RHS 094 - Mike Stromsoe Explains How to Grow Through Adversity

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In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. I brought some of my working knowledge tools with me today, thinking that maybe at some point they might help.
So I've got a lot of reasons why I'm able to continue to make the progress that I made so far. So back to you, sir.
No. So let's go there.
I'm interested. Like what, you know, our, here we are.
It's February going on March. We got one more month in the first quarter.
And it doesn't you know, we've kind of shaken COVID for the most part where, you know, where it's not gone, but we're we feels like we got a better, much better grip. um it's not gonna it's not gonna turn back into the middle ages at least covid isn't gonna be what sends us back there so um how how do we start to refocus i'm a producer so a lot of

producers a lot of agency owners listen to the show. How do we start to pull it back in, to get back to what, to grinding? And do we need to recalibrate? You know, I'm going to kind of start very big and we'll drill down in as we go.
Where does your mind go when I ask you that question? Well, you know, you said one of the key words, which is our mind, because at the end of the day, our mindset is our skill set. And there's absolutely no question about that.
So, you know, I can go on with a long set of acronyms about what come to my mind when I hear that. I guess the only other one that I will add on to that is what we perceive is what we believe.
And ultimately, at the end of the day, actually, with a coaching client just yesterday, and I've got it right here, I know we're on audio only, but I was showing him a visual that ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, we have our life, right? We're all privileged to have our life. And if you're fortunate to have a life with health and great people around you, you know, you're extremely privileged.
So we have our life. And ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to understand what is it and we have to know where we're going and knowing our destination is all we need to get there.
So at the end of the day, we get to, we don't have to do anything. We get to design our own life.

So ultimately we get to create it.

Okay.

So we begin to create whatever life it is that we want.

And there's two sides of life, right?

There's personal and professional.

Okay.

So if we're talking about the professional realm, we get to design and create our professional life.

Once we begin to create it, then we've got to set an expectation bar. OK, and we all have different comfort zones, if you are, if you will.
And those who make the greatest progress in this world are those who are willing to live outside of their comfort zone. And progress begins outside of your comfort zone.
and you've got to get comfortable being uncomfortable if you're going to be in the high achievement realm

in today's business and personal world. I'll kind of leave it at that.
But you set an expectation bar for yourself. At the end of the day, once you know that expectation bar and know your destination, then you've got to really begin the hard stuff.
And Ryan, I think that's what separates people nowadays from maybe the achievers versus the ho-hums, if you will, or those who aren't achieving really what they want to achieve. They're not willing to do the hard thing, which is thinking.
It takes a lot of thought and a lot of planning. is, you know, What are you doing in the thinking realm to fuel your future destination?

Then it really begins to the middle of the circle in a visual that I'm looking at right now.

It's what you put into your mind that makes all of the difference. So I'll be happy to share with you today how I do it and how I've made a lot of progress by doing things a certain way.
So I'm also looking at a study that I recently did of the highest achieving people in business, period. Some inside of our industry, a lot of them outside of our industry.
And let me read you the characteristic attributes of these people. May I? Oh, yeah.
Fire away, man. Okay.
So, what I want you to also keep in the back of your mind when I read these attributes, I want you to keep in the mind knowledge, skills, and attitude. Okay? So the highest achieving people out there in business are passionate.
The highest achieving people out there in business are focused. The highest achieving people out there in the world are determined.
The highest achieving people in the world are persistent. The highest achieving people in the world are driven.
The highest achieving people in the world are driven.

The highest achieving people in the world are risk takers.

You got to take some risk in this world.

It's not going to happen.

Easy street is not going to lead you to where you really want to go based on what I've observed so far.

The highest achieving people have an amount of visionary within them. They're visionaries.
They're adaptable or agile. I'll get back to that in a minute.
They're positive. Back to the input, right? And then they're inquisitive.
So let's break this down for just a second. I talked about knowledge.
I talked about skills. I talked about attitude.
Okay. On this study, I wrote down on right next to each one of those words.
Is it an attitude? Is it a skill or is it knowledge? So passion or being passionate. What is that? It's attitude.
Being focused. Well, that's a skill.
It's training yourself. That's a skill.
Okay. Determine.
What is that? It's attitude. Being persistent.
That's attitude. Being driven.
That's attitude. A risk taker.
That's attitude, but that also requires some knowledge. And the more knowledge you have, the greater your capacity for risk.
Okay. Being a visionary.
That's some knowledge, but a lot of it's attitude.

Being adaptable or agile. That's some skill, but there's attitude there as well.
Being positive. That's attitude.
Being inquisitive. It's attitude.
So what's the secret? Well, out of all of those, out of what, 11 or 12, nine of them are attitude. So if you come into it with the right attitude, wanting the knowledge, wanting to hone your skills and get better at what you're doing, my friend, the sky is the absolute limit for anybody that wants to go there.
Yeah. Yeah.
I, it's funny, you know, this last year has been very interesting for me. So I started my agency on March 9th.
Kudos to you, sir. What? Kudos to you, sir.
Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks. Thanks.
I, I like, like so many other people, I wish I could have got a heads up on COVID and everyone always follows that comment up with, well, you know, if you can make it through COVID, you can make it through anything. And I'm sure there's some truth to that, but I would have rather done it without COVID.
But all that being said, what's what what to your point on attitude, if I look back over this last year, and I think about the periods of time, in which I felt like I was really cranking, in the periods of time where I felt like, man, I just did not feel good. It was a hundred percent the way that I showed up in the morning.
It just was. Um, and I, and you know, I've tried, I've definitely tried to work on that, but it's, it's tough to, to, especially when you're on your own, I find it to be tough to show up every day with the attitude to be successful with the things you need to do.
So if say there's someone out there, whether it's a producer who feels like they're not supported, so they feel alone, or it's a someone who's who's kind of building an agency and actually physically is alone, or maybe just someone who's who's all of a sudden now working remotely, that that's more isolated. What are some things that either you do or that you recommend that can help put them in that framework, that attitude on a framework when they show up each day? Yeah, great question.
And it could be a really long answer. I'm going to give you some short snippets only based on what I really know well, which is what I do.
And we all are to an extent isolated. I design and intentionally do things, however, to push myself out of it.
Like I'm driving to the office. I mean, there's not too many people here, but I'm doing it almost every single day because that's what I need to do for me to be in high performance mode the majority of the time.

So ultimately, at the end of the day, it really comes back to something as simple as having a plan, having a game plan and designing that plan.

What I've learned to do over time, and this has really come to fruition in a great way

in the last 10 years, and it was probably 10 years of preparation before that that set me up for the last 10 years.

But, you know, I've got a planned design on a weekly, a quarterly and an annual basis.

I have full sets of goals for both companies that I read religiously at least three times a week.

It used to be five days a week, but I've kind of changed the way I do things, but it's working for me. Okay.
So I know where I'm going all the time. And by repeating and looking at those goals consistently, it fuels my thoughts.
And when you build in, you know, personal habits, such as exercise is something that's really, really key to me. And when you build in an accountability partner, which I've also built in, I get to show up.
I don't have to do anything. I get to show up every Friday morning at six o'clock Pacific for my accountability call.
And I don't always want to prepare on Thursday night for the call, but I've made that commitment because commitment is the thing you said you're going to do long after the mood you set in in his past. So to give you some advice and maybe anybody who's listening out there, you are the result of the five people you hang around with the most.
Okay. So surround yourself with the kind of people that are like-minded that will help you along those road because I will, that will help you along that road because I will suggest there's multiple other people out there in the exact, almost the exact same position who might be looking for somebody to stand by their side and go along that road with them.
Yeah. Okay.
And, and what a, what a wonderful, incredible privilege it is for us to be in this industry, because there's, you know, 20, 30,000 agents across America. So, you don't look for four others, right? As an example.
You know, one of the other things that has really become so special for me is I intentionally designed, you know, one of our programs to be full of people like that.

High achieving, like-minded people. And now we exchange helping them for that juice that helps us get down the road as well.
So really it's designing your life. And I learned from one of my great mentors, the late Jim Rohn, he said, you know, you attract exactly what you are and who you've become.

Okay. So we've got to become more ourselves, whether it be mentally, physically, or both,

before we can ever attract the kind of people that, you know, we might want standing by our side. You know, the other thing that I strongly encourage people out there, when you create a plan, you've just got to take action.
Because thinking about it's not going to do it, talking about it's not going to do it, only action is going to get you to the next step. Is it going to be fun? No.
Okay. You know, if I look at, you know, I've got a sheet of quotes from some of my, you know, favorite mentors or people that I've met over my journey, you know, the great Les Brown, the motivational speaker said, you know, if you do what's easy, your life's going to be hard.
But if you do what's hard, your life's going to be easy. Sometimes it's about doing that hard stuff that's going to make us become more.
That's what causes us to become more. Okay? In addition to that, then we're going to experience what we call wins and lessons.
Yeah, lessons are failures, but we don't call them that. We call them lessons.
Because the richest man that I ever studied under in, I don't know, 15 years ago, billionaire, live, said, look, when things go wrong, think about like this. Now, if anybody's experienced death close to them recently, my apologies.
I'm not trying to be insincere here, but he said, when something goes wrong, think about it like this. Did anybody die? No, we can recover.
Earl Nightingale said the same thing in The Strangest Secret. There's multiple people who have lost everything multiple times and they've recovered because of who they become and because of their mindset and everything else surrounding it.
So create a plan, create a design. I plan my day the night before.
When I get up in the morning, I don't have to think about what I'm going to do that day. I get up and I've got habits.
Somebody recently challenged me on how long my habits take before I even start, if you will, working. It's about an hour and 15 minutes.
Because that's the plan design I've created for my life to get done. Not only that I need to get done, but how I can become more for other people that I am now privileged and responsible to lead.
So I hope that helps. No, geez.
No, that's great. The first there's a lot to dig in there.
The first thing that I want to dig into is balancing planning and action. So I know first I want to reiterate a point that you made.
I feel like and I know you feel this the same way on multiple levels, the various things that I've been able to do in the public space, this podcast, speaking, different jobs that I've had, it has been eye-opening at first. Now I'm just kind of aware of it and appreciative of how many amazing, like-minded people there are in our industry.
Like-minded so much in the standpoint of driven, focused, wanting to achieve it and being willing to learn and listen. That has been an amazing thing.
So my point to that is if you find yourself with four other people who are dopes, it's not that hard to find other people in our space who are hard charging. And also it's good to find

people that aren't in our space as well. I try to do who are the other four in our space and who

are four that I can connect with outside of our space because you get such a good mix there. But here's here's my question for you um i i tend to be

over over indexed on action, severely under indexed on planning. I have friends in the industry who will plan all day long and not punch a single keystroke into the computer.
Regardless of which side you come from, how do you start to find that middle ground? Cause I, cause I'm, you know, and I, and anyone who listens regularly knows I just do. And oftentimes I don't even know why I'm doing, but I'm doing and, and, you know.
Yeah. Just by the way, since we can see each other and a lot of people can't see us, when I hold up two fingers, that means I second or I agree.
That's a long story from the family dinner table years ago. And we'll save that for another day.
But yeah, I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, it really comes back to people's personality. And I will suggest your personality, my personality, probably are in a really close alignment.
There's a lot of people out there in the world whose personality is not like our personality. They are the type of personality they need to plan even

more. They might need to think about it a little bit.
So what I was thinking about as I was listening

to you is here's the good news. Here's the great news.
Everybody, every person on the planet

has been my observation through my learning and develop personal development that everybody has

This is the first time I'm, however you want to classify it. Okay.
And when somebody is able to identify those top three personal talents, gifts, vital functions, and operate within those top three personal gifts, talents, vital functions, 80 to 90% of their day, that's when it gets really, really sweet. And they're able to come really even higher achievers in that realm.
Because ultimately, at the end of the day, that's when you want to surround yourself, you know, not with five people, but other people within your business who can handle what you don't do well. Okay, you want to, you know, the word delegate is out there, you know, delegation.
I've changed the word delegation. I don't call it that anymore.
I call it empowerment. I just think there's a different flavor, a different meaning behind empowerment versus delegation.
I'm not looking to just throw something to somebody and have it done. I'm looking to train them to do it consistently all the time so I never touch it again.
So at the end of the day, you want to surround yourself with people who are really good at that. I mean, to give you an example, I've worked this thought process for a lot of years and really it's come to this.
Okay. I've always loved marketing.
I love, love, love marketing. I love everything about it.
That's one of my three. Number two is sales.
I love to sell. I still love to sell.
Okay. So marketing and sales.
And then, you know,

I was saying for a while, it was leadership and training. And one of my teammates said to me one day, she goes, you know, you always say leadership and training, marketing and sales as your top three.
There's one word for the leadership and training. Do you know what that is? And I'm like, no, what is it? She goes, you know what it is.
I said, quit it. What is it? She goes, it's easy.
It's coaching. So coaching, marketing, and sales are my top three and everything else that's not within that realm.
I empower somebody else to do it. And that's how I get so much done.
In addition to that, when I plan my day the night before, I've circled my top three priorities. Let's say there's eight things on the list.
I've circled my top three, and that's the only thing I'm going to work on until they're done. The others are going to be there.
If they don't get done, they don't get done. Only the highest priorities, and normally those highest priorities are the most difficult things as well.
Sure, It's easy to do the easy stuff to make yourself feel better because you've got something done. Right.
But that's not the stuff that's going to make the big, you know, progressive dent and pushing through to the next level. Yeah.
I, that has been, so it's funny. My three would be exactly the same.
That, that, those are the three things that I love the most. When I was at agency nation, you know, I, at one point I had 19 people working for me at trustedchoice.com and agency nation.
And, and, and, and in that environment, I really, we, we were really dialed in at least for a period of time to that mentality.

My team didn't even want me doing anything else. Like if I tried to step into other things, they'd be like, nope, get out of here.
You know what I mean? Like, you know, you can listen, but don't talk, you know, sit in the corner. And that was a good, you know, that was really good.
That's been one of the weirdest parts for me, you know, starting this agency is going from that to all by myself, you know, and really balancing, okay, I got a, I got, you know, some freaking client who's pinging me 10 minutes before the show, because the barcodes that came from the carrier, or there's no barcodes on the ID cards. And in New York, you have to have barcodes.
And I'm just like, I'm like, where is the gun? I gun I want to stick it right in my mouth this is this is I can't stand it like it I know how important it is and I know how important it is to customer and at the same time it makes me just want to run headfirst in that wall over there and just knock myself out and just be like can't get to it I'm passed out and and and and my point in saying that is I've, I've, I've let, I have tempered my sales expectations for the last three months on purpose so that I could get the people up to speed to, so that I don't have to do that crap anymore because I'm terrible at it. Details are not my specialty.
Right. So, so why, why be like, I have to handle this because I'm the agency owner.
Screw that. I'm the worst one at it.
I'm terrible at it. You're not actually helping your agency.
So that's a really hard concept though. I feel like, um, it's, that's a really, why do you think I, let me ask to position this in a, in a question and not just the diatribe.
Why, um, why is that, that concept of focusing on your three things? I could not agree with you more. Why is that so tough to do? Why do we still feel obligated to allow ourselves to drag into our seventh or eighth or ninth best function instead of just focusing on those top three? Well, you know, I was going to say one thing, but now I've changed my mind.
I'm going to add something else before I say that, because I'm looking at my John Wooden pyramid of success. I don't know if you've heard of John Wooden, the UCLA.
I saw him speak when he was 95 and a half. Oh, wow.
I was in a small room a day before invite somebody else canceled. They got a ticket.
You want to go? I'm like, where do I got to go? Yeah. Right.
So I was there. Oh my God.
What a game changing day that was anyway. So I'm looking at my John Wooden pyramid of success.
And he said, I've got it written in hand written on, I blew it up to six feet on my wall. It says, discipline yourself so no one else needs to.
The hardest thing we will all do. I mean, I am very, it's very difficult for me.
So what I was going to say earlier was distractions. Okay.
So we've got to position ourselves so that we are not distracted the majority of the time, especially with our high focus production time. You know, one of my teammates give me this and I know a lot of people can't see this, but this is a squirrel that sits on my desk.
And the squirrel's name is SOS. And SOS is shiny object syndrome.
Of course, we want, especially us in the entrepreneurial high achievement realm, we want to chase the latest and greatest thing that's going to solve all of our problems. As I was discussing with a coaching member yesterday, in fact, I had, I think, six coaching calls yesterday.
And I think I talked about this in three of them. And I painted them a picture.
And I'm privileged to be able to do it on Zoom with them so they can see my hand gestures and everything.

I painted them a picture of a house.

I said, look, when you go to build a house,

what's the first thing that you create?

Now, Ryan, you're on the East Coast, correct?

Yep.

I'm on the West Coast.

So this is more West Coast jargon.

Some of you that might be listening,

anywhere in the world,

in my state, California,

the first thing we do when we build a house is we lay the foundation. Okay.
And the majority of the houses out here are concrete foundations. Okay.
But my analogy was that house will be nothing if that foundation itself is not rock solid and well laid. Okay.
So we lay a concrete foundation. We got to make sure it's quality concrete.
It's got the right mix in it. It's nice and dry and rock solid before we begin to frame on top of that.
Yep. Okay.
And so then we build the house on top of it. If you build a single story house, let's say it's eight years later, you want to build a second story.
It's your business, right? And so you built your business for eight years. You've gotten to a point, maybe you have a few people, but you're ready to build the second story on your business, which I did in 2016.
And guess what happened? Three, two separate lessons, very large, significant lessons, AKA failures. That's how we learn.
So I want to build the second story because you've got to still make sure that that foundation and the first story are rock solid to build upon it. It's the same thing in business and in life.
We've got to do the habits. We've got to create the foundational habits that dictate everything that we do to build upon them.
Yeah. And it's hard.
It's not, it's, and it's not sexy and it's not fun. Yeah.
You know, it's been, it's been interesting to me. I do a lot of self-evaluation.
I'd like to believe that in some regards, I have a high level of self-awareness. I'm sure certain individuals in my life might disagree with that.
But yeah, exactly. But I'd like to believe that I do because I certainly think about what I'm doing a lot.
And what's been interesting to me is in the times when I felt like my habits were as locked in as they could be was also times when I had a strong financial base. Not necessarily meaning I was making the most money, but it was there, right? I knew that when I woke up in the morning, I was going to have some cash.
I was going to have, you know, some, some walking, well, you walk some walking around money was going to be my pocket. and I would get up at 4 30 every morning and I read for an hour and I do some breathing stuff and some push-ups and I'd have my cup of coffee and I was really good at what I ate and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, is not an inexpensive business.
And, um, you know, most, so most of it gets burned up and the fee for this thing or whatever I have found myself because I feel like I always need to be growing, growing, growing. All my good habits went out the window.
I'm staying up too late, doing different things for work. And then quote unquote, decompressing, you know, you're, you're, I'm working out at different times every day.
So it never feels like I'm really getting like all these weird things. So, okay.
Context for the question. When someone feels like, and the financial thing is me personally, I'm not saying that's the way it is for everybody.
When someone feels like they're out of whack, right? They, they, they, something's happened in their life. Maybe it's COVID.
Maybe it's a family member sick. Maybe it's financial related.
Maybe it's relationship with their spouse or their kids or whatever. You know, they didn't get, you know, their kid didn't get picked to the travel team.
They're only, they're in the class D or whatever. How do you start to pull yourself back in? What's the first step? What are, how do you, how do you start to get yourself back into that habit train? Yeah, I learned this from the book.
This is, well, everything that, first of all, that I've had any success at beginning to figure out, I learned from study, from development, development of my mind, most importantly. So there's a book called The Traveler's Gift, which is outside of the industry.
And I meant to say something earlier, but I didn't want to interrupt you. In addition to that, I still have three different coaches that I invest in to continue to become more.
That's how it happens, friends. And two of those are outside of the industry, case in point.
So actually all three of them are outside of the industry case in point so actually all three of them are outside of the industry they're not entrenched primarily in our industry there's so much knowledge out there back to what we're talking about the traveler's gift is a book named by andy andrews who i've spent time with personally and it's about one thing it's a decision it starts a decision. It starts with a decision that I am going to do this and I'm going to do whatever it takes to do this.
I've got a goal. I've got an end date in mind.
I've got a deadline and that may or may not become reality, but I am going to do this. And I just have to know there's going to be peaks and valleys.
There's going to be bumps in the road, but I am going to do this. This is my goal.
And it really starts with goals. At the end of the day, knowing your destination is all you need to get there.
And if you don't have a set destination, if you don't have something that you can work towards, then you're just, you know, running on the hamster wheel. And, you know, they're going to get this, you know, you're going to get the same thing you've always gotten by doing the same thing you've always been doing.
Yeah. So, you know, it begins with a decision.
This is what I'm going to accomplish. The way our insurance agency is set up now with the roughly 18 people in it, it's a completely different space than I developed over time.
And it is what it is. It's part of progress, but I've got a leadership team that I'm beholden to now.
There's not the day anymore where I can come in and say, I'm going to invest in this and I don't have to ask anybody anymore. Oh, we have this thing called a budget.
Is that in the budget or not? So I've got to think about that and I get to play team and I'm totally good with that, but it's a different way of thinking. Okay.
And again, that's another point. If you continue the same way of thinking, you're going to get the same thing you've always gotten.
So sometimes we need to change our thinking. And part of that thinking is making a decision that this is where we're going with all of that.
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So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show, subscribe if you're not subscribed, and i'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because i read all the comments or if you're on apple or spotify leave a rating review of this show i love you for listening to this show and i hope you enjoy it listening as much as i do creating the show for you all right i'm out of here peace let's get back to the episode.
Yeah, I, you know, this stuff is so interesting to me, the games that we have to play in our head. And, you know, I tie a lot of things back to my career in sports, amateur career, but career playing sports and how you see, like you said, peaks and valleys.
And what can you, what can you extract from the moments where you felt the most locked in? And that can be whatever if you're, if you did high school or college music or public speaking or whatever your thing was, whatever your thing was. And it is very interesting how it all comes back to what kind of framework taking us all the way back to how we started around your attitude in each day.
And in about two months ago, three months ago, when I started, when I said to myself, okay, it's time for me to start solving the problems of the things that I'm not good at and get myself out of this. And I'm not the kind of person for better, for worse.
And this isn't a knock on anyone who's listening who did this the opposite. But I read a lot of things in like some of the forums.
Well, I try to spend less and less time in them as much. I try to spend as little bit of time in them as I can.
I try to be helpful where possible, but otherwise I try to stay out. And, but you read these things.
I didn't hire my first employee until I had a million dollars in this or whatever and and and I think that's all fine and good I completely am unwilling to wait for some arbitrary time in the future where I've earned an employee and I just said screw it like I'm gonna bring someone in I'm gonna find someone who can do the things that I can't do well and I'm gonna carve. And yes, does that mean I have to sell more to make sure I can pay that person? Heck yes, it does.
But, um, I started saying to myself, I just, and I started tweeting it as a way to hold myself responsible. And I just dissembled win today.
That was it. That was my whole mantra.
Just win today. That's all you need to do.
Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about yesterday.
Don't worry. Just win this day.
And what is, and then I've had a lot of people ask, what does that mean? What does win today mean? And I'm like, I don't know that it has some apocalyptic philosophical thing other than when I go to eat pancakes instead of an apple for breakfast, I say to myself, how about you win today and let the pancakes go and have the apple. You're going to feel better, you're gonna have more energy as the day goes on.
Technically, you probably should be eating fat or protein in the morning. But you know, you know what I'm saying.
So, but that's the concept is like the little decisions, these little micro decisions. And that's what I feel kills us is the or, you know, me, at least I can only speak for myself, is these little micro decisions that we that we pass off.
I'll just I'll skip making that call or, you know, me, at least I can only speak for myself is these little micro decisions that we, that we pass off. I'll just, I'll skip making that call or, uh, you know what? I just, I'm going to check out early today, or I'm just going to zip over to YouTube and watch something on Bitcoin for half hour, because that's more fun than doing whatever else, you know, I'm supposed to be doing.
And these little micro decisions are what knock us down. And all of a sudden we find ourself at the end of the day and we lost.
And then we wonder why, what the problem is. Um, you know, it just, I can't, you know, it's just such an, it's so weird.
All of it comes back to what's going on up here in your coconut. Yeah.
And the thing that comes out of the coconut is a decision. Yeah.
People make the decision not to work on the top three priorities that are the next steps that are going to get the results that they're looking for. They'll go watch Bitcoin on YouTube or whatever else makes them feel better.
It's not about what makes you feel better. Only results can be deposited in the bank, as an example, if you need more money to hire another person.
Or, you know, I just wrote down something else that whenever you're ready, I can jump into that. So I've got two things that I just wrote down.
So everybody has the same 24-7, 365. So it's a level playing field, my friend, as you know.
Okay. So one of the things that I learned years ago was the 8x8x8 theory.
Okay. So we were designed as people.
By the way, you've heard of the book by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich. Absolutely.
So why is that a very popular title? I mean, let's go back and, if you will, think about that for a minute, right? Think and grow rich. If I will think enough, I might grow rich.
You know, the real meaning of the title is, you know what that is, don't you? Yeah, think, work your ass off and then you'll grow rich. Excuse the term.
But if they put that in the title, nobody would buy it. Think and grow rich.
So the eight by eight by eight theory I learned from Napoleon Hill in my study of Napoleon Hill. So we've all got eight hours that we are given to work as an example.
So we go to work for eight hours. And here's the key.
Plan your day and work your tail off for eight hours. Stay focused and work on the things that you need to be working on to get to where you want to go, your destination, your goals.
Okay. Then we should sleep for up to eight hours.
Everybody needs a different amount of sleep. It is what it is.
My prime space is six to seven hours. And I go to bed at a certain time every night.
My wife says to me, if I'm like up a half hour later than her expected time for me to go to bed, she goes, hey, you're going to turn into a pumpkin. Oh, thanks for the reminder.
All right, I'm going to bed. But I go to bed intentionally for a reason because I need a certain amount of sleep to be at my very best.
Okay. And here's the key to what everybody may be looking for.
It's that third eight. What are you doing with that third eight? Are you working on something to further develop your mind or your business? Or are you playing on YouTube watching Bitcoin? Now, the other thing that I wanted to add into that is, because a lot of people say, where should I start?

I don't know where to start.

What's a good starting point?

I will say that it's always a good idea as you design your future to build in giving back.

And I'm so privileged.

I had great parents that I didn't listen to enough because I was always a rebel pushing the envelope, so to speak. But, you know, they taught me to give too.
Okay. So if anybody has something to write with and write on, or you want to pause this, write this down, this one changed my life when I learned it about almost three months ago.
Okay. Ryan, do you know how to actually motivate people? No.
Well, what I learned is you don't motivate people. Okay.
You find out what motivates them and you help them get it every single day. So the writer downer is this, and I'm going to use your name.
May I Ryan? Use what I'm going to fill in the blank with Ryan's name. Okay.
What can I do today to help Ryan achieve what Ryan wants? Okay. So what you do is you just fill in somebody's name where I put right.
What can I do today to help blank achieve what blank wants? It's not rocket science. So build a little bit of that end.
See, when you give to other people, the law of reciprocity is naturally in effect. And the greatest way to give is without the expectation of something in return.
And sooner or later, it's going to circle back around. So as you go through your day, make sure you give a little bit.
You know, one of the things that makes my heart so happy is during that, shall we talk about the pandemic real quick to set a precedent? You can talk about whatever you want. I don't know if you want to say that because we don't have enough time.
But anyway, so since it's recent, I'll say this. We made a decision because we were listening to the right people.
Therefore, the right stuff was going into our minds as it surfaced. And we were able to, because we've invested in our technology, not me.
I was out of town when it all happened. One of my teammates picked everybody up, moved them home.
The next day they were operating at home. Our technology is set up like that.
Grateful for that. So we started studying, okay, where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? We decided that we were going to, back to the decision, we decided we were going to grow through this adversity, not just go through this adversity.
It's a mindset, okay? And so one of my awesome teammates, I'll go ahead and give her public props, Andrea Wyatt, came up with a phrase through that, let's grow. And so we redesigned a couple of facets of one of our businesses and we grew through it.
We got ourselves into the middle of the great reset. Society, personal and professional, like we knew it, will never be the same again, in my opinion.
It's going to look different as long as I'm alive, for sure. Okay.
So we've got to change. If we want things to change, we've got to change.
And if you're not, see what I also learned in studying the Great Reset and how we're going to grow through this adversity, not just go through this adversity, was the number one character trait of a business entrepreneur learned last year is, you know, to that, what we were talking about earlier on that list that I had, I said it was adaptable. It's agility.
Same thing, I believe in mindset. Agility is the number one character trait that we need to possess as entrepreneurs.
We've got to be able to shift on a dime because things are changing faster than we've ever experienced before. And it's going to continue.
And remember, money and success love speed and money and success never sleep. Albeit we do need our sleep.
Okay. So make sure that we give, make sure that we help other people.
And so through this adversity last year, I launched something that had been a three-year dream in the giving back realm called Cousins Camp. So I'm privileged to have 13 grandkids.
So this whole platform that we've developed through our coaching and consulting programs is going to be theirs. I'm going to teach them how to use it.
Wow. That's amazing.
And we're doing monthly zoom calls because that's all we can do right now, but I'm going to travel the world with them and I'm teach them about entrepreneurship. So whatever else they want to do.
And I just got a, uh, an email yesterday, a local school wants me to come in and help them with insurance and entrepreneurship because they're in the virtual learning experiences, the name of the program or something. Virtual enterprise is what it's called.
Okay. So they want me to sit in with them and teach.
Oh, my gosh, there's nothing better. That's a form of giving back.
So figure out the way that you want to give back. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for anybody listening to this, but find something that you're passionate about, that you love as a way to give and make sure you, you know, schedule some of that time in there as well.
Because ultimately at the end of the day, that's part of the fuel for me. I mean, you know, when something's going wrong, when it's not been been a good day, and let's be clear, it happens.
I have those as often as everybody else. It's just, I've chosen, I've made a choice.
You know, I learned from Brian Tracy who talked about that. You know, there's no such thing as time management.
You know that, right? Right. A lot of people throw time management, blah, blah, blah.
There's no such thing. It's about the choices that people make as to what they're going to do with their time.
That's what it's all about. Yeah.
Okay. So make those choices to do that.
And when I'm having a bad day and I look at my calendar, I say, Oh, cool. I got three coaching calls coming up, man, when I get done with that and I help three other people figure it out because they're too close of it, they're too close to it.
Because there's another thing that I've learned in my own personal training and development just this year. I say the law of reciprocity.
Yes, and I've said that for years, but the law of familiarity. You have a family, right? And unfortunately, you're trying to share things with them that you know are helpful for them.
You have children, right? Oh, yeah. How old are they? Seven and five, two boys.
Oh, you're entering into the law of the familiarity hotbed. So, you might be sharing with your kids, hey, this is good.
This is good. You should be doing this.
And they're going, okay, cool. And they tune you out, right? That's because the law of familiarity is set in.
But when aunts or uncles come over, grandparents, and they say the exact same thing verbatim. They go, wow, that's cool.
And you're like, I just don't do the same thing. It is what it is.
So that's the benefit of learning from people from the outside who can see things that you can't see. And so when helping somebody with something that they can't see and they have a win, it sets me right back to the power position, which is, all right, I'm focused.
I'm feeling the energy again. Now I'm ready to get back to my priorities.
And by planning my day the night before, I just look right back at my list and I go, boom, there it is. I'm going to tackle this.
Yeah. You know, I, it's, it's, this is a really interesting, this is a really important point because I I've had a lot of people.
So I still, I do, I'm sure you get maybe probably even more than me, but you get a lot of people reaching out to you. Hey, can I get 15, 20 minutes? I have a question.
Can I ask you a question? I got a question about this. Can I help? I get a dozen of those or more a week, right? And I can't get to everybody.
But I try to get to two or three of them at least a week. And I've had people say to me, Ryan, you're starting a business.
You're taking these calls. These are agents.
They'll never buy anything from you. If anything, they're competitive, but you know, and to me, they're like, and then I get people who are like, you should be charging for that.
That's your time. And, and, and I'm not saying any of those ideas are wrong.
The point of those calls is very selfish. It makes me feel good to talk and help someone figure out a problem.
That's the dirty secret. It's very selfish.
When I can walk someone through a problem and give them some guidance or advice, or if I simply know the answer to their question and I can help them or put them on the path or connect them, which is probably my favorite thing. That's like the double grand slam of a call is you connect, you know, this person to this person.
And now all of a sudden there's a match. That's selfish.
I'm very selfish in doing those things. Yeah.
I don't want to be paid because if I had to, if I had to charge somebody $200 for an hour to do something selfish, well, now I'm just a jerk. Um, but that giving back and, and, and, and that's a small way, but in, in giving back, you know, that stuff is really important.
It's a recharging mechanism. And, um, you know, for some people it's coaching for some people it's church for some people it's, you know, whatever.
But you got, I agree with you.

That is so important as a recharging mechanism.

And I feel like we don't, I feel like as business professionals, you hear this a lot in athletics.

You hear it a lot.

I think you hear it a lot in church or whatever your, you know, whatever version of God, or maybe you have multiple gods, depending if you're a pagan or not. Um, uh, uh, just God forbid you're not a nihilist.
Um, so, you know, whatever version you hear talk about energy, but in business, we don't talk about our energy very much. We don't talk about both physical and emotional energy and the impact that it has on our day-to-day performance.
And like, yeah, you can physically be in a space,

but if your energy, your mental energy is low, if you're not cycling, brain isn't cycling,

you're not producing, you're not really there. And whatever you got to do to get that back up,

you know, it's just, it's an important part of your day. It's an important part of every day.
Could not agree more. Could not agree more.
So, you know, back to time for a second. So I'm extremely fortunate.
I too have a lot of people that want a little bit of time and I'm totally open to that. But, you know, I've specifically designed these gaps of time that are available, are available around on this day, around this time.
Yes. That's just what works for me.
Because what I don't want to do is disrespect them, number one. Number two, I want to be available, but this is the criteria on which you can get some of that.
So case in point, when you were kind enough to reach out to me, I said, look, it's going to be a week or two, but let's get it on the calendar and make it happen. And here we are.
So we use technology to assist with that. But ultimately, whatever works, because anybody that needs time, I say, look, we're one to two weeks out.
And let's pause for a second. Because I love marketing.
And I know you love marketing, Ryan. And I remember that old haunted house that we were running around in together in a little mini competition a number of years ago down in the, excuse me, the great state of Texas.

But anyway, you know, at the end of the day, now I completely lost my train of thought, but because I was thinking back to that competition.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, the video. Wasn't it a video competition or something?

Yeah, we were create, we had to create a plan as a team. And I think there were three teams of us.
And we were pitted against each other. And then the next day we did a presentation.
And I think you won. I had Chris Jordan.
I remember Chris Jordan. Yeah.
Yeah, he made all those crazy videos back in the day. He actually, he designed CNN's website, if that's a weird.
Yeah, he became a web designer. I think after that haunted house, I think he became a web designer.
Scared him away, literally, eh? Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I know what I was going to say.
So back to the matter at hand, let's pause for a minute. The marketing mindset.
Scarcity is part of, you know, why people want to connect with you, because if you're ready, readily available all the time, then they're like, well, is there value there, even though you're not charging them for the time? Right. And I learned that for one of my greatest early marketing mentors a couple of decades ago.
That scarcity is an important facet. I mean, because, you know, if you're ill, you don't just walk into the doctor's office, right? Hey, this is Ryan Hanley.
I need an appointment because I'm not feeling good. Well, tell us your symptoms.
I'll see if I can fit you in, right now, of course, they've created urgent care where you can go down there and wait in line if you want. Yeah.
But the doctor who's got the right answers, the majority of the time, you got to get in line. Yeah.
So it's a small little strategy that creates value in the mind of the marketplace, if you will. So I agree.
And, you know, in the other part of it is. I feel like so there's two things here.
One, I found people to be incredibly respectful in general when they ask. So if I say to him, hey, so I try to schedule most of it for Fridays.
I may have to change that because Fridays are becoming more busy. But, you know, for a while, at least during the summertime and in years past, Fridays were always a time when I could fit a call or two in, usually try to schedule them for a half hour and basically say, if we need if we get the end of a half hour, we need more, we'll schedule an hour at another time.
But, you know, for the most part, a half hour is more than enough. I find people to be incredibly respectful.
The other part is if you put space between the ask and the call, a lot of times the person shows up very focused on what their question is or what their problem is. If you just go, oh, yeah, hey, man, just call me.
Well, then you get like a barf session where all of a sudden you get 20 minutes in. You're like, I don't even you know what what i don't know how to help you like i don't know what you need um where if you put some space in they show up because they're either looking forward to it or they see it on their calendar and and and the time comes up and then you get hey man here's what's going on can you help me you know what i mean or or or i tried to do this it's not working what would you do and i love that because then now you can come in and you know be a surgeon you You know what I mean? Or, or, or I tried to do this.
It's not working. What would you do? And I love that because then now you can come in and, you know, be a surgeon, you know, you can, Hey, here, I had that problem, or I have a friend who solved that problem.
I'm going to connect you with them. And, and that's a really fun thing.
It's a, it's a fun thing. And, and I am, I am such a big believer.
I don't call it karma, but serendipity i believe that you build a bank of of of serendipitous whatever whatever it is you know serendipity coins on uh whatever i'm sorry i've been researching cryptocurrency a lot lately in my spare time um in my eight hours which I should probably be doing something else with but um uh all about choices remember yeah hey well everybody pump and dump stutter lumens let's do it but don't tell the sec about this about the fact i just said that um so you know i just believe that when you put that out in the world you connect enough people you, you help enough people, you give time, you give of yourself enough, that comes back. And my life has really proved positive of it.
The things that I have gotten in return, and I don't mean that in like a, I don't know, I'm trying to say this in a way that is as positive as I mean it to be. I have had all the things come back a million and I could have never seen them.
Friendships, people reaching out in times of need, opportunities creating themselves out of thin air that you could have never imagined. And I can only trace it back to trying to be a giving person of time and energy.
And I think I'm just very happy that there are leaders like yourself in our space who are who are not just teaching it but living it. And, as I said, we don't know each other that well, but I believe it solely because so many people that I do know and trust say good things about you man.
This couldn't have been more enjoyable for for me. Hopefully this will be the first of many conversations that we have.
And I just appreciate you being giving of your time to come on the show. It's an honor and a privilege.
Thank you for even considering me to share just a little bit. I love doing it.
I hope that anybody who's listening to this picked up one, two or three ideas. My greatest encouragement anytime that I get to share anywhere, just take that one idea.
Just take maybe those two ideas, if anything at all. And like we talked about earlier, just take action.
Yeah. It'll be the next win.
It may lead to a mini lesson mini lesson yeah but that's what's going to help us grow yeah mike if someone wants to get at you they want to learn more um unstoppableprofitproducer.com uh is there anywhere else is there a social network that you prefer where else can someone just get in your ecosystem you know I'm on all the networks out there and have a growing following on Instagram. But Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, I'm out there on all of those.
And you can search us out. Probably Facebook is the one that I see probably more often when I choose to spend time with.
Yeah. Because we have six kids and 13 grandkids.
So that's the place where I get to experience them if it's not live. In addition to that, info at unstoppableprofitproducer.com is an email address.
If you want to contact me, 951-265-0455, that's my mobile text. I'm a pretty transparent guy.
I'm not always going to pick up the phone, but because of our relationship, Ryan, and who I have watched you grow, congratulations to you on all that you've done for our industry. Thank you so much.
Contact me. I'll help however I can as time allows.
And I just, again, hope this is, you know, helping people grow out there

in the industry and in life, because, you know, the goal of our program, the UPP program is to

impact people's lives personally and professionally. So, and if you want to check out what else we're

up to, this has been helpful on other people I've been able to share with. If you just,

you've heard of Google, they seem to be pretty popular. Yeah.
They've turned into something. Right.
Larry Page. And, you know, by the way, I've, I've studied Larry Page and I've studied the inner workings of Google to learn more, to become more.
And it wasn't always pleasant. Now it was early growth years.
I mean, that's the reality of business growth, friends. It's not all roses.
But you know the result of that? The result of doing the work, ultimately at the end of the day, it's peace of mind. And it's a wonderful, wonderful place to be.
So I recommend that as we continue to grow together, stay the course, Ryan, you got this. I know you got this.
You got to keep doing it, doing it, doing it in the words of Michael Gerber, doing it, doing it, doing it again. And you will get there.
I know you will. So just go to Google and Google my name, all kinds of stuff will come up.
You can check it out, whatever works for you, whatever the flavor of the day is. Good luck with it.
I think Michael Gerber stole that quote from LL Cool J. Just I just want to put that out into the world.
If anyone's an old school gangster rap fan, I'm pretty sure he stole that from LL Cool J. But yeah, my wife likes LL Cool J.
If I want to spend any time with her, I get to sit there and watch CSI and whatnot. But another fun note, Michael Gerber lives about 30 minutes from me.
Oh, wow. And I've studied under Michael Gerber a lot in my time.
He is a harsh, very direct man. In fact, when I was in one of his programs that I invested in to become more, he would not allow you to come on to the session without your camera on.
He wanted to look you right in the eye. Wow.
I love that. Right in the eye because, and he said, if your camera's not on, don't show up.
You know, we're over. I want to be, I appreciate, one of the things that I struggle the most with in life is I I'm a huge Jordan Peterson fan.
So I, I, I am completely emotionally invested. I don't agree with every take that he has, but the way in which he tries to dissect the world, understand it and and the way he positions personal responsibility, which is really what my biggest lesson was from him, is personal responsibility is the key.
And I appreciate people who hold me personally responsible and appreciate a culture of personal responsibility so much. I mean, I feel like it's something that we're losing today and individuals who are pushing it back out into the world and trying to hold themselves that way.
And it's probably the primary lesson I try to teach my kids is, you're seven years old. You're a dummy.
You're going to make a million mistakes. You have 10,000 units of energy and two units of brain.
I don't care. Just when you make a mistake, I want you to be, you know, own up to it.
And, you know, I try not to call him a dummy every day. But, you know, it's just I love that.
I love that mentality. So that's good.
That's very, very good. But, hey, I want to be respectful of your time.
You've been very gracious. Thank you so much, man.
I look forward to the next time. I've got one last follow up for you to wrap this up.
I learned it from Steve Jobs a couple of days ago. You've heard of Apple? They've had a little success.
Steve Jobs in his early days, exactly, right? Steve Jobs in his early days was trying to help people understand they needed to get something done. Not only did he need to get it done, they needed to get it done fast on his timeframe, not theirs.
And he would go to people and say, there's no way I can get that done this month. Or it's not possible.
So Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs was known for having a very direct look when he looked at people. You know, he grips you right when he looks at you.
So he said, Ryan, look at me. He said, Ryan, don't be afraid.
You can do it. And that was the strategy that Steve Jobs used to convince people that, oh okay I can do this yeah this.
Yeah. Yeah, because it's not that you can't.
It's that you don't believe you can yet. There you go.
What we perceive is what we believe. Yeah.
Yeah. If we perceive we can't do it, hang it out.
Yep. Yeah.
I love this, man. Thank you so much.
I hope this helps you you I hope this helps somebody out there let's keep in touch

we will be in touch

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