214. Power Games, Authenticity, and Entrepreneurship with Donald Shampine

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I want to give you a framework of the way I've learned to view the world,

which has changed a little bit.

I always thought, to some degree, greed drove the world.

And I've come to the conclusion, and this is not my own thought.

You know, it's been expressed before.

I just, I've embraced it to follow it.

It's envy that drives the world.

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello and welcome back to the show.
Today we have a tremendous episode for you, a conversation with Donald Champagne. And Donald is the president and CEO of Michigan Insurance Group.
He's also the creator of Want Better, Be Better, a public speaking and thought leadership brand that Donald is creating. And we've connected over time and just our mindsets align quite closely.

And what I was interested in talking to Donald about was not just insurance, insurance business, but I was interested in why he decided to create the Want Better Be Better brand. Because we know that as an executive, an owner, a founder of an insurance agency, that's a challenging work.
It takes a lot of mindset, a lot of brain cycles, a lot of time, energy, et cetera. And to create a separate brand in which you're creating on social channels and helping people better understand business and leadership and et cetera, it could be a distraction.
But Donald's doing a great job with it. I love the message that he's sharing.
I think it's powerful. I think it's important.
I think he's helping people. And I was very interested in his decision to do that.
And we dive into what it means to be an agency principal as well as have a thought leadership brand attached to that work. And I think that a lot of us are intrigued by this.
Not everybody. Many of you listening are like, you know what, Ryan, I'd never want to do that.
And I completely understand. But there are just as many listening, and I can promise you because I get the messages that think about this.
Hey, I have something to say. I'd love to share a message, et cetera.
And what does that mean? And then we just dive into some general leadership mindset stuff, how it applies to both our lives and the insurance industry. This is a wonderful episode.
You're going to love listening to Donald, and I highly recommend that you connect with him on his social channels, which will be linked up in the show notes of this episode, wherever you're listening to it, whether it's Apple or Spotify or YouTube. That being said, before we go, I want to remind you of the first project coming out of Finding Peak LLC, and that is the Insurance Growth Mastermind.
As you know, last month, Rogue Risk was shut down, so I became a free agent again, I guess you could say, and I don't want what I've learned of the last 18 years of my career,

starting with my eight years at the Murray Group, finishing with the last three years, three plus years at Rogue Risk to die with Rogue Risk. I want you guys to have that information.
I want to give back to this incredible industry that has completely changed my life and put me in a position that I could have never imagined possible as a child.

The insurance industry is an incredible industry filled with incredible people, but there are

processes that I've figured out through conversations with literally thousands of successful, in

some cases, world-class, internationally successful individuals, both inside and outside of the insurance industry, I was able to derive a process, which I call the one-call-close process. And that process led to, on average, 85% close ratio for the reps at Rogue Risk, which to me is, it's just, it's not comparable to anything else in our space.
Most call centers, most inbound operations struggle to close 30 to 40% of the leads that come in. And we cracked that nut.
We figured out the code, we implemented it, and we saw incredible growth at Rogue Risk in

the last 17 months, particularly since we were purchased by SIA. And I do not want that knowledge to die with Rogue Risk.
So what we're going to do is I'm going to teach you everything that I know about growing an insurance agency. In particular, we're putting together coursework for the one call close process.
If you're interested in learning more, go to masterclass.insure. That's masterclass.insure.
Masterclass.insure. Also have links in the show notes, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, et cetera, that you can click on.
Put in your name and email. And as we get closer to the launch, which is going to be the week of January 16th, you'll be notified on how to sign up, how to become part of this group, and guys, you've only ever known me as part of other organizations, as a number two, three, four man in another organization.
You've never known me on my own 100%. Certainly not in a thought leadership, education, consulting, coaching capacity.
And for the next period of time in my career, my goal is going to be to help everybody who wants it grow their insurance agency. And this is the first project of many that are coming down the pipe.
I encourage you to go to masterclass.insure. That's masterclass.insure.
Sign up today and you'll be the first to know. All right.
With that, let's get on to Donald. You're going to love this episode.
So what's up, man? Oh, just wrapping up some end of the year stuff, just talking with the team and then meet with other agency owners that i do some work with to help them kind of formalize their strategic uh goals for the following year and just busier than i that than i want to be and i'm not sure it's it's it's productive as it should be so I'm just trying to figure it all out how about you same um same but different obviously uh you know ever since uh Rogue was shut down you know I've kind of been in full figuring out what the next steps are mode and um that has been an interesting process and not interesting in a bad way. It's been very cleansing to a certain extent because I've had to think through like, okay, I've had, you know, five opportunities now, five companies that I've worked for.
And at least four of them, I wasn't really at Bold Penguin long to to make a real impact uh so say four of them i have real substantial track record of fairly high performance yet all four kind of came to a screeching halt uh without my own you know that that wasn't my decision so right i've i've i've had to do a lot of soul searching on that what does that mean um what role did i play in those which obviously i did you know it would be foolish and and childish to to act as if i didn't play a role in those things so i've had to figure out what was my role what what do i really want you know real existential questions oh yeah and and and it's been you know and i don to sound negative. It's been incredibly positive.
Uh, it's been really, really fun to do that work. I think when we're going through our day to day and, and doing what we do, it's very difficult to slow down, stop, think like, am I actually doing what I want to do? I think we have inklings of it.
We may get little, little surges of, uh, or little, um, moments of clarity where a thought will pop into our head or an ideal pop in our head, or, or maybe we're reading a book and it, and it creates a, a vein of thought that maybe we are or aren't or, or whatever. But when you, whatever.
But when you don't have a job and you have nothing but time, it gives you the ability to slow down and really think about that. So that's what I've been doing.
I've been saying, I said to myself, I'm not going to waste this time. I'm not going to say, oh, well, it's the holiday season.
So I'm going to take this and just do whatever. And I'll think about it in the new year or whatever.
I've that's not the way that I am. But two, I just kind of committed myself to, I'm just going to keep pushing.
I'm going to figure out what the next steps are, how I can add value and start to layer projects in a way that I do eventually need to make money again. So there's that that um but also what do i want to do right and and really it's that it's that then diagram that you see where it's like uh what you're good at where you can add value and what the market will actually pay pay for and like the middle of that is is really your sweet spot of where you should be working sure um you know i've i've done all those exercises and feel pretty good about what 2024 could bring.
So it's been an interesting time. So can I ask, I mean, without going too far off where you wanted to talk today, but what did you, what made you get risk, rogue risk? So I did not get rid of rogue risk.
SA decided to go in a different strategic direction. And for purposes of being fair to them, not knowing the whole answer, I was never given really the whole answer.
I was just really given the decision. And understanding that I really like the people at SIA.
I've said it to them, and I don't think that I'm being unfair when I say I think that I was disappointed in the decision. And I think that it's a shame because we really figured something out at Rogue.
We really did. I think we had a very unique process that was creating results that are, frankly, when the industry really hears and sees what we were doing, I think they'll be shocked at how fast we were growing, the way we were growing, how we were doing it.
But I also know that business is business. And SIA, Rogue was a portfolio company of SIAs, right? We were like one of 14 companies that they had purchased and rolled up into their ecosystem.
And SAA is one of multiple portfolio companies of the PE company that owned them. So there's layered decisions and priorities.
So were you like your own network or like were you an agency that got bought by a network that got bought by? Yeah, it said the latter. So basically in 2022, and I've talked about it on the show before, you know, I sold to SIA.
OK. And I had originally been looking for funding.
I was looking for funding. And then when in in December of 2021, my now ex-wife decided that she no longer wanted to be married to me.
Okay. And that created a situation where I needed more than funding.
Or I needed, it created a distressed sales situation where I needed to figure out a solution that was going to allow me to kind of, you know, maintain, you know, continue living, I guess, you know, because I wasn't taking a salary out of Rogue Risk. I had two employees, three employees at that point, but I was just putting everything that everything that came in the business that didn't go to my employees and salary was going right back into the business to help grow.
So I wasn't taking a salary. So things had to change.
I sold SIA. It was a very good thing.
I think they're good people. I think they have a good mission.
I do not have one ounce of ill will towards them in any regard. However, you know, I was this, you know, we were kind of an odd part of their portfolio.
Okay. You know, they have their networks, which they do very well.
They had these kind of very traditional retail agencies that they had purchased that they were running. And then you kind of had Rogue Risk, which was a startup, was doing things very differently, using very different tools from the rest of the ecosystem.
Yeah, I mean, based on our prior conversations, you guys did things like more cutting edge type technology

type stuff, which is where I think the industry is going to go.

Yeah.

Why would they?

Well, but anyway, I mean, it's the SIA.

I think that I'm part of the SIA as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, um, like I said, I don't have any will to it.

I think, I think the thought was a good one. I think that, you know, when Matt and I first came, what did they pay you to leave? Yeah.
I'm, I'm, I'm all right for a little while. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, no, they, they, the decision aside, which I obviously, my preference would have been to keep growing it. Uh, you know, that aside, I'll be fine.
Um, you know, I'll, I'll, you know, I have a severance or whatever. I'll, I'll be, I'll be fine.
And they made sure, I'll be fine. You know, I'll, you know, I have a severance or whatever.
I'll be, I'll be fine. They made sure that I'll be fine.
And my people are good. Most of my people who are working for me, I either found jobs for, or they found jobs for pretty quickly.
So everyone seems to be in a good place. So in general, I'm in a good spot.
I'm sorry to, I think clearly understand all the turmoil you've gone through in this last couple of years. So I, I, I'm sorry you had to go through.
I mean, I know road comes through hard processes, but, but doesn't necessarily make it easy. So I, you know, just for what it's worth, that's where you went through it.
But you know, the odd thing about my career and the further I go back in my life, I kind of see this as a pattern is, um, I have been forced through either my own decisions, situationally, et cetera, you know, whatever you want to say, fortune. I have been forced to restart many times, many, many times.
And, you know, a pattern that I very much want to break in my life is this idea growth in some cases massive growth followed by a sharp

ending um and then having to restart and i want you want the parachute you don't want you want

the parachute fall you don't want the drop into the land just once i'd like it to be my decision

You know And my point in saying that is

One, you know I've been kicked in the

Thank you. Just once I'd like it to be my decision.
Okay. You know, and my point in saying that is one, you know, I've been kicked in the teeth quite a few times.
Yeah, yeah. And what I've learned is how to pick myself back up.
That's a lot of the stuff that I do on Instagram and the kind of motivational leadership stuff that I teach or just share is really a diary to myself. I'm speaking to myself.
It should be. It really should be.
And honestly, if you've never gone through anything of any type of significant adversity in your life, you really don't have a position of value to provide someone else. It's through our own adversity.
Keep talking. Keep talking.
It's through our own adversity that we've gone through that has taught us the things that we need to do to be successful. Like, you know, to me, it's like, we have to have the struggle and then we can share the struggle.
Dude, I just read this today. So I'm reading The Prince by Machiavelli.
Okay, yeah. I shared this line.
I read that a long time ago. Oh, dude, this should be mandatory reading.
I should be reading that one because it's a long time ago. This should be mandatory reading.
So I kind of had a – we'll just – and I wrote about this in the newsletter that will come out the week that we're recording this. There's no context to when this will come out and so people don't worry about it.
But the idea is – so I started reading the 48 Laws of – I'm pointing at my chair. People who are listening have no idea this gesture I'm making.
I'm pointing at my reading chair. But I have this stack of books.
And the book that I started with is 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. Yeah.
And the very first lesson or the very first law of 48 laws of power is do not overshadow the expert or the master or whatever. i was like you know and i that one hit me really hard because when i look and i had never framed it this way in my mind but when i look at at least two of the instances in my career in which my career ended very abruptly both in post post analysis, that's what it was.
So like when I got fired from trustedchoice.com slash agency nation, a year later, uh, when I finally kind of made up with the CEO of the company and everything, um, you know, he told me that one of the primary reasons that he fired me is he thought that I was coming after his job which I was not I was not coming after his I did not want his job his job was political and he was very good at it very very good at it but it wasn't what I wanted to do but I was dude I'm loud I talk fast I have hardcore ADHD I can manage multiple things at once I love being engaged I love being part of things and I think that I did not manage my brand associated to those brands properly in a way in which I showed deference to him and to leadership. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
You know what I mean? So like if i were to do it again knowing what i know today because i loved agency nation is probably my favorite i mean i loved rogue risk too so before rogue risk agency needs to be my favorite job i ever had i woke up every day and my job was to help agents do their job better that that that was it research things talk to people go to conferences help agents do their job better That was what I did every day. I loved it.
But I did it in a way. I was OK being provocative.
I was OK pushing the envelope. I was OK.
I have no problem taking fodder. Right.
I used to get calls. I tell people all this all the time.
They think I'm crazy. But like the board of the of the national big i the board members i would get weekly calls from them admonishing me for something that i had said like um but you know why how dare you say that iaoa is a good facebook group for people to join like stupid shit like that they're like i mean that's because i don't understand like i challenge them on the same thing like why are you so against the IAOA? They're supporting the independent network channel.
So I was of the same mindset. I've said the same things.
Maybe that's not as provocative. And look, I love the states.
The state big-eye associations, for the most part, are wonderful organizations run by wonderful people who are trying their best to support agents give them the tools resources they need the national big eye i don't know what it is today but run under the former administration was not that and then in many ways my personal opinion is they were actually doing things to subvert independent agents to keep control over them. And it absolutely blew my mind and open, you know, took took a layer of ignorance, you know, a veil of ignorance off of my eyes.
When when I started when I I mean, I'm talking to Nick Ayers on the phone, getting to know this guy, learning about what they're doing. It's a Facebook group, a free Facebook group.
That's it. that's it there's no charge right this is the early days this is back in like 2016 and i just mentioned it on a podcast i wasn't even interviewed i hadn't even interviewed him yet i just mentioned it on a podcast that i thought it was like a cool place for people to connect and grow and learn and i got five five of the seven national big eye board members called me and yelled at me for doing that.
You don't understand, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I don't understand.
And it's like, did they explain it? Yeah, it was all fear and power. And so this is what I started.
So, dude, I'm a huge self-reflector. All these things are data points in my mind, right? Yeah.
And so this is why I dug into power. This is why I dug into the 48 laws of power.
power and it's why i'm reading the prince which i want to read this quote because it goes off of what you said and you can tell my adhd is off the charts today because i'm all over the place but um but this is why i dug into these these ideas of power and power games is because i realized i don't play these games very well right um i've always thought that if you're honest and authentic and hardworking, everything will work out. And what I've realized is that is absolutely positively not the case.
That is a naive way to view the world. It is a very biblical way to approach the world, but it is not a way to get through the real world of life.
If we take the Bible, and I know some people are going to get mad at me for saying this, as a framework for how to live your life, right? It does not, there are realities to the world in the evil side of the nature of people, and not necessarily evil in its purest sense, but just in the fact that people are selfish, self-oriented, they're going to do what's in their best nature, right? And their best nature, irregardless of how that impacts you. Irregardless isn't a word, sorry.
And, you know, it just sounds good. That's a good word.
It makes you sound smarter, even though technically not a word. That I was like, I don't understand this, right? Because I've always just been an open book.
People are like, oh, my God, I can't. I had somebody say to me the other day, and they weren't being a jerk.
They were like, I think it's really amazing that you would have the strength to tell people that you go see a counselor every other week. And I'm like, that's, why would I even think twice about saying that? Like it doesn't, I go whether I'm in a good mood, a bad mood, if I'm having a problem, if I'm not in a problem, to me, it's just a life expense.
But the idea is, and what the person said is, people will use that against you. If someone needs to get something, they'll say, ah, you know, there might be something wrong with him or he's a little crazy or you're not sure if you can trust him.
Like he's got to go see a counselor. And they're like, your authenticity people use against you.
So now I'm reading these books going, these are the decisions that we have to make in our life is there's a trade-off to all these things. I don't really know.
I have to start to decide if I'm going to play real power games, right? If I'm going to get. What's up guys guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show.
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Peace.

Let's get back to the episode.

Involved in larger business deals and deals that involve the accumulation of assets, buying companies, et cetera, I have to be able to play power games. And just being honest, direct, authentic, and transparent, it opens you up to other people being able to tear you apart and have you lose those games.
So there's that trade-off, right? Am I true to who I am and what I believe makes me a good person? Because I do think those things are very positive. And lose the power games? Or do I start to be more considerate of how I act, what I share, when I share it, how I share it, so that I'm not giving people these easy victories over me in games of power.
And that is just something I'm starting to wrap my head around. It's interesting.
I want to give you a framework of the way I've learned to view the world, which has changed a little bit. I always thought, to some degree, greed drove the world.
And I've come to the conclusion, and this is not my own thought. It's been expressed before.
I've embraced it to follow it. It's envy that drives the world.
And if you think about it from that standpoint, a lot of the things that you've dealt with are based on an envious position. It's not because they're afraid that you're going after something you want.
They're afraid that you're going after something they have. Yeah.
And with that, when you start to look at the world that way, it changes a few things. But the one thing I would say is if it were me, I would want to hold on to my authentic self as much as possible, but also using the necessary restraint in the proper places and situations that I'm in.
Because I don't want to have to be less of who I am, but I also know that sometimes I don't have to be the biggest voice in the room, obviously, you know, to sit back. But I don't want, but I'm not a quiet person.
I'm engaged. I want to be active.
I want to talk. I want to, so sometimes being less of who I am, but I don't want to be someone I'm not completely.
If the only way I have to win in the world is to not be true to myself, then I'd rather lose. I read rather, and I know that's a hard position because it's like, okay, I've been, you know, I've been honest.
I've been direct. I've been, you know, transparent and I've lost in every scenario, but I'm going to tell you that.
I don't know that monetarily, maybe you've lost. I don't know.
I, you know, I've never looked at your finances, obviously, but I think you've won so many battles that you don't know because you held true to yourself. And your impact is so much bigger because you set standards that other people want to achieve.
Even when failing, holding yourself up and then becoming more self-aware. Like, I failed.
Why did I fail? What could I have done better? Instead of going, you, you, you, it's all this, this, and this is a conspiracy that everyone's out there. It's like, no, it's like, yeah, this isn't exactly how I want my world to be, but how can I improve who I am through this process so that my next go is different? And the ripple effect of that impact on people's lives, because you don't know who you've changed just because of one conversation or one reality that you lived through.
And someone said, well, he went through all that. My life isn't so bad, but I can figure this out because Ryan really went through some real stuff.
And I think I'm going through real stuff, but now that I put it in perspective and I get a little bit of positioning to think this through, maybe this is where I need to be. Maybe I need to have this struggle so I can experience this, so I can grow from this.
So there's so much of that. Yeah.
One, I appreciate you saying that too. I want to be clear.
I'm definitely not going to change who I am because I agree with you. And ultimately all I really care about are helping the people that listen to this show that I care about helping.
I care about helping people. Like that's, that's it.
But what I want, but what I want and, and right. So I take the people who play these games for a living as my enemy, right? This is the enemy, the people who play these games in inauthentic ways.
But if I don't know how they're playing, I can't play my version of the game in their world. Right.
So like if I am ignorant to the, to the power games that are being played against me, then I can't position myself in a way to not be impacted by them or to weather the storm when they're being played. So I guess that's, so to be clear to everyone, I'm not going to change all of a sudden start lying to you.
That's not what's going to happen. But I do think that it is important for us to, it is important for us to understand how the other side plays the game.
Sure. And, and, and I agree with you.
I think that it is always, I think oftentimes it is some percentage of greed and envy. And I do believe that envy is oftentimes the primary driver,

but this quote from Machiavelli and this book is, this book is phenomenal. I mean,

it's, it's eyeopening and amazing. And I know that it gets, I think in a, in a beta driven

kind of woke world, a book like this gets painted in a negative light, and it shouldn't be, right? This is, there's really good stuff in here. And one of the lines that I pulled out was those, and this goes to what you said maybe 10 minutes ago, those who rise from private citizens to be princes merely by fortune have little trouble in rising, but very much in maintaining their position.
Essentially what he is saying, and by fortune, he means you may be your friends with someone in power or your family is in a position of power and you are gifted it. So think second generation agency principal, very easy to become the principal, right? Very easy.
Father retires, mother retires, aunt retires, et cetera. You get that position.
It's just kind of because of your birthright, you're in that spot. However, how many of those situations, because they did not have to sweat and bleed and be bruised and bloody and broken to make it to that position.
How many of those agency principles then struggle to maintain the success of that agency had? And ultimately, those agencies usually stagnate. It's hard to really lose in our industry because of the nature of our revenue model, which is amazing.
But they often stagnate. They often have a hard time with innovation and, and that's not to say all of them.
I know, I know a ton of very good generation, but it is that, that ease of accumulation that oftentimes leads to troubled times. It's like that, uh, strong men create good times, good times, create soft men, soft men, create bad times, bad times, create a strong men.
Um, like that idea, he hammers on this in this book. And I thought it was, I thought it was really, really interesting was just hammers on it just over and over again on this idea that if you didn't have to build the skill set to get to the position, you have to be what he calls exceptional exceptional to to continue to grow or to maintain power because what will happen is people will smell your weakness and start to subvert you and that could be your employees stealing time it could be uh an employee who who worked for a parent for 20 years at a certain salary and all the way and has some has some some, um, maybe legacy knowledge comes in and now starts leveraging for, for more salary or et cetera.
And, um, it's just, I find these things just so intriguing. And he wrote this in the freaking 1600, man.
Yeah. It's crazy.
When we go back and it's one of the reasons why I think history is so important is it should give us a foundational understanding of how we got to where we're at. Yeah.
I'm not a big fan of living in the past. I talk a lot about that when I talk and shoot, you know, my videos about not focusing on the mistakes of the past, but you should at least recognize how they got there.
And if you go further back, you start to recognize the successful people that have written things that withstand the test of time because they are just as valuable today as they were when they were first written, even if it's 400 years ago. That tells you that there is a underlying idea that is so important to people in their daily existence that they're ignoring because it's there, it's available, but it's like, well, but it's not easy for me to understand it's easy for me to read not easy for me to apply so i'm going to focus on things that more align with my simple processes that i exist in on a day-to-day basis yeah i i agree with that i think that i think the easier path is always to stay shallow and i don't mean shallow like um like uh physically viewing something viewing something shallow.
I mean mentally and emotionally skipping off the surface of life, right? It's so easy to just, what's the next thing I have to do today? Oh, I got a case of the Mondays. Oh, it's hump day.
You know, thank God it's Friday. I, my team and I, you know, we used to talk about how if, if someone in their interview, like one of the questions, cause that, cause towards the end I stopped interviewing people.
And, um, cause one, I'm terrible at interviewing people. Cause ultimately all I ended up doing is selling my business.
You know what I mean? So it's like, I was like, don't, I was like, I'll come in and be part of a conversation, but I can't be one-on-one cause all I'll do is start selling my baby to them and why they need to come work. So I can't do that.
Um, and I know that about myself. So I remove myself, but I was like, one of the questions that they would ask sometimes is, have you ever said, thank God it's Friday.
And if the person answered yes, that would be like a negative mark on their thing because, you know, to me jokingly once in a while, is this a big deal? No, but it's the concept of like, if you're, I got a case of the Mondays followed by your whatever Tuesday followed by your hump day Wednesday, you are literally, you're not engaged in the work. You're just trying to get through.
And this idea, in my opinion, is systemic to the mentality of individuals where we're not reflecting. I agree with you.
We don't want to live in the past. And I think the defining difference for that to me is being critical versus being self-reflective.
Yes. I never want to be critical of my past.
Past happened. It happened.
But if we can be self-reflective, if we can say, okay, I did this thing. It was stupid.
Shouldn't have said that. Shouldn't have done this.
Whatever the issue was. But what can I learn from it? Well, a good example of this is I had a meeting with the HR team at SIA.
It had to do with an employee. I was frustrated with the situation.
And so I knew it was going to be a, not like an angry conversation, but I knew it was going to be slightly contentious because I was wanting something to happen. It wasn't happening fast enough, doesn't matter.
Then at seven o'clock in the morning, I had a call from a client that was like a pretty big issue.

Then at, you know, 9 a.m., I got a call about another issue.

So now I had big issue followed by big issue followed by this call.

And I rolled into that call on fire.

And the call went horribly, right?

Because I'm just fired up. So, okay.
So that call happens, whatever. Get done.
The next day, I call both the people that are on the call. I'm like, look, sorry.
That was my fault. And, you know, you look back on it and you're like, okay, they were pissed.
You know, they were pissed that I was, you know, uh, uh, not whatever I was, I wasn't being respectful. I was, I was like, it doesn't matter.
And, but the idea was okay. When you're, when you're, when you feel yourself getting out of your skis, take a deep breath, approach each conversation as a new fresh start.
Okay. We can be self-reflective or I could be like, you stupid son of a bitch.
Why would you do that think you're this and you know now you got to deal with this and i think those are two one is just kind of skipping off of the surface and the other is diving in and going okay how can i actually make myself better the next time we do this and this goes for meeting you know meetings with right this could be you know in an insurance business this is maybe a sales call right are you if you no's in a row, your 11th call, you're probably already lined up for a no. Or are you resetting before every call and saying, okay, this might be the one.
These are little tricks that I think we can learn if we're self-reflective versus just getting mad at ourselves or making excuses for our previous actions?

You know, it's interesting because we spend a lot of time when we explain where we're at in life and we'll give the stories.

And obviously, you know, we get to set the narrative of how we tell those stories.

And you can generally tell the people that have really grown from their experiences

by how they frame those stories.

Thank you. of how we tell those stories.
And you can generally tell the people that have really grown from their experiences by how they frame those stories. If they're, you know, I mean, if they take ownership and, you know, the imperfections of our decision-making, especially when we're younger, I mean, we weren't, you know, we didn't have the experience, the knowledge, the intellect to make strong decisions when we're young, which lead us into maybe some bad paths of life.
But if we reflect back onto them, they allow us to say, you know, but this is where I learned from those mistakes, these experiences. And that is a true growth minded individual, which allows that person to continue to expand who they are and who they can impact because they continuously, you know, live their lives in the manner that which they want to, and then recognize when they misstep how they can impact because they continuously live their lives in the manner in which they want to and then recognize when they misstep how they can reflect on it and then repair it.
But there are so many that we tell the story and it's like, the world is out to get me and this happened, this happened, this happened and I can't catch a break. It's the same mindset of the, thank God it's Friday and it's terrible Mond's terrible mondays and it's like you don't get to oh every monday isn't a bad day every friday isn't a good day like it doesn't work that way you have to own the moment you're in and if you start to as we get older it's a little bit easier because you start to go like how many more mondays do i have left i'm going to celebrate every one because i don't know how many i'm going to be around for um around for.
And how many Mondays am I going to have with the people I'm around? I don't know how many of that is either. So we start to reflect on those kind of things and we react better.
But I probably was the, I can't believe it's Monday person or thank God it was Friday 20 years ago. I mean, I don't necessarily remember.
I know that I've grown as an individual since then and hopefully have approached life better than I did back then. But you can definitely understand that if someone isn't going to reflect and grow, they're probably not an asset to have around you, which is a sad reality because that means that there are people that you might like, but man, they're going to hold you back because they're stuck in the patterns of behaviors they've made in the past and they can't seem to break them.
Yeah, I agree. So talk to me a little bit about like your, you know, when, when did you decide and this, you know, just kind of step out and start sharing your concepts? Like, I love some of the stuff you're doing around, like want better, be better.
like you know starting to share the these uh psychological ideas these these concepts these frameworks the mindsets the you know these that you're doing awesome stuff on on facebook and on on tiktok and stuff like like before we actually get into some of the actual concepts that i want to talk through and get your perspective on. Sure.
I'm interested in what was the impetus to actually start sharing outside of just like how to sell an insurance policy. You know what I mean? Like, like, you know, when you really got into that side of it, what, what was the impetus for that? Why, why was it conversations with yourself or, you know, I guess I'm just interested.
Well, there's definitely a lot of the conversation with yourself. Occasionally a couple of arguments, which isn't good, but, you know, it's a whole different conversation, I'm sure.
So becoming a business owner obviously has its own set of challenges. And early on, I recognized that most business owners, if they're bakers, they're good at baking.
If they're plumbers, they're good at plumbing. But they're not good at running businesses.
Well, I got into commercial insurance and I was helping them, but because I happened to be able to put on a shirt and tie, they assumed that I was smarter than them and they would ask me questions about business, not about their trade, but the business. And I would start to answer some of those questions and that became more and more frequent.
So I actually started another business, which is consulting and helping small businesses.

And my goal was truly just to help. But to some degree, it was a distraction from my core business.
And so if I wasn't going to get compensated for it, I probably couldn't continue to do it because eventually you have to pay your bills at the end of the month or beginning whenever they're due. And so I built this other opportunity as a revenue stream, but really it was based on the idea of I want to help other people.
And I have a coaching mentality. I was fortunate enough to be able to coach and support my children through youth sports and through high school years.
And so that created another passion for sharing of information. And then being in leadership roles in the industry gave me opportunities to start sharing information with other agencies as they're trying to build their agencies.
And so it all started leading to a point of, I have a voice that I'd like to share. And some of it is just a reflective process of the mistakes that I've made throughout my life that I'd love to be able to improve upon.
And sometimes we need to vocalize them and then that helps us recognize them so then we can then improve them. And so it gave me an outlet to do that.
And then on a rather selfish side of it, I wanted to improve my ability to be in front of other people. I think I do okay, but I'm not a polished speaker and I don't never necessarily think I'll ever be a true polished speaker because I don't tend to prepare.
So I might seem more authentic because I struggle with the concepts. I won't be as polished and professional as some other speakers and that's okay, but I wanted more time doing this on a regular basis.
So I got more comfortable in front of the camera, more comfortable just having these generic or general conversations that are not specific to one issue someone is dealing with in their business, but just from a philosophical standpoint. And these are conversations I've been having with people on a regular basis for many, many years.
I've just never sent it out to the masses. And so I said, you know, I need to improve my video.
I want our team to improve on video because we use that more and more. So I'm going to put myself in a position of discomfort and I'm going to do a video every single day without scripting, without prompting, without any idea what I'm going to say.
I'm going to open up my camera and I'm going to say, this is what I'm thinking right now. And this is why I want to share it.
And hopefully, it's in a manner that will benefit some people. And it will allow me to have a greater impact while perfecting my skill set of sharing of that information.
So it was twofold. One, I wanted to improve myself.
Two, I wanted to share something. And so there was not a lot of reasoning or rationale or a structure of what I wanted to create.
I just one day said, I'm going to do it. And I've done it every single day since September 18th of sharing.
And it's most of the stuff that some of the people who know me well have heard for years. So it's probably fairly redundant.
But I have a couple of catchphrases I use on a regular basis, like a meeting without food should be an email. I believe we should break bread together on a regular basis.
I think it creates a better connection. And so I share those kinds of concepts as well.
The other thing is I really feel like we're in an industry that allows us to find great success and giving back is imperative to the long-term success of the industry. And this allows me to, again, increase my ability to give back, not maybe in a technical side of the industry, because I think that there's a lot of people that have so much better technical ability and industry knowledge than I have, but I have a dual background that maybe will lend favorable to someone who's trying to grow a business as well as build an agency.
So maybe I'm not going to be able to go through the machinations of imperfecting their sales process specifically to the industry they're in, but I can give them some general understanding of how to prepare for the ups and downs of the business process by having the proper mindset and even the tools and skill sets necessary to weather the struggles that we go through just being business owners, not even relevant to our industry. So, I mean, there might be a mouthful of why, but that's a lot of the why.
What has been maybe your most revelatory takeaway from the experiment so far? You know, Brian, the thing that I found through this process that has had the most profound impact on me, and I did talk about it in one of my posts was your words matter so much. And it's one of the reasons why, you know, I said to you earlier, like the impact you've had, you don't really recognize how much it is.
You'll probably never know. It's not like everyone's going to give you the feedback saying, wow, this really helped me.
But there are people that do reach out to you and say, this helped me. And sometimes it's just like, I needed to hear this.
You've been struggling with my workout and I got out. And that's a nice thing because I want people to be healthier, live better lives.
Because the benefit of being healthier, obviously, is far outside just the ability to lift something heavier or run quicker than you did before. There's so much more to it.
But the deeper, more meaningful, more private conversations that come from some of the things I've put out there have told me that one, this is important to continue to do. And it doesn't have to be my voice.
It could be anyone's voice. It just, it has to be more of a positive voice and an accountability voice that should be continuing to spread that, you know, we're not stuck in whatever we're dealing with.
And that has been eye-opening to me, which also has told me that I have to be more cautious with my words outside of that conversation I'm trying to have intentionally in the mornings during my workouts or whenever I get them done. Because if your positive words have that kind of impact, your negative words have just as great of an impact or greater in a way that you might not know, but you can devastate someone's psyche or crush maybe someone's dreams inadvertently because you're being cautious or casual with your words or you're not being cautious with your words.
And so that alone has taught me that I just have to be a little bit more intentional when I speak, because I think that there's times when a direct discussion is necessary. You're screwing up because of this.
You know, when we lose a client in our office, I tell our staff, we didn't lose a client. We got fired.
Now, why did we get fired? Was it something we did? Was it something that we couldn't have changed? It doesn't matter. But we want to have an actual contextual conversation about it and be honest.
But there are times when if someone's in a fragile state, and I'm not a big safe space person, but I don't want to kick someone when they're down. Maybe that's not the time to say, you got fired today.
Maybe I need to pull back and say, let's have this conversation tomorrow when you reset and say, okay, let's talk about it. But I'm still going to have an honest conversation because we did get fired.
And if you set a goal for yourself, if my goal is to do 10 pushups a day and I did five, I'm not going to celebrate the five I did. I'm going to say I failed at hitting my goal because I want to be honest with myself.
And I want people to start being honest with themselves because we can do hard things. But we've got this idea that, you know, if we challenge yourself and we fail, it's okay.
It's like, well, it is because we're not going to live and die by that moment, but man, you can do so much more if you push yourself more. And I think that's something I don't want to continue to push out there.
So be my voice. And I hear you do it.
You're talking about it a lot, like hold yourself accountable, get up, you know, that kind of stuff. That's important that's important yeah no i think there's a lot of really interesting things in there i would agree that space creates space is good for negative feedback because it reduces emotion right when something happens and this goes you know think about your kids right your kids do something and you jump on them yeah right and then they start crying and then you're like why are you crying now that now it's a mess now your point you tried to get across is not good and where you seem to do that thing maybe you know whatever you say something very small and then you come back to them and you come back and you say hey we can't let that happen right or this you know and now they're not crying.
Now they're listening to you. Now you have their attention.
They may still not like what you're telling them, but now you're able to have a conversation. And it's not emotionally charged.
Yeah, it's not emotionally charged. So that is a lesson I've had to learn because, you know, know, I, I think that I think in general,

my mom always gives me a hard time because she says I'm not empathetic. And she, the other day she called me and she goes, why do you think you're not empathetic? I'm like, good morning.
Hi, how are you? You know what I mean? Like, um, and I don't know that I'm not empathetic. I just, I don't

I try very hard to not let emotions

and feelings dictate my life because

I see them as data points, not as who I am. I have, you know, if you've ever read the untethered soul, then I very much, you know, believe in the philosophy that we are the spirit, the soul, whatever you want to call it.
And then our mind and our body are just, they're just mechanisms to allow us to interact with this spatial environment that we're in. And that feelings and emotions are data points, important data points.
Before anyone jumps on me and says your feelings are who you are, I do not believe your feelings are who you are. I do not.
It doesn't mean that I'm not saying I'm right, saying that's not what I believe. I believe they're very important data points that we have to take in.
For whatever reason, because of that, I have a hard time relating to people who are overly dictated by their emotion. So I've had to, say in my work, distance myself from those people with layers of management or et cetera.
That's kind of how I've done that. That being said, I think that our society unfortunately has also perpetuated a lot of that in so much as to say oh you don't feel like working your hardest today that's okay that's all right everything's gonna be okay and it's like no look I've watched you know my my I've watched shitty things happen in almost every regard that are possible in my life.
Right. I'm blessed that I still have both my parents and my sister, but my, unfortunately my ex-wife, I, I, you know, it was very close with her family and she and I are still very good friends.
So, you know, whatever I watched her go through losing her mom, her brother, who I worked with for eight years. Like, you know, I've dealt with these things.
I've dealt with work stuff. I've dealt with life is hard.
The

universe doesn't care about us. It will mash us up, mow us down and move on.
And you do not matter

to the universe. It doesn't mean you don't matter.
It just means that your emotions have no impact.

So why allow them to dictate your decision making? So if you don't feel like doing something, no duh. I go to the gym every day.
I'm going to go as soon as we're done recording. I don't feel like going today.
Before we turned on this recording, I had to run to the mailbox real quick for something and

I went outside and I was like it's beautiful out

man maybe I'll just go for

a walk well that's

that's that's taking the easy way right

going for a walk is taking the easy way

because today is a boxing day which means

I'm sweating my ass off my shoulders are going to

hurt my abs are going to hurt and

like I don't really feel like doing

it I'm going to go

and if anything I will

work harder because I don't want to

Thank you. are going to hurt and my abs are going to hurt and like i don't really feel like doing it i'm going to go and if anything i will work harder because i don't want to right but i've had to train myself to do that and what i'm trying to what i try to teach people with posting this stuff on the line is not look at how amazing i am dude the number of people that comment on how shitty my boxing is is it's like my favorite thing these guys guys will just.
Because that's the point. Yeah, they'll tear me apart.
They'll be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm doing at all.
Your head's out over your front knee. And I'm like, I'm 42 years old.
I'm never getting punched in the face in a boxing ring. I'm literally just doing this for fitness.
And to show people, it's really just to show people, hey, look, I'm not just talking crap. I show up every day.
That's the purpose. I heart every negative comment I give.
I always heart it. I don't respond.
I always say, thank you. I'm like, bro, thanks so much.
Like I'm just, you know, I mean, I'm learning like, what should I do better? And I'll tell you nine out of 10 people after the negative comment will then come back with a positive comment. I've seen that a lot.
That especially with, with, uh, extra like workout videos, they'll be like, you know, you suck at this and you're terrible. And I can't believe you would post this and you're a horrible person.
And you probably kicked your dog this morning. And then you're like, dude, thank you.
Like, I'm sorry. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm just getting into it.
I'm learning. What could I do better? And then they'll come back and they'll be like, oh my God, dude, like, god dude like i'm so glad you're working hard like you know just sit back on your punches a little more it's so funny but the things i've gotten through that process that kills me is like you that's the stupidest thing i've ever heard and i'm like and i kind of want to say really not heard anything dumber than that like you got it yeah because i've heard some dumb things in my life yeah did you listen to republican debate last night you've heard stupider things said i just think there's got to be something worse than what i said but i don't want i don't want to feed into it nor do i care because if i if i'm evoking any sort of emotion in anything that i'm sharing be a positive negative it means it impacted you and yeah if it impacted you to share in a negative way it's a reflective process that you're going through something in your life and i'm okay with that you know and i have to be the brunt the first couple times it kind of stung and then i was like hey i'm good with this like i'm all right like you can say something yeah i've said some stupid things maybe it sounds stupid or i made some dumb analogies i'm not perfect but i never said i was nor do i pretend like i haven't out.
But I can tell you zero times if I attack someone on social media at once. I'm just telling them why someone would.
Yeah. I've attacked dumb Democrats on Twitter before, but I'm also not a perfect...
No, it helps nothing. It helps nothing.
It is horrible. I wish that I didn't do it, but at the same time, sometimes I just can't help myself.
It doesn't matter. So my point, and I'm completely on the same page with you, is that it doesn't matter if you feel like doing something or not.
Take cold calling, right? Cold calling is, to this day, still very important in our industry. Some people believe in it, some people don't.
I it's not my bread and butter But I strongly believe in it Especially when done with intention Um

That in our industry. Some people believe in it.
Some people don't. I, it's not my bread and butter, but I strongly believe in it, especially when done with intention.
Um, that being said, I, even the best cold callers that I know, when you get a, a little bourbon or a beer in them, we'll tell you they don't love doing it. There's nothing to love, right? Yet what they do is show up anyways, right? They show up anyways and they do it.
They don't want to do it. No one wants to call and be told no.
No one wants to call a random person. No one wants to do the research.
But no one wants to stick to the script and work in the script and getting the negative feedback. No one wants to do any of that stuff.
But they want to grow their business. They want to pay their bills.
They want to take care of their family. They want to make sure their kids get cool Christmas presents Or they get to go on a vacation with their spouse Or whatever, right? And for those reasons, they show up and they do it anyways Now if you listen to your feelings Your feelings are telling you Nah, nah, you don't feel like doing it today You know, the moon is in the sign of the Aquarius And that's usually the hit ratio On cold calls is lower then So maybe just go have a cup of coffee and bitch about the weather and but that's what your feelings want you to do that's just a data point you go okay feelings okay thanks for that data point but you don't matter because my my bank account having enough money in it for me to take my wife or my husband or whoever to, to, you know, to Miami for a, for a getaway is way more important to me.
And I need to sell two more accounts this month to do that. And in order to make two more accounts, I got to make 200 more cold calls.
So I'm gonna make my cold calls and take my spouse to Miami. Like that's the decision making.
And I just, I just feel like, like it just it just to me it kills me how much we prioritize our feelings in our current culture i just well in our 90 of the shit i do during the day i don't want to do but i do it temporary yeah for years like don't make long-term decisions on temporary emotions. Right mean, we, we have to think these things through.
I think, but I love what Mike Tyson said about it. I think he's, I think, and I'm paraphrasing obviously, but he said something like you have to do things you don't want to do.
And you do them like you love them. Yeah.
Something like that. Right.
And I think that's it because your feelings are temporary. I do not want to get up.
I set a goal for myself this year. Um, I don't know.
I think I shared this with you before, but my goal was to finish the year with 36,500 pushups. I didn't start in the beginning of the year.
So I had to, you know, start to, to, uh, push those numbers up a little bit. Cause that only it's a hundred a day.
It's not a hard number. You know, when you've never done a pushup, it's hard, but after a while it gets, it gets easier.
I didn't take into consideration that there are going to be days that I didn't feel like doing it. There was going to be days that I didn't, um, you know, I didn't have time or I was sick, injured, whatever.
And so now I'm at the point where I have less than a month left and I still have a decent amount of pushups. So in order to hit these, I have to do like 300 a day, but I'm so determined to do it.
I hate pushups. There's nothing about pushups.
I like do it. And it's hard, but I don't get up and go, I don't feel like doing them today and then stop doing it.
I say, I don't want to do it today, but I'm going to go do my pushups. And it's just, it's a mentality and I'm not perfected by any stretch of the imagination.
I can talk myself out of doing the right thing on a regular basis. Like I should probably go for the run.
No, I'll just walk today. Or I should probably go for a walk.
I'll just bike. It's a little bit easier.
It's rainy. I'll stay inside.
It's like, I can talk myself out of like anyone else. But there's also those moments when it's like, it's raining and I'm going to take, throw on my raincoat and I'm still going to go do my run.
Or it's snowing and I'm going to take the bike out and maybe I'll slip, but I'm going to ride anyways. because it was part of my training plan.
I'm going to do it. I can't dictate the decisions I make based on how I felt that morning.
Cause if I did that every single day, I probably still wouldn't be in bed today. Cause I didn't want to get up.
I'd be better just sitting around binge watching Sopranos or something. I don't know.
Dude, all you need to do is win one more battle than you lose in life, right? That's it% I focus on discipline And I talk about discipline And I work on discipline And I did 75 hard To try to teach myself discipline Because I am not a disciplined person I am not I am not a disciplined person at all like my natural state is to be scattered and lazy and and that is my natural state so in order but i also want to be successful and i want to have a life that i'm proud of and i want to show my kid and all the reasons so i focus on discipline and i talk about it people are like i'm not as disciplined i had someone say well someone say, well, you know, I love that, but I'm not as disciplined as you. And I was like, if you only knew how undisciplined a person I actually am and how hard I have to work every day in the notebooks, in the to-do lists, in the to-don't lists, in the quotes I have everywhere, and the fact that I read every day.
This isn't, I do this stuff because left to my own devices, I am going to do degenerate, nonsensical, lazy shit all day and would be a slob. Well, discipline is not who you are.
It's what you do. Yeah.
Right? It's an action. It's not a defining quality.
It's something that you do. Your defining qualities are who you are as a person when you're engaging with other people.
Those are, but just it's like, well, you're so disciplined, you have it easy. No, it's not easy.
It's incredibly hard. Yeah, yeah.
So challenging, but I'm going to do it anyway. Yeah.
If this were a video game, my character would start with zero discipline. Like would be i bet zero like it would be like

you ever see uh that movie um what was that jumanji yeah and there's this really awesome scene where kevin hart's character is like my weaknesses are cake strength and speed and like you know it's like funny like that would be my like yeah discipline would be on that list for me too. He's my spirit animal right now.
Yeah, it's just funny. But, you know, I do think that we have to, you know, we wake up every day and, you know, whether we're an agency owner or we work for a carrier or an underwriter or a producer or CSR, account manager, HR, it doesn't matter what we do.
It doesn't matter what we do for all the people who don't work in insurance who are listening to this.

Like, we get to choose each and every day who we're going to be. And, you know, I look at my life and I say, I just got to win one more battle than I lose.
That's it. At the end of the day, I just got to win one more battle than I lose.
So, so during the day, do I, you know, maybe I, you know, I, I give into some hunger pains and I, and I have an afternoon snack that normally that really for my diet or whatever, you know, my, my eating program that I'd like to have, I don't want to do. And, and that makes me a little more lethargic than I want to be in the afternoon.
And then I got to deal with that. So now I got to step up my game at my workout.
Right. And it's like that happens sometimes.
But if I still make it to the workout and I still do the interview with you and I also got a couple of good emails out and I did some work on this new project that I'm working on, but I had to push through it with a little bit of lethargy. Okay.
I lost the food battle. Cause I don't, you know, I don't like to eat in the afternoon because it does make me lethargic, but I still pushed through and got these other things done.
So, okay. When you net out all the decisions, man, okay.
I got, I got, I had more wins than losses, victory for the day. Right.
It is not, you know, and I think this is something where we get hung up on and we give ourselves too hard of a time. We think that to be disciplined or to be successful, every single decision throughout our day has to be the right or perfect decision.
It's like that is not reality. That's not reality for uber productive, insane people like Elon Musk.
And it is not the reality for any other person in your life that you see that you may think is successful they are battling the same minute to minute mental decisions that everyone is they are all you know they're they're battling those same things and this actually came to me by a good friend and a mentor of mine and I look at him as just I look at the way he lives his life and I'm like you know I look at him as being so disciplined right like I I look at him and I'm like look at the way he lives his life. And I'm like, you know, I look at him as being so disciplined, right? Like I, I look at him and I'm like, dude, fuck, you know what I mean? And he looks at me and he goes, dude, do you know, do you know how much I struggle with bop, bop, bop, bop, and how I, I had to like have a whole intervention about my Coca-Cola habit that I had where I was drinking like nine Cokes a day.
And I would have never pictured a million years that this fit, like successful person was drinking nine regular Coca-Colas a day.

And that he, you know what I mean?

It's like, you look at it and you're like,

oh, this is a regular guy just like me

dealing with the same nonsensical decisions

minute to minute that the rest of us are.

And I think once we kind of get that frame of reference

is then we don't put so much pressure on ourselves and we can start to take these things on and actually move forward in our life it's funny so um you know we've been talking about all kinds of different stuff but i do want i i do want to know like so the want better be better this this is a brand that you created that you're building upon that people is that or is it a key a keynote, or what is this? Because I've seen you kind of start putting in the background of a lot of your videos that you're talking to and stuff. I am, so it was funny because I've said it for years.
I've just always said, you know, I have, you know, stupid things I say on a regular basis, like, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, that kind of stuff. But Want Better, be better was just something, it's just easy.
It rolls off my tongue real easy. So I've always said it, like we're struggling with something.
Oh, you don't want better, be better. You got to do this.
You got to do that kind of. And so when I decided I was going to do videos, it just came out.
I didn't, I didn't even plan to say it at the end of the first video. I thought, I'm just going to keep saying that with no frame of reference to it.
I did like four or five videos. I'm like, I wonder, like, what am I going to do with these videos? And so then I looked and I was like, well, I can get one better, be better on Facebook, which I thought for sure it would be gone.
And then I was like, one better, be better. I found it on Instagram and then YouTube and then TikTok.
And it's like, it's never been branded or used. And it may be because it's stupid and nobody likes it, but it works for me.
So I'm like, all right with it. And then I literally trademarked it and went through this whole process.
You know, I have shirts now I can, and so I'm, I'm continuously pushing it out there because it's a positive message. I mean, even if you think that it's, it was, it should be one better, do better or act better or whenever it's like, not just easy for me.
One better be better. It flows off my tongue.
I'm going to continue with this. And, and I'm going to continue to brand it because it's a simple reminder that as I'm trying to make a decision, is this a decision that's going to, I, you know, I want better in my life.
Is this a decision that's going to make me be better at the thing, whatever it is I'm trying to be better at. Am I trying to, you know, if I want, if I want to be a better spouse, I need to be a better husband.
I mean, it's that kind of mentality and we can put it in just about any activity we have on a daily basis that we're trying to improve. If I want to have better children, I need to be a better parent.
It's, you know, we have to throw it back at ourselves because we are the only person that we can control. Everyone else just reacts off our energy and our actions, right? You know what I like about it versus do better is to me, want better, be better speaks to taking ownership.
Yes. Want better, do better feels like outside forces have an influence, right? Okay.
I. I like that.
I personally want better, be better speaks more to me than want better, do better because, you know, I could say, well, I couldn't do better today because, you know, whatever this thing happened to me, the, the, you know, uh, I was busy at work and I was stressed and I had to make a bunch of decisions. I couldn't do better.
It's like, nah, you can still be a better husband, better spouse, better parent, better coach, mentor, whatever the thing is. You can still be a better version of that regardless if you take ownership for it.
I love it, man. I immediately, you know, it immediately clicked for me and think it's wonderful.
I hope you keep pushing that brand. I love that.
Um, you know, there, there's somebody else in the, in the insurance industry, you know, kind of speaking, you know, positive, engaging, thoughtful, deep messages back into our community. Because I do think that for a very long time and it's, it's changing.
Our industry is changing for the better. I love it.
Right. But for a very long time, and, and, because you've been around for so long too, you know, just like me.
I mean, this is my 18th year in the industry. When I first started, no one talked to each other.
No one communicated with each other. No one shared anything.
Right? Now we have this more open communal feel to our industry. I think it's wonderful.
There's a lot of fresh voices, new voices of all different ages, not necessarily age-based, but just fresh new voices coming in, sharing positive messages as a whole. And I just think as much as we can support each other, continue to drive forward, our industry will continue to be a wonderful place to work and engage and for people to grow.
And I think it's tremendous. So I know you just named all the places, but where should people connect with you? They want to learn, they want to connect, they want to get to know you better.
Where would you send them? We'll have everything linked up in the show notes. Obviously you can always go direct, but like we'll have everything linked up in the show notes, whether you're listening on YouTube or whatever podcast player you're listening to, we'll have everything linked up, but where's the spots? So I think that if you just want to see content, the best places go to want better, be better on TikTok.
Just all one word, obviously, just want better, be better. If you're looking to contact me, you can Michigan Insurance Group is the website.
My personal information is on there. Donald Champagne on Facebook.
You can find me, donaldchampagne.com. You can find some blogs that I've written.
And there's a way to connect with me. I do trainings with small businesses.
I do trainings with insurance agencies. There are talks that I get involved with that are outside of our industry that are really just how to be a better person.
So I'm trying to continuously find ways to push that content out. But those are the main places that you can find me.
And I'm gonna continue to try and grow that because it's kind of a, it's a new thought process for me of how do I use this brand to have the greatest impact? And I don't have it figured out. So the framework is going to definitely evolve over time.
And hopefully the content will continue to improve. I mean, the videos, I don't know, they're maybe a little bit wonky and the sound might not be great, but that wasn't the point.
I wasn't trying to have this perfect message. What I was trying to have is a real conversation with myself that I felt I could share with others.
Well, I love it. I think it's a wonderful thing.
I'm glad we had a chance to talk, even though I think I spent the first 20 minutes talking. I wanted to hear from you as well, so it's worked out.

I could, but I love it.

I look forward to next time you can come on the show

and just appreciate everything you're doing, bud.

Absolutely.

Thank you for having me here, and I know we'll talk again.

Don't forget to get that book I told you, The Comfort Crisis.

Yes, no, I definitely will.

It's a good one.

You're going to love it.

I'm going to shop booze. one you're gonna love it Thank you.
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