Podcasts about insurance agency

Welcome to the Scale Your Insurance Agency podcast! Today, we tackle a pressing question: Are you the orchestra conductor of your agency, or are you still the first violinist? In this post, we'll explore the necessary leadership mindset to scale your independent insurance agency, focusing on the transition from being the top producer to leading your team effectively. If you find yourself overwhelmed and doing everything, this guide will help you make the shift toward successful agency scaling.Key takeaways:The conductor of an orchestra represents effective leadership in an agency.Transitioning from operator to leader is essential for scaling.The skills that built your agency won't necessarily help it scale.Machines can remove friction, allowing leaders to design capacity.Accountability is crucial for empowering teams and ensuring execution.Leaders must redesign systems to facilitate growth and efficiency.Trust is built through human interaction, not just automation.Scaling requires simplicity, not complexity.Empowerment without accountability can lead to drift and confusion.Leaders are responsible to their teams, not for them.Chapters:00:00 The Role of Leadership in Scaling Insurance Agencies06:02 Transitioning from Operator to Entrepreneurial Leader11:50 Designing Capacity and Trust in Leadership17:47 Redesigning Systems for Growth24:13 The Importance of Accountability in Leadership30:00 Five Shifts to Become an Entrepreneurial LeaderTo scale your insurance agency effectively, you need to embrace a leadership mindset that prioritizes empowerment, strategic design, and simplicity. The shift from being the first violinist to the orchestra conductor may feel daunting, but it's essential for achieving long-term growth and success. Are you ready to make this transition? Embrace these insights, trust your team, and watch as your agency scales to new heights!Schedule Your Onyx Scaling Session Today: https://upponyx.com/

For years, Shane has said don't dabble. Now, he is saying, "Do it smart." We discuss the difference between reckless dabbling and strategic expansion, and why being an informed dabbler may be the shift your agency needs for growth.Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Silence creates assumptions, and assumptions spread fast. In this four-year anniversary episode, we discuss how perception forms in the absence of communication, and if you don't define who you are, your competition (or social media) will do it for you. Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Today's guest is the founder of Scooter's Hunt Camp  Scott was raised in the small town of Emmett, Id. Scott loves all sports and spent 6 years chasing dreams by playing college baseball.  After that didn't pan out baseball he came back to Emmett working several different jobs trying to find my place.  In 2006 the opportunity was presented to buy an Insurance Agency here in town.  He now owns this agency, and this was a GOD thing as the freedom of being his own boss has given him much time with his sons.  In 2007 Scott was introduced to Kami, a year later they were married.  In 2010 & 2013 they welcomed 2 amazing sons into their tribe.  I joke tribe as we are all registered in the Cherokee Nation.  In 2021 Scott lost Kami to Breast Cancer.  She was an angel here on earth, but God needed her with him.  In 2000 Scott was given the vision to give back to kids through hunting.  He was given a gift as a successful hunter.  In fact, in 2001 he was named the Idaho State Bowhunters bowhunter of the year. Scott founded and now directs the Scooter's Youth Hunting Camp in Emmett. Over the 26 years of being a part of this ministry and mission field for kids.  Scott is most proud of witnessing about his Savior and best friend "JESUS".  Over 26 years Scott has had the honor of sharing God's goodness and putting a Shotgun, Bow, Muzzleloader and .22 rifle into the hands of over 6,000 kids.  All for FREE and all through donations.  It has been a labor of love for Scott.  He works for the kids 24/7/365 as a volunteer.  SYHC is 100% volunteer with no paid staff.  The volunteers who show up for the camp are amazing and all get an Orange SYHC shirt.  The volunteer crew has been coined the "ORANGE ARMY" with the past couple of years being 120+ strong.  There is a joke around the area that Scooter has 4,000 nieces and nephews because of the interactions from this camp.  In 2015 Scott added to the SYHC by creating "Hunting Dreams".  This subchapter of the camp does 2 hunting trips a year for children who have suffered a life-threatening illness.  One Bear hunt each spring and an Elk hunt each fall with everything donated to fully outfit the hunters.  New Rifle, Binos, Scope, Rangefinder, Boots, clothes etc. etc. Then a whole week in God's country hunting and eating "Their" favorite menu.  The crew processes the meat and a taxidermist does a bear rug and elk shoulder mount for a forever memory.  Scott loves GOD, loves kids and loves being a servant. www.taurususa.com www.cva.com www.himtnjerky.com www.nukemhunting.com www.christianoutdoors.org www.citrusafe.com www.elimishieldhunt.com www.mossyoak.com  

Send a textA Yale-trained engineer shares how a family loss turned insurance into a mission, why identity is a choice, and how failure, fit, and focus shape real success. We get practical about interviewing the interviewer, combating lifestyle inflation, and building rituals that protect purpose.• shifting from engineering to client-centered insurance work• the financial lifeline of life insurance after sudden loss• captive versus independent models and client choice• interviewing the interviewer and vetting culture• planning for failure to reduce fear and act boldly• managing lifestyle inflation and choosing priorities• mentors with aligned values and whole-life success• finding purpose through quiet, service, and journaling• five pillars check-in: mental, physical, service, relationships, spirituality• rituals, accountability, and subtracting to focusHow to Reach out:Instagram: @iamedwardpritchettTikTok: @theedwardpritchettWebsite: PritchettAgency.com To Reach Jordan:Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/ Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-edwardsconsulting/30min

If you're tired of chasing quotes and ready to build a book of business through connection, this episode will change how you think about growth. We discuss how to “get your competition fired” without being negative, and how association selling creates warmer, faster-moving opportunities. This isn't a theory. It's practical, human, and immediately usable to create agency growth.Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Dr. Terri Alford joins me to share how her agency produced $88,000 in commissions in one month and what it really takes to build a thriving insurance agency. We also dive into how she's empowering other women to create successful agencies while continuing to scale her own business.Reach out to Dr. Terri here: https://jointerri.com/Follow Terri on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@DrTerriAlford⁩  #insuranceagent #insurance #lifeinsurance

ChatGPT doesn't replace experience — it helps you think faster. In this episode, I share how I use it as a second brain to prepare for meetings, prospect conversations, and internal decisions. You'll hear practical ways to use ChatGPT for prep, checklists, and first-draft systems so you can walk into conversations more confident, prepared, and focused on what actually matters. https://theinsurancedream.com/virtual-assistants 

In this conversation, Daniel Metcalf and Mike Stromsoe discuss the critical importance of clarity over speed for independent insurance agencies looking to scale. They share insights from their experiences, emphasizing that moving quickly without a clear plan can lead to wasted resources and a reactive culture. The discussion covers the costs of rapid hiring, the pitfalls of adopting new technology without a strategy, and the necessity of having systems in place to support growth. They also highlight the importance of clear communication and leadership in building a proactive culture and preparing for exponential growth.Chapters00:00The Importance of Clarity in Scaling Insurance Agencies02:53Lessons from Experience: The Dangers of Speed05:45Creating a Proactive Culture08:51The Cost of Going Fast: Hiring and Turnover12:08Navigating Technology: The Shiny Object Syndrome15:00The Role of Systems in Scaling18:05Defining Clarity: Mindset and Communication21:02Key Metrics for Clarity and Growth24:04Preparing for Exponential Growth27:08The Team Readiness Myth30:00Leadership and Communication: Building a Culture of Ownership33:04Final Thoughts: Simplifying for Success

"If financial services and healthcare are 10 years behind everybody else from a technology adoption standpoint, insurance distribution is usually 10 years behind that." - Will JohnsonMy guest this week is Will Johnson, Founder and CEO of Gyde, who is building what he calls the first "AI-native" insurance brokerage. After spending a decade at Oscar Health, Will realized that while brokers are the critical "entry point to care," they are operating without the infrastructure needed to scale in the modern era.In this episode, we define exactly what "AI-native" means for an agency. It isn't just about buying software; it's a new holding company model that acquires agencies to deploy AI infrastructure - automating renewals and client service to effectively "triple the capacity" of the best brokers.We dive deep into the difference between the traditional "asset aggregation" model (roll-ups) and Gyde's "partner activation" model. Will also shares why Gyde raised a Series A just 14 weeks after launching and his moonshot vision to converge health insurance and wealth management into a single advisory role.If you are an agency owner feeling the ceiling of growth, this episode maps out what the next generation of distribution looks like.Thank you to our 2026 sponsors!ParetoHealth: ParetoHealth empowers midsize employers with a long-term solution to reduce volatility and lower overall health benefits costs. Visit ParetoHealth.com to learn more.Samaritan Fund: A program that connects those who need help to the support they need. We are proud to offer the Samaritan Fund Program. Visit SamaritanFundProgram.com to learn more.Vālenz Health: We're Vālenz Health, your partner in improving health literacy, reducing plan spend, and delivering high-value healthcare. Visit ValenzHealth.com to learn more.Imagine360: Imagine360 helps self-funded employers save on healthcare with smarter health plans. Cut expenses by 20-30% with custom solutions. Contact us today at Imagine360.com.Chapters:(00:00:00) What is an "AI-Native" Brokerage? (00:03:11) Will's Journey: 10 Years at Oscar Health (00:07:10) The Infrastructure Gap in Distribution (00:12:27) Why Acquisition? The Case for Economic Alignment (00:23:22) The Tech Stack: Automating Renewals & Service (00:27:32) AI as a "Capacity Amplifier" vs. Replacement (00:37:22) The Anti-Rollup: "Partner Activation" vs. "Asset Aggregation" (00:46:12) Branding: Powered by Guide vs. Becoming Guide (00:49:49) Raising a Series A in 14 Weeks Key Links for Social:@SelfFunded on YouTube for video versions of the podcast and much more - https://www.youtube.com/@SelfFundedListen/watch on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1TjmrMrkIj0qSmlwAIevKA?si=068a389925474f02Listen on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/self-funded-with-spencer/id1566182286Follow Spencer on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencer-smith-self-funded/Follow Spencer on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/selffundedwithspencer/

Choosing the right agency network can shape your agency's growth, profitability, and long-term success, but most agents are only looking at how many carriers they get and the commission split. We're discussing what independent agents should expect from a network, what often gets overlooked, and why “fit” matters more than buzzwords or promises.Whether you're evaluating a network, already part of one, ortrying to build a stronger independent agency, this episode will help you think more strategically about the partnerships that support your business.Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.comLearn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

"If financial services and healthcare are 10 years behind everybody else from a technology adoption standpoint, insurance distribution is usually 10 years behind that." - Will JohnsonMy guest this week is Will Johnson, Founder and CEO of Gyde, who is building what he calls the first "AI-native" insurance brokerage. After spending a decade at Oscar Health, Will realized that while brokers are the critical "entry point to care," they are operating without the infrastructure needed to scale in the modern era.In this episode, we define exactly what "AI-native" means for an agency. It isn't just about buying software; it's a new holding company model that acquires agencies to deploy AI infrastructure - automating renewals and client service to effectively "triple the capacity" of the best brokers.We dive deep into the difference between the traditional "asset aggregation" model (roll-ups) and Gyde's "partner activation" model. Will also shares why Gyde raised a Series A just 14 weeks after launching and his moonshot vision to converge health insurance and wealth management into a single advisory role.If you are an agency owner feeling the ceiling of growth, this episode maps out what the next generation of distribution looks like.Thank you to our 2026 sponsors!ParetoHealth: ParetoHealth empowers midsize employers with a long-term solution to reduce volatility and lower overall health benefits costs. Visit ParetoHealth.com to learn more.Samaritan Fund: A program that connects those who need help to the support they need. We are proud to offer the Samaritan Fund Program. Visit SamaritanFundProgram.com to learn more.Vālenz Health: We're Vālenz Health, your partner in improving health literacy, reducing plan spend, and delivering high-value healthcare. Visit ValenzHealth.com to learn more.Imagine360: Imagine360 helps self-funded employers save on healthcare with smarter health plans. Cut expenses by 20-30% with custom solutions. Contact us today at Imagine360.com.Chapters:(00:00:00) What is an "AI-Native" Brokerage? (00:03:11) Will's Journey: 10 Years at Oscar Health (00:07:10) The Infrastructure Gap in Distribution (00:12:27) Why Acquisition? The Case for Economic Alignment (00:23:22) The Tech Stack: Automating Renewals & Service (00:27:32) AI as a "Capacity Amplifier" vs. Replacement (00:37:22) The Anti-Rollup: "Partner Activation" vs. "Asset Aggregation" (00:46:12) Branding: Powered by Guide vs. Becoming Guide (00:49:49) Raising a Series A in 14 Weeks Key Links for Social:@SelfFunded on YouTube for video versions of the podcast and much more - https://www.youtube.com/@SelfFundedListen/watch on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1TjmrMrkIj0qSmlwAIevKA?si=068a389925474f02Listen on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/self-funded-with-spencer/id1566182286Follow Spencer on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencer-smith-self-funded/Follow Spencer on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/selffundedwithspencer/

We're celebrating 300 episodes the only way we know how: with real talk, a little chaos, and the lessons that actually matter when you're building an agency. We didn't get here because something went viral. We got here because we kept showing up. In this milestone episode, we break down what consistency really looks like, why most people quit before the results show up, and how agency owners can stay in the game long enough to win it.Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

In this MyAgLife conversation, Steve Mora, Principal at Heritage Insurance Agency, shares what he's hearing from growers across Northern California as they head into a new season. From labor costs and workers' compensation to cybercrime, wire fraud and employment practices claims, Mora explains how ag risk is changing and what growers should be thinking about when reviewing their coverage. He also offers insight into California's insurance market and practical steps operations can take to protect their bottom line.

This week in Insurance Town I get to catch up with my old friend, and former colleague, Therese Potter of Envela. We have a fun conversation we get to catch up on what she has been up to all the hats she currently wears, from teaching Tai Chi to selling Insurance and everything in between, and she is able to do all that, because of the culture and technology over at Envela. Check it out, and let me know what ya think...Sponsors:Smart Choice-Go to Smartchoiceagents.com Canopy Connect- Usecanopy.com/heathMAV- Hiremav.comThank you for being a wonderful and loyal citizen of Insurance Town! I love you all! from the bottom of my heart I truly do, and I appreciate your support all these years!! 

A new government-backed savings account for kids is coming. On the surface, it sounds like a win. Free money for newborns, long-term investing, and a head start on adulthood. But once you look under the hood, Trump Accounts raise some real questions about taxes, flexibility, and whether they beat existing options. Today, we're walking through the pros and cons and asking if this new account is worth the effort.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  00:00 A new government backed savings account for kids is coming. We've all heard about this, and on the surface it sounds like a win free money for newborns and long term investing and a head start on adulthood. But when you look under the hood, the Trump accounts raise some questions about taxes flexibility and whether they beat existing options. So this week on plan with the tax man, let's break it down. Look up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's the tax man. He may not be a superhero, but Tony Morrow has saved many retirement plans with his extreme knowledge of tax planning strategies. It's time for plan with the tax man. Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. This is planned with the tax man, with Tony Morrow from tax Dr Inc and Tony. Let's talk about the free money, or the future headache of the pros and cons of the new quote, unquote Trump accounts, and just kind of see if we can kind of give some, you know, back and forth, a little bit on some of these things, because there's a lot of interesting ideas, but there's also some conundrums as well. So we'll dive into that. How you doing? My friend, doing good. You know, New year, new goals. Hopefully everybody's got some new goals and feeling good. And so, yeah, we're looking forward to, course, tax season starting for us shortly as we as we're taping this right, right? So we've got that coming about. Get busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so let's break into this. Let's chat on this conversation here a little bit. So I guess let's kind of start with big picture, right? So this was part of the Oba the one, and they launched this year. So this stuff, if it all goes through again, this would start this year in July of 2026 give us some some highlights here, some big picture. Yeah, so the big picture. And the reason I wanted to talk about this because we're starting to get some questions. Some questions from tax clients. I think they're hearing things, you know, out on the news and things in Google and whatnot, but I still think there's a lot of people that don't know anything about it. That's why I want to at least try to reach as many people as possible. But you know what they did? And you know, again, putting all politics aside whether this is right wrong, we have the money, but this is what's going on, and you got to decide whether or not you know you want, can take advantage of it. So what they did was they're basically saying that starting in July 26 children born between 25 and 28 so we're only talking 25 at the moment, 26 to be but they got to keep this in mind, the government's going to give each of these children, if they open up a Trump account, $1,000 free money, which, on the surface sounds good, and what happens is, is the child owns the account. The parent is the custodian, till they're 18, other people, like grandparents, parents, friends, all that contribute up to $5,000 a year to this account in total. And even employers could throw in 2500 but it's not, I don't know. See a whole lot of that happening, but who knows? Maybe. And then what they're going to do, what the federal government is going to do, is take this money invested in low cost US equity funds are probably going to be ETFs and index funds, things like that. It's very low cost. All of this interest in gain is going to grow tax deferred, and then when the child's 18, they do have the opportunity to withdraw this amount, but they don't have to any withdrawals. It's treated just like any other retirement account. It comes out taxed at ordinary income, and they could face penalties there and whatnot. That's kind of the big, big picture of that. And you know, we'll continue to move on, and I'll go over some numbers that I ran before we got this on here, and just to kind of give some people some numbers to put with it. But I think the big thing they're what they're looking at, in my opinion, is, again, I think a lot of times the government sometimes means, well, they rush things out, don't think it through. I think their big you know idea here is, let's start something for newborns, so that if they save this money and end up with it all the way till they retire, that maybe you know, if we don't have the programs we have now, that they're going to be okay, in other words, less reliant on the government. But that's my opinion of that, because I you know they know that not enough Americans are saving on the regular, and I think that's, that's their primary motivation, yeah. And I think there's two pieces to that, Tony, and thank you for breaking that down, good and concise, good stuff there. I think one is to get people saving. Or, I think these are really three. There's really threefold, really right? One is to get people saving from a young age, teach in the value or the power of compounding, as you know, is massive, right? Absolutely. And so I think that's one piece. I think another piece is get people making kids, because we're going to have a real shortage of workforce, not only our country, but a lot of countries. And I think, I think there's some of this is a leftover Elon kind of feel right with with Trump and with the administration, because he's a huge proponent of we are going to have major shortfalls in society, in the workplace in about 2025, 30 years, right? And so if you look at China, they're going to have huge workforce problems as well. So I think it's that and that, and then tax revenue. And the reason I say that about the tax revenue and I'm going to have you buy.   05:00 Break this down for us is because they're a little sticky, right? There's, there's some criticisms here about how it works. So why don't you break down some of the the cons, some of the negatives of this, some of the negatives really, you know is, and this is what, what I didn't even know until we started really dwelling into it, is, if somebody like me. So the reason this is near and dear to my heart because I had my first grandchild. First grandchild in 25 so, you know, I want my son to open up this account get the 3000 I'm gonna I'm planning on putting the $5,000 a year in for her, and we'll get back to that. But one of the cons is, is these contributions don't qualify for the annual gift tax exclusion. A lot of people don't know that when they give gifts away of cash and other things, there's an annual gift tax exclusion, and after that, you have to file a tax form using some of your lifetime exemption. These don't qualify for the exclusion. So therefore, when I do this, I'm going to have to file a gift tax return, which is a form 709, which is not terribly difficult, because obviously I know how to do them, but people that don't know how to do them are gonna have to go pay somebody two. To go pay somebody to do them, or they could get themselves in trouble, you know, with the IRS. The other thing too, is, and I just found this out before, well probably a couple weeks ago, is this is not supported this form by DIY tax software, you know, so half of America is using DIY tax software. You're going to need to pay someone like ourselves to do this for you, which just means a little more money out of your pocket. The other thing too is there's no tax deduction for these contributions, because it's not, you know, not a qualified charity or anything like that. Withdrawals are taxable, unlike Roth's and other types of things. And then there's limited flexibility, I feel like, for me personally, I don't mind assuming this all comes off like they talk about letting the government run the account until she's 18, but after that, if I were to convince her, if I'm still around, and not to let the government hold that, we move that into something, you know, a rollover IRA, something like that, that we can Control outside of the government hands. That's just me personally, but so I think there's some of those. Are some of the criticisms. I would say people have to watch out for some of the cons. But I think the pros, you know, really are number one. Government's handing out 3000 bucks right of a child you know, born between 25 and 28 you might as well take it if you have a child. But even if you don't do anything else, you might as well take the free money. Granted, we don't, maybe not have the money to do it, but they're going to hand it out. So, you know, why not take that? I think that's one. I think two, like you were talking about, really gives the child early on some sense of, you know, investing, using compounding things like that, the investments are going to be very low, and you don't have to make any decisions about them. It's just going to be invested in index types of funds. And I ran the numbers before we got on so you know, if you take advantage of this, if you have a child, and you just open one up and the government puts the 1000 bucks in you, nothing else, right? If you leave it like that, and let's say that these funds earn roughly 7% you know, not, not very high, but I they probably gonna do better than that over 18 years. But so you would have, for that child $3,379   08:15 you know, it's not a ton, but it's free money. I ran, I think I ran it Tony. And if you go out something crazy, like 40 years, just, just the I ran that one, right? Yeah. Did you run that one too? I ran that one. Go ahead. Took the same 1000 bucks and you left it so you're 3379 and 18. You took it out another 48 years till they were 65 that person would have an 81,250   08:38 bucks. If you did nothing, you did zero, right? So, like, if you do nothing and you leave it alone, and again, there's that limitation, right? You got to have a kid born this year for right now, but that's 85 grand at retirement that you didn't have before, and you did nothing, did nothing, that's not that's not terrible, that's not terrible. So I think the Pro, in my mind, pros outweigh the cons. Yeah, especially if you, if you, you know, take control of it after 18. Yeah, maybe help them, not just go out and spend it. I had, I had done that Tony with and added $1,000 annually, right? So, just saying, okay, like life gets in the way, whether, you know, whether it's family or whatever, adding $1,000 while the kid is young, up to a, you know, 18, and then they've got a job, and then you've, you've taught them, you've educated and you've got them set they're going to put $1,000 in every year like clockwork until they're 65 and it was over half a million. Yeah, right. Well, I ran the numbers for my own granddaughter, and if I, if I open one, or my son will open it, but Right? And so the free 1000, if I put in $5,000 a year for her till she's 18, and stop at 18, she'll have $173,000   09:50 in that account. Wow. Imagine that. That's amazing. If she left that till she was 65 and did zero, you know, nothing else for retirement, she would have 4.4   10:00 Million dollars. Holy moly. So granddad would have funded her retirement up till she was 18, and she just didn't touch it again. Now that again, to your point, this is assuming 7% year over year. 7% things can happen, right? But, yeah, and who knows, you know, if people are going to have the wherewithal to set it aside, but it would be kind of in my own, my own situation. For me, it's like, you know, maybe that would be something kind of, you know, for my legacy, you know, even so if something happens to me or when I'm gone, right, she can say, hey. I mean, 4.4 may not buy as much as it does today, but it's still, I gotta think $4.4 million 60 years from now, still got to be nice. Yeah, you know, it's gonna be nice. So interesting, yeah, interesting, yeah. Well, let me so let's, let's play devil's advocate, right? So you've talked about some of the criticism, you've talked about some of the pros. How do they stack up against the things that are already out there, right? So, is it the best fit? Is it, are you still better off doing, you know, like, a 529, or a custodial account? Like, what's some thoughts? That's good thought. I would say this where hopefully you're working with your advisor to talk to them and go over that. I think I hate to give away free money, especially when the government's given it. So I would at least take advantage of 1000 bucks, right? And but as I did the numbers and I compared it, you know, to say, if I put for my own situation, I put in $5,000 into a 529, plan for her, and she didn't use it for college, and we rolled it to, you know, an IRA, assuming that rule is still in effect, it's going to be close. She'd actually probably have a little more in that if she took it all the way out to 65 simply because the investment flexibility and whatnot. But when you take away some of the, you know, the manager fees and something like that. It starts getting down fairly close to it. But again, it depends on what clients want to use this money for. Maybe some are just saving for the 18 and using it for college and calling that good. I know in Iowa you can get a, you know, a deduction for your 529, contributions. So in Iowa, if you're using it for college, it might not make as much sense to do the Trump account versus an Iowa 529 plan, but different. You know, people in different parts of the country might find it different. So my my takeaway there for everybody would be, make sure you run some numbers with your advisor and what you're wanting maybe to use this for, because Roths and 529, may be still a better option. They're not getting the the headlines like this, but, you know, they still may be better options for you. All right. So final thoughts, my final thoughts, basically, are, you know, with the state of the government right now, I don't, I don't want to get into all that. I say, you know, if you've got a child being born, go ahead and take the money, at least, take the free 1000, then work it into your plan and see where that takes you. I will say in closing on this topic, for 2025   12:52 there's actually a form that you can fill out and submit with your tax return, and they will open it up automatically for you in 26 and beyond. Right now they're saying you've got to go out on your own and open up the account. I don't know if that'll be the case once they get the 26 forms and everything done, but for those born in 25 which my granddaughter was, it's very easy to get at least get the account open, rather than going through a lot of bureaucratic, bureaucratic BS. But I hope that they can do this, and they can continue to do it for these three or four years here, where this, I don't know, I'm hearing all kinds of things. I'm hearing some of its federal money, some of it, Michael Dell, or somebody's done, yeah, they did, like, 6 billion, I think, to this fund, yeah. So, you know, there's some money out there, and, you know, it's, I think it's worth a look anyway. Don't, don't just pass it up because it's a government thing. It's funny. People are like, Oh, they just did that because they're, you know, if you're, if you're getting political, well, they're cronies and all that kind of stuff. It's like, it's also a tax write off for the Dell corporation or Dell person, whatever the case is, right? And who cares, right? I was like, sometimes people get so, they get so wrapped up in political minutia that it's like, Look, if it's $6 billion it's coming from a private individual to fund something that may help, you know, another generation save some money, and yes, there'll be tax revenue generated for it. Let's be honest. It's not, and it's not, yeah, it's not just Trump's administration that needs tax revenue. It's our country, right? It's our government. So whether taxes, you know, taxes are probably still going up. Tony, I mean, you know, they passed the extension of the tcja, right with the over but we're in there. We're in our low tax, you know, brackets now for another few years. But let's be honest, at $38 trillion we need tax revenue. We need tax revenue. And I would agree with you. You know, as much as political things are going on the country right now, you can't let political things drive, you know, every single like, motivation about everything, right? Yeah, that's, I mean, because, from a from a truly tax guy standpoint, me saying, the government, hey, you guys spend way more than you you take in. Why are you doing this? We don't have the money. Blah, blah, blah, but Right? I mean, as a user of the system, hey, if you're gonna hand out money, I think I should Right, exactly, take it exactly. It's.   15:00 Interesting, yeah, yeah, we just can't get so politically polarized, you know, we can't see that. But so, yeah, I think, I think that they're a worthwhile take a look at deal, right? Okay, well, overall, they're not inherently bad, but they're not automatically better either, right? But the money is real, and so are the trade offs. So like most financial tools, Tony, all financial tools, their value depends on the family, the goals and the other situations that are already in play or could be in place. So sit down with a qualified Pro and see if it's you know, right for you. And again, you have to even fall in line with this if you're having a child or your child's having a child with this past year, right? So it's a very limited option for people right this minute, but if it's something that does pique your interest, and as Tony said, he's had a lot of calls and emails about it here recently, then reach out to him and have more in depth conversations at your planning pros.com that's your planning pros.com or call 844-707-7381,   15:56 we'll have a link in the show descriptions so that you can click on there and get in touch with With Tony, but don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple or Spotify or whatever podcasting app you enjoy, and for that, we'll see you next time here on plan with the tax man. Tony. Thanks for breaking it down. All right. Well, take care. We'll see you next time. We'll see on the next episode.   16:17 Right here Securities offered through a van tax investment services. SM, Member FINRA, SIPC, investment advisory services offered through avantax advisory services, insurance services offered through an event tax, affiliated Insurance Agency. Investment strategies discussed in this episode may not be suitable for all investors. Please consult with a financial professional.   Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services SM, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency. Investment strategies discussed in this episode may not be suitable for all investors. Please consult with a financial professional.

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In an industry obsessed with mergers and acquisitions, staying independent is a radical act. Most agencies sell out or fade away, but Rue Insurance has thrived for 108 years across four generations. How do you build a legacy that lasts a century without losing your edge?My guest, Bill Rue Jr., President of Rue Insurance, joins me to share the blueprint for longevity. A former investment banker and Wharton grad, Bill discusses how he applies high-level business discipline to a family agency. We get into why they refuse to sell, how they transitioned from "hunting" to brand-driven marketing to support their producers, and the "Be Ready" philosophy that operationalizes their culture. This is the guide for agency owners who want to build a legacy, not just a book of business.▶▶ Sign Up For Your Free Discovery Callhttps://calendly.com/aneary/strategy-sessionKEY MOMENTS(0:00) 108 Years of Independence: The Rue Insurance Story (1:11) From Investment Banking to Checking Policies: Earning Your Stripes (6:38) "Be Ready with Rue": Operationalizing Your Agency Culture (9:23) How to Build a Benefits Department from Scratch (14:06) Stop Hunting, Start Marketing: The New Role of the Producer (18:43) The Power of Peer Groups: Why You Can't Grow Alone (20:34) The Future of Insurance: AI vs. Relationships (24:59) Using AI as a Thought Partner, Not a Replacement (27:06) Advice for New Executives: Don't Wait to Ask for Help (29:00) The Morning Routine of a 4th Generation PresidentCONNECT WITH ANDY NEARY

You've heard people say "you can't write everything for everyone," but you also still have to pay the light bill. We break down how to focus on profitability, how agents “drift” into lines they never planned to write, and why saying yes to the wrong business can cost you way more than it earns.We share practical ways to build guardrails (through carrier strategy, marketing focus, and referral boundaries) so you can grow profitably without getting trapped in a book you hate servicing.Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

What if the toughest moments in your life were preparing you to lead better, serve deeper, and live with more purpose? In this episode of Unstoppable Mindset, I sit down with Greg Hess, known to many as Coach Hess, for a wide-ranging conversation about leadership, resilience, trust, and what it really means to help others grow. Greg shares lessons shaped by a lifetime of coaching athletes, leading business teams, surviving pancreatic cancer, and building companies rooted in service and inclusion. We talk about why humor matters, how trust is built in real life, and why great leaders stop focusing on control and start focusing on growth. Along the way, Greg reflects on teamwork, diversity, vision, and the mindset shifts that turn adversity into opportunity. I believe you will find this conversation practical, honest, and deeply encouraging. Highlights: 00:10 – Hear how Greg Hess's early life and love of sports shaped his leadership values. 04:04 – Learn why humor and laughter are essential tools for reducing stress and building connection. 11:59 – Discover how chasing the right learning curve redirected Greg's career path. 18:27 – Understand how a pancreatic cancer diagnosis reshaped Greg's purpose and priorities. 31:32 – Hear how reframing adversity builds lasting resilience. 56:22 – Learn the mindset shift leaders need to grow people and strengthen teams. About the Guest: Amazon Best-Selling Author | Award-Winning Business Coach | Voted Best Coach in Katy, TX Greg Hess—widely known as Coach Hess—is a celebrated mentor, author, and leader whose journey from athletic excellence to business mastery spans decades and continents. A graduate of the University of Calgary (1978), he captained the basketball team, earned All-Conference honors, and later competed against legends like John Stockton and Dennis Rodman. His coaching career began in the high school ranks and evolved to the collegiate level, where he led programs with distinction and managed high-profile events like Magic Johnson's basketball camps. During this time, he also earned his MBA from California Lutheran University in just 18 months. Transitioning from sports to business in the early '90s, Coach Hess embarked on a solo bicycle tour from Jasper, Alberta to Thousand Oaks, California—symbolizing a personal and professional reinvention. He went on to lead teams and divisions across multiple industries, ultimately becoming Chief Advisor for Cloud Services at Halliburton. Despite his corporate success, he was always “Coach” at heart—known for inspiring teams, shaping strategy, and unlocking human potential. In 2015, a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer became a pivotal moment. Surviving and recovering from the disease renewed his commitment to purpose. He left the corporate world to build the Coach Hess brand—dedicated to transforming lives through coaching. Today, Coach Hess is recognized as a Best Coach in Katy, TX and an Amazon Best-Selling Author, known for helping entrepreneurs, professionals, and teams achieve breakthrough results. Coach Hess is the author of: Peak Experiences Breaking the Business Code Achieving Peak Performance: The Entrepreneur's Journey He resides in Houston, Texas with his wife Karen and continues to empower clients across the globe through one-on-one coaching, strategic planning workshops, and his Empower Your Team program. Ways to connect with Greg**:** Email:  coach@coachhess.comWebsite: www.CoachHess.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachhess Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachHessSuccess Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachhess_official/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson  01:21 Well, hi everyone. I am Michael Hinkson. Your host for unstoppable mindset. And today we get to enter, well, I won't say interview, because it's really more of a conversation. We get to have a conversation with Greg. Hess better known as coach Hess and we'll have to learn more about that, but he has accomplished a lot in the world over the past 70 or so years. He's a best selling author. He's a business coach. He's done a number of things. He's managed magic Johnson's basketball camps, and, my gosh, I don't know what all, but he does, and he's going to tell us. So Coach, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad that we have a chance to be with you today. Greg Hess  02:07 I'm honored to be here. Michael, thank you very much, and it's just a pleasure to be a part of your program and the unstoppable mindset. Thank you for having me. Michael Hingson  02:17 Well, we're glad you're here and looking forward to having a lot of fun. Why don't we start? I love to start with tell us about kind of the early Greg growing up and all that stuff. Greg Hess  02:30 Oh boy, yeah, I was awfully fortunate, I think, to have a couple of parents that were paying attention to me, I guess. You know, as I grew up, at the same time they were growing up my my father was a Marine returned from the Korean War, and I was born shortly after that, and he worked for Westinghouse Electric as a nuclear engineer. We lived in Southern California for a while, but I was pretty much raised in Idaho, small town called Pocatello, Idaho, and Idaho State Universities there and I, I found a love for sports. I was, you know, again, I was very fortunate to be able to be kind of coordinated and do well with baseball, football, basketball, of course, with the sports that we tend to do. But yeah, I had a lot of fun doing that and growing up, you know, under a, you know, the son of a Marine is kind of like being the son of a Marine. I guess, in a way, there was certain ways you had to function and, you know, and morals and values that you carried forward and pride and doing good work that I learned through, through my youth. And so, you know, right, being raised in Idaho was a real great experience. How so well, a very open space. I mean, in those days, you know, we see kids today and kids being brought up. I think one of the things that often is missing, that was not missing for me as a youth, is that we would get together as a group in the neighborhood, and we'd figure out the rules of the game. We'd figure out whatever we were playing, whether it was basketball or, you know, kick the can or you name it, but we would organize ourselves and have a great time doing that as a community in our neighborhood, and as kids, we learn to be leaders and kind of organize ourselves. Today, that is not the case. And so I think so many kids are built into, you know, the parents are helicopter, and all the kids to all the events and non stop going, going, going. And I think we're losing that leadership potential of just organizing and planning a little bit which I was fortunate to have that experience, and I think it had a big influence on how I grew up and built built into the leader that I believe I am today. Michael Hingson  04:52 I had a conversation with someone earlier today on another podcast episode, and one of the observations. Sense that he made is that we don't laugh at ourselves today. We don't have humor today. Everything is taken so seriously we don't laugh, and the result of that is that we become very stressed out. Greg Hess  05:15 Yeah, well, if you can't laugh at yourself, you know, but as far as I know, you've got a large background in your sales world and so on. But I found that in working with people, to to get them to be clients or to be a part of my world, is that if they can laugh with me, or I can laugh with them, or we can get them laughing, there's a high tendency of conversion and them wanting to work with you. There's just something about relationships and be able to laugh with people. I think that draw us closer in a different way, and I agree it's missing. How do we make that happen more often? Tell more jokes or what? Michael Hingson  05:51 Well, one of the things that he suggests, and he's a coach, a business coach, also he he tells people, turn off the TV, unplug your phone, go read a book. And he said, especially, go buy a joke book. Just find some ways to make yourself laugh. And he spends a lot of time talking to people about humor and laughter. And the whole idea is to deal with getting rid of stress, and if you can laugh, you're going to be a whole lot less stressful. Greg Hess  06:23 There's something that you just feel so good after a good laugh, you know, I mean, guy, I feel that way sometimes after a good cry. You know, when I'm I tend to, you know, like Bambi comes on, and I know what happens to that little fawn, or whatever, the mother and I can't, you know, but cry during the credits. What's up with that? Michael Hingson  06:45 Well, and my wife was a teacher. My late wife was a teacher for 10 years, and she read Old Yeller. And eventually it got to the point where she had to have somebody else read the part of the book where, where yeller gets killed. Oh, yeah. Remember that book? Well, I do too. I like it was a great it's a great book and a great movie. Well, you know, talk about humor, and I think it's really important that we laugh at ourselves, too. And you mentioned Westinghouse, I have a Westinghouse story, so I'll tell it. I sold a lot of products to Westinghouse, and one day I was getting ready to travel back there, the first time I went back to meet the folks in Pittsburgh, and I had also received an order, and they said this order has to be here. It's got to get it's urgent, so we did all the right things. And I even went out to the loading dock the day before I left for Westinghouse, because that was the day it was supposed to ship. And I even touched the boxes, and the shipping guy said, these are them. They're labeled. They're ready to go. So I left the next morning, went to Westinghouse, and the following day, I met the people who I had worked with over the years, and I had even told them I saw the I saw the pack, the packages on the dock, and when they didn't come in, and I was on an airplane, so I didn't Know this. They called and they spoke to somebody else at at the company, and they said the boxes aren't here, and they're supposed to be here, and and she's in, the lady said, I'll check on it. And they said, Well, Mike said he saw him on the dock, and she burst out laughing because she knew. And they said, What are you laughing at? And he said, he saw him on the dock. You know, he's blind, don't you? And so when I got there, when I got there, they had and it wasn't fun, but, well, not totally, because what happened was that the President decided to intercept the boxes and send it to somebody else who he thought was more important, more important than Westinghouse. I have a problem with that. But anyway, so they shipped out, and they got there the day I arrived, so they had arrived a day late. Well, that was okay, but of course, they lectured me, you didn't see him on the dock. I said, No, no, no, you don't understand, and this is what you have to think about. Yeah, I didn't tell you I was blind. Why should I the definition of to see in the dictionary is to perceive you don't have to use your eyes to see things. You know, that's the problem with you. Light dependent people. You got to see everything with your eyes. Well, I don't have to, and they were on the dock, and anyway, we had a lot of fun with it, but I have, but you got to have humor, and we've got to not take things so seriously. I agree with what we talked about earlier, with with this other guest. It's it really is important to to not take life so seriously that you can't have some fun. And I agree that. There are serious times, but still, you got to have fun. Greg Hess  10:02 Yeah, no kidding. Well, I've got a short story for you. Maybe it fits in with that. That one of the things I did when I I'll give a little background on this. I, I was a basketball coach and school teacher for 14 years, and had an opportunity to take over an assistant coach job at California Lutheran University. And I was able to choose whatever I wanted to in terms of doing graduate work. And so I said, you know, and I'd always been a bike rider. So I decided to ride my bike from up from Jasper, Alberta, all the way down to 1000 Oaks California on a solo bike ride, which was going to be a big event, but I wanted to think about what I really wanted to do. And, you know, I loved riding, and I thought was a good time to do that tour, so I did it. And so I'm riding down the coast, and once I got into California, there's a bunch of big redwoods there and so on, yeah, and I had, I set up my camp. You know, every night I camped out. I was totally solo. I didn't have any support, and so I put up my tent and everything. And here a guy came in, big, tall guy, a German guy, and he had ski poles sticking out of the back of his backpack, you know, he set up camp, and we're talking that evening. And I had, you know, sitting around the fire. I said, Look, his name was Axel. I said, Hey, Axel, what's up with the ski poles? And he says, Well, I was up in Alaska and, you know, and I was climbing around in glaciers or whatever, and when I started to ride here, they're pretty light. I just take them with me. And I'm thinking, that's crazy. I mean, you're thinking every ounce, every ounce matters when you're riding those long distances. Anyway, the story goes on. Next morning, I get on my bike, and I head down the road, and, you know, I go for a day, I don't see sea axle or anything, but the next morning, I'm can't stop at a place around Modesto California, something, whether a cafe, and I'm sitting in the cafe, and there's, probably, it's a place where a lot of cyclists hang out. So there was, like, 20 or 30 cycles leaning against the building, and I showed up with, you know, kind of a bit of an anomaly. I'd ridden a long time, probably 1500 miles or so at that point in 15 days, and these people were all kind of talking to me and so on. Well, then all sudden, I look up why I'm eating breakfast, and here goes the ski poles down the road. And I went, Oh my gosh, that's got to be him. So I jump up out of my chair, and I run out, and I yell, hey Axel. Hey Axel, loud as I could. And he stops and starts coming back. And then I look back at the cafe, and all these people have their faces up on the windows, kind of looking like, oh, what's going to happen? And they thought that I was saying, mistakenly, Hey, asshole, oh gosh, Michael Hingson  12:46 well, hopefully you straighten that out somehow. Immediately. Greg Hess  12:50 We had a great time and a nice breakfast and moved on. But what an experience. Yeah, sometimes we cross up on our communications. People don't quite get what's going on, they're taking things too seriously, maybe, huh? Michael Hingson  13:03 Oh, yeah, we always, sometimes hear what we want to hear. Well, so what did you get your college degree in? Greg Hess  13:10 Originally? My first Yeah, well, I'd love the question my first degree. I had a bachelor of education for years, but then I went on, and then I had my choice here of graduate work, right? And, you know, I looked at education, I thought, gosh, you know, if I answered committee on every test, I'll probably pass. I said, I need something more than this. So I in the bike ride, what I what I came to a conclusion was that the command line being DOS command line was the way we were computing. Yeah, that time in the 90s, we were moving into something we call graphical user interface, of course, now it's the way we live in so many ways. And I thought, you know, that's the curve. I'm going to chase that. And so I did an MBA in business process re engineering at Cal Lu, and knocked that off in 18 months, where I had a lot of great experiences learning, you know, being an assistant coach, and got to do some of magic Johnson's camps for him while I was there, California. Lutheran University's campus is where the Cowboys used to do their training camp, right? So they had very nice facilities, and so putting on camps like that and stuff were a good thing. And fairly close to the LA scene, of course, 1000 Oaks, right? You know that area? Michael Hingson  14:25 Oh, I do, yeah, I do. I do pretty well, yeah. So, so you, you, you're always involved in doing coaching. That was just one of the things. When you started to get involved in sports, in addition to playing them, you found that coaching was a useful thing for you to do. Absolutely. Greg Hess  14:45 I loved it. I loved the game. I love to see people grow. And yeah, it was just a thrill to be a part of it. I got published a few times, and some of the things that I did within it, but it was mostly. Right, being able to change a community. Let me share this with you. When I went to West Lake Village High School, this was a very, very wealthy area, I had, like Frankie avalon's kid in my class and stuff. And, you know, I'm riding bike every day, so these kids are driving up in Mercedes and BMW parking lot. And as I looked around the school and saw and we build a basketball and I needed to build more pride, I think in the in the community, I felt was important part of me as the head coach, they kind of think that the head coach of their basketball program, I think, is more important than the mayor. I never could figure that one out, but that was where I was Michael Hingson  15:37 spend some time in North Carolina, around Raleigh, Durham, you'll understand, Greg Hess  15:41 yeah, yeah, I get that. So Kentucky, yeah, yeah, yeah, big basketball places, yeah. So what I concluded, and I'd worked before in building, working with Special Olympics, and I thought, You know what we can do with this school, is we can have a special olympics tournament, because I got to know the people in LA County that were running, especially in Ventura County, and we brought them together, and we ran a tournament, and we had a tournament of, I don't know, maybe 24 teams in total. It was a big deal, and it was really great to get the community together, because part of my program was that I kind of expected everybody, you know, pretty strong expectation, so to say, of 20 hours of community service. If you're in our basketball program, you got to have some way, whether it's with your church or whatever, I want to recognize that you're you're out there doing something for the community. And of course, I set this Special Olympics event up so that everybody had the opportunity to do that. And what a change it made on the community. What a change it made on the school. Yeah, it was great for the Special Olympians, and then they had a blast. But it was the kids that now were part of our program, the athletes that had special skills, so to say, in their world, all of a sudden realized that the world was a different place, and it made a big difference in the community. People supported us in a different way. I was just really proud to have that as kind of a feather in my calf for being there and recognizing that and doing it was great. Michael Hingson  17:08 So cool. And now, where are you now? I'm in West Houston. That's right, you're in Houston now. So yeah, Katie, Texas area. Yeah, you've moved around well, so you, you started coaching. And how long did you? Did you do that? Greg Hess  17:30 Well, I coached for 14 years in basketball, right? And then I went into business after I graduated my MBA, and I chased the learning curve. Michael, of that learning curve I talked about a few minutes ago. You know, it was the graphical user interface and the compute and how all that was going to affect us going forward. And I continued to chase that learning curve, and had all kinds of roles and positions in the process, and they paid me a little more money as I went along. It was great. Ended up being the chief advisor for cloud services at Halliburton. Yeah, so I was an upstream guy, if you know that, I mean seismic data, and where we're storing seismic data now, the transition was going, I'm not putting that in the cloud. You kidding me? That proprietary data? Of course, today we know how we exist, but in those days, we had to, you know, build little separate silos to carry the data and deliver it accordingly for the geophysicists and people to make the decision on the drill bit. So we did really well at that in that role. Or I did really well and the team that I had just what did fantastic. You know, I was real proud I just got when I was having my 70th birthday party, I invited one of the individuals on that team, guy named Will Rivera. And will ended up going to Google after he'd worked us in there. I talked him into, or kind of convinced him so to say, or pushed him, however you do that in coaching. Coached him into getting an MBA, and then he's gone on and he tells me, You better be sitting down, coach. When he talked to him a couple days ago, I just got my PhD from George Washington University in AI technology, and I just turned inside out with happiness. It was so thrilling to hear that you know somebody you'd worked with. But while I was at Halliburton, I got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Michael, and so that's what changed me into where I am today, as a transition and transformation. Michael Hingson  19:21 Well, how did that happen? Because I know usually people say pancreatic cancer is pretty undetectable. How did it happen that you were fortunate enough to get it diagnosed? It obviously, what might have been a somewhat early age or early early Greg Hess  19:35 time, kind of a miracle, I guess. You know. I mean, I was traveling to my niece's high school graduation in Helena, Montana. And when we were returning back to Houston, we flew through Denver, and I was suffering from some very serious a fib. Was going up 200 beats a minute, and, you know, down to 100 and it was, it was all. Over the place. And I got the plane. I wasn't feeling well, of course, and they put me on a gurney. And next thing you know, I'm on the way the hospital. And, you know, they were getting ready for an embolotic, nimbalism potential, those type of things. And, and I went to the hospital, they're testing everything out, getting, you know, saying, Well, before we put your put the shock paddles on your on your heart to get back, we better do a CAT scan. And so they CAT scan me, and came back from the CAT scan and said, Well, you know what, there's no blood clot issues, but this mass in your pancreas is a concern. And so that was the discovery of that. And 14 days from that point, I had had surgery. And you know, there was no guarantees even at that point, even though we, you know, we knew we were early that, you know, I had to get things in order. And I was told to put things in order, a little bit going into it. But miracles upon miracles, they got it all. I came away with a drainage situation where they drained my pancreas for almost six months. It was a terrible pancreatic fluids, not good stuff. It really eats up your skin, and it was bad news. But here I am, you know, and when I came away from that, a lot of people thought I was going to die because I heard pancreatic cancer, and I got messages from people that were absolutely powerful in the difference I'd made in their life by being a coach and a mentor and helping them along in their life, and I realized that the big guy upstairs saved me for a reason, and I made my put my stake in the ground, and said, You know what? I'm going to do this the best I can, and that's what I've been doing for the last eight years. Michael Hingson  21:32 So what caused the afib? Greg Hess  21:35 Yeah, not sure. Okay, so when they came, I became the clipboard kid a little bit, you know. Because what the assumption was is that as soon as I came out of surgery, and they took this tumor out of me, because I was in a fib, throughout all of surgery, AFib went away. And they're thinking now, the stress of a tumor could be based on the, you know, it's a stress disease, or so on the a fib, there could be high correlation. And so they started looking into that, and I think they still are. But you know, if you got a fib, maybe we should look for tumors somewhere else is the potential they were thinking. And, yeah, that, Michael Hingson  22:14 but removing the tumor, when you tumor was removed, the AFib went away. Yeah, wow, Greg Hess  22:22 yeah, disappeared. Wow, yeah. Michael Hingson  22:26 I had someone who came on the podcast some time ago, and he had a an interesting story. He was at a bar one night. Everything was fine, and suddenly he had this incredible pain down in his his testicles. Actually went to the hospital to discover that he had very serious prostate cancer, and had no clue that that was even in the system until the pain and and so. But even so, they got it early enough that, or was in such a place where they got it and he's fine. Greg Hess  23:07 Wow, whoa. Well, stuff they do with medicine these days, the heart and everything else. I mean, it's just fantastic. I I recently got a new hip put in, and it's been like a new lease on life for me. Michael, I am, I'm golfing like I did 10 years ago, and I'm, you know, able to ride my bike and not limp around, you know, and with just pain every time I stepped and it's just so fantastic. I'm so grateful for that technology and what they can do with that. Michael Hingson  23:36 Well, I went through heart valve replacement earlier this year, and I had had a physical 20 years ago or or more, and they, they said, as part of it, we did an EKG or an echo cardiogram. And he said, You got a slightly leaky heart valve. It may never amount to anything, but it might well. It finally did, apparently. And so we went in and they, they orthoscopically went in and they replaced the valve. So it was really cool. It took an hour, and we were all done, no open heart surgery or anything, which was great. And, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I feel a whole lot better Greg Hess  24:13 that you do does a lot. Yeah, it's fantastic. Well, making that commitment to coaching was a big deal for me, but, you know, it, it's brought me more joy and happiness. And, you know, I just, I'll share with you in terms of the why situation for me. When I came away from that, I started thinking about, why am I, kind of, you know, a lot of what's behind what you're what you're doing, and what brings you joy? And I went back to when I was eight years old. I remember dribbling the ball down the basketball court, making a fake, threw a pass over to one of my buddies. They scored the layup, and we won the game. That moment, at that time, passing and being a part of sharing with someone else, and growing as a group, and kind of feeling a joy, is what I continued to probably for. To all my life. You know, you think about success, and it's how much money you make and how much this and whatever else we were in certain points of our life. I look back on all this and go, you know, when I had real happiness, and what mattered to me is when I was bringing joy to others by giving assist in whatever. And so I'm at home now, and it's a shame I didn't understand that at 60 until I was 62 years old, but I'm very focused, and I know that's what brings me joy, so that's what I like to do, and that's what I do. Michael Hingson  25:30 I know for me, I have the honor and the joy of being a speaker and traveling to so many places and speaking and so on. And one of the things that I tell people, and I'm sure they don't believe it until they experience it for themselves, is this isn't about me. I'm not in it for me. I am in it to help you to do what I can to make your event better. When I travel somewhere to speak, I'm a guest, and my job is to make your life as easy as possible and not complicated. And I'm I know that there are a lot of people who don't necessarily buy that, until it actually happens. And I go there and and it all goes very successfully, but people, you know today, were so cynical about so many things, it's just hard to convince people. Greg Hess  26:18 Yeah, yeah. Well, I know you're speaking over 100 times a year these days. I think that's that's a lot of work, a lot of getting around Michael Hingson  26:27 it's fun to speak, so I enjoy it. Well, how did you get involved in doing things like managing the Magic Johnson camps? Greg Hess  26:37 Well, because I was doing my MBA and I was part of the basketball program at Cal Lu, you know, working under Mike Dunlap. It just he needed a little bit of organization on how to do the business management side of it. And I got involved with that. I had a lunch with magic, and then it was, well, gee, why don't you help us coordinate all our camps or all our station work? And so I was fortunate enough to be able to do that for him. I'll just share a couple things from that that I remember really well. One of the things that magic just kind of, I don't know, patted me on the back, like I'm a superstar in a way. And you remember that from a guy like magic, I put everybody's name on the side of their shoe when they register. Have 100 kids in the camp, but everybody's name is on the right side of their shoe. And magic saw that, and he realized being a leader, that he is, that he could use his name and working, you know, their name by looking there, how powerful that was for him to be more connected in which he wants to be. That's the kind of guy he was. So that was one thing, just the idea of name. Now, obviously, as a teacher, I've always kind of done the name thing, and I know that's important, but, you know, I second thing that's really cool with the magic camp is that the idea of camaraderie and kind of tradition and bringing things together every morning we'd be sitting in the gym, magic could do a little story, you know, kind of tell everybody something that would inspire him, you know, from his past and so on. But each group had their own sound off. Michael, so if he pointed at your group, it would be like, or whatever it was. Each group had a different type of sound, and every once in a while we'd use it and point it kind of be a motivator. And I never really put two and two together until the last day of the camp on Friday. Magic says, When I point to your group, make your sound. And so he starts pointing to all the different groups. And it turns out to be Michigan State Spartans fight song to the tee. Figured that out. It was just fantastic. It gives me chills just telling you about it now, remembering how powerful was when everybody kind of came together. Now, you being a speaker, I'm sure you felt those things when you bring everybody together, and it all hits hard, but that was, that was one I remember. Michael Hingson  28:50 Well, wow, that's pretty funny, cute, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, he has always been a leader, and it's very clear that he was, and I remember the days it was Magic Johnson versus Larry Bird. Greg Hess  29:10 Yeah, yeah. Well, when he came to LA you know, they had Kareem and Byron Scott, a whole bunch of senior players, and he came in as a 19 year old rookie, and by the end of that year, he was leading that team. Yeah, he was the guy driving the ship all the time, and he loved to give those assists. He was a great guy for that. Michael Hingson  29:30 And that's really the issue, is that as a as a real leader, it wasn't all about him at all. It was about how he could enhance the team. And I've always felt that way. And I you know, when I hire people, I always told them, I figure you convince me that you can do the job that I hired you to do. I'm not going to be your boss and boss you around. What I want to do is to work with you and figure out how the talents that I have can complement the talents that you have so that we can. Enhance and make you more successful than you otherwise would be. Some people got it, and unfortunately, all too many people didn't, and they ended up not being nearly as successful. But the people who got it and who I had the joy to work with and really enhance what they did, and obviously they helped me as well, but we they were more successful, and that was what was really important. Greg Hess  30:24 Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. It's not about controlling, about growing. I mean, people grow, grow, grow, and, you know, helping them certainly. There's a reason. There's no I in team, right? And we've heard that in many times before. It's all about the group, group, pulling together. And what a lot of fun to have working in all throughout my life, in pulling teams together and seeing that happen. You know, one plus one equals three. I guess we call it synergy, that type of thinking, Michael Hingson  30:56 Yeah, well, you've faced a lot of adversity. Is, is the pancreatic cancer, maybe the answer to this, but what? What's a situation where you've really faced a lot of adversity and how it changed your life? You know you had to overcome major adversity, and you know what you learned from it? Greg Hess  31:16 Sure, I think being 100% honest and transparent. I'd say I went through a divorce in my life, and I think that was the most difficult thing I've gone through, you know, times where I'm talking to myself and being crazy and thinking stupid things and whatever. And I think the adversity that you learn and the resilience that you learn as you go, hey, I can move forward. I can go forward. And when you you see the light on the other side, and you start to create what's what's new and different for you, and be able to kind of leave the pain, but keep the happiness that connects from behind and go forward. I think that was a big part of that. But having resilience and transforming from whatever the event might be, obviously, pancreatic cancer, I talked about a transformation there. Anytime we kind of change things that I think the unstoppable mindset is really, you know what's within this program is about understanding that opportunities come from challenges. When we've got problems, we can turn them into opportunities. And so the adversity and the resilience that I think I'd like to try to learn and build and be a part of and helping people is taking what you see as a problem and changing your mindset into making it an opportunity. Michael Hingson  32:40 Yeah, yeah. Well, you've obviously had things that guided you. You had a good sense of vision and so on. And I talked a lot about, don't let your sight get in the way of your vision. But how's a good sense of vision guided you when necessarily the path wasn't totally obvious to you, have you had situations like that? Absolutely. Greg Hess  33:03 And I think the whole whole I write about it in my book in peak experiences, about having vision in terms of your future self, your future, think where you're going, visualize how that's going to happen. Certainly, as a basketball player, I would play the whole game before the game ever happened by visualizing it and getting it in my mind as to how it was going to happen. I do that with golf today. I'll look at every hole and I'll visualize what that vision is that I want to have in terms of getting it done. Now, when I have a vision where things kind of don't match up and I have to change that on the fly. Well, that's okay, you know that that's just part of life. And I think having resilience, because things don't always go your way, that's for sure. But the mindset you have around what happens when they don't go your way, you know, is big. My as a coach, as a business coach today, every one of my clients write a three, three month or 90 day plan every quarter that gets down to what their personal goal is, their must have goal. And then another kind of which is all about getting vision in place to start putting in actual tactical strategies to make all of that happen for the 90 day period. And that's a big part, I think, of kind of establishing the vision in you got to look in front of us what's going to happen, and we can control it if we have a good feel of it, you know, for ourselves, and get the lives and fulfillment we want out of life. I think, yeah, Michael Hingson  34:39 you've clearly been pretty resilient in a lot of ways, and you continue to exhibit it. What kinds of practices and processes have you developed that help you keep resilience personally and professionally? Greg Hess  34:54 I think one of them for sure is that I've I've lived a life where I've spent you. I'm going to say five out of seven days where I will do a serious type of workout. And right now bike riding. I'll ride several days a week, and, you know, get in 10 to 15 miles, not a lot, but, I mean, I've done but keeping the physical, physical being in the time, just to come down the time to think about what you're doing, and at the same time, for me, it's having a physical activity while I'm doing that, but it's a wind down time. I also do meditation. Every morning. I spend 15 minutes more or less doing affirmations associated to meditation, and that's really helped me get focused in my day. Basically, I look at my calendar and I have a little talk with every one of the things that are on my calendar about how I'm setting my day, you know? And that's my affirmation time. But yeah, those time things, I think report having habits that keep you resilient, and I think physical health has been important for me, and it's really helped me in a lot of ways at the same time, bringing my mind to, I think, accepting, in a transition of learning a little bit accepting the platinum rule, rather than the golden rule, I got to do unto others as they'd like to be treated by me. I don't need to treat people like they'd like to like I'd like to be treated. I need to treat them how they'd like to be treated by me, because they're not me, and I've had to learn that over time, better and better as I've got older. And how important that is? Michael Hingson  36:33 Well, yeah, undoubtedly, undoubtedly so. And I think that we, we don't put enough effort into thinking about, how does the other person really want to be treated? We again, it gets back, maybe in to a degree, in to our discussion about humor earlier we are we're so much into what is it all about for me, and we don't look at the other person, and the excuse is, well, they're not looking out for me. Why should I look out for them? Greg Hess  37:07 You know, one of the biggest breakthroughs I've had is working with a couple that own a business and Insurance Agency, and the they were doing okay when I started, when they've done much better. And you know, it's besides the story. The big part of the story is how they adjusted and adapted, and that she I think you're probably familiar with disc and I think most people that will be listening on the podcast are but D is a high D, dominant kind of person that likes to win and probably doesn't have a lot of time for the other people's feelings. Let's just put it that way to somebody that's a very high seed is very interested in the technology and everything else. And the two of them were having some challenges, you know, and and once we got the understanding of each other through looking at their disc profiles, all of a sudden things cleared up, a whole, whole bunch. And since then, they've just been a pinnacle of growth between the two of them. And it was just as simple as getting an understanding of going, you know, I got to look at it through your eyes, rather than my eyes. When it comes to being a leader in this company and how sure I'm still going to be demanding, still I'm going to be the I'm not going to apologize about it, but what I got him to do is carry a Q tip in his pocket, and so every time she got on him, kind of in the Bossy way. He just took out, pulled out the Q tip, and I said, that stands for quit taking it personal. Don't you love it? Michael Hingson  38:29 Yeah, well, and it's so important that we learn to communicate better. And I'm sure that had a lot to do with what happened with them. They started communicating better, yeah, yeah. Do you ever watch Do you ever watch a TV show on the Food Network channel? I haven't watched it for a while. Restaurant impossible. Greg Hess  38:51 Oh, restaurant impossible. Yeah, I think is that guy? Michael Hingson  38:55 No, that's not guy. It's my Michael. I'm blanking out Greg Hess  39:00 whatever. He goes in and fixes up a restaurant. Michael Hingson  39:03 He fixes up restaurants, yeah, and there was one show where that exact sort of thing was going on that people were not communicating, and some of the people relatives were about to leave, and so on. And he got them to really talk and be honest with each other, and it just cleared the whole thing up. Greg Hess  39:25 Yeah, yeah. It's amazing how that works. Michael Hingson  39:28 He's He's just so good at at analyzing situations like that. And I think that's one of the things that mostly we don't learn to do individually, much less collectively, is we don't work at being very introspective. So we don't analyze what we do and why what we do works or doesn't work, or how we could improve it. We don't take the time every day to do that, which is so unfortunate. Greg Hess  39:54 Oh boy, yeah, that continuous improvement Kaizen, all of that type of world. Critical to getting better, you know. And again, that comes back, I think, a little bit to mindset and saying, Hey, I'm gonna but also systems. I mean, I've always got systems in place that go, let's go back and look at that, and how, what can we do better? And if you keep doing it every time, you know, in a certain period, things get a lot better, and you have very fine tuning, and that's how you get distinguished businesses. I think, yeah, Michael Hingson  40:27 yeah, it's all about it's all about working together. So go ahead, I Greg Hess  40:31 was working with a guy at Disney, or guy had been at Disney, and he was talking about how they do touch point analysis for every every place that a customer could possibly touch anything in whatever happens in their environment, and how they analyze that on a, I think it was a monthly, or even at least a quarterly basis, where they go through the whole park and do an analysis on that. How can we make it better? Michael Hingson  40:55 Yeah, and I'm sure a lot of that goes back to Walt having a great influence. I wonder if they're doing as much of that as they used to. Greg Hess  41:04 Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, yeah, because it's getting pretty big and times change. Hopefully, culture Go ahead. I was gonna say a cultural perspective. I just thought of something I'd share with you that when I went into West Lake Village High School as a basketball coach, I walked into the gym and there was a lot of very tall I mean, it's a very competitive team and a competitive school, 611, six, nine kids, you know, that are only 16 years old. And I looked around and I realized that I'm kid from Canada here, you know, I gotta figure out how to make this all work in a quick, fast, in a hurry way. And I thought these kids were a little more interested in looking good than rather being good. And I think I'd been around enough basketball to see that and know that. And so I just developed a whole philosophy called psycho D right on the spot almost, which meant that we were going to build a culture around trying to hold teams under a common goal of 50 points, common goal, goal for successful teams. And so we had this. I started to lay that out as this is the way this program is going to work, guys and son of a gun, if we didn't send five of those guys onto division one full rides. And I don't think they would have got that if they you know, every college coach loves a kid who can play defense. Yeah, that's what we prided ourselves in. And, of course, the band got into it, the cheerleaders got into it, the whole thing. Of course, they bring in that special olympics thing, and that's part of that whole culture. Guess what? I mean, we exploded for the really powerful culture of of a good thing going on. I think you got to find that rallying point for all companies and groups that you work with. Don't you to kind of have that strong culture? Obviously, you have a very huge culture around your your world. Michael Hingson  42:54 Well, try and it's all about again, enhancing other people, and I want to do what I can do, but it's all about enhancing and helping others as well. Yeah. How about trust? I mean, that's very important in leadership. I'm sure you would, you would agree with that, whereas trust been a major part of things that you do, and what's an example of a place where trust really made all the difference in leadership and in endeavor that you were involved with? Greg Hess  43:29 Yeah, so often, clients that I've had probably don't have the they don't have the same knowledge and background in certain areas of you know, we all have to help each other and growing and having them to trust in terms of knowing their numbers and sharing with me what their previous six month P and L, or year to date, P and L, that kind of thing, so that I can take that profit and loss and build out a pro forma and build where we're going with the business. There's an element of trust that you have to have to give somebody all your numbers like that, and I'm asking for it on my first coaching session. And so how do I get that trust that quickly? I'm not sure exactly. It seems to work well for me. One of the things that I focus on in understanding people when I first meet and start to work with them is that by asking a simple question, I'll ask them something like, how was your weekend? And by their response, I can get a good bit of an idea whether I need to get to get them to trust me before they like me, or whether they get to get them to like me before they trust me. And if the response is, had a great weekend without any social response at all connected to it, then I know that I've got to get those people to trust me, and so I've got to present myself in a way that's very much under trust, where another the response might be. Had a great weekend, went out golfing with my buddies. Soon as I hear with the now I know I need to get that person to like. Me before they trust me. And so that's a skill set that I've developed, I think, and just recognizing who I'm trying and building trust. But it's critical. And once, once you trust somebody, and you'd show and they, you don't give them reason to not trust you, you know, you show up on time, you do all the right things. It gets pretty strong. Yeah, it doesn't take but, you know, five or six positive, that's what the guy said he's going to do. He's done it, and he's on top of it to start trusting people. I think, Well, Michael Hingson  45:31 I think that that trust is all around us. And, you know, we we keep hearing about people don't trust each other, and there's no trust anymore in the world. I think there's a lot of trust in the world. The issue isn't really a lack of trust totally. It's more we're not open to trust because we think everyone is out to get us. And unfortunately, there are all too many ways and times that that's been proven that people haven't earned our trust, and maybe we trusted someone, and we got burned for it, and so we we shut down, which we shouldn't do, but, but the reality is that trust is all around us. I mean, we trust that the internet is going to keep this conversation going for a while. I shouldn't say that, because now we're going to disappear, right? But, but, trust is really all around us, and one of the things that I tell people regularly is, look, I want to trust and I want people to trust me. If I find that I am giving my trust to someone and they don't reciprocate or they take advantage of it. That tells me something, and I won't deal with that person anymore, but I'm not going to give up on the idea of trust, because trust is so important, and I think most people really want to trust and I think that they do want to have trusting relationships. Greg Hess  47:02 Yeah, totally agree with you on that, you know. And when it's one of those things, when you know you have it, you don't have to talk about it, you just have it, you know, it's there, right? Michael Hingson  47:16 Yeah, and then, well, it's, it's like, I talk about, well, in the book that I wrote last year, live, it was published last year, live like a guide dog. Guide Dogs do love unconditionally, I'm absolutely certain about that, but they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between them and us, unless there's something that is just completely traumatized them, which isn't usually the case, they're open to trust, and they want to trust and they want to develop trusting relationships. They want us to be the pack leaders. They know we're supposed to be able to do that. They want to know what we expect of them. But they're open to trust, and even so, when I'm working with like a new guide dog. I think it takes close to a year to really develop a full, complete, two way trusting relationship, so that we really essentially know what each other's thinking. But when you get that relationship, it's second to none. Greg Hess  48:15 Yeah, isn't that interesting? How long were you with Rosella? Before the event, Michael Hingson  48:21 Rosella and I were together. Let's see we Oh, what was it? It was February or May. No, it was the November of 1999 so it was good two year. Good two years. Yeah, wow, yeah. So, you know, we we knew each other. And you know, even so, I know that in that in any kind of a stressful situation, and even not in a stressful situation, my job is to make sure that I'm transmitting competence and trust to Roselle, or now to Alamo. And the idea is that on September 11, I all the way down the stairs just continue to praise her, what a good job. You're doing a great job. And it was important, because I needed her to know first of all that I was okay, because she had to sense all of the concern that people had. None of us knew what was going on on the stairwell, but we knew that something was going on, and we figured out an airplane hit the building because we smelled jet fuel, but we didn't know the details, but clearly something was going on, so I needed to send her the message, I'm okay, and I'm with you and trust you and all that. And the result of that was that she continued to be okay, and if suddenly she were to suddenly behave in a manner that I didn't expect, then that would tell me that there's something different and something unusual that's going on that I have to look for. But we didn't have to have that, fortunately, which was great. It's. About trust, and it's all about developing a two way trust, yeah, Greg Hess  50:05 yeah, amazing. Well, and it's funny how, when you say trust, when in a situation where trust is lost, it's not so easily repaired, no, Michael Hingson  50:16 you know, yeah. And if it's really lost, it's because somebody's done something to betray the trust, unless somebody misinterprets, in which case you've got to communicate and get that, that that confidence level back, which can be done too. Greg Hess  50:33 Yeah, yeah. Important to be tuned and tuned into that, Michael Hingson  50:40 but it is important to really work to develop trust. And as I said, I think most people want to, but they're more often than not, they're just gun shy, so you have to really work at developing the trust. But if you can do it, what a relationship you get with people. Greg Hess  50:57 Circumstances, you know, and situational analysis change the level of trust, of course, in so many ways. And some people are trusting people where they shouldn't, you know, and in the right in the wrong environment. Sometimes you know, you have to be aware. I think people are fearful of that. I mean, just even in our electronic world, the scammers and those people you gotta, we get, we get one or two of those, you know, messages every day, probably people trying to get you to open a bank account or something on them. Better be aware. Don't want to be losing all your money. Yeah, but it's not to have trust, right? Michael Hingson  51:41 Yeah, it's one we got to work on well, so you you support the whole concept of diversity, and how has embracing diversity of people, perspectives or ideas unlocked new opportunities for you and the people you work with. Greg Hess  52:00 I got a great story for you on that. Michael A when I got into this coaching business, one of the one of the clients I was lucky enough to secure was a group called shredding on the go. And so the mother was kind of running the show, but her son was the president, and kind of the one that was in charge of the company. Now he's wheelchair, 100% wheelchair bound, nonverbal, very, very, I don't remember the exact name, but I mean very, very restrictive. And so what she figured out in time was his young is that he could actually take paper and like putting paper into a shredder. So she grew the idea of saying, Gosh, something James can do, we can build a business. This, this kid's, you know, gonna, I'm gonna get behind this and start to develop it. And so she did, and we created, she had created a company. She only had two employees when she hired me, but we went out and recruited and ended up growing it up to about 20 employees, and we had all the shredders set up so that the paper and all of our delivery and so on. And we promoted that company and supporting these people and making real money for real jobs that you know they were doing. So it was all, you know, basically all disabled autism to, you name it. And it was just a great experience. And so we took that show to the road. And so when we had Earth Day, I'd go out and we'd have a big event, and then everybody would come in and contribute to that and be a part of growing that company. Eventually, we got to the company to the point where the mother was worried about the the owner, the son's health was getting, you know, his life expectancy is beyond it, and she didn't want to have this company and still be running and when he wasn't there. And so we worked out a way to sell the company to a shredding company, of course, and they loved the the client. We had over 50 clients going, and they ended up making quite a bit of money that they put back into helping people with disabilities. So it was just a great cycle and a great opportunity to do that and give people an opportunity. I got to be their business coach, and what a lot of fun I included myself in the shredding I was involved with all parts of the company, and at one point, what a lot of fun I had with everybody. Michael Hingson  54:22 Yeah, yeah. There's something to be said for really learning what other people do in a company and learning the jobs. I think that's important. It's not that you're going to do it every day, but you need to develop that level of understanding. Greg Hess  54:37 Michael, you'll love this. Our best Shredder was blind. She did more than anybody, and she was blind. People go, you can't be doing that when you're What do you mean? She had it figured out. Yeah. Michael Hingson  54:48 What's the deal? Yeah, no, Shredder doesn't overheat, you know? But that's another step, yeah. So what's an example you've worked with a lot of teams. And so on. What's an example where a collaborative effort really created something and caused something to be able to be done that otherwise wouldn't have happened? Right? Greg Hess  55:10 Well, I referred back real quickly to the psycho D thing, where he had a common goal, common pride in taking it, and we just were on it. And I think that was a really, really transformational kind of thing to make everybody better as one whole area in a team. Now that's probably the first thing that comes to mind. I think the the idea of bringing the team together, you know, and really getting them to all work as one is that everybody has to understand everybody else's action plan. What's their plan? What is their vision? Where are they going in terms of, you know, playing basketball, to whether you're on the sales team, whether you're on the marketing team, or whatever part of the business you're in, do you have an action plan? And you can openly show that, and you feel like you're 100% participating in the group's common goal. I can't over emphasize an element of a common goal. I think, in team building, whatever that may be, you know, typically, the companies I'm working with now, we try to change it up every quarter, and we shoot quarter by quarter to a common goal that we all and then we build our plans to reach and achieve that for each individual within a company. And it works really well in building teams. And it's a lot of fun when everything comes together. You know, example of how a team, once you built that, and the team's there, and then you run into adversity, we have a team of five people that are selling insurance, basically, and one of them lost her father unexpectedly and very hard, Hispanic, Hispanic background, and just devastating to her and to her mother and everything. Well, we've got a machine going in terms of work. And so what happened is everybody else picked up her piece, and all did the parts and got behind her and supported her. And it took her about five months to go through her morning phase, and she's come back, and now she's going to be our top employee. Now going forward, it's just amazing how everybody rallied around her. We were worried about her. She comes back, and she's stronger than ever, and she'd had her time, and it was just nice to see the team of a group of company kind of treat somebody like family. That's a good thing. Michael Hingson  57:30 That's cool. What a great story. What mindset shift Do you think entrepreneurs and leaders really need to undergo in order to be successful. Greg Hess  57:45 Boy, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the idea of looking through it, through other people's eyes, right? And then as a leader, you know, the same thing you were mentioning earlier, Michael, was that you draw the strength out of the people, rather than demand kind of what you want them to do in order to get things done, it's build them up as people. And I think that that's a critical piece in in growing people and getting that whole element of leadership in place. Yeah, what was the other part of that question? Again, let me give you another piece of that, because I think of some Go ahead. Yeah. I was just remember, what did you ask me again, I want to make sure I'm right Michael Hingson  58:28 from your books and coaching work. The question was, what kind of mindset shift Do you think that entrepreneurs and leaders have to adopt? Greg Hess  58:39 Yeah, yeah. So that's one part of the mindset, but the big one is recognizing that it's a growth world that we need to look at how we can grow our company, how we can grow individuals, how we can all get better and continuous improvement. And I think that is an example of taking a problem and recognizing as an opportunity. And that's part of the mindset right there that you got to have. I got a big problem here. How are we going to make that so that we're we're way better from that problem each time it happens and keep improving? Michael Hingson  59:10 Yeah, that makes sense. Well, if you could leave everyone who's listening and watching this today with one key principle that would help them live and lead with an unstoppable mindset. What would that be? What, what? What advice do you have? Greg Hess  59:30 Yeah, my advice is make sure you understand your passion and what, what your purpose is, and have a strong, strong desire to make that happen. Otherwise, it's not really a purpose, is it? And then be true to yourself. Be true to yourself in terms of what you spend your time on, what you do, in terms of reaching that purpose. It's to be the best grandparent there you can be in the world. Go get it done, but make sure you're spending time to grandkids. Don't just talk it so talks cheap and action matters. You know, and I think, figure out where you're spending your time and make sure that fits in with what you really want to gather happen in your life and fulfilling it. Michael Hingson  1:00:09 Well, I like that talks cheap and action matters. That's it. Yeah, I tell that. I tell that to my cat all the time when she doesn't care. But cats are like that? Well, we all know that dogs have Masters, but cats have staff, so she's a great kitty. That's good. It's a wonderful kitty. And I'm glad that she's in my life, and we get to visit with her every day too. So it works out well, and she and the Dog get along. So, you know, you can't do better than that. That's a good thing. Well, I want to thank you for being here. This has been absolutely super. I we've I think we've talked a lot, and I've learned a lot, and I hope other people have too, and I think you've had a lot of good insights. If people would like to reach out to you and maybe use your services as a coach or whatever, how do they do that? Greg Hess  1:01:00 Well, my website is coach, hess.com Michael Hingson  1:01:06 H, E, S, S, Greg Hess  1:01:07 yeah, C, O, A, C, H, H, E, S, s.com, that's my website. You can get a hold of me at coach. At coach, hess.com that's my email. Love to hear from you, and certainly I'm all over LinkedIn. My YouTube channel is desk of coach s. Got a bunch of YouTubes up there and on and on. You know, all through the social media, you can look me up and find me under Coach. Coach S, is my brand Cool? Michael Hingson  1:01:38 Well, that it's a well worth it brand for people to go interact with, and I hope people will so Oh, I appreciate that. Well, I want to thank you all for listening and watching us today. Reach out to coach Hess, I'd love to hear from you. Love to hear what you think of today's episode. So please give us an email at Michael H i, at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, wherever you're monitoring our podcast, please give us a five star rating. We value it. And if you know anyone who might be a good guest to come on and tell their story, please introduce us. We're always looking for more people to come on and and chat with us. Coach you as well. If you know anyone, I'm sure you must love to to get more people. Now, if you could get Magic Johnson, that'd be super but that's probably a little tougher, but it'd be, it'd be fun. Any, anyone t

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