7 a corporate board and corporate responsibilities and a large, you know, there's 290 plus people in SAA now. I mean, they've grown like crazy in the last few years.

Speaker 7 So, like, you know, you, you, you kind of,

Speaker 7 he just, it's a really tough thing to manage. And I have found him to be incredible.
So long story short, we're, we're, well, I guess long story long. None of my stories are short.

Speaker 7 I don't even know why. That's okay.

Speaker 6 We all say that. It's a form of, I need to like take that out of my vocabulary because everybody says it.
So what did you and Mike talk about? What are we talking about?

Speaker 7 So we're talking about something and

Speaker 7 just some things that I've been struggling with um

Speaker 7 you know in at rogue and as a leader and just you know stuff stuff that you talk about and um

Speaker 7 and i just said to him you know it has become incredibly clear to me that at this point in my career and i and i hope to someday become better about this but at this point in my career and probably i wish i realized this about myself earlier is i i'm a wartime general You do not bring me in in peacetime.

Speaker 7 I fuck things up, right?

Speaker 7 But like, you want to grow something, you want to get something done, you're looking for a blunt instrument to hammer through a brick wall and not give a shit what, like what I look like on the other side.

Speaker 7 That's what I'm doing.

Speaker 6 Good self-awareness.

Speaker 7 Well, this is, I'm learning this every day. This is not, this is not, I've known this for a long time.
This is me. As I, as I get deeper into rogue, we're 21 people now.

Speaker 7 We have 50 carrier partnerships. We have four, you know, technology projects going on.
We have, you know, all these things that are happening and managing.

Speaker 7 And I'm realizing like the way that I interact,

Speaker 7 it's like, you know, you start to realize these things about yourself, like you have. You, you talk a lot about too, about hiring a COO and detaching yourself from the business.

Speaker 7 And then when you wanted to go whale hunting, you brought yourself in for a little while so that you could understand it better. And now you can teach it.

Speaker 7 And understanding those aspects of yourself are so key.

Speaker 7 I think in all walks of our life, but particularly when you get in leadership positions, and I don't just mean the CEO position.

Speaker 7 I honestly, if I knew these things about myself when I was the CMO at Trusted Choice and Agency Nation, maybe, maybe that project goes differently.

Speaker 7 Maybe it doesn't end with me being fired and all the lawsuits and shit. Like, maybe it's, maybe it goes better.
Maybe that separation is.

Speaker 6 I think you're taking it all as if that was all you, though, on that specific thing.

Speaker 7 Yeah, but I think it's I understand.

Speaker 6 Maybe you could have handled it desperately.

Speaker 7 I could have as much.

Speaker 7 Look, there are things that happen on the other side that I don't particularly appreciate.

Speaker 7 however however it would be completely unfair especially at this point this far removed to not say that there were plenty of things that i could have done way better and handled myself way better so you know i think that that part of um

Speaker 7 being open to understanding who you are and what you do, not giving yourself too hard of a hard time when you make those mistakes, but just trying to learn from them.

Speaker 7 Those are really tough things to do, but they're so vitally important. And I certainly don't have them figured out, but

Speaker 7 yeah. Right.

Speaker 6 Well, so you know, you're either going to come to that self-awareness at some time. And I'm talking also to your listeners, or they're, or they're going to, or they already know it, right?

Speaker 6 They're 32, they're 34, they have more self-awareness. It took me till I was, it wasn't me when I was 40.
I tell this to people, it was about 41.

Speaker 6 All of a sudden, I woke up one day and 60 years old was real fucking close. Yeah.
And I'm like, wow, three days ago, 60 was far away. It was just a weird thing.

Speaker 6 And what that helped me do, though, is just to realize this stuff. Like my thing, I told my wife when I started realizing this, I said, for the next 10 years, I want to cut the fat.

Speaker 6 I've tried, I've thrown a lot of stuff at the walls and stuff like that. Let's start cutting the fat and start just doing what, like doing what Billy says.

Speaker 6 I took so much of Billy and put it into my agency, but there's so much more really you think about when you hang out with Billy, the things you can learn on the outside of the agency and in your brain.

Speaker 6 And just try to learn that stuff and listening to him and delegating. And delegating is very, very hard, but it's not anymore.
It's very easy for me.

Speaker 6 One of the things that I just heard, Miles Merwin, he was talking with me. I called Miles every once in a while, get his wording and stuff like that.

Speaker 6 One of the things he said to me, he said, Jason, with most of us leaders, what we do is we look at things when something happens and we say, why did that happen? You know,

Speaker 6 how did that happen? You know,

Speaker 6 what made that happen?

Speaker 6 How are we going to fix it? You know, and he says, but the question that good leaders ask is who?

Speaker 6 He says, is who's going to fix this? Who was the one who made this happen? Who's going to be the one who's going to, as I said, fix it? And he says, when we ask the word

Speaker 6 who,

Speaker 6 because now, and I'm thinking to myself, when he was telling me this the other day, I'm like, okay, this is good because this is what I'm doing. And I don't realize it.

Speaker 6 When something comes to me, I almost feel, and this is important for everybody to understand this because you probably feel the same way. I feel as if I'm being lazy.

Speaker 6 Like if something comes to me that I've normally done, I think, okay, so and so should be,

Speaker 6 you know, yeah,

Speaker 7 yes.

Speaker 6 I mean, they're going to be like, couldn't you, you have done this? No, that's their freaking job, right? And I have to understand that that's their job. And I'm not a peacetime general or a wartime.

Speaker 6 But when things are structured, I'll knock the house down real freaking quick. And it's just because I don't know the process and I just remove myself.
You know what I mean? And I just have to be.

Speaker 6 And my job today, everybody's different. Everybody's different.
My job today is to mentor the commercial lines guys and train them and be with them as much as I can. And David taught me a lot.

Speaker 6 David taught me how to teach these guys workers' comp and they're doing. you know my my son is his

Speaker 6 second year first year first and a half year and he's worried that he's not going to hit his goal of 70 000 in revenue this year. And he's already hit 28,000.

Speaker 6 I said, son, if you look at best practices of somebody in your position for three to five years, they say that you're supposed to write 40,000 max.

Speaker 6 Now, I think that's low, but you're going to do more than that.

Speaker 6 So it's about being with them at their point in time because the things they know at the age of 23 and 24, I just learned that shit at 38, 39. You know what I mean? And so it's

Speaker 7 what kinds of stuff? What do you mean by that?

Speaker 6 Understanding my niche, understanding that I need to work with high clientele, understanding that there's margins, right? Understanding.

Speaker 6 I wish someone would have, I wish Mike Beard would have started me out. When you hear these guys, and for anybody that talks to Jake or Gavin, you'll, you'll hear them.

Speaker 6 They'll say, well, that was a small one. And then you'll start listening to the conversation.
And then by the way, you'll say, hey, by the way, what was that premium?

Speaker 6 And they're like, oh, it's like $62,000 for the work comp only. To them, that's small.
As Billy says, what denomination do you think in? That's where your success is by growing bigger, right? And

Speaker 6 that is what they have learned from the get-go. I wish someone would have taught me that.
I wish someone would.

Speaker 7 Do you think that's you? Do you think that's being around you?

Speaker 7 That's how they learn that? Yeah.

Speaker 6 And by taking David's course,

Speaker 6 I was just always the guy that said he didn't sell on price, but really sold on price. Now we sell on BORs and we turn around and we offer risk services to them for $15,000.

Speaker 6 So we'll take it over in the middle of the year. Then we say, if we take it over, if you give us the BOR, these are the things you're going to do.

Speaker 6 And that's going to cost you $14,700 for us to be able to get this under control. And if they say no, which they very rarely never do, we walk away because if we can't deliver that plan.

Speaker 6 And these are just the things that we've learned and perfected.

Speaker 7 And do you have that branded? Is that a branded program?

Speaker 6 Actually, we do. It's called TIA Risk.

Speaker 6 It's really freaking badass, dude. It's totally branded separately from the insurance line.
So when we go in, we have two different proposals. We have the insurance alliance, which is your insurance.

Speaker 6 This is the coverages and the price. This over here, this is how we make that lower.
See,

Speaker 6 that's the association. We don't go and try and save 5 or 10% from

Speaker 6 our agent. We have a pledge of performance.
In three years, we will get you under one as a modification factor, pending some wild and crazy claim. That's our pledge of performance to you.

Speaker 6 Usually about year two, they're so close to one, they just give us it. I'm not joking when I say this, David Carruthers, that boy can talk a lot and he can sometimes exaggerate more than me.

Speaker 6 But when it comes to the process of selling commercial insurance, if you follow his process, it works every

Speaker 6 time. And I can bring in three guys who can tell you that it does, you know?

Speaker 6 So, so yeah, so we do. We totally have branded that.

Speaker 6 I'm very, very proud to say that we branded branded that and it's it's really an amazing thing it really is i'm proud of my guys now here's what happened though i got out of the way okay um this is a true story i tell this story to anybody who asks

Speaker 6 um jeremy started working with me in 2020 at the end he's with amtrak for 10 years he got raised through the the ranks of amtrack like straight up like he was one of the highest admins in amtrak when covet happened they told him he had to move to denver to keep his job he said nope my family lives here my wife's pregnant he came in, joined us as personal alliance salesperson.

Speaker 6 Within six months to a year, I was like, oh, shit.

Speaker 6 I told Travis, my business partner, this guy's, he's a little different, dude. He, he, after about a year and a half, I thought that he, we would lose him.

Speaker 6 And the reason I thought we would lose him is because we were not as organized as he's used to working inside of. So then finally, we gave him, we made him an offer.

Speaker 6 And what, but right before we made him the offer,

Speaker 6 we took the team out on a Thursday and we went up to the local tavern. We're sitting there drinking and having some beers

Speaker 6 and everybody's leaving. And Wallace comes up to me, Jeremy, and he says to me, he says,

Speaker 6 I can fix your agency, but I just need you to do something for me. And I said, what? He said, write the fucking check and get out of the way.
It's exactly word for word what he said to me.

Speaker 6 Now, you have to keep in mind, Jeremy and I have been friends since we're 14. I left that part out of the story, right? But even he even said it respectfully.

Speaker 6 He said, Jason, write the fucking check and get out of the way. So I went to Travis.
I said, Travis, we need to write the check and get out of the way.

Speaker 6 I think he's going to be able to do the things that he needs to do. Here we are a year, year, a little over a year later.
Oh my God.

Speaker 6 I mean, oh my God, my agency is absolutely different. But here's my point here.
I'm not bragging on him. I'm saying that you said about creating that tia risk.

Speaker 6 That now opened me up to actually where I can do the things I'm good at. I have Sarah Lynn, who, if you guys have seen any of my graphics, she's unbelievably great in graphics.
Now I can help her.

Speaker 6 Now I can build out out Tia Risk. Now I can do these things that we need to do.
We're going to a trade show for nonprofits here in two weeks, right?

Speaker 6 We're now being able to get out of the office and do that thing that's going to start spurring business because we have somebody who's doing that.

Speaker 6 We have 60 some Google reviews over the last 10 years. We've probably gotten 30 some just in the last six months, right? Because of the things that he's putting into place.
We get surveys.

Speaker 6 He's sending out automations and surveys.

Speaker 6 People are writing back and saying, yeah, I do want extra insurance i want life insurance or i want health insurance or can you quote my boat i mean shit's just happening that is just vertefour actually just saw what he was doing and they're going to bring him on to a freaking webinar and have him open up our az so he can show people what we do my point is this

Speaker 6 i wrote six-figure check to make it happen

Speaker 6 That was the check I had to write for him.

Speaker 6 And then all the other stuff, I already had that in place.

Speaker 6 It was just a freaking mess, right and it and and that's the thing and i'm talking with somebody and you know who this person is in a group chat and they said well i have a coo and my immediate reply to was no somebody who makes six figures because they're worth it not yeah an office manager and a coo aren't the same thing they're not the same thing you're not going to find a good coo for 50 to 60 to 70 000 it's not just not

Speaker 7 yeah you're not a coo if you're making sixty thousand dollars i mean you're in new york but even in southern illinois i mean you're not gonna to, you're going to need

Speaker 6 80, 90 minimum. That's starting, you know.

Speaker 7 And then think about this.

Speaker 6 You have to also think that there is a legal thing out there called sweat equity.

Speaker 6 It's legal, like you can legally put it into contracts because someone like

Speaker 6 someone like Jeremy, someone like other employees we all have, is not interested in being the owner and the big dog. They're not, but they are interested in getting a piece of the profits.

Speaker 6 So, using things called sweat equity, or not sweat equity, sweat, sweat shares. It's not sweat.
Oh, my God. I'm such an idiot.

Speaker 7 You're talking about synthetic equity?

Speaker 6 Synthetic shares. I am so sorry.

Speaker 7 Fucking saying the wrong word.

Speaker 6 Synthetic. Okay.

Speaker 7 I was waiting for you to school me on this

Speaker 7 legal content. Sorry.

Speaker 6 Sweat equity. Sorry.
My lawyer has told us about it. Because here's the deal.
Because that's what we want to do. We want to give him 20, 30, 40% ownership of

Speaker 6 being the synthetic shares. So let's say we give him 20%.
Well, then now he gets 20% of the profit, but he's not anywhere an owner of the insurance alliance. Yeah.

Speaker 7 See, so

Speaker 7 there's phantom equity, there's deferred comp, there's profits. There's all kinds of different ways you can structure it.
The guy told us it was.

Speaker 7 The concept is you don't own actual equity, but you have a share of the profits. Yeah.
Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 6 That's what the guy had called it: synthetic sharing or whatever. The guy had said that.

Speaker 7 There's a bunch of different, there's a bunch of different ways to set it up and a bunch of different terms, but yeah.

Speaker 6 And it's like official right it's not like you and your buddy sitting down having a beer going all right man i'll give you 20 like this is contractual you know so i thought that was pretty cool um so what i'm saying is is somebody who maybe can't afford that hundred thousand maybe you can afford that 70 or 80 and you can understand some synthetic shares of saying, hey, if you can do what you say you're going to do in three years, if we're at this level, you get this cut, you know, that's not very hard to do.

Speaker 6 And a lot of people who are COOs or COOs and they're operational people, they don't want to be owners. They like being the number two or three person.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 6 So anyways, hey, how's your thing going?

Speaker 7 I know you've got, can we talk about that insurance lab? What thing? You can talk about whatever you want. Michael,

Speaker 6 Insurance Labs.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Yeah.
It's going good. You know, I think that,

Speaker 7 you know, I think you, you,

Speaker 7 it's going good.

Speaker 6 I don't even know what you're doing with them. I know that you were talking with them.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 So they're, they're, so, so, Michael and Insurance Labs, his company Insurance Labs, Michael Blake and his partner, Kevin Kelly,

Speaker 7 are

Speaker 7 basically

Speaker 7 have come in and are doing a consulting engagement for us and are acting as CRO and COO respectively,

Speaker 7 kind of getting us up to speed using their industry expertise.

Speaker 7 And then their role, their goal is um in like a 12 month period to basically put together job descriptions and that will allow us to hire permanent employees in those positions moving forward.

Speaker 7 So essentially, we brought in two consultants that will kind of, you know, allow me to, you know,

Speaker 7 we're running a very fast move. You know, I probably made every Billy Williams would hate Rogue Risk.
Let's just put it that way. Got 10 million things going on.

Speaker 7 We're in a million different directions. um all kinds of different projects and it's a lot to manage at the same time i refuse to operate at at a conventional pace.
Good for you. So, you know,

Speaker 7 it means that I have to deal with

Speaker 7 a large amount of stress. It means I have to manage a lot of projects, have to be able to maneuver my brain from one project to the next.
It's stressful. I make mistakes.

Speaker 6 So you need them to kind of help you form that and what you're doing, keep that between the rigs.

Speaker 7 I need veteran people who can come in and take on these big tasks and execute them properly.

Speaker 7 Because

Speaker 7 for better or for worse, I refuse, like I said, I refuse to operate at a traditional pace.

Speaker 7 I don't want to be like, well, 10 years in, you know, finally looking good. Fuck that.
Like, I think that's great.

Speaker 7 And I'll be honest with you, there are days when I envy the people who are like, who's 10 years in, they're hoping to kind of get to a good spot. I just do.

Speaker 7 Look, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a ADHD, Irish Catholic, fucking crazy person who lives in the north and has zero patience i have zero patience you know i see all these memes about oh patience is the key to the and i think they're all true 100 i don't think i'm not it's i just can't it's not the way that i'm wired you could drop all the adjectives and just say you're from the northeast and we all the rest of america we know what you're talking about well yeah so you know it just launches also republican though that is a little unique yeah republican from the northeast now we know who you are yeah

Speaker 7 well i'm a republican on some days uh independent independent on others. It depends.

Speaker 6 That's the truth, that's the damn truth.

Speaker 7 Yeah,

Speaker 8 what's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And in exchange for that, I need your help.

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They check out all this information before they come on.

Speaker 8 So as I reach out to more and more people people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you i need your help share the show subscribe if you're not subscribed and i love for you to leave a comment about the show because i read all the comments or if you're on apple or spotify leave a rating review of this show i love you for listening to this show and i hope you enjoy it listening as much as i do creating the show for you all right i'm out of here peace let's get back to the episode So

Speaker 6 here's the deal. So we came on here because I invited myself, right?

Speaker 7 Yeah. Yeah, what did you want to talk? Did you you have a specific

Speaker 6 standing rule that if someone comes to me and they say, Jason, I want to talk about something? Can I come on your podcast? They are immediately six months banned. I will not ask them for six months.

Speaker 6 I just don't like it, it drives me crazy, right? I have a methodical way of how I get my people, and so,

Speaker 7 but I'm doing that, I'm that guy. I am that I'm the opposite.
I'm so lazy with guests that if you want to come on and you're, I find you interesting, um,

Speaker 7 I'm like, okay, let's do it. No, no, no, no, no.
no.

Speaker 6 So March 22nd

Speaker 6 of 2023

Speaker 6 will be 10 years. That's the first day I released my first podcast, Agent's Influence, March 22nd of 2023.

Speaker 7 That's amazing. It's crazy.

Speaker 6 The team can't really truly tell, but we know it's 800, 820 plus podcasts.

Speaker 7 Wow. That's a fucking lot.

Speaker 6 There was about three years there where I was doing three a week. So I was hammering it away.
I don't know what I was doing, how I was making any money. I probably wasn't at the time.

Speaker 6 so so um what we have done is um

Speaker 6 my house costs 280 000

Speaker 7 god i wish i lived in centralia you know what i could get for 280 000 in new york they give me like they give me like a quarter of a house they'll give me like one room and a half 3 000 square foot on a lake i mean dude it's it's gorgeous it's unbelievable but anyways here's the point here's the point um

Speaker 6 in the last month and a half I've signed three contracts with $300,000 plus for Indy Tech Showcase experience. So I mean, I'm all in on this sucker.

Speaker 6 You know, I'm all in, probably freaking my wife out a little bit more than I'm freaking myself out.

Speaker 6 It's been a while in my life that I've been waking up at two or three in the morning. That was two, three years ago when I was still trying to worry about clients every day.

Speaker 6 I'm starting to do that again. But here's the deal.
Indy Tech Showcase, I went to ITC back in 2023 or 2022. I've been there in 2022 and 2021, 2022.

Speaker 6 And it's an absolute joke for independent insurance agents.

Speaker 6 There's nothing for you to do there unless you're Jason or Ryan and you're like just networking in there to talk with people and stuff like that. It's very good for that reason.

Speaker 6 So then I looked at it and I thought to myself, what if we could recreate this for independent agents? Then a couple of weeks later, I went to AppliedNet and I realized they have the best tech show.

Speaker 6 The problem is it's just applied. So I thought to myself, what if we took what applied kind of does with their tracks, their educational paths they teach, and then we kind of brought in the ITC,

Speaker 6 the Insure Tech Connect, that method. I think that we could do something.
So then upon doing that, back in 2014, when I wrote my book, Customer Service is just foreplay.

Speaker 6 It's the modern customer experience that will separate you. What I did is I took the customer journey and I broke it down into six sections.
And in those sections, I color coded them.

Speaker 6 And in those things, I made a big graphic where I put the tools that you would use in each one of those sections. Well, today, Ryan, those tools have

Speaker 6 become technology and platforms. And now we need to expose those.
It's just not so much. So what I have done, and I can show anybody, you can watch my video.
It's on YouTube.

Speaker 6 It gives you a little map of it.

Speaker 6 I have rented equivalent a 1.6, a little over one and a half times the size of football fields, huge exhibit area.

Speaker 6 And I tried to figure out how I could create the customer journey so that as somebody walks through the exhibit, they walk through the customer journey and they experience the technology that

Speaker 6 they would use at that point in time. And sometimes that technology may be used in many different areas of

Speaker 6 the journey. So we're creating that.
And it's a very unique thing. And it's all color coded.
You'll walk from one to the next.

Speaker 6 There will be TVs that you can scan and tell you everybody who's coming up next. And there will be signs at everybody's booth that says, here's who we integrate.
with.

Speaker 6 You know, all the management systems won't be spread out. They'll be all together.
You know, and there, they're, and everybody pushes back on that. And I'm like, guys,

Speaker 6 car dealerships do it. Restaurants do it or grocery stores do it.
Walgreens is always next to CVS. Like they all want to be spread apart from each other because they got that old, old school thinking.

Speaker 6 It's like, no, no, no, you guys want to all be together. If you go to ITC, all the tech is all together, right? So it allows you to look at it, right?

Speaker 7 Yeah, that is a nice part of what Weineshob has done with that is like, if you like, look at, let's say you're looking for a life insurance vendor, they're all kind of all the different pieces of that puzzle are in one section, or you're looking for health, they're all in one section, or whatever you're looking for.

Speaker 6 And it's very big and still overwhelming, but you have to do something like that. Then we're going to have educational paths that'll be running in the morning and the afternoon.

Speaker 6 And, but here's the other thing: I'm also creating a thing for vendors, right? So, the vendors, I'm creating an experience for them.

Speaker 6 They're going to have booths that someone can come and talk to them about their product and they can say, Hey, if you want to find out more about my product, I'm on the north demo stage.

Speaker 6 We're going to have two large demo stages at the end of the facility.

Speaker 6 Um, to be inside the hall, to where they can, uh, they're going to have two screens on the side, big stage, 30 seats in front of me, and they can demo their product.

Speaker 6 And then we're going to have a little side area where then they can go and then finish the deal, maybe get them signed up or something. So, I'm trying to create a sales path also for the attendees.

Speaker 7 You know what would be pretty cool is if you created like branded cards, say the event logo on the back, and their

Speaker 7 vendor name and the demo time and place on the front, and give those to them as part of their sponsorship that they can then hand out to people and be like, Hey, don't forget, or maybe there's like a QR code that puts it on their like Google calendar or whatever.

Speaker 7 And like, now that vendor can be passing out because, you know, oftentimes if you just use the app, so, so I'm a big fan in conferences of integrating physical touch things with digital things because I like when i i like having the everything on the you know all the events usually have an app you know and i'm assuming you'll have something we will yeah we'll have an app and i like the app i'm not knocking the app but then i also like to have something i can touch and put in my back pocket because sometimes i don't feel like getting into the app i just want a quick look as a reference and just go oh okay this is where i need to be boom right and then you kind of know that makes sense i'm putting this down in some uh notes here i like yeah like and i like the branded cards the handout for demo yeah yeah, and the fitness.

Speaker 7 And then the back side, you know, the back side with your logo, it's advantageous to you because it's just reinforcing, look how cool this event is. And what you could get is like two or three cards.

Speaker 7 You collecting two or three cards from vendors in your pocket, and you're like, okay, I got to be the north stage to see this vendor.

Speaker 7 And then two hours later, I got to be the south stage because I want to see this vendor. And maybe they're color-coded with which, which

Speaker 7 side they're on or something. I don't know.

Speaker 7 There's just something there. I like the integration integration of, of, because sometimes just having a piece of paper with a schedule on it is easier.

Speaker 7 You know, you put it in your back pocket or you fold it up, you put in your pocket.

Speaker 7 And then other times you're like, you want to scroll through and look at the app and kind of plan what's going or maybe in your hotel room before you kind of launch for the day.

Speaker 7 You know, I, but I do think sometimes conferences that go too digital, you're like, now I'm writing shit down or, or, or it's no digital and you're sitting in your room like, where am I supposed to be?

Speaker 7 I don't even know. Now I got to go downstairs and figure out where I'm supposed to be.
That sucks. So, you you know, marrying the two is a really kind of cool thing.
Sorry, that's kind of new.

Speaker 7 No, no, no, no, no, it's not.

Speaker 6 No, it's not. I haven't actually talked specifically about you.
So I would love that. I mean, I have talked to everybody and their brother on this thing.

Speaker 6 I'm telling you what, I have pulled out all favors, Hanley. So, so here's the deal.

Speaker 6 So, more to mention on this. Not only we have the educational tracks that are going to be going on and teaching people about technology.

Speaker 6 We're going to be having a big party with a big band on Wednesday night, but also we will have an opening session. So, we'll not have speakers all day.

Speaker 6 I will have three speakers in the opening session on Wednesday. I'll have three speakers on the opening session on Thursday.
That's it.

Speaker 6 We're going with high power, not trying to eliminate, bore everybody all day. Now, what I would like to do, what I wanted to state also is it's August 29th, 30th, and 31st.

Speaker 6 That's the last week in August. It's a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Tuesday is actually Indie sales. So, that's for young agents only, 35 years or younger, three years or less in the business.

Speaker 6 That is just for them. They pay $3.99 and they get to go to Indie Sales and Indie Tech.
For any young agent, it's $399 to come. We want it to be cheap.

Speaker 6 Here's the other thing about our price before I go back to the speakers. Our price is $5.99 for the first person in your agency, $3.99 for everyone else.
My food costs, Ryan, are $407.

Speaker 6 I'm losing money. to make sure that I get everybody as many people as I can inside this damn thing.

Speaker 7 That's the key.

Speaker 6 On Thursday, after the keynote speak, which by the way will be Jim Harris, an international, I swear to God, he will is going to be one of the talk of the conference.

Speaker 6 And then one of the next day, my keynote speaker is the one and only Mr. Ryan Hanley here, who I like what you said the other day.

Speaker 7 You're going to do a tech-centric.

Speaker 6 Is that what you said? I like that. I like that.
And it's going to be new stuff. I told him you can't use anything.
This is brand new.

Speaker 6 So I told him, I said, hey, dude, if you want a half million dollars for to do this, I need some new shit.

Speaker 6 So anyways, dude, so anyways, Hanley, the stuff you did and I had you come on doing the mastermind with your leads and your process was freaking gold dude by the way so here's my most important and my my and most excited thing i thought to myself about two weeks ago i thought you know what

Speaker 6 we need the ceos we need to we need to solidify the fact that this is switzerland this is not about the big eye this is not about the pia

Speaker 6 this is not about the large companies applied in verti for who dominate the market this is about independent insurance agents and the technology that's provided for them Let me challenge your listeners.

Speaker 6 90% or more of the technology that you use in your office right now is not InsureTech. It's IndyTech.
It is technology that is made specifically for the independent insurance agent to use.

Speaker 6 InsureTech is technology that's used by insurance carriers for the consumer, maybe to deal with us, maybe help with underwriting.

Speaker 6 Maybe some tech InsureTech can be technology that's made for the consumer that works with us or that works with insurance carriers. But we're talking about technology that works specifically for us.

Speaker 6 So what I did is I invited Reed Holzwerth, the CEO of Ivins. He said yes.
I invited Amy Zupon, who's the CEO of Vertifor. She said yes.
I invited Mike Becker of the PIA. He said yes, the CEO of that.

Speaker 6 And then I have two other invites out. I have one out to Taylor Rhodes,

Speaker 6 the applied CEO. And Taylor is a great guy and is somebody somebody who's very

Speaker 6 committed to the industry. I could imagine he would probably come unless he has some other assignment, I mean, as a CEO.

Speaker 6 And then I also invited Charles Symington, which is the incoming CEO of the big I.

Speaker 6 And what I want to do is I want to talk to them about technology and what are their thoughts and how are what are the initiatives they're pushing? I mean,

Speaker 6 they understand that their audience, their niche is independent agents. What are they doing? Are they working together? Are they not working together? What are some of the things that we can do?

Speaker 6 I would like to see some technology incubators made here in America.

Speaker 6 We're going to try to take a huge amount of the money that we make and we're going to try to give, I would like to probably right now, we're talking about giving it to Abby Knight because of the technology incubator program that he has created in North Carolina, which is ahead of its time.

Speaker 6 And I'll end with this, Ryan. Here's what the crazy thing is.
I want independents to know this. Again, 148 people that are onside this, on this Excel spreadsheet.

Speaker 6 I have a committee of 23 people that are helping me put this together. And we have four people that are doing nothing but are calling people.

Speaker 6 148, Ryan, companies that are indie tech carriers that are creating technology for us right now. And I know less than 30 of them.

Speaker 6 I talked to a guy yesterday, or not yesterday, last week. His name's Carl.
I can release the name of his company in about another week.

Speaker 6 And literally, he has AI built into an agency in Michigan in the browser, bro.

Speaker 6 And he's able to predict what these people are doing next.

Speaker 6 Because, you know, you need for chat GPT, you need a large language model

Speaker 6 to fill and answer the questions of the world. But actually, bro, you don't have to have much data points to understand the data going on in your agency.

Speaker 6 And when you put AI into the browser and you have your staff using it within three to four weeks, 90 to 95 of everything you normally do that computer now knows and now when it can do that the simple things of when it when you get an email and it says hey man um i can't talk right now but can we talk tomorrow can you send me some times the ai's reading that there's no replying to that email that's already being taken care of so i can actually see with jason cass owning a ve company

Speaker 6 unless we decide to transform as a ve company we ain't going to be here in five to ten years. No freaking way.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 So that's why I created NTEC. The other big one is, so one, I'm so excited for the event and honored that you would think of me.

Speaker 7 And to be honest with you, it's the first presentation that I've had any level of anxiety for. And I don't mean anxiety like in a negative way.
Just

Speaker 7 like, I want to crush it. I want to, yeah, I'm excited.
You know, so maybe anxiousness is probably a better way to put it. Because, you know, and look, I got one at One City World Tour.

Speaker 7 Um, I got to kind of, you know, I had a little warm up in Buffalo, which was awesome. And big shout out to Doug Benz and my cousin, Kara Rozak, for having me in.
I had a great event.

Speaker 7 That was kind of an awesome group and it was kind of warm up.

Speaker 7 And then at One City World Tour, I got to kind of rip again and bring in some rogue stuff, which, you know, I got some speaking gigs lined up for this spring.

Speaker 7 One, one of the advantages to being divorced is that I can travel again without getting shit, which is awesome.

Speaker 7 So I'm excited.

Speaker 6 One of the advantages. One of them.

Speaker 7 Yeah, one of the advantages. Yeah.
So I'm, I, uh, so I, um, I'm excited to be back on the scene and doing some speaking. That's been great.
But like, you know, it's basically a, um,

Speaker 7 uh, uh, the next,

Speaker 7 the next iteration of a lot of the similar concepts that I've been talking about just kind of for 2023.

Speaker 7 And, and, and if you've heard my previous presentations, there's maybe 40% is the same, but there's probably 60% new, but it's all right in my head, like clear as day, like I can do it.

Speaker 7 I do it it without slides. I don't talk to slides.
People, you know, probably know that by now.

Speaker 7 You know, I get in the audience. It's, it's, I can do it.
I can do it like I can breathe and I love it. But, but this is different.
This is a different thing. It's a new thing.

Speaker 7 I want to, I have some very specific points that I want to make that I want to get across. And I really want to deliver it well.
So, I mean, honored, honored beyond belief to be part of it.

Speaker 7 And I'm so excited that you're doing this because this has been something you and I have, you know, rashed around for a while is this idea that

Speaker 7 the the

Speaker 7 insurtech

Speaker 7 the i am so glad and you and i have discussed this in different times so glad that indie tech has been the national the the natural evolution out of insurtech or or or a branch a very solid branch out of insurtech that has developed versus this

Speaker 7 you know you know what the what the what the what was being said very early on which was like we're going to take your lunch and you guys need to be discerned you know all that kind of stuff I'm so glad that InsurTech really has found its place, which I think is tremendous.

Speaker 7 And so, having so many amazing InsurTech carriers, and I've been blessed enough to be

Speaker 7 an angel and an investor in a few of them now. And that's probably one of, you know, I don't talk about that very much, but it's one of my favorite, one of my favorite when I'm

Speaker 7 done being an agency owner. I want to, I love being an investor.
I love it. I love the connections.
I love digging into the businesses.

Speaker 7 I love being able to add value or, you know, put people together, matchmake.

Speaker 7 You know, I'm

Speaker 6 that's the mathician in you. That's that mind.
You like that matching and patterns and shit.

Speaker 7 Well, you know what? It knows what it is. Well, I think maybe, maybe.

Speaker 7 You know, really, I only graduated with a math degree because I found someone I could cheat off of that would allow me to graduate.

Speaker 6 But most people don't even take a math class. But anyways, go ahead.
That's true.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that's probably true. But

Speaker 7 in the last year or so, and doing a lot of therapy, I guess, or counseling post the divorce,

Speaker 7 I have real, you know, realized and now I'm kind of officially diagnosed with ADHD, which doesn't, that's not like a, you know, but what it,

Speaker 7 what I've realized, what it's really helped with the diagnosis, people say, well, what does that mean? What does it mean? Because I've mentioned it and people have said, well, whatever.

Speaker 7 It has only helped me in so much as. Now I can communicate with people better and understand

Speaker 7 when something goes on in my brain, now I understand why why it's happening and I can either run with it or I can be like, ah, you know, this is not the right time to follow that path, share that thought, you know, whatever.

Speaker 7 But what it does allow me to do,

Speaker 7 which is one of the things that I love about it, and I was reading this article about like, you know, ADHD as a superpower instead of a set of handcuffs, which it can also be. Absolutely, bro.

Speaker 7 which it can also be, you know, some people, and I think at certain times in my life, it probably was handcuffs for me.

Speaker 7 But at this point, it allows you to take

Speaker 7 like when I'm on stage, right? And you probably know this because I've seen you present as well, although you're a little more methodical than I am.

Speaker 7 It allows me to have different

Speaker 7 narratives happening at the exact same time. So if anyone's seen me talk,

Speaker 7 I weave multiple thoughts in and I can, I go contextual and then I bring it back and then I tie it in later.

Speaker 7 And it's like I can pull from these different narratives happening simultaneously at any given time. And

Speaker 7 what

Speaker 7 if I'm having a conversation with someone, I need to be very focused now that I know that I have this ADHD, I can just be like, just operate in this one narrative, Ryan.

Speaker 7 Don't get off of this narrative. This person's going to get confused or your message is going to get crisscrossed.
Because before I would go

Speaker 7 over here and blah, blah, blah. And people be like, what the fuck is wrong?

Speaker 6 It's like a mental self-awareness.

Speaker 7 Yes. that's worth it.
I like that. You know, because I didn't understand, dude, when you're just sitting there and you don't know something, you know, you don't know, and this thought hits you.

Speaker 7 I don't know, I would just share it. And then people be like, What the? What is wrong with this guy? Like, why is he talking about that right now? And now I know, don't share that thought.

Speaker 7 That's inappropriate. But at different times, you can let it happen and it really helps you.
And

Speaker 7 I don't know how I got that. Oh, so to the, to the, so that

Speaker 7 my, what makes me anxious and excited is I wanna, is that in my presentation that I do today,

Speaker 7 I love to take as many of the narratives as I can and weave them together in this story format and all this kind of stuff. And that's what I love to do as a presenter.

Speaker 7 But in your presentation, in the IndieTech one,

Speaker 7 the challenge for me is I wanna be able to do that in a very, very deliberate way because

Speaker 7 My presentations, when you hire me to present or I come present at your conference, if anyone's listening who does that,

Speaker 7 it's very much like improv. I know the goal, but how we get from A to B is going to be unique every single time.
Every time you hear me speak, it's different. It's never the same thing, right?

Speaker 7 And you know that you've seen it, right? It's true, yeah, it's never the same thing.

Speaker 7 I know where I want to get, but how we get there is going to be a unique path based on how hungover I am, how much of the audience is hungover, what the temperature is, what's going on.

Speaker 7 I mean, I'm joking, but you know, there's going to be a mini variables, kind of on the hungover part. But, um,

Speaker 7 but in this, I don't want to do that.

Speaker 7 And that's what excites me about it is like this is like this is probably one of the biggest things you've done and i want to be the best version of myself for you as your friend i want to deliver to the audience and i think that this event in particular is has the potential to be

Speaker 7 what where i would have loved to have seen Elevate go had everything not happened with Trusted Choice. Like this to me is the natural evolution of where maybe that event would have gone.

Speaker 7 And I'm so excited to see that I think the appropriate person has picked up that mantle and is putting it on, dude. I just couldn't be more excited for you or for the event.

Speaker 6 I'll be honest with you, I tell every vendor, to Indy Tech that I'm on, that I talk to, Ryan, I'm doing this for you. And I tell it to every one of them, like,

Speaker 6 I don't have a dog in the fight. I don't have a tech company.
I'm just doing it because I'm tired of people asking me, so where do you use WonderWrite in your process?

Speaker 6 And what's these automations you're always talking about there at A-Z? You know, I'm tired of people, they need, we need a place where you can go.

Speaker 6 When somebody goes to their local convention in their state, they're going for CE credits. They're not going for the trade show to look for technology.

Speaker 6 And they can't anyways, because there's not all the technology there. But here is something I wanted to, I want to hit back on.
This is important, Ryan. This is important.

Speaker 6 You've talked about something.

Speaker 6 You know,

Speaker 6 for Fetterman, I think his name is the senator out of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 7 That they should have never elected because

Speaker 6 of all because of all the shit that we're going to go through. But the point is, he's come through.

Speaker 7 And his wife is the Antichrist.

Speaker 6 He's come through and he has,

Speaker 6 and for all the listeners, I'm not agreeing or denying that. I'm just, I'm trying to keep my focus.

Speaker 7 No, he nodded when I said that his wife is the Antichrist and he should have never been elected.

Speaker 6 He nodded when I said, but I don't want to go down that road is what I'm saying.

Speaker 6 Not yet, though. But mental illness, mental illness

Speaker 6 is a serious thing. And to be honest with you, I don't want to say it.
It's not a serious thing.

Speaker 7 It's what it is.

Speaker 6 It's like

Speaker 6 having heart disease is a serious thing,

Speaker 6 but it is manageable, right? And I'm not saying that's a terrible probably example, but here's the thing. I have bipolar disorder.
I'm on the manic side. I am medicated.

Speaker 6 I take 200 milligrams of lamictol every day. That's what Jason takes.

Speaker 6 And here's the deal. My dad has it.
A lot of my family has got it.

Speaker 7 I tell,

Speaker 6 I talk to young adults about this because they feel like weird about it.

Speaker 6 Like, and when I say young adults, I'm literally talking young adults, 18, 20, 24-year-olds, and doctors will have me talk to them.

Speaker 6 And the reason is, as I explained to them, that actually it is the biggest blessing they've probably ever been given, but it can actually be the most detrimental thing in their life.

Speaker 6 The only difference is, is you have to take the pill. If you take the pill, and it's tough to find the right one, but if you can get through it and you can take the pill, you now do have a superpower.

Speaker 6 When you said that, I have an absolute superpower. If anybody knows my life, people would say, Jason, when do you sleep?

Speaker 6 I want everybody to know I go to bed at 7:30 o'clock every night and I get up at 4:30 in the morning and I'm at work by five. That's just how my life is, right?

Speaker 6 But that's part of that, but I have to manage it. I love what you're saying.
I have two, I tell my wife, like this not like I have two voices in my head, but I do.

Speaker 6 Like there's one, I have one guy on one shoulder. Remember the cartoons, the good, the bad? But mine's not the good, the bad.

Speaker 6 Mine's more of, hey, Cass, this is probably, as you said, probably not the time that you need to have that conversation as opposed to unmedicated.

Speaker 6 Well, we're having this goddamn conversation right now. And I wasn't the man, I wasn't the depression side.
I'm manic.

Speaker 6 The doctor told me, he said, if, if, if, if somebody, if we operate between a one and a 10, 10 being manic, one being depression, most people operate in that four to six area.

Speaker 6 He's like, you kind of operate in that like seven to nine area.

Speaker 6 And that lamictal doesn't bring me back to four to six it just brings me back pretty close and in today's society being different is a strength so that's where this comes it may not have been a strength 200 years ago or maybe 50 years ago i don't know you know what i mean i wasn't here then i will say uh un unmedicated calves was pretty fun to roll through a conference with back in the the early 2010 But my wife didn't think that that was very fun.

Speaker 7 She just didn't. And people say, here's what people say.

Speaker 6 I'll end with this. This is what people say.

Speaker 7 This is so important for people here out there.

Speaker 6 They say, Jason, what's the difference?

Speaker 6 Tell me the difference. And I say to them every time the same thing: I don't know.
All I do know is there was Jason before the medication and there was Jason after the medication.

Speaker 6 And they are night and beeping day.

Speaker 7 Well, I'll tell you from my perspective, knowing you both before and after, obviously, not knowing you when you were a kid or whatever, but you know, we met what 15 years ago.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 the difference for me is you were

Speaker 7 full of potential before the medication. You are realizing that potential with the medication.
Well said. I like that.
Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 7 That's what I see in you is that, dude, the ideas, I mean, your intelligence, your work ethic,

Speaker 7 you know,

Speaker 7 a certain level of even brilliance to many of the things that you put together and do and say and how you act.

Speaker 7 It was all there always, but you did not have the ability to harness it until you became medicated.

Speaker 7 And since that time, the things that you've done, the decisions you've made, the places you've taken, your agency, your partnerships, the removal of ego,

Speaker 7 the challenges you've taken on.

Speaker 7 To me, you know, just watching from the outside, I couldn't be happier for you because it's like, here's this guy that I've cared about for so long and watched. And

Speaker 7 just to see you kind of doing the things you're doing, it's tremendous.

Speaker 6 and i'm sorry ryan ryan here's what's important about what you just said someone out there needs to hear that

Speaker 6 someone out there needs to hear that right they're full of potential but they like you said are are have they they're looking for a way to release that you know have they done that you know and and and hey dude i mean i gotta admit i smoke a lot of weed i mean it's just the way it is man i i i remember i used to hide it all the time but i don't it's my creative type i like to get high at night and then i come up with crazy ideas and i wake up in the morning and then sober i execute on them.

Speaker 6 That's a secret.

Speaker 7 I literally have the same exact

Speaker 7 in figuring out why, what is it about me? Because dude, you know, again, this is, I, I don't have the same thing as you, but it, but it's similar

Speaker 7 in certain ways. And like, I, I'm a workaholic.
And the reason is, is I can't turn off certain veins of thought. I literally can't turn them off.

Speaker 7 You'll be like, how is it that you're up at five working and you're working until 10 and you're working here and you're working in between all these meetings and you're working.

Speaker 7 And I'm like, if I don't work, I get into trouble. Like if I don't lift, I get into trouble.

Speaker 7 If I don't coach kids' sports teams, I get into trouble because there's all these fucking thoughts going through my head. Well said, right.
You know, I mean, all the trouble. I'm capable of all of it.

Speaker 7 You know what I mean? Like, I, you know, I, like I said before, like there's a, you know, I try to be a very nice person. I love people.
I love being nice to people.

Speaker 7 And please, if I'm being nice to you, it's genuine, you know, but there's also this fucking murderous side of me that I can't help.

Speaker 7 And like, and to that point, what I found is what, what in particular,

Speaker 7 and like, I love a good cocktail like anybody else, but.

Speaker 7 But what weed in particular does for me is it gives me these moments at the end of the day where I can take and choose almost, and I don't know how to describe this to people, but I get to choose the narrative in my head that I want to pursue and just one of them.

Speaker 7 If that makes sense, that may not make sense, but like

Speaker 7 if I would normally go to bed and I'd be thinking about this thing that has to be done and this person I have to call and this thing and what's my schedule here?

Speaker 7 And then all the creative ideas and all that's going on at once, what the, what the, you know, smoking a little joint at the end of the night allows me to do is go, I'm just going to think about this one thing or, or hey, I'm just going to mellow out into this, into a TV show for 20 minutes and pass out, you know, or whatever.

Speaker 7 And I didn't get to do that before, you know, like I I didn't understand what was going on with me or like my wife, you know, well, I obviously ex-wife now, but she'd be like, what is wrong with you?

Speaker 7 Why are you still working? Why don't you blah, blah, blah? And I'd be like, I can't stop. I just, it's on my brain.
I can't be comfortable sitting on the couch here with you.

Speaker 7 Well, not, she wouldn't sit next to me on the couch, but, you know, I can't be comfortable watching TV at the end of the night sitting here. Like,

Speaker 7 I just can't be. I can't be comfortable doing it.
And now,

Speaker 7 you know, I'm not talking about smoking a blunt into my face and losing my

Speaker 7 mind.

Speaker 6 Hell no, hell no.

Speaker 7 Just kind of, yeah, just like a little

Speaker 7 percent.

Speaker 7 I can't wake up the next day if I don't know. I know, a little mellowing.
And it's like, ah, this is the way normal people are. Like, this is the way normal people are.

Speaker 7 Like, they just get to like exist and relax. Like, holy shit, this is crazy.
Like, I didn't even know that this was possible.

Speaker 6 I know. It is.
It is. And, you know, and I've, and I've went many, many times for a year, year and a half, right?

Speaker 6 And then, like, the first time I sit down and I smoke again, all of a sudden, things that I've been thinking about for six months, I figure out the answer to them in about freaking five minutes.

Speaker 7 I'm like, dude, holy crap, I've been thinking about this shit forever. And so I feel like you're constantly,

Speaker 7 I, I almost feel like I'm constantly out over my skis just a little bit. And it's hard to keep everything together.

Speaker 7 And then it kind of gives it now my, my, my counselor wanted me to go on Lexapro, which I didn't want to do. And it's not a judgment of anybody who's who's on it.
And I know a lot of people are.

Speaker 7 I unfortunately have had a couple of friends try to come off of it and have very, very bad experiences. And then that's, that's what Jordan Peterson was on.

Speaker 7 And he documented his trying to get off of it. And while I do honestly believe that it would probably help me on a day-to-day basis,

Speaker 7 I don't want to have to think that if I ever want to get like, dude, I could stop smoking spot tomorrow.

Speaker 7 You're just like, I know it.

Speaker 7 It's not a need. It's a tool that I use.

Speaker 7 i do i like you said i do not smoke during the day ever this is like uh nine i i tend to wind down like nine nine thirty ish so like it's like around that time you know i usually go to bed i'm usually asleep by 11.

Speaker 7 and like um wow never during the day you know never during the day ever and you know whatever and that's that's kind of my routine and I have complete control of it. I could stop it tomorrow.
I have.

Speaker 7 I've gone weeks because I just felt fine or whatever. It was all good.

Speaker 6 But there's other medication you don't not sure about that, but you're sure about this.

Speaker 7 I never want to be able to feel like I can't pull the rip cord and get away from something.

Speaker 7 So, you know, that's why I made that decision. And seemingly, it's working well.
I mean,

Speaker 7 you know, I haven't strangled anybody in a while.

Speaker 6 So, yeah, I know, I know. Yep, yep, yep.
That's what it is. Hey, man, this has been great.

Speaker 6 I think what we need to name it is

Speaker 6 Smoking Weed, ND Tech 2023, and Silverback Gorillas.

Speaker 7 Dude, here's what I will say: give everybody, uh, as we get out of here, where do they go? What's the website? Can they buy tickets now? What's the call to action here?

Speaker 6 Well, actually, here we go.

Speaker 6 So, it is a member, it's in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, because um, because uh, Hanley has taught me marketing well, Indy Tech, because we're indie dependent agents, love it.

Speaker 6 Um, and it's a 2019 town, too.

Speaker 6 It is a decent town, Indy Tech. That's I-N-D-I-E-T-E-C-H2023.com.
That's Indytech2023.com. You can go there.

Speaker 6 Now, today, as we record, it's one o'clock in the afternoon Central Standard Time on February 22nd, March 1st, registration does open to attendees. Vendors have already been this will be out by then.

Speaker 6 So if you're listening to this, go to registration 2023 and registration is open. And here's the thing, a lot of people don't know.

Speaker 6 I believe we haven't locked this in yet, but if you sign up in the month of

Speaker 6 March, you are going going to get a six-month subscription to Loss Run Pro.

Speaker 7 Okay. Now, this is

Speaker 7 love Loss Run Pro.

Speaker 7 Right. Yes.

Speaker 6 We also have some people that we're going to put into a drawing, and you're going to get a total tech stack remake by either StackWise or Lava Automation. So we're, yeah, we got all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 7 I like both of them too. Lava Automation that used to,

Speaker 7 former client of Lava Automation, not because of, didn't leave because didn't like their service, just you know, had a couple of things going on. Um, big fan of all that, very

Speaker 6 we used five thousand dollars worth of value on that tech stock.

Speaker 6 Yeah, dude, these are the things that are going on. Indie Tech 2023, thank you very much for letting me be that man, Ryan.

Speaker 7 You're the man, let's get out of here.

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