 Success is very simple. It truly, truly is. Success is very, very simple. And the reason success is so simple is this right here, is if you have a successful Monday, have a successful Tuesday, have a successful Wednesday, have a successful Thursday, have a successful Friday, you've had a successful week. You put enough successful days together, all of a sudden put enough successful weeks, successful months, you got a successful career. And that's always driven me is every day has to be successful. But if you're hit and miss, you know, successful Monday, a bad Tuesday, bad Wednesday, successful Thursday, you're gonna be a roller coaster for your entire career. And your career is just gonna be an up and down situation instead of having that, you know, just that curve that continues on the upward bound. What's up, 8% Virtual? Hey, we're continuing to talk about the topic. You can't fail if you don't quit. And I've got my father, Brian Askins, most of you know him, owner of Secure Insurance Group. I feel like you are the example of if you don't fail, you can't quit. I've had a few situations in my life to where obviously I had an opportunity to quit, but it's just not in me to quit. And I hate failure as much as I hate anything whatsoever. You're also probably even more competitive than me. Maybe, probably so. Right? I mean, what can we not do together that we can't compete or that we can't bet each other some money on the golf course or something, you know? I'll tell you what, probably one of the best and worst things is to have competitive IM and I'm a very sore loser and very sore loser. And I kind of wished that maybe I wasn't quite as sore of a loser as I am, but when I lose, boy, it hurts. And I don't care what it is. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just, I've got to get better at that and I keep telling myself that every year and it just doesn't happen, but. It's gotten better over the years. It's gotten better. From what I've heard, the stories I've heard. Yeah, it's got, it actually has gotten better, but it still needs some improvement, so. I don't think the like desire to win has gotten better because I don't think you really want it to, but I think the attitude afterwards probably has, you know? Yeah, it's improved some and it's still improved a little more. I don't know why I've just always been an individual. I have to win and I just have to win and I'm not sure if that's a. Where do you think that comes from? Because I think that's something good to talk about because I think a lot of people in the insurance industry can, we didn't plan on talking about this at all, but I think people in the industry can relate to that, you know? I think it has a lot to do with the life that I, you know, my growing up. My dad died when I was five years of age and so we had a very tough life. My mom worked three jobs. My mom is probably the hardest working person I've ever known in my life. And she works three jobs and she's now seven years of age still working. And so it's a situation to where just seeing her work ethic back then, seeing all those things, it really instilled in me how important that truly, truly was. Yeah. And just seeing what she went through and all those years and just me growing up, those type things really, really motivated me to, I just wanted a great life. And then when I was nine years of age, I was diagnosed with a hip disease in my hip called Lake Perthese. To where the doctor told me I would never walk again without crutches or braces, some type of support. And this was many, many years ago, back, modern technology now has come a long way. But this was back in 1978. And so not only did I walk again, I played baseball throughout the years and would play baseball with braces on and one of my legs completely immobilized and to where just basically dragging it. But I just love the game. And so I've always been one to where I can situation to where I always look at my situation and other, but I always know there's someone in a worse situation than me. And I've just never been one to complain about anything. And I've never, you know, as you know, growing up, I never let y'all complain about anything whatsoever. Nope. And complaining just infuriates me. And I just, we don't complain. Whatever our situation is, we make the best of our situation and regardless of what that is. Totally true. And a lot of people always wonder like, where I got some of those traits, you know, and obviously, now you know, if you didn't already know, you know, we are, I've been told eight million times, I'm a spitting image of you, you know, and we are a ton of like, we have our differences, you know, but overall, we are a ton of like, one of the things that I think is super valuable to mention in a setting like this on a virtual live with thousands of agents watching is how your integrity, your ethics, honesty is the best of anyone I've ever seen. I personally embody that and have tried to live up to that as well just because I know how important it is. Well, there was a story as a kid with a ball cap that, I don't know if you wanna share that, but I think it's a good life lesson to share. Okay, yeah. Back when I was 12 years of age. Not something you're proud of. No, no, not at all, not at all. I'm actually glad it happened though because it probably taught me more in life than any individual situation has ever taught me. Back when I was 12 years of age, I had a couple of buddies and we would go to the same convenience store every single morning and we would buy a little Debbie cakes or, you know, and we'd split them, you know, back then you could buy a whole package of little Debbie cakes for, you know, 70 cents or whatever, a quarter of a piece and there's three of us splitting a whole pack of little Debbie cakes and I've always been a huge Dallas Cowboy fan. So we're in this convenience store and we were always daring each other stupid stuff and one of the buddies had dared me to steal that Dallas Cowboy ball cap. It was a baseball ball cap. And so I said, well, if you distract the tendon, I said, I'll get it. And we had done some stuff that, you know, we shouldn't have done, but anyway, so I reached over and I grabbed the ball cap and so on throughout the door, my two buddies went out in front of me and the lady, and it was winter times, we had, you know, jackets on. And so I had stuck it underneath my jacket and went out the door, the lady grabs him by the arm and so anyway, and she says, I need you to stay here. And so she calls the police. And so the police come down there and I had already taken it out of my jacket, stuffed it underneath the counter and all that by the time they got down there. But I was guilty, you know, it was guilty as it could be. And so anyway, so my mom was called. And so I got to meet a lady by the name of Eva Craiger, which was- It's crazy you remember her name. I still remember her name. And she was a juvenile delinquent officer. It's been almost 40 years. Yeah, it has been and almost 40 years and her name was Eva Craiger. And so I, and we're sitting in a room and she tells me, she says, she says, she's telling me she's sending me to a boy's home and she's scaring the, you know, out of me, you know, everything you could dream of this in me, she's scaring it out of me. And that, you know, she's taking me away from my mom and, you know, everything else. And, you know, and I love my mom more than anything in this world, you know. And so anyway, so she's telling me all this stuff. And well, what I didn't know is my mom had okayed her to just scare the daylights out of me. And so we get out. And so Eva says that long story short, she's, she fined me $360 for this $5 ball cap. And so I had to pay $360 for this ball cap. Well, my mom wouldn't pay it for me. My mom says, and it was the only year I ever missed baseball. And so my mom says, you know, cause I love baseball more than anything in the world, in fact, and that was my, that was my life. And she says, well, you're not playing baseball this year. And you are, you're going to work at your grandpa's gas station. He owned a gas station to where they did, you know, change flats, pump gas, you know, you know, did all changes and things of that nature. And so my grandfather picked me up every day for 12 weeks in a row at my house at 6 30 AM and brought me home at 7 PM Monday through Saturday. And I made $30 a week and I did that for 12 straight weeks. I never got a single penny. And that $360 went to pay that $360 debt that I had owed. And so needless to say, that's the last time I've ever stolen anything. And it was a lesson learned. Wow. And to learn that at 12, you know, is obviously got your attention was good at the time, you know. It got my attention, but it also made me realize that's not who I am and that's not the person I want to be. And that's, and you had mentioned kind of earlier, you know, the integrity and so forth, you know, I always want to be that individual that, you know, they can say, you know, that they don't like me or whatever reason, you know, but they can never, no one can ever say I'm not fair. No one ever can say I'm not honest. No one could ever say that I don't have integrity. They may not have, you know, agree with everything that I say or do or whatever, but no one can ever, ever, ever question my integrity, my honesty and in my intent to always do right in every situation with every person involved. Right. I know we're going to share some more of your story at 8% in Vegas later this year. So I don't want to share all of it. I think those key stories are some things that you really haven't told that really embody who you are and I think they're important. What are some things that along the way that you've learned and some things that have helped to get you where you are? Maybe some tips that other agents can learn from. Maybe it's business related. Maybe it's insurance related. Maybe it's life related. I learned several years ago that I've always prided myself being the hardest working person there is and that's just the way I am today. And like at our office, and you know, not arrogance is just, it's just, it's got to be me and just because I have to be, but I'm the hardest working person in our office, you know, even today. No one works more hours than works harder, but I think it's a lot more than just working hard because I do, you know, I work hard and you know, if you ever come to my office, I'm not talking, I'm not playing. I am, you know, focused and driven to succeed. And so I think the biggest thing is, is that I heard this many, many, many years ago and I mean, year early in my career and it's something that's always stuck with me. I never forgotten. Success is very simple. It truly, truly is. Success is very, very simple. And the reason success is so simple as this right here is if you have a successful Monday, have a successful Tuesday, have a successful Wednesday, have a successful Thursday, have a successful Friday, you have, you've had a successful week. You put enough successful days together, all of a sudden put enough successful weeks and successful months, you got a successful career. And that's always driven me is every day has to be successful. And so every day I go into the office, I always have a, you know, if you don't have an intent, and this is just my, if you don't have an intent to have a successful day, the easiest thing to do, there's two easy things to do is blow money and waste time. You know, there's hardly nothing easier to do than to waste money and waste time. And so kind of talking about the time here is there's so many people that's their office for, you know, 10 hours, 12 hours a day, but are they truly successful? Are they truly doing what they need to do? And so you have to have a purpose and an intent to have, get something accomplished. If every day, and I'm serious when I say this, and I know you've heard a thousand people say this, but it's a true statement that I know, if every single day you on your ride home, if you truly ask yourself, what did I accomplish today? What did I get, what did, what did I do that today that made a difference? And if you're honest with yourself, if you're truly honest with yourself, you'll surprise yourself, you know? And because, you know, I've always joked, you know, and I've hired, you know, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of agents and hundreds of employees over my 30 years. And I always joked with everybody. Every agent I ever hired, I had this one statement, I said, and I always tell them, I said, you know, if you work for me, all you have to do is work half days. And they look at me like, what are you talking about? Half days. And I say, well, you choose any 12 hour period you want, you just choose which half you want to work. Any 12 hour, and I truly believe that. And because if you work 12 hours a day, and you are, and I'm not saying everybody has to work 12 hours a day, but I do, and you are focused, you're driven, and you have a purpose, and you know what you're going to get accomplished, you've got to go in there with an idea of exactly what has to be accomplished today. And so a situation to where there's no chance of failure. So, but the thing about it is, is that if you have enough successful days, you can turn that into a successful career. So. Yeah, you definitely can. But if you're hit and miss, you know, successful Monday, a bad Tuesday, bad Wednesday, successful Thursday, you're going to be a roller coaster for your entire career. And your career is just going to be an up and down situation instead of having that, you know, just that curve that continues on the upward bound. So. I love that. I love that. And you know what? I think that, I mean, there's two things to really, this happened that you've said or they've done in my life in some way that literally back and support that up. The first one is your motto. You know, I've said it before. A lot of the agents listed and probably heard that, you know, never let anyone out hustle you. And, you know, before practices, games, work, school, didn't matter, you know, as a kid, that was the motto. That was the same. That was, you know, something that came to life time and time again. And the other thing was, I remember when I was about to go to work, I don't know if you ever heard me tell this. I don't know, maybe you have. It was 3, it was 3 30 PM on a Friday. I was supposed to go to work from 4 to 10 PM part time at Little Apple Market in Rogersville, Missouri. Supposed to work for six hours. And about 3 30, I'm throwing up. I don't feel well. I don't want to go to work, you know? And I come to you and I'm like, hey, I don't want to go. You know, I just, I'm a puke and I just, I don't want to go to work. I don't feel well. And you said something that day that I still remember today, which has forced me to show up whether I feel like it or not, which is you said, you do whatever you want to do, but you know what I would do. And that has woke me up then. And obviously I went to work that day, you know, what do you do after that? But I've never seen you miss a day of work, you know? I fortunately have never missed a day of work. Very fortunate. And ever since the day I turned six, I started working the day I turned 16 in a meat department. And on my 16th birthday, I started work. And I've never missed a day of work since that day. And I've been fortunate. And you know, like with you throwing up, I know a situation to where, you know, we just got through, you drink a lot. And you know, and so now today, obviously if I were contagious or something, I would stay home, but you know, in any way, but I've forced, I've never missed a day of work in my entire life and due to sickness or, you know, illness or anything of that nature. And it's just, you know, I'm thankful that I haven't done that. So, and hopefully I can, you know, continue that for many, many, many years to come. Why insurance? Like, you know what I mean? Because if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be doing any of this. Well, I tell you, whenever I started, there was a gentleman in our church by the name of Ron Duncan. And so Ron Duncan is, he owns several furniture stores. And so we're, I mean, you know, we're in the same church together. And so Ron is needing some sales people. And I'm in, you know, I'm fresh out of high school and I'm in college at this time. And so Ron says, hey, if you wanna earn some extra money, you can sell furniture for me. Well, I'm thinking I'd go to a store, you know, put on a tie, wait for people to come in. And he's, and so I'm, and I said, I'm very interested. He says, okay, come meet me, meet with me. And so we met and he gives me a box. He hands me a index card box. And so I opened the index card box and there are pictures and they're categorized living room suits, dining room suits, mattresses, appliances, you know, just categorized pictures of these, you know, different household items that you could purchase. And I said, okay, so what I would do with this box? He said, you go out knock doors. And I'm like, I do what? And he says, you go out knock doors and he said, and you sell this furniture. And I said, well, how much do I make? And he says, well, on a living room suit, he said that our cost is $400. So everything you sell at over $400, we split. And he said, so, he said, there's always a 300% markup in furniture. He says, so if you sell for 1200, you'll make 400. I'll make 400 and we'll pay the 400 to the manufacturer. And I said, okay, I said, this sounds like a pretty good deal. So I go out and so I go out and I just start knocking doors like crazy. I'm making a lot of money, a lot of money selling furniture door to door, just basically knock on the door. Hey, I'm Brian Askins, I'm with Dunkin' Furniture and I'm out here today to see if you have a need for any furniture at all, any appliances, living room suits, bedroom suit. I've got pictures of all the things I have to offer and I would get in a lot of houses. And kind of the funny story is we, and I did that for a couple of years and anyway, I did so well, I ended up training his son. His son just got out of high school and he wanted me to train his son. So I went to Mississippi, train his son. I went to Mississippi to help him open up a furniture store called Furniture Factory Outlet or I forget the name of it now, but something like that. But he had stores in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. And so I would go around and help train some of his people. And so, but the funny story was is that, so any time, you know, because most of these individuals didn't have great credit. So the credit applications that were getting higher interest rates. And so any time that, and we had to keep it on the books for so many months and I don't remember the number of months, but any time that some person faulted on the payments, we had to go repossess the furniture. So not only was I the salesman, I was also the person had to go repossess it. And I owned a little S10 truck back then. And so I would go and, you know, if they didn't make the payments, I'd have to go take the furniture back out of the house. And so I repossessed furniture also. And nothing fun, but it's just part of the business, part of the deal. And so anyway, so that was something that was very interesting, you know. It was a very, very interesting little deal and so. Think about all the lessons about business and sales and building value and selling a product they can't even see. They start looking at a freaking picture, you know. And warm people up and build a relationship with people and, you know, give them a no like and trust you pretty quick, you know. Gosh, most people would never want to do that or would, and about 99% people would fail at doing that, but man, think about the valuable lessons you learned from doing that. That's awesome. I made a lot of money, learned a lot of valuable lessons. I think that really kind of taught me how to sell. And... You can sell furniture out of the box. You can sell pretty much anything. And so I, and that, you know, and I remember, you know, asking Ron, I said, who's your top salesman? And it was a guy down in some part of Mississippi. I think it was Sardis, Mississippi or whatever. I can't remember exactly, but anyway, and I said, how much does he sell and so forth? And my goal was just to beat him. And I did. But I've always been very competitive in that situation. So, but it was a great lesson. And one thing Ron Duncan told me back then, and I've kind of heard the mentors of my life. They've always said something that kind of stuck with me. And this is kind of a, it's a crazy thing, but I've always thought it even today. He said, you may tell you the character of a man. He said, I can tell you real quick how to find out the character of a man. And I thought he'd be something really in depth and you know, something, and I said, how's that? He said, just look at his shoes. And I said, what do you mean? He said, if his shoes are clean, he has great character and he's going to, and he's an individual that cares about himself. But if his shoes are dusty and dirty, that's an individual that doesn't care about himself and is somebody that you probably don't wanna be a part, you know, don't wanna mentor with. And so little things like that, you know, and like Milton Brock, which was also another mentor of mine. He'd said something when I became the general manager at Mutual of Omaha after, you know, Milton had retired and I was a district sales manager with him and I was replacing Milton. Milton hadn't retired, I'm sorry. He'd went to AAA property in Casually out in Northern California. He'd retired shortly after that. But one thing he told me, he said the key to success, and I remember him saying this, he said the key to success, he said, is always take care of the people. And so anyway, so anytime someone tells me something like it, you know, I never forget these little things. And he said, always take care of the people. And whenever I left, or I'm sorry, whenever he left and I took over and I opened the desk, desk door the very first day, he had a note in there, I still have it in my office today. He had a note written on just a notepad and it says, and it says, always take care of the people, Milton Brock. And so, you know, one thing that I really pride myself on is really taking well care of our people, you know, our staff or agents and doing all we can and for those individuals, you know, because, and Milton also had told me, he said, he said, you know, one of the keys to success, he said, is surround yourself with the right people. He said, if you surround yourself with the right people, you can't fail. And so good, little things like that. And I just, I remember those things. That's awesome, that's awesome. This has been good, this has been some stories, it's been mixed with some, I personally, some of the stuff I've heard, some of it I haven't heard, you know. Wow, that's been really, what do you think about as you wrap up, what comes to mind with the phrase? Because that's kind of, that's the theme of this virtual event. You know, you can't fail if you don't quit. I see so many insurance agents quit every single day and they only fail because they chose to quit. I believe success is a decision in this business, especially, and if you just choose to keep pushing, even when it gets hard, not quit, what comes to mind when I say that? Probably what comes to mind most is every one of us are gonna have situations in our life that don't go the way we want them to. There's a lot of heartaches in life. Life is hard, you know, life is tough. And there's so many people that when life gets hard, life gets tough, they give up. And instead of, you know, like, I never let y'all children complain about anything. You know, you had, you know, you were blinding your left eye. You know, you were, we're not sure if you were bit by a dog when you were very young and then you got hit by a softball bat when you were very young. So we're not sure which one of those did that. But I never let you use that as a complaint at all. You know, my daughter had the same hip disease I had and I never let her use that as a reason not to succeed. There's lots and lots of things that happen throughout life and to where we could easily just say, you know, hey, I give up and I understand it. Now it's hard, you know, and the easy thing is to give up. But I don't care what happens in life, we've got to keep pushing forward and got to make the best of every situation. One quick story that I could probably tell you that, you know, that when mutual and I parted ways, you know, I was the number one general manager with Mutual Hall at the time. And this was back in 2014. And when we parted ways, and it was not a pretty departure, you know, it was not. And most people would just kind of crawl up in a ball and feel sorry for themselves. And, you know, but I knew without a shout of a doubt that this was an opportunity for me, for my children and my wife and so forth, all my friends and peers and you know, et cetera, could see I can bounce back. And so, I immediately, when that happened on February 3rd, on February 4th, I had already applied for a new LLC, Secure Interance Group. I had started contacting carriers for contracts and I didn't let the dust settle. And to where, you know, most people have taken off for a month or two months and try to figure things out. I didn't do those things. I did not want a part of Corporate America again, ever again. And so, I chose, you know, I knew I wasn't going back to Corporate America even though I had many, many, many opportunities. And with substantial amounts of money, just did not want to be a part of that again. And I wanted to have control of my own destiny going forward. Didn't want anybody ever to have control of my situation ever again. I wanted me to have control. And so, I knew that I had an opportunity here to teach my children, I don't care what happens in life, that you have an opportunity to make the best of the situation. And now, six years later, I'm not glad it happened the way it happened, but I'm tickled to death it happened. And, because I'm happier now than I've ever been, because I don't have to answer to corporate, you know. And, and the great thing about it is, is that once I did this, you know, my wife was telling me to go get a corporate job and, you know, how can you turn down that type of money? And, you know, we used an enormous amount of our savings that we had saved up to start Secure Insurance Group, more money than most people ever dream of, used an enormous amount. But I knew, in people like, well, why are you taking that risk? To me, it wasn't a risk. I knew insurance, I knew how to build an agency, I'd done it. And to me, it wasn't a risk, per se. It was, and I knew that we would be, you know, we're at today. And I know we've got a long way to go. We'll get there. I'm very, very confident of that. So, once I did that, my wife got behind me 100%. She was my first employee, you know, as far as the staff person. And she's still with me today. And, you know, just tremendous, tremendous woman. Just couldn't, you know, couldn't have a better partner in life. And, so there's so many things that happened in life that we could easily, easily, easily take the easy road and just, you know, not push on. But regardless of what happens in life, we have to just make the best of every situation. And, because, you know, like you said earlier, if you don't quit, you can't fail. Hey, you're making some big money, right? You're, well, it's getting all fat. You're getting excited when you go to the bank. What you can do now, right? You need to know some tax strategies. I got the video for you. Click on that with my buddy, Jenny Frost. And I'll see you there. An individual tax return has a one in 100 chance of being pulled for audit. If you make over a million dollars, you have a one in 10 chance.