 So I got started in the, my dad's been in the industry for 30 years as of, he started in April of 1990. I was born July of 1990, not to make anybody feel old. And then I got started in the industry as an intern at 19. And at 19, I was cold calling out of a phone book for a veteran agent, right? Before I knew you weren't even supposed to be doing that. And then I quickly transitioned. I saw people having some success, making some money. I transitioned to being a full-time agent. I'm 20 years old. I'm in college playing basketball, taken at that time of about 21 credit hours a semester. And which was a lot. And I remember going into a recruiting meeting when I make the decision. And the manager says, all right, all you guys stand up. And he's like, look around. So we start looking around. And he said, okay, now all of you, just one of you stay standing. And he leaves one person standing. And he says, now look around. He said, maybe one of you will make it. And I'm like, dang, that's a real positive way to start this whole deal. But deep down, I'm very competitive. So I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, if there's going to be a one, I am going to be the one. And so I wrote down in that moment, I'm a big gold guy. We'll get into mindsets and other stuff, I'm sure. I wrote down in that moment, I will earn $100,000 my first year in the insurance business. I dated it, I signed it, and I hung it up in the wall of my cubicle. And then every single day, I went out to make that a reality. And then, no leads, you know, one product. And I went out and cold called and cold doorknocked. And I would doorknock 175 doors on a Friday. I would cold call for six hours on a Sunday. Like, whatever it takes, right? So people say, see people say whatever it takes, that's really whatever it takes. Fast forward, in eight months, I made 117,361 dollars and 13 cents with the 1099 to prove it. And so I stayed an agent for several years. And now fast forward, I'm doing a lot more. There's some reasons why, but I'm doing a lot more training and everything else now. What product was that? That was strictly 100% life insurance. That was it. Life insurance. I didn't sell it. An ounce of anything else, just life. Mostly a lot of whole life and term. That's it. Now, that company that you started with didn't have anything to do with your father's business or your father's business? It did. So at the time, that's a great question, by the way. Most people have never asked that. At the time, my dad was a general manager for that specific company. I started out with Mutual of Omaha. And he was a general manager. He had district sales managers. So one of his sales managers was my leader at the time. And I gave the manager a bunch of ideas on how to improve things along the way. And I even went to, I remember going to Office Depot because I was tracking my activity every day. I think everybody should track their activity every single day. I remember going to Office Depot and buying $100, I think it was like $109 whiteboard, four by six feet, six feet wide, four feet tall. I remember telling the manager, hey, we need to hang this on the wall because every agent needs to be putting their activity on the board every single day. Because nobody wants to go up to, we still do it in my office too, for both of our sales teams. No one wants to go up to the board and ride a big old Z-Rail. Right. Yeah, that's a great idea. You're already implementing ideas as Ricky, back then. But yeah, as crazy as that story is, I'm almost not surprised because you're almost like a prodigy, man. Like, you know how like a lot of like ball players and like, you know, their dads was in the majors and you know, they raised their kids up to become, you know, it's you that you grew up in the business and was that the fastest anyone has made that type of money? You think? In that office, it was the first person to ever make a hundred grand in the first year. In my dad's region, it was the fastest someone had done it as like brand new to the industry as a career entirely. It was my first sales job, really. I mean, honestly. But there are other people that do that. It's just very rare. I would say about a tenth of a percent, if not even less of all new agents make six figures their first year. I remember making a trip to out near you actually. It was Monarch Beach, I think. Okay. Yeah, it was the only five-star resort in St. Regis Monarch Beach. It was only five-star resort in California. I won a trip to that and got an award. I was one of the top rookies in the country. I got to meet Magic Johnson, who was a speaker at that. Then we had a World Series contest later that year. I was fortunate enough to win that and be one of the top seven rookies in the country and get a trip to the World Series. I mean, for me, it was, dude, I just worked, man. I set a target. This is gonna seem simple, maybe even cheesy. I set a target and then I do whatever the freak it takes. With an ethical reason, I do whatever the freak it takes to make it a reality. You're a hustler, man. Yeah, dude, you're a hustler, man. You are constantly grinding all over Instagram. I see it constantly and I love it. Yeah, well, what else is there to do, you know? It's like, if you're gonna do something, might as well be something that's productive. So that's how you got started. That's off to an amazing start. And how long ago is that? That's not even that long ago, if you think about it, right? Yeah, it was about a decade ago, about 10 years. Now, 10 years now, tell me about the team you have and the operation you have right now. Yes, so what led up to that is I, December of 2015, I started putting up videos on YouTube, right? Hey, here's how the seven secrets for you to be successful and make six figures, et cetera, started putting up videos like that on YouTube every single day. And now we've got over 2,000 videos. We're approaching 25,000 insurance agents to subscribe and watch our content. And so if you're watching this, you're like, I don't know what he's talking about. Look me up at Cody Askins. Dan, you didn't know who I was either. Yeah, no, yeah. And so there's million, I mean, there's 1.1 million insurance agents in the US. So 25,000, very small piece, right? And deep down, I always knew I wanted to help agents. Like I remember a sales manager looking at me and saying, hey, there's two agents that are struggling. Can you, somebody called me and said, hey, can you drive four hours to work with these two new agents that are these rookies that are really struggling not making these sales. So I drove up there, helped, we made five sales from cold canvas door knocking in one day. One of the best days I've ever had, it was a ton of fun, no leads. And we just had a ton of fun, high five and they're making sales, they're making money. They're like, oh my gosh, this is possible. This is crazy. I remember driving home. I left the business with them. I didn't take any commission, but I remember driving home four hours and I'm like, that was the most I've ever had. Something clicked for me, man. You know what I mean? Like my flip, my switch was flipped. And I remember saying, I got more gratification and satisfaction from seeing Greg and Hunter make sales. That was their names. Then I got when I made sales. And it was something special. And I thought, I think I've found what I meant to do, man. I can make the complicated simple and I help people make sales that they're not used to making. And that's what started the YouTube channel was putting out content help agents. I didn't know where it would lead. It has grown into a conference called 8% Nation, a Cody Askins brand, where we've got about a dozen staff members that work on that. And that's training, consulting, and coaching for the interest industry, of a sales system and some other things. Then we've got SecurAgent Marketing. And I've got a business partner in that company. And his name is Landon McArthur. We've got about close to probably, probably close to 50 staff members in that company. We manage about $1.5 million a month in ad spend. And we've managed the marketing for companies and agents. And we're adding another six, we've got about 4,500 square feet now. We're adding 6,100 square feet December 1st. And so, dude, we're just trying to think bigger. We're trying to keep up with people like you, man, and just keep growing this thing, you know? Yeah, well, that's the two areas that I think you really, when you talk about helping agents, it's really about how to sell and provide the leads. That's it, yep. You can get in front of people and close them. Right. So those are two absolutely valuable things that you offer to agents. And I really commend you from having that, you know, that service mentality of you really wanna help other agents. And I really like sense that generally from you, that you really are here to wanna help. Yeah, it kinda grew out of demand, really. I mean, I didn't know that six months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, 36 months after putting up videos that agents would start reaching out saying, hey, we love your stuff, can you train us? Hey, do you do marketing for agents, you know? And so it kind of like grew, do you have an events? Can you train our team? Can we hire you to come to New York for a week? You know, stuff like that. And it's kind of morphed into a couple of companies that are growing, trying to do very well. And it was just out of the need to help those people. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's a lot of subscribers too. And I was so honored to be on your channel. That was an amazing experience, the staff you guys have, and you guys really leverage technologies so well. And that's something that I feel as an industry, maybe you're a little behind. Yeah. You know, so you're like a breath of fresh air coming out with all this energy and using, you know, all the tools we have now. What are, what do you think is like the number one tool as far as technology is concerned, that insurance agents should be taken advantage of, you think? Ooh. I would say two things. On the training side, they need to be plugging into a online video training platform that they can learn on and get better on every single day. I'll talk about my daily power five and some of the things I do later, but they need to be plugging into training content. You gotta get better, right? It takes, literally it takes a couple of days to get rusty, right? And on the marketing side, I think we need to be using automation to make some of the touches for us. We've got a platform called Samson that does some of those initial touches for agents. Like I teach a 12 step follow up process, six calls, three texts, three emails in 72 hours. Well, if it's all manual, that's pretty hard to keep up with. Right. Yeah, I'm a big believer in automation too. That has really greatly helped out our agency. And yeah, training is something that it's not like, you know, kind of nice to do thing. It should be like a necessary thing. Yes. And I think video is a great way to get that done in more of a efficient way, more consistent way too. Yes. So those are some of the programs you provide. Yes. So Rich, Kevin, it's a good buddy of ours. He actually introduced me to you. That's how we met. Thank you, Rich. Yes. His team is on our CA cell system. And so when I was in Dallas, right before our conference, I stopped by his farmer's office and spoke to his team, did some training for about an hour, and then they plug into our cell system, daily cells training every single day. And it's not like the stuff that I say is the absolute best on the planet because it's probably not. But there's consistency. It creates discipline. You think of ideas and when you're slowly learning and role-playing and applying specific things every single day, your cells are going to improve. They just will. Hey, if you enjoyed this, I got another one you're gonna love. It's right there. Click on it. See you in there. If you wanna make $221,520 next year in 2021, I'm gonna show you the seven steps that you need to master. The seven things you need to grow at, the seven things you need to absolutely get great at. And I'm gonna go over.