Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Cooper City
Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
EP # 321: The Price Group with David Price
Some careers promise freedom. This one delivers it through simple systems, steady demand, and a mindset that refuses excuses. Jeremy sits down with David Price—the man behind The Price Group—to unpack how final expense life insurance became a surprisingly resilient path for first-time agents to earn more, work from home, and actually own their book of business.
We dig into why final expense is different: 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day, interest rates don’t swing the need, and a 45-minute phone call can protect a family with a one-call close. David explains how he trains agents without sales backgrounds using a quoter, five starter carriers, and a lead engine generating thousands of inquiries each month. It’s not about hype. It’s about matching people to coverage, documenting well, and caring enough to follow through.
Beneath the business is a story of recovery and responsibility. David opens up about addiction, hitting bottom, and the 12-step principles that rebuilt his life and now guide his leadership: be coachable, model what works, give more than you take, and measure progress over months and years—not days. That clarity fuels a culture where wins compound: 1,300 policies placed last month, $1.3M in production, and $10M in the first 350 days of a new company.
We also talk lifestyle design: choosing a career that funds your values rather than consuming them, finding quiet in Puerto Rico, planning team trips, and treating work like a game you level up. If you’re craving a proven playbook—remote selling, final expense specialization, carrier partnerships, and real mentorship—this conversation maps the path from hourly ceilings to ownership.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a reset, and leave a quick review—what’s one change you’ll make this week toward freedom? Call (239) 919-4364 or visit https://tpglife.com/ for more information.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf. Well, hello, hello, friends, family, wonderful community. We are back with another episode, another installment of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Your host, Jeremy Wolf. As always, welcoming you to the show. Today I would like to welcome the man who put Price in the Price Group. I'm here with David Price. David, how are you today?
SPEAKER_00:I'm great, man. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01:David, I I am living the dream, as always. And if I wasn't, I would just say I am, because you know, I'm a positive, happy spirit. Okay, so David, tell let's start off with basics. Tell me a little bit about the price group. What do you guys do?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, we're an independent marketing organization. Uh, and for most people that don't know what that means, um, I'm basically the person between the insurance agent and the insurance carrier. Uh, so in short, what does that mean? We help people that are interested in selling insurance uh to be from home, uh, and we get them in the training they need. We plug them into lead systems, uh, we get them contract with the insurance carriers like Trans America, American General, Mutual Omaha, uh, and teach them how to sell insurance. Teach them how to sell insurance from home so they can work for themselves, uh, create a great income and have freedom.
SPEAKER_01:Right on, man. So insurance is a rather broad category. What are you primarily focusing on? What's your niche within the insurance business?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we do life insurance, uh, but particularly we we do all types of life insurance, but our real niche is final expense. And the reason I like final expense is uh over 10,000 people turn 65 every single day. So it's a a growing market. It's been growing since I got in it since 2018, and it's gonna be growing probably uh right up until I retire or a little bit after I retire. So it's a great market. Interest rates don't affect it. Um, you know, I know like mortgage protection is another uh niche that people focus on, but when there's less mortgages, there's less people looking to protect mortgages. Uh COVID didn't affect us. Uh, you know, we were able to just go from working out in the field to doing it on the phone. So so I just think it's a bulletproof industry. Uh, it's a short 45-minute phone call, one call close, and it's really, really easy to teach. You know, most of our top agents were just housewives, servers. None of them had very few people actually had sales experience. Uh, so so that's why I like it. It's just real simple. I mean, really, it's it's like um when you go to a new a doctor's office and you have to do that new intake form, it's it's almost the same thing as what an insurance application would look like. So you're just really helping the client go through that and just finding them the best rate, um, using a quarter tool that we have. Um, so it's just simple, simple, easy, and uh gives you lots of freedom, which is really the the goal. You know, I'm not so worried about the widget, right? Is it's you know what gives me the the freedom that that I really wanted to have and helps me show the people the same.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we like it nice and simple and easy. And I I think it it's also it's nice that you're bringing in a lot of people that don't really have formal sales training, if you will, because a lot of times people get caught with some some bad teachings and bad habits and come in with a with a clean slate, it's kind of easier to mold them and help them more effectively. Sometimes, not always.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, go ahead, man.
SPEAKER_00:No, I'm sorry. Yeah, you know, I I enjoy that. And there's there's another reason I enjoy it. It's like when you take somebody who's you know used to making$15,$20 an hour or less, and you show them, you know, where they can make a thousand bucks in a day from selling one policy, and they like really click and get consistent with that. Um, and they go from making$30,$40,000 a year to you know over a hundred thousand dollars a year, and like everything changes in their life. Like their children go to better schools, you know, they they get more help at home, you know, the the car, like like all those things, you know, donate more to the church. And to me, that that's what's super rewarding. If you take someone who's already making a bunch of money and you show them how to make money easier, like to me, like, okay, that's cool. You like, but I I really like helping people that um just didn't know it was possible, like removing that limiting belief that, like, okay, this is it, I'm gonna be a server for the rest of my life and I make 40 grand a year and and I gotta work every weekend and every night and I gotta miss all the dance recitals and all that because that's just that's just you know what what I was born into. Like, you know, I like to fix that.
SPEAKER_01:I love that, brother. Like, like helping people with these limiting beliefs, right? I I truly believe that every human being, for the most part, has within them the potential for greatness, and so many of us live our lives without tapping into that potential for whatever reason, right? Fear, just obstacles, you know, blaming things on externalities, and and really just not taking ownership. And it's great that you're working with people that empower them to be a better version of themselves. And I really like how you're niched down. There's so many insurance agents out there that really try to be a one-stop shop and they try to offer everything, which is nice, but the fact that you're really honed in specifically on life and then final expense, you know, that that gives you the ability to again work with others and help them grow uh in a better way, I'd say.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's funny you say that. I uh I had someone reach out to me today saying, you know, they're looking to add different products. I was like, what happened with the final expense? Did you run out of clients to help? And like, yeah, I think so. I was like, man, that's crazy talk. I was like, 10,000 people turn 65 every day. I don't think you're looking the right places, man. You know, uh yeah, I was just at a Tony Robbins uh conference. I went to uh Unleash the Power Within, and he's like, if things aren't working for you and they're working for the other guy, they're just doing something different than you. Stop stop looking for anything else than that.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. 100%, man. So let's look, let's look through your your professional journey here. Um, how did you? I mean, I'm most people I'd imagine aren't when they're grown up and they're kids, they're not thinking like, hey, I'm gonna get into insurance. Like maybe maybe you're different, maybe you're the one that when the kids were out playing Cowboys and Indians, you were looking for ways to underwrite policies to protect them in case of some liability. Uh, talk a little bit about your professional journey, how you got into insurance, and then how you grew the agency to a model where you can empower and help others.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and no, I wasn't the the guy, you know, I didn't have like a pencil, a pen protector in my in my top breast pocket, you know, in in school pretending to be an insurance agent. Uh, but you know, saying that and like listening to you say it, and probably everyone that's here that is an insurance. I think the the first thing is like everyone thinks insurance is like this old guy walking door to door with a briefcase and a bunch of papers, uh, you know, all dressed up, you know, and you know, insurance isn't like that. You know, um, it's funny. We have like a virtual call center, uh, we have dance parties on Zoom, you know, we we have meetings, we have, you know, we're literally just calling people or receiving calls of people looking for insurance and and we're helping them, right? So it's like, you know, do you like working on the phone? You're do you like helping people? You're already doing 80% of what we do. Um, and then as far as the underwriting, you know, the insurance carrier has their underwriters, right? So we just uh we just fill out the application, you know, we're just filling out the application, you know, name, date of birth, right? You know, what medications they're on, any kind of health issues and stuff, you know, really simple stuff. Um, but I knew insurance was a good business to be in. Uh, I remember I didn't grow up with a lot of means, and I remember one of my friends in the neighborhood who everyone in the neighborhood had more than us, really. But um, you know, I remember their their father was an insurance agent, and I remember one of my mom's friends did something with insurance, and they both said like the same thing. They said, you know, insurance is really cool, you know, you can do it for a while and then live pretty good on the passive income and just play golf a lot, the the one the one person said, or you could really work, continue to work, and make a real, real lot of money. And I remember hearing that when I was a teenager, and that like stuck in my head. I'm like, man, that that sounds like a good career path. You know, meanwhile, my mom was a server, and you know, we were on welfare and child's um food stamps and all that stuff. Um, child support, she didn't receive child support, she sort of, but uh so I was like, man, that sounds really cool. But but for me, I same thing, right? I thought like insurance was this complicated thing. You had to do underwriting. I thought you needed a four-year degree and you needed all these things, and I never had any of that. And then I figured, you know, once you have the degree, you got to know somebody because you know, when you apply for jobs, no one ever contacts you, like a lot of limiting beliefs uh going through. And you know, I was in my mid-30s, and I just came to this realization, I was like, man, I I haven't really done anything in my life that was gonna help me be on the path to live the life I wanted to that I dreamed of when I was a teenager, right? When I was a teenager, like I wanted to live this life of freedom. I wanted to travel, drive exotic cars, like live in nice houses, like like eat at nice restaurants. Like I wanted to live, you know, really, really well. And you know, I did some things where made some money, but it didn't have the freedom or didn't or just didn't you know have the kind of money that that I was really, you know. I think when we were teenager, we're super optimistic about life. Um, so in my mid-30s, I was like, dude, if I'm gonna do it, like this is it. This is my chance right now to figure that out. And so I started looking for a different business opportunity, basically, that let me do what I want, where I want, with who I want. Those are the three things that this thing had to do. And if it was gonna have me stuck in a geographic location that was out, right? It had to give me total, total freedom. And you know, understanding I'm starting from the beginning, it's not gonna give me that freedom in the beginning, but like the path will lead to freedom. Where everything else I did, the path didn't actually lead to freedom. It might have been a good job, or maybe get a bonus, or like but pay raises, but it didn't lead to to freedom. And I started talking to everyone I knew that had success in their life or more success than me, and everyone that you know had businesses and stuff like that. And somebody like led me towards insurance. He didn't even sell insurance. He's like, Man, you know, uh, one of the guys went to high school with they they actually did really they're doing really, really well with insurance. You should talk to them. And when I talked to them, I found all you needed was like a 20-hour course. Um, get your license, like a day of training, and you could sell insurance and do it from anywhere in the world, really, once you have your license and as little as much as you want, and they have renewals and passive income and every other thing I was looking for. I was like, man, this again, insurance wasn't the the widget that I was excited about, but the freedom that you could have because of it, I was extremely excited about. So I decided to go all in on selling insurance in 2018.
SPEAKER_01:Good stuff. Yeah, I've talked, I do a podcast with a client of mine, he's a business broker, and we talked about when people are looking to start businesses, there's different factors to consider. Sometimes people go into business doing something that they they love to do, but then through the business, they burn out and they grow to not love it because there's so many different assets, so many different factors that go into business rather than just the thing that you're the thing that you love. So you know, lifestyle is a is a huge one, right? Like what are you trying to get out of it? Uh, and a lot of times you could start doing something that might not be so attractive, like insurance, but it affords you the things that you want, and you're able to kind of realize that through it and and learn to love the actual thing that you're doing. So I think that's great. And I think you dropped another piece of wonderful wisdom for folks out there about uh surrounding yourself with people that are in a place that you aspire to be at and trying to associate with them and then basically model your habits after them, and then you'll get to where you want to go quicker. That's good stuff, man.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, man. So the funny thing is, you know, at that time I'm still into working out, but at that time I was really, really into working out and being in shape. And uh the buddy who sent me to someone selling insurance, he actually just started a gym. First, he started uh really just training people in his apartment complex gym, and then he he like quickly moved into a 5,000 square foot facility. So I'm like, man, this guy's having a ton of success. He's got a system he's following, um, he's got a marketing system. So I was like, Will you coach me? Like, if I buy a gym, will you coach me? So I was between like insurance, not Alex Ramosi, is it? It wasn't it wasn't Alex Ramosi, but he was using his gym lawn system, right? And uh I was like, I was like, man, I was like, as so I was asking if he would coach me on the gym, and and this was 2018, right? And then COVID happened in 2020, and I'm like, I just look at that now and I'm like, how would an insurance agency in a gym like even even compete, right? Like, you know, how many gym owners do you not know that are like rich, right? Not not very many. Um, how many insurance people do you know that are rich, right? It's it's you know, insurance has created probably more millionaires than than anyone. Um, maybe maybe real estate. I think insurance has real estate beat. Um, so it's like they don't even compare, and then COVID happened. I would have been, I would, I probably would have been out of business. And then just like you said, like my passion would have been like my nightmare, right? My passion would have turned into my nightmare. And and I I tell people that because I get people tell me the same thing all the time. Like, well, I like working out. I was like, good, keep working out, but find a job that'll give you freedom that'll let you work out as much as you want without having to worry about bills, versus like going to start a gym.
SPEAKER_01:It's definitely a balancing act with everything that we do.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I'm still working on that one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So through the years, we all experience challenging moments. Looking back through your journey, is there something that comes to mind? Um a particular challenge that helped shape you to where you're at today in terms of the business as a business owner.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so uh, you know, I was born to two 18-year-old, drug addicted, married parents, you know, that that were um struggling with with all kinds of things. I lived in uh probably over 20 places by the time I was in high school, um, in homeless shelter. I mean, you name it. I went through through a bunch of stuff, uh, and then I ended up having a drug addiction of myself that I battled with for about 20 years of my life. So, you know, how does that shape me with my business? And you know, the reason you're able to use drugs for 20 years is because your ego uh makes you believe that you have everything under control. And in my head, I had everything under control, and everyone around me thought I had everything under control too. I just I just like to use drugs instead of coming home and having a beer. I like to come home and get high from work. And you know, just like it happens to everyone, eventually the the drugs win. Uh, and I found myself, you know, in a really, really bad place. And I was like, man, I need to make a change. And I and I thought the change was uh stopping the particular substance that I was using, you know, where I could still drink and do other things. Um, but something led me to a 12-step meeting in uh 2013. And I'm in this meeting and in my head, I'm in here as a supporter because I actually was bringing someone else there because I thought they needed help. And I sat in that meeting, I just started crying. I didn't know why. I just started crying and I decided to start following the suggestions that they had, and that's where I learned to be like coachable, ask for help, you know, model what works, like all these basic principles, right? Help me with drugs. And then once I was like, man, that this stuff did really good, you know. I had my last drink or drug in 2013, so I've been clean since um I went to that first meeting, which I took a taxi to. I uh I was living on my grandma's pullout couch, took a taxi because I didn't own a car and had two bags of clothes to my name and and plenty of uh a debt and uh negative net worth. Uh so just to think that was you know 12 years ago. And um, you know, just a lot of those basic principles and everything I went through, and you know, my thought was, man, it sucks that I was like born to like broke parents and didn't have like any head starts in life, and no one I could go for for money or help ever. Um, and and I always thought that like that that happened to me, and and now I know like all that stuff I went through prepared me for what I'm going, what I'm doing right now. And you know, now now I'm you know, my life's completely different. I don't owe anyone any money. Um, you know, building a house cash right now in Florida, own another house outright. I have a small mortgage, I guess, on a different house because the interest rates like 2.75. Um, you know, so so just 12 years later, just following some simple principles, man, and taking one step in front of the other and just trying to beat myself and be better every single, every single day has just um really, really uh have compound effects over time. You know, you don't you don't notice it. Like I was talking to one of my agents uh just yesterday, and they're like they get so caught up with like their production this week versus last week. I'm like, stop with this week to week BS, you know, like look at where you were last year at this time, like you're you're you're crushing it, you're killing it. But people, um, even my scale, it says uh my what does it say well-being over numbers or something like that when I walk off step off the scale, right? It's like don't work, don't worry about that daily number on that scale, you know, where was it last month, you know? And then if you're not having the results that you want, like why? You know, a lot of times when people aren't happy about the results that they're having, they're not doing the things they know they should be doing. It's it's not it's not hard, you know. And then I would say if we just teach people how to do the things that they say they're gonna do, uh, people would be having a lot more success.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Thanks for sharing that story. That resonates with me a lot. I've had my own struggles through the years with drugs and uh it's a heavy toll, but I I also have gotten to a point, um, and I found that the older I get, the more I realize that where we're at is defined many in many ways by how we frame things. So, like when I'm encountering a difficult situation right now and I'm lost in thought, I try to bring myself back to center and remind myself that I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Right? I'm here because of everything that's happened to me and all these challenging experiences that I've had, and all these things that have gone on in my life have brought me right to where I am, and the older I get, the more grateful I am to be in this spot. And and people are so often trying to escape all of the suffering and all of the hardship and all these things. And that's part of the journey. There's no escaping it. It's it and it again, it's about a it's a framing issue, right? It's like, do I want to suffer involuntarily or do I want to suffer intentionally? There's a big difference there, and so many people get caught up and and get lost in thought and find themselves ruminating, and that's where depression comes in. And and the the more work I put in, the more I go on my personal and spiritual journey through life, uh the more I I come to just come back to gratitude and just be being good with where I'm at. Uh and that mindset helps me push forward. It really does.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I I thought I thought you were going for another question. I was I was getting ready for you, but uh yeah, yeah, I mean it's um it's unbelievable what you know once you could really control the mind and and understand yourself and look internal for solutions, you know, how much things change. And you know, I I I think about like yeah, it's so easy to look at back, right? Um, you know, like I said, my life's completely different. I honestly feel like I got to live multiple lives. And you know, it's it's so easy to like look back afterwards and be like, cool, why am I in the spot that I'm at now? Like, why am I having successes? You know, why did I have a second chance at life? Like, what am I doing right? You know, and I just look at you know, just basic things, you know. I try to give more than I receive now, where back then I was trying to take more than I gave, right? And I thought that was what you're supposed to do, like get the leverage on everything. Um, you know, I try to when when things aren't going right, I look internal versus you know, man, this sucks, my boss sucks, my job sucks, this car sucks. You know what I mean? Like it's like, all right, well, what's what's going on, you know? So, you know, any anything in my life that is not not what I want it to be, it's it's my fault, right? It's 100% my fault. I I need to come up with a solution. And and that's good news when you realize it's your fault because with somebody else's fault, you don't have no control. You can't control it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the victimhood mentality, right? Placing blame on external you can't control the externalities. The only thing you can control, I tell this to my kids all the time, the only thing you control is yourself and your reaction to these things. And when you learn how to master that, then all of a sudden you start attracting positive things. It's a simple equation, easier said than done, but it's it's it's not that hard, like you said. It's really not. It's just about building consistent habits daily and and just reprogramming your mind for success.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Good stuff, man. Um, I want to take this back though. I want to go, I feel like I glossed over a big component of the podcast when we were talking about the business. You were talking about how you you your mission now is empowering agents, um, but you also have your own insurance, you also help consumers out there, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. We help um I think we helped like 1,300 uh policies last month. So 1300 um consumers got insurance last month because of us. Uh so yeah, I mean we're we're helping at scale. You know, I manage uh a bunch of virtual insurance agencies throughout the country. So typically, you know, someone decides they want to sell insurance. I teach them how to sell insurance, how to help consumers, you know, with their insurance. Uh plug them into a lead program. So, you know, we have about 7,000 inquiries of people looking for insurance a month right now, and that number's going up. So it's just a matter of plugging people into that. So that way they're they're either you know calling the people back or they're taking an inbound call, uh, helping them with their insurance needs. So um last month was a record$1.3 million in production. We did uh and this month we're on pace to break that. So uh we we did I started a new company in November, no, October 4th, and uh we did a$10 million in production in our first 350 days. Uh so super, super excited about that. But uh, you know, it's it's the people we got a lot of really good people that just help like helping people, and and it's winning combination when you're uh trying to sell something is have people that actually care about the people they're trying to sell it to.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Now, where I know with insurance, you you get licensed in your resident state, and then you get a reciprocal non-resident license for uh states that you want to operate in. Which states do you operate in? You're not in all of them, you're all of them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, all of them.
SPEAKER_01:And then you, I'd imagine you have uh tons of relationships with carriers with insurance companies, and then when you take an agent on to work with you, you you then can plug them in and find the best carriers for them to market their products.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's it. Yeah, so you know, the the insurance carriers they they want to work with us because uh our field force or or or or agent force, not field, we we do it on the phone from home. Uh and then yeah, so we just basically get them contract with the carrier, uh, act like a middleman, um, get them all the training they need, plug, plug them into whatever whatever that tools that they need, and then give them a mentor to teach them all the underwriting and everything uh with that. And we start with um about five carriers at first because that that's it gives you a good mix to cover most of the health conditions without you having to learn too much. Uh and then from there, you know, we just constantly keep on giving you new tools. Uh, we're about to launch a annuity division and a Medicare division for 2026. Uh, so we're just gonna keep growing as a business and keep finding uh more ways to help the consumers and help uh agents be more profitable and have more freedom.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I really I really like the model, right? As somebody you know coming out into the insurance field, you just got your license as an alternative to going to work for somebody at their agency to learn the ropes or going out on your own and trying to figure it out on your own. You can come over to the price group and you guys, again, you hold their hand, walk them through the process, and really get them set up and on the right direction to build their own agency. Love it, man.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think the the biggest thing with that is uh everyone owns their own book of business. So they're all independent, they own their own book of business. Um, you know, they own the renewals, they they own everything. So they're they're really business owners, where if you go to you know another another company and they're paying you like hourly or something like that, like you're just you're just an employer. You got your insurance license to be an employee again. You own nothing. Uh the minute they fire you, you're back at ground zero. So that that's the goal is you know, empower people to to grow their own business.
SPEAKER_01:Now, do you typically, in terms of how you guys get compensated for helping agents, are you getting like a very small residual on policies, or do they pay you independently of that? Or how does that typically work for you guys?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so the the carrier pays the agents directly. So the carriers are paying them directly, and then they're paying us uh an override for for managing and taking on the risk because insurance is uh the money's advanced money, so it's typically loans that are given out. So that's really the main point of the IMO is uh we we take the risk. So the the insurance carrier is not willing to take the risk on somebody without uh a track record.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Make makes sense. Okay, shift shifting gears. I feel like we we covered that. Uh I missed that going in. So I want to pull this over to uh family, right? So family is everything. I got a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old daughter, a 10-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter. And I must say, going back to this whole mindset discussion and uh uh dealing with your you know life challenges, I I am not happy with the way I left off this morning when I got him off to school. I I I did not show up well this morning, but it it reminded me, right? For a little while, I I thought I was you know, I was a little down on myself. I was a little upset with how I handled the situation, but the more I reflected on it, again, I came back to gratitude. Like I'm here now and it's a lesson, right? I can't wait until they get home and I could sit down and have a conversation with them. Um, it's just so important to for me to be a positive role model for my kids. And sometimes I'm not that, and you know, I'm human. What about your family? Do you have kids of your own, or tell us a little bit about your family?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um, yeah, I'm in Puerto Rico basically by by myself. Uh, I have a 23-year-old son, he's out in Minnesota. Uh, my mom's in Arizona. Uh, my father, my father passed away. Uh, so I um yeah, I mean, the journey's definitely give me a lot more freedom to to travel. Uh, try to be flying to Arizona for for years now to you know spend Chris. My mom's uh birthday is Christmas Eve. So I spend uh Christmas Eve and Christmas with my mom. And uh last year, you know, took her and her husband uh on a trip uh for the week of Christmas. So definitely try to uh be more active in that. You know, I wasn't you know, was a big family person, not that I wasn't a big family person, or we we weren't a big family family uh you know growing up. Like I said, we we dealt with uh some broken childhood stuff uh and some traumas, but you know, as you know, start working on myself and you know, as the um I'm gonna back up for a second. So like when the when you don't grow up with money, and like money is always an issue, it's like a lot of your decisions, a lot of things you do is based off that, right? Because you need money to eat and survive and pay rent and bills and insurance and all those things, right? Exactly. Uh so it's cool. So like once once that's fixed and like that's not a thing anymore, then it's like, all right, you know, what do I work on now? What are the things that that I want to fix? So one is uh my health, right? I definitely spend a lot of time and do a lot of things, you know, for for my health, uh, and then then my family, right? So trying to, you know, do a better job of of being a better son, a better father, um, and try to spend time with people that the the best I can living in Puerto Rico.
SPEAKER_01:Puerto Rico. We're just talking about it before the show. I got a good friend of mine that just just went down, his fiancé is from Puerto Rico. The grandmother still lives down there, and they bought a seven-acre piece of land, I think it's seven acres, somewhere in the jungle. Uh, they're gonna build a retreat center, really kind of unplug from the society that we're all the the grind, if you will, right? Like the older I get, man, the more I just want to disconnect. I mean, we're so stuck with with electronics and and I it it's just I just want peace and quiet the older I get. I don't want to go, I don't want to be away from everybody, but I just I just want peace and quiet. That's all. Simple man.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I I'm uh I'm on Zillow all the time looking for like a mountain home somewhere in uh in the smokies or uh like a second home somewhere out in the in the country for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. He's gonna he said he's gonna put uh one of those container homes on the property. I said, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna get one too if you give me a spot over there and I'll I'll come down there. Not full-time, just part-time. Come down and visit and hang out. It's gonna be uh it's gonna be fun, man.
SPEAKER_00:Wonder what he paid for seven acres.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not sure I'm not sure the price tag exactly. I know it was like a hundred something, it's low hundred something, I want to say, but I'm not I'm not a hundred percent sure.
SPEAKER_00:So I don't it can't be that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. It's uh it's it's funny going back to again going back to this idea of mindset and having abundance mindset and not focused on scarcity. I watch My buddy Brian kind of transform his life. He also had some serious hardships, drug problems. Uh, he was suicidal, he was going through, he had some autoimmune disorders, and he got into this whole holistic healing, plant medicine, shamanism. And I've been watching him transform his life. And then he started talking about moving from Orlando recently. And I listened to how he framed this. And there was part of my mind, this negative thought process that I still have in my mind when he's telling me, I'm like, well, what if it doesn't work? I'm like questioning him, right? I'm like, I want to walk out for my buddy. And I'm and he none of that was coming through. He was just materializing or manifesting, if you will, in his mind. He's like, this is happening. Like this is my this is what I want to do. This is my plan. This is what makes me happy. This is how I can help the most people. Like this is happening. And I watched as the pieces fell into place and he went down there and he got the land. I was like, fucking hey, this stuff works, man. But if you just frame things differently, you know, you attract what you want in your life. So I'm so so proud of him, so excited for him. And that's kind of my journey is kind of shifting in that direction too, to try to help other people. And I want to get involved with these retreats. Um I just I found so much usefulness in this journey I've been on. And I feel like I was watching him from the sideline and like doing the own, doing personal work on myself, but I wasn't really helping other people around me. And I said, I need to now take what I've learned and take what's worked for me and try to share that with others and grow a community of my own. Um I recently started a men's group locally here, and that's really the path that uh I'm focused on right now. It's good stuff, man. I like it. It's awesome. Uh so where are we? Where are we? Um You mentioned you like to work out. Is that really what keeps you grounded outside of work, or what do you like to do to kind of uh keep yourself grounded for fun?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, the the work starts becoming fun. Um I I I think about um like video games when I was young, I used to play video games a lot, and it's like so addicted to it. You just like you want to like unlock that next level, like what happens when I get here or there, or you know, if I'm power level 44, what happens, right? Uh and and that's how I feel, right? You know, it's just you know, we've been having records and growing um exponentially, you know, from from day one, and you know, just having a lot of fun with it. Uh, you know, we go on trips. I think uh got a meeting either today or tomorrow, plan it planning a ski trip uh for some of my top agents. That's what the meeting's about. We're uh we're gonna figure that out. Uh, one of the insurance carriers uh that we do a lot of business with wants to you know spoil me and and some of our top agents. Uh so we're we're having a meeting with that. Uh hopefully somewhere in the west is where I want it to be. Um yeah, some some somewhere over there. I I think the the one executive at the carrier, I think he lives out that way. Um, so just always um you know, always trying to have fun with it, right? You know, make it make it something that that is enjoyable. Um, but if I'm not I'm doing something that's not work-related, I like going to the gym, I like mountain biking. Um, I like anything, you know. I've been jeeping here in Puerto Rico, which was really cool. You know, rented uh a Jeep with a guide, which that was cool. Yeah, man, it was it was super cool because it was like um, you know, it was a paid trip, but it was like yes, crossing a stream and like just doing a cult bunch of stuff that you thought you wouldn't do, you know, uh in in one of those little paid Jeep trips. So a lot a lot of a lot of adventure, a lot of fun here. I had um yeah, it's just nice to be outside sometimes. I was out, I took a nice little walk yesterday when I was done working, and you know, the air and the wind and everything was just like perfect. And I was just like, man, this is the that's what uh moved out here. I visited um a friend of mine, and it was just it was just so nice. And I was just like, all right, I'm moving out here.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so weather, weather it's not like really hot down there, like weather similar to South Florida, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:No, I mean it it definitely gets hot, but like um you know, last night probably because you you get a real strong breeze most of the time, and then you know there was no sun, so it was it was nice, it was beautiful. It's probably like 70. I mean it felt I don't know what the temperature was, but probably felt like 70-ish with like a nice strong wind and and no sun, so it just it was like perfect.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's start starting to get a little cooler down here in South Florida. We have like a what three, four-month window where the temperature gets comfortable and then it goes back to being hot again, which I've I've come accustomed to at this point. I'd much rather it be hot than super cold all the time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it's funny because I I moved here from Florida and um I was going back and forth quite a bit, and I was like, you know what? I I think it's cooler in Puerto Rico than Florida. Oh shit. Um, and it and it's uh only because of the wind. Like it's just you just typically always have a really strong breeze. So the temperature might feel the same, but if you're in the shade and you have that wind hitting you, then it it just it's it feels cooler. Where like Florida, uh yeah, it doesn't have as much breeze, but they're they're both great places to live. I mean, I love living in Florida too. I was just looking for a change and uh thought living on an island would sound like a good change to me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because I'm not familiar with Puerto Rico at all, other than the fact that my friend just went down there and bought the land. I know nothing about it. I think San Juan is the the capital, right?
SPEAKER_00:Is that the yeah, San Juan's the capital? That's that's where I live. You know everything, you know everything. There's a no.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, and I'm I'm trying to I wonder how far away you are from. I definitely got to connect you with him um when we're done here. It could be interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm super curious because I I do go on Zillow and uh and Facebook Marketplace, and I see land for sale all the time. And I was like, man, I wonder wonder what it would take to build a place here. So I like that container idea, but still, like how what's it what's it cost to get a container there? You know, I wonder.
SPEAKER_01:No, I think he mentioned like a two-bedroom container home where they just plop it down on the property and you plug it in, basically. It was like 30 grand. So not bad.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds really good. I would feel I feel like I would see a lot more container homes. But I guess it's because I'm not walking around in the jungle out in the middle of the island.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe that's why. Yeah, yeah. So I went at one of the retreats I was at um recently. A buddy of mine did this visualization exercise, and basically at the end of the exercise, asked a question of us or kind of framed it in a way that alluded to this question. I want to ask it to you. And it's if you could go back and tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that that's a really simple question um to answer for me. Uh and it would be you know, if you're doing something, just do it to 100% of your ability all the time, no matter what, right? And like to really like explain that, you know, I didn't take school real serious. And you know, now I'm I'm 45 years old, and you know, you start looking at time and you start looking at um you know, being real intentional about how you spend it, who you spend it with, and what you're doing. So if I was locked up in a building, right, school for eight hours a day, and you literally like just waited for the time to end until it was time to go home, and you didn't like do anything productive in that time, torture, like it makes zero sense, right? It makes no sense at all. So, you know, while I was there, I might as well took the time to you know read and do the lessons and learn as much as I can and learn how to connect with people and learn how to build relationships and and stuff instead of just like trying to avoid people and wait for the day to end and go home. Uh, you know, so so that's just a really, really good example because you know, I mean, I'm not even gonna sit there and try to do the math on how many hours we spend in school before, you know, by the time we're out of high school, but it's ridiculous. Um, and majority, I mean, I would say, you know, over 60, 70% of that, I was probably just coasting by and sliding by and not taking it real serious. And you know, now I'm trying to learn as much as I can, you know, audiobooks, reading books, taking courses, classes, you know, mentorships, masterminds, like I'm paying all this money uh to do all these things when it's like, man, that like you know, what would happen if I started when I was younger on gaining information and being real intentional with with how I spend my time and not wasting time. And then, you know, as I say, I think about too, like, you know, in high school, when you're just like go hang out with your friends, you know, and then you look at like I'm listening to uh you know biography, I'm listening to uh Steve Jobs biography right now, and you know, or like even like Warren Buffett, and like, dude, when they're a teenager, when Warren Buffett was teenagers, he's like buying stocks, right? You know, he's buying stocks, he bought a pinball machine and like put it somewhere, and it's just like, man, you know, I was hanging out, I sit on my friend's couch watching TV, like you know, so it's just looking at that stuff, and and there's nothing wrong with sitting on a couch and watching TV with your friend, uh obviously, but like if that's what you do a majority of your time, you know. I always say, listen, you can do whatever you want with your time, just don't do whatever you want with your time and complain about your life. You can't do both, yeah. Right? You you could you could work your butt off and try to like be super successful, then come complain to me and like we could figure out how to tweak it and make it better, but like don't waste all your time and then complain because we you already know what the problem is. Uh so yes, you know, that's a long drawn-out answer. And I I just wanted to really um really hit that one because at the end of the day, it's like, all right, well, I didn't do those things for you know majority of my life, but like the majority of the rest of my life, I am gonna be very intentional with my time, and I feel like it's gonna make my next 10, 20, 30 years um a lot easier and a lot better on this planet.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. I am I also am 45, and a lot of what you said just now resonates with me deeply. It's funny how we get older and and and our perspective shifts on on time and our intention. And and I thought what you said about with whatever you're doing, give it a hundred percent all the time. That's something that I've been thinking about about a lot lately. Like doesn't matter what it is that I'm doing. I noticed so many times I was like washing the dishes or whatever it is, putt putting my son to sleep, just things that I was doing. I found like a voice in my head pulling me away from that because it wants to go do the thing that I want to do, right? I play the guitar, I want to go play the guitar, and I find myself being pulled away from the thing. And I I I I remind myself all the time. It's like, no, I am doing this thing right now. This is what I'm doing, and I I am going to give it a hundred percent of my effort. I'm gonna focus on this thing right now because I'm doing it anyway. But why do I want to do it rushed and do a half ass job and be miserable while I'm going through the process? Since I'm doing it anyway, I might as well enjoy it and make fun.