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 seeked 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
