Hello inside great minds, listeners. We have a special guest today a coaching client of mine, Greg Norton, who is currently the practice leader for the absence disability and life practice of Marsh McLennan agency. This puts him in the seat of running absence disability in life for very large fortune 500 fortune 100 companies, and his 50 Plus person team in that practice is kind of like the Navy SEALs in their space where they are approaching large businesses and
winning just that segment, for the business at times. And one of the reasons we wanted to interview Greg on the inside great minds podcast is because he's a perennial top performer, he's been considered the number one out of 2000 plus producers inside the Marsh McLennan agency system seven times in his 12
years since he's been part of the firm. So we had an opportunity to interview him as a producer, as a practice leader, and a little bit on his background in dealing with addiction with alcohol and his time going through a lot of which has been a part of for over 30 years. So I think there's a lot to learn in this episode coming from a challenging beginning to finding himself later in life in his
30s. And then pursuing a really successful career in insurance, what he learned along the way, and some of the things he's used from a and applied to the greater spectrum of life. So I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed interviewing Greg. Without further ado, please meet Greg Norton. What did you think you were going to end up going to do when you were a young man in high school? Like a lot of people, I had no idea what I wanted to be here
wanted to do, I did wasn't a planner like that. I was good at school naturally, but I didn't put much effort into it. And that included college unfortunately, scraped by. So I really was one of those people that didn't have a plan. And it took a long time. For me, I didn't have a plan until I was 30. And for a variety of reasons. But I really my plan was to enjoy life as much as possible, actually lived in Colorado. For four years mid career, I finally got a job out
of college. It was with the insurance industry and four years into that. I said, You know what, maybe I'll just move to Colorado become a ski bum. So that's what I did. For four years. It's the best decision I ever made. That was awesome. But it made me realize that living hand about this in a ski title was fun, but it wasn't going to be a forever time. And so that I kind of got back into the insurance business and got serious, but it wasn't until the age of 30. Yeah.
Was that ever like nerve wracking to not have a plan? Or did that not bother you at all? Like I didn't. I wasn't responsible at all. You know, I was just one of those guys that lived in the day lived in the moment. enjoyed a lot of things, but they weren't weren't related. And so it really struck me because I my third year, I was living in Aspen and I was living on a couch. I looked at a couch or orange couch and everything I wrote was in a blue hockey duffel bag. And it was
sitting by the side of the couch. And I was having a great time skiing. I worked for the ski company, or what was the whitewater raft guy that drove a taxi. So I was living that lifestyle. And that one offseason, I had zero money. And the only thing the only job I could get was digging ditches for a construction crew as a laborer. I realized, you know what, I could probably do more than this with my life. Maybe you know, starting now I should start thinking about how to be
an adult. And so that was at age 27. And once I figured that out, you know, and I applied by myself in a way that I know I could do things in the insurance industry is starting to take off. Yeah. So was it just being on your friend's couch and like the prospects of doing like manual labor that was the turning like, switch flipped in your voice? It was it was like I can't afford to have my own place to
live. The other five of us in a two bedroom apartment. You know, I was on the couch like the worst worst place of all of them. And it was it just hit me. It's like you know why? It's time, right? It's time to go into the business world to take responsibility for my life and my future. And it just was a click for man. I also had to pull back I can sort of my behaviors around drinking and party and all that stuff.
Because that was definitely a big part of my, my MO I was, you know, the guy that was out and about five nights a week, six nights a week, seven nights a week. And that was unsustainable for a long period of time. So I got serious about cutting that out of my life, which was a big change. And I learned a lot through that process as well. But But what I what I put my mind through it, I think a lot of people can really just dedicate yourself to something. When you have the tools, good
things will happen. If you put the footwork in. Yeah. Yeah, you brought up that you're okay with this conversation, by the way for not being cut it out. But you brought up just in our personal relationship, as well, just how addiction and alcohol as a part of that was a big part of your story as well. You know, you've been a member of AAA for how long now? We're looking at about 30 years. Holy
smokes. I mean, that's, that is an amazing milestone it 30 year mark, isn't there something like special that you actually yet? Yeah, I had a little reversion about 15 years into it, which sent me back, those are the years I did you know, it the number one job. That was a good 10 years ago. So you know, I don't like to take things easy lessons, I'm gonna have to go the hard way. And I learned that yeah, the reason why I stopped when I was 30
still exist when I'm 45. So it's an interesting twist in the row, but it brought me back to the foundation. And that, you know, getting so we're going through a kind of programming mentality, it's all based on rigorous honesty, it's based on doing the footwork, it's based on commitment, it's based on helping others. It's based on all these things that I wasn't good at, when I was younger, I had it in me, but I just wasn't
good at it. And so that foundation really helped set me up for success later in life, once I once I got serious about who I was, who I could be, what might be tested was knowing that I could actually get there, it was a great a great process. For me a big, big part of my life story. Some of the most successful people I know, you know, put put a lot of their faith in time. And I mean, they that's, that's
a big part of it. And when we talk about it, they always share some of the amazing tenets and steps called steps, but they to me, they almost translate to tenants of a sort, and how life applicable they are and how they work just as well and outside of this, this forum for addiction and can be applied to personal
and men even business practice as well. Right. What, you know, I guess, a couple of questions around this, like, what are some of those lessons that you've learned from that side of life and those experiences that have been applicable on a larger scale?
Lots of lessons, but one that sticks out? Is owning responsibility for your part that was that I think a lot of times we tend to blame others for, for our situation, you know, it's leadership that's causing, you know, my problems, or it's other factors is the people, these people, you know, they just don't understand me or, you know, it's the other people. And one of the things that we do through this working
that 12 steps, is you have to take a personal inventory. And you take a break or list of all the things that miss that you have towards other people, probably things that, you know, that you've been involved with. And you take a hard look at your part of it, because your side of the street, what is my part in all of this? And to me, as as you look through that process, as I looked through that process, I realized that almost
every problem I ever had, I had a part in that. If I had handled it a little bit differently, the problem would have been significant. And so I think, and now that I'm involved or leadership, this is really where I try to focus to is when someone's unhappy at work. Someone has a problem or words my part, you know, and creating this and what can I do to recognize that and the hardest thing was getting other people to take a look at their point. You know, if they're not
producing Well, why are you producing? I mean, are you not doing the footwork, you know, what is your approach particularly hard? Look at your own world, and how things are determined or how results are and is critical. And so I have to do this all the time, because a lot of times we just were unconscious to, we don't realize, what we say has a
ripple effect how we say it has a ripple effect. And I were looking at a situation and like, why is it person upside, you know, for me to step back and take a really close look at where my part was. And that always helps always helps understanding we read when people perceive things, why do I my attention is maybe a certain way, but perception was reality for other people. So that step back is critical for me. Taking inventory to me, it makes me think, to just how easy it is
to not like, do that, right in life we get. So there's a there's a positive side to being present in the moment. But there's also the side of it, where if you treat it incorrectly, being present, means not ever thinking of consequences, right? Or we're ignoring the state of things, and just finding the best and the squalor. That might be someone's life. And again, I get the acceptance of what is part
as being positive. But the taking inventory is about saying like, Okay, let me come to grips with the reality of what my situation is, which a lot of people fail to do that in one part of their life, right? Maybe they're good about taking inventory in business, but they don't take it in their marriage or personal life, or they're good at, you know, the personal life. But yeah, they kind of ignore taking inventory at work.
So that's such a good universal step or tenant, I feel like that you just brought up what, in the early comes back to the early days for just a minute. And some experience that I've had in talking to people that have gone through this addiction with alcohol, that there's so many stages before you ever lean into a and it's all these stages of like grasping with, oh, you know, I'm just I can just discipline my way through it. I can, you know, oh, like it's a sign of weakness to rely on
others, like, I'm going to do it this time. And like what, you know, what's the? How does that switch flip? For folks where it goes from that to like, no, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lean into serious change. It's because the first step in a glitch is admitted we're powerless, that our lives have become unmanageable. That is the villain who no one wants to admit they're powerless over
alcohol. Everyone wants to be able to manage it. So I think taking a look at the manageability part was the, the awakening for me, my life really isn't manageable with alcohol. Just coming to acceptance of that, in your heart of hearts. Because it's such a so it's such a part of our life, you know, going out and having a cocktail party, these insurance events,
you know, a lot of it centers around that. And I think that, you know, it's just some people are fine with it, some people will go out and have six years or whatever you find wake up at six in the morning, get their day go. And, and it's no problem. For me, and for most alcoholics, every problem I've ever had in our life centered around alcohol, you know, there was some something or in there, you know, in our life story was
derailed. And it tended to be because of alcohol when I took a hard look at that and realize, yeah, that that is true for me. So why don't I just eliminate this and eliminate it and it's hard, right? That's why your support group and a family you
know, is there and it's not a one time deal. It's a lifetime deal, because we always have to remember how bad it got, you know, mess around was a reminder, even 30 years later, there's a reminder that when you see someone call again, that's life is upside down because of drugs or alcohol, that it reminds you of how you were back then. So we always need that reminder. Because, you know, it's still a times I feel like yeah, having a beer, it would be great. You know, at the airport
flight just got canceled or delayed for four hours. It's like, Jesus was hard to go to the bar. Sometimes that sounds good. But, you know, understanding and staying connected into the program itself, who lives I said that's not the right path for us. Yeah, that's so well said and when kind of coming into your 30s as you got really laser beam focused? What did that? How did
that shift look in terms of like your life? So, you were living on a couch in a mountain town and skiing and you know, kind of blown off any kind of future and enjoying the moment. But, uh, what what did the next decade have for you in your 30s into your 40s when you decided to get hyper focused on your, your growth, and I guess the career that came along with it? Yeah, it was really, you know, in order to, for someone to change
their life in such a dramatic way, like I had to do. You get discipline, you get discipline about no matter what today, I'm a way there's a kind of a format that a lot of us follow, when you're doing, you go to 90 meetings in 90 days, sort of 90 meetings, in 90 days, you make a commitment to that. And I, I was so committed, but I'd never noticed that this was the number one priority in my life, just to get to that meeting, for 90 straight days, that discipline translated into kind of a work
discipline. And I will be completely honest, I can turn into a little bit of a workaholic, but with balance, but I just focused that discipline on my job as opposed to everything else. And that really helped, you know, create the foundation for for learning about the business of read, for understanding people from understanding how I interact with people better. And that really became kind of a foundation for successful businesses lessons learned through going through that process.
You transition from not necessarily having a wildly strong sales background to a career that is kind of built on consultative selling, right? I mean, it's your you err on the side of insurance, where you're having consultations, you're doing outbound activity to meet with people, for people that don't know that the insurance industry you're having to sit down either with a head of HR or someone and, and beat out the competition for the ability to provide the benefits for their,
their company, right? And so, you know, that career scares most people away, because they don't like this idea of having to constantly hear, no, I'm not interested, we're going with a competitor, or just straight up ghosting you from any kind of meeting. So when that transition, like what, and that's typically I feel like when people go to their crutch, right? Like when they feel like they're failing at something, they they lean into their crutch. So how did you? How did
you handle that rejection? And that kind of those early years of just figuring out your career? How did you get through those those initial years? Yeah, I think, for me, at least, I was very, I was a student of the business. And I think sometimes I was never a great pure salesperson. I wasn't one of those guys, but I'm not one of those guys, that, you know, make something happen out of nothing all the time. It was really, it was really just a
persistency the dedication to learning the business. And I wanted to be the smartest guy in the room when it came to by
subject matter, salesperson. So I think that credibility of understanding the business and learning and leaning into the business, understanding how things operations works, understanding how data gets transferred from the employer to the insurance company, understanding how policies are read when contracts are written, what what they mean, you know, digging into that and becoming a student of the business was my
foundation. I then applied sales skills to that together, if I felt like that made me put me in a position where I could be confident, and I would have credibility. And I think the one thing that I see with salespeople who don't try to learn the business, try to become students of the business or curious or asking questions or getting involved in areas that are maybe too detailed for some don't want to be involved with it. If you don't do that, it's hard to it's hard to create
that level of trust with the decision maker. They've been waiting. So they, they're buying you. They're not buying. They're not buying a product necessarily everybody year, and it doesn't matter what product you're selling. I mean, they need to trust you, they need to see that you know what you're talking about. And they need to see that your level of commitment exists to take care of their needs. So that's kind of how I was
attending I've operated under. And the reason why I've had success as far as overall rankings with within our producer categories, is because we tend to keep clients for long periods of time and our business, we build a buck, right? We have clients, I have clients that have been with us for 25 years. Wow. So that's the beauty of our business, it's, we don't start over in my business, at least we don't start over every year, we keep keeping the client for long periods of time,
it's how you become successful in finding more money. And it's how you create a long lasting, and referenceable book of clients, that just helps you get to the next one. And so it's not a transactional process, it's really just a commitment to certain clients over a lot of time. Yeah, and there's, there's a real art and science to
cultivating trust, right. And in that beginning of the relationship, because they may have met with you three, four or five times before they're signing a commitment that they know is for a serious interim, they're kind of getting married in a sense to you as their consultant and support system for their, their company and an important part of their
business. And what I'm hearing you say is that your edge in building trust was was being the smartest guy in the room, by by learning the business in and out so you could speak and feel also feel internally confident, like you were the best person to service them because you knew more the then the level is never the smartest guy in the room. But that was my always my aspiration. Right. Not that
smart. But I know enough, you know, that I could talk about any subject matter of what it was beyond my subject matter expertise. So I would know what where that was, right. But you have to have a pretty high level of technical capabilities, at least from my perspective, to earn the trust and respect of the decision maker who wants to to basically partner with you, like you said, it is a marriage. And in our business as brokers and consultants, you have to break up someone else's
marriage, because they have a partner typically on that. So and that's you can't expect that to happen over happen immediately has to it will happen over time. And there's an art to being able to be in front of prospective clients in a way that doesn't feel like we're being sold to them. No one wants to be sold to. We're here to help. We don't try to be pushy about we understand that you have an existing relationship.
And yeah, there's really it's just that given that you have an existing relationship and it's an emotional attachment typically. And we have to demonstrate that we can be a better partner than what they have. And that takes time. It takes trust it takes commitment it takes nuance.
If we like fast forward to the ADL that stands for absence disability life I'd began to learn all the acronyms that come along with your business ADL but but if we go to the absence disability life this this came when you transition to a company called Tryon right at the time, and then try on was merged in with Marsh McLennan agency in the east region. While you were part of that team, and how long were you with Have you been with the Tryon business? Now?
2000. So I spent about 20 to 24 years, probably 20 years, I did my first 10 years in the business working for insurance companies. And to me if someone wants to get in the insurance business, the natural progression is really should work for insurance companies first because you have to understand how they operate under right where the margins are. In order to be successful consultant if you don't have that kind of understandings of the inner workings of insurance
carriers. It's it's a big hurdle to overcome, it can be done and people do it. But to me, if someone's starting their career, get your experience with the insurance company first. Then transition over to be a consultant because you'll just have an such a such an edge over someone who doesn't truly understand the intricacies of the insurance game as well. And
there's there's a lot in there. So it's up to me if that's the right career path, that doesn't mean that you can't just come out of college and work for a big brokerage or consulting firm you can. But you really need to focus in on that segment of the business that you have to learn. You got to figure out how to
learn something. So to me the easier better path it was get the experience on the insurance carrier side, a lot of consultants do, but put the time in first to understand what you're consulting them. Yeah. Appreciate that. In the way I've always been, this is my outsider's view of trying and understanding it through you and the team over theirs. I always kind of imagine you guys it's like this Navy SEALs wing. That's very tactical, approaching large, very large, in the scheme of things, very
large employer groups, right. And specifically for their absence, disability in life. But as this Navy SEALs group, you're coming in detach sometimes from the executive benefits practice or the the property casualty business, and you're winning just maybe, that and possibly the voluntary benefits from a business, right? Because they see you in that one area as the
best. Is that am I roughly? Plus? Yeah, no, you know, the path of his work for me as a specialist, and you can, you can be a specialist in so many different areas in the insurance world, I would just think about all their different insurance. That's out there, it's not the business insurance side, we've got our workers compensation, we've got property casualty cyber dress, there's a huge area of opportunity and challenges over in that world of PNC world and the Employee
Benefits role. You've got health care, which strives 90% of the span for most employers, and he most employers spend 15 to $20,000 a year just to give in place health insurance per person. So it's a huge span and the area that we focus in on it, where I focused in on my precious assets, ecosystem, and so much has changed in the most recent, say, five or 10 years, around time away from work and work life balance and new
programs. And new life, it's scary to stay still receiving legislation, what employer must do to be able to buy us time to care for family time off to have a baby, you know, it's been changing so rapidly that it's very confusing for employers to
keep up with everything. So I focused on that niche. And I think whatever niche it is, to me being a specialist, is worked very well in terms of the career path, as opposed to just be a generalist and are generalists out there that do a great job, but they tend to have to rely on others, because there's always so much that one human being can know about the business
champion. Absolutely. So finding that that niche, that area where you know that your prospective client has challenges, and becoming a true expert in that area and surrounding yourself with great people that can help the client solve their challenges. There has been a successful formula for what we've done, and we just happen to focus on large employers, large employers know how I don't have a lot of bandwidth and my benefits in HR departments typically. And they have a lot
of employees all over the place. And that just allowed us to to help them more by being experts in that little niche set of hands and support for them. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Even in the last few years, I mean, we'll kind of come back to what you just said, which is, you know, what's the secret sauce to being number one in this one category, but also to have a really successful practice as the practice leader
for this for this business? Because over the last few years, I mean, you guys have grown, how much percentage wise, roughly quite a bit, we started off, you know, is a five person group and now we have 55 employees. And it's the growth it's been 10 times growth over the last 10 years, we're, we're trying to grow now that we're much bigger, you know, you try to go 10 15% a year. And the thing about growth is if you're losing clients, right, and we got to do more than 10 or 15%,
to achieve that steady growth in corporate America lines. So the key is you got to keep the clients I mean, of course, you got to keep the business going. And you So I've focused a lot. How do we retain clients by being the best that we can be, especially compared to the competition. And that's really what we started as we want to be the best. And we want to be recognized as being the smartest and the best, the most
dedicated. And that will, itself, if you do that, that will create the momentum to keep growing. You went from a very small, tight team to, you know, around 50 to 60 people, that's a lot of recruiting, and you kind of shared that that was part of your secret sauce is that maybe you're not the smartest person in the room. But what I what I've even recognized just as an external person that's coached a few people is that you've really surrounded yourself with a lot
of brilliant people in the organization. And you have this culture that seems to be that teamwork makes the dream work where you bring in the experts. And each consultation, it's rarely a one person meeting. It's usually from what I've seen is like two, three, maybe even four people and a meeting with a
client, where you're bringing the best minds to them. So coming into the question here, because we have a lot of people that aren't necessarily in the benefits or absence space, but our business owners, and this might be applicable for them. How do you recruit the talent? Like what's been part of the process that's allowed you to bring in some of those great minds? And why did they stay? Why did they want to continue to work in your practice?
Yeah, I think it's, it's creating an environment where when the producer successful, that the team is also successful. So we definitely financially try to I want, I want the team to be the highest paid in the industry, compared to their peers. In order to do that, the producer must recognize the natural tendency as well, I'm going to take all the money, because I'm a producer, I'm a sales. And, you
know, salespeople get paid on commissions. But to spread that out, so that everyone financially is part of that success, it's a challenge to get producers to want to do that, in my opinion, the spreading out of the revenue that would go normally to just a producer and sharing that with other people on the team, it builds that loyalty of builds that
tightness. And I think, doing that it may be short term loss, like I'm not gonna make as much money, you know, initially deal, because I'm sharing that with other people that don't normally get producer compensation, if you will, but long term it's built, because people are going to be happier in their job, they're gonna feel appreciated, they're gonna get paid in a way that, to be honest, is like the competitors can't really afford if you're successful, you know, have someone constantly asking
for raises or feel like they're being underpaid or underappreciated. But that takes a level of trust and commitment from the producer to do that. And so producers are very good at it, and some are not. And I think, by sharing, and that's success, you creating that synergy with the team structure that keeps the clients forever, you know, you know, something
outside of your control happens, which it does. But we don't have to worry about people leaving or going to another firm, you know, taking clients with them, because I feel appreciated, for the most part, for willing to share some of the financial success with the team. That to me creates a long term, longer term opportunity that we can talk about purely making money
to make more money over time. It's also interesting, from my observation, the servicing consultant, but for broader, using broader language for people to understand that the consultant that may not have this expectation to go find new business, right, their job is to cultivate the relationship and service the book. Because there's some shared component to that I feel that they're incentivized inspired to have this Ownership mindset to grow
that relationship, as well. So serve it really well but also look for how they can opportunities to serve and grow those relationships that you may not always see in the space. I mean, do you feel like that is an outcome? That's part of drives, drives behavior, drives, drives dedication to the client. If They have skin in the game. If this client walks out, you're gonna lose financial. So it's not always the case, but for the most part, the account managing team, the servicing
team, they have pride. Yeah, regardless of money, yeah, they want to do the best that they can do to make that client happy and to keep that client as long as possible. But if you add that financial component in there, and it becomes part of their overall compensation, just human nature, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna, you know, take that call on vacation if I have to, because they know that if that problem doesn't get solved, they potentially put that client at
risk. And that's going to impact their earnings. This guy impacted reputation. But it all kind of weaves together. Right? So to me, that's a really critical part of this. And it's, you know, it's something that takes trust, it takes it takes the ability to not think about just yourself, but really to think about the welfare of the team that's working on with you, you know, on these client relationships.
Thanks for sharing that, Greg, over your tenure. I mean, we talked about the early column, like not maybe roadblocks, but turning points. But during your career in the insurance industry, and during your growth, from prior to try on to when you came on trial, what were some of the biggest, like roadblocks that you ran into, I know, it wasn't all butterflies and rainbows just growing to this amazing 55 person team? What was what had been one of the walls that you really
remember hitting? was a hard wall. And it was really important growth? Yeah, I know, it's been steady growth. But I think the challenge is really, as business scales, right, as how do we scale in a way that we're ensuring that the clients are getting the level of expertise that they need. And so there's always you know, a period where, if you're hiring people, sometimes it doesn't work out, and how quickly could recognize
on it. And then, if, if, if the relationship isn't with the team isn't working out, to be able to just recognize that right away, and, and be willing to make those changes. And so, when you're scaling fast, a lot of times you're bringing in new people, and if you don't spend the time with the new people to help them understand the culture and the expectations. Or if you recognize that they just aren't cut out for what you land, you
have to rip that band aid off. And so there was a period where we, you know, we hired people didn't work out a lot of hires, you know, that I made, that worked out great. But there's been a number of them that have things and being able to recognize that but part in a way that's mutually acceptable. You know, and that's really kind of, I think, some of the lessons I
learned about taking ownership over. And in my part, and all this was a valuable lesson, but how you build and grow a team and call the team as it grows, keeping the bass and being able to let go of people who maybe aren't fitting into the, to the culture that we wanted to create. It's a real challenge, and you want to do it in a way that doesn't blow people up either. It's I've always tried to be overly generous if someone's not working out, you know, with making sure that they
have time to find a new job, stuff like that. As opposed to kind of more of a strict standard. Okay, we'll work it
out by who do you know, two weeks pay and good luck? You know, so a lot of times it's a blind down, giving the people the time, you know, it may impact the budget, you know, to a certain extent, but giving them time to find out funding and helping them say you might not be a good fit here but here's what I think we're I think we could go so I don't believe that we're we haven't had we've had good luck people go over time. I still can pick up the phone and have a good
conversation with just about everyone. So they feel good about will pick you. You may not make it, but if you don't make it we're not going to burn you right away. We're gonna let you and help you find one Are you feeling well? So I think over time loss of trust and reputation thing, and it's a way to do business that, you know, that creates a positive atmosphere, even through hard challenges. Gosh, there's so many other questions to ask around this
that I could ask. But we have a lot of people listening that maybe they're a top performer in sales, and they're looking to transition to leadership. Or they're people that have been in leadership, and they're still relatively new to it, like in their first year or two of it. What were the things that you did not anticipate would come along with taking on a leadership? Part of the role? I mean, you'd always been a consummate producer, you were an unknown unassigned leader, in
some ways, right? But you know, I'm sure, being an unassigned and assumed leader, as a producer, is still quite different than taking on the role of practice leader. What have been some of the things that you didn't expect? That came along with that? And what what are some of the things the muscles you've had to exercise? In this role?
It's a real tough question, because the biggest kind of aha moment for me being really now pure leader is that you think that people understand something, what, why we're doing something, and you make assumptions. And what I realized is, a lot of times people unless you're very clear, and have good dialogue and communication, that people will make assumptions that are just not right. And then even when something goes, you're like, quite the leadership. And, and I was
guilty of this when I had a leader. And I would oftentimes get bent out of shape about this is a stupid decision with leadership's making, why are they doing this? This makes no sense. And so I would just assume that it was a very thought out process, so that you know, that they had, but the reality is, is a lot of times things come up, and you just don't even know how it impacts people. And then what you have to realize is that people, so a lot of times, we will assume
will we'll assume that will soon make the wrong assumptions. And so, you know, my, my, my previous boss, our Cornish always said, make an assumption before you lash out at someone's decision or someone's behavior, that they did not mean, hmm, not intending to harm you. And a lot of times, I would take things personally, why this is going to screw up my business, it makes no sense. You know, viewing it almost like an attack in a way
or a bad decision making process. And then now I'm in this role, I realized that there's so many things happening when people will assume so many different things. That unless I'm crystal clear, if I'm just making an assumption that the team understands why we're doing something, that I'm probably going to be setting myself up for problems. So and this is something I'm still I'm learning today, more boards, over
communicate intentions, don't make assumptions. And Petunia, understand what you're doing, or why why the leadership group was doing what they're doing. be crystal clear as to how and why these decisions are being made and be available to answer questions. You know, telegraph what we're doing, why we're doing, try not to surprise people. And this happens a lot, because, you know, a leader in another department will do
something, we'll send out a note. And it's not consistent with what your thoughts were, and then people are going to come back to you. So why are you doing this? And so, from a leadership position, you have to ally with other leaders, but you also have to be so clear about intentions, and letting letting the letting the team push back on things. There's a lot of times we won't make the right decision for whatever reason, it may not be the best choice. If we're not asking for feedback
from the teams. You know, we're setting ourselves up for potential problems. Aligning with leadership, but being overly clear about the intentions I caught that piece for sure. Because I know how easy especially since we've all migrated to a more virtual workforce. I think almost everybody has migrated. I know the Houston office space is one of the emptiest in the country
right now. So, and our company the one I work with, this has been virtual for a long time, but the point where it presents challenges is because you don't get the face to face interaction. The little sound bites that you get from leadership may not always be very appealing, you don't get any of that appealing in between. And then you start to create these assumptions about what they're doing and why
they're doing it. And when someone's not around you, it's really easy to create a persona for them, if you're not around, right, and I'm commenting on that, from seeing that happen personally at times, or even myself having done that, and then coming to the realization, when I had like a week straight on an incentive trip, I'm one of those people that I had that frame of reference for. And then unpacking all this, realizing that I was just in my own like, world, making all kinds of
assumptions and things up about their intentions. And even if the outcome, like you said, Isn't what someone wants, the more the damage often does come from where the intention is that they thought that came from, right. Because it's like this Miss trail, instead of an action that you don't like, it's
misunderstanding a lot of times. And that's really, that's, that's where things will go sideways, it's your intention, my intentions might be the right intentions, but if someone doesn't understand, or misinterprets, and then we use email to confirm for as often, that we have so many zoom meetings now that people are in remote work environments, it's easier just to flip, they'll send an email. And, you know, we get, a lot of times the emails will get misinterpreted by them,
it just creates this, this negative spiral. So, you know, one of the things that we're working on right now is Stop, stop being simple comes up at bothers you. Don't email, pick up the phone. We don't do that, like we used to, you know, we used to have all our conversations over phone. You know, for the most part, the email trap is when there's when
there's challenges, you know, it really can get nasty. And so, but right now, you know, where I will rely so much on this electronic communication, whether it's text, email, or even just zoom meetings without being allowed a person, you know, other than via Zoom meeting, you know, when there's a there's a gap, right, there's a there's a gap in creating personal relationships. And then there's a misunderstanding process by using email or text to, to address the problem,
right? Yeah, to resolve things which is never healthy. We started this conversation with being on a couch in Aspen near destitute, having no personal money, getting ready to do manual labor, and then fast forward your back and Aspen. But this time, not necessarily in a couch, your you have your property outside of aspen, and not one horse, not two horse. And these aren't just like bred horses, but you have managed to save 26 wild horses 25
You got it. Somewhere in that rage. It's still number keeps growing. But this was something that I wasn't, you know, wasn't in my future. Five years ago, I had no idea that we would be setting up a nonprofit to help these these, these wild horses, these Mustangs that are being they live in, basically what we call economic battle guns. And most people don't know this, but when the automobile was invented, right, turn on 20th
Century Magazine, you know, early 1900s. You know, the first was was everything, the horse, the horse, pull the ambulance and of course for the fire chocolate, the horse milk the railroads, 6 million horses died in World War One, you know, fighting? Yeah. But when we became they were a tool, they were thinking about horses as a as a machine or a tool that the humans use to help them. And when we started, you know, went through the industrialization process, people just let go of
horses. You know, so you got all these at one point in time, we had 2 million wild horses just running around the Western US. And it turns out that these horses are survivors they've been on the planet for they've been on the planet for millions of years while before humans became humans. And they can live in the most just desolate environments and survive and thrive. And so what happened was is that they started making, taking horses and turning like adopted, you know, dog food used
to be a major enforcement. And at one point in time, you It 70 Watt actually became such a problem that people just became more aware of how we were treating these animals that have been such a significant part of human history that there was a right. You know, it wasn't fair. And they're sentient beings, you know, they're very, very, they can sense human emotion. If you've ever been around a horse, and we've been scared of a horse, the horse will first show you will torture you, you know,
because it does your scare, they sense that this extra sense. But yet at the same time, they can demonstrate commitment and, and, you know, honor obedience, you know, if handled the right way. So anyway, so they're now there's 50,000 left in the US. And they're in places where we will remind for minerals, we produce gas, we produce oil, where we have 100 million cattle. Now this cultured beef was a huge, the export a billion pounds of beef. And so the cattle industry is growing, and
they're all competing for some of the same public planets. And so we decided to try to help these horses out without being mistreated, rounded up separated from their families, that create more awareness that there's a role that plays an obligation that we have to these animals. So the nonprofit we set up is based on creating more awareness, finding a balance between we know that we have to be we want to be energy
independent in this country, right. So we know that there's, we need to use our public lands for certain things that are that are beneficial to our economy and to our ability to live the lifestyle. But at the same time, we don't have to rally switches up and put in long term holding facilities and forget the other existing. So we're trying to help create balance and awareness, that was a way that we can pursue our economic activities, but at the same time, have respect for these
animals that have been around longer than humans have. And you know, could play so play a role in our society? Yeah, I love it. Well, we we got to take a trip to see you. And we were in that leadership retreat. And I one of my like, burned into my memory you took us on those electric bikes through like the some of the hills and mountains around Aspen. And then we came back and you rounded up the horses, bicycle, like a
modern day cowboy, instead of being on a horse. And we were all standing like, oh my gosh, is Craig gonna like die by stampede. And, but it was just this like, amazing thing out of Western Pucci with this, like, huge, beautiful group of horses galloping through. So that was that was a very fun experience. And I'm glad you continue to survive doing that. Yeah, no, it's it's, it's crazy that knowing anything about why
didn't grow up. You know, with horses. They're, they're kinda like big dogs, like, the more attention you give them, the more touching they get back to you. They're just big. You got to be careful. Yeah, because they weighed 1200 pounds. And if one decides to kick you or run you over, you know, you're going to suffer. But will you learn as you put the attention into that, and they're not going to hurt you, they're not going to, they're not going to run your own intentionally, they're not
going to kick you. But it takes time, like be able to, you have to put the time in. And the more time you put in, the more you'll get back in terms of love and don't, don't communicate with horses over email, don't email in person times the key, I get it. I love it. Real quick, last question and summarize everything. You're laying on the couch in Colorado, sleep where you sleep, you know, 30 some years ago? Do you imagine that you're back in that place? With
26 horses? Do you have you even like an inclination that that would be part of your future at that time? Of course, I was just trying to figure out, you know, where I was gonna get my dad's dollar, you know, so that I you know, so I can eat and drink and, and survive. You know, a lot of ways have come a long way since then. But But the beauty is, is that the industry that we're in the insurance industry? To me, when you think about kind of economic cycles, there's nothing sexy
about insurance, nothing. Right. So get over that. And the bottom line is, is that everyone has to renew their homeowners insurance everyone, if you will, their auto insurance companies still have to provide employee benefits, but we still have to provide workers comp, business insurance. So no matter what happens in the economic cycles that we go through the insurance industry is stable. And that's, that's kind of the beauty of this business. You can be sexy or funny to say I work for a
hedge fund and invest in that happen. But in a bad economic cycle effect 2008 When things were disastrous, those people were hurting, they were laid off companies clubs, the insurance industry, just spent a Saturday just do nothing sexy about it, but predictable. So it's a great industry for anyone who wants to get involved in it. And we need we need great minds in this industry we need. We need good smart people to help clients because it's such as it gets more and more expensive, right?
So there's a need out there for good smart people to help people, clients, players, individuals navigate all the challenges that come with maintaining insurance. Yeah, because it's mandatory. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And the last one to because I always ask this to round us out, what advice would you give to the young version of yourself who's laying on the couch, knowing what you know, now? I would just say, just do the footwork, when we've when you
find a pattern match, do the footwork. Keep an open mind, learn from others. But it's true, really, it's a stump, it's, you're gonna get what you get out of it, what you put into it. And you know, if you have, if you will rewrite anything, you should be able to do anything, you know, successful, right? So figure out what that is. And then just dedicate yourself becoming the best that you can. And that requires discipline requires hard work. It's really simple formula you
surround yourself with good people. And you know that results can happen. And the first piece of advice, which is take, what was it take stock and take inventory, what was the take you take inventory, like it was actually your side of the street? Yes. I love it. Thank you for carving out time for this interview. A lot of really good sound bites here for our listeners and appreciate it. Thanks, Greg. Thanks.