“When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.” – Walt Disney
If you ask Kyle Williams, he’ll tell you – “Everybody has that one story.”
Well, isn’t that the truth? 😉
That’s what we do here after all, share stories so that others can benefit from that person’s journey – their scars and their successes – to learn how to build a better business and a better life. And to realize that no one gets to where they are going without taking a risk and facing challenges, adversity, trials, and tribulations. But on the other side of all of that – is everything you’ve ever wanted.
Kyle Williams took the road less traveled and arrived at his destination: success and fulfillment.
“I think my greatest accomplishment in life, I’ll start with that piece first,” says Kyle, “is traveling down to a place there where I have no family. I have one friend, packed my car up and just moved down here to Tampa. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know the direction where I was going to go eventually. My backstory is I wanted to play football, so I actually came down here to Florida to play professional football and get an opportunity. I’m from Waukegan, Illinois. So, moving here – getting away from the cold- I came down here to Tampa really trying to figure out a new path, a new way of training, trying to get to the NFL – and it was just me and my car and all my stuff that I could take. It was a big challenge as well because it was the fear of the unknown. I thought, if I can’t make it, do I go back home, or what am I going to do then? How can I really make enough money to make ends meet? This journey taught me a lot about myself.”
Kyle started with USHEALTH Advisors in February of 2021, the same day the Tampa Bay Bucs won the Super Bowl, and Kyle has since led his teams to more than $15 million in issued business and produced more than $3 million in personal policies. But when Kyle started he knew very little about sales, knew nothing about health insurance, and had nearly nothing in the bank.
Well, almost nothing. Kyle did have $1.51 in his bank account when he started with USHA.
That was it… $1.51.
“I save that number as the screensaver on my phone,” says Kyle. “And it was a pivotal moment there for me where I had to really figure out the numbers. I had to learn about what it would take for me to get to where I needed to go. I had this mindset, I need to make at least $20,000. That was my big, initial goal here for myself,” he laughs.
However, while Kyle had the financial goal, he also had a life-long dream to play in the NFL, which was the initial reason he took the all-in risk to move from the Midwest down South to Florida. Kyle wanted to be a professional football player.
“When I first started working for USHA,” says Kyle, “I let them know I’m still trying to pursue this NFL dream here. So at first my times for health insurance appointments during the day didn’t start till 12:15 PM. Because in the morning, that was my time for football training. 8:00 AM was football workouts all the way up until 11 AM. So 12:15 would be my first appointment time of the day, but then I would stay until 10 or 11 o’clock at night, to make up for the time I missed in the morning here.”
It worked… and it didn’t. What you focus on expands and Kyle’s time was divided, though he was making some money, he still hadn’t taken the full leap of faith. His dream was still calling and Kyle didn’t want to punt on his desire to play in the NFL.
“Every week my goal at USHA was making $2,000 for myself and I kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it, and it started to get exciting. I had to ask myself, “Do I still try to pursue football or keep pursuing this career where I’m actually starting to win now, but I wasn’t ready to give up on that dream. So I was still trying to figure out and make a way.”
“And honestly nobody knew I was going to make it like this. Nobody thought I was going to be able to do this. But I’m one of the unique few who can balance football and do this insurance at the same time and still be successful. I hit all my goals at USHA in less time than everybody else there when I started and probably could have done twice as much, but I had other obligations with football.”
It wasn’t easy. Would it be the gridiron or the grind in the insurance game? Kyle credits the man who introduced him to USHEALTH Advisors in a chance encounter, as one of those truly understanding his challenge.
I met Chris Chamness,” says Kyle. “The universe brought us together because we were both hanging with some of our NFL friends and we realized when we met that we were both from the same hometown. I’d seen this guy wearing some Gucci and all that type of stuff and so I was asking him, “What do you do?” He says, “I do health insurance, I’m in sales.” But I didn’t want to do sales. The most sales I ever did was when I worked at Nike for a time. I had done things like cut grass, work as a personal trainer, so I knew all about the grind. I pushed back for about five months before I signed on at USHA, but Chris was always cool, he knew what I really wanted, he knew what was in my heart and he knew I didn’t want to give up on the football dream. At least not completely.”
But Kyle also started listening to leaders in his Region like Jason Greif, Sanquetta Taylor, Michael Farhad, all telling him he could make it happen at USHA and be happy here, professionally, personally and financially. Kyle was content, but not complete, he was still waiting for something to push him to go all the way with USHEALTH Advisors.
Kyle was looking for that “click.”
“I sent a direct message to one of these guys here in USHA at the time,” says Kyle.” I think his name was Nick and I asked him some questions because he was putting up a lot of business here and I’m a young pup at the time just trying to really figure it out, but he made it simple. He was like, “Man, your click is going to happen when it happens. Just wait for your click.” And I don’t know why those two simple words made a difference. The click.”
“When he told me that, I thought, “Okay, let me just keep grinding, let me keep on learning. I took a different approach then. I wanted to learn all the information upfront rather than try to make the money upfront. That way when it’s actually my time, I don’t have to keep asking question after question after question.
“I wanted to be able to know what I’m doing there. So I took a different approach to it all. There was one Saturday I would say that really changed everything for me, it was really understanding how to talk to people. I told Chris Chamness and Paul Singleton, “Hey, this Saturday I need to learn how to talk to all people about insurance, especially self-employed individuals. Obviously, we had the internet leads, we were working those and talking to people online, but I needed to know how to really speak and understand the psychology behind everything. And for that whole Saturday, Chris and Paul and I were in a room with a whiteboard, talking, pitching, everything. And I think that really changed it all for me. That changed the game for me and I just started to get better. I started getting more confident. The way I talk, the way I speak, the words I say, how I say it, everything started to formulate and started to matter in learning how to listen to people. I think that’s the main thing that a lot of us forget, is to listen. We want to just speak, speak, speak, but we forget to take it in and actually listen because that’s a game changer right there.”
Kyle says he issued his first health application with USHA on March 15th, 2021, but by May, after talking with Paul and Chris and then calling an audible in his pursuit of football, that’s when his click happened.
That click.
“I would say, at that time, May of 2021 is when things really changed there for me here because I stepped away from football for one month to learn sales at USHA and after that things really started to pick up here for me. I would say what clicked there for me honestly was just seeing that all of this was possible.”
In hindsight, the word “possible” has been Kyle’s middle name for much of his life. From early on, he saw what could be accomplished through hard work and determination, starting with his mom.
“My mom was a single mom,” says Kyle. “My dad died about three months after I was born, so I didn’t get to know him. But my mom worked third shift for the postal service for about 35 years and retired from there. I have three older brothers and another guy who is like a brother to me. Since my dad wasn’t around I definitely looked to others to be like father-figures to me, some coaches, or others in the in community, individuals I could really look up to. Then I had next door neighbors who moved into the neighborhood when I was eight years old and they took on that secondary family role for me. In a sense it felt like they adopted me. Obviously I have my biological mother, but she had to work a good deal and I just feel like they adopted me and accepted me as family, gave me money, helped me out, always fed me. I could walk into their home anytime I wanted to. And they really helped me grow as well too. There was all this additional love on top of what my mom was giving me.”
Then there was sports. Kyle had plenty of coaches, starting with him playing basketball when he was in sixth grade and eventually playing football when he was in eighth grade. Kyle says it was a very rough start in football, until one coach turned it all around.
“One of my coaches, Dwayne Springs, he gave me a call and said, “Listen, you’re going to do fine, you’re going to do great.” And once he said that to me, I don’t know what it was with that message, it was just something so simple it kind of just triggered a different part of my brain – and after his message I was one of the top players on the football team. I scored the game winning touchdown in the championship game, the winning interception in the championship that same year and that’s when I knew, that alright, the journey is actually right there in front of me.”
Kyle got a scholarship to play football in college, but at a small school, and after being there a while, he knew he wanted bigger and better things for himself. He found his way to Illinois State as a walk-on and eventually a scholarship athlete. But even at the bigger school, Kyle says it was tough to find that one coach, that one person who truly believed in him.
“It was hard. I was always a workhorse, a grinder,” says Kyle. “I was always trying to get ahead, but I felt like I could never get the recognition that I needed and that one coach to really just really buy into me 120%, and if I had that, I know without a doubt this would be a different conversation. But everything happens for a reason. I take those life lessons, those lessons that I had there – and after college I was still able to pursue NFL tryouts. I was still able to pursue CFL tryouts.”
No one does this alone, Kyle credits several people for being his guides and truly helping him find his way once he decided to move his entire life from Illinois to Florida. Different region, different mindset, different life.
“Cliff Brown of Athlete Innovations was the one who gave me a chance to train and get back to my normal self in the sports world again and help me find that confidence in a new journey. Steven Mercado was the biggest person in my life transitioning me to Tampa and still is to this day. Not only a best friend, but a brother who taught me finance, adaptability in a new environment, and growth. He would not let me go back to my old life and helped me start this new journey in life down in Tampa.”
Now, at age 30, more than four years after making his solo trek down south to Florida and finding the fortitude to stick it out here, Kyle has found success at USHA, putting football in his rearview mirror for now – and finding a way to give back to his community.
Not only was Kyle the #1 Field Training Agent in the Sanquetta Taylor Division last year, he has also ingrained himself in the community. Kyle is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, so he’s actively involved in doing things in the community, like school events, toy drives and more. And he’s on his way to creating a charitable foundation, with his long time friend/brother, Dijon Ross, to help elevate kids in sports and in academics.
Kyle knows to whom much is given, much is required, and he’s ready to go all in with his team and his career at USHEALTH Advisors.
“USHA is my main thing,” says Kyle. “I’m all in with USHA. This company has changed my life. This company has definitely brought me joy, it’s brought me peace. It’s brought me headaches, it’s brought me tears, it’s brought me all the emotions that you could think of, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything because this is my journey. This is my story from a kid from Waukegan, Ilinois, coming down here to Tampa with really no thought or purpose to where I wanted to go and what to do, besides playing football. I was able to get into something else here, with this company.”
“I never thought I would be in sales, not in sales here, like this. So being able to understand these core values at this company, helping people and having a team that really supports you, having people around you that really support you, is the best. When everything is said and done I want people to be able to look at me and say, “That was the guy. He really helped me change my life.” I don’t want to be the person who needs the glitz and glamour. I don’t need the glory. But if somebody can say that, hey, I was a part of their journey that really helped them change their life, that’s what matters to me.”
Kyle says much of this comes down to gratitude and self-respect, which has been a big part of his journey.
“The one thing I want people to know about me,” says Kyle, “is that no matter how you start, no matter where you come from, no matter what they say, you can always make it out. You can always figure it out and things will always work out. Number one, you stay committed. Number two, you do things that people don’t want to do. You sacrifice for a small, shorter amount of time and you help others and you give back. That’s really the main thing here with this whole game – is I give back a lot to my agents, to other teams here, to even the top people, we talk and I help them with some things. I want people to remember me as the guy who really didn’t care about just himself, that he really looked at and he cared about others as well too. He cared about their success. And I really want people to know that I was somebody that people could depend on and actually get the job done here.”
“I really want to say thank you to everybody in my journey, from the good to the bad, to everything in between. Every person who’s come into USHEALTH Advisors that I’ve encountered did something right, no matter what it was, they did something to help propel me to where I am now and where I’m going.
“So I just want to say thank you.”
Kyle continues to work hard and make a difference, calling on all he can inside himself to serve and lead, create success, and call USHA his home. The result is immense gratitude, support, love, wealth, and so so much more.
That’s what happens when it all – clicks.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
