Okay, we're back at VMworld 2011. I'm John Furrier, the founder of SiliconANGLE.com. This is theCUBE, our flagship telecast, where we go out in the ground, then we talk to all the smartest people we can find, bloggers, executives, thought leaders, anyone, Dave, who can share knowledge and we share that with the world through SiliconANGLE.tv. And I'm here with my co-host. I'm Dave Vellante of Wikibon.org, and we are here with Sony G and Donnie, who's the senior vice president at Cisco. Welcome, Sony. Hi, how are you? Good, thank you, great to have you on theCUBE.  Everybody wants, they saw you on theCUBE, they said, oh, can we meet Sony? They said, yeah, come by, you know? So, you might get mauled as you're leaving here, but I apologize in advance for that. A lot of people want to meet you, but at any rate, if the fans are lined up, Dave, all out there for us. Like, see them all lined up, right in the pounce. So, let's see, let's start off. You guys have a super session today. Yes, we do.  Very tight partnership with VMware. Yes. What's going on in the super session? What are you guys talking about here at the event? We're very excited to be making some significant announcements at VMware. The first one clearly is second year in a row. We have won the VMware benchmark on our UCS platform, our premier consolidated infrastructure, bringing together compute, networking, and virtualization. The second key aspects of the announcements we are making today is to enable our customers alongside with VMware to go down this journey of the cloud with a protocol that we jointly co-developed with VMware and other industry partners, and we are taking it to the IETF called Virtual Extensible Lands. The whole notion is after 18 years of having VLANs, we are now at a juncture where we want to offer virtual applications, the ability to have the security and the mobility from private clouds onto the public cloud and offer the scalability and security capabilities for the virtual applications. And VXLAN precisely offers that. And the third key theme is around automation, is to, as we drive new innovations in the networking and virtualization space together, is to provide automation capabilities for the server administrators and the networking administrators while respecting the operational boundaries. But in this world of cloud, we want to drive more and more automation baked into our respective platforms and tied to integration with the cloud director. A lot of people are talking about standards. So we had a couple of conversations this morning about cloud foundry to open stack in the space. And standards are developing and there's open source. But there's a little pressure for performance and we heard in the keynote, performance, availability, mobility and security. There's some areas that need some work. So how are you guys addressing that at Cisco? And specifically in addition to the protocol, what else are you doing with VMware and others? So clearly the world was a heterogeneous world that we live in. Even when we look at our customers, private cloud environments, they have a heterogeneous of infrastructure. There's a heterogeneous pool of applications and there will be a heterogeneous pool of hypervisors. The key here is to, as an industry, is to come together on the specific problems that need to be solved around scalability, security, performance, as well as manageability. With open standards, you will prevent vendor lock-ins. And you also, as a user, will have the opportunity to retain the investments you have in place while conducting this journey on movements towards the cloud. So one of the classic examples we hear from our enterprise customers is the ability to retain their physical applications and their workloads as they move towards a virtualized and a private cloud environment. But for Cisco, companies like Cisco is to offer the infrastructure that can deliver the performance and the scale and the openness which we are driving from an industry standardization perspective. I have seen Cisco in my 18 years of history there where we have innovated and we have standardized in parallel. So it becomes extremely important that collectively as an industry, we continue to innovate while standardizing, making it more plausible for our customers to really experience the full promise of this journey to the cloud. And security too. We had Pat Gelsinger on theCUBE when we were at EMC World. He said security is a do-over, but yet you have a pressure for performance at the same time enhancing security, creates a lot of overhead, especially around the virtual machine. So where are we in that equation? Can you talk about, are we like at just the front end of it? Are we kind of midstream? How would you talk about that? I believe that one other key aspect of today's announcement that Cisco is making is taking its physical firewall products, which are more around optimization for the physical world and supporting all of those capabilities for the virtual in the virtual world. So our typical physical appliances have been offering internet-edge firewall capabilities. When you marry that with offering those same capabilities with our virtual firewall products and you extend it across it with VXLAN types of technologies, you truly will see the ability for the underlying infrastructure to be optimized around performance and scale and with technologies like the virtualized ASA, offering the same operational consistencies and the same firewall capabilities to your virtual applications. I believe that the answer is not one or the other. You have to walk somewhere in the middle while the infrastructure gets ready for scale and performance and has the characteristics with automation built into it and statelessness. Protocols need to emerge and network services need to evolve to continue to carry it from the physical world to this virtualized and the cloud world. Sony, you mentioned lock-in and it's an interesting topic and one that I want to just explore a little bit. Maybe we can double-click on it. You know, lock-in is kind of in the eye of the beholder and it ebbs and flows. You've seen the industry evolve. Unix used to be open. Ken Olson called it snake oil. Remember, that was called open systems and then Linux came along and so it's almost like our industry has grown up quite a bit in terms of it used to be that companies would just truly lock you in and then extract rents. You can't do that anymore. Well, unless you're Oracle. If you're Oracle, you can do that. But most companies can't do that anymore. How has that whole concept of lock-in evolve and talk about innovation and how you make money in this world where customers are calling your bluff and saying, look, if you're going to lock us in we're not going to do business with you? It's a very good question. I was one of the early groups that was responsible for the unified computing system and they told us it cannot be done. The key element there is that as long as you leverage industry standards, industry standards, whether it's x86, industry standards, whether it's open operating systems and hypervisors, industry standards like memory where everyone knows the price of memory, it's the price of gold, you understand it, fluctuates depending on the day. Yet Cisco innovated in memory, driving the overall cost down and allowing for virtual machine density and scale in terms of the performance enhancements that we put in our ASICs. While leveraging industry standard components. So the goal here is to allow for an open API that allows customers the automation functionality and their ability to operationalize without walking away from their current operational model. It always begins with the word evolution. So how do you strike that balance of innovation with standardization? That is the key element that we in the IT sector always straddle is how do you drive innovation while standardizing and offering the customer the choice of the openness of particular industries. So it's not that it has not been done, it continues to be done in our industry, especially with the market moving so rapidly in this direction. As you notice, these 20,000 people at this conference are all here because they are trying to drive their business applications with the agility that their CFOs and their CEOs are looking for. Ultimately, that is the promise of the private cloud that everyone is aspiring to achieve. And it's not that can it be done while not knocking in vendors. It is how soon can we as an IT community deliver that to our customers while coming together on areas of standardization. Because if we diverge as an industry, the market will not converge. Sony, you mentioned UCS in the early days you were involved and they said it couldn't be done. Can you give us a little insight to that? What was the big daunting task? What couldn't be done and how did you overcome that? Sure, the big daunting task was in a world which was all about commodity, how do you drive the value for the end user community? How do you drive the acceleration of virtualization? How do you drive the agility in IT practices? How do you do so while keeping in mind interoperability and heterogeneity and investment protection and installing your compute infrastructure which is converged alongside an IBM and an HP server? And yet, not change the operational practices but bring the benefits of innovation to the user. In less than two years of being in this market we are the number two blade vendor in the US and the number three blade vendor on a worldwide basis. With the second consecutive quarter of results. So I have to ask the question. Dave asked you the daunting task for UCS. My question is, well it's different. What are people saying now that can't be done you think can be done in the industry? Well what was said earlier which could not be done is how do you go about driving innovation? As I said, in a market that is quote unquote commoditized and Cisco basically looked at the problem and said we're not going to go solve the problems of x86 scale and Moore's law until an AMD have that under control. We're not going to go and write an operating system Microsoft hypervisor vendors and the rest of the community have that under control including the open Linux community. Where we decided to bring our innovations is an ASIC innovation fabric based computing models which our competitors are now trying to keep track of and keep pace with innovation. Where we define this term without necessarily defining it Gartner calls it fabric computing. It's all about you no longer are going to be deploying applications in silos. You're going to be deploying it across converged infrastructure and you will drive through the innovations of that converged infrastructure the ability to move from physical to virtual to cloud based models. Sony, G and Donny, thanks very much for your time today. We really appreciate you coming in to theCUBE sharing with us the results of your super session and some of your other perspectives in the industry. Hope you can come back someday. Surely, thank you. Thanks for having Cisco. Thank you.


Everybody, it's Eric Johnson from Airtate Throws Nation. It's been a little while and I'm gonna bring you some insights into what we're doing training-wise with our athletes and what we do in the off-season. And this is that time of year, you're gonna see a lot of the things we post and we're getting back to more throws tips. And today we're gonna talk a little bit about the discus and the action of lower body speed and keeping the knees wide. It's one of the cues we use to help our throwers. If you're not following our Instagram series or Instagram page, check that out. We posted this post up. So if you don't follow our Instagram, do so. These are some quick tips we've put up. But what we wanted to do is kind of go more in-depth into what's kind of going on and look at some of the mistakes and kind of how we're trying to address those things. So here we have one of our athletes and you'll see that as he's coming through, we'll play this in full speed and we're gonna kind of break it down. So, of course in our system we always work, we're very focused on specific movement in the start of our throw. We call that pillar one, that's the chain reaction. And it sets everything up. And so what you're gonna notice is that we were trying to make some simple adjustments and the core here we're focusing on is lower body speed.  So one of the key things is we're looking at the direction of the foot. You're gonna notice that he has a pretty nice entry. You're gonna see where he's got the knee load. We wanna level out the shoulders a little bit and we're trying to keep the hips level. And we would probably wanna see this toe elevated up just a touch so that we're gonna increase the wide knees. And we want, when we say wide knees, one of the things we're talking about is back here. Right at this position we wanna maintain the knees wide. So as he comes out, you can see how we're keeping that gap here. And the wider we can keep that, the bigger the sweep's gonna be and it's kind of the door handle versus the hinge principle. The handle's moving faster than the hinge. So the longer, wider radius of the sweep leg is going to help increase speed. And it's just gonna build more speed, especially as we come into the middle. Okay, so you'll notice again, when we're at this position, this is gonna be things we're trying to work on the wider thing. So this was one of the first days and the cue was increasing the speed of the sweep leg and keeping those knees wide, which was successfully helping him improve. And again, we're looking at throwing in terms of a chain reaction. So this was setting him up.  So we would see the orbit kind of writing in this point or angled in that point. And so as he comes through, this is gonna help him load. He gets the block leg and he's getting the delivery side is moving through a lot cleaner. And that was gonna be really the focus of what we're doing in training. So remember, one of the key things that you're always gonna be focusing on is keeping everything wider and faster on the lower body, lower body speed is where you want the speed. And so what you'll do, you'll notice here is because we're working on that, we're gonna see the orbit, the high point, and you see how his low point drops. So that's gonna be the next phase and that'll come up in another video, but we're always working on many things. And remember, sometimes other things are gonna be the focus. You can't work on 10 things at the same time. That's kind of the whole idea behind the throwing chain reaction system. We have six pillars. We're gonna be able to isolate how those pillars work, find and look at the deficiencies in the throw, and then start to be able to train things and train positions that are gonna translate over and carry over into more effective throws. So again, hopefully you found this helpful, real simple tip for you guys. Remember, lower body speed is the key. Keep the knees wide. As you go into the sweep, that'll make a huge difference. There's no shortcuts, just lots of reps and doing the right things more and more often. Thanks so much for watching. And if you like this video, be sure to comment below. If you'd like to see some other things, we'll kind of vote and see what were our most popular Instagram posts during the week, and those will turn into some quick tips throughout the week. Or we'll just select some of the things that we think are really important for young throwers and throwers and coaches in general to get aware of. So again, if you like this video, be sure to hit subscribe, comment below, and we will see you on the next video. If you're doing drills where you're learning to stay up on the ball of a foot and come in here, you're not learning how to sequence the load.


Legend rewards no money spent boys. We got a hundred and twenty-five thousand coins. So we got a hundred and twenty-five K Let's see what else we got. Okay. We're sitting on some Hail Marys some midfield some red zone pack We're feeling good. I I'm still want to quick sell these normal. Yeah, I'm quick-selling boys I'm gonna need training eventually they tell me that Herbert now has the power up so Herbert Do I waste all my coins on getting Herbert at quarterback so Herbert really isn't that much, okay? Big taste and he'll put pull big taste and he'll pull Might have to sell some golds over here. I might sell that gold Dante David So Herbert's not that expensive 81. Okay 87 TJ. What bust out gotta be a bust out Gotta be bust out gotta be heavy coins for no money spent big pull. Wow, that's heavy Elite okay, that one was weak Jalen Hertz Jalen Hertz most improved player rookie of the year sophomore of the year might be pro bowler might be MVP Might be keep TJ. Yeah 70 K that's heavy for TJ Watt on top of our 125 K This is gonna be a 200 K weekend that 19 wins turns into 200 K. What do we do? What do we do with these coins? We're gonna have about 250,000 coins you guys know Herbert's a staple. He's a staple on no money spent This is the team right now We got Stafford we got the O'Dell we got the O'Dell we want to keep Miles Sanders. That's locked Christian Kirk is locked DJ. Is he locked or no? O-line we could boost these guys a little bit. We could Tight end we could get a bigger stud although. No offense. They'd go crazy in weekend league. Let's see defense. All right We got Simmons and chin who had a really good week Snead and Tarell were absolutely Ghosts Patrick Peterson was also a ghost What are we doing defense we're gonna have 250 K what do we do? Do we need another pass rusher? Do we need a corner? I think my safety's did really good. They're said they are slow But they had a really good Showing they really they bought out for me. So Alternately man, you guys got to decide What are we doing right now? Are we upgrading our corners? Are we upgrading our tight end? What are we doing? But once we have that 250 K we can get it done. I said 19 wins first week in league made us about 200 coins or 200,000 coins Is that a WRL? Is that good enough? I don't think it's enough for what we went through But the reward system doesn't know that we had all gold. So For a for a good team That would probably be a L just 200 K, but for this team. It's a super dub. What do we upgrade? Let me know in in the comments below. What do we upgrade right now boys? All right, boys. This is what we got. We went back to the god Justin Herbert He got the new power up he can get set fee lead that ability I talked about so much Being that the key to being able to pass in this game. So we got our O'Dell from our NCAA We got Christian Kirk. We got Miles Sanders. We got DJ. We got a lot of superstars on the line We still got no a fan because when I get to level 10, we're gonna grab that pits He's offense. It's still gonna be a little makeshift, but I can make a shake with what we got So this is what we did with our 200 K. We still have 24 K So hopefully if we can make 200 K a week this team can really turn into something for real boys Oh, this dude's sweaty. I played him in the This dude's sweaty Yeah, this is my gold team. I mean just a terror like what do you like baited this guy? It had to be match. Yep cover six. Yep. That's how you got me with cover six, bro Oh, it looked like he was in a vert hook and then just man Kirk part of me I thought that was man coverage for over. That's why I called that play like that I want to say this guy ran trips tight and I want to say I beat him But I feel like I didn't stop him.  Who does this? Are you this bad, bro?  Good play you put on the field there.  I should have done these dudes ain't making a difference, bro It's really the same rose really the same players as my brother like oh my god I thought he was gonna match on the running back. Oh, it looked like he was gonna I Gave up on it though. I thought he was gonna match on him. There's no way he gives me that again. No, right? Guess I'm then Herbert hiking hall.   You're just Out and put 30s on. Yes, sir ski.  You Let's go man way to get home boys. Are we floating the ball in the air? Strong arm quarterback is it bro. I mean this plays it, bro This is just the three-man rush is just never it's just not it. It's really just not it. There's literally just not it, bro It's not it two-man rushes isn't it or three-man rushes Well, Davis is a linebacker, bro, and Rob giving up so much just with 10 20 seconds left Good job, Sanders. There you go. Bumble. Come on stinger. I feel like I just want Dawkins I don't really look I wanted Roy Williams, but that Joey Galloway card looks nuts. I heard he's 94 speed Joey Galloway I kind of want Roy Williams though. Come on.   Come on, man It's maybe it does once again doesn't block anybody Offense bro girl girl. This is such a check it's offense, bro It ain't no two ways about it, bro. This is just a bit made bro. It really is Bro, if he was anybody when he speed like yeah, the bag did scary dude like so lost. It's scary Oh my god, just scary man. Are we lost? I Had to take it bro. Like he just made that free. That was free as could be This is when it W runs the ball. There it is, bro. I'm glad he's in this though that other defense I had no idea what defense he was running brothers. I don't want to say that I don't want to say this. It was giving me trouble, but it was a little more confusing than this I get this first down. We win this game. Here we go boys cover three again, bro I really don't think he died died died, but he went. Oh, we didn't go out of bounds. Good. Let's go Let's milk this I had to I had to do that one man. I want to say you played good defense there Closer closer. I cheated him Have y'all seen this I'm going through because my man called a pass and he had no stick I cheated him. I cheated him great coverage by him right there. Can we keep him? How to fill a range can we keep him how to fill a range boys? I do have to send I do have to send some heat and we got to play some zones 15s I'm cool with that for now. Yeah, he don't he don't stay in the pocket here boys I mean Jesus. He tapped his toes. He tapped it. Oh my god. There's no way. I can never win overtime toss, bro Here we go. Come on. So it's like in crazy.  She's player fumble. Oh, there's so much defense right now, bro Hey, no way. No way. Let's go man. Win the game, man Way to get nothing though. We're actually game the yard is blinking. Let's go Sanders fight for me What did I get delay? Well, I have two clock one Over time. Oh, that's a throw. That's a throw if I ever seen one lost two yards. I can't make this Who is my kicker? I don't even know 51 yard. I don't think I make this I don't think I make this honestly bad plays bad plays there bad plays. I can't make it. Let's go I might have missed. Oh, we blocked it. Oh Kicker had no chance right there. Oh my god. I've never missed one of those in my life, dude That's it. I really have never missed them Jones. I'm God just like that. We just lost No, we need a kicker. We need a kicker. We need a kicker.  Don't you God?  No, this is when nobody spent pisses me off. I'll come higher run the ball you Tryps tight end today. He sucked when he put in tight ends to run trips tight end. That's when I knew he sucked Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah, you'll never be good.  Look at you.    He's out of here. He's out of here. I need somebody we got 50 K Who is my I don't even know who my kicker is Nick folk. Let me down


final expense coach. And, you know, this is one of our first Facebook lives interviews with Mr. Cody Askins, the owner of SecureAgentMentor. And I wanted to get him on here because I just wanted to really get, you know, just his point of view. I mean, he's been doing this for a while. And I'll let him tell his story. But, you know, it's it's all about bringing value to this industry. And one thing that I feel like this, you know, the insurance industry is just kind of lacking is just proper training in this industry.  And I just wanted to get him on here today and you guys kind of listen in.  But, you know, we want to talk about, you know, just the industry and, you know, why people are failing and, you know, what it takes not to fail.  What's going on with you now? Absolutely, buddy. Thank you so much, Sean. Appreciate you having me on. Appreciate the group for allowing me to do this, man. I'm excited. A little quick background, really quick, because I know that's not what everybody came here to hear, you know. So I've been in the business since I was 19, started out with Mutual All Mall. I was in college playing basketball. I became obsessed with the business. Was fortunate enough to make 117 grand in my first eight months in the business. And ever since then, man, I'm just, I love it. I eat it up, you know. And so now, you know, moved along. I'm not necessarily, you know, captive or career anymore, but dude, just always loved life insurance, file expense. And here we are in the file expense coach group, man. Absolutely. And one thing I want all you guys who are watching this right now, there is nothing scripted about these videos in this interview. This is completely raw. All this is just right off the dome. And I want you guys to understand that because when you do this at a high level and you know your business upside and down, especially as any owner, you need to know everything about your business. And when you know it, you don't have to script anything. You just know how to deliver.   You know, why do you think 92% of agents in this industry fail? And then I'll give you my little two cents on what you said. Yeah. Uh, I think a lot of it comes down to a system of some sort. You know, everybody's systems different, but I believe that what I learned at 19 was, hey, for me to succeed and for me to hit my goal and make it a hundred K winning a trip, like, I knew I needed to see 10 people and we all talk about different numbers. And you know what, everybody can have their own number, but the key is we got to know what to do. So I'm big in, hey, set 15 seats, sit with 10 and you'll close five plus. And so that, yeah, that varies. Like somebody just want to sit with 20, 30, 40, that's even better. But if every agent we know, no matter how great or how skilled they are, how much insurance experience they have, how much sales experience they have, it doesn't matter if they sat and presented and built value and asked 10 people to buy every single week, you know, they would not fail. No, there's no question about it.  They have to have a sales process. I mean, you can't just go through a presentation. I mean, if you think from beginning to very end of the presentation of building rapport, you know, qualifying the client, you know, finding the coverage and finding the right company form, receiving the banking account information. I mean, there's a lot of steps to that process.   And that's one thing I feel like a lot of agents within this industry, even within this this group right now watching, they're just not getting the type of training that they need. I mean, it's just that simple.  But, you know, for any new agent getting started, you know, in this industry, what would you advise them? And what kind of steps would you tell them to take place, you know, at the beginning of their career so they can set themselves up for success? Yeah. And that's a great question because you've got, even in this group, right, you got people from tons of different companies, you've got everything going on, you know, so I would say, find someone to learn from, find a mentor, find a Sean Fogelson man, get plug into a group, and then get better every single day. I'm big on having goals, staying focused. I write down my goals every morning and every night. I'm big on goals. I'm big on waking up and being focused and being conscious of what I want to accomplish all day. So if someone has goals, and they are serious about improving and actually succeeding and actually making it, then you'll naturally want to improve. You'll naturally want to make that additional call. Like, successful agents do what unsuccessful agents are unwilling to do. Absolutely.  You know, but I just knew that if I went out there, even though I didn't want to, you know, a lot of those times, those appointments that I never went to, or that I didn't want to go to, I would sell those clients. Exactly. So it kind of, you know, to kind of, you know, to go piggyback off what you're saying is that you're right, is that a lot of agents, you know, they want this big money, they want to make a million dollars, they want to make 100 grand, but they're not willing to do what it takes. And at the end of the day, you know, you have to have a mindset and this is a roller coaster of emotions, right? You know, one day you're on a high, the next day you're on a low, and you've got to find that even keel where even when you're running hot, you just got to be at a press forward because when you got momentum behind you, you just don't take the foot off the pedal because what, what do they say? What's the best time to make the next sale? It's right after you made one. Exactly. When you're hot, man. And it's, it's true. When you're, when you're, when you're in a hot streak, man, you just can't miss. Everyone is a buyer, right? But then when things are struggling, we've got, we've got an agent in our office that came to me, you know, was asking some questions, you know, and struggling. And he's like, dude, what am I doing wrong?  And so staying focused and staying serious, like, if you know that having a call night every week will help you, then freaking do it. If you know a Saturday morning call session will help you, then freaking do it. If you know doorknock in the neighbors, if you know asking one more time, if you know all these things will help, then freaking do it. Yeah. That's the truth, man. And I mean, you know, I just don't understand. I have agents that constantly call me up and they ask me questions.  Exactly. We're, we're a 1099, you guys. You know, the idea about what we do is that we are in business for ourselves. Now, even though we might be working for a particular company, if you were 1099 and not a captive agents, you are need to be running a business structure. And the idea of what we do is you got to put the time, you got to put the effort. I try to talk about people opening up a restaurant, you know, let's just say we're talking about something outside of this industry.   And then for people who are financially tight, what would you say that they need to invest in their time? You have to invest time. Yep. Yep. And those that separate themselves are the ones that dude, they like you just said, they invest in your business. I mean, my business started to grow when I started having call nights, bringing college kids over because I was in, I was in college playing basketball. I was 19. I didn't have a lot of time. So I had to be creative once I started investing in my business, spending money.   Yep, it is.  They're on an actual lead program. I don't care whether you've been doing this for 20 years is that, you know, at that point, you better have a book of business of thousands of people to be able to write at a high level. And if you don't have that and you're brand new in this industry, you've got to start somewhere and you've got to have something that is getting you prospects and being able to get you across the table for Mr. and Mrs. Johnson because if we ain't sitting in front of people, guess what? We're unemployed. I mean, it's just that simple.  I'm done for the day.  Exactly. Exactly. Yep. We, we, we funny you say that we have a canvas in our office that says without leads, agents are unemployed and I'm a big believer in that. Like, we both say all the time on videos, 92% of agents fail. I bet 90% of agents aren't on a weekly lead program but not on a predictable system that produces so many sets, so many leads, so many set appointments, so many run appointments, so many apps, so much revenue. The agents I talk to that are on a weekly program and they're consistent because we've got another campus in the office that says weekly consistency equals insurance success.  I haven't heard another age the other day that I wrote like 750K last year or whatever. They are consistent week in and week out because life happens if we have a bad day, we have a bad week, we have a bad month. Before you know it, like you buy, you buy leads and then you don't, you don't buy any leads for like three or four weeks. Oh, I'm in a drought, like what's going on? Buy more leads than you need, you know, I mean just invest and think of it as a business that must run a proper way week in and week out. There's no question about it. I mean in the one word you just said there, player in the world.  You just never know what you're going to be dealing with because at the end of the day, it comes down to, you know, work ethic and not to mention having heart and will because, you know, if you don't have it in you to go out there on the days you don't want to, you will never reach the true potential that you could become and the idea is that we get our license and become a license, you know, a license official within the whatever state that you, you know, get contracted, it just blows my mind that people are just so willing to give up so quickly and, you know, to tell you guys a little about my story is that my first year in this industry was nothing like Cody. I failed but the difference was is that I didn't quit and the thing is that there's plenty of other agents out there that are going through the same things that I went through and all you really do need is a mentor and that was one thing that really helped me is when I had somebody that, you know, Cody that I could look up to that knew this business that could point me in the right direction and then once I was able to kind of get, you know, you know, get things rolling, you know, it was just every day I was just getting better and better and better and even you, Cody, we never stopped learning to do it. I mean, it's just it's a not ever it's a non it's an ever ongoing thing, you know, you never stop growing. You can't man. As soon as you do, like you're either expanding or contracting and as soon as you stop growing, as soon as you stop expanding, someone's going to pass you like I see this all the time on videos. Complacency is my biggest fear. I don't want to get complacent. I don't want, you know, whatever I'm doing, whatever my brand is, whatever your brand is, whatever the agent's brand is in this, like as soon as you stop trying to grow, as soon as you become complacent, somebody's going to pass you like things are not going to go well and so always expanding and always having that mindset of what can we do to grow is huge because nobody wants to be passed.    You said you played basketball, right? Yeah.    You know, somebody who's been there and done it and who's constantly growing right now.  I mean, hop on the YouTube, watch these videos.  But when it comes to an agent who's been doing this for a little while, you know, what really gives, you know, any agent really an edge, you know, what, what gives them that, you know, that, that next level where they're able to kind of separate themselves from some of these other agents. I know you kind of hit on some of those things, but if you had anything else to kind of add on to that, you know, please do. Yeah.  Everyone's got their own, their own why, their own purpose, their own motivation, their own focus. And so whatever it is for you that can keep you focused on the task at hand, I think that's huge because if we lose focus, like we said earlier, when we lose focus, life happens, like an entire month or quarter can go by and we're like, crap, where did it go? So the more focused we are, the more conscious of what's going on, the more we're in tune with our numbers and our business and we have goals and we're focused on expansion, the better because, like you said, man, it's, but this business, it's so many agents fail. And a lot of the times it's just because they don't know what to do. They don't know when to do it. And then because they don't know what to do and when to do it, they don't do anything. Doing something is better than nothing. Like when I started out, I didn't have any money. I had to, and I worked for a, I worked for a captive career company. I didn't know, you know, how the independence side worked. I didn't know how leads worked. I didn't know all these things. So literally I would have cold calling, call night sessions and pay college kids to come set appointments for me. I would also doorknock like section eight and senior housings all around the area because I knew I had to sit with 10 people. I don't have any money. I can't fit. I can't find a system. So I'd get creative and think I'll set the box and sit and ask 10 people to buy every single week. I didn't always know where they were going to come from. I just knew that they had to happen. Yeah. No, absolutely. And I try to, I mean, one thing I'm huge on for any agent. And let me get your kind of opinion on this is that for somebody who just starts in the business and let's just say they, you know, whatever leads or whatever company that they're at, and they go ahead and purchase some leads, you know, what is your concept? Do you say that, Hey, go ahead, Cody and start, you know, getting on that phone and dialing?  And, you know, once you get good at door knocking, you know, the rest of your business will start getting better and better. And that means you being, you know, more efficient over the phone because not everybody's got that, you know, that I guess I don't want to use the word swag, but, you know, not everyone's got that, you know, spontaneity about themselves where they can just get on the phone and be able to land appointments right from the get go and does come down to the leads and the quality of them.  And, you know, maybe later on start making those dials.  Well, a lot of agents are scared of the phone. Maybe they're not skilled on the phone. Maybe they're not talented on the phone. Maybe they don't know what to do. Maybe they don't, when someone says, Hey, I'm not interested, they may believe them when, you know, 99% of what they're saying is that they don't mean it. It's just a rebuttal.  They're just, they're just selling them on why they don't want their help. Exactly. And so some agents, if you're not comfortable there, then go doorknock. Like the goal of getting leads is to get in front of them. It doesn't mean that you have to do this one thing or that one thing or only email or only text or only call or only doorknock.  And if you're not comfortable on the phone, get in Matt Quest route planner, you know, put together a route and just go doorknock them all two, three, four times a day for a week. And before you know it, I guarantee you'll see 10 people, right? I mean, it doesn't matter. You just got to see them. Yep.   And you know, when I look at this industry and I look at the best agents that are producing on a high level, Cody, they're doing a combination of all of them. They're not just saying, Hey, I'm just a doorknocker or they don't just say, I just schedule appointments. They do it all. Whoa, that might fell down.   That was my biggest concept, Cody, is that, you know, when there was those days because, you know, you always have those lolls, there's always that one day of the week where it's very slow, you know, unless you just are a machine. And those days that were really slow, I would make sure that I would get in my car. I'd spend 20 bucks in gas. I'd punch in my road warrior, which kind of like you're talking about your route planner, and I would just go doorknock every single house that day.  And is that your name on the car, Cody? Oh, it is. Well, I got that important information for you. It only takes about five to 10 minutes to go over. And I got all these other families I got to see in the area. And I'm going to be back tomorrow. What's the best time I can see you more of a morning or afternoon person? I love that, dude. That's simple. That's good, man. Because you could have chose to do nothing. You had no appointments. It was a slow day.  You could have went home and watched Netflix. You could have made two calls and got some coffee. Like you chose to do something and take some action to improve your business. Because 95% of agents wouldn't have done that. It is. I mean, it's a, I mean, a lot of agents just don't want to go ahead and do, I feel like some of the agents out there, like they truly feel like they're just too good for it. You know, I'm too good to do this, Cody.   It's about living now. And you got, the thing is for any of all agents out there is that usually the first year is the toughest. But the thing is, once you make it past the first year is that you have all the momentum behind you. Now you have residuals coming in.  I mean, that's when you start really building up your cash flow. So for any agent out there, all I can really advise and, you know, Cody can mention his thought is that you have to stick it through. You just can't give up the ones that succeed or the ones that never quit. And you know, that's just the bottom line. And that goes for anything out there. I mean, I think about celebrities who were living in their core and now they're worth $50 million, you know, they just never gave up on their dream. And you know, apparently you never did either. No, exactly. I've seen veteran agents that weren't great at sales, but after 20 years, you know, dude, they're making a quarter million dollars a year. They're making a half a million dollars a year. And they were average agents. They were making 30, 40, 50 grand a year, whatever, for a long time. And they just grew their business before, you know, if they're getting referrals, like they just didn't quit. They just, and I'm not saying that's how I want to grow my business. And I know that's not how you're going to want to grow your business, but they didn't give up. No, there's no question. I mean, so I have a couple of questions. If you guys have any questions out there, a little Q&A for y'all. But, you know, while we got Cody on the line, I like to, you know, get some of y'all's input. When it comes to someone's asking your doorknock, you cannot map out 26 stops on MapQuest. Well, yeah, you can. I mean, as for anybody, if you guys want a really good app to use, it's called Road Warrior. You can go ahead and pay. It's like $5.99 for the month. And you can put unlimited addresses in there. And you can go out there and doorknock as many people. You can pick the shortest route, whatever it may be, just like a normal GPS locator. You can take up, you want to miss tolls or you want to, you know, have the shortest distance or the shortest drive. You can punch that in there. And it's going to save you gas because I can't tell you how many times that before I got this app, Cody, I'd be doorknocking homes out there. I'd have my leads with me. And then I would drive 30 minutes up the road to go doorknock. And then I punch in my next address. And I was just right up the road from right before I came from. Exactly. You know, just wasting time, wasting money. So, you know, that's awesome. I'd never heard of that. But that's really cool. Thank you. Yeah, Road Warrior. It's a great app. So, as for, you know, when it comes to an agent and, you know, obviously we talk about leads, leads are extremely important in this business.  Have you done any type of webinar or, I mean, seminars within those people? You know, what did you always do?  I've done that too. I've done that too. One thing I did when I didn't have a lot of money is, again, I'd get creative. So, I would have call nights and bring over like three, four, five college kids.   I'd pay them like $10, $20 an appointment. You know, before I knew it, I'd spend $100, $200 or whatever. I'd have like $15, $20 appointments done at the end of the night. A lot of them would stand me up, but hey, it was activity. Another thing I would do is I would doorknock. You know, in Missouri, there's a lot of, especially around Springfield, there's a lot of senior housing and it's like four units, four seniors living in a home. They're, you know, living in a building and it's 55 plus, 60 plus. We've got some around here that have as many as like 120 individuals that are 55 plus living in this huge complex. And when you get rural, like they don't, they don't care if you solicit, you know, I've been kicked out of a lot of places in Springfield, but when you get outside of there, dude, I would spend, I wrote, you know, I wrote six apps in one day in one afternoon slash evening, cold door knocking, random people. Really? Okay.  Oh, man, let me ask you a question. This is on a, this is on a different, you know, concept about, you know, about why agents fail. But you know, when it comes in your experience, you worked at a captive agency. Yeah. Now, when it comes to being captive and non captive and a lot of agents out there, just, you know, you know, uneducated, they just don't know about this. But did you give your two cents on this? Because this is something that I really try to highlight a lot of times when I'm trying to educate the group or, you know, just talk to my agents in general about the opportunity being from independent to being actually in a captive agency and what that looks like. Yeah.  I'm really not new companies. We're just talking. But in general, I want to say, like, you know what? When I was with this, with, with, with mutual, for example, like, dude, I drank the freaking Kool-Aid, like, I didn't even know any better. I was so focused. I was so tunnel vision. Like, you could have told me, Hey, dude, I can offer you a hundred and a thousand percent. I said, dude, I'm focused. I got hit my goal. Like, I don't care, you know. But at the end of the day, you want to build a business that is for you, is for your family. You want to build a legacy. You want to, you want to grow something for you. You don't want to grow something for other people. So I think being vested from day one, this isn't a recruiting pitch. It's just important. You know, it's just advice. It's just, it's real though. I mean, it's, everyone needs to know that. No, of course.  There's not just one, you know, there's thousands of opportunities. So, you know, for anybody that's getting into this industry or even on this group that maybe just started, I mean, do your homework. Don't just listen to the person that recruited you. Do some, find out some other people that are working in that organization and see how they're doing.   And then I'm looking around at everybody clapping for me and I'm like, how much do y'all make?  You got to look at not only just, you know, not being, you know, independent where you can actually, you know, run your own business, but being to have multiple products that can really benefit the client and not being one dimensional in that sake, because a lot of captive organizations have their own particular product, right, Cody? And you normally see about a 25 to 35% increase in those rates. And I could be off, but that's just kind of a guesstimate. Well, no, yeah, like, like with mutual specifically, we didn't have access to the living promise. That was a broker only product. Like brokers don't have access to the mutual guaranteed issue, you know, what's funny is when I sold final expense back then, I was on a 35% commission level. Yeah, I got some small bonuses. And yeah, I sold some term and other stuff to get to where I made 120 grand. But I couldn't sell a simplified issue product unless they bought at least 20 K of coverage. I didn't know any better. Yeah, I was selling people guaranteed issue that didn't even need it. I didn't know any better. I was just focused. It was only, only opportunity I had, it was only option I had, you know, and I look back now, I'm like, dang, what if I would have had other options? What if I would have actually been competitive? What if I'd have actually been vested, you know, so.  And I'm not trying to trash talk anybody, Cody, what I'm trying to do is we're trying to bring awareness. We want, we, you know, the idea of this group is to bring value and educate agents because the thing is, like I said before, is that there is a lack of training, proper training within this industry. Why?   And when you don't have, per se, a manager who can do that or at least educate you on the products, you're really going to struggle out there.  And what happens is they typically leave the industry and they have nothing positive to say about it, which is, which is unfortunate because those individuals sometimes they're just linked with the wrong company. And if they actually had a different opportunity, they could be, you know, a rock star. Exactly. Yeah, there's a lot of really awesome agents out there that all you're doing is bringing awareness to something that they need to know, like you're bringing value and making it, you're doing them a favor by bringing this up. You really are. Yeah, because I mean, I just, I, you know, a lot of agents, they got to wait a year, two years, five years, sometimes 10 years to get vested. 10 back then, 10. Yeah, no, mine was, mine was seven years. So once I caught a glimpse of that, I actually read more in the contract ever, I started educating myself. And you know, I can tell anybody that, you know, who's watching this video, you know, who's trying to educate themselves, they're trying to get themselves, you know, to grow is that the more you get involved and the better you get at this, the more you're going to learn and you're going to start understanding that, Hey, I'm being taken advantage of. Hey, I need to maybe look somewhere else because I truly feel this way is that 90% of agents who end up becoming successful, 90% of them who started with their first company tend not to end in that company, they end up somewhere else.  Yeah, when any agents that I meet, you can name, you can name any company, local offices, whatever you can go to around as some local life and health company, you know, captive shops or whatever, even in your area, you won't find someone making quarter million dollars a year, half a million dollars a year, even normally a hundred grand as a producer in those offices. And so there's just no one for those new agents to look up to, like there's no one for them to learn from, you know, there may be some, maybe some managers or some corporate individuals, you know, but it's just, it just doesn't exist. Like it just doesn't, and even those, if they are, like even back when I had vets at Mutual, back when I was there, they sold a lot of other carriers and products outside of that company.  And the thing is that you have to have multiple products that catered to the client's age, their health to make sure that they get the best plan out there. And why being a 1099 contractor and not being in a captive agency is that you have the ability to have those products and do a good service. And while doing a good service, getting paid phenomenal. Exactly.   Yeah, we do some of that from time to time. We've noticed that it isn't as accurate as people would think. Okay. Well, that was one question. And I asked you guys, we got a couple more minutes. We'll finish this up for any Q and A's. If you guys have any questions out there, at least shoot those up. So I can go ahead and ask Cody while I'm on the line. Yeah, there was a Mr. Edgar that said, Hey, you know, being captives means you're being, you're with one company, right? You know, I'm sorry, I'm new to the game. No, dude, don't apologize. You're, you're exactly right. That's a, it's a great question. And yes, the answer is yes. So.  And there's plenty of agents that do phenomenal and captive agencies. But the thing is that if you took those agents, those ones out of the rock stars and that type of environment, and I go ahead and I put them over in a different situation that they're non captive, higher commission levels, different lead structure, more products, these individuals only excel more.  I'm just saying that if you are in a, in a non captive agency, I said, you're the ability to actually succeed as much more. Yeah. Yeah. Keep the questions coming. That's what somebody said.  I mean, there's a couple key concepts what it really truly takes to be successful. One is to be prepared, preparation, you know, to make sure you have your applications with you when you show up at the house. You know, I've done that before.  I showed up the house. I had $132 premium I could close. Guess what? I didn't have the application. Oh, you know, so there's just little things that we need to be doing and preparing ourselves, because if you're not, if you're not preparing, you're preparing for failure.   And I'm pretty, pretty thorough on it, but I'm not going to know more than the underwriter at Mutual Home Hall is, you know, I'm not going to know that, you know, more than the underwriter at United, you know, United Homelight. You know, you got to plug in. You got to be a business owner like we discuss. Good. On that note, you mentioned something really, really crucial. A lot of agents, especially when they're new, they want to know everything before they do anything.  You'll figure it out on the fly. You'll learn, you know, so a lot of agents, you don't have to know everything. Like there's ins and outs of policies that I don't even know, you know, but at the end of the day, my job is to see people, help people, earn a living. And if I'm worried about studying brochures and learning everything for weeks on weeks while I'm new, I'm going to fail because I'm never going to make any sales. So just get out there and take action and do it. It's uncomfortable, but just do it. No, you're right. I mean, you know, for me, when I was talking about when I failed my first year, you know what, you know, how many appointments I average on a week, maybe three to four sit downs. So the concept, you know, where you're going to this is that the more people you get in front of the more mistakes that you make at the beginning of the career, the quicker you're going to be able to learn and grow.  I'm like, what could I say different Cody? How could I said this and delivered and how to how I could overcome that objection. And I had a mentor that I was, you know, that I'm still friends with and we were tall and we would just bounce ideas off. Hey, what do we said this? What do we said this? And then we started implementing within our presentation and then you started seeing results. So, you know, for any agent out there that is struggling and, you know, I'm sure Cody does the same thing. I have agents call me up and, you know, they'll be in the home and I will put me on the speakerphone. I'm a 3D hologram sitting beside them. And I'll sell the policy like that. And you know what, after about two weeks of them working with me, I put money in their pocket. I showed them how to overcome certain objections. And after two weeks, they don't got to call me no more because they know how to run a real business. So, you know, if you're not having a manager that's actively engaging you, is that a manager is supposed to, he's making money on you. He's got to be earning it.  He's throwing you the wolves. You know, it's going to be a tough time being successful in this industry when you don't have anybody pointing you in a direction. Someone who's saying, hey, Cody, you made a mistake. This is what you need to work on. Because you don't really know what you are making mistakes. And the thing is, sometimes we think we're better than we really are. And we get in the house and I tell agents, record. Record your conversation. Record your presentation.  You know, I need to work on this. So that's stuff that I've always done and how I've gotten in the position where I'm at now. So, you know, because you care. That's because you care. You're serious. You want to improve. You want to be better. If it doesn't bother you when you leave sales and you didn't make a sale and you're like, OK, was it them? Was it me? What could I have done differently? Like role playing with yourself in the car? Like, if you don't think like that, I don't know what's wrong with you because you ought to. Like, if you miss sales, I'm like, dang, what's going on? Like, what did I do this morning? Did I eat something wrong? Did I have a bad day? Like, did I say something wrong? You know, what's going on? You know, so. Yeah, it is. I mean, I wake up five in the morning, six o'clock in the morning every day because I'm just excited to get to work. I'm excited to, you know, work on my business.  You know, it's just you've got to get out there. You've got to hit the pavement and you've got to go see the people. STP, baby. That's right. See the people. Hey, Andrew brings up a question that I felt like was really good. He said, what point is it good for a part-time agent with a full-time job to make the leap to full-time insurance? The answer is yesterday. You can't succeed part-time. I'm not going to be the greatest agent in the world. I'm not going to win trips. I'm not going to change my life forever with a part-time mindset. I'm just not. No, you weren't part-time. You get part-time results. So, the idea is that it's scary. And Andrew, it gets you nervous about taking that leap. And you got to have a divine belief in you, knowing that you have what it takes to be successful.  The only way you do fail, and why a lot of the agents have failed in this industry, is because they quit, because they ran into a roadblock. They ran into a challenge. And I've gotten to the point where anybody, if you're growing, Cody, you're always running obstacles. But the difference is, you find a way to go over it, go around it, go under it, or you go through it. And that's what winners do, is that they find a way. And that's what you got to ask yourself, is that, am I really doing everything possible to be successful? Am I working as hard as I think I am? Because the idea is that when you're selling business and the average AP for final expense, and we'll finish this up in a second, is $600 an annual premium, right? Well, sometimes you sell some big apps, right? Maybe your goal is $4,000 for the week. Well, maybe by Tuesday, you had three big applications and you're almost at $4,000. Does that mean to go ahead and take your foot off the pedal? Or does that mean to go ahead and press the pedal even harder? Because the idea is agents say, oh, I hit my $4,000 mark. You only close three applications. What if one of those pieces of business falls off the books? What does that do to your week? You've got to constantly be writing business.  But anything else, we're going to have a lot more interviews between me and Cody. I appreciate you being on here. Man, it was awesome. Just kind of get your thought process and you'll be here giving some value to these agents because they always hear me. It's better for them to maybe hear somebody else like you. But anything else you got?  Yeah, I would say figure out what you want. Everyone's in a different place in life. Some of us are part-time. We've got a full-time job. And a lot of us are asking those type of questions because we're looking for a specific answer, which I think it's the answer we gave. So figure out what you want and go get it. Do whatever it takes. Don't let anything get in your way. If your goal is to make $100k, set the bar at $100k, work backwards. Figure out what you need to do every single week for that big goal to happen. Once you break it down and it becomes a small weekly goal of a couple grand or whatever, it doesn't seem so okay. You know what? That's only $400 a weekday. You know, that's like half a sell. So it's like think about the big goal. Figure out what you want. Break it down weekly. How many people do you need to see to make four sells? Maybe it's eight. See eight people. Figure out what you want. Go do it and be consistent week in and week out. Absolutely. Well, Cody, man, we really appreciate you. The owner of Secure Agent Mentor. It was a pleasure having you on here. And we'll have a lot more conversations in the future. So you guys, we appreciate you hopping on here. And we'll see you guys next time.