--:-- Ryan Hanley: In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home... Hello, hello, and welcome back to the show. It's great to have you guys. I love that you guys listen to the podcast because I love doing the podcast. When you guys listen to it and it adds value to your life in some way, shape, or form, that's meaningful to me because I will never charge you for the podcast and I don't sell any e-books or courses or anything like that. Not that there's anything wrong with that stuff, but I just don't. I just like having cool conversations with cool people who I think can add value, and that's who we have today.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Chad Eddy is president and CEO of Indium. Indium is an agency network. Call them a market access company, an aggregator, whatever you want to call them. There's a bunch of different names. I don't know that anyone's ever actually defined them in a very official way, but Indium refers to itself as a market access company. I am a part of Indium. I love it. There are many good networks. We've had Matt Masiello from SIA on here. I've had Danielle Smink from CLI on here. I've done virtual and in-person speaking gigs for different master agencies of SIA and I was on Tony Caldwell's podcast who works with a master agency for SIA. My point in saying all that is I think networks are an important part of the future of independent insurance agents. They're all different. No one network is a perfect fit for every agent. That is absolutely true.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I want you to know that outside of the fact that I just really do love Indium and Chad, who I've gotten to know well over the last year of Rogue's existence, has become a friend and someone I really enjoy and appreciate. We just talk like normal people talk. Not just business stuff. I just enjoy Chad quite a bit. This is not like an outright endorsement for Indium in terms of, "If you go someplace else or don't be part of a network, that's a bad decision." I like Indium. I'm not going to shy away from that. I really like Chad and I really like his people.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But the point of this is actually to break down a blog post that Chad wrote that I think is important. There are a lot of important concepts within it that our industry is dealing with, and I wanted to dive into it. I think you're going to get a lot out of this. I really hope that in the beginning, we talk kind of high level. If you're not into some of that, I ask only that you keep listening because we do start to really dive down and talk about tactical things that agencies, both leadership and producers, should be thinking about. Things they should be considering when they interact with each other, and how we can align our agencies, both leadership and staff, for success moving forward. Chad's in a unique position to have the perspectives that he does. I think this is a tremendously valuable episode. I was very happy that Chad was willing to give me so much of his time, and I'm very happy to share him and his thoughts with you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Before we get there, I want to give a shout out to the sponsor of today's show, Better Agency. I've said this at least a dozen times now on this show. They are hands down, unequivocally, the best personal lines, independent insurance agency CRM that exists on the marketplace today. Absolutely hands down the best personal line CRM. Now, people have asked me about commercial lines. Commercial lines is getting better every single day. But if you were to say, "What's the best commercial line CRM?" I don't know. What I do know is if personal lines is important to your agency at all today, Better Agency is absolutely the best. Some of the things they're doing and the improvements they're making are putting them light years out ahead of the competition. Commercial lines is rapidly coming behind there. I do more commercial lines than I do personal lines and I use Better Agency. That should be a testament to you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I really thank Nick and Preston and McBilly and Will and everyone associated with their team, John and everybody there. When you have a question, you have a problem, they answer it, they fix it, they help you with best practices. Some of the things I know are going on behind the scenes in terms of connecting with different systems, I just think Better Agency is going to be a big part of our ecosystem for a long time. I am absolutely honored that they are a part of this show as a sponsor and help me pay for the cost of putting this thing on and making sure that it's always free for you. If you are in the market for a CRM, I don't want you to just switch CRMs to switch. That's not what I'm asking you to do. But if you are in the market for a CRM or you're looking for something that can help you really dial in your communications, Better Agency should absolutely be one of the options that you consider. Go to betteragency.io. I think there's a 14-day free trial or the trial is like a dollar. Test it out. Get the demo. If it works for you, you're going to be very happy that you made that decision. Betteragency.io.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: All right. With that, let's get on to Chad Eddy. Let's get into the meat and potatoes of this. We could just do the bullshit thing for the entire hour and then never actually record the podcast. So you wrote this article. How did this happen? I said something or I wrote something and then you said, "Dude, I'm writing an article about this. I'm going to send it to you." And then you did. I read it and it was awesome. That's what I want to talk about today.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Yeah. You tweeted, I think you tweeted, "Love the grind." Yes. That was your tweet. I saw that and I had been kind of drafting that blog post for a while. Quite frankly, I was wrestling with whether to even make it a blog post. Like, how relevant is it? But I hadn't really thought about it in quite a while. The reality is where that comes from, it's frankly an indictment of my career in the early stages. I remember when I started thinking that way. I remember when it was where I was.
--:-- Chad Eddy: I was on the tarmac at O'Hare flying home. I took the red eye from San Francisco home and it was my last day on the job with the company I was with. I was transitioning to a new job, new company, new role. I just remember thinking, "What is wrong with me?" It was my fourth company, my third career change in my first eight years of my career. I just had this moment of, "I'm excited, but something isn't right." I had this burned out but super reflective moment of, "What is wrong with me? I'm making all these changes. Where am I going? What am I doing with my career?"
--:-- Chad Eddy: So heading into this new job, new company, new everything, I'm going, "All right, what's going to be different this time?" I've gone through all these roles, these companies. Great jobs, great companies, no complaints, but I'm in this churn. I got this visual of, I thought I was in this groove. I thought everything was going great. Then all of a sudden you find yourself, for me anyway, sort of desperate for a change. Having gone through that in such a short period of time, I started thinking, "Danger Will Robinson, what's going on here?"
--:-- Chad Eddy: In that next role is when I really started leading people and getting more into that kind of job. I realized everyone's going through it too. Now I'm leading people who are coming to me with these same things. I don't want to call it burnout because I think that's maybe part of it, but it's different. They're going through this cycle of, "Hey, I'm kind of ready for something new," or, "Hey, I'm almost in this victim cycle." And I talk about it. It helped me realize that's what I went through. You go through this super committed, super excited, you got this new thing and it's exhausting. Then you figure it out and you get in this rhythm. But all of a sudden you wake up and it's like, "I think I'm being left out. I don't think I'm valuable anymore." And you almost get desperate.
--:-- Chad Eddy: When I put that blog on paper, those words, I have distinct visuals of interactions with folks that I led or self-reflection. As I really put that blog post together into more specific words, that's descriptive of what I've gone through, what people I led have gone through. It just got clearer and clearer as the years went on that there's this cycle going on. I attribute it maybe to some extent of the time that I went through. I'm going to date myself, but my career really started in the mid-90s. If you look at that time frame, there was a lot of stuff going on. The Internet was coming to fruition. Technology was coming. It was super disruptive. That's not unique, obviously there's all sorts of points in time you can point to. But my point is it just felt like it was on a hyper schedule. This cycle was getting shorter and shorter and things were getting more and more intense. My conversations with people about feeling like the need to do something different or feeling like they've been left out was getting more and more intense and happening more and more frequently.
--:-- Chad Eddy: I just think that was the nature of the 90s, Y2K, early 2000s. There was just so much going on. It was very easy to get caught in a cycle of you get into this new thing, you finally figure it out, and before too long you feel like you're being left out. It's like, "Man, I just mastered this thing. But how am I already left out?"
--:-- Chad Eddy: So anyway, I caught myself talking to myself that way, talking to my direct reports that way. People started talking about it. I don't have the market cornered on this idea of the groove and the rut. You can Google "the groove and the rut," there's all sorts of people that have written about that as a career analogy. But people started talking about it. I remember being kind of later down the road in a sales training class and the guy talking about from a sales cycle perspective, depending on the length of the sales cycle, be careful. You can feel like you're in a groove but you can get in a rut, and when you get in the rut it kind of hits you. So be careful about that. I remember thinking, "Yeah, that's it." It's this very fuzzy line between being in a groove and all of a sudden finding yourself in a rut. Those words started resonating. I kind of added on the grind, the grind of doing something new, it's exciting and all that kind of stuff, but it's hard freaking work. And then kind of the grave at the end, if you're not careful, you are going to be left out.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's funny. This is going to date me. I graduated high school in '99, graduated college in 2003. I hit the workforce 2003 hard. I had a very similar thing in that I changed jobs. Really, except for the Murray Group, and I guess you could consider Trusted Choice.com Agency Nation days because I was there for four years, a little over four years. I've done a lot of job hopping. A lot. When I read this, one of the things that immediately resonated with me is how this is exactly how it happens. Some of it for me, in starting Rogue, I've talked enough on this podcast about my... I kind of hit a wall at the Murray Group. I hit a wall at Agency Nation. I hit a wall at Old Penguin. I hit a very, very large and thick wall at the fitness business. Then there was a whole series of jobs before that. I had a whole life, four years of career jobs before I joined the Murray Group. So it wasn't like the Murray Group was my first job. I worked for American Express in the financial district. I worked for RSM McGladrey. I traveled all over the country as an accounting consultant. I worked in DC. I had clients that were government contractors. Every year and a half, every 18 to 24 months, I started looking around going, "This is it. This is what I'm going to do." Which is a crazy thought. I'm 24 years old and I'm already like, "This is the rest of my life." Now looking back at it, it seems crazy, but at the time it feels very real.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: My point in saying all this is that this was also because of the internet. I'm interested in your take on it. This was also a time of the kind of... I don't know the best way to describe it, but all the happiness nonsense. You're supposed to be happy, which I firmly disagree. Today, my philosophy is not that I'm supposed to be happy. Happy is a potential result of purpose and meaning in your life. If you can find purpose and meaning, then happiness is the result of those things. Guys like Jordan Peterson and Andy Frisella and Jocko Willink, and a lot of people today who have kind of flipped this back on its head. But that late 90s, early internet days of, "We all should be happy in our career. We all should be entrepreneurs. Or you're not really doing anything with your life." I felt like that created a lot of these feelings of 18 months in. You're going, "Well, geez, how come they haven't given me ownership in American Express yet? How come I'm not on the board of directors? I've been here for 18 months. I've pushed spreadsheets across my laptop for 18 months now. How come they're not acknowledging my contribution to the company?" It's just crazy the way our minds work.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Yeah, I think you touched on something about being happy. There's all sorts of things coming out. If you've read *The Happiness Advantage*, books like that, yeah, it's ass backwards. When I look back at all the changes and this journey that I think is very real for all of us, if you're not careful, you just get in this mundane mode of just going through life. There's a self-awareness that has to happen. Looking back at my career, I did not have the maturity or frankly the level of accountability and self-accountability to recognize I was just pushing opportunity, not really thinking, "Is this what I'm passionate about?" The whole idea of joy and fulfillment comes with purpose. I just didn't have a sense of that. I think I was probably naturally susceptible to this cycle of just getting burned out. To your point of, "All right, I've been busting my hump for two years. Where's the reward?" That's just not how it should work. It's not how it works.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Not how it works.
--:-- Chad Eddy: So yeah. I do think, as I've talked with guys like you and see what Seth Zaremba's doing and all the things happening around us, that's what occurred to me in the last few weeks. I'm like, "All right, I got to get this concept down on paper because it's happening again." From my standpoint, it feels like it's happening again. The world around us is really moving fast and changing. The other thing, as I shared with you, I was kind of going through this, "What the hell's wrong with me?" introspective process. Really nothing. I do think there's a healthy level of paranoia. I wrote in the blog, "Only the paranoid survive." When I got my hands on that book, it was really sort of a relief. It was like, "Hey, there's nothing wrong with being paranoid to a healthy level." You got to be aware of what's happening around you. As we know, change is going to happen. The question is, are you going to drive it or be a recipient of it?
--:-- Chad Eddy: I think guys like you and obviously Seth and some of the other agents like you that I've gotten to know, there are guys that are like, "Man, I'm going to be ahead of that curve no matter what." That's just your personality. You and I have talked about comfort in risk, comfort in being on the bleeding edge. That's scary to a lot of people. It's scary to think, "I can't take that risk. I don't want to go through that grind. That's too much work." On the other hand, it sucks to wake up one day and say, "Oh, someone's changed my world. Now what do I do?" So you have to realize, what do I do in the middle of all this stuff?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If I'm being very self-aware, I would say that what ruined both the Murray Group and probably Agency Nation and Trusted Choice to a certain extent is I got into a groove with both organizations and I became comfortable and entitled to a certain extent in both places. It doesn't mean I wasn't trying new things, but I was certainly not like... I'll give you a very real world example. I have a six and a four year old children, both boys. When we walk through a parking lot, I say to them, "Head on a swivel. Keep your head up. Always look. People are stupid. Don't be right. Don't be stupid because they're going to do something stupid." These faceless proverbial people. We all know when you get into a parking lot, most people's IQ drops about 50 points. I tell them, "I can't, if a car backs up, I might not be able to get to you fast enough. So get your head up and look at the world around you because this is a place that you can die." I say that to a four year old and a six year old not because I want to scare them and not because I'm trying to be apocalyptic, but I want them to know that yes, I'm your dad, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that you're not injured. But I can't. You got to take ownership of your life.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think what happens in that groove to rut standpoint is we start taking things for granted. We start looking at our feet instead of looking at the horizon. It's because we've just done the same thing so many times and become so good at it. That's how we got into the groove. We start to put our head down a little more and fiddle with our ear pods. Now some mom who's got three screaming kids isn't paying attention and she throws it in reverse and something bad happens. It's not necessarily her fault. It's not necessarily your fault, but the bad things still happen and it could have been avoided with awareness. It's really, really difficult. That was one of the things that I took away from it. I think it's an important lesson. You have to take ownership for your life.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Yeah, no doubt. Being entitled is a good way to look at it. I went through it too. You put in all this time, you put in all this blood, sweat and tears, clearly I'm owed something, right? There's nothing wrong with the groove. Even today it's like, "God, I hope today is easy. I hope today I can do my four things and call it a day." You go through that. There's nothing wrong with that. You just get lulled into this sense of, "All right, I'm a master at this." I mentioned it in my blog, you can quickly get that sense of being entitled that this place would be screwed without me. I've built all this value. I know how to do this. No one can do it my way.
--:-- Chad Eddy: I remember some feedback or guidance I got from some of my bosses in the past. One of them was, "Be very careful when you think the company can't survive without you."
--:-- Chad Eddy: She knew. I'll never forget that. She was one of my best bosses. That was one of those direct moments I needed to hear that because that's exactly what I was. She sensed it. I had this sense of entitlement because damn it, I put all this work into this. I'm working harder than anybody. They'll never do anything to me. I'm good now. That's a dangerous spot to be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think this is important. I've been getting a lot of calls recently from producers and individuals around the country who are thinking about opening their own shop. That makes sense because I just opened mine and I have the podcast and I love it. I'm happy to take every one of those calls. Like I said on the podcast a couple of days ago, I reserve Fridays in particular for those types of calls. Today's a Friday. I do podcasts on Friday. I do my non-revenue generating Rogue stuff for the most part. I save it for Fridays. Please don't take that as I don't want you to reach out. Please do because I want to help. That's why I do the podcast in the first place.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But I've been getting a lot of these calls and there are two main reasons for wanting to start your own agency. One is, "They don't listen to me. They don't do the things that I want to do. I want to be this kind of agency." I would classify those as... I don't know the rest of the way to put this. I don't think it's necessarily coming from a bad place, but I feel like those people are not self-aware. They haven't really taken stock of the fact that that person that you're trashing... Look, I did it too. I used to give my father-in-law such a hard time. Now I look at him as the best blessing I could have ever had as teaching me the business. But when I was there, I used to say, "Oh, he won't do this. He doesn't listen to me here." Whatever. So I get it. But I think people look at it and they're like, "If only I had this thing, or if they just bought this tool, or they just went and got this market for me, then I'd be able to do my job better. I'm going to start my own agency so I can go do that."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Then the other side is someone who says, "I have a vision for a lifestyle or a way of delivering the product. I need to support my family. I want to..." They have a real reason and a purpose, or an opportunity is ending and it's time to think about what the actual next step is.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think this concept, and it's why I wanted to have you on, is I feel like a lot of people in our industry right now are having these thoughts. They've done something for a while. They're feeling some sort of grinding because they see Nick Ayers posting crazy shit about Better Agency and they're like, "If only I had Better Agency, then all my wildest..." And look, Better Agency is a great tool. But they see these flashy toys and they think that the grass is greener. I guess why I really wanted to talk to you about is it might be, but it also might not be. Let's understand how we walk through why you might be having these feelings and how we make this decision in a very healthy way versus just, "These bad old fat white guys won't give me the shit that I want, and that's why I'm not making as much money as I want."
--:-- Chad Eddy: Right. Well, yeah. So two things. One, that's the proverbial, you're running from something or you're running to something. That is the moment I can say as well where I realized I was being the ultimate victim. I talk about that all the time in our culture because I lived that myself. I was the proverbial victim. I wasn't happy and it was always someone else's fault. It was like, "If I could be somewhere else, it'd be much better." Finally, you have this realization of it is not them. It is me. It was 100% me. I was not clear on what I wanted to be when I grew up. What was my passion? What was my purpose? Then you know what, just go get it. It's no one else's fault. You just go get it.
--:-- Chad Eddy: I remember specifically having that moment of clarity. As I refer to it respectfully with some of my peers now, that was the moment I fired myself from where I was. When you realize I can't walk around blaming people for my woes anymore. I just can't. If there's something else better for me, it's now on me to go get it. I think there's that process. I speak to that respectfully just because I know I went through it. I'll admit it 100%. I went through that victim cycle. But then once you're on this journey of the grind, the groove, the rut, and the grave, when you're doing what you're passionate about, it's not a bad thing. When you're doing it for something you're not passionate about, it's a pain in the ass. There's all the emotions that come with it and entitlement and all that stuff. But when you're doing what you love, and that's the blessing I have now in the job I have now and working with guys like you, every day is a grind. The industry we're in and what it's going through, it's a grind. Some days, yes, that's a pain in the ass, but you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I like that. I like that because I hadn't necessarily framed it that way in my head, but I think you're a hundred percent right. There's a good chance that you're properly aligned if it feels like a grind every day. Because it does. I love what I do. It's hard as shit. There are days when I get done and I'm like, "I hated today. Today was the worst. I just hated the day." But I still love what I do. I love the insurance business.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Someone asked me the other day, or it was a comment. His exact words were, "I'm still surprised you chose starting an agency over starting a marketing company." I think that's a fair comment if people were to watch me from the outside. The reason that I didn't start a marketing agency is because it would have been too easy. I don't mean easy like the work would have been easy. I just mean, I know marketing. I know it cold. I can talk about it in my sleep.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I want to be challenged in different ways to get better. I don't want to just be a marketing guy. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't mean to knock every person who's a marketing person. But I've been a chief marketing officer. I've played that role. I've worked that process. There was a next step. I also have a vision for what an independent agency can be in the future. I wanted to make that come to fruition. I have a very clear vision of what that is. I needed that challenge.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Do I hate setting up freaking phone systems and connecting this stupid service to this stupid service? And why isn't my text messaging working today? And all I want to do is write this account, but this underwriter is having a bad day. This is all the stuff that makes you nuts. But it also is really challenging and it's a grind every day. I feel like that's a really good way of positioning that. That was a really long-winded way of saying, I think your concept of if you find yourself in a groove, that might be the first trigger you need to do some self-assessment.
--:-- Chad Eddy: 100%. Pick your head up. I was thinking as you were talking there too. One thing I now get in a habit of doing is I walk through this concept with new hires. Who are we hiring if we're in this world and we're in this company trying to do things and keep up with guys like you and the tech companies in the industry? Because if we don't, we're not going to be relevant. That window of opportunity feels like it just gets smaller and smaller by the day. You wake up every day and you're like, "Okay, where is that surprise coming from? Should I pay attention to it? Should I not?" Nevertheless, I need to pick my head up and make sure. That's disruptive.
--:-- Chad Eddy: When you're leading people, you and I've talked about leadership styles, when you lead people and the impact of that to some people who don't have maybe the tolerance or capacity to handle this ever-changing... "Okay, guys, we're doing something new today." And it was like, "Well, shit, you just told us to do something new last week. I haven't figured that out yet. Now we're onto the next new thing." Some people aren't wired that way, right?
--:-- Chad Eddy: So you got to be somewhat careful and empathetic. They're not going to accelerate this process as fast as guys like you and I might. And two, there's nothing wrong with people who like routine. They like, "I know when I show up today, I'm going to do my 10 things and I'm going to do it really well, but I know it's just going to be those 10 things." There's nothing wrong with that. But on the same token, that's not going to get you there if you're in this for the long haul, because you become replaceable at that point.
--:-- Chad Eddy: One of the things that's going to feel draconian, but the deeper I get into business, I feel stronger about this. Every week, I tweet in lowercase letters: "personal responsibility." I tweet that because if there is anything that I value in another human and anything that I judge myself on more, it's personal responsibility. Both moments where I take it and how much. And in moments when I don't take personal responsibility, when I find myself going, "Geez, this..." like I just bitched before about the underwriter. It's not the underwriter's fault. It's his or her job to make this decision. They made a decision. That's not their fault. They made a decision on what they thought was in the best interest of their job or their company.
--:-- Chad Eddy: I'm trying to get to—and I will never get there—being the kind of person who takes 100% personal responsibility for everything that happens in my life. Good, bad, ugly, it's my fault. I have to deal with the repercussions. I think a lot of the nonsense we deal with in the world today, or what I view as nonsense, is people trying to pass off that responsibility to others. That's not a political statement because I think this happens across the aisle, up and down.
--:-- Chad Eddy: When I see young producers who ask me about starting an agency, and I can tell they're approaching it from a place of victimhood and not from that... That's the key for me. If I hear in your voice, "I'm taking responsibility for my life," and that responsibility includes, "I want to write agribusiness. I want to be the biggest, baddest agribusiness writer in the state of Oklahoma. I want to do it my way. I believe I have a good..." That is a really... You're going to go out, you're going to get the markets, you're going to deal with the pain. You're not going to pay yourself for three years. That's taking personal responsibility.
--:-- Chad Eddy: The other side of the conversation: "They won't give me this, so I can't be here, so I'm just going to go start my own agency so that I can do that." You are going to fail because you are not... And that's a big part of this thing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: 100%. There's a book called *The Oz Principle*. I referenced it in my blog. It changed my life personally, changed me professionally. That moment I mentioned to you where I fired myself from the previous role—I say that proverbially, I didn't really walk in and fire myself—but I made the commitment that I was going to take my life and my career in a different direction. *The Oz Principle* talks about exactly that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The concept in general, and this is what got me thinking differently and really recognizing my first step into accountability, was I really needed to rehabilitate myself and my attitude and how I viewed problems and how I viewed others. This concept of "above the line" behavior and "below the line" behavior. It's super simple. Below the line, you're a victim. It's everyone else's fault. You're finger pointing. You're going to wait and see. I talk about it in the blog, from the groove to the rut. That's what happens. You get in this very complacent, "It's not my job. It's everyone else's fault." It's easy to finger point excuses, all those things.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: When I referenced that point in my career where it's like, "All right, I got to change my own attitude, my own behavior, and I got to change the direction of my life," I'm like, "That is me." It's really humbling to read that and go, "Ah, shit, that's me. And I don't want to be that guy." Above the line says, "Man, there are problems. The world is flawed. Humans are flawed. We are going to run into problems and challenges. The question is, what are you going to do about it?" So you ask that question: "What more can I do to achieve the results we need?" That's their kind of... And when you refocus on that question... By the way, it is okay to be a victim, you just can't stay there. They really harp on that.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Things happen in our life that are out of our control.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's a good point.
--:-- Chad Eddy: No, exactly. Yeah. Well, and to... I get very fixated on it because the book kind of cautions against this, and I fall into this. When you go through that journey personally, and you realize how empowering that is—like, "I'm still capable, I'm still capable of taking action, I'm still capable of getting to where I need to go. It may have to be a different course or through different people. That's fine. But keep going," as opposed to being a victim in the moment. It cautions you to not be too extreme. And I do. My team gets on me about it. I do get too extreme because once you live through that and you can see the benefits of it, not only for you personally but with people around you, it becomes such a high expectation.
--:-- Chad Eddy: To your point, when you listen, you can start really picking up on, "Man, when I hear excuses, alarms start going off and I start crawling in my skin." But that's not fair either because I can be a victim just as fast as everyone else. The deal is, how do you coach people to that above the line? "Okay, now what do we need to do to get the results we need?" Get refocused on looking forward and being action oriented, as opposed to backward looking and blame and fault and woe is me.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think that's an excellent lesson or point for leaders who have these younger producers who are giving them some trouble or some flack about their position. I get that feedback sometimes too, and I'm sure you do as well. It's so easy to be judgmental when you hear excuses or the victimhood mentality from other people. We have to be compassionate at the same time. These are opportunities.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think Sydney spoke about this in public, so I don't think I'm giving anything up. I used to literally lay into her when I heard her taking a victimhood mentality, because one, I knew the kind of rock star that she actually was, and I wanted her to be everything that she had told me she wanted to be. She's dominating at Neon, so I'm so happy for her. But there is a fine line between hearing excuses and turning and judging that person, kind of saying, "Ah, they're never..." kind of being turned off by them, and saying, "I hear your excuses. I don't agree with them, but I'm going to help you work through them because I want you to get to the other side." I think those are two different mentalities.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We have a lot of agency owners who are unwilling to come down to that mentorship level. They just want to say, "Hey, I walked in the snow barefoot to school seven miles for the first 47 years of my life. You should too." That's ridiculous. I think that's where the disconnect happens. When you have someone who is coming to the business and they start to get that victimhood mentality or that excuse-making mentality, and then they're not paired with a leader who will come down and help mentor them out of it, it's really difficult to be self-aware enough to pull yourself out. I wasn't. I've had people punch me in the face with a sack of crap and say, "Hey, look, you're making excuses. This is as much your fault as it is anyone else's."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It wasn't like I just had some special power. I fell into it twice this year. Once when I got fired from the fitness company and once when COVID hit after I just started my business. I would for months at a time after both those incidents—which are inside a 12-month cycle from where we are—I found myself in that pity party, woe is me place and had to dig myself back out. But that's because I was mentored on how to do that, to register it. I think a lot of people just haven't been taught those lessons.
--:-- Chad Eddy: 100%. And as you know, for guys like you, running a business is a lonely gig sometimes. Who holds you accountable? Finding a peer group. I certainly have it with the agents I get to work with who are owners of Indium. Like you said, sometimes you need to hear it from an outside source. It hits you between the eyes. It's hard. I just went through it last week. I give the feedback and it's like, "What do you mean I'm not a victim? That's not me. I'm the one preaching about victimhood and accountability." Then you sleep on it a day and you wake up the next day and you're like, "Hell, shit, yes, I was the victim in the moment and I needed to hear that." You need people around you that can do that for you.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Now the hard part is as people leaders. In our model, we're kind of responsible for both ends of a transaction. You mentioned Jocko Willink and *Extreme Ownership*, my next favorite book. I talk to my team all the time about extreme ownership. Just own it. Just own it and solve it. Because we too can fall into that mode of, "Well, it was the carrier. It was the underwriter." We throw up our hands like, "Oh, if the agent only got back to me." That's the stuff that makes my hair on the back of my neck rise, because that's going below the line. "I'm a victim of my circumstances." And it's like, no, agents won't tolerate that, carriers won't tolerate it, and we of all people shouldn't tolerate that.
--:-- Chad Eddy: To your point, I've been through that personally, still on that journey of being good at it, but not many people have. So I have to remind myself, "All right, pump the brakes, don't be so critical, because I will get there." Again, my team gets on me because I'm hyper about it and sometimes too critical. Then people can shut down. So like you said, you got to listen, you got to be empathetic, but ultimately you got to teach them how to change your mindset, change your attitude, find a path to solving a problem. That's all people care about. People don't want excuses, especially in our world. They don't care that it was the underwriter's fault. No one cares. They just want to know we're working on it and we're owning it and we're getting you guys a solution.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's hard work. We're humans. We're flawed. That's hard work.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Another really good book that's in line with Jocko Willink is *Discipline Equals Freedom*. *The Dichotomy of Leadership* is another tremendous book that he wrote as well. His kids' books are actually really good too. I have one of them. I read the kids' books to the kids, though adults could read them as well. They're that good.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I mentioned Andy Frisella before. He's got a really popular podcast, *Real AF*. He curses a lot if that offends you. He wrote a book called *75 Hard*. It talks about a program he created. I've been following it for a while. I did it for three days and then wanted a beer at the end of the week, so I dropped out. But the mentality that he has, it's all about mental toughness. I talked a couple podcasts ago about how I do these cold calling affirmations. One of the affirmations is, "I am mentally tough." I'll write that two or three times and I'll repeat it back. "I am mentally tough."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The truth is, I love carbs and bread and shitty stuff for me. I love it. People look at me and say, "Oh, you're thin." I'm not trying to humble brag there. I have the propensity to throw 10 pounds on like that. It is freaking hard work for me. If I see a piece of bread, I want to eat that shit. I get sugar and I just have that in me. I have to be mentally tough. It gives me headaches. I get inflammation. I get joint pain. I try to do an anti-inflammatory diet. I have the propensity to go down rabbit holes that aren't work related. I love to learn and I'll use that as an excuse to not actually do the work. I'll take a call from someone I shouldn't take a call from at a time I shouldn't take it because I like talking to people. That's the excuse for not getting the work done.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: This idea of mental toughness, it is the heart. It is so hard. Whether it's David Goggins, Jocko Willink, Andy Frisella, some of the stuff Rogan talks about or the people he has on... When you line all these people up together, and some of the best producers that I know, some of the best agency owners that I know, even if they're not running 100-mile ultramarathons, when you take the skill set that makes them successful in their agency, it is this idea that they do not cut corners. They hold themselves to a set of standards that create success, and they just don't compromise around them.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I find it very tough. I was not granted a huge amount of natural willpower. I just don't have it. I have to work at it. But I do think this is one of the defining characteristics. I really struggle with finding something else. I really do. I struggle with finding a different path. I don't want anyone to give me anything. I want to work for it, or trade services, or whatever. That's how we get there. It's that hard work.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Right. I think, like you've talked about, when you have a propensity to learn new stuff... Maybe that's a little bit of ADD. I'm not a doctor. But that's not a bad thing. The capacity and the inherent interest to learn something new is a good thing. There's just... I go through it myself. With the world we live in and all the newness, all the bright objects out there, it's like, "Oh, should I be doing that? Should I be doing that?" It leads to a lack of focus. But what's the balance between being aware, being creative, accepting new things, but then being totally distracted? Or being so focused and so disciplined and so regimented and in your kind of groove and routine that you're so narrow focused, you're irrelevant?
--:-- Chad Eddy: I find that a struggle with me because I am creative and I like new stuff and I like to dabble and I like to learn by myself. I like to go through that kind of muddy, messy process of figuring crap out. I'm not afraid of that. Although that might lead to a bunch of wasted time and maybe I should have been doing something else, but I've learned something new that leads to something else. So I have myself struggle with how do you balance all that?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think that's where we come back to the article that you wrote. Having the self-awareness to understand when you're in the groove—to me, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's only if you do not take the time to have self-awareness, to reevaluate, to say, "Okay, I'm starting to do good, which is a good thing. But if I ever want to be great, I have to get to this point." Otherwise, good just turns into, "Oh, I've been a B-minus player for five years here. How come I don't have ownership in the agency?" And the agency owners are going, "Because you've been a frigging B-minus player for the last five years here. That's why you don't own part of this agency." That disconnect is very real.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If I had to evaluate why I left the Murray Group, I think it was because of this sense of entitlement and a lack of self-awareness over the value that I was bringing. I think that I brought a lot of value, but I certainly think I could have done a lot better if I was self-aware. I wasn't. I was a cocky young prick who valued himself way more than probably I was worth. Unfortunately, a lot of my peers of that age, that 28 to 37-year-old range, you're starting to feel your oats a little bit. You're starting to understand who you are and what you're good at. Your life is settled in a little bit, and you're pushing forward. I think it's important that we take a step and go, "Am I just a solid B player, or am I that A player who really does deserve to make it to the next level?"
--:-- Ryan Hanley: This concept of mental toughness and ownership and personal responsibility, I think, are the difference between the A and B players. I know A players that have no natural given skills, but they're absolute positive A players. All of them have these similar characteristics. They don't make excuses. They don't cut corners. They're focused on what gets results. They seem like trivial, wishy-washy things, but they really are the things.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Yeah. Ryan, you and I have talked about our baseball backgrounds and just being an athlete. One, you're inherently competitive. So you don't strike me as someone who's just going to be complacent and kick your feet up and say, "I've made it and I'm riding it out." When you have that competitive streak, it just keeps you on that edge. Having a healthy level of paranoia is a good thing. Being aware and being competitive, I see it in you, I see it in a handful of these other guys.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Like you said, we're seeing a trend of producers spinning off from these agencies. You've nailed it. You've probably talked to all of them going, "I want to hang my own shingle because I want to do my own thing." As we talk to those guys, they're all competitive. They've got a vision of something better for themselves. They've got an ability to be disciplined, and maybe they're still figuring that out. But I think that's the difference. They're not going to tolerate being a B player. They always wanted to be an A player. But guys like you and them, they all know if I'm going to be an A player, I've got to do it my way. There's nothing wrong with that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I wholly agree. I want to take these last few minutes that we have together and give an enormous plug and shout out to you and the work that you and your team are doing. For anyone who's listening that doesn't know, I am a member of Indium, very proudly. There are many good network market access groups out there, but if there's a list, Indium is right at the top. It's going to be right for some people, not right for others, but for the people it's right for, you guys are one of the best. I feel honored to be part of it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I got on Jason Cass the other day because he put out an article or he did a podcast where he was talking about the growth of an agency. It's a wonderful series. You should absolutely listen to it. One of the things he said was he insinuated that network market access aggregator type business models weren't necessarily in the best interest. I know he wasn't talking about all of them. He was not very coyly talking about one very specific version of that model. My point to him was, "Dude, not everyone knows who you're talking about. I know exactly who you're talking about. Not everyone does."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The other side of it is, I don't know that we can do this alone anymore. I think there was a time when it was very possible. If you got the right markets at the right time and did good business, you could be an independent, true, wholly independent direct contract agency and operate and be profitable and happy. I think there was a time when that was both possible and prudent. I don't think that time is now anymore. Yes, it's great to have direct markets. Absolutely, positively it is. But I also think we need each other.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Everyone listening, I have zero financial interest. Indium is not a sponsor of the show. I'm not saying you should even join Indium. I just want people to know that I have found being part of Indium, having them as a... I use them in my own specific way. Other people use you guys in different ways. For what I need Indium for, I could not be as successful as I am to this point without them. I think we need each other. Finding the right agency network is part of the future. I think it'll take all ways, shapes, and forms. We'll find these little five-agency clusters that are just this little thing they created. I think they'll be big. I think SAA and all their master agencies will still be around. There'll be Indiums. There'll be CLIs. There'll be all these different things.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: For a long time, there was this concept that if you had to join a network, you had done something wrong. You had messed up somewhere down the road. They were bailing you out. It would be huge news: "X agency joins this network." Everyone would go, "Oh, I wonder what happened. He must be having an affair or something." I feel like those days are gone. Now it's more like, "Hey, what club am I going to join?" It's more like a country club. "Hey, which country club am I going to join? I'm kind of looking at this one. I'm looking at this one. I really like the spa over here." I'm happy for that because what it does is it allows Ryan Evans and Rob Bowen and some of these other guys to have opportunities to write business and grow the agency in the exact way that they want to, that they didn't have before.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I just wanted to say that I appreciate you. I appreciate our relationship that we've developed. I think the world of your organization. I wanted to say that publicly on air for everyone.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Man, thanks, Ryan. I really appreciate that. I didn't ask you to do that, but I really, really appreciate it. Likewise, I feel very fortunate to be in this organization that works with agencies like you. Being led—as you and I have always talked about—being owned and led by independent agents keeps me honest. There's a certain level of accountability when I get to work with a group of agents who have to take our message out to the street to their peers and say, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" It's always got to be agent friendly. We're never a silver bullet.
--:-- Chad Eddy: I sometimes raise my eyebrows when people talk about "Here's what agents need. Every agent needs X." It's like, no. If I've learned anything to your point of independent agents, they're all different. They all need something different. They've got a different attitude or different vision. A group like us, thankfully, I get to talk to agents all over the country that need something different. That makes it interesting. Back to the grind, every day is a grind because I do something new and interesting with someone from another state, another part of the country. It's really cool to be able to do that. So I appreciate that plug and I appreciate you having me on today.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Awesome, man. Nothing but the best to you. We'll talk again soon, I'm sure. Appreciate you and I appreciate everyone for listening. We're gonna get out of here.
--:-- Chad Eddy: Awesome.
