 I am putting in the hot seat today. My good buddy, Mr. Jeremy Whitaker. Dude, what's up, man? What's up? Dude, as you guys jump in this and watch this, stay with me. This cat did a quarter of a million dollars in his first six months, unreal, and also did $1.2 million in premium in his first 18 months. And we're not talking about P&C. We're talking about life insurance, 1.2 million 18 months. That's freaking crazy, man. Man, I tell you, it did not seem as if that was going to be my story, if you really kind of earn it out. I definitely wasn't foreseeing $1.2 million in 18 months, if you really want to know the truth. I thought it was going to be hard for me to do $100,000 in my first little while, the way it was looking. But I appreciate that. Dude, it's so freaking rare. You guys watching, I understand what I'm talking about. This is unheard of. I don't know if I've ever heard that actually done before. I don't know. Maybe Nate was close, who knows. That's freaking crazy, man. What was it about you? Were you able to jump in the business and just, boom, just flip and explode? There was nothing about me that I was able to jump in the business and flip and explode. There again, if you go back to the first part of my journey here, dude, it was struggle. I thought I was going to be good at this. I come from door-to-door sales, the worst kind of sales. You're going around and selling meat and steak and chicken, pork seafood, door-to-door, people that don't know you and you're trying to convince them to like you real quick and buy your stuff. And I came into this business almost thinking it was going to be similar to selling steaks and chicken. And it wasn't. And so what really excited me about this was that I wasn't going to be looking for my client anymore. That it was going to be a client that sent in a letter and said, hey, I want whatever these services are that you're offering. I want some final expense or some mortgage protection. And so when I thought about it, I'm like, man, this is going to be like walking up on a bunch of lay-downs. Everybody's going to be a lay-down. And the truth was it wasn't that way. And so I was like everybody else. I got on the phone for the first time and I panicked and got nervous and couldn't do it. And then talk yourself into it. And I'm thinking to myself, I know. I know this has got to be too good to be true, right? This whole insurance, and you can go out and make a six-figure income, and everybody talks about it. But it's got to be too good to be true. It can't be that easy. I bet whenever I get pick up the phone that some of these folks are going to cuss me out or some of these folks are going to tell me they never sent it in. Yeah, exactly. Lo and behold, when I got on the phone, what I heard, they told me, never sent it in. Folks cuss me out. Folks hung up on me, all the good stuff. And for my first six weeks, it was nothing but that. For the first six weeks in this business, all I did was struggle. I would get on the phone. I'd get my teeth kicked in. And then I'd tuck my tail and I'd go out and knock on doors and sell steaks to come to the rescue for me, right? What do you really, it's like a backup plan. That was my backup plan. That was my plan B. And so for me, I can remember wanting to quit in my first six weeks. I remember wanting to quit more than one time in my first six weeks. I can remember texting my mentor and saying, you know, I know you don't know me very well. We just met. But I did. I've spent literally $1,400 on leads. I've got nothing to show for it. All this time I've been in my room dialing on the phone in the office. I could have been out knocking doors and making money to feed my family. And at the end of that text message, I said something else. And I said, I know you don't know me very well there again. But one thing you're gonna figure out about me is I'm not a quitter. Wow. I don't care what I need to read, who I need to talk to, who I need to get around. This has got to work for me. And at that time, that was the first time I had, I guess I was coachable at that point. I was willing to be coached. Dang dude, that's good. What made you that way to where, because 92% of agents fail because a lot of them quit. You're struggling bad. But you're like, dude, I'm not a quitter. Where does that come from? You know, I think that's all my life. I've had to grow up with a self-esteem issue. And I was one of the youngest of a ton of cousins. Definitely the youngest child on my mom's in my household. And being the youngest of 30 cousins, you're going to get a little bit of picked on and people are gonna bully you a little bit. And so I always grew up with a big vision of what I could be. But always this thing in my background or in the back of my head going, you're never gonna make it. You can't be that good, you know? And so coming to the insurance industry, I think by that point I had already decided that this guy from West Memphis, Arkansas didn't have very many opportunities laid out in front of him. And all of my life I've let that little voice in the back of my head that went, maybe you're not good enough. All my life I let that take over. And this was finally I decided that I wasn't gonna let that take over anymore. That it didn't matter how anybody felt about it, including myself, that I literally, I was willing to make a commitment and sell out 100% to getting what I wanted in this industry. And so all about, I guess, the first, after about that first six weeks, I decided that it wasn't a problem with this business. This business was perfect. There was people that were making money in this business before I ever stepped into it. It had to be, it wasn't the leads, because there's folks out there working the same leads that I was struggling with and they were getting results. So I had to really take a look in the mirror and go, who is it? What is it? And it was me. That's hard to do, too, isn't it? Yeah. And so it's the hardest look to take at yourself because obviously we all wanna think, we're doing everything the right way and we're giving it all we got. It's gotta be them, right? Never me. And that was the hardest thing to look back and go, dude, you gotta get better. The system is not the leads, not the people, it's you. Wow. What'd you do to get better? So every day, and I still do it to this day, I decided that I was gonna have a routine and I think that for me, my routine is everything. And so when I get up out of the bed, feet hit the floor, it's gratitude right away, right? But then it's what am I listening to? And so I'm flipping on a YouTube, right? And I'm listening to some motivation. I started reading books back then. I read Thinking Girl Rich. Yes. I read Zig Ziglar, a ton of Zig Ziglar on just closing sales, right? So good. I started to read Master Closer with Bing Gay. Just anything I can get my hands on, started to listen to recordings that were out there, other people who had done some sales training of any sort, and I would listen to them and I would rewind them and I'd listen to it again. I'd rewind and listen to it again to where I could say it exactly like they said it. And so what I'd realize about this business is it really doesn't take a smart person. It really doesn't take this genius of a person. It really, a lot of times it's just being a good copycat. You're right. Can I copy what everybody else was doing? Because if I do it the way that they're doing it, I say it just like they're saying it, right? I'm probably gonna get the same result. Yeah. And that's what I realized. So I stole a lot of stuff from Zig Ziggler. There again, from Brian Tracy, from all the heavy weights. And I decided, hey, if it's gonna work for them, it's gonna work for me. And I put that to practice. I review after appointments, after I get out of one and I'm like, man, that went well. I did $3,000 in AP on that one. What could I have done different? What could I have done better? The one's definitely the ones that I didn't sit down with or I didn't sell. What could I have done better, right? Because it's easy enough to go, ah, you know, you can't sell them all. But I think that's selling me short from saying that I do everything possible to get that deal, to help that particular person I was sitting in front of. Exactly. And so just developing a routine where I just decided to get busy and go to work and outside of just working on myself, just taking fricking action, you know? And I think that's the biggest part. See, what I realized is there was a lot of people I looked up to in this business, a lot of people that, you know, at my company were doing 300, 400, $500,000 a year. You see them going out and having weeks, 15, $20,000 weeks. And I knew some of them had been here a while. You know, they had been in the industry maybe three, four, five years. You know, some of them 10, 15 years, some of them brand new. But I knew the bulk of them had whatever amount of experience. And I wasn't gonna be able to compete with them on that. I couldn't compete with them on their amount of experience. I just couldn't. No, it gets true. Where I can compete is I can outwork them, right? What I lack in experience, I can make up for and sure hustle. That's right. And so I decided that it didn't matter to me. If, I knew that if I wanted overall to have more time to build this future legacy and to be able to help a bunch of people that I was gonna have to sacrifice starting with my time. And I knew that I needed a few more swings at it than somebody else did. The guys that were out there killing it, they probably didn't. They say, hey, I run 15 or 20 appointments. They're out there killing it, that's great. I needed more swings in that. So I had 25 appointments, 30 appointments, you know? Just give myself some more times at the bat because I know broken clocks, right? Twice, twice a day, right? And so I've gotta close some deals if I'm just up to bat way more. And so that's a part of it too. You just put yourself in a position where you couldn't lose. Just couldn't lose. Yeah, and something clicked for you though at some point along those, because the first six weeks was a struggle. Next several weeks, you're getting better, finding the occasional sell, improving a little bit, choosing not to quit, learning, adopting and finding certain things that are working. And before you know it, a quarter mil in your first six months, you became, I don't know what it was, but you became an obsessed freaking monster. And I don't know where that, when that clicked and you just took off and like, like it almost like a light bulb went off, like holy freak, I can do this. Holy freak, I'm better at this than I thought. Holy freak, this is working, I'm gonna do it again. And it just like, the rocket took off, man. Like do you remember a moment or like just some things happening that just like, dude, I got this now. Because a ton of confidence clearly came over you when you had zero for six weeks. I think it happened for me in week number six. Week number six, whenever I was struggling and I sent out that text message to Brad, I said, hey, I know you don't know me very well, but you're gonna figure out I'm not a quitter. He got me on a call with four other people. Two agents had been two years in the business and there was an agent that had been six months in the business and there was myself and there was Brad. Is it anybody else I know that was on that call? I doubt it, no, just Brad Smith, me. And there was a few other agents. But these people took literally an hour, hour and a half with me and they sat through and just went through what I was going through. What objections are you getting on the phone? How did you handle it? This is what I would do in that situation. And for me, I think there was a big trust issue as far as because I could get a certain amount, or a certain amount, I guess a certain distance through my script. As far as I would introduce myself, I'd go through, verifying their information. Then it was time to book an appointment. Couldn't get them to book an appointment. Everybody's like, oh, can you put some in the mail? You know what I mean? It's like, I don't let people come to my house. And so what we figured out is I was really sounding like a salesperson on the phone. And that was because I'm sitting there and I'm reading this script that I really didn't need to be reading word for word. And they dropped that information on me, gave me some other tips, but I don't think that's what changed it, right? This is part of it. What really changed it was me going out in week number six, and I had a total of 20 meetings, and I went out my first 12 of them, and I sold nothing. I got back to that group though, and they were back on the phone with me for another hour, and they go, okay, this is what I would do in this situation. And I went back out Saturday, Sunday, wrote six applications for $10,000 in premium. And I was still super part-time at that point. I was still going out. I had the plan B. I was going out and knocking doors and getting me some cash to pay my bills. That was the last day I did that though, because week number six, when I realized, hey, I'm out there for two days and I made six grand, I was at a lower contract level at that point. I made like six grand in two days. I say, well, there's 28 more days in a freaking month. You know what I mean? What happens if I work all of them? And that's what I did. And so I think the light switch came on for me at that moment, because what ended up happening was June of 2017, I went out and did $41,000, right? I found a routine at work. I said, okay, 20 appointments last week got me $10,000 in production. So I'm gonna schedule 20 appointments this week and 20 appointments the next week. And lo and behold, I did 41,000 in June of 2017. That was my first full-time month in the insurance industry, you know? And then 41,000 after that, 36,000 after that, ended up that 250,000. But I think the lights came on when it was just me going, man, I'm overcomplicating it. I'm starting to sound a little bit like that salesperson over the phone. I think this is a whole lot easier than what I'm making it out to be. And me knowing that I had some other people in my corner willing to help me out with it. Dang. Let's go back. To tell me about your 30, to tell me about you growing up, where, what it looked like, how was it? I wanna get in, I wanna learn why you are who you are. So I, they're getting 30 years old. I've got wife, we're gonna have five children. Wow, congrats buddy. Oldest is getting ready to turn 13 and my youngest is getting ready to turn five. Wow. And so I've been a parent for most of my, you know, half my life, just about, you know? I started out young, grew up in, there again, West Memphis, Arkansas, lived there for the first eight or nine years of my life. We moved out actually to Joliette, Illinois, which is right outside of Chicago, and that's really where I say my story started to kind of unfold and change. Like I said, growing up in West Memphis, we were around all of our family, had a bunch of cousins, you know, that had it rough from a psychological standpoint. Had some physical abuses and things of that nature as a toddler. And, you know, moving to Joliette was my brand new start. It was a crazy place because it was like, man, all your family, everything that you know of, it's all, you know, it's there, but my mom, she was making more money, you know, and what happened, and why I'm so thankful that I lived there was the fact that I started to get around a group of people I met, really my first three or four mentors in Joliette, going to a church, you know, and I started to, for the first time I can remember, Rhoda McFarlane, she's one of my really good mentors. She was the first person that ever looked at me and said, you're special. Something in me is telling me to come into you and tell you that the thoughts that you're having, the dreams that you have, the visions, that the way that you see your life and see things are gonna be different from the way that other people see things. And she says, she says, this is kind of what's gonna be making you who you are. She said, don't worry about the noise, don't worry about what anybody else thinks about it. She says, when you get these ideas, take action on them, because that's a part of your gift, that's a part of why you're set apart. And for the first time I saw myself as not, you know, bullied or picked on or left out, or I saw myself as set apart, you know, as something different. And so my mission became, I just wanna help some people the way that she helped me. I wanna help people to feel the way that she made me feel on that day as an 11 year old boy, because what she did for me, she didn't know it. You know, she lit a fire, you know, and she didn't know all the things that I had been through as a kid, but she looked past me, you know, and was able to see right into me. And for me, my passion began at that point to be just to be able to look past people. And so my passion is for average people, for not average by like this bad word that we try to throw around and make average people seem bad. I'm talking like average people that came from an average background, you know, average schools, you know, I had average grades, had average family, and not the only one who had some problems, right? Had average income, my mom's a single mom, average community, you know, I believe that that average people get stuck on living average. And I don't believe that we have to live average. And so my passion has always been to encourage average people to show them that they can live above average lives, that they can build out lives that are phenomenal people, you know? And I think even when it comes to cells, that's why I kinda get carried away sometimes with some of my clients, because they truthfully understand that I'm looking past them and who I see them as, and I'm really trying to protect who they're gonna be. But I don't think any of that starts without me going through some of that other stuff as an adolescent. She spoke that into you 19 years ago now, I guess. 19 years ago. And here's why it's even more important is because about three weeks from now we're gonna celebrate 12 years of her going home, you know? And she was killed execution style at a Lane Bryant at a clothing store in Chicago. And I think about the impact, the impact that would not have happened if she just wasn't in the right place at the right time in my life. I think about how different my life would look today if she wasn't in the right place at the right time. You know, and at the end of the day, I know that if it wasn't for that moment, in time, I wouldn't be here. Wow. Wow, you've been incredibly successful, got a lot of good things going for you, amazing family, and you sold a ton of freaking insurance, man. It's been a, is it feel like you're on this journey and this crazy ride that's like nowhere near the end? Oh yeah. Because for people that are on it, like we always think that, you know? Like you're Jeremy Whitaker's true potential. As great as you've been, and as much as like 1.2 million 18 months, all this stuff sounds incredible. You are nowhere near like the dude you are becoming, you know, like it's just, it's cool. Absolutely. I look at it every day and I go, man, the guy that you're looking at today, this is as good as I've ever been, right? But I can also look right back at you and go, this is as bad as you'll ever see me. Ooh, that's good. You won't see me any worse than I am today. And that's because, well, I get to work on me, right? I get to define who am I gonna be? You know, I think that's huge. I don't just see myself as, you know, just a insurance agent. Yeah, that can sell some insurance, right? And that's been through the school hard knocks. That's been because I went out there and failed at it a ton of times. And don't get me wrong, this week, even this week I've had some days in there was like, man, I sucked today, you know? This was bad, right? But I'm gonna keep working on me. And even when you have those bad days, cause a lot of people watching right now like they're gonna have those bad days, man. They're gonna have bad days all the time. As a new agent for six weeks, a lot more bad days than you're gonna have now, right? But when you have those bad days, like, what do you do? What do you say? How do you bounce back? How do you keep pushing? Or are you just so far along now that you're like, dude, I'm just, I'm on the way and that's never stopping, you know? Like, what happens? Cause we all have bad days. Yeah, and we're gonna continue to. I'm gonna continue to. Yes. I think there's a few things that I do when I have a really horrible day when I was like, man, this was, why is this happening to me? Like, did they not know that nobody sent them out the memo that I did $1.6 million before I came to their house? Yeah, exactly. Come on now. But, you know, I think it's reflecting on it. They're again, at the end of that day, I think where a lot of agents go wrong is they reflect appointment to appointment and that's where you can mess yourself up because I'm thinking about all this negative and all this guy that didn't buy from me and how he was a jerk and how he kicked me out of his house and I'm thinking about all this stuff and guess what, I'm feeding my mind. Feeding all that negativity right back to myself. So when I show up to the next client, what kind of face are that do I have? They ain't gonna see a game face. They're gonna see that face of defeat. Yes. They're gonna see it all written over me. And so make it through the day, reflect, do all the cussing and yelling and screaming, I do a little bit of that too. Punching the steering wheel. Punch the steering wheel at the end of the day. There you go. Right, at the end of the day, because you don't wanna wake back up, it's like, now let's say if you're married, don't go to bed mad at each other. Don't go to bed mad at yourself. Yeah. There you go. Don't go to bed mad at yourself. It's not a good habit, first off, but second off, when you wake up in the morning, you're not gonna feel any better because you were mad at yourself tonight. And so bury that stuff, but then it's, who am I talking to? I tell you what I do, because I'm really competitive by nature, is I wanna call somebody who I know won this week, somebody who I know kicked some butt this week, and so I've got some good friends in this business that I'll get on the phone with, and I'll say, man, my day sucked, and they'll go, man, I did $20,000 today. And I'm like, okay. Here we go. Here we go. And that is enough for me, a lot of times to spark that fire within me to go, you know what, today's over, tomorrow's gonna be different. I'm gonna crank it up, but if I went to bed knowing that I did every bit, every ounce of what I could to get my production, to get my numbers, yeah, I can't be mad at me, right? Now I've gotta realize that sometimes, sometimes the streets just owe me, right? And other times I owe the streets. I look at it like when we was selling food, I used to say the money is in the bottom of the freezer, right? But what if I told you that at the end of your day, somewhere in your freezer that there's 600 bucks, all you gotta do is get to the bottom of it? How fast could you get to the bottom of it? It's the same way with leads. I feel like if I know for sure, I bought X amount of dollars in leads, I feel like there's $15,000 in that stack of leads. If I could tell myself that there's $15,000 in that stack of leads, how quick can I turn them over? Yeah. And so now it's just getting back to the phone, now it's just going out and knocking some doors, because I know I'm gonna have some of those days where it just sucks, right? I'm gonna have some appointments, one, two, three, back to back sometimes, that just sucks. But if I got enough of them, I'm not worried about my production. Right. What's the best, what's the best day you ever had? Best day, single day I've ever had was about 20, I think it was $23,000. It's a good day. In personal production. It's a good day, bro. Really? That, I can't forget that day. So I had, doing some mortgage protection, and so I'm pitching this guy actually, and we're talking through some options, and we're talking about term, and we're talking about return or premium, and we go into talking about some of the other things that we could kind of help him with, and he pulls out this policy, and it's a prudential policy or something like that, and it's gonna expire, and I think he had like two months or three months left on it. Wow. $250,000 policy that he had since he was way young, and we were looking at, get this, we were looking at $200 a month mortgage protection policy before he pulled this policy out, $200 a month, and then he realized I spent all this money over 25 or 28 years, however long it had been before that he had that first $250,000 policy with prudential, so I spent all this friggin' money, and I get, no, no, no, it's just gonna cancel, and then it's gonna go up. It's like, I don't want one of those kind of policies. What kind of policy is that? As I showed him the mortgage protection, he's like, is that gonna cancel on me? And in 25, is that gonna have a term on it? It's like, yeah, it ends in 20 years, and I want that kind of policy, right? And so we started looking at permanent options. What I learned from that one conversation was don't shop with your own wallet, right? That's right. You can't walk into deals and think, hey, I would never spend that kind of money, so I know they wouldn't, because we ended up writing in a big ol' IUL. It was $1,300 a month on his, and then we did a $300 a month on his wife on something that was gonna be a $200 a month deal. Were you beating yourself up that you even showed the $200 before then, or were you like, a little bit? I'm like, man, because I know that he had closed on it. He was already, we were ready to do the application on it before he said, I don't wanna do a policy like that. And so I'm like, man, I knew this was gonna happen. I'm gonna walk out of here with no business. And $200 a month works, but you saw it's great. It's good. Right, right, right, until he says, I don't want that kind of policy that ends. Exactly, you're like, crap, I thought we had this. I thought we had this. But we ended up making it work. And then I went to that right after when we did a couple other little mortgage protection deals. Ended up doing a $23,000 a day that day. Boom. Plenty of days with a dozen appointments and nothing, and then a $23,000 a day. Yeah. That's what's the thing about this business is, dude, you never know what's gonna happen that day, who you're gonna walk into. I almost didn't go to an appointment on a Saturday and then wrote a $505 a month final expense policy. You know what I mean? I almost didn't drive to Jeff City for an appointment and wrote a $1,000 a month policy. There's those days where you're like, I don't wanna get out of bed, I don't wanna go, I don't wanna do this, or you start thinking negative, right? I think that's one of the reasons why you probably start with some gratitude in the morning is it's put you in a positive frame of mind. Absolutely. And you're one of the most humble people I know to write a quarter of a million your first six months. 1.2 million in 18 months. Like the numbers, the pure numbers that you're talking about are freaking insane. And to be as humble as you are, it's super, super impressive, man. It's really awesome. Man, I appreciate that. Where does it always, where does that come from? Because it hasn't, I've known you for a little bit now and it hasn't changed and you keep getting better. But you're like, you're Mr. Consistency, you're Mr. Reliable, you're even kill, you're there. You know, I've got some really good mentors, some really good examples of what success looks like. The reason why I came into this business was because I was knocking in this big fancy neighborhood. I knocked on the right door, you know? And all their neighbors were calling cops on me and telling me, hey, I don't eat stuff off the back of a truck and here's this dude in this big, you know, 6,000, 7,000 square foot home and several 20, 30 acres. And then his family also own a ranch out there and doesn't eat steaks. He's got cows. They've got like 18 chicken houses. And I sell them steaks and chicken. But what attracted me to him was his personality. It was the fact that not only was he at home at two o'clock on a Tuesday, but he was the nicest person in his neighborhood. He seemed like a person that had truly been working on himself. And so what made me call him, he didn't try to recruit me right then. He gave me his card and he said, call me when you get back in the town, I'll buy some more from you. Wow. And I called him and said, what symmetry financial group? I wanna do what you do for a living. A guy that's at home at two o'clock on a Tuesday with his toddler crawling around and the most down-to-earth humble person I know. And so I realized if I wanted to have his kind of results, I need to imitate what he was doing. He works on the self tremendously. I need to work on myself tremendously. Don't get me wrong. I've got probably one of the biggest egos I know. I've learned how to be mature in that and understand except the fact that I've got that issue and I really try to work on it. I try hard to work on it. I can understand, I appreciate that for sure. What's gonna happen in the future for you as you look ahead, as you finish one year and jump into another, as you start forecasting and thinking about where you're gonna be, not only this year, but five years, 10 years. I mean, you're 30. 30 years, like what's that look like? Like what's the rest of your life look? How good does this thing get? How good do you get? Where does this journey take you? That's an excellent question. And the truth is, looking at it from here, it looks a little bit more clear than if you had to ask me this question two, three years ago. Because you're talking about a person who came into this industry lost, not really knowing what the heck I was gonna be doing. You know, I didn't wanna do what I was doing anymore, but I was lost. And to see first year going from making six figures at my own company to doubling that my first year to going out in my second year here and doubling that again. And then last year we grew by another 100%. And so you're talking five years out and I'm thinking world domination, is that? There we go. No, that's it. That's what I was expecting. No, total domination, right? Total domination. No, five years from now, seriously. I see ourselves in a place where not only am I able to live the lifestyle that I'm able to live, but there literally are three or four people that I'm mentoring right now that are in position to in two years or a year and a half surpass where I am right now. And my goal is there again to take average people, show them how to live above average lives. And so my next five years, it's gonna be spent doing that. It's gonna be spent helping everyday insurance agents, people that's needing a change, looking for something different to get the most out of this business. That's where I'm going, right? And that may look a little different. That may look like there's seven or eight different offices is what we're planning on closing out actually this year. And so we're talking five years, that could look like 40 offices, right? 100 offices. 100 offices. 20 million premium. One of the things that I love about working and kind of getting to know you is there's no limits. I see how big you think, and it provokes me to think much, much bigger, right? As so much more can be done in a short period of time. Yes. And you're living proof of it. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, man. I'm the dude that would have probably wet his pants and I had no clue what to say five years ago when we turned on that camera and we were sitting here. If we start, you know what I mean, it's just, it's crazy. But you said something earlier that's key though. You don't quit. I'm not a quitter. And that's a message a lot of agents need to hear. Like 92% fell and a lot of people watching this are new, struggling inside of three years. And I'm here in the theme and the message today that no matter how you feel, no matter how difficult this is getting, do not quit. And I also believe that your new motto, you know, for your YouTube channel, everything else you're doing needs to be, I help average people live above average lives. Cause you said that two or three times today. Yeah. And it's freaking good. Like it needs to be on a t-shirt. Like it needs to be on a hat. Like it's so good. And that needs to be on the front of your website. Well, after you get done with this keynote coming up and you put that at the top of your site, you've got this rolling header and all this stuff needs to be on your YouTube channel. Like that's really cool. It's really good. You know, I heard somebody say one time and it made so much sense. Somebody asked me, I said, why, why do people quit? Right? And no, the question was asked different. The question was asked, why do people fail? Why do people fail in this business? And I think there's a lot of reasons that we could start to name out. But if you really want to know the big one, I think it's, we just said it is that people quit. That's right. Because I believe there's two different types of people. I don't care in life and business and relationships. There's winners and quitters, right? And if you don't quit, you win. And you're not a loser then. Right, it doesn't matter how much I fail. Fail is different from me losing, right? As long as I stay in the game, I'm gonna win. That's right. That reminds me, we just said the 8% virtual last year, the theme was, if you don't quit, you can't fail. That's right. And that's what, that's the theme and the message that you need, you guys need to resonate in here today is this dude is not the best sales person in the world, even though there's a lot of days he thinks he is. As do I, right? He's not someone that just had everything given to him through life and just had it easy. He's not someone that had a ton of experience in the insurance business and knew a lot and grew up in it, et cetera. He just decided not to quit. When time's got tough, he got other people on the phone to help him dissect his business and to remind him that if he doesn't quit, things will get good. And a lot of people need to, when things are not going good, it sounds like to me, I've heard this several times, they need to get someone on the phone to remind them that it is going to get better and that to keep looking in the mirror, it's me, but I can get better. True. And I've heard you say that in several occasions where you're competitive, you'll have a crappy day and you'll call someone, it'll lift your spirits because they freaking crushed it, you know? And it's not jealousy, it's competitiveness, it's that. And you said it too, like your first six weeks, you sucked. But you knew people were using these leads, making these calls with this script, running this sales process and making this amount of money. With all the tools and resources I got. So if they can do it, so can I. That's right. And there's nothing, there's nothing special, no special talents or abilities that a person needs, right, to be successful in insurance, it's just not. And I've seen people that, man, you think, there's no way that this person should be this good. There's no way that their numbers should look like they do, but they do. And a lot of it is just that sort of resiliency that I don't give up, don't quit, you know, and I'll work the rest of them. I think that's 100% of what people could get better at is. Correct. I joke about it all the time, but it's so true. And you'll hear me say it on my channel plenty of times. You'll hear me say it in real life. But I think if there's one piece of advice, people ask what advice would you give a new agent? Do more, more what? Well, more whatever it is. And are you bad on the phone? Do more dialing. You're bad on the phone. Do more door knocking, right? Are you bad in the home? Get out and do some more presentations. Just more than whatever it is that you're doing right now is always gonna give you a better result than what you're getting right now. Yes, yes. We're gonna get better. It's gonna get easier. It's, yeah, it's just, it's continuing on. And I've heard that loud and clear today and I'm really hoping that those listening that are the Jeremy Whitaker, his first six weeks and they're in that spot. It's that it will get better as long as you don't quit. As long as you don't quit. As long as you make the decision, because a lot of things in life is a decision, right? As long as you make the decision, I will not quit. I am not a quitter. It's not gonna happen. It'll eventually get really good. Oh yeah. It'll get easier too. Oh yeah. Because even though you still have to work your butt off and you work as hard as anybody I know, you, your appointment set rate is a little higher. Your closing rate is a little higher, you know? Like it just, it gets better. You get better, right? I talked about, talked about lately about there's three things. When someone's got a goal, right? They wanna make 10 grand a month or whatever it is. And if in your case they wanna make 20 grand a month or 40 grand a month or whatever, you know? That there's three things that can hold them back from not hitting their goal. Effort, skill or knowledge. Without effort, you can't learn more or get better. So good. It's really good. That's it. It's crazy. So what's the, what's next for Jeremy Whitaker? You're starting to do a lot of YouTube videos, right? You're starting to, starting to share. You're a dude that really cares about people too. Like it, it, it, I've felt that ever since we met. Like you want to help people make money. Yeah. And that goes back to, to kind of everything that we've, we've looked at. But yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to continue to work on that, putting out content, you know? I want to help some people win this year. I think there's, there's, there's people that are looking at getting into insurance or maybe they got into it at the end of the most uncertain year, you know? We've ever had and they're going, man, what is this? Is this it? You know? I don't know about this insurance thing now. I want, I want to help those people. And so, you know, you're going to see, you know, we've got events coming up in Dallas, you know, getting ready to go out and, and that's going to be a really, really good time. For sure. Then we've got a tour that we're putting together as a team where we're getting in front of hundreds of people and, and doing some, some Philadelphia area. So if you're in Philadelphia, we would be out there that way, South Texas, be down in South Texas, a little bit of Mississippi. So we've got a lot of, a lot of good stuff coming up 2021. As we, as we finish up, what's, if, if, what's one thing that you would like to leave the audience with? There's a new agent, they're struggling, they're grasping Ellen to everything you're saying. They get it. They relay a line with you. They, they understand what you're saying. They're like, dude, I'm, I'm, I like this Jeremy Whitaker guy, but I'm not him yet. What would you say? I'd say the Jeremy Whitaker that you look at, that the guy that you're saying you like, wasn't him yet three years ago. Right. And so no matter what, what background a person is coming from, no matter, you know, if you've been in insurance or you've, maybe you're coming over from PNC or, or maybe you're just getting started in PNC, what I'm going to say is, is dig in. Don't see a lot of people with their problem. And I've been guilty of it myself, you know, as, as coming into something and being tow in, like dipping my, dipping my, my pinky toe into the water and seeing, you know, testing out if it's warm enough. Oh, that's a little too cold. Maybe I'll wait or, or, or waiting and, and, and watching and see who's going to jump in first because hopefully if they jump in first, I see their reaction. I know. And I'm going to tell you that, come on in, water's warm. You know, the truth is at some point, you've got to get so committed to it that you can't help but to take action. That's right. I call myself grind time a lot because, you know, at the end of the day, I think there's, there's one thing that, that everybody can do right now that, that can change. I had a guy, Scott, when my first job's ever, he says, there's always something that you can be doing right now that you'll have way less to do later. Didn't, it wasn't very significant or profound. We were actually talking about doing dishes. I had a pizza place, but I took that with me everywhere. What can I be doing in this moment that's going to make life easier for me tomorrow? What, what can I do today that's going to, that's going to allow for me to get closer to next year's goals to that, that five year goal to that 10 year goal was what can I do right now? What, what, what things and think of those and take action on them. You know, I think for me, a lot of people, I don't really like, you know, lip service and people saying, hey, I'm going to do this. And I love people speaking into themselves. Don't get me wrong. I feel like you're supposed to be your best cheerleader. You're supposed to, you know, sell yourself on every idea you have for us. You're supposed to wake up in the mirror and tell yourself you are the one. Do all that stuff. But then when you're done, I think, I've seen so many new agents come in and go, why is it not working? Why is it not working? Why is it not working? And, and I have to there again turn around and ask, why are you not working? Why are you not working? Why are you not working? And so if, if you're being serious about it, if you can either kid yourself and we can get on every podcast and we can listen to Cody Askins, you know, every single video he puts out, but until I do something about it, until I commit to it, right? Whatever that process is that I'm committing to, find one. I mean, like I used to get caught up on a lot of different, you know, videos and a lot of different presentation. I'm gonna do it this way sometime and do it this way sometimes. Now if you ever see me at home, it's the same way every single time, never changes. I picked one. I picked what I was gonna do and I committed to it and I just did it over and over and over and over again. That's right. Pick one. Hmm. And you're getting really good. What's the, what's the name of YouTube channel? So they can go check it out. Grind Time JW. Grind Time JW. JW stands for Jeremy Whitaker. Jeremy Whitaker, that's right. Dude, amazing job. Thank you for sharing your story. Hey, thank you for having me, man. Love, love when you're here, man. Love it. Follow this cat. He's a beast. 1.2 million 18 months. You guys are watching saying, dude, I would love, like put your hands up right now if you would love to be like, dude, I wish I had done 250 in my first six months, man. Unbelievable, unbelievable. Dude, thank you, buddy. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching. And as JW said, hey, if you enjoyed this, I got another one you're gonna love. It's right there. Click on it. See you in there. I'm Cody Askins and I'm gonna share with you today how to earn $10,000 weekly as a life insurance agent. So one of the things I want you to think through is typically a lot of interest agents fail. 92% fail. We're gonna walk through the numbers. I'm talking on point and I'm talking leads.