What If Your Next Post Saves Your Business?

We sit down with Eric Bosworth to talk about what it really takes to build an insurance business that lasts, from prospecting and personal brand to leadership, health, and hard-earned financial discipline. We get into the wins, the near-bankrupt moments, and the mindset shifts that turn mistakes into a rebuild plan.
• shifting from cold calling to social media DMs and community-based prospecting 
• building a personal brand to earn trust in a trust recession 
• why new agents lose momentum and how accountability fixes it 
• using scripts, KPIs, and call review to coach real performance 
• scaling too fast, ad spend debt, and treating losses like tuition 
• captive vs uncaptive and why owning the book matters 
• using ChatGPT and Claude as unbiased thinking tools 
• toxic generosity, partying, and rebuilding energy with sleep and training 
• setting non-negotiables in friendships and relationships 
• mental health under pressure and rebuilding after partnership mistakes 
• creating visibility with dashboards and planning for diversification and exit 
• philanthropy, tithing, and living below your means 
• cash flow realities, taxes, and over-leveraging into real estate 

How to approch Eric Bosworth:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbosworth1991

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itselevatederic/

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 

Transcript

Cold Open And Why It Works

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Hey, what's up guys? It's Jordan Edwards here. We just finished the hashtag ClockedIn Podcast with Eric. Eric, what'd you think of the podcast?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

I think I believe that you asked the right questions today to get me to open up in the way that I needed to, uh to say what I wanted to say. I think that you know, I have a lot to learn from you because I can tell we, you know, you were every time I would say something, I could tell that you had a little bit more to say because you were like, oh, I, you know, I was gonna talk about that or like that that to me, that's what podcasts, that's what make podcasts special when you have two people that have similar experiences, you know, in business. And they've kind of because when you get into business, all of us are gonna kind of go through the all like the same trials and tribulations, and you're able to like speak on like what I you're able to just like I don't know, we're able to just bounce off of this conversation so well where I think people can digest it at a fifth grade level. Yeah. Which is just, you know, that's what we I mean, that's what we digest information at. That's what I think is cool. We didn't get too too complex, you know. We didn't get, you know, we didn't go down a rabbit hole too much. We stayed clear and concise to where everybody who watches this can understand and resonate.

Eric’s Backstory And The Stakes

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Absolutely. I'm looking forward to you guys seeing it. Start okay. What's up, guys? I'm here with a very special guest. We have Eric Bosworth. He's the founder of Insurance Elevated, an organization that served over 15,000 families and works with 500 plus agents and partners with 30 different carriers across the country. But what makes Eric's story different isn't just scale, it's journey. From dialing five to six hundred calls a day to betting on personal brand before it was popular and to nearly going bankrupt after scaling too fast and rebuilding stronger. Today we're gonna dive in on what it actually takes to lead, build, and sustain a business in one of the most competitive industries out there. Eric, so excited to have you on the hashtag Clocked In Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Thank you, thank you.

From 600 Dials To DMs

SPEAKER_01 2:48

So for you, you mentioned that you scaled too fast, almost went bank. What happened? How does this all occur?

SPEAKER_02 2:54

That's actually happened twice. You know, so I mean, the first time it happened was, you know, I got to do it. I got into the insurance industry in 2021, January, January of 2021. When February was approaching, I wasn't really having much success in the month of January because when I got into the industry, I was I was watching what everybody was doing, right? They were dialing 500 dials a day, they were, you know, getting hung up on a hundred times a day. And I just thought to myself, I'm like, I don't mind putting in the work. Like I've always been a fan of 12 to 14 hours a day. I've never believed in 40 hours being full time. If you're an entrepreneur, you're an 80-hour entrepreneur, right? 40 hours just doesn't exist. So I was okay with the work ethic. I love that. I and I and I was actually admiring the way the agents would work that hard. Yeah. What I didn't understand is how they were on a hamster wheel, right? They were, they were, I was watching them burn themselves out every single day. And I thought, okay, there's got to be a better way. Like, there's no way I'm just gonna dial random phone numbers 500 to 600 times a day and just hope I get one. And yeah, okay, my my sales ability could probably turn some of those, you know, upset customers or uh or a very objective customers maybe around. Yeah, but then you gotta worry about chargebacks on the back end, and there's just so much more that goes into the insurance industry. So I I looked back and I was like, there's just gotta be a better way. Yeah, there has to be. So the month of January, I kind of just sat back and stopped going to the office because I just I didn't feel comfortable doing what they were doing. Yeah, I didn't mind it, right? You know, to each his own. But a few weeks later, I had just decided to start sending a bunch of social media DMs trying to sell my products that I was given to sell in the insurance industry. And I ended up writing$11,000 in business, well,$11,000 in commissions I made within one week when I finally just decided to do that. I'm like, okay, now I still put in the 10 to 12 hours a day, but I put it towards social media, engaging, prospecting, developing online relationships. And I was like, okay, so what could this do for me over the next five years that dialing$500 a day can't? Dialing$500 a day, yes, I'll speak to a lot of clients. I'll end up building a solid client base and maybe build off referrals from there and maybe get them to tag me on social media. But why don't I just dive into social media now? Yeah, try to become somebody that everybody can relate to. Yes. The insurance industry, when people think about it, it's boring. Insurance sucks. You know, I just try to make it suck a little bit less with just being who I am, right? I'm I'm tattooed, I got a tattooed hairline. I'm just different. But I've been in sales and on in business for 20 years. You know, I moved out when I was 13 years old and I started selling bootleg air forces, cutting people's hair, candy at school, everything that I could do to make a dollar.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

So when I finally decided to get into the insurance industry, I thought, okay, well, I knew at a young age my network was my net worth. If I'm dialing$500 a day for 12 hours a day, I could be DMing all day, strategically scrolling Instagram, seeing what works, studying viral niches in the insurance industry and being that voice, that voice of resonate, like somebody that can resonate because I'm just a normal human being. I don't have a three-piece suit on, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

But yeah, the bit, I mean, the big difference there is that he was going from I'm gonna go outbound and go attack, to let me see if I can attract, let me see if I can do this a different way, even though DMs are still attacking, but you're it sits there and it waits for them. You're not waiting for just the call to answer.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Exactly. So, and and today it's even crazier because with all the technology and automations, you could do both. So people can scale 10 times faster than even I was able to back then, which we, you know, we're we're we're completely still involved with. But at the end of the day, when when I seen that there was a better way, I thought, I, you know, I'm not just gonna sit here all day and wait for somebody to call my phone. I'm still gonna go get it, but I'm gonna go get it in a different way that benefits me. Yeah. Because what I started realizing is me DMing everybody and getting into Facebook groups. I started negotiating with the Facebook admins to be their independent life and health insurance guys. So they would post me at the top of Facebook groups and I would get everybody in that group. And then I would be able to DM everybody in that group. And because everybody becomes friends with everybody in groups, I would then message them and it wouldn't just show up in spam or message requests, it would actually show up as a regular message. So there was a method of my madness.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

And that's what I want people to understand because they can sit here and go, oh, Eric got lucky. Eric was successful, that, but was Eric. But I want you guys to sit here and start to realize that there are better ways of going about things, and there are different ways. And that's why I started the podcast because I thought to myself, how do I shortcut society and actually live the best life?

Leadership Means Shortening Mistakes

SPEAKER_02 7:21

The thing is, society does have to go through certain mistakes. Even I went through them. Now, can we do the best job we possibly can, Jordan, at mitigating these mistakes? So society or salespeople in specific, you know, specifically can get from point A to point B a little bit faster than what we were able to do. That's the point of being a leader.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Is to show a brand new salesperson hey, I went through this. I lost this amount of money. Here's what exactly what I did and what I didn't do, what I did wrong, what I did right, my peaks, my valleys, my trials, my tribulations. Please do not do this, this, and this. However, everyone does this, it's inevitable that just everybody still it's like it's like dangling the carrot, you know? Yeah. So, you know, but we try to do our best. But that's the definition of leadership is to try to teach somebody, you know, based on your experience, how to mitigate as many mistakes as possible so they can be as successful as possible as fast as possible.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

I love that. And for you, for new agents, because I know you're constantly recruiting and that's one of your strong suits. What what do you see a lot of them struggle with? And then to get them to be super successful. Because I I'm working with insurance agencies and I just you see it all the time where you're like, you got this, man, and then they build momentum.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Yeah, so that's you just said it. They struggle with momentum. Do you know why they struggle with momentum? Why? It's it's a so in the insurance industry, a lot of times they're blaming their upline. Yeah, they're blaming the leads, they're blaming the ecosystem overall, the CRM, they're blaming the hours, right? When in in reality, it's them. It's not the leads, it's not your upline, it's none of that because you are the lead. Lead yourself to some fucking money, right? Like, I don't understand the people who, oh, well, the leads, so you guys gave me shitty leads. You literally have a license to print money. You have social media platforms just in just in America with over 300 million people on these platforms that you can just send text messages and DMs all day to and try to start conversation. Problem is, people want the easy life. They want convenience, they want instant gratification.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

I want passive income.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

We've all done this to each other, though. We've made shit so easy. Look at Uber. I even on my script, bro, I say, and it's so funny because everybody has bit off of my script, which I don't mind, right? Everybody's script says the same thing now, but I came up with this. I said, when I'm talking to a client, I'm saying, think of me as like the Uber Eats of insurance without all the fees. Uber one, I have access to every single carrier, no broker fees, no application fees. Wow. And and I'm and I'm very honest with them. I said, I don't get paid unless I put you in the right product because I have a fiduciary responsibility to do so with my license. Yeah. And if you don't pay your bill, I don't get paid. Yeah. So I want to make sure we before we get off this phone that this is a value to you and that you and I are on the same page and how you feel about the outcome of what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

That's my script. Like the Uber Eats of Insurance going into the value. You know, I'm just completely up front with them on how I get paid so they understand that I'm not just a fast grab commission because in the insurance industry, you get advanced money.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

It is not commission.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

It is an advanced, think of it as a 0% interest loan. Yeah. And as long as you do right by the client and that client makes their payment their first 12 months, you get to keep that entire loan.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

This is the only industry in America that you are always owed money by the one industry that has always paid what they owe.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

As long as you keep selling. Yeah. Think about that for a second. Wait, you got to say that again. This is the only industry in America that always pays what they're owed. Yeah. So as long as you continue to sell, insurance companies will always owe you money.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

I always want to be owed. So I'm going to continue selling policies, so they always owe me money.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Yeah. No, it means I want to be the one owed.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

I don't want to owe money.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah. No, and what you're seeing here with Eric is an owner's mindset. And it's not just because Eric has an agency, it's because in sales, to be a great sales leader, to be great in insurance, you have to have an ownership mentality, not a victim mentality.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

And that always starts in the mirror. Every morning that you wake up, you have an accountability mirror. You have to look in the mirror and understand what you're doing wrong and what you're doing right. You know the vices that you have. Cut them out. You know that you're not putting in 12. Look, I see agents all the time. They're in the office for 12 hours, but half the time, they're endlessly scrolling. They're watching YouTube. They're not really taking it seriously. And here's what happens: you talked about momentum earlier, right? When a new agent gets on the phone after five hours of scrolling or watching YouTube and they finally get a live transfer or a client finally picks up. Well, guess what? They're cold now.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

They haven't role-played. They haven't warmed up. They come into work late.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

It's not a leads problem. It's not an industry problem. It's not an upline problem. It's you not getting the fuck out of bed and getting into the office at 8 a.m. You can legally prospect at 8 01 a.m. Eastern time. Why are you getting to the office at 9 a.m.? Is it a leads problem or did you just cost yourself an hour a day the entire because you decided you wanted to sleep in because the Netflix special was going longer in the night? Guys, we got to start being honest with ourselves. And this goes with any industry, door-to-door, you know, solar, car sales. If you're late every day, the next guy that's working his ass off is going to run circles around you. They could be half as talented at sales, but outwork you and out-prospect and out-engage, and they'll get 10 times farther.

Momentum Problems And Accountability

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Absolutely. So for you, what do you think was the biggest thing for you in the first six to seven months of your career and then also the new people's career common day? Because there's a lot going on. Things have changed. So I mean, what helped you the best? Obviously the social media, but is there anything else?

SPEAKER_02 12:46

I think what helped me the best is what we didn't finish talking about in the beginning was, you know, what like what happened in the first round of when I almost went bankrupt, you know, when I knew that I thought there was a different way and I started, you know, doing content and throwing money at the wall to see if it stuck. Too many people these days, for instance, I have a CFO and I have a chief technology officer. He's a data scientist. My CFO's been in finance for 10 years. They fight me all the time because all they look at is data and dollars. Yeah. I look at indirect ROI. Yeah. So from day one, I didn't care if I spent$10,000 on a content team and putting out reels and ads and boosting and doing all of this because I knew that money that I spent, well, I was betting big, but eventually something would hit. I'd go viral eventually. Well, I did seven months. I spent$10,000 a month. I committed to that and I was paying that$10,000 through personal production. Yeah. And I was not making that back on that side. I was still getting referrals and just doing social media DMs. And I was funding my lead company by trying to produce leads on social media and become a brand and get more eyeballs on me. Because I knew the name of the game was eyeballs. The more eyeballs I get on what I do, why I do it, and what I do it for, the more money I make. So we're seven months in. I've spent$70,000 and then I've been behind on my other bills because I just knew I said, if I spend a certain amount of money, I know I'm going to break through that wall. Have you ever seen that meme of that caveman like hit the gold and the wrong? And then right before he breaks through, he turns around and quits.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

I didn't want to be that guy. So I said, I'm going all in. I'm$70,000 in on ad spend. I'm another almost$100,000 in debt and my Amex and behind on bills and everything. And it's November of 2022 at that time because I started insurance elevated March of 2022. Oh wow. Prior to that, from you know, from the January of 2021, I was just a regular agent.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

And that was captive.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

That was captive. Then I switched to uncaptive. And just explain that really. Captive is what it means, captivity. If you are a captive agent, you are held captive. Like, let's just call it a spade-of-space. You are held captive. I don't want to hear the bullshit. Oh, well, free leads. Oh, well, you know, they give you everything. I give you everything too. Just because you have to invest in your business, it just means you're not a business owner. Yeah. It means you're not an entrepreneur. You are an employee. And that is okay. I could get you captive too. I have both programs. You can come with me, sell all the products I have, I'll pay for all the leads, but I'm going to own your book of business. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to own all of your data, your clients. I'm going to be able to go sell your book of business five years from now for$50 million. Like we're not talking, we're not speaking the same language, and that's okay. Yeah. If you're a captive agent, good. Go be captive. I have no, I have friends that are in the captive space that have been very successful.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah, yeah. Of course.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

I just didn't want to stay that route. Yeah. That's it. We just have two different paths. Now, that's what that means, though. Captive is being held captive. That means you do not own your book of business. You do not own the overrides that you make, the commissions that you make, the override. None of that is yours. Okay. It is the company's.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

That's it. Yeah. Okay. Broker side, being uncaptive and owning your book of business from day one means you own everything that you do. So you own all the losses, too.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

You own all the wins and all the losses. And 90% of insurance organizations that are uncaptive on the broker side that scale never end up selling their business anyway. So I can see the argument from both sides. If you're not really good at what you do, the whole, oh, you can scale your business and sell it and exit for AX multiple and make millions of dollars. Truthfully, not about 10% get to do that. So you just got to make sure you're in the 10%. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

But that's, you know, that goes back to that as you know, the I almost went bankrupt. I was$170,000 in debt because I kept throwing money into social media platforms and running ads and content teams. And dude, I got screwed over by multiple marketing agencies and multiple content guys that were just charging me more because I didn't know. You don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah.

Betting On Content And Going Broke

SPEAKER_02 16:34

But again, I pay, I looked at it as I was paying for school. Yeah. I was like, that$10,000 a month, I was paying to learn what worked, what did it, who to hire, who not to hire, maybe learn it myself so I could hire my own team and$170,000 in debt, three weeks away from going bankrupt, called my best friend.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah, I just want to give everyone a perspective here. That mindset of learning for instead of going to school, like how many of us went to school, took on$100,000 of student loans and have nothing to show for it? Again, it's mindset. This is way more educational, where it's like, hey, yes, it's risky, but what's the other side?

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Jordan, we have one life. Yeah. I've been in multiple near-death experiences, man. I've been in a car wreck, my head got slashed, 13 stitches or something. Oh my God. I'm sorry, not stitches. I ran in and I almost bled to death, and they had to run out with a staple gun before even numbing me because I almost bled to death on the hospital floor. Oh my God. You know, I've been robbed, beat half to death, you know, robbed at gunpoint multiple times. I've been through hell and back. And and everybody has a sob story. I'm just getting you to understand if I can do this, all of you from coming from where I come from, what do you have to lose? Yeah. Why play it safe? What, you lose everything? I've lost millions of dollars multiple times.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

And I've made it right back. But it's through experience and through that mindset of transitioning my subconscious into thinking, okay, this was a lesson. This was not a loss. I never lack, I only transition. Yeah. Right? I might lack uh temporarily, and it might not even be my fault, but it is my problem to solve. And if I don't solve it, I'm going to continue being just like everybody else as a victim.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

You're bringing up a really good point because usually when I train teams, I always talk about the idea of what the military does, the US military, they have this thing called the after-action review where you go and you go on a mission, and a mission might be sales call, right? Yeah. A mission might be selling your business, whatever it is, and you iterate and you go, what went well, what went poorly, how can we improve? So that you're always constantly learning. Because if we don't learn, we're not applying the knowledge that we gained.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

And if you're not honest with yourself about what went poorly and you don't know how to blame yourself, then you're gonna just continue going in that's in that cycle. And on and I've been through it. I've I still have you know, somewhat of an ego, and people, oh, you gotta lose the ego. First of all, fuck you. And the reason why I say that is my ego is the only thing that still keeps me in the game till this day because I have a chip on my shoulder.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

If I didn't have an ego, I wouldn't give a fuck about the chip on my shoulder. I I care about proving people wrong.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

I never had role models. I had people I didn't want to be like. Yeah. And those people I want to prove that I'm better and I'm faster and I'm quicker because I put more hours in.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

I put those 10,000 hours in the win. And I want to instill that type of work ethic and mindset into as many people as possible because competition is not bad.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Neither is collaboration. I even collaborate with some of my competition right now so I can get it and get it in an even better position. So, but again, it's you know, it's all about how you look at things. And the biggest thing I can tell you is I did humble myself to a certain extent because I needed to. And I started the biggest thing that has helped me in business from almost going bankrupt, three weeks away. Bro, I had one ad go viral, 3.4 million views in 24 hours, and save me from bankruptcy the first time.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Like, and that was God. Like that was nothing else but God. And I wasn't even the closest to God, but I just I felt it. And that's kind of what's transitioned me and made me start to think about things differently, especially as of recently. But but I look at all of this and I and I and I think to myself, I'm like, okay, well, if I can go through all of this and I can continue to fight through, yeah, why? Okay, well, because I still do have somewhat of an ego. So it's but you got to balance it, you gotta be humble. Yeah, like you gotta be humble in certain areas, like around you. I want to put my humble hat on because I you know things I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

And that's why I came here today to get on this podcast. I'm like, man, you know, when we when we did our first call, man, he, you know, you taught me a couple things on that call. So I'm like, okay, let's do this podcast and get to know each other a little bit more.

Mindset After Trauma And Setbacks

SPEAKER_01 20:29

I love that. And and that's the whole point is whenever we're talking to be anybody or listening to anything, we're constantly learning from each other. And if you don't know, I mean, some people are more successful in other areas, some people are better in other things, but we can all learn from each other. And I think that's something really, really important.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

What do you think about where we're going in terms of technology and how society feels about the 40-hour work week or still putting in those grunt hours, you know, 80 hours a week because it's so easy to do open claw now or, you know, use claw and like where do you think we're at over the next, you know, year or two years? I want to hear your opinion on that.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Okay, yeah. So with me being a coach, I think one of the most important things for us is finding our purpose and finding what we actually care about. Because you're absolutely right. A lot of things are getting taken off the table. We don't have to do the little things, but that gives us so much more space to actually decide what we want to do. Okay. Like the thing I find really interesting about you is there there's a lot of us who never broke that monetary bandwidth, right? We never thought, oh my God, what's life without money? Like, I don't need that. And that's where a lot of people are heading because you're getting open clock to do a lot of the things that you don't need to do. And that's coming down the line where it's like, hey, you're gonna have a lot more time. Are you gonna spend it on the TV or are you gonna spend it creating something that you actually care about?

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Got it, got it. I like that perspective. I think that you know, it all depends on whose hands it's in, right? Yeah. Like I look at myself as a director, I'm a creative. Yeah, you know, I'm a visionary and I have a scatter brain. So I think all of these tools help me take my scatter brain and organize it in the best way possible. And, you know, not for nothing, but when you have too many people in your head and listening to your ideas, not everybody wants the best for you. Not everybody wants the best for you. So when I go on ChatGPT or I go on Claude and I'm able to speak to that, it wants the best for you. Hey, it does, it does, it wants the best for you. So it gives you different perspectives and it gives you advice because it does the research so quickly and doesn't have a biased opinion. Like it's going off of true data and analytics. And I I think that that's a powerful thing if you do it the right way.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah, I mean, like I had a pretty, pretty challenging situation that happened the other day, and I was gonna call people and tell them and whine and complain, and then I just I go, I think ChatGPT has all the context, and then I asked it, I'm like, Do you have the context? Because I've been reporting this in the same chat. It's like I got the context. Give me the next move.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Like, yeah, a lot of people don't think about that. Like, I used to have three different mentors and different you know, friends that I'd come to for different advice and things like this, but then I started thinking, well, a lot of these people haven't been in my shoes, they haven't done what I've done.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

So is this opinion coming from you know, animo secret animosity, just simply not knowing? But now you have all these tools and all this technology at your fingertips and knowledge that you can just have instant access to. Just please do the right thing with it.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Absolutely. So one of the big things with you, Eric, is that you were able to, I think, and this is something I find really interesting, is redefine your identity, right? So a lot of people would go into the captive environment and they're like, I'm gonna build here. This is gonna be my life. I'm never gonna leave. You go and you're like, I'm gonna build insurance elevated. And you even told me that that had a couple iterations. So it's just what allows you to keep growing and keep going, because there's so many of us that want this, but it's hard for us to really redefine ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

I think, and you know, this is just me speaking from the heart, man. I'm self-inspired. Yeah, I've been obsessed with the game of just figuring things out. Yeah, you know, a lot of people call themselves problem solvers. I call myself a problem finder. I genuinely love to just find new problems in specific situations and then get the right team around me to help solve these problems. And just once that problem is solved, I don't sit there and and take the reap the benefits from solving that one problem. Yeah, I jump right into the next one.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Because yes, money was important for me. It was. For a long time, I was in survival mode, and money mattered. It mattered a lot. Nice things mattered to me because I never had nice things. Yeah, it did. But so did giving.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

I make sure to always give as much as I receive. And I got to a point to where my purpose started to transition into my subconscious, where it wasn't just about me surviving, it was about me genuinely helping the person next to me, like helping thy neighbor and putting as much of my experience and instilling that into the younger generation, or just individuals that haven't had the same opportunity as me. And I go and show them that this opportunity is for everybody because if I can do it, you can do it. So that was that transition for me. And that's when I knew, okay, I'm put, I was put on this earth to be a leader, to genuinely lead. I didn't believe I was a leader at first, but I focused on developing my belief system as I started to make more money and as I started to create a bigger impact. But you know what was the number one thing that helped me with that? Right was putting my story out on social media and getting the positive feedback. See, yes, you're gonna get negative and positive feedback, but really listen to the random text messages that you get when you start putting videos out about how you made somebody's day, about how you change the trajectory of somebody's life because of a certain video that you put out. That moved mountains for me. That made me feel so important. And because there's days that I lay on my bed, I'm like, why do I do this? I've been betrayed, I've been lied to, I've been cheated on like, why do I still do this? It's because of that random person. Yeah. That random stranger that that got something out of one video that I put out that changed the trajectory of their life. Now that I know that that's happened enough, that has subconsciously changed my belief system into knowing that I can do better. I can do more. I'm ready for a bigger platform to help more people.

AI Tools As Unbiased Mentors

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah. There's two there's two things coming up, and I don't want to interrupt you, but the first thing is I actually had a similar experience. So with me, when I started posting, you would get these comments and people saying, like, go keep going, you're doing great. And then it's like, yo, you kind of changed my perspective there. Yeah. And then it's like, yo, like, I was down bad, and like this really helped me. And I'm like, down bad. What does that even mean? And I'm like, now I'm looking it up and I'm understanding. But what really helped me there was each time I got one of these, I took a screenshot. And all of you in the audience can do this as well. Screenshot them, and now I have a folder in my in my phone and it says motivation. And if I'm ever feeling down, you're lying in bed feeling down, you just look through the photos. And it's like, dude, get up and get to work. Because here's the thing. Here's the thing I like about Eric. And what he what he might not be realizing is as he keeps going, as he keeps building that muscle, he starts to validate himself. And it keeps going, wait, I can do more. Wait, I can do more weight. Wait, I can sell bigger deals. Wait, I can do bigger things. And as we do that, what ends up happening? Confidence. But none of this occurs if we don't take action.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Confidence, experience, just overall having you know an expertise and a niche that a lot of people need your help in. 100%. And you're there for them. You know, I it's funny, and I want to tell you a quick story. I I was uh in Art Basil in Miami a few months ago. You know, I love I do love my house music, and and you know, I was out with some friends of mine that were from Orlando, where there's a guy that's been following me, and I've been following him, and we've been friends on Facebook for years, and he's a very successful individual. I mean, 10 years ago, he was driving Lamborghinis, you know, mansions, et cetera. Always, you know, solid investor. He sees me because we're hanging out with the same group. He comes up to me and he's like, hey man, you know, I know we haven't, you know, met in person officially yet, but he's like, I've been following you for a while. I've I've seen your come up, I've seen your your ups and your downs. And he's like, I know about your ups and your downs because you actually tell your story and you're real and you're raw. He's like, You're one of the most, you're you're one of the top 10 people of my like most influential people in my life. And I said, What? Like this was in mind you, I've been drinking, like I'm hanging out, I'm I like it stopped me. It didn't, it did something different for me. It didn't make me feel like beat my chest, like, oh yeah, I am that dude. No, it I was like, whoa, like this is this is really like what what I'm doing is really helping people feel better about themselves, change their belief system because they can resonate. So I said, I gotta keep like, and I, you know, I that was that was one of the worst positions that I was in too was a few months ago. It was a friend of mine that invited me out. He's the one that got me the tickets and took care of it because I said, brother, I gotta like I gotta cut down on spending because I just lost a few million dollars in a deal and like I know, you know, I know when to stop. Yeah. And he was like, nah, bro, I got you on everything. You need to get your head, you know, out you know, out of your ass. Like, come in, you know, come down to Miami, stay with me. Like, let's go. And I said, Okay, you know, maybe I do need to take a weekend and just decompress, you know, decompress. And when that when that individual said that to me, it lark, I mean, it lighted a fire under me that I can't explain to you in every sense, every sense, even though things have kind of gotten worse and I've been in a big battle with my business and just trying to figure everything out, I've kept this positive attitude where I just know everything's gonna be okay because I've been through this before. And there's people counting on me to now tell this story whenever I get out the whenever I get out the trenches again and I'm back on top again. I got another story to re-inspire people at an even different level because new levels, new devils. And all you got to do is learn how to play the game better.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah. No, I I I love that because I I think the big thing for a lot of us to realize here is that no matter what happens, the things we listen to, the people we see, the conversations we have, the podcasts we listen to, the books we read, those are the people that are gonna impact and change our life, right? Meaning that if you put your stuff out there, you might impact someone. You might be impacting someone and you might truly change their life and influence them in the positive direction.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

I tell everybody that. And everybody's not everybody's cup of tea. Yeah. Somebody watching this right now could be scared to put out that first video. But what if your personality, your story, what you know how to do could be the difference in someone else's life? Yeah. Have you ever thought of it that way? Like that there might be five people watching this podcast when we first put it out, first five people that watch it. Four of them can't even speak my language. Or they might think, oh, this guy's arrogant, this guy's a piece of shit. Whatever. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

But the one might completely feel, man, I like this guy, his energy. Oh, he motivated me, he inspired me. What if one of you, the five people that just watch this, right? The first five people have different personalities where they could put a story out, right? A little sequence, a documentary or whatever on their own Instagram. And then one of those videos touches one person's heart, and that one person takes care of an entire family or an entire city or an entire country or becomes the next president. Like, I know that sounds cliche, but at the end of the day, that's what happens. That's why people put out content.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

The way the content's going, that's what it is. Like you put it out there, it's literally every single time I post on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, it's not even going to the people that you follow. Like, it's literally going to non-followers. So it's literally people that don't know you, and there's no reason not to go for it.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

And Instagram has that button trial reel. Yeah. I haven't even started using that yet because we're compiling a lot of content right now, and we're going to have a trial reel folder and we're going to do a few other things. We're doing recruiting ads right now, reels. Uh, I'm I'm going to do a 30-day docuseries where I'm going to take an agent, myself personally, I'm going to document it every single day and put it on my Instagram for 30 days. I'm going to take them from zero to$10,000 in paid commissions in their first 30 days, my damn self. And I'm going to show everybody that anybody can do this if they have the right, if they have the right ecosystem.

Trust Recession And Building Credibility

SPEAKER_01 31:32

I love that. The series, the things, it truly does change everything. Now, one of the things I want to talk to you about, and you've kind of mentioned a little bit, financial literacy. How important is that?

SPEAKER_02 31:42

It is important. Man, I'll tell you, when I I just followed a gentleman the other day, I'm not going to mention his name, but he's somebody who actually made a YouTube video of one of my, like reviewing one of my early-on videos when I got into the insurance industry because I was just regurgitating what I was taught.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Unfortunately, I had a crappy leader that didn't teach me the right way to talk about whole life insurance or index universal life insurance policies. And, you know, I put a few videos out there that weren't entirely correct. You know, I could have explained it better. And he was basically talking shit. You know? And it's funny because I followed him the other day because I look back now where I, again, I've humbled myself. I've, I've, I've, I've, you know, I have more of an attitude of gratitude now and I and I believe I can learn from everybody. So I follow him. I'm like, you know what? This guy's actually really intelligent. Yeah. And even though, you know, I I do feel that I'm on that level now too, in terms of, you know, my knowledge and expertise and my niche. But I was like, man, this guy, even at, you know, years ago reviewing one of my videos, at first I took it as, you know, as a knock in the face, right? As a slap to my face. Now I look at it like, you know, I've learned a lot. He was right.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

He was reviewing something that, you know, wasn't correct. And he was doing that to make sure that other people had the right information. Yeah. So now I have this utmost amount of respect for him. I'm following him. And and it and it now it's inspiring me to put out even better content to hopes that one day he reviews one of my videos, you know, four or five years later and gets to see, hey, wow, this guy's really came a long way. Yeah. But you know, that's the importance of having good leadership and financial literacy.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

I didn't have that back then. I was just being told, okay, this is how life insurance works. You have term, you have whole life. If term and whole life had a baby, you have IUL. Like that's literally what I was taught. And then I just was self-teaching myself a few things and listening to what other agents were saying. Now, product knowledge is important. It's key. And again, you have it all at your fingertips, man. You want to learn about IULs? Put in, teach me everything I need to know about IULs on ChatGPT or Claude. And you literally have everything right there. Yeah. It's not that hard. However, don't regurgitate it word for word whenever you're on camera. Like give your, give, you have a cadence, you have a wow factor, you have, you know, you have your own tone. You have, you know, like your own delivery. Don't just be monotone and read off of a script and be like everybody else in insurance. People, we're we are in a trust recession right now. People are not trusting like they used to 10, 20, 30 years ago. Yeah, yeah. So if you're not separating yourself and building massive credibility behind not only your personal brand, but the business that you represent, you're not gonna get as far as the guy that actually does that. Right? Who are you gonna do business with, Jordan? When you let's say you're shopping for life insurance.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Who are you gonna do business with? The guy who has hundreds of reviews on Facebook, Google, you know, Better Business Bureau, you know, multiple videos out on YouTube, Instagram. You can see their story, who they are, what the culture that they represent, the team that they work with, or you're gonna do business with the guy that you can't find on Google, you can't find on Chat GPT, they just cold called you, they have no reviews. Yeah, who are you gonna do business with?

SPEAKER_01 34:48

The validated one.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

So why are more people not creating credibility for themselves?

Toxic Generosity And Fixing Energy

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Yeah, I mean, I think it's honestly a concern that a lot of people have. And the more you dive into the insurance space, you more you see Google reviews are very important. Like these other reviews and these other platforms are super important. Eric, I gotta have a question because I know I'm curious. Your energy is immaculate.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

What do you do, man? Right, it's you want to know what's okay. You you want me to be completely honest with you? Yeah. Okay. So here's here's what's happened recently. Okay. For I made a lot of money very quickly in this industry. I've made money before in the past, real estate, my last gig as a profit sharing manager for wireless, you know, I I I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year since I was 23 years old. Yeah, okay. But making millions of dollars a year for three years in a row puts you in a position where you just want to take care of everybody. Yeah. So you're taking everybody out to dinners. What does dinners lead to? Drinks. What do drinks lead to? The lounge after. What does the lounge lead to? The club after, right? What does that lead to? Four o'clock, five o'clock in the morning, getting home. Now I thought I was celebrating my successes and I was celebrating with all of my agents and my peers around me. All I was doing was getting them hung over. I thought this was building my brand. I thought, I thought this was recruiting, pulling up in the Lamborghini, bottle service, insurance elevated, when really all that was doing was just blowing my money when I could have used that money to build the business bigger and better and create more credibility. It's not attracting the right people. Yeah. So I started attracting the wrong people around me and I started getting used, but it was my fault because I was, I was, you're no, I was I was committing myself to toxic generosity. Yeah. So what happened was I just started thinking it was okay because everybody else was cool doing around it. So drinking, the drugs, the partying, like all the stuff early on. I was like, dude, what am I doing? Yeah. Right. So and then my energy started depleting. My I, you know, I used to be a bodybuilder, man. I started losing my body, my six pack. I'm like, this isn't me. Yeah. So last year I went through a really dark time, you know, with everything that was going on. And I started drinking more, I started going out more. And it just one day or one night, actually, I was at a I was at an after party after a club, and I looked around at everybody and I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? Yeah. I'm I'm drowned, I'm medicating myself with alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

What am I doing?

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

And it just, it was like this epiphany over me. And something told me just to go home and get my shit together. And it was crazy because around that time, I met my friend Travis Doodles, which is a very famous uh well charity. He has hundreds of millions of views between all platforms on helping homeless people. And he quit his job because God told him to, and he gave out all of his money. And now he runs this homeless shelter in and youth shelter in uh Lakeland, Florida. Oh, that's amazing. And he came to me and he said, God told him to come and talk to me. God told him that I needed to make a change because he he was getting me ready for a bigger platform. Okay. And then everything bad that could happen happened to me after that. Like, even worse, but I started going to the gym more. I started reading. I started listening to the CEO podcast. I started doing things that I never used to do because I used to be a big believer in just experience is what matters. Not books, not all of that. Like, let me just dive in. But then I started doing things differently. I started thinking about things at a larger scale. Like, like, okay, I'm I'm ruining my body right now, but who else am I impacting by not being that person I used to be? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

That got me here. Who am I uninspired?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Who am I uninspiring, right? Who am I telling that it's okay to live this dumbass lifestyle? So that's what happened, man. I started getting into the gym more. I ended up, I ended up getting really big into peptides. Yeah. Because I was into peptides years ago when I was a bodybuilder, only for like the healing peptides because my knee and my shoulder.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

But got into peptides. I started eating better. I got on a very strict meal plan. And then every 60 days now I do a three-day juicing fast, which was really cool. That that made my energy level spike like crazy. And I have I have gut issues sometimes because I would eat out a lot. I'd always eat out with these seed oils. So there's just a multi there's a multitude of things that I could talk about that got me to the energy levels that I'm at now. But the main thing is I cut back the parting way less, man. I'm not out every weekend. Like I'm if I go out one day a week, like that's a lot to me now.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Yeah. Right. Um and the thing I want to recommend is not everyone just cut sober, don't drink, like none of that. It's just balance. Yeah, of course. And like balance, and this even happened in my life where it was you would go out, and then even in school, after school, you go out till three in the morning and you're getting up at 6 a.m. every single day. You're like, this isn't gonna work. So what you do is you just cut that back. You go home at like 10, 11, you're call it a day, and like you're still going out, you're still experiencing things, but you're not the sleep to the point where it was like, it was almost like worse than when I would travel to Europe. Listen to what he just said.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

Sleep. Yeah. Sleep deprivation is the number one, one of the one of the top agers, not just smoking, not just alcohol, like sleep deprivation. Yeah. And that's exactly what I was doing multiple times a week where I was just going to sleep later than I should, not getting eight hours.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

You burn the candle on one end, then you're trying to get up, you're late, you're behind the eight ball. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

But man, what made my energy levels get to where they are now is first of all, less alcohol consumption. A hundred percent. More sleep. Yeah. Peptides. NAD plus is a game changer. I'm not trying to, you know, sell you guys a dream on it, but for me, NAD plus was a game changer, man. Man, being in the gym four days a week, less volume though. Like I'm I'm doing upper body now, then lower body.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

I mean, let's take a moment to shout out Mark. Like I saw you this morning. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Coach Mark, he's incredible for function for functional and mobility training, right? I'm used to just lifting weights, bodybuilding. Yeah, let's have you. Yeah, no. But not realizing like there's a lot of lower little muscles that you don't work. And I like to golf and I didn't have like good rotation. So he's it's just everything. I'm I'm I'm doing functional and mobility training now, peptides, more sleep, less alcohol, more electrolyte water in the mornings. Uh, I'm eating cleaner food, yeah, and I'm only using olive or avocado oil. I'm a very big chip guy. I love chips, so now I'm only sticking to avocado, you know, baked, you know, baked chips. And and and as well as uh as well as, man, to be honest with you, dude. I I was single for a year and a half. I just recently got into a relationship and I met a woman that is either as or if not more motivated than I am, more inspired, has a great career, extremely intelligent, you know, owns two properties. Like I wake up every day where my my mindset is like, dude, I I gotta I got a an equal like part, like somebody who's just as as competitive and as outgoing and and gym and and she's a gym goer just like I am. So it's a multitude of things. But honestly, man, I didn't believe for a while that a woman could be could could make a man 10 times better.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

And and the and the wrong woman could make a man 10 times worse. And I finally know the definition to that.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

So if there's anything that outside of just taking care of your health that has made my energy levels like this, this is first of all, this is inspiration, brother. Yes, I drank 200 milligrams of caffeine this morning. I drank a ghost energy drink, but I was with Coach Mark this morning working out at 6 30 a.m. My energy levels I can compliment to taking better care of my health if you want to summarize it. Yeah. And finding an incredible woman that wakes up every single morning and makes it a point to inspire me. And every single night, she speaks positivity into me. So I go to sleep with a with positive affirmations. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

No, and it's it's super, super important. And the big thing I see with relationships is you have all these people that are like, I'm at a five right now, she's at a five. If she loves me, then I'll be at a 10. And it's like, no, you both want to be rocking at like an eight, nine, 10, come together. Now we're at 100.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Exactly. There's no 50-50. It's a hundred. Like we go a hundred. Now, are we going to pick out what I take care of, what she takes care of? Yes, that's great. Like, I'm I, you know, I'm a king. The woman's supposed to be the queen. And that's that's an equal, like, yes, it's equal, but why do we do the 50-50? No, it's a hundred, a hundred. Like we both need to be on our Tony Tony Robbins says it all the time in his conferences. He's like, you know, you fall in love, everything's great. First couple months, you want to take out the garbage, you want to do this. And after a few months, you stop caring so much. You stop trying to impress your partner. Never stop impressing the people that reciprocate that impressive value to you. Like, yeah, I I have a couple close friends that always try to outgive me.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Now I found a woman that always tries to outgive me. Now I got some of the coolest people in my life that I can call my best friends and like my family. And now I have a woman that does the same exact thing that they do and always try to outgive. So when you're always trying to outgive, the power of reciprocity plays a role. And man, it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

I love that. So, for people in the audience listening, what can you do? What can they do? Because you talked about how you have great friends, great family. What what did what needs to happen to really make that friendship occur? Because I know some people are like, ah, uh I'm having trouble with it. You know, a lot of there's a loneliness thing going on.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

There is a loneliness thing, and this is a double-edged sword, Jordan. Of course. I tell you, you know, you have to go through the snakes to get to the good people. Yeah. You really do. However, there is a better strategy there. Pay attention to red flags. You need to have non-negotiables. Yes. Non-negotiables. One of my non-negotiables is if you fuck me over, Jordan. Yeah. Okay. Let's say I'm in a friend of there's a group of friends, right? Four of us are friends. Yeah. And Jordan, you fuck me over. I go to the other two friends and I show them verifiable proof that you fucked me over.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

And they continue to still be friends with you because they say, well, you've never done them wrong.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

So then they're not my friends anymore. It's fuck them and fuck you. That's my non-negotiable. Yeah. I don't deal with neutral neutrality. That's number one. The neutral friends that are just okay with being around shit people that fuck over people, I don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

You're a shit person if you're hanging out with shit people. Yeah. Automatically. Okay. I don't I don't believe in you know, birds of a feather flock together. My other non negotiable is pay attention to the way people treat you whenever you're going. Through your peaks and valleys.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

When you're at your peak, look at how they treat you. When you go in, when you go in a valley, whether it's spiritually, mentally, physically, financially, emotionally, see how they treat you then. Pay attention to that. Don't just be like, oh, well, you know, I'm going through shit. Maybe they are too. No. See how they stand up for you. See how proactive over reactive they are.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

You gotta have non-negotiables. You have to have standards, principles, and beliefs that you stand on no matter what. We are in a day and age where people can change their belief from one video to another on social media just because it sounds better or because they want to be cool. I'm I'm cut from a different cloth. And you have to understand that strong men create good times. Yeah, good times create weak men. Yeah. And weak men create bad fucking times. Yeah. Let that sink in. I learned that from Tony Robbins as well. Of course. I met him personally, incredible individual, one of the people that I look up to, one of my mentors, and he doesn't even know it, right? He's just one of my, he's a lot of people's mentors, I'm sure that they don't know, that he doesn't know. But at the end of the day, pay attention to how other people are when they when they when they're in peaks and valleys. So if you call people friends, see when something happens to them, do your due diligence when they start talking about everything bad that happened to them. I chose, I tell people, I tell my own friends, show me proof. Yeah, that person did that to you, or you're going through this. Did you do anything to provoke this? I'm that friend that's gonna ask you that question. I want all my friends accountable. And I want my friends to hold me just as accountable.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Yeah, yeah. Does that make sense? I love it. Yeah, I mean, because the truth is here, guys, accountability is what's gonna hold us up. Whether you want to build that business, you want to ask that girl out, you want to live the life that you choose, accountability is the only thing that's gonna hold you there. And there are so many people that will give you feedback on things that they are no merit to, and it's just not true.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

And be okay with having uncomfortable conversations.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

Stop being a bitch. If you don't like something and you got a friend, talk to them about it. Yeah, you might end up developing a better bond because of that, a better friendship because of that. Yeah. And then you understand that that line of communication is there for in the future, you don't let animosity get in the middle of a beautiful thing, a beautiful friendship.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

Too many people hold things in for so long and then it comes out and it might come out very wrong. And it ends something that just could have been so special if you just would have communicated and engaged from the beginning properly.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

I I think that's absolutely incredible because you're absolutely right. There's little things that piss you off, and then those things just build and build and build, and it goes like fuck that guy. And it's like, no, that's not always the case. Like you let it build up too much, and you didn't actually have a real conversation with him. Hey man, I really didn't appreciate how you did this, this, and this. Let's do it differently this time. And if they don't do it differently, then it's like you're done.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

So a part of communication and or communicating engagement is a part of focusing on something. You are when you're focused on something, you pay attention more.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Right. And what you focus on grows. Yeah. So focus on your friendships, focus on your significant other.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:59

Deal in the power of reciprocity as much as possible because I am a huge believer in givers game, but give the right way. Don't give how I gave. Don't give a bunch of loans out to people without proper legal paperwork. Don't pay for people's dinners that didn't deserve it all the time just because you think you're building your brand. Don't put yourself out there and don't overshare information all the time to people that you might not even think or might not even realize aren't there for your best interest. Yeah. Very important to hold certain things in. Very important.

Mental Health And Losing Control

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Our abilities to do that. And it it's hard in this environment where you want to be so you want to share everything, but it's like, hey, there's a lot of stuff you got to keep to yourself and keep it that way. Now, with the podcast, what I've been doing over the last like hundred episodes is I asked the the guests. I didn't even ask. And you've done over 100 episodes. I did it over 300 episodes, actually.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

That is incredible. I gotta give you a handshake on that.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

No, we've been doing it for like five years.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

You know, most people give up over the after what, the fifth episode? I know. It's sad. Most podcasters give up after the fifth episode. You just heard Jordan say 300 episodes. Let that sink in. Each episode has preparation.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

Right? Maybe three to five hours worth of prep. Each episode is an hour long. Yeah. Right? It takes Jordan time to drive here, to drive back. You know, that's in that's incredible, bro. I just want to give you your process.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

I appreciate that. Yeah. So I've been doing the podcast for a long time. And one of the things I started doing at the end was asking them about my five pillars of Edwards Consulting, which are mental health, physical health, community service philanthropy, spirituality, and relationships. I wouldn't ask you. I forgot to ask you during the prep, but I want to ask you anyway, because you mentioned all five of them basically today. So on a one to ten today, and the reason I do this is because it humanizes us, it humanizes you to the audience. So mental health-wise, Eric, where are you on a one to ten today? And why is that? And maybe like a tip for the audience.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

Mental health-wise, today I'm probably at a five.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Really?

SPEAKER_02 49:54

I'm probably at a five. Although, remember, the one to five is actually the positives, right? I'm looking at this as like a split.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

I'm at I'm gonna tell you I'm at a five because again, a phenomenal woman walked into my life, you know, here recently. A couple really good, you know, faith-driven friends have have brought me to church. You know, as of lately, it's it's kind of gotten me more in touch with my spiritual side to keep me positive through some of the darkest times of my life. But on the other side, right now, at this second, I made a I made a very large mistake in my business and gave people control over my business that should have never had control over it. And my business is my baby. It's the it's it's something that I worked for my entire life that I've gained expertise on to be able to build something this big and impact this many people for somebody who was never in this business to come in and and and literally rip it apart and take everything from me that I can't control as of this moment. Here in a, you know, here in the next couple weeks, I should have, you know, back full control. But by the time I have full control, I would have lost 80% of my business. The good news is, and like I said, the other part of this, my mental health is I still have my generals with me.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

See, you know, my mentor told me something that that stuck with me. It says, you know, people can steal a slice of the people can steal a slice of the pie, but you know, you you built the oven.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:13

You go, you go, you go, you go make another one.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

You know, but so right now I'm trying to stay positive, but at the end of the day, I'm still fighting demons day in and day out. And sometimes I get quiet and get in my head and think, man, what if I would have just made this decision? What if I would have just did this differently? You know, what if, what if, what if? At the end of the day, even at my level, even with how positive you hear me, my energy levels, I'm still going through shit. And guys, we all are. So don't ever listen to these highlight reels on social media, on these guys thinking that they got life figured out because even at the highest level, people fight demons. And right now I'm fighting them myself because I made a bad decision on a partnership that went south and I gave too much control and I overshared too much information with people that did not have my best interests, and it lost me millions of dollars. I do I still have my ecosystem, my generals, my all of my intellectual property that I know I can rebuild because they're not me. Yeah. They're still, you can steal, but you most people can't steal or can't keep what they steal because they don't have the sauce to continue building off of that because they never built it in the first place. Yeah, that's why I like being a founder over a COO or over a GM or over a region. I'm a founder. That means I can go find more shit to build, right? But again, my mental health has has taken a hit. Yeah. You know, working out, taking care of my health has helped.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

You know, having having a good the holistic view on it always helps.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

Like yes, I think. That's what's helped, the spiritual view, the holistic view.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

The holistic perspective. Yeah, because I actually had a a guest come and speak to my group on Monday. This guy, Aaron Howe. He is he was an EOD in the army, and he ended up getting in 2011, deactivating a bomb, blew up, went blind, and then four years later lost half his hearing. And he sat there and he was like, Oh, dude. And he's teaching us what he did two weeks ago was he ran 205 miles from the sea to Mount Kilimanjaro and then hiked the mountain. And he's like, Yeah, that turned me around. He's like, I get down and out, but then I do a cool thing like that because I realize I still have something.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

And that's that's why you need to always live off of your schedule. I'm a very big schedule person. I always want to put things on my schedule to keep to keep motivation. To keep motivating me and reminding me that I still have people to help help. I still have events that I need to go to and stand tall and shake hands and network because what happened happened. Yeah, it's still my problem to fix.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Right. So if I get down, and I'm the founder, I'm the owner. My business is people, they follow me. If like that's why CEOs and founders have such a tough job because no matter what they're going through, they still got to stand tall and they still got to make sure that everybody else's emotional stability stays strong.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Because that's the biggest issue in this industry and a lot of sales industries is emotional stability. One day you make a lot of sales, next day you don't. You start getting down on yourself. So then it messes with the next. And now you've got commission breath. Look at me. I'm I'm at a point where I don't even know what I'm gonna you know go through the next day because I keep getting hit from every single angle on all these negatives. And the one thing that I have going for me is I know I can still rebuild it.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

So that's what's keeping me at bay. Yeah, but it still hurts. Yeah, it still hurts because a lot of people were affected outside of me and it wasn't just me. So I hold that weight along with me. Yeah. So now I'm putting everybody back on my shoulders to make this next run over the next three years. And I will, I will. I had an exit on the table for almost$30 million last year. I had a net worth of$4 million 11 months ago. Now I've lost 85% of that net worth. I have some real estate left. You know, I still have some things cooking here, but I lost that deal. I lost, you know, 85% of my organization now due to, you know, just things that didn't work out properly. Yeah. But again, I have my generals, I have my ecosystem, my intellectual property, I have the lessons that I now have in my head, the things that I know to do over the next three years that are going to work out. And I have new friendships, such as yourself, that that that has different areas of expertise that I can now lean on. Yeah. Because, guys, that's what I just said. Never stop shaking hands, never stop meeting new people. You never know what individual you might meet to help you rebuild back bigger and better than you've ever built before.

KPIs Visibility And The Next Exit

SPEAKER_01 55:30

I love that. And and we you were mentioning it before, but six months, 12 months, what what do you see for yourself? What do you see for the brand? What do you see for the insurance elevated? Like, what are you seeing?

SPEAKER_02 55:41

Right now we still have about 180 agents within insurance elevated, another 250 all across the country that just have a contract here with me, a contract there with me. But my goal is to build on that 180 like in-office agents that have all contractual agreements with me, you know, fully embedded into my ecosystem. I want to build on that and bring another hundred agents in, specifically here in Tampa, Florida, my new 7,000 square foot headquarters here in downtown Tampa, you know, minutes away from Gold's Gym and Crunch Fitness right there. I want to bring 50 in-office agents there and get all 50 of those agents averaging over$10,000 a month in net paid commissions. Yeah. That's my goal over the next 12 months. Okay. Over the next six months, I want to just recruit those 50 agents in office and another 50 agents virtually, get to that number. And then I'll use the next six months after that to making sure they're as successful as possible. And I do want to open Dallas, Texas office within the next six to 12 months, as well as create my own single sign-on proprietary platform that's your all-in-one space for all agents to have full visibility on all their KPIs, what the leaderboard says, their submitted business, their issued business, their full commissions, their bonuses, a news and highlights. I want to be able to instantly communicate with all of my agents. Technology-wise, I need to create that because visibility is everything in this business. How can I train my leaders to be able to train their agents if everybody doesn't have full visibility at all times to see where everybody's at? You're either going to know how good you are or how bad you are.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

When there's no visibility, people get false egos and entitlements that they think they're better than what they are. But when the numbers are put in front of them because data don't lie, it's a different story.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

I mean, it's absolutely true. Because when we sit there and we have a there's a couple of different agencies I work with, and sometimes they'll put out weekly posts and it's like a weekly premium. And it's like, how'd they do that? Like, because it's great that they did that, but from the learning of a new agent, it's like, how many leads did they buy? Or how many calls did they buy?

SPEAKER_02 57:39

Those are what I mean by KPIs, key performance indicators. How many leads did they buy? How many calls did they make? How long were they on each call? Yes. For instance, one agent closes five deals called 25 leads. Next agent closes two deals called 25 leads. Okay, let's dive in. Okay. The agent that only closed two leads was on the phone way longer as well. So what is he saying? Okay, now we listen to the call recordings. Oh, now I know why you're only closing two deals because you said this, this, and this, and you're on the phone way too long, going off script, right? So those KPIs matter. Now, over the next three years, I do because I know I had an asset purchase agreement on the table for over$25 million. Yeah, I know in my heart that we can we can do that again. Because I know if I sell the business for$25 million, I'm I'm I have a 10% equity pool that I'm giving to all of my top producers, right? So I can make a few of my top guys millionaires, as well as them still maintaining 100% of their business. So once I sell, I'm just gonna help broker them the next deal and help them build until they sell. So so over the next three years, I want to be able to exit for over$30 million. That's 37 million is my actual number. It's actually my lucky number. For those of you that are watching this that know me, you know 37 is my number. Yeah. So 37 million is the goal. Three years, I'm gonna, you know, be building back the life business, the health side of the business, the Medicare side, as well as the annuity side, and really focus on product diversification. Because for those of you that don't know, when you go to sell a business, yeah, a private equity firm buys you at an 8x multiple. What that means is if I'm doing a million dollars net profit a year, a private equity firm based on product diversification and profitability will buy me at$8 million.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:14

That private equity firm, in their mind, wants to recoup their money within three to four years. So they want to make sure that they have a bunch of legs to stand on and not just one niche. Yes, riches are in the niches. Yeah. But but wealth is not in the niche. Yeah. Wealth is in diversification within that niche.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

Right. Where you have multiple different avenues and an ecosystem that that private equity firm can lean on for them to make sure that they recoup that money within three to four years and not have to wait eight years.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:43

You see? Because they they they bank on it to continue growing the way it has been over the last three years. So it's very important that we focus on constant growth month over month over the next 36 month months with no misses.

Giving Back Church And Living Below Means

SPEAKER_01 59:55

I love that. And I mean, let's try to get back to the pillars real quick. We got physical health. Where's your physical health on one to 10? How are you feeling on that? Man, I'm nine. Nine dials?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:04

Man, I'm feeling fan fucking tastic. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm speaking well, my delivery's there, my my tonality, yeah, my passion. I just I wake up inspired every morning and I know that means my health. It's all it's all related. It rolls back to your health. It's all related. And um, yeah, health is an easy nine.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

Yeah, I love that. Community service philanthropy.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

In terms of community service, so I every year we do, every single year, we do a turkey drive and a Christmas drive, and every year we break the record. We have not done less than$20,000 uh during our turkey drive every year. Really? That we that we raise, and we do and we raise about$20,000 to$25,000 every year for our Christmas toy. I love that. I just I just donated$15,000 to Travis Doodle's worth and purpose charity to help the homeless, uh, give them free haircuts, free pizza. I love that. And we we built a ninja turtle van and we dress up as ninja turtle guys and we go out and and we feed the homeless and we get and we get free haircuts. Uh, I also fly to Italy every single year for the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, and I donate a minimum, a minimum of$10,000 where we where they essentially put it into communities in Africa to build like running water, boys and girls clubs, or you know, like a like a rec center. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So those are the three things that I focus on.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

That's incredible. And where did you start to find that purpose?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:21

Because sometimes I ask people and they're like, I don't know. Because I genuinely love seeing people smile for being helped that aren't as privy to, you know, to opportunities like you know, we are. Now, again, that's a double-edged sword talking about that because, oh, everybody's got the same 24 hours and opportunity. Yeah, of course. Not everybody was instilled that during their childhood or grew up in the, you know, in the right circumstances. So you have to give a little bit of grace to these individuals. And that's why it takes you, it takes an individual like us who are a little bit more privileged or well off, or or we just made it out, right? We made it out the trenches. So it takes our experience to go and instill that knowledge into others. That's our job to get them to realize. So what happened for me is I just honestly, it was when I when I realized that I didn't have to live above my means anymore. I I started learning how to live below my means. So I started creating a nest egg and I started understanding what's my what's what now. Yeah. Well, what now is to go help others. You've already, I've already put myself in a good, in a good uh situation where I don't have to feel like I'm surviving and look at every price tag anymore. Now let me go try to help others. And I do believe in, you know, 10% of your income should go towards helping others.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:36

I love that. No, I think that's absolutely incredible because there's so many of us that just I need more, I need more, I need more. And it's like, dude, that's just not the case.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

No amount of alcohol, drugs, party celebrations could ever make me feel better than seeing a kid get the Christmas they deserve. Yeah. Or seeing seeing a kid get food in their home, get shelter for for Thanksgiving and a turkey on the table. Like nothing compares to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:04

And I'm sorry, but if you don't feel that in your heart better than everything else, you're just a shit human. Like that, I don't know. I don't I don't know how else to. No, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

Like, I really don't a lot of us don't even view life that way. We don't look at the fact that like Tony Robbins, you mentioned him. Dude, it's like a dollar and it will feed a whole family for a week. Like, you don't realize these food drives, like the money goes so far, and there's so many countries where people have nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:30

Here in Tampa, I ask you all, go visit Metro Ministries in Tampa.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:35

Look what they do. Drive, you can you can drive up there anytime you want and drop off anything you want to give to the to the you know the lower income. We have so much abundance, less privileged. Yeah, we have so much abundance. You're not you can't sit here, and it's funny because I went to church a few weeks ago for the first for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

So actually, this is good. So I'll dive in. The next pillar is spirituality.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:56

Yeah, so so I go to church twice a month, two Sundays, two, and this is as of recently. I'm not gonna tell you that I've been doing this over the last, I haven't. Uh, I got some really good friends of mine, Xavier, Luigi, okay, and and Travis Doodles that go to a church here in Tampa that I've been to a few times, and we've done some charity there. We've we gave out 200 pizzas the last time. Yeah, the last time we were there. We took the Ninja Turtle Van. It was cool. It was cool. Listen, you know, it was cool. So as of recently, I went with my girl to her church here in Tampa, and it was funny because it's my first time there. Yeah. And guess what they're talking about? I have no idea. Tithing. Oh, wow. The entire 45 minutes, hour was tithing. And she was like, oh man, like I brought him here and like they're talking about like because she didn't know about that yet. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, no, I mean, he made really solid points. Yeah. He made everybody understand why it's important, what it says in the Bible, what's different, because you know, there's a couple parts in the Bible that people think contradict each other. Well, from the New Testament, Old Testament. And like, and I'm just I'm just sitting there just letting, you know, letting because I already believe in it. So, but it's just funny, my first time being there, they talk about that. But when it's all said and done, if you're if you're living a decent life, the main problem is people living above their means. That's why you can't give. Live below your means longer, even push it even longer than when you think you're ready. Of course. Keep going as long as you can possibly go. If there's one thing that I would have done differently over the last few years, it's I because I was, I start, man, when I started my business, I drove my ex-girlfriend's Honda Civic for an entire year.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

Yeah.

Cash Flow Taxes And Real Estate Lessons

SPEAKER_02 1:05:31

And then even when we were in our second year, we still shared one vehicle. We may got a BMW, but we shared one vehicle. Our rent was$2,200 a month, and we had an office, and I scaled the business and put everything on the content and social media. And I did not go out. I went completely sober, not even soda, for 11 months. Like I was just electrolyte water, water dialed, meal prep six days a week, 12 hours a day. I popped out two years and four months later, a millionaire. Wow. A legit Chase bank checking,$1 million, like millionaire. And that's when I finally, you know, started going out spending my money. And then again, I was making a hell of a lot of money. So I was going out spending and I was still saving. I went from a million to four million. Yeah. But I I could have gone from a million to eight million if I would have still just lived below my means for one more year. Yeah. And right now, guys, a million dollars doesn't mean what it used to just a few years ago. Like the numbers five million. If you don't have five million saved, anything can happen to you. Yeah. Mark my words. So I I think when it comes to spirituality, no matter how much I make, my spirit's always going to want me to give back at least 10%.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:44

Because I I feel that that's just the proper, that's the right thing to do. Yeah. What more do we got to talk about besides it being the right thing to do? Yeah. Live below your means so you can do the right thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I love how you pull out the financial. Literacy with it because it's so true. A lot of us are like, oh, I can't. And it's like, dude, you got too much house.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Like, well, you got no, you got too much house, you got too much car. You love going out to eat because it's date night, like every single week. You love your.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:10

The funny thing is, like you were saying, if you start to look at all that, all that compounding of more and more and more, your body's just going down, down, down.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:17

And let me tell you, guys, I I'd be the first one to tell you I didn't care at one point. I was making a quarter million, 350,000 a month. Wow. So I didn't care what I was spending. But when I when I hired a true CFO that came in and spreadsheeted me every single week, I was spending$2,600 a month on Uber Eats. Do you know how bad I wish I had that$2,600 a month back right now that I'm not doing$350,000 a month anymore? Yeah. Take it from me. Do not make this the mistake that I made where I just didn't give a damn anymore just because, oh, I was making$350,000 a month. I didn't think anything could ever happen. I thought I was on top of the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

I thought, oh, how could I ever like, oh, maybe I go back to$250 or I go back to$150, but I'm still making a shit ton of money. Do not have that mindset. Wow. Do not. I over-leveraged myself. Yeah. I bought$9 million in real estate in a year and a half. Oh, wow. Oh, great. You're buying real estate. You're mitigating taxes, cost segregation. All sounds good until your business dips to doing$100,000 a month. Your payroll is$88,000 a month. And now you have$9 million a month. Now you have over$2 million in down payments wrapped up in real estate. What happened to the real estate market eight or nine months ago? Started going down. I got a house right now in South Tampa. I still can't even sell that's been on the market for six months. I've had to drop the price on it multiple times. So think about it. Yeah, you might be saving taxes, but guys, cash is king. Sometimes pay the fucking taxes.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:42

Like they all everybody always tells you how to avoid avoid taxes. I will avoid taxes. Trust me, that's not always the best thing to do. Sometimes pay the taxes so you can show the income and keep some cash in hand and keep it moving. Yeah. So you can so you can also go and apply for bigger loans and bigger credit so you can build off of other people's money. But you can't build off other people's money if you're only claiming$10,000 on your business and you made$200,000.

Relationship Red Flags And Distance

SPEAKER_01 1:09:04

Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. Absolutely right. And the final pillar is relationships. You mentioned this throughout the podcast with the case.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:11

Yeah, I kind of answered all these points. Yeah, you can't. But I like it. I like it though. I like the summary.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

So anything with relationships, any tips, tricks, anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

Again, pay attention to red flags as early on as possible. Do not let them go in one ear and out the other just because of the green flags that you see or the or the feeling that you get when you're around those people or what they can do for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

And and also don't let a green flag be, I've been friends with them for 20 years. Yeah. It is not a green flag.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:40

The definition of green flags, I think, need to be uh clarified as well for a lot of people. I might do a reel on that soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

You should, because I literally did a coaching call, and this one guy, he's like, Yeah, I got kind of pissed. Like this guy I was friends with, he didn't invite me to his wedding, and I go, Were you friends? And he's like, Well, we were drinking buddies. And I'm like, when? And he's like, in high school, we drank together in high school, and now we don't drink together because we live in different locations. And I'm like, hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:03

Like, yeah, and when people do things like that, it's okay to still be their acquaintance or still go drink with them, but keep them at bay, keep them at a distance, keep them right where they're at.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:12

I there was there was a holiday party that I wasn't invited to by somebody who I thought was my friend for the last 15 years that we golf all the time together, we talk to each other, and he invited my business associates and everybody else and didn't even invite me. And I did feel some type of way. So now I keep him at a distance and he ain't coming to my my damn holiday parties at the end of the day. I'm not just gonna let that slide and still let him, you know, be involved in all of my uh events or anything like that. But again, when it comes to relationships, guys, they're they're a necessity. Nobody wants to be lonely. We weren't put on this earth.