Stop Letting Your Past Dictate Your Future | Andrew Taylor, FFL USA (Ep. 259)

We sat down with Christo Bolger, and this isn’t your typical “success story.” This is arrests, felonies, addiction, rehab, and multiple moments where life could’ve gone a completely different direction. He doesn’t hide any of it. He walks straight through it—what it looked like, what it felt like, and what finally forced him to change.

Christo talks about hitting those breaking points… the kind most people don’t come back from. Near-death experiences. Bad decisions stacking up. Watching your life spiral while knowing you’re the one causing it. And then making the decision to rebuild anyway.

Sobriety wasn’t instant. It wasn’t clean. But a 12-step program, daily structure, prayer, meetings, and doing the next right thing—over and over again—became the foundation. Not motivation. Not hype. Just discipline when his mind wanted to pull him back.

And then he found life insurance.

Not as some flashy opportunity—but as a vehicle. A way to stay busy, stay accountable, and start making money while rebuilding his life from the ground up. Dialing. Getting told no. Figuring it out. Learning how to sell. Learning how to lead. No shortcuts.

Fast forward to now—Christo owns an agency producing multiple six figures a month.

But what makes this conversation hit is how honest he is about the process:
• saying yes when you’re scared and taking the shot anyway
• using embarrassment to build confidence instead of avoiding it
• what early-stage agents actually go through (and why most quit)
• how to start when you’re broke—aged leads, warm market, just getting reps
• the difference between people who last and people who burn out
• building structure, loyalty, and a team that actually trusts you

This episode is for the person who feels like they’ve already messed it up too bad… like they’re too far gone… like they missed their window.

You didn’t.

Christo is proof that you can completely rewrite your story—but only if you’re willing to face it, own it, and go to work anyway.

Hit up Christo if you want to work with us 
Instagram @thechristobolger
480-271-3490 
aiolifeinsurance.com

*****DISCLAIMER****** 

Results mentioned in this content are not typical and are not a guarantee of future performance. Individual results will vary based on a number of factors, including but not limited to experience, market conditions, product availability, and individual effort. Any examples, case studies, testimonials, or income figures shown are for illustrative purposes only and may not be representative of the experience of other individuals. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Insurance and annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability and financial strength of the issuing company. FFL USA does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Consult your own tax, legal, and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:45

All right, what's up, everybody? Andrew Taylor. Today we have a special guest, Christo Bulger. Thanks for coming in, my man. Dude, thanks for having me. I'm excited for many reasons. But one, you brought a a date with you to the office. Yes, I did. And I'd love to know the story behind that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah. Um, so I I met her in traffic, a little bit of a traffic jam. There was an event going on in Tempe, and they shut down the entire bridge and all the roads around that. And uh this hot blonde and this white Mercedes kept pulling up next to me. And I was like, I don't want to be that guy that asked for a number in traffic. And I just left the gym. Like I was, I was, I had my shirt off. I

Traffic Jam Meet Cute

SPEAKER_01 1:30

was sweating. I was like, I look like a total douche in my car. And she kept pulling up next to me. And uh I was like, All right, I'm gonna do it. I yelled out, yelled out the window, what's your number? She looked over at me, looked straight, and then the the light turned red. We pulled up next to each other, and she's like, All right, I'll give you my number. Did she scream it? Um, well, with my car, how loud it was. Initially, it was kind of tricky to get it. And it started, it was a 509 number, which is Washington, which is where I'm from. So when that happened, I was like, All right, we might have something here. And uh yeah, got the number, texted her, figured out we had a whole bunch of similarities. Like her uh her grandparents used to visit where I used to work in dock boats, like on the island I grew up on. Okay, and so um, yeah, one thing led to the next, and now her and I are in Vegas at your podcast. That's awesome, dude.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Well, congratulations. Thank you. Now, what do you have advice to dudes who want to ask for a girl's number and don't?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Um, I think about it like sales. Like I've had many opportunities in life where whether it's a girl getting a car, taking a business opportunity, where when you do not do it, the feeling in that pit in your stomach of like what if your gut's telling you something's wrong. Yeah, you have the anxiety, like you can see your heartbeat, whether it's a girl's number or whatever it is. Hey, this is outside of my comfort zone, and this relates to a lot of stuff in life. There's the fear, there's the insecurity, there's all the stuff. But I got sick of living life where I'm like, What if? I remember I was in Miami and there was this girl that pulled up on a street bike, and it she had this like long ponytail, and I was just like, This girl's

Asking For Numbers Like Sales

SPEAKER_01 3:10

straight out of a movie, and she revved her engine at me, and I'm the guy. I'm like, I'm not used to this. And I used to ride straight bike. We didn't do shit. I did nothing. I was like, this girl's way too badass. I remember she drove off and looked back at me, and I was like, I'm not living life like that, where I'm just like, what if? Same with business, same with relationships, same with all the stuff.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Same with life insurance, which we're gonna talk about. Yes, and the thing is, dude, life is going so fast that like you might as well do it now.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

For sure. I think that embarrassment, I I read this, it's like embarrassment is an underdiscovered emotion, and like we should pursue that as much as possible. Like, I'm my goal as of recently is to go try to embarrass myself because once you reach a certain point where it's just like, can I cuss on here?

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Yeah, of course. You can smoke cigars, you can cuss, light up a cig.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Bro, we'll smoke Marble Reds if you want. But being embarrassed, right? It's probably like people's biggest fear. For me, I want to work that muscle because once you're once you're you've built like a callus around being embarrassed, it's just like nothing else really matters, and you're living the life that God intends you to live at that point because you're not thinking about other people. So good.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

All right. Talking about this, have you ever seen the movie Yes Man with Jim Carrey? Yes. Okay. So if you have not seen that, it's kind of what Christo's talking about. So this dude hates his life. He goes to this conference and they tell him, All right, you gotta agree to say yes to everything that happened that someone offers you, like tells you to do, you say yes. All these doors start opening up, and it's hilarious because it's the craziest stuff that he has to say yes to. But the one scene I remember is this dude's like somehow's like, dude, let's throw a rock through that bank window. And he's like, Yes, and he shatters the window. That was also me. Yeah, and he's and he's running from the cops. But point is, is yeah, that is dude, that's so powerful. Like, if we could just be okay with being embarrassed, say yes more, see what happens, ask for Haley's phone number. Um now, Haley, what what made now Haley's right over here, just so everyone knows. What made you actually give him the number? Was it his shirt off? Because he is ripped. Like, was it confidence? What was it?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

I've never had a guy do that, so I was like, okay, and he's cute, so worth a try.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Did it work out well? It worked out great. Was it because he wasn't worried about being embarrassed? Is that what it was?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

No. I just thought he was cute. I was like, okay, we'll give it a try.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

He's just cute. Little tattooed felon in a Lambo.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

He's so cute.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

He definitely caught me off guard, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

That's awesome. Now, were you like, wait a second, maybe I shouldn't?

SPEAKER_00 6:01

No.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

No.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

No hesitation. Cool. Can I say one thing about the yes man thing? So when uh when I got sober, and I I'm not gonna go too far in depth on this, but I I've worked a 12-step program. That's the only thing that's ever worked for me. And what I was taught to do from my parents, who have over 30 years sober, both of them, they're split up, they have a great relationship because

Saying Yes And Building Courage

SPEAKER_01 6:25

they're sobriety. Um, my brother's sober, he just had two years, which was super awesome. But when I got into the program, um, I was just told to say yes. And I was saying yes to stuff that I was like, I don't want to fucking say yes to this. But it worked that muscle of getting out of my comfort zone, going to places to help people that I didn't know. Um, you know, I remember even before I got sober because my parents were in the sobriety community, they said yes to a lot of stuff as well, too. So I found myself helping like singles mom, single moms move, all sorts of things like that. But I think in in the business and also reaching a point of desperation before I got sober, where I realized like my way does not work. I need like I need somebody that's gonna point me in the right direction because whatever I do ends up not working out. It might not be every decision, but what I end up doing does not work out for me. Once I got kind of like an advisor or mentor or sponsor that was just like say yes to everything and you can call and check it out with me. And I started saying the yeses, just like that movie, the door started opening up to like have the opportunity to fly out here and get on a podcast with you or build a relationship with you or Sean or all the amazing people that I have around, where it's like I think stack so many yeses of the shit that you do not want to do until you've said yes to too many things where you're overcommitted, too busy, you're not showing up to things because you said yes so many times where recently I had to reel that back in because I was just overcommitted.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

But saying yes gave me every single opportunity that but saying no and you you're not busy enough, what does that do?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

I think if you're saying no and you're not busy enough, depending on the situation, right? It could be both sides, but I needed to be busy. Me too. Like I me being busy will save me money, it will save me time, it will save me all sorts of stuff. Because when I'm on a schedule or when I'm focused on something, watch the fact watch the fuck out. But when I'm not you could be self-destructive, very, very fancy. Like too, like pile of matches, like constructing it slowly, like building a little house, and then you give me too much time, and it's like boom. And and that's what I learned about myself. And I think a lot of the men that I see in this business, and you know, outside of this business, if they're not busy, the the idle time is the devil's playground, yeah, and the biggest liability to them and the people around them.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Yeah, 100%. I agree. All right, so let's get into this. Uh I do want to learn about what you do before life insurance. What was your life like before life insurance? When was that? How many years ago?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

The raw, real, super transparent. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

No one wants fake.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Okay. Um, so it's actually been over seven years in the Statue of Limitation for a lot of this stuff. So I feel grateful that I can actually talk about it. Um, you know, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a sports star. I played every sport that I could play. And by the time I was 15, 16 years old, I was kicked out of every sport for concussions. I'd gotten re-cleared. Like, I really thought I was gonna do something. Like, wasn't really big enough for for professional football, but I'm like baseball, something, something's gotta hit because I had that itch. Like, I'd be out pitching, practicing, and it'd be dark. My mom's like, come in, and I had that obsessive, like weapon eyed, weaponized autism thing where it's like I'm gonna figure this out. Um, when sports got taken out of my life, you know, I had always been very excited by business. And uh at a young age, dude, I'll be real, I started selling drugs. Initially, it was medical marijuana. Uh, in Washington, you could have a medical card. I could carry a pound and a half. I got my loving mother, who is so awesome, to co-sign my bullshit and get me my medical medical card when I was that young. Um, shout out mom, because that kept us fed. And uh, you know, that was my first start into business. And I was in business with my brother. He had a uh he had five different licenses or medical cards, so he was like a holder, so he could have four and a half pounds. So him and I would cruise through Washington and we had our patients for medical marijuana, and uh, you know, that's how we made money. And I think my brother and I both watched my mom and my dad make some decent money when we were younger, and then the real estate collapsed in 2008, and I watched my parents lose everything, watched them to get divorced, file bankruptcy. My brother got sent away to like kind of similar to like the movie holes, like a camp like that for three years, and life went from being really good to the polar opposite of everything. Haven't seen dad, haven't seen my brother, house hopping with my mom. And uh, I watched my mom do night school for nursing and then work way more than full-time on salary and just get like abused by the workforce and then be chasing a new life for her kids while her kids were selling dope and trying to, you know, live the American dream out. But I remember seeing the circumstances of that and how hard my mom worked, and I'm just like, I'm not gonna let this happen. And so, although it's negative, right? My brother and I leveraged that vehicle to be able to make money, and uh, you know, I was 16 years old driving BMW

Sobriety And The 12-Step Reset

SPEAKER_01 11:56

and I was doing online classes through college and kind of just cheating the system through that entire thing, and that was like my first real shot at business. Um, once I turned 18, I dropped out of uh community college for the running start credits, started working at a digital marketing company. This was like a spurt of me getting sober and getting my life together. Wait, wait, wait. Tell me about not being sober.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Like what were you doing? Drugs, alcohol?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Everything. I could we could print off a list, dude. You know the beginning of Wolf of Wall Street where he's like listing off his drug schedule, like Quayluds, you were doing that? All of it, yeah. I uh and and I want to make sure to say this because my parents are super amazing people. I was just really, really manipulative and wanted to live my life when I wanted to live my life. And uh I got exposed to a lot of or older people on the island I lived on where they're like 22 and don't really care that you're 12. So, like by the time I was nine, I had smoked weed with my brother. By the time I was 12, um, I was doing cocaine and pain pills.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

Cocaine at 12.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah, yeah, I had an early start. I lost the V card at 12 and and and did some blow and felt like I was the man. I thought I was like 23 in my head, dude. I had my little skateboard and I'd hitchhike around town. I was just like well, the family had split up. It's like I gotta become the man of the household and also figure out what's going on. And uh the dynamic on an island, like if you know everybody, people don't really care as long as you hold yourself to a certain standard, they're not worried the age you are. So I think I got exposed to a lot of big boy stuff and an early age, and I kind of skipped the whole I'm gonna have a childhood thing, and I looked really old when I was young. Like when I was 15, I kind of looked like that beard. Yeah, the beard.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Did you always did you have that beard at 12?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

It was coming in, dude. It was coming. I remember I used to get roasted by people that are so far from puberty. Yeah, they ain't roasting you now though. They're like, you got a nice beard, they're like wish you got you got armpit hair coming in, they're like gross. I I I just uh I grew up really, really quick and I wanted to to live life. And so after some of the stuff in high school, I'll I'll skip through it real quick just so we can kind of get the fundamentals and the facts. By the time I was 15 years old, I had two felonies on my record. That was like I almost got for what for it was m felony, malicious mischief, which was basically really fucking some cars up. Okay. And uh it was actually at a celebrity golf event. I I got a little too turned, and uh we would have to lay lay the facts of the case out, but I basically sprinted into some cars and like blew out the doors, and it ended up being a lot of money and damage, and so uh that ended up being like a really funny thing initially, and then they arrested me, and my mom worked at the sheriff's office, so I'm like, I'm good, I'll have like a little case or something like that. And with the amount of the damage and the fact that there was like celebrities involved, they just like really wanted to prove a point for that. Okay, and uh that was my first exposure to law enforcement and everything related to that, and that just kind of started the whole process because it ended up being a really serious thing, and they almost tried me as an adult. Like, damn.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Okay, now at what point were you addicted to drugs where you had to go to rehab? What age?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Um, I would say I was officially addicted to drugs at 16 years old. Like really when did it get bad?

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Like it sounds like it was fun and then it wasn't fun.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

I there's multiple times where it was fun and bad, and I always went in between that because there was a weird sense of hey, maybe I'm just young and this is a temporary thing where I'm trying to figure it out. I always thought that I'm like, dude, I'm 16, like maybe I can just rewire my brain, it's just a phase. But I think when I was 16 and was doing the running start stuff and making a lot of money and not having to go to school really and doing online classes and paying people to get that done while I was doing whatever I was doing. Um, that was the first time I ever got on a drug that was physically addictive. What drug was it? It was Xanax and opiates, so pain pills and Xanax. And I had taken those frequently enough where I remember waking up one day and not taking anything. I'm just like, yeah, I don't want to take anything. And I was getting everything for pennies on the dollar, and it was the world was kind of enabling me to do drugs, and I leveraged that to the highest degree, but I didn't take anything, and I started to get like physical withdrawal symptoms, and I'd never experienced that. And that was the first time where I, you know, pulled up Google, checked it out, and I'm like, oh wow, this is different, right? You do drugs like cocaine and things like that. That's that's psychologically addictive, right? You're chasing that, but you start doing drugs that are physically addictive, where they it's literally like a demon that has its grip on your soul physically, mentally, spiritually. And when you're playing with stuff like that, it's a different ball game, right? Um, and I didn't understand how serious that was, I just kind of kept it pushing. And uh the first time I ever ended up going to rehab, I was like I had just graduated high school, and um dude, I literally woke up in rehab. There was like three days that had gone by and uh I woke up in where was it? Sundown M ranch in a part of Washington where she's from and went

Growing Up Fast And Felonies

SPEAKER_01 17:30

there for 45 days, got out, I was sober for like a year and a half, and then once again the reset of you know, I'm young, maybe I can casually drink, maybe I can figure things out. That's that's where a lot of the guilt, shame, remorse, and pain came for me is being like, I want to be normal. Like, I would love to be able to go to dinner and have a casual one or two drinks with you in whatever world that is. We're not living in that fucking world. If you and I went to dinner and had I had a casual one or two drinks, it's like I'm getting a third, and on the third I'm ordering X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, you're either coming or you're not, bro. But I'm I'm going after you.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

You want to know something funny? When so Sean is sober, you said you related to him when you started because he was like 27 years sober or something crazy. But when I started, he goes, Hey bro, if you ever see me drink a beer, quit. And then he goes, If I say I'm not gonna drink and again and I'm just having one, still quit.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Which is such such good awareness, right? It's it's comical and it's great, but like that is me. I remember Sean talked about openly smoking crack at the first event, and he made it into a joke and he made people laugh. And normal individuals were kind of like, Whoa, this is crazy. I was like, I feel like I'm home. Crack wasn't my thing, but that that energy of not being judgmental and taking your past and turning it into something very powerful. That's all around Family First Life. That's all around you. Since I met you, you're like, bro, I really like your story. And I think that you saw something in me that I didn't even see in myself, and you just gave me a different level of respect where I'm like, you're you've always been up here, right? You're very humble, you're very calm, you're like one of the chillest, most reliable dudes that I've met, especially for the position you're in. Like, you guys are gonna issue what 40 mil this month?

SPEAKER_03 19:28

Last month, probably more. I think we did had our first 16 million dollar week. Crazy. Derek, is that right? 16 million dollars in a week went through.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Well, and that's the thing, and I was thinking about this on the flight here is like, dude, you are who you are, and you're a great husband, you're super dad, you're very chill. But like, I watch what you've done in business, and then you're the opposite of a cocky, arrogant, egotistical prick, and you're just a nice, charismatic dude. And it's like you're issuing on a monthly basis more than every fucking IMO in the country, or if you merge them all together, the people that we're in competition with, and you don't even need credit for it. And that's kind of why I'm talking about it right now because I feel like a lot of people that watch your podcast they don't know how much sauce you have, they don't know how much shit you've gone through to get to where you're at, and then you're you and you're just like, What's up, dude?

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Yeah, yeah, dude, that's hilarious. But the truth is, man, I just leverage what we have here. Yeah, like we got good people, we got uh Sean Mike's doing a great job running the company, we got other people like you, bro. I got a lot of awesome people like you in my life, and then it make it keeps me going. So can't do it without you and everybody on the team. And it's not like someone asked me, they're like, dude, how are you doing that? I'm like, bro, I'm not. I'm just I'm working with people, leveraging, leveraging the system, leveraging other trainings, and then on top of that, dude, I haven't moved. So think about this. This is 19 years every day doing the same thing. And if somebody tried to recruit me, I'd be like, bro, you're crazy. I'm never leaving my team. I'd live in a trailer park before I like these are these are my friends before I went behind their back. I'd rather live in a trailer park. And it wasn't about just can I make a few dude? How weird is the gener like the the new 18, 19, 20-year-olds in this industry, how they're constantly going behind each other's back and making videos about each other and trying to like beef with each other. Have you seen that or no?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

For sure. And that it's something that make it gives me secondhand embarrassment, and then it's something that makes me not want to get big enough on social media where I have to deal with stuff like that. But once again, I'm gonna say yes and I'm not gonna live in fear. But I watch people do that, and the lifestyle that I come from, you you necessarily you can't necessarily talk about it on a podcast like this. For sure. And so for me, it's like anytime there's anything related to that in business, like I'm rolling with people on my team that would actually take a bullet for me or dish one out for me. Not everybody, but a lot of the guys I'm with have known them for years, and the people that I have positioned in my business, I want to be in business with people, whether it's we're crushing it or it's the worst day of our lives. I have the most reliable people around me that believe in me and vice versa. And so to circle back to that question, when I watch people doing that, it takes away from the industry, it takes away from the money, it takes away from all the things that are good, and it makes people look like can I say it? Yeah, little bitches, as men. Right? Where it's like you're gonna spend time on doing something like that, where we all work in the same industry. A lot of the stuff is a similar vehicle. I would say undeniably, we have the best vehicle at Family First Life. For sure. And before I came here, I did the research on that. So when I watch these people that want to get a little clout or a little bit of hype and there's a little drama and people reshare it, did you see this? I'd rather focus on like who on my team can I help get paid? Like who's gonna be the next 20-year-old to make 20, 30 grand on my on my team? And I think that there's a lot of distractions related to that, but there's so much positive stuff to look at while other people are looking for things like that to leverage and talk shit and uh compare all these other opportunities. But I know I need to focus on where my feet are at and where my people's feet are at.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Yeah, I love that. All right, back to the addiction, real quick, and let's get into sales because a lot of people have come in, they've told me that they've overcome addiction, they've told me how, and then that they've like taken that energy and applied it into this. Can you talk on that at all, especially for someone who's in the middle of that?

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah. Um, you know, drug drug addiction and alcoholism. I would say alcohol was kind of like the the initiator for me. It just broke the seal and then it was really a drug problem. It's not like I would wake up in the morning and be like, oh, I'd like to go, yeah. Or like, hey, I'd love to go acquire some cocaine. It's like I have you know, three drinks, and then it's like that look comes out and it's like demon Cristo is with us. Um but my life, more so than I can even communicate, has been riddled with drug addiction and alcoholism. So to kind of break down the family tree, pretty much every single person on both sides of my family is drug addict, alcoholic, like to the highest degree.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Now, okay, keep going.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

And the majority of my friends and the people I hung out around with that I grew up with, and the people that I spent a lot of time with, I would say 75% of them are dead. There's a small percentage that are clean and sober, and the rest are in prison. And some of these people are insanely smart. Like, we say that, and I feel like people watching this will be like, oh, they're bums and drug. Like these dudes are sharp, like they'll run a fucking lap around you and figure out a business plan and make it happen. But for me, what happened is I just looked at my life. I've flatlined twice and then been in a coma once from drugs and alcohol. What were you gonna say? What happened?

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Dude, fentanyl. No, but like what happened? Because some there was a guy in here saying he he flatlined and like he went to some crazy place.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

So the first time there was a white light experience, but when I came to, um this is so wild to talk about on a on a podcast just openly, but it's my life. So when I came to, there was cops and like nurses and doctors, and they're like, he's back, it's a miracle. And I see two cops, and I was on felony probation back in Washington, and this is in Arizona. Okay. So I could talk about this for a long time, but I was getting travel permits from Washington to Arizona on felony probation, and I had a little slip-up, right?

Addiction Turning Point And Rehab

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Woke up in a hospital, and the only thing I was concerned about was I saw cops. I was like, Did I get arrested? Because if I got arrested, it was gonna be a very large deal. But I did have a white light experience with that. The next time, which was a year and a half later, uh, there was nothing really significant about it. But then this last time around, four and a half years ago, a little over four and a half years ago, I had like a spiritual experience while I was in the hospital and I was out for multiple, multiple days. And I feel like I reworked a lot of the things that I could not remember about my life, and I had like a complete memory reload and went through a lot of the stuff that had happened when I woke up. I kind of was like, whoa. And so when that happened, I went to rehab and uh completely pushed the restart button on life after making the most money in my life, and um that's when I pivoted in the life insurance industry once I got back. But to answer the question that you're talking about with dealing with that, for addicts, it can be the worst possible thing that you have and the biggest curse, or it can be the biggest blessing. I would say we all like everything. Yes. With my thing, as long as I'm fixated on something and I brought the term up weaponized autism, that's how I try to think about my addictive behavior. Because if it's women, not good. If it's gambling, not good. If it's work and fitness and helping other people, and I'm operating out of like the version that God intended me to be, where I wake up and I'm like, wow, I'm a tattooed felon with a wild past, but like I'm gonna pull out a little notebook and write a gratitude list and pray and meditate, and I'm gonna go do a random act of kindness today. When I'm operating out of that version of myself, it's like it's very hard to have a bad day. Like it's very hard. You could punch me in the face if I've prayed, meditated, wrote a little gratitude list. I'm so grateful for this. And it's small things for me. I don't really give a fuck about the watch, the car, the money, things like that. That's just marketing. What I really care about is like the relationship I have with my brother that is sober that I can look at and looks the most solid he's ever looked in my entire life, and text my mom and be like, I love you, and text my dad and be like, grateful to be your kid. I love you. That's the stuff that I didn't have a lot of my entire life that I'm super fucking grateful for that you cannot buy.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

And it's kind of like uh getting Haley's phone number. Like a lot of people think I should tell my mom, I should text this person and tell them I'm I'm appreciative for them, I love them, whatever, but they don't do it. Right? So you're just waking up and you're doing all these things.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

For sure.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Okay, if somebody is in the middle of I actually I want to talk about this. Your family, your whole family, everybody has had drug and alcohol problems, right? Other people have other issues, like their family, and it's the opposite of leaving like an inheritance, it's leaving your family with a bunch of problems. Did that ever mess with you? Like everybody was like that, so I have to be like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I think in my head, I thought I was gonna be the special one that wasn't that way. Well, you are right now. Here's the thing I'm not, I have to give the credit to my parents because they actually took the because they the they broke the cycle 1000%. They broke the cycle and I still wouldn't fuck the cycle up, but now we've restarted the cycle, and the relationship we have is ten times stronger than if I wouldn't have done that. But where they come from, like my dad's dad dad died when he was really young from alcoholism. Um, my mom comes from a super abusive household, and um, I'm not gonna go into her story because that's her story, but like from where they they come from and what they were brought up in, what my parents did, although it could have improved if we're living in a perfect world, they did the best they possibly fucking could to be like, we're gonna get sober, we're gonna read it. And they weren't sober, they weren't sober, and then they got together and um were they sober when you were a kid? Yeah, they've been sober my entire life. Okay, so I had no alcohol, but they had a past. Yes, yeah. Yeah, I'm not gonna talk about my dad works in real estate, so I'm not gonna talk about his past or or my mom's because what she does for work, but yeah, they both have a past and they're both amazing people, but everyone in my family has that 20%, 30% gangster thing in them where they've been around the block and and moved some stuff.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Yeah, but everybody has something. Yes, everybody has something, and then I think the important thing is going, can we break that? Yes, and can you continue to break that? Yeah, which is awesome, and you're killing it. Thank you. Um, cool, bro. Well, lastly, you do you go to AA? Yes. Do you go how often?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Um, I used to go because I was a sick puppy, but I I really just needed some stuff to go to, and uh I definitely didn't want to. But I used to go every day, just habitually, and I would call my sponsor every day. He would half the time. He wouldn't pick up, and I didn't even really want him to pick up. It was just me proving to me like I'm gonna go to a meeting and I'm gonna call my sponsor and I'm gonna go do a random act of kindness. I remember when I met with this guy, um, his name's Estel. Dude has literally changed my life. Like between Sean Mike and Esther Wallace, I and you and and people like Grady and Nina and Hayden, like I'm very blessed with people that are willing to pour into me for free. But he gave me a list of things, and it was um pray, meditate, read the book, random act of kindness, go to a meeting, and then everything else is gonna come from that. So good. And keeping that very simplistic, it's uh wild to see that my brother and I were talking about this the other day because he's in the program as well, but he would never go to meetings. Him and I growing up around that, we were like, I'd rather fucking die than be in out. Hey, yes, ma'am. Yeah, for sure. Him and I were both, I told we'd be on the phone with each other a couple years ago trying to get our well, over a couple years ago, trying to get our life together. Be like, dude, I'd rather die than the than do the 12 steps. And uh, you know, him and I laughed like two weeks ago, first two years, and I'm like, little did we know, we just needed to show up to something and give it our all and drop the ego and drop the thing of I have this figured out and it's gonna be my way. And that relates to every category of all the relationships I have in my life, and especially this business. I see it. I'm involved in two cults, and I say that proudly. I have a 12-step program, I have family first life, and I have some of the most solid, amazing people in my life through those things. People in the program would bury a body with me. Yeah, we're not trying to do any of that, it's very positive. Did you ever do the 13th step? I actually, I actually factually steered clear of that, and it was super respectful because I was around it so much. I outsource that's good for anybody that understands what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

So one of my friends, Ben, who's here, yeah, he works in this office. He's he's in AA, he goes every day, he's like five years sober, yeah. Um maybe more. But I I ask him questions about AA all the time, and he the stuff he tells me could help anybody in business. It's legit. It is like there's a lot of good stuff. My question the other day was, what if because it it is about fate, a higher power is a big part of that, right? And uh it's weaved into the messaging of figuring out everything. But I'm like, what if somebody's an atheist? What how do they help them? And his response was in AA, they tell you whatever God you understand is the one we're talking about. And I'm like, bro, that's so good. Like all the things, and then he's telling me about the big book and uh how you right all your wrongs right when you go in there and you tell every you apologize for all the stuff you did so you could release from dude. I ask him about it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

I think the steps, if everyone could get to a point where their life either got bad enough or they were willing enough, whether they're drug addict, alcoholics, normal, whatever it is, where they could go through that. That was like the most freeing experience of my life. Because I think about grown men in general. I know a lot of people that owe a lot of people a lot of money or a lot of an apology or a lot of amends. But sitting here today, I'm extremely flawed and I have many things I need to work on. I don't owe a single human money. I've gone through pretty much every single wrong that I've done in my entire life,

Flatlining And A Spiritual Wake-Up

SPEAKER_01 34:56

outside of maybe I might need to do a renewed one over the last six months or year of some mistakes that I've made, right? We're we're always gonna continue to get better. But I've gone through and the large things in my life that come up in my head multiple times, I've gone through and I've reworked those and I've taken accountability and I've paid my dues, whether it's financially, spiritually, um, or with follow-through on stuff like that. And a lot of it's a living amends. And so anybody in the general public, if you're becoming that aware to be like, here are my wrongs. Like, I don't care about, let's say you and I have a situation and we got into a fight and you kept punching me in the face and punching me in the face. I'm not looking at the spot of like Andrew kept punching me in the face. I'm looking at my involvement in the situation and how I can amend that and take accountability for that. So good. And I had never done that. I'm always like, well, Andrew punched me in the face, yeah, exactly. So that level of accountability, when you go through that and then you look at it in business, I don't really have a lot of frictions in my relationship. Like, I don't think I've ever called you on an out of out-of-pocket thing. Never and just I've been like, hey, bro, I need some advice and perspective. But not a lot of people are willing enough to take the time and go through and kind of recode what they have going on psychologically and rework those things. Like, we're so focused on how do we make money, how do we IP more, how do we do this. I wanted to rework myself so I could be the dude that's meant to have the money and be the guy that's meant to be super awesome dad, super awesome husband, because I was not that guy until I went through that. But I think the the steps in getting around individuals like yourself that are super dad, that are an awesome bro. You are, bro. Like, I look at what you have, and it's the same thing with um Estel and the relationship you have with your kids and how they are and how unique and special and smart they are. Like, you can tell you're such a present dad that cares about your kids. Like, I haven't spent a lot of time with anybody other than Atlas, but I can like see it in the way that he thinks about the world that you're such a present dad. And when you think about the steps and all these things, like I want to go through and rework my life and consistently do that so I can be that type of dad and not be pushing off all these fucked up generational curses on my kids, which you don't do at all.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

But what's funny is like I didn't have a dad. Yeah, so it's my whole goal is like can I give them what I didn't have?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

Just like what you're doing, and I can like in another way.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

And I can see the look in your eye too when you say that, and it's like so special and awesome, and I can feel it too. Um and I can see it, and that's like the money, bro. We're all after we all want some money and we all want that, but it I feel like when the money I have more money to make and more things to do and more lives to change. Once I started making six figures a month, I realized like money doesn't really matter that much. It's like I'm I'm chasing the relationships and building something around me and with the people that are with me were facilitating our dreams and like things like that. Like, I didn't have a dad, and now I look at you like super.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

Yeah, I didn't have a dad in my life, yeah. Yeah, um talk let's talk about Atlas real quick. We gotta plug him. Atlas is my he's turning five. He started his own YouTube channel, it's called Zoo Fam. Uh uh Z-O-O-F-A-M-M, and he is all about animals. And he's got we have 20 turtles, 10 water turtles, 20 tortoises, 10 water turtles, uh, koi fish, and axolotl. Do you know what that is? Bro, it's like a salamander that lives in the water. That's all crazy. Do they have the beak? No, they got like little whiskers, it's a freaky animal. It's one of the most studied animals because it's the only animal that can uh regenerate everything in its entire body, including its brain. Let's go. So, anyways, it it's a blast that I'm having fun with these kids. Can I get the feature on his YouTube channel soon?

SPEAKER_01 39:09

You need to be in one of his videos. I'm down. So before I came out here, you and I had talked about it, about what exotic animal uh we could acquire for Atlas. And I would, I would, I actually want to facilitate that. Yeah. I don't know if we need to drop five grand on a marmosat or marmosat, whatever they are, one of those monkeys. It comes down to what your wife is okay with taking care of.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

Well, we just have to do it and not ask. Yeah. It should be like, oh, yeah, but dude, you've always been a huge, you've always been so supportive. Like, dude, I love what you're doing with your kids. You you're always like calling me, asking if you can get Atlas a a tiger on the dark web. So I appreciate you for that, dude. Okay, so let's get into life insurance. We haven't even now, does all this stuff contribute to helping? Yes, because everybody's dealing with something and all this stuff is universal when it comes to uh moving forward and making a a difference and getting through whatever you're going through. But first, why did you pick the life insurance industry?

SPEAKER_01 40:16

So, full transparency. I watched people on Instagram during coronavirus. I remember this guy had a Bentley. He works at a company that we hire a lot from. He had a Bentley, he was in early mid-20s, and it just caught my eye. It wasn't even that nice of a car, it was probably worth like 50, 60 grand. But I just remember being like, that's an abnormal car. Those cars devalue more than anything. Anyone that ever wants a cheat code to look rich, you go get a seven to ten-year-old Bentley, they

Why Life Insurance Became The Vehicle

SPEAKER_01 40:50

devalue probably like sixty-seventy percent. Um, but I was shocked by being that young and him driving that, and so it caught my eye, and I followed some people that worked in the captive life insurance space, and I saw these people posting a whole bunch of money, and I was working in digital marketing. So from 19 to 25, I worked in digital marketing, owned my own company, and um had always checked out other opportunities. They made it look real good. But um when I saw that and coronavirus happened, and I heard that it was switching to virtual, that's when it piqued my interest because I was used to working from home on a laptop, I could fly anywhere, do whatever, get my work done, and that sounded exciting. I was like, telesales, e-apps, stuff like that. Maybe I can figure something out. And that's what attracted me to this space was all right, don't have to do in-home, can can do the like virtual nomad thing and actually facilitate that. And uh telesales. I had one of my first legitimate sales jobs was doing telemarketing at 16 years old. I don't know if it was even legal to work, but I was calling down to Riverside, California, selling text coat paint, um, dual pane windows, walk-in bathtubs, like the full gambit. But I had worked that telesales grind before. And when this opportunity came up, I and I started to understand the advance. I almost went to go work at a captive company, but then someone called me and was like, Hey, if you're looking at getting into from digital marketing into the life insurance space, you got to check out this company called Family First Life. And I was like, All right, I originally got offered, guess what compensation I got offered uh at the captive company? 30 20.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

20? Yeah, I've never even heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Yeah, I didn't, I didn't either. Or you were like, 20% sounds great. I thought it was good. I did when I worked at a place doing sales, I got 10%, 15%, 20% on a huge deal. So I'm like, I'm cl it's like I'm closing huge deals all the time. And then he told me, you know, come on at starting comp. And I was like, sweet, that's four times higher. So I was I was jazzed, I was excited, and um that was my first exposure to this. And once I started to understand the advanced part of the life insurance space, I crunched some numbers and I'm like, hypothetically, if I could close one policy every other day, like I'm making really decent money.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

Like, what did you come up with? $250 a year or something?

SPEAKER_01 43:16

The first year? Yeah. Yeah. My first year I deposited. I'm gonna I'm gonna downplay it a little bit just because I'd prefer doing that. But my first year I deposited $250. Next year it was $550. Uh, my third year was the first time I ever deposited a million bucks, which was crazy. You deposited a million bucks in the third year, yeah. Um and then last year about two. And and with with net and taxes and stuff like that for people listening to this, I'm talking about what I deposited. Like we have a lot of write-offs and you're spending money, yeah, for sure. But also, it's like I can decide for some of the expenses as uh that I have how I want to absorb those, depending on how much they are related to my business or how much I want my life to surround around my business.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

You could turn them on and off too.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Exactly. So I think that's something important for people to know. Where I never thought I could find a place where some dumbass like me that has a very low IQ but a very high follow-through rate, right? I've had so many concussions that bro, I've I don't think you have a low IQ though. I like to sell it like I do, so people will just expect that. I would prefer that all the time. Um, but having a lower IQ than I would say the majority of people that I think should be way more successful than I am. And getting into this, I never thought that you could double your income every year or have an opportunity to do that, and I needed it so fucking. Bad bro. It saved my life. Like it saved my life because it was enough money to keep me excited and I was making money where it was enough that it made me feel like I was doing something bad, but I'm literally just helping people. And then I'm training other people how to help other people. And then I'm training other people's people how to help other people.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

Yeah. All right. I want to go back to the drugs and alcohol thing real quick.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

What do you say to kids 20, 21, 18, 19, dabbling in cocaine? Because you know it's everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

Uh, do you have any advice for them?

SPEAKER_01 45:18

I would say this. If you really, really, really want to do it right, and this is for all the people that go get bottle service, especially like where I'm from in Old Town Scottsdale and big shot. I made 10 grand last month. I'm gonna go get bottle service, and I've dated all those girls and I've been around that industry and I've watched it all. If you really want to do something right, lock in for four fucking years, which is what I did. I did not go on any cool trip outside of work stuff. I did not go do anything amazing, I didn't take a break. I worked six days a week for four years, and then I turned 30 and went to Thailand, and it was the most freeing experience of my life. To revert back to that, if you want to do that stuff and you really want to do it right, like a boss, lock in for a couple years, stack some cash, put money in a brokerage account, transfer money out of savings rather than spending it on stupid shit. And if it's really that big of a priority, go buy a couple bricks of cocaine and go to a foreign country and go do X, Y, and Z things. I'm not gonna say if you really want to do that and live that life, go do it the right way. Because I watch people that think it's awesome to go get bottle service and they drop two to five grand and post a little picture on Instagram around girls that are financially incentivized to be around them, and it's like none of them.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

They don't really like them, the girls. Did someone just say no in the room over there? Was that Haley?

SPEAKER_01 46:43

But I think that's the thing where it's like there's this level of excitement where people want to be wanted and they want to feel like a boss, right? And people are like, Oh, check this out. But if I could go back and give myself advice, it'd be lock the fuck in for a couple years, sacrifice the feelings of being wanted and looking like a boss and pulling up in the Lamborghini and and all that stuff, and just stack the cash. Like Zach Chisholm on my team. I'm about to air out his personal information. He just turned 22, bro. Guess how much he has saved?

SPEAKER_03 47:17

Just guess 100k.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

325 racks in a brokerage account.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

That's that I'm gonna repeat that. 22 years old, $325,000 saved in a brokerage account. The brokerage account is important. It's not just saved, he has money that's being invested. That kid is way smarter than I am.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Yeah, now, but the thing is, is like, couldn't we just give the advice of it's pointless? Dude, I get going out drinking bottle service, all that stuff. But people that are going, oh, let's do cocaine, let's do this, let's do that. Could you just say you probably are not missing out on much?

SPEAKER_01 47:59

I will always be honest, I had a fucking blast, bro. I had a blast, but I also ended up in situations where uh, you know, I've had guns in my mouth and I'm about to lose my

Money Milestones And Meaning Beyond Stuff

SPEAKER_01 48:10

life, and I'm in high-speed pursuits and all sorts of things like that. I did have a blast. I had amazing experiences with women and friends and all sorts of things, but I don't remember any of it. I just know that it was fun, and no one remembers the morning after and the feeling that you have, and that's the most important part. Like where you're like you go from being Mr. Gangster to like, I want to call my mom because I'm no, you're praying.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

Like, if I wake up tomorrow, yeah, I promise I'll never do this again. Yeah, have you ever done that? Probably 2,000 times, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

And then that that cycle, I mean, I could go really in depth on that cycle, but I think it's worth not having to experience all the negative stuff that comes along with that, yeah, and also playing it safe and smart. And if someone wants to go achieve all the success and have the financial backing and all those things, go get a couple meal stack. And if you want to live that life and you want to do that shit, go do that, but at least acquire some wealth and do all those things first because I can guarantee you, if you go do that, you're gonna build a life where you're like, I don't need that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

Yeah, what what happened with me is I was around a lot of partying in my early 20s, right? But one day I woke up and I was like, dude, staying up all night till seven in the morning is not gonna build me a big company, and it's really not gonna do anything except talk about shit you're never gonna do. Like you're going, bro, you want to go paintballing tomorrow? And then, yeah, you make all these plans, no one ever does nothing. Yes, and it's just this pointless communication. And then one day I was like, dude, I'm out, I'm gonna cut off all the people that are into stuff I don't want to be a part of. And my life was so much better. And I if I could go back, I would have skipped that. I would have tried to be more impactful earlier, you know.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

I'll I'll tell you this when I got sober, I know a decent amount of people from the different circles I've ran in, the the different industries I've been in, and when I get sober every time that I have, and thank God it's been the last time I've had to for the last four and a half years, because I got so exhausted of that. But when I do that and make that lifestyle transition, I've lost like 98% of my friends.

SPEAKER_03 50:28

And that's okay, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

But it's been the most real reality check of who actually matters and who actually gives a fuck. And today, you know what I think about in my life and how I gauge people in the hierarchy of my brain, like my MySpace, MySpace top eight, how I gauge that. Who the fuck is gonna show up for me if I have cancer today? Like if I walk out of here and I go get shot in the face, who on my team, who in my friend group, who in my life, female, whatever it is, who's gonna show up for me and help take care of my mom? Who's gonna pull up to the hospital? And like I can tell you this I know if I got cancer, you would show up for me and my family. And it's not like I've spent years and hours and we've gone camping for two weeks and stuff like that, but I know that. And I think that is what young men and women or people that are even in business for a while and are older, that's how we have to gauge the team that we're building. That's how we have to gauge the business that we're building because it really comes down to that. When it's Lamborghinis and penthouses and Rolexes, everyone's like, Yeah, bro, this is sick. When it's been really bad stuff that's happened in the business, dude, I've had the blessing of realizing who actually has my fucking back. And those are the only people that I truthfully think about, and they're all going in the well.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

Let's go, baby. Dude, I was thinking like about Rolexes the other day. And I I have a Rolex somebody gave me, but I've never bought one, and it's really dope. But who gave it to you? Uh Brian Adams at Integrity. We crushed it one year, and they have this partner of the year award if you do really well, and we killed it, and uh sh they give a couple Rolexes out, me, Sean Mike, and like a couple other people got them for doing well that year, which is cool because it's also kind of a reminder of like accomplishments, right? Um, but everybody I meet, I tell them about why I got this Rolex or who gave it to me and like the story behind it. So I was like, dude, how cool would it like be to have a goal of how many Rolexes you could give people? That'd be sick, right? That's it. And then I was doing the math, I was like, how much would it be in my lifetime if I gave a hundred Rolexes out? I was like, I think it'd be like 1.5 million, something like that. You know, but that's tight, right? That is like to put on the goal list to start to start that.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Yeah, that's that's the stuff that I was talking to Hayden and I was like, how many seven-figure earners do you guys have on your team between you and Nina? It's a lot, it's a lot, and then I was thinking about you, and I'm thinking about all the people that you like. I'm here sitting on this podcast, but I'm just some guy that has the opportunity to do this. You have so many other versions of me that are way better, way smarter, way faster, and they're seven-finger earners, and it's wild to me what you guys have created because you guys are so chill about it. When I kind of like step back for a second, I'm like, these guys are fucking savages, but you guys don't wear this cape of like we are the best, but it's so amazing like what you, Sean, and everybody have built. And I'm saying this because people need to hear it. Like, we forget about it, you even forget about it because like life is lifing, yeah. But like to have as many seven-figure earners, and then you go to high six-figure earners and then just six-figure earners of how many people you have in your organization, like, bro, it's bigger than just like some money life insurance.

SPEAKER_03 53:49

It got bigger than we could comprehend uh fast for sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

Yeah, and when you're talking about you're sitting at a table, like, how many Rolexes can I buy people? That's the right heart. Like, that's the type of thing. It's cool though, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:02

They'll have it their whole life, their kids will probably get it.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

It'll be the most meaningful gift that they've ever gotten in your life to be real. As to the Brian Adams gift, like that's the only Rolex that you've gotten, you've never bought one, and it's like, I know that's a huge thing to you, and it's not even about the Rolex. No, it's about the accomplishment, the time, the the helping the other people, and I think that's where people get things twisted. Like the the cash and prizes and the shiny stuff, dude.

SPEAKER_03 54:28

The world is interesting right now, it is, but I mean I think the beautiful thing is life insurance is helping people so many people in so many different ways. It is, it is. Like it's dude, it's it's a great industry. All right, let's keep doing this. How long did it take you to realize this is going to work?

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Um well, we're being really transparent, so I'm gonna keep it transparent. Keep doing it. When I got into this industry, I do not recommend anybody having this mentality. But my life was so bad, and I was um in $50,000 in medical bill debt. My rent was about to be due, my car payment was about to be due and get repossessed. Like the only thing that I had was really good credit. I had nothing else. Yeah, I never sacrificed my credit with my drug and alcohol use. So I was like, no, I'll keep that solid. I've always been really good with paying bills on money, I'm good at paying bills on time and stuff like that. But when I got into this, I was like, I'm gonna give sobriety one year, I'm gonna do the 12 steps, and I'm gonna give the life insurance industry one year. And I was like, if I cannot make something of myself, and I do not say this lightly, and I hate that I even say this out loud, but I was like, I'm gonna fucking shoot myself. I was so sick of lying. I dude, that's where legitimately that's I told my mom that I was like, I love you. I'm I'm hoping this is not the route, but I'm gonna give it my all. I'm gonna do the thing. It wasn't like joking it wasn't, it wasn't like I want you to save me, or like I'm talking about that for attention. I was like, I'm gonna shoot myself in the fucking head, I'm gonna give myself a year, and I hope that I'm gonna change all these things and start feeling better about my life because, dude, I had detoxed off fentanyl, which is one of the hardest things to detox off 14, 15 times in a calendar year. I wanted to be clean and sober so bad, but the pull, the like physical

Young Party Culture And Real Costs

SPEAKER_01 56:25

addiction from that was so heavy that I was just like the amount of self-will to self-detox off such a powerful narcotic, like, bro, I just wanted to be sober. I wanted a different life, I wanted to be a different man. And so when I did that, I fully meant it. It wasn't even like a sad thing in my head. It's like, bro, I've I've given so much effort and like internal, deep, I don't even know how to put it into words, but like I just wanted fucking change. And so when it came down to doing that, I made an agreement to myself. I wrote it down on a piece of paper. I was like, 12 steps, one year of sobriety, and I'm gonna go on a full sprint with this for one year, and um, that's where my mentality was. So I just knew I was gonna have to make it work, dude.

SPEAKER_03 57:12

I was watching this movie, I don't know if you've seen this, it's called Sisu. Sisu Sisu, yeah. Sisu. Is it about the guy with the gold? It's the guy that like kills like 300 dudes that are trying to come after him for the gold, right? For the gold, yeah. Then I started like, bro, what does Sisu mean? So because I just watched this movie yesterday.

SPEAKER_02 57:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 57:31

And I'm like, what the hell does Sisu mean? Yes. Because my sauna's name is Sisu, like the brand of the sauna that I have that Grady Pulson researched a thousand companies and told me which one to buy because that's what he does. It's called Sisu. What does it mean? Dude, it means uh basically determination and courage under an immense amount of pressure, pressure where you don't really have the odds in your favor at all. Like that's pretty dope. That is, and that's what that do in the movie. That's why it's named that because people they just can't get him.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

He just keeps coming back when he shouldn't even it shouldn't even be possible.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

That's that's the type of energy that I think with I felt like it was an internal war bigger than I can communicate, and getting to the other side of it to be able to sit at this chair and and openly talk about and make enough money. Dude, openly talking why everybody loves you for sure. Because like you're just open, you're just you. Well, I think the fear of judgment thing, like I I have had some people, I had a client look me up one time and be like, I saw your Instagram and you're you're a recovering drug addict. I don't know if I feel comfortable doing business with you. I was like, respectfully, fuck you. I'm like, I'm not you can report me to whoever respectfully the fact that I talk about the worst parts of my life so that for free 99, I can promote change of other people, like your kid's kid that might have a problem that comes across this video and hears about it when other people do not have big enough balls to expose the worst decisions they've made in their fucking life because they're too selfish. Like, that's something I carry heavy on my heart is like I want to be the guy that talks about the stuff that people do not talk about because guess what I needed? Whatever guy to talk about the stuff that people do not talk about because it would have saved my life a lot sooner. And so I think so good, bro. Getting getting in this industry where it gave me the vehicle to be able to make enough money to where I don't have to give a fuck about what people think about me. Wait, wait, what did the customer say? I don't, I did not go good. Oh, it didn't go good, and then she actually I think she reached out to me like two months later and apologized and got a policy.

SPEAKER_04 59:43

Damn, oh damn, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

I I kind of served her up a little more aggressive than I would, but I'm just really passionate about that stuff. I stood on business for the addict community.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

Dude, thank you. Look, Sandy, bro, thank you for doing it.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 59:56

Yeah, for real.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

It's a blessing because uh there's a lot of you know who Andy Frisella is. Yeah, the way that guy communicates about thoughts, emotions, and thought patterns is a way a lot of people can't. Ed Milette's really good at doing that too, but they talk about things that I can feel in my heart and soul, and I'm like, damn, I didn't know that's what this feeling sounds like outside of your head, if that makes sense. So, with talking about this stuff, you could copy and paste addiction, you could copy and paste depression, whatever it is. But I think talking about that, it promotes this type of change on awareness. Like, how do I become more aware? How do I be less of an asshole in conversations and think less about myself? Like, that's what I'm trying to do. Because if I revert back to factory settings, I'm a piece of shit, bro. Like, I got a big heart, but if I revert back to factory settings of like me, me, me, me, me, not prayed, meditate, gratitude list, random act of kindness I don't tell anybody about. Like, I am unintentionally a piece of shit. And so talking about it, and thank you for even giving me the platform to be this open, because this is like a pretty professional podcast, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:07

But like I mean, this is the thing people want real, yeah. They don't want us to be fake business people on here, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

Yeah, I feel I I just met a a guy who is a a billionaire and randomly connected with him, and bro, he has the same story.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:26

That's amazing, dude. So back in the day I used to do this training called Fire Your Representative. And the training was everybody on the phone is pretending there's somebody they're not. Okay. So the new guy would go, he wouldn't say he was new, he'd act like he'd been doing it for years because he didn't want the customer to judge him, or they would act like they know the answer to a question they don't say a bunch of smart things because they didn't want the customer to doubt them. And the power was going, yo, Christo, I've only been doing this for two days. Let me call my manager and let me see what he says. That way I can make sure I'm doing the right thing for you. And the power, dude, of the customer trusting you because you're being you, not the representative of you, was just closing deals like crazy. So I would do it to everybody, dude. I would tell the customers I stayed out super late. That's why I was late to the appointment, because I met a girl I liked. I would tell them all these crazy things. I would also tell them about my own past. So they would trust me and tell them why I'm doing this. But dude, it's so powerful. But what you're doing, dude, is you're just being you and you're not caring what people think.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:33

And I think when it comes down to recruiting and building a business, that's the only reason I've been able to do it because people realize like if this guy is that comfortable talking about this, I can trust him. And I don't, bro, I'm not this gadget guy with with clawed AI bots and all these things. We're working on stuff like that, but I've never been the systems and processes guy. I want to hire the guys that are the systems and processes guy. I think for me, it's like having the heart, and I want to give people the confidence that I believe in them more than they believe in themselves, similar to what you've done for me and like what Sean's done for me. I had a conversation with Sean the other day, and I actually got really emotional. I was like, dude, I've just realized the entire time that I've met you, you've believed in me 10 times more than I believe in myself, and I didn't even think about it. And it woke me the fuck up. I want to do that for other people for other people.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

The systems and processes, bro, all the AI, that stuff can get figured out by by the dudes with actual weaponized autism. Yeah. But like us as leaders and showing up, and I have a lot of stuff to learn, especially to get in your position, which I hope one day I am. I think that it really comes down to like how much belief you can give in people to where they feel like, hey, this is a brick wall, how are we gonna get around it? And you're like, fuck the brick wall, dude. We're getting through it, dude. That's that's what Sean gave me, bro.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:51

And you give me that, and and thousands of other people. Yeah, it's awesome. All right, what do you think separates people from making it in this industry to people who just throw the talent?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

Um I'm really big on understanding people's whys. And you ask someone their why, and they get really uncomfortable, right? It's like, oh, it has to be a good answer for whoever's listening to it, right? Or people don't really know it. My why is unfucking shakeable off the top of my head at any point in time, and you can feel it in the way that I'm talking about it. It's everything related to what we've talked about, giving hundreds, it used to be hundreds, now it's thousands, then I hopefully one day it's gonna be millions, the power of belief to get the fuck out of your comfort zone and take control of your life and become a way better human being and right the wrongs of your past and completely change like what has been predestined for your family. And I feel like for me right now, like I'm in the the process of writing the code for changing my family dynamic and what people think about, what people eat, what they

Gambling Swings And Self-Awareness

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

do, what they believe, all those things. And like, how can I do that for other people? Like, my why is not based around anything related to myself. If it is, it doesn't really work out. It's just like if you're making money for yourself, you're not gonna make that much money. Yeah, if you're trying to make money for other people, and another thing, make enough money for other people to where they're impressed or they know that you can do that outside of we can all live off 10 grand a month. What do you say? Of course, I can't right now because I've increased my living expenses, but like realistically, I could. Well, you do have a Lamborghini. There's yeah, there's more expenses than that. We're trying to figure it out. But with that, I think when it came down to money and I wanted to make more, I was like, I have to show other people that I have the ability to go make that type of income, not so I can go spend it, but so that they can believe that I believe that I know I can do that because it's this thing that gets passed down. But as for the why, I mean it can keep going, but I want to inspire other people to really take accountability of their life, like to really take care of their mom, like really send their mom money when they're coming up. Like if you own a fucking exotic car and you're not sending your mom money, or maybe you don't have a good relationship with your mom and that's not the one, your dad, your sister, your auntie, whatever it is, like how do we promote change in the awareness to actually live a life beyond our wildest dreams? Like fuck working in nine to five.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

Bro, I'm fired up right now. I am too.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:37

That's legit.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:39

Yeah, let's talk about that. You did you did gamble. I yeah, I'll public some crazy. Some crazy swings.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:47

What were they?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:48

Um, we're getting really public on here. We got Haley being we're just being.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:53

I think Haley is impressed right now. Haley, are you impressed with this guy?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:58

She just stepped out. It's okay. She is.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:01

How she she's looking at him like she's gonna jump on him after this, huh?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Bro, yeah, you're you're a beast, bro. Um, the the gambling thing, dude, that's been a rock in my shoe and it randomly came out of nowhere. Last night? Um, yeah, but way before that. But uh yeah, I had kind of like sworn off gambling for a little bit, but I've I've narrowed it down to I'm only gonna gamble when I'm in Vegas. So I'll see you soon. But yeah, last night we got to the casino. Um, they gave me I get the free rooms, the free food, all the all the stuff. Um I had gambled enough in Arizona where I got a connect with one of the hosts here, and the first time I came out, it was pretty crazy because I'm sober, right? I didn't really come out here and gamble and do that whole party thing. But I came out, they gave me for five grand in free play first time I came, and then they gave me a wraparound suite that was like on the 60th floor, um, free massages, $2,000 or $1,500 of dining credit, and basically, I think, yeah, I went to UFC as well, too. And uh my first time to Vegas, I was like, wow, this is crazy. It was like an alter ego, and I'm sober guy, like I don't smoke cigarettes, but when I hit the casino, I'm like, yeah, a pack of marbreads and a sugar-free Red Bull.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:18

Like, that's as bad as it gets for me, dude. That's awesome. You had your little gambling fun, $300,000 swings, made it out of that. It was bigger swings than that, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

Jesus, that's crazy. Yeah, we were uh it was it was a seven-figure ordeal. Damn. Yeah. Talk about heart palpitations, but yeah, that was that was a rock in my shoe. Um, swore that off at the beginning of the year, told myself I'm like the only time I'm gonna gamble is when I'm in Vegas. I'm in Vegas, we went there, um, turned three grand in free play to like 36 grand, ran it to zero, back up to 30. I was last night, the biggest bets that I were placing was 20,000 on black on roulette. That's crazy. But it did like at that point, gambling's the dumbest thing you can possibly do. But if you're up off the casino's money, it's kind of like the smartest thing to do would be walk, but I'm really not emotionally attached to it because I've already lost and won so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:18

That your your brain isn't kicking dopamine off of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:21

I'm just kind of like, this is an experience, and that was her first time in Vegas, so it was more about like what would that experience be like for her?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:29

I think she wants to say something. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:34

How was your experience last night?

unknown 1:09:36

Great.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

Was it stressful watching me do that? Yes, yes, it was. Just placing bets of a of a three-series MMW every time.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:46

That's hilarious. All right. But he didn't. What you what you should have done is just gave the money to her and let her go shopping.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:53

Well, she did have the money on her at one point in time.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:55

And then and then it it's funny. My wife always goes, Whatever you lose at the casino, you have to give me as well. So if you lose 10,000, you got I'm gonna go spend 10,000 at the store.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

We'll work that out. The plan is not to gamble and focus on the business because when I am gambling, it's it's unintentionally robbing people of the time and effort that I would give them. Yeah, even if it's on my own time.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:20

Yeah. All right. For someone who's new, how would you explain what they're gonna do day-to-day in life insurance?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:28

Depends on the results that they want to have. If you're doing this and looking to just make a couple thousand bucks or whatever it is, I mean, you're naturally gonna work it part-time and not really give a fuck about what it is. But if you're looking for this to be the thing that changes your life and is the vehicle that powers changing every area of your life, especially if you have kids, especially if you don't have kids, right? That's a funny thing to say. Like, spend time with your kids if you have them, but it's more of a reason to get out of the rut in the in the trench that you're in. I would be prepared to dial the phone 10, 12 hours a day coming into this because it's like the odds of

Day To Day For New Agents

SPEAKER_01 1:11:10

working out in this industry are not high, just like the odds of working out in real estate or mortgages or all or building a business, any form of business. This happens to be the one that you maybe need a couple hundred bucks in a perfect world, couple thousand bucks to have a cushion if you want to come in here and build a business. Or for me, I had 233 bucks. So if you have a low barrier of entry and the opportunity and the potential upside is as big as it is, I would be prepared to work 10, 12 hours a day ripping the phones.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:42

Okay, so back to your answer, you are saying you're gonna get what you put into it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:50

Yeah, but I also feel like when people are looking at this industry and they see some dumbass like me sitting on this podcast, and like people know I make decent money, right? There's this huge gap between like where I was and where I'm at now, and people are looking for the really fast thing. Like, do you know who Brez is? Absolutely has crushed it on social media and doing digital marketing and all sorts of stuff. I I lived next to him at the building I used to live in, and I watched that guy completely go from being broke as fuck to scaling and changing every area of his life, like he has the world by the balls right now, and is someone that I would recommend looking up for marketing and stuff related to that. Yeah, and uh people look at a guy like that and they're like, How do I get to there as quick as possible? What people need to be worried about is how do I get my first ten thousand dollars in savings? How do I take it from 10 down to 8 back up to 12 or 15? Like, I think that's what people need to focus on because once when individuals are coming in this business, every person is like, I'm a dog, bro, I'm willing to do whatever. And it's like you might be for three days. Like, what about 30 days, 60, 90, 120 days? Yeah, exactly. Like, I am more willing right now than I've ever been in my life, yeah. And I'm making the most money in my life. My life does not revolve around how much money I make.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:17

Okay, this is uh interesting question, but did you make a certain point a certain amount of money where it made you you thought it was gonna make you happy and it didn't?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:28

1000%. I think that I lived in like we had like we had enough money to where I had a dirt bike when I was younger. I felt like I feel like that's like an age of like that's kind of good money. That's like that's some decent money. Yeah, it wasn't a super nice dirt, but it was a dirt bike. Like I felt super fucking cool. Yeah, and uh going from that to like us losing everything and then being on food stamps. There was always this thing of like, I want to know what it's gonna be like to not live in financial insecurity, yeah. And once I started making, I remember I told myself this is random but super honest. Like, once I'm making six figures a month, I'm gonna get my neck tattooed and get a face tattoo if that's what I want to do. Because I feel like that's enough money to where you can just be whoever you want to be. As I've made more money, that's not who I want to be, right? But I thought there'd be once I'm making six six figures a month, my life is gonna be perfect. No, it's it's it legitimately has not changed outside the things that I stress out about are completely different things. I'm more concerned about relational stuff and like quality of humans I have around me, not like I think there's a blanket of security that I have around myself where I'm like, hey, things are gonna be okay. But as if you're not focused on the internal stuff and like you're screwed, those wins and the most important parts of life, and you get caught up in I just got this Lamborghini, now I want this SVJ and this and this and that. It's like, yeah, that stuff's cool, but what's really cool is being the fucking dad that you are.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:03

Yeah, I uh Nicole and I went out with like a bunch of really like I'm saying wealthy because they got way more money than I do. Okay. And then when we went home, I was like, We're all we're also attempting to buy or to build an RV park with 300 spots. And I say attempting because we haven't done it yet. Um but I'm always with like the construction crew, and I'm also trying to build these apartments with a different construction crew, and I told Nicole I was like, I'd rather be hanging out with the construction dudes who are talking about real life shit than just like, am I gonna get a new plane or something?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:44

Yeah, you know, there's uh there's a level of depth that is probably the only important thing to me with people where like I I know that you've been through stuff in life and the qualifications to being in my like I like to be around people that have been through stuff. I like messed up people, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:05

Because I think everybody's messed up, it's just it's just masked.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:09

Well, and they have depth too, bro, and they're the funniest people, and and those are like the war dogs, like shit hits the fan right now where we're at.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:15

Like, we're kind of looking for a fight, like not like an actual fight, but like who's challenging us in business? You're looking for a real fight, maybe. All right. Um, what is what does a realistic 90 days look like for an agent? And I'm talking about someone who has a burning desire to win and they want to change their life. I'm not talking about some dude who comes in and he's just like, I'm gonna give it three days, and if it doesn't work, I'm throwing in the towel.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:44

So can we factor in that this hypothetical person is broke at the time? Yes, okay, because that's what I can speak on.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:52

Okay, I can't talk about 90% of people coming in are broke. We're seeing people with money come in now, which is weird because they're weird. They see it as a business they can build and sell. Yeah, like this dude has third. I went to dinner with this dude, awesome dude, 30 million dollars in real estate. Okay. Someone pitched him on this business. He he's gonna go sell 30k a month. He's fired up and he's like, dude, I've never seen cash flow like this. And a lot of real estate stuff and other businesses, it does the gross can go high, but the net isn't that high. And here you don't need you don't need to a big output to get cash flow. So they're building businesses, and now they know that you can sell these businesses because they're valuable because private equity private equity companies or other companies would come in and buy out their revenue or their EBITDA. Now they're like, dude, we want in on this, yeah, which is crazy. But 90% are broke. Let's talk about broke.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:50

So the gift of desperation, that's one of my favorite terms. Some people might understand what I'm talking about, other people won't. But when you're broke and you pretty much like for you, going to zero would be like, yeah, 500 bucks. Like you might as well go to zero on the opportunity. I'm not saying this is not financial advice, but for me personally, if your net worth is 500 bucks, you might as well go to zero trying to make it work because it's not really that hard to come up with another 500 bucks. Getting into this business, I think people have to be aware of how amazing the opportunity and how much getting one sale can change your mood, two sales puts you back in the game, and three sales makes you feel like you're a million bucks, right? You're you're like, I'm I'm on, I'm good. So, first and foremost, getting into this. While I'm going through the study material and getting prepared, I would make a list of all the people I'm gonna reach out to.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:48

I'd shoot a text, tag this. I'm trying to get Drew to give me a fire button when someone says something, and then fire is gonna go all over the screen. I would push that button right now. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:59

But I think people sleep on this idea and aren't creative enough because I had to get creative. I don't have some crazy, crazy story of like Crystal Bulger writes 100k a month and all this. I have the story of digging myself out of a fucking ditch and being really creative and taking duct tape and being like, can we make this? Will it hold? Will it work? And so I went through

The First 90 Days While Broke

SPEAKER_01 1:19:20

my network, and even though I had burned a lot of people and made a lot of poor decisions, I still had networked enough in my life where I'm like, hey, I just want to let you know I'm about to get my license for being a life insurance broker. If you know anybody that needs a life insurance policy or if they have a work policy um or you have any referrals, please send them my way. I'll hook you up in any way that I legally can. Hope you're doing well.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:42

Dude, this kid was in here and he made he had no money for leads. And I'm big on you should sell people you know, get money if you don't have money, or you should go knock on doors or find a way to get creative, dig yourself out of a ditch, take that money, get leads, and then get on autopilot with presentations and then close and get consistent and not be on a roller coaster. Dude, exactly. So this kid made two ring accounts, like ring alarm, like you know the ring company, and he put on there on one account. Do you know anyone that sells life insurance? He responded on the other account. This guy, here's his phone number. Okay. People in the neighborhood, somebody called him, he made a sale, started his business that way. When I was new, it's funny because uh Brett Dunham is like an up-and-coming big manager producer who's been we met in second grade, like fighting over the bus line. We actually got in like two or three f full-blown fist fights, like as we grew up through high school. But we were best friends anyways. But have you ever like fought some of your friends? Yes. Okay, so we always talk uh argue about who won because we both think we won, all of them. Okay. But I wasn't doing well. I I was a chargeback away from going back to the grocery store. Okay. Uncomfortably called his mom, who was like treated me like I was like one of her kids, anyways. But I was uncomfortable because I was embarrassed of what I was doing. I was scared of failure. But I called her, I go, Hey, can I practice my presentation with you? She's like, You can't, you don't need to practice. I need life insurance. Like, come over. I go over, show her the return of premium product. She's like, Why wouldn't everybody buy this? It's like 200 bucks a month. Gets me like a $1,500 commission, keeps me in business to go get leads to stay afloat. Isn't that crazy? And then a year ago, he decides he wants to sell life insurance, goes out, writes $50K a month, making more money than he's ever made, loves helping agents. He's addicted to it. His wife is mad because she's like, he loves this so much, and he's spending a lot of time on it, which she's not really mad, she's just jokingly mad, you know. Yeah, but it's dude, it's all it's amazing. That's the best. It's the best.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

That situation, not to spend too much time on it, but that situation and the creativity behind stuff like that, or the ring camera thing, that's genius. I like that guy. I would like you to connect me with him because that type of thought process that's the gift of desperation right there. Yeah, and so I think going through that, drumming up sales, and sometimes people will come in, they'll be like, hey bro, can you buy me leads? And and I get all these people pitching me stuff. I'm down to to invest in my business and people, but it's wild because a lot of the people that I purchase leads for when they start, they don't have the same because me, I had access to mentorship that I didn't know I had access to mentorship. Like I didn't I didn't know it was there. I had to figure out a way to make it work. I printed a script off Google and I bought some leads through the ILC, and they were like nine months old. They're like a two bucks or something, yeah. And I was just like, I have to make this work, and that type of energy, and it's almost robbing people when they're in that situation of the experience. If you just like throw the band-aid on it, here's some leads. It also can help a lot of people, and certain people appreciate it. And when they go make it, they're like, Hey, bro, I've had one guy do this out of the however many people I bought leads. He's like, I wanted to give you your investment back in me. And he doubled it and gave it back.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:21

And I'm like, bro, that's like at the casino if someone lends you money on a double down on blackjack, you gotta pay him back with some interest.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

Exactly. But no one really does that, and I'm not out here buying people leads expecting it. But you can tell when someone has that heart, right? Like if I ever ended up in a situation I pitch you on something and I went and made it shake, I'd be like, here's five times your investment. Thanks, bro, for believing in me. But that energy of scaling up from ground zero and getting a couple sales under your belt, and you take that money, whether it's two, three, four grand, and you're like, I got my rent paid, car notes paid, I throw a G in savings, and then I'm spending this on leads, and I have a thousand bucks set aside just in case those leads don't work out. That's the energy that people need to have. And if you're not creative or willing enough to go put yourself out there and get uncomfortable to earn that initial stuff, or while you're going through 10 days of study material, that's a good qualifier of who's actually willing to be successful and put themselves out there. That's the stuff that I look for of like what is your career here gonna look like.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:24

Yeah, love that. Okay, what are the biggest misconceptions about the industry and what are the biggest misconceptions about FFL?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:32

I would say biggest misconception about this industry is that you're gonna become an overnight success. Um, you know, I've watched people from other companies market it in a way where it's like you're selling a fucking pipe dream. I'm not trying to do that. I'm like, how can we produce you, you know, $10,000, $5,000 of income and then go from there and build it up from there? I think there's a lot of wealth and money associated with the life insurance space, but people don't do due diligence on how you're gonna keep that. I've watched how many shooting stars have you seen for two years, people absolutely crush it and dominate it, and then their ego gets way bigger than their bank account

Misconceptions About FFL And The Industry

SPEAKER_01 1:25:15

or the same size as their bank account, and they absolutely shit the bed, and then it's like another six months later, it's like, where is that guy? So I think in this industry, people are looking to make a fast come up, but if you're the tortoise that's consistently going, you end up like Andrew Taylor, right? And that's how I want to be. I don't want to be this overnight success or like household name that people talk about. I want to be when people think of me. That dude's very honest, he has integrity, and he keeps it fucking pushing regardless of what happens. And so I think that's one misconception of the industry is yeah, you can make a lot of money, but I think the most important thing that people need to be worried about is this is probably one of the easier options out there to franchise something and not have to pull out a loan for a hundred, two hundred grand to be able to make one third the money that you can here, but you do have to be steady and consistent regardless of whether you have some chargebacks or the leads don't work out, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:18

And then for FFL, I've been able to build an awesome relationship with Sean Mike.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:29

And he is a unique one-of-a-kind dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:33

Yeah, and he's he's made a lot of change and a lot of growth, and I feel even lucky to even be able to speak on this, right? But I've watched people with Family First Life or Sean Mike or whatever, he's become a household name where people think they know him and they've never met him. And people talk about Family First Life like they know about it, or they work at other companies or other places, and they're communicating it like they know all this stuff. And it's information passed down from other people that were looking to be a big fish at another company. They wanted the recognition because the numbers here, you really got to make some shit crack and make some noise to be talked about here. And I watch people go from here to other companies where they want to be the big shot and they want to go be Sean and they want to go do all those things, and they soon to realize that they're not built like Sean. I don't want to be Sean, but I can tell you I'm grateful as fuck to have that dude's number in my phone and be able to call him probably right now and have him pick up and be like, What's up, dude? How's it going? Right? So I think with Family First Life, there's so many people that are trying to compete and look for flaws, flaws in what we have and what we're doing. But I've looked at stuff and I've kept it very aware in my mind like how much of a blessing it is to be here with the the regular industry stuff of like advanced commissions and things like that. But when you break it down and you factor in production bonuses, you factor in the carrier bonuses and you write products with the right companies, you factor in VP bonuses, yeah, you factor in building a business big enough where you can start involving some of the carriers in your business with some sponsorship and and things like that. There's not anything out there, and then when it comes down to shit hitting the fan, you call him, yeah. I love that. Clip that you call him. It's like a movie he made you hit the fire. Drew did it.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:29

Look at the TV, do it again, Drew.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:31

Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:33

Yeah, I need that, I need those buttons, bro. That's awesome. But having that and then having money from Brian Adams and Integrity trickle into this thing. Like if you're looking to build a business and Looking to scale something. I look at comp plans from other IMOs because I need to know what's out there so I can properly recruit people. And I'm not the guy that's out here on social media talking shit on whatever. Like I know people that are successful in captive, but they have to recruit hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. I know people at other IMOs that are successful. But here's the comp plan and how much money that you can make and then be able to capitalize off how I look at it equity in Family First Life. The more people you get paid, the more agents that you work with. Like I have buy-in to consistently build my business from Family First Life.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:21

And I got the support. And they have buy-in based off how much they want to write. And so when it comes down to me making a pros and cons list of like anywhere else, the cons are way higher at other places, and the pros are much higher here. And the most important thing, when all else fails and shit hits the fan, you have someone like Sean Mike to call, that's probably the most powerful phone call you can have in the industry.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:46

And not only that, dude, you work with Neanan Hayden.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:49

Who RBs some someone called me the other day from another company and they were like, We're trying to recruit this person. Because I stay friends with a lot of people because you never know when they're gonna want to come work with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:03

So I don't I don't I don't I try not to create a lot of enemies. Yeah. Um, and they were like, hey, this guy really wants to work with me, but they're talking to Nina and Hayden. I'm just wondering if I can if I have a chance at recruiting them. And I was like, bro, they're talking to the two best recruiters in the industry. Like you should not even try. And the reason I'm saying that is because Nean and Hayden are beasts, dude. They're amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:29

Dude, to work in the office that we open up with them in Scottsdale is a dream come true. And I'll say this without blowing any smoke up anybody's ass. For their age, for their experience in the business, and who they are as people, for whatever their net worth is and who they are as individuals, is probably some of the most humble, reliable people that I've met, almost to the point where when I got closer and closer to them, I was almost like eerie because I'm like, they're just too solid and too. Where is the problem for sure? And there's no problem. And so getting to work with them and you know, watching them partner with integrity and then stay very present in their business, like they don't need to be as present in their business as they are. And my goal with partnering with them is I'm like, hey, one day go live more life and stuff like that, because they're constantly there, but like that's the culture of Family First Life, and that's the culture that you have kept, that Sean's kept, Grady's kept, Nina and Hayden.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:35

And then you got Grady, yeah, who's just he's a man. He's a beast. So a good team. Um what do you what do you say when people go, I read negative clips, or I I because I we get a lot of hate because we're winning. We're not just winning, we're like crushing. We're doing stuff people have never done. Like, dude, I think our team is gonna do a billion dollars here soon in a year. And we're just a team in a team, and that's a billion dollars of issue paid premium, which means that's a billion dollars in commissions paid out. And we're just we were just a couple dudes that were like, okay, let's let's consistently go do this, right? So it's pretty amazing. What do you say to people when they go, Well, I read something negative? I was in a chat room and I and and I read, you know, people said this is bad and this is bad. So here's how I look at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:35

And people group family first life too tightly with what's happening. Like you have family first life as a whole. Family first life is the opportunity. Family first life is the umbrella that set up the vehicle that we have. People are way too reliant on family first life, and I'm grateful that I think that way. Like, I didn't originally work with Nina and Hayden, I always wanted to, but I worked with four or five, six other people that all flopped out of the business to then get into the position to where I'm working with Nina and Hayden. But what happened through that period is I wasn't relying on my manager or my upline or all those things, right? I don't need to rely on family first life a crazy amount. I'm just grateful for the vehicle that was set up. But what I watch with people when there's bad reviews or things related to it, that's just bad actors that got into the vehicle and leveraged the vehicle the wrong way or didn't train people the right way or were operating off hype. That's just humans being humans. It doesn't reflect on the company as a whole. That's individual humans caring about an opportunity coming in and not leveraging it the right way, not training people the right way, and putting their own spin-off of what it actually is. Because if you break down the fundamentals and the training and the stuff that we have here at Family First Life, the people

Work Ethic Vs Sales Skill

SPEAKER_01 1:33:55

that are good actors that aren't actually actors, that are just good people that run a legitimate business, if they're hiring people that actually follow through with what they say they're gonna do, it's really hard to not be successful if you're talking about a three, six, nine, twelve-month period. Right? It might be hard in the beginning. I think it's better for it to be hard to figure out really how bad you want it. But I think the negative reviews are from bad actors that leverage the opportunity in the vehicle, didn't train people right, and um aren't building businesses the way that I'm trying to or or you have.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:27

Yeah. One thing uh that you remind me of Sean, because I've spent a lot of time with him, and I think I've asked him uh probably 10,000 plus questions, like as I'm bu building my career, right? But one thing you do is something that I picked up that he does, which is you tell all your flaws and you tell all your negative thing, any negative thing about you, to where people trust you, right? You're like you're not hiding anything, nothing. Um and he does the same thing, and I and I I coined this, like I actually made a like I said it's the eight mile strategy. And the reason I said say that is because have you seen you've seen eight mile with M and M, right? Yes, and in the last rap battle, he tells he's like, dude, you did hook up with my girl, I do live in a trailer with my mom, and then the dude didn't have nothing to say at the end. And what he does, dude, and what I've picked up on is he he tells all his flaws, he says he's not perfect, but then he um proves that he's a hard worker and doing the best he can with whatever situation it is, which people want to follow. And I think you have that same thing. Thank you. From talking to you for I don't know, two hours an hour, whatever, whatever it's been. Okay, we're gonna keep going because I wrote all these questions down for you. What do you think is more important for a new agent? Uh work ethic or sales ability?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:07

I think sales ability is easier to teach than work ethic. I think it depends personality-wise of the human. But if someone has work ethic, that's like that's like I can work with it. That's that's play-doh. That's multiple. Hey, are you willing? Yeah. Hey, are you coachable? Like I came into this business, and there's people that are way more successful than I am, so I don't ever want it to come off like I have even anything figured out. But I at least was in a spot, which we've talked about, where I'm like, I don't have things figured out, I'm willing to take other people's advice as long as they have results. And the first person in this business that felt like Wolf of Wall Street to me. I'm like, how much did you deposit in your account last month? And they showed me, and it was the first time anybody has ever showed me, and it was 83,000, which was a similar amount to what he said in Wolf of Wall Street, and I was like, Wow, this is super real. And so I think when it comes down to work ethic or sales ability, I can assist with the sales ability if people are willing to get their teeth kicked in on the phone, yeah, and continue to show up. And those are the people that are the most reliable. We do have people that are natural born solution finders or salespeople, and that's rare. We all know who those people are. Like you could put that they're about to get arrested and they talk their way out of it, or they pull a girl that's five levels out of their league. Like those those things people have that. But I think the work ethic, in my opinion, is the most valuable thing because you can mold it and put it in the right direction.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:43

Dude, so I always would joke and say the guy that comes in and starts quoting Tony Robbins and says he can sell ice to an Eskimo, he's fucked. You don't do anything. Yeah. And he smells good, looks good, has all the talent in the world, was born that way. And you got this kid that comes in and comes from nothing, has all kinds of childhood trauma, and and he's on ring freaking making two accounts to make sales. Weaponized. Yeah, dude. But I love it. I love that story. Okay. Biggest issue, I think, for a new agent is there's so much communication on what leads to buy that it's confusing. It's like drinking out of a fire hose. And what do confused people do? Nothing. If I'm brand new, I come in, I say, Crystal, what leads do I buy? I have a thousand dollars. What do I buy?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:41

I'm gonna veer this off for one second. I think while you're making that decision, which is one of the more important decisions to just make and do it, regardless of what it is. The relationship building aspect, that's what I think people need to bring into their brain of how can I build connections for that, whether it's with a mortgage company, real estate, people that are in industries that can refer business. I think that's super important.

What Leads To Buy First

SPEAKER_01 1:39:06

Start with that while you're going through study material. So you have stuff that's teed up. There's people that are aware that you're getting into this business, post on social media, air yourself out. That locks you in.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:18

A lot of people don't want to do that, they're not gonna do it because they're afraid to cement their feet to the fucking ground.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:22

I'm not. I'm like, I'm here. This is what I'm doing. And then I embarrass myself if I do not follow.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:27

Why are people embarrassed of selling life insurance?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:30

Because it's not flashy or shiny, it's not sexy. When I was in digital marketing, or or hypothetically, if you work in in bottle service, which is huge where I'm at, dude, people are like, oh yeah, that's sick. You work in life insurance, people are like, but I pull up in the Lambo, dudes are leaving in shitty Honda Civics, leaving their job at X, Y, and Z, and and but they're around a whole bunch of beautiful people and it's exciting, and the marketing's there. Insurance, not it's sexy, but it's it's and it's not the get rich quick scheme, but it's the get rich for sure if you consistently show up. But to to bring it back to the the lead question, if I was new, I'd want as many at bats as I could get. There's a lot of people that are like, hey bro, I need to I need to start off on the quality, like I need to get going from the ground up. And I'm like, well, if you spend a thousand bucks at on leads and you have 40 at bats and you botch three of them, and you know you botched them, well, you're dead in the water, but you had three opportunities that I would probably close. If you have 200 opportunities, 300 opportunities, 400 opportunities, and it's not as high of quality leads. Not only are you gonna learn how to be resilient in the industry from people being like, I mean, you're you might be calling leads that filled out a form six months ago. They're not like, oh yeah, Andrew Taylor, I've been waiting for your call. You have to pull it out of your ass to be confident enough to get the client on the phone and speak into them like you know what you're talking about. You did fill out this form. Here's the information. No worries, I just gotta make sure to go over it with you. Let me know when you have a pen and paper ready. Right? That and running older leads and having an abundance of those and becoming really profitable for myself of like I can buy leads that people fill out a form that took them 10, 15 seconds to fill out six months ago, and they're factually not going to remember this, but it is their information. If I can get good enough at convincing those people, it's their information they did fill out a form, getting them to grab a pen and paper, taking them away from what they're doing, and buy myself some time to figure out how to do that and become profitable. Dude, if you're selling a $2 lead.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:36

So you're saying get a bunch of older $2 leads. I would. I want as many at bats. Like and what about sell some people you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:45

Yeah, both. Do both of those by any means necessary. I think people have to look at this thing by any means necessary. If your ego is too big to go embarrass yourself from stopping into a place or letting somebody know, or get business cards, like I got business cards right out the gate, and I just started handing them out. I went through my apartment complex and uh I put my business card on everybody's store. I sold two policies from it. My first week in insurance, I wrote it was 8600 annual premium, and four of those sales were from my war market that I had teed up, and then I sold two through H leads. That deposit got me right, it got me current, it got my car paid, it got my rent paid, and it gave me some opportunity to buy more leads. And so I think you have to be real. It comes down to how profitable do you want to be? Well, how much sweat equity are you willing to put in? How dialed in is this? Are you gonna be like, man, these leads suck? Are you gonna be the guy that's like, I know I'm getting more opportunities by buying age leads, therefore I'm gonna be more profitable? Where if I have the mindset of a fucking pit bull and I can get through this and not be the average norm of the guy that's like, these leads suck, or whatever it is. You're you're panning for gold. So I tell them, you're panning for gold. If you can take 200 leads and sell five to ten of them, your profitability is insane. And then scale up from that point.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:14

One interesting, interesting thing about leads that I learned when I was in the field is every person that fills a lead out, something happened in their life right when they filled it out. It could have been a family member died, it could have been a medical scare, they could have been like, yo, I gotta go to the doctors and check a lump I have or something freaky is happening. They Google it and they're like, I'm dying, because that's what Google tells you if you have anything. Um, and then so if you call them usually and you ask them, why did you fill this out? What happened in your life to make you fill it out? They're usually going to tell you their brother died or something crazy happened to make them fill it out because no one goes and fills it out for no reason. When they wake up filling grades, they don't go, Oh, I need to go do this, right? But what happens is if they didn't get it originally, when you call them back six months, it would still been weighing on them to get it for them. And a lot of times it's better to call them later because they're like, you know what, I just need to do this. I need to get this done. And I found, dude, I never did not work age leads. If I got new leads, I also worked age leads, they'd be fill-in leads. And I was telling this guy who the he has a big business and he's starting with money. He's like, I'm not touching an old lead. I'm like, Did you have to? The other thing is your first hundred appointments, consider it practice. You will make money, but don't be too hard on yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:35

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:35

You know, I think people are looking for that. They're so caught up in the annual premium and the advance and the commission and the money aspect. I'm more caught up in like, how much can we learn in this period of time? Because in your first husband presentations, if you can actually map out some of those notes and those situations that you went through, you just took a map that you've never driven on and you drove down every road and you know what it looks like. Hey, there's the street with the palm trees and this. And when this client gets declined three times with here, I go here. That whole process, which builds confidence, which is gonna make you sound better on the phone and give you more control. Like I would prefer age leads to a degree if I'm just like a single agent. If we're talking about convenience, yeah, I'm running hot, fresh Facebook leads, and it's like one call close, boom, as many as I can. That's the land of abundance. But I think what we're building here, and when you talk about building an agency and giving people belief to create something out of thin air, it's how can someone scale up from being broke as fuck? That's the most important thing. Truthfully, like that's the American dream that what we're looking for. So, how can you scale up? So, how can you scale up from having a couple hundred bucks or a thousand bucks in your bank account to like living the life I get to live today, which is just scratching the surface? Like, I'm coming for Andrew Taylor land and the kiddos and the wife and all that stuff, but like it all starts somewhere of I'm afraid to spend money on leads. Can I sell the lead? But how do you get the confidence to know that that lady Gertrude, that's like, fuck you, stop calling me, really needs an insurance policy, and you need to be the person that's serious enough and approachable enough and has enough confidence to get her to stay on the phone for 30 seconds where you can just break through that smoke screen.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:15

Yeah, I love that. Okay, back to what matters more sales ability or work ethic. When I was new, people were making fun of me because I was so bad at sales. But I was like, I'm gonna run more appointments than everybody because I'm not as good as everybody. But through repetition, I did get good. I would probably say I got better than a lot of people. My close ratio went way up. So I think if you suck at sales or even if you're scared of sales, a lot of times that's a good thing because customers don't want the salesy dude who's gonna manipulate them. Yeah, because it's gonna freak them out. But if you're just a normal dude and you're not good or you're just being real with people, long term, you that that is a weapon that you could use for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:02

You were probably good when you started. I think for the lead spend that I had and where I was at financially, I was decent. I'm never gonna say I was good at anything, but the creativity is strong with me. And um, I got excited when it came down to putting people in better positions when they had active policies. Like that was my thing. I wanted to run age leads where they're like, I already got it taken care of. I'm like, yeah, perfect, Andrew. That's exactly why I'm calling. It looks like your your agent didn't update your file, right? I'm just gonna get an understanding of what coverage they have. All I'm doing from that point when we're looking at a policy flip, adding on coverage or things like that, truthfully, and that's why I like this. How can I serve the client? Because there's only one way that I'm gonna get in the sale, is if I put them in a better position. And if they have a really good company and product, I'm not even considering replacing it. Hey, you're in the best, I'm gonna reaffirm you're in the best position possible. Just wanted to make sure files updated, you aren't gonna receive any more phone calls. But when they have policies that are from captive companies and they're paying the double, double the price. Like I just sold a lady a policy, bro. I got her seven times the coverage for the same price.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:06

So through InstaBrain, seven times the coverage for the same price that's which is why it's nice to work with us because we have 15, 20 carriers and we're going through all of them and finding the best deal for the customer. For sure. And these are big companies, Mutual of Omaha, Trans America, all these major companies.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:21

Yeah, it's huge. And and you have the ability to rather than being biased and being like, Yeah, I'm getting you the best policy, and I work with a captive company. I'm like, I can say very confidently right now, Andrew, I just put you in the best position possible. Based off your age and and your medical, I just put you in the best position. Not a lot of places can you do that? They're just saying it to say it, and it's a fucking lie. Here, I actually can come. When I when I got off the phone with that lady, she's like, I'm gonna send you so many referrals, right? Like, that's an exciting thing to do. Does that happen every time? No, but like we're in a good position to genuinely sort of serve middle middle America and save people from the worst day of their life. Like, I didn't get into insurance because I was passionate about insurance, but now I am you are like I geek out when I'm like, dude, seven times I'm putting in my chat seven times the coverage for the same price. Yeah, that's huge.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:11

Okay, when did you start um going into recruiting and building a team opposed to just being a personal producer?

SPEAKER_01 1:49:20

This is a funny thing. So um I'm gonna use Wes Watson as an example right now. He's down bad, he just got arrested, and uh that's not a good good thing for him.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:29

But uh pause real quick. My friend posted on Instagram, he's like, if I see Wes Watson, I'm gonna beat the hell out of him and all this stuff. I'm like, bro, you're like 150 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:42

I I don't think uh I can't speak much on that, but I don't think Wes is gonna be out for for quite some time. And I will give him credit where credit is due, right? There's people that have done a lot of bad stuff, a lot of good stuff, but I'm always gonna keep it a buck. Love that where people have shined light or given me sauce, and what I watched this dude do, I followed him when he had 5,000 followers. A video popped up. I was like, I like this. This dude's like running on the street talking about his life, very transparent. I watched and I took note of his marketing, and what he did was he was like, I just got out of prison. I was a fitness coach in prison and doing food plans and workout plans and stuff like that. Now I'm out, this is what I'm doing. If you want a plan, boom, do this. Yeah, super transparent. You don't see that a lot. And then I watched this dude completely recreate his life, really inspire a lot of people initially, and then it took a large downward spiral as of the last like year or two years. But up until to that point, I watched his marketing and took notes, and I was like, all right, so for me. I had gotten out of rehab and I pulled out my cell phone when I got out and I just roasted myself. I was like, yeah, I'm reintroducing myself. My name's Christo Bulger. Uh I just got out of

Burnout Proof Scheduling And Focus

SPEAKER_01 1:50:55

rehab. I just made the most money in my life and I completely fucked it off. And I'm pivoting from the industry I've been in and ran a business in from 19 to 25 years old, and I'm getting into the life insurance space. I also said, a lot of you guys are probably gonna laugh at me, make fun of me, think I'm joining some cult, whatever it is, that's totally fine. But I'm gonna document what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, I'm gonna show you how many dials I make, how much money I spend on leads, and how much money I deposit and my profit and loss. And so when I did that, I was like, I don't expect you to join what I'm doing right now. But if at any point in time you decide that the results are good enough and you want to get involved in what I'm doing, you can reach out to me. So that was my initiation to kind of what I was doing, and it was just super transparent. Like, I didn't have anything to lose, bro. I was a fucking joke in my head. Like I had violated my morals enough where I'm just like, I am completely gonna recreate myself and not be living in fear of what people think of me.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:49

Isn't that a Jay-Z song? Allow me to reintroduce myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:55

And so with that, I unintentionally through that started like it came on people's radars. And then I posted, Hey, I'm a licensed broker. Here's the insurance companies we're working with. Uh, if you want a policy, reach out to me. Then it was like, hey, I'm building a team. If you want to get involved in what I'm doing, I'm gonna publicly post, you know, what I do, how I do it. And I was in my shitty little apartment and I had the breakdown of a million dollars in a year, $83,000 a month, right? The whatever it is a week, and I put that in front of my little IKEA desk, and I sat in my bedroom office and I dialed age leads and I just posted pictures. Hey, this is how many dials I and people wanted to do it. Yeah, after a period of time, like once I caught enough momentum, people were reaching out to me, and then I got some people in study material. Um, my first guy actually had his doctorates and didn't do it, and that was like my first recruit. And then the next guy that I brought on was making three thousand dollars a month and he actually uh went to go work at another company like probably a year ago, but the the most money he made in a month when we were working together was like 125,000. So it's like I started recruiting early on because it held me accountable to other people. If my accountability is to me, I can kind of let shit slide. But if I'm being accountable to the universe and social media and the fact, like, hey, I wake up and and make a post in the morning of the sunrise, or what I'm doing on a daily basis, or other people are banking on my results to gauge how big their results are gonna be. Um, I think if you are naturally a good human, like you are naturally a good dad, it's gonna make you work harder and show up for other reasons that are outside of your own.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:47

That's the good thing about kids. Yeah, it's like you have to you have to push forward no matter what, because you got people looking up to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:56

Well, it's uh it's hypothetically similar with with agents, yeah. It's the same thing. Yeah, you don't have the luxury of being like, I'm having a bad day, let me go complain about it to one of my agents. Fuck no. If people do that, unless it's like your buddy, like I have a couple buddies who will like be like, This is the real, but outside of that, dude, no one knows what type of day I'm having.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:13

Yeah. Um this kid came up to me at the conference and he goes, dude, I've been watching you for three years. Thanks for everything you're doing. He's like 21, dude. And I'm like, damn, dude, this kid's been looking up to me. I don't even know who he is, but like all the stuff I'm doing, somebody, somebody's always watching you. It could be a niece, nephew, mom, dad. You don't know, you don't know what impact you're making by continuing to work hard, make a difference, and change whatever your situation is.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:40

For sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:41

You know, for sure. But uh what you're saying is this the day you hire your first recruit, you give up, you give up the right to be average and ordinary. Exactly. Because you will let yourself down, but you probably won't let other people down.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:54

Exactly. You know what I'm saying? I said that in a meeting, and I got that from you, and I got that from Sean. You forfeit the right to be average and ordinary when you start hiring people. If you're hiring people and you're like, oh yeah, man, I work hop on three hours and do all that, they're not gonna work out.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:10

Yeah, Jordan Peterson has this book, uh The 12 Rules of Life, and one of the chapters is treat yourself like you would treat your, I think it's your pets or other people. And the example was like, if you have a a dog you love so much and it needs medication, it needs eye drops, it needs all this stuff, it needs special diet, people are doing it, this, this, this, and this to take care of the dog. But sometimes when it comes to their own self, they're not giving the them own their own self that treatment. So the whole chapter is treating yourself like you would treat other people that need help.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:48

That's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:49

I was like, dude, that's pretty gangster.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:50

It's it's the huge thing. And I think with building a business, it's like you're naturally, if you're a good human, you're gonna pull it out of yourself to produce more and let people know that like this opportunity is good because they deserve to know it's good. Yeah, and when you're not living out of that version of yourself, it's like we have the mentorship and people that you can call, like, there's no excuse to not get right back in the game. Yeah, I'm not concerned concerned about it being perfect or amazing or all these things. I'm concerned when you hit a roadblock, how quick can you get around it, or how quick can you call someone that has already gotten around a roadblock like that and get back in the game?

SPEAKER_03 1:56:24

Okay, do you ever wake up you don't feel like doing this? Do you ever wake up you feel depressed? Do you ever wake up you're like not in it for the day? Does it happen to you? Fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:33

All the time. What do you do? Course correct, as fast as possible. How? Um, I think if you once again have prayed to whatever you believe in, Allah, Jesus Christ, a fucking tree, whatever it is, dude, like anything that's greater than you, right? Keep it simplistic. That's what works for me. Some days, some you know, it's been different things on different days, not religious, but super spiritual. But I think the act behind making a solid effort and intention habitually to connect with something greater than yourself is one thing that's gonna pull you out of yourself, and then becoming very aware of the things that you have in your life to be grateful for, and then taking a second to clear your mind. Like I just moved to a new place on the rooftop. You got cold plunge, you got sauna. I've been there, I've been in there, cold plunge. Dude, it's really hard to be in your head when you're sitting in like 40 degree water and I'm under the water holding my breath. Like, it's really hard to be like, Oh, I'm so upset about this, this, and this, and and all those things. It it recorrects me right back in the back. Yeah, I just sit underneath there. Dude, it gets you right.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:41

I haven't heard that, I haven't done that.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:42

I would anytime you're having a really bad day and you want to course correct really quick, like before I had money and access to like cold plunges and shit like that. Yeah, I'd have to do some other things or I'd go put on some like Dr. Dre and blast music and drive both of my windows down. That was my course corrector. Now it's like if I'm in my head and I'm like I as optimistic as I can be, I can be a really dark individual, but I I try to correct that quickly. And so I think people have to have these rituals that they can rely on to get their head back in the game because, dude, I have a lot of prior stuff in our my life that pops back up, but like I choose to not let that dictate dictate the course of my life and where I'm going because it affects other people if I do.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:24

How do you handle burnout? And I want to say this: I see new people come in and they go hard, like really hard for two weeks, and then they're burned out, and they might not get the results they wanted in that two weeks, opposed to like just having a very disciplined schedule that is doable every day, no matter what.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:47

So there's all these people I've worked out, I would say pretty much every day for 10 years, but I made a commitment to myself of I'm gonna go touch the door at the gym every single day. That's not really a huge commitment. I'm gonna drive there, I'm gonna touch the door.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:02

Some days do you not crush it, some days you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:59:05

Some days the workouts are ass, but I at least touch the door, and one of my hands on the door, guess what I do? I open it and I walk in. So I could have a horrible workout, but like I'm building this relationship with myself. I show up regardless of what's going on. And so I think the schedule and the follow-through for people is huge. But when it comes to burnout, once again, wasn't a shooting star personal producer, not really the best at anything. But I worked six days a week for four years, and then I went to Thailand last month for my 30th birthday, and I did experience burnout and then the level past burnout, and then the level past that, and like kind of worked so long long and hard that it was like, What am I doing? Like, I didn't take a break. And so for me and my story, I needed to do that to like work off some past demons of being Mr. Inconsistent and building my life up in a year and then burning it to the ground. Like, I needed to go through that, like it was like forging in fire for that. But I think it relates to once again people's why. Like, why the fuck are you doing what you're doing? Because if your why is prevalent and it's clear, what is burnout? I mean, you can still reach it, but I reached burnout and I kept going. And I had a lot of big boy stuff happen in the business with hiring some of the wrong people and um, you know, made made a lot of mistakes with money. And dude, I still kept going. And so I think that while everyone wants to be this super hardcore individual and crush it and wake up at 3 a.m. and cold all that shit. I don't really care about that. I just care about can you stick on a schedule and follow through with what you say you're gonna do?

SPEAKER_03 2:00:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:42

Because when we do that, even if it's working six hours a day, you kill it. Yeah, it's like I am this. I show up when I say I'm gonna show up. Hey, I'm gonna come out on the podcast. There's no question whether I'm gonna be here, show up or not, or anything like that. Like if I'm ever not somewhere, call the fucking cops. I either got arrested driving there or something really bad happened. And so for new agents, that's a good psychological track to be on. Is like, how can I become the most reliable person for other people? Not only are they gonna start giving you other opportunities and trust you more and respect you and start thinking about you, right? Like if I show up consistently for you and you don't, you're like, this guy's reliable. I might get an agent out of it, I might get an RV park opportunity out of it, things like that.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:28

But if I can't even show up for a fucking schedule and I'm new and this is supposed to be the thing that's meant to change my life, what is that?

SPEAKER_03 2:01:36

Dude, someone said to me they were like, Okay, you you want access to people that are successful, you have to become somebody they want to be around. You can't be someone they don't want to be around. Now it doesn't mean you have to have money, but are they gonna love the work ethic, the consistency? You show up when you say you're gonna show up, all that stuff. The other thing, dude, is most people they think they're working. And I'm I'm saying most people, I'm talking about myself early on, and I know a lot of people can relate. I'm not really there when I'm working, I'm somewhere else. Like I'm thinking about other things, I'm not laser focused. And then someone was like, dude, you're never gonna stop working because you're giving 50% at work, and then you're giving 50% when you're at home because you're thinking about work and you're never free. And I was like, oh shoot, if I could just focus for six hours hardcore calling, not BSing, not talking in the office, not talking to people, not watching people on Zoom, but just calling, dude, you'll beat everybody if you do that. You literally will beat everybody. I agree. Yeah, and then so dude, also I had to turn off social media for a little bit because I'm like I'm not I'm scrolling social media when I'm supposed to be doing interviews and calling customers and I wasn't there, I wasn't with present with a customer, for sure, you know, for sure. So I think that's big. Like because you can get in a trap where you feel like you never have a break because you're never truly giving it 100%.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:13

That and also it's like with building a business, when I think about being four years in this, and I hired so many direct agents, like probably at the end of this month or the beginning of next month, I'll have like 35 direct writers and the relationships and the amount of time it you have to put in to curate a lot of that. Like when I'm building a business, I want to build a business that I can, when deserving, go take a vacation and not have to worry about it rather than be like watching my back and all that. And I built my business in a very profitable way, but I do that, but I did not structure it with some of the leadership until recently where I could actually have that to rely on it. Like I legitimately did have people that were waiting for me to go on a trip and start to like overtake some of my business and had a couple guys roll out to other companies, but now I've built this. Actually, I can't even say I. We have built this foundation of reliability where people see the vision, they want to be a part of it, and they always would say that, but it's it's factual and it's real right now, and I can feel it for the first time in my business career where I do not feel like I have to look over my shoulder with my team, and that's the business that you want to build so that when it comes down to it and you have been working for four years straight and you do want to go to your first uh Thailand, first trip out of the United States, go to Thailand, that people actually have your back. Like, that's a business. If you don't have that, you're not really really building a business, it's a profit center. But I think that's like, bro, if I think about if you wanted to go on a trip for a month, I'd be excited for you. I'd take I'd that's awesome. I'd hit phone calls for you if someone's got a problem. Like, that's who you want to be in business with, where people are like, Yeah, you deserve that.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:53

You work super, but you gotta you gotta put your time in to do that.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:57

If you just get overrides, you don't do nothing, and you go out on the boat every day and brag. Yeah, I don't think people will like you very much.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:04

Yeah, I I think that they'll get attracted to the lifestyle and then realize, like, oh shit, this guy doesn't really do a whole lot. Yeah. All right, what was Thailand like? Thailand was so sick, dude. Like, how crazy was it? Thailand was so awesome. I uh it the the the trip kind of changed. So I was originally supposed to go out there with a girl that I was dating, and it was my 30th birthday. And um, then it was also randomly one of my best friend's weddings out there. So, like the whole intention of the trip changed like probably a week, two weeks prior. I didn't even booked my flights. I had just gotten my passport because my prior felony stuff had never been able to travel outside the US. So I got gun rights back, I got my passport back. Like, I am an American citizen officially for the first time since I was 15. So I've been waiting to do that in Thailand, it was always the first place I wanted to go, and it was like a god

Thailand Trip And Feeling Free

SPEAKER_01 2:05:55

shot that my best friend was getting married in Thailand. So went out there. I had the best experience of my life and kind of like a I don't really know how to put it into words, but turning 30 in Thailand after working for for as long and hard as I have and just feeling free. Remember, I was riding in a tuk-tuk, which there that they're like tricked out little minivans with subwolfers and a whole bunch of stuff, and I'm just driving through Puket. It's like 93 degrees, like 80, 85% humidity. I just have my shirt off and I was smoking a Thailand stick and just blasting music. I think there was money bag yo playing, and everyone was just so happy, so happy. There's like fruit everywhere. You can go do all sorts of stuff. I got a ride an elephant, which I didn't really know is frowned upon. I found out upon I found that later because I got roasted on social media.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:47

But uh geez, they'll get you for anything. Yeah, but did you go to any ping pong shows?

SPEAKER_01 2:06:55

Yes, yes, yes. We uh we went to a ping pong show, that was quite the experience. I don't know how much you want to build on that. I don't think we're gonna get into that on this podcast. Yeah, we went to a ping pong show, that was pretty crazy. The uh nature side was awesome, a lot of wildlife and things like that, but uh the food was great. Dude, I got on some peptides before I went out there and I was eating a ton of fruit out there, and I woke up in the morning and felt the best I'd ever had. It was probably the first two days in 10 years that I've actually psychologically decompressed and felt proud of myself for like probably the first time in my life on some like deep grown man shit that was to decompress enough and put my phone on DD for a second and just like feel like hey, I don't need to respond to people for a little bit and absorb the fact of how much my life has changed, and then also watching my best friend get married in Thailand, just kind of like turning 30, having that, having some time alone, and just like traveling around a new country by myself, that was dude, it was a fucking miracle.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:59

Drew, do that again. Look what Drew did for you, dude. He's the best, right? Yes, factory fresh is the best in the country, probably the world.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:09

He is. We love you, dude.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:11

Yeah, you the man, Drew.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:13

But yeah, that was that was an amazing experience. I if you want to go half on some property out there, we gotta buy all cash, but you can also get an extended visa.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:20

So if you're down me and Atlas and Tigers. I I'm sure there's no rules on what animals you can have there.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:26

Dude, you can uh I'll say this. You can walk down Bangalore Road. Can I actually say this?

SPEAKER_03 2:08:32

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:33

This is just I don't know what you're gonna say, but you can say you walk down Bangalore Road, which in Phuket is like the main road. There's all sorts of wild stuff during the day, the night, whatever. There's vendors, there's all sorts of things. You will have like a 12-year-old trying to hustle you cigarettes and then cocaine, which is absolutely insane. I'm like, dude, get away from me. I'm good. He's like, no, coca, coca. I'm like, chill, bro. I'm good. I'm just trying to get some food. There will be uh a ping pong show. They have people that will walk up to you and be like, guns, guns, guns, guns, American, American, you want guns. And they have like you can just go buy like an AK-47 right there.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:11

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:13

All sorts of stuff. You got sticky rice.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:15

Vegas has nothing on Thailand.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:17

No, Thailand. Well, specifically Phuket. Can you gamble? I didn't because I was I said only in Vegas. But do they gamble on fights? Yeah. Yeah. I went and watched Muay Thai fights. I watched like nine people get knocked out. Dude, it felt like the Wild West in a positive way. And I didn't have any worry about getting robbed. I didn't have any worry about anything. It was pretty chill. People are very respectful. Currency exchange, solid. I actually hold on. You brought a souvenir? Yeah, I'll give this to you. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:52

Let's go. It's a thousand Thailand bot. How much is this in US dollars? 31 bucks, dude. I'm gonna give this to Atlas when I get home. Yes, teach him. It's from Ugh. Yeah, teach them about uh Thailand's currency. What's it called?

SPEAKER_01 2:10:05

Thailand bot.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:06

What is it?

SPEAKER_01 2:10:07

Thailand bot. It's called bot.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:09

That's cool, bro. Thank you, dude.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:12

All right. One, if someone wanted to work with you, how could they reach you?

SPEAKER_01 2:10:18

My Instagram is at the Cristo Bulger. So at T-H-E-C-H-R-I-S-T-O B-O-L-G-E-R. Or my cell phone number. Please don't call me. Just text me so I know who you are. Uh 480-271-3490. Or my website is AIOLifEinsurance.com and you can fill out that form.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:43

Love it. Last question I have. If someone's doing this, how long of a time frame should they give themselves to be successful before they decide it doesn't work for them?

SPEAKER_01 2:10:57

I have two responses for you. Okay. If you're me and you do the full all in one year, like that's what I recommend. Like, no excuses. No matter what happens, you gotta make it work. That's the best way to go about it. People I would say 98% of humans don't go about that. They're like, I have 30 days to figure this out. You're not really gonna be successful in fucking anything, dude. Like you're just trying to get out of the nine to five, but you're an actual nine to fiver. Like you, we need people like you. If you can be the guy that's like one year, uphill grind, whatever it takes, in this new industry. I'm gonna be coachable, I'm gonna be resourceful, I'm gonna bring tenacity, I'm

How To Reach Christo And Timeframes

SPEAKER_01 2:11:35

gonna have solutions-based thinking. That's the most important valuable thing. Solution-based thinking. There's a problem, what's the solution? Not, I have this problem, Andrew. Hey, I'm gonna call Andrew. Hey, bro, can you help me think of a solution for this? So good. So different.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:50

Seeking solution, not satisfaction of complaining.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:53

Exactly. That's too there. Is there a problem? Hey, can you help me figure this out? I'm willing to do X, Y, and Z. Can you point me in the right direction? Way different thing. So I think if someone has that one year for sure, but the more realistic route, I mean, give it 90 days to get some momentum. And if you're not moving forward in some some degree, I mean, go back to your fucking job, dude. You can try it out again later.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:22

But I take it what I do, whether it's relationships, business, gambling, guns, driving, all of the above, fitness, like I'm all in. And people say that, but you can see it in my eyes. We know it. So depending on someone who someone is, I think you just have to know where you are and what you're willing to do and what you want. out alive.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:46

I remember when I first met you. Do you remember? It was at Top Golf. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:51

Here.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:51

Here. Yes. What was what were we doing? What was the event?

SPEAKER_01 2:12:54

Oh it was uh it was Bradley's uh his office.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:58

Oh we did a an event there.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:01

And I just remember you were just grateful and easy to talk to and just a good dude.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:09

I couldn't even believe you cared about talking to me to be real. Just as I know.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:13

Well you were talking to me.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:14

Like you came up to me and told me all about who you were your addiction what you went through. Like this guy's awesome. But one thing you do you are always grateful for things it seems to be common from all my interactions with you.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:29

That's the cheat code.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:30

That is the cheat code.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:31

It is because who is gonna hate somebody for being overly optimistic as long as they follow through right if there's some follow through on the optimism and who's gonna get mad at someone this guy's too fucking grateful. I hate him. If anything they might because they're jealous but that is the the one of the most important attributes I've found in people.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:51

You also are happy for people that are winning. Fuck yeah you don't seem like you ever you don't seem to be hating on people.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:57

It's so good. Yeah it's so good because it doesn't affect me. They're not taking a slice out of my pie. Yeah I'm like let's get it dude and a lot of those guys like I look at John Rent or uh other people that are like absolutely or Edmund I'm trying to keep up with Edmund right now. I I just got dinner with him the other night I'm like bro I'm so proud of you and he's done a lot of things in other business but I'm like hold up pause in this current moment outside of what you've done like I'm super proud of you man to man. And that's a cool feeling to have and give to other people because I'm not in competition with people. I mean I'm competitive but I want other people to win because it also makes us look better bro like look at how good the opportunity we have is I'm living in abundance I'm not worried if someone's gonna recruit my people those are your people those weren't mine then right like I I think there's so people ask me do you think the life insurance industry is saturated and I'm like there's a lot of people getting license but the majority of people are full of shit and the majority of people are not gonna they're not gonna work out because they're not willing to do what it takes.

SPEAKER_03 2:15:01

So it will not get saturated and it's gonna continue to be the people that are willing to do whatever it takes get to where they want to be so we had 4400 producers get paid on our team last month I looked it I looked it up there's 18 million salespeople probably more that seems low but 18 million salespeople in the US according to chat GPT which I don't know how accurate that is but I know it's a lot. Yeah and I do think this is superior to other sales positions. I do too and I think it's superior on a lot of levels community being around other like minded people financially if you break it down renewals the ability to sell your company there's nothing that I've ever seen the how fast you get paid you don't wait for escrow 90 days for it to fall out you get paid in two to three days dude I looked up Vegas real estate agents I forgot the exact number but there was like 10 times the amount of agents as there were houses for sale explain that to me. It's insane like literally explain how that's a good opportunity to me. 10 times more agents than houses on the market for sale. It's insane and then you got life insurance where you got leads coming in you can get dude we had a hundred thousand calls come in on inbounds in one day for people requesting a quote it's crazy we could only take a few thousand of them because it was like our first day starting and a lot of agents didn't even know about them but they ping the system a hundred thousand times it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:33

Which is insane so what saturation what saturation bro what yeah I think this where where you're at like I hope one day looking back on this podcast I hope one day I can swap seats with you and be interviewing some dude. You're going to bro it's it's wild to see what you guys have built though like 4400 agents to think about where my small little organization is at but then I factor in the what 19 years?

SPEAKER_03 2:17:01

19 years bro and I and I I didn't when FFL started which was 12 13 years ago I never jumped I I just stayed the course and a lot of people tried to get me to leave offer me everything money comp the all the all the things in the world and those people you do more than they do now. So I think there's a lot of power in staying put with your team and I'll tell that to people that don't work here like dude if you got a good team and you don't work here roll with them.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:37

Yeah you know yeah I think there's with my criminal background and loyalty aspect like that is a very important thing with me the the the people that I'm rolling with that I've criminal background yeah with that I've been with like that's a very fundamental thing and uh I feel like the loyalty aspect is is slept on a lot with people but I was talking to Sean and you know he's like I've never had to actually question you. You know there's been a couple situations or I've been I've been approached really hard but he's like I've never had to question you and like that's the that's the energy that you want that you want in people because when I have people like that I want to help them lift off right because I watched this is the last thing I'll say I've watched so many people on my team or outside of my team and in the industry they come in they're grateful they're consistent they're solid and then the money problems change and what happens they change I really didn't change I helped more people like I've gotten a couple cool things you could blow up the Lamborghini today I wouldn't give a fuck I thought I lost this the other night I really didn't care it's all replaceable but like the relationships dude that stuff is not replaceable and when you got a couple dogs that you can roll with and you could run it back down to zero and know you can get it all back there's nothing more powerful than that. Yeah love that that's what you've done with Sean yeah it's dope.

SPEAKER_03 2:19:05

Well you the man you the man you're helping a lot of people you're a special dude thank you bro and uh we need to see if Haley Haley did you like what did you think about this Haley is she still here she's somewhere every time we every time she's gone but anyways you crushed it bro I'm proud of you keep crushing it thank you for coming in I'm glad we finally got you in here dude thanks for having me on and uh if you I hope you guys enjoyed this hit up Christo if you want to work with us uh we don't care if you have a bad background we know you can come out of it just like Christo did we'll figure it out yeah we'll figure it out so thanks guys appreciate you bro yep you too brother