Who could have predicted that his success in business would begin on the fairway a quarter of a century ago? But for Brandon Bull, his drive to be the best can easily be traced back to the time he first held a golf club in his hand.

“I love golf, it’s one of my biggest passions,” says Brandon. “I started when I was 8-years-old and played every day until I was 18. I played on my high-school team and at the country club. What I love about golf is the fact that you are in control. You don’t have to rely on other people to make it happen, you will either have a great day or a bad day and it’s all up to you. The amount of work you put in will affect your game. You’ve got to put in a lot of work to get really good.”

25 years later, now age 33, those same words are the wisdom Brandon can share with a new agent joining his team – you’ve got to put in a lot of work to get really good. So much of what we learn and practice early in life become lessons that can serve us, or hold us back. For Brandon, there’s been no holding back. In life, in business, Brandon likes to take a big swing, then masterfully drop one in the cup.

Drive for show, putt for dough.

It’s a simple formula, create and learn the business yourself, experience great success, then show others how to do the same.

Since joining USHEALTH Advisors in the fall of 2017, Brandon Bull has been driving for success – personally producing more than four-and-a-half million dollars in insurance sales, with the coveted $5-million mark easily in his sights this year. Now, as a Field Sales Leader, Brandon is teaching his success to other agents and has helped lead his teams to more than $35-million in sales. In 2021, with much of this year still ahead, Brandon’s team sits comfortably in the top five in the country and still looking to finish at number one.

Brandon is proof that a decade of gaining the relentless mental toughness it takes to master the greens, has given him the ability in business to focus on his craft and the desire to win, to compete with the elite. It’s all modeled after two of Brandon’s heroes, Tom Brady, and Tiger Woods.

“Brady and Tiger are two competitors I admire greatly,” says Brandon. “I respect their ability to always stay focused, to work like they have a chip on their shoulder, and create reasons to compete consistently, even after they have achieved so much. They don’t just want to win, they want to dominate. Also, their mindset of being able to block out all the noise and be clutch in the highest pressure situations is unmatched.”

It’s the same in sales. It’s been said it’s the highest paying job in the world and the lowest paying job in the world – you get out what you put in and the pressure to perform is always there.

“I was already doing pretty well in sales before I found USHEALTH Advisors,” says Brandon. “In fact, it’s kind of in my blood. My dad was almost always selling, everything from newspapers to medical devices. I have an older sister who was successful in furniture sales and then helping to manage apartment complexes.”

“Right before USHA, I was in sales for an eco-friendly golf company. I worked my way up to a territory manager but didn’t see room for growth. My regional manager kept telling me I’d get a promotion, but it never happened.”

But what was happening, was Brandon still staying in touch with some of his high school friends, Jason Blank and Shai Hatuel. Jason and Shai were experiencing great success with USHEALTH Advisors and Brandon decided to tee it up and see what might happen.

“I started a little slow, for a short time I was part-time at USHA, but it didn’t take long for me to be all-in,” says Brandon. I love being around my friends, love the culture, and the income I saw others earning made it a pretty quick transition for me.” It was goodbye to the golf company and hello to a new career and the mission of Helping Other People Everyday at USHEALTH Advisors.

Brandon says his schedule for the first three years at USHA was pretty much the same every day – because he knew, just like in his golf game, discipline and process breed success.

“The first three years I’d get up and try and be the first one in the office at 7:45 am to get on the dialer at 8 am,” says Brandon. “I’d make calls and buy as many leads as I could, from 8 am to 8 pm, Monday to Friday. I’d maybe take a 20-minute break for lunch at my desk, but my day was focused on closing as many deals and buying as many leads as I could that day. Now, as a leader, it’s a lot more about helping the agents, spending one-to-one time with them and my Field Training Agents, to get everyone on the same page that I am.”

What’s just as important, and has been from day one, is getting that other important person in Brandon’s life on the same page as well… his wife Shannon.

“My wife and I knew each other from high school,” says Brandon. “But we weren’t together. I dated one of her friends and she dated one of mine. I’ve known her for 17 years now. We didn’t start dating until college… and got married last year.”

“Back in 2017, when she was still my future wife, Shannon was a bit skeptical about the USHA opportunity. It can be a scary feeling, going into commission sales. But when you’ve got a good woman by your side, who trusts in you and allows you to pursue this, it makes all the difference. I told her I was positive I could do this and she always believes in me. That goes a long way. I see a lot of other agents and even leaders who struggle to balance their life and a significant other giving them a lot of stuff about working so much. But to have someone in your corner and on the same page means the world to me. If she wasn’t on board, this wouldn’t have worked for me.”

Brandon’s recent marriage with Shannon has created a home with a couple of heroes living there. The couple has a dog named Tiger, named after Brandon’s favorite golfer and three months ago Shannon gave birth to their baby boy –  a bundle of joy they named Brady – after you-know-who.

Three plus years into his career at USHEALTH Advisors, Brandon says he’s enjoying the transition from agent to leader, but he also says it presents his greatest challenge since leadership must be earned and continually developed. It’s not simply a right of passage.

“Becoming the best leader I can be is something I’m continually working on,” says Brandon. “I’ve always been a pretty good salesperson, but leadership is tough. You have to learn to deal with all these different personalities and come to realize that not everyone is going to be like you. They may not reason the same way you do or handle their business exactly the same way. I’m usually a straight-forward right-to-the-point kind of guy and sometimes it’s hard to understand others. Also, you have to serve as a leader, not a manager. I took that from one of Troy McQuagge’s speeches at one of our meetings – your number one job is to serve and it is a privilege to be a leader. You can’t take your foot off the gas, you must go full out to give everyone the same opportunity you have.”

“I’m a really honest and caring person, as are a lot of people I see as true leaders. I love helping and making the agents better. You can tell when you see other leaders who enjoy it and seeing people succeed and others who are just doing it for the income. I don’t care about the title, I just want to grow a team and make more and more people better. My friends would say I’m a very honest person, I don’t like those who cheat or scam their way to success. You have to work, hard work is more powerful than any edge you might try to create for yourself. I get up every morning and look in the mirror, and when I do I see someone who cares about other people every day and is really grateful for the opportunity – to lead on a daily basis and affect the lives of those who come into our company.”

Brandon says while he enjoys the daily grind, he’s also looking forward to the future, for his team and his family.

“It’s a big goal of mine to be a great father and be involved as much as I can with my wife and my son, plus I want to have another child. It brings me peace to know Shannon and I are a team and my wife is there to support me and our son every day. The feeling of watching Brady change before our eyes, even after only three months, is unbelievable, it’s like nothing I have ever experienced before. The love you feel is incredible.”

Brandon says he also loves the feeling of seeing a new beginning, watching a new agent give “birth” to his or her business with USHEALTH Advisors. “That’s the most fulfilling thing with our career here,” says Brandon. “You can have brand new agents who are coming in, relying on you and never been in sales, and then turn them into great salespeople and see their whole lives change in a year or two. That’s why I love being a leader because of the impact we have on the agents’ lives. When you get a text from one of them that says, ‘thank you so much for all you’ve done for me. I never thought I would be in this position. It’s so great.’ “You read a text like that and you are just so grateful. That’s why I do this every day.”

But there’s still one more thing that drives Brandon, and it’s wired into his DNA. It’s the same thing that drives Brady and Tiger. There’s the love of your people then there’s one more love – the love Brandon feels every time he steps onto the green with a golf club in his hand… the love of the game.

“I like to win,” says Brandon. “I have always loved that feeling. I am terrified of losing and I use that same fear to drive me in business as it does in my golf game. I love having the last putt on the 18th hole to win after being three strokes down. Or trying to beat a fellow leader and become the number one Field Sales Leader. It’s the thing I’m always striving for on a daily basis, to be number one, to have that feeling of being number one is unmatched. I hate the feeling of losing. I hate being number two or number five, I always want to be number one. I said it before, I like to win.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

“One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their great surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do.” – Henry Ford

It’s not about the setback, it’s all about the comeback.

It was in the 7th grade when Marina David figured she’d try something new. Successful at soccer and several other sports, Marina figured why not try her hand at volleyball? “I gave it a shot,” says Marina. “I went to the tryouts and at the end of the week they announced who made the team and they called everyone’s name, one-by-one. I waited, and the very last name they called was mine. I was so happy I made the cut. Then, at the first practice, the coaches sat me down and told me they made a mistake, ‘We meant to call someone else’s name, not yours,’ they said.  “So, they cut me. As a 7th grader, at that time in my life, I was crushed.”

It might have been the first time in her life Marina felt like she failed at something, it wouldn’t be the last. 

Anyone feel a connection here? Of course, we all do. Life is not a quiet road of success after success, it’s a collection of failures, each one with a lesson, and then the necessary belief that failure is merely success deferred. The only thing worse than failing, is not trying.

Marina’s never fallen short on trying. Just because volleyball was an “epic fail”, there was soccer and tennis, and cheerleading, all at which she excelled. It would teach Marina an important lesson, not just about her love of competitive sports, but the power to adapt and to change. A power that’s so necessary for finding your true path in life.

Besides sports, Marina’s other talents led to her desire to go after a career in graphic design. “One of my biggest challenges in life was going after what I wanted in college,” says Marina. “I went to the University of Central Florida and my goal was to get into the school for the arts. But it’s such a competitive school, it’s like a school within a school. After two years at college, I was able to apply to the specialty school, but I’m more graphic design and tech-savvy and for the art school you have to be drawing and painting, and that’s just not my thing. The school only accepted about 700 students, but 2000 people would apply, it wasn’t easy.”

For Marina it wasn’t easy at all, twice she applied and twice she failed. Time to adapt and to change.

After her second attempt, Marina started paying closer attention to the suggestion of one of her best friends, Kaley Kallman. Kaley was experiencing great success in her career with a company called USHEALTH Advisors. More than once Kaley had tried to persuade her close friend to come and join her. Now, with another unsuccessful shot at art school, Marina was willing to listen and to find out what it was all about.

There was just one obstacle, albeit, in her mind, but Marina couldn’t picture herself in this career. “I didn’t see myself as a salesperson,” says Marina. “I’m very passive, not aggressive. But Kaley was persuasive and offered to allow Marina to just get her feet wet, to see what the career looked like from the outside, looking in. 

“I started off doing some administrative work for Kaley,” says Marina, “and got a taste of the office atmosphere, as well as made some money on the side. But after a time I got too busy, between helping Kaley, going to school, and bartending, I had zero time to do anything else. But by working with Kaley and being in the office I saw the possibility of great success with all the agents working together and making a great income. I made the decision not to re-enroll in school and instead decided to join USHA.”

Marina says her dad wasn’t happy about that turn of events and even Marina initially had her doubts. “It was scary thinking you were going to go in one direction and then being in a place you don’t know what you are going to do with your life…  especially starting a new care.”

Since joining USHEALTH Advisors in 2018, Marina has sold nearly $1.5 million in personal business and is building a team as a Field Training Agent. “The number one thing about this company is the support,” says Marina. “That’s so important to have. I don’t know of any other company where a new agent can get the support you get here. It’s been a slow progression for me. My worst attribute is that I am too hard on myself. If I don’t do well I will get down on myself. I’m working on that. You can have a bad week and feel like you are failing, but having someone constantly telling me I’m doing well and to keep going and to keep re-evaluating what I am doing, makes all the difference. Many times I’ve realized I’m not giving myself enough credit for what I can do and what I can and have accomplished.”

And Marina says she must give credit to the person that has been so supportive, her leader and best friend, Kaley. Marina says it’s hard for her to put into words how much Kaley’s leadership and mentorship have meant to her. 

“I wouldn’t be where I am without Kaley,” says Marina. “She is such a huge part of my success. Kaley is proof that if you surround yourself with people you aspire to be like it is natural for you to develop into the person you have always wanted to be. Kaley is that person for me, I wanted to be like her.”

But yet even while there has been great success, there have also been significant challenges. It’s part of the ride in business and in life. 

2020 was a year where Marina needed to adapt, pivot, and change again and it wasn’t just because of the pandemic. It was early in the year when Marina and several other agents got a message from Kaley, asking if they’d like to make a move north, from Orlando, Florida, and open up an office in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

“It was very random,” says Marina. “One day Kaley texted me and a few others and asked, ‘what do you think about moving to North Carolina?’ “I don’t think any of us hesitated. We were all in and then we asked everyone else to join us. It was very shocking, but no one who could make the move really had any objections to doing it. Six of us decided to go, then two more of our team moved up there as well.”

The relocation to a new town, however, was nothing compared to what would happen next. As a good part of Kaley’s team moved up from Florida, their hopes came crashing down. Corona was also moving in as well. 

“We were here in Charlotte for a week, then the pandemic hit,” says Marina. “Everyone had to stay home and the process of finding and closing on a new office became a major headache. We had found an office that needed so many renovations, it would have taken forever to complete them, but luckily during the shutdown, another office became available. Even then it took a while for the contract to get approved.”

Marina says while the pandemic kept people sheltered at home, the new Kallman Satellite Division got busy – making the most of their forced solitude – to make sure new agents and those who needed training and some reinforcement got the same thing that Marina said had meant so much to her, support.

“We wanted to make sure the agents had access to all that they need,” says Marina. “As a leadership team, we decided to utilize the time at home to record new training videos for the agents, build the website for the office, and to make sure the new office could be up and running when we were allowed back there.” 

Once the pandemic started to pull back and the agents and leaders in the Kallman Satellite could return to the office, (a few agents are still remote), it was time to set the standards and create the weekly system for success. Marina says she has her own schedule mapped out each week so she can efficiently help those on her team.

“We want the agents in the office and on the phones by 8 am each day,” says Marina. “I try to do as much work as I can before the agents start coming up to me in the morning to ask questions. I tell them to wait until about 10 am so I can also make calls, then help them with their needs. We also do check-ins a few times a day for the remote agents on the team. After the call session, I normally eat some lunch and then get ready for training. We have leaders switch off for training every afternoon. If I’m not training I’m doing some recruiting or marketing, then end the day working with the agents again, making calls and answering questions. I usually stay in the office until early evening, then I’m back in the office before 8 am the next day.”

The hours in the office can be long, but Marina has also managed to make it a more beautiful place to be, by putting her talents and creative skills to work.

“I still get to use what I learned in college nearly every day,” says Marina. “I created a lot of the logos around the office, decals on the walls, the team logo, and more. Kaley didn’t have to pay someone, instead, I got to contribute my other talents as well… at least college wasn’t a complete waste of time,” she laughs.

While Marina says her career at USHEALTH Advisors has given her the ability to design a better life, it’s also been a creative way to get her family some much-needed support, by joining the company!

“I have a sister, Taylor, who is three years older than me,” says Marina. And a brother, Grant, who is 6-years-older than I am. I am very close with both of them. Grant and his wife worked for Disneyworld in Orlando until the pandemic hit, and then they both lost their jobs. They already have one daughter and during the time they were unemployed Taylor found out she was pregnant. My brother needed income, and I ended up getting him appointed at USHA to make the money to keep his new family afloat. He’s still doing it and now he’s been able to perform as well on the side, as an acrobat for Universal Studios. Although he enjoys it we all know his body will give out on him eventually, so he will have this insurance career as a foundation and build up his residual income.”

“Also, my sister’s husband, my brother-in-law, Jordan, simply didn’t know what to do with his life. He had tried different things but never stuck with them. He comes from a wealthy family, but he wanted to find something he was passionate about, a way to help, so now he’s got it – he joined USHEALTH Advisors in Orlando. It’s amazing, this company has not only changed my life but my family’s life as well.”

With nearly everyone else on board, it appears the only members of the David family missing from USHA are Marina’s parents, but she says they are too busy doing what they truly love, being out on the greens and the fairways in Florida. “My parents play a lot of golf,” says Marina. “And they are really good. My mom was the Women’s Champion at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando!  My dad gets angry when he plays her because he can never beat her, it’s pretty funny.”

Maybe Marina’s dad can take a lesson from his daughter. There was a time Marina says she focused too much on the things that she couldn’t do. “I grew up in life thinking, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it…’, but then I found USHEALTH Advisors. And by jumping in and saying, ‘Yes, I can do it, I’ve surprised even myself. The bottom line is you don’t know what you can do until you try. So don’t limit yourself.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,

Mark Brodinsky

Powered by Purpose

“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”  – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

It actually all began with Natalie Giannascoli’s initial introduction to USHEALTH Advisors. For Natalie, her first reaction was fear – false evidence appearing real.

For several years prior, Natalie had been working as a bartender, most recently at a beach bar in Clearwater, Florida. But even then, in her early 20’s, she had a realization. “I had an epiphany one day,” says Natalie. “I thought what am I going to do when I’m 40? I know there are careers for bartending, but I don’t want to deal with people drinking too much and other issues the rest of my working career. So I started looking for something else and found a job advertisement for this company called USHEALTH Advisors.”

“I wasn’t nervous to attend any interview, but when I got to this one I was SO nervous. There were so many people there in the room, I thought, what am I doing? I remember texting my husband John, saying, ‘it’s a group presentation, what do I do?’ “He said, ‘just sit there and go through it, they let you know quicker in a group setting if they want you or not.’”

Then Natalie started doing the thing so many of us do, she told herself a story in her mind, she made an assumption and nearly made a beeline for the door. 

“I looked around and saw people older than me, ” says Natalie, “even people looking professional holding briefcases. I knew there was no way I was getting this job. I told myself, all these other people are more qualified for this. I don’t know why I’m here, I know nothing about insurance. I don’t know what I’m doing here!”

“But then I started listening to the presentation, taking notes and thought, damn this is really interesting. I get the whole picture. The income potential did it for me at first, but then I saw the pictures of happy people in offices and going on rewards trips and having a good time. I wasn’t happy with what I was doing, and I’m also very competitive. That fired me up. Then I saw people out in the office where I was interviewing, not just sitting in cubes, but sitting and working together. There was music playing, it was weird, nothing like I was used to when I worked in an office. And there was the whole self-employed part of this – I like that – I don’t want my work ethic to be compared to someone else. I want to show up for me.”

But Natalie says what really made her want to be with the USHA opportunity was the one thing that happened right before her one-to-one interview because it made her smile. Natalie loves to laugh and have a good time. “The guy who came out to call me in for my interview tripped as he walked out of the door, and then someone gave him grief about it” laughs Natalie. I said to myself, ‘this is good, these are my people, I’m in the right place.’ “I like it light-hearted I like seeing people happy because I like to have fun. I thought I can really do this, this is super cool, I want to be here.”

Natalie says she contracted with USHA and did the online licensing study course in four days. “I did not want to do the study course, because I’m not a good test person. So I buckled down and got the study course completed as quickly as I could, just to get it over with. I took the test two days later and passed.”

But then as she started off in her new career with USHA, Natalie did the one thing that nearly made her want to pass on the opportunity, the one thing that for most people is a recipe for failure.

“I tried to reinvent the wheel,” says Natalie. “I joined USHEALTH Advisors on January 7th, 2017 and I didn’t write my first insurance application until March 28th. I just thought there were certain things I could do better than how I had been trained to contact potential insurance clients. I tried to rewrite my scripts to have different things to say, but it was all really because I was scared. I was scared for people to listen to me. I thought they would say, you sound like an idiot, why would you say that? I had been a great bartender and could talk to people, but that was face to face. I could talk to anyone about anything in person, but over the phone, it was harder for me because they couldn’t see me and I had a tough time being animated. I didn’t want to sound like I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Natalie freely admits now it was a recipe for failure, but failure doesn’t mean defeat. Failure means a learning curve, a lesson, an opportunity to create success from your mistakes, for what else is a failure, but success deferred. After all, for years Natalie faced failure every day – as a dedicated softball player. A sport that is steeped in failure. 

“It definitely helps to play a sport when you’re growing up,” says Natalie. “In softball, I played first base, a position where I had to pay attention. I was in almost every play, every situation, yelling to the outfielders how many outs there were, watching the pitcher, the runners, all of it. It’s a lot like this career at USHA, agents throw curveballs at you all the time and you are in everything, every “play” that’s going on.”

In her time at USHEALTH Advisors, Natalie has proved she’s got game. With the help of her leaders and fellow agents, Natalie got past her fear of dialing and has been leading by example. She recently passed her four-year anniversary with USHA, having issued more than $2.5-million in individual insurance policies and now as a Field Sales Leader, has helped her teams to produce more than $22 million in sales!

That’s a lot of phone calls, a lot of long days and nights and for Natalie, a lot of fun. “I like having a fun environment with whatever I do,” she says. “I like to tell jokes, to fool around, whether it’s with my family or my agents. Life doesn’t have to be all serious. if you’re too serious, especially with this career, you won’t make it. You deal with a lot of rejection throughout the day. Without some jokes, or something light-hearted, you won’t feel happiness or joy in your day, at least not for me.”

Natalie knows that experiencing true joy is important because to feel the joy you undoubtedly must have experienced some pain. For Natalie, that pain drives her purpose – because her purpose for selling health insurance comes from the pain of loss and knowing how important health coverage can be.

“I grew up in New Jersey with two younger sisters and three older brothers,” says Natalie. “My oldest brother, Christopher, he’s my purpose. He had medical concerns and passed away. I run my purpose because I know what it was like to deal with all of that. My brother had cerebral palsy and lived with a lot of medical concerns. Unfortunately, he couldn’t handle all the surgeries and medications – he was only 22 when he died. Health coverage was important for my parents to help find the right doctors to get my brother the care he needed. And now it serves as a story that I can relate to others, especially when I speak with someone who is young, or healthy and tells you they don’t need health insurance. It serves my purpose and theirs when I can share a real-life story – it can be so helpful for people who need to see that side of their own story.”

The story of Christopher’s passing stays with Natalie, though she says she has learned to be able to get past it and can now, as she said, relate it to others.

“I was in high school when he passed,” she says. “It’s a weird feeling. It’s not like when you lose an older family member, like your grandparent, which you usually experience first and are prepared for, or even if somebody gets sick and you know it’s coming. This was kind of out of the blue… it was all of a sudden. It’s different. It’s like somebody cut you in half and then tells you, ‘ok, now you’ll have to figure out this life with just two limbs. It was a very empty feeling, but my family and I got over it together. Being together made it better, made it a bit easier.”

Having realized so much about the value of life at a young age, (Natalie was only 17 when her brother passed on, she’s now 26), she’s focused on getting as much life as possible out of each and every single day, including her work with USHEALTH Advisors.

“My day begins early, my alarm is set for 4:45 am,” says Natalie. “It goes off and then I lie there for 15 minutes just thinking – about what I can’t even tell you sometimes. But it serves me. If I’m not on top of my morning, then my whole day is shot and I want to start over. I love my 15-minutes-of-me. I might think about what I have to do for the day, or about yesterday, or what I’m looking forward to that day. At 5 am I put my feet on the ground. I don’t like to feel rushed which is why I start early. I remember reading a few things from Warren Buffet, who talked about getting up earlier, leaving earlier, so you’re not interrupted and you avoid the little things during the day that might aggravate you. It’s hard to get up early, but it’s beneficial for sure.”

“I get to the office between 6:45 and 7 am, about an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes before the agents and I start on the phones, and I always have something to do, whether it’s an e-mail to read or to send, or work on an underwriting appeal for an agent, or anything else. I have that hour-plus to deal with it. It’s the most crucial part of my day.”

“I then dial with the agents from 8 am to 10 am. In the morning I have fewer interruptions than I have the rest of the day because once the afternoon hits my day starts picking up speed because we do our training in the afternoon as well. That’s why I get my organization stuff done in the morning. The evening time is when you get most of your potential clients on the phone. I sit with the agents so I can hear them.  I normally don’t leave the office until between 8 pm and 9 pm.”

“My agents work long hours too. When they see me do it, they do it. I tell them, in the beginning, you have to be tied to the phones, talking to somebody, or prospecting. If you leave the office to go to lunch, then go to the same restaurant every day – and over time sell everyone there – then when you have sold everyone you can – find a new restaurant. Keep it all going.”

To keep it all going for herself, Natalie also leans on her husband John. Natalie and John met at a trivia night at a bar the two used to frequent in Pennsylvania, where Natalie went to college. They married a little less than two years ago and now John is Natalie’s stay-at-home husband.

“John is not an agent, but he quit his job to help me out,” says Natalie. “He helps with some networking at the local chamber of commerce and even more importantly he does everything for me at home, like taking care of two dogs and a cat, they are enough work as it is! He does the laundry, cooks, and all the tedious stuff no one wants to do, so I can spend more time at the office.”

For Natalie, it’s all about putting in the time. She believes the more she works and grows, the more she can give.

“If somebody were to say to me give me three things I like about Natalie, I hope it would be that she made me laugh, she helped me out and she bettered my business. She cared about what I was doing as a person, personally and professionally. I want to be somebody people want to follow on both sides – be a role model outside and within the office. I want to know that I’m making enough of an impact, that I am someone they want to follow and then do the same for other people.”

“I want to make them feel like they have a purpose. I know I do.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,

Mark Brodinsky

“It’s been a total turnaround, I’m a completely different person than when I started here.” – Zach Lauer

One of the toughest things to do in life is to take a look in the mirror, to truly judge yourself and your abilities and then to realize you’re not doing enough. In fact, that you’re doing just enough to get by.

This was Zach Lauer’s life and he freely admits he took a good look inside and saw he needed to make a change – to transform his outside world into all that it could be.

“It was October of 2017,” says Zach. “I attended one of the USHEALTH Advisors Leaders Meetings and I looked around and saw all these people who were super successful. I asked myself, ‘are they better than me?’ “The answer was no, and it was at that moment, for the first time, I could really be super reflective and realize I was not doing enough. I wasn’t taking advantage of the opportunity. Even though I saw with my Dad, Murph, who had been so successful in the insurance world and with this company, but I never really saw it for myself. That meeting really changed my career. I did more business from October to the end of 2017 then I had done the entire year up to that point.”

We all have turning points, sometimes it’s that spark that ignites the flame of possibility. But Zach knew the road to success, to get to the life he desired would mean adding one ingredient, hard work. From a young age Zach realized maybe things had come too easy, or maybe, he had just been too easy on himself.

“I always had some natural talent and smarts,” says Zach. “I never really had to study super hard to get A’s in school. I really didn’t put in the work, or work as hard as I could of. I had been kind of lazy and rested on my God-given abilities, so growing up my whole idea of working hard was to find the way to do the least amount of work and make the most money. I honestly worked hard to try and figure out that system, but now I honestly work hard! It’s the hard work that makes the difference.”

“The first year at USHA I worked a 9-to-5 day, Monday to Friday, no weekends. I didn’t stay late, I figured I would just try and see what I wanted to do. This was a fall back for me and I didn’t come out of the gate strong and really get my butt to work.”

But in October of 2017, all of that changed and Zach understood purpose could be more important than profits.

“I needed to do more and that more looked like a lot more time,” says Zach. “The 9-to-5 wasn’t cutting it. I was pretty good on the phone, but not spending enough time doing it. And at the same time, I started eating healthier and working out – and started to build those disciplines that carried over to my disciplines in this career. I knew I had a lot more to give so I took an internal look at myself and decided to become a harder worker and to coach others.

‘My why went from – I don’t want to work hard and just make a lot of money – to the money is there, I want to impact other people and take their lives to places they never dreamed they could go.”

It was a big change from Zach’s earlier dream in life, which was to play ball. Yet life itself is a dream and a game – and that game can change in an instant.

“I played baseball almost my entire life,” says Zach. “I was an infielder, played travel baseball at 10-years-old, played through high school, mostly at 2nd base or shortstop and then had a decision to make about college, whether to attend a smaller school and play ball or say goodbye to that dream and attend a really challenging academic university. I followed my dream and went to the small school and played every game as a freshman! But they saw potential in me to play the outfield so I decided to spend the summer in North Carolina with my assistant coach and play summer ball. I made the tough choice to give up my summer and then the coach proceeded to sit me on the bench the whole time, I got zero playing time at that position. After that experience and an interaction I had with my coach and assistant coach, I lost all respect and ended up quitting college baseball. It was probably the first and only thing I ever quit in my life.”

But if we learn lessons from our experiences and our past, then when one door closes, another opens. For Zach, it was going from a focus on bats and balls to books and business.

“I turned to academics full-time,” says Zach. “I thought about transferring schools, but I realized if I hunkered down I could graduate a year early. So that’s what I did, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a business administration degree in finance and management, while still working full-time and taking eighteen credits a semester.”

Zach says he graduated college with an interest in the stock market and investing and so decided to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and take a position with a broker-dealer. Zach moved to St. Louis, got his securities licenses, immersed himself in training and then moved back home to Bloomington, Illinois, to take on a financial services position in his hometown, complete with his own branch office and an assistant. What Zach came to find out was he was the 45th financial advisor in seven years in that office. Forty-five people had come and gone. Zach became number forty-six.”

“I was not mentally prepared for that type of career at that time,” remembers Zach. “I wasn’t mentally tough enough. It was frustrating for me because I was always a high achiever. I was good at putting game plans together for people, many times a phenomenal portfolio. I did what I thought I was supposed to do but could not get that person to invest, or really invest in me. Having that happen over and over again made me check out. I didn’t know at the time how to take responsibility for myself. I was 22, too young. I thought I had the answers for everyone else, but I was not a point in my life mature enough to find the answers for myself.”

Looking for more answers, Zach entertained a stint in IT consulting, only to have it end at less than a year into the career. “I lasted eleven months at that job,” says Zach. “I hated every minute of it.”

In a search for something to love, Zach realized it was only a heartbeat away. He realized his father, Murph, had been doing something his dad loved for more than a decade, so maybe it was time to give it a shot. Murph Lauer had been working in the insurance industry and most recently as a Division Leader with USHEALTH Advisors.

“I always had in the back of my mind to try this,” says Zach. “So I secured my health and life license and moved out to Phoenix. I quit my job in July of 2015, then moved out here that same month. I then worked out of my apartment through the end of the year, which was just brutal. I had no structure, no accountability. I wasn’t committed when I started, this was a fall back for me and I didn’t come out of the gate and get my ass to work. My dad told me if I was serious about this I was going to have to move somewhere where there’s an office and go in and work. I really didn’t get going until January of 2016, so in my mind that’s when I really started what I would call, working!”

Zach says a lot has changed since he started putting in the effort, not only with him but with the people around him, including his girlfriend Chaila, who moved out to Phoenix with Zach and has been an integral part of his success.

“My balance in life is to work a lot and keep Chaila happy, with few complaints. We work at it and try and be the best version of ourselves with each other.”

There’s also been the change in the office, which Zach says keeps changing for the better.

“Five years ago this Phoenix office was really, really small, not the same energy and culture we have today. My Field Sales Leader Lisa O’Brien and Satellite Division Leader Dan Eddington are great. Lisa and I work so well together. I might miss some details, but Lisa never does!”

“And it’s the culture that has been the biggest change. Culture is the most important thing. If you have the right culture you can do the things you want to do, but without the right culture you can recruit a million people and they won’t be here after a month or two. Culture is what has clicked with me. The culture here is palpable. I’ve had other agents come here to visit and they let me know it’s just a completely different environment for them. People want to work 60-hours-a-week here, I’m not dragging people in and say you have to be here or else. The culture speaks for itself and if you are not putting in the work, you know it. The people who are not on board yet know it, you either embrace what we have going on here, or you won’t survive. We have a pretty good track record of getting people to hit their milestones and I don’t believe it’s the best training or the leads. I believe it’s a phenomenal culture and these people just buy-in.”

For Zach, life has become a very different game than the one he played on the diamond, yet he learned so much from that sport about discipline and failure. Now it’s about working through any failure with reflection, introspection and expectations about the future.

“I talk to every person on my team before they contract and let them know what the expectations are,” says Zach. “I let them know I will commit to them if they will commit to me. But I also let them know I’m not here to manage them. If someone tells me they are going to be here at 7 am and they’re not here, I’m not cracking the whip to make them come in. I’m here to train, motivate, inspire and to lead. If you want to come here at 10 am and leave at 3 pm, I’m not managing you. But you’ll soon see, it’s not gonna work. We’re not trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes here. I tell them, ‘this is what you told me you signed up for.’ “It’s always really weird to me when they don’t want to do what they signed up to do.”

We’re all 100% responsible for the quality of our lives and Zach says he’s here to help others accept that responsibility and help them build on it, by being the person that invests in others, a person they can rely on to be there when someone needs him.

“I think what really makes me tick – and I’ve narrowed down what I feel like my purpose in life is – is to make a positive impact in people’s lives. I want other people, whether they’ve just met me and known me for two minutes, two years or two decades, to think Zach made a positive impact on my life and changed my life for the better.”

It’s the very definition of success. For success isn’t just about what you accomplish in your life, it’s about what you inspire others to do with theirs.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky