On today's episode of Gathering The Kings. What I have found is that most people actually are truthful. If I left my keys in the truck and the truck unlocked, Most people actually still live by it. That's not mine. I don't open it up. I don't drive it away. Most. Most. No. Obviously, there's pockets of the area where I would never Yep. Even think about doing Chaz. But I think there's just this large percentage of people who still desire to be treated truthfully and who are truthful themselves.
And so I think if we just are putting good seas in the ground, like you talked about earlier, You put good season in the ground long enough and consistently enough, a good harvest comes back. What's up everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe. During the Kings podcast. I'm back with you here. I got a king on the Kings stage today. Tracy Loundsberry. My brother. How are we doing? What's up, my man? What's up? I'm gonna be here. You know, it's Monday. We're fresh. We're ready to go.
We were just talking about some service that you've that you've done in in reference to our country. Thank you for that, but we were talking about pushing challenges. You just did a bunch of push ups, gathering the keys in the process of doing a bunch of push ups. Man, that's Kings, guys. I don't know. We need help doing push We do, man. We do. Yeah. It's, you know, it's funny when you you always look back and you look at back at, like, oh, what I used to do?
And, like, when you were younger and you're, like, trying to compare yourself, like, and I gotta get back to that. But, yeah, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. That's good stuff, man. I appreciate you being here and spending time with us. So what else what kind of business that you have? So short story of the business is basically I'm in the insurance world, insurance and finance, and I specialize in these little things called annuities in the insurance Wolfe.
And I've been going full bore Adam for a few years now. Business has been booming and skyrocketing, and it's a fantastic industry to be in, but there's a lot to it. So, I'm in the business for, of offering them, but also just educating the masses, like, financial advisors, insurance agents, consumers, all that. That's that's where I find a lot of my is. Yeah. I love it. I definitely wanna get your passion here in a second, but clear for us.
You might have a listener who's chiming in right now, going on an annuity. I've heard word. What the heck is an annuity? Tell us Tracy. Yeah. Well, if you Google it, you're gonna find, like, 95% of the answers are wrong. In in annuity as a as a term, dates, all we've actually liked the Roman era. It's supposed to be, like, a stream of income is really how it was designed, okay, for somebody. So now they've kind of insurance companies have taken it and ran with it.
Now it's a product and originally Chaz well started with you know, you take an asset, you turn into cash, and then you purchase an annuity and you get an income stream from it. And then now there's, like, 20 different wings you can go off of where now they're, like, similar to CDs. You can get, like, long term care insurance through them. You can get, you know, market exposure and Kings like growth of market without a lot of risk.
There's so many avenues to go down, but ultimately, there's supposed to be just like a safe asset you can grow your money and take income from. Yeah. Yeah. In essence, well, I guess maybe, typically, sounds like there's all kinds of products since, you know, 20 years ago when I was selling annuities, but In essence, you take a large amount of money, put it in a safe place, safe place. Yep. And and get a little drip. Get a little drip every month. Right? You got it. That's awesome, man.
Wolfe, okay. So you said passion, and you're excited about insurance, which might sound a little interesting to the Listener, unless they're an insurance also. Yeah. Right. Exactly. For all of us that aren't in insurance, we aren't passionate at all about insurance, financial services, annuities, this this safe place to put money to get a little drip. All of that sounds a little bit foreign to us. We're business owners. Help us understand why the heck you're passionate about Yeah, man.
Well, I think it goes back to just being in, like, human services, helping people in whatever way, shape, or form I can. That's when my background is in Kings former military, former law enforcement, big man upstairs had a different plan for me, which we can get into later if you want. And and Lane in the insurance world, And what what Kings made me passionate about it is that insurance sucks, dude. It does. A lot of it sucks. People become insurance poor.
People abuse, like, as an financial adviser, insurance agents abuse that in, you know, insurance world a lot. So I just have Kings made it my mission to be passionate in in love and industry that can help a lot of people, but do it in a way that's just super transparent and and ethical and just being able to kinda spread that like a wildfire to other agents and advisors. Hey, listen. You can do this the right way and still make a lot of money.
Yeah. Yeah. And and I think that that message is obviously something that that can be taken into any business. Why why is that so important to you? Why is you know, ethics or doing it the right way or being able to win and make a lot of money. Like, that's kinda how we measure things in business. But yet with with a conscious or doing it the right way. Right? Why is that important to you?
Because I feel like in this world we live in, unfortunately, it's something that's becoming pushed to the way side for sure. And there's a lot of ways to get rich unethically, I feel. You know, I've I've been presented with a lot of those opportunities and turn them away. So I get it. So I think The the path less traveled. There's just something about Chaz. Just the challenges that come along with it. Kings up, I never really got anything handed to me The I understand The value of a dollar.
I think more than not to say that my situation was oh, so, oh, so difficult, but more than a lot of people, So I wanna make sure that every dollar that I earn is gonna come from, you know, fruits of my labor, not somebody else's. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I I can just from my personal experience, growing up Kings mom family, it's not it's not that I remember, you know, a specific situation where someone took advantage of us or, you know, ethics were used in a wrong way towards us.
However, you know, there's moments in time, especially in professional services. I can even think of all the way down to, like, an auto mechanic. Like, that's still technically a professional service. Where a single mom is gonna go in and I had no Gathering about a vehicle and yet you're gonna basically use your professional experience to to do things unethically. It's the same thing for insurance is what you're saying.
Like, we the the example I just gave of going to the auto mechanic and then being told that there's 14 things wrong with The car that aren't they're just trying to take advantage of it. I feel like that happens quite a bit, actually. But it's the same thing that happens, what you're saying, in insurance, that you have money hungry or unethical people advantage of situations and or people.
And so then you have this, like, stain kind of on insurance or on people that sell insurance what why or what should the listener be looking for, whether they're gonna work with you or whether they're working with somebody locally to The, what should they be paying attention to to find out if someone like you exist, like ethics? Right. They're they're doing the right thing. Like, what should they be paying attention to?
I think blind faith is something that people have these days because they may be they might not be the subject matter expert, so they just kind of go off of, like, the I like you. Therefore, I'm gonna do business with you. And there is a lot of there's a lot The, because I think us as humans, we do have this kind of internal discernment you know, 6¢ or whatever it is. Not everybody has it, and you get it wrong all the time. Trust me, Ben, burn there.
But, ultimately, you know, don't just have blind faith. Go and do a little bit of research. I don't care if it's a family member. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at somebody's situation where a family member was managing Chaz. And I'm just like, holy smokes. And you got and now you gotta walk on eggshells. Right? So I don't care if it's a family member, a family friend, friend, you know, current I don't care what it is. Just do a little bit of research. Right?
Just just ask very I always I have, like, 10 questions like, a sheet that I that I give to my clients or maybe prospects. I just tell them, hey. Ask them these ten questions and get them back to me, and I'll tell you if depending on how they answer those questions, I'll tell tell you if they're going down the right path for you. I promise you. It it's it doesn't take that much effort. It just takes effort.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that that applies, you know, even as the The is paying attention to what you're saying about insurance. Okay. So, well, what how do you, as The business are listening right now, have some safeguards in place to be able to not not necessarily tell your prospect, how you're different, but to help them no matter what they Chaz, one way or the other, Yep. That's what Tracy was just talking about.
Whether they do insurance with a family friend or whether they go with he wants to be able to provide value so that they actually understand what they're getting because that's really what more it comes down to, especially with the family members. It's not that they want to do ill will, especially in insurance. Right.
They just don't know what they're doing, or they're working with a company where maybe they don't actually know that it's probably not a good deal, or they're selling me a product that is only, like, partially what I need. You know, there's just a lot of, like, you know, this happens in every industry, though. Would you agree? Absolutely. It it ignorance is something that, you know, it it is what it is. Right? Sometimes you just you've don't you don't know what you don't know. The old adage.
Right? So ignorance is just it's not a self defense against The will though. Right? You can't say, hey, police officer, sir. I'm sorry. I didn't know that this was going to end up that way. It doesn't matter if it ended up that way. Right? And you just have to eat that and deal with it. So, unfortunately, it's not, but it doesn't mean that us, the guys who who and The we make mistakes, but maybe we do it a different way that we would consider The right way.
It doesn't mean that we have to go out and attack those people and make them feel also bad about themselves, you can Kings give them a chance. And and I try to do that as often as possible. Like, if I'm going in, I'm taking money from an advisor, you know, moving money over to me or whatever it is. Right? I normally try to give them, you know, a chance. Hey. The is this is kinda what I do. I educate advisers, I know that this isn't an ideal situation.
And most of the The, 9th times out of 10, they tell me to get lost. But, hey, do you mind if we just kinda sit down and chat about because I really think I could help you have a better understanding. And I've had I've had quite a few people, granted, I mean, percentage wise, very Kings, I've had quite a few people take me up on Chaz, and they've actually become part of our Kings organization in a way because we contract agents and whatnot.
And it's been it's been phenomenal, but know, I don't think there's enough that happens there. Not to say that we're perfect, but I do think that that would help our industry a ton. Yeah. Understood. Well, tell us what you did before insurance. What's your background? Yeah. So going back, I went to college for a law enforcement barely got into college, like, 2.2 GPA. When in yeah. When in with a with probation was not a good student at all in high school. Got in was doing well.
I met my wife in 20 13. She definitely got me on the right track because in college, I started to go off to the waistline. I think a a lot of guys have that story. Yeah. So for the wives. Yeah. I'm very sorry about it. So she she got me on track. I was able to get my act together.
I went through the police academy during that time, in in 2011, I joined the army, a special operation, civil affairs, soldier, I served for 8 years, and it was technically about 7 that I went into the enact ready reserve. And during that time, I was I was in the reserve, so I was able to go to school and complete my degree and all that. Got out with pretty pretty decent grades, one of the top of my class, and went to go find a job.
And I found 1 and and got hired out of, I don't know, 40 or 50 applicants, and I was about 2 2 weeks away. No. I'm sorry. I'm with this one, it was 1 week, 1 week away. I was 1 week away. I had moved into an apartment, went to that city, switched over a cell phone carrier, all sorts of stuff. And my training officer called me and he goes, hey. I just wanna let you know that the sheriff rescended the job offer. And there was no explanation. I asked. I was like, why? What's the reason yadayada?
No explanation. Didn't have to give it to me. Right? Yeah. Tried to call, tried to set up meetings with him, just let me know so I could be better in the future, you know, type thing. Like, I get it. Nothing. Nothing. So now you have to go through this whole 6 month hiring process again. So I'm just like, crap. So I'm I'm going and finding odd jobs where we can instruction, worked at a hospital. Finally, you know, go through process, and I I make it to the end and just don't get in.
And I'm like, what's going on? You know? Finally, it's like my last ditch effort. I moved from, you know, The lower part of Michigan to back to Northern Michigan, tiny agencies up here. I'm like, there's no way I can't get a job up here. Finally, find one, go through the interview process. They hire me. Now I'm I'm 2 weeks away from starting, and the exact same thing happens. Wow. I get a call from my training officer and says, hey. The chief this time, it wasn't The county. It was a city.
The chief rescended the job offer. No explanation. No nothing. This one, I like it really hard. I'm calling them all the time almost like surprised I didn't put, like, a restraining order against me. I'm I'm calling them all the time. Like, I gotta know what is going on and didn't figure it out. So, ultimately, I'm a man of faith. There it is. And and I think it was the big man upstairs, for sure, telling me maybe that's not the path you need to be going down.
So I ended up transitioning into private security. Private security tried I said, you know what? Maybe I can do The insurance thing. I see, you know, people hiring on it all the The. Worked for a a captive company for 8 months, went under a financial advisor for an about a year and a half, and then broke away from that and and started my agency in December of 2019. So right before 2020, which was a lot of fun. We've been a rocket ship since, man, though. It's been super blessing.
Lot of fun, a lot of hard times, but all those things make me grow and be better as a person. So wouldn't take it back. Yeah. I appreciate that to that little that little run up there with your experience with the service departments. It's interesting that you never got any feedback. I am curious, though, you said a year and a half working you know, in insurance for somebody else or generally. And The, boom, I wanna do my own thing. What was that inside of you at that moment?
Because being an insurance agent, even for somebody else, is kind of like entrepreneurship. Like, you your sales guy, you Kings do your own thing, a 100% commission. You kinda live and breathe on what you kill that day. And so what was the difference between that and then, like, literally creating your own agency for you? Why did you have to do it? Well, The the step before that was I worked for a captive company, and I'm not knocking captive advisors.
So if you are listening to this, that's fine. You just gotta find your niche. But but, basically, what that means is you work for The company. Right? So you sell their products. And ultimately, what I found there was I was getting beat by a lot of other companies, a lot of these independent, you know, advisors. I'm like, you know what? I I gotta go independent.
Well, it just so happens that I ended up selling some policies to these individuals went back, resold The other policies because it was cheaper Chaz I didn't know I didn't know about our other products we had. They thought that was ethical and right and whatever, and it was, like, half a commission for me. And they introduced me to their cousin who was just starting an investment firm and needed a partner.
And so, you know, we kinda hit it off and So I ended up going under him as a writing agent. What that means is basically he owns my business, but then I basically just go and write it. And so he's Kings let me do my own thing and a postpaid referral partnership back and forth, but ultimately what I found is just that the direction that both of us wanted to go was Just different. Right? It was just different.
I'm not gonna knock his direction, but ultimately, it wasn't what I've forced saw myself doing. I was like, you know what? I I gotta go out and I gotta do my own Kings, and I gotta take a leap of faith. And I was thinking about doing this at this time, and I wasn't ready financially. And, he brings me to his office and he fires me. He lets me go because I wasn't going in the direction. So that was like, oh, okay. Got it. So this must mean that I need to be doing The. And here's your sad.
Yeah. It was a horrible timing because of COVID, and I didn't really have enough money saved up. And luckily, you know, I was able to get a loan and pay it back and all Chaz. But but, ultimately, you know, you get thrown in the fire, or, you know, you get The get your backup against the wall, and there's no way to go. It accept for up. You know, I was married. I'd had to make it work. I didn't have a fallback.
So I was I was lucky enough to find a little bit of a niche Chaz a little bit of experience at that The. So found a little niche during the coronavirus, and and that just grew the agency quite a bit. I love it, man. Would you say that This is an interesting question. Maybe you've heard this before. I don't know, but would you say that you're a love to win or a hate to lose person? I'm I'm a hate to lose person for sure. Hate to lose.
I I hate I I will I'm self motivated for sure, but I think what has motivated me over the years is people telling me I can't do something, you know, or people telling me I'm not gonna do something. Don't don't tell me that because I mean, I'm I'm not at The stage now in my life where, I mean, I can just shrug a lot of things off, but I guess in maybe more of my immature years, man, I'm gonna do anything in in my power to prove you wrong.
Because ultimately, I I come from a pretty poor family, and and I was never really super good at anything growing up. I mean, I played sports and, you know, school, never good at school sports, never really good at a lot of sports. So I've always felt like I have something to prove.
Now I'm past Chaz, and it still comes out once in a Wolfe, but that's definitely what motivated me to get me to where I am today is is just proving others wrong, proving people that I can be successful as this small town kid that didn't really have a lot to offer. Yeah. Actually, you gave a really great description there. I wanna I wanna help The listener understand your progression there because first off, every entrepreneur has both. We we love to win. We hate to lose.
Nobody loves to lose and nobody hates to win. Like Right. Right. Right. But but there is a there is a distinction between the two and the one is we all have the chip on the shoulder, but it's like, If if you're motivated by not losing, it's the backs against the rope. I have nothing to lose. That position is what propels me forward as opposed to I'm addicted to winning. And both are okay. Just gotta know who you are.
But what I have found is that, like, what you're saying is that eventually at some point, you have just probably just a maturing of perspective and understanding that there's a certain game that you play in order to win so that you don't lose and, you know, so forth and so on. So I think at some point, even The the the hate to lose folks, recognize that winning is more powerful than not losing, which you gave a great description of.
It just you know, probably a little bit more around ego than anything, but I think that it's important for all of us at some point to carry a little chip on our shoulder. You know? Like Absolutely. Yeah. The people that said we couldn't are oftentimes the fuel, but I that's just the piece I wanna give to the listener that make sure it's fuel, not like a grudge or a negative emotion because that stuff will eat you up Chaz opposed to just fuel. It's like, they said I couldn't watch. Right?
Let let'd be that. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Absolutely. A 100%. That's awesome. That's that's great perspective. Good, man. Alright. Well, let's talk about a good decision. Something that you did in these last couple of years Chaz you've been skyrocketing the agency like you talked about. Something that maybe we can learn from and do it on our own businesses. Sure. Yeah. Well, I I would say the first thing that comes to mind that just popped in it's really Kings 2 schools of thought.
So one is and I tell my agents this, and I tell I tell everybody this. Prospects The is that I'm probably one of the most transparent people you'll ever meet. Right? Almost to a fault. I don't wanna say that because it's kinda gotten me where I've gotten to, but but I'm I'm gonna say for The sake of argument. Yep. When when my business model is is super education based. So it's, you know, I'm in sales, and if I don't make a sale, I don't get paid. Right?
But ultimately, when you have this kind of transparent educational focus, the sales come. Somebody told me a long time ago, you can't do the right thing long enough without seeing some type of positive result. Right? And that pretty much what I follow. So I would say to any business owner, and this almost seems like, well, yeah, no doubt, Tracy. But, no, I mean, like, really embrace the train parentcy behind what you do.
Like, even the behind the scenes things that businesses don't show, we show. Like, we have on Zoom meetings with clients and we'll, like, show them how we build out a proposal right in front of them. We show people like, hey. Here's how the commissions get paid. Hey. Here's how the insurance companies make money. Like, all these things that are you just don't talk about. Right? We talk about it. Why?
Because consumers Ultimately, a lot of them want to know, and I might not go down that path with everybody. And it does depend on who I'm sitting across from and kinda discerning the room a little bit, but I think transparency is so unbelievably important in what we do. And then the other one was technology. So utilizing technology in the insurance role, I think in The lot of businesses. We have, like, customer databases that we use management software that we use. Right. You know, CRMs. Right?
So I use a lot of CRM stuff. You know, I Love it or hate it, the whole chat GPT Gathering. Kinda scary. I get it. But we're using it, man. We're using it. It's it's it's a tool to be used. And we use a lot of that stuff. And and so technology has made it to where I don't need 20 employees. I have an 1800 square foot office with me and one other person, and I have contract advisors in, I don't know, 37 different states.
And I don't know how many we're up to now, but, ultimately, most of what we do granted, very time blocked, but it's automated. Everything is automated. Right? Everything Chaz just got its place in technology. You just have to go find it. Learn it. Try it. Do it. Right? That's right. I love it. Love that process. Yeah. I mean, chat GPT is gonna write a great show note about you here today. Maybe not today.
Somebody on my team is gonna use that AI tool to write, fantastic article and all kinds of good stuff about you. So you know, I think that you're right. Spot on with the technology. I think that's great. The transparency thing is hard. Right? Like, we hear it. And we're like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Be transparent. Or, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Be authentic or genuine. Be real. Oh, okay. But you gave some great some some, like, practicals there that building a proposal, showing commissions.
You know, we've talked a lot in, like, home service companies, like, just showing profit. You know? Yep. Absolutely. This is what we're charging for The. And this is the profit. And For sure. It's okay. Because if we don't have a profit, you should go with the other guy that doesn't have a profit, and he probably is not gonna be in business next year because he's working out of the back of his truck. That's gonna break down on the way to your job. You know? Yep. Is that how it works?
Yeah. Absolutely, man. And, you know, a great example of that is, like, you know, sales in general, but, like, car sales. Right. I've purchased 2 cars. Well, I've purchased 4 or 5 vehicles in the last, like, 4 years.
Don't I mean, we don't talk about it, but I've purchased 2, that the dealership that I I worked with was a small dealership, and they just seemed very transparent with me And both of them, the first one I learned from the first one, the first one actually turned his monitor around and said, hey. This is exactly what I paid for this. Here's the receipt on it. I cut the guy a check for 600 bucks more just so he could get more profit. Okay. You know, those things come back around.
And then the second one, because of that first one, I asked him. I said, so what did you pay for this truck? And he told me it showed it to me. Here's the receipt on it. Right? And I was like, oh, okay. Well, that's pretty good profit margins. I don't I'll go with it. I get it. You know, just Chaz type of transparency, go show me a sales guy who does that. Right? Yeah. But it got those guys sales.
And and ultimately, is it gonna push people away in some scenarios, you're gonna find people, but The people you don't wanna work with anyways. Right? Exactly. So yeah. You Kings gonna learn and learn your audience and and kinda move forward and and and you'll find success. Yeah. It makes me think of years ago, I used to sell advertising. It's a small business owners, and, you know, I had I had a lot of people in the office that I would There's a couple thousand sales reps.
And at at one point, I had become number 1, and it was a big deal, but I I didn't, like, walk around with, like, you know, The the ego piece like we talked about earlier. I really wanted to help other people and people listen to my calls all the time. And one of the one of the most profound things of feedback that I would get that people are so shocked about. They're like, man, you, like, you tell them almost like below expectations, like, actually well below expectations.
And they still buy from me. Like, well, here's the deal. First off, we're talking about trust. Right? Like, this is a different part of the sales process. You need to be able to build trust in unique ways along the way. But when we get to the deal, because I've built trust and I'm also being, like, over conservative, they're they're actually they're appreciating in me of me through the product, whatever. And guess what? When it happens better than that, do they love me, or do they love me?
I mean and they're gonna send me a referral? Yes. And you wonder how I'm selling 3 to everyone for you. Yep. It's like, dude, it's okay to just be straight, to be honest. In fact, Maybe go a little under. It's okay. As long as the mask still works, as long as it's still a good decision for The, why why do we need to inflate it? Does that make sense? Absolutely, man. I see it all the time.
In in in the annuity world, we have products that are designed to grow based on, like, kind of market in it's they're called index annuities. I would say it's The number one problem right now with them in its Ultimately, it's it's marketing companies as well, the insurance companies allowing it. But what I could do today, I could build out an annuity illustration for somebody that basically it's like, hey, in the next 10, 20, 30 years.
This is what we think is gonna happen based on and this is in huge quotes based on history, Which sure is none. But based on history, I could build The out today that has a 23% average return and legally show it to somebody. Right. And ultimately, just so everybody knows, an index annuity, if it's a good one, is designed to do, like, four and a half to seven and a half. That's how wildly different it is.
When we build them out, we build them out at about 5. I would say if you took a 100 agents, there might be one that builds it out that low. Why? Same thing. We're shooting for Kings of lowering the expectation so that, hey, in the future when it does do better or If it doesn't, right, we don't look that bad in the future because, obviously, it's market based, and the market's kinda crazy right now. But, you know, we're gonna look like a king to The, right, ultimately.
Yeah. Yeah. The the position here that we're talking about, just for the listener, is not underselling. It's not it's not on purpose giving the wrong expectations. It's just being honest. Absolutely. Good old, you know, good old boy, honesty. You know? And it's just like people respect because, actually, what I have found Maybe maybe you can agree to this or not. I don't know. But what I have found is that most people actually are truthful.
Like, they followed by, you know, if I left my keys in the truck and the truck unlocked, most people actually still live by, like, that's not mine. I don't open it up. I don't drive it away. Most. Most. Now, obviously, there's pockets of of of the area where I would never Yep. Even think about doing that. But I think there's just this large percentage of people who still desire to be treated truthfully and who are truthful themselves.
And so I think if we just are putting good seeds in the in the ground. Like you talked about earlier, you put good seeds in the ground long enough and consistently enough? A good a good harvest comes back. Absolutely. That's a that's actually a great point because it's you said long enough inconsistent enough. And, unfortunately, with my generation on the whole job, my generation, We are all about this instant gratification.
I bet you guys have covered it on on podcast before because it it's it's important, but If people can just get away from this instant gratification baloney and move into like, hey, if you work hard enough and long enough for a period of time, You're gonna get something back to you, and that's okay. You don't have to have it today. You don't have to have it tomorrow. Right?
You're not gonna plan a tree today and see, you know, The forty foot to a hundred foot monster in your front yard in 2 weeks. That's not gonna happen. Right? But ultimately, when you do see it, it's gonna be so unbelievably rewarding. Just Yeah. Investing yourself. Yeah. Absolutely. Hey. Hey. Chaz Wolf here.
As many of you know, I have been on an absolute mission to help entrepreneurs from all across the country in many different industries level up their game and grow their business and intentionally connect with other entrepreneurs. We do that obviously through the podcast, but we also have a peer to peer mastermind group specifically for 7 to 9 figure business owners.
We are bringing some of the best and most successful entrepreneurs and minds together in a regular and a super intentional way to not only grow our network, but to be able to leverage. And at a certain point in business, success becomes about leverage, leveraging time, leveraging resources, leveraging key relationships. This is exactly what we're doing inside of the peer to peer mastermind group called Gathering The Kings, specifically for 7 to 9 figure business owners.
So if that's you, if you're ready to level up your 7 to 9 figure business, even to the next level and get around other big hitters just like you. I want you to go to gathering the Kings, flood a short application, And, it'll come to an application, call with me, and I wanna chat with you to see if it might be a good fit. Talk soon. At the time of this recording, we're like 4 days into the new platform threads. Are you on threads yet? I am. Yeah. Well, you just joined.
Okay. So so I I just shared or reshared a quote on this exact topic, and it was basically like, hey. If you'll measure what you're doing on a daily basis, like, your actual activity on a daily basis, but what you get on a longer horizon yearly, 5 years, 10 years, that right there will make you wealthy, period. 100%. Everything that we're talking 100%. That's awesome. Love it. Okay. So I wanna know The bad decision.
Tracy, give us the the hour where you were maybe stuck in the office, maybe crying a little bit. I don't What what happened? Oh my god. Well, bad decisions for me. Ultimately, I think, obviously, they led me down a path Chaz people have pulled me out of, which is great. A little background of The. When I was a kid, I made a really dumb mistake, and I broke into a building. I love to tell The story because it it's made me go Kings today. I broke into a building. It was on my 14th birthday.
And it was actually as funny. It was actually under good intentions. We thought we heard screaming. I know. It it's legit. We did. We broke in thinking that we were helping somebody. Wolfe, that turned in us breaking a bunch of stuff. It was like an abandoned warehouse type thing, but not as abandoned as it should have been, I guess. Or how did we thought? So we ended up breaking some stuff and whatnot. And so that led me down, you know, got a misdemeanor in probation and yadayadayada.
But Ultimately, if I wouldn't have gotten caught there, the path I was going to now, because my parents were just divorced and yadayadayada, If fuck it with The goddamn cough, man. I tell people, I I might be laying in a ditch somewhere, or I might be like, scratching my neck and asking people for money on the side of, you know, on side of the highway somewhere as Wolfe.
Honestly, so, you know, making dumb decisions Learn from them very, very quickly, and adapt, and make sure, and I tell people The, and it's people say this a lot, fall forward Right? When you fall and you're gonna fail, right, you're gonna fall and you're gonna fail. If you go backwards, I'm six foot, I'm now six foot back. If I go forward, I am now six foot forward. I would much rather be that the twelve foot difference, by the way. You do that enough times.
You're gonna have a very big gap as to where you were. Right? So when you do fail, Learn from it, fail forward, be a better person, eat what you got coming, because it is what it is. Don't try to make excuses for it. You know, you made mistakes. Just learn from it. And and they're being transparent about it. People are gonna appreciate that too. Again, going back to transparency today. Yeah. I appreciate that. The vulnerability that you would share The.
How has that translated for you in business? Because, you know, we make mistakes all the time. Sometimes small, sometimes money related. For sure. You've given us a foundation here of like, okay. So because of this happened to you, you had to basically have persistence and you look back and you're like, okay. Wow. Like, I am who I am today based on me getting caught Kings something that I shouldn't have been, but, man, I was trying to help somebody.
Like, that that wasn't fair, but it but it was, but it it hit me, but it wasn't good. And so fast forward, you know, to a year ago, and you did what? How like, what happened in the business where you're like, oh, you were able to slough it off because of the past experience. You mean when I was independent? In the agency world. Yeah. Like, some of this happened. Practically. So so practically, I will tell you that recently, I made a I made a pretty big mistake.
Where I I basically told one of my clients to do something before we were ready for it or before it was approved Kings that, like, it was a slam dunk and it was good yadayada, and and I never do this ever. And in the annuity world, there's a lot of things called through suitability. And what we found was that It was not approved, and I couldn't do it because of a factor that they didn't give me. And ultimately, it was it was my fault, and it was about a $50,000 mistake.
K. So it was it was a nice chunky mistake. And so I could have blamed on everybody else. I could have ran and hide. I could, you know, whatever The was a lot of things around me Chaz I could have blamed because there was a lot of factors The. But, ultimately, what I told them is that and this is a big account. It was about a $1,000,000 I I told him I said, I made a mistake. I told you guys to do this. Again, being transparent. I told you guys to do The, and I shouldn't have.
Here's the normal process. Here's where I made the mistake. And I said, let me rectify it. Now I was gonna rectify it in two ways. Either one, I was gonna find it was a product thing. So I was gonna find a product that would make them up that 50,000, or I was gonna pay them out of my own pocket, which you can do. You have to go through legal to do it, which we had full intentions to do. And, ultimately, what they said was, alright, Tracy.
We're gonna give you a chance You get a chance here, and they they didn't have to. They could have walked away. They could have collected $50 and actually would have been the better spot. Right. And, they ultimately let me seek out. So I went out, found something to fix their problem. I actually was able to get them about, I think it was, like, 62,000 back, which is great. And, you know, it was less commission for me.
It was a lot more work for me and all that stuff, but ultimately, I think that transparency is what landed The. You know, as a client because I did make a mistake and everybody probably would have walked away if I wouldn't have been down that path, but Kings back to, like I said, man, I'm probably the most transparent person you mean. I I I told them Chaz, and I make mistakes. But rectify it, if that would have went another way, And I wouldn't have got it.
I would have paid The $50 out of my pocket. Right? That that also is a great segue into when you set yourself up for business, a business where you can make big mistakes like that on accent because we all are humans. Make sure you're in a in a financial position to rectify big mistakes. Right? I tell business owners this all the The. Don't change your lifestyle when you start making money. Keep your keep your same lifestyle. Pay off your debt, Put some money in the bank.
You don't have to, you know, invest it in your 401 k all the time. You can have a nice chunky safety net first. You don't have to invest it back into your business super, super fast. Give yourself that safety net because ultimately, what would what would 6 months of income look like for you? What would a year of income look like for you. Put that aside.
It's very simple, Kings Dave Ramsey advice, but but, ultimately, that's what's brought me down this path of, like, I can make mistakes and rectify them because I'm in the financial position to do so. Yeah. That's so good, man. I I wanna point out for the listener, the transparency that you were referring to, just in in making mistakes is The, oftentimes, we forget that the entire client journey is building for this moment. And now I'm not saying that we build so that we can make mistakes.
I'm saying that we are walking our client through a very intentional process building trust, doing what we say we're gonna do, you know, walking alongside of them, getting the results that we said that we're gonna get all the things.
So Chaz if if there's a moment where there's we're a human and we make a mistake, like Tracy just said, he went to him transparently, The already had a history with him of, well, either he's already done what he say he was gonna do or he was trustworthy up until this moment, And so why wouldn't we give him a chance to rectify it? Why would we be pissed and run the other way? And the times where this has happened either me and some of the companies I own or to some of my clients.
Is that up ahead of that, we either didn't do a very good job or we intentionally did things or maybe didn't do things that didn't trust or that lost trust earlier. And so that way when the bigger mistake happens, it's like, nope, sever, boom, no rectification at all whatsoever. Doesn't matter how transparent you are then because they don't believe you. Yep. You got it. So it's just it's just this history that we're building. Obviously, you've done a good job The.
Transparent, but it's it's not just in that moment. I wanna know of a good business resource, podcast, book, event, what have you what have you invested in that has given you value? Man, well, I I don't read a lot these days. I need to go back into it, but one book I say that has really changed how I communicate with people It is positive words, powerful results by Hal Urban. It's not a very hard read. It's not a very, you know, thick book by any means. But it's a great one.
Just speaking positivity into people and just seeing Kings how that comes back around. Oh, man, it's just so powerful. It's so powerful because, you know, these days, You turn on the TV, you know, even these Facebook reels, YouTube reels, you know, tiktok, whatever, there's so much negativity in the world because negativity is, for some reason, people just like to leech off of negativity. Maybe they realize that, you know, hey, that's worse than my light. They're for I'll watch that.
Makes me feel better about myself, but ultimately, it doesn't. It actually does the opposite effect. So just breeding positivity into people in your Wolfe and your family, it all comes back around, man. And and, ultimately, us as business owners, you know, we have a goal, and that is to support our families. Support our clients, support our staff, and to, hopefully, at some point, build a legacy. Right?
But The all comes back to who is the number one in your life and the number one should be in most cases family. Right? So if you're breeding negativity in your business, guess where that's gonna come back around. It's gonna come back around at home. And then you and your wife aren't gonna be happy, and the kids are gonna be happy. And, ultimately, you should be structuring your business in a way that positively packs your family or just possibly impacts your personal life as well. Right?
Yeah. That's how I try to do it. Yeah. I love it, man. That's super great. What would you say since you just mentioned family? I I've got a question for you about doing family or the family thing, marriage, kids, the whole nine. Alongside of the business because clearly you're obsessed. You've got an obsessive nature. We've talked about this based on the whole podcast, and we're, like, all in in The business. Okay. Great.
How do we obsess or how have you obsessed over your wife, family, all those other things that you love outside of the business at the same time? Not giving him up, not balancing, but obsessing at the same time. Yeah. You have to be intentional with it. That's for sure. Man, intentionality is something that I probably have lacked in the past. My wife and I have been married since 2017, been together since 2013. Our son, Jackson, was born in 2020, and then we have twins on the way due November.
Right? And they're I yeah. Identical and they're boys. So we're gonna have a 3 boys in our family. So, ultimately yes. Yes. Well, I'm gonna need it, man. So When you're obsessed with your business and what you do and I am, something I used to is when I had the time, you know, if I was putting time on my wife and we had the time before we had, you know, Jackson, I'd I'd be sitting on the couch reading articles, whatever, trying to get better, and whatnot.
But if you find yourself at home Kings business or doing anything else other than being with your family when you're already working 60 hours a week or 50. I don't care. It doesn't have to be that much. 40 hours, but it doesn't matter. If you're not intentional with your time, because time is a client you can't create any more of, right, then you're making a mistake, right, because you can never get that time back.
So something that I I've done recently is that my time blocks at work, I've changed. So, you know, I have a calendar. You know, people can book appointments in and and we have worked with a lot of referral partners that do that. So, ultimately and I'm in a position where I don't have to dial anymore. It's just fantastic. But, ultimately, I just show up to work. And I have appointments booked.
And I used to give myself Chaz many time slots as I possibly can to fit as many appointments in because more appointments equals more money. Right? That's right. But who is that gonna affect? It was my family. Right? So now I'm intentional with, you know, my Mondays or I'm sorry. My Fridays, I come in late. My Thursdays, I come in early, and then I stay late. My Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I leave early. Right?
So I have, like, these time slots, and I I never make an appointment after 5 o'clock now. No more appointments after 5 o'clock. I used to make appointments all the way up to 8 o'clock. I'd have a client that says, Tracy, hey. I'm still working. Can you meet with me? No. The answer is no. Right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hey. Can you meet with me on The weekend? No. Can't. I used to work almost every Saturday or every other Saturday.
They'll Kings the weekend unless I'm, like, really behind from a vacation or something. There's a couple exceptions The. You know, if I'm taking a huge time block with my family already. Yeah. But ultimately, being intentional with your time, I think, is is so in important because if you get obsessed at work and obsessed with the time you do have, 20 hours or 10 hours, whatever it is a week with your family, whatever you can fit in, of of being super proactive, can feel like 40 hours to them.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. There's there's levels upon levels here that Tracy's given to you guys listening here. Is that not only be optimizing on your calendar and and giving the time to the family, but even inside of those times being intentional about what are we doing, or what are we working on, or we taking a marriage course? Are we are we hanging out with the kids? Are we preparing the room for the twins?
There's there's life in that, but there can be super intentionality in those moments creating memories or just doing the thing together Chaz is just we're really, really good. One other thing that you said that you made a distinction between building and and maintaining and and there's a period of time. And maybe that's where the listener is right now where they're building their business and they're working early. They're working late. They're working on the weekends. And I did that for years.
And I still work intensely a lot. Yep. And I think every entrepreneur does It's just you become more efficient and more dialed in, more intentional as the time goes on. And so maybe I don't need to take appointments. In the evening or on the weekend, like Tracy's saying. Maybe I don't need to fill in the blank with whatever your business is at some point, but there is a building period where you can't just be hand out and say, look. I deserve x. Yeah. It's like, look, hey.
You're a good person, but your finances are what's going to allow all that to your family. So That's right. Building at least for a period of time, make sure you get some sustainability in there. And then do exactly what Tracy said because he's giving you a a really great depiction here of I did The, and that was okay. And then now I'm doing this. Would you agree with that? Absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, you're you're gonna have sacrifices you're gonna have to make, and you're gonna have to establish that with your wife or you're seeing if another or whoever, and let them know, like, hey. You gotta be in this with me. Right? Cause if they're not in it with you, man, it's it's gonna fail. They have to be in it with you, and you're gonna have to prove to them sometimes too. Like, you know, that it's it's gonna work out. Sometimes that's okay, you know, with your spouse.
Like, I gotta work my butt off. You have to let me do this so I can prove to you. Once we're on the same page, Then that's, you know, that can be an unstoppable force. But I I tell people that you either have time or you have money. Right? If you Don't have time. K. Then you can buy time because that means you have money. If you don't have money, guess what? You have time. Okay? So I just buy time in. I buy time.
1 of my business partners, you know, he's probably doing 30 plus 1,000,000 a year in annuities. And and, ultimately, I'm in a position to where I I could for sure do Chaz. And he tells me that all the time, but I don't because I'm taking that money I would be making, and I am buying time because I'm at a position in my life where I need that now.
If I didn't have kids, older, more established, whatever, that that's a whole different story, but this season of your life It's okay to embrace your season. Right? It's okay to not don't fall The comparisons is is another one too. Right? Don't look at what other people are doing successfully. Don't look at that as being a negative. Like, oh, man, I should be there because you have absolutely no idea what season of life they're in compared to you. Right?
Use that as more of a when I get to that season. I'm gonna have that motivate me instead of demotivate you because comparisons can be positive, but they can be super negative. So just be very be be very aware of that. Yeah. It's good, man. I got one last question here for you, Tracy. If you had the opportunity, to whisper into that younger Tracy's ear. Maybe, yeah, maybe that fellow that was breaking it. I don't know. I don't know how old he is in your mind, but you whisper in his ear.
What would you say? Question, man. Live in the moment because it it it flies away fast. I don't remember a lot of my childhood. Didn't have, like, a horrible childhood or anything, but I don't remember a lot of it because I felt like where I was at is I just wasn't living in it. I wasn't enjoying it So enjoy it while you're in it. Don't enjoy breaking into people's, you know, pull Barnes or whatever it was. It was a co op building, actually. Don't do Chaz. You dumb dumb.
But but enjoy going out and playing football with your buddies. Right? Enjoy Kings out on the boat with your family. Enjoy going to the park or going to the beach. Like, live in that moment. Don't be absent. Don't wish you or somewhere else. Live The. That that's what I wish I would have done. Is that message true for the younger Tracy entrepreneur? The young Tracy The I mean, is that is that still a message that you would Still a message for today. Still a message. Yep. Just living the moment.
I just I'm better at it now. But ultimately, it's for sure an area that I I struggle with because going back to to be a business owner, right? It it's hard to turn it off. Right? It's hard. So you have to be intentional with it. You have to work on it. So let's live in that moment, man. Live in that moment. Keep your brain separated, your work, brain, personal brain separated. Whatever you have to do to get there, get there. Yeah. It's good stuff, man. Tracy, how can the listener find you?
Obviously, you can help him with a plethora of, I'm sure insurance needs that they might have, including your specialty annuities and a drip of income. But, where can they find you? Also, too, if they're just not to renew and they wanna pick your brain because you've said some things here arrest me with how can they find you that way? For sure. So two schools here.
So if you are entrepreneur or business owner or any insurance world or whatever, couple of areas you can find us. 1 is you can just email me support at The annuitygiants.com. That's more of our education brand for advisors and agents, you can find our group on Facebook. It's called annuity Giants on Facebook, largest social media group for annuity education out there currently. You can if you are a consumer, my brand on the consumer side is called up north retirement in Northern Michigan.
You can find us up north retirement com. And we have a a great video series on there called the Uniti Information Center. So if you wanna learn, go in there and watch the video series. And if you are on an insurance agent, And that's email is tracy@upnorthretirement.com. I know I got a bunch here. Okay? So just just bear with me. And then put them all the The notes soon.
And then last one here, if you're an agent that is struggling and you want some some solid just you wanna be with the right people, and I'm not a recruiter by any means, I actually got into that role more, like, by, you know, people being, you know, proactively seeking me. We actually created a course, and it's just go to the annuityjines.com, check it out, It's just a way for you to get to a to z to just help do things the right way, and that's something that we really pride ourselves in.
Yeah. Love that, man. Lots of ways to get in connection with you. Lots of ways for you to be able to serve people listening here today. Thank you for not only just being here, but just telling your story and your journey along the way. I hope that the the upcoming change of twins, twin boys going to 3 under the age of probably 2 or whatever. Under these at 3. Yeah. It's 3. There you go. It's gonna be a lot, but a Kings to you, your family, your business. Thanks for being here, brother.
Thank you. Thanks for having Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself Kings it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey, from multiple businesses and multiple different industries, and now interviewing over 2 or 300 The very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 Kings specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling Kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and community here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to Gathering.
I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.