Anyone can – Brian Fuller

Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. – Mitch Albom, Author

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. How many times have you said that out loud or in your head?

Brian Fuller is no different. Headed, for one thing, Brian ended up somewhere else. Though sometimes you think it’s the wrong path, somehow the universe conspires on your behalf.

“Right out of school in Illinois, I got my finance degree with the intent to be a financial advisor,” says Brian. “But then I moved to Florida because my parents were like, “You’ve graduated. We’re moving down to Florida. You can come if you want.” So I started my process for about a year of getting my 215 (health and life license), my series-66, and my series-7. So I got all those licenses. And then as soon I was able to transact business and write, COVID hit. It was the same month, March of 2020, that the virus hit hard and the markets tanked.”

No one was investing, people were hoarding cash and Brian needed to pivot. Fortunately, as people were fleeing the market, and Brian was searching for another place to go, someone special stepped into his life.

“So I met a girl, met a gem,” says Brian, “Amy, who’s now my fiance’ and told me about this company, USHEALTH Advisors. Reid Demyan, (USHA Satellite Sales Leader), was her best friend’s boyfriend. And she said, “Well you got a health and life license. Why don’t you try this right now ?” I was so against it because I didn’t want to talk to people on the phone. It’s one of my least favorite things to do. I’m an introvert. It took me a long time to open up and build confidence on the phone. So I thought it was going to be a very temporary thing, and it’s translated into something pretty crazy now.”

Crazy, is an understatement. Brian started with USHEALTH Advisors in August of 2020 and by 2021, his first full year in the business, Brian topped the charts, as the #1 Personal Producer at USHA. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Brian set a new record with more than $4 million in personal production in a single year. To date, he has produced more than $7 million in issued business. Brian may not be financially advising anyone as he planned, but he’s creating a financial fortress for himself and his family, and for that, Brian is extremely proud.

“My biggest accomplishment in life is being the first six-figure earner in my family. That would be the biggest accomplishment for sure, coming from a lower-middle-class upbringing. It’s kind of my driving factor with all this, of busting through that middle-class and being able to do stuff or provide for my family the things that I wasn’t able to be provided. Not worrying about money and living the life that I wish I could always have lived.”

When we see success, especially quickly, we sometimes think the person has a charmed life, few obstacles, and nothing standing in their way, that’s why they were able to do what they did, it was just luck and God’s grace. Yet, that’s rarely the case, it’s not a favorable wind, it’s the grind, the grit, and the ability to overcome the challenges before you.

Life never stops, only you do, giving in to the resistance in front of you. We all face resistance, the key is to keep moving forward.

“During my first 13 weeks at USHA, my dad was going downhill,” says Brian. “My dad had kidney failure for about eight years and had been on the transplant list for all that time. During my first quarter at the company, even when I set the record in personal production for our region, I was trying to be there for my dad because he was waiting for a kidney transplant. He finally got it and it was the happiest day of my life, because I knew it would change his life.”

Culton-Fuller Family:
The Early Years

But the happiness was short-lived… although the transplant was a success, the doctors quickly realized the kidney had polio on it.

“They didn’t check out the kidney before putting it in my dad,” says Brian. “So now my dad had a kidney, but had polio, he couldn’t walk. It was crazy. So they had to do blood transfusions for a week straight. And there was a very, very low chance of survival. Polio basically killed the kidney, but the doctors had to kill the polio, so then my dad was back to square one again with no kidney, but he refused to go back on dialysis.”

“I would try to be with my dad…but it was during the intense COVID time too, so you couldn’t even go see him. They wouldn’t let anybody in the room. So I just woke up in constant fear thinking, is this my last day with my father? And I mean, that was huge, all happening as I was starting with USHA and trying to set a record. My dad wanted me to keep going, to not stop and not worry about him and make a life for myself. He’s still here with me today, but I believe it’s because of all the success that I’ve created for myself, and that’s the driving factor, which kept him alive the whole time – watching me do what I do. So that was big.”

Inspiration and healing, all coming together. And now the family is looking at getting together.

“It’s been almost two years since that episode,” says Brian, “and my dad’s still not on dialysis. He still has the same situation with the kidneys, but he’s pretty healthy. His blood work is getting better. His kidney’s getting better. And we’re planning on trying to get him moved down here to Florida, hopefully, this year, or if not, early next year, to get him down here by us. But yeah, he’s doing very well now.”

Part of the dichotomy of life is that while one area might be a struggle for you, you can still excel in the other, if you simply focus on the task at hand. While Brian’s dad was trying to overcome his health challenges, Brian remained focused on the work in front of him, trying to build a career at USHA. And just like anything else you do for the first time, it wasn’t easy. You have to practice to make permanence.

“Man, at first it was rough,” says Brian. “The first three weeks, it was just…wow. And I started with Chad Douglas, another top producer, and we kept going back and forth and he had all the experience. And I think in the first week he set four appointments. I had none. I was just stuck in my head. The biggest problem was called reluctance. I would call and right before someone would pick up, I would hang up because I was afraid that they were going to know more than me, and I kept making excuses of, “Oh, the leads suck,” or “this sucks,” or everything, whatever. And it got to about three weeks into it and one night I came home and I was super irritated. I was over it. I was like, “I’m done with this. I don’t know why. I can’t do this cause I’ve been good at everything else in life so far. Why can’t I figure this one thing out?”

“And it was really just lack of effort. My fiance’, Amy, (still Brian’s girlfriend at the time), convinced me to come back and be more positive for one day  – give it my all to see if it was the system, or if it was just me and yeah, that was the day I got my first appointment, it was when I came in with a clear head and after I got the taste of one, I was like, “Wow, this is really how easy it is.” It wasn’t as difficult as I was making it seem. And then I got my first new business issued right after that and made a little less than $2000 a week, and it just kept getting better and better and easier and easier.”

As with anything in life, while tough at first, Brian gets to share his story with others he is helping to bring into the USHA opportunity. The scars matter. Each one, teach one.

“Now I love it,” says Brian. “But that confidence was the biggest battle – to believe in me and to not care what the other people thought on the other side of the phone. I was sitting next to Max Willett (Brian’s Field Sales Leader). So he was always listening to me talk. And I was like, “Man, I can’t screw this up. I can’t say something stupid next to him.” And that made me hold back a lot, but we all know that everybody’s not stupid in the beginning. So now it’s translating that out when I’m training my agents. I’m like,” I know what you’re thinking. And know what you’re about to go through, but don’t do that to yourself.” And it’s allowing my team to prosper now and grow very quickly because I can relate to them in that regard.”

We all look for the secret, the quick trick, the easy fix to do what Brian has accomplished in such a short time. But it’s non-existent, if you’re hungry for success it comes down to the grind, the mind, and in Brian’s case, the body… and the big “D”.. discipline.

“The secret is there is no secret, it’s all about massive, massive action,” says Brian. “I was prepping for something else while going through the thing with my dad, and while being in my first 13 weeks at USHA. I was prepping for a body-building show too, because I was like, “Why not? Why not do everything? Completely stress me out?” So I was getting up to the point where I was doing half an hour of cardio in the morning. I would work out after work, at nine o’clock, and then do an hour of cardio after. After I worked out and during those hours of cardio, I would go on Instagram and look up, #self-employed, look up small business owners, look up anybody in the states that I purchased, which is only 12 states that I could afford at the time. And I was just direct-messaging them saying, “Hey, this is what I do. This is how I help people.”

“And then while I was in the office, I was dialing five, six hundred dials a day and just keeping my head down. So I was doing a lot of prospecting and self-marketing outside of the calls, using my social media outreach because I had 14,000 followers and built up a lot of body-building followers. So I was able to connect with a lot of personal trainers, online coaches, real estate professionals, and stuff like that through Instagram. So I was setting up appointments from that. I was doing my thing on the dialer, trying to sell as many leads there. So it was just massive action, and it was every day. It was the weekends. I wanted it so bad that I just got addicted to it. And it fits right in my schedule. I mean, I’d eat my meals at certain times. I’d dial at certain times. I had on a schedule to DM Instagram certain times, it was just all so set on a schedule and that made it easier.”

A big part of life is work, but it can’t be work just for work’s sake. There has to be more for you to get out of bed and put in the time and effort that Brian has – there has to be a driving force, a cause, a mission, something bigger than you.

“The biggest driver is honestly just financial freedom,” says Brian. “Knowing this is my only way to bring my family out of this, where we’ve been our whole lives. Living how we do now, I mean, we live very, very… conservatively. People might still think I’m broke right now by how I spend my money,” he laughs, “and I’m okay with that. But it’s changed our lives and it’s made everything so much easier, our relationship so much better. And I just want to have that for the rest of my life. I’m focused on generational wealth, not just for myself, but every generation after me, to not have to worry about money, and this is what’s going to get me there.”

And while focused on financial freedom, Brian now has another goal, replicating that same for others. Great leaders pivot from personal to purpose – helping others to share in the same success they have experienced.

Brian says the simple method is to lead the way.

“So many people doubted me,” Brian says. “They didn’t think I was going to be a great leader because I was a top producer and I only focused on producing and I didn’t help a ton of people around me because I was in personal production mode. I wanted to break the USHEALTH Advisors’ producer record. I wanted to be number one. I didn’t have time to help other people at that time. But I told everybody when it comes time when I need to shift that focus, you bet I’ll be the best leader there is. And obviously, talk is cheap. So people didn’t believe it. But now I’m solidifying that. And I got a top five FTA team in the country right now with eight agents after having nothing to start with at the beginning of the year.”

“I take pride in having a very, very good culture, where everybody helps everybody. Just leading from the front and being in the office all day, late into the evening, and on the weekends. You’ll see that because I show up, my agents stay at night longer and they work harder and they work later and they make more money themselves. I mean last week, my top five agents on my team, not including me, all made over $5,000 that week, and two of them are still in their first 13 weeks. So that success is driving me even more now for them.”

Now, the “them”, not only includes recruits but family members as well. Brian’s cousin, Austin Blasko has joined USHA. Brian’s stepfather, who also deals with his own kidney issues, and who Brian says is as much a father to him as his own, is helping Brian to prospect and build the business. His fiance’ Amy, helps run the show, and Brian expects he and Amy will really be on the same “team” in their personal lives as well, with a wedding happening late next year or early 2024.

Brian says the present brings him peace and the future is unfolding in ways he says he never could have expected. So what more is there to do?

“What stands out very clearly to me is that I’m just a normal person. I’m just an average guy. No huge, crazy background, not a background of money or anything or experience to do any of this. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, right? But when you have talent and you work hard, you’re going to beat everybody. I’m not anybody special. Anybody could probably do what I’m doing if they build the system, put it in place as I have, really push themselves, put the time in –  and put their head down for you a couple of years – just to create a future that you can never imagine.

“So my biggest takeaway so far is the fact that, yeah, anyone can do this.”

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky