 Hey, welcome back to another episode of insurance influencers where we find freaking influencers that are going in on it. People in power doing powerful freaking things. I love getting around powerful people. They inspire me and this dude inspires me as much as any Mr. James freaking Whitley. What's up, brother? How's it going, man? Doing good, man. James, he was on our podcast director of ops for SLS, which means you do everything operations related, which ends up being everything, right? Yes. Yeah. A little bit of everything. It can all fall under that umbrella. Yeah. That happens in our office too. Andy is COO now and he does it literally anything. It's like you said earlier, Jack of all trades, master or none, even though you're a master of some, you know. Thank you. A lot to learn still. Yeah. Yeah. Well, dude. Because I like to tell people what I'm thinking about them. Okay. And I think about you. I think of someone that is organized, maybe OCD, disciplined, determined, driven, and someone that just cares a lot about people. Would you agree with all those things? I like that. I might change my bio. Write that down. There you go. There you go. That's a yes. I mean, I hope you would agree with those things. It'd be weird if you disagreed with any of that. So that's good. I try to do all of those things. Yeah. Where does that come from? I think everybody's different, man. Where does that come from for you? Because you're like, you know, I see some of you. I feel like I'm partially like you and I feel like I'm partially like Grant in some different ways. You know. Yeah. You're kind of the best of both worlds. So it makes me jealous. But... Well, in what way? In what way? Since you brought it up. In what way? What are we talking about? You know, you just put the parts that you motivate me to do are, you know, putting yourself out there more. Obviously, I'll never be able to keep up with your social media and YouTube game and all that stuff. But, you know, Grant's better at that stuff. And then the figuring out how to build something from the ground up and how to do things more efficiently. You know, I think that's something that we have in common where just because, you know, we have a saying around here just because something's always been done one way doesn't mean we have to keep doing it that way. You know, a lot of times, a lot of times people just get stuck in a rut. Well, that's how we've always done it. And then you say, well, why? And I don't know. That's just how we've always done things. And so, you know, trying to look at it from a different angle and get new perspectives is key. So that's why I came out to see you. That's right, man. Well, dude, that's hard to, that's hard to do, you know, when someone's been doing something for so long, especially the insurance business. I mean, the average age is 59 and a half. It's an old fashioned, you know, grandpa industry in a way it really is. And there's a lot of young dudes trying to, you know, make their claim and make their mark and they're changing some stuff up. And you and Grant are, you know, as much of that as anybody, you know. When someone's trying to like, everything's been done a certain way, do you need to be creative to do something a little different? I mean, what's to talk through that for me? I think creativity is part of it, but you also don't have to necessarily reinvent the wheel. I mean, when we started around the same time in the industry, I think, in my 10 year anniversary of being licensed was July. And like you said, there was, I mean, I was 22 at the time and there was nobody in an insurance at 22, especially the, you know, final expense life side of it. And when I joined SLS, Grant's dad had been doing it the same way for 32 years at the time. And so we took a system that worked really, really, really well. And we didn't change the system, we just changed the delivery method. And, you know, we didn't have a call center at the time. I didn't know anybody in the industry that was doing it over the phone. But we had a conversation one day with his dad about, you know, if GEICO can, you know, take over the car insurance industry. And at the time, Quicken Loans was still becoming massive. My dad was in the mortgage industry. And I saw what Quicken Loans was doing to the mortgage industry and how hard that was making it for him. You know, he kept trying to get people to come sit down in his office face to face. And I was trying to tell him, dad, if I could buy a house entirely over the phone and never have to meet you, why would I not want to do that? And so I said, why can't that be, if somebody can buy a house site unseen and get a mortgage, why can't they get life insurance? So that was the big creative revelation we had at the time, because nobody was really doing it. Obviously, I wasn't the only one that had that idea. But we kept the same system, we kept the same, you know, structure that SLS has and just implemented that in a different way. Yeah, Dylan and I were driving through the Dallas area earlier in the year. And there was a big, I don't remember what it's called. There's a big, you may remember Dylan, there's a big, several stories of vehicles in this big glass thing. And it's like a vending machine of cars. It's like Carvana or something, right? Carvana, that's it. Yep, yep. Yeah, you can buy it online, a freaking automobile for like 40 grand, you know, and you go in and get it out of the vending machine, you know, and I'm like, what? You know, so I mean, if they can buy a freaking $40,000 vehicle, they can buy insurance, right? Right. You know, so, and I think there's been some shifts in that respect from moving to phone cells in a way, you know, as you do, I still think both methods are extremely profitable, beneficial, and helpful to people, no matter what side you're on. I know you guys do a little bit of both there, obviously, a lot of both. You know, listen, let's just say a little, you guys do a lot of both, bro. Yeah, and it's still 60, 40, you know, 60% is still traditional kitchen table sales and, you know, 40% now is over the phone. And there's a need for both. So I agree. Not everybody probably agrees with that, but I still think our clientele, you know, some people prefer one over the other. So that's also very, very true. I would agree with that. You said you've been in the business industry about a decade or 32? 33 now, yeah. 33. My gosh, dude. Well, you don't look 33 for starters. So congrats. Okay. Thank you. Where's, what's it like to be 30? You know, I mean, I'm still in my 20s, so I wouldn't know. What's that like? I think it, I think it's just a, it's just a number, right? That's what I tell my clients, you know. There you go. There's the answer. You use that same line all the time. Mr. Jones, you don't sound a day over 40. That's right. Yeah, dude, that, even when I just said it to you, I'm like, dude, you don't look 30. I'm like, I've been saying that for a decade. Exactly. Even though you definitely don't, but there's times where our clients actually look older than what they are. You know, they're like, I'm 59. I'm like, dude, you look 79. You know, but I'm still going to use the same line. That's right. You have to bro. You have to. We talked a little bit earlier about, about waking up early. And I'm a big believer in getting my day started off correctly. When you study successful people, they don't wake up at seven, eight o'clock, nine o'clock. They don't not take care of their body. They don't drink, you know, three gallons of soda a day. They don't get drunk every day. You know, there's things that successful people don't, they don't not learn something every day. They don't not have goals. You know, there's like, there's things that successful do. And you do these things very well, you know, and you would, you would say because you just use your personality that I can do. I can be better, you know, and sure we all can. But what are some, some things that you do that you believe help you be more focused and to reach your potential every single day? Well, first, I wasn't always like that. I try hard to, and I get a lot of pushback sometimes, but I try with, with our agents to, we have a thing called the 5am club. And I post a video every single day, somewhere between the hours of 5.15 and, you know, 5.40 ish. And it's almost always me driving to the gym. And if I don't go to the gym, and it's me sitting there. And the biggest pushback I get is, well, I'm just not a morning person. So, you know, I can't do that. And I always laugh because I'm the least morning person, person I feel like there is, you know, I had graduated from college and a college, you know, 11 o'clock was early for me. You know, all my classes I'd always schedule in the afternoon so that I could, you know, sleep until 12 o'clock. I hate getting up early. And so what I was telling you earlier is my routine now. And so when I first started the industry, I was terrible at it. I wasn't, I wasn't talking to my first client until probably, I mean, 10 o'clock was early for me at that point. And it was just great. And I, you know, we're 22, 23 years old just trying to figure this thing out. So we made it work around our schedule. And, but we weren't hitting that next level. And that's when I started really getting into, you know, the early stages of podcasts and reading books. And Tim Ferriss was a big influence on me with a lot of things. And he interviews people all the time. And now he's got these books that have come out, you know, tribe of mentors and stuff where he takes key points from everybody. So it's fascinating to look his stuff up. But he talks about getting up early. He talks about working out. He talks about, you know, mental clarity and all of these things. And so I was overweight. I used to be 200 and almost 250 pounds when I was working in insurance. And, you know, I didn't go to the gym. I had a bad back. I ate terribly. I ate whatever I wanted to eat. And I was never a soda guy, but it was all other stuff. What was your favorite bad food to eat? Twinkies or what are we talking about? Cheese. I'm a big like salt and savory guy. So I could, I still to this day can sit down. You still eat a lot of cheese. Grant told me about the cheese thing. I ate a lot of cheese. But if you eat a lot of cheese and don't do anything about it, and then, you know, add bread and all this other stuff into there, it can get, it can get pretty bad pretty fast. And, you know, I was in, I played sports in high school. So it didn't matter. You know, I came out of, I think that's what happens to a lot of us. I came out of high school where it didn't matter what you ate. I couldn't gain weight. You know, my football coach would try and get me to bulk up. And it was just hard. So I'd go to, you know, it was a chore. I'd go to McDonald's and get burgers just to try and gain weight. But then I go to college. I stopped playing sports. I start eating worse and drinking and doing all this stuff and ballooned up. And so in order to get out of that, and it ended up having an impact on the whole rest of my career, my life was a lot of things we talked about. So I, our industry doesn't allow me to go to the gym at four o'clock in the afternoon, five o'clock, you know, when these sessions where I started CrossFit, that's where I lost all the weight. And their latest class was five 30, you know, so it was for the people that got off work at five, they go five 30. So I couldn't go in the afternoon. So I was forced to go in the morning. And going back to, I'm not a morning person. So I was telling you, so every morning now, every night, I make two shots of espresso, a big caffeine addict, but it's black and I'll put milk or sugar in it. And I put it on top of my phone and my alarm goes off at four 50 and I can't hit the snooze button because the cup of coffee is right there. And so then I feel the coffee. I shoot the three ounces of espresso and I hit the snooze and I will literally go back to sleep. And it was something that I learned from Tim Ferriss where he talks about Wall Street guys that do it, take power naps in the afternoon. And when my next alarm goes off with my eyes open to try and hit the snooze, the caffeine has worked its way into my system and I can't go back to sleep at that point. And that's what forces me to get out of bed, you know, and that's a, that's a victory for me. So that's like the first win of the day is like, I beat the alarm clock. I got up, I got going and something else we have in common is if I don't get up and do something active, get the blood flowing, even if it's just in my house. Originally it was getting on the phones, right? I have to be mentally sharp so I have to eat good so I sleep well. I drink a lot of water, you know, don't drink alcohol, especially during the week. Get up early and get the blood flowing because I'd have to be on the phone talking to a client and I've got to be sharp and on my egg game and you can't have marbles in your mouth and all that stuff. And now we do training every single day. So I've got to have an hour of content, just like you come into the office right away and get your sales team going. So if I don't go do something active and wake up and be alert and do all that, I'm just not the same. Some of the things we've adopted, man, when I spoke at your office, the freaking culture, the morning training, the energy, I was like, I'm still in some of this stuff, you know, it was awesome. I loved it. It was good, man. It's still good. I want to come back again soon, which we've talked about a lot and then we will. We really will. So say there's a, there's somebody out there that when we're talking about, you need to wake up earlier, you need to stop eating like crap, you need to stop getting drunk every, drinking a ton every day and drinking a ton of freaking soda and care about your body and get energized and get focused and get determined and like set some freaking goals and wake up a little earlier or whatever. The things that success people do that is uncomfortable. It's not natural. It's not normal. It's not something you want to do. I don't love going to the gym every morning. To that person out there that's like rolling their eyes right now, that I can succeed and I don't need those things. What would you say? Maybe you can, but to your point, I don't see a whole lot of people that get, like you said, that are being interviewed that are successful in whatever industry they're in that are doing that. And so it's only making it tougher. I'm of the mindset that if there's anything that I can do to get a 1% edge or a 1% advantage that I'm willing to do it. And when you really want to grow to the next level, people always ask or people always say to me sometimes like you get that, oh, well, that's easy for you to say because you've got a team of 50 plus people and you're making the money and all this stuff. But I work three times as hard now as I did when I was just an independent, when I was just an agent of one because I only had to worry about myself. And so part of me having to do all that stuff was a line, Rory Docherty, the owner always uses with us is, I have to squeeze the fat out of the day. So I have to get more and more and more efficient and I have to find time to do that. And for me, 7am to 8am, I come from the gym to my office and before I shower, that's the only time where no one will call me. There's no new emails coming that are of any importance and it's the only time where I can just be alone, get organized for the day, write my goals down, write down what I need to accomplish today and get organized enough and get ready for training so that I can be on it. And we have people that come in, it's the same thing, it's the time for them to sit down, go over their script, role play, do all those things so that when they get in front of their first client, they're on their A game. It goes back to sports. Why do you warm up every single practice? Not just before a game, you do it before every single practice. So I think you have a huddle before every single practice. You know, it's a very, a lot of similarities there. A lot of similarities, I'm glad you brought that up. Is there a goal that you write down that you're willing to share? If you share one, I'll share one. How about that? All right, if it's just strictly insurance related and this is one that I both share. No, but this is what we write down every day is the long-term goal is $100 million a year. And you're still taking too small, you know that? I know. Because I've seen your operation, dude. That number should have been a billy. But I don't want to change my goal until I hit that one. So that $100 million was a goal when it was just Grant and I sitting in a closet trying to figure out how to do it on the phone. Yeah, see, okay, you bring up a good point. Okay, because everybody differs, which is great. I change, I up mine all the time, you know, only because it like challenges me and reinvigorates me. Because $100 million to you five or 10 years ago felt like a lot more than it does right now. Yeah, you know. But there's something about crossing, because I still hand right. I used to try and put it on my phone. And Rory has been a big mentor to me, you know, he says, there's just something about, and I've got it right here, something about taking the legal pad and just writing one and writing it in two. And then it makes me rip that page off in the morning and then rewrite it. So anything I didn't cross out. And so to write it down every day, but there's just something about being able to cross off a goal that you've been writing down for, you know, whether it's 30 days a year, five years, 10 years, that day where you get to cross that off. But now you can add bigger ones to the bottom, you know. Yeah. Well, I said I would share one too. This one's no secret, you know, I want a plane and I want 10,000 agents at 8% in the year 2022, you know. So there you go. And neither one of us are thinking big enough, you know, I mean, I could buy a plane right now if I really wanted to. I just want to earn it first, you know, that's good, dude. I love the goal thing, man. I'm going on a plane. I'm so tired of, dude, you know, you want a plane. If little Cody asks us, they go out buying a plane. SLS should have a freaking plane, bro. So, so Rory says that he says he worked as hard as he did for 42 years so that he didn't have to fly anywhere anymore. So that's why he doesn't want one, you know. There you go. You don't want to travel anymore. I'm with you. That's good. That's good. Where will, where will you guys be? How old's Grant? You're 60, you're 33. Grant's 33 too. Grant's 33. Yep. We were in the same, uh, Pudge class and our fraternity in college. So coming back. That's awesome. Who was wilder? I know the answer to that question, by the way. Yeah, you know, you know the answer. Definitely James. I mean, Grant, just sorry. Definitely. Okay. So let's look forward 30 years from now. You think you have, number one, you think you'll have gray here? White hair. It's the same color hair. A wig. I kind of have like dirty blonde hair now. So I'm hoping it just goes straight to the white. Okay. All right. I think I can, I think I can rock the white hair pretty good. What about, what about Grant? Cause his dad's about that age, isn't he? Yeah, he'll, he'll start getting the gray a bit. Okay. So you're, you're both 63. You're sitting there in Vero. Where will everything be? 30 years from now. You guys have thought about it? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I, I enjoy, I truly enjoy what I do every day. You know, people ask all the time, like, don't, you know, what makes us the, the OCD and, and work ethic and obsessive, compulsive stuff. People all the time, especially my family, always say, oh, you're, you work too much. You're going to, you're going to burn yourself out. Like you need to take time for yourself and all that stuff. But I get most of my fulfillment and enjoyment out of doing what I do. And I enjoy coming here every day. I'm excited to come here. I, when I stay here until eight, nine o'clock at night, it's not cause I have to. It's not cause anybody told me to. It's cause I'm just so caught up in everything that's going on and helping people. And I get so much pleasure out of seeing somebody that never thought, never could have imagined making more than $23,000 a year. Making minimum wage. They, you know, I have a high school degree. They maybe made a mistake or two in life. And they think they're where they are. I get no greater satisfaction than seeing that person buy their first car, buy their first house, be debt free, get their credit right, like start saving money and like envisioning and embracing the levels of the lifestyle. And Rory, who has, you know, been a huge influence in my life, I will not say his age, but he, I was close. I was probably close. Yeah. He still shows up every day. Yeah. Is he going to watch this, you think? Yeah, I'll send it to him. Okay, good. And he still shows up every day, not cause he has to, right? And that's what I think that's what's neat about what we do. Since you're going to show it to him, Rory, I need to finally meet you, bro. Okay. Yes, you do. I forgot, yeah, he was, forget where he was when you were down here last, but he comes every day, he knows every single agent and, you know, over 200 agents. He knows, he can, he can, you can tell him a name and he can tell you what they sold last week, where they're at for this week, you know, if they're on track for certain things. I mean, he just, he's so immersed in all that stuff. And it's just because that's what his passion is and that's what he loves to do. It took him 42 years to get to where he's at. We're going to do it a lot faster. And the generations coming behind us are going to do it even faster. And so, you know, I honestly think, you know, the, when we talk about bigger goals here, I mean a thousand agents, you know, that'll happen before 30 years. Yeah, pick a number in like, of premium that you guys will be doing in 30 years. Cause it's going to be a lot more than a hundred million. It is. And, and, and, you know, if you really want to know what the newest goal that I've written down, I can, I'll share this. I'm, I doubt I'm the only one that does this. Yeah, I want to know. Everybody else watching wants to know too, bro. I want, I want to start an insurance company. Okay, good. Right. So I want to sell your own product. Correct. Because as great as commission levels are and, and, you know, and, you know, you can see people, street level cops and this and that and all the stuff that gets thrown around as much money is getting paid out from there. The insurance companies are doing pretty well themselves. You know, they're not struggling at all. And I have through, you know, 10 X and Cardone and coach Bert and all these things that I plug into have found other passions. You know, real estate is another passion of mine. I invest in different forms of real estate and do different things there. And there's a lot of correlations because insurance company is one of their biggest, you know, investments is into real estate. So when you really want to talk about what a big goal I have is, that's what it is. I want to be able to start an insurance company so that the products we're selling are then paying back into a company that can then invest in something that I'm also involved with and kind of just get this, this full circle of it. So, you know, I, you know, what's the number yearly? Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, there's no reason 30 years from now. I mean, in, in just one company, I mean, 500 million should be, you know, is a number that I've often just kind of tagged in the back of my mind. If I can get it, if we can get an insurance company up and running, it can't just be me, right? There's got to be other people involved and, and you've got to have a, a lot of moving parts to get that done. But that's, that's really what a, what a big, big picture goal would be for me. Boom. Now you're gonna make me write, now you're gonna make me write that one down every day too. You heard it here first, baby. Okay. So what are the steps? Is there like three, three or three or four or five steps to get to 500 million in 30 years? Yeah. And I think, you know, I, I've learned a lot even just this past year, you know, so I changed my thinking on things, but, you know, I think like you, the things you said that you've known, like we really try hard on culture. We really try hard on, on personal development. Given coach way too many plugs here. So we got to send him this too. But coach talks a lot about the whole person theory. And I think we always embrace that here. But I didn't have a, I didn't have a term coined for it. And that's so important to help people from burning out, you know, this, this industry can be very cutthroat. It can be very, you know, narcissistic and self-centered driven. And a lot of people are just out to make a penny and do this and that. And we really, really try and just be a family here, you know, and when, you know, somebody doesn't have a place to go sleep that night or somebody doesn't have somewhere to go for Thanksgiving or someone struggling with personal problems or family problems. The fact that I'm somebody that a lot of people look to and grant is somebody that people can come to about things not related to insurance or sales or commissions or any of that stuff. I think that is, is what gets us there because what we're trying to do is just build a family and build a bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah. More learning, more culture, more people, you know, trying to duplicate myself, you know, duplication. I like that, man. Those are good. That's really good. I'm excited to see the ride and be a part of the journey, you know. But you're a bigger part of it now than ever, so. Thanks, man. Appreciate that. That's awesome. That's really good. Man, 500 million in 30 years. I love that. That's huge, man. That's really good. Okay, let's play a quick game. You ready? All right. You worried? Concerned yet? I never know what you're pulling out. As long as you're not going to throw a basketball at me. No. Well, you think Landon and I could take you and Grant in basketball? And it's very good at basketball. So I'm just saying that this guy can't, can't hope with you guys. I was more referring to throwing a basketball at me for the objection speed round you do every morning. So. Oh, dude. Yeah. Come on now. You can handle that. Easy, easy, easy. We're going to try that to SLS sometime. You know what? Yeah. Okay. So me and Grant and I won on one, and you got to put a thousand bucks on one side of the other. Who do you put it on? I've never, I've never seen you. The only thing I've seen you do is knock out the parking lot with, with. And I won all five games. So. But you know, I got to go with my boy Grant. He's got a, he's got a wicked three point jump shot. So. Dude, you just lost a thousand bucks, bro. All right. Well, next time you're down here, we'll, we'll set it up. We have to do that. I would love that. I'm all serious. I would love that. Okay. So we'll get, we'll get Jared to film it. There we go. That would be, that'd be great. You and Grant. Okay. You're both good at different things. Yes. Who's more intelligent? Depends on what field or avenue we're talking about. Who's smarter? But that's just, that's such a broad term. Like I, he'll even tell you, if he was sitting right here next to me, I'm the numbers guy, right? I'm the one that sits there and breaks down reports and does numbers and stuff. He does it. He's good at math. You know, I mean, he's, he is half Korean. So, you know, he's got the numbers, he's got the gift of numbers, but I enjoy that stuff. That's what I'm really good at. Yeah. James, he enjoys the sales training and he's a better salesman to me. Yeah. If you had to choose, choose what? Smarter. I just gave you an answer. I thought it was a good answer. All right. He's a better salesperson or sales trainer. And he was better at sales than I was. Yeah. When we sat down and did that. Okay. Yeah. When we, when we sat down, he, he could sell better than I could. And so then I would try and help work him. Dude, you're too, you're so nice, man. You know what? So humble. You got it. If you work, if you work with other people, I mean, I think that's not just our industry, but everywhere. I mean, you've got to always be able to step back and, and look at, I think coach says this too, but you know, sometimes you can't see, see the picture when you're inside frame and, you know, being able to have that bird's eye view and take a step back and realize that you can't do it by yourself. And you're not, you're better than everybody at everything and finding your strengths and weaknesses. You know, and, and so we do that really well because there was a time before I was married and said, we live together. We work together. So like we were like, you know, we're like an old married couple, you know, and you can, you can start fighting and, and presenting people real fast. If you don't have, you know, a good head on your shoulders and you'll put things in perspective. So that's good, buddy. That's awesome. You know what? And I'm something that held me back for many years and that typically holds most people back is ego. Yes. And I'm ashamed to say it held me back, you know, because I'm a very confident individual. There comes a line though, and you need to realize that you need people and I need people as much as anybody, you know. And so I love that you guys are able to bounce each other, you know, stuff off each other and you're both very, very talented in different ways and super impressive dudes. I love comparing just because it's fun. But, but yeah, both of you are awesome and you do an unbelievable job. We got to hook up the one on one game and we got to get Grant on this thing at some point, you know. Yeah, no, I'm sorry. I couldn't be here today. No worries, bro. Thank, thank you for being on, man. I appreciate you sharing. I appreciate you being a influencer. You're the first person to call me that. So I appreciate it. Thank you, buddy. Hey, thanks for watching insurance influencers. Maybe next time it'll be you. Hey, if you like the interview with my buddy James, it just happened that you're going to love. Okay. These other two interviews I just recently did with Landon McCarter about digital marketing, insurance industry, everything throughout 2020. And also my good buddy Jeff Root on selling more term life insurance. Click on one of those and I'll see you there.