--:-- Ryan Hanley: [Music fades] In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I brought some of my working knowledge tools with me today, thinking that maybe at some point they might help. I've got a lot of reasons why I'm able to continue to make the progress that I've made so far. So back to you, sir.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: No. So let's go there. I'm interested. Here we are. It's February going on March. We've got one more month in the first quarter. And we've kind of shaken COVID for the most part. It's not gone, but it feels like we have a much better grip. It's not going to turn back into the Middle Ages. At least COVID isn't going to be what sends us back there.
--:-- So how do we start to refocus? A lot of producers, a lot of agency owners listen to the show. How do we start to pull it back in to get back to grinding? And do we need to recalibrate? I'm going to start very big and we'll drill down as we go. Where does your mind go when I ask you that question?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: You said one of the key words, which is "our mind." Because at the end of the day, our mindset is our skill set. There's absolutely no question about that. I can go on with a long set of acronyms about what comes to my mind when I hear that. The only other one I will add is that what we perceive is what we believe.
--:-- I was with a coaching client just yesterday, and I've got it right here. I know we're on audio only, but I was showing him a visual. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we have our life. We're all privileged to have our life. And if you're fortunate to have a life with health and great people around you, you're extremely privileged. We have to understand what it is. We have to know where we're going. Knowing our destination is all we need to get there.
--:-- We get to—we don't have to do anything. We get to design our own life. We get to create it. We begin to create whatever life it is that we want. There are two sides to life: personal and professional. If we're talking about the professional realm, we get to design and create our professional life. Once we begin to create it, we've got to set an expectation bar. We all have different comfort zones. Those who make the greatest progress in this world are those who are willing to live outside of their comfort zone. Progress begins outside of your comfort zone. You've got to get comfortable being uncomfortable if you're going to be in the high achievement realm in today's business and personal world. I'll leave it at that.
--:-- But once you set that expectation bar and know your destination, then you've got to begin the hard stuff. Ryan, I think that's what separates people nowadays—the achievers versus the ho-hums, or those who aren't achieving what they want to achieve. They're not willing to do the hard thing, which is thinking. It takes a lot of thought and a lot of planning. What are you doing in the thinking realm to fuel your future destination? Then it begins to the middle of the circle in a visual I'm looking at right now. It's what you put into your mind that makes all the difference. I'll be happy to share with you today how I do it and how I've made a lot of progress by doing things a certain way.
--:-- I'm also looking at a study I recently did of the highest achieving people in business, period. Some inside our industry, a lot outside. Let me read you the characteristic attributes of these people. May I?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Oh, yeah. Fire away, man.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I want you to keep in the back of your mind, when I read these attributes, keep in mind: knowledge, skills, and attitude.
--:-- The highest achieving people out there in business are passionate. They are focused. They are determined. They are persistent. They are driven. They are risk takers—you've got to take some risk in this world. Easy street is not going to lead you where you really want to go based on what I've observed so far. The highest achieving people have an amount of visionary within them. They're visionaries. They're adaptable or agile—I'll get back to that. They're positive. Back to the input. And they're inquisitive.
--:-- Let's break this down. I talked about knowledge, skills, and attitude. On this study, I wrote down next to each one of those words: is it an attitude, a skill, or knowledge? Passion—that's attitude. Being focused—that's a skill. You train yourself. Determination—that's attitude. Being persistent—that's attitude. Being driven—that's attitude. A risk taker—that's attitude, but it also requires some knowledge. The more knowledge you have, the greater your capacity for risk. Being a visionary—that's some knowledge, but a lot of it's attitude. Being adaptable or agile—that's some skill, but there's attitude there as well. Being positive—that's attitude. Being inquisitive—that's attitude.
--:-- So what's the secret? Out of 11 or 12, nine of them are attitude. If you come into it with the right attitude, wanting the knowledge, wanting to hone your skills and get better at what you're doing, my friend, the sky is the absolute limit for anybody that wants to go there.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. It's funny. This last year has been very interesting for me. I started my agency on March 9th.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Kudos to you, sir. What? Kudos to you, sir.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, thanks. Like so many other people, I wish I could have gotten a heads up on COVID. Everyone always follows that comment up with, "If you can make it through COVID, you can make it through anything." I'm sure there's some truth to that, but I would have rather done it without COVID.
--:-- But to your point on attitude, if I look back over this last year and think about the periods where I felt like I was really cranking versus the periods where I felt like I just did not feel good—it was 100% the way that I showed up in the morning. It just was. I've definitely tried to work on that, but it's tough, especially when you're on your own. I find it tough to show up every day with the attitude to be successful with the things you need to do.
--:-- If there's someone out there—whether it's a producer who feels unsupported and alone, or someone building an agency who is physically alone, or someone who's suddenly working remotely and more isolated—what are some things you either do or recommend that can help put them in that framework, that attitude, when they show up each day?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Great question. It could be a really long answer. I'm going to give you some short snippets based on what I really know well, which is what I do. We all are, to an extent, isolated. I intentionally design things to push myself out of it. I'm driving to the office. There aren't too many people here, but I'm doing it almost every single day because that's what I need to do to be in high performance mode the majority of the time.
--:-- It really comes back to something as simple as having a plan, having a game plan, and designing that plan. What I've learned to do over time has really come to fruition in the last 10 years. It was probably 10 years of preparation before that which set me up for the last 10 years. I have a planned design on a weekly, quarterly, and annual basis. I have full sets of goals for both companies that I read religiously at least three times a week. It used to be five days a week, but I've changed the way I do things. It's working for me. I know where I'm going all the time. By repeating and looking at those goals consistently, it fuels my thoughts.
--:-- When you build in personal habits—exercise is really key to me—and when you build in an accountability partner, which I've also done, I get to show up. I don't have to do anything. I get to show up every Friday morning at 6:00 AM Pacific for my accountability call. I don't always want to prepare on Thursday night for the call, but I've made that commitment because commitment is the thing you said you were going to do long after the mood you set it in has passed.
--:-- To give you some advice for anybody listening: you are the result of the five people you hang around with the most. Surround yourself with like-minded people who will help you along that road. I will suggest there are multiple other people out there in almost the exact same position who might be looking for somebody to stand by their side and go along that road with them.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: What a wonderful, incredible privilege it is for us to be in this industry. There are 20,000, 30,000 agents across America. You don't look for four others. One of the other things that has become so special for me is I intentionally designed one of our programs to be full of high-achieving, like-minded people. We exchange helping them for that juice that helps us get down the road as well.
--:-- It's really about designing your life. I learned from one of my great mentors, the late Jim Rohn: you attract exactly what you are and who you've become. We've got to become more ourselves—mentally, physically, or both—before we can ever attract the kind of people we might want standing by our side.
--:-- The other thing I strongly encourage: when you create a plan, you've just got to take action. Thinking about it won't do it. Talking about it won't do it. Only action will get you to the next step. Will it be fun? No.
--:-- I've got a sheet of quotes from some of my favorite mentors. The great Les Brown said, "If you do what's easy, your life's going to be hard. But if you do what's hard, your life's going to be easy." Sometimes it's about doing that hard stuff that makes us become more. That's what causes us to become more. Then we experience what we call wins and lessons. Lessons are failures, but we don't call them that. We call them lessons.
--:-- The richest man I studied under 15 years ago—a billionaire—said, "When things go wrong, think about it like this." If anybody has experienced death close to them recently, my apologies. I'm not trying to be insincere. But he said, "When something goes wrong, did anybody die? No. We can recover." Earl Nightingale said the same thing in *The Strangest Secret*. Multiple people have lost everything multiple times and recovered because of who they became, their mindset, and everything surrounding it.
--:-- Create a plan. Create a design. I plan my day the night before. When I get up in the morning, I don't have to think about what I'm going to do. I get up and I've got habits. Someone recently challenged me on how long my habits take before I start working. It's about an hour and 15 minutes because that's the plan design I've created for my life to get done the things I need to get done and to become more for other people I am now privileged and responsible to lead. I hope that helps.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: No, that's great. There's a lot to dig into there. The first thing I want to dig into is balancing planning and action. I want to reiterate a point you made. I feel this the same way on multiple levels. The various things I've been able to do in the public space—this podcast, speaking, different jobs—it has been eye-opening. Now I'm just aware of it and appreciative of how many amazing, like-minded people there are in our industry. Like-minded in the sense of being driven, focused, wanting to achieve, and being willing to learn and listen. That has been amazing.
--:-- My point is, if you find yourself with four other people who are dopes, it's not that hard to find other people in our space who are hard charging. It's also good to find people who aren't in our space. I try to find four in our space and four outside our space because you get such a good mix.
--:-- Here's my question for you. I tend to be over-indexed on action and severely under-indexed on planning. I have friends in the industry who will plan all day long and never punch a single keystroke into the computer. How do you, regardless of which side you come from, start to find that middle ground? Anyone who listens regularly knows I just do. Oftentimes, I don't even know why I'm doing it, but I'm doing it.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Since we can see each other and a lot of people can't see us, when I hold up two fingers, that means I second or I agree. That's a long story from the family dinner table years ago. We'll save that for another day.
--:-- Ultimately, it comes back to people's personality. I will suggest your personality and my personality are in really close alignment. There are a lot of people out there whose personality is not like ours. They are the type who need to plan even more. They might need to think about it a little bit.
--:-- Here's the good news. Every person on the planet has three top personal gifts, talents, or vital functions. When somebody is able to identify those top three and operate within them 80 to 90% of their day, that's when it gets really sweet. They become even higher achievers in that realm. That's when you want to surround yourself with other people within your business who can handle what you don't do well.
--:-- I've changed the word "delegation." I don't call it that anymore. I call it "empowerment." There's a different flavor, a different meaning behind empowerment versus delegation. I'm not looking to just throw something to somebody and have it done. I'm looking to train them to do it consistently all the time so I never touch it again.
--:-- To give you an example, I've worked this thought process for a lot of years. I've always loved marketing. I love everything about it. That's one of my three. Number two is sales. I love to sell. I still love to sell. For a while, I said my third was leadership and training. One of my teammates said to me, "You always say leadership and training, marketing and sales as your top three. There's one word for leadership and training. Do you know what it is?" I said, "No, what is it?" She said, "You know what it is." I said, "Quit it. What is it?" She said, "It's coaching."
--:-- So coaching, marketing, and sales are my top three. Everything else that's not within that realm, I empower somebody else to do. That's how I get so much done. When I plan my day the night before, I circle my top three priorities. Let's say there are eight things on the list. I circle my top three. That's the only thing I'm going to work on until they're done. The others will be there. If they don't get done, they don't get done. Only the highest priorities. Normally, those highest priorities are the most difficult things as well. It's easy to do the easy stuff to make yourself feel better because you've gotten something done. But that's not the stuff that's going to make the big progressive dent and push through to the next level.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: My three would be exactly the same. Those are the three things I love the most. When I was at Agency Nation, at one point I had 19 people working for me at TrustedChoice.com and Agency Nation. In that environment, we were really dialed in to that mentality. My team didn't even want me doing anything else. If I tried to step into other things, they'd be like, "Nope, get out of here. You can listen, but don't talk. Sit in the corner." That was really good.
--:-- That's been one of the weirdest parts for me starting this agency—going from that to being all by myself. Balancing, "Okay, I've got a client pinging me 10 minutes before the show because the barcodes that came from the carrier—there are no barcodes on the ID cards. In New York, you have to have barcodes." I'm just like, "Where is the gun? I want to stick it right in my mouth." I know how important it is to the customer, and at the same time, it makes me want to run headfirst into that wall and knock myself out.
--:-- My point is, I've tempered my sales expectations for the last three months on purpose so I could get people up to speed so I don't have to do that crap anymore. I'm terrible at it. Details are not my specialty. So why be like, "I have to handle this because I'm the agency owner"? Screw that. I'm the worst one at it. I'm terrible at it. You're not actually helping your agency.
--:-- That's a really hard concept though. Why is that concept of focusing on your three things—I could not agree with you more—why is that so tough to do? Why do we still feel obligated to drag ourselves into our seventh, eighth, or ninth best function instead of focusing on those top three?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I was going to say one thing, but now I've changed my mind. I'm going to add something else first because I'm looking at my John Wooden Pyramid of Success. I don't know if you've heard of John Wooden, the UCLA coach. I saw him speak when he was 95 and a half.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Oh, wow.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I was in a small room a day before. Invite somebody else canceled. They got a ticket. "You want to go?" I'm like, "Where do I got to go?" So I was there. Oh my God. What a game-changing day that was.
--:-- I'm looking at my John Wooden Pyramid of Success. I've got it handwritten, blown up to six feet on my wall. It says, "Discipline yourself so no one else needs to." The hardest thing we will all do. It's very difficult for me.
--:-- What I was going to say earlier was distractions. We've got to position ourselves so we are not distracted the majority of the time, especially during our high-focus production time. One of my teammates gave me this. I know a lot of people can't see this, but this is a squirrel that sits on my desk. This squirrel's name is SOS. SOS is Shiny Object Syndrome. We, especially in the entrepreneurial high achievement realm, want to chase the latest and greatest thing that's going to solve all our problems.
--:-- As I was discussing with a coaching member yesterday—I had six coaching calls yesterday, and I think I talked about this in three of them—I painted them a picture. I said, "When you go to build a house, what's the first thing you create?" Ryan, you're on the East coast, correct?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I'm on the West coast. In my state, California, the first thing we do when we build a house is lay the foundation. The majority of houses out here are concrete foundations. My analogy was that the house will be nothing if that foundation itself is not rock solid and well laid. We lay a concrete foundation. We've got to make sure it's quality concrete, the right mix, nice and dry and rock solid before we begin to frame on top of it. Then we build the house on top.
--:-- Let's say it's eight years later and you want to build a second story. It's your business. You built your business for eight years. You've gotten to a point where maybe you have a few people, but you're ready to build the second story. I did that in 2016. Guess what happened? Two separate lessons—very large, significant lessons, aka failures. That's how we learn. I wanted to build the second story, but you've got to make sure that foundation and the first story are rock solid to build upon it. It's the same thing in business and in life. We've got to create the foundational habits that dictate everything we do to build upon them. It's hard. It's not sexy and it's not fun.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's been interesting to me. I do a lot of self-evaluation. I'd like to believe I have a high level of self-awareness. I'm sure certain individuals in my life might disagree with that.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Yeah.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But I'd like to believe I do because I think about what I'm doing a lot. What's been interesting is that the times when I felt like my habits were as locked in as they could be were also times when I had a strong financial base. Not necessarily meaning I was making the most money, but it was there. I knew that when I woke up in the morning, I was going to have some cash, some walking around money in my pocket. I would get up at 4:30 every morning, read for an hour, do some breathing stuff and push-ups, have my cup of coffee. I was really good at what I ate.
--:-- Starting a business from scratch where you only make as much as you kill, and most of that goes—running an insurance agency is not an inexpensive business. Most of it gets burned up in fees. I have found myself, because I feel like I always need to be growing, all my good habits went out the window. I'm staying up too late doing different things for work and then decompressing. I'm working out at different times every day, so it never feels like I'm really getting it.
--:-- Context for the question: when someone feels like they're out of whack—something's happened in their life, maybe COVID, a family member is sick, financial issues, relationship issues, their kid didn't get picked for the travel team—how do you start to pull yourself back in? What's the first step? How do you start to get yourself back into that habit train?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I learned this from a book. Everything I had any success at beginning to figure out, I learned from study, from development of my mind. There's a book called *The Traveler's Gift* by Andy Andrews, who I've spent time with personally. I meant to say something earlier, but I didn't want to interrupt you. I still have three different coaches that I invest in to continue to become more. That's how it happens. Two of those are outside the industry. Actually, all three are outside the industry. They're not entrenched primarily in our industry. There's so much knowledge out there.
--:-- *The Traveler's Gift* is about one thing: it starts with a decision. It starts with a decision that "I am going to do this, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to do this." I've got a goal. I've got an end date in mind. I've got a deadline. That may or may not become reality, but I am going to do this. I just have to know there are going to be peaks and valleys, bumps in the road, but I am going to do this. This is my goal.
--:-- It really starts with goals. Knowing your destination is all you need to get there. If you don't have a set destination, if you don't have something you can work towards, then you're just running on the hamster wheel. You're going to get the same thing you've always gotten by doing the same thing you've always been doing.
--:-- It begins with a decision: "This is what I'm going to accomplish." The way our insurance agency is set up now with roughly 18 people, it's a completely different space than I developed over time. It is what it is. It's part of progress. I've got a leadership team that I'm beholden to now. There's not a day anymore where I can come in and say, "I'm going to invest in this" and not have to ask anybody. Oh, we have this thing called a budget. Is that in the budget or not?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: So I've got to think about that, and I get to play team, and I'm totally good with that. But it's a different way of thinking.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: And again, that's another point. If you continue the same way of thinking, you're going to get the same thing you've always gotten. So sometimes we need to change our thinking. And part of that thinking is making a decision that this is where we're going with all of that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: [Host interjection] What's up guys. Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. In exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes. This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in. We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales—the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments, ratings, reviews. They check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show, subscribe if you're not subscribed, and I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments. Or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show, and I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, this stuff is so interesting to me, the games that we have to play in our head. I tie a lot of things back to my career in sports, my amateur career playing sports, and how you see peaks and valleys. What can you extract from the moments where you felt the most locked in? That can be whatever—if you did high school or college music or public speaking or whatever your thing was. It is very interesting how it all comes back to the framework we started with around your attitude each day.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: About two months ago, three months ago, I said to myself, "Okay, it's time for me to start solving the problems of the things that I'm not good at and get myself out of this." For better or worse—and this isn't a knock on anyone listening who did this the opposite—I read a lot of things in forums. I try to spend less and less time in them. I try to be helpful where possible, but otherwise I try to stay out. You read these things: "I didn't hire my first employee until I had a million dollars in this." I think that's all fine and good. I completely am unwilling to wait for some arbitrary time in the future where I've earned an employee. I just said, "Screw it. I'm going to bring someone in. I'm going to find someone who can do the things that I can't do well, and I'm going to carve this out." Does that mean I have to sell more to make sure I can pay that person? Heck yes, it does.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I started saying to myself, and I started tweeting it as a way to hold myself responsible: "Win today." That was it. That was my whole mantra. Just win today. That's all you need to do. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about yesterday. Just win this day. A lot of people ask, "What does that mean? What does win today mean?" I'm like, I don't know that it has some apocalyptic philosophical thing other than when I go to eat pancakes instead of an apple for breakfast, I say to myself, "How about you win today and let the pancakes go and have the apple? You're going to feel better, you're going to have more energy as the day goes on." Technically, you probably should be eating fat or protein in the morning, but you know what I'm saying.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's the concept—the little decisions, these little micro decisions. That's what kills us. Or me, at least. I can only speak for myself. These little micro decisions that we pass off: "I'll just skip making that call," or "I'm going to check out early today," or "I'm just going to zip over to YouTube and watch something on Bitcoin for half an hour because that's more fun than doing whatever else I'm supposed to be doing." These little micro decisions are what knock us down. All of a sudden, we find ourselves at the end of the day and we lost. Then we wonder what the problem is. It all comes back to what's going on up here in your coconut.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: And the thing that comes out of the coconut is a decision. People make the decision not to work on the top three priorities that are the next steps that are going to get the results they're looking for. Or go watch Bitcoin on YouTube or whatever else makes them feel better. It's not about what makes you feel better. Only results can be deposited in the bank, as an example, if you need more money to hire another person. I just wrote down something else. Whenever you're ready, I can jump into that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Fire away.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: So I've got two things that I just wrote down. Everybody has the same 24-7, 365. So it's a level playing field, my friend, as you know. One of the things that I learned years ago was the eight by eight by eight theory. We were designed as people. You've heard of the book by Napoleon Hill, *Think and Grow Rich*.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Absolutely.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Why is that a very popular title? Let's go back and think about that for a minute. *Think and Grow Rich*. If I think enough, I might grow rich. You know the real meaning of the title, don't you?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Think, work your ass off, and then you'll grow rich. But if they put that in the title, nobody would buy it. So *Think and Grow Rich*. The eight by eight by eight theory I learned from Napoleon Hill in my study of Napoleon Hill. We've all got eight hours that we are given to work, as an example. We go to work for eight hours. Here's the key: plan your day and work your tail off for eight hours. Stay focused and work on the things that you need to be working on to get to where you want to go—your destination, your goals. Then we should sleep for up to eight hours. Everybody needs a different amount of sleep. It is what it is. My prime space is six to seven hours. I go to bed at a certain time every night. My wife says to me, if I'm up a half hour later than her expected time for me to go to bed, she goes, "Hey, you're going to turn into a pumpkin." I say, "Oh, thanks for the reminder. All right, I'm going to bed." But I go to bed intentionally for a reason because I need a certain amount of sleep to be at my very best.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Here's the key to what everybody may be looking for. It's that third eight. What are you doing with that third eight? Are you working on something to further develop your mind or your business? Or are you playing on YouTube watching Bitcoin? The other thing I wanted to add is, because a lot of people say, "Where should I start? I don't know where to start. What's a good starting point?" I will say that it's always a good idea, as you design your future, to build in giving back. I'm so privileged. I had great parents that I didn't listen to enough because I was always a rebel pushing the envelope. But they taught me to give, too.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: If anybody has something to write with and write on, or you want to pause this, write this down. This one changed my life when I learned it about almost three months ago. Ryan, do you know how to actually motivate people?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: What I learned is you don't motivate people. You find out what motivates them and you help them get it every single day. So the writer-downer is this. I'm going to use your name. May I, Ryan?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Use away.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I'm going to fill in the blank with Ryan's name. "What can I do today to help Ryan achieve what Ryan wants?" You just fill in somebody's name where I put Ryan. "What can I do today to help blank achieve what blank wants?" It's not rocket science. Build a little bit of that in. When you give to other people, the law of reciprocity is naturally in effect. The greatest way to give is without the expectation of something in return. Sooner or later, it's going to circle back around. So as you go through your day, make sure you give a little bit.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: One of the things that makes my heart so happy is during—shall we talk about the pandemic real quick? It set an unprecedented...
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You can talk about whatever you want.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Since it's recent, I'll say this. We made a decision because we were listening to the right people. The right stuff was going into our minds as it surfaced. We were able to, because we've invested in our technology. Not me. I was out of town when it all happened. One of my teammates picked everybody up, moved them home. The next day they're operating at home. Our technology is set up like that. Grateful for that. We started studying, "Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going?" We decided that we were going to—back to the decision—we decided we were going to grow through this adversity, not just go through this adversity. It's a mindset.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: One of my awesome teammates, I'll give her public props. Andy or Wyatt came up with a phrase through that: "Let's grow." We redesigned a couple facets of one of our businesses and we grew through it. We got ourselves into the middle of the great reset. Society, personal and professional, like we knew it, will never be the same again in my opinion. It's going to look different as long as I'm alive for sure. We've got to change. If we want things to change, we've got to change. What I also learned in studying the great reset and how we're going to grow through this adversity, not just go through this adversity, was the number one character trait of a business entrepreneur learned last year. On that list that I had earlier, I said it was adaptable. It's agility. Same thing. I believe in mindset. Agility is the number one character trait that we need to possess as entrepreneurs. We've got to be able to shift on a dime because things are changing faster than we've ever experienced before. And it's going to continue. Remember, money and success love speed, and money and success never sleep. Albeit we do need our sleep. So make sure that we give, make sure that we help other people.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Through this adversity last year, I launched something that had been a three-year dream in the giving back realm called Cousins Camp. I'm privileged to have 13 grandkids. This whole platform that we've developed through our coaching and consulting programs is going to be theirs. I'm going to teach them how to use it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Wow, that's amazing.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: We're doing monthly Zoom calls because that's all we can do right now. I'm going to travel the world with them and teach them about entrepreneurship, whatever else they want to do. I just got an email yesterday—a local school wants me to come in and help them with insurance and entrepreneurship because they're in a virtual learning experience program, or Virtual Enterprise is what it's called. They want me to sit in with them and teach.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Oh my gosh, there's nothing better.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: That's a form of giving back. Figure out the way that you want to give back. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for anybody listening to this, but find something that you're passionate about, that you love, as a way to give. Make sure you schedule some of that time in there as well. Ultimately, at the end of the day, that's part of the fuel for me. When something's going wrong, when it's not been a good day—and let's be clear, it happens. I have those as often as everybody else. It's just that I've chosen, I've made a choice. I learned from Brian Tracy who talked about this. There's no such thing as time management. You know that, right?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Right.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: A lot of people throw around "time management, blah blah blah." There's no such thing. It's about the choices that people make as to what they're going to do with their time. That's what it's all about.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Make those choices to do that. When I'm having a bad day and I look at my calendar, I say, "Oh cool, I got three coaching calls coming up." When I get done with that and I help three other people figure it out because they're too close to it—there's another thing that I've learned in my own personal training and development just this year. I've said the law of reciprocity for years, but the law of familiarity. You have a family, right? Unfortunately, you're trying to share things with them that you know are helpful for them. You have children, right?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Oh, yeah.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: How old are they?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Seven and five, two boys.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Oh, you're entering into the law of familiarity hotbed. You might be sharing with your kids, "Hey, this is good. You should be doing this." And they go, "Okay, cool," and they tune you out. That's because the law of familiarity is set in. But when aunts or uncles come over, grandparents, and they say the exact same thing verbatim, they go, "Wow, that's cool." And you're like, "I just told you the same thing." It is what it is. That's the benefit of learning from people from the outside who can see things that you can't see. When helping somebody with something that they can't see and they have a win, it sets me right back to the power position: "All right, I'm focused. I'm feeling the energy again. Now I'm ready to get back to my priorities." By planning my day the night before, I just look right back at my list and go, "Boom, there it is. I'm going to tackle this."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: This is a really important point. I've had a lot of people—I'm sure you get maybe even more than me—but you get a lot of people reaching out: "Hey, can I get 15, 20 minutes? I have a question. Can I ask you a question? I got a question about this." I get a dozen of those or more a week. I can't get to everybody, but I try to get to two or three of them at least a week. I've had people say to me, "Ryan, you're starting a business. You're taking these calls. These are agents. They'll never buy anything from you. If anything, they're competitive." Then I get people who are like, "You should be charging for that. That's your time." I'm not saying any of those ideas are wrong. The point of those calls is very selfish. It makes me feel good to talk and help someone figure out a problem. That's the dirty secret—it's very selfish. When I can walk someone through a problem and give them some guidance or advice, or if I simply know the answer to their question and I can help them or put them on the path or connect them—which is probably my favorite thing, that's like the double grand slam of a call, you connect this person to this person and all of a sudden there's a match—that's selfish. I'm very selfish in doing those things. I don't want to be paid. If I had to charge somebody $200 for an hour to do something selfish, well now I'm just a jerk.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That giving back, even in a small way, is a recharging mechanism. For some people, it's coaching. For some people, it's church. For some people, it's whatever. But I agree with you that it is so important as a recharging mechanism. I feel like as business professionals, you hear this a lot in athletics. You hear it a lot in church or whatever your version of God is. You hear talk about energy. But in business, we don't talk about our energy very much. We don't talk about both physical and emotional energy and the impact that it has on our day-to-day performance. You can physically be in a space, but if your mental energy is low, if your brain isn't cycling, you're not producing, you're not really there. Whatever you've got to do to get that back up, it's an important part of your day. It's an important part of every day.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I could not agree more. Could not agree more. So, back to time for a second. I'm extremely fortunate. I too have a lot of people that want a little bit of time, and I'm totally open to that. But I've specifically designed these gaps of time that are available around on this day around this time. That's just what works for me. I don't want to disrespect them, number one. Number two, I want to be available, but this is the criteria on which you can get some of that. Case in point, when you were kind enough to reach out to me, I said, "Look, it's going to be a week or two, but let's get it on the calendar and make it happen." And here we are. We use technology to assist with that.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Ultimately, whatever works. Anybody that needs time, I say, "Look, we're one to two weeks out." Let's pause for a second because I love marketing and I know you love marketing, Ryan. I remember that old haunted house that we were running around in together in a little mini competition a number of years ago down in the great state of Texas.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: At the end of the day, now I completely lost my train of thought because I was thinking back to that competition.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Oh, yeah. The video. Wasn't it a video competition or something?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Yeah, we had to create a plan as a team. I think there were three teams of us and we were pitted against each other. The next day we did a presentation. I think you won.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I had Chris Jordan. Remember Chris Jordan?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Yeah.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: He made all those crazy videos back in the day. He actually designed CNN's website, if that's a weird...
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Wow.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, he became a web designer after that haunted house. Scared him away literally.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Yeah, exactly. So I know what I was going to say. Back to the matter at hand. Let's pause for a minute. The marketing mindset—scarcity is part of why people want to connect with you. If you're readily available all the time, then they're like, "Well, is there value there?" Even though you're not charging them for the time. I learned that from one of my greatest early marketing mentors a couple of decades ago. Scarcity is an important facet. If you're ill, you don't just walk into the doctor's office and say, "Hey, this is Ryan Hanley. I need an appointment because I'm not feeling good." They say, "Tell us your symptoms. I'll see if I can fit you in." Of course, they've created urgent care where you can go down there and wait in line if you want. But the doctor who's got the right answers, the majority of the time, you've got to get in line. So it's a small little strategy that creates value in the mind of the marketplace, if you will.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I agree. There are two things here. One, I found people to be incredibly respectful in general when they ask. If I say to them, "I try to schedule most of it for Fridays," I may have to change that because Fridays are becoming more busy. But for a while, at least during the summertime and in years past, Fridays were always a time when I could fit a call or two in. I usually try to schedule them for a half hour and basically say, "If we get to the end of a half hour and we need more, we'll schedule an hour at another time." For the most part, a half hour is more than enough. I find people to be incredibly respectful.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The other part is if you put space between the ask and the call, a lot of times the person shows up very focused on what their question is or what their problem is. If you just go, "Oh, yeah, hey, man, just call me," then you get a barf session where 20 minutes in you're like, "I don't even know how to help you. I don't know what you need." If you put some space in, they show up because they're either looking forward to it or they see it on their calendar. The time comes up and you get, "Hey man, here's what's going on. Can you help me?" Or "I tried to do this. It's not working. What would you do?" I love that because then you can come in and be a surgeon. "Hey, I had that problem, or I have a friend who solved that problem. I'm going to connect you with them." That's a really fun thing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I am such a big believer—I don't call it karma, but serendipity. I believe that you build a bank of serendipitous whatever. Serendipity coins or whatever. I'm sorry, I've been researching cryptocurrency a lot lately in my spare time, in my eight hours, which I should probably be doing something else with.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: All about choices, remember?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. Hey, well, everybody pump and dump Stellar Lumens. Let's do it. But don't tell the SEC about the fact that I just said that. I just believe that when you put that out in the world, you connect enough people, you help enough people, you give time, you give of yourself enough, that comes back. In my life, it has really proved positive. The things that I have gotten in return—I'm trying to say this in a way that is as positive as I mean it to be. I have had all the things come back a million times, and I could have never seen them. Friendships, people reaching out in times of need, opportunities creating themselves out of thin air that you could have never imagined. I can only trace it back to trying to be a giving person of time and energy.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I am very happy that there are leaders like yourself in our space who are not just teaching it, but living it. As I said, we don't know each other that well, but I believe it solely because so many people that I do know and trust say good things about you, man. This couldn't have been more enjoyable for me. Hopefully, this will be the first of many conversations that we have. I just appreciate you being giving of your time to come on the show. It's an honor and a privilege.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Thank you for even considering me to share just a little bit. I love doing it. I hope that anybody who's listening to this picked up one, two, or three ideas. My greatest encouragement, anytime that I get to share anywhere, is just take that one idea. Just take maybe those two ideas. If anything at all. And like we talked about earlier, just take action.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: It'll be the next win. It may lead to a mini lesson. But that's what's going to help us grow.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Mike, if someone wants to get at you, they want to learn more, unstoppableprofitproducer.com. Is there anywhere else? Is there a social network that you prefer? Where else can someone get in your ecosystem?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I'm on all the networks out there and have a growing following on Instagram. But Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter—I'm out there on all of those. You can search us out. Probably Facebook is the one that I see more often when I choose to spend time with, because we have six kids and 13 grandkids. That's the place where I get to experience them if it's not live. In addition to that,
[email protected] is an email address. If you want to contact me, 951-265-0455, that's my mobile text. I'm a pretty transparent guy. I'm not always going to pick up the phone, but because of our relationship, Ryan, and who I have watched you grow, congratulations to you on all that you've done for our industry. Thank you so much. Contact me. I'll help however I can as time allows. I hope this is helping people grow out there in the industry and in life. The goal of our program, the UPP program, is to impact people's lives personally and professionally.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: If you want to check out what else we're up to, this has been helpful on other people I've been able to share with. You've heard of Google. They seem to be pretty popular.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. They've turned into something.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Right. Larry Page. By the way, I've studied Larry Page and I've studied the inner workings of Google to learn more, to become more. It wasn't always pleasant. It was early growth years. That's the reality of business growth, friends. It's not all roses. But you know the result of that? The result of doing the work, ultimately at the end of the day, it's peace of mind. It's a wonderful, wonderful place to be. So I recommend that as we continue to grow together, stay the course, Ryan. You got this. I know you got this. You've got to keep doing it, doing it, doing it. In the words of Michael Gerber, doing it, doing it, doing it again. You will get there. I know you will. Just go to Google and Google my name. All kinds of stuff will come up. You can check it out. Whatever works for you. Whatever the flavor of the day is. Good luck with it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think Michael Gerber stole that quote from LL Cool J. I just want to put that out into the world. If anyone's an old school gangster rap fan, I'm pretty sure he stole that from LL Cool J.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Yeah, my wife likes LL Cool J. If I want to spend any time with her, I get to sit there and watch CSI and whatnot.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Another fun note, Michael Gerber lives about 30 minutes from me.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Oh, wow.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I studied under Michael Gerber a lot in my time. He is a harsh, very direct man. In fact, when I was in one of his programs that I invested in to become more, he would not allow you to come onto the session without your camera on. He wanted to look you right in the eye.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Wow. I love that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Right in the eye. He said, "If your camera's not on, don't show up. We're over." I appreciate that. One of the things that I struggle the most with in life is—I'm a huge Jordan Peterson fan. I am completely emotionally invested. I don't agree with every take that he has, but the way in which he tries to dissect the world, understand it, and the way he positions personal responsibility—that's really what my biggest lesson was from him. Personal responsibility is the key. I appreciate people who hold me personally responsible and appreciate a culture of personal responsibility so much. I feel like it's something that we're losing today. Individuals who are pushing it back out into the world and trying to hold themselves that way—it's probably the primary lesson I try to teach my kids. You're seven years old. You're a dummy. You're going to make a million mistakes. You have 10,000 units of energy and two units of brain. I don't care. Just when you make a mistake, I want you to own up to it. I try not to call him a dummy every day, but I love that mentality.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: That's very, very good.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Hey, I want to be respectful of your time. You've been very gracious. Thank you so much, man. I look forward to the next time.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: I've got one last follow-up for you to wrap this up. I learned it from Steve Jobs a couple of days ago. You've heard of Apple? They've had a little success.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Right.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Steve Jobs in his early days was trying to help people understand they needed to get something done. Not only did he need to get it done, he needed to get it done fast. On his timeframe, not theirs. He would go to people and they'd say, "There's no way I can get that done this month," or "It's not possible." Steve Jobs was known for having a very direct look when he looked at people. He grips you, right?
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: And when he looks at you, so he said, "Ryan, look at me." He said, "Ryan, don't be afraid. You can do it." And that was the strategy that Steve Jobs used to convince people that, oh, okay, I can do this.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, yeah. Because it's not that you can't, it's that you don't believe you can yet.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: There you go. What we perceive is what we believe.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, yeah. We perceive we can't do it, hang it out. Yep.
--:-- Mike Stromsoe: Yeah, brother man. Thank you so much. This helps you. I hope this helps somebody out there. Let's keep in touch.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We will be in touch. Absolutely. Be good. There's no other option.
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