The saying goes fake it til you make it, but at some point, you’ve got to get real – and get real serious about getting better – about becoming more than you are today.

The audacious life, the life of the entrepreneur is not for everyone. If it was, everyone would do it. To step out on your own takes courage, faith, and what you will come to learn, a great deal of humility.

Trying and failing. Getting up and falling down. Celebrating the highs and absorbing the lows. No two days are alike. No two people are alike. The differences are what make it great, and that’s what makes 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: Be a Leader

“Having sisters means you always have backup.” – Author unknown

If a woman is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and who’s going to argue against that point, then Mario Garay is one of the luckiest guys you might ever meet. It’s no wonder he found success, Mario’s had some badass backup.

“I am the only boy in my family with eight siblings, all girls,” says Mario. “In fact, growing up my dad was always at work, and my mom worked from home, so that meant there were nine females in the house, my mom and eight sisters!”

Mario says because of his childhood surrounded by women, he’s learned a lot, always felt loved, and was inspired to believe he was meant for more.

“It was good being the only brother,” says Mario. “My sisters always had my back, even my two younger ones. They all helped me out a lot, I always felt a lot of support from them. I’m the third youngest in the family and even my two younger sisters were there for me. I also definitely learned to have a lot of patience. My best advice is to anyone when it comes to girls is to listen, just listen,” he laughs.

Listening well and a ton of patience have served Mario well – for he currently finds himself as a Field Sales Leader with USHEALTH Advisors in the Phoenix, Arizona office. In a little more than three years with USHA, Mario has sold more than $2.5 million in individual policies and led his teams to nearly $14 million in production. Those are numbers to be proud of and Mario says he is grateful since he knows he nearly became just a number… a statistic from the streets of Los Angeles.

“One of my greatest challenges in life is I grew up in south-central L.A., a pretty tough part of town,” says Mario. “The majority of my cousins, unfortunately, became part of gangs and ended up in prison. A bunch of my old friends also got into a lot of trouble. By the time I was 14 I was headed for trouble too, but that’s when my parents said, ‘we’re out of here.’ “So we moved to Yuma, Arizona. But even then I still joined some gangs in Arizona, but as it turned out I’m not the right person to be a gang member because I love to talk to everybody, even rival gang members. I couldn’t have enemies because I was trying to talk to everyone!”

Mario says between that personality trait, trouble at a few high schools, and pressure from his parents, he finally found a new crowd. He started hanging out with them and things changed. Then again, so did Mario’s life, since he and his girlfriend became parents… at the age of 18.

“When I became a teenage dad I really had to cut out all of the BS,” says Mario. “As soon as I graduated, I had to look for a job. Lucky for me my girlfriend’s dad was a general contractor and he hired me to work with him in construction, and we did it from the ground up, building houses for several years.”

Mario says trying to make money in the small town of Yuma, was tough. So he and his girlfriend took their son and moved back to the west coast, back to California for a short time, before her father came calling, asking Mario to move back to Arizona to help him. “But I didn’t see the money I was expecting when I came back,” says Mario, “and so I started looking for an electrical company to work for, which I did for two or three months and was then offered the opportunity to start my own business as an electrical contractor.”

It was a serious wake-up call. While Mario certainly got a charge out of running his own show as an electrical contractor, owning his own company and being in business for himself, was a road he had never taken and one riddled with obstacles. That’s the life of an entrepreneur. But Mario wasn’t so sure he could navigate that road and experience the success he wanted.

“I went from being an employee, never having been a manager or a supervisor, or anything like that, and the next day I ended up owning my own business! Being 21 or 22 and running your own deal, I thought, ‘what do I do now?'”

What Mario decided was to go back to school, enrolling in college at the University of Phoenix, to earn a degree in business management.

“I have no idea how I did it,” laughs Mario. “It was tough, it was tough running a business and going to school. Being a business owner there’s no clock in or clock out. I did a lot of courses online but then would have to leave my jobs early and get into my classes, get my homework done and then get up at 3-or-4 am to get to the job sites. It was really rough.”

But the hard work was paying off and Mario was cashing in, albeit without a lot of foresight about what he would do should the inevitable strike. It’s never a matter of if, but when a “tail event” might happen, an event nearly impossible to predict, but changes the course of many lives.

“I was not prepared for the worst,” says Mario. “Here I am a 23-year old kid, getting 300-or 400-thousand dollar checks, and for me, it was party time, instead of putting money back into my business. Then the 2008 recession hits. About 15 general contractors were subbing me out, but as soon as the recession began all the clients went away and I had to shut down my business, no one was hiring.”

Mario turned to his center of influence, a person he went to high school with who just happened to become the mayor of Yuma. Mario’s high school friend said he has just opened up an office and told Mario to feel free to drop his name for an interview. Mario got the job, not realizing what it really entailed until they brought him in to start working. “They open the doors and I’m like, this is my worst nightmare ever,” says Mario, “apparently I had applied to work at a call center, I never wanted to work there. I knew nothing about it. But then they told me they were hiring me on as a recruiter and I thought, ok I’ll somehow find a way to make this work.”

With some training, a stroke of luck, and the kindness of one of his clients, Mario ended up in a special group at the call center. “I ended up in a group where all of the leaders were females, every single one of them.” From his experience as a boy growing up with all girls, Mario knew he could put the life lessons he learned to the test and had found a place to call home. “I told all the ladies, I’m going to fit in very well here!”

It was a better fit than Mario could have imagined because it was at one of those early call centers where he met Maude. The two have been together since 2010.

Mario’s success actually earned him a promotion, and a new experience in life he never could have predicted.

“I ended up moving out to Phoenix and was given the opportunity to manage a different type of call center – working with inmates and ex-convicts,” says Mario. I ran that team, and then the company saw the success we were having, so they decided to move me over to customer acquisition in Yuma, hiring and firing more inmates and convicts. It worked out for me because I grew up around people like this, and though they were tough, they had a lot of respect for me because of the way I would talk to them. They like to test you, but as soon as you show them the respect it’s a whole different world.”

After five years in the trenches with the inmates, Mario says he started looking to see what other kinds of sales opportunities were out there and he stumbled on USHEALTH Advisors on the Glassdoor website.

“I went in for the presentation and heard a pitch from Division Leader Murph Lauer, he was open and honest, saying this is not something you are going to break big in two-or-three months time, but you can make it happen the first year and earn over six figures, I said ok, I will try it.”

It took Mario a few months to pass his test and get licensed but he got it all done and was ready to go by May 1st, 2018. There was just one problem. “I saw there was a lot of training,” says Mario. “And even though I had worked in call centers for 10 years, I had never picked up the phone and made a call myself!” 

“Now it was a whole new world, and I thought how am I gonna do this? I pulled out all my old training stuff and said, ‘bro you are doing this, doing it for yourself to get through the training. Even better I took all that I learned from working with the inmates – you couldn’t say no to them because they always had a rebuttal – so it taught me how to get through the calls where I heard, ‘I’m not interested‘ or ‘don’t call me anymore‘. It helped a ton, I knew how to handle it. Then I started using social media, just like I had done to promote a small online business and the USHA opportunity started taking off as well. I hit my $100,000 income goal in my first year.”

Now, as a Field Sales Leader, it’s Mario’s responsibility to not only personally produce, but to build up his team as well, help manifest their success through helping and serving.

“A typical day for me, I show up at 7 am,” says Mario. “I get in there, set up my computer, then go fist pump all of the agents, thank them for showing up. I have agents and Field Training Agents who show up at 6 am. My early morning leaders leave before I do and I stay late – I love the late shift. A lot of my business is here in Arizona, so I keep dialing into the night. We do training throughout the day. I like to do huddles. We get all the team members involved and do it right in the middle of the office, so even those on the phones can see what we are doing and listen to our biggest producers talk about how they handle rebuttals and best practices. We hold raffle contests every week and it’s set up in a way that anyone, not only a top producer, has a chance to win.”

Mario realizes that as much as what he is doing is about business, it’s really about people. USHEALTH Advisors is on a mission of  HOPE and is powered by purpose for a reason, to make a positive difference in the lives of other people.

“Back when I worked at the call centers they never let me sit at my desk. So even here at USHA, I might make a few calls but then I get up, walk around, and see what everyone is doing. I follow up and inspire them throughout the day. If someone is struggling that day, maybe making a ton of calls, but hasn’t talked to anyone, they need to hear the motivation that the next call could be the one where they get an appointment or close a deal. It’s so important to have a people conversation with them, not just to talk about metrics or the business, but talk to them and listen to what kind of day they are having.”

That’s running your business like a 21st-century leader: human to human.

We all come from somewhere and we are all heading to a destination, the question becomes how do you get there and who do you become in the process? For Mario, he says it’s about servant leadership to help others become who they were meant to be, and for that to happen, people need to see it in action.

“There is the person that in his mind says, ‘Hey I’ve been promoted, and I have this many people under me and I’m a leader now cause I have the title.’ “Then there is the other guy who works hard, leads from the front, coaching others, motivating them, and driving their behavior. That’s who I want to be.”

“If there’s one thing I want to share it’s to never take the word leadership for granted. You can walk around and act like a leader or you can walk around and be a leader.”

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 read and learn more about Mark Brodinsky at (http://markbrodinsky.life/)

USHA-SM-14-0921

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it takes a lot to realize that all we need is a little. A little focus, a little drive, a little determination.

It’s the little things that mean so much.

Nothing you create in life is the product of one big thing, it’s the little things, done consistently over time that lead to the biggest accomplishments. Building a business is no different. Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither is that universe-denting business you desire. If you want to make an impact then begin where you are, with what you’ve got, right here, right now… and never look back.

Create something big from something little and share that story to inspire others to do the same.

Everyone has a story.

I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.

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Storytelling for Business: Choice, Chance & Change

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, or become more then you’re a real leader. – Dwayne Carr

Choice

Whether we think so or not, and that is a big decision for what we think we become – we get to make choices in life. From early in life, Dwayne Carr had to make a choice, to cower or to find courage.

“My dad left the family when I was seven or eight years old,” says Dwayne. “My mom was so dependent on him and then she had a major accident, she went under a tractor-trailer and was hospitalized for a year-and-a-half. It wasn’t easy. We were very poor and others would look down on us. My mother said you can take one of two roads, you can feel sorry for yourself and do nothing, or you can pull up your boots and work at it and overcome all of it. You can use that as fuel.”

Since that time, Dwayne has used that fuel to create a fire inside of him, one that now finds him serving as a Field Training Agent for USHEALTH Advisors, embracing the choice to make a change and changing lives in the process. Dwayne found the courage to make that change just as Covid-19 was spreading rapidly around the world.

“I came to USHA in late February 2020,” says Dwayne. “I got in here at the office in Lexington, Kentucky, I rolled up my sleeves and I got to work. During the pandemic, a number of people quit. For a time I was the only person in the office. But difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations, if you work as hard as you can. I hit the $100,000 AV milestone in the first week of March, just about 17 days to get to $100,000 in annual volume”

To put that in perspective, the company gives you a 13-week runway to reach that $100,000 AV milestone, Dwayne did it in a little more than two weeks, right as the pandemic was quickly creating panic in every corner of the globe. But Dwayne remained steadfast and in the span of 18 months produced more than $1,250,000 in annual volume, one policy at a time.

Dwayne made the choice to persevere. It’s in his blood and part of his makeup to be more than average. And he leveraged the relationships he had created and nurtured through the years to try and help everyone he knew.

He still does.

“At least 95% of my business comes from referrals,” says Dwayne. “I belong to a referral group, a BNI group, the chamber of commerce, the emerging business leaders of Lexington, where I serve on the executive committee, and I teach a small group at church. I have a huge church, 20-to-30,000 people and I’m there every Sunday, everybody at church knows me. People also know me from the gyms I owned and from being on local TV.

I’ve maxed out my 5,000 friends on Facebook, plus I’ve got a business Facebook page. I’m on Nextdoor in all of the zipcodes for Lexington, on Alignable and I maximize those things as much as I can.”

Chance

Dwayne doesn’t know if it’s in his DNA to work as hard as he does, or because he made the decision to take some chances in his life that have taken him places he never thought he might go. And he, as we all do if we are to be successful, had a little help and encouragement along the way.

Dwayne says because of the circumstances of his childhood, with his dad gone and his mom struggling to make ends meet, his sports coaches became a big part of his life.

“My athletic career really helped build the person that I am,” Dwayne says. “I had good coaches in high school and people that shaped me. I realized my baseball coach was one of those people. I was an all-state catcher in high school, but I didn’t hit a lot of home runs and wanted to become a home run hitter. I wanted to be the best at whatever I did. The coach told me the secret is small efforts repeated every day until it becomes a success. So I hung an old tire over a tree limb and hit that tire with my bat constantly, every day, even during the winter and in the cold, every single day. Like I said I was never a home run hitter, but that next season I hit 28 home runs! That was the result of my consistent, daily hard work. I didn’t want to be or remain mediocre and I knew God didn’t make me that way, He blessed me with a lot of talents. I just needed to fall in love with the process and the results appeared. If you fall in love with the process those results will come.”

Dwayne says his coach was a big believer in little sayings –  especially the words that spoke to Dwayne – passion, and hustle. “I still use those words to this day,” says Dwayne. “I was passionate about bodybuilding, (Dwayne is a former Mr. Kentucky), about getting my college degree, and then becoming a gym owner. I owned five gyms at one point and was the franchisee of the year for Power House Gyms, nine out of eleven years. I was the first person to start 24-hour gyms in my area. I just knew there was a market for it.”

Dwayne says to be in the top 1%, to be the best, you have to do what the other 99% don’t do. “You’ve got to work harder and dare to be great every day,” he says. “Set a goal, make a plan, work that plan and get after it. A goal without a plan is just a wish. You have to be willing to make it happen. Like Packers coach Vince Lombardi said, “a man at the top of the mountain didn’t just fall there.”

For more than a decade, Dwayne did a 5 am fitness tip of the day on local TV, sharing his knowledge and what he had learned to impact other lives. “I learned that something I would say could change lives. I also did that to make sure I was up-and-atom at 5 am every day,” says Dwayne.

However, success does not come without adversity, for if there is no struggle, there is nothing for which to compare the results of your battle, the scars are what make you who you are, the fight is powering through the obstacles to reach the other side.

“I have dealt with a lot of adversity,” says Dwayne. “I ended up selling my gyms to a group of guys and did owner-financing. They didn’t run them the right way and I ended up losing nearly $4 million dollars. I had to start over and reinvent myself. That was 2008, and I ended up opening a small gym which I sold in October of 2019 because I wanted to do something else. I was not putting money away, I was tied to the gym looking for another thing in which I could dare to be great.”

“Nobody thought I could switch careers and succeed. They all said, ‘this is all you’ve ever done. You’re great at this. You can’t change careers.’ “People saw me as the stupid gym guy, I didn’t want to be seen as the stupid gym guy. I knew it would be hard. I knew it would be difficult, but I’m used to it being difficult. It’s supposed to be hard, if it wasn’t, everybody would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”

Change

Risk and reward. There’s a question to ask ourselves, would you rather live one hundred years safe in the corner, or thirty years full of adventure? Dwayne was looking for the latter, to go from being the gym guy to doing the heavy lifting in a new opportunity.

“I prayed about it,” says Dwayne. “And one day I saw a Facebook post. I ended up at a small gathering at a taphouse and there I met Eric Horstmeyer, (Satellite Division Leader for USHEALTH Advisors). I really liked him, we had a lot in common. He’s very successful, very intelligent and he’s dealt with a lot of adversity as well and he’s withstood all of it. I immediately bonded with him. I decided to join USHA and it took me a while to get licensed. Eric didn’t think I was ever going to do this. When I started the process, everyone thought I wasn’t going to make it. But I set my goal every morning that made me want to jump out of bed. I asked Eric, ‘what do I have to do to be really good at this?’ “He explained to me what I needed to do, and I said, ‘ok I’m going to exceed that!'”

“I took a chance and Eric took a chance on me. I realized it was simple, but a challenging game – just be willing to give more than everyone else. To be in the top one percent, you’ve got to do what the other ninety-nine percent are not willing to do. Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. I don’t think excuses and results can ever go hand-in-hand. Like my coach would say, if you’re going to make excuses, you’re not going to make this team.”

Dwayne says it’s not about talent, it’s about hard work, it’s about living the “MAD” philosophy every day: mindset, attitude, and discipline.

“You have to be more passionate and work harder than everyone else,” says Dwayne. “I don’t have the most talent, I’m not the smartest guy. I didn’t know the product as well as I thought I did when I got started. But Eric always challenged me to be more, to do more, to be exceptional. Be the first one there, be the last to leave, and go all out so you don’t live with regrets. Don’t let success go to your head or failure go to your heart. There’s a quote I love from Martin Luther King Jr, too:

“I think that’s what we are supposed to do here,” says Dwayne. “I can still change the world, but it’s one person at a time. I may never be famous, but I want to know and be passionate about anything I do. Never do it halfway, go all out. It’s how I approach this business, as an expert and as a friend. Help people and get them to trust me. People will always do business with you if they trust you.”

“You have to let everyone know what you do as well. My son Chase, who will turn 23 next month and is just an amazing young man, and I were just talking about this yesterday. We recently went to the University of Kentucky football practice. I was a preferred walk-on in college and he’s a double major at UK, entering his senior year, and a big fan. So we went to the practice for an autograph day. We met so many people and we’re just talking to them, being involved with the crowd. I ended up texting with several of the people I met and sent them my digital business card. My son told me, ‘I really love hanging around you dad, because we spread joy and kindness wherever we go.’ “You just have to talk to people, spread some joy and kindness, ask questions about them and you’ll find out they are really good people. We try and be as nice as we can to everybody. I just notice little things about other people.”

It’s about a living legacy and living a life of passion, focus, and discipline. Even before he joined USHA, Dwayne had taught discipline to others and brings with him that same dedication. After helping others who wanted to become more, reach those physical goals.

“I helped to train 28 first-round draft choices in basketball and football, for each one I devised programs working on verticality, speed, and movement. They trusted me and to this day still text me. Some of the guys I trained signed max contracts with the NBA. I feel like Eric Horstmeyer does that for me now. He makes anyone that listens to him better. He’s a technician, he teaches you and then trusts you to go out and do it.”

Doing it at the highest level he can is what Dwayne says he’s all about, and it’s about focusing on the most important person in your life.

“It only takes one person to change your life,” says Dwayne. “So look in the mirror. It’s you. I feel like if I can be the best and someone gets to know me, that’s all it takes. This is how I approach sales. I try and befriend the person, get to know them, and get them to know me. I feel like if someone truly knows you, they will listen to you. If they trust you, then they will do business with you. Here, at USHA, if you are willing to be dedicated and disciplined, there is no way you can fail. Be teachable, coachable, be willing to work hard and work smart and you will be successful.”

“I took a chance and the company and my leaders took a chance on me.  It’s choice, chance, and change.”

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 read and learn more about Mark Brodinsky at (http://markbrodinsky.life/)

USHA-SM-17-0821

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are two things you can do in life, one is to always be moving forward, the other is to stay rooted in the past.

One path leads to progress, the other to poverty.

It’s the same with your business, you must find a way to evolve, to adapt, to change to move forward, in order to create a better future. If you rest on your past achievements the future will remain out of reach.

But reach for the stars, build yourself and build a business that can change the world. That’s a story to tell, and others will listen and learn.

Everyone has a story.

I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.

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Storytelling for Business: The Dance of Life

“I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.”

-Lyrics from I Hope You Dance, Lee Ann Womack

We all have dreams, but how many of us start living our dreams from the time we are small? If you’re Jennifer Vossmer, your dream became a reality even before you knew what was happening. Not long after Jennifer learned to walk, she began to dance.

“I grew up dancing since the age of three,” says Jenn. “I worked in a little studio, doing tap and ballet, a combo class that lasted about 45 minutes. By junior high school, I knew I wanted to become a professional dancer and I put all my effort into making that happen. In high school, my senior year, my principal pulled me into his office and said, ‘Jenn, I noticed you have not applied to any colleges.’  “I said, ‘right, I’m going to be a professional performer – that’s what I am going to do!'”

Focused on her passion, Jenn was chosen (6 years in a row) as one of the select few across the nation to perform in a show called, “I Love Dance – Sweethearts” at nationals in Las Vegas her senior year. “One of the choreographers told me to do this one audition and the next thing you know I got hired as a dancer on a brand new cruise ship. I was off to Florida and then to Finland even before my friends left for college! I was 18 at the time, so for the past 20 years it’s been all about dance.”

“It has been amazing. I’ve traveled all over the world, but I’ve always been the same person, open to everything and surrounding myself with good people and a good environment. I lived in Greece for nine months, the Bahamas for eight months, a cruise ship for six months, New Orleans for four months, Myrtle Beach for six months. I traveled to every state in the country danced in countries like Istanbul, Japan, and many more. If someone came to me with a dance opportunity I would jump on it. People would just call, the dance world is small. It’s a fantastic industry because if you are easy to work with and are great at what you do, you get calls. And I not only danced, but I also choreographed as well. Growing up I would say I practiced nearly 30 hours a week. I taught, ran classes, and trained in the evenings, Monday through Thursday. I did private lessons on Fridays and then had rehearsals every weekend.”

Living her purpose, through the art of dance and movement, being in the spotlight on stage, and traveling the world, life was good. During that time Jenn became a mother to two boys, Maddox and Calvin. Her dance of life, for the most part, was serving Jenn well, allowing her to live the dream she had in her heart since she was little, that is until 2020 and an intruder pulled her feet right out from under her.

The intruder, COVID-19, crushed the entertainment industry and Jenn knew that without work, her journey was about to change. She’d have to find a way to perform on a different stage in life.

Now, as a single mom, (Jenn’s relationship with her son’s dad ended five years prior), she found herself home, unemployed, and homeschooling her boys, now ages nine and six. This dance of life, as Jenn knew it, had turned upside down.

“I looked at the people collecting unemployment,” says Jenn. ” and then I looked at my boys and I knew I wanted something bigger and better for them. I started looking online at jobs where people were earning over $100,000 a year and Taraina Phillips ad came up on Facebook. I sat in on a pitch and felt like Taraina was speaking right to me. I can be in a room with a million people and I think the person on stage is talking directly to me – and as I listened I realized I can use this in my life. I did a follow-up interview with Jonathan Moore and he said, ‘you are so spunky.’ “I told him I want to make this happen and I am going to do this!”

The “this” was the beginning of Jenn’s career with USHEALTH Advisors. Since coming to USHA a little more than a year ago, Jenn has proven she can get in step with her fellow agents quickly, becoming one of the top agents in her Las Vegas USHA office, producing nearly $1.5 million and now as Field Training Agent, leading her team to issue more than $3 million in sales.

Jennifer says what she learned as a dancer is completely applicable to her work now with USHEALTH Advisors, it’s practice, hard work, and a never-say-die attitude.

“As a dancer, you are trained from the beginning to listen and to put forth your best effort every time,” says Jenn. “If you fall, you get back up and you keep going, and even if you can’t, the show must go on. We were once doing a performance and a girl hurt her ankle and couldn’t get up, my director came up and carried her off the stage and we just kept dancing. You’ve got to be coachable and work hard. When I wanted to dance I didn’t want to be an ordinary dancer. I did it because it was my passion. I know what it took to be what I wanted to be.”

“Now that I’m here at USHA, I’ve seen agents who come here and say, ‘well I’ll try it.’ “Not me, I say I am going to do that! And I can do anything I put my mind to and adjust to the training, be coachable, and then put in the hours it takes to be successful. I’ve been doing that my whole life.”

Then there’s her why in life that drives her to excel as well. After all, as Mark Twain said, the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

“My why are my boys, they mean everything to me,” says Jenn. “They might be little, but they are my best friends. I sat them down when I started at USHEALTH Advisors and told them some things are going to be changing. I told them I’m going to be working longer hours and I want you to listen to granny, my mom and dad live nearby, and do your part and listen and do your best. I told them I’m going to try my best every day and the only way this is going to work is if we work together. I’m working harder because I want you to be able to do the things I have done. When I traveled other people paid for it, but now it’s up to me, and as a single mom, it’s on my shoulders.”

  

“We are going to Disney next week and my boys are just ecstatic. And they are starting to pay attention and be engaged in what I do. I took Maddie to basketball practice and he said, ‘mama how many sales did you get this week?’ “If I’m having a bad week, they say, ‘just try harder mama you’ll get one.’ “They’re only six and nine, but I don’t treat them as just kids. I talk to them as friends as well and they do understand. You just have to communicate with them and let them know what is going on.”

Jenn says she has accepted the challenge of being a single mom and working at USHEALTH Advisors and has other women ask her about the challenge as well, even some who say it can’t be done, so she wants to share some insight.

“I’ve been a single mom for five years,” says Jenn. “A lot of women are scared to leave their situation and scared to be a single mom and don’t know if they can do it. It was scary, I was with the boy’s dad for six years, and it was scary to go off on my own, but at the end of the day, we have one life to live. You can’t live your life being miserable in one aspect of it and be a good mom. I don’t want to just be a good mom, I want to be a great one. I can’t put on a happy face in one part of my life, while in the other part I’m miserable.”

“I went to therapy and I did research and I worked on myself and didn’t blame it on different things. You make your life and you make it happen. I had the boys 24/7 and when they started going to their dad’s house sometimes on the weekends and I was alone, I would cry. My boys are my heart. But I did a lot of self-focus and turned it around. People say, Jenn, ‘why are you so happy all the time?’ “I say because I honestly am, BUT I worked on it very hard and had to change my life and be positive and truly believe I can do what I wanted to do. It’s all in how you look at things. When something happens you can focus on the terrible things, or you can focus on how you can change it. I didn’t like the aspect of how my relationship was with my boy’s dad, so I changed it. I am so happy being a single mom because I can look at my life and give it my all and be happy. You have to do your best to give off positive energy and be uplifting for others. I only want to spend time with people who look at life the same way.”

Now that she’s working with USHA, and living the company’s mission of HOPE – Helping Other People Everyday – Jenn says she believes she is right where she belongs. While she may not be dancing, helping to choreograph custom-designed health plans for others and being in the right situation has become Jenn’s new passion.

“In our office, everybody is not only great at business, but everybody is a great human,” says Jenn. “I love to be around that in my personal and business life. It’s not really about the money. Yes, we work hard and get paid well for doing so, but the focus is on helping people and being a good person. Everything grows tenfold when you do that. If you asked me before the pandemic if I’d be selling health insurance I wouldn’t have believed it. But I’m in this career now and I love it. My clients tell me, ‘you make it so easy and awesome and I can tell you sincerely care’, “and I’m grateful to hear that, because yes, I actually do!”

There’s caring, but there’s also ambition, Jenn says she has the drive to make this work, to try and be the best, just like she always has.

“When I was younger there was a time I lived out in a beautiful farmhouse. After being at the studio, I would continue to practice in one of the barns on a concrete slab with my boom box. I did what I had to do. You just have to go above and beyond. If you do ordinary things you will just be good, I’m here to be the best I can be. It never stops, you can never stop learning. When I was dancing I was learning, I listened to people who are successful at what they do, regardless of their age. We have people in my office younger than me, but I listen, it’s not about age or background, it’s about what you are doing to be successful and how are you doing it. As a dancer you are not judging the teacher, you are there to learn and learn their style of choreography and make it your own. I’m doing this here at USHA as well. I’m here to learn from the best, take it, and make it my own. I trust in my leaders they have not led me wrong or disappointed me. And they prove that to me every day. They are passionate good people. So am I.”

It’s a validation of that law of the universe – almost like a scientific equation – that the people you decide to spend your time with, where they’re going, you’re going. Besides her fellow co-workers at USHEALTH Advisors, Jenn says she’s been so fortunate in life because the people she began life with have been there to help her every step of the way.

“My parents, David and Jewel are the most amazing humans I’ve ever met in my life,” says Jenn. “They’ve been together since high school and raised four kids, me, two older brothers, and my beautiful little sister. Family is what our parents instilled in us, from the time we were little, you only have one – so take advantage and be grateful for that one.”

“My parents would help anybody and everybody they can. They don’t even tell people when they’re doing it. They just do things, they’re selfless and giving people. My dad worked his whole life at the same company, became a top manager, and his employees say he is just an amazing man. I want to be like my parents and help anybody that needs help, not for the recognition, but because I have the capability to do so.”

Jenn says because of this great foundation, it’s made it easier for her to weather the storms, to dance in the rain, and then to amplify the sun and the light when it’s ready to shine.

“Everybody has things to overcome,” says Jenn. “I try to be positive and know things will work out, maybe not that day, but if you keep working hard you can accomplish anything. It’s just what I’ve kind of done my whole life. If you believe in yourself then that’s where it all begins. It starts with you. Someone can’t truly believe in you until you believe in you. If you can do that, you will be able to do anything you put your heart and soul into, because it all begins with you. It’s why I know I’m exactly where I am supposed to be, everything happens for a reason.”

With Jenn’s why, her boys, in full focus, the passion of her work defined, and her purpose to make a difference in the lives of others, Jenn says she feels like she is in perfect step, as she choreographs this next chapter –  in her dance of life.

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/)

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Become part of The Billion. You can read and learn more about Mark Brodinsky at (http://markbrodinsky.life/)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work. It’s necessary, but is it joyful? The difference between working to live and living to work is huge.

If the work you do is focused on other people, you will most likely find joy in the journey. We all need each other and doing for others is the juice that makes life grand, for the discovery of what you can leave behind, how you can make your mark, should make you want to do all you can with all you have been given.

What you’ve got matters to all of us. So, bring it. It’s your story.

Everyone has a story.

I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.

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Storytelling for Business: Be

“Stop lying to yourself about who you are, and why you’re that way. That’s your fuel, not something to hide. You can’t win until you embrace this.”
– Tim Grover, Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness

Being exactly who you were meant to be.

Try it some time, it’s not easy. Silence the noise around you, quash the desire to be noticed or accepted, stop following the rules others have made for you without your consent, and then try to live your life. The one designed for you.

If you want some advice on all of this, ask Jayme Lunsford. After years of fitting in and accepting the world around her, and the rules she was expected to follow, Jayme took the leap of faith. She went inside herself to realize who she really is and by doing so, her outside world forever changed.

In her present life, Jayme is a Field Training Agent for USHEALTH Advisors and since becoming a full-time agent in January of 2020, she’s crushing it. Since her first application that month, Jayme has issued more than $3 million in personal business and as a Field Training Agent, has led her team to nearly $10 million in sales.

While her business and her life are on fire, in a good way, Jayme says it wasn’t until she gave herself permission to be her true self, that she was able to fan the flames of living the life she truly wanted all along.

“I’m genuinely a happy person,” says Jayme. “But for a long time I wasn’t really happy and I couldn’t figure out why. I grew up very much trying to please people in a world where I felt I didn’t belong. My family is Southern Baptist, so I went to church regularly, was in the youth groups and it was expected I’d marry a good Baptist boy and have a bunch of kids. I tried to do that, but it didn’t work out for me. I didn’t want to just be a silent supporter and worker bee my whole life. I didn’t really like doing that. Like I said, I’ve always been this inherently happy person, but not able to sleep at night, ultimately because I wasn’t truly happy.”

Words can change your life. So can the awareness you’re not exactly where you want to be. If you look hard enough, you’ll find it. For Jayme, it was the single word in a quote she found that changed her mind and turned her life around.

“If you want to be happy, be.”

Jayme says it was that quote and that word from Leo Tolstoy which made her realize you must be who you are, who you need to be and be present in the situation you are in, to find true joy.

“A week later I got the word, Be, tattoed on my right wrist,” she says. “I can’t spread the joy if I don’t have it in me first. And that set me on a journey to find myself.”

“I was 34 at the time and I had been working as a physical trainer. You work everywhere you can in that profession to make a little bit of money. I was helping others to reach their goals and see their lives change. I was meeting so many incredible people. My first husband and I were heavily involved in the church, but the church didn’t smile at my job choice. They told me wearing the short shorts and the tall socks I wore as a fitness trainer was unacceptable, so we got kicked out of the church. None of it made sense to me. But what did make sense was I was living a life that didn’t work for me.”

Jayme and her husband eventually divorced.  But she says while going through that tough time there was someone who helped her to see things differently. She explained to Jayme that if you focused on an important aspect of your existence, life would never be the same.

“Going through the divorce I had an incredible client I was working with at the gym,” says Jayme. “I’m a firm believer that people are in your life for a reason. And this woman Jackie, though 15 years older than me, was just a beautiful soul. She said to me, ‘in life, there are two kinds of people, fountains, and drains. If you’re a fountain and you surround yourself with drains, eventually your fountain will run out of water.’ “Now I knew how to proceed. I’ve come back to that many, many times in many situations. Everyone should work hard to surround themselves with fountains. I know I do.”

Jayme started to focus on abundance instead of scarcity and having made some scary changes in her life, she says it was just about that time a man named Perry Lunsford entered her world.

“Perry bought the gym where I was working,” says Jayme. “We became work friends, then good friends, and then we decided to go on a date, and as we both say, that date has never ended. Happiness has me being able to find me, to find that person and to be where I am now, be the parent I am, and raise the kids we have raised in my blended family with Perry, it’s amazing.”

“Perry has a drive I had never seen in my life. It’s this unstoppable, relentless energy I always craved and wanted, but never sought out and wasn’t able to experience. No matter what happens, whatever life throws at us, Perry is always a forward thinker. He can focus on the here and now and still have what I call his popcorn brain, looking out at the future and has it figured out in every direction. I’m not the same way, because I never want to miss the present.”

“Plus,” adds Jayme, “Perry is a very present, incredible daddy. Our kids, my three and his two children became friends, and here we are now, ten years later and our kids are best friends – and our house is exactly the place they love to be.”

Where Jayme and Perry also love to be is at their USHEALTH Advisors office, which they’ve nicknamed, The Lions Den. Perry is now a Satellite Division Sales Leader, having joined USHA in June of 2018, while Jayme was still running the last remaining fitness club they owned. Perry laid the path for Jayme, showing her what was possible at USHA, having eclipsed $7 million in only three years as a personal producer and more than $22 million in sales as a team leader.

Jayme says when Perry sold the remaining club in 2019, she assisted him with his USHA business, doing social media and other activities. “I then started recruiting for him and helping with customer service,” says Jayme. “We talked about getting my insurance license, but I told him I’m just not great at sales, you saw how I did at the gym, it wasn’t good. I just really, really doubted myself. But in October 2019, Perry said it was time. I was panicked, but I got it done, finishing out 2019 by helping Perry with his incredible open enrollment period, and then in January of 2020 I submitted my first policy.”

Jayme says the past year-and-half has been a big wake-up call. “It’s been an incredibly challenging time, coming in and finding out, holy sh*t, I’m good at this!” says Jayme. “But I also realize I have to split my time and attention. I can’t just go through everything here at work and not work on my relationship with my husband. He is my best friend and I have to cherish and nurture this relationship and be around for the kids. If mom can’t be around, then none of this matters. Finding and working to create that balance is the most rewarding thing I have ever done.”

“I realize now how I grew up and understand my parents’ mindset. I respect the hell out of my parents, they did an incredible job with myself and my sister. They understood it’s a parent’s responsibility to raise someone better than yourself. Now we have offices of people (agents) to grow as well, to cultivate them to be better versions of themselves, whether they stay with us for a few months, a few years, or forever.”

Jayme says a typical day and week for her at USHEALTH Advisors and running the blended family with Perry and their five children, is far from typical.

“It’s chaos,” laughs Jayme. “I don’t have a normal day. I don’t always know what the schedule is going to look like, when the phone is going to ring, when an agent is going to need help, when you might need to do customer service for your clients, send e-mails, coaching, going to a meeting and more. A typical day is simply made up of work. If I’m not in the office I’m still texting, working with our Facebook page, it never stops. You try and shut it down when you come home, it’s not easy.”

“But Perry and I make time every week, on Wednesday, for date night. That night is ours and the team knows it. We have to take time out, to step away and be with each other.”

As far as the future, Jayme says she’s unsure since she doesn’t have the same popcorn brain as Perry. “I can’t answer that question, because I’m not a forward thinker,” Jayme says. “I’m so in love with what we do. There are crappy days of course, but do the good days outweigh those down days? Definitely! I’m just appreciating all of it and focusing on what we have now.”

What Jayme says she, Perry, and their teams certainly focus on is USHA’s mission of HOPE: Helping Other People Everyday.

“What HOPE means to me, is the example that happened just the other day,” says Jayme. “About three to four months ago I had someone reach out through Facebook. This woman is a year and a half removed from surviving breast cancer. I let her know we couldn’t help with our medically underwritten health plans, but I stayed on the phone with her and spent 30-45 minutes going over the other option out there and just helping her, finally recommending she stay on her COBRA plan. The other day her husband called and told me the COBRA plan was expiring, and his wife had told him not to talk to anybody until he talked to Jayme.”

“It really is just about helping people – it is 100-percent my why in life to leave an impression on someone –  whether it’s at the gas station, a phone call, or someone who sees pictures and follows us on Facebook. My goal is to leave an impression of joy, happiness, and love, caring about people selflessly. That’s what I love about this career and this company, even the people I can’t help with our products, are actually the ones I can help more than anybody else.”

Touch a heart, lend a hand. Jayme says it’s all about other people, whomever you are in front of, an agent, a client, a friend, one of her children, her husband, she wants to be present and in the moment – experiencing the power of now and keeping everyone looking on the bright side of life. Her family has a daily prayer they recite to keep everyone focused and living life in the right manner.

I am in control of myself, my attitude, and my future.
Always be on time.
Try to help people who are smaller than you.
Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
Work every day to be a better person – mentally, physically, smarter and stronger.
Forgive.
Be Happy.
Have Fun.

The Lunsford’s have nearly the same prayer their USHEALTH Advisors team recites at the weekly meeting in their Lion’s Den, to keep everyone on point and powered by purpose.

“It’s not sales, it’s helping people meet a need,” says Jayme. “Believing in what we do and knowing that what we are doing is changing lives, protecting people and their finances. I talk to people all across the country and it’s just me being able to touch people in a way I never could have before, but something I always wanted to experience.”

If you ask Jayme what’s the one thing, the one thing that makes her tick, the one message she wants to share with everyone, her answer is one simple word, the word that changed her own life for the better: Be.

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 read and learn more about Mark Brodinsky at (http://markbrodinsky.life/)

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