Ryan Hanley

Because of the infinite upside. And when you're referencing wage earners, you're talking about, I work for the state and I make $64,000 and I really have no, regardless of how much effort I put in this quarter, I'm still making $64,000 and there's nothing I can do about it. Pretty much. You're basically capped. Yeah. Well, I have a friend, you know, works for the...

Do you think that, and maybe not necessarily his specific case, but I think what you just described is thinking maybe scarcity mindset or thinking very short term versus long term. Yeah. How do you get someone out of, because I know a lot of, I have a lot of friends who are very smart, talented at the things they do, but they tend to operate from this

You know,

How do you crack someone out of that mentality or how do you open them up to a world of abundance if they are operating or maybe they were taught by their parents or wherever they were raised to kind of think more small and scarce? You know, a scarcity mentality is something you...

Why did you start investing so heavily in your personal brand, like what we see on your Instagram channel, your podcast? What was the motivation to put all this effort into building that brand?

Because at the end of the day, my goal is simple. I want to recruit talent. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. One of the things that I've been preaching for years inside the insurance industry in particular has been the importance of agency owners or leaders in the space to step out and start to own that narrative. Because one of the things that you will hear in every association conference meeting that happens is,

It's so hard to find good talent. And I know you don't know too much about my backstory, but I started my own national digital commercial insurance agency, grew it, scaled it, sold it, exited it in just under five years. And at no point did we ever have problems hiring, and we actually had a waiting list for people to come in and be producers for that business. And it was simply because...

All I did every day, I shouldn't say all I did, but every day I was out front on LinkedIn or Instagram or in a newsletter or a podcast talking about what I believed about the business and what I believed in general and what my value structure was, etc. So people were attracted to us. Partnerships were attracted to us. Clients were attracted to us.

And to me this seems so incredibly obvious, yet I continue to see a tremendous amount of hesitation, particularly from leaders, in actually going out and presenting themselves. Now they'll do it in a very corporate, vanilla, like the lawyer's dotted eyes and cross tees way, but that –

What their personality is, what they actually like to do, who they really are, if you were to go golfing with them or whatever hobby you like to do. You rarely see that, yet that has shown over and over again, yourself being case in point. When you allow your personality to come through, that is when people actually form that true bond with you. What is the message or how would you convey to...

Yeah, the other thing about AI too that I think people miss is where with the Google's 10 blue links, even though most people would, the prominent number of people would choose from the first three, people would still scan them all, right? Today with AI, it's returning the answer that it thinks, it's giving one solution. So it's not even like you have a chance if you're three, four, five on a list, on a Google listing, on a Google SEO listing, but when you search for

What's the best commercial insurance agent? Where should I get my mortgage from? It's giving you the answer that it thinks is the best for you. It's giving you one. If you're the business and you don't show up, you just simply aren't there. Like you said, the days of options seem to be going away. It seems to be just give me the answer so I don't have to think about it and I can move on. Yeah, I mean...

Just look at the people who built entire careers on TikTok. That's one of the most recent that has gone very, very big. Entire careers have been generated just off of being an early adopter and building a community and growing on that platform. I give a ton of credence to taking these platforms and seeing if your message can resonate early. And the earlier the better.

You obviously are very knowledgeable, not just about your business. You obviously spend time thinking about what's going on from a political standpoint, economic marketplace, societally, etc. And you can see it in your commentary on your Instagram.

I get pushback. I'm very similar. Verocious consumer. I have wide ranges of interests. Obviously I have the things that I do for work. And I talk about in an interview for the show, people from a lot of different walks of life and a lot of different places in either business or in what they do. And one of the pieces of pushback that I get is.

I waste brain cycles thinking about things that I can't control, like the economy or what's going on politically or international, whatever. But my viewpoint has always been...

Understanding the macro of our world is just as important as understanding the micro of our world. And I think it allows me to make better decisions in my day-to-day smaller life when I understand what's going on in the broader world in general. But I think a lot of people get lost in that.

One, do you agree that it is important to have a broader understanding and to spend that time, or do you see, I don't want to call it being distracted, because obviously I find value in it, but for those who see spending time thinking about these things as a distraction, do you think that that might be a more valid point?

Joseph, I could talk to you for hours, man. I think what you've done is phenomenal. I'm a big fan of how you approach it, of your mindset. I think that you are completely dialed on how to get after this and be successful. If people want to go deeper into your world, where's the best place to do that? Just find me on social media, josephshallaby, on all social platforms, or follow my show, coffees for closers, coffees with a Z. Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much, man. I appreciate your time. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks for having me.

The place that I wanted to start with you is actually a tweet that I found from a few weeks ago.