When you speak from the heart everyone who has one will buy-in. That means all of us.

Facts tell, stories sell.

Everyone has a story.

I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.

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Storytelling for Business: Do It For Others

It’s been a four-year run for which Ian Whiteman is extremely proud – proud to help, proud to serve, proud to change lives.

“I feel like I have been very fortunate in my life and been given a lot of opportunities to do some great things,” says Ian. “I started with USHEALTH Advisors back in 2016 and this year we opened a huge office, promoted a lot of people who are now able to provide things for their families and change a lot of lives. It might sound cliche’, but that’s what gets me up in the morning, this opportunity.”

“I had a lot of people who came here struggling to make car and rent payments and now have built sustainable futures for themselves. It’s why I’m here and why I work so hard. I like to enjoy the ride and get to look around while we’re on it. My girlfriend Emma and I now get to watch all this stuff happen and it’s a lot of fun. Plus, we’re not done!”

Success is a team sport and Ian’s USHA Division Sales Team in Florida is playing all out – to the tune of nearly $18 million in issued business already in 2020 and nearly $69 million in business since Ian’s run as a leader began.

“It all starts with our CEO Troy McQuagge,” says Ian. “This is the same stuff I heard him talking about years ago. There’s a reason he’s accomplished what he’s accomplished and I want to do the same. He’s changed so many people’s lives and that’s what I want, to help all of these people. I want to run into a guy I helped 20-to-30 years from now and see that he’s just crushing it in his personal life. That’s a huge win for me.”

It’s also a long way from where Ian was a little more than a decade ago, at a time when his own personal life was the exact opposite of where he is today. It was a very different four year period that truly challenged him but also shaped him as well. It’s simply part of the human experience – every day, every month, every year, the world turns over on someone who used to sit on top of it. For Ian, it wasn’t so much a moment, as it was a collection of them.

“I hit a really rough patch in my late 20’s and into my early 30’s,” says Ian. “It was one of those periods in life where you can’t catch a win to save your life. I owned a chain of franchise stores for a vacuum cleaner business and was knocking the ball out of the park. I had moved from Maryland to Florida, then Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Wilma came through and set the business back dramatically. When the housing crisis happened and the economy took a dive, everything went off a cliff for us.”

It was an incredible fall. In the span of four years, I lost the business and I had to liquidate everything. My dad was battling cancer, I broke up with my long-time girlfriend, I also got cancer and then my dad passed away. I went from an incredibly high point in my life where everything was going great, to watching it all slip away.”

It was this chain of events, beginning back in 2007, that brought Ian to the world of insurance and a different agency where he met the man he considers a visionary, Troy McQuagge. Things were going well, and Troy was leading the charge. But it wasn’t too long after that Ian’s professional life shifted, and more importantly, he watched his life turn on a dime – when he was diagnosed with cancer.

“I was thirty-one when I got testicular cancer,” Ian says. “I was more surprised than anything because I was in really good shape, going to the gym and working out five days a week. In about 17 years I had never missed a week. You don’t expect this when you’re healthy. I knew something wasn’t right, I had aches in my abdomen but just denied them. At the same time, my dad was battling non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He had beaten it and made a comeback, yet I was in denial that something could possibly be happening to me at such a young age. About eight months passed from the time I started feeling those aches, yet still not  going to a doctor to get it checked out.”

Ian says he finally went to a urologist that pinpointed the problem but then told Ian what he didn’t want to hear – that there was no way to do a biopsy for this issue, the practice is to remove the testicle, then test it to see it if is cancer. In disbelief, Ian went in search of other opinions, but after meeting with a world-renowned urologist in Miami, Ian had to succumb to the inevitable surgery, for in the words of the doctor, “you have two choices, ignore it, or die.”

“The doctor did the surgery,” says Ian, “then came to me and said he took the sample to pathology himself and told me he didn’t waste my time – the sample showed I had cancer. It had all been surreal because as a young man you don’t think this can be the case, but once there was confirmation it was cancer I was able to gain a new perspective and be thankful for my life. The doctor told me, ‘you are young and healthy so I don’t want to compromise your body with radiation or chemotherapy, but we’ll continue to test you and monitor it all.’ “Thank God I never had to do any of that stuff, and my life and health are normal now. Outside of the mental weight of the experience early on, I feel like one of the luckiest people ever. I took a little downtime to heal and felt gratitude for how it all worked out.”

Ian’s dad wasn’t as fortunate. Though he had beaten back cancer, it returned, and a little more than a year after Ian’s successful surgery, his dad passed away.

“Although my dad and I were not that close when I was a kid, we had grown closer because of the cleaning franchise business we shared. All of this happening in the span of two years made me hit the reset button on life. For the first time in my life I started re-evaluating things and for a period of time in my early 30’s I just took a break, spent time with friends, and took it easy for a little bit.

Back in the business mode Ian split his time between a profitable painting business and maintaining his insurance license as a broker in the post-Obamacare era, which Ian says didn’t bring in a lot of income. When Ian and his partner in the painting business had, as Ian describes, “a huge falling out,” Ian focused on the insurance side of things, helping his friend, Garrett Laughlin, with clients Ian couldn’t help on the Health Marketplace plans. “Garrett was experiencing huge success at USHEALTH Advisors and it seemed there was a real opportunity there,” says Ian. “I got contracted with USHA, got my state licenses, and was doing virtual selling from my living room when Garrett said he was looking to open an office in Fort Lauderdale. I went to see the office with Garrett and he signed the lease on the spot. That was 2016 – it’s been almost exactly four years to the day we moved into that office and it’s been quite the ride.”

The early part of the ride is a time Ian says he will never forget. In retrospect of any great accomplishment in life, it’s the foundation time, the hard days, the grind, the step-by-step process that seems tough at the moment, but when it eventually starts to flow, it’s a time you can look back on through the lens of life’s rear-view mirror, with great satisfaction and pride.

“In all of my years with business and working with teams I’ve never experienced anything like it,” says Ian. “Garrett could not have hand-picked a better starting lineup to get the team going. A huge amount of what you see at USHA today, especially in Florida, was built in those early days with guys like Brandon Cornett, Justin Brain, David Zalka, Jaime Goldstein, Nick Finazzo, Bryan Velasquez, and myself. It was a starting team of guys that couldn’t miss. It was the right time for the health products as well and the right time in the market, it still is.”

For Ian, as it is for most agents, in the early days it was about personal production and Ian hit the ground running – producing nearly $2 million in issued business in his first year-and-a-half. Progressing and moving into leadership, Ian has now earned his way to his role as a Division Leader and turned his attention to his own team, he says it’s a labor of love – and it’s non-stop action.

“Never once have I been in the office after 8 am on a weekday,” says Ian. “And I usually work until about 9 pm, some late nights keep me there until about 10:30. “Now early on in the morning, my day begins with greeting everyone and taking their temperature, literally, as you can’t be too careful during this crazy time. But then I spend my mornings with agent assessments, looking to see who needs help, who needs me to sit down with them. Every day from 12 pm to 2 pm I go to Crossfit, then I’m back in the office by 2 pm for training, one-to-one meetings with leadership, handling problems, etc. Tuesdays and Thursdays are busy with recruiting sessions at 6 pm that ties me up for most of the night.  Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I go through the lead budgets to see what is doing well and what is not. I’m in the office on Saturdays for selling and development and work until about 2 to 3 pm. I’m in the office about every other Sunday and on the Sundays I’m not, I work from home. If I’m in the car I’m on the phone. If I’m making dinner I’m on the phone, when I’m in the shower I’m on the phone.”

“My girlfriend says I’m a psychopath,” Ian laughs. “Because she says I’m obsessed with all of this, but I couldn’t do any of it without her. I wouldn’t be sane without her. She is wonderful and is there in the evening with dinner and to spend time with me.”

For Ian, time is not to be wasted and he says he can clearly see the future, for himself and his team.

“The first big goal is to get 100 licensed writing agents on the team,” says Ian. “We’re at about half of that right now. By the end of the year, we’ll be knocking on the door between 70 and 80 because we’ve got a really good recruiting pipeline right now. This business stretches and retracts, but as we expand we’ll be looking to get an even bigger facility so we can grow even more. Growth is the name of the game because as you see an uptick in agents, you see more business being produced and if you’re growing then everything is ok for you.”

As he and the team expand, it’s also a moment for Ian to pause and reflect.

“When I came into the business it was about making money and rebuilding my life,” he says. “How do I do it for Ian? But now, it’s about making sure the people in my care have a better life. I see so many people come to us with nothing and in a short period of time create something real for themselves. If I can change people’s lives and put them in a position to win, then it’s all worth it. We take a huge interest in people’s lives, professionally and personally, and help them build a better future.”

“It sounds cliche’, but it’s the truth, I know it will happen for me if I do it for other people.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

Make USHEALTH Advisors your next career! Click and apply, (https://www.ushacareers.com/apply/)

Become part of The Billion. You can learn more about Mark Brodinsky and his #onebillion mission at, (http://markbrodinsky.life/)

USHA-SM-5-0920

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, it’s not what we do for ourselves in life, it’s what we do for others. But in the beginning it’s all about what you do for you.

For if you want to have more, you must become more. You can’t give what you don’t have, so you have to take care of you. The inside work, the effort you put into building you up, means you can lay a foundation to help other people.

You build, you give, you serve. In business, it’s the same. Build something meaningful, something to be proud of and something that serves those who need what you’ve created – and you’ve discovered success. Success leaves clues, those clues make for a great story.

Everyone has a story.

I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.

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Storytelling for Business: Mom and More

“In America in general, there are not a lot of single moms who have the opportunity I do. So many work two or three jobs to make ends meet, so this opportunity at USHEALTH Advisors is absolutely amazing.” – Nicole Reinhardt

It wasn’t the way Nicole thought life was going to go.

Nicole Reinhardt grew up in a very small town in Wisconsin. She watched her mother and father raise a great family, including Nicole and three siblings.

“My parents were wonderful parents,” says Nicole. ‘They were each other’s first loves and a very different model then how my life ended up. I never thought in a million years I’d be a single mother and dealing with the feelings of being alone. When it first happened I didn’t know if I could do it.”

But Nicole did it and continues to soldier on. She says she knows her career with USHEALTH Advisors, which began not long after her son Christian was born, is part of the reason she has been able to bounce back and to thrive. Since coming to USHA in April 2018, Nicole has produced more than $1,600,000 in annual sales and she has led her team, as a Field Training Agent, to produce over $2,300,000 for her Division in Colorado. All the while, learning to do much of it on her own, as a new mom.

“It’s because of my son that I ended up here at USHEALTH Advisors,” Nicole says. “I left my former career in medical device sales a few months after giving birth to Christian. It was a plunge and a total leap of faith, especially with a brand new baby to care for. I found out about the opportunity on LinkedIn, then went to the pitch delivered by USHA Division Leader, Harley Brown and I absolutely loved everything he had to say. I could hear his passion for the office, the team, this career, and I was blown away by it all. I knew this is what I wanted.”

But as is the case in life, you can’t always get what you want. Sometimes, in fact, many times, you have to wait for it. So in March of 2018, after hearing Harley’s description of the USHA opportunity Nicole went back home, to wait.

“I had a huge fear in my heart as to what might happen or what I would do if I didn’t get the offer,” recalls Nicole. “I went in for recruiting earlier that day and afterward they sat me down for an interview. I asked about a second interview and they said they would call me later that afternoon. I remember crying with happiness and so excited when I got the callback. Harley called me said he’d love to have me come on and I hung up in tears of joy, I wanted to start as soon as possible.”

“I was inspired so much by Harley’s humungous passion for the USHA opportunity. I could feel the passion coming from every fiber in his being as he talked about it. I loved how he talked about building the office from the ground up and how his family was relying on him to be successful. I related to all of that with my son because he was depending on me, just me. I knew I could be successful too. I was intrigued and challenged by it and wanted to be one of the success stories Harley would later talk about.”

Stories are how we define our lives and Nicole has been living one – of breaking from the norm, experiencing tremendous change, and fighting back against the obstacles along her path.

“I loved growing up in Wisconsin and the Midwest for a lot of reasons,” says Nicole. “How green it is there, the air quality, the smell of the plants, the beauty and the people, who are so nice, it was a great place to live. But I couldn’t stand the winters at all. The coldest winter in history in the Midwest ended up being my final year there. After that winter and that experience, I was ready to try something new. A living opportunity presented itself in Colorado, so I decided to make the move. I packed my car full of everything I owned and if it didn’t fit, I didn’t take it.”

“My parents were pretty supportive, though my mom was beside herself with her daughter moving so far away. But I always remember my dad saying no matter what I did or where I went, I’d be successful because I have the drive and the passion. My parents knew I wouldn’t last in that small town where I grew up for that exact reason, my drive and passion were just too big.”

One of Nicole’s biggest passions is health – physical and mental. She started off as a personal trainer in Wisconsin and continued helping others get into shape and eating right when she made the move to Colorado. Eventually, Nicole transitioned into selling medical devices but then went looking for a long- term career, partly because she wanted a change – and partly because a change had been thrust upon her.

That change was Christian.

Nicole says in 2017 she found out she was pregnant. It was unexpected – but something just as unexpected happened about halfway through her pregnancy – when the relationship that created Christian ended. Nicole was now facing the reality of being a single mom, a place she wasn’t prepared for, mentally or emotionally.

But those who face the toughest challenges, are those who come out on the other side, better and stronger than before. Though scared and alone, Nicole knew she would have to be tough. “I knew I would need to find my way as a single mom and excel at it,” says Nicole. ” I wanted to build a great life for my son, it’s how and why I ended up at USHA.”

Christian was already a few months old when in the spring of 2018, Nicole found USHEALTH Advisors. The challenge of being on her own with her son and the challenges of the new career had to be dealt with and dealt with head-on.

“I struggled at first to get some of my things in order,” says Nicole. “Mentally it was hard to have a commission-based position, but I was already a strong person, and being a mom made me even stronger in my dedication to being physically and emotionally present in all that I do. I worked from home at first and tried to watch Christian, prospect, and do presentations while he napped. There was really no other option until I could find babysitters and I decided I was going to make it happen no matter what.”

It was that same belief that Nicole’s dad says he always saw in his daughter, drive and passion.

Coming to USHA also meant some very important mentors entered Nicole’s life, those who had been where Nicole was, living the reality and immersed in the challenges of being a single mom. One of those women was Nicole’s Field Sales Leader, Giana Greenwood.

“I still remember how Giana was there for me,” Nicole says. “She is also a single mother and was separated when her child was young. Giana had been through this experience in life. I appreciated her advice. Giana inspired me so much and was a big part of how I got off the ground and running here. She was the single mom mentor I needed at the time and what she did for me I want to do for other people. It’s all about helping people become better in life and growing to levels of potential they never thought they could reach.”

Life gets easier and more fulfilling when you live the truth you desire to teach. The more obstacles you face and overcome the more lessons you learn, and in turn, can share with others. Your struggle is your gift the world will fall in love with. Nicole knows her struggle means she has more to give.

“Challenges and accomplishments go hand-in-hand,” says Nicole. “Adapting to my new life seemed incredibly challenging at first, emotionally, and mentally wrapping my head around all of it and getting to the right place in my mind. As I launched this career it took me several months to be who I wanted to be for my son, but some great leaders in my USHEALTH Advisors office were always there to help. It’s incredibly rewarding because new agents who come on and struggle, I see it, I feel it and I can help them because I lived it myself. I don’t really see things as challenging because of everything I went through before to get here.”

Nicole says her days are filled with work, caring for Christian, keeping up her health and fitness, and when she can, heading up into the mountains of Colorado.

“I love working out,” says Nicole. “It’s one of the first things I do when I’m by myself to keep my mind and body fit. I also absolutely love reading. There’s nothing like a good book and a glass of wine. I love to read, whether it’s self-help, books on nutrition, geography, history, or romance novels. I also enjoy getting out and into nature. I love the mountains and try to do weekend trips. The mountains have their own special beauty, going up there is just amazing. It’s a piece of heaven on earth. You see these gigantic mountains and they make you feel mighty in their presence and so small all at the same time.”

Time is a huge focus for Nicole, as she divides it between her two most important responsibilities in life, raising Christian and growing her business and her team at USHA.

“I get to work at about 8 am and make a lot of dials with my team,” she says. “I try and make the dials around my leadership responsibilities. I do a lot of one-on-one training and help my agents to understand the why behind each part of the policy, so they can sell with emotion and passion. I also teach them how customer service is so important, to be sure to tend to their clients’ needs not only to help them but also to encourage those same clients to refer others to your business. Training can take a few hours of the day, but I definitely try, no matter what I have going on, to hit 300-to-500 calls a day and keep up my personal production as well.”

“I have to leave the office no later than 6 pm to get Christian from daycare. Once I get home and get Christian settled many times I work from home, and work until 10:30 or 11 pm, doing presentations or other work. But I almost always work until six at the office and later on any days I don’t have him.”

Nicole’s role as an entrepreneur with USHEALTH Advisors and as the sole provider for her family have taught Nicole so much. Entering only her third decade in life, Nicole says her advice to others is to learn from all the experiences you are a part of. “One thing I would say is to don’t be afraid to take risks or pursue what is challenging. Do what you love and don’t be afraid of the challenge because the reward is there, you just have to work and have faith to see it. Don’t be afraid of what life has to offer, go out and go get it.”

Sounds like solid advice from someone who knows better – a mom.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

Make USHEALTH Advisors your next career! Click and apply, (https://www.ushacareers.com/apply/)

Become part of The Billion. You can learn more about Mark Brodinsky and his #onebillion mission at, (http://markbrodinsky.life/)

 

 

 

Got a dream? Then get busy. Not busy dreaming more, but doing more.

The only way you can realize that dream, to see that thing you want so bad come to life is one thing and one thing only, you put in the work.

A business built from the ground up, the one that doesn’t just survive but thrives, is the one where the dreamer becomes the doer. The idea is the spark, the work is the fire. Build a business that serves millions and that fire becomes an inferno – the world will be attracted to that light.

That light is your story. Everyone has a story.

I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.

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Storytelling for Business: Culture

It’s been tested, demonstrated and proven time and time again through incredibly successful endeavors, that group culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. A collection of committed individuals focused on a common cause, who feel safe and secure and have each other’s backs is an unstoppable force.

For nearly four years now Brandon Cornett has felt that power and he’s busy putting what he’s experienced to good use, as a Field Sales Leader for USHEALTH Advisors. Brandon just surpassed $4 million in personal production and has issued more than $11 million as a team leader. Results matter, and while the numbers are important, for Brandon it’s focusing on the human component, the culture code that gets him going, especially because he’s experienced the exact opposite.

“I was always scared of no salary, commission only,” says Brandon. “I had a job at this marketing company, I worked there for three or four years and did well, made pretty good money, just under $100,000 a year. I got to the highest level I could and knew I couldn’t go any higher. The culture was horrible, I hated it. I was a paper pusher. I came in at nine and watched the clock until six. Leadership was awful. But I had a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks so I sucked it up, but it sucked. If I could write a letter to my 25-year-old self, (Brandon is now 33), I’d say take the leap of faith, who knows where I’d be today if I had done this eight years ago. I’d say take that leap, it will all be worth it.”

In work as in life, it’s about change. Whether it’s taking that jump into the unknown, making change happen, or somehow surviving the change that has been thrust upon you. For Brandon, change came early and at a time he least expected.

“I grew up in Coral Springs, Florida and played football in high school,” says Brandon. “I was a linebacker and I was pretty good. I got sent to Division-1 football camp when I was a freshman. I was doing well, but I didn’t end up playing my senior year, it just wasn’t a priority for me.”

No longer a priority, because at the tender age of 15, suddenly life no longer felt like a game.

“My mom picked me up from football practice every day,” says Brandon. “And then one day, she didn’t show up. Instead, I got a ride home from a friend. I got to my house and the phone rang – it was my grandma, she asked, ‘Is your dad home?’ “I told her he wasn’t and she just hung up. My dad showed up about thirty minutes later and I knew from the look in his eyes something had happened to my mom… and then he started crying.”

Brandon’s mom worked as a detective for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. Brandon says his mom had fought back and beaten lymphatic cancer but one day as she was leaving work she fainted, a stint puncturing the aorta in her heart – and she was gone.

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Brandon was only 15, his brother only 10 when their mom passed and the loss took the heart out of Brandon’s desire to continue playing football much longer. “My grades went down too,” says Brandon. “My mom was the rock that kept me in check. My dad was very into sports as well and for him, it was sad too to see me stop playing. My younger brother continued to play, but I just didn’t care. In fact, with all of high school, I just didn’t care anymore. I graduated, but just barely.”

Brandon says he went to college for a short time, but that didn’t speak to him either, though it was in college that Brandon’s high school friend, Jaime Goldstein, introduced him to a kid named Garrett Laughlin.

After college, Garrett had joined the company where his own father was working, USHEALTH Advisors and he had started asking his friends to join him, including Brandon.

“Garrett had been asking me for years to come over and work for the company,” says Brandon. “But I was still afraid of working commission, without a salary. Then I got the job at the marketing company and worked there, unhappily for the most part, until I could see there was no room for growth. I quit my job on my birthday, called Garett and said I’m ready, let’s go. I contracted with the company and started the study course to get my health and life license.”

Brandon joined USHA in July 2016 and got lucky, he was trained right away by the man who is currently the number one personal producer in the history of USHEALTH Advisors, David Zalka.

“Because Garrett didn’t even have the office yet, Zalka came to my house to train me,” says Brandon. “He trained me for the month of August and Garrett got the office open in September. It was crazy how we all sat in the pit there and created a really cool culture. What we had during those early days was so awesome, because it was just us working hard and building. I want to create a culture like that again with my team in Boca. That’s what we’re trying to do now, is to mirror the early days of USHA when we only had about 20 people in our space and started to build this thing.

“I still remember being in the new office and after a few weeks I got my first big check, it was about $5,000 for the week. I had to sit down and stare at it and thought, ‘Oh my God, my life is about to change.’ It was a surreal feeling, especially realizing I had so much room to grow from there.”

Brandon says much of his inspiration, especially focusing on the culture, comes from the top, the CEO of USHEALTH Advisors, Troy McQuagge.

“Troy said something at a meeting that stayed with me,” says Brandon. “He talked about creating a destination for your people. In this business, we see our co-workers more than our families. So it goes beyond the finances, it goes beyond how much money we can make. It feels like home. I’m a huge culture guy, especially from my football days, one team all fired up and ready to fight. But the great culture here begins at the top. You have to believe it from the CEO all the way down and everyone has to buy-in. My wife Gemma heard Troy speak a few times and she immediately said he is genuinely just an amazing human being. He cares about absolutely everybody who walks in the door, whether you’ve been here four days or four-thousand days, you just want to be a part of that. I know I do.”

To taste success you’ve got to have the right recipe, Brandon knows the number one ingredient is hard work. Then it’s getting the right people in the door, dialing out on the floor and recruiting some more.

Rinse and repeat.

“My typical day is I try to get up by 5 am and get to the gym,” says Brandon. “I’m successful about half the time,” he laughs. “But I’m in the office at 7:30 am, music turned on. We hold a lotto every week to win tickets and money – and by 8 am we’re on the floor and we’re dialing, we’re working. About 1 pm to 2 pm everyone takes a lunch break or goes to the gym. Then we do a training session in the afternoon or help Satellite Leader, David Zalka, with recruiting. At 4 pm we’re back on the phones. I try to stay until about 8 pm, so it’s 8-to-8 each day. The last thing I want to do is leave in the late afternoon with my agents still in the office working. You’ve got to be that role model and be there for your guys and gals. My wife, Gemma, helps me out with thank you notes and other activities like recruiting.”

Brandon refers to Gemma as one of his greatest gifts. “I married a woman I absolutely love, she’s so beautiful,” he says. “It’s just a huge success. I don’t know why she loves me so much,” he laughs. “We met briefly years ago when I was bartending but didn’t start dating until about five years after that when we came back into each other’s lives. That girl is my rock. She keeps me in check more than you can ever imagine. The long days at the office are for a reason and she knows that. And our lives will change again soon, now that we have a kid on the way!”

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While bringing a new life into the world will be a big deal, Brandon and Gemma recently embarked on a mission to save lives. Gemma is from Freeport, Bahamas and last year after the Bahamas got hit hard by Hurricane Irma, the couple took two weeks, gathered supplies, food and donations and drove a boat over to the devastated island to help out the locals. Brandon describes it as one of the “proudest moments of my life.”

Life is about giving and serving and Brandon says he wants to make sure he can give as many people as possible the opportunity to live their dreams with the USHA opportunity.

“I want my friends and friends of friends to come in and make the change that will change their lives for the better,” he says. “I work with one of my friends, Geoffrey Weiser. He issues business every week and has a baby on the way as well. I have a childhood friend, a guy I knew since I was 10-years-old working five feet from me every day, working and growing with me. I mean the opportunity to earn a couple of hundred grand a year hear is a big deal, but the culture is a thousand times better.”

Building a great culture is like creating a family. Brandon can now look at his own family and realize while the loss of his mom was tough to take, the timing of it all left behind a small blessing. The family had been preparing to move to a new town, instead, they ended up staying right where they were – and in hindsight –  it changed Brandon’s life.

“Before my mom’s sudden passing we were planning to move to Wellington, about an hour north of Coral Springs,” Brandon remembers. “We had bought a big house. My dad manages hospitals in Miami and he was going to switch to a hospital in Wellington. The house was still under construction when my mom died. My dad decided to kind of bite the bullet and not make the move. I wouldn’t have met the friends I have today, or have the career I have today had we moved away. It’s the butterfly effect, it’s crazy how the world turns, I wouldn’t have the life I have now if I hadn’t met these guys.”

Through the pain of loss, a new beginning. Something Brandon’s mom left behind, an open door that Brandon could walk through and see his life change, though in that time of darkness it was hard to see the light. Now Brandon’s mission is to use that light to change the lives of other people with a method,, that transmits, amplifies and celebrates the purpose of an entire group. In other words, a great culture.

“I want to create the destination that Troy has always talked about,” says Brandon. “I want the Boca office to become the home to 50, 60, 70 agents. I want them to remember like I always do, with gratitude for what we built. It’s attitude, positivity and so much more. There are a hundred things I can rattle off… the atmosphere, the hope, the legacy. I want to be remembered for my attitude toward everyone I meet, to treat an agent on his first day, the same way I was treated… to build a culture that never dies.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

Make USHEALTH Advisors your next career! Click and apply, (https://www.ushacareers.com/apply/)

Become part of The Billion. You can learn more about Mark Brodinsky and his #onebillion mission at, (http://markbrodinsky.life/)

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It’s never a straight line. The path to success is up and down, it zigs, it zags and it runs off course… a lot. You win, you lose, you fall, you get back up and you grind it out every single day. There is no end, for you’ve never “made it” until your time on earth is over.

It all translates into your business as well. To build a business to be proud of the work never ends. It’s a living, breathing being, just as you are – a reflection of what you want to give to the world. The moments, the minutes, the hours, the weeks, the months, the years you spend building, and giving what you’ve built to help others is what defines your story.

Everyone has a story.

I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.

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Storytelling for Business: Success & Purpose

 

“Your gift is the source of your value. Your value determines how much you make in life. You get paid for the value you bring to the earth.”
– Dr. Myles Munroe

It’s an enlightening moment when you realize that your future does not lie in front of you, it is already inside you. Little by little Kaley Kallman is manifesting the future she already possesses – because even as a teenager, she knew she was built for more.

“I’ve worked hard since I was 15-years-old,” says Kaley. “I started as a hostess at a restaurant. I was really into earning money, not to just earn money, but for the reason of working toward being independent. Then I became a server and when I got older, eventually a bartender. But even though I was doing that and going to college for a general studies degree, I didn’t feel fulfilled, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted. Then this guy came into the bar and he told me about an opportunity. He invited me to learn more. The rest is history.”

History is being read, but it’s also being written and Kaley is writing hers daily. She took advantage of that opportunity and now serves as a Satellite Division Sales Leader with USHEALTH Advisors. Still shy of her 27th birthday, Kaley has brought her work ethic and vision to USHA and in the span of fewer than five years has issued more than three-and-a-half million dollars in individual health sales and nearly 12-million-dollars as a team leader.

But while success leaves clues, it also never comes easy. Kaley started her career with the company in December of 2015, in an office near Orlando.

“I was in a tiny little office in Longwood, Florida,” Kaley remembers. “I was by far the youngest one in there with a few older guys, in fact, I think I was the only girl. I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to blow these guys out of the water… they don’t know what’s coming.’ “I was like a sponge, not just in that office but in our regional office as well. Every single Thursday, for the first two months I was at USHA, I would drive to Don Dente’s Regional office and spend the day. I learned so much from people like Cassidy Dente, she helped me so much early on, she was a role model and a huge influence on me.

I also spent time with Taylor Dente and Ron Leonard. Ron started around the same time I did and he hit the ground running – he was just able to do so much so fast and I learned a ton from him too.”

“I also reached out to some of the biggest producers across the country at USHA as well. I would just send them a message and say, ‘hey you don’t know me, I’m new and I really admire you. Do you mind if I pick your brain about how you’ve accomplished so much?’ “I was surprised by how many were receptive to helping me. They were because it’s just such a giving group of people all across the country. But it was still a tough going. There were weeks I didn’t know how I was going to pay my bills, but I told myself there was no way I was going back to the bar. So I battled it out the first few months and within six months’ time I got promoted to a leadership role as a Field Training Agent. I thought, ‘I just got the hang of this, now I have to teach it to others as well!'”

But challenges are what make us stronger as human beings, and in business, it’s only by accepting the next challenge that you can rise to the next level. The trick is to see how others have paved the road ahead of you. For Kaley, that has meant immersing herself in the lessons of leadership.

“I listen to podcasts every morning, motivational videos, read books on leadership, and then discuss them with other members of my team. I go to seminars and have bought the team tickets to attend as well.”

While molding herself into a leader presented a significant challenge, it still wasn’t as big as what she describes as the pivot point in her life… leaving Orlando.

“I grew up, lived my whole life in Orlando,” says Kaley. “But last year, right before the holidays, the regional leaders of the company met to discuss where they might expand offices in different areas of the country. To grow we have to expand and I knew with a number of offices in Florida, the only way for me to grow was to make a move. I didn’t love a lot of choices on the list they came up with, but one state stood out to me – North Carolina. I have no friends or family there, but it just spoke to me. I got on Google and started researching the most populated areas in the state and it mentioned the city of Charlotte. Charlotte is exploding right now, and the words associated with that city kept popping up, like start-up business, entrepreneur, and more. It seemed like these could be great people to attract to the team. I individually texted two people on my team about making a move from Orlando to Charlotte and they both got back to me with the same exact response, ‘if you want me, I’ll be there tomorrow.'”

Yet while all this was being discussed, Kaley was involved in a personal challenge, a goal she set for herself just a few months before and one which was taking up much of her focus at the moment – the goal of producing one-million-dollars in personal production for the year. The goal would make it a three-repeat for her and would qualify her again for the prestigious Council of Excellence Award. The challenge was that as of October 2019, less than three months to go before the end of the year, she was way behind.

“Back in October of last year I was super behind in my sales numbers,” says Kaley.” I was at about $500,000 in issued sales, but the leader’s meeting got me pumped up to finish strong. On the bus ride to one of our group outings, I sat next to Travis Yoder, our Executive VP of Sales, and we talked about still hitting the one-million-dollar mark for the year. He said if you make it I will personally fly down and congratulate you. I got to work and I did as much production in seven weeks as I’d done all year and I hit the goal! Travis honored his end of the deal and flew down to visit our office. It was really cool and he also gave me permission to become a Satellite Division Leader – and make the move to Charlotte.”

By February Kaley and her team had packed their bags and moved from Florida to North Carolina, with people like Matt and Kayla Galecki, Marina David, Javer Perez, and Collin Lewis-Solomon. The core crew was all ready to kick it off big in a brand new city. But someone unexpected and unwelcome also made the trip.

Her name was Corona.

“Here we are in this new city, ready to get it going in a big way,” says Kaley, “and we even had a beautiful office in mind, then the virus hit. It was a huge setback, everything was delayed, everything came to a stop. We just moved to this city, and now this – but we could look at it either as something we can’t overcome, or find the good things in what was happening, and that’s what we did. We said, ok this gives us time to reset, what do we want this culture to be, what kind of plan do we come up with, how do we get a new agent through the funnel and get them on the path to success even quicker than we did?  The philosophy worked – because it gave us the time to bond – to build our foundation of integrity and honesty. We made an agreement with each other that if there was an issue with any of us or any of our agents, that we deal with it directly, no going behind someone’s back, we’d confront the challenges head-on.”

The spread of the COVID-19 crisis is a defining moment in all of our lives, but it also served as a defining moment in the birth of the Kallman Satellite as well, because it brought about a fundamental focus for the team, as the leaders looked to form a singular purpose.

“The most impactful meeting we had was the one where we tried to decide what would be the one thing we could focus on that would make the biggest improvement moving forward. We knew we needed really good training, we wanted to build a great culture, we had to define our why. But we went back and forth and finally narrowed it down – that one thing was new agent conversion. Because all the things we were listing out really led to one thing – if we can get the new agent to see the vision and transition into our company and its culture, then we would be truly successful. We had our one thing and we felt really great about it.”

The time and space that the virus opened up in terms of strategy and planning also led to another gift… a brand new location, better than the one which Kaley had initially planned on using for her new Satellite.

“Because of Coronavirus a different office space opened up,” says Kaley. “And this blew the old space out of the water! It’s huge, four-thousand square feet, a lot of light and it worked perfectly. It’s funny how when adversity strikes, the way you think about it is what matters. If you focus on the positives it works out, if you focus on the negatives, then that’s also how it goes.”

There’s no doubt it was mindest that made it happen for Kaley when she went after the challenge of writing $500,000 in business to hit her $1 million goal – and making it happen with a little more than two months to go at the end of 2019. She faced a ton of challenges and adversity. And you don’t hit those numbers without a little help from your friends, or even a close relative. Out of that challenge came a new purpose for someone very close to Kaley, her mom.

“After I made that deal with Travis back in October, I said I’m gonna need some help and my mom was one of the first people I asked. I said, ‘mom you have nothing going on right now why don’t you help me set appointments?’ “I started teaching her how to work the dialer and to set up meetings and I realized she was really good at it. I could not have hit that goal without her. She booked me so tight most days with back-to-back appointments, I barely had time to pee in between!” laughs Kaley.

“Once open enrollment was over my mom wondered how much she could earn if she ended up getting her license and working for USHA herself! After I moved to North Carolina, my mom got her license and started writing business on her own. She blew through the milestone of issuing $100,000 in annual volume in her first thirteen weeks, in fact, she did it with three weeks to spare. The week after she hit the $100,000 goal she put up $83,000 in a single week! Recently, because of the Coronavirus, she’s been working from home, but she’s still doing great.”

Whether the new agent is her own mother, or someone else – Kaley says the team has a good system in place to get new people in the flow and on the road to success at USHEALTH Advisors.

“Once they are licensed we have the new agent come in for orientation and attend our Friday meeting in person. We sit down and lay out their goals for the next three years, where they are now and then talk about the action steps to achieve those. We don’t want to be babysitters, but instead to hold them accountable. If your goal is to earn $100,000 in your first year, this opportunity makes it possible, but in no way will it be easy… here is what it’s going to take.  We want them to ask questions, and to be our shadow. Once they can pitch to us, then they can pitch to the general public. Then it’s time to reach out to everyone they know who might need help.”

Kaley says after the training is over that’s really when the role of a leader begins because she knows there will be highs and lows.

“The goal is to be there for them when it gets challenging,” she says. “Sales is a rollercoaster, one minute you’re on top of the world and the next minute it all falls apart and it can be an emotional whirlwind. You celebrate your successes and know that the next low might be right around the corner, so if it comes, you know to keep on going.”

It’s been a true journey the past four-and-a-half years and Kaley says she wouldn’t trade it for the world. No one who lives for the challenge that life presents ever wants to trade it in, or to ever back down.

“My greatest achievement is where we are right now because I can see where it’s leading. This is what I’ve wanted to for so long and here we are at the doorstep. It is having our own office and building our culture and allowing our vision of what we believe this opportunity is and can be, to come to light the way we see it. I’m so humbled and feel so fortunate to have these people here, my team. We have three more coming from Orlando to join us and we’ve built such a tight-knit group. I’m really humbled that people would pick up their bags and move to a new state. To have the team trust me this much and sacrifice this much to fulfill the vision is amazing.”

“The thing I want the most is to help people to change their lives. They were at a certain point when they met me and they were able to turn their lives around and it is my and my team’s responsibility to help these people to achieve their own dreams. I want people to redefine their purpose and I want to help them every step of the way and then have them pay it forward to the next person who comes along. Many people who come here are missing something big in their lives, they are missing a purpose and this opportunity gives them a purpose. Success without purpose is not much of a life at all. But success with purpose changes people’s lives.”

Success, purpose, and a new life. Kaley Kallman is a living embodiment of the heart of USHEALTH Advisors.

HOPE lives.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

Make USHEALTH Advisors your next career! Click and apply, (https://www.ushacareers.com/apply/)

Become part of The Billion. You can learn more about Mark Brodinsky and his #onebillion mission at, (http://markbrodinsky.life/)

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