Full-Out
Mara Abramowitz teaches us how in life you only win big if you play Full-Out:
A parent, a child, a father, a daughter.
Mara Abramowitz remembers spending a lot of time with her father. “My dad had his first heart attack when he was only 32-years-old, I was about two and I was with my dad a good deal of the time because my mom worked. I spent a lot of time with him at home because he was sick. I remember my dad was always warm and comforting and I was extremely close with him.”
At six-years-old Mara also vividly recalls the vacation when her parents took her on a drive in her mom’s Trans Am from Florida to Atlanta, to visit one of her mom’s closest friends. A vacation from which Mara’s father would not return.
“It was traumatic,” says Mara. I remember being woken up by a rabbi and that’s when they told me my dad had died.” Ira Abramowitz had congenital heart disease and the attack he suffered during the family’s trip claimed his life. Mara recalls, “I remember flying back to Florida, but I couldn’t cry. I was afraid to cry because of my mom. I had to be strong for my mom. If I fell apart so would she.”
Losing someone you love is tough enough, but especially when the person you lose is the love of your life. If the world turns properly on its axis and the relationship is strong, then the first true love of a young girl’s life is one man – her daddy. It’s a love which lasts a lifetime – and Mara says losing her dad so young affected her psyche, created fear and drove her to do more with her own life and to do it better and faster than everyone else.
“I think for me growing up it was tough, but I think recently I have come to terms with it. I never really talked about it, I didn’t want anyone to see it as a weakness. I used it as energy to move forward. I graduated early from high school, went to college and got a master’s degree in criminal justice. And once I had kids I felt like I needed to give more, because you never know what’s going to happen. You have to live like every day is your last.”
Life definitely moved fast for Mara. She was pregnant with her first child while still completing her master’s degree and by the time she finished the course her daughter Lilli was 3-months-old. Life as a new mom took up a lot of time and at the same time the economy took a turn. Her husband was running a successful tourism business, but in 2007 as the economy started to slip, the couple lost almost everything they had. “We lost six businesses in six months,” says Mara. “So I could not afford to apply my degree, get a PH.D., or go to law school and that’s how I found insurance.”
In an effort to lower their bills Mara and her husband met with Teaira Still. Teaira sold them health insurance and Mara was interested in the opportunity to be an agent. From that point her adventure in the insurance industry began, and the journey of her personal life would soon take a turn. Mara and her husband welcomed their second child Liam into the world in 2011, and shortly thereafter it was time for Mara’s 30th birthday.
Her husband threw her a big birthday party with 75 of her closest friends. “Nobody has 75 close friends,” jokes Mara, and so as she remembers as she blew out her candles at the birthday bash she knew her life was going to change. The breaths Mara had been taking were not cleansing ones, she was driving her life forward, but holding back, she says she had been “pretending”, not being her true self.
Figuring out who you really are and who you were meant to be can be a powerful, transcendental moment. Never forget the two most important days in your life are the day you are born…and the day you find out why.
“I had trouble turning 30,” says Mara. “I had been told you will be comfortable when you are 30, but I realized I wasn’t that person, I was not comfortable with who I was. Blowing out the candles on my 30th birthday I said to myself, this is not even who I am, what am I doing? I’m not pretending anymore, what you see is what you get. I’m going to play full-out.”
Mara and her husband decided to separate two years ago and Mara says that was a game changer. “When we first separated I wasn’t afraid, I was terrified! I had no idea how I was going to do this. I was with my husband since I was 21-years-old, most of my entire adult life up to this point. But I grew up in a single family home, I watched my mom do it, I knew I could do it. I gain strength from my mom Randee and with the support of my family and friends I was able to do it too.”
Not just do it, but do it big. Mara’s adventure into the insurance industry eventually landed her with USHEALTH Advisors a few years ago and she says it is probably the best opportunity in America for a single mom. “It gives you the financial independence and financial stability to do anything you want to do,” says Mara. In 2015 Mara was at the helm of the #1 Satellite Division in the country, even as she was going through a divorce and what she says was personally the toughest year of her life.
But Mara says it’s the support of a great group of women at the company who have always had her back, and the tremendous culture of giving, that drives her both professionally and personally. “I love to sell and I love to hire and inspire. I want to give back the same gift that was given to me. Plus, I believe it’s so important for my daughter to see how a woman can do anything she wants and for my son to see it’s OK for a woman to work.”
And work she does! As a single mom Mara says her life is always on full tilt: “It’s crazy to say the least, it’s a race every single day. My morning starts at 6:30am, time is ticking with everything that has to get done by the end of the day.” Mara has to get the kids out, get herself together, get to the gym at some point, continue to build her team, sell, hire, inspire and then educate, not just her agents, but other younger people as well. On top of all her other responsibilities, Mara teaches Hebrew School twice a week.
“I really am insane that I do this,” says Mara. “But it’s important for my kids, for their foundation and it makes me feel good. I teach 5th and 6th grades, pre-bar and bat mitzvah. And I love when years later the kids come back to say hello, I love to see them come back. I’ve been teaching since I was 19. I’m now 33.”
Teaching, giving, selling, hiring, inspiring and being a mom – it’s a crazy life for Mara, but one she says she wouldn’t trade for the world – especially because she says she is doing it for the two most important people in her world, her 8-year-old daughter Lilli, and five-year-old Liam.
“They’re the reason I breathe. They’re the reason I get up in the morning, I can’t wait to see their faces. They’re the reason I live. Lilli is the one that has it all together, she keeps her mom in order. She checks out what I’m wearing, puts projects up on the fridge, puts the planner out and does all she can to make sure I function as a mom. She’s so brutally honest. I couldn’t have drawn a better picture of what I want my daughter to be.”
Mara says with her crazy life she is also so fortunate to have the support from her boyfriend, her ex-husband, her friends and her USHA family. “All these people, Teaira, Taraina Mccants, Liz Byrne – they all believed in me,” says Mara. “It wasn’t easy when I began in this career at all. I was quitting every day the first year, but they pushed me. And now my biggest high is building my team. I spend a lot of time recruiting and giving back the same opportunity I was given.
“It took me a long time to discover who I am and it took a long time to be comfortable about me as a person. I make mistakes like everyone else. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I’m pretty transparent and I’m OK with that, and if somebody doesn’t like me for it, I’m OK with that too.”
For Mara there’s no more pretending – it’s all about being real, as real as it gets. You get the sense from talking to her and the incredible energy she exudes, that if it were possible, she just must might make this planet we all share rotate a little bit faster, because she knows life can be short. At such a young age Mara experienced what it’s like to love and to lose. What you cherish most can be gone in an instant and she is committed to breathing life into every moment, to embracing all it has to give and to give it all she’s got.
For Mara Abramowitz, there’s only one way to play…full-out.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
A Whole New World
Liz Byrne traveled the globe and came full circle in her own life to inspire all of us with her story, A Whole New World:
Liz Byrne is happy, she’s arrived. Or at least on this path along her life’s journey, this page in her book, it’s a time to cherish. A super successful businesswoman, a loving wife, a devoted mother. She will even go so far as to say her life is “simple and boring”.
“We don’t do anything”, says Liz. “We have two toddlers, life is work, and the kids. Tim and I are so committed to the kids’ routine and we have opposite schedules, so we have an understanding and we make it work. I’m busy with my agents on my sales team. Tim gets home to make dinner for Michael and Gabby, gives them a bath and handles some big responsibilities. I especially respect what he does because he’s out running around all day as the lead on an Emergency Reaction Team for NASA. But he does whatever it takes. It works. We work.”
Liz says sometimes Tim tells her he feels like he’s “Daddy Daycare”. But, she laughs, “I tell him, ‘babe, it’s called parenting’.” And while these days life might appear boring and simple, for Liz it’s all good. The experience of her life is joyful, impactful, and meaningful, since her childhood was anything but.
That’s because the first third of her life was spent living the one word we all try to conquer every day: fear.
Liz says, “I would lay in my bed at night and wish I would be anyone else in the whole wide world. My story was I never fit in and nobody liked me and it was based on believing what was happening to me. I’m believed I was living a story where I didn’t fit in and nobody cared.”
She continues, “When I was a kid we didn’t have money, my home life was not safe, my dad was very violent, not a good person. He was physically a horrible person, a sociopath, he was very volatile and terrifying. We lived in fear of him. He was the punisher, my mom was the protector. She would come sneak into my and my brother’s room and cry with us. It’s tough to grow up in a place with someone you are afraid of, someone you are supposed to look up to. As a kid it didn’t feel fair, or right.”
When our childhood is “right” it is something we look back on and remember fondly, a time of innocence where anything is possible, a place we feel safe, secure and harbor little fear, since fear is a learned response. But for Liz this time of joyful innocence was filled with dark memories of a man who became the thief in the night of her chance for a bright and “normal” existence.
But before she exited her teenage years, Liz says her mom got up the courage to get out. Her mom divorced her father and brought a new man into her life and Liz says her mom’s husband showed them the way. “He stepped up to the plate” says Liz. “He showed us it was possible to have a family where love lives and he was, (and is), a good example of what we could have, of what we could be.”
The new family with her Step-Dad
With love at the core and hope at the door, Liz got the courage to venture out as well, to distance herself from her past. She moved from Titusville, Florida to Orlando and saved her money. It gave her the foundation and the fortitude to make the big jump – to the Big Apple. “Moving to New York City was definitely me trying to get away”, says Liz. “I didn’t know a soul there, I had no job. I remember my cab ride to an apartment I had never seen, and thinking ‘holy crap’.” But she made it work.
In the meantime Liz had also started traveling. She has been to 18 different countries and seen the world, through her own eyes, it made her realize things about her past, present and future.
Liz says, “There is that saying – I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. When you get out there in the world you see what real poverty is and what people’s real struggles are. It helped me come to a place where I didn’t harbor any feelings that I thought were still relevant about who I was. It helped me create a new story.”
Hong Kong
Thailand
Liz’s travels eventually took her from New York, back to Florida, and a failed engagement that had her losing nearly everything and moving back into the house with her mom. The house was 11-hundred square feet. Liz shared a tiny spare bedroom with baby chicks and a trash bag with her belongings. It left her thinking hard – what would she do with the rest of her career? Then in 2009 she answered an ad for an insurance company, which after a short time, led her to the doorstep of what is now USHEALTH Advisors and meeting Taraina McCants and Troy McQuagge.
Liz says with Taraina as her mentor she learned all she needed to know. “I went on a sales appointment with Taraina’s sister, Teaira. I recorded her presentation, listened to it like 40-thousand times, did it word for word, sold like a maniac and got out of my financial hole. I called Taraina like 150 times-a-day and she always answered the phone. If not for her I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
She continues, “Taraina takes the philosophy and beliefs of Troy McQuagge, (the CEO of USHEALTH Advisors), and passes it down to our leaders and agents. Agents come here with no hope and go from that place to a place where legacy for your family is possible because it is a supportive, genuine environment of complete sincerity and love. I had never experienced anything like that in my life. It is Troy’s big heart that has created this opportunity for all of us. This company is like a living body and the heartbeat starts with Troy. It’s like a passion and a calling. Everyone should have the opportunity to experience it.”
“To have the support I do at home, with my husband Tim as an amazing partner, husband and friend and to have the same experience at work too and have it all over my life, it’s something that’s extraordinary.”
And what of those demons in the past?
The love from all around has helped to erase the memories of the tough childhood Liz endured – her travels around the world helped to open her heart and her mind, to give her perspective and to see her struggles in a different light. And then she took the final step to alleviate any residual fear and pain as well. Liz attended a Landmark Forum about making positive, permanent shifts in your life, accepting responsibility and making peace with your past.
Then she took a trip… to see her father.
It had been nearly a dozen years since the last time Liz laid eyes on the man who cast such a dark shadow on her childhood. “I just wanted to let him know I forgave him and what he put us through”, she says. When I found him he was just this “person”, not so terrifying. I went to see him as an adult and he was not whatever I thought he was when I was younger. He was very insecure and puny, no backbone, no accountability, just a pathological liar. I just thought, ‘wow he’s so weak’. And he was in denial of everything. It was interesting for me to perceive him as this weak man. No strength and nothing to be afraid of. I only saw my Dad once and that chapter of my life is complete now… closed.”
It was a turning point.
Liz says from where she began to where she is now she has learned so much: “It all boils down to being able to grow. Once I was able to forgive all these opportunities started popping up everywhere. At a certain point I decided in order to grow I had to accept responsibility and not live the life I was given and create something better. You have to choose to break the cycle. I didn’t want to live in a situation where I was poor, or live in fear. Every day you must do something to make a difference. Don’t just strive for success and money, be of value and of service. Make a commitment, choose your own luck.”
And build yourself a whole new world.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
Attitude is Everything
Steve Keretz knows that gratitude and a helping hand go a long, long way, after all he has learned Attitude is Everything:
It’s the place outside you that affects you inside – your childhood. Steve Keretz says growing up in Pennsylvania, his childhood was good: “Not rich, not poor, pretty middle class – my mom stayed at home, my dad went to work and growing up in the 80’s I did what a lot of kids did…skiing, fishing, hunting, and I enjoyed reading.”
It was all good, well mostly good, except for the really bad part – junior high school.
“My brother and I had a rough go of it in junior high”, says Steve. “We got picked on quite a bit. Got beat up a lot. I got jumped so bad one time I ended up in the hospital with broken ribs. I was done. I was out. I wanted to quit school. But my dad was having none of it.” Steve says his dad told him, “we don’t quit, we need to find out why people don’t like you.”
Then Steve’s dad gave him a book. For anyone who doesn’t believe one book, or one idea can change your life, then settle in for the rest of the story.
“My dad gave me the book in 8th grade”, says Steve. “This book taught me to become genuinely interested in other people by asking questions and getting them interested in themselves and not focused on me, or what I was doing. It taught me to stop using the word “I” when speaking. The techniques in the book allowed people to see that Steve Keretz is not a bad guy. I used the techniques and targeted all the popular kids and became genuinely interested in them. Kids can be brutal, so brutal. But I kind of figured out who was popular and who has a lot of friends, who I could talk to and how could I get that guy to not dislike me.”
The book? Dale Carnegie’s, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Published in 1936, more than 50 years later that book and its principles turned Steve’s life around. He went from being an outcast – chased, beaten and ridiculed to an entirely new life experience.
“It really made a difference”, says Steve. “It was like a miracle happening, like everything flip-flopped. I worked my way to becoming Vice-President of my class in my sophomore year in high school and Class President in my junior year. I attribute much of my success in high school to that book. I also landed tickets to see one of the great motivational speakers at that time, Zig Ziglar. I was one of 100 people out of thousands who bought tickets at the time and about 50 of us got to spend the morning with Zig. It was pretty cool.”
Right out of high school, with a positive attitude and motivated to do more with his life – and to build up not only his mind but his body – Steve joined the Marines. Generations of his family proudly served in the Marines and Steve says he loved it: “Boot camp was physically and mentally challenging, it was more mental for me. People who can put their mind to it can get through it. I made lifelong friends there.”
Eventually Steve made the move down the east coast to Florida, working at a job as a server at a Chili’s restaurant, a stint in a call center selling magazine subscriptions, and then he found outside sales. The career eventually leading him to USHEALTH Advisors. In the sales business Steve’s past experiences helped shape his present and his future.
“I’m fortunate because of what happened in junior high school. It was a good learning lesson for me. I learned a lot about psychology in human beings and other people. The real world is not always a pretty place, there are good people and bad people. I’m glad I went through that experience and glad my dad gave me that book. He was a big influence on my and my brother’s life. Our dad taught us the value of hard work. He worked in the car business and when my brother Mike was 15 and I was 14, he sat us down and asked us if we wanted to get drivers licenses. We said of course. He said great, ‘If you want to drive at 16 you’ve got to get a license and you have to afford that car. You thought I was going to buy you one? It doesn’t work that way.’
Steve remembers: “I worked at Pasta Bella a few nights during school and on weekends. It taught me the value of a dollar and hard work. Saturday’s I worked a 12-hour shift and on Sunday a full day as well. By the time I was 16 I could buy a car.”
Work hard and believe. “The world is not a negative place”, says Steve. “Going through all I went through when I was younger, then working hard and joining the Marines helped prep me to be a big believer in attitude and work ethic. If you have those two things you can be successful.”
Success comes from the willingness to give and it’s what drives Steve, now back in Pennsylvania, as a Field Sales Leader with USHA. “I will give a new advisor 100% if I see they are working”, says Steve. “If they are working, I am working. If I see that work ethic I will do anything for them. A lot of people come to our company and may not be in the best financial situation, but they take the leap of faith. I always remember where I came from. I try not to prejudge but be thankful and grateful and blessed for these opportunities.”
“I’m just speaking from the heart. I try my hardest to always do the right thing and sometimes I get it wrong. I’m human, I have made many mistakes in life, but always try to do the right thing and sometimes it’s the hardest thing to do. I really do try to put other people’s needs first in business and in life. It’s the classic Zig Ziglar philosophy – you can have anything you want it life, if you just help other people get what they want. I believe it. If you focus on doing the right thing you will find joy from your substance when you do that. Good things will come to you. I do believe in God and he’s watching and things are being tallied up. God wants us to be kind to each other and I have a general positive outlook on most things. I believe the world is full of abundance.”
Steve says he has a special friend who has really helped to put things into perspective.
“My friend Nigel said something that stuck with me. You can use all the things that go wrong and all the negative things that happen to you as a reason to fail, or use them as a reason to succeed in life. Some people can unfortunately allow the bad and negative things to affect them, when instead you have the power to have a positive vibe. The negative things can set me back, but not hold me down. I use them as fuel to fire me up to succeed.”
It’s a fire so strong Steve has made it the message which looms large in his office and just as importantly in his life: Attitude is Everything.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
Above Average
David Manganello says you won’t accomplish what you want in life being mediocre. He should know, he’s always been Above Average:
“I think the most important thing is to find out what you are passionate about and go after it. That to me is the single biggest thing to help you be successful in what you do. If you are sort of successful at something and not passionate about it, you will only be mediocre…average. And nobody strives to be average.” – David Manganello
For 50 years now David Manganello has been anything but average and it’s been anything but easy. “I’ve always worked”, says David. “I started working at 14 as a kid and I have not stopped yet, I’m now 64. I will keep going as long as it’s fun and it helps people.”
Having fun and helping people, discipline, hard work and dedication. Growing up in New York, David learned some of these traits as a kid, sitting in the stands and watching some of the best – Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra. A lifelong Yankee fan, David got to see these legends do what they love at the highest level. It might be a game, but baseball is a metaphor for all of life, and only those who beat back failure time and time again earn a spot at the top.
After only a dozen years in the Big Apple, David’s family moved to Louisiana and eventually David found his way into the furniture business. “I worked for Levitz and Lohan’s and then went into my own business”, says David. “The furniture business was great until they started manufacturing products out of the country…it was very difficult to compete with that, so after the 8th year we got rid of the company and closed down. That’s when I went into insurance.”
Time to start over, after 20 years of selling furniture and at the tender age of 41. As David quickly learned sales is sales is sales and he thrived in the health insurance business as a leader of people. Help people and you win, because they win. Just like baseball, a business is successful when the team wins, and it doesn’t hurt to have some All-Stars to lead the way. On paper it’s simple, build your team, make your plan and ride the process. But as you know we make plans and God laughs, because often there are other plans in play.
In David’s story, in the midst of his plan, halfway through his insurance career, one of God’s children came calling. Her name is Mother Nature and her angry child – Katrina.
Living in New Orleans David remembers, though he says he would like to forget: “Katrina was tough. I kind of blocked it out because it was painful, probably the hardest thing to ever come back from as a family. It brought us to our knees. When you walk out of your home and you think it’s the last time you are going to see it it’s pretty painful.”
“It’s the only storm I ever evacuated for, personally we had a lot of damage to our house. We were away from home for about 8 weeks, but it took two years to get it all back together. Worse than that the entire area was devastated for a long time. It took a toll, we couldn’t work in our business because the building we worked in was under water. The insurance schools, (where agents get licensed), closed for six months. Most of my agents didn’t have a home to come back to, so they relocated because it was easier to do business out-of-town then to try and do anything in New Orleans.”
Bit by bit, piece by piece New Orleans was rebuilt, as was David’s health insurance business. “Little by little as the insurance schools re-opened we were able to recruit some people, build the office and continued to build” says David. “There is not any situation you can’t get out of by recruiting. You are always able to get out of it if you recruit. Good people gravitate to good opportunities.”
His focus on rebuilding, just like the city of New Orleans – helped David to recover from the devastation, to come all the way back.
Just like the high-class and sturdy furniture he used to sell – David looks to build solid teams. Post Katrina, and with his current opportunity at USHEALTH Advisors, David is focusing on what he does best, helping and serving.
“When recruiting I look for work ethic”, says David. “I look for what they have done previously and what they are trying to accomplish with a new opportunity – see where they are, where they’ve been and where they want to go. I think you have to find out what inspires people and hold them accountable to it. It’s work and a lot of people don’t like to work, because they are simply trying to pay their bills and that’s hard. So I ask them – if all your bills were paid, what would you want to do for fun for you and your family? Most of them say I would like to travel. I tell them what if I show you a way to pay all your bills and then put 1/12th away each month to go on a trip? Take a picture of the place you want to go, hang it up, show it to those closest to you so they can see what you are trying to do. Then I hold them accountable to that vision, it makes work a lot more fun.”
David has his own vision and goals and though he didn’t simply wish upon a star to make his dreams come true, he did find a great deal of inspiration in the place that does… Disney World.
“My first time to Disney World was with the grand-babies Max and Sophia” (ages 2 and 3), says David. “It was a unique opportunity, it’s like the training place for the human race. Everybody treats everyone else with respect. You can learn a lot from seeing the way people treat each other there, it’s like magic. I felt just like a kid when we went. The grand-babies had a great time and I had a great time!”
A little magic can weave its way into all of our lives if we simply follow David’s belief and principles of success, including breaking bad habits: “There is a very fine line between success and failure and that very fine line is difficult to define. People who fail give you all the reasons they can’t do it, people who are successful look for different ways to get it done. Successful people can be modeled, there are certain attributes of successful people that are common denominators. You need to do those things all the time so it becomes a habit and not a chore. It’s kind of like someone suddenly having trouble swinging a bat and hitting a ball. Under stress, people revert to bad habits because it’s comfortable. You have to change and do the right things even if it’s uncomfortable. Practice does not make perfect if you practice the wrong things, only perfect practice of the right things makes perfect. You get out of it what you put into it.”
David also believes we need goals in each area of our lives, that there are four segments to happiness: spiritual, physical, emotional and financial. He says if we constantly work on those areas they can improve, you can improve in any area of your life. “You can always get better”, David says. “When you stop improving you die, stay the same or go backwards.” As he leads his team at USHEALTH Advisors he reminds them to stay dedicated. “If you are not dedicated to the highest-paying profession in the world today, then change what you are doing, or change professions. If you are passionate and stay dedicated then you never work another day in your life. I’ve been blessed to find that.”
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
Making A Difference In This World
You hope to meet many people in this life who will give. Then there are those who take it to a place few of us can imagine. Don and Jo Dente are spending their lives making A Difference In This World:
Get your motor running,
head out on the highway.
Looking for adventure
and whatever comes our way.
– Lyrics by The Cult
It’s always been about the road. It’s where life truly began together for Don and Jo Dente and the same place that nearly brought an end to life for someone, whom together, they created.
Don and Jo met at a prom at a Nevada high school in the late 70’s, albeit there with other dates, but there was an attraction neither could deny. It wasn’t long before the two were finally on a date, up all night, talking in Don’s truck outside a bass festival. Fishing had always been Don’s love, but he quickly realized he had found another… her name was Jo.
The two got to know a lot about each other, including Jo’s story of her life up to that point, trapped in a family with troubled and abusive parents. Don decided he wasn’t going to let Jo live this way, and so on that night in August of 1979, Romeo decided to rescue Juliet.
Don showed up at Jo’s house on his motorcycle, Jo had packed her belongings in a sleeping bag, jumped out her window and onto Don’s bike and the two hit the open road. The ride of life for the young couple was about to start, though the two had no real place to begin, nowhere to call home. They feared Jo’s Italian family, with some serious connections, would be after them, so they eventually wound their way from Nevada to Idaho and found a small farm. The two lived in a shack that winter with no refrigerator, keeping their food cold on a porch out back, and only a small wood burning stove. They survived on Don’s skill as a fisherman, eating mostly fish and Top Ramen. They slept on a blanket on the floor and had only a small radio, but they had each other… and lots of love.
Don eventually found work in what was a high-paying job at the time – working as a chain-hand on drilling rigs in Wyoming. The pay was 18-dollars-an-hour. At 20 years-of-age it was good money for Don Dente, but life on the road, at least for the time being, was about to end. Jo’s parents came calling – asking her and Don to come back home. The young couple eventually married in a small 24 hour Silver Bells Wedding Chapel in back in Reno, Nevada in 1981. They were home again, but not for long.
The twists and turns in the Dente’s lives since the two first ventured out together on Don’s bike have been amazing, more than can be recounted in one short story. But at the core of their life’s adventure have been a few things, including Don’s fall and rise in the insurance business. He first found a company called UGA back in the early 80’s and went 0-for-20 on his first 20 appointments, nearly forcing him back into work on the drilling rig. “I was driving home from another unsuccessful appointment thinking this isn’t going to work”, says Don. “I see a drilling rig and thought I will just go back to what I know. They hired me on the spot. That night I worked the graveyard shift, I came home and fell on the floor. I said I’m not doing this anymore, I’m going to make this insurance work.”
Don went to his manager and asked for help, he recorded his manager’s presentation and memorized it. “If people saw me driving down the road they would see me talking to myself, saying it over and over”, says Don. I said a prayer to my heavenly father, I won’t drink or do anything if I can make these next four sales.” Don went 4-for-4 and went on to become one of the top ten agents in the company, helping to train others along the way.
“I saw how good he was”, says Jo. “He is so good at helping people, he loves helping people and I told him you should get into management. He tells me no way, my only day off is Sunday and I won’t get to fish.” But the couple had a growing family and so Don took his wife’s advice and asked for a management position, but it meant another move, this time to Des Moines, Iowa. The couple sold their home, took the $6000 they had to their name, made the move and they made it happen. Jo, now 6 months pregnant with the couple’s second child, got licensed, and the two sold policies, recruited and trained new agents, eventually getting promoted to a Regional position.
The insurance business found the Dente’s traveling everywhere from Iowa, to California, to Hawaii, to Florida. And all the while the other focus of their lives, their family, kept growing.
The Dente’s now have twelve children in all – four from natural childbirth and eight others they have adopted through the years. One of the pure threads that bind Don and Jo together and why they share such great love is their deep passion for helping others, opening their hearts and their home to those in need. What you give you attract and what you get you deserve. And it’s the reason why, when right now the Dente’s own family is in need, so many have come calling.
Cassidi Dente
It was August 13th of this year when the Dente’s oldest daughter Cassidi was critically injured in a car accident on a Florida road. Her vehicle flipped over several times, trapping her inside.
The other driver involved in the accident, Nate, came to her rescue and tells the story of how another person appeared at the scene as well. Nate says the man came over said a prayer and Cassidi – at that point barely conscious – awoke to say a single word – Amen. Nate says he never saw the man again, and told the Dente’s though he’s not a god-fearing man, he now believes.
As do so many others who believe in the Dente’s. For Cassidi, this is the second battle of her still young life. Born premature, Cassidi was initially diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but Don and Jo say after another set of prayers and a blessing around the age of two, Cassidi began to improve, much of it because of her hard work. Don says Cassidi works harder than anyone: “She was a bit slower than her peers, but she works harder. She worked twice as hard to get good grades, worked twice as hard at sports, worked twice as hard for everything. The doctors missed the diagnosis at childbirth and this accident is the second time around for her, she’s determined to prove them wrong.”
Since the accident Cassidi has been mostly paralyzed from the neck down, a quadriplegic, but by medical definition only, not by spirit, mindset, or will. Jo has spent nearly every day in the hospital and rehab with her daughter and says Cassidi’s favorite thing to tell the doctors who treat her is to be more optimistic: “She says to them, ‘I’m going to surprise you, come back, walk in and give you a hug.’”
“What she’s known for at the hospital is her attitude and her will,” says Jo. “It was a big deal when they pulled her trach tube out, (which essentially happened by accident), and she could speak again. Her talent is speaking and inspiring people. She inspires everyone who comes into her room. The entire staff connects with her. They come in on their days off to see how she’s doing. They just love her, they take shifts just to be with her.”
But it’s not only the staff who loves Cassidi and the Dente family, Don and Jo’s insurance life eventually led them to USHEALTH Advisors, where over the past few years they have built a new region, and found a new extended family. The Dente’s say the incredible outpouring of love from the USHEATLH Advisors home office and agents since Cassidi’s accident has been overwhelming, and it has helped her to fight.
“There are more questions then there are answers with Cassidi’s condition,” says Jo. “Her grit and her attitude definitely were inspired by the support that was lent to her early on. When she saw the support she got, it led her to fight. When she saw how many people cared about her it made her believe ‘there is something I’m still meant to do. I can still influence, I still have a voice.’
Jo says after therapy Cassidi always asks the staff, “so what can I do today when I go back to my bed to improve? Tell me what to do because I want to move through this.” Jo says the family has a slogan: “Never give up, never surrender. And we say that a lot when the kids complain. Never give up, never surrender, don’t quit, eventually you’ll get it.”
Don says there’s a life philosophy he has learned climbing hills and mountains that he has tried to pass down to his children: “It’s in the climb of life when you learn the most”, says Don. “When you walk down the hill there is no growth or inspiration. Only when you are engaged in the climb and overcome the obstacles. It’s in the challenges of life where you find the opportunity.”
Cassidi is echoing her father’s philosophy as she fights back to improve her situation. Now at the Shepherd Center for Brain and Spinal Injury in Atlanta, Georgia, Cassidi is making strides, partly because of her own internal power and partly because of the generosity, giving and love of so many around her. Don and Jo believe in their daughter’s will and God’s help, to battle and find a way back. And they are buoyed by Cassidi’s continued optimism about her situation and her never-ending desire to give to all those she meets.
It’s a testament to what Don has tried to impart to his children: “I learned some time ago to focus on four words: listen, learn, love, lift. If you do that with everybody you come in contact with, listen to them, learn from them, love them – acknowledge they’re on the planet, say their name, acknowledge they’re alive and then lift them – and if you do that with everyone you meet, then you’re making a difference in the world.”
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky