The Legacy & Wealth Podcast
The Legacy & Wealth Podcast is a show for proven high earning entrepreneurs and executives who value wealth, character, and a lasting legacy hosted by Mitchel Clark brought to you by The Standard, a private membership community for high performers.
This show is not for beginners. It’s for men who are already successful but want to sharpen their leadership, strengthen their health and marriage, grow their businesses, and think more intentionally about long-term impact.
The Legacy & Wealth Podcast
Top Insurance Agency Owner: Why A High Income Will Never Make You Wealthy
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Stephen Pine is the Vice President and Equity Partner at Patterson & Associates Insurance, where he has spent more than 23 years helping businesses reduce risk through strategic commercial insurance and risk management. Beyond his corporate career, he is an investor in private equity, technology companies, and large-scale sports facilities, while also competing in IFBB bodybuilding and serving in church leadership. His unique combination of executive leadership, investing, fitness, and faith gives him a rare perspective on building long-term wealth and purpose.
In this episode, we discuss:
• How Stephen went from earning $12,000 a year to becoming an equity partner
• Why ownership—not salary—is the real path to long-term wealth
• The investing principles that create generational wealth
• How to choose the right investment partners and opportunities
• Why relationships are the greatest asset in both business and investing
• Balancing executive leadership, family, fitness, and faith
• The mindset required to stay disciplined through every season of success
• Defining legacy beyond money and career achievement
About the Podcast
The Legacy & Wealth Podcast, hosted by Mitchell Clark and presented by The Standard, features conversations with entrepreneurs, executives, investors, and high-performing men who are building wealth, leadership, and legacy. Each episode explores the decisions, habits, and experiences that help successful men create lasting impact in business, family, and life.
Timestamps
00:00 Why income alone doesn't create wealth
00:53 Introduction to Stephen Pine
01:23 Building a 23-year career in commercial insurance
03:23 From $1,000 a month to equity ownership
05:05 How earning equity transformed his career
07:06 Selling value instead of competing on price
11:05 Risk management and helping businesses reduce costs
18:27 Building a book of business from scratch
21:19 The first moments Stephen knew he would succeed
26:02 Transitioning from top producer to leader and mentor
34:23 Investing to build generational wealth
41:20 Why wealthy people build relationships with other wealthy people
45:59 Consistency beats motivation every time
47:16 Fitness, bodybuilding, and pursuing an IFBB Pro Card
58:45 Faith, church leadership, and serving others
01:04:40 Why Stephen joined The Standard
01:09:18 What legacy really means
About The Standard
The Standard is a private, in-person membership community for six-figure men who want to grow in their wealth, health, and relationships by surrounding themselves with other high-performing men operating at their level or above. It is designed for men who have outgrown their current environment and need a structured system of proximity, personalized strategy, and accountability to continue growing across every area of life.
Learn more: https://thestandardmen.com
You can make $250,000 a year, you can make $500,000 a year. The person that makes $250,000 a year could be far wealthier than the person that makes five hundred thousand dollars a year. It just depends on what you do with your money. My draw was $1,000 a month. So you do the math, I was making $12,000 a year, which is gross in two different ways. I was starving. I was hungry. I ate bologna sandwiches and um made the commitment that I'm gonna stick it out, and here we are now, about 20 years later, as an equity partner, vice president of the company.
SPEAKER_00It's been a good story, it's been a good reason. If people are kind of in that position where they're making a lot of money, but they want to start making more generational wealth with investing in everything else. How did you meet these people?
SPEAKER_01If you're wanting to become wealthy, you have to spend your time around wealthy people. You have to find your group, right? Who believes the same things, who has the same standards you have, who has the same spiritual beliefs, who has the same morals, the same ethics.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Legacy and Wealth Podcast, a show for proven high earning men who value wealth, character, and a lasting legacy. Brought to you by the Standard, a private membership community for high performers. My name is Mitchell Clark, and today I'm joined by fellow Standard member Stephen Pine. Happy to be here. All right. Well, I I'm really excited about this because you and I share a lot of things in common from love of fitness, faith, business, everything else. So I'm really, really excited about this. Um we'll just kind of get right into it. What do you currently do for money right now?
SPEAKER_01For money. So my career is insurance, commercial insurance uh in particular. Um I have been in that industry for 23 years. Uh celebrated 23 years this past March. Um so in addition to that, uh, I do some things as well as far as silent investing, uh, which we can get into if you'd like, and then a little bit of personal training on the side is a passion of mine. So I like it.
SPEAKER_00That's great. Well, we'll we'll get into all that kind of topic by topic. Let's let's focus a little bit on like the staple kind of W-2 job you have right now. So tell me a little bit about you know kind of upbringing, what got you into this field, and give us give us a quick play-by-play out there.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Um, most people, when they get into insurance, it is definitely by accident. There are not many folks that go to school um and uh and get a degree in insurance. Although it is out there and it exists, it's very rare. Um as far as upbringing, you know, my dad was a business guy, so I always knew I wanted to go into business, wanted to be like my dad. Um and uh so that was my major. I was a business major, finance minor in college. Uh played a few sports in college as well. And um once I graduated, I went into the finance world, worked for Wells Fargo, and I was a little bit bored. Um I don't like to sit, I like to be up and moving, and um so I decided that wasn't for me pretty quickly, about six weeks in, and then um made my way over to the insurance side through a through a mutual connection, I guess, from church, who knew my father, and uh went and interviewed and one interview, and the next day I had a job offer, and that's when I started. So yeah, yeah, that's that's the brief, brief history, brief summary.
SPEAKER_00Well, we can kind of anchor down at that point. So uh what's the name of the company? Patterson and Associates Insurance. Okay, Patterson Associates Insurance. And you've been there for this entire time.
SPEAKER_0123 years.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. Yes. So walk me through a little bit because I know you know you start off just like working for them, and now you have a much more leadership position role there. So walk us through a little bit on what your work there has entailed.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Um we could go for a while on this, but I'll keep it pretty brief. When I first started, I was a personal lines producer, so I did home and auto insurance, and um I I took a draw, which is another term for a loan. You just have to pay it back. Um my draw was $1,000 a month. So you do the math, I was making $12,000 a year, uh, which is gross in two different ways. Yeah. Uh yeah. And uh so I was starving. I was I was hungry. I ate bologna sandwiches and um made the commitment that I'm gonna stick it out, I'm gonna do it. And uh two and a half years later, ended up paying off everything that I owed, continued to build my own book of business and got to a level where um equity was was offered and had to buy into the agency, and I did it. Glad I did it. Awesome. And uh and here we are now, about 20, 19 years later, um, as an equity partner, vice president of the company. And um, so yeah, it's been a good story, it's been a good ride, and it was well worth it.
SPEAKER_00So you were a contributor, then you were like a partner with some equity in the firm, and now you're in a primary level of ownership of it. Yes, that's right. That's right. Let let's talk about that because I think for a lot of the people in our audience, you know, we have some people that are business owners, some people that are kind of high up on the um, you know, whatever company that they work for. But I like this path because I have a few people that do this where not they've demonstrated enough leadership capacity where they're able to get some equity in the company. And so there's kind of this hybrid where they have ownership in it, even though it's kind of somebody else's dream. Yeah. Um, but that kind of is another way for them to build wealth while doing their working in W-2. So what's what did they offer that to you, or is that something that you asked for?
SPEAKER_01Or so I knew going in there'd be an opportunity for it. Yeah. Um, and there were uh production thresholds for it. So I had to reach a certain revenue standpoint. Um, but in addition to that, there are also some other things which I actually value uh a little bit more than the revenue side. It's involvement in the industry, giving back to the industry, involvement with your community, giving back to the community. Um, and so those things were also, and we still hold those true today because we still offer the same thing. Um, but you have to give back to the community, you have to give back to the industry. Um so there were, and I knew going in there was an opportunity for me to to do that. Um I didn't know I would make it. Fair enough. But but being a competitor, um, you know, I went all in and we did it. So that's the way it was structured. And and honestly, back then it was kind of it was it was for lack of better terminology, it's pretty loosey goosey because we were small. I was employee number seven. Um, and so it was kind of a let's make this up as we go. I'm glad they made it up.
SPEAKER_00So it was a little bit of a startup mentality.
SPEAKER_01It was. Yeah. When I joined, they had been in business for a while. It opened in 83. Okay. April of 1983. And Ronald.
SPEAKER_00Careful you're dating yourself for a while.
SPEAKER_01Right. That wasn't me. I was four. I was four years old. Okay, very Ron, who started the agency, um, he developed it, built it out, nice book for himself, and a small agency right here in Richardson where we s where we are today. Um, we're in a different building, but same city. And um he hired his son uh first, in addition to the two ladies he had in the office at the time. And um from there, there was one more producer before me. He's still with us today, also, and then there was me. And um we were kind of we were the next generation. And uh when he retired, we bought him out, and um, and we have taken off since then.
SPEAKER_00That's a great story. Yeah. What kind of clientele do you typically serve? Like, do you have a certain niche that you're involved in, or how does that work?
SPEAKER_01I do, I do all commercial, business to business. Um, as far as as niches, we as an agency, we do everything. Um me individually, I stick to manufacturing and construction in our area, those two things are huge. Um, but then I also get into the wellness life science arena as well.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I'm assuming since you're into fitness, that's also kind of a passion project of yours. Very much. What value are you offering to them? I mean, we we've heard of commercial insurance, but what is it that draws these clients to you and what kind of services do you offer to them? Like how does this fit in kind of the B2B world?
SPEAKER_01I'm glad you asked that actually. We're a little bit different. Okay. Um the the days of, and I might be, I'm not gonna give out too many secrets, but but the days of selling on price are over, they've been over for a while. And even the days of like the value add, um, you still throw them in there as ancillaries because they are valuable, um, but you really can't sell that way anymore. And the reason is because of AI. AI's taken over. So the things from a value add standpoint that you used to be able to give customers like gap analysis and policy comparisons and things of that, you can just upload them. They can get it themselves. Okay. Right? You can upload them into Chat GPT and it'll be there. So we actually sell a little bit different, we've been doing this for a while, but we try to sell performance-based insurance, is what we call it. And so what it is is we take your policies, we take your loss runs, and we will sell you this is what we can do for you three years from now to drive your cost down. This is our position for the underwriters in our marketplace to help you get better value out of your insurance program, and we'll give them a percentage range. If you'll implement these things for the next three years, we can drive your cost down 25%. And so that's how we do it. And so we really like to take over their current program. So we interview. Okay. We want them to interview us, to be their risk manager. Okay. We'll take it over, we'll drive your cost down 25%, and if we can do that, we have a customer for life. And so that's how we do it.
SPEAKER_00No, well, I'm glad you mentioned that driving their cost down and risk management. I think it's a different mindset. When I'm thinking insurance, it's just like I pay somebody that way, if something terrible happens, then I don't have to worry about it. But it sounds like what you're offering is a little bit different. Describe risk management and what value is that to the business.
SPEAKER_01In our area, in a lot of the silos that we ride in, it's construction, for example, their their exposure really is on the road. And so with their fleets of vehicles. And so when they have, we have a company that has 50 autos out on the road every day, they're on 635. Um, inevitably they're gonna have an accident. It's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00As always happens on 635, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So the things that that we try to implement for them is what can we do to help mitigate those accidents, to help we're not gonna eliminate them, um, but keep keep you from having you had five accidents the last two years. What can we do to to bring that down to two? Okay. So you're a more profitable account to the insurance company. So I mean the insurance companies look at it from a PL standpoint. Can we make money on you? Sure. So we have to present to them like you're running MVRs um twice a year, you have a fleet safety manual, you're bringing in driver's training, and you're doing that twice a year. You have telematics in your trucks that tell you how fast your people are driving, how hard they're braking. Are you implementing all those things? And nine nine times out of ten they're not. Sure. And so we can put those things into place for them, and we can position that to our underwriters. Like this are these are the things they're doing to make themselves a better risk for you. And so that's when we ask for we need all the credits you can give us. This will be a customer for life, they're gonna be a profitable customer for life. So we're able to tell their story to the underwriter. Most agencies out there they don't tell the story. And so you have insurance companies trying to price something they don't know anything about. So that's where we're different.
SPEAKER_00Okay. No, I so would as an example of that, like let's say you're doing something for a construction company. So you could go out to the site, and then while you're out on the site, you could see that like maybe some of the construction workers aren't tying off, they're not wearing their hats. There's some safety regulations that are kind of being skirted around. And you're like, hey, we tighten up, you know, A, B, C, make sure that the ladder is tied down, that they're tying off when they're hanging steel, when they're doing this or that. And then you quantify it as a savings, and then you position that to the insurance companies to get them a lower rate. That's exactly right. So it sounds almost more like you're a risk management consultant more than anything.
SPEAKER_01That's what we want to be. That's great. That's what we want to be. We don't want to sell price. Um, it's that's a commodity. We don't want to sell commodity. We want to sell our value to you. We want to work for you. And we get paid to do it, so we should be doing it.
SPEAKER_00What are some of the most common risks that you're seeing out there that you can really do? I guess this is very industry specific. So what what other company, let's say manufacturing, for instance. Sure. Where are some if you could outline a few of the most common things you're out there that can easily help drive the price down, what would they be?
SPEAKER_01On the manufacturing side, it's gonna be more on the workers' compensation side because they're they're they are in the facility, they're in the warehouses, they're making the things, right? So they're using their hands, they're using um uh forklifts, they're out there and they're working. Um so it's gonna be more on the workers' compensation side. So bringing in like OSHA experts, implementing the OSHA guidelines. So, what kind of ladders are you using when you have to climb? Are they this kind of ladder or are they the ones you bought from Walmart? Or did you get them from Amazon? You know, how sturdy are they? What's the weight load? Right. How many how high do you let them climb before they have to do a scaffolding or before they have to so all of those types of things we would go in and it would be very, very thorough. Um, but we'd make sure your employees don't get hurt, don't get injured. And that's sort of the pricing is on the on the manufacturing side, it's on the workers' comp.
SPEAKER_00So whenever you're moving forward with that, is there sort of a a compliance like monitoring that you do long term? So obviously you give them some guidelines. Hey, if you do A, B, and C, we should be able to bring your cost down. Oh, yeah. How do you ensure compliance to make sure they kind of stay within those guidelines?
SPEAKER_01Great question. We put a three-year plan together by date.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so we go visit them on this date. Have you implemented these things? And we have the things they're supposed to implement by that date. Have you implemented these things? We gave you the template for this manual, we gave you this for this, have they been implemented? And if they haven't, then we'll send it to them again. We'll say we'll come back out in three weeks, we can help you with implementation if you need us to. But we do have a timeline, it's built three years out that we make sure they implement all these things because we've already told the story to the carrier. So we gotta get them done.
SPEAKER_00No, that makes sense. Well, so we do manufacturing and then kind of logistics fleet. Now, talking about wellness and fitness centers, yeah. How does that how's that going? What are the biggest things that you're seeing there that people can improve upon?
SPEAKER_01Goodness. Those are those are they're interesting because we've had it's har really hard to pinpoint. We have had professional liability claims um where clients will accuse a trainer of doing something inappropriate or what have you. Okay. We have had deaths where they're just underneath a barbell and they collapse. And we have had one of the one of the common ones here in this area are water losses, um, where we have had, because most of them are in a little bit older buildings that have flat roofs, tar and gravel type roofs, they haven't been updated. And when we get a lot of rain here, they leak. And when we get freezes, the ice, uh, they ice on the roof and it gets heavy, and those roofs bow down, and when it starts to melt, all that water comes through down the walls. And so it's really hard to mitigate that because they have landlords, and if their landlords don't do anything about the building, well, what are you supposed to do about it as a tenant? Right. Okay. And so those are pretty difficult. And then of course, like the death claims are very difficult. Does it hop it? Does it happen very frequently? Oh, it it's happened. I've had five of those claims in the last I mean, the last freeze we had. So it does happen. It does happen, unfortunately. We've also had a fire that was next door in the space next door. And when you have workout equipment that's all metal and steel, and you have a fire that smoke, it's gonna get all over it, it's gonna create a lot of soot, then you have to have environmentalists come in, and then it rusts all the equipment, the treadmill stop working, electrical malfunction. It's just a nightmare.
SPEAKER_00Well, you're also talking kind of on the on the the client side, things like you know, wire like dehydration or the bar kind of crushing. How often do those sorts of claims happen?
SPEAKER_01They're a little more rare. Um I would hope so. They're they're a little more rare.
SPEAKER_00It's always a joke of like, I have you seen those memes where like a guy is suffering from heartbreak, so he does the suicide grip and fall.
SPEAKER_01Right. And that happens. It does happen, yes. But you you'll never fix stupidity, right? You can't you you just can't manage that. But the the thing is, is like with the trainers, and that's really all you can control, is the trainers, their clients, and then when the trainers are out on the floor, um, what are they doing to monitor that kind of stuff and to correct those kind of things? Or does does a mom who's um has her two kids for the day because school's out, does she bring them up to the gym and are they running around the weight room? Those kind of things. Yeah, you have to train your your people, you have to train your staff what to look for, look for the grip that they're using. Are they using the equipment um the wrong way, those kind of things? So that's just training. Yeah, and that's you know, monthly meetings, quarterly meetings, what are we looking for? How are we doing it? Those types of things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So in this field, because it sounds like you have to get relatively up to speed on different industry standards and way of doing business, yeah. What um what do you do if you're kind of being approached by someone that maybe you're not quite as familiar with their business model as say you would like a gym or manufacturing or you know a truck fleet? What's your process for kind of getting into the area where you can provide them value?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's all sales techniques, right? Um, so you you go and you meet with them for the first time and you just try to get them to talk. And I usually just ask, tell me your story. Like, how'd you start doing this? Why did you start doing the same thing you did for me? Yeah. Um, because people love to talk about themselves. Yes, they do. So why did you do this? How do you do it? How do you make your money? And what would have to happen for you not to make money? And so you eventually get to that question, then you get them talking about all the things that could possibly happen that could ruin their business, and then you correlate that into, well, now let's talk about your insurance program. Like, are those particular things taken care of? Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it starts off so it sounds like it starts off with you having a conversation. Because in my mind, I'm like, well, I guess I gotta read a book. Like, let's say you're like doing consulting for like a food, uh like a restaurant or something like that. All right, well, I have to be an expert on the restaurant business. But it sounds like before you even really delve into that stuff, it just starts with a conversation with them first before you get into anything else.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, it does. And you know, it's like anything too, over time, having been in it for 23 years, those industries, you learn it all. You just you do. But it does take time. And when you first start, you have to go and you have to study. So you go out and you talk to them and you hear their story, and then you come back to the office and you ask your mentor, What do I do with this? Sure. Yeah, that's kind of how it works. I'm sure you did that a lot for the first three years. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Well, let's get into that because I I you have a really cool story that's uh I wouldn't say unusual, but it's different than just going off and starting your own business or just climbing the corporate ladder. It's a little bit unique. Um, describe a little bit, let's kind of go through like your different stages of life and how it felt like kind of going from one to the other. So like you're starting off earning a thousand dollars a month, eating bologna sandwiches and all that. How how did you get that revenue or that generate that first round of revenue to start building up your book of business?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's a good question too. Um this was 23 years ago. And so we didn't have the things we have now. No AI. No AI. No. Tough age. No AI. It was tough age. It was a tough age. Yeah. We we did everything through literally through the mail. We didn't have even mail merge on you know, in your Outlook or whatever, no mail merge. And so um, if we wanted to email them, we had to literally email one at a time. Um, but we would type out letters, we would print them out, stuff envelopes, we would send them. Um and like I said, we did personal lines at the beginning is is really how we started. And um so we would we would send those out and we'd call, and then we'd send a little postcard. Um, but it was all it was all price-driven. We'd put a little diagram on the letter, you know, this is how much we can save you based on our models, um, those kind of things. And then just networking, people to people, um, you know, back then and still now, but like the chambers and those types of things were very, very popular. And so we did all of that stuff. Um, but that's how we did it. I mean, we just hit the pavement and sent letters, and um it was it was fun. I missed that time just because of those types of things. Interesting. But I don't miss it from a volume standpoint because you can do so much more now in such a shorter amount of time. Sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a time saver. Right. Well, how long before you built up a book of business where you could you could upgrade from baloney to say a real piece of chicken? When was that threshold?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um that was about the probably a year and a half, two years. It's just uh it's just the way it is. Sure. Yeah, and when you're when you're selling personalized, back then personalized premiums, by the way, we a new home like in Frisco, they were five hundred dollars a year.
SPEAKER_00Jeez.
SPEAKER_01Now they're about five hundred dollars a month. Yeah. It's changed a lot.
SPEAKER_00No, when you said five hundred, I immediately was thinking months.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, it's changed a lot. Yeah. Welcome to Dallas Fort Worth. Hail and tornadoes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00W the area you're working in, was it primarily North Dallas, North DFW? Yeah, we whatever north was back then.
SPEAKER_01Right. I personally um I went to the new construction areas, and Frisco was booming then. I mean, it was that's where it was. And so I marketed heavily, very heavily up in Frisco. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So let's talk about that because a lot of what we're talking about is also kind of like not just money and career and all that, but what that means to you and how like you've changed and how you've grown as you've gone through this transition. Because going through individual contributor to a partner to now the owner now, at what point did you feel? Did you ever feel like you made it? Like what was because you you talked in the past with a little bit of fondness because I'm sure there's some fun memories there, but in your mindset going back, at what point do you feel like you made the biggest jump in happiness?
SPEAKER_01I think from a just looking back at this, probably. When we were able to afford to move out of our first home. Okay. Um, we had our my wife and I had our first child, and we were able to move out of our first home, um, which was I mean, at the time it was a great home. It was 1,900 square feet. Um and um, but I think just the the feeling of being able to actually provide something for my family, for my my wife and my son that I know my wife wanted and needed. Uh we needed more space to be able to do that and not have to really stress about it is when I felt like, okay, this this is working.
SPEAKER_00Um how long ago was it?
SPEAKER_01Or how long into it? Yeah, how long into it, yes. That took about five years, five or six years. Okay. Yeah, it took about five or six years. And so I think that's probably what hit home the most. But I think realistically, um, probably three to four years in, I realized this was gonna work, I was gonna be able to do this. Um I'm a finance guy, so I track the numbers like a hawk. And when you see it, it's kind of in insurance, it's kind of like compounding when investment when you invest, because you get renewal commission. And so when you see that starting to compound over the years, you get three years in, you get four years in, you can see where it's really gonna track.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Because you get recurring revenue off of old customers. So as the base of business builds, you can see base. Okay. Yeah. How did that feel like versus year two to three to four to five? Like, would you say it was about that three or four year mark where you're like, I'm gonna be fine. It seems like things are gonna take off. Okay. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you're able to get a house. What other things were like kind of changed in your life lifestyle-wise, that made you feel a bit more lifestyle-wise?
SPEAKER_01Um there's more flexibility for sure. So when you owe somebody money, you're you're on a tight wire. And so I had to be there at a certain time, I had to leave at a certain time. Um, so I think the more flexibility, because then my oldest son was old enough now, he's playing sports, and so he has practices during the week. And I'm I'm able to be flexible and I can leave the office early to go to go to practice. And I coached both of my boys all the way through everything, um, which was a blessing to be able to do in a lot of positions, a lot of jobs, you just don't have that flexibility to do that. And so that was a blessing. Um, so that that was that would have been a realization point for me as well, um, as far as lifestyle. Um, but then just you know, I'll always be a numbers guy and I'll always have a budget. For sure. I'll always have a budget. Uh, but to not look at it every day was certainly, certainly a uh a nice thing for sure.
SPEAKER_00Well, was it because now when you're looking at the numbers, it's how to grow it, not necessarily are we gonna make it. Are we gonna make it? Yeah, totally different mindset. Yeah, yeah. I remember when I uh I moved up here to DFW. I was I just left the military and got to my first um my first role as an associate for a medical device company and we had just purchased our house, so massive down payment, and we had to do a bunch of renovations, and that was the first time as a married couple, our our checking account went down to like 2K. Oh, yeah. And I was like, I that was that was the first time in a long time. Because I'd always had like a little bit of a balance there, so I I didn't feel like I was ever gonna go broke. It was like we might be in the red for like a month. Luckily, we're we like we pushed off like one renovation like a month and we got back in the green and then we built up from there. But yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I was I was fortunate too. My wife, um, she loves to work, she's she loves to work, she loves to give back. Um she's been in the the education world, and um, but she was a teacher at the time. And so we did have a a decent steady income. So that was nice, and that provided us a little bit of cushion as far as not having to to worry as much because we knew that would be there for sure. Um so it wasn't we both were not living off a thousand dollars a month, that's for sure. But well, that's good.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, yes, yes. What are some of the things that have brought you the most happiness out of you know work, life, or everything else? Like when you look back on, you know, the career and everything else, what were kind of the the things that have brought you the most happiness?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I really enjoy, and what what really gets me going is when, at least now, obviously selling something will always be it's like a I don't know It's a hit It'd be like a drug, right? You get a hit and you that's I can see how it's easy to get addicted to drugs because selling when you win it's like that. You just want more of it. Um but aside from that I really enjoy when we bring in new folks, when we bring in new salespeople, um, and just being able to give to them through the experience that I've had, um, I find a lot of joy in that and being able to watch them succeed and make it uh and help them succeed and make it. It's just it it gets my motor running.
SPEAKER_00I love it. Well, at what point in your career in that company were you able to start doing that specifically?
SPEAKER_01Probably about year six or seven, um, we hired a couple new producers, um, which I was a mentor for one of those one of those producers. So that's when I think about six or seven years in. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So what what was the kind of mental transition going from just being an individual contributor to now having a little bit more of a leadership role? Like descrip describe that process.
SPEAKER_01That's a hard transition because especially in sales, because you you eat what you kill, right? And so when you when you're giving to someone else and you're giving your time to someone else, and we're not taking a portion of anything that they sell, you have to shift your focus. And now you're you're an owner in the company, you have to shift your focus to what's best for the the business.
SPEAKER_00Did you have ownership at that time?
SPEAKER_01I did. Okay. Yeah. Uh what's best for the business and not what's just best for Steven. And so that was a that was a shift in mindset for sure. Because, you know, for five five years or six years, it was all me. Like I'm building my own business within this business. And um so it was it was a shift in mindset for sure. Um but but it does pay off in the long run um if you do it right. And so you just it's a delayed gratification. But financially, anyways.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, let's go back to that conversation of actually getting equity into the company. What did they approach you about that or did you ask for it? Did you even know that was a thing? That wasn't a thing I even knew existed until fairly recently. Yeah. I I I didn't find that out until I was watching an episode of Suits, and I was like, oh, you can do that. So that's it, yeah. Yes, yes. Which I'm assuming that's your lifestyle, just RB spectrum.
SPEAKER_01Oh, for sure, yes. Um, I did know going in that that was a possibility. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. If you want to connect with high performers like today's and previous guests, I want to invite you to apply to join the standard. We are a private membership community that improves the health, wealth, and relationships for six-figure earners who perform at the highest level physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and financially. What we offer is simple. We will give you a vetted local brotherhood of men on your level or above. We will give you a customized plan to build true generational wealth. We will give you a personal liaison to achieve all of your goals. If you are tired of being the most successful person in your circle, frustrated with always pouring into others and not having anyone to pour into you, or you want to have conversations like the ones you're hearing today in person on a weekly basis with fellow higher performers, go to thestandardmen.com to apply. That's thestandardmen.com. Hit the link in the description below. Now back to the episode.
SPEAKER_01And that's one of the recruiting tools that that they decided to use and we still use today. A lot of insurance agencies don't offer that. Um so it is it's a recruiting tool that we use. And we get a lot of good people because of that. They want to come in and work hard or they've been somewhere else where they don't have that opportunity. Right. Um, and we offer it. And so do you think that does increase performance and team cohesion? I think it increases effort. Okay. I think it increases effort. Um performance. Um I'm a big believer, like practice doesn't make perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect. And so it increases effort. But if the effort's not the right effort, then it's not going to pay the dividends. Um, so I do believe it it it increases effort. But I think you have to have those right mentors in place to be able to steer that effort in the right direction. And if you have that and they'll listen to it, then definitely will increase performance because the effort is lifted.
SPEAKER_00Can you give an example of somebody you had that they had the motivation and the energy, but they just needed a good guiding hand to point them in the right direction?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, for sure. I mean, we've had several of those. And mostly it's because they just selling insurance is a little bit different than selling because you can't touch it, you can't feel it. It's not tangible. It's a bill. That's the way everyone sees it. They see it as a bill. Uh and so selling it's a little bit different than selling like a technology product where it's okay, I get to touch it, I get to plug it in, I get to see it work, it's a lot faster than what I had, or whatever it is. You can you can see it and you can feel it, and it's an immediate difference in your life. Right. Insurance is not unless you need it. Um, and it could be six years down the road or you could never need it. And so you have to sell it differently. Um, so that effort that's given on that side versus versus the insurance side, you have to funnel it towards building relationships as opposed to just selling a product. Okay. Because if you're just selling a product, they don't want to buy another insurance policy. But they'll buy from someone that something they don't really want to buy, anyways, if they feel there's a relationship there.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So you have to funnel that into how do you develop these relationships and how do you build them? How do you get them to trust you? And so you have to funnel that effort that way.
SPEAKER_00How do you do that? Because it sounds like in your you have a very unique um selling standpoint where it's it feels very consultative as opposed to you know, offense against car, you know, vacuum salesman, but it's it's a different type of sales. Yeah. It's a hundred. What would you describe as like the main difference in mindset from more commodity-based sales to what you're selling?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I do think it's our process. I do think it's our three-year strategic plans forum where we can put it in writing and we can show them uh successes that we've had in the past with different companies uh and how it actually works. And so that builds a level of trust. But really, it's and and I hate the COVID area for several reasons, but it really ruined the face-to-face conversations for a while. And we're getting back to that, which is a great thing, because that's really how you do it. I feel the same way. Yeah. I mean, it's this right here where I can see you. Um, I could reach out and touch you if I wanted to, but I can see your facial expressions, the infliction in your voice. So I know what you're trying to tell me just by your different nonverbals. It's just so different. You can create a relationship that way.
SPEAKER_00Well, I you know it's funny you say that. So in my current company, we had a bit of a different shift in policy where most of the selling was done virtually over phone. And it it still is to a degree, but we definitely agreed that we have to go touch them in person at some point because what was happening a lot was we were getting some traction moving through a deal, but there'd always be a friction point somewhere. And we couldn't really figure out what it was. And then when we go in there and we're kind of seeing the way that people are like talking to each other and and interacting with each other, and we're like, oh, we thought this is a decision maker, but based upon these people's, you know, body positioning and their body language, we can tell like this is the person whose opinion really matters over here, and now I can see them and bring them in. It is all like you said, all these different nuances you don't pick up on unless you're like in their space. I think there's also something about looking them directly in the eyes that carries a bit more persuasion too.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And you can see pictures of their family. So you can ask them about their family. You can't see that over the phone or through an email. You just can't do that. So yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00If you could, I'd be really impressed. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we'll get to that point. But all right. Well, all right, so you did that and then um you know moved over to more of a managerial role, which you're over that now. You also said that you do some investing. Um now, my understanding on the philosophy of making money is that you know, being an operator and a business owner and kind of being boots on the ground, that's how you initially make your money. But if you want to really start scaling and like multiplying it exponentially, you gotta eventually transition from being an operator to an investor. Yeah. And it sounds like you've at least dabbled in that, or perhaps more than dabbled. But it's am I right on in saying that? Okay. Yes, I agree 100%. Describe that to me.
SPEAKER_01So um, yes, on the insurance side, that is my career. It is my career. Uh, and that's the money that I count on every day to pay my bills, to do my things. Um, and I do still sell. That's the joy of it. Being in a managerial role is great and all, um, but I like to sell. I like to get out and meet people, and that's primarily what I do. Um, however, yes, building true wealth, it's not making money, it's what you do with the money you make. So you could be, you can make $250,000 a year, you can make $500,000 a year. The person that makes $250,000 a year could be far wealthier than the person that makes $500,000 a year. It just depends on what you do with your money and how you manage your money and how you invest it. And so, yes, I do, I do invest um I with a couple different private equity groups, um, invest in some technology companies uh and then some some multi-sport uh facilities, some complexes around the country.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Is it all purely for money or is some of it for the joy of it too? Because I know you're super into fitness, so I'm that is for for both.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yes, that's for both. And best of both worlds. That's the best of both worlds. And there's there are uh several of the facilities around the Metroplex, our area, DFW, um, which are it's just great because you can drive by and you can see it, you can go eat there. We have we have restaurants there as well. Um, and it's a very family-oriented atmosphere, and there's one that's about four minutes from my house, and so it's it's just great. Uh, that's both sides of it. I would tell you initially it was the money. It was the money. That's why you invest, it was for the money. And then the other sides, the technology and those kind of things, um, is purely for the money. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00How has that panned out for you if from a monetary perspective? Like, did those pay out pretty well or what's your experience in investing been still?
SPEAKER_01They pay out great. Um, I I did invest in one that ended up going belly out or belly up, and it happens. It does happen. Um, it's just the risk reward. Um but but overall, it it's panned out extremely well. You have to be picky about the industries and what they're doing. Yeah. Um but uh but it's been great. It has been great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, particularly in the fitness industry, I know gyms in general tend to have a higher failure rate in like restaurants and all these different things. So my question to you is if if people are kind of in that position where they're making a lot of money, but they want to start making more generational wealth with investing in everything else, how do you pick your businesses? It's different than picking a stock. So how do you pick your businesses?
SPEAKER_01So the first thing I do is is if it's a high capital need, I pick my business partners extremely wisely. Who do I trust? Who do I know who has money that can do this, and who would be willing to do this if it makes sense, right? And so you have to trust them, number one. That's the that is the absolute very first thing you have to do. Like the people that own the business or something. Oh, okay. Right. If it's if it requires high capital. So these these sports complexes, I mean, they're they're eighty million, hundred plus million dollar investments. And so you need several people. Um and so you need to be able to trust these folks. But from there, it's really emerging markets, look at what's growing, look where there's a need, and then you you have to look at uh, for instance, like sports, look in the areas where um kids are involved, and parents that no matter what happens financially, they're gonna find a way to make sure their kid does this. Right. And so parents will give up a lot of things. They'll give up a gym membership, they'll give up a spa membership, but they're not gonna get the last thing they'll give up is something their child is involved with and loves to do. And they will pay a lot of money to have their kids play club, X, Y, Z, baseball, volleyball, you name it, and they won't give that up until they're on the street. So you you have to find that that kind of a thing, and it's out there where it's not it's not recession proof necessarily, but it'll be one of the last things that goes. Okay. And so that's how I do it. That's how I do it.
SPEAKER_00Well, you say you do it through an egg a private equity firm. It's so are is there a pool of investors that you're going in with? How big is this group? Like, are you able are you able to develop a relationship with the other investors that you're going into with?
SPEAKER_01It it would depend. Okay. The the way I do it, yes. Uh we all live in the same area. Okay. Um we have lunch together, um, different meetings about different opportunities outside of it. So yes. And I I would recommend doing it that way. Okay. There are plenty you can get involved with that are in Georgia or there, but if you can't see them, you can't touch. It's the same way I sell. I want to be able to see you and sit across the table from you.
SPEAKER_00That's an interesting thing that you say. I've never heard of it from the sense of you have to trust the other investors. I always hear, like, you know, you gotta do the business plan analysis. It's always on the business you're investing in, not on the other side. Right. Now, is it because if for some reason you're building out this multiplex and it's like you you thought it was gonna be 80, but then like halfway through, you're like, all right, guys, gosh, you're gonna have to be 120. Yeah, that's happened. There's some people all right, no, I'm out, done. The more than I was willing to do. And that's right. Okay. That's right. So you have to what what are some traits you look at for fellow investors?
SPEAKER_01Um, you want to look at net worth. You want to look at what other things they're can they can they invest in. Can they do it? Yep. You want to look at what other things they've invested in. Have they succeeded? Have they had to pivot? Um, because that's important. Because sometimes if it's not working, you you have to make pivots. You have to change directions. And um, if they're not willing to do that or they're open to it and they want to have a discussion about it, you you need to just interview them about all of those things. Okay. In my case, I've known most of these people for a while. And so I've I know those things. They all run their own businesses, so I get to see how those businesses are ran, how successful they've been, how they've grown, those types of things. That's all part of how I would not lack of for lack of better terminology, how I underwrite each one of them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? Do I want to be in business with you? Um and so that's how I do it. There's there's a lot of strategies. Some just do it through portals online. You can do that now, even. Uh it's you could just whatever.
SPEAKER_00But how did you meet these people? Was it online through a connection, or did you know some of these investors?
SPEAKER_01I knew some. Okay. I knew some. Um you have to really be strategic. This is just my opinion, but about Well, we're here to hear your opinion. Where you where you spend your time, who you spend your time with. And if you if you're wanting to become wealthy, you have to spend your time around wealthy people. And so, and then in that pool of people, you have to find your group, right? Who believes the same things, who has the same standards you have, who has the same spiritual beliefs, who has the same morals, the same ethics, and you find them. Yep. Um, but it's really you gotta be in those places to be part of it because they're not gonna come looking for you. They they they it's not gonna happen. Um, so that's how I do it. What whatever country club, um, what whatever school system, you know, find those folks, um, and then do you develop a circle around those particular people?
SPEAKER_00Oh, like it. Yeah. Well, before we transition to the next topic, a couple kind of final things to put a bow on it. At what point, because I I know you said when you moved out to a better house that was one milestone, at what point did you feel like you made it? Or were there different points where like, okay, first I made it, now I've really made it? Like, what were those kind of big highlights in your life from like, oh wow, I really made a step in in a different direction here?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I think so the the probably the very first profit sharing check that I received at the end of the year. This is how we do it. Um and we do different things now, but probably that first time I received a profit sharing check by because I was an equity owner, it was just like, man, alive. And then so that sticks out, and then I think number two, when I first joined this agency, um, I looked at the agency as a whole and I looked at the two the two guys that were there before me and what their book of business looked at, looked like. And I remember telling myself, man, if I could only build a book of business that's as big as theirs. And so when that day happened, um was another this is gonna work, I've made it. Okay. Now let's keep going. And then you look back now and you're you know your book of business is bigger than the entire agency was. And it's just the way you you just feed back into the agency, back into your business and watch it grow. And um so I those are those are two two moments, I would say that profit sharing check. And then when you hit that threshold, those guys before you hit, it's like, okay, all right.
SPEAKER_00Well it's great to make the money, but what did the money mean to you? Like, what did that enable you like what why did those things mean so much to you at the time?
SPEAKER_01So um I have always and my dad modeled this, my parents. Model this, my mom and my dad. Um I'm huge on giving, I'm huge on serving. And I'm I'm good giving my time and and and you need to give your time. However, I'm also very busy. I still have two teenage boys, and I just don't have the amount of time that I want to have to give. And so what I can give is money. And so when I was able to set aside and say, this is what I'm gonna do for XYZ Charitable Foundation, XYZ nonprofit, my church, this, then that that really it gives you a sense of you've accomplished something but not just for yourself, but you're able to help other people, and that's really what it's all about, anyways. I mean that that's what it's all about, it's why we're here. Yeah um that's that's what was meaningful to me um in addition to being able to provide for my family, sure, and them not have to stress over having a meal at night, you know, those kind of things. But but being able to give and help other people, that's really why I do what I do. If it was just me, if I didn't have a family or if I didn't give stuff away or whatever, I mean I probably wouldn't be doing this.
SPEAKER_00That's fair enough. Actually, that's another good point. I there's the last thing I was actually gonna do to wrap a bowl on it because I found like when I was single by myself, I didn't even think about investing. I don't I never didn't even think about stuff. Then one day, it was when I was going ring shopping for my wife. I think it's because I that was the most money I'd ever sent on like a single purchase for anything in my entire life. And suddenly I was like, I wasn't shopping for investments the next day. Like my mind shift my mindset shifted so heavily. And funny enough, my side things didn't really start really taking off until after I had my kid. I don't know what I don't know what it is about. It's like it seems like inverse. You feel like, hey, if I'm by myself and single, I have all the time in the world to just crank and crank away. But it's almost like these other things are giving you a reason to do it. Do you think that's accurate or do you think I'm just being weird?
SPEAKER_01No, I believe it's 100% accurate. It's it's I if you rely on motivation, this is just this me again, but if you rely on motivation, you're gonna, you're gonna, you'll probably fail because it's hard to wake up every day and just be motivated. Yeah. And but my family does provide that motivation for me. Um the things that I give to, I always want to be able to give to, and that provides motivation. But within that, the layer deeper is that motivation, especially when it's not there. The thing that I always stick to is the consistency behind it. And if I'm consistent with what I do in order to make these things work, then they'll continue to work. It's when you get lazy or it's when you think you've made it. Yeah. Um, and you decide I don't need to do this anymore. The consistency goes away, and then you'll find yourself trying to figure out what happened. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Well, let's get into the more fun topics. Let's say let's talk about uh well, actually, I was gonna talk about fence because you brought up, you know, your faith in church and everything else. So I'm also a um uh leader, technically Sunday school teacher. They call it life groups, they call it different things now, but um, I'm doing that, and I know that you're a man of faith as well, and we're both into fitness. So also you told me right before we came on here, you're about to start prep for a is it gonna be classic physique or open bodybuilding?
SPEAKER_01I'm actually probably do both while I'm there. Really? Okay, I did both last year. It just depends on on what we look like. But I'm gonna start prepping, yeah, in a in a week. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00Well, it is funny because I just came off of a men's physique competition and man, I was so hungry. Like that last week I was so miserable. Even during even though it's like peak week, I was just like, I'm never I never don't want to work out, but those last two weeks, I was like, I don't want to go to the gym. You don't tired of this. I'm tired of the way it is. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Yep, you do not want to go.
SPEAKER_00Nope. Then you step up on stage after having like 50 gummy worms, and it's all worth it after that. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Well, yeah, let's talk about it. So have you have you always been into fitness, or what's your fitness journey kind of been like?
SPEAKER_01I have. I have always been into fitness. I it's so I started working out I think when I was probably 12. Okay. Um, but even before that, I mean I grew up watching WWF, grew up watching wrestling and sports, and you know, you watch it because these guys are so overly grown and the muscles, and you know, you just you're young and you're you're growing up and your testosterone's starting to kick in. So it's just I've always I've always been into it. Um so yes, I have, and I started working out when I was 12. Um, like I played college football. Okay. Ran outdoor track, ran indoor track as well in college. And um just from those days on, I did take a little bit of time after I graduated because I told myself I'm never running again after track. College track's a little different. You'd run a lot. I was like, I'm just I'm never running again. So I played golf. I took up golf. Um, I had played golf, but I really took it up seriously. Uh took lessons, I probably hit balls five days a week and played a six-day week. Um, and I I got really, really good, but I'd missed working out the way I used to work out eventually. And so then golf kind of took a sidestep. I still played, but I got back into the gym and um started working out again and then got into CrossFit, like we talked about. Yeah. Got into Olympic lifting after that, and now here I am.
SPEAKER_00You've done it all. Okay, so you've done CrossFit, Olympic lifting, and now bodybuilding. Which are like as like Did you do powerlifting at any point? Not really. That's okay. The Olympic lifts are cooler anyway. They are, yeah. They are. They are. What uh which I hate to say like which stages you like the most. What things did you like the most about each stage? Like for me personally, I I'll give you a little bit of background because I was prior military. So for it's funny you said that you'll never run again afterwards. I felt the same way out of the army. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not training functionally ever yet. Any exercise I do is purely for vanity at this point.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I bet you did.
SPEAKER_00So I've suck there. This Murph thing that I'm doing tomorrow is probably gonna be the first functional training I've done in a long time. But yeah, what would you like about each phase?
SPEAKER_01So they're different. Like CrossFit and the Olympic lifting are both performance-based, right? But it they're performance-based at this on the stage, right? So it's how you perform on stage athletically. Bodybuilding is performance-based, but it's the performance you already did. Yeah, when you're on stage, it's the appearance, right? So the performance side of it is done behind closed doors. Um and being a being an athlete that's always been judged or or scored on performance on the stage, that's probably my preference. Sports is just that way, you have to perform that day, right? And so that's probably my preference. However, similar to you, um, I just uh for different reasons, like the CrossFit, it was great and I loved it. I love the community. Um, but my body just started saying you need to stop doing this because uh you're probably the same way, especially coming from the military. I am hyper competitive. And it's I will do anything I have to do to win. If it's if it has come one sh one breath short of dying, I'm gonna do it. Sure.
SPEAKER_00So naturally, so I tore my body up, obviously. Um yeah, when you apply that mindset to burpees, yeah, it's horrible. Yeah, it is terrible. I just did like a burpee circuit for the first time in like a long time. I was like, I was so gassed. It was bad. I'm like, oh, I hate training this weight.
SPEAKER_01It it's it's bad. Yeah. Um so but I wanted to stay with that community. I liked the movements, and so that's when I got into Olympic lifting, and I've always been strong, so it worked out well, and then I learned how to utilize the leverage uh to really move a lot of weight um with Olympic lifting, which is quite it's crazy. It's you see these small people moving just four or five times the amount of weight they weigh from the ground to their shoulders and overhead. It's it's wild.
SPEAKER_00It's one of the few sports I've never understood just because I've seen like just these little skinny guys just throwing around crazy weight, and not just lifting, but just literally throwing it in a different direction.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're amazingly strong, but they know how to leverage their body against the weight and gravity. That's what it is. The technique is so spot on. But um, so that was fun, and that's fun, and it's performance-based, although you're there all day for three three movements, you know. Um but my shoulders again, just doing everything overhead, because we would do something, we would squat every day in some variation, and we'd go overhead every day in some variation. And so my shoulders just especially my left shoulder, just like I need to stop. So I finally listened to my body and stopped um the Olympic stuff, and then I got back into the vanity side of things and got back into bodybuilding.
SPEAKER_00This is the better side. It's great, I love it. It's fun, dieting's not fun, but lift doing bicep curls in the mirror, it's fun.
SPEAKER_01It is fun. Yeah, it is fun. You see the pump, you see, it's fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I agree. Do you um awesome point of questions? What's your split in the week typically look like? So it's okay, so you're you you run your own business, right? You've got a family, you've got two boys, and so a lot of people here too. I think there's this mind, I think this happens a lot in the culture where like, yeah, you're really athletic in high school and college, but then afterwards, yeah, yeah, I got a family, and that just takes a back seat. But now, like with as busy as you are, what is your gym routine right now? And what is your meal prep going to look like?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yep. I'll give you a I'll give you a day. Here's the schedule. So I wake up at 4 a.m. There we go. Every day. I'm an early riser. Um, start doing that in college for for morning runs, and I just get up. So I get up at four and then I leave for the gym at five. I work out in the morning. Um, so I'll eat, I'll eat my oatmeal, my eggs, my blueberries, um, before I leave. There you go. I go to the gym and work out, get cleaned up, go to work. Um, I'll eat meal two at about nine thirty, which is chicken and rice and a green vegetable. Meal three um at about two, which is chicken and rice and a vegetable. Arnold would be proud of it. You would be so proud, yeah. Um and then uh then I'll go I'll go home after work and I'll eat meal, what are we at, four? I'll eat meal four, which is uh ground beef, 97% lean ground beef, rice or sourdough bread right now, and a green vegetable.
SPEAKER_00Do you meal prep your own stuff or does your wife make it?
SPEAKER_01I meal prep it.
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_01She'll make my rice, she'll make my rice, but she she wants me to do the meat. She eats the same way. My wife eats the exact same way. Okay, which is great, and it makes it easy. It makes it really easy. So, yeah, and then it's some rice cakes, you know, after that, and then I'll eat yogurt and some protein powder at night.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's it really is that's what you do. Well, so what's your split? Is it a five-a-day week, four-day week?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I just changed that. I have always from as far back as I can remember, I've always worked out six days a week. Really? Which is a lot. Um, and I finally changed that to where I'm taking Wednesdays off and Sundays off. So I'm doing five days a week. Okay. Monday I'll do a pool day, so do back. Tuesday is chest and a little bit of shoulder. Okay. Wednesday off. Thursday I do quads and a little bit of hamstring. Um, and then Friday I do back again, a little bit of shoulder. And then Saturday I'll do hamstrings and glutes and arms, buys and tries. Okay. And I'll throw in another shoulder. So I sp I sporadically um do my shoulders all week. Okay. They're one of those muscles I just like to do as much as possible.
SPEAKER_00I've I've kind of so we just got dumbbells set at home and I do just spam out lateral raises when I'm at the house. It's it's such a hard muscle to grow. I yeah.
SPEAKER_01It is, and they don't really get sore. I mean, they just they get a little tender, but they don't get sore. And you can do them, I mean, you can spam them out every day. Yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_00So when it was six days, was it just a push-pull legs?
SPEAKER_01No, it was. This is actually I did push pull legs a little bit before this, but I still went six days. Um, but really my six day splits, I would so my back was lagging behind. Um, so I would hit back twice a week, uh, and I still do. Um, and then I did full legs twice a week, uh, which I don't know why I did that necessarily, because it wore me out, and I've always had my legs have always been a strong suit, which is probably why I did them twice a week. Sure. Because I was good at them. It's fun, yeah. It's all the squats I did, right? Um, so it really wasn't a push-pull leg, but um, but I did do that for a little while and I enjoyed it. Um, but I have to I'd like to get more custom with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, let's get into because you're not just like stepping on stage. This is the IFBB. Yeah, this is the IFBB. So you're going for your IFBB pro card.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. If I win, I'll I'll get a pro card.
SPEAKER_00There you go. Yeah. So what what did what place did you get two years ago?
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I've done the show twice. Two years ago, I got third. Okay. Uh this is classic physique. I got third. Last year, classic physique, I got second, and then bodybuilding I actually got fifth, which is weird. I mean, that because those two are completely different. But um I got fifth in bodybuilding. And so I'm coming back going back this year in September. And if trends hold, hopefully they do, then I'll move up one more spot and it'll work. That's all you need. That's right.
SPEAKER_00Okay. That's right. You heard it right here, IFPV Pro right here. No, that'd be huge. Future, future. It'll be great. No, that'd be huge. Yeah, that's awesome. Even if you don't like, you know, compete with a pro card afterwards.
SPEAKER_01I probably won't.
SPEAKER_00But yeah. You've already won. Yeah, what else there's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01It was never my goal either. Wait, do you get a sword? It depends on which show. Okay. Yeah. Some of them do give swords. Um, this one, uh, I don't think you get a sword. Uh it's a rather large trophy. Okay. Um, but it's not a sword. And then you get all the gifts, you know, the the bags and all that kind of stuff. Gift cards and yeah, those kind of things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Good deal, man. Yeah. I've done the men's physique mainly because in my in my quest to stay away from the functional stuff, I don't train my legs as much anymore. So understood. Uh, which actually that's changing men's physique now. They want you to wear board shorts that are a little bit more form-fitting. So even though the striations do not have to show them as much. They always want to see there's some size on it. Which I think is a good thing. It is. It is a good thing. Yeah. Absolutely. I think we just skip leg day with physique. Yeah. The first time I did it, it was very like they encouraged flowy shorts, so it hit it, but yeah. It's changed. Yeah, for the better. For the better. I think so as well. Yeah. Um, and then finally, kind of going to the the church element. Have you been a believer your whole life or has that been I have. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I have. I grew up in the church. Um fortunately, my my parents were were strong in their faith before I was ever born. Um they were they weren't their whole life. They when they were married, um they were introduced to to Christ um by a man named Terry Rush and changed their lives forever and changed mine and my sisters' lives forever. I'm the youngest of three. I have two older sisters, but um, so yes, I was raised in the church. Uh my dad served as an elder um in a couple different churches. We moved um a few times for his job. And um, but yeah, fortunately I was raised in the church. And I do say I say that with a grain of salt because there are a lot of um a lot of Christians today that I know that were not raised in the church, that are some of the strongest believers, strongest Christians you'll ever meet. And they have a perspective of being a non-believer that I don't have, um, which was I believe what makes them such strong Christians. Sure. Because they know what it's like not having him. And um, and I I respect that a lot. I don't I'm not sad that I never knew that, um, but I can appreciate that perspective and how on fire they are for Christ because they've they've been without him. Sure. So there's a difference. There's a difference. Yeah. Do you uh what do you do in your church right now? It's a great question. So we it's this is interesting. We my wife and I both, when we moved back here, I was born here, moved to Alabama as a kid, moved back in eighth grade. And um I've known my wife since eighth grade. Oh, okay. Yeah. We dated a little bit in high school, but not much. But I've known her since I was in eighth grade. And we both grew up in uh a church here in Garland. Okay. And we actually um when we got we came when I came back from school, I started going to church there again. She was still going there. Her parents went there, my parents went there. And so literally for 30 some odd years, we called that church home. We have recently decided to change churches. But at that particular church, I had I taught Sunday school. Okay. The way you phrased it, yeah. I taught Sunday school. I led a small group, life group. Um, I was a deacon over the youth group, and um I would preach from the pulpit. It changed over time, but uh it used to be about once a quarter, and then it came to about two times a year. Okay. I would I would preach, which I thoroughly enjoy. I like speaking. Yeah, that's a great opportunity. It is, it is, it's a great opportunity. Um, but we have recently changed churches and we go out to uh Lake Point Sunnyvale now, and um we're just now getting involved. So we just went to one of their serve um sessions where they show you every area you can serve in, and we've signed up, and so I think starting next week, they reached out to us, I guess it was yesterday. Um, starting next week, we'll start serving there in some different capacities and getting involved. And so, yeah, so I'm not 100% sure yet what we'll do out there, but hopefully we'll end up leading a life group um and we'll do we'll serve in in several capacities there too. That's just who we are.
SPEAKER_00That's a really good opportunity. I've probably gotten the most joy out of church ministry out of just all my best friends here are from church. It's awesome. Mainly because we're transplants, so I I moved here, I didn't know anyone else. Sure. Um, actually, one of my the my friend that I just showed you in the men's physique show, right? We met at the church and we awesome. We are kind of doing some business ventures together because we're both very like like athletic, you know, business, all that good stuff. Love it. Love it. Um, and I think at the beginning of the year I was like, hey man, because I did a men's physique show a few years ago. I was like, hey man, I think you do really well in this. He's like, I don't know. I'm like, I'll do it with you. And this dude's like 40 pounds heavier than me. I had no illusions I was gonna beat him whatsoever. Maybe a little bit. I was like, maybe I I bet no. That's in you, you know is in you. Yeah, yeah. Next time. I'll do it next time. But um, no, I I I enjoy I think it it gives me a chance to make my faith feel a bit more real because I do get to teach the life. It's about like 15 couples, so like a decent size, but enough to have a little bit more intimate conversation where we can go a little more highbrow theology, or then we can also go more like daily practical applications. But what what things what things I guess in the church kind of make you feel the most alive, I guess? Is it like mentoring people? Is it teaching some weird theology or what we got?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Man, that's a great question. I I thrive around kids, around youth. Yeah. Um, and I I I I haven't really pinpointed why, but I think I think it's a a mix of a few things. Their energy, number one, and then um, man, to to watch them over time grow in Christ and just watch it click and then watch how they um how they glorify God and what they do every day, uh, and watch that change and evolve over time is probably one of the best things you'll ever see. It's just amazing. And you know, I've got to I've gotten to watch that with my own kids and how they've grown and evolved and how they share Christ with other people, not just by telling them about them, but also just uh just showing them by what they do and how they act and how they're respectful and how they won't do certain things. Um it's really that's that gets me going. That's awesome. And watching other kids do that, it's just it's amazing because you're growing God's army uh and it's just the best thing in the world.
SPEAKER_00No, that's great. I I you definitely strike me as the type that enjoys the mentorship element of it. So I do. That's good. I do. Well, I hope they give you that opportunity to do it. I do too. I do too. Um, well, you know, talking about faith, uh one of the last few questions we get into is um, you know, kind of legacy and the concept of legacy here. But I want to bring that in because uh we're both part of the standard, the private membership community. Right. Um how long have you been a member of that for? It's only been about five months. Okay, so relatively new. I'm I'm honestly not I haven't been here that crazy long either. So what what after all this, after starting this business and doing all these things, what led you to want to join the standard and what were you hoping to get out of it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, Hafiz is a great salesman. Yes, he is. Um but he's a great person. And he was my first introduction to the standard uh and just conversations with him, how um authentic he is, uh really drew me in. And uh the way that he positioned what the standard can offer, it it wasn't we're gonna help you make money. Um it wasn't, you know, we're gonna help you be uh XYZ. It was we're going to help you be around men who have similar, if not exactly the same, uh values, integrity, uh spiritual awareness. Um they they are into uh taking care of themselves from a health standpoint. Um and he the questions he asked is is were one I really remember specifically was you give so much to all of these other people. Um because he interviewed me similar to the way you are and got the s very similar answers. I like to serve, I like to give from my employees all the way to my wife. Um but who's giving back to you? Right? What are you what are what are you missing because you aren't getting and one of the things we talked about was which is why I left the church that I left. It got to that point where all I was doing was giving, giving, giving which is rewarding but you also have to get and receive. And that one stumped me and I was just like other than you know a a couple of the partners that I have in my business and things that that we just do there's really other than my wife or my parents like there's there's nobody. Yeah I mean I have good friends but it's just not how we operate. Yeah. He's just like well the standard can provide that for you. Um and again not by business not by making you money just by being a connection that'll hold you accountable and ask you what did you do last week? What was the best part? What did you wish you did different? You know? And that could be your personal life it could be business or whatever. He said we that's what we do. It's awesome. And so that's what drew me in um and as of right now he's right. I've met a lot of good people that we're not afraid to have those conversations and ask those questions which is weird because there's people I've known for 30 years and we won't have that conversation.
SPEAKER_00It's these sorts of conversations are weird to have with just like anybody. Right. It's is weird I hate to say you have to have it a little bit vetted but I think it the answer feels different when it's coming from someone that's actually been in your shoes a little bit more. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So right but that's what it is and and I love it. I think it's fantastic. Like I said I've met some great guys and I'll meet a lot of people quick but I will connect with a few people very slowly. It's just kind of the way that I operate um that's most salespeople I think it's most salespeople. I I agree with that. But but with this there's there have been a few people that I have met with and that I've met where it's definitely it's on that track and just great people. Yeah I just like talking to and they just they're they've been places seen things done things and are willing to share those things and um I've grown already by being a part of it. That's awesome. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I know you say you weren't looking for money but there are some people with great investment opportunities here too. So there you go.
SPEAKER_01Those connections are fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah they are they're fantastic.
SPEAKER_01They are um which is it's not why I joined right um but it is there. Yeah it is definitely there. The the men here uh are highly successful on their way to be highly successful um and are not afraid to work to get there uh and that I appreciate that and it's like I said being finding those those circles of people that you want to be around that can help you grow that can help you become wealthy and you can also help them you got to find them and when you find them it's where you spend your time and and the standard offers that.
SPEAKER_00Yes they do. Yeah. No I appreciate your insight in that so we'll we'll kind of end on this last question which is what we usually ended with everyone on which is what does legacy mean to you and what kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That was a question Hafiz asked me. Um I knew so it's it's like a theme here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No and it's it is the legacy and wealth podcast it is it is it it's an amazing theme.
SPEAKER_01Yeah because I have always had the mindset that I want to leave a legacy. And that legacy that I've always wanted to leave um in my mind was always one that my dad passed on to me that I want to pass on. But it was never really thought through by me as what's what's my legacy. Yeah. Right. I do want to continue my dad's legacy but I also want to establish Steven's legacy as well. And it you know I'm still working on it and we're working through it and we've set goals we've set family goals and we've done all of those wonderful things that if you become part of the standard you'll get to experience and it's very powerful. And I'm still working through the legacy piece of this but really for me it boils down to the legacy I want to leave is is more for my family. But Stephen Pine was the best husband he could be he was the absolute best father he could be and he loved Christ with everything that he had. If I can leave that legacy just from that standpoint and everything else from a legacy stems from there what I did in business, how I represented myself in business, how I built business, how I made my wealth if it all ties back to my relationship with Christ, my relationship with God and how I treated my family then I think I think that's a fantastic legacy to leave behind that your kids can follow their kids can follow their kids can follow and just build on it and just let those roots continue to just drive deeper and deeper. And I will say my dad has has done that. Yeah um and um but I don't just want to leave his I want to leave my own too sure yeah I don't think we could end off on a better comment to be totally honest. If people want to find you in your business or however however have you um whether for business training or church or whatever else how can they find you well um I am always a phone call away okay for sure um and and I can relay my number here it's easier than my email but our office is right here in Richardson Texas too North Dallas. What's it called and say it again Patterson and Associates insurance that's who we are um we have right now we have one location we've had more um that we've ended up bringing into our our location here and I'm glad we did because we can build our culture and it's fantastic. But yeah we're at Patterson and Associates I'm Steven Pine and um my uh my direct line comes straight to my cell phone as well. Perfect so you can find it on the website.
SPEAKER_00Nope I think that's perfect. We'll link all the other emails and everything else in the description below but man I really appreciated the conversation and best of luck with your future endeavors. Thank you Mitchell I appreciate it it's good to be here