Steve Greer

Count money man, money man.

That grits is fine.

I told him, I'm a beast.

Put it on.

What's up gang?

Welcome to another episode of The Grindcast.

Get ready. It's a new day.

We got a special guest in the house.

We got the CEO of American Income Life, Stephen Greer,

Mr. Greer in the house.

Welcome to the Grindcast studio again, Mr. Greer.

Yeah. Thank you.

Glad to be back.

Yeah.

Hopped on the PJ, hopped on the Provid jet,

and came to Pittsburgh, the cold Pittsburgh.

In the 70, not so 70 degree weather today to come visit us.

And it's funny Steve was talking about today,

said he hopped on the jet and was telling the guy,

man, it's going to be warm today in Pittsburgh, 70 degrees.

And hit it just right.

And the guy looked at you a little funny and just kept rolling,

huh?

Yeah.

I had asked Siri, hey, what's the weather going to be like in Pittsburgh?

In Pittsburgh.

Siri got a little mixed up evidently.

There's like a Pittsburgh, California.

So I packed a little lighter than I should have.

I was thinking, there's no way it can be this good.

I've never hit Pittsburgh in almost December.

I mean, in November here.

But what is the beautiful day?

We got sunshine.

So we ain't going to be like.

We got some sunshine.

It was nice, but not quite 70.

So I think if we dig right in to it,

I think one of the things that I know about you that a lot of folks

don't know about you, especially the young people that

listen into our podcast, whether they're in our business or not

in our business, a topic that I get a lot of times,

or a question that I get a lot of times from people is,

what is your relationship with failure?

How do you handle going through failure?

Because at some point everybody's going to have

some form of failure.

It's almost a necessary recipe on your way to success.

As you're going to have to, it's like how

do you overcome that failure as a stepping stone?

And I think what people don't see is the couple things

that stand out to me about your history and your stories.

You celebrate over 20 years with this great company,

20 years married to the company, 25 years married to Miss Dana,

who's the best.

And in that journey, a couple things in your story

stand out to me that maybe we could start out

talking about some obstacles or failure.

And I think a couple of them we covered in the agency meeting,

that maybe if you could touch on those two things,

and some lessons from it that you think people can grab from it,

whether they're in our business or out of our business.

Because one thing is if you would have quit during those times,

probably wouldn't be the CEO right now.

It's difficult to find somebody at the top that quit in between.

And so one of those was in the beginning,

you left a salary, successful job.

You were working at GE and had made it in a lot of your families.

You've got promoted five times in your first five years.

You know, with GE and everybody thought you were crazy.

Left GE and started in a commission business.

And you had three young kids at the time.

And so I think that's a pivotal turning point.

Not that it's it.

Maybe that would be defined as a failure,

but maybe a struggle starting out where your wife's working.

You got three young kids in your work in evenings,

working a lot of hours.

You got young kids and all that.

So maybe if you could touch base on what that moment was like,

if you could relive that in your mind for people.

And then also, remember as an owner,

when you were owning your agencies, you hit a rough patch.

There where it was like, man, am I going to pick up my pitch book,

my bootstraps and do this thing?

Or am I going to hang them up?

And that you obviously overcame and went on to do great things.

And so maybe if you could touch on those two things.

Sure.

I'll tell you, anytime you start something new,

it's always hard in the beginning.

You're with any business, anything in life, anything

that you've done, anything that you've ever picked up,

whether it's a sport, business.

It takes a while.

And it's not a lot of fun being the new guy at anything.

We all like it easy.

We like comfort.

We don't want to be the new person at a room of people.

But all those things take a little bit of time

and starting out in 100% commission business.

It's always one of those things, like maybe even opening up

a business.

If you knew everything, you might not even open up that business

or start in the business.

If you knew how much of a challenge it was going to be.

And I can tell you in the commission business

and I learned more about myself my first couple of years

than I had in a lifetime up to that point.

When you're really out there hunting for your food

and learning a brand new business.

And so when I got started, just the way things worked out,

I went to work for my cousin.

And he was in upstate New York, which

was about 700 miles from where I was living in Louis, Kentucky

at the time.

Was that Rochester?

Yeah, that was Rochester, New York.

And we needed to sell our house,

but I needed to get started working.

So I went ahead and went up before my wife and kids.

And like you've mentioned, we had three kids under the age of four.

So we had like newborn almost two year old,

and three and a half year old, basically.

They're boom, boom, boom, all in a row.

And it was an interesting time going

from all your normal routines and the comfort of your schedule

to sleeping on a mattress in the corner

of my cousin's one bedroom apartment.

Because it just didn't make sense.

Because any minute my house is going to sell.

My wife's going to be right up there.

But unfortunately, what happened is 9.11

hit down in New York City in the World Trade Center was attacked

and literally the housing market stopped.

There's like the world went into one of these time works.

And you see a few of those.

And I think a lot of people listening today

can they know where they were when COVID happened.

Right.

Well, this is 20 years ago, I started this new business,

this brand new career, and out of nowhere,

this thing happens.

And literally the world stopped for a minute,

which put us in a situation where for the next 10 months,

I was in upstate New York, wife and three kids are back in Kentucky.

Well, I've got to work to make money.

And if I'm not working and I'm back at home in Kentucky,

I'm not making money, we've got bills to pay.

We've got bills to pay in two places now.

Because you know, and so it created some interesting times.

And while I say I learned a lot about myself,

I was sharing a story earlier with some of the guys.

And I think a couple of people related to this,

and so I'll share this, because everybody looks at all.

They always look at the end of the deal.

But there's a weird time where like I would wake up, throw up,

brush my teeth, and go to work and be the top person in the office.

And I didn't even exactly know what was going on with me.

At the time, I'd never experienced anything like that in my life.

And it's just weird, you know, weird times.

But I didn't know anything else other than go to work.

And I think it's kind of interesting because some people

even when something like that happens in life,

you just naturally go the other way.

You take the path, the least resistance.

Well, the great thing for me was out of wife in three kids.

So I had four really serious reasons why I needed to go to work

despite how I feel and how many people would take that

as a reason to sink back into safe zone, comfort zone.

Straight safe zone.

Java GE, making 70 grand plus 20 years ago.

So it's really over six figures.

Now days with inflation, and you took a chance.

Took a chance.

And you know, they all say, you know, don't burn your bridges.

Yep.

They would burn.

You know what I mean?

There was no going back.

And the reason why there was no going back is, you know,

anytime, at the time GE was the biggest company in the world,

most admired company in the world.

It was a type of place where if you went to work there,

you worked your next 30 years, you got your pension, you had made it.

People already thought I had made it just because I had got a job there.

Got a job there.

Yep.

And so when you leave something like that, even though they love you,

they tell you you're crazy, you're making a huge mistake.

How could you do that to your wife and kid?

I mean, everything that you can imagine, which really was just a little more

fuel for the fire.

Yep.

For me to say, hey, I got to make it happen because I, you know, I can't be wrong.

How did you get through those, you know, ten months of sacrifice, you know,

to go up, you got to sacrifice, you know, sacrifice much to gain much.

And so there's not, you know, there's not too many bigger sacrifices

than not being able to see your family every night or every week or, you know,

stuff like that.

Mentally, how did you get through that?

It wasn't easy, but, you know, I had a wife that was very on board

with what I was doing, a wife that believed in me.

You leave me with three kids under four.

Yeah.

For four hours.

Yeah.

For ten hours.

Yeah.

Let alone ten months, you know, we're in trouble.

No doubt.

That's scary.

Yeah.

Yeah, I had the easy job.

Everybody gets, yes, yes.

Yes, yes.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

She was back home with the three kids, but what I'll tell you is she understood

the vision and what we were trying to do for the family.

Wasn't what I was necessarily trying to do.

You know, we were trying to get in a situation where I could make enough money where she

could not work at her job, which was cleaning houses at the time.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense to go work and then try to babysit and literally the

money you're making, working in babysitting.

But we could not do without the money at the time.

And a lot of people feel that way.

It's kind of a catch 22, you're trapped.

And so it took a lot of support in understanding from her.

But I think what a lot of people realize with anything that's that's harder, easy, it's

just like how do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

You wake up every day, you go to work, get a little bit closer to the goal.

There were times where she would come up every four to five weeks, try to come up for a day

or two.

And I was still trying to work when she would come up and she's still trying to keep the

house and everything going there so we could try to show the house to sell the house.

But it's one of those things where a lot of times if you just hang in there, you just keep

pushing.

You just go a lot of times, it's just around the corner.

And I think there are so many people, so many times they give up at the first major obstacle

or second major obstacle.

They don't realize that the majority of the people who have had any level of success in

life, they've really just overcome a few more failures.

They say that success is nothing more than a string of failures, putting them together.

And I don't really, when I look at people in all different avenues, all different walks

of life, they have sort of that similar story is, well man, I just didn't quit, I kept

going.

And then all of a sudden you look up and things get a little bit easier.

And the sun's a little brighter, you can start to see the light.

Well, we got a lot brighter because I know in a relatively quick period of time you ended

up being one of the top producers in the company, top producer in your office, top leader in

your office, which at the time was pretty much the hottest agency out of all of the agencies

in American income life at the time you guys were the hottest and you were the hottest

in that agency.

And there was a couple of you guys that were super, super hot.

You struck it big there pretty quickly.

And after winning all the awards and all that, you end up being an agency owner.

I know the story, you picked up, moved from New York, moved to Houston, took one person

and started all over again, built a successful operation in Houston.

And with that success at one point, you hit a rough patch.

And just for the sake of time, we could say just things got rough and it got to a point

where you went from not needing to sell to make a living and everything run and smooth

to where you had to go back out there and make sales yourself and say, I'm not going to

quit.

I'm going to keep pushing through this.

Tell us about that period of time.

What was that like?

What did you go through mentally?

How would somebody dig out of that?

Because so often you'll see people in our business, whether they're owners or they're

top leaders.

They'll hit a rough patch like that.

You know, rather than going back out and doing it again, they say, I'm done and they

quit, you push through that.

So you know, two things.

One, probably one of the biggest lessons I've ever learned in life.

I learned out of that example.

And I remember it was October.

We had had a huge month and business was good.

And I remember telling a very close friend of mine, man.

Like I got this, can't get any better.

I've never made this much money in a month.

And I mean, my head was probably no telling how big it is.

I'm just keeping it real.

And three, four months later, I was literally almost back to the beginning.

And that's kind of the short version there.

But you know, what I learned out of that was stay humble.

You know, there was a critical thing.

You know, there's that point and we've all been there where even though you don't want

to go there, you start talking about or thinking about plan B, whatever that is.

Hey, do I do I need to go back where I started to hit the reset button and build back up,

take a step back, go from, you know, from the major leagues down to triple A ball and

get my get my mojo back and go.

And I mean, these things I'm thinking these and all of a sudden I started verbalizing

some of these and my wife said, well, Steve, if you're going to have to go back and kind

of go to work, you know, back with your cousin, let's say where you came from, you're going

to have to rebuild a team all over again.

You're going to have to get back out there and really do this.

I was like, yeah.

goes, well, why would you do it for somebody else when you could do it for yourself?

And it sort of hit me.

You know, it's like one of those deals where, you know, they say that the only thing that

rich people are afraid of is like, like, losing their money.

You know, that type of thing we ain't got in is, you know, and so then they achieve a certain

level of success.

And then they start fixating on, oh my gosh, if I ever had to go back and, you know, that

could probably be some sort of self-fulfill in prophecy.

But when you realized what got you there, and if you're just willing to do that again,

it's really not that big of a deal, making that decision.

And it doesn't matter what level of our business you're in, Simon.

So a lot of different levels other than agency owners of people that build teams of five,

10, 20 people, things are going great and all the sudden, what, you know, you get there,

you think you got it all figured out and all the sudden you lose.

That's usually the issue.

Two, four things go down.

That's right.

If you think you got it all figured out, we got this.

You're not putting in the work, you know, the focus as much as you used to.

Of course.

But you did it.

You made the sacrifices and pulled yourself out of that and went on to do amazing things

again as an owner, went on to be SGA of the year, which is agency owner in our business

of the year.

Very next year went on to be the CEO.

And so those are those pivotal points, you know, that you can go back on to say,

not everybody handles those adversities that way or makes the necessary sacrifices,

you know, that would have made life a lot different for you, your family, others,

you know, other people that you're responsible for leading, you know, from your family to

other people for you.

Great.

You know, you, like a lot of people, it's, you know, it goes back to people love the

story of nobody wants to hear the story of a silver spoon.

Somebody was handed everything to him and life was good and easy.

We want to hear about the poor, the wretched.

But when you're in it, that's right.

When you're in it, you don't want to hear that, you don't want to hear that.

You're going to be thankful for this one day.

This is going to be good for you.

Nobody wants to hear that stuff.

But it's the truth.

You know, I had, I heard a guy ask, you know, a crowd of people, he said, man, if you

could think of some of the hardest things that you've had to go through that you've had

to overcome, if you could, if you could erase that from your memory, would you?

Yeah.

And oftentimes it's no, right?

Because that's what makes you.

It's what makes you.

I agree.

Yeah.

And sacrifices, making sacrifices is one of the things that it requires, you know, to play

at the level you're playing at.

What sacrifices would you say that people need to continue making, you know, as they're

starting to climb that some people that are successful continue making other people stop

making those sacrifices?

Anything that stands out to you that people don't see, like what sacrifices do people need

to make that people don't see?

I think the biggest thing that I would say on that is you just have to understand and

I don't want to bust the bubble here.

But you've always got to continue to sacrifice on some level.

It's different, but it's always on some level.

You know, when, when I got the call and the question to go to the home office and become

the CEO of the company, I had a son that was a freshman at high school and a daughter

that was a junior and my wife was adamant, she was like, Hey, our daughter is going to

finish high school.

Of course, you know, no big deal.

All commute.

But the challenge was that with that is in those two years, her junior and senior year,

then my son would go from his freshman to sophomore year to him and when you got kids that

are pretty good kids and they're great kids and you're just trying to kind of put a bow

on it and wrap it up and get them on to college or the next level, you don't want to derail

that.

So, you know, for me to make the sacrifice to commute every week, then it was to pull

them out of their environment.

So for the next four years, Houston to Dallas, Houston, Dallas Monday through Friday.

And so four years, four years, sacrifice was really, really easy when we were young and

we were working hard to pay off debt and get our first home in a new car and put a few

dollars in the bank.

But all of a sudden when you've achieved a certain level of success, you're a little

rusty at the sacrifice.

And all of a sudden, you know, you're in a position where you're either going to make

a sacrifice and do something for the greater good of everybody else or you're going to

stay in your comfort zone.

And we all know that nothing great's going to happen.

And so it's a big decision, not just a Steve decision, but for my wife, my kids as a whole

for us to have a conversation as a family.

And I remember the whole family, you know, getting together like that and the kids supporting

it, you know, because if they all would have said, no, you wouldn't have did it.

But everybody gets everybody getting together and supporting you on that is really cool and

special.

I think it really was a big lesson for the kids because when I, when we were kind of coming

up, if you will, they were young.

And it don't remember.

They don't remember.

Everybody thinks the kids don't remember, you know, I was joke and say that I got the

kids together and I said, hey, I'm sorry.

You know, I'm, I miss some T ball games.

I miss some dance recitals, you know, dad, dad, sorry.

And they said, it's okay, dad.

We like being rich.

Real joke.

And in fact, they told me you can make it up to us for the rest of our lives.

You know, right, right.

The truth is, they don't, you know, when they were young, they don't really remember what

was going on.

All they know is they had a great mom and dad and, you know, to mean that they don't,

they don't.

I think that's something we need to dig into.

It's, it's uncomfortable, you know, because I almost want to back off it because you can

offend people, you know, say, you know, oh, wow, man, he missed his kids T ball game or

he missed a recital or something like that.

And reality is, you don't want to, you don't want to miss anything.

Right.

But there is another reality of sacrifices need to be made.

You can't go too far, you know, to where you miss everything and you're not there as,

as a father.

Sure.

Anybody that knows you, you know, I think the, the first thing, if I were to explain

you to somebody else, you know, is to understand they're going to meet somebody and get to know

somebody that at the core of them is a great person and a great human being and a really

good father and a really good husband.

And, you know, a lot of the times when I get an opportunity to spend time with you, I pick

your brain on, on those things on marriage and family, you know, I pick your brain on how

to, because your kids, the relationship you have with your children is something people

need to understand how good it really is.

I mean, you have such a great relationship with your family and something that I think

everybody would aspire, you know, everybody wants to be a CEO, you know, but I think

man, everybody should really aspire to have the type of family life that you guys have

been able to build you and Dana.

And part of that has been, you know, you heard Dana's sacrifice and support, your sacrifice

and support.

And some of those sacrifices were, you know, it's not being never there, you know, but

it's the sacrifice of man-during my son's high school years, you know, I was seeing him

on the weekends and I wasn't there, you know, Monday through Friday all the time.

And in the beginning, when the kids were, you know, two years old, three years old, four

years old, you know, young kids, you know, you're grinding, working a lot of hours, putting

a lot of work in.

And a lot of times, those are some of the things that holds people up from greatness, from

going to the next level, if they're in those positions of, of, well, I don't want to, you

know, miss time with, with the two-year-old, or I don't want to miss time with the four-year-old.

And it's not, man, let's not see him ever.

Let's not spend any time with him ever.

Let's use that as an excuse to be a deadbeat dad.

But there are sacrifices that need to be made that if you do it the right way and you go

back and ask your kids, you know, when they're 15 or when they're 20, you know, would you

have rather, you know, me stayed home the whole time and us not be able to have the life

in you joke and say, I know we'd rather be, we'd rather be rich.

You could make it up to us for the rest of your life.

You know, that, that's, those are things I remember even on a small scale, you know, my

mom and getting us the, the, the fight to get us off a welfare, to, to get us in a better

area and a better neighborhood.

I remember crying and watching her go to work and work two, three jobs.

And when I was eight years old, you know, I would have told her, hey, look, I just rather

stay broke.

Yeah.

Let's stay in our $11,000 house.

Right.

Stay here and play video games with me.

Right.

I'm just living poverty because I want you here.

And in that pool, you know, sometimes for the parent or for the people, sometimes can

really hold them back from giving people and kids a better life.

So I think it's good to hear that side of it, you know, from you that it's not one of,

of the kids come back around and they hate you as a dad because you made some sacrifices

and, you know, and all of that stuff.

So there's, there's, you know, since you're on that subject, you know, I think we, we

should get, keep it real for a minute and talk about balance.

Because I have people ask me this quite, you know, Steve, how do you feel about balance

and balance in life?

And I feel like balance is, you know, important.

Like when you look at, you know, eating and working out and even, you know, too much work

can be, you know, hazardous to your health, if you will.

But I also know that most people that have done anything somewhat great in life, you know,

life have had to get out of balance for a moment in order to get balance.

And there's a lot of people that kind of use balance as an excuse to not achieve things

that they could achieve.

And so specifically what I'll say and this will probably ruffle, ruffle a few feathers,

but I'll say it, there's a huge problem, I think today of people confusing quality time

with quantity time.

So you can go work a job, go home and there's a lot of guys that go home on night, they

jump in the loser lounge, kick their feet up, watch TV, they're on social media and they

are present.

But it's that let's be alone together.

They're physically there but they're not mentally there.

And so for those of you that are out there listening that feel a little bit out of balance

right now, I would just challenge you to think about the quality of the time.

You know, so when you are spending time be there, be all there.

Whether that's with your girlfriend, with your wife, put your phone down for a while.

If you're focusing on your career and building your business, you might have to put up the

bowling ball.

You might have to put up the, not the bowling ball.

They got to put the bowling ball down.

And the silk shirt, you know what I mean?

Yeah, even though it's a Simon right there, you might have to put it up in the closet for

a little bit.

You might have to sell some of your hunting stuff, your fishing stuff or for some of the

young kids out there, you might have to put the Xbox up for a minute and hold on the

fortnight and whatever night and then for the social media junkies out there, your screen

time might have to go down for a while.

And listen, we could sit here and make excuses all day long but I really believe that there

are a lot of people that are kind of confused on the difference between quality time and quality

time.

And I remember...

It's that whole thing, you got 168 hours in a week.

If you work 60, you got 108.

If you sleep for another 60, you got 50, call it left and it's with those other 50, how

much can you do?

You already worked, you already slept.

If you put those towards quality use, there's a ton of time and ton of stuff that you can

still account.

You know what, none of us are perfect at it.

You know what I mean?

I remember specifically in those times when I was out of balance, so I'm Monday through

Friday, I'm in Dallas and Houston, I'm on the weekends, Friday night, Dana and I would

have our date night on Friday night.

I would literally walk into the restaurant and just hand her my phone, hey, can you slide

that in your purse?

Because I don't even want to be tempted because we just have habits and routines.

No doubt.

You know what I mean?

And it's like...

That's a big one.

That's it.

That's a big one.

That's a free marriage tip.

Yes.

Now, I didn't always...

Just give it to her and you can't get...

Can't get about...

You can't get about to pick hers up.

Yeah.

That's all fair.

You know what I mean?

But you...

Nope.

Can't get up there.

That's right.

Yeah.

And just...

You know, if you're listening today, I would just say don't use some of these are pretty

bad excuse.

Excuse me.

Excuse me.

And look, if you get out of balance for a little while, it's just like with anything.

If you invest time, you get time.

If you invest money, you get money.

So you're going to have to give up.

Put the time in, you get a bunch of time back.

You get that in balance.

Actually, that imbalance temporarily is what gets you all the balance in the world if

you use the time wisely and build something.

Crazy the other way.

So now that you're the...

You know, then the CEO for a while, how long we got now?

I'm wrapping up my six, four years at the home office, but four years is...

Six years.

...floo by two as a threat.

Six years.

Floo by.

The traits of the greats, you know, you've had a chance to coach and lead people at the

highest level in our business and in our industry.

And I'm biased, you know, but I think we got some of the greatest leaders, you know,

I think I'm surrounded by my teammates and peers and people in this company are so talented,

man.

We got some really special people.

Being able to lead people at that level and travel the world and be all over the places,

being in everybody's business and office and talking to people, anything you could point

out that are like, man, here's some of the traits of the greats, man.

Yeah, there's some ones that really jump out, you know, and some of them might not be

the first ones that you're thinking of, but what I see that some of the best people are

able to do, and sometimes I don't even know if they're consciously doing it, they're

able to connect with people in like, listen at a different level.

And what I mean by that is, you know, we're all a lot of, you know, there's a lot of us

who are salespeople, a lot of us are low on the ADD side, you know what I mean?

And sometimes we're so thinking about the next thing that we're going to say we're not

listening to the person, but the great people of American income, the people that build

bigger agencies, they're able to be just a good of a listener is they are at being a, you

know, sort of a talker.

And it's kind of interesting because specifically our business is a people business.

And people that are on the other side of that know that those people genuinely care

and they're really listening, not just hearing them.

Yeah.

That's one thing.

But I do see that there's a certain, in a level of charisma that people have.

And early on, I thought they all had to be a certain type.

But what I've realized is that charisma comes in many different shapes and sizes.

And you can't really see what's on the inside of people.

And so I've seen a lot of different styles.

people that have had great levels of success in our business and they have their own charisma

and their own swag and their own way to do it, things, but it's kind of a different

way of doing it for each one of those people.

There's no doubt, no doubt, though, probably the two biggest ones is like a relentless work

ethic.

They're just hard-working people that they're not going to give up.

They look at the business as not just a way to make money, but a way to have purpose with

people.

Our business is interesting because it's like a riddle you can never really solve.

It's always changing and growing and just when you think you've got to figure it out.

Yes, exactly.

Just never.

It's kind of like a marriage.

Try to figure your wife out, you know what I mean in a good way.

Just when you think you've got to figure it out, you'll find out you don't.

That keeps you coming back for more and they rise to that challenge and occasions so

they have that work ethic.

Then they have that relentless pursuit of, okay, why kind of figured this out?

I think you're definitely at this point in your career where you're like, man, this is something

that really gave to me and now you think it's like the best thing in the world and you

want to share it with a lot of other people.

It's not about making money anymore.

It's about purpose and making a difference in people's lives, making a difference in

young people's lives and old people's lives.

You just see all the benefits from it.

I would say those are some of the traits that I see over now.

One of the things I heard you bring up is it's kind of like a marriage.

You can never quite always figure it out.

I think being that you've had 20 years plus in our business, 25 years plus in marriage,

is there any similarities, anything that you could pull out of those two things that

you could pull out and take from those to learn about each other?

Yeah, I kind of walk.

This is just my opinion.

That'd be an important thing to say on the podcast in my experience.

I ain't writing no books on marriage or nothing.

I think one of the things that a lot of young people think is that marriage is a feeling

and it's not.

It's a commitment.

Just like with any new relationship, everybody's all tingly toden, bright eyed and then with

any relationship and that's how you are in business, you're excited.

You get started and you're excited.

Then all of a sudden the newness wears off.

Maybe you've been around for a year or two.

Maybe your toes ain't exactly tingling anymore.

But it's the commitment to the person and to the marriage and to the business that you

made to be there for a long time.

Obviously, that takes two people and you can't do anything if the other person doesn't reciprocate

that and feel the same way.

What I've always thought about and never done a good enough job at whether it's business

or marriage is it's not what the other person can do for you.

It's what you can do for the other person or for the business.

If you sort of have that mindset, like a lot of people say, oh, I'm in this business so

that I can get money out of it.

I'm in this relationship so that I can have whatever, whatever.

When you take that opposite approach of what can I do for my spouse?

What can I do for this business, for these people?

If I help enough people get what they want in return, you get what you want.

It's the same thing with the marriage and it's a challenge because we're all human.

We're all, you know, we have kind of a selfish nature and that type of thing is very normal.

But there's some very interesting parallels, which is this, when it's tough, when it's

not easy, are you still committed to what you started?

Are you still going to do what you said you're going to for better or for worse?

You know, that type of thing, I feel very blessed that I found an amazing best friend and partner

in life and wife and life that felt that same way.

And how often, you know, in 25 years, did you maybe have a rough week or a rough month in marriage

and then out the other end comes greatness.

I tell you what, you know, we're great.

You know, in businesses that way.

I wish so many people, whether it's business or marriage, you can look at, you know, now

over 25 years and 20 years in business, you can look back now and Steve Jobs had a quote

where he said you can never connect the dots looking forward.

You can only connect them looking backwards.

Right now you look back and you see those people that maybe they were struggling, whatever.

Maybe it's at seven year itch or something that people talk about.

You look back and say, like Dana told me there were times, I left you.

You know, to me, not just didn't tell you.

You know, it's, I mean, that's just part of the deal.

And there's times in business where you're like, I might quit.

I just didn't tell my manager mentally, but I kept going.

I kept, and now you look back and what's really neat is being 25 years down the road in

a marriage.

Now it's the best it's ever been.

They're the good.

We made it through the hard time.

She's got me trained now.

It's a lot easier since she got me trained up.

But now it's so much easier.

And you go, man, I wish for some other people that they could make it through some of

those things and stay committed to the process just like in business.

You know, you can remember, I mean, you've got a great story in business and it wasn't

all up and away.

You got some heart breaks and you know, some people that quit on you.

And so, you know, just things that happen in business.

That's every, every person who's ever owned a business or multiple businesses.

I mean, can you imagine all the people in the last 18 months that had a business and, you

know, global pandemic hits?

And they've got their life savings invested in those businesses in just in a snap.

You know, that entrepreneurial spirit doesn't die though.

Those people will make it back.

They'll come back.

They'll come back.

They'll come back.

They'll come back.

Speaking of the, staying in the line with the marriage thing, how important do you think

it is for somebody to have a supportive spouse when it comes to doing business being an

entrepreneur, especially in our business?

So, you know, there's a great saying that Fred had died.

Oh, he says, and it's trying to do it in his accent for me.

Yeah.

Do it one time.

He's actually forming his body.

I can't do his Boston accent, but he says, your wife will be there on your side or on

your back.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

And whether that's wife, spouse, whether it's man, woman, whoever we're talking to today,

man, you know, you got to have your partner supportive.

Of you and supportive of what you're trying to do for you and your family.

And, you know, I was always very blessed to have a wife that was always in my corner.

And I'm sure there were probably times where she was wondering what was going on, but she

was always so supportive and, you know, I would tell you business and life in general is

tough enough by itself, having somebody else sort of tearing you down and not building

you up.

And you got to reciprocate that for your partner as well.

I think that's kind of important because if you're not working with your spouse, partner,

whatever, and making decisions for the family, that's where some of that disconnect can

come from.

If everybody knows what we're working towards and how long where I see a lot of guys

getting trouble, they're like, okay, I'm going to work real hard, but they don't know how

to separate some of the old stuff that they used to do that you can't really do anymore.

We touched on that a little bit earlier.

It was like, I used to do this stuff.

Well, right now, if you're going to work this hard and get out of balance, you got to

give up the bowling.

You got to give up the bowling and extra curricular things for a moment.

It's hard when you got a reputation at the bowling alley.

You don't mean like people know who you are.

You got to just bag and everything.

Yes.

Speaking of the extra curricular activities, I'm glad we were able to lure you in to the

dark side of Jiu-Jitsu.

After these years, man, I love that about you.

You have 49 years young still pushing yourself and challenging yourself in your Jiu-Jitsu

journey.

Tell me about how that all started and how everything going right now with you with

how you love Jiu-Jitsu.

I think once I just learned that I'm not going to be an Olympic athlete, you know what

I mean?

I'm not training for UFC.

You know, enjoy the journey.

Enjoy the journey and the process.

There's always somebody ahead of you and there's always somebody behind you.

It feels like there's more ahead than behind, you know what I mean?

Whether it's in technique, whether it's in age, athletic ability, strength, and all

these things, but the beauty of it.

Definitely been working though because you're getting good.

You're getting good.

How cool is it?

Okay, get you a CEO, everybody.

That will push his tables out of the way in the suite of his room at the hotel in this

big old mansion to where we could get in some Jiu-Jitsu gear and roll on the floor and

go to a meeting and leave me in the room to roll with Slough.

Get you a CEO like that, man.

Super cool.

I get a little bit lessen out of it.

So, you know, there's a, you know what?

I think everybody should do Jiu-Jitsu and here's why.

It, there's so many great business parallels in terms of starting something new, being

uncomfortable, you know, starting as a white belt.

And it made me a better person in terms of remembering where a brand new person was when they

start our business.

Or dealing with your kid with something new, something that you think should come easy

to them because I don't know why I was sort of on a slow learner path to Jiu-Jitsu.

I was like, for a while.

It wasn't clicking, I was like, I don't even know what I'm harder to grasp than a punch

or a kick that comes more natural.

And I've noticed, you know, it's like to punch.

I mean, there's a suite.

I never appreciated boxing as much as I do now after understanding it, learning why do

they call it the suite science.

There's more to people if they don't know it and they don't understand it, you just

see two guys swinging at each other.

But there's so much, you know, so much to it.

But I think Jiu-Jitsu is even another level from that.

You know, boxing, punching comes a little bit more natural.

Even kids, you know, they'll start out and they'll punch each other or kick each other.

But nobody's naturally, you know, as a kid pulling somebody on their back and trying to choke

them.

You know what I mean?

There's such different angles.

It's such a unique, it's like algebra, you know, versus addition and subtraction, you

know, so there's so many pieces to put to the puzzle.

But you're putting them together.

Listen, man, I'm just quietly showing up.

That's the key.

And what happens over time is get a little bit better.

You know what I mean?

You're not the new guy anymore.

You know, there's just a lot of that.

Before you know it, you might even be helping somebody on a little bit of something going

on.

I might, you know, I'm not the best at this, but this is what you're supposed to be doing.

Yep.

You know, and so it's fun.

And I've met a lot of great people.

And you know, it's awesome to get together with like guys like you and Slav.

We can sit there and talk about it all night and everybody else is like, why are you all

talking about it?

Yes.

And it's again, you know, related to our business or to marriage.

Big time.

Big time parallel.

It's the puzzle I can't solve.

You know, the start out phase, white belt phase, a new agent.

Yeah.

What advice would you give for somebody?

And I guess I'm going to talk specifically to people in our business right now.

What advice would you give to somebody that's starting out brand new?

The first piece of advice is just stay coachable.

You know, stay real plugged in right at the beginning because it's, it's, I don't know.

Maybe there are some people out there.

I haven't heard a lot of great stories in our business about people that just everything

clicks.

I know there are people that have a lot of success early on, but a lot of times they don't

even know why they're having that success.

If that makes sense.

Yes.

And it might be there's a lot of times that happens in life.

But it's one of those things where you really need to count on your up, you know, your mentorship,

your manager, whoever that brought you into the business and just a open mind.

You get a lot of questions and keep showing up.

You know, I mean, you're going to have to show up.

The amaze that what happens 12 months later if you don't quit.

It's going to keep showing up.

Just, you know, when, when you talk about, you know, you hear that thing about anything

that you're going to master, you need to do for 10,000 hours.

So if in our example, a presentation, maybe only took 30 minutes on, on Zoom meeting with

a client, you're going to have to do 20,000 of those.

To master that craft.

If you did 10 a week, that's only 500 a year.

So it takes, you know what I mean?

And it's a lot like Jiu Jitsu when you're only going a couple of times a week for a few hours.

You know, it's hard to get good quick.

So give yourself a little bit of a break.

Utilize the people that have gone before you, the experience of the people that have

gone before you, especially in your first 100 presentations.

Think about that.

Your first 100.

10 a week for the first 10, 10 weeks.

There's a lot of people that say stuff like, I'm not that good at this.

No, no.

And I didn't start out exactly on like everybody just starts out and they're picking up a

basketball and they turn into LeBron James.

Come on.

Nobody's good.

No, they start.

Yeah, it doesn't happen.

Then all the sudden later on, you're teaching people how to do it and they're going,

oh, he's a natural.

I've had to say that, well, I can see how, listen, my background was in finance and accounting

when I got started with they, they count other people's money.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, they don't deal with people.

They're not in sales.

They don't do presentations.

I've had people say, well, you're a great speaker.

How do you get up in front of whatever a thousand, two thousand people and talk like that?

What started by talking to two people a few hundred times and then all of a sudden, you're

talking to a small group of four or five people and before you know, it just kind of happens

right along the way.

And so I think people got to realize that.

You know, I think, you know, those say, well, it's easy for you to say that.

Now, well, listen, all I did was got started and didn't quit.

No, no, here because I just got started a little bit before you, you know what I mean?

And I never forget, I remember one of my jujitsu coaches saying all the black belted

is a white belt that never quit.

Same thing.

So true.

Same thing.

So true.

Managers, new leaders, advice to a new manager.

They're just getting promoted, just getting started,

managing people, leading people.

Yeah.

So for some reason, when people transition

in our business from producing to leadership,

they forgot the things that got them there.

And so our business is a, you know,

it's caught not taught.

So it's like parenting.

Everybody wants to tell their kids what your kids are.

I promise you, they're going to do what you all do.

If you're a smoker and you're going, don't smoke.

You know what I mean?

Your kids are going to be smokers.

If you have bad eating habits, your kids

are going to happen.

If you have good eating habits, it all works,

you know, the same way.

And new agents are a lot like your kids are going

to do, you know, about what, 80% of what you do wrong,

about 20% of what you do right.

So just understand early on, they're

going to catch a lot of this from you.

So you, you need to be still producing at a high level

and have it.

They need to see your work ethics.

They need to see how much work you put in on the phones.

But most importantly, they need to know

that that sacrifice is worth the reward in the end.

You got to cast that vision.

You got to cast that.

Why we're doing what we're doing?

Why are we doing all this work?

You got to connect the dots for them,

because they can't see it in the beginning.

We're doing all this because one year from today,

this is what it's going to look like.

And you're constantly reminding them what's in it for them.

They're already looking at you.

And you might only be here for three months, five months.

And they're going, wow, he's amazing.

He must be a natural.

They don't know how you were three months ago.

And so it's one of those things where the biggest thing

I could tell a new manager is, you know,

you need to set a good pace,

but in showing that work ethic,

but they need to know what's in it for them all the time

every day, casting that vision, keeping it out in front of them.

Like saying, I can teach you, I'll help you.

I'll be there for you and really be there for them.

You know, care.

The whole thing of people don't care how much you know

today, know how much you care.

You got it.

And be impatient with people.

Not everybody's going to grab it as fast as you.

I didn't grab it.

I mean, I wasn't the worst in the world,

but they talk about industry averages, about one to three.

I was maybe early on for a while, one out of four,

but I worked everybody.

Then I got to about a one out of three.

Things started going a little bit better.

And then later on, about two out of three.

But you know, it didn't like you, you know,

you can make Hall of Fame,

batten 300 in Major League Baseball.

I love that.

Yeah.

Hall of Fame just happened one out of three.

Well, guess what?

You can do the same thing in our business.

Yes.

Staying in the game.

Speaking of the Hall of Fame,

you know, you're going down in the Hall of Fame, brother.

You've just been amazing to all of us, you know,

in this company, the things you've done,

the way you've led with your heart, you know,

just in the short four years, you know,

as a CO6 years with the company, man,

it's the trust level, I think, you know, in our company

while it's never going to be, you know, perfect in the beginning

is just the trust level, I think, is at an all time high,

you know, in the 20 years that I've been here.

People know you care about them.

People trust you.

There's no doubt, you know, you're a Hall of Fame dad,

husband, business person, friend, you know, everything.

And what do you see, you know, for us, for you, you know,

what's the vision, you know, five years from today,

you know, kind of what's next?

So we talk about it, you know, big company can make a big difference.

We're not just looking ahead a sales number.

Our company really is special in that, you know,

we've got a lot going on where we can get back into the communities

that we serve.

We've got things going on at the corporate level,

the things you guys are doing on a local level are amazing.

The things that we all get together and collaborate on,

we've got a lot of stuff going on.

And it's probably one of the things

that I'm most proud of in our business.

But I know the bigger we get, the more impact we can make.

And so, you know, it's kind of interesting.

I don't get people that ask this question a whole lot.

But you know, I've been up at the home office

and we're wrapping up, you know, year number six.

And when I came at the end of 15, early 16,

we had done about 200 million as a company.

And this year we'll end up close to 300 million.

And so we've had about a 50% right?

Yep.

And so in my mind, I kind of do the math like this.

You know, over the next five years, we could do another 50%.

We'd be at 450-ish right there, take 300 and a half.

And then if we took that and did it again,

all the sudden we're that seven for me, you know,

right in that region.

So it kind of lines up.

I feel like our responsibility and leadership is growth.

Because everybody wants to be part of something

that's going somewhere.

So we've got to stretch ourselves every day to grow.

But it really just kind of lines out good for me mentally

at 49, you know, to go, man, let's hit this thing

really, really hard.

I think we can do some amazing things.

So you know, the vision is a billion dollars.

No doubt.

And when you look at the number of families

we're protecting a month right now, somewhere between 55,

60,000 new families are getting protected every month.

I'm proud of that.

But if we were doing a full thing.

We were doing a billion dollars, we'd be doing four times that.

Yeah.

You know, if we're giving away millions of dollars.

Something crazy people don't realize is we

have the most globe has the most policyholders

of any insurance company in the country.

Any life insurance company.

Yeah.

Any life insurance company.

16 million policyholders.

Unbelievable.

That's like the lives impacted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, we pay out, glow, billions of dollars in claims.

American income.

We're paying out over $70 million a quarter right now.

There's just so many awesome things there.

So it's not, it's really neat that what we do

makes such a big impact on the families.

You know, we're all blessed just from the business in general

and the impact it's made on us.

But to know, like there's a lot of things in life

you could go sell if you will.

You sell a car and they just call you because it broke down.

They're not happy.

Our, ours is that type of product

where later on down the road, you know, they're like, wow,

man, I'm, I'm really glad that that person

to John.

On that day.

Yeah.

If you do it long enough, you know, you'll

have friends, family members that, you know,

that get influence or touched, you know, by that.

Sure.

In my 16 years, I've had friends of mine, young, you know,

my age already.

I've, I've had people take advantage of those products

and it makes it even more real when it's your own family,

your own friends and all of that stuff.

So, but thank you.

Thank you for, thanks for joining us on the grind cast.

Thanks for all of your sacrifice and service to the company.

Thank you for everything that you've,

you've done for all of us in and out of business.

Thanks for, for helping us, you know,

leadership is caught not taught.

You know, as you say, thanks for allowing us to catch fire.

You know, not everybody has an opportunity

to have a CEO or have leadership that, you know,

all things, you know, not that anybody's perfect.

You're not perfect.

I'm not perfect.

Not every moment is perfect if you catch us on our worst day.

But, you know, in the, just the grand scheme of it all,

you know, to have the opportunity to have a leader

that is, is successful in their marriage

and have somebody to look up to in that respect, you know,

not just for myself but for our people to say,

and that's my CEO.

Look at him and his, you know,

wife celebrating 25 years or 26 years.

Look at him and his kids.

Look at what his kids are doing and look at him 20 plus years

in the business and look at you losing all that weight,

you know, getting, getting in shape,

embracing the mom body spirit.

And but thank you for leading by example, man,

in so many different areas.

I know it comes with too much is given,

much is required, a lot of pressure, you know,

to know that everybody's life, so many lives are in your hands,

man, and we're all grateful for you.

I know I speak on behalf of everybody.

Before you check out, let me just tell you, thank you,

what you do as a person, what you do for this agency,

what you do for the company.

You're a very, very big part,

a very special part of our company.

And our company wouldn't be here without you.

And you make a lot of sacrifices.

You've come, I mean, like you went from asking questions

about marriage to, you know,

help and give out some advice to some people.

And I know like it's not always perfect

in everything all the time, but just watching you

grow up as a man, as a husband,

and how you've been with your kids.

I remember being a little bit younger and hearing people say

stuff like that about other people,

and it made me want to work real hard to one day have people.

Not, again, not that anybody's perfect,

but to speak about me that way.

And you've made a big difference in your podcast, man.

There's people out listening that, you know,

if there's one or two things that you don't even,

I know you, you know, there's no way you can even know

somebody randomly here and something

where you touch their life.

And later on down the road, that all comes full circle, man.

That's how it works.

You.

Amen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Speaking of which, if this can help anybody,

you're impacting anybody in any way,

please share this with others.

So we can impact more lives, make a bigger difference.

But Mr. Steve Greer.

Can we talk about that?

Oh, Steve Greer, thank you for coming on to grind cast

with us.

We appreciate you getting ready as a new day.

Count money, man.

Money back riches.

I tried to hold it, trying to hold it, I'm a beast.