The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 031 - How Woody Brown Learned to Avoid the Insurance Celebrity Trap

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comFormer rockstar turned high-performing insurance producer, Woody Brown, joins the podcast to explain how he learned to avoid the insurance celebrity trap and grow his business. Get more: https://ryanhanley.comLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. My name is Ryan Hanley and I'm so glad that you are here with me. And today we have a guest who has a very interesting story. He's a former signed national touring rock musician turned insurance agent turned almost insurance celebrity. Yet he has this awesome moment where he steps back from that edge of doing the speaking scene and getting caught up in things that don't help grow his insurance agency. And while you still see him out, you know, on social media, you'll still see him occasionally at events and stuff. He's grinding every day to grow his

business. And at this time, and maybe it's because I'm personally struggling with this at different times, you know, it's so easy to fall into that insurance celebrity trap. And Woody Brown did not do it. And besides just being an absolutely tremendous guy, an amazing agent, and just someone who I enjoy being able to book an hour with and just talk to, we talk about some things that I think are really going to help anyone who finds themselves getting asked to do anything that isn't a priority to their business. This is a great episode. You're going to love it.

Woody's a tremendous guy. If you're unfamiliar with him, you will be enamored by him immediately. And while he's focused on his business, I'm sure that he would love to connect with you, and I encourage you to do so, and you get all that in this episode. But before we get to Woody, I want to talk real quick about something that's an announcement I had a few weeks ago, that the inside, my membership community, it's free now. It's free for agents. It's free for insurance professionals to come in,

engage, watch the videos, follow along on the journey, share their own, share resources. The inside is now free. And I actually did an episode of the newsletter, my YouTube show that comes out weekly, where I describe why I did it. But the long story short is that community was always about helping people and keeping it behind a walled, a paywall was not doing that. So I encourage you to check out the inside. You can subscribe to the email list so that when new episodes come out, you get notified. Go to ryanhanley.com forward slash insider. ryanhanley.com forward slash insider is where you begin. Again, all of it is free, so I'm not asking you to pay for anything.

You can check it out. I just wanted to let you know, the listeners of this show, that the inside is now available to you and the Facebook group is available to you. And if it's something you're interested, I encourage you to check it out. Otherwise, thank you for listening to this show. If you're listening for the first time and you're not subscribed and you love it, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And let's get on to Woody Brown. I feel like I haven't, I don't know, I haven't talked to you in like, it was like a long time, man. Well, that's I think because it hasn't been a long time, or it has been a long time, maybe is what I meant to say. And, you know, and that's i think because it hasn't been a long time or it has been a long time maybe is what i

meant to say and uh you know and that's kind of part of the reason why i wanted to do this podcast with you dude i just you you know what i mean like you and i have always hit it off so well and i love our conversations and um i've been doing stuff and you've been doing stuff and what better way to schedule a conversation with a friend than to record that, record it and, you know, in case you say something cool. Yeah, man, I agree. I agree. It's a good, good excuse to get it on the calendar and make it official, you know? Yeah. So what's up, man? man i mean what are you doing whoo man you know just living the uh living the insurance dream dude um i mean gosh i wish i wish there was something like new and innovative to report here but just kind of doing what i've been doing you know

i do know and that's what i've kind of seen just from you know obviously we're connected and all the all the socials so uh and and that's part of the reason why i was so like excited for our conversation because if there's something that i have if there's something that i become more aware of now that I own my own agency, right? Like now that I'm making these decisions, now that I'm looking at these things from like a, this is how I pay my bills standpoint or will, I guess since I haven't sold the policy yet, but will pay my bills.

You know, I, I look at you and I see somebody and this is, you know, this is just correct me where I'm wrong here, but like, um, I feel like there were a couple of years there, like agency nation years where you were like starting to come on the scene and you were, you know, all over the socials and that kind of stuff. And, and then like the last year or maybe more, it feels like not that you've pulled back, but like, maybe, maybe that's a, maybe that's a fair assessment. You have to let me know. Um, and just have gotten to the work of like growing and operating your agency. And I'm just interested in that. Cause I think so many people are chasing shiny objects, which is incredibly easy to do. to a certain extent it feels like you've been able to avoid some of that and i'm i'm just

really interested in and and how why what you know all the all of everything i just that really long preface with like nine questions in it go yeah uh dude completely fair assessment and, and truthfully like a great observation, really. I mean, in, in one hand, you know, I, um, I, you know, I kind of feel at times like sort of bad because I don't kind of interact with all the friends and that we've made over the years. Um, starting, you know, with the, that first agency nation conference that I went to, the Star Wars GIF or whatever you want to call it, Agency Nation conference, made so many friends.

And in a way, I think early on, it was super helpful to me because I was new to the industry. It was great to share ideas and stuff like that. But then what I found was, like you said, there's a lot of like shiny object stuff out there. There's, you know, different, um, platforms and different agency management systems and different like widgets that you can use and all this almost to the point for me, um, who is a person that gets easily distracted anyway, I was noticing that, okay, you know, am I taking on too much of that kind of stuff just as an agent?

You know, like, am I, is it, I started noticing that like kind of being focused on that, the management of the agency piece really was something that was kind of just distracting me from the end goal as like an agent. Right. So I kind of had to pull back on that. And then in terms of just like the full on interacting with agents and stuff, man, like I started getting really in the weeds with, you know, putting out a lot of stuff on my own. Whether that's video, or, you know, I started

a podcast for fun last year. You know, that has nothing to do with insurance. And, you know, man, that takes a and then just normal you know man as a parent at the ages our kids are man it's like every single second of the day is is just used and so i had to in order to like do more you know make you know make more money essentially sell more policies i had to shave some time and attention in certain areas. And one of those was like, you know, I don't know the Twitter, uh, feed and that kind of thing. So I've, I've done this thing where in the past, I would say like year, year and a half, maybe even closer to two slowly, but surely kind of turning off notifications and, um, on the social platforms and stuff so that I

don't just get bogged down in that because, you know, I'm a, I'm an ambitious dude, much like yourself. And I mean, dude, I do have a love for helping other people any way that I can in terms of within our industry. But at some point I just had to be like, okay, like selfishly, what is going to help me reach my family goals our financial goals quickest like what what path what's the path of least resistance basically and ultimately it was you know kind of backing off a little bit on that kind of end of things because you know as much as i love on people what kind of camera i use or all that kind of stuff or even just like sharing ideas sometimes it just becomes like another job you know and i say that like in a way that i don't i don't want to discourage people from reaching out. Dude, I love meeting around like this agent

who lives in, I want to say Louisiana, just reached out to me the other day. And it was just cool, you know, that we can connect from other states and kind of bounce ideas off of one another. And so I dig that. I really do. And I definitely don't want to discourage anybody from doing that. It's just just i kind of see from the outside looking in there's a lot of folks that i don't know man i don't know for me it wasn't it just i had to take i had to kind of like back off a little bit and just concentrate on just kicking ass dude you know I mean like I do I dude I I know um I to be honest with you a big part of why I wanted to talk to you is because I'm this is gonna sound weird saying but I mean it in like the purest sense like I'm proud of you for making that decision because you know these are decisions

like I'm starting to make in my own life and you know like I am like a I'm like a crackhead when it comes to creating and sharing and distributing connecting and like I just I can't help myself yeah and at the same time I'm looking you know I've been creating a lot of stuff that doesn't have to do with rogue right now because I'm waiting for some paperwork stuff to come through but like but it's the day that stuff comes through and the day i'm like have an appointment pointed carrier and and my license is good and everything's ready to go like i am not gonna be able to do that stuff not nearly as much right and um and and and it's that whole insurance celebrity thing i was talking to someone who's a friend of mine that that i I really care about her success and I said to her the other day like you are about

to be catapulted into another level of insurance celebrity hood um because she's smart and outgoing and and gets what's going on and it's very easy to connect with her and so people are that's going to happen you know I mean people are going to want to know what she has to say and what what's going on and it's very easy to connect with her. And so people are, that's going to happen. You know what I mean? People are going to want to know what she has to say and what she's and all that. And I just said, be very, very careful about becoming an insurance celebrity because it is not all that it's cracked up. Don't get me wrong. There are certainly benefits, but those benefits come with absolute trade-offs,

absolute trade-offs. And, um, and as I'm trying to move out of that space and to see you, and again, I want to get for just for the audience who may not be, um, who may not know you yet, like just some timetables, but like to see you kind of, you kind of walked up to that precipice of like, if you kept going and kept of walked up to that precipice of like if you kept going and kept sharing and creating you would have become an insurance celebrity and you stepped back and i have so much respect for that because you didn't like step back and like go into a hole you stepped back and started you know kept building your agency so in 20 elevate 2017 which is the star wars gift conference which i challenge any of any UMFers to do 57 gifts to open up a conference.

Literally one of the best presentations I've ever seen. I mean that, I don't know if it's because I'm a star Wars nerd, but like, I was like instantly sold. I'm like, man, this guy, whatever he's about to tell me, Hey, are we joining a cult? Whatever it is. Oh my God. Um, I did it, man. Whatever he's about to tell me, hey, are we joining a cult? Whatever it is. Oh, my God. But so where were you in your career back in 2017 at that elevate? And then kind of, you know, right now, we'll be able to kind of do the math, but just give us the timetables a little bit. Or maybe give us a timetable where you were in 2017. And then at what point did you say, I don't want to go down this rabbit hole any further. I'm going to step back

just to give some people some context. Yeah, some context. So like 2017, I was still relatively green. As an agent, I had a couple years under my belt, I was in a lot of ways not necessarily doing anything that I would consider like innovative really truly I think that elevate and just like that time I had um you know and then conversations and all this kind of stuff meeting people like Nick and like Joey and uh just Sydney and then like seeing that kind of catapulted me into like hey man i'm creative this is something that i want to add into my legacy as an insurance agent and so um but i was still really green you know i mean i had like uh let's see so 2017 i believe it or not man let's

yeah so like a couple years um i I've been to, you know, other insurance conferences. And, you know, this was one of those that I was like, this seems like something different. And it definitely was. So that was refreshing. So that's kind of when I got the bug in to kind of make more of an impact just on the local level, kind of, I mean, in Georgia as something that is different. You know, I told this guy that I was talking to the other day, my ultimate goal was when someone types in insurance in the state of Georgia, selfishly, I want it to be my face that they see, my voice that they hear. And then, you know, I wanted them to hear see read and it's me you know

so i was trying to figure out ways to do that and then one of them of course was just pumping out a ton of content so then 20 i guess 18 um i decided to you know after being inspired by all of the the insurance video you know folks but ultimately too just like Casey Neistat decided you know what uh because I'm one of those people man I can say all day long I need to get in shape or I don't need that double cheeseburger or whatever and that's all great but if I don't sign up for a race you know or I don't you know pay a ton of money to do something like it's it's not i don't have the same rate of success yeah right so i have to come up with something relatively crazy and lofty and then declare it publicly so that i you know at the end of the day

i'm gonna embarrass myself and look like a turd if I don't complete it because I already told everybody I was going to do it. So that's what I did in 2018. I basically said, Hey, every single day this year, I'm going to do a daily vlog. And one of the reasons I wanted to do that was to like push myself to be able to edit and complete things faster. So that once I knew that that was that that daily vlog was over I'd be able to just like knock out things videos super super quick and then I you know just wanted to get better at it better at the storytelling just having to create I want I don't you know it sounds bad to say something out of nothing but I mean a story every single day that is at least somewhat entertaining or creative, man, it's hard.

You know, I mean, it's quite a task. But so after doing all that and taking the time to do it, you know, of course, I started being asked to speak at certain things. And I'm the kind of guy, and I think, Ryan, I think a lot of our close agent friends are like this as well I think that's probably one of the reasons why we all get along so well I end up saying yes to a lot of stuff and I'm because I'm creative I always have like all these cool ideas of how to make x y and z better and like oh yeah I can do that and then maybe I have like too much confidence in a lot of ways but I say yes to a lot of things and because of that a lot of things end up suffering a little bit you know so after a while i started realizing well okay i started kind of getting into that zone of quote-unquote insurance celebrity and really man

it came down to one thing like i had to ask myself hey man is this my ultimate goal do i want to because if it is i mean i can public speak i you know some of the one of the carriers that we represent sometimes uh you know asks me to come and speak in different states so i know i can do it and i like a crowd and i like that energy you know as, as a, as a former lead singer of a rock band. Right. I mean, I feed off of that. It's like my, I don't know. It's the best. Right. So obviously like I started liking that, but then I had to ask myself, okay, is this what I want to do? This is my ultimate goal. What is the longevity of something like this?

And I just kind of figured out that for me it wasn't necessarily the the route that i wanted to take uh you know like i said before don't get me wrong dude i freaking love attention you know i walk into a mortgage office i love it you know um i walk in front of a crowd i love love that. But I just knew that like, it just wasn't what my ultimate goal was. Now there's a lot of folks that are out there that I think maybe that might be their ultimate goal. And that's awesome, man. Like, hopefully they don't think,

because I think here's the danger. Truthfully, like I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks, man. Because like the hardest part is feeling, that attention, not having that spotlight in any way. And really, over the years, I haven't really changed much of what I've done in terms of pushing out content and being present online in terms of like my audience. And I think that's the big thing too, man. I started realizing too that there's a lot of folks that are making content, but I started realizing that the audience wasn't necessarily who's going to be

putting food on the table for them right now. And so when I started figuring that out for myself, I thought, you know, like I'm, am I making videos or content for other insurance agents or am I making this for somebody who is going to ask me to look at their stuff because a, they like me or they think I'm goofy or I know what I'm talking about and or no one else is doing it. Right. So that is the direction that I took. And then because of that, man, I mean, it sounds relatively cliche, but I've just been, I've been so busy because of that, like reaping those rewards and managing my current book of business, but then just having lofty goals of growing it and stuff, it's, uh, it, you know,

it takes a lot out of that. So I knew that the smartest decision for me for now was to take the path of, and you're an insurance agent, um, you know, push hard on the, on the audience that you're going after in terms of your target like i think that's the thing like i had to re kind of focus my target not that i don't i don't really necessarily believe that i was ever really making a lot of stuff for the insurance community i think it's just you know it was a little you know different new hey who's this guy uh you know videos are getting cool or whatever and so i got a lot of attention for that and then um you know, videos are getting cool or whatever. And so I got a lot of attention for that. And then, you know, more folks started, I guess, doing video and stuff.

You know, I like to think of myself as maybe the 21st person to watch in 2020. You know, maybe 25th. I'll take a couple of slots down. But, you know, like that kind of thing, man, you know, like, do I take that sort of stuff personally? I mean, dude, I'm a competitive person. Right. So initially I'm just like, Hey bro, why, why am I not on the list guys? Hey, you know? Um, but I don't take it personally because you know what, man, like, like I said, man, the past couple of years, my, I've had my head down just working, man. So if

I'm not creating, I'm, you know, I hope that you won't take it personally because there's easily, so that was not a ranking. First of all, for everyone listening at home, that was not a ranking that was Cass and I just coming up with some names of people. We just wanted, let me back up on that. I know you're not giving me a hard time, but I think this is an important conversation because I, for a different reason, for a different reason, because you know, one, I know, you know, that I, you know, it's not personal, whatever.

And it's more just like, like, I'll be honest with you. Like I have mentioned your name before. There were people on there I'd never talked about before. That was part of it. And I wanted to get some fresh, there were some names people had said before, but there were some fresh names too. And I actually think we're going to do another,

because it's just about connecting people. That was all it was really about. That's why I did the whole thing with go to my page and connect on LinkedIn so that you can connect with all these people. I just wanted people bouncing off each other. I also like that that makes you a little competitive. Maybe you'll actually get to work now.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, exactly, man. It makes me kind of like, look, I'm giving you a hard time. I just thought that that would be kind of funny. But one thing I love about the industry and what i love to celebrate man is if we especially no offense to the captives that are listening but especially on the independent side let me break this down too man because there's some captive agent on the facebook group yesterday it was just funny but in my opinion and again this is coming from outside the agency there's some captive agent on a Facebook group yesterday that was trying to, it was just funny, but in my opinion, and again,

this is coming from outside of the agency. There's a lot of things that attract me toward the independent channel. And one of them is, man, you're just automatically born an underdog, right? Because you don't have this multi billion with a B dollar marketing. This has been around for so long backing you up, right? You don't just like show up on day one, you're wearing your red stuff and that, that's it, right? so long backing you up right you don't just like show up on day one you're wearing your red stuff and then that's it right we don't get that luxury and so because of that like i feel like as a group of agents and and then to include the captives for

sure but like as independent agents like if one of us does awesome, then it just helps build the brand of independent agents, man. I agree. And so like I love it. It fires me up. I will say for me, another thing that made me kind of like back off, man, was like for me to – so one of the other things I did was I started learning from people outside of the industry. Yeah. from people outside of the industry yeah i started seeking those people out because i wanted to be you know superly like we're just well-rounded in the you know business type concepts and then too like you know it becomes harder and harder to like find the folks not there's this is a i got a sensitive here because i don't want it to

sound like i'm saying these people do not exist in the industry or anything what i'm what i'm trying to say is like i wanted to be quote-unquote mentored by folks that i felt like i had things to learn from and now again it sounds like I'm being a complete. No, I think I think look at Woody, if people have listened to my show for any period of time, they've been offended enough that that doesn't even come close to the bar of offending them. So right. I think everyone can really understand where you're coming from. And dude, look, one of my one of my best friends and mentors, um, I'm going to talk about him all the time is a guy by the name of Marcus

Sheridan, right? Like he's brought to, but he has nothing to do with the insurance industry. I mean, he's spoke at events, but he doesn't know a policy form from a, from an accord form. You know what I mean? Like he has no idea. That was so nerdy. I'm sorry. That was, that was, you know what I mean? He has no idea that was so nerdy I'm sorry that was no idea and I talked to him all the time another one of my good buddies who pushes me constantly is a guy by the name of Matt Davison out he owns his own PR firm in Buffalo New York he doesn't know anything about insurance and I constantly am calling him and asking him for feedback because I think they're 100% on pace another guy who's a great

example of this is jeff roy jeff roy um up in canada he he takes more inputs from outside our industry and and brings them into the industry than anybody i know like he's constantly reaching into other spaces find the best of what they have and bring them in and and i dude i think it's a testament to you trying to be the best you can. I don't think it's a knock on our space. Yeah. And I hope to that anyone listening doesn't think that I think that I can't learn anything from them. I definitely didn't mean that, dude. I literally live my life in a way that, that I truly believe that I can learn something from everyone. And so I don't, I don't mean that. I just mean that if I had to like distill it down to, you know, Hey, can I learn how to, again, where I'm going to go back to star Wars here.

If I could, can I learn how to be a Jedi, but just like walking, uh, and hanging out with Luke Skywalker. Yeah, sure. Like old school Luke Skywalker. Uh, can I learn, but should I like seek out Yoda? Right. Like the level there of mastery is just different. Right. So that's kind of like what, and plus, man, I like to think just like Jeff and like all these, cause there's so many people in the industry that are just so innovative, dude, they just blow my mind, man.

And of course, like my mind's going completely, Seth, Jeff Roy, I mean, all these people that are doing frankly amazing things for the industry while simultaneously just killing it for the, you know, for their business as well. It's just fascinating to me. I just, you know, I guess this is probably the longest winded way to say, like, I just had to kind of like, yeah, man, just concentrate selfishly on being better at what I do. Yeah. And focusing on that. I mean, you know, my, you know, super blessed that my wife is now a stay at home-home mom and you know that is also one

of the things that weighed on me it's like man i don't you know hey babe i know you want to you know not work at your job anymore because you know you're not super passionate about it you want to be a stay-at-home mom i've got to go uh you know meet with xyz yeah insurance agent and teach him how to make a video i'm gonna do this free speaking gig for a carrier and meet with XYZ insurance agent and teach him how to make a video. I'm going to do this free speaking gig for a carrier in West Tennessee. It's kind of like once you

get to a certain thing, you got to know your worth too. I just feel like my time, and when I say time, I don't just mean with money-making activities, and I know you know that. I mean my time away from the family, it's and and when i say time i don't just mean with money making activities and i know you know that i mean like my time away from the family is it's the most expensive time you know and so in order

for me to make that sacrifice it absolutely has to be worthwhile and my love for the industry 100 doesn't trump my love for my family you know so there's no doubt about that there's no doubt i you know i felt it it's wild so you know you know i used to travel like three three three three weeks a month for a long time for for a lot of my especially my older son's life and when i when i stepped away from the industry for that period of time that was because i couldn't get on air like my wife literally said like i have to be home for, for, for a bunch of reasons. And, um, and, and so I didn't get on an airplane from March of 2019 until last week at IOA. So it's the longest time, probably almost a decade that I haven't flown, uh, flown away,

flown away from my family we've taken a couple trips together um and it was wild like it you know having spent all that time every day like there was part of me that you know it always feels good to get a little bit of like I'm just you know if I want to go sit over here do whatever listen to you know what i mean like no one's like that that that that yeah dude if you just want to go to the bathroom for a second yeah like guys can't i just the door is closed like come on yeah um like that felt good for like a minute and then all of a sudden i was like shit man i miss i miss my crew like like in and that's a big part of why i started rogue was i wanted to own my own destiny like i never wanted anyone

to tell me i had to get on an airplane right and i'm not saying i was ever like you know i was never like yeah yeah forced but you know there's obligations like if you you know there's obligations you have to come to and i never wanted that to be the case so it was just wild like you said nothing's more valuable than your family time i think that feels like a big part of it like it's so easy to lose that especially when you have been cooped up or you know cooped up with poor choice words but when you have been home and you haven't no one's wanted you no one's ever wanted you to travel to them and talk before and now all of a sudden they do and then you get on you get out in the airplane system and you're walking around the airport to do whatever the

hell you want you can eat whatever you want oh I want a beer at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday sure I'm speaking why not right like it sounds so crazy, but like, you know, that freedom, it is, it is tough. So, so my question for you is, and Oh, I want to just clarify everyone. You mentioned Nick, Joey and Sydney before, for those listening at home, that is Nick Ayers, Joey G and Gola and Sydney Rowe. Sorry, I'm taking notes. So I'm interested in, I'm really interested in Duke's. I think, I think this is something that people struggle with more than they talk about because any agent, anyone involved in our ecosystem who starts to do something new and not wrongly. So people start to reach out to them. Right. And it's cool. It's great. Like I I'm, I'm happy that our industry has gotten to the point where

we're so willing to share. That's great. I think a lot of people struggle with this and I'm super interested in like, as much as you can describe, like the moment you knew, like you've, you've talked about it at a high level, but like, what was that moment? Was there an, was there a, something happened, an event you came home from, uh, you know, a soccer game you missed or whatever that like,'re just like you know what i have to do this like what was there a turning moment that you can really pin this on and you know so i'm also super fortunate in that like a mentor that i have uh extremely close by is clayton rhodes the the owner of the agency you know we were buddies in college she's actually younger than me so it's you know kind of weird sometimes having like a younger boss um but he dude he is one of

those guys that can like approach a situation with like almost no like he can put aside like an emotional tie right so if i come to him and i because i'm also a person that like, I like to assess my progress. And so like I, if I find myself like not being happy with whatever X, Y Z result is to say, okay, let's figure out like what, what's going on that, that can make that result be closer to the goal. And so he's a great person to like go to. And so multiple times a year, this happens, but you know,

probably pretty close to like November of one of those years in the past. I kind of, that's generally whenever I'm planning for the next year. And I like asked him out to lunch, started, you know, kind of talking about, I'm like, you know, man, like what, what, you know, what do you think about all this kind of stuff? And like, I'm kind of frustrated because my growth isn't as fast as I want it to be in terms of, you know, policy count or whatever. What are some of the things? And so he just kind of like pointed me back in the direction of kind of looking inward and kind of thinking about all the activities, you know, that you're doing.

And figure out which ones get you to that goal and which ones distract you from that goal ultimately is that word distraction that like at first it kind of pissed me off because i'm like hey man how you know internally i'm like you know i got defensive internally right like i'm not being distracted you know i'm still successful i'm still in you know top agents and in in the agency and then for like our carriers like and then i started thinking about it you know i kind of took a breath took a beat and started thinking like and damn it he's right right so like what are like if you as simplistic as you can like boil down you got to figure out what your goals are and my goal was

dude i wanted to be the the I guess the ideal versus goal. The ideal is just to be like the most successful intervention of all time. But like backing that down, it's like, I really just want to grow on a really consistent basis year over year in such a way that like I'm setting myself and our family up for just a really awesome future, you know, whatever that means and whatever that entails for everyone. But that's kind of like what my goal is. And then I went, I kind of dissected everything that I was doing, even just like, hey man, do I need to go to that networking meeting anymore? Does that like,

let me break it down. Let me break that data down data down is it is there what what value am i getting out of that not just like you know hey man how many leads did you get from that video i you know we can dive into that if you want it's a pet peeve but like like not just in terms of the money making activity but but what value, what was everything? What were the values of all that? You know, do I enjoy speaking? Absolutely. Can I make that, can I kind of back off of that a little bit and do that? So really it was just kind of like that sort of talk. It was the trigger for me to start looking inward and looking inward hard because it was sort of like a, I was bitching in a way about like not being happy about my results that year.

And it was, you know, like, Hey, and well, I mean, obviously it's stuff that we've all heard from every in red and every sales book ever, but like, look inward and what are the activities that you're doing? Have that, you know, what can you do differently there? What's distracting you from making it to your goal? You know, nothing changes if nothing changes. Right. Right, man. And so, um goal you know yeah nothing changes if nothing changes right right man and so um you know i guess like the ultimate unfortunate sort of side effect of all that is you know i don't think it's hurt the relationships that i have because man for whatever reason the the

sort of especially the core tight-knit group of you know call it the 5am club or whatever man i think we're friends brothers sisters for life you know i don't think i don't think unless you know they got insulted by anything that i've said today thus far i don't think there's anything that's gonna like change that now we just don't speak as often but sometimes i take that as man that's awesome because i feel like they're probably busy doing it. You know, it's that old thing that my dad used to say, you can either be, you can, you can, Oh man, what did he say? It's like basically like you can tell everybody you're the best or you can

just like be the best, you know? So if you're too busy talking about how you're the best, then, you know, you're probably, you might not be the best, you know? Yeah. I'm completely with you on that. I echo your 5am club thing. I've kind of gotten off of Twitter a little bit and certainly off of Instagram a lot because they were two places that were taking up a lot of my time that wasn't producing results

for me. You know what I mean? Like for me, I make my money up until rogue launches. You know, it was, it was consulting and speaking gigs and mostly speaking gigs. And those came from Facebook and LinkedIn. That was it. So I had to make those choices. And then once rogue launches, that'll come down and dude, I think, you know, I think to your point, and this is, you know, I to your point um and this is you know i think this is you know

where like on this topic i'd like to cut this because i i have some other questions for you and i think we've made it up quite a bit but your point that like once you make a real connection with somebody a real connection right you could not see them for five years it doesn't matter the next time you see them is going to be if you saw them yesterday. And I feel that way very much with people in the 5am club. I think we came together at a time when all of us for whatever reason, just needed that venue. Like for just whatever reason, that group of 2030 people, however many people it is, it would just everyone seemed to need each other. And for all different reasons. And and everyone gave to that group of people

and even though you know different people have kind of come and gone and other people you know some people don't contribute as much myself included like i see you know i saw i saw carrie reynolds who i haven't really communicated with that with with that much for no other reason than i just have been doing other things saw her at iowa it was big hug how you doing what's going on i mean it was it was great and like same thing with crowley same thing with you know whoever so man i think i think you're right on the button and to be honest with you i think when people see you grinding and doing what you need to do to take care of the things you need to take care of i don't they respect you more for that than if you're showing up, like no one wants you to show

up and then be paying a price on the backend for showing up. Cause that, that defeats the purpose. Right. So, um, so yeah, man, I think you're, I think you're right on the button and I'm just happy to hear that. So, you know, I want to be respectful of your time cause you are an operating agent, you know, world dominating, um, in the fullest extent, but I do, but, you know, just to kind of hear kind of quick hitter session, like what kind of stuff is working for you, man, for, for the people that are listening, like, you know, you, what kind of stuff are you doing? Like, what does your day to day look like? Like grinding on it? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, man, for sure, man. So, um, man, one of the things that I think has really, really just been amazing

is that weekly Facebook video show, man, Ask Woody Wednesday. You wouldn't believe like it either entices people that I haven't heard from it in forever, uh, to reach out or people will share it with their audience, their page basically. And so like their friends will reach out. It's been a huge, huge piece of it all. I mean, looking over, like I track everything from, you know, where referrals coming from. And I mean, just a large majority, you know, and it took time. That's the thing i think that happens

out there man in the in the world of insurance and stuff whether it's um instagram or facebook or youtube or anything a year 12 months is not enough time for it to build the foundation of of you know i'm just now seeing the holy crap my inbox is literally full of referrals and it's like where'd you find us facebook ask what do wednesday you know like it's just now starting to get to that point where it's just like you know um but in addition to that like sort of new new school stuff again one of my favorite things um in the concept that you uh kind of talked about not too long ago is the brackish water man like as much as i am a

proponent of video and technology just because it's such an easy way to get out in front of people like i still love the old school face-to-face showing up and so like i've been really concentrating on developing a new relationship or having a coffee, uh, at least once a week with somebody new. And then same thing with, uh, kind of just like rekindling or just like maintaining a current relationship, um, once a week. And so that pushes me to, again, like if you think of it, it sounds like, Oh, one new person a week. That's not a lot. But if you think about it, man, it sounds like oh one new person a week that's that's not a lot but if you think about it man it's like it you know when you put yourself out there like that sometimes it kind of you got to dig deep and you have to force yourself to meet somebody new and one per week i have 52

new people in a year man that you're gonna see you're gonna see a lift there right so for sure that kind of stuff getting back out there face to face and again, assessing what relationships are working and really designing. Here's the thing. And here's another thing that I've kind of like come to the conclusion of after six years in the industry. You have to rub shoulders with people. You have to be in the same room with them. But I think like, for me, what I figured out was I was forcing myself to be like super nice to, you know, a mortgage person that was ultimately like the biggest douche of all time. Right. But I'm like, well, I mean, I can get a referral from them. So I was like, early on, you don't have necessarily the luxury to kind of design who you're being around necessarily, like you do a couple years in but I started figuring out like

man what if I approach it like this what if I approach it in terms of like I'm not like huge way after late after hours kind of guy you know I'm not gonna have like seven or eight whiskeys and then just you know start over like I'm past that part of my life and so I don't necessarily want to focus on those kind of activities so I started like coming up with these ideas of sort of again designing the interaction the networking atmosphere based on my interests and then finding people that had similar interests so then now I don't have to force a relationship we're already like it's way better to work with and or alongside people that you would consider friends. It just makes it so much easier, you know?

Like, I'm not going to force somebody that has never seen Star Wars, doesn't like that genre, like has floor seats, you know, to the Atlanta Hawks or whatever whatever i'm not going to be like hey man i don't know if you're interested but i got an extra ticket to imax for the new star wars movie they don't give a shit but if i can find somebody that does now we're like connecting on that level we're able to like hey man we're actually like quote unquote working but we're watching star wars or hey you like the braves too we're at the Braves game to get, you know, like doing it in a way that, and it's probably like everybody listening, like, duh, we've been doing that forever. But for me personally,

it was a big eyeopening revelation really, because I was forcing myself and putting myself outside of like my normal personality and forcing myself to kind of like work with people that, you know, I just pulled it down. Hey, is this somebody that I would like, actually hang out with outside of a professional need to? Yeah. I think you're a dude, I think, I think what you said, you know, you're designing the activities for like the life in the person that you are versus what you, what maybe people think you should do or, or is the common thought, dude, I think that's an, I think that's an

incredibly important thought that I think most people get that wrong. And, and myself included, like, um, that is, I feel like as I've matured into business, this has been one of the hardest lessons for me to learn because you read some article and you're like, oh, that sounds dope. Like I'm going to go do that. And it, but it's not you, you know what I mean? It's not, it's not who you are. Like, and then you get friction and then you're like, well, this should be working or, you know, how come this works for these three people? It doesn't work for me because it's not who you are. And the fact that you've had the self-awareness, which I think is really the key to a lot of

what our conversation is today is that you've, you have self-awareness and, um, you know, when I, if, if, if you could go, it's not the same podcast feed, but if you put up the show that I did for agency nation, you can listen to when I interviewed Woody the first time talking about your, your career as a musician, um, you adding, I think self-awareness was an incredibly important part of your career there. And the moves that you made and the move coming to insurance, understanding who you wanted to be as a dad, as a husband, that kind of stuff. Like, you know what I mean?

I think your self-awareness and you probably don't see this. It's superpower for you. Most likely, if you were to stack up your superpowers, it would definitely be on that list. Cause you know, I just hear you talking and I'm going this, this dude, you know, what he, what he's looking at himself at a level that I don't know most people go to. And it is a huge part of your success. And it's an incredible lesson for anyone listening. Well, I appreciate it, man. I just, you know, in all the different things that I've done, I've always been, I always tip my stride or I've always hit my stride when I am the,

like when I'm maxing out the, hey, this is like myself, Woody. Right. So like when you start music, the first songs you write back in the day, I did, I was a huge Oasis fan. I sounded like name Liam Gallagher. Right. So my songs sounded like that and they were good, but they weren't me. And then same with the band. It's like the songs that I wrote sort of sounded like stuff that I was influenced by, but the best songs that I ever wrote or the best that I ever sang or whatever

it was when I was being myself. And I think that like, you know, we all kind of wear, we're all kind of guarded in some way, right? We want people to say, Oh man, I want them to make sure, I want them to feel like I'm professional. And, um, you know, I don't know, man, I just feel like I'm professional and um you know I don't know man I just feel like coming into the industry I in my head I wanted to be myself but in a way you know you kind of mimic those that you're around and you know um it really hasn't been until like I'm just fully who I am that I feel like that's when I've started to hit my stride and I feel like man thinking about all of the friends that we have and I mean I could just I

wish I could just list them all right now but if they're listening they know exactly who they are every single one of those people as they become more and more themselves in the industry I feel like I feel like in a way, man, like if I rewind it all the way back to that first agency nation thing, I feel like that's kind of like the moment that I was like, and that's what, that was the turning point for me. And I think for a lot of those folks, it's like we slowly but surely started like understanding, like we as individuals are our superpower.

We're in this industry just like everybody else that's in any industry where it's just flooded with people and if we all act the same there's nothing that sets us apart so if we have this magical thing as individual humans man like we're all different in a lot of ways and if we're okay with that and you're confident enough being yourself then you can absolutely use that as your ultimate superpower and then that's kind of what i've done with things like video and all this it's like i want people to see who i am because frankly i you know i'm proud of that and then am i gonna make everybody happy is everyone gonna love me no but you know i'm also not a butthole so a lot of people like me you know i mean um and because i think sometimes too man some of the feedback

or some of the questions i get sometimes from folks that aren't necessarily as lucky as i am in terms of like the agency that they work for you know they say like man you know like in one of those videos you have like a crazy like brave starter jacket on like I just you know who's your target audience I mean you know when I tell them like my old my target audience is like luxury and you know high net worth people their immediate thought is like well how are they going to take you seriously if you're in a Braves thing? You know what I mean? And so they're like, are you like, so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to wear a tuxedo when I do these videos, but the bottom line is like, I feel like, hey man, it's myself. You know, like if they're going to connect with me on some level, whenever they're watching that video, whenever they do, or they're not. And if they're not because of that video,

or maybe they don't have a Facebook account, guess what, man? That's not the only outlet that I'm going after. Like, I think of the career and business, like the game of risk, man. I am posting up in Australia. If you're listening, by the way, this is what you should do. Posting up in Australia. And if you don't know about risk, you're super confused right now, but it's okay. But I'm like putting all my little soldiers in one spot. And at the same time, I'm putting them all over the map so that ultimately do that can conquer that whole globe. But you have to do that you have to kind of like be attacking in different directions. You know what I mean? So

it's not just Facebook video. You know, it's's not just youtube videos it's doing a lot of things and that's what's you know going back to the first question and that's what's that's what's taking the time it's just you know doing all that takes energy time and uh yeah so dude it has been such a pleasure dude i just love when we get a chance to talk i'm so happy for you just like watching from afar because like i could tell things were going well you know what i mean like i could tell that you were starting to find your stride and that and and i was um proud is the wrong word because it sounds like like i'm you know more just watching from afar i was like i'm happy i was happy for you that it seems like you're in a really good place.

You're cooking. I know how competitive you are. I know the quality of work you do. And, uh, and it was just, it's just been great, man. And, uh, and, and like we started, like you and I haven't talked in a while, but this is freaking tremendous. And, uh, I'm so glad we had a chance to connect and, and that we could talk through some of this stuff. And I'm sure, I'm sure now either no one's going to reach out to you because they think that you're like super standoffish and cold. They're going to be like, no, no, man, come speak at my. Yeah, no, man. Like reach out to me, please. I just know that like,

if I don't reach out first kind of thing it's because like i'm really trying to you know stay on task here but reach out to me it's that you know old friends new friends people that have any questions that i'm always willing to i have like a i can copy and paste if you have a question about what gear i use and all that man i uh i'm happy to to help in any way man and uh you know hopefully if they didn't get bored by my voice this far man hopefully they know that uh i'm happy for all everybody's success and like i said before our success is is our success together man um you know rising tides uh raise the ship or whatever the saying is yeah so and then two man two things one thank you for inviting me to be on this podcast dude and then um also man like just thank you for all that you

contribute to the to the uh the industry dude i mean you're you have been and are a huge inspiration to me you've always been kind of like a mentor from afar um and i dude i mean i really appreciate it um you know i've i've been lucky enough to have a burger and a beer with you man and um it means a lot and and uh i'm excited for you too man i mean and also what a rad rad name i mean you son of a gun as soon as i saw that i was like that son of a gun man that's badass name dang i couldn't believe new york state approved it i was so pumped oh dude yeah uh thanks i appreciate that and uh well you know that i I, I do this only because partially because I have a problem and partially just because like me and peeps like you and spending time and having that, that that's what I love

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