“Decide what to do with your life. Decide to do what you love.” – Marc Allen, The Millionaire Course

For Adam Winter, the decision of what to do with his life was not an easy one. There were many stops along the way and too many opportunities that didn’t turn out the way he hoped. That’s par for the course for many people. From job to job to job – searching for a place to call home.

The road can be a long one. For Adam, the road seemed impossible, in fact, it was so tough, it made him want to hit the streets. Not only hit the streets, but literally sit in the middle of one, all alone.

It was just Adam, a table and a sign along the highway in Boca Raton, Florida that read: College Graduate Needs a Job.

“I was a graduate and I needed work,” says Adam. “I had resumes attached to the table and I sat there most of the day. I did it two to three times, then a TV news station came along and filmed it. I actually got offered a job, but I never started it.”

In fact, Adam started lots of jobs. For too many people that’s a three-letter word that provides little security, inspiration or a feeling of appreciation.

Adam wanted more, and he kept searching. From the hospitality industry to online marketing, to pharmaceuticals, to recruiting. Each time either Adam wanted out, or the employer showed him the door. In 2016, another unexpected exit was the last straw.

“I went into travel nursing recruiting,” says Adam. “I was there for a year-and-a-half and then, without warning, they randomly let me go for no reason.”

The timing couldn’t be worse for Adam and his wife Crystal. Then again, is there ever a good time to be told you’re unemployed? Adam and Crystal were well on their way to welcoming a new life into the world, another mouth to feed and little income to do it.

“When the recruiting business let me go my wife was about three months pregnant,” says Adam. “She was working as a teacher, not earning much and now I had no work. Then someone from USHEALTH Advisors tried recruiting me. I saw an ad online and that’s when someone from the West Palm, Florida office contacted me. I told her, ‘I’m not interested, it’s 100% commission, I have to pay for my licensing and my wife is three months pregnant, besides the office is more than an hour from my home.’ The woman informed me there was a Fort Lauderdale office. I still told her, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ She told me she thought I would be right for this position and showed me some weekly paychecks of people earning from $1500 to $4000-a-week. I said I’m still not interested, I need money now. She said she’d send me an e-mail with a link to a webinar and I said, ok, but with no expectation of ever looking at it.”

So Adam got back to work – sending out resumes. Instead of a table in the middle of the street, now it was online. With nothing coming in and nothing he wanted to do – he decided to take a peek at the USHEALTH webinar link.

“When I watched it what caught my eye was the product portfolio and the pay structure,” says Adam. “Then I went to LinkedIn and searched USHEALTH, Fort Lauderdale. I found Justin Brain, (now Adam’s Satellite Division Leader), and saw that he and I had a number of mutual friends. Justin had been at USHA for about six months. I gave him a call and we had about a 15-to-20 minute phone conversation and he told me everything I heard was true. ‘We’re helping a lot of people and making money doing it, it’s a great feeling,’ Justin told me. “He said he had sold his transport company and had been making over six-figures before he came to USHA, now it was so much better. I told Justin I’d call him back if I wanted to do this.”

“Then I went on Facebook, searched USHEALTH and found Alvin Bordeau. Alvin is now my Field Sales Leader. I hadn’t spoken to him in a few years, but I knew him from the time I worked in pharmaceuticals. I messaged Alvin and he said call me. We spoke and he told me the same thing Justin had, they were helping a ton of people and making a ton of money doing it. I decided to see it for myself so I went to Garrett Laughlin’s office, (now Adam’s Division Leader), and everything felt legit. I saw people working hard and their paychecks of $2000 to $3000 in a single week.  After I witnessed all of this I went back and told my wife I want to join USHEALTH Advisors.”

Adam knew it would not be easy. “I knew there were outside expenses,” he said. “I had to pay some money to contract, for the study course to get my health and life license, and then to get my state license. My wife was teaching at the time and barely making any money, she’s three months pregnant, we had no savings, and to do this, to make this happen, I was actually borrowing money from my mom and my in-laws. But I told myself I cannot fail at this, this is my time to shine. If these people are making this happen, then I can too. I did the study course in a week, passed the licensing exam and then I started working for USHEALTH.”

No risk, no rewards. But the way to get there requires hard work.

It was October of 2016 when Adam joined USHA. By 2017, Adam’s first full year with the company, he produced one-million-dollars in sales in a single year. By the next year, Adam was promoted to a Field Training Agent. Currently, his team is sitting at the top of the charts.

“My goal is to finish as the number one FTA team in the country and to personally hit the $5 million lifetime mark as a personal producer.

But Adam knows the path to the top is paved, slowly, with the stones of an incredible work ethic. It’s something Adam learned from one of the most important women in his life, his mom.

“My mom sacrificed a lot to make sure I had a great childhood,” Adam says. “It was tough for us. My dad passed away when I was ten. At an early age, I quickly came to realize I was the man of the house. My mom was never in danger, but she was the only person I had left. Living as an only child with my mom, I counted on her and she counted on me. It wasn’t easy growing up with a single mom. She didn’t always have the best job, but she kept a roof over my head and worked hard to get me into the best schools. She worked overtime and before I went to high school she earned enough for us to move to another city so I could go to a better high school.”

“I talk to my mom every day. I call her every night on my drive home from work, just to say hi and to listen to her about her day. There isn’t always a lot to talk about, but at the end of the conversation, we say, ‘I love you,’ that’s what really matters. We only have one mom.”

Love, serve, care… work.

It’s built into the very fabric of a successful business and Adam has developed himself and his team following in his mom’s footsteps – putting in the work. But at first, even his mom questioned Adam’s decision to join USHEALTH Advisors.

“My mom, Crystal’s parents and even some of my friends, when I said this is 100% commission, they asked if I knew what I was doing. I contradicted them and said if others can make this happen, with what I’ve seen and the people I’ve seen doing this… if they can so can I. That’s why I worked those long hours the first four months to learn the business. I was working 8 am to 10 pm, to get myself used to the business, what to say and how to say it. I didn’t get paid the first three weeks, then I got paid nicely, then I didn’t, then I got paid again, kind of like a rollercoaster. But after those first few months, everything clicked, and I have never looked back on my decision to join USHA.”

It’s like anything else in life. No one is great at something until they learn the process and put in the time – and that’s what Adam preaches to his new agents – embrace the suck.

“The most important thing to bring to the table is mindset and attitude, they’ve just got to be willing to learn, listen and apply the knowledge,” says Adam. “The first few months, this is not a 40-hour workweek. Put in the hours and be coachable. We do weekend business as well, you should learn to work at least parts of seven days.”

The gap between your desires and your dreams can be filled by only one thing, massive action. Because of the work Adam has invested and continues to invest, the payoffs have been tremendous.

“Life is amazing,” says Adam. “I work a lot in this career, but I can’t imagine where we are now, compared to when I first started – with no income, my wife still working as a teacher, no money in our savings and borrowing just to get this thing off the ground. It wasn’t easy to swallow my pride and to borrow money from my mom and in-laws to do this, but nearly four years later, it’s the best thing that has happened to us.  Literally, after my first daughter was born, I was able to financially sustain us and let my wife become a stay-at-home mom. And from there we knew we wanted more children, so we bought a bigger house. In a two-year span, I was able to allow my wife to leave her job and put money back into our savings.”

The couple now have two children, 3-year-old Ava and 10-month-old Raina.

“It doesn’t matter how you grew up, or what hand you were dealt, or what obstacles are in front of you,” he says. “If you just never give up, you will get where you want to be in life. I never had the luxury of having a lot of money or being able to spend freely. It’s not about the money though, it’s about lifestyle and freedom. Growing up seeing my mom struggle, making sacrifices for me, I don’t want my family to have to do the same. I want to make sure I can provide for them and give them whatever they deserve.”

It was a long road, and a lot of job jumping to get here, but Adam and Crystal are happy they made the journey. Now, it’s time to make sure others know they too can do the same – and instead of just working a job – they can build a career and an abundant life here.

They know USHEALTH Advisors is a place to call home.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

It only takes one day, or one moment to change your life.

For Lisa O’Brien and her husband Joe, it was only hours after they experienced the miracle of life for the second time. Shortly after their son Ethan was born, a little text would change the course of their lives.

“For years Joe and I worked in the restaurant business,” says Lisa. “In 2011 we were expecting our second child and living paycheck-to-paycheck. We had saved up just enough for me to take six-to-eight weeks off while caring for our new baby. Only one day after giving birth to Ethan by c-section, while still in the hospital, my husband got a message from one of his coworkers, who texted him to let him know something was up. Joe was a chef for a private catering company. The woman who owned the company ran out of money and had to shut it down. Joe tried to call her, but she didn’t answer. She ended up sending him the news in an e-mail.”

In a two-day span, the O’Brien family experienced the euphoria of a new life they welcomed with open arms and the realization another life and a new direction would soon be forced upon them. Holding their brand new baby the O’Brien’s were long on love, but without Joe’s job, short on cash.

Way short.

“It was a tough time,” says Lisa. “We only had enough money for me to go back to work, not for Joe to lose his job.”

But right before the birth of her son, Lisa had learned about an opportunity with a company called USHEALTH Advisors and thought she might make the move.

“I had learned about USHEALTH Advisors from a high school friend who was doing well with the company. She asked me to check it out.  I did and I was ready to take the leap of faith. And it was definitely a leap when I started it. I used my maternity leave to study for the health and life license and to pass the test. When I got back to work I was still waiting tables at night, Monday to Friday, and working on my business with USHA during the day. When I started I honestly didn’t have the full support from my husband. We had a six-week-old baby and a three-year-old daughter. My husband was still looking for work, no money in the bank and now I’m was working a job that’s straight commission.”

Back in 2011, most of the sales for USHEALTH Advisors were done face-to-face which made it even more challenging for Lisa to get a good leg up, since she was working two jobs and helping to raise two small children. Admittedly she says it was a slow start for her, especially having to pound the pavement, but these days most of the sales for the company are on a virtual platform, allowing almost anyone to get off to a fast start.

Despite the slow, but steady progress at USHA, Lisa knew she had one thing going for her… her determination. She learned quickly that the power comes from within, that if you set your mind to something you can do it and do it well. Plus, Lisa says she’s wired to show what’s possible, especially against all odds.

Lisa’s perseverance is reflected in the numbers, she’s a $20 million team leader and has issued nearly $3 million in personal production for USHA.

“I knew I could do this,” says Lisa. “I’m one of those people who like to prove people wrong. When I have doubters that fuels a fire inside of me that makes me work really hard.”

It didn’t hurt that her dad had spent a long career in sales. Lisa grew up in Phoenix, AZ and her dad sold copy machines, by cold calling and prospecting, as most salespeople do. Then he’d button it all up with an in-person presentation.

Younger Days for Lisa & Family

“My dad took early retirement and then got the opportunity to purchase a pool business,” says Lisa. “He ran that business for about 14 years and sold it about a year ago. So now he is officially retired. Between both careers, he and my mom have done very well for themselves.”

Lisa’s dad is living proof that hard work, works, especially if you’re an entrepreneur.

The values Lisa picked up from her dad and also her mom, who worked just as hard as a stay-at-home mom with three kids, gave Lisa a serious work ethic and a winning personality that has served her well. Her work ethic, however,

waned a bit in secondary education.”

“I went to community college for a year and to college for a year. But college was not for me, I was a little too social,” laughs Lisa.

While attending college Lisa started waiting tables and so when she left school she continued in that industry – working as a waitress, a bartender and eventually a corporate trainer, travelling the country to help other restaurants launch their new establishments. It’s also while out on the road where she met her husband Joe and the two followed his career as a chef to different parts of the east coast, Virginia and Pennsylvania, before heading west to Chicago and finally settling back in the Phoenix area to leverage the support of Lisa’s parents as she and Joe built their careers.

Lisa’s Mom & Dad

The parental support ended up being key, as post-second baby, Lisa tried to work two jobs, while Joe looked for a new one. It wasn’t an easy road.

“We didn’t have enough in the bank when Joe lost his job, so we had to sell some belongings and vehicles,” remembers Lisa. “When I came on the scene in 2011, it was nothing like it is now with USHA, we got maybe 20-to-30 leads a week on a piece of paper, nowadays the leads are sent real-time through a CRM. I used to drive to strip malls and talk to business owners, and I just wasn’t very good at it. My only sales background had been as a bartender, upgrading someone’s tequila in their margarita was about the only sales experience I had going for me,” she laughs.

But as things started to click, Joe found a new job and with a better financial foundation building again, Lisa was able to step-up, while still enjoying the flexibility of being there for her Ethan and her daughter, Ella.

“The business really took off once we went virtual,” says Lisa. “There are more tools and resources now with the CRM system and the ability to hold licenses and purchase leads in multiple states, plus the sales training and processes. My Division Leader Dan Eddington came to Arizona in 2019 and brought with him a training program and a system that is measurable. And my Field Training Agent, Zach Lauer inspires me to push myself harder. Zach and I challenge our team to do the same. Plus there’s my Regional Leader Dan Ashfield, who has always been here in Arizona and Murph Lauer, who moved here from Illinois and made a big difference.”

Making a difference is what drives Lisa, especially as a Field Sales Leader, helping others to learn the USHA way.

“What excites me about my career right now is giving the opportunity to more people,” says Lisa.  “My goal in 2020 is to bring even more people into this opportunity and create more leadership roles for agents who are working toward that goal. Anyone can make this work for them. I have different people from different walks of life and different work experiences on my team. One was a banker, one worked in border patrol, one was a bartender, one worked at Costco in the food court, serving hot dogs and pizza and now she’s an awesome producer at USHEALTH Advisors.”

Lisa also likes to reflect on the gratitude she feels for the past eight-plus-years working at USHA.

“In retrospect, it didn’t feel good where we were at that time in our lives when I started this,” says Lisa. “But I wouldn’t be who I am today without those experiences. I wasn’t someone who came in and made six-figures in my first year as some people do, but I eventually did and it felt amazing. I still remember when we paid $1,800 for a minivan for my husband to drive around while I worked my two jobs. But then Joe found a new job and in a few years, because of my work at USHEALTH, he was able to buy his dream car, a fully-loaded Jeep Rubicon, and we were able to buy our first house. I still remember when Joe got that Jeep and we parked it out in front of the driveway, I caught him walking by, again and again, to take a peek at it. He said he couldn’t believe he actually owned it now!”

Lisa says her success through the USHA opportunity has allowed the family the freedom and flexibility to spend fun times together, including the dry camping trips they take, using Joe’s Jeep to find trails and other places to explore. Lisa says another of her happy places is being near the pool, or at the beach. The family lives not far from a town in Mexico, a resort town called Puerto Penasco also referred to as Rocky Point. It’s close enough for the family to take a quick weekend there to recharge and refresh, especially since Joe has since left his job as a chef and consultant, to help Lisa with her USHEALTH Advisors career and build her FSL team.

Puerto Penasco

“Joe loves helping me out with the business,” says Lisa. “He’s building my Facebook page for me and he got some equipment recently so we can shoot, create and put short videos out there as well on social media. He’s very artistic.”

While Lisa says being a mom and balancing out motherhood, (Ethan is now 8 and Ella, 11), and the business has been a reach challenge, she also recognizes it as her greatest accomplishment and says it’s all because she’s inspired and challenged by her work and life with USHEALTH Advisors.

“My career was a slow build, but once it clicked things really took off,” says Lisa. “We’ll be coming up on our nine-year anniversary here in October and this has been a life-changing opportunity. It can be for anyone. I just want people to feel better walking away from me then they did when they first arrived. I want to make people’s lives better, I want to make their mindset better, to create more opportunities for people. What I really aim to do is to inspire people to dig deep and tap into their full potential. I’ve been given a great opportunity and I want other people to have that same chance.”

“The secret here is to hold yourself accountable, keep your promises to yourself and utilize the right tools and resources, which we already have here and which keep getting better every day. It really is what you make of it at USHEALTH Advisors. If someone works hard, is coachable, and takes advantage of and utilizes the tools and resources we have here, then it all works and ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

Character isn’t something you are born with and can’t change, it’s something you take ownership of and develop. If you do that, the law of attraction takes over and the relationships you build then fuel your success.

In recent years, Derrick Berry feels like he’s been living fully in that concept, recognizing that if he gives back, and focuses on people before profits, he can leverage a lot – and in turn – a lot will be given. Derrick serves as a Satellite Division Leader for USHEALTH Advisors and says he’s living proof that what powers success here are the people. And Derrick has touched plenty of people, to the tune of more than $33 million in production since he became a team leader with USHA, putting him squarely in the top 100 leaders of all-time with the company.

“It’s life-changing,” says Derrick. “Anybody can talk about the great financial aspects of the company and the opportunity, that’s the obvious part. But to me what’s life-changing is the pride and confidence being part of this company have given me, and most importantly the friendships I have with the people I work with every day and who have helped me along the way. People like Nathan Scott, Jim Schmitt, Jamie Weeks, Randy Hildebrandt and Perry Lunsford, just to name a few. Even in tough times like these, (the COVID-19 days), we are all still staying in touch, talking and asking, ‘how is the family?’

“I love the money, don’t get me wrong, but the feeling of accomplishment I have here, the opportunity we all have and the relationships and friendships we create are so much more than a paycheck.”

But it’s also about reaching for and achieving big dreams. Derrick grew up in Midland, Texas with a brother and step-sister, full of dreams. He says childhood was good and he fell in love with baseball. A love that Derrick has passed onto his own boys, even coaching his stepson up until the time he started high school.

Derrick then…

Derrick now…

But even as an adult, there was another dream Derrick knew he had inside.

Derrick remembers the moment. “When Jim Schmitt, my division leader interviewed me for this career, he sat me down and said, ‘so what is your dream, what are you playing for?” If you had extra money, what would you get?’ “I told him it was a ranch, and after my first year at USHEALTH Advisors, I was able to get that ranch. It took me a few more years of working to build the house on that land. But what a gift it has been, because during this strange time with the coronavirus and staying at home, I’ve now been able to spend more time on the ranch with my wife and the kids. We just love it.”

If Derrick feels like his life is on fire right now then it’s all for good reasons. Yet it’s in stark contrast to a time some years ago, when in a twisted metaphor, his life really was on fire… because he was!

Derrick says one of the greatest challenges of his life was a horrific accident and then the doctors telling him he might never walk again.

He says he was using a gas can to fuel fire at a party, without the knowledge that embers had already been burning underneath a pile of wood. When the gas was poured in, the embers exploded and Derrick caught on fire, as did the house where the party was being held.

“A buddy tackled me and threw me into the pool,” says Derrick. “I thought everything would be ok, kind of like after a burn when you run the spot under cold water. But then I looked down and saw my skin was coming off and clogging up the drain in the pool, that’s when I realized it was more serious than I originally thought. My friends took me to the hospital in Denton, Texas, but once they started evaluating me there the staff told me they needed to fly me to the specialty burn center at Parkland Hospital. I asked them, ‘how much does that cost?’, they told me about $15,000. I had no insurance. So instead I got wrapped in towels, got in my buddy’s truck, and he made the 30-minute drive to DFW Hospital. At that point, I was on so many painkillers I don’t really remember the ride, but I do remember occasionally I would ask, “are we there yet?”

With burns over about 20% of his body, Derrick says he doesn’t recall a whole lot about the next two-to-three months. “It’s kind of blurry for me,” he says. “I do remember though after having some of my skin cut off at the burn center, they sent me home! The next morning when my roommate woke up he told me my calves were the size of small footballs and there was green stuff in the bed. They took me back to the hospital and no one could understand why I was released. During the rest of my stay, I was told they did a number of skin graphs and tried to fix the nerve damage, but the doctors said I might never walk again because of the damage to my legs and ankles. I remember very little, but I do remember how they cleaned my skin. Twice a day they would come and scrape me… with a foil brush. That part I will never forget.”

“I was there for about a month to a month-and-a-half, and then I asked when I could leave. They said you can when we can see you walk across the hallway. They had done graphs on my legs, chest and other places. My right lower leg was the worst. But I made the walk and so they let me out to go to therapy. But therapy was just walking up and down some steps. I said, ‘I can do this on my own’, so I left and did my therapy at home.”

Back then, during his college years, Derrick had no health coverage, and so now it’s easy for him to see that it’s a place he doesn’t want others to have to face. His career as an agent and leader at USHEALTH Advisors has allowed him to put people, both his clients and his agents, in a better situation. He says when he found the opportunity at USHA it changed his life.

“During my college career, I started working with a buddy who had a landscaping company,” Derrick says. “Then we started a construction and home remodeling company. But I had a wife and a kid on the way and I was doing construction work that was barely paying the bills, that’s when I found USHEALTH Advisors.”

“I started getting e-mails about this opportunity because my resume was out there,” says Derrick. “Eventually I went in and interviewed with Jim Schmitt. After I spoke with him, he told me to give it a few days and let him know. I took it one day past Jim’s deadline because that’s the control freak in me,” laughs Derrick. “But then I told Jim, ‘yes’, and it’s been a great ride ever since.”

“I prayed the opportunity was real because at the time I signed on I only had about $5,000 in the bank. Even my wife Kelsi didn’t know how bad it had gotten. And it took a long time to get licensed in Texas, but by that time I had people ready to go as soon as I got my license. When I got my first paycheck, my leader Nate Scott called me and told me to go take a look online at my pay statement. I told Nate to just tell me how much I earned, but Nate’s the kind of guy who wants you to figure it out on your own, so he made me look it up myself. That first check was $3,400. I instantly felt lighter and knew that this was real and now I could truly do something to help my family.”

That first paycheck was six years ago, and now Derrick has not only his immediate family, made up of his wife Kelsi, and their three boys, 3-year-old Harvey, 5-year-old Wyatt and 16-year-old Ty, but also his extended family, the people Derrick has met and embraced at USHA and who in turn, have embraced Derrick and his family.

“The thing I take out of this, and I hope others do too who work with me,” says Derrick, “is that the most important thing is the relationships we have built through all of this. It’s about friendships. I’m hard to work with, I push people hard, but we do a lot of extra things together and I hope they realize how much they mean to me. That relationship building is so important to me.”

Derrick and members of his team regularly go to Texas Rangers baseball games, Mavericks games, grab a beer or even hunt and fish together. It’s all about building the bonds that make business better.

What’s also important to Derrick is to make sure the new agents he brings on have the greatest chance for success. He says he likes to set them up to win.

“I do things a little differently,” says Derrick. “I’m not a mass recruiting guy, I don’t just bring in as many as I can and see what sticks. I don’t believe that’s fair. We normally bring in just enough people that I believe my FTA’s and FSL’s can handle and we build a little bit slower, with the focus on my guys writing more in annual volume and doing consistent activities at that level. We focus on engagement and everyone helping and serving as many as they can, so they get their paychecks. It’s all about pulling on the rope together. We have a lot of different people who like to do things in different ways. You have to respect those personalities, learn what that person enjoys doing and help them to do more of it.”

Derrick says even in writing his own personal business, he has never relied on the leads, instead, he has leaned on his relationships.

“I have always been more of a circle of influence guy,” says Derrick. “There was a guy I knew when I started, this guy in bodybuilding, a very religious man  I who I helped get a new health policy. He had a huge social media following and about once a month he would post about me and how much money I saved him on health coverage – and every time he posted I would get about 15 appointments. Then I went to a buddy who did Ted talks, and so on. It’s how I’ve always done everything and try and teach my agents to do the same.”

“Our team was struggling last year and we made some changes which doubled our team production, changes that included me being even more approachable, not that I’m not, but if I’m working for ten hours straight, then I work ten hours straight and sometimes I forget to get up walk around and see how everyone is doing. Now it’s in my daily schedule, just to get up and say hello, to ask if anyone needs help, or maybe to take someone to lunch. The relationship building is so important to me and I hope my people realize it.”

Even outside of the office, it’s the relationships that drive success. Out on Derrick’s ranch, wifi is spotty. But Kelsi’s grandparents live nearby and Derrick goes there to work and use their internet service. He, in turn, especially during these unprecedented times, makes sure to go get their groceries, so Kelsi’s grandparents don’t have to go out to the store. It’s the little things in our shared humanity that can mean so much.

It’s the relationships that give our hearts a home.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

“Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine…” – Marianne Williamson

Success is never as sweet as when you climb up from the bottom, from a place where hope and purpose seem like a distant star. That’s when you reach back for something more, or as in the case of George Priovolos, you don’t reach back, you run right through it.

George knows what it’s like to walk in, or walk on, and go from obscurity to that moment where everybody knows your name.

“I played football in high school and I got an offer from Illinois State as a walk-on for their football program,” says George. “There were three different groups of linebackers trying out and seven people in each group. I was so far down I wasn’t even in the groups, they had a place for me all by myself. Out of 21 players, I was number 22!”

But the position is all in your perspective, and dead-last wasn’t George’s idea of being great. “I had some ability,” he says. “And if you were at the bottom you could accept the Challenge Program. If after practice you challenged the number one player at your position and you beat him, you could have a shot. So here I am as the scab, running the fullback position, but I accepted the Challenge Program and I ran right over the number one guy. No one could believe it. The coaches made me do it again… and again… and again, like ten times. Suddenly I went from last on the list, to the 2nd string starting fullback at Illinois State.”

Perseverance and persistence will beat talent every time. It’s a mindset and work ethic George says he learned from his dad and one which has served him well throughout life, including his current role as a Regional Sales Leader for USHEALTH Advisors. Leading and serving is something in which George takes great pride and is in perfect alignment with the company’s mission of HOPE: Helping Other People Everyday.

The everyday grind of doing hard work is what George says he learned a lot about early in life, watching his father work incredibly long, hard hours building up his own business. “I grew up in and around south Chicago,” says George. “My father had come over from Greece to this country with no money and didn’t speak the language, but he ended up running multiple steak houses in Chicago. Looking back, the time and effort my dad put in was an absolute blessing because the one thing he taught me was the value of hard work.”

George’s father Ted also taught him some lessons in tough love. “It wasn’t easy living with my dad for the most part,” says George. “My parents divorced when I was nine and because my father ran the restaurant, many times he wouldn’t get home until 4 am. I still remember the time when he drove me to college. My dad dropped me off at my dorm, got out of the car, grabbed my bag out of the trunk, hugged me and said, ‘I love you, son’ and took off. I went up to my room while all the other parents got their rooms ready for their kids, got their books, etc. Years later, when I was an adult I asked my dad if he remembered that day. I said, ‘why did you do that?’, he said, ‘you were being such a jerk, I had to teach you a lesson. But, I cried all the way home.”

Tears, sweat and the value of doing great work. All lessons from his dad that George took to heart.

For more than 50 years, George’s father’s restaurant, Al’s Steak House in Joliet, Illinois has been a Chicago icon. For a time, George also sought to follow in his father’s footsteps, first by working at steakhouses while attending college and then opening up a couple of his own. But George quickly realized the process of putting “meat in the seats” at the steakhouse restaurants – meaning attracting customers – and managing the people that worked there, was an all-consuming proposition. He worked nearly 24-hours-a day, seven days a week.

“Running the restaurants is a hard life,” says George. “You are so vulnerable to everything, and it’s so precarious. You have to order the food, prep it, deliver it to the table and then they, the customers, have to like it. The day I opened the first restaurant I treated myself and got a nice new suit. I was seating people for about 30 minutes when one of the employees came up to me and said, ‘you know those two dishwashers you’ve got, they just quit.’ “So the suit came off and I started washing dishes. It was like that all the time. But we were actually successful enough that I opened a second restaurant. The problem was I was working 110 hours a week, nights and weekends. My wife Suzi and I started talking about starting a family and so things had to change.”

So soon George turned from restauranteur to answering an ad to be a health insurance agent. “I’ll never forget the interview,” says George. “They said if you can work 40 hours a week, you can make $80,000 a year. I thought, ‘heck that’s easy, I can put in 40 hours by Tuesday!’”

George experienced success, but when outside influences led to a change in leadership and the opportunity shifted downward, George left the insurance business, moved his family to Florida and started buying investment properties and fixing them up. But then the 2008 housing crash reared its ugly head. The family lost everything.

Luckily for George, Troy McQuagge came calling.

Troy McQuagge

George had worked for Troy at his prior company and Troy was in the process of getting the band back together, molding a leadership team from those he had worked with before to create USHEALTH Advisors. While it was tough going early on, George says whatever money he was making he kept reinvesting into his business, and by his third year, he crossed over into earning a multiple six-figure-income by building a great team.

“I love to build,” George says. “I love building teams and helping others become successful agents, more than my own success in this business. The great thing about USHEALTH Advisors is anyone can do this. I don’t care what your story is, you can make it. We see successful people from all types of backgrounds and challenges, people going through tough life situations, people with medical issues, single moms with three kids… it doesn’t matter. I believe anybody can do this. I don’t care what your background is, if you put forth the effort we can show you how to be successful and we have such a great culture, believe me, that makes a huge difference. If you invest the time, we’ll invest in you. The first secret of success is simple – show up.”

A few years ago, George also learned a secret that has led to success for nearly every agent at USHA and it’s the reason the company has continued to flourish even during the COVID-19 global challenge… helping and serving can be accomplished just as well virtually, as it can face-to-face.

“We are fortunate here,” says George. “I still remember a few years back when Regional Leader Andy Montague in Tennessee, (back then a Division Leader), was just killing it in sales. I told Andy I was going to come up and see him and attend one of his meetings.”

“I got there about an hour before the meeting was supposed to start and I see one of his agents walk in early as well. The guy sits down and opens up one of the smallest laptops I had ever seen. He asks if the person he is speaking to on the phone can see his computer screen… then completes a presentation and application, closes it up, goes out takes a break and comes back in and does the same thing again with another client. I saw two sales in one hour. The next week I came back to my team and told them I had seen the light and the future of this company – work in the office and help people all throughout the country right from our computers.”

The USHEALTH Advisors’ mission of HOPE has become a real-time virtual game-changer for clients and for agents all across the nation. Before the middle of the last decade much of the business was conducted face-to-face, today the majority of help comes from the virtual connection – allowing thousands to gain the help they need through a screen share and helping the company to produce back-to-back billion dollars sales years.

“I think one thing that’s really important in all the life lessons that Troy taught us is to live a life of giving and serving,” says George. “There is not a better feeling than that and teaching those same principles to other people. It’s amazing to see a new agent going down one path and then picking them up and helping them go in a different direction  – literally changing their lives.”

While George has been a part of helping USHA through its exponential growth, he has also witnessed the same growth in the greatest blessings of his life, his family. George and his wife Susie are the proud parents of four children Olivia, Joey, Max, and Ava. He considers his marriage to Suzi one of his best breaks, ever.

“Other people will tell you, and I’d have to agree, that one of the greatest accomplishments in my life was somehow convincing Suzi to marry me,” laughs George. “We’ve been married for almost 20 years now. She’s such a good person. She’s so nice, so kind, such a great wife, mother, and such a hard worker. She’s been an agent with the company for eight years now. She’s a very good one too, with a great taken-rate, and is really, really good with clients. They just love her.”

So does George.

George says he met Suzi while she was his neighbor back in Illinois. “I like to tell people that she picked me up in a bar,” laughs George, “because I was running a bar at the time. She came in there and then told me to call her sometime, of course, I called her that same evening. The truth is I actually asked her out on a dinner date. We went to a steakhouse and there was a blizzard that night, so we were the only ones in front of the big window in the restaurant watching the snowflakes fall, alone, but together. It was a great dinner.”

And now, it’s a great life. It’s living proof of what can happen when you just show up.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

“You cannot teach a man, you can only lead him to find it within himself.” – The Great Astronomer, Galileo

Galileo was described as a polymath, a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning, besides that he could see the stars like no one else.

Joshua Cohen is reaching for those same stars, a young man soaking up the wisdom he’s gained from three decades plus on this planet, but ready to share what he’s learned to give back to others, especially his young daughter, Madeline.

“I think my greatest accomplishment and greatest challenge so far in life are both in the same realm,” says Josh. “It’s being a single dad and successfully growing and expanding my business at USHEALTH Advisors.  It’s simultaneously doing what it takes to help Mattie to grow, develop and be healthy and well-adjusted and do the same with my business.”

After less than three years at the company, Josh is already a Satellite Division Sales Leader for USHA. Josh is a rising star at USHA, but as even he will admit, it didn’t start out that way. First, he had to find it in himself to get better.

“It took me a while to get going here, a long time, because I was dragging my feet, procrastinating,” Josh says. “I’d say, ‘yeah, I’m gonna do this’. I’d get it in gear, but then like a lot of my life, I would wait until the last minute and most times I’d have results immediately. I was a short-term, instant gratification person, but that didn’t work here. I realized I’m playing with the big boys. There is no salary or hourly wage and the goals and quotas created for the masses out there in the workforce don’t apply here. I realized I was playing in the big leagues now and doing things the way I’d always done them was not going to work.”

“I contracted in March of 2017, but it wasn’t until the fall of the same year, end of August really, that I discovered what it would take. It was going all out, more than just a few hours at a time, I mean going all-out, morning to night, giving it all I’ve got which was hard. I had friends and family telling me to get a real job, that this is snake oil, multi-level marketing, a pyramid scheme. But I knew it wasn’t. I’ve always operated from the mindset that if other people can do this, so can I. It wasn’t some fluke. It’s not like Mark Zuckerburg from Facebook, or Jeff Bezos from Amazon, where it’s just that one person crushing it. It was everyone here who put in the time and effort, they were all crushing it. It was clear and obvious to me that there was some set of actions you had to take. I knew it, in the beginning, though I just didn’t know what it looked like.”

Josh says the realization came right around the time Jason Blank and Jesse Fabricant joined USHA and were top dogs in the company. He also credits other influencers like Shai Hatuel, George Soba and Richard Danilo Attenza, who truly helped him find his way.

There’s always a way.

“I’ve got to give a shout-out to Danilo,” says Josh. “He and I became friends and before I had any kind of success he’s the one who helped me. He took me under his wing. I’d ask him questions, he listened to my pitch. He taught me everything I knew. I got a lot from him and I implemented his work ethic and methodology.”

Danilo & Josh

Josh learned there’s also a method to overcoming mediocrity. When you are tired of being average is when you desire to step up to excellence and become the exception.

“It was all in Danilo’s system,” says Josh. “The methodology, his tonality on the phone, the background underneath, all the things that might not be talked about, but you have to see it to get it. He told me, ‘dude, you sound bad, you sound like a robot, you sound dull when you talk to people.’ “I practiced a shift in my tonality and practiced captivating someone on the initial call. And then there was the work ethic. You can’t stroll in at 9 or 9:15 am and stop at 6 pm and expect to have extraordinary results. It’s being there by 8 am ready to go and doing it until 9 or 10 pm. That’s the name of the game.”

In fact, it’s the game, or gaming for that matter, that Josh says might be the other secret to his success at USHEALTH Advisors

“I wasn’t really competitive in my early days of school,” says Josh. “I didn’t play a lot of sports in school and I was kind of floating, just going through the motions until I got into gaming. My parents had moved us from New York to South Florida when I was about ten. My gaming began soon after. I attribute a lot of the skill set I have in dialing, in navigating the computer tools, in typing fast, all of that came from the competitive gaming. You had to have an intense level of focus, to respond to something, to help others navigate quickly and send messages, etc. The development of that skill set transfers perfectly to dialing, to working the phones, to juggling many tasks at once.”

It also ended up forcing Josh into the workforce fairly quickly. “I got my first job bussing tables at age 15,” says Josh. “My mother had a real problem with the amount of gaming I was doing, so she got me a job. My focus and work ethic came from those jobs at a very early age. So when you take the desire to perform, to make money and cross that with the gaming skills, that’s why working the phones here becomes a natural fit.”

A desire to always get better has always been an underlying passion in Josh’s life. “The first ten years of my life I was in New York,” recalls Josh. “But then my parents moved us down to South Florida. I started fourth grade in a different school and it was a big, big change for me. My parents started myself and my brother in private school, but then quickly realized it wasn’t worth the $18,000-a-year-tuition, so by fifth grade I was sent to public school. It wasn’t an easy transition and it was not a high-performing school. In fact, it was the lowest-rated elementary school out there. That brought a lot of humility as well, because while we were no means, upper class, a lot of the kids there saw me as such because so many kids came from low income or even impoverished families. It taught me a lot about gratitude for what we did have.”

By the time he got to college, Josh was ready, more than ready to leave the nest. “I went to the University of Florida and I was thrilled to live on my own – and everything that comes with that – especially the freedom. I majored in finance, graduated cum laude with a bachelor of science in business and a minor in Spanish. But I stretched out my time there. I had credits coming into college so I could have graduated early, but I didn’t want to graduate sooner than the normal four years, so I took my time, partying and being very social.”

I was a server at a local restaurant, a bartender and even tried to open my own restaurant in Gainesville, Florida. I came up with a business plan, I did the research and developed a deal to present to an investor. But what killed it was the amount of work it would take to get it going. I had no experience, and I knew the investor I was speaking with was not going to hand over the money to a 22-year-old kid. So I changed gears. I called around and my cousin got me a job at a cell phone call center in Orlando. Then I met one of my best friends, Matthew Wester, who introduced me to a property-casualty company.

That’s where Josh started to gain his insurance experience, and more importantly, he met a number of the members of his future team at USHA. People like Ronald McGregor, Warren, Hendry, David Kelley, and Jonas Occeus have all left the property-casualty world and joined on as agents at USHA. Josh figured why not reach out to them? When you find a good gig you should share it with others who are looking for a better tomorrow.

Josh says he has a new outlook on all his tomorrows since he recently made a major shift in his life. “Since college, I had been deep into the party scene, being a DJ, staying up late, partying, all that stuff,” says Josh. “But about a year ago I gave up drinking. I just tried it, I gave it a shot and it felt so good, I said, ‘hey let’s continue this thing and now I feel awesome.’ Also becoming a dad and having Mattie in my life was pivotal in that decision.”

Then there’s the responsibility of having a team and being a leader. These people are depending on me for their success and their lives. I wouldn’t have done this if it was just me. I need to be the embodiment of the kind of leader they need and to be an example for them.”

And what advice would Josh give to a new agent, to someone looking to join the opportunity at USHA?

“Recently I went to this conference and it was all about distinguishing how self-esteem is a grossly overvalued psychological state. They said what is really valued is persistence and resilience – meaning I will figure it out and do what it takes. The problem is people give in and give up so easily, they quit way too soon. It’s macro patience and micro speed. You can’t just show up and expect results immediately. You can’t expect to be a millionaire overnight.”

“But the one thing you can be sure of and believe in is abundance. You really can have it all. But too many people say, ‘oh I was going to do such and such a thing until I had my son or daughter. I was gonna be successful or start this business but then such and such happened and that’s why I can’t. I don’t have the money, I don’t have the car, or I can’t create the life or freedom I want to have.’ “The reality is all the necessary pieces or components are already inside you to have the global abundance, for every person to have it all. I want to influence people and get them to know they can have it all.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky