What would you tell someone that is Casey Peterson 12 years ago or even 24 months ago? What would you go back and say to that individual that knowing what you know now? This is a duplicatable business. This is if you can if you if you spend the time and the effort and the energy and you come from a good place this is a duplicatable business. There is not enough to this day. There's not enough people doing it and doing there's let me rephrase that there's not enough people doing it well. There's lots of people doing it not doing it well and so if you can find good people and you can help motivate them and I would put me in that category not very long ago. I was doing the right thing for my clients but I wasn't doing it well. I think there's a ton of opportunity and you can do a lot of good and you can make a lot of money and have a great lifestyle and and be a positive impact in people's lives while being very successfully when it comes to money and all the other things that come with it. Man I'm excited for today. I got my good buddy Mr. Casey Peterson in from Idaho. Dude thank you for being here man. Big Idaho in the house. Man that's right Idaho falls. That's right. Make sure you have me.  Appreciate that. Yeah you know I've said this over and over again I I really value the personal relationships. There's no detriment to that but to but I I've I've gone after those those personal relationships are big to me.  Your staff's probably super inquisitive. Yeah I ask a lot of questions and and to their credit they've been really open with you but yeah I I like personal relationships. We ain't got nothing to hide. No you know. No you don't. And and I'm like dude what you're doing is special what you've done is special and so I want to take a few minutes and share the the impressiveness that is Casey Peterson I mean to be a business owner in Idaho doing some of the things you're doing. Did you did you dream as a kid that you know what because you got a lot going for you man you know. What did I dream as a kid I had crazy dreams. Yeah I love cars so I had this idea if you've never seen the movie Rain Man I was going to be at an importer exporter of exotic cars from Italy. Oh that's awesome. That's what I thought I was going to do as a kid you know and then you get a little older and like all right that's that's probably good for the movies not great for for real life and and so I had always wanted to be work with with good people. I gravitate to people who are much smarter than me much better than me and so I love being surrounded by that so my my dream was always to work with good people and so I've I've been searching for that for years and it wasn't until I was forced to start my own insurance business that that I was able to go out and really start to surround myself with the people I wanted to work with. You didn't say I want to be an insurance agent a career career day though. No no that that no the the examples I had of insurance agents were old old guys you know and so no I didn't have an image of that at all when I was younger.  Yeah. You manage we have uh four agents three agents um that are they're directly for us and then we've got a downline of four or five nice so not big small staff small but but they're in Idaho but but doing you know a good amount of revenue you're managing you guys are managing how many clients again 2200 somewhere 2200 right and there's there's gonna be somebody that's new it's like man dude I want to be KC Peterson when I grow up you know um how how did you get from where you were to where you are now over these I mean how how how long you've been 12 years 12 years have you seen it like ramp up over the last several or what's that what's that dynamic of those 12 years look like I'm laughing because you know the answer to that but yeah yeah so so so the first 10 years I was independent um you know I moved from I started out as a career agent from United Healthcare for about four years in the Seattle market we still have a business a good-sized business in Washington state that we manage but um I was independent by myself I didn't really get any assistance other than my wife my family they were awesome and lots of help but I didn't have an assistant until about four or five years ago she was really part-time and then um three APs ago I started uh hiring her full-time during enrollment period my wife supplemented us the first year in our new office and then after that period of time I recognized I needed somebody full-time and so just this last year I brought somebody in full-time year wow as an assistant but honestly Cody I should have done it six seven eight years ago 10 years ago that's what I'm noticing too about individuals like you that they always seem to think dude it's time for me to grow yeah like I need to scale like I need to and or they look back and like man I wish I'd have done some of these things sooner for those that haven't done some of the things that you've done what are some of the things that you've and I have you talked about last night that's on success society what are some of the things that you've done um the last year a couple years whatever that you wish you would have done sooner because you've seen some of the fruit take the advice that you've probably heard from Cody and from others if you need if you think you need an assistant your long past overdue of having an assistant you should have had one a long time ago if it's crossing your mind on a regular basis like it's used to help yep you should have done it years ago I wish I would have done it years and years ago I got it what kept you from doing it a fear of cost do I really need him can I keep him busy it's like a fear of loss on on spending the money the money and the control you know I okay my clients like probably most people that are going to watch this my clients like me they like that I answer my phone they like that they've called me at five o'clock on a Saturday if I wasn't with my family and doing something I would take that phone call they love that but that meant that I was taking calls at five o'clock on a Saturday from lots of people true so I should really want to do that forever though because deep down you're the guy that wants to help yeah you're a very good dude but every business owner doesn't want to have to take the call on a Saturday at five forever no if they don't have to and I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that no there's nothing wrong because there's a solution to that so I've been here since Sunday afternoon it's Tuesday afternoon I've had a couple of calls that I had to handle my staff the agents in my office are handing all those things the people are getting handled and what's great about anything that can wait that's not an emergency I'll call tomorrow when I'm back in the office exactly so all those things that I was fearful that I would get missed by having other people fill in for me are being handled better than I was handling it totally and that wasn't something that was happening a couple years ago right and you've added that in a short amount of time and it's been it's been cool to see where it's going and how you know I could see you with multiple offices and multiple states and and a staff that's managing all of it dude you want to go to you know Hawaii for for a month you could right which is that's whatever I mean that do you agree with this statement I believe every business owner gets into business including you guys watching this every business owner gets into business saying because at some point they want to the business to run whether they are there or not it feels lazy for people to say that but that's the real reason people become business owners right I maybe yes if they if they've done it long enough maybe people are smarter than I am and they get into it thinking that I didn't I thought I need to get in and I make an income and then I started seeing people in this business making hundreds of thousands of dollars and I'm like I can do that yeah and then once I got into I'm like I can do that and I don't have to be there every day yeah now that's I'm still a ways from that I mean I could do it now we could I could walk away we could have people run it but sure I'm that I would get bored and you would be you would have the staff and the you know you would have a great income right it could be supported for years and years you know but where are you wanting to go because we've talked about there's millions of dollars of revenue in the near future for for for generations insurance in Casey Peterson oh yeah we we want to well starting in January I thought I wanted to double my numbers and clients but now we're we're far going to surpass that what happened up here that that you're like okay I just want to double and now you're like yeah man then doubling it was too small we talked about big thing thinking big you know what what happened because I got a room of people that are doing it I got in a room of people that are way more than doubling it I got in a room of people are doing 16 have 16,000 clients 5,000 clients 7,020 I mean I got in a room of people that are way better than me but I can do it that are they actually better than you though well I think they're better than me because they've got time and they've done some of the things that I haven't done yet but I don't think it's not that I can't do it no no no and they're really not that actually better I don't believe that you know he's extremely humble and and like my dad would sit in the same seat and say the same thing but it's not that I don't believe that they're better it's just that yes that they have been they have more confidence in that they've been they've got the more experience they've seen it the staff and all the things create a lot of wins for them you know well go back to what you asked what was the difference the difference is is that those people took risks that I didn't take so I was raised to believe you took very minimal risks like my dad was young he took some big risks he opened up a store an hours away from where he was he was living with my mom and took some big risks but as time went on he he was successful when he was doing and he kind of stayed in that I don't want to call it a rut because my dad is a fantastic man in very successful business but he stayed in that lane and he would not deviate and and it did hurt him and so I was raised that's what you do you you don't take these risks you go slow and to some degree I think there's some there's a time and a place for that but there's also the mantra that I've changed in me is that details delay you've got to stop worrying about having everything lined out a b c d e f g before you make the next the step from a to b sometimes you've got to go from a to b and just trust that your instincts are going to kick in and your work ethic is going to kick in and if you surround your people with yourself with enough people that are that are on the same path with you then it'll get there and so now we're at a point you ask me about how long it's been it's only been a couple years but I've got the right people in place then I can plug in a new agent all the time we I plan to be in the next you know 30 days to hire three agents that's all we will hire them at the three agents the next 30 days and then after that get them trained up and do another three and that's huge and it's not now that you've done it it feels easier to do it again doesn't it it does it's exciting it's not scary I've gotten no butterflies there's awesome there's none it's going to cost a lot of money it's going to cost a lot of effort and time but I know now enough from getting good advice from good people and watching and asking a lot of questions that it's got to do it that's it that's it what you've been here a couple last two days yeah in the office um what have you noticed what have you enjoyed what have you liked what have you not liked what's the experience been for someone that eventually wants to come hang out here for a couple days what I've really liked is to have been involved in your meetings that start early in the morning you know eight o'clock eight fifteen and go and tell about nine fifteen nine thirty what I've really liked is I've been able to see the conversations that have happened with direction being given from you or Laurel Lauren or from Andy or whoever or Lana or Toby and then listen throughout the day because I've just kind of sat back a couple times in your office and been quiet and listened people implementing what the decision was that morning or you had an idea the night before you picked me up that afternoon you picked me up and I'm seeing it show up on YouTube that's right so that's exciting it's been really cool for that there's nothing I haven't been liked I'm not saying that because I'm sitting in your office here there's nothing I haven't liked because I've been kind of been able to watch things happen without anybody knowing that I'm observing it so I've really liked that I've liked the team atmosphere I love the the morning meeting that you guys get in and get get excited you recognized successes you had a you had an agent people might want to hear this that it had a slump yes and had reached out to you personally and texted you and said I need some help with this slump and you'd been communicating with him but you took the opportunity at the morning meeting to bring it up and in some organizations that might not be that'd be taboo we don't point out the bad but you didn't make it a bad thing you said okay you're in this slump and what are we gonna do to help you and let's get some advice I shared some things you should I mean everybody shared that day correct he broke his 10 day streak of slump and the next morning I bet he has a big day today totally and so I loved watching that we're gonna go back and we're gonna talk about our successes our failures what we're working on yes we're gonna point out the good the bad the ugly yeah and you got to hit that stuff head on like some people like that they avoid those not even confrontation but just some of those negative things or like things that you're like well maybe we shouldn't highlight john well we can highlight john in a positive way and help john as a group you know I think it's because you set up a culture though so in a in another culture talking about that agents salesman's troubles would be uncomfortable and everybody in the room would be like I can't believe that the boss is pointing this out right the boss is picking on him that's not at all the feeling the atmosphere that was in the air it was like all right what are we gonna do to help this guy yeah and it's cool and it was really neat even one of the agents said we're gonna call it you know I'll just make up a name let's say this guy's name was john we're gonna call it you did a john everybody laughed about it he laughed about it but then you jumped in and said no we're not gonna call it that we're gonna do this and and and put a good positive spin on it so that was really cool thanks buddy yeah that's fun man um also from what you've been around when you you talked about the team and growth and all that like what where did the like what have you noticed change about you over these last couple years that and and where did that come from and maybe what what was going on in the past that kept you from adopting that money yeah but money in the other way okay so as an agent you start to get you know there's agents on that'll watch this that have a couple hundred clients 500 clients a thousand five thousand there's a point where you are more than covering your income or more than covering your your costs and I reached that pretty early in my career you know I remember the third year of of AEP I had a $70,000 paycheck from United Health Care in January and and at that time I was like what am I gonna take the rest of your off forever yeah I baby we hit it we're gonna go let's go to Mexico and so I think that what happens is is that then that happens multiple times and it starts happening on a consistent basis you start having paychecks of 10 and 15 and 20 and 30 whatever the number is different levels of it yeah and then you're like I don't really need to get up and and get after this it's gonna come in whether I get up and go to work or not and so for me I became complacent I had the house I had the cars I had the fun I had the trips I had a fantastic family but that's not that's not fulfilling for me long term correct and it's not in and knowing him and we're a lot of like in that respect it's not even the stuff no it's it's and it's not like I don't love spending a lot of time with my family it's I'm personally fulfilled when I'm going out and chasing when I'm going out and growing you know and there's a lot of people that it's cool that you're talking about this and honest about it and transparent about it because there's a lot of people that are really successful that go through that from time to time that will this will really resonate with them so I had to find the next thing for me to get me motivated so I went out and I'm like I'm gonna go this before we met I'm gonna go and I'm gonna move into an office I was in my home I had no overhead I mean zero over I was looking for ways to get right offs and so I'm like I'm gonna go I'm gonna go open an office well then open an office wasn't enough I'm gonna go build a building and so that's what it took so then once I set that goal which was big goal you know million dollar building I'm like all right now I gotta pay for it how am I gonna do that and that's when I started saying okay I've gotta find new ways to get motivated and bring more money in the door and that's when I started you know I need an assistant I need agents I need and when I started having those goals I'm like well hold on a second I don't know how to do any of those things I gotta get a coach I gotta get a mentor that coach that mentor then said you got to get in the room of people who tell who can show you how they did why would you try to reinvent it just get in the room of people that will share with you in our industry I know I'm preaching the choir here that's hard to find there's not a lot of people and so once I found that tribe if you will have to use a cheesy statement once I found that I'm like all right let's let's go and my pocketbook opened much easier because I had a trust going back to personal relationships with those people who are willing to give me mentorship and give me coaching and give me advice I was gonna spend the money anyway why not spend it with people who are willing to be open and honest and transparent yep you can either row your business or give it to uncle Sam right that's right by the way I do like stuff I shouldn't make it out to like I'm this I do like stuff and I do get motivated by stuff you know but money money money ends money ends that drive pretty quickly totally that's what happens when when you get it it it you typically slow down a little you know residual income is the greatest thing and can be the greatest downfall once you start hitting numbers of the people that you've you've watched and I remember sitting in a meeting one time in Seattle in a kickoff meeting that united healthcare put on sorry to use companies but it was a great room and we had some power guys these guys years ago had two three four thousand clients and there was they were I was asking during the break what they're making and I'm like oh that'll never happen to me and then once it started why was that the first thought though that will never happen for me I think a lot of things in the back of my mind I think things that had happened you know I had a career that I thought to me for the rest of my life and then the mortgage it was mortgages and the industry crashed and so I'd spend all this time and effort and training and that was gone and so I think that was in back my head but once it started happening then then I was more motivated excited and I wanted to grow and then you get to a point in that residual income you start recognizing if I just do a good job and take care of people I don't have to work really hard yeah and that income is going to continue to come in that becomes easy to be complacent for me for sure not everybody for me it was back then what was the what was the revenue target like what was uh what was here in them and then say okay here's where I want to get to if I was like ten thousand dollars a month yeah and a lot of people are not even there yet I would bet I would bet easy 80% of people that watch this aren't definitely or not there yet yeah I remember the first guy I heard made five thousand dollars a month I'm like no way nah come on you're selling Medicare to people in Seattle Washington you're like not making five thousand dollars a month and then I got to know the guy and he's like yeah I am I'm like okay it's funny how we like I used to tell myself that you heard it on a video like recently like dude if I can see it to five grand a month man I'm set forever oh my gosh but it's like dude what once or actually it's five grand a week is what I was saying right and even then it was wrong it's funny how that's the that's you and the mind growing over time thinking like okay man if I can just get to this and you get there and you're like I just didn't know enough you know didn't and I didn't do I wasn't I wasn't doing enough I didn't know enough and I wasn't doing enough I thought I was I was I mean during AP I was working my wife will test this 14 hours a day six days a week you know and and I was doing enough but not enough for the right things I didn't know enough yeah I could have yeah I was talking to Annie earlier today if I could go back in time and and knowing now what I know then I would have had five agents what would you tell someone that is is Casey Peterson 12 years ago or even 24 months ago what would you go back and say to that individual that knowing what you know now this is a duplicatable business this is if you can if you if you spend the time and the effort and the energy and you come from a good place this is a duplicatable business there is not enough to this day there's not enough people doing it and doing there's let me rephrase that there's not enough people doing it well yeah there's lots of people doing it not doing it well and so if you can find good people and you can help motivate them and I would put me in that category not very long ago I was doing the right thing for my clients but I wasn't doing it well I think there's there's a ton of opportunity and you can do a lot of good and you can make a lot of money and have a great lifestyle and and be a positive impact in people's lives yeah while being very successfully when it comes successful when it comes to money and all the other things that come with it so if I was to go back 24 months I would absolutely say we're on the call last night if you think you need an assistant you're past the point of needing assistance true if you think you can bring in another agent or two you're past the point of needing of being able to do it it do it what about the investment piece the money piece the market you know I mean the investment in the business the marketing the branding all that kind of stuff can you talk a lot about that last night too yeah there there's a way to spend money smartly and there's a way to spend money you know pretty dumb and I was spending money pretty dumb two ways when I wasn't spending enough and that that's again a limiting belief that I was scared to death to spend the kind of money that I'm spending today yeah but what's funny is I was more scared spending a little bit of money than I am today spending as you know a lot more money and advertising why is that because once I did it once I made that first step and gave it some time and was reasonable in my expectation yeah you have to be reasonable that it not everything's going to work today it's not gonna work today imperfectly yeah right so once I did it and I gave it the time that it was was reasonable to give it and altered a few things and changed some things and start to seeing it work it comes to a point where if I can spend a dollar to make two or three or four great now times that by 20 or 30 or 50 or 1000 as long as I have that number coming back to me two or three times I'm okay with it yeah and so the fear is gone because I've seen that work where I spend the dollars big small little whatever it looks like and it comes back to me yes you guys need to take that's take the step okay it's all the toughest the person we need to believe in the most is us the person we struggle to believe the most in at times is us you know it's an internal game that the battle and because even even you said earlier you're with the bunch of the UHC guys at a meeting and you're like man I could never do that right that is doubt creeping in but that's the a lot of times that's the first thing we think yeah you know I do it all the time I'm walking out to a conference and I'm like man I don't know if I can do that as good as that person just did and then I'm like no no no hang on a second you can do better and and quit worrying about doing it perfectly yes I'm going to fail when I walk out this door tomorrow back in my office I'm going to make mistakes that's so good every single day but quit worrying about it perfect is impossible no and by the way I let me go back it's no different than you saying in some of your in some of your videos I need to get through how many knows right so just get me enough knows and I'm going to I'm going to get my goal same thing with make mistakes I just need to make enough mistakes that I'm going to get to the point where I'm making the right decisions and I'm going to figure out what's right and wrong yes but I'm going to make mistakes all along the way I'm trying I'm not there yet to almost look to make mistakes I let me see what I can do wrong to figure out what I got to do right I love that you're in a place too where I can see from a finance from a from a business career standpoint is this the happiest you've ever been in your career yeah it is absolutely happiest yeah it's such a cool feeling it is it is fun it's fun because I'm excited to go back and I've got some really great guys and gals that work with me but I'm excited to go back and find more people to bring in the team yes and see them grow I mean that that agent that I brought in I don't we didn't talk about it about a year ago to see him do so well yeah is is just the funnest thing to you way funner than anything I bought recently why is it that that that the people aspect like helping others and bringing others up and seeing them win we end up getting more gratification out of that than seeing ourselves win because I got excited he brought his wife and I know his wife and his and his children his two daughters and and they're amazing people and they bought a brand new house and they're they feel comfortable to buy a house with the opportunity that him and I and the other team members are developing and that's really fun to watch I mean it's fun to have my own home it's fun to us to go on trips and I'm going to keep doing that but to see him feel comfortable enough to take those kind of risks and do those kind of things and grow his family is just I think you see that I think you feel and see that you're really winning and succeeding when you see you helping others win and succeed too versus just being about us like like it's easy I almost think too like if someone has the ability to be Casey Peterson with people and freaking blow up their business and start to think on a different level and help people that they're selfish if they don't I couldn't agree more okay no it is okay so tomorrow you walk out the door and you shut this all down and you just go out and be kodiaskans by yourself is that selfish yeah yes yes yes it is yes it is that's the answer that's a good analogy but that's the answer because how many people now have to go out and figure out it's right on their own that's not ego I don't think that's pride at all yeah I don't think it is either that's a really good point what do you guys agree I want to hear in comments below because that's that's that was brilliant it's fun and he says and he says people are smarter than him not dude he's got his IQ probably puts me in a shame guaranteed okay how why are the people aspects so important to to growth not from the satisfaction winning success standpoint but from the internal engine like you've seen the the the best thing that I've personally ever done is surround myself with incredible freaking people and man I am so grateful and so blessed to have unbelievable people yeah it's it's neat I've got another guy that's only been a couple of months in our office and he is driven I mean this guy's got vision boards and he's got ideas and he's got goals and he is a driven guy and he is that you ask why the people thing is so important because he's like 24 I'm 47 I I learn from him all the time I'm excited about what he has to share and so the people aspect is great because you get to learn and grow and be better because of these other people around you my admin she's got some huge goals in her life and she I'm watching her do it every day she wants to be healthier I watch what she brings to eat I watch what she brings to lunch I she talks about what they did over the weekend and and some of the big goals that she has and so to to be involved in in some of those things in the other five stories I could tell you is really exciting because it takes you out of you I get in my head a lot because I have all these decisions to make I have all these things that I want to do and so I start you know putting my head down and going to work and when I take a step back and start paying attention what these other people are doing around me it puts my head in the better place it makes you better too with people watching yes it's like you're always playing a game a basketball game with people in the stands yeah or with teammates so I learned something about that I used years ago in another career I always had my door shut and until people came in to meet with me I had my door shut so in this career my door doesn't get shut unless it's a client meeting yeah so they can hear me on the phone they can hear me in my interaction my kids call they hear me sometimes my kids do things they upset me and I have to remember not only are they listening but I should be doing the right thing and how I interact with my kids and other and vendors like I wanted to blow up at a vendor the other day like lose it on this vendor they completely botched a huge project all right stop what would you do now let's see what Casey did well what I would normally do with my door shut is I'd come unhinged yeah but because my door was open I had to take a beat and because I took a beat I was able to put it in perspective and say what am I going to do about this losing my mind on this person who I have a long-term relationship who's going to help me in the future is going to damage that person relationship so I was able to take a beat and say okay how are you going to fix this where I would have said you will fix this and hung up on it but because I said okay how are you going to fix this I was able to have put it back in their court and so the door being open them hearing how I interact made me a better person because I was worried about my personal relationship with my admin and with my my guys in the office hearing me be a jackass excuse me yep yep that takes a special maturity or have been a jackass a lot of times I can relate yeah I didn't want to be that guy again never again hopefully never again what's uh what's next like where do you see this thing going now we're going to have multiple offices we're going to have multiple offices with multiple agents working for generations insurance working within generations insurance multiple managers multiple team leads yeah we're gonna how big did this thing get yeah we could be we could go out of state if I wanted to go to multiple states yeah could it be country across the whole country it could yeah what what what's like probably the only thing that could hold all that back by the way how much time I want to put in how much time I have how much time I want to spend so so to me you know that's it I am the limiting factor absolutely it's not a lack of resources not a lack of good quality people out there it's not a lack of product it's not a lack of technology it's not a lack of any of those things it's what do how do how much do I want to limit it that's it that's so good good to do it all over again how fast could you get where you're at yeah fast not fast and I don't want to say that sounding like I'm bragging fast I mean as in two years two years you could get to 2,200 clients he's right by the way probably less don't you think yeah probably less knowing what you know now with a little aggressiveness yeah with some money yeah also it's easier to you guys hear that and it's not ego it's saying okay I've learned a lot he has the ability to take some mass he would take some huge risks and he is right now what why because he if he had to do it over again he would take the risk because he believes in himself and he know it's going to work out like once you know your the risks are going to work out you take them I'm trying to take more right isn't that funny though yeah I'm like looking for risks what would the five-year ago Cody say to you taking more risks he like like one step at a time yeah slow down slow down buddy you don't want to go bankrupt okay right yeah don't want to have a a horror story to tell down the road you know what would your what what would your you know family do your peers peers friends but yeah it's like dude now I'm like what am I going to be proud of in 10 years that's what I ask myself all the time is it money no it's not no because one of my goals is to have a hundred million dollars in revenue that's not gonna like sad it's not the money's not going to like be the satisfyinger it's the 10,000 agents at the conference it's unbelievable relationships like this it's a thousand people on the team it's a four-story five-story glass building in Springfield Missouri it's a helicopter pad on the top helicopter pad on the top we just decided that last night last night I get the first delay the first ride yeah dude do you could you see that in our future oh yeah I could too now by the way yeah because it again how many mistakes have I made to this point so I know what not to do and I'm still going to make mistakes but I know what to do right and because I've I've done all I've made lots and lots of mistakes that it becomes narrow or narrow or narrow you think about massive corporations the biggest in the world you look at you look at Amazon their growth in the first how many years was was good but wasn't rocket ship right and I have to believe I don't know the answers I have to believe there was a point where they're like we've got this figured out yeah and now we're going to do this and now we're going to do it and it used to be just books right yeah how crazy is that right now we're going to have grocery stores and now we're going to have health care and I mean they start because they figured out how to get there they've no they've done all the mistake making they're going to make to slow them down you can implement it's right we can implement those things because we figured out the vehicle and it's running correct they're going to have the whole monopoly board owned instead of just a corner we're not going to just focus on insurance so we've added extra products that I would have never have thought about adding two years ago and we'll add more because it's we can plug it into the system that's working that's so good that's so good what are some tips that you would give someone out there that is new and struggling that they need some help they need some direction you know I we get comments a lot that are like man I was about to quit yeah and I found this video you know and yeah there's some other comments obviously when you get to the size of channel I guess but in the grand scheme of things the channel is even still small really but that's what's cool um is seeing those comments so keep leaving them if you are no matter what comment you leave it helps us because it's engagement however I love the I love the special ones like that so what would you say to someone out there that's like do my back skins the wall I don't have a lot of money and I'm really struggling I'm thinking about quitting so the two things first of all so is every single other person who's at whatever level you think is good yeah I can I quit probably 50 times in the first two years I quit over and over again I told my wife this is ridiculous this is going to work I'm tired of going to people's homes and fighting for couch space with their cats yeah I don't want to do this anymore you know this is ridiculous people stand me up 22 cat yeah I had 22 cat lady we had to call and the state on yeah there there's there's all those things if you if you look at whoever it is a kodi or some of the other huge guys in the industry they quit I promise you yeah if they tell you they by the way if you run into somebody who says they never quit they're lying or they at least considered it when I say quit but I want to be clear when I say quit I quit for the moment correct this is it I'm done and then I went and I walked away or I did whatever I'm like okay I'm not gonna quit obviously I didn't quit really yeah that's okay the difference is is I think you have to decide you're gonna do you're gonna go forward with whatever's ethical you're gonna do whatever it takes we were talking there was on it on the right to lunch the other day I sold cars for while I was in college I hated sitting around waiting I hated it so that I was waiting for people to show up on the dealership lot for me to sell them something after a few weeks of that I was going nuts so I picked up the newspaper I started calling people who had ads in the newspaper who were selling their cars to have them come give us let us give them a bid they were selling a car that may mean that they need another car I was willing to do what it took now that wasn't highly successful it wasn't no traffic maybe lots of traffic but then my you know my sales managers like quit having people come in with like 1992 suburbans yeah we don't want those anymore but my point was is that do what it takes to get it done and so if you're asking if what I would do if I could go back and tell Casey Peterson 12 years ago put the time in it's gonna get there quit expecting it to be tomorrow I have agents that had to work a part-time job to have money come in because they're straight commission yeah and for a period of time that was okay I think a lot of people expect that it has to look a certain way that's right and it doesn't if you have the money and the resources to put everything in this then do it yes they won't regret it will they they will not regret it if you don't quit you can't fail that's exactly right but man we always want to quit we do like our sales team will have a bad day and I'll be like dude I want to implode the whole team I want to fire everybody and the next day it'll be unbelievable I'm like man we're the greatest sales team on the planet like everyone goes I go through that Casey goes through that we all go through that from day to day where it's like man today I'm like I don't know you know but then wake up next day it's a new day it's a new day it's a new day and it's an exciting day and that's the greatest thing about what we do for a living if you're selling good products you can't hurt people yeah if I have something picked between a Medicare advantage or Medicare supplement they're both helping them they're both helping them right it's a win better than nothing yeah so what am I what's my real concern my concern is is if I'm going to give enough people if I'm going to get in front of enough people to give them that option so if I can figure out how to get in front of enough people to give them that option I'm running and so when I get nervous or I get scared or I'm spending some money that I would not normally spend I have to remember what's the ultimate goal the ultimate goal is getting in front of enough people to give them that option that's right that's it and you get less scared how'd you become so impressive well I'm not I appreciate that but I'm not but I I think I've just anybody that you know that knows me well knows I made a lot of mistakes a lot of mistakes my wife will watch this some point she'll be in the background saying yes he has yeah well what do you think about the the quote uh the key to success is failure 100% agrees it yeah I have two tattoos we don't like doing it one says details delay right here and the other one says key to success is failure I don't have tattoos I don't either but you do the details delay thing let's talk about that real quick for a couple minutes because that I spoke at one percent mastermind you should have trademarked it because I tell people my idea look into trademarking that uh you that stood out like you wrote that down and you've been talking about it ever since for 90 days later almost all the time I'm getting a plaque I'm not joking I'm getting a plaque mate it's gonna go go above my door in my office gosh I love that I'll tell you why I need to I need to write a book about that I'll tell you why because it was it was a perfect timing perfect place perfect history perfect experiences for me yes and and you won't remember this because there was enough people in the room but when you said it you happen to be looking at me I don't remember that yeah you happen to be looking at me and you weren't saying it for me but you happen to be looking at me and so it was almost like one of those you know kind of moments it was and I needed to hear that and so I went into this one percent mastermind with some goals and and I didn't know what I wanted to hear but I knew I needed to hear something and that that was it but again if I hadn't put myself in that room paid to get there paid to entry yes right and been open minded I wouldn't I don't know where I'd be right now a lot of its timing like you said man there's been stuff happen over the last several years but it's like dude I've heard it before but man this time I really heard it yeah like I really got it and you're right you had to show up that's the that's most most people struggle to like show up when you were selling cars you thought outside the box you were creative but you went for it but the who is in that room too and and you put yourself in a room of people who are are giving and personal relationships matter yes and I hope it's okay but Tyler Reese doesn't have to be there no totally Tyler Reese doesn't have to be anywhere he could do it every once in his house and answer phone calls but he was in front of the room sharing things yeah it was cool that was just unbelievable I mean and and for a guy like me to learn from a guy like that is that's what we're trying to do right building getting success people in a room together so they can learn from one another and for me to ever think at any point like Casey's just there to learn from me it would be the wrong thinking because you'll always learn more from the rest of the amazing people than you will from me sure you may learn stuff from me but it's hard for me to outweigh the other 48 in the room that you're going to learn from it's just it's just not like and the moment we started realizing that the last few years and it's our goal and duty and obligation to get serious winners and power players together to learn from one another but you've also picked people who will be open and transparent yes because you could pick some pretty big egos oh yeah yeah you could you could attract some pretty big egos who would just get up there and be all about them it'd be the them show yeah the people that you have in front of the room and the people that I've I've interacted that they got egos don't get me wrong we all do sure but they're open and transparent and friendly and and I get along with those those that that we're willing to share because that's just what I enjoy doing too yeah um well what would you like to leave with me and how cool this has been blast you've been done unbelievable has he done incredible or is he done incredible I appreciate that I'll tell you one thing I did want to say with after I left 1% I went back to my area my little area and I've been reaching out to agents that are my competitors and and we've been talking and what I've found is that the ones that are open and transparent and like the personal relationships I've been able to learn from them and now they're in my and they're in my market so they've I've gleaned information from them they've gleaned I hope something for me totally but now we have a more we're we're I'm working on getting a community community of them to talk and and give advice and they've given me advice and I've learned and so I've tried to take that back to where I live that's awesome and I think it just helps us all and don't get me wrong he still wants to dominate oh yeah however yeah I like that you've done that that's really cool yeah we want to crush that's right right but we'll help him along there you go that's right that's right that's good dude thank you very much okay thanks go I've enjoyed you you too I've enjoyed getting you you get a chance to share your story everything you're doing you've been really really special um keep following this dude okay he's doing something special he's building something he's just like you and one day you're gonna be Casey Peterson too hey if you enjoyed this I got another one you're gonna love it's right there click on it see you in there all right ladies and gentlemen I'm extremely excited to jump out and interview an absolute powerhouse in the insurance industry miss Leslie skillfield what's up Leslie hey hey happy to be here thank you so much for being a part of this all right she


So let's say we get the freedom dividend going and we're giving everyone $1,000 a month. The freedom dividend is the UBI. That's what he's calling it. He's like a good politician. He polled and the freedom dividend polled best. It polled best by the way among Republicans. They love the word freedom and he's attracting certain Republican support. I see we've got some Andrew Yang supporters on my chat. That's great. Thanks for joining us. We'll see if you still like your candidate after we dissect what he has to say. Explain that maybe a little more in case anyone doesn't know. Yeah, I should get into that. But I'll finish this thought and we'll get into it. But if we're giving people $1,000 a month, is that going to solve that issue even? If we keep going into the future, 50 years, 100 years, how many jobs are left? Well, this is the fundamental reinvention that's in many ways at the heart of my campaign. So right now our economy revolves around these ideas of capital efficiency where the market says if you're an accountant, you're worth $75,000. By the way, what he means by capital efficiency is how much value do you create? So he says today jobs revolve around this idea of value creation.  And this is what he's criticizing. And he says all these jobs are based on, he calls the capital efficiency because that makes it seem financial and kind of nasty and maybe bad. But what he's really talking about is value creation. And he's saying there's a problem. And the problem he's identified is true. 46,000. And what I'm saying right now is, look, technology is going to come that's going to do the job of the accountant and the truck driver. And then what is their new market worth going to be? That's right. So technology is going to come in and we're going to have driverless trucks one day. We're going to have, you know, software that does accounting, I hope. I mean, that would be fantastic. Save me a lot of money. And we're going to have radiologists that are going to be replaced. And what are people going to do? They're going to be no jobs in the economy. Now, what's amazing to me about this whole line of argument is this is, they all think they've invented it. They think this is new. Robots are going to take everybody's jobs and that has never happened before. Robots are going to take anybody's jobs and such. It's never happened before. We can't imagine a world in which people have other jobs. Their jobs are going to be taken by robots. And they ignore the last 250 years. Say ignore the agricultural revolution 250 years ago. 90% of us were farmers. Today, less than 1% of us are farmers. There's more food in the world today than ever before. And yet at 1% of us in the United States in the world, the percentage is higher. But it's shrinking dramatically over time. And yet people are working. There's no shortage of jobs. Certainly not on a global scale. There are more jobs today than they ever have been in all of human history. But suddenly this is new. Wait, robots are going to take our jobs. What are people going to do? And they can't imagine the new jobs that will be created. Yeah, it's hard to imagine those new jobs. I can't imagine them either. But if you study history just a little bit, what about the sewing machines, the first excuse for the Luddites to burn down factories claiming they would take all the jobs away? What about the assembly line by Ford? And what has happened to the standard of living quality of life and the quality of the jobs we have? The quality of the jobs we have? The fact is that labor participation rates in the world globally have never been higher than they are today. Globally, more people are working in productive activities for trade than in any point in all of human history. I'm not talking about unemployment numbers. I'm talking about the number of people working in a job that produces value to be traded. Never in all of human history have we come close to the number or the percentage of people working. Now in the United States, labor participation rates are low for a variety of reasons. But globally, this is a global issue, not a US issue. We can talk about why they're low in the US and it has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with education, welfare, and all Andrew Yang UBI is going to do is increase the labor, decrease the labor participation rate, going to reduce the incentive to go into the labor force. I love it when all the Andrew Yang people are coming to my chat and all they do is add homonyms. They don't argue. They just say, oh, that's nonsense. Well, what did I say? That's nonsense. Give me one fact that is nonsense. The fact is more people are working today for value creating jobs in spite of the fact that we have more and more technology. The fact is that all those people who used to work in agriculture do not work in agriculture anymore and yet they have jobs. The fact is that while we don't have as many manufacturing jobs today, we have masses of numbers of computer programming jobs that are far better and far better paying. The fact is that if not for regulations and controls and taxes and the distortion that the government creates in our economy, we would have millions and millions and millions of additionally good paying jobs in the U.S. But globally, there's no disputes. I mean, you've got tens of millions of people in China working in productive trade related activities that didn't work. They were farmers just 20, 30 years ago. That's true in India. That's true in Thailand. That's true in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. Just the sheer number of people working in productive trade related activities is mind-boggling as compared to any other time in human history. And yet we're worried that robots are going to take out, yeah, you should be worried about robots taking your job. But in aggregate, I am willing to bet my entire net worth that in 50 years, there will be more jobs, more work to do than there is today. More people working in productive activities than there are today. So I know you guys are asking a lot of questions. We'll get to them. I really am trying to get through this interview with Yang because he brings up a lot of important issues. This job's all going to go away. It's probably the most important one. You've got Elon Musk behind this.  You've got Yuval Haravi, who I did a video about a week ago, really pushing this idea. But it's really a lack of understanding of history, a lack of understanding of economics, a lack of understanding of human nature, a lack of understanding of human need. And history proves it wrong. Technology creates more jobs than it destroys, always and everywhere, and always has been and always will be. Here we go. Not what it was. It's sort of unclear what the new value is. So we're in the midst of the greatest economic transformation in human history. And we need to start finding new pursuits and jobs and ways to value our own time. That's all true. I agree with that completely. We need to start finding new pursuits, new jobs. We need to think about whether our job is going to be eliminated by a computer, by a robot, and retraining ourselves and thinking about the kind of jobs that will not be taken by computers and orienting our training towards those kind of jobs. That is definitely something that we, as individuals, need to do. One of the examples I use that my wife is at home with our two boys, one of him has autism and the market values her work at zero. But yeah, if your wife is at home, her market value is zero. Well, not really. Is her market value at zero? Where is she getting her market value from? Who is she producing value for? Well, she's producing value for your kids who are not in a position to pay for their value. And she's producing value for you, Andrew Lang, so you can run around the country earning for president. And what does she get in exchange for the value she's producing for you? Well, half of your income, half of the income you're producing. So you're producing income for both of you. And that value is in exchange for her raising kids. But raising kids does not produce value for other people, so other people don't pay her to do it. Now, his solution ultimately, I think, although he never actually says it, is the government should pay her. Society somehow should pay her. But how does that actually work? And how does society place a value on raising kids? How do we measure that? Where's the price mechanism to tell us this is a value or not? Do we vote on it? Where does the money for the government to pay every person out there who's raising kids come from? How do you do all that? He never explains that because there is no way to do it. And he has no explanation for it. Millions of women around the country in the same boat where we're like, your times were zero. And we all know that the works. I guess now her time is worth $1,000 a month, which is the UBI.  That's the hard with capitalism though, right? Because they don't produce. Yeah, we don't get paid for how hard the work we do is. We get paid for our productive wheel. We get paid for how much value we create for other people. We don't get paid for how hard the work is. We get paid when we can differentiate ourselves from other people, where the work we do is unique, where the work we do is value creating. You don't get paid for working hard. Nobody cares if you work hard. What they care about is how much you produce. Like tangible, I guess, they don't produce to the economy in a touchable way, right? It's an tangible asset. And so in a way, we have to transform what we think of as tangible value. So if you make another human being stronger and healthier, that's actually, that's good. Yeah, immensely valuable. Yeah, but this is the question. Who is the we? Who is the we who is going to transform what we think is tangible? And who gets to decide that the beauty of capitalism, the beauty of free markets is in a sense, nobody decides. We each decide for ourselves what we think is tangible, what we're willing to pay for. And then we go out, then we trade with other people freely without coercion, without forcing anybody. But each individual under capitalism is not forced to make any kind of decision about what he views as tangible or not. What Andrew Yang and really all status of central planners want to do is tell us what we should view as tangible. Tell us, you know, what we should value and therefore what we should pay for.  And that's the negation of freedom. That's the essence of what freedom isn't. Freedom is you choosing what you value, not somebody else choosing for you what you should value. Just right now, our economic statistics don't value that appropriately. Or investing in your and having a happy, healthy family is good for society. Yes. And so this is the great opportunity. Because what is good for society mean good for human society? Now, being healthy and raising a happy family is good for you. And yeah, other people benefit from it as well. But are they gonna pay you so you raise a happy family? And if you don't, they don't pay you, you don't raise a happy family? It's never explained what exactly he is talking about this. Where technology is going to end up assuming more and more work is that we have to rethink and broaden what we think of as work. And then we have to come up with different and better ways of valuing our own time. Because if we play out the capital efficiency race, we lose at an epic level. This is this is the the led lights argument that we lose. No, we don't lose. If you pay out the capital efficiency, which is just mean the value creation, the productivity enhancing that the freedom to pursue your own values to create your own values and then to trade, we all win and very nature of that system is win win. And the whole idea that robots to overtake us and just take it over is it's just science fiction nonsense. It's just so beyond reasonable. I want to ask you first of all, why why do you think all these mass shootings are happening? What happened? Sorry, this happens to me when I do this stuff. You're that's actually that's good immensely valuable. So if you were to say how many of you get excited if you were to make your community stronger mentally healthier, people would be like, Oh, that would be tremendous. It's just most people don't have the opportunity to do that kind of work. Well, but how do you do that kind of work? And who gets to pay you for that kind of work? And where does the funds come to make you that kind of work? Again, centrally planned, government is paying you. And again, the UBI is not enough to pay you. His idea of $1,000 a month is not enough to pay you. So he never actually articulates how this mechanism works of everybody doing what they want to do, everybody doing these societally valuable activities. How does it work? We understand how socialism works or doesn't as the case may be. We understand that capitalism works. How does this new thing work? Blank out no explanation. This is the big chance we have and we have to take it because if we stay on this road too long, GDP and capital efficiency are going to send us flying off a cliff. And one of the things I say to people is like, look, self-driving trucks will be great for GDP. You're going to save tens of billions of dollars. It's going to be terrible for the three and a half million truck drivers. Is it really? I mean, again, this is the lack of imagination was automation and farming terrible for the people who lost jobs and farming? No. It actually increased the standard of living. They went to the cities, got better jobs, lived better life, healthier lives and had a much higher standard of living because of the automation that drove them out. Yes, they lost their jobs too bad. Go find another job. And it's exactly what happened to manufacturing workers. Where are all the manufacturing workers who lost their jobs in the 1980s? Well, they got retrained. They're doing something else and where are their kids? They're kids in Silicon Valley programming. And their standard of living all went up. But the only way to move forward, the only way to advance is through what Schumteter, the economy is Schumteter called creative destruction. Yes, industries go out of business. New industries arise. Some jobs disappear. Other jobs get created. But the idea that we're heading towards some cliff where all jobs go away is just another form of the Armageddon mentality that unfortunately too many human beings have. You know, we're all going to die from global warming in 12 years. We're all going to, oh, global warming is irreversible within 12 years and the end of the world is nine.  He's going to destroy us at the center of the millennium. Or whatever it happens to be, there's always somebody yelling from the hilltops, the world is going to end. Millennial cults are part of our lives. Yes, Uber drivers won't have a job in 20 years. Truck drivers won't have jobs in 20 years. And you know what? They'll be new, better, more exciting, more interesting, better paying jobs available. I don't know where. If I knew where, I'd be super rich. But if you look at history, that has always been the case. And where else do we have to learn than from history and economic theory? And economic theory here is simple. Human needs are infinite. There is no, there's no limit to what we as human beings need and want. And while robots can create certain things, there's always going to be things that robots can't yet do. And a lot of those have to do with human interaction. A lot of that has to do with creativity. A lot of that has to do with things like making us laugh. There'll be more entertainers. There'll be more comedians. There'll be more personal assistants. I don't know. But I'd like to give the example. 20 years ago, if you drove around America, once in a while you'd see a nail salon, primarily in an upper middle class or high class neighborhood where rich people would go and have their nails done. Like 20, 30 years ago, nobody got their nails done. It was an exclusive thing of the rich. Today, in California, there's not a strip mall that doesn't have a nail salon. Thousands and thousands and thousands of women in California work doing whatever they do in a nail salon, never being in one. And I don't know what they do. But manicures, pedicures, thousands and thousands. Now, if you'd ask me, what are all these Asian immigrants going to do? I mean, most of them are Vietnamese women in California, Southern California, at least. What are they going to do when they come here? They're not enough jobs. Nobody would have imagined this would be a job. So I don't know what the jobs of the future are going to be. Manual or non-manual. All I know is that history suggests and economic theory, markets suggest that given the needs of human being always expand, always grow. We always want more need, more desire, more people are going to have to produce and people have individuals have this amazing ability to create stuff that nobody else could have imagined is possible. And they're going to have to have people are going to have to do that. We're going to have many more entrepreneurs because to actually bring your idea into reality will become cheaper and cheaper and cheaper because you'll have machines doing it. So many people who today are workers are going to become entrepreneurs. And there's just an ever increasing number of opportunities, of jobs, of wealth for people to act, for people to access. So now I don't buy any of this. Seven million Americans are working truck stops and hotels and diners around the country waiting for the truckers to get out and have a meal. What did all those people do before they were trucks? Oh, they were farmers. So you guys run a business and so you have measurements, you look at all the time.  We need the right measurements for our society. We made up GDP. Who is we? I don't need the right measurements for society.  The only measurements, the only measurements that I care about are my own well-being. Am I happy? Am I not? Is my bank account growing or is it shrinking? Can I afford the stuff that I want or can't I? How much time am I spending with my kids and my job or with my wife or the different? Those are the measures that matter. Society, who cares about the measures of society? I don't, for that matter, don't really care about GDP. I care about my GDP. I care about how much wealth I have. I don't care that much about what, how much wealth you have. Now I want to be in a place that's healthy and growing and the economy is growing and people are flourishing and people are succeeding because that's more fun to live in a place like that. But society measurements of well-being are bogus because there is no such thing as societal measures of well-being. Only individuals have well-being. Society is just a collection of individuals and different individuals in different phases of their life have different measures of well-being. When you're young, the measures of well-being are different than when you're older. When you're poor, your measures of well-being are different than when you're wealthy. So we want to aggregate all this and somehow have a central plan and have a measure of well-being? No, the only measure of well-being that the government should concern itself is how free are its citizens? How well are the rights, the freedoms of its citizens protected? And the measures of well-being for that are things like how much crime is there?  That's the only measure of well-being that the government needs to be following. To what extent, to what extent are people free to pursue their own values? Free of what? Free of coercion, free of force, free of coercion from the government. And if the government identifies somewhere where it's coercing people and interfering in their freedoms, interfering in their lives, it should stop due with the laws, regulations, controls. And if other people interfering in my freedoms, then the government should arrest them. That's it. But there are no other societal measures of well-being. Only individuals can feel well-being. Years ago, and even the inventor said this is a terrible measurement of national well-being, we should never use it as that. That was 100 years ago. And so here we are just still following it 100 years later being like, oh, GDP is going to tell us how we're doing. By the way, I did a whole talk on, you can find it on my YouTube channel about collectivism and economics, which talks about GDP and all these economic measures of well-being. And yeah, they're all collectivistic nonsense. I'm not for measuring well-being in any kind of collectivistic way. And I'm certainly not for measuring it in GDP. Most economic numbers are driven by a collectivistic view of the world, rather than an individualist view of the world, which just looks at individuals free and individuals, individuals, do they have the freedom, the ability to pursue the happiness? That's it. We need to evolve. Do you have an idea for what that new metric might look like? I mean, what is it? Yes, I do.  And it keeps GDP as one data point, but it integrates health and life expectancy, mental health and freedom from substance abuse, childhood education and success rates, environmental quality. And we have numbers for these things. And so we can integrate them into our economic measurements. And then at the state of the union every year as president, I will actually present the scorecard and say, as an example, eight Americans are dying of drug overdoses every hour. That's terrible and unconscionable. So we're going to get that down by 50% of it. We're going to get that down by 50% over the next few years, by limiting somebody's freedom, by taking stuff away from somebody, because we don't actually care about individual freedom. We don't actually care about individual rights. What we care about is the social metrics. And then if we have to sacrifice some, I talked about this, about this idea of sacrifice, when I criticized socialism yesterday, if we have to sacrifice some for the benefit of others, so be it. But we got our metrics down. We got the number we were going for. This is cool, right? Tell us freedom. Tell us what's really important. Tell us what the job the government is actually supposed to do. That's unimportant. A few years and here's how we're going to do it. And then if individuals or companies or organizations put resources to work to move society in that direction, then they actually get rewarded economically. Because right now the problem is that only economic awards cut in this direction. And then all of the helping people of awards cut the other directions.  Let me just be clear. I am not arguing in support of the existing system. The existing system we have in the United States is not capitalism, it's cronyism. The existing system we have in the United States is a mixed economy. There's no capitalism in the US. The existing system in the United States has politicians from left and right who are ignorant of the principles on which this country was founded and are the principles of economics and political theory that could make it great again. A president is, in my view, an incompetent buffoon but so are the Democrats. So don't argue with me that the status quo is lousy. Yeah, I agree with the status quo is lousy. But Andrew Young, Andrew Yang's policies are basically to increasing all the bad things that exist in our world today. Increase the statism, increase government control, increase government oversight of our life. We have parameters over all these kind of things that relate to our life and then the government is going to step in and manipulate us to do what Andrew wants us to do rather than leaving us free, rather than leaving us free to live our lives as we see fit, which is not to stay today. So what would an incentive look like for, let's say, Amazon to how could Amazon contribute, for example, to an issue like that? How can Amazon contribute? Now, think about that. Think about the question and think about the answer. How can Amazon contribute? Really? I don't know about you, but Amazon has contributed enormous amount to my life already. Why doesn't it contribute anymore? It's changed my life dramatically for the better. The things I can do online today because of Amazon is unbelievable, unbelievable. I'm being compared to Infowars. Have I stated any conspiracy theories here? The difference between me and Infowars is I actually advocate for truth and freedom and rights, but you can't tell the difference. That's truly what's shocking is that you can't tell the difference. What is Amazon?  Every single mainstream politician in the world today hates Amazon. I love Amazon. I think Amazon is God's gift to mankind. It's not God because God doesn't exist, but it's Jeff Bezos' gift to mankind. Amazon has changed our lives. It's made our life richer, better.     I go online, look for the stuff I need, buy the stuff I need, and it shows up by my door sometimes the next day. Actually, when I was in California, it shows up the same day. I mean, wow, shockingly amazing. Same day. Think about all the jobs that the delivery, think of all the jobs in the warehouses, think of all the jobs of the companies that make the stuff that Amazon sells. Amazon is the most heroic company, most company that has changed our life more than probably any other country company in the world. And yet we demonized them. Why? Because they haven't paid their taxes. Who cares? They've made my life so much better. I don't resent them. I think they're fantastic because they benefited my life and your life as individuals. Yeah, some jobs are getting automated away and other jobs will come and replace them because jobs are being automated away since the beginning of the industrial revolution. We've been automating away jobs for 230 years, literally 230 years of automating jobs away and still more people today work than ever in all of human history in productive activities for trade. What we need today, what I called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist growth.


Now let's go back to Arizona and listen to Don Howard, who by the way was recently named Arizona's Fire Chief of the Year. Let's listen to him talk about the concerns that he mentioned at his operational briefing and how it all turned out. We're starting to get our age building. We had concerns of the fire moving up into Fry Canyon and then impacting this facility that's behind us significantly. So we felt we had to be aggressive in our approach. With that then, we started that firing operation that next day. After that planning session the night before, things were set in motion. We were just trying to pick the opportune time when we got the correct winds and we started firing in Division Kilo. At our operational briefing, before we got started, we brought everybody together and indicated some of the concerns that we had as well as identifying what specific assignments we wanted folks to deal with. We're in very, very tight quarters here. It's 8.6 acres. We have one way in, one way out. There's really not a lot of room to move. Some of the traffic concerns with the larger apparatus on these very narrow roads was a real concern. Any kind of change in the weather. If we had any type of wind shift, we felt it could significantly impact this area that's behind the LBT, what we call the large binocular telescope that's here. Our water supply was a concern. We wanted to make sure that we had a backup pump in case we lost our two mark threes that we had in place. We actually had a third pump and that was an engine to ensure that we had a supply out to the hand lines that we needed along that roadway. If we were to have a wind change and it was going to cut off our egress, then we had identified safety zones inside this large facility that's behind us. They have an area that's all block. We were going to bring people into that safety zone. The burnout operation was pulled down this 507 Road and the firing group and the holding group that was along there were primarily a Type 1 hand cruise. As we all know, at least in my mind, the weight of most fires falls right on those cruise shoulders and they do an unbelievable job. We were supporting their efforts. We had plumbed a hose line to protect the green side of that firing operation. We had laterals running every 200 feet back in towards the observatory. And we wrapped this entire facility with fire. Okay, we want to send them back to the observatory. Yeah, that's a firm. I'll head them up. And then you guys got all your vehicle shuttling squared way. Hey, firm, sounded hospital. Okay, cool. Hey Joe, that corner there, that slop over looks pretty good. We got some night vision on us tonight. Nothing on the exterior, but it's looking pretty good, but it'll need to be checked tomorrow. Copy that. Well, I hope that jogged your memory and got you thinking about fire again. To help us further, let's run through a short recap of last year's fire season. With the exception of Alaska, the 2004 fire season was considered relatively mild. For Alaska, however, this was a record breaking season, and we'll talk more about that in a later module. According to the National Interagency Coordination Center, just over 63,000 fires were reported, which is well below our nine-year average of 75,000. These fires, however, burned over 8.1 million acres, which is almost double the nine-year average of 4.3. You have to note, however, that Alaska alone burned a record breaking 6.6 million of these acres. In regards to the human cost of these fires, we suffered the unfortunate loss of 17 firefighters in 2004. Of these 17 fatalities, eight resulted from heart attacks, five of which claimed the lives of volunteer firefighters. Three fatalities resulted from driving accidents and three more during aviation operations. We also lost one firefighter in a pedestrian accident, one to a falling snag, and one more in a burnover in California. Reflecting on these statistics, I'm reminded of 1993. That was also a slow fire season, with the exception of California. When the 94 fire season started, there were firefighters dispatched to the South Canyon fire that had not been on a fire since 1992. This last season was probably the busiest season ever for some of you. But for others, the chance to exercise your firefighting skill may have been minimal. Regardless of what we're about to encounter this year, let's do our best to fully prepare and keep ourselves safe and productive.