RHS 181 - Leaving Captivity for the Good Life with James Jenkins

Ryan Hanley: Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you. A conversation with James Jenkins, the man with the voice. Big fan of James. We actually had the opportunity to work together a couple weeks ago. We both were presenting to Assure Alliance, which is in South Carolina. Had a chance to talk to an audience of probably a couple hundred plus. It was a pretty incredible experience because my way is definitely different from James's. And as he mentions in the podcast, it was probably like some sort of trippy experience to have me ranting and raving and walking back and forth and all the crazy contextual crap and cursing. And then he comes in and he kind of stands next to the podium. It's very professorial presentation. And he prepares to the nth degree. And, you know, my way is more while I have a plan, I kind of have a start and a finish, and then I have no idea how I'm going to get there. It was just very fun and interesting and dynamic. And then to have a chance to follow that up with this podcast conversation, pretty incredible.

Ryan Hanley: And really, James is here to talk about his new book, *Leaving Captivity*, which is awesome. I had a chance to read an early copy and give him notes, which we discussed as well. This book, whether you're a captive agent leaving the captive environment and thinking about starting your own independent agency, or you're a producer in an agency thinking about starting your own independent agency, or you actually are a principal or working in an agency and you're completely happy, this book has something for you. It really does. It's dynamic and fun and I think it's very uniquely James and well worth the read for any insurance wonks out there. Although even if you're not in the insurance industry and for some reason you listen to this podcast, you will still get something out of it, I promise.

Ryan Hanley: Before we get to James, I want to give a quick shout out to Tivly. T-I-V-L-Y.com. Tivly as in positively, Tivly.com, used to be commercialinsurance.net. Guys, we continue to integrate our business deeper and deeper and deeper with Tivly, or intertwine, I guess is a better way to put it, because they've just become such a tremendous partner for us in so many of the different things that we do. Everything from ramping up new producers to targeting certain markets to targeting certain classes. They are a core bedrock piece of our business and I couldn't be happier for them just as a partner whether they sponsor the show or not. But also honored when one of our partners decides that they want to talk to you guys and get in front of you guys. And for the partners that I think add real value, I love sharing how we use these tools and how I think they can be valuable for you. So go to tivly.com and if you want to give me a shout out, you say hey Hanley sent me, but there's no function for that. They know when they see amazing agents reach out to them that they must be listeners. I can't even say it with a straight face. They must be listeners to this show.

Ryan Hanley: That being said, guys, I love you for listening to this show. You know that. I'm trying to put more and more work into Finding Peak as well. That's where I'm doing a lot of written content, nerding out on some topics, doing deep dives outside of insurance, right? All the stuff that we don't talk about a lot: our health, our mentality, leadership skills, business ideas, personal development, because all these things impact our business as well. And then I also do kind of nerdy deep dives on a lot of things that we learned that I recently shared. If you go to Finding Peak today, you'll see the opening open-ended question is the first in a five video series that I'm doing around our inbound digital sales process. And if you become a subscriber to that series, then you also can download the PDF, which basically I've given to every one of our salespeople. We talk through it with our entire team. And it is really the outline for how we do business when it comes to inbound digital sales and selling. So if you want that, go there. But as always, you don't have to. I love you for listening to this show. Regardless, I think you're all absolutely amazing and I hope you crush the day. All right. With that, let's get on to James Jenkins.

Ryan Hanley: I'm going to shut booze. What's up dude?

James Jenkins: I picked the wrong time to put sushi in my mouth. Crap. I should have known better because you're going to start recording and airing this crap the second that we get on. What if we say something smart and the recorded button hasn't been hit yet?

Ryan Hanley: I mean, you make a valid point. I really can't argue with you. I mean, it's definitely happened in a 60-minute period where I've talked a lot and not said one smart thing, so I don't want to miss any of them.

James Jenkins: Well, you said it, not me, man. I'm not going to start by being smart with the host.

Ryan Hanley: Hey, let me... I got to grab some liquid something or else my throat's going to get dry. One second, go ahead.

James Jenkins: We got some bougie water there. You got the bougie water on water? Is that what I see?

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, it's Topo Chico. I'm completely bougie. It's the little things in life, man.

James Jenkins: I left because we had that bag for all this stuff because I thought we were going to record at Hilton Head. Yeah, my good headphones are sitting in the bag in my backpack at home, so I've got like 15-year-old Apple Air whatever's in one of those.

Ryan Hanley: Good news is in the modern podcasting world, I don't know that anybody cares.

James Jenkins: You're right. I do care about things that most people don't care about.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, that's... as my wife says.

James Jenkins: Yeah, you know, hey, and that's fine. That's the way it should be. I mean, you, you... it's more than a hobby to you. You like it, you nerd out on it and those little things matter. And I think that's great. I think that the reason I make comments like that is important for people. I think for people to understand that that isn't necessary. It's important to you because this is something you nerd out on and you love it. And it's a hobby, you know, like I said, it's more than a hobby for you. You really enjoy it. And it's something you're passionate about. And that's great. And audio quality and all that stuff. It's great. I mean, I don't produce the video, but I'm sure many of you listening have seen James's background, but it's lit up the backlights and the neon. It's awesome. I could just give two flying fucks about any of that stuff personally. I think it's amazing. That doesn't mean I don't think it's amazing. I do. I think it looks gangster as hell. I just personally could care less.

James Jenkins: Have you heard the story about bump the lamp?

Ryan Hanley: No.

James Jenkins: Roger Rabbit.

Ryan Hanley: No.

James Jenkins: Dude, you can tuck this away in your story vault. I heard this at a conference a few years ago, and man, it's stuck with me ever since. Robert Zemeckis, director of *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*, which at its day was absolutely revolutionary. It was amazing. The Matrix-level revolutionary for cinema at the time. So the art people, frame by frame, they were hand-drawing every frame, 24 frames per second. So I mean literally thousands of frames throughout the movie. And there's this one scene in the movie when the human, the old older guy, he's trying to put Roger Rabbit in handcuffs. And there's this scene because there's a lamp in the middle of the table in this scene and they're just wrestling and Roger Rabbit bumps the lamp in the script. But it created this back and forth swinging motion that was an absolute nightmare for the artists to do to their level of satisfaction. So they reach out to Robert Zemeckis and say, "Hey man, can we not bump the lamp? It's a little thing. Most people aren't even going to care. It's such a pain. Can we please just not bump the lamp and move on about it?" And Zemeckis writes back to the artist team. He says simply, "Bump the lamp."

James Jenkins: And the story is, most people won't care. Most people won't notice. But the ones that do, that two percent that will be, it will be freaking cool to them and they will remember it forever because the ones that care really care. And so that whole notion of "bump the lamp," do the extra two percent, is now... Now the next time you think of Roger Rabbit, you're going to be like, "Hey, what scene was that lamp in?"

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, I actually know the scene. It was in Eddie Valiant's office. You're a fan. Okay, fuck yeah. I love *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*. That movie's amazing.

James Jenkins: Amazing. It is so weird in the most beautiful way.

Ryan Hanley: And so for people who haven't seen *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*, which would mean that you were a weirdo and you probably shouldn't be listening to this show if that's the case. But this was the first... There was another movie called *Cool World* that tried to do this first and it wasn't very good, and *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* came out really close and was actually, I think, second. I'm pretty sure that *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* was second in the integration of cartoons or animation and live action. So you have this guy, this character, Eddie Valiant, who's played by Bob Hoskins. I had to look the Bob Hoskins part up. I remembered Eddie Valiant.

James Jenkins: I was about to say, bravo.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, no, I had to look up the Bob Hoskins part. I knew Eddie Valiant. But Eddie Valiant's the main character and he's a human. And then there's this Toon Town on the other side of this tunnel, which is all cartoons. And it's all like the wacky old school Looney Tunes and Disney characters, like a hodgepodge. And when I remember watching that as a kid, I'm like, "What cartoon genre is this?" because it had Bugs Bunny, but it also had Betty Boop. And I was like, this is just wild. And there's this whole thing that plays out, which is really funny. But it was a very interesting movie at the time. And I just loved it. I thought it was so funny. And just what a cool concept to think that there's this world through a tunnel that's like cartoon characters. And it was also, it had comedy before woke made all movies terrible. So this is from what, the 80s, 1988.

James Jenkins: Yeah, I looked it up.

Ryan Hanley: So, you know, this is when people could still be funny and interesting. And there's sexism both ways. And there's guys getting kicked in the groin. And there's just all these sex references. And Jessica Rabbit is like this ridiculous character, a caricature of this voluptuous woman in this ridiculous dress with red hair. And she's married to Roger Rabbit, who is like this bananas character that looks like a cartoon. And it's just the whole thing is wild. But to your point, there's a lot of stuff in there that if you're a nerd, you'll never forget that movie.

James Jenkins: Bump the lamp, baby.

Ryan Hanley: All the normies out there are like, "What are you two morons talking about?" Well, they've already stopped listening. They moved on. Or they just didn't click. Is it like Jenkins and Hanley? Nah, pass.

James Jenkins: So I was talking to my counselor. She doesn't like when I call her a therapist. The other day I was talking to her, and I think I've shared with everybody on the show that this year, since my divorce, I've kind of realized or been diagnosed, it's probably a better way to put it, with having ADHD. Which, whatever. Most people are not surprised at this.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, that probably doesn't surprise a lot of people.

James Jenkins: And not that I was surprised, but I certainly fought it for a long time because I didn't understand what it meant, what it was. Doesn't matter. And so I was telling my counselor, I was like, "I've gotten more in tune with how to communicate with people better. Because now when I'm talking to someone who I know doesn't have ADHD, I try very hard to be more focused, more linear in my thought patterns, talk a little slower." And I refer to these people as "normies." Which is not normal at all.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

James Jenkins: And she's like, "Well, that sounds a little derogatory." And I was like, "Well, I don't mean it to be." But then I said, "Maybe I kind of do at the same time. I don't know." Like, so many people have given me shit for so long about how scattered I am or how fast I talk or whatever. And I'm like, this is kind of my little subtle jab to say, "Hey, I feel like I've kind of harnessed this superpower and you normies can't keep up. That's your fault."

Ryan Hanley: You and I are very close in age. And when we were growing up, they didn't really have these diagnoses that came around like a decade later. I've never been officially diagnosed ADHD, but if you asked my wife or anybody on my team, I guarantee you all of them would be like, "Oh yeah, he definitely has ADHD." I had Adderall for a number of years. I got off of it because it made me a really unpleasant person to be around.

James Jenkins: Yeah. I was using pot for a while to manage my brain. But I recently stopped about a month ago, even though Cass and I talked a lot about it on the episode that I did with him.

Ryan Hanley: That was an interesting episode, by the way.

James Jenkins: Yeah, that was fun. That was a fun one. Y'all got into it.

Ryan Hanley: It was in. Yeah. That's how both of you individually was like, "Oh, man, where's my popcorn? Let's go."

James Jenkins: That's how we talked. I mean, it was funny. Cass after we stopped, Cass goes, "Dude, I freaking forgot that we were recording that for a while." He's like, "I completely forgot." And I was like, "Yeah, me too. We were just talking." But I think, so that was recorded maybe a month or so before it aired. And now we're like a month or so after it aired. So about a month ago, I quit because what I found is similar to the Adderall thing. While yes, it helps me pull in all these different things that are happening in my brain at one time, then I can be much more focused. One, it has to be very specific levels of THC and CBD. If it's high THC content, like super, like these 30 percenters or whatever, that shit, I can't handle that. That does not work for me at all. I feel terrible. But if I get the right mix, it's such a pain in the ass because if it's not the right mix, I just don't feel very good. And what it absolutely does is it destroys my creativity. When I am consistently using pot, I just am not as creative. I'm not as sharp. I don't like it.

James Jenkins: I do find I'm more manic though when I'm off of it. So I have more times when I'm a little more manic, which I have to get better at controlling. And by manic I mean I let my emotions get out over my skis. So you guys know what that means.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

James Jenkins: I'll give you an example. Yesterday, one of my team members who's been with us for two years, she had her annual review because we do our reviews in April. And she shares that she got another job offer and she's considering it. She's a highly valued member of the team. I want to keep her. I've done a couple of things personally for her that really hurt my feelings. And I know you're not supposed to do that. I know you're not supposed to get attached or whatever, but I was like, "Holy shit. I've done some things off the books for her to help her in different situations because that's what we do. It's a human game we're playing."

Ryan Hanley: Yes.

James Jenkins: And it was like getting punched in the gut. I felt like getting punched in the gut. And I just started going down this rabbit hole in my brain of like, "I'm too nice to these motherfuckers. I'm way too nice to them. We have this culture and it's family and we get along and everyone, and we take care of each other. And I take care of my people. If you work here, even if I don't really like you, I'm going to take care of you because you work here. You're part of the circle, right? That's the way it is. It's like a family, even if it's not." And I know that every book would tell you to detach from the outcome and this is business and it's the way it is. And I do think that's a better way to think about it in general, or I don't want to say better. That is a way to think about it that allows you to defend against these types of feelings. But I felt myself starting to get out over my skis because I was hurt. I felt like, "Oh my God, I would like to believe that I am absolutely a servant leader. And I tell people that. My job is to be in service of my team members so that they can be the best versions of themselves." That's really what my job is. And it just really was a gut punch. And I can feel myself going into my next meeting. I was like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And it was just, I was off the hook. I couldn't slow down. I couldn't rein it in. I was just full on because I had let my emotions kind of get ahead of me. And that's when I say manic, that's what I mean.

Ryan Hanley: You turned into a bulldozer and whatever was in front of you was going to get plowed.

James Jenkins: Yes. And thankfully the woman that I was meeting with was capable of accepting it and understands and it was fine. And actually it was productive, but it was just, I got done with the meeting and I literally went for a 25 minute walk around my neighborhood to kind of bring myself back in because I had allowed myself. Now here's the weird part. When I'm consistently using pot, that doesn't happen as much, right? That doesn't happen. But the problem is the reason it doesn't happen is because I'm dulled. And with that dulling, yes, I don't get out over my skis emotionally, but I also can't be creative and connective and I don't feel razor sharp, which I really like. I really like that it is both a blessing and a curse, but I really like that for whatever reason, God has given me this edge and anything that dulls it, I really don't like. So I quit about a month ago.

Ryan Hanley: Good for you, man.

James Jenkins: That was a very long winded way of saying I quit smoking pot.

Ryan Hanley: Well, and I think it's important because it speaks to individual decision making that aligns with what you're about. As we'll talk about later in the episode, chapter one, vision, mission and values frames the conversation and serves as a good basis for decision making. And you decided that regularly smoking pot is not in alignment with your values and what you're shooting for in your daily performance and your ability to remain sharp. So we have different ways of saying exactly the same thing. But it was just that behavior was out of alignment with who you want to be and what expressions of your values you want to manifest.

James Jenkins: Yeah. I think that one of the hard things that I think we all struggle with, and you talk about this a little bit in your book, and I want to talk a little bit about the editing process and all that kind of stuff too.

Ryan Hanley: I'm an open book.

James Jenkins: Yes. Nice. I think that, so I listened to Andy Frisella a lot from when he used to do the MFCEO Project. Now his podcast is called *Real AF*. He gets knocked on sometimes because he is very pro America, very pro freedom and he curses a lot. And he's the 75 Hard guy, right? He owns First Form and supplement super stores and he's based out of St. Louis. And when I first started listening to him, I was like, the curses were a lot. And even though I like to curse, it's like take however much if you listen to this show however much I curse, it's like 3x how much I curse, right? So it's a lot. And I was like, yeah, I didn't really get it. And the more I listened to him, the more I realized the more I started to like him, right? And I was like, yeah, he cursed a lot, okay. And I don't personally have a problem with it, it just at first I wasn't sure if it was a shtick or not.

Ryan Hanley: I don't like shticky cursing. It's kind of distracting to me.

James Jenkins: Yeah. I will say it used to be... I also think that he's matured a little bit over the last few years and it doesn't seem as... it used to be kind of shock jockey. And now it just feels more, it's a little, I don't know, it feels more integrated into the show or whatever. It's fine. But what I've taken from him and listening to him so much, and I've never done 75 Hard. I want to, but to be honest with you, I like drinking too much, which I do. It's probably terrible, but I do. And I don't care. I want to on a Saturday, I want to be able to pour myself a nice glass of whiskey or bourbon or whatever. And I want to relax on my porch. And that's what I want to do. I just like it.

Ryan Hanley: The whole point of 75 Hard is mental toughness and grit and resilience. You're in the gym regularly. You're a fit guy. You're physically strong. You're mentally strong in a lot of ways. I don't know if you need 75 Hard.

James Jenkins: Well, people out there that consider themselves undisciplined.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of gain from that. But for folks like you and I, I don't know if there's that much water in that well.

James Jenkins: Well, yes and no. Yes, in that versus someone who's 50 pounds overweight, isn't hitting their sales goals, can't seem to get out of their way, is very unhappy with how they wake up every morning, their station in life. Yes, I have a tremendous amount of more discipline and so do you than that person. But I also, my goals are... The goals that I have, the more I get focused on where I want to take my career, the number of people that I want to impact, the real impact I want to have on this industry, the bigger things. Like right now we're just getting Rogue going, right? We're just getting it producing revenue. We're getting us producing premium. We're doing some of the blocking and tackling foundational shit, but like just having a productive agency. I mean, we'll be doing probably a million in premium a month by the end of the year. That's nothing. I want to do 10 million in premium a month. And I want to place 100 to 200 new agencies with either Rogue Risk, Rogue Risk agencies, or SI member agencies. I want to place somewhere between 100 and 200 new producers every year. I want to be a mechanism of growth. And I have all these plans to do that. And those things don't take even slightly above average discipline. There's part of me that's like, "All right, if we're going to really play this game and see how good we can be, we kind of have to go even a step further." And that was a big part of the pot thing. I mean, dude, there's nothing better than after a long, stressful day at nine o'clock, rolling yourself a doobie and sitting out on the porch and hanging out. I mean, it's fucking great. But then when you wake up the next morning and you feel like you can't hit your diary or your journal very well, or you're not really motivated to read, or you're struggling to get a blog post out or even be creative in the way you handle an email or a conversation or a Slack message because you're a little foggy, that's unacceptable.

James Jenkins: To me, that's the point. That shit is fine if you want to be a producer, just want to be a producer, make a couple hundred thousand bucks, go to local events, pound my chest, bang my wife or my husband, whatever, my spouse, whatever my other person is. And that's fine. That's what you want to do. And there's nothing wrong with that lifestyle. But I think for me, certainly, I think also from you and the different conversations we have, I think that you have to hold yourself to an even higher standard. And that is what I've taken from this Andy Frisella guy. There's being a slob, there's adding some discipline to your life, and you can get 80% of the way there to where you want to be with just even the smallest amounts of discipline, right? Just a small, pick a thing or two. Maybe just reading in the morning and going for a walk, or journaling every morning and brain dumping and taking a cold shower. Pick two things and do those two things and your life will change dramatically. But if you want to go to another level, if you want to play a game that most read about in books, you have to hold yourself to a higher standard. And that is where I will say right now my discipline falls apart.

Ryan Hanley: No, that makes sense. There was something in me that shifted. I forget exactly when it happened. And I wasn't paying that close of attention to the internal dialogue. But during the process of writing the book, when I... it was somewhere between sending it out to the six of you and getting to the end where it's like, "Okay, this is ready. It's going to get published. This is what people are going to see." Somewhere in there, I forget who it was that I sent it to, but they said... You know what it was? I just remembered. Sorry. I'm thinking out loud here. It was the guy that I recorded the audiobook with. He's a client. He owns a music and recording studio in Fresno. And he's outside the industry. He doesn't know anything about any of this stuff. He's totally not even remotely close to the target audience. But we're recording in his studio and we get done with two or three chapters and he's like, "I read a lot of books. This is really good." It was like, "Man, thank you." He doesn't really know me. He certainly doesn't know the industry that I come from. So the fact that he... I mean, chapter two is all about headspace and discipline and grit and whatnot. And chapter three is talking about time and extracting the most value from your minutes and hours. And it was like, this has nothing to do with insurance at all. It has absolutely zero to do with insurance. It's about being a good business owner, good entrepreneur, an effective person in an enterprise situation. But you know what? You're right, Mr. So-and-so who's outside the industry. You don't have to be an agency owner or a producer or aspire to be one of those two to get something out of it.

Ryan Hanley: It dawned on me at that point. Why can't people think of me at some point in the future? Obviously I'm nowhere near there yet, but people refer to Patrick Lencioni all the time. He's written some really effective books. I'm never going to be a Simon Sinek or Ryan Holiday or whatever, but who's to say I can't be someone who has that kind of impact like those guys have had on me? Like Angela Duckworth and other people that write books that have real impact. It was like those people have changed how I do business. A lot of them, like John Maxwell, for instance, as just a one-off, have changed how I do life. They've changed the decisions that I make. Andy Frisella, a good example. That's impact that goes way beyond money, that goes way beyond business success. And I know it's ridiculous because it's something that only people with money say, but the money's not that important. At a certain point, you're struggling to make money because you don't have that much and you got to make your mortgage and your car payment and whatnot. But after a little bit of success, you're like, "Wait a second, the money's just a way of keeping score. It's not really important at all."

James Jenkins: Yeah, that's something that for sales is all the time. And so I have two thoughts on this particular vein of conversation. And one is, and I don't think you're being this way, so please don't take it that way. But some of the "don't think about the money, money doesn't matter" vein of conversation sometimes, depending on the person, I find it very patronizing. Because I'm like, "Motherfucker, you make half a million dollars a year. And you're telling me money doesn't matter? Fuck you." You know what I'm saying?

James Jenkins: Yeah. Like I just said, it's people with money tend to say that. Yes. So, but I think there's a nuance here. And this is one of the things that I like about For Sale. I don't want to take credit for his thought, but he'll say all the time, step number one is make enough money to survive. So before you think about personal excellence and all this crazy shit, you got to go get a job that makes you enough money that you're not living on your parents' couch, that you have your own car. Get your basic life shit squared away. Do that for six months, live that life, pay your bills, make sure your phone stays on. Then, once you have that and you've set whatever you need to do in place with routines and habits and a job so your basics are there, now you start to make the small incremental changes that allow you to work towards that next level.

Because I agree with you, you do hit a certain amount of personal income where you stop thinking about money all the time. But I do think that to some people who hear that, they're like, "Jesus, I'm on zero every Friday before the paycheck comes. You're telling me to take cold showers and go for runs and read books. And I'm stressed to the max because I can barely get out of my own way. On Fridays, I'm staring at a zero bank account and hitting refresh on the Chase screen until the money hits." It's a really difficult thing for people.

I think what happens is we get set in these routines, we surround ourselves with people that make us feel comfortable. And to some of the stuff in your book and what you're trying to do with the whole larger concept of leaving captivity, I think we could put an entire genre of people in there. Captive agents that are seemingly the very few that make it past escape velocity. Agents inside of agencies that have no real future, right? They're just always going to be an agent and they're unhappy with that. And when I say "just an agent," I want to put a caveat on it. Some people love being an agent and that is completely fine. In all these scenarios, it is important to remember that the people James is writing his book to, the people I talk about, are the ones who are in these situations and are unhappy with that station, not the people who are content. And that doesn't mean wanting more is right. It comes with a lot of trade-offs you have to make in your life. But if you do, that's the thought process.

So, going all the way back, you sent me the rough draft, or some version of an iteration of a rough draft of this. I made it through the first chapter and sent it back to you.

Ryan Hanley: And you made it further than chapter one this time, I hope.

James Jenkins: I did. Yeah. If I'm being candid, I blew through some parts just because I kind of got the gist of it. But I read a lot of it. I thought you did a really good job. I was very happy with what I read the second time versus the first time. I think it was much closer to your best work. And you'll never get all the way there.

Ryan Hanley: I'll never get all the way.

James Jenkins: But that's the part that drives me insane.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. You can't even expect that. So talk me through a little bit. You send this out, and you said I'm one of the only people like that. Most people send back, "Hey, good job" or whatever. And I was like, "This is almost unreadable to me." It was really interesting to me, the different approaches to feedback. You were on brand for how you are. You were an absolute savage and basically said if we weren't friends, I wouldn't have made it past the first page. This is very heady, wordy, self-important drivel is basically what it was. It wasn't quite that harsh, but—

James Jenkins: Here's the thing: I'm always going to be way harsher on myself than literally anyone else on the planet. You could have said this is absolute shit and I would have been like, "Okay, well, I see that perspective."

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. But Caruthers wrote back and I think it was two sentences. He was like, "Yeah, it's good." I forget what the rest was, but he's so high level because he's into 48 different things. I was grateful to have any feedback from all of y'all. And Ciara was basically early stage kind of feedback of, "Hey, I appreciate you talking about X because I don't really know about that yet." That was basically where she came at it from. Then Don and Roe Polzinski just chopped chapter five to pieces, the financial chapter. Chapter six is about social stuff and relationships. I was a little pessimistic in the first draft. Don and Roe were like, "Do you really feel this way about your peers in the industry? About how most people are not impressive?"

James Jenkins: Most people in the industry are kind of—

Ryan Hanley: If I'm being honest, yeah. Most people in the industry are average at best, mediocre performers who don't try nearly as hard as they're capable of trying because they have other things that they care more about. It's not that they're bad people. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying they're not moonshot performers.

In Phoenix, one of the lines that I'm giving in my keynote—and I think this is coming out after, we're probably a month out from this airing? Ish, yeah. It'll be around Phoenix or just after.

[Ryan Hanley addresses the audience directly]

Ryan Hanley: 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 and 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. 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 and review of this show. I love you for listening to this show, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace.

[Back to the conversation]

Ryan Hanley: One of the lines that I have in that keynote is, "Average is subjective. For instance, most of you in this room are average." And I'm not saying that as—this is basically direct word for word what I'm saying from stage. I don't say that as an insult. I say that as a statistical reality of this set of people in this room right now. Most of you are in the statistical middle of the bell curve of the people in this room right now. If you want to be more than the statistical average of whatever the population is, you've got to do things to move beyond average. You have to act and behave and think in ways that open the door to north of average. Most people never get there for whatever reason.

Don and Roe were like, "I think you need to take that really big negativity out and find a different way to say that because you're insulting most of your peers." I'm like, "Valid. Let me find a different way of saying that." I definitely don't intend to insult my peers. If anything, it's more to remind them of what they're capable of and invite the ones that want it to come on.

James Jenkins: I think the important caveat there is "want it" in insurance. There's a couple of agents that I know who love cooking and smoking meat. If you go on their social media, they just love it. They take these beautiful pictures and it's amazing. They're great insurance agents, but they're not as great insurance agents as they are at making delicious meat candy. That's what they love. They serve it to their family and everyone comes over and it's this big thing. Or they love playing golf. So I think what we always have to remind ourselves of is—and this is one of the things that people always say about buying courses and never using them. I think the problem is people buy courses because they haven't yet figured out that insurance isn't what they want to be the thing they're the best at. Which is completely fine.

Ryan Hanley: Frankly, I don't want to be the best insurance salesperson. I would like to be the best insurance marketer. I don't think I will be. But there are all kinds of different things that we can pick. The key is to be disciplined in the actions that make you the best at the thing that you actually want to be the best you can be at. That doesn't have to be insurance, or it could be some subset of the insurance industry, or it could be you just want to dominate the world, eat people's lunch, step on throats, and stand on top of the mountain giving the flex sign and a big "F you." It all depends on what your goals are. But none of that happens without discipline and without focus.

James Jenkins: I agree. The main reason why I'm never going to try to be that guy is there's always a bigger dog. No matter what success you reach, unless you're one out of eight billion and you happen to win the genetic lottery and you have buckets of hustle and you're at the right place at the right time and you're Elon Musk, everybody—there's only one best. But every "best" is subjective because what metrics are we using? What filters are we using to determine best? The idea of best is ridiculous. Like Simon Sinek said in his book *The Infinite Game*, which was one of my absolute favorite reads in the last several years, "Better is better than best because best is totally subjective. Better is objective. Better is a lot more measurable than best because you can take what you used to be, you can take what you are, and you can have an objective measurement that says I'm better. Best is totally subjective and worthless in my mind."

Ryan Hanley: The other thing is, there are some studies around this, that the whole concept of "best" doesn't actually give us purpose. We find the most purpose—and ultimately purpose's derivative, happiness—when we believe we are at our best. So "best" is really a goal meant to be, and I like the way you positioned it with "better." It's really about, are you the best you can be? When I talk about world domination and all this kind of stuff, I'm being kind of facetious. I think it's fun and I like it. It annoys people, which also makes me happy.

James Jenkins: You like that gladiator shtick. It aligns with your personality.

Ryan Hanley: It aligns with the brand that you've crafted. You're a rebel, you're irreverent, you don't care what people think. What you just said aligns perfectly with this persona that you've spent the last almost 20 years crafting. But I will also say, in the last year—because getting divorced has allowed me to spend a lot more time being self-reflective and introspective—I've really tried to focus on when I make that joke about world domination. What I'm talking about really is I want to see what I'm capable of. Rogue will never be as big as Marsh or some mega agency. It doesn't have to be. That's not the purpose. I don't care if we're ever in the top 100. My goal is, I want to be able to say I figured out what my best was. I figured it out. I experienced it. My best, the best that I could do. I got to that point. No matter where that ranks me, I could literally care less. There are certain clubs I'll never be asked to join because of the way that I am. I've been specifically kicked out of certain clubs in the insurance industry. There are places I will never get to or be part of, and that's perfectly fine.

I think, and I hope this for our peers, that we someday can say at the end of our careers, "Man, I figured out what my best was. I got there. I had moments where I was locked in. Things were cooking. We were doing great. Made some awesome decisions. Met some great people. Did things I never thought were possible." That feels really good. I think the people who get to the end of their career and feel a little bitter or unhappy or confused about what to do next, so much of that is because in their heart of hearts, they know they didn't try as hard as they possibly could. There's something off in our soul there. I think our soul knows that. There's a disconnect between the honesty of "I know I didn't give a hundred percent, but here I am." I have to live with the fact that I left something on the table. That's a sad moment. I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen. To the point that I honestly don't care if I ever win an award. I don't care if I'm ever on a list. None of that means anything. I just want to be able to say I was the best version of myself at this thing that I really care about.

James Jenkins: You're swinging hard. I love it. So, I send you this Loom video review of the first chapter of your book. I just pulled up the Google Doc that I sent you where I made comments. I highlighted the entire first paragraph and I wrote, "Need a better hook. Your open line needs to grab the reader. Honestly, I would have stopped after the first two sentences if I wasn't reading this for real." One of the things that I like about you in general is that I knew you could take that feedback.

Ryan Hanley: Absolutely. I have incredibly thick skin. I've developed it over the years of being the butt of many jokes. When you have a really strong personality—and this is something that Nick Ayers and I have talked about in years past because I honestly struggled with being able to receive harsh critique and take it in stride—Nick said, and I know this is something that you align with because I've listened to many episodes of your podcast, Nick said, "If you're not pissing off 25 or 30 percent of your audience, you're probably not saying anything of substance anyway." Just learning to become totally okay with people being upset. That took a long time. I'm not all the way there because I still care what people think way more than I'd like to admit. Obviously, I put this book out there into the wild. By the time this episode drops, you'll be able to go to Amazon and buy it. It's like, "Oh man, I hope they like it." "They" as in the general public. That's a terrifying proposition.

James Jenkins: Let me give credit where credit is due. You offered up a suggestion for the first line of the book. After a lot of reflection, I'm like, "I like that first line. I think that makes sense." So I ran with it. If you're reading the book and you think, "Man, this book didn't exist when I needed it most, so I wrote it," I gotta give credit where credit's due, Mr. Hanley. That one's from you, buddy.

Ryan Hanley: Well, thank you. All the thoughts are yours. The other thing I thought was really interesting, and I was glad when I reread it, was you were telling us a lot of things that you weren't going to say. That was also one of the first things that I noticed. You're like, "I'm not going to talk about sales. I'm not going to talk about..." One of my comments was, "If you're not going to talk about it, don't talk about it. Don't tell me you're not going to talk about it because I don't give a fuck. You're telling me that you're not going to talk about it." It reminded me of Josh Bryan. He's like, "I hate it when people say 'I'll be brief' because when you say 'I'll be brief,' you're not being brief. You've just broken exactly what you told me you weren't going to do. You just wasted three seconds."

But dude, I think that what came out the other end was awesome. This is classic first draft or early draft stuff. You always have more words in the first draft than you do in the final version. The whole game is you fill it up with all the words, then you use friends and editors to carve out the words and come back with something that's crisper and cleaner.

Ryan Hanley: You want to know what's funny? That's not what happened at all.

James Jenkins: What do you mean?

Ryan Hanley: I added 20,000 words to what was the first draft.

James Jenkins: But let me rephrase. It is not filled with stuff that doesn't matter. There's virtually no filler. It's punchier. What I mean is you fill it with words. Sentences are long. You're using "ands" and all this stuff. Then when you start to crisp it up, you go, "Instead of saying this in 12 words, I can say it in eight words. Instead of saying this in 20 words, I can say it in seven words." Everything gets punchy and snappy. The final version is way snappier. I like that a lot.

So, to be fair to the audience, we have a little bit of time left. What is your favorite chapter? When you look at this and think back about the whole project and the book itself, what's your favorite chapter? It doesn't mean it'll be your audience's favorite, but what's a chapter that when you read it, you're like, "Shit, I nailed that. That was awesome."

Ryan Hanley: I very intentionally set up the structure of the book so that it finishes really strong. One of the things that annoys me the most about the way some authors do it is you can tell when you get near the end of the book, they just ran out of steam. The last two or three chapters of a lot of books have recap, summarizing, and restating thoughts from earlier in the book. I didn't want to write that book. There are 13 total chapters. I'm most proud of 12 and 13. I also think chapter two, which is about grit and resilience and overcoming adversity and hardening your mind against all the suck that we all deal with.

Chapter two wasn't in the book originally. Before I sent out the first draft, I made a decision to be super vulnerable and talk about one of the hardest conversations I've ever had in my career. At that point, one of the biggest prospects I had ever had a chance at—and in reality, I never really actually had a chance at it, I was swinging way above my weight class—they told me, "You're not good enough. You don't have what we need. No amount of hustle from you is going to meet the needs that we have. You just don't have what it takes. You need to better yourself if you want to win accounts like ours." I remember that conversation with that senior VP for the rest of my career because it catapulted me into the mindset now of, "I am never going to get beat on knowledge." You might beat me because you have a better market, or you have more experience, or you have some value-add service in loss control or whatever. But I know more about this craft than you do. That's never going to be something I lose at again.

I'm not saying that letters after your name means you're better or more successful than anybody. But when you apply that knowledge in the field, you're way more effective at the practice of risk management and insurance. At the end of the day, that's a big part of it. You can be a smooth-talking sales and marketing monster and close more business than you'd ever dreamed of, but if you're not a wonk about the nuts and bolts, I hope somebody's coming behind you to clean that up because you're going to leave a wrecking ball of trash behind you.

Chapter 12 is basically dealing with people, process, and production challenges. It's like, "Okay, cool. We've got all these great things. Now what are we going to do about it? When you're putting this into practice, where are you going to find the roadblocks?" There are nine little points inside there—three for people, three for production, three for process. It's like, "If this falls apart, how is it likely to fall apart? What is it lacking? What is it missing?" It's like, "Okay, great. You made it to chapter 12. Good job. You're trying to implement this stuff. What are you going to face when you try to implement? What is that going to look like? More than likely, if it falls apart, it's probably going to fall in one of these three areas. What do you do to overcome the suck that you encounter when you try to better yourself?"

James Jenkins: I liked chapter 12. I thought it was very tactical. There were a lot of really good takeaways, a lot of shit to underline. What I liked about chapter two was—and I've actually never done this in front of an insurance audience. I did it for the University of Albany MBA program. They asked me to come speak to them. I had no idea what they wanted, so I was trying to think of stuff that was just on my mind. What came to me, and I want to try to work this into some insurance audiences in the future possibly, was the idea that we don't talk a lot about the emotional side of being a leader, a manager, an entrepreneur, a business owner. If you're a producer, you're kind of a mini business owner to a certain extent. All the stuff that comes out of that, we don't talk about the emotional side very often.

We say things like, "Be disciplined, be tough," or whatever. But we don't talk about the fact that at 9 PM, when your body starts to de-stress, you start seeking out drugs, alcohol, vices. You stay up, you put shitty television on, you stay up too late, you start doing things that you shouldn't be doing. You start finding fixes because it's stressful all day. You're making decisions. People are looking to you. Your team members, something happens, and three heads turn and look at you like, "What's the answer, boss?" And you're like, "I don't know what the answer is." That tension, even when things are going well, you have a sense of tension because you're still the one steering the ship. We don't talk about that stuff a lot.

I thought in chapter two, you did a really good job of calling that out. You use the term "toxic headspace." I was scrolling through here trying to find it. It's on page 14. I think this is the kind of thing that I hope as an industry, we start to have more conversations around. We mask a lot of the emotional side of our business, the emotional side of leadership and running an agency, with nerdy insurance shit. We nerd out on stuff. That stuff is important, don't get me wrong, but it's also a mask for what we're dealing with all the time.

People give agency owners shit for going golfing on Fridays. I was that guy when I was younger, giving 55- and 65-year-old agency owners shit for going golfing on Fridays. I understand now. You have to get away from it. A lot of it isn't just that you want to experience life or take a break. It's that if you have your nose in this shit every day, all day, and you never detach, you will go crazy. You will make bad decisions. You will not put yourself in a position to win because this is really stressful work. Not only are you running a business, not only do you have a sales team, not only do you have all these carriers and vendors, but the decisions that you make for your customers can make or break their lives. There's a responsibility there that I think we kind of laugh at and maybe dismiss slightly, but we all feel it. If you really care about what you do in this business, you feel the pressure of the decisions you make every day for your customers.

Ryan Hanley: I would just add into that—and you may have been getting there, so forgive me if I step over that.

James Jenkins: No, you're good.

Ryan Hanley: Because you've said it before on the pod, so I know we're in alignment on this. It's not the customers as much as it's the team. We recently let two people go because their department doesn't exist anymore. We only have seven on the team now. We have seven families that are impacted by the decisions that I make. The strategy, the tactics, the choices that I install directly impact seven families and seven people's careers and livelihoods. If I handled myself in a toxic and unhealthy way, I could permanently scar or damage seven people, seven humans that trust me with their professional aspirations and well-being. That's the part that I never stop thinking about. Every decision I make is like, "Is this the right move for our team?"

Ryan Hanley: Not our company, but our team.

James Jenkins: Yeah, because at the end of the day, if RiskWell burned down and went up in smoke tomorrow, would I miss it? Yes. Is it basically my third child? Yes. But really, what RiskWell is, is nothing more than the humans that are here that create shared experience that together work to make impact on our stakeholders, which includes you and this audience.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. And I mean, we're super existential. I know a lot of people are like, "Man, I've got some thinking to do." But I appreciate the receipt of chapter two. I feel like is really important.

James Jenkins: I mean, I talk about stuff from my therapist in there. Like the emotion wheel, thinking of emotions as a trailing indicator rather than something early in the process. Observations create thoughts which creates emotion. And I'm like, "Oh, so emotion is much later on in the flow chart." It's like, wow, I have definitely been thinking about this all wrong. The way that emotions enter into the whole cycle of your headspace, I've never done that before. It was like, wait a second.

Ryan Hanley: A lot of people probably haven't ever been in with a professional therapist or a professional counselor before. I couldn't recommend it highly enough.

James Jenkins: Oh, me too. Best thing I ever did for my life. When my ex-wife first kicked me out of the house, I called a woman who's a therapist, a counselor. I've been seeing her probably every couple months for a few years, just check-ins, once a quarter. When everything first went down back in December 2021, I called her and went in. I've been going every other week to see her since then. It's the best thing I've ever done for my life. I feel like I'm more open, more aware of my own mental state. I'm able to reflect on things I said and did in a more positive way and then affect change. I've been better at discipline and habits. Another really solid tool for this is morning pages. I don't do them consistently enough. I wish I did them more consistently. But when I am consistently on morning pages, I feel like I am as grounded as I can be.

Ryan Hanley: Long story short, it is absolutely incredible. For all you listening at home, the book is *Leaving Captivity: Your Blueprint for Building and Scaling a Successful Insurance Agency* by James Jenkins, CPCU, CIC, CRM, whatever the fuck that means. It just means he's smart, I guess. Guys, you can get the book. I'm assuming Amazon? By the time this goes out, I'm sure it'll be there. But all the places. Where should places get it?

James Jenkins: If you want a personalized copy, I'm happy to sign it. If you know me and you're like, "Hey, I want a signed copy," go to my website. It's available for purchase directly at JamesJenkins.com by the time you listen to this. If you want to do it through Amazon, that's totally fine. Whatever your cup of tea is.

Ryan Hanley: Awesome. Because for whatever reason, the guy decided to give me a voice that's somewhat easy to listen to. I've heard a few times. A lot of people said, "I'm not buying the paper version, but I'll definitely..." You can have it as a bent-type story.

James Jenkins: I have an audiobook that I recorded the entirety on. A lot of us have done in the industry. There's a lot of additional content, kind of like David Goggins where he's pausing and reflecting on his own book and adding additional commentary in real time. I'm guilty. I did quite a bit of that with the audiobook. That will be available on Audible and wherever else you want your audiobooks. That's really it, man. Anybody who's ever written a book knows there's not much money in this, so I'm not going to get rich at all no matter how many copies it sells. But I will say every chapter is a keynote. I'm in the middle of building out 13 keynotes. I basically hand people a menu and say, "What do you want your audience to hear about? Here you go."

Ryan Hanley: I basically just make shit up when I get there. I hope they don't want me to use slides because if they use slides, then I have to stick to them. Most of the time I'm just like, I just show up and start talking. That's my way.

James Jenkins: The good people in Omaha are going to get to hear you and I back to back again, just like they did in South Carolina. I don't know if there's two speakers that have different styles more than me and Hanley. We're both masters of our craft in different ways, but from a speaking style, could not be more different. It was hilarious. I'm stomping around the room screaming into the fucking thing, cursing at people, cracking jokes. And you're up at the lectern walking them through very steady, very well thought out.

Ryan Hanley: Half the time I don't even know the next word that's going to come out of my mouth. But dude, you're also an experienced professional. That was literally one of my very first times ever being a paid speaker in a room. So I practiced the crap out of that thing. I'm a little embarrassed to admit how much time went into that.

James Jenkins: No, that's what you're supposed to do. We all have to find our thing. We all have to do it. We all have to go through it. I don't mean this in any negative way. I had a canned presentation that I did pretty much the same way with the same moments. I knew what jokes were going to hit. I knew what time they were. I didn't have to look at a watch. I knew right, bam, bam, bam. I could be within a few minutes. For five or six years, that's exactly the way that I did it. I loved it. That was great. I would say that now, for better or for worse, I've reached a point where for me to deliver max value to the audience, I need to be able to come more off the cuff. I like to read the audience. The hard part about that is sometimes you miss. There's always a bit of a tightrope walk when you are less polished in terms of your presentation because you could miss. The audience could be off. We could do a whole episode on how to warm up an audience. Depending on where you go, how you start and what you do. If you're the first speaker after lunch, curse at them as quickly as you possibly can or make a sex joke, one or the other. The reason is they're all sleepy, fat, and full of food. None of them are really listening to you. If you can hit them with a good sex joke or a curse word, what you'll see is heads literally snap up. Like, "Did he really just say that?" I will literally say, "Now I got you sons of bitches. Now let's go." It takes... dude, I've done this easily. I lost count at 347 presentations. I'm pushing 400 presentations at this point in my career. It's a completely different thing and it doesn't mean right or wrong. Yours was probably better. For me to add value and for me to have fun with it and to be different, that's the way I go about it. You pick up all these little things. You'll pick up different things as you go. The more times you do it, it's like anything else. You'll start to twist the joke a little differently than how you practiced it. You'll start to give a little more inflection to a certain word or topic. Sometimes I had this one slide that was in for a while where I realized I needed a break. I put this big ass bear face. Anyone who's watched some of my presentations, you'll get about halfway through and there's this badass bear face. I will literally just turn to the screen and I'll just look at it. Everyone will be looking. No one will be saying shit because they don't know what they're waiting for. A story. I'll just look at it and go, "There's no story to this slide. That's just a badass bear face." Everyone will kind of chuckle. I make this joke how I paid like three dollars for it or whatever. All I'm doing in that moment, it seems like I'm taking a break. I realized that I needed a break in the presentation. I have this whole little shtick that I do that takes about two and a half to three minutes. If I execute it properly, it just allows me to come down for a second and gather myself before I ramp back up again. That was just from doing it a whole bunch and figuring it out. You can't practice that. Just getting out there and being in front of the audience, that's how you figure that shit out. You'll get there, dude. Your meticulous nature will allow you to pick up on those things. As long as you listen to the audience while you're doing your presentation, you'll pick up on those things. You'll make adjustments. A year from now, you'll be even snappier.

Ryan Hanley: Dude, coaching on the fly with your podcast guest. All right, dude, you're the man. I love you guys for listening. We're out of here. Peace.

James Jenkins: Yeah. See ya.

[Outro music fades in]

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