RHS 157 - A Rambunctious Conversation on Insurance with Jason Cass

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Terms and conditions apply. In a crude laboratory in the basement of his son.
And they're growing and he's training them. And he's always got 10 million things going on.
And frankly, we just hadn't really caught up in months, months and months. So I decided to jump on the show and do kind of a

catch-up call in general, record it and share it with you guys where we just kind of dive in and talk about all kinds of different things, state of the industry, technology. We talk a lot about how some of the early calls that we made, some of the calls that we got the most flack for, have actually kind of played out and that our prognostication skills seemingly are at least semi-dialed in and what that means and then kind of position that as to where we see the industry going and how agencies can position themselves.
It's fast-paced. It's a little wild.
I think you're going to love it. There's definitely some educational value, but there is certainly some entertainment value.
And these are the kind of episodes that I enjoy the most because free-flowing, very open, and not trying to pull any punches. So hopefully you will enjoy this.
If you do, guys, just share the episode. That's really all that I ask.
I know I run a few ads every once in a while on the show, especially at the beginning. That's the next section of what I'm going to do here.
But really, sharing the show helps us grow the audience. Growing the audience helps us get these concepts, these ideas, and ultimately, the guests that come on the show, it gets them in front of more people like you.
And that's really the key. That's what we're trying to do here.
I mean, last episode with Tanya Adelson, like, you know, she's sharing a message that more people need to hear. And if more people listen to the show, the more people get in front of it, the more people sell environmental insurance, the better we all are at our job.
So that all being said, if you enjoy this show, all I ask that you share it, just would absolutely love that if you would do that for me. So, okay.
I want to give, go on to our sponsors,or, Podium, P-O-D-I-U-M.com, P-O-D-I-U-M.com, P-O-D-I-U-M.com. If you want to get more comms in front of your customers via text message, via web chat, Podium is the way to do it.
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If it works for you, awesome. I also want to give a quick shout out to my man, David Carruthers, who just launched his new book, The Dirty 130.
Go to dirty-130.com. That's the URL.
Make sure you put that dash in there. If you don't put the dash in there, who knows what's going to come up on the screen, but dirty-130.com.
This book and the workbook. I got the workbook as well.
I'm going to be getting it for our entire team. The book coupled with the workbook are just an absolutely dynamic program for producers, just absolutely dynamic.
If you're the type of agency principal who feels like you don't have the time, the energy, or really the know-how to teach your producers how to be better at what they do, get the Dirty 130. And guys, full disclosure, he's not paying me to say this.
He didn't even know that I'm saying this. I just, you know, I'm about three quarters of the way through the book already.
I flipped through and looked through the workbook. This thing is gold.
Go get it. Dirty-130.com.
I'm reading it like an ad, but it's not. I just, Carruthers is my man.
You guys all know that. Love what he does.
I am not only hopefully a friend, but ultimately a client of his in so much as I just believe everything that he says. I think it is the way to prospect, particularly middle market.
But the philosophies, the concepts spread all the way down to small business as well. And we use a lot of derivation of his work in how we approach our inbound small business that we do here at Rogue Risk.
So go to dirty-130.com. Guys, as always, I love you for listening to this show.
Thank you for listening to the show. Let's get on to this absolutely rambunctious episode with Jason Kass.
Jesus, why don't I make this easy? God damn, this is my first time? So everyone knows who's listening. The podcast master guru OG, 20 minutes late.
Didn't get the email invite. Ben couldn't find the Zoom link that I sent to him in Facebook Messenger.
Ben comes on muted. I'm here, man.
I'm here. So what's up,'s up it's been a minute we haven't dude ben everyone's been so busy you've been busy i've been busy we haven't chatted in a long time everything that we have done and talked about is here handling yeah remember when we were talking the we would always say is in eight to 10 years,

remember in eight to 10 years, well, you know what brother, it is eight to 10 years and God that we got more stuff wrong than we got right. But I'm saying it's here, you know, it's, it's, that's true.
We definitely got a lot of stuff wrong, but I don't know that we got more wrong and we got right. I feel like you and I had today pegged pretty close.
Not exact, but I feel like if you went back and listened to old recordings of some of the crazy shit we said, today it wouldn't sound so crazy. Let me give you one.
Got a recording of me, a live recording, a video. I'm at a country club in Illinois and I tell them

that you recording of me, a live recording of video. I'm at a country club in Illinois, and I tell them that YouTube will come out with its own, this is in 2013, that YouTube will come out with its own subscription to where you can watch television, and JDC Insurance Group, because that's who I was at the time, JDC Insurance Group will be right next to CBS if I wanted to have my channel

that way, you know, but you'll be watching sports on there and everything. And sure enough, here, they damn well come.
I also predicted after Dan Burris that AI would invent art that's never been invented before. And just if you look at the Colorado festival that happened like two or three days ago, the guy who won with the artwork, it was completely AI generated.
And everybody's in an uproar that he cheated. And I'm like, if you saw the picture, it's something that no human would ever think about.
And all how he made it was it's one of those AI things that you just type into, like you type what the picture should look like and the AI generates the image.

Seth Godin was talking about it a couple of weeks ago

in one of his newsletters as well.

I think other things would be,

we talked, we had,

one of the things that I went back

and was thinking a little bit about

that we were talking about is how this rush

Thank you. Oh, geez.
We had the re one of the things that I was, I went back and was thinking a little bit about that we were talking about is how this rush of new agencies, startup agencies that's happening right now, which is absolutely happening. There was a mad rush of startup agencies, small spinoffs from producers, spinoffs, you know, bought out books from, from agencies like to backfill all the mergers and acquisitions.
We said, it's not the, the, the market is not going to contract. We're going to just going to see young agencies backfill and come in and be digitized.
And man, you look at like, you know, I'll take an example, like Steven Turnbull, who's up by me, super good guy, had some stuff go on. He just launched t5 insurance which um and he's out in the utica area and utica new york um and uh you know kind of hybrid digital local coming in but man with the tools and resources the cost of them how easy it is to spin up some of these things he's off to the races right And pretty good.
I mean, he's just telling me some of his numbers. I'm not going to share them, but, but very, very more than respectable, like, well, you know, a good production month, right out the jump, like month one, putting business on the books, killing the game.
And like that kind of stuff wasn't possible 10 years ago. You couldn't even do it.
You couldn't get the appointments. You couldn't get the access.
The tools were too expensive. So like I look at that kind of thing and say, that's something that we were talking about.
Everyone's like, nah, mergers and acquisitions are going to kill the industry. And well, you know, I think what's happening, at least what we're seeing, dude, is that the M&A activity is creating, in my opinion, and I know a lot of you aren't going to agree with this because your recruiting efforts are absolutely terrible, but like, is that it is one of the best times to hire talented people that have ever existed in our industry.
There are talented people flying all over the place. And if you have the ability to offer them, um, a lifestyle employment versus the classic, I'm going to bang on you.
And you should thank God that you have a paycheck style employment. You can get amazing people throughout the country.
Absolutely amazing. I mean, it's, it's, it's wild.
I mean, it's, it's absolutely wild. So I think we hired in January of 2021.
I actually talked to him in December of 2020. He worked for Amtrak, been with Amtrak for about eight years.
They elevated him up. He got into admin.
They moved him way up. He's been a friend of mine since we were in high school.
We actually play golf together as a big guys group. One of those kinds of guys.
Right. And we hired him as personal line sales.
He took literally a 75% pay cut. He's 41 years old.
He's got a new baby coming at the time. 18 months later, we just promoted him to COO of, I mean, of all every freaking company that Travis and I have because he's absolutely unbelievable.
and when we went to hire him we really didn't have the money to hire him because we had just hired hired a CSR to help take care of some of the help us on our commercial side. So it came about, but that's sometimes where you just got to figure it out.
And we did. And now you use the word talented people.
I have been using this word just for about the last eight months inside my agency of capable. We have capable people, people who have so much experience, who are detail-oriented, who can take a project from A to Z.
Those are the people that we're missing in the industry. Those are the people that are retiring, right? Those are that.
And I think it's important because for the sales side, right? You need talent, you need capable, you need experienced, or not experienced, but you need people who are going to go out there. I want to tie back to your first point.
Got to keep in mind, I started in the basement at home in 2010 and guess what? It was very inexpensive for me to start an agency, but I did have problems with appointments, like you said. But SIAA, given the credit where the credit's due, they're the ones who gave me the contract.
They got me the appointments that even though I was in the basement of my home, I was able to do it. I don't know if that's what they still do today.
I'm just telling my story. And, and, uh, and that was very, very helpful.
Right. But I was able to do it.
I could run my agency for like, you know, $1,500 a month, you know? So, I mean, that's, I, I go to your point is and it's a lot easier today than it was then. Yeah, it's wild, man.
So, you know, I know what you were saying and being kind of self-deprecating and, you know, whatever, just kind of tossing out a cliche to a certain extent, but I actually think that, you know, and we've also said some wacky shit that didn't happen. So, you know, just in full candidacy.

But I am proud that, you know, and I always it always kind of hits me when when you and I have a chance to talk just because we've been doing this for so long that, you know, we you know, we definitely said some things that didn't happen. We definitely had some opinions, thoughts, you know, whatever, for sure.
But I think I feel like, you know, I'm proud of our history and our track record of calling out trends and things that are coming down the pipe. And I think a lot of it, you know, if someone and look, I'm sure you get this, too.
I get people who are like six years ago, you said this, bam, bam, bam. And now this is happening.
It's amazing. So, you know, I think the people who follow along, I feel like, you know, it's always nice to just think for a second and it feels like I'm bragging.
I don't mean to be. I just it is nice every once in a while, sit back and go, hey, we have done the industry some some level of service and trying to see what's happening and share with people.
And, you know, it's just I don't know. It's wild.
It's wild. Um, how much, you know, my perspective not it's changed today.
It's wild how much we doubted our own thoughts. Yeah.
Yeah. So it's not so much what other people were like, ah, I don't know.
I don't know. But it was that, ah, I don't know.
I don't know. That would make us doubt.
And then the wisdom of those who are older, who we were challenging, we're like, ah, you know, so was so tough. And to take, uh, yeah, we did get those wins of people saying, yeah, I did this and it changed things, but man, you got the, we also ruined, uh, I probably, and I'm not speaking for you.
I probably ruined some friendships in my outspoken ways of being the way it is, but Hey, I now run an agency. That's almost a million dollars in revenue.
We did it the way that we thought we were going to do it. And we are growing tremendously with, uh, with some of these producers that are coming on once again, as you said, talented people.
Yeah. It's pretty, pretty damn good.
You know, we start a conversation. Yeah.
It's, uh, it's wild, man. You know, it, it's funny.
The thing that I've always loved about this business, and we've talked about this a lot, is like, you can do this pretty much whatever way you want, right? I mean, obviously, you have to sell insurance. I mean, that's the job.
But like, outside of kind of the real blocking and tackling that is just the business, how you do it? I mean, just think about, just think think about like just take some of the guys on the podcasters facebook instant messenger thing that we chat about right like every dude there and it's just all guys there were a couple women but they left because they're not podcasting more or whatever so i don't want to be sexist is just this particular thing correct um um if there If there was a female, she would be welcome, of course, or non-binary or whatever the hell people are calling themselves these days. Cis-gen.
I love cis. Something about that term.
Cis-gen? I don't know. Someone said you're a cis male something.
They used a whole bunch of words. It sounded like Latin.
sounded like Latin. I didn't understand what they were saying, but long story short, but you guys in there, you're either male or female.
I don't give a shit. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's one or the other.
That's yeah. You can, yeah.
I mean, I guess that's my opinion. You can call yourself whatever you want, but in reality, you're one of two things.
So whatever, it's all good. But I do get that people are, men want to be women and i feel like they should be able to do that i don't get that but that's okay that's okay i it's not my choice nor is it the way i want to live my life but it would be very difficult for me to say and this is my opinion on most things for me to say i love america because you get to be what you want to be and then tell someone who was born a dude and thinks they're a chick that they can't do that I don't like when anybody myself included shoves anything down anyone's throat so like I one of my biggest beasts with Catholicism is I don't like the Catholics shove Catholicism down people's throats like that's cool that it's your thing it's like kind of my thing I take pieces from Catholicism but like I don't like when people are like taking shoving it down someone else's throat.

It's like it's cool.

It's yours.

Why?

It doesn't have to be his.

This is America.

Like, right.

So that's kind of my parade.

We don't have to have parades about it and holidays and throwing it in people's.

And hey, this part of the neighborhood is this.

And it's like, wait, I thought we're trying to get away from that.

And yeah, it's like almost we're going back to like a segregated society like and not just like but depending on what but depending on what orientation you are which is really only two so i'm just confused i don't know i yeah i just we won't i don't mean to get i mean is this our generation to blame is this the generation before no it's the fucking boomers this is all the boomers fault so boomers this is your fault and the reason it's your fault, you and I said this five years ago, it's because you won't get out of the fucking way. Retire, man, get out.
We love you. We'll pay you your trail fees.
We don't want you to die. We just want you to get the fuck out and let us make some decisions.
God damn it. Right.
You know, like to take what you built and make it better. Yes.
Or, or don't, you know, start adapting your ideas to a more modern environment. But I think what we're experiencing today personally is that the boomers have stayed too long.
So this is the counter reaction. This is the pendulum swing reaction to the, to the fucking boomer bullshit.
They stuck. Normally they would cycle out like they're supposed to.
And the next generation comes in and they're a're a little you know they transition things a little this way or that way right left whatever more to the middle whatever it is and then the next generation does the same and unfortunately the boomers been around forever and it hasn't changed and shit is the way you know and then now you have these wackadoos who are responding to the fact that the boomer's been around for too long and it's like we all pay a price i'm sorry boomers i fucking love you but your time has come and gone boomers have uh could essentially be a big factor in why we have so much radicalism on both sides i can definitely see that because of what you said longevity i've almost said it's like an accordion right it just keeps getting stretched getting stretched out further and further and further. But yeah, that's good stuff.
Wow. We just went all around.
I think that, um, that right there was a hat Canley or a Canley, a Canley hasmo. So, um, all right.
So pivoting off of that, um, that moment, you see this button I have everybody who's watching this on YouTube, get to see this this button and it says l-o-v-e i just wanted to just i was wearing this today not because of this because as you know i forgot that we were having this um that's a cold play went and saw them in tampa bay oh nice oh bro it was one of the best concerts i've ever been to ever in my life. Really? Oh, and I've been to a lot of concerts.

But, dude, it was incredible.

They had these wristbands, and everybody had different colors on, and you had them.

And, dude, they would like – it was unbelievable.

They wouldn't come out until it was dark, so they didn't come out until like 940.

It was driving me crazy.

But it was the most unbelievable thing.

That's when my wife and I and my son, we took a three-and-a-half-week vacation to Florida. I took like five weeks off in the middle of summer.
I took the whole month of June off in the first week of July. I'm definitely not there yet.
People, young, capable people. I don't think so.
I'm going to push back on the young. So I'm just playing on the boomers.
And now I'm going to say something that kind of conflicts with that. It actually has nothing to do with age.
It is true. It's the antiquated, hyper-conservative, boomer mentality that I think has to be retired.
Because I have two people in their 60s on my team, and they're amazing. And I love them to death, and I would never leave.
So it's not, I, so I, I, I'm going to pivot slightly off of my very hyperbolic early statements there about boomers and say, it's just the, it's, it's that mentality that the cliched boomer mentality, which still persists, that's what we need to retire and let the next generation figure out really the gen X never got a chance to do anything because the boomers basically just said f you you're never getting a shot so there's like a whole podcast dedicated to how the boomers just like sat on the freaking gen x and we're like nope you never get a chance you're out right and um so but it's that it's the mentality is is the issue not the people and and. And, and, and I, so that's what I, this is something you talked about in 2010, 11, 12, going back.
This was the number one thing that people used to hate on me for. No, this was actually something that the boomers liked you for.
Oh, okay. And it was the connected and unconnected generation.
You remember that? Yeah. You were the one that really started to have the industry look at, hey, quit trying to go hire the 23 year old to come in who doesn't know shit about Facebook, nothing about insurance, doesn't know how to show how they communicate in the community, all the things you need to be pushing in those channels.
And it made, I think a lot of the people go, yeah, I'm 55 and I'm pretty good on that. And I got a young person.
So you were, you were really big in that, the connected versus unconnected generation. So it shocks people when I tell them that the average age, so average, not mean, but average, the mean would actually be higher, but the average age is 37 and a half at rogue risk.
Everyone assumes that we're like this young, you you know it's a bunch of 25 and 30 year olds and whatever and we're this young that's not the case at all like because i don't hire for age i don't hire for whatever i hire people who have a certain mentality and culturally are good fits and capable and talented and um and we're willing to train people so like don't you think the boomers are laughing at you again now probably because you said 37 these people are 60 and 70 and they're thinking that you are considering 37 to not be young right i think 37 yeah well i'm saying the disposition most people assume that our average age would probably be in the 20ss. But when they get a digital agency, they're thinking we're super young, connected.
You know, that's what they're thinking we are. And that's just not the case.
Like, I mean, that's what I said. The mean would actually be higher.
Or wait, I have that back. Whatever.
The average fucking age is 30. What does your typical person look like? How much experience do they have? How old are they? Dude, it is all over the map.
I got Marie. She's been in the business for 35 years, started as a CSR for us, absolute killer, and now handles all our small contractor risks that come in and is a salesperson.
So I got one, two, three guys with more than 10 experience. I have, we, so we have a, we're basically a producer training ground.
Um, we have a first of its kind, you know, no ceiling insurance career. Um, and we've now successfully, uh, taken a woman who was in the medical industry, trained her as a new business coordinator, got her licensed.
She's now, um, hit her numbers the last two months in a row as a select producer for us and eventually she'll become a premier producer and then hopefully someday she wants to open her own agency so like we're we're working the process we're bringing people we brought in another guy from the medical industry and he's now being fast-tracked to be um one of our top service people he just absolutely he. And like, so it's finding the right culture and what I'm realizing when we had a, we lost a person this week because he was not a cultural fit.
Is that it's good. Talent is awesome.
And I love talent and I'm willing to work and sculpt and train and mentor talent all day long. I'm willing to put that work in.
But if you're not a cultural fit, if you're not willing to be part of the team, fuck you, get out. Don't care.
I do not care. And I will tell you one of the things, the issue in general that I have, the number one reason people don't fit here.
And it wasn't, I'm not going to, speaking specifically about the case of the person this week. I'm just talking in general.
Right. Yeah.
So I don't want to say that this was the reason for this person. I'm just the number one thing that we find with people who don't work here.
And we've had probably four people now work out. We've 16 or 17 people total now, and probably three or four now work out.
Had a bunch of interviews where we got to the second or third interview and then punted um and the number one reason is if you're one of those chest pounding producers who thinks that because you produce revenue fuck everyone else on the team they all need to like bow down and do everything for you don't want you i have absolutely zero interest in that mentality i understand that it feels good to like oh i'm a producer everyone you know, I bring in the Revit. I don't care.
I don't because you know what? I'll go hire an army of people who, you know, we refer to ourselves like the island of misfit toys. Like you don't come to work for Rogue if you're a corporate person.
Like if you love corporate culture, you do not come and work here. We just not.
not who we are. Yeah.
Like I have a five-year-old tattered Lululemon army fatigue, fucking long sleeve shirt on. And this is what I'll wear to work all day.
And that's who we are. Like we are, you know, I got one woman who wants her, her specialty, her vertical specialty to be adult toy stores.
Like I got another woman who, you woman who you know like i said she's she's in her 60s and she's now one of our top producers like you know it is not about what you look like it doesn't matter god you know thank god no one on my team is like a true liberal because that would just not work but like it's fucking tough hey have you read the No, I know this guy just, I'm not got done with it. I'm about 80% done with it.
You should check that out. It has a lot to do with teams and stuff shit that kind of blows your mind.
So yeah, well, that's good for you, man. I really, I really like, I really, really sounds good.
And I love the fact that you're helping people cause that's, I know that of you, but you like Ben Shapiro so much that makes me doubt if you really are trying to help you talking about he's a national treasure i i i would just i was down you an anti-semi i'm like oh are you an anti-semi is that what it is because he's jewish you don't like him what are you taking supplements you're taking supplements what what are you doing what are you how do you like him hey okay hanley what the hell are you doing on the side of these rocks what what in the hell are you doing on the side of these rocks? What? What in the hell are you doing on the side of these rocks? I'm flipping open my Facebook. Oh, yeah.
And I'm seeing you freaking like spider-man. Gordon Coyle took me rock climbing, man.
Gordon Coyle. What in the hell? You know Gordon.
Gordon came to the Mastermind thing. I know Gordon, but this is just – I'm like, where did this come from? He's a badass, like, adventurer, mountaineer.
Dude's, like, crossed the Connell Divide and done all kinds of wild shit. mean that was i did not know that okay dude that was like that was like a cream puff day for him like he he i was done i was toasted completely totally i couldn't do it anymore and he's like ready to go up again and i was like dude am i like gonna i don't want to like ruin your day because i'm i like i was done like my fingers are bleeding i got scrapes all over my arms my knees my legs are like shaking Cause I'm, I like, I was done.
Like my fingers are bleeding. I got scrapes all over my arms, my knees, my legs are like shaking as I'm climbing.
And, um, and you know, Gordon's rocking it out, but, but yeah, he'd been, he'd been, uh, Gordon had been kind of saying for a while, let's go do something. Let's go do a tough month.
Cause, cause Gordon is my accountability partner. I actually, this morning we had our call every other Friday for like three years, we have an hour long call where we just kind of check in with each other and push each other.
And he kind of walks me off the ledge with some of my more crazy ideas. I run him by him first.
Then he says like bananas or, you know, maybe that's reasonable. And so, so he's been kind of saying, Hey, come do these things for a while.
And finally, you know, with the divorce and everything, I'm like trying new stuff and trying to be like, find Ryan again, I guess you could say. And I just said, fuck it, let's do it.
Like that sounds like, let's do it. Let's go rock climbing.
It's an hour away. It's perfect.
So we met there, he brought another buddy and dude, it was awesome. I don't know that I would want to do it all the time, but I'll tell you, I will definitely do it again.
And it was a blast. It was an absolute blast.
Like the sense of accomplishment. I mean, you're climbing a sheer rock face and like the guide that was with us.
I mean, when I tell you, I mean, people can't see this, but like you are holding onto crevices with your bare fingers that are like fingernail size and you're pulling yourself up on him. And like in a million years, I would never think like you could do this.
But when you have a guy down there going, here's how you do it, bam, pull. And like, he's like, look at that ledge.
That's a huge ledge, dude. I'm telling you the ledge might be half, half an inch wide.
He's like, that's huge. Put your foot on that.
And like, it's just funny. And so we made it up about 195 feet was the top summit.
And it took two, they call them pitches. I'm just I'm learning the language, you know, this, I didn't know this.
So like, we pitched up to a platform about 100 feet up. And then we pitched up to another platform, about 95 feet from there.
And that was wild, because you're looking out over your shoulder, dude. And so we're from where we started the climb we're 175 180 in the middle of this climb and looking over your shoulder but the valley floor was like 1200 feet down so like you're looking right for this and it just feels like you could fall into the abyss that's what it looked I mean obviously you're all harnessed up and shit but like it was wild it was very very like what do very cool.
Like, what do you mean harnessed up though? Like I'm thinking like, how the fuck are they getting? Sorry. Like belay on belay, man.
I mean, and they just threw it into the hole. I'm just so scared.
I'm not scared of heights. Yeah.
I mean, I will tell you that when I got to, so the first three climbs we did were on this kind of like beginner rock face, about 60, 60 foot climbs. You just, he's, you know, somebody's on the bottom, you know, and it goes up, goes up the mountain.
And then there's a, there's a, uh, an anchor hook on top and it comes back down and you climb it. And if you fall, you drop about a foot, but then the person who's got you, he's got you and you don't go anywhere.
Okay. So who put the anchor on the top? He did.
So the guide climbs all the way up, puts the anchor in and does all this thing. The guide's doing all this, a lot of this for you.
And then you climb. So, so really, you know, the first time I slipped off the wall, there was a brief moment of I'm going to die.
And then all of a sudden you, you could catch yourself, you grab back on the wall, you keep going. So you kind of, in that climb, you kind of learn like, okay, this is fun.
I'm probably not going to die. Like this guy's got me the rope.
It's all, it's pretty good. So we do that three climbs up and down.
A couple of them were really difficult, but you know, there's nowhere for you to fall. So it's all good.
So this, so then we do that. We stopped for lunch.
That's the morning. And then he goes, let's go.
How's everybody feeling? You want to do more? So we're like, yeah, sure. Let's do it.
We've got the afternoon. So, so we go to, um, to this other part of the mountain and now I'm looking up that 250, the very tippy top of this climb would be like 250 feet in the air.
I mean, you're looking straight up this thing and you're like, Holy shit, how do we get up there? So he starts showing us and he's talking. He talking he's and it takes a lot of work like the one thing i realized about this is like the amount of effort consideration time of getting all your equipment right getting everything set up making sure you're hooked in tied don't do there's all these like double checks and acronyms for like making sure all your gear is right on and all that kind of stuff because we you know you don't want to die if you fall that's the key kind of serious yeah so so this is definitely a serious thing like you're not this is not like a fuck around moment like this is like if you don't do all this stuff you die like that's how it works or you are seriously that simple yeah so so then we get up to the first so we so we climb up and you're climbing and we get to the first platform.
And this one was a little bigger because all four of us had to stand on it.

It's probably about a foot and a half off the mountain.

There's four of us on this platform and you turn around and look over your

shoulder and you're like, and literally like I grabbed onto the mountain,

like my hand, I just went flat and I grabbed on and he looks at me and he

goes, and he was kind of funny, but you know, but he was like,

give me shit. He's like, bro, you're tied in.
You're good. Like you don't have to hold on to the mountain i'm like i'm gonna hold on to the mountain i hear what you're saying i appreciate that but i'm gonna i'm just gonna keep my hand right here for a minute you know and then finally you start to like ease up a little bit but your heart is like whack whack whack whack and you lose your breath and you get that whole like feeling of like holy shit like this like this is, this is, this is wild.
And then, you know, but the other thing, and this is the last thing I'll say about it that I thought was really cool was I don't know if you do any like meditation or hot yoga or run really long distances. But what I really liked was when you're in it, when you're actually feet and hands on the mountain and you're trying to climb this straight up rock face and find the next ledge.
And, you know, it's like, it's like putting a puzzle together. Like, where does my foot go? It's not like there's just steps.
Like it's just the face of a mountain. Like you have to figure out and based on your body size and strength, you have to use different grips and whatever.
And, um, you are completely in it. 100% in that moment.
You're not thinking about your personal life. You're not thinking about work.
You're not thinking about your kids. You're not thinking about some email you got to respond to.
You're not thinking about anything. All you're thinking about in that moment is climbing the face of that mountain.
And, you know, I don't want this to get too foo-foo-y, but it is a very kind of like Zen-ish meditation thing because you are, I mean, how often are we able to give 100% of our attention to something? And for that 15, 20 minute period that it would take to traverse one of these pitches, one of these climbs, you are not thinking about anything else.

You're not thinking about, you know, you're not thinking about it. You're thinking just about that thing.
So you get to the top and you pull yourself up and you have this major sense of accomplishment and your body kind of goes, Oh shit, we're not going to die. So that kind of happens.
You feel good about that. And then you kind of like realize like, Oh my God, like I was in it.
Like I was in it. I was, I don't know if you call it flow or Zen or whatever the hell you want to call it.
You were in the pocket. And that part of it, that was probably, I don't know that I would say it was my favorite part because it was just a great experience, but I was, it was something I didn't expect and really, really enjoyed about it.
And could be the thing that brings you back, right? Yeah. It's the adrenaline of that, the addiction of it.
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You know what? Outside of that, that last five minutes you talked about, as you were talking about the rest of it, I thought to myself, God, this sounds like being an entrepreneur. Yeah.
You know, like, like, you know, focusing and having to every hand what's, what's dependent upon you. And I mean, there's not like like you said, there's not steps.
Right. It's freaking like, OK, you're going here and you're going there.
And and the person who's behind you is not necessarily taking the same thing. Right.
So you really don't have a ton of guidance. You've got a guy at the bottom who's usually our mentor that says, well, you could go this way and that way.
That's usually the best way. But at the end, if you fall, you have people like me that catch you.
You know, when you fall, you got people that help you. And that's the point.
And what's the greatness of the IA network is it kind of takes away that fear a little bit because it's like you're thinking, let's be funny for a minute. Cass's dumb ass is doing it.
And I'm thinking, well, if Hanley's dumb ass can do it, you know, it makes us go. So, you know, this is and this is in no way a judgment of her or a knock in any way.
But one of the things that was always space between my ex-wife and I was that she was coming up in a very successful family agency, which she has helped grown and done a tremendous job. So I'm not talking shit about her in any way, but like the fact that, you know, she was, her mindset was, you know, her next paycheck is coming, right? There's never a moment, you know, that's an established agency that she is growing and do a tremendous job, all that kind of stuff.
But like, none of the risk, none of the like, I'm going to put my hand here. Like I would yell to the guy who was the, the, the, the play on guy, the guy who, who was holding me.
Like if I felt that it was his body weight was what's going to catch me at certain times I would yell to him. Like I'm about to do something right now.
Like I'm about to make a move and I could fall on this move. Like some of the moves, you know, you're not going to fall.
Like you just know, Hey, I'm going to pull myself up. So like, I kind of have to reach with my left foot way out and pull with my right arm.
And if my hand slips, I'm coming off the mountain. Like, and you would, I would yell to him like, Hey, you know, so those moments, if you haven't had to, if you haven't had to make those moves, right.
If you've never had to take a step where if you fuck it up, you fuck it up. And there's real ramifications.
Like your business could be over. You can take, set yourself back years or months or whatever.
Like you could lose employees. You could lose contracts, customers.
Like when you're an entrepreneur, those are things you do almost on a daily basis. And anyone who hasn't experienced it, I'm not knocking anyone who hasn't experienced it.
I'm just saying it is very, very, very difficult to have some types of conversations with people who've never actually had to take real risk like it today. And honestly, up until rogue, maybe I had done it a little bit.
You know, I'd have like a speaking business. I've done a couple of things.
I've been part of some, but, but not really, really. Um, but after having rogue now, it's almost like it's changed me.
I, I won. I'm so much more comfortable and I've always been a little bit of a risk taker today.
I'm so much more comfortable with risk. And even in things like, like, God, like I hit a couple of nice bets on the bills game last night.
Like I bet you did even stupid shit, like betting and gambling and stuff, which I, which I like, I like that stuff. I mean, I, it's not like I'm wasting my fortune on it, but I do enjoy it.
Um, uh, you know, you just start to get a little more comfortable with, with, you know, and, and the other thing you do, and I'd be super interested in your, this is really the take I'm interested in is like, you almost start to get like this risk calculator or risk filter in your head. Like you develop this section of your brain that is constantly evaluating risk to reward.
And you almost start to get a feel for, and I don't mean it's like an absolute or some like genius, but no, we're all starting to develop this. Is that a risk worth taking or not? And you can make that in a snap.
You can kind of make that decision on the fly where before I had to, before two years plus of not making a single dollar, every decision could, could blow up the business. I got $50,000 of my own money sunk into this thing.
And it's, you know, I'm lighting it on fire every day until that time period. I didn't have that.
Now I feel like I do. And it's very hard sometimes to talk about certain topics with people who haven't experienced it because you can tell they don't know what you're talking about.
Do you, do you, does that make sense what I'm saying to you? Mm-hmm. You know, Billy says it all the time.
He says, Jason, the one, the day that you stopped selling in your agency is the day your agency blows up, blows up, meaning like expands, grows huge. Um, and we did that three or four years ago in it, and I didn't quit selling.
I always had to sell. Um, but yeah, I don't sell it in more anymore.
The last couple of counts we've went in, the guys sold it, you know, I've got these two 20, I've got two 22, 23 year olds. Now.
Um, one of them is my son. One of them is a Jake, Jake and Gavin played basketball together.
They've won two national championships when they were in fifth grade and seventh grade. And he Jake six fives.
So he was the down low guy. My son was the shooter.
It was fun. But Jake calls me last year and wants to go to work.
We him and my son, we bring up my son calls basically at the same time. But these guys haven't talked in like four years.
It was just really weird. We got them licensed in August.
We put them through some serious training, put them through David's training, became members of Charles Specht, done the Billy stuff. I really got them lined up, started prospecting around November, December.
They started going and seeing appointments in January. And I mean, these guys have written a little under a little tad more.
Well, it'd be a little tad more than a million dollars in premium. Um, and you know, Jake's up there around six 50, six 80 Gavin's up there probably around five.
And I mean, the last account they just closed on nine one, um, anybody can call and you can ask, it's a true story. $572,000, uh, account that they, they closed themselves.
And it was, it was pretty impressive because I was there with them. I think there was a couple areas where I had to guide them back to what they needed to tell the CFO, but I was really proud of them for what they were doing.
And I think once again, with those capable people, I have not, I mean, I really feel blessed like you. I feel, I feel really good and secure.
That's why I'm saying that stuff that we said 10 years ago, it hasn't made this life easy for us, but we knew that we had seen the right light and we just had to keep going. Whether it was people that were in our lives that were making it tough or whether it was the business or the market or, you know, I mean, a lot of different stuff.
And hey man, the next in 10 years, it's going to be even wild because we know it's going to be data driven, right? We know that it is the data driven. We went from customer service.
We went to customer experience. I think there's a lot of other customers.
I think we're going to customers excellence. I've said in the past, I said this in 2018, when I came out with the great separator, the presentation, it's not, it's about finding our customers on expectations, not so much their expectations, but what are they not expecting that they need in the experience? And I think it's, it's data that's going to show those behavioral traits.
And I think that that is going to be the biggest factor going forward. What do you think, buddy? I, I agree with you.
I think that is going to play a large role. I think that, I think there's also going to be a lot of mistakes that are made with data.
I think, and the reason I say that is I think data, data is, data can be as much as it can be a boon, it can also be a right so you can you can if you dad the right data analyze the right way and and i'm going to put right in quotes because that's going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different situations a lot of different companies but just taking that for what it is um incredible the things you see the pivots you can make the decisions you you can make. It's unbelievable.
It's absolutely a big part of the future. The days of your intuition alone, alone being enough.
I still believe human intuition, gut feeling. There's a part of that that is so important, even if just from a cultural standpoint for your company, but I believe it's very important.
That being said, data used the right way. Incredible.
At the same time, as we've seen from some of the startups that have come out, from some of the people who rose to prominence in our industry and now where the hell are they on the back of data is everything, data, data, data, data, data, data, data. It can be too much.
It can be a trap. You can get lost in data.
And at a certain point, and this is a conversation that I I'm super interested in your opinion and love your take on at a certain point, the data doesn't help. Like it has to be helpful, right? That's the thing is data.
People have pitched me data products, data dashboards. And I look at it and I'm like, what does that give me? I get it.
I think it's cool. Like cool that you can do this and this and point to here.
And I find out this thing. Hartford is 37% of this part of your boat.
I'm like, okay, that's great. But what is that? What do I do with that? Do I, are you telling what, what is the, what is the action item? I don't care about the data.
Honestly, I give two shits about the data. I would rather God just came down and told me what to do.
But being that I don't think he's going to take time out of his day to help Ryan run Rogue Risk better, you need to show me not the data, but what is the data telling me to do, right? That's what I want. That's where we're going to be in 10 years.
We will have the software, the behavioral. It's going to take a while to build that.
But I also want to go to what you said here. This is actually, if you're coming to IAOA, any of you listeners, this is actually in the presentation.
I'm reading this off my phone just to make sure.

I'm just giving the little notes to make sure the year's right.

But in 1997, Watson, for the first time ever, beat a master chess champion. And from that point further, no other master champion ever beat him.
until 2008.

They found out that a human and Watson could beat Watson. It's about that behavioral of what's happening with the client.
It's about the agent and how they're going to use that AI technology, that data to be able to meet that person in a different in a different type of way. What those ways are, what those ways that are going to analyze that, that's where I think we're going to say, holy shit.
I mean, we just had data, but we didn't have anything. One of the things that Nicholas Ayers, I'm going to throw it out there.
He said this a long time ago. He's like, data, data, data, data, data.
What are you going to do when you get the data right you know yeah if you're watching youtube what are you gonna do oh no and i mean i could make fun of hanley too and his pointing things but no he asked that question and when he asked that at a conference one time i thought to myself wow that is point we've got all this data and we want all this data what the hell are you gonna do with it what does it mean if you don't have a plan and i kudos to nick for saying that a couple years ago and he's right he's still right about that i think that's what you're saying yeah that that's exactly what i'm saying is that um it is a trap to think that data is worth anything it's not data is not worth shit don't fall for any trap that data is worth anything it It's not. It's numbers in a freaking database.

It means nothing. What are you going to do with it?

If you can't extract usable insights from that data, it is worthless. It's meaningless.
It doesn't mean, you know, I mean, I guess if you're being prudent, you should collect as much data as you can because maybe down the line we find ways to make it useful. I guess just being hyper practical.
but like in general the the the idea that you know you're going to pay all this money and spend all

this time for data of its own. And again, this is one of the things that enamored me to Seth and Neon way back in the day, was that his, you know, I don't know as much of where they are today.
I'm just not as dialed in for a few reasons, but like the original vision of we're going to give agency owners access to their data and then create ways through working together and kind of a cooperative environment, extract insights that allow us to work better. That's what turned me on.
What turned me on was not data. It was, I'm going to be able to, I'm going to be able to give my people actionable things that they should do to improve our business based on the data.
So if you're evaluating a tool or whatever. This is important.
Yep. This is important.
So it's what you're saying here. Seth is nothing more than you and I were for the last 10 years that we would come out with DEMA.
We would come out with grow. We would come out with things.
And like it was really great. And then like only a certain amount of people because of the adoption curve.
Right. And then in three, four years, five years, everybody was doing it.
And Hanley and I were like, man, we were too early. Yeah.
I think that's what Seth was. Yeah.
And I believe like you said, okay. And I'm just using what you said as just an example.
It doesn't mean anything. Hartford's 30% of my book.
Let's get wild here for a minute. When we know that Hartford is 34% of our book, and we know the behavioral traits of that, and we can track it.
Now, all of a sudden, when we go to sell our book, we don't sell it at two and a half times or 10 times EBITDA or whatever. We now start to look at each piece.
Maybe someone wants to buy the piece of Erie. Maybe someone wants to buy the piece of Hartford because what's worth one more to the other.
If I've got $250,000 with Hartford and premium, who cares? Well, an agency who needs to get $200,000 to hit a bonus this year may be willing to pay a little bit more for that, right? So that allows us to separate it there. Now let's even go a step further.
Let's go into Seth's zone that only few people have heard him talk about. And this shit's going to happen and it's going to be wild.
Think FanDuel, but for insurance agencies, I believe that there will be at a time that we will, Seth does. And I, I believe him that there will be a time where data will be transferable so easily amongst agencies that we'd actually be able to almost have like a fan duel to where you could bet on certain agencies and bet on certain profiles.
It's really kind of cool. But let's take it to what Seth actually says.
He believes in a stock exchange to where data can be changed and interchanged between carriers or agencies of different carriers to where you could own a traveler's book today, but you may not own a traveler's book next month. But yet because the data is so easily switched back and forth, this could be a you could have 15 carriers in one simple year based on the fact that they could be different.
And I own three of yours that you had last year because you built up the small business and we're slow on small business. And I'd like to have that.
So let's just me buy you now and you transfer it over. He's got like this stock exchange idea.
That's just a douche if you hear him out on it. Yeah, i've heard him do that before um i'll be honest with you guys and i mean no disrespect seth if you're listening it's one of the few ideas that i completely disagree with him on um and the reason you know it's gonna be right uh and the reason i disagree with him on it is because who the fuck services the business if i'm buying your traveler's book this year and you you know uh bradley buys it next year and then paradiso decides he wants some travelers and he who's servicing that business you're assuming the same service model that we have today though because it's a good question but we're also assuming the same service well i'll tell you you know i have my entire agency around the bet right so again this is, where I place my chips that humans have to be involved in the process and what you just described to me, I don't know how, so like, let's, okay.
Take a consumer. Right.
So let's, let's take a consumer in this model right here that we're talking about. So you have the traveler's book.
I do business with Jason Cass. Jason Cass is my guy.
Actually, I really don't like Jason. He's kind of a prick.
I like Gavin. Gavin's the best.
So I'm doing business. Okay, great.
Good kid. Like it.
Good jump shot. Awesome.
Okay. So now all of a sudden I get a notification, you know, John Thomas at portal insurance from Bradley flowers.
They're now my agent. Who the fuck is John Thomas? Where am I going? Am I going to trial now to travel now try maybe it's a traveler service center okay boom that's it yeah except except how do you solve retention in that model cast because you can't without a human involved in the process you cannot break 40 retention can't do it can't break right but there will be there will be a human there'll be a human who that that's like saying a lawyer.
Face it, Jimmy Jones, who you call? No. Carrier.
Service center. There's people that answer.
And AI technology helps write that. Small business carrier service centers.
Their model does not work. They're terrible.
They blow. Middle market carrier service centers.
Central has a decent one. Cincinnati is a decent.
Hanover's is okay. But the account has to be big and every line of business has to be with that carrier.
So in order for a commercial carrier service center to work, and there's only a few that are good. And the ones that I named are good, but the only way they're even good is if every line of commercial business.
Now, for any of you who've ever sold a commercial account before, how many of your accounts have every line of business with the same carrier? Almost zero. Almost zero.
Unless you're just- No, no, no. 20% to 30% of ours are.
Yeah, if it's a single bop, that's different. I'm talking about- It's the vast majority or not.
I'm talking about a decent size account. Yeah.
$500 bop and that's all they have with no comp? Yeah, sure. I'm sure that's fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're talking large account.
Not even large. Just I have a $2,500 bop.
I got $7,000 in comp. I got commercial auto.
It's just those three policies. There's no way they're all with the same carrier.
I bet it's less than double digit percentage for someone who has those three lines in commercial to all have them with the same carrier because half the carriers won't write commercial auto. Comp rates are all.
Okay. case now i buy your traveler's book so so now i'm i'm calling the traveler's service center for my bop if i'm a customer but where's my comp well i call gavin gavin goes we're not your agent anymore oh wait no we are your agent for the hartford part but we're not your agent for the traveler's part and we and then but uh we sold sold our progressive book to Scott Howell's agency.
So, so now for progressive, you got to call progressive direct or Scott Howell's agency for your travelers. You got to call the traveler service center, or you got to call Bradley flowers agency, but you can still call us for the bop or for the comp that you have at Hartford.
It doesn't fucking work. It's an amazing idea.
I like it as a, as a marketplace where I could buy it and it's mine forever and I don't sell it for a while. But this idea that you're going to interchange books of business and pass them around like their securities is fucking bananas to me.
That's the one I think of all the ideas that I get. I get mad at people who use the lens of today to look back and try to make judgments for and against.
I'm not using the lens of tomorrow. I think you're using the lens of today to look forward and not understand that you're basing it on a sales model of today that may not be here.
You're not talking to some middle management fucking hack from some large carrier who has to throw out one decent idea to keep their business. This is what I think about all day.
I believe in the future, thinking about the future, that unless carriers go to a model where they are willing to write all lines for everybody. What about their cyber cast? Where do you put their cyber?

What do I want to call for cyber?

Where does that go?

So now they're going traveler service center through Bradley's flower

ratings for travelers.

But what you're saying is we have a service center that services all of

it.

You're not going to make any money that way.

You're not going to make any money.

You could have four,

you could have five regional service centers across America and you've got

to be part of one of those regions. I'm just saying, whichever one of your people are listening to this, have them bookmark this.
We'll come back in five years and see what's happening. No, I say 10.
It's because this is way out there. But also, it's like a lawyer.
The lawyer today has 13 paralegals. We'll also be flying cars.
We'll be beaming ourselves around. And the paralegal, no, you can't do that because Republicans are holding us back back so the problem with it is is that you have to you have to think about that i mean how that is we're using a model that is that we're trying to compare i'm literally talking about a stock exchange of our of our freaking i know exactly what you're talking about if we're no no if we're at that point over there we're not doing the service side i'm just saying just saying, I think it's an incredible idea.
A lawyer who has 13 paralegals today will still be here in 10 years, but he's only going to have one or two paralegals and AI that's a completely different thing. When you use that and you use data transfer, you don't have to have 600 people in a service center.
You can have 10 people in a service center who are able to actually route this stuff to where it's not a person saying, Hey, I'm calling Jim or I'm calling them. That's not the way it'll look like in 10 years is what I'm saying.
This service model we have now is not working. They can't keep trying to cut my expenses and keep trying to put things on me and force me into aggregators.
There's only way I can extra commission that doesn't work that doesn't work so I think I'm I'm at I'll be honest with you sure we're talking about we don't know yeah I'm just saying I think you're wrong I also also wine that's the only reason I heard you take that pot shot at Republicans your boy Gavin Newsom just said everyone needs to have an electric car except you can't charge your electric car so there. So there you go.
There's a Democrat. He's one of the top 10.
Where's my mic? He's one of the top 10 worst individuals in America. He's one of the top 10 worst individuals.
This sound right here is me dropping the mic. That's me dropping the mic right there.
And you're 100% right. But he's the worst individual.
Top 10. I can't stand it.
He's going to be your nominee. He's going to be your nominee.
I am a Republican. I am a Republican.
I'm voting Santis the whole way. So it doesn't matter.
That's who I'm voting for. Democrat and Republican close.
Son of a bitch. Never voted for a Democrat once in my life.
I did have a friend when I was younger who was running for state's attorney for Marion County. I voted for Matt Swalback.
And he's a Democrat. But I think that might be the only time I ever voted.
If I'm confess confessing my sins i voted for obama the first time i did not vote for him the second time but i know i was a mccain guy and i was a romney guy i hated mccain god hated him hated i didn't hate him but i didn't like him as a president right i liked him and who he was yes you know fine as he brings in sarah palin what the hell i was actually a little excited at first on that she was hot she's hot she was actually smart for like the first week um you know i guess this after she got past the talking points it was real bad um so but anyways no i uh good politics good politics politics are just so crazy today so crazy will calm down. It will calm down.
I've said this for the last three or four years and I changed this. I said over the last three or four years, there will come somebody this or someone that will come along and will unite us because that's what leaders do.
I've changed that in the last three, four months I believe there will be something

I believe there is no doubt a showdown getting ready to come up in the next four, seven, 10 years. That's going to have to, that's going to be a showdown with China.
World War three against China, China, but you're going to have Russia. All of them are aligning right now.
And I do not want that. Listeners, I am not saying that.
You can't have Democrat warmongers running the country the way they are. I do not want this.
That's not what I'm saying. Hanley and I don't want war.
We're just talking about this. One of my filters for if someone is an idiot or not is when if I ask them about who's a bigger warmonger, Democrats or Republicans, and idiots default to Republicans.
Now, if you give me a case, I will not consider you an idiot. I'll just consider you wrong.
But like when they just go, Republicans, and it's like- Defense spending is what someone would say. 30 years ago, yes.
But today, not even the last decade, basically since obama there i mean it's fight a war to to jack up or get whatever it's just it's insane it's absolutely insane like to think today if you if you're looking the other thing too is and and this is my biggest beef with politicians today this is the the issue that that bothers me the most because like all this like trans and and and ethnic stuff is so fucking stupid like we had all this we're on the right path it wasn't perfect don't get me wrong i'm not saying that there was racism or all that shit for sure and all and i hate all that i hate it um all you know we need to do the things we need to do but like we were on the right path it wasn't until democrats needed this turmoil and spun it all up into making it into this terrible thing that it is today that it's just so sad because this is such a great place to live. Well, talk about how you switched it, though.
You said like the warmongers and who not. And I agree with that.
I actually agree with that 100 percent. And also think of the other parts like the Republicans were kind of the rich, kind of the ones who the rich kids went to school and stuff and then they all became democrats and now the democrats are the ones with the money and the hard-working guy which used to be the blue collar guy with the democrat the hard-working guy now today is represented i didn't work for the railroad my dad worked for the railroad and was a lifelong democrat because that was the working person's part i mean back then working man's party but the working person's party.
I mean, I'm back then working man's party, but the working person's party was, it was raised the Democrat and then just lived through the nonsense of now all these coastal elites trying to push all their shit down onto everyday people. And I'm like, in a day-to-day basis, everybody kind of gets along.
And then you watch TV and you're like, everyone hates each other. You're like, wait a minute.
That doesn't really seem like the world that I live in like i don't come on come on here's my here's my issue this is the issue that drives me the most crazy come on where the fuck are the nuclear plants all this nonsense with california with the power grid with needing russia with needing all this shit if we and look gen 4 and do a little if you're like ryan you're an idiot this is a If we, and look, Jen, for, and do a little, if you're like,

Ryan, you're an idiot. This is a stupid topic.
Think about all the problems, energy, all the, I mean, here's another thing. Every wind turbine and fucking solar panel that we put up, you are polluting the world just as badly as when you, is when you, except for coal, take coal out of the equation.
Cause that's terrible. The fact we still burn coal is bananas but like outside of that like uh uh petro and natural gas is cleaner than the fucking lithium and all the chemicals and shit that they have to dig out of the earth to put into all these turbines okay so all of this batteries for the electric cars all of this nonsense is solved with gen four nuclear reactors do a simple google search on it they are self-sustaining self-eating which means that the waste isn't doesn't need to be stored anywhere the reactor actually eats as you feed more um uh radioactive material you put in that it's the old material so they they self-sustain and like i get it no one wants to see smokestacks in their backyard.
But the Gen 4 reactor is about a third of the size of the old school double silo, whatever. So like, if we just had a power grid based on nuclear energy, we would be completely self-sufficient.
We could probably run the entire country on electric cars, no problem, right? There would be no issue. We could all have electric cars.
The cost could come down. And all of these- They're having power outages in Texas and Mississippi and California.
And I'm like, are we a first-world- Because it's solar panels. Because it's solar panels.
It's the least efficient way. It's like, come on.
Oh my God. Regardless, if it's solar panels or not, we shouldn't be in this situation.
It's like, this is freaking ridiculous. I hear you, Hanley.

Hanley, we got to get back to our empires.

All right, last final thought.

So I'm going to give it to you.

You start.

We just went off the rails like we do.

Hopefully people stuck with us.

Final thought.

Let's pull it back to the insurance industry.

Final thought.

It could be anything.

It could be something today.

It could be, you know, whatever's on your brain.

Last thought.

Last thing you want to share with the audience before we get out. If you need time, I will go.
Go. I believe today that more than ever in having hired across the spectrum from, you know, baby boomer age to whatever the hell you call 24 year olds today.
I've hired people within that span across the board for almost every position in the company. I believe today that mindset and culture is the driving for, and I know that's not a new thought, but I think it's becoming more and more important as we go remote and remote and work lifestyle.
What we've seen as a trend in our agency is that people care less about, so I was taught in you to maximize your income potential, get as much money as you can, and then build the life you want yourself. And what I've seen people want across the board, across the spectrum more than ever is a good place to work that's going to facilitate their lifestyle.

And in exchange, they're willing to make less money.

You know, they're not they're not their first thought isn't pin the income lever as far to the right as you can. It's OK, what can I get in exchange for being able to leave at three o'clock to get my kids off the bus, having the flexibility to

come in late if my kids are sick or, or if I have to take my spouse who has this chronic illness to the doctor or whatever. What? Sorry, my computer just did something wacky.
Sorry, guys. So, you know, I believe that today how we build culture and work style into our businesses is as important almost as any other decision as we make because it's how you get talented people.
And it's been one of the biggest revelations to me is I just thought everyone wanted to pin max income potential. And that is we are over and over and over again, we are seeing that that is not the thing.
And I feel like we've been fairly successful in hiring. I'm very proud of the team that we've built.
And we're at, like I said, 16 or 17 people. And so much of that is positioning our business around facilitating lifestyle, not just maxing income.
And obviously, you can make a lot of money. I like the word facilitating.
I like that. That's a good word in that situation.
Final thought. Yeah.
I've got a lot. I mean, also to be self-advertising, I believe truthfully that virtual employees are absolutely essential in agencies.
They allow for me, as I said, to be able to go on these vacations. But what I think is unique is one of the things you said earlier really kind of helped me with one of the things I've been thinking a while is this unique thought.
And this is just as in the insurance industry. I have friends who are successful in the real estate business or own a manufacturing facility and they're 40 and 44.
And they're just thinking about selling because they want to take their one. They want to take their five.
They want to take their $10 million and go do what they want. And it's weird because as the baby boomers have stayed and extended, we have been, a lot of us have been successful enough that we actually could shorten us, which actually will help the generation before in a very unique way.
I had never really thought of that until you had pinned those boomers is going out so far. And I think that you will see an exodus of agency owners between the age of 45 and 55 that will not do what the boomers did.
And you're going, you're going to see those people do it. And if you do it right and you come in, I'm not saying doing it wrong means you're doing personal lines, but to look at Jake and to look at Gavin, they will have a completely different life than you and I had at the age of 25 and 26.
Jake's talking to me the other day. Gavin's done this too.
And they'll say, hey, Jason, I'm working on this account. They're not allowed to prospect anything less than $10,000 in revenue.
If they got a buddy who's got a body shop down the road that wants them to write their insurance, yeah, you don't walk away from that. But this is what they're allowed to go after.
And he said to me, Hey, I've got this smaller account. We start discussing it.
And, and I said, well, what's the premium? And he's like, ah, it's not really that big. And so finally I said, well, what is the premium? And he's like, well, the work comps just 50,000.
And I, at that point in time, I heard Billy in my head about Jason. It's the denomination in which you think of.
You've got to think big.

That's one of my favorite Billy-isms. Yeah, and it's still hard for me to do that.
But when you start a producer off with that thought and they get that successful that early, that means I get to leave early. Yeah.
Right? Doesn't necessarily even mean I have to sell because a lot of these guys will tell me, I don't want to be an owner right now. I mean, they're 23, 24, drinking at night,

spending their time on – They're going to concerts fricking five times a week. You know what I mean? That's what they do.
They don't want to be a leader. You know, they don't even want to lead.
They don't even want to learn leadership skills right now. They just want to learn, Hey, how do I get the next prospect? So I think that there's going to be that.
And, um, I'm, I'm, I'm really excited about that that but yeah hey hey listeners last question before we get out last question awesome you're looking super young you botoxing you botoxing what are you doing you're looking good no looking nice dude bro 75 hard right now i'm in the middle of a 30 hard so i'm doing a 30 hard set for the month of september um bro i i went from 176 to 162. I'm starting to, you know, I'm starting to build mass and shit like that.
And yeah, so no, that's what I did. I'm not even going to lie to you.
Hanley, I want you to know this. This is 1000% the truth.
When I saw you at Brainshare in San Antonio, I was like, look at that motherfucker. What is, who does he think he is? And see, I was getting ready to start 75 hard the next week.
Right. And so I'm like, he gave me some motivation.
I know who he is. Hey guys, if you go back to our Facebook page, go back to 2013, when we are in San Antonio, Texas, you remember this picture we took outside the Mexican restaurant? Look at Hanley back then.
I was about 210 back then. You were huge back then.
Yeah. Yeah.
Now I look good too. Don't forget that.
I swing between 190 and 193 now, but yeah, back then I was 210. Yeah.
I carried a lot of extra weight now. I'll never forget that picture.
Yeah. But anyways, dude.
All right, man. It's always amazing.
I, If anyone was able to keep up with this podcast, God bless you.

There should be like an award if you were able to follow along this crazy fucking ADD trail that we just went down. This was one of the best I think we've done in a while.

But no, appreciate you as always.

This is amazing.

You're the man.

Be good, homie.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother.

See you, brother. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast.
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