Take a Chance

“The amount you believe in yourself and your convictions is directly proportional to the amount you are willing to risk.” – Anonymous

It’s all about belief. The conviction that you matter and can make a difference by being you – in all your glory and all your flaws – that’s what the world needs. It takes courage, which doesn’t mean you’re not scared. No, courage means you don’t let the fear stop you.

Fearlessness should be Nicole Garry’s middle name. She’s all about taking the risk and being herself, and in a very short time, it’s propelled her forward in her career at USHEALTH Advisors. To date, in 2024, Nicole has already produced more than $ 1 million in personal insurance policies, becoming the top agent in her West Tampa office. She contracted with the company back in June of 2023, and in 15 months has amassed over $1,600,000 in production.

Nicole is on a roll.

But like nearly every individual who experiences great success at USHA, that roll began with a bumpy beginning. No road to reaching big goals is all blacktop… paved, and smooth. No, it’s rocky, filled with speed bumps and sometimes detours, before you hit the fast lane on your highway to living a mission of HOPE, helping other people everyday.

On her road, Nicole started north, to go south.

“I am originally from Boston, I moved down here to study at the University of Tampa,” says Nicole. “I switched my major three times. After two years, I dropped out because I didn’t get to enjoy college like everyone else. At the time, I was working at Dunkin’ Donuts. So I’d wake up 4:45 in the morning, go to Dunkin’ finish my shift at 2 pm, change, then go to class for four to six hours. It was a lot. So I stopped going. Instead, I got into the hospitality service industry. I was bartending and things like that for years. But then as I got older, I was 27, I thought, “What am I going to do with my life?” I pay my bills, I feed my dog, I have clothes on my back, all of that. I can handle everything, but at some point I need to make the next step because I can’t be doing this at 40 years old.”

Attitude is everything, especially in work. If you don’t like where you are, you’ll find a way to make a change. In her head and her heart, Nicole decided she’d had enough, and her actions spoke louder than the words she spoke to herself.

“I didn’t want to be in that industry anymore,” says Nicole. “I ended up getting fired from my last two bartending jobs, which was shocking because I was the one they called when they needed someone to come in at the last minute, I was that worker for them. So it was kind of a reality check, but it also kind of proved my point to myself. I was not willing to be in this industry and I wanted to get out so badly that it ended up with me getting fired because I was slacking. I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do.”

Now, without work, Nicole was ready to try something new. And it was an acquaintance Nicole made while she was still bartending, a person who had consistently stayed in touch with her, and so, he was one of the people Nicole turned to for a new opportunity.

“I had met Kyle Williams,” say Nicole. “I met him when I was a server at the Oyster Bar. He had just moved down here from Chicago. He didn’t know anyone around here, so we exchanged numbers. Over the next two years we stayed in contact on social media. And then I started seeing him posting about his job, and I thought it looked cool. I was like, “What are you doing? I got to get into this. What are you doing?” And so he brought me in to USHEALTH Advisors to contract. But that’s where, if it wasn’t for him constantly checking up on me asking, “Hey, how’s studying going? How’s studying going?” “I probably would’ve never finished because I had another friend who tried to get me into life insurance, and I was struggling to study, and he never checked up on me, he didn’t really care. He just kind of wanted a warm body. I’ve come to learn there is a big difference between people who actually care about you and those who pretend.”

Nicole cares about support and nurturing… and she comes to that desire naturally. At a very young age, she had to learn about loss, and later spent time learning to take care of herself.

“My dad passed away when I was four,” says Nicole. “So it was just me, my brother, and my mom until she got with my stepdad. He was in the picture for a while. Then he passed away. My mom always tried to give us the best that she could. But there were times we didn’t have warm water, or the electricity would go out for a day or two, things like that. But my mom gave us everything that she possibly could.”

“I did go to a really good school in Massachusetts. I played sports, especially softball and for the most part had a normal childhood. And it was really my mom that took care of us most of the time.”

“But then when I was 16, close to 17 … my mom moved down to Florida. So I lived with my grandparents for a little bit until they moved as well, during the winter. They were snowbirds. So they’d go down to Florida in the winter, but I was still in Massachusetts, so I started living on my friend’s couches and things like that.”

During her time in high school and even living on her own, Nicole still managed to find a way to give back. She found a cause, one she first learned about when she was only in sixth grade, and by the time she was a junior in high school, Nicole knew she could play a bigger role.

“I became the president of our high school club, part of Invisible Children,” says Nicole. For those who don’t know, Invisible Children is a non-profit organization created to increase awareness of the activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), in Central Africa and its leader, Joseph Kony. Specifically, the group sought to put an end to the practices of the LRA, which included abductions and abuse of children, and forcing them to serve as soldiers. “Invisible Children flew me out to LA,” says Nicole, “and I got to see Samantha Power, who was the first United Nations female ambassador. Then they flew me out to San Diego the following year when I was a senior, to work with members of Invisible Children, side by side, to help with different things that they were going to be doing that year.”

Becoming part of something bigger than herself, experiencing loss at an early age, and learning to live on her own for a few years, Nicole came to realize that in life it was up to her to make thing happen. But when she entered the world of health insurance at USHEALTH Advisors, a new challenge lie ahead, and what Nicole wanted, almost didn’t happen.

“When I came here, I didn’t have any sales experience,” says Nicole. “I knew nothing about health insurance. It took me forever to study for my exam because I didn’t want to do it. I was like, I’ve been out of school, please don’t put me through this. This is not fun. It took me forever, but I finally got it done and I passed with a 90, which shocked me,” she laughs. But then I got in here and I still didn’t really know what this was or what I was doing. And it took a lot because when I first started, and everybody always talks about this in my office, I was not good.”

In the beginning of her insurance career, Nicole hit rock bottom, which is certainly not indicative of every new agent that starts at USHA. But it’s important to share Nicole’s experience, because although she was down and out – with renewed focus and faith in herself – she used the USHA platform and found a way to persevere.

If you keep the faith, there’s always a way.

“I went deep in a hole trying to do this when I started,” says Nicole. “I had $200 left in my bank account, and a credit card that was up to $22,000. I was freaking out, but I decided to stick with it. I told myself that after open enrollment in 2023, I’ll see where I am. If I still can’t do what I need to do here, then I’m going to have to move forward. So it was really all on me.”

“What changed for me was learning as much as I could from other top producers and changing my focus. I went all in during open enrollment. I produced a lot, and ever since then, I haven’t stopped and became number one in this office, which I think is a really big deal, because to me, to this day, I still feel new. I don’t know how I’m number one. I think it’s just because I have consistent actions. I think the pride of being number one now, being able to produce like other top producers, is great. I would say going from having minimal success in a career here, as well as a tight financial situation, and then being able to change it all – and my life – is my big accomplishment here. Being able to do something brand new that I had no experience doing and being able to turn it into something amazing and successful, I’m very proud of that.”

Nicole also believes her superpower at USHA comes down to one trait she’s developed over time.

“One thing that I think sets myself apart from most people is I’m extremely, extremely organized,” says Nicole. “Everything that I do is on a spreadsheet. And it’s not just your basic expense report, it’s my how I’m positioning my leads. I have a spreadsheet for every single city and state. I mean every city and town and state so that I know that I’m not scraping the same leads twice. So everything is on there, even dripping the leads. Everything is very organized. I even have a personal accountability checklist each and every day on a spreadsheet that I check off. It starts with me reading 20 pages of a book, minimum, and it continues on from there. So I’m just very, very organized with every source or system in my business, and that’s what I think really kind of sets me apart from many people, it’s my organization.”

“I actually don’t have a schedule for a day-to-day usually, but I do have my checklist. So I am not somebody who says, I have to do this between eight and nine, and I have to do this at a certain time, because I don’t live like that. I don’t even feed my dog like that. I know most people feed their dog at a certain time, and let them out. Nope. We are living the fun life. We don’t have it like that. But I do have that checklist. So no matter when I get it done, as long as I get it done, I can check it off.”

We know Nicole is busy getting things done and checking things off, but what’s her biggest piece of advice for someone just coming in the door at USHA?

“Listen to your leaders,” she says. “Take advice from the people around you. Sit by the top producers. My biggest thing is give yourself a year. Put all of your effort, all of your attention, everything into this business. Become obsessed with it. Watch all the training and top producer videos, read up on the competition, refresh your memory on things that are insurance jargon. Put your whole time into this for a year, it will change your life. If you can focus for a year, and say goodbye to everything else, it will work. Really lock in, and then in that year, become an expert and become obsessed with it, because that’s when your life is really going to change. You can’t sit here and be subpar for months and months and think things are going to just get better on their own. You have to truly take that whole year to be able to become successful in this business and become an expert over time as well.”

And so what about a little fun? Life can’t be all work and no play. Rest and recharge is important for anyone striving for big goals. Nicole says her play time is really when she gets to hang with her “baby.”

“Dino, he is my baby, he’s the one, he’s my little Italian man” says Nicole. “I got him at six weeks and he’s six-years-old now. He changed my life because I got him unexpectedly. He honestly taught me responsibility, because instead of me running around all night, and coming home at any hour of the morning, I have to be home for Dino. He’s helped me so much over time and he keeps me safe. I’m not as lonely anymore because I’ve got my dog every time I go home. We’ve moved plenty of times together. He slept on couches with me when I was in transition to my new apartment. He’s been everywhere with me

If Nicole feels like she’s been everywhere, she also feels much more settled now, having found what she knows is her new home-away-from home at USHEALTH Advisors.

“I always say I’m the black sheep of the family,” laughs Nicole. “I am always the one doing something random. Everybody’s very complacent with things. Whereas me, I’m going to take that chance. I’m going to take the risk and I’m going to run with it until I can’t run with it anymore. And that’s kind of how I look at my business now, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was able to do what I did and get to where I’m at now. That is my biggest accomplishment, knowing that I came from nothing, no sales background, and I didn’t have money to invest or anything like that. I went broke doing it, but I got myself out of it. So I would say resilience is probably the best thing about me. And also, I just have a crazy, goofy personality. I’m not normal.”

Crazy and goofy is good, because it means you are being who you are meant to be, and sharing your unique superpower. Just like when Nicole had her hip-hop music career, and her alter ego, Colie G – rapper, singer and songwriter. Although her time performing has pretty much come to an end, there’s no doubt Nicole found herself through her art, which happens to so many people, since any type of artistic endeavor is simply the truest expression of who you are.

“I started writing music very, very young,” says Nicole. “I’m pretty sure I was nine when I really started, because I used to steal the yellow notepads next to the home phone, and my mom would freak out, “Where are you taking all my notepads and things?”, she’d say. But I still have every single notebook I wrote my music in. And in one of those notebooks it says, you never met a 14-year-old rapper like me, so I knew for sure it all really got going about age 14. Obviously, at the time I didn’t have money to go to a studio. I wouldn’t even know where a studio was. I didn’t really have any connections to the music world.”

“But when I moved to Tampa, that all changed. I met somebody that introduced me to a producer out here. I ended up becoming a talent under his UTG, which is Ultimate Talent Global Management Company. I did a bunch of shows and things. My last show, since I’ve really stopped doing it, was last October. It’s not my passion anymore as far as what I want to do with my life, but it’s been a ton of fun.”

“When the people in my USHA Tampa office found out that I did music, they all started calling me Colie G, and it just stuck. I’m the only one on the leaderboards, where everybody’s first and last name is listed up there, and for me it just says, Colie G. I love it. I think it’s awesome that they call me that, because personally, all of my family and friends, they call me Colie. That’s been my nickname for my whole life.”

For Nicole, or Colie G, it’s all about being your own person, being open to new things and seeing how far you can go.

“You never know where life is going to take you,” says Nicole. “I always say to people, if you told me I was going to be selling insurance five years ago, I would’ve laughed. I would’ve said, what are you talking about? But one thing about life is that it takes you where you’re supposed to go. And as long as you roll with the punches, deal with the cards that you’re given, you can truly become successful in anything that you want, if you truly want it. One thing about me is I’m always going to roll with the punches. I know sometimes I’ll get pushed down, but I’m always going to get back up. I’m willing to step forward and take a chance on new things.”

Chances are what you make them. Nicole took a chance and changed her life.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,

Mark Brodinsky

Erica Luciano grew up in Buffalo, New York, and if you ask her what the common thread is between Buffalo and Nashville, Tennessee, where she now calls home, Erica will tell you it’s an easy answer.

It’s three words: Country music, God and Beer.

If that sounds like an excellent triple threat, it probably can’t hurt to embrace all three if you are building an insurance business in the Southwest, the Northeast, or in any place, for that matter. If you can focus on the music of your heart, work hard, have a little faith, and maybe toss back a cold one, or two (you might need that in sales :)), you can probably carve out a pretty good career by helping other people every day.

Erica came to Nashville in 2019 and found her way to USHEALTH Advisors in April 2021. For the past three years, she’s been strumming that six string in her heart as one of the most consistent agents in the company. As a Field Training Agent, Erica’s team is ranked in the top 25 with USHA this year, with more than $5 million in production, and Erica alone has produced more than $2 million in individual career sales.

Unlike many others, Erica says she never hesitated in her decision to take the leap of faith into the unknown waters of a commission-only-based opportunity.

“I remember seeing the ad for this job on a job board or whatever else I was using at the time,” says Erica. “I got the callback from USHA while I was at my other job, and I’m not kidding, I left on my lunch break. It was probably the most unprofessional thing I’ve ever done, but I left on my lunch break and did not go back. I sent the other job a text essentially saying that I wasn’t coming back and I started working at the gold building (USHA has a gold and a black building in Nashville), the next day, and then I had to wait to get my test and all the licensing done, but I did all my studying in the office. I just committed to being here already, which was kind of great because they welcomed me with open arms immediately. It wasn’t like a prove yourself mentality or anything like that. I think they saw that I was eager and ready to dive in. And so they accepted that and luckily ever since then I haven’t had to look back or think about any of those previous jobs that I held that weren’t allowing me to expand myself.”

So what led Erica to be so eager to jump right in? The answer is more than one thing, but it’s what so many people want: an opportunity to feel valued and appreciated… and to hear the truth!

“I think it was really that we talked about the no cap on commission, everywhere else I had worked there was a cap on how much you can earn – and I know that this was a big thing,” says Erica. “Being fresh out of college, you don’t know what to expect or what I should be looking for. So for me it was like, okay, I want to make sure this isn’t too good to be true. So when I went in to my initial pitch, at the time it was with Carson Rogers and then Kyle Weller. They both presented the job, but then they said, “Look, you’re going to have late nights, you’re going to have nights where you’re feeling unaccomplished and stuff like that, and it kind of prepped me for the bad side – but I felt like that was the first time that any job place had actually been upfront with me with the pros and cons, and not just trying to be like, “hey this is the best thing ever.”

“I felt like, okay, well these are people who are being real with me and setting expectations, and that’s what I want, just be honest with me. If you’re telling me this is the bad side, then I can live with that, so sign me up all day. A lot of these other jobs I had seen, or even worked at, it kind of felt like, okay, this is too good to be true. There’s got to be a catch. And there always was. So the fact that this company looks at what’s in the best interest of the agent, and cares about their people, that spoke out to me. Also at this office, we have a lot of people who brought in their brother or sister or cousin, whatever, that also work here. That struck a chord with me. It was like, okay, clearly if people are succeeding, and if you’re bringing on family members and you want them to succeed, then that it means this must be a good deal. You wouldn’t bring in your cousin if they were going to be broke and upset and stuff like that. So not only are these people here really nice, but they’re creating this family-like environment. So between that honesty and this environment, I felt like what I was walking into made me feel confident to not go back to my other job.”

Still, it was a big move for Erica to find her way to Tennessee, a state where, when she started, she knew precisely no one except her fiancé.

“When my fiancé, Reid and I had met in college, his family lived in Nashville,” says Erica. “Now they live in Memphis. And so being in any city, even Buffalo, in New York state, when people think about opportunities, they think immediately, New York City, Chicago, or Boston, kind of the classic cities of big opportunities. Reid wanted a career in finance, but his parents told him and us, it’s not what you think. You’re going to be sorry, you’ll be a small fish in a big pond over there. Here in Nashville you could be a big fish in a small pond because it’s still growing, there’s still opportunity and you’re going to get taken care of here, rather than being in New York or Chicago, where you’re always trying to catch up to make it. I’m honestly so grateful that they had us make this move to Nashville, because we were also able to afford a house here eventually. It wouldn’t have been easy at all in a big city.”

“It all happened for a reason. Reid’s parents pointed out the big opportunity we could have here, and I came to visit. Reid moved here first and spent a little time with his family. I followed him after we graduated in the summer of 2019.”

Big opportunity, but also a big move for Erica, since all she had known was her around-the-corner kind of love and care from her very close-knit family.

“I was the oops kid,” laughs Erica. “My brother Joe is five years older than me, my sister Nicole, is 13 years older than me, so my sister was probably a little bit of an early oops. But I was definitely the-not-planned third one. But it was kind of great growing up, having an older sister that was essentially a second mom. She was the mom that I could go to that I knew wouldn’t get me in trouble or yell at me if I did something wrong. So it was great having her advice. Both my brother and sister moved to Florida. But it wasn’t really until I left first, and then that kind of sparked the, “Okay, well, if the youngest can do it and be happy and figure it out. I’m sure we all can.”

“I think it’s probably my greatest accomplishment – moving to a city completely alone without family and being able to start a job and never fall behind on things like, knock on wood, rent. I grew up super, super close to my big Italian family. My mom is one of six kids and my dad is one of five. So there were a bunch of aunts and uncles around all the time. My grandma lived around the block. My uncle lived on that same street. My aunt lived across the street from me. So growing up it was like, if you were hungry, you just went across the street to my aunt’s house and the odds were there was food there. So it was a little bit of a different mix in my childhood.”

“Obviously, there were not aunts or uncles or cousins or mom and dad, or anyone to kind of call on here in Nashville. Sometimes, because of that of, I got lonely. But I think that’s kind of the great thing with this career at USHA, is that I was able to bury my head in the sand and keep developing everything that I had already become up to that point. This job allowed me to refine not just sales techniques, but it helped me grow as far as being able to be comfortable in any situation, talk to people, figure out what I have in common with that person. It’s really helped me become a more well-rounded person, not just moving here, but also this job helped encompass all the things I needed to get better.”

Before she found USHA, what also helped Erica improve was her shot in the spotlight; as she was slowly building her life in Tennessee, her original state of residency came calling. Erica had been accepted to compete for Miss New York USA.

Erica entered the pageant and came in second runner-up!! It was an experience and an accomplishment Erica says was life-changing.

“The pageant not only honed my public speaking and presentation skills, but also taught me the art of self-promotion and confidence,” says Erica. “Navigating the rigorous competition required resilience and strategic thinking, qualities that seamlessly translated into my sales career. Through the pageant, I learned the importance of building genuine connections and communicating effectively—skills that have been instrumental in my ability to forge strong relationships with clients and achieve exceptional results in the business world. The pageant’s emphasis on poise and perseverance continues to inspire and drive my professional success as I always want to exude those qualities with everything I do!”

Even with that life experience in her back pocket, Erica says it wasn’t as easy as you might think to get going at USHA—nothing new ever is—but once she did, she realized the sky’s the limit.

“Honestly, it was slow going at first,” says Erica. “And my start was slow because I’m the type of person, maybe it’s my biology background (Erica completed a double major in Biology and Chemistry in college). I don’t know, but I’m the type of person where I feel like I need to know everything in order to feel confident about it. The hardest “no” I ever got from a prospective client forced me to learn everything. So that way I never got a hard “no” again. That was a defining moment.”

“I didn’t know how to relate to people as well in the insurance world. So I went, sat in Carson and Lindsay’s office, between the two of them, and listened to every single call they made and how they were talking with other people. I recorded some of their calls and noticed it was like studying for final exams. I fell asleep listening to the recordings, and I woke up, and all of a sudden, it was like the language clicked, and it all made sense.”

“It was about my third week in when I really got going. I was like, “Ok, I’ve got this.” Every single person I’m talking to, I’m at least going to keep them on the phone and make sure that they remember my name and that I remember something about them, their grandchildren, or whatever they’re doing that day. And since then, I feel like what’s always helped me stand out is just having that personal approach to everything.”

“Looking at my sales, the last 10, seven of them are referrals. And I think that speaks to being able to communicate with someone so well that they’re like, “Oh, you know what? Here’s my cousin’s number, here’s my coworker’s number,” and they’re not hesitant to give it to me. I feel like it’s just treating people how they want to be treated. I get on the phone and if it’s a 40-year-old woman, I’m talking to her like I’m talking to my aunt and it’s just casual. How’s the family? What are you up to? What are your stresses or problems? And then kind of finding the solution for that.”

That’s sales 101: find the problem, provide the solution, care for the client, and provide tremendous value. It’s helping other people every day—and people pay for that service. Money is simply an exchange of energy. Give more energy, care more, and make more money. Erica has learned at USHA that if you work hard, really hard, you can build a truly rewarding career, professionally and personally.

But the key word in all of this is work.

“My biggest takeaway I think I’ve learned at the very young age of 27,” says Erica, “would probably just be that if you want to get overpaid, you’re going to have to overwork. If you want to sit at the table with the big dogs, then you’ve got to put in the time. And I think a lot of people see how great this opportunity is two, or three years in, and they just want to be there already. We don’t really fantasize or talk about that first year and the grind of sacrifices. I think anyone in this job who wants to build a career to gain financial stability, if we want those things in life, it’s going to come at a cost. And that cost is going to be your time. And that’s not just your time this week, but your time next week and the week after, and the week after, it’s the consistency of that time.”

“I’d rather work a hell of a lot now. So I retire early and chill a little more, focusing on my business, clients and doing whatever. That would be my ideal way to approach this job. So I feel like if anyone else has that same mentality, which I would imagine probably everyone that accepts a commission-only job wants to get paid-it’s just that you have to overwork if you want to get overpaid. And probably the second thing I would say is my biggest takeaway from this job, or my biggest advice too that I give to new people – is just staying consistent day in and day out.”

There’s never a secret; it’s the same formula time after time for the most successful people – the differentiator is the willingness, tenacity, and perseverance to do the activities repeatedly, for long stretches, and having faith that in the end, the compound effect of that effort will reap tremendous benefits.

Overwork gets a bad rap. It doesn’t mean being stressed, tired, unhealthy or the like, it means that to be the best, you can’t just put in average effort, you’ve got to put the extra in front of ordinary to become extraordinary.

Like Erica, overwork will get you over the top.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,

Mark Brodinsky

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. – Paul J. Meyer

If you talk to Ryan Faulkner, you’ll learn one thing: this guy is committed. But Ryan’s not committed not only to himself and his success at USHEALTH Advisors; he’s learned the secret to significance, being committed to other people.

“The toughest thing and the thing that keeps me up at night is worrying about other people,” says Ryan. “Of course I’ve produced a lot of business, but those are things I personally can control. As you grow as a person and as a leader, the things that you want to see, especially from people that trust you to help them start this opportunity, is to get them from point A to point B, get them to be a successful agent or be in leadership. Try and get them to a position of success, starting from the same place you were at when you first began. So I would say, especially nowadays, it’s just making sure I’m leading by example and getting people to that next step.”

Ryan has produced a lot of business for USHA… which might be an understatement. He’s been with the company since the spring of 2018 and as of the writing of this story, Ryan is on the cusp of reaching a tremendous milestone, $10 million in personal production. That’s a lot of issued business, a lot of individuals and families Ryan has helped put in a better place when it comes to health insurance and a lot of people and agents Ryan is serving to help them reach the same level of success he has enjoyed.

You can’t connect the dots moving forward, only looking back. Ryan can now see that much of the success he currently enjoys can be traced to someone he met years ago.

“Jesus Burga is one of my best friends from childhood,” says Ryan, “and we’ve known each other since. He came from Peru when he was 10 years old, and we ended up meeting on the soccer field in Pembroke Pines, Florida. We’ve been friends for a long time. Right before this career at USHEALTH, we were both working at Sears corporate selling warranties and protection programs – which was kind of like me dipping my toe into sales. But Jesus heard about this opportunity at USHA . Of course at the time I was very skeptical of a hundred percent commission job. Everyone typically is, especially when you’re hearing from your parents, oh, that’s risky. This is risky. My parents were always on top of me as far as getting a traditional education, and a steady job.”

However, after Jesus left and started to experience success at USHA, Ryan began paying attention.

“Jesus started with Sears around March of 2017,” says Ryan. “I started around July and then Jesus ended up leaving there around the fall of 2017. I stayed at Sears because Jesus was like, “Okay, I’m going to try it at this other company. Let me see how it goes, and then obviously I’ll bring you in once I get situated.” And then he always reminds me of the story – he blanked for a month – and then ended up picking it up and doing well, (Jesus Burga is a $12 million+ producer at USHA). So I came over here about February of 2018 and ended up getting fully licensed in April.”

“I definitely had the benefit of starting after Jesus did,” says Ryan. So I came in with a specific plan. I had some money saved up. I didn’t have a lot of overhead, so I was like, all right, if I’m going to make this jump, I want to make sure I make it count and give it my all. So I ended up making the transition, passed the licensing test. I finished the licensing course in three days. I was in here in six days. I wanted to get that part over and done with. I came in to the office and my first day working was a Sunday, so that kind of set my foundation.”

“I ended up getting a deal that Sunday. The client ended up getting a declined on the verification call, so I took that personally. I was like, that’s my first deal ever. I have to redeem myself. That’s why I’ve focused on my taken-rate, (the percentage of deals that get issued vs declined or not taken) and it’s always in the eighty percent range or more. So yeah, working Sundays I set the foundation. I was like, I don’t want to miss Sundays. Initially I asked Jesus, because at Sears we worked weekends on and off, I was like, “Hey, every weekend you guys are working?” Of course I didn’t know the environment at USHA yet, so I said, “That seems like a lot.” But first day in, I got that sale on a Sunday and I learned the concept that weekends and Sundays are worth it.”

Although Ryan was fairly quick out of the box at USHEALTH Advisors, he knows it’s not the same situation for everyone. Now, in a leadership role as well, he always gives the new kids on the block some real-world advice.

“My first month I probably made about five or six grand, so it was a decent start for someone,” says Ryan. “And that’s kind of what I explain to the new guys: not everybody’s going to start like this, but I had a decent start; I had a good foundation. I wanted to be up there on top of the leaderboards with the other agents by the end of the year; that was my goal.”

“But it varies for other people. We try and vet people the best we can to prevent bad situations. I’ll be honest with people who reach out to me, I’m like, “Hey, if you’ve got to make 10-grand right away, your first month, and you don’t have a little cushion or savings, it’s probably going to be very hard for you. It’s probably not going to be the ideal situation. Get a little cushion going and then we could work it out.” I tell the new people, your first month on average, you’ll probably make between two to three grand as an average agent. I try and set the bar low and over deliver. That’s what I try and do.”

“There are some people who come in, in fact an agent on my team, who is probably going to be a Field Training Agent here within the next few months or so, he came in about $4,000 in debt, nothing crazy. It wasn’t like, hey, I’ve got this bill due tomorrow and I’ve got to get to work on that right away. But the biggest thing you can do here to get on track, is do the things you can control. You need to be here at 8:00 AM, I need your full commitment. I’m going to try and get you to the place you need financially, but you need to be here. When I’m here, I’m going to spend my time with you. I don’t want to waste my time. I’m going to spend my time 8:00 AM to 10 o’clock at night, until we get you out of this hole. It works for some people, it doesn’t work for all. That’s the best thing I can say to someone, if you’re going to do this, I need a hundred percent from you, commit to me a hundred percent and we’ll get you to your goal. We need to set goals, be structured and then kind of go from there.”

As do nearly all successful business people, Ryan knows that it takes focus and discipline. He says it’s a character trait he’s always had, no matter what he has done. He’s also a quick learner and a quick “fix.”

“In college, my major was psychology,” says Ryan. “I like to learn, so I studied psychology, which I think honestly has helped me to be able to put myself in a customer’s shoes or put myself in a potential new agent’s shoes, and think about what could possibly be going on in their head. This is where the psychology stuff gets put into perspective. But I also have to have self-realization. Not everybody’s like me. I get told one thing, one time, and then it’s corrected. I correct that action. Typically under most circumstances, most people are not like that.”

“Just growing up, especially with my parents, they set the foundation. It could be genetics, but they set the foundation by raising me properly. Like, when I was going to school, if I got bad grades, I was told, “Hey, don’t do this. Fix it.” If there’s a parent who lets you get away with that and acts like everything’s fine and dandy, then later in life the person’s probably going to mess up a bunch of times and not necessarily feel like there are any repercussions. So whether it was getting into fights when I was younger, or misbehaving or whatever it was, my parents were on top of that stuff. It if happened, it was only once and then I would fix it and that was it.”

“Athletics helps as well. You learn discipline. I played club soccer, and I played center back, so I was the last man of defense. I was very organized, and I would yell at some of the guys and make sure everybody was in their position. I was like the team captain, so that helped as well. I was always very organized when it came to certain things.”

Now, organization is key. Ryan plays defense and offense for his team of agents, making sure they know what to do, that they do what is expected, and that they watch as he leads by example.

“I start my day at 8:00 AM,” says Ryan. “I’ll do my early morning dials go through my purchased leads, probably eat my breakfast around nine o’clock. I check in on a bunch of the guys, seeing what they have lined up, seeing who I could get extra lead money to and what goals we have for the day. Then I go through all the little things, check the calendar, see what appointments I have. I’m constantly talking to my assistant to see what we have on the docket as far as appointments. I’ll go get some Instagram posts up to try and get some business or recruit new agents.”

“If I’m not on the phone with a client, I’m walking around to see who can I help. Who needs underwriting questions to be answered? Who needs help with customer service? Of course, I want to show, “Hey, this is how you handle this,” and then allow them to kind of take the ropes from there. I don’t want to always hover over them because eventually you want people to learn. So I would say I probably take a little break around 12 o’clock, 30, or 40 minutes maybe, real quick. I don’t take a three hour break or anything like that.”

“Then I’ll get back, do some trainings if we have trainings in the office. I’ll run some appointments if I have ’em. Around three o’clock we do interviews for new recruits. Everybody in the office pulls on the same rope for that type of stuff. Around four o’clock, I’ll try and see if I can get in a meal. Then five o’clock to about, let’s say seven, I’m prospecting, trying to see what we have on the floor, see if I could give some lead money out, see how we are with numbers. Then seven or eight o’clock, depending on the day, we typically will do an FSL training, whether that’s pitching for new agents or some hot topic of the day. I’m probably out of here wrapping everything up about nine o’clock. Anybody who stays past me, I’ll go ahead and give them some lead money or some extra spiffs, whatever it may be at the time.”

Time flies, and Ryan can look back on his life in this moment, appreciating all that has happened for him and all that he has done to get to this point in his journey.

“I was born in Boca Raton, Florida, and then we moved down to Pembroke Pines. My parents split up when I was eight or nine. Because I have two sisters I was kind of the man of the house all the way up until probably age 20, and then eventually, I left. It was tough as an 8-year-old, when all this happened, you don’t know anything other than being with your parents, so eventually it was just me and my mom and my sisters and being the only guy in the house, you have to be a little bit stronger for them. My sisters and my mom would be a little bit more emotional than me, they still are, so I do my best to be strong, especially to this day. My dad was still around as well, I spent time with him every other weekend we shared meals during the week, as well as being there for my soccer games. He’s a great influence in my life. I don’t have a wife or kids right now, so anything I do and sacrifice is for my family. My mom always bugs me about having kids, but my job is my baby right now.”

And that baby is rocking the cradle… with Ryan on a run of six consecutive years of issuing a million-dollars in annual volume at USHEALTH Advisors. He’s already surpassed the million-dollar mark in production this year… and it’s only August. The best is yet to come.

Moving forward, Ryan says it’s all about giving back, his time, his effort, and being a beacon of light for others by keeping it simple because he knows the secret to success boils down to one thing.

“The one thing you can control is, be on time, be disciplined, put in the hours, and if you give me that,” says Ryan, “then I can help you to be successful. Anyone can be successful at this and be the best. The biggest thing that keeps me going, especially to this day, is I want to make my family proud and I want to be successful no matter what that is defined as. I want to be able to say I was able to help as many people get to where I am now – or even pass me. I want to help as many agents as possible become million dollar producers. My personal accolades at this point, it’s not that exciting really. But what really keeps me going, especially these days is, “Hey, this agent on my team hit the big milestone of $250,000 AV in their first 13 weeks. This agent is a million dollar producer and so on.”

“I want to be able to have as many people as possible stick with this company for the long term and see great success. That’s kind of what I pride myself on. I want to be able to have the largest amount of agents who’ve been here the longest time – and are able to accomplish their dreams and see what type of family we are – that’s my one thing.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,

Mark Brodinsky

“Teachers can make such a profound impact on our lives and should be honored as heroes.”

When she was little, Kaitlynn Rivadeneira had a dream, a dream to show the way to others.

“If I’m going to be honest, I always wanted to be a teacher,” says Kaitlynn. “I just knew that’s what I was supposed to do. So I was on that fast track for life. When I was in high school, I took the early childhood classes where your actual class is to teach the preschoolers, and then in college I was taking anywhere between 18 to 21 credit hours, working and going to school in the summer. I was a crazy person, doing it all, but I was always in education. And then as soon as I graduated, I went right into teaching when I was 20 and I was the youngest teacher in my school for four years. Unfortunately, teachers are not appreciated. And it’s crazy because fundamentally, we would be nowhere without them.”

Kaitlynn speaks the truth: There’s nothing more important than a well-educated mind, and teachers are irreplaceable in our lives. Once she joined USHEALTH Advisors, Kaitlynn wanted to become an irreplaceable force and started producing at a very high level. She’s issued nearly $3.2 million in annual volume in less than two years with the company, and she was quickly respected as someone who could teach others and was asked to step into leadership.

“When I was a writing agent or career agent, I wasn’t helping out to get into a different position, like a field training agent, it’s just my personality type,” says Kaitlynn. “I’m a teacher, so if there’s a room full of struggling people, I can’t just sit there and watch them struggle. I always tell my team it’s not fun when one person is winning and everybody else is struggling. So with that being said, all of last year I was just helping the people around me and my goal was not to be an FTA. When I was a lead teacher, I didn’t want to be a lead teacher. I just wanted to do a good job and that’s it. But naturally, the way the year went, I got promoted, but I wasn’t doing it for that. I just wanted the people next to me to be able to pay their bills and build their residual income. But it did end up going in my favor because obviously all the people that I helped last year chose me as their leader and they’re very, very supportive and very loyal.”

It’s a bonus to Kaitlynn’s team to have someone who cares deeply about other people’s success and has their back. And as a former teacher, Kaitlynn also has expectations and principles she lives by and expects others to do the same.

Kaitlynn is all in to win.

“I go a hundred percent into everything,” says Kaitlynn. “So, I graduated college in under three years. I got my master’s degree in under a year. I came here to USHA and did everything I had to, because for me, failure is not an option. So there’s never been a time where I’m not hitting my goals because I won’t allow myself to do that, if that makes sense. I know it sounds strange in some ways, but I guess my struggles have been that I’ve had to really sacrifice a lot of my family time and time with my friends in order to hit all my milestones and achievements. That has been a struggle because a lot of people who don’t run like this or don’t work in sales, they don’t understand that. But for the bigger picture I had to sacrifice a lot of things like that.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but if you get it, you get it. And if you don’t, you don’t. I’ll do anything because, and I always tell this to my team too, it’s like if I fail if I don’t hit my goals, I need to know that regardless, I did everything possible. And then I would be okay with that. I would not be okay with not hitting my goals, knowing I could have done better.”

It might be that New Jersey mindset: go get what you want and don’t take no for an answer. Kaitlynn began her life in Jersey, moving to Florida when she was 8. Two of Kaitlynn’s family members have followed in her footsteps and joined USHA. “Part of the reason that I work here is to help them be more successful, but they’re very different from me,” says Kaitlynn.

And Kaitlynn, too, feels like she’s always been different.

“I left my parent’s house when I was 17,” she says. So I went to college, and I just never wanted to look back. I was kind of just doing everything on my own. I wanted to leave and be independent. Not because I was running away, but because I wanted to be independent in the sense that my family no longer had to take care of me; I could be responsible and take care of myself.”

“I didn’t leave home because of family issues or anything like that. I have a really strong head on my shoulders. I craved independence. I always have; I always dreamt of going to Florida State University and I really wanted that for myself. That was another reason I graduated so fast because I didn’t want to be a burden at all to my parents. So the faster I finished college, then I could jumpstart life. It was to show what I could do.”

“A little background, my parents are both immigrants, they both immigrated from Ecuador. They were very young when they immigrated separately, and then met in college. My dad is an entrepreneur and he always wanted his kids to come into the business with him. He’s had several businesses and we never had a desire to that, but he always had really, really high expectations for us. I mean really high expectations, like, if I got a 98 on a test he would say, “Why not a 100″? He demanded excellence. And so I feel like I’ve always had to rise to those occasions, which is part of the reason why I have done things in a really fast way and I feel like that kind of attributes to some things in my life.”

We’re all pieces of those who have helped form us… chiseled us into the people we are now. Kaitlynn is no different, using her dad’s drive and expectations to inspire her actions, carrying her all the way from teaching from her heart to helping and serving at USHEALTH Advisors. But to transition from one career, Kaitlynn had to accept going from being a teacher to being a student again.

No surprise, Kaitlynn was up for the challenge.

“If I’m going to be honest, I didn’t have a backup plan when I quit teaching. I gave myself three months off. I quit in July of 2022, and I told myself if I don’t have a job by November, then I’ll go be a server for a couple of months until I figure it out. I had some emergency funds, but I told myself, if I was going to do this opportunity, then obviously I’m going to go all in and I’m going at a hundred percent – full force in.”

By September, Kaitlynn had decided to join USHEALTH Advisors.

Kaitlynn also did the one thing you MUST do to succeed at anything new. It’s mentioned time and time again, in story after story, about the most successful people in this company. Such people can stare adversity in the face, take the hits, build a thick skin, and, most importantly, want to put someone in a better place than they found them. Those exceptional individuals embrace the suck.

“I didn’t make any money for my first two weeks here, maybe a hundred dollars or something like that,” says Kaitlynn. “But I wasn’t going to let that stop me, or excuse me from working or anything like that. So I looked around and saw that everybody else is around me is making money. And so I told myself if I don’t make money next week, then I’m going to change something because obviously this can’t continue. And the following week wasn’t much better. So by the third week I invested in myself and everything skyrocketed after that.”

Kaitlynn invested not only a small amount of money in herself, leads, etc., but she also invested in learning and improving, as any good student would do.

“I was a sponge,” says Kaitlynn. “I listened to every single person around me. I know it sounds corny, if you talk to successful people, they all say the same thing. They were just sponges. I listened to everyone around me every single time I got on a call, and the person hung up or the call didn’t go the way that I wanted it to go, I would immediately just turn to my left or right and tell the other agent or leader, “Look, they said this, what should I have said instead?” And then I would use their advice on the next call. I was married to the office. I was here all day, every day, super long hours. I was here from eight in the morning to 11 o’clock at night. I would go to the gym at 5:00 AM, that way I wouldn’t have to leave during the day and I just never stopped dialing. So that’s kind of the running joke at the office is that I could be having a conversation with someone in my office and while they’re distracted or off task or whatever, I’d still be dialing and while I’m in mid-conversation with that person, all of a sudden, a potential client would pick up and I’d be like, “Hi, this is Kaitlynn, how are you? And just get back to business. So I never stopped. I never stopped.”

Kaitlynn says she also taught herself how to make what she refers to as, “laptop money.”

“I’ve learned how to take this business anywhere,” says Kaitlynn. “The laptop and the virtual part allows me to still travel and help people. I close business in almost every airport I am in and I’m always pitching and closing at the hair salon. I even close business while getting my lashes done and my eyes closed,” she laughs. “This job can really take you anywhere.”

As much as Kaitlynn loves her new career at USHEALTH Advisors, she never forgets her roots, which gave her the skills to learn, study, and teach – raising the lives of those in her care. She says it was a challenging decision to leave teaching behind.

“If I’m going to be honest, my biggest accomplishment is teaching,” says Kaitlynn. “Actually, it’s bigger than that. My biggest accomplishment is teaching six-year-olds who don’t know how to read and then teaching them to read fluently in 10 months. I did that for a lot of six-year-olds when I taught first grade.”

“It was a really hard decision to leave teaching” says Kaitlynn. “I didn’t leave to come to USHA. The reason I left teaching is because of the system. It’s very broken and at the level I worked, there was no more room to grow. So the harder I worked, I wasn’t getting paid more, I wasn’t compensated more. And that’s not a fault of the school, but that’s just the way it works. I had already done all the things in order to grow. I had already gotten my master’s degree. I was a team leader. I was working in a title one school. I was working at a PYP international school. I was already doing all those things. I was working extra hours, but unfortunately that’s it. Unless I wanted to go into administration, which I didn’t, there was no more room to grow. And that was it for me, I can’t be stifled.”

Now, as a Field Training Agent at USHEALTH Advisors and, in only her first two years here, one of the most successful agents in the company, Kaitlynn can teach again—to those on her team who rely on her to instruct, inspire, and care.

“I run trainings. I provide people with a calendar that they didn’t have before last year so they know what to expect on a daily or monthly basis because I’m very big on structure,” says Kaitlynn. “So if we have a training or a meeting and you say you didn’t know about it, you can’t say that. I’m not going to listen to your excuses. It was on the calendar, you should have been there or you should have communicated to me why you can’t. Things like that. I do a lot of one-on-ones with agents. It’s very much catered to where each agent is at that time because obviously different agents, they’re at different points in what they’re struggling with, or how they need help. So it’s just depends on what the agent needs.”

“I tell them you get what you put in and it’s a hundred percent accurate. You can physically be here, but if you’re not mentally here, you’re not going to get it. You’re not going to get what you want out of it. So really putting your all into it and just seeing what this opportunity can do for you. Give it three months of full effort, without wavering. Be here, follow the system. Be a sponge, take everything in.”

While Kaitlynn believes anyone who does what she says can make it, she has a unique, soft spot in her heart for the ladies on her team.

“I run a team of primarily females, and the females are some of the top producers,” says Kaitlynn. “And they’ll have excuses just like everyone else about why this won’t work or why they can’t make it happen. Everybody has an excuse, right? But I tell them, “If I can do it, so can you.” I always say, we always say, “I’m just a girl. I’m just a girl.” We kind of use that to motivate us. And it’s true. I’m just a girl who used to be a teacher who wanted more for herself. And if you want more for yourself and you believe in yourself, then this is for you, right? I always say there’s nobody there out there that believes in me more than I believe in myself. And if you feel the same way and you believe in your capabilities, then you can do this too. I’m just a girl.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky

“You can always do more than you think you can.” – Coach John Wooden

Doing the most he possibly can. Being the most he possibly can. Giving the most he possibly can.

Meet Carlos Marrero.

In less than two years at USHEALTH Advisors by doing, being, and serving Carlos has issued nearly $3.5 million in personal insurance policies. Carlos racked up $2.2 million in sales last year alone and is already way over $1 million in issued business for 2024.

For those who think it’s luck or special gifts, or different leads or anything else than blood, sweat and tears, think again.

Just consider a day-in-the-life of Carlos Marrero.

“I wake up usually at 6:30 in the morning,” says Carlos. “For some reason, even though I’m not that tired, I always just snooze the alarm clock, even though I don’t really go back to sleep. I just lay in my bed thinking and then the alarm clock rings again. I get up, get ready, all that stuff. Then I’m usually trying to leave my house by 6:55 am. So it takes about 20 minutes to get ready, and then I drive to work. I get to the office and the first thing I do is fill up my water container. You’ve got to drink water, at least a gallon a day. Very important. I recommend more than a gallon, but at least a gallon. Then I’ll drink some energy drinks and get prepared.”

“Then I’m at my desk, everything logged in, ready to go by 7:30 am, waiting for a lead to come in. Soon as eight o’clock hits, I’m making dials. I’m literally working from the moment the dialer starts till about 10 or 10 30 at night. After that, I go to the gym. So I work out, or play pickleball till usually like 12 am, then come home, shower, eat something if I’m hungry. I’m laying in bed by 12:45 am. I usually give myself a target goal of going to bed before 1:30 am so I can get at least five hours of sleep.”

That’s a day!

Nineteen hours of focused effort, between work and working on himself, Carlos is carving out a life he knows he can be proud of and he’s all in at USHA, the only way to be if you want to go all the way.

“I am infatuated with doing this job,” says Carlos. “It’s so much fun. Why would you not be infatuated? We get to help people and teach people things they didn’t know. Some people don’t know anything about health insurance, and after they have a conversation with you, even if they don’t buy anything they’re 1000% going to be better educated for the future. And that’s ultimately what you want, if you’re in it for the right reasons.”

And now Carlos has all the reasons in the world to love what he does, he’s proud to have taken a risk and gone all in on a career in commission sales that offers no base, but in return, has no ceiling. You can do, be, give, and earn as much as you like. The opposite of where he came from before USHA.

“I was working at State Farm. I was an office manager and it was a cushy job,” says Carlos. “I was making $85,000 a year, had a top office in the state of Florida, but I kind of wanted more for myself. I was a little bit capped where I was so I took a leap of faith and left a consistent job I had been doing for eight years and entered into something different to see if I could better my life and accomplish more.”

“And so I left eight years worth of rapport behind me that I had built with State Farm to come here on a whim. I made the decision in a month. Just something came across me. I just thought I would try it. My family, they didn’t trust it, they didn’t believe in it. They gave me a hard time about it, but it was so worth it in the end to me. And now my whole family is proud and they’re happy. I did a training with a couple hundred people and they were so proud of me.”

Pride, acceptance, feeling valued and appreciated. We all want that as humans and during our conversation for this story, Carlos had the realization that leaving his prior company wasn’t just about the income, or being capped in his earnings, but more about what everyone craves, praise and recognition. When that is lacking, people start looking. Money is an easy target to talk about when appreciation, praise and respect are in short supply.

When you don’t feel you matter, you start looking for more.

“Wow, looking back, it’s so interesting when you see it all this way,” says Carlos. “I never looked at it from that perspective, but that was one of the biggest determining factors. If there was a little bit more respect there and a little bit more love at my former job, who knows if I swallow that pill and allow it to be what it is and never leave?”

Carlos says it’s the opposite at USHA, where he feels like he matters and his efforts are appreciated. It’s an internal desire that also stems from his upbringing. With an older sister and younger brother, Carlos is the middle child and admits he’s a “mama’s boy”.” There’s a good reason for that, because Carlos says his mother always gives him exactly what he needs the most.

“She is unconditional love, no matter what,” says Carlos. My mom could be mad at you and no matter what it is you do to this woman, afterward, she’ll still love you. She’s very kind. She’s one of the sweetest people I know. She fosters cats in her backyard just because they come in there and she feels bad. She’s such a kind soul, and she taught me all the family values. My mom is Mexican, so their family values are very strong. I just grew up that way. Just being around my Mexican family, I’m really close with my grandma. I’m really close with my immediate family. For better or for worse, we tell each other absolutely everything.”

“My dad is Cuban, so there are strong family ties there as well. My parents divorced when I was about 10 or 11 years old and it was rocky as first. I grew up mostly with my mom, seeing my dad every weekend or every other weekend, and was kind of was a reckless child. I was definitely anti parents. I didn’t listen to anything that they told me. I was always hardheaded and would just think or say, “I’ll do it on my own. I’ll figure it out on my own.” Which led me to lose a lot of jobs and not give forth my best effort. I was kind of arrogant in a way. I always felt like I could get it done myself. I can figure it out. And I never figured it out. So it took me a long time to actually start listening to people and taking constructive criticism. But now I’m very in tune with my family. I grew up with strong family values and I carry that to this day.”

Yet, it was Carlos’s intrinsic, “I’ll do this myself attitude,” that almost made him a non-starter at USHEALTH Advisors. He had to learn that re-inventing the wheel was a big mistake.

“I know my first weeks here at USHA, it was rough, very, very rough,” says Carlos. “I was coming from being a top salesperson at State Farm into a place like this where I assumed my work ethic would translate exactly the same, and that was my mistake, not being open-minded. So I struggled. I didn’t sell a deal for two months, and I know I got on Alex Deleon’s nerves, (Carlos’ Field Sales Leader). I would not listen to his advice. I would try to do it my own way instead of doing what he told me. So it was a pretty rough start, but once I figured it out, it all made sense. Alex taught me everything. And then I got really good and ended up number one in production in the region last year.”

After being promoted to Field Training Agent at USHA, Carlos has taken the hard lessons he learned at the beginning of his career and shares his scars with others joining his team.

“I see my mistakes happening now with so many new people we have here at USHEALTH Advisors,” says Carlos. “So when I get a new agent, I tell ’em, listen, “I was the guy who tried to reinvent the wheel and it didn’t work. When I chose to listen to my leaders is when I became successful. So listen to everything that I’m telling you, that way you guys can be successful as well.”

“The biggest advice I always tell people is you have to be coachable. You have to be positive every day, and you can’t look at the clock when you’re here. Those are the biggest things, because the moment you start looking at the clock, then you’re like, okay, now you’ve put in your mind, I’m leaving at this time. I’m shutting off everything at this time rather than working until the job is done, you’re only working until the time is complete.”

With this mindset, Carlos says he tries to lead by example.

“I always work until I feel like I’ve done enough, not when the time is up, because you can always do more. But sometimes I’ll say, you know what? I got a couple of sales. I’m okay with how today ended. I put enough dials in, I’ve had enough conversations. But if I’ve had a day where I didn’t have enough conversations, I’ll probably stay an extra 15 to 20 minutes to see if I can get someone else on the phone to have a conversation, to make myself feel better before I get out of the office.”

And so how does Carlos make himself feel better out of the office? It can’t be all work and no play. But Carlos lives by the philosophy shared by his Division Leader, Jason Blank, don’t take days off, take time off.

“Sometimes the weekend calls for me to decompress a little, because we work so hard all week and even parts of the weekend, and I’m only sleeping five hours a day during the week. So sometimes on the weekends I’ll just choose to catch up on sleep. But usually on the weekend I will be doing things that I don’t get to do during the week, which would be maybe going to have a drink with some friends, or bowling. People don’t believe me, but I was on the bowling team in high school,” laughs Carlos. “I also love watching movies. I like anime. I grew up watching that. I also love working out, and going out to eat, all the normal stuff. Also my little brother lives with me, so I make sure he’s all good as well.”

And there’s more family to focus on. Carlos’s sister has three children, so there’s one niece and two nephews Carlos says he enjoys spending time with. His sister lives in Maryland, but Carlos says he visits at least three to four times a year and loves spending time with them.

It’s a good life and Carlos has worked to make it that way. He’s all about going above and beyond what others see as normal, those who do just enough, which has led Carlos to excel in his short time here at USHA.

“I would say about me, I just I think I’m a very positive person,” says Carlos. “I think that’s the one thing that people have always said about me, I’m just extremely positive. I’m always glass half full, never half empty. And that’s usually why I can probably be a lot happier than other people because I look at things from a different perspective because life is all about perspective. So as long as you’re looking at things from the right lens, you’ll never truly be depressed or angry or upset because you see the other side of the coin.

Look for the silver lining. There’s always a silver lining. No one gets through life unscathed, so it’s looking for things that light you up inside, and remind you of your worth.

“My sister bought me a calendar quote book,” says Carlos. “It’s a two year calendar. So every day I come in I flip a page and it has a different quote for the day. It always reminds me of something positive.”

And it helps to launch Carlos into another day of helping and serving at USHEALTH Advisors. Where each day he knows he will work until the job is done.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,

Mark Brodinsky