Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice
You Only Get One Shot: Confidence, Discipline, and Building Real Success with Mara Dorn
23 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What does Mara Dorn mean by 'you only get one shot'?
Another important lesson that I learned growing up is that you only got one shot at this. You have one shot. This ain't no dress rehearsal. My grandma used to tell me this. You got one shot at this lifetime. And my mom always said, the way you look the first time somebody sees you is a lasting impression. You got one shot. And it holds true because people judge you from the way that you look.
It's not vanity. It's truth. It's 100% true. There's many studies that have been done that show that the way that you look govern the way that you act, the way that you perform, and the way that people judge you.
This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes.
Chapter 2: How do first impressions impact success in business?
You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We are your number one marketing and business show on Apple Podcasts, three years running. Not that anyone's counting. I am. We appreciate it. We can't buy those rankings. So we want to thank you for putting us there. And it's been a while.
We're getting back into our live, i.e. new episodes. We've been repurposing a few, but now we're getting back into new recordings here in 2026. It's about legendary business advice from legendary people doing amazing things.
Chapter 3: What role does posture play in personal and professional performance?
And look, sometimes we don't always do it alone. We do it with a team. And sometimes that team goes over 1 billion. And that's why we've got Mara Dorn. What's up, Mara?
What's up? How are you?
Hey, I'm back in the saddle, baby. We've taken a little hiatus moving our studio and stuff. I'm getting my sea legs back and getting all the energy and feeling good. How about yourself?
I feel good. Today's been a little crazy, but overall I feel good, ready to go. It's 2026, new goals, new plans, new years. It's good.
Your team's over $1 billion in sales. That's a big number. And again, it takes a village to hit those kind of numbers. I'd love to know, like in 2026, for someone listening, what's a misconception of sales?
That all salespeople are sleazy. I would say a lot, but not all. There are tons of people that really want to do the right thing. In fact, when I hire people, I always say we're not salespeople, but our job really is to advise people. That is what we do. We advise people to put them in a better position than when we find them.
How does Mara Dorn sell insurance? How did you sell?
I was pretty upfront all the time. It's just the way that I speak. What you see is what you get.
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Chapter 4: How can discipline outperform raw talent in achieving goals?
It wasn't for everybody because people, they want to hear what they want to hear. I was honest. I said what it did. I said what it didn't do. I wasn't afraid to really talk about the plan. I had no qualms about saying all the things that it wasn't covering and it worked in my favor, not to mention I was female and I probably worked that in my favor too.
And then at one point I was a pregnant female. So that worked out really well for me too. I was upfront and honest. That's really what it was.
Why should you not use whatever your best attributes are? Some people, it's their personality. Some people, it's their humor. Some people, it's their looks. Use what God gave you.
It's so true. There are some people that they excel as far as, you know, the way that they speak or you're right, the way that they look. So why not use it to your advantage? I don't think there's anything wrong with that as long as you're not doing it in like a deceiving type of way.
We need some insurance. I got insurance on everything. You have to buy from someone. Why not use the attributes that you have to help push a sale along or whatever it takes that people relate to? As long as you know what you're doing, you're selling a service. The power of P is hilarious though.
When I first started in the career, I think that's all people saw was the exterior. So it was really hard for people to take me seriously. I was young at the time. Here I was. I was highly educated as well.
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Chapter 5: What is the generational shift in work ethic according to Mara?
And then at that time, it was older white men. So there was a huge stigma. Oh, you're cute, but you're not going to do much. And then I had to show my worth by success. speaking and understanding and talking like I knew what I was talking about. It wasn't always in my favor. In fact, it was kind of the latter that it wasn't always in my favor.
So then when I really understood the psychology of sales and how it worked, of course I used it in my favor. It only works. That only made sense.
Well, I mean, looks get you in the door, but your brains keep you in the house. Literally, it might get the door open, but it doesn't make shit happen. You got to have the brains and the looks to make it happen. I know that's a big part of how you coach and mentor people is the importance of that and leaning into it and that we've lost that a little bit in today's generation.
Talk a little bit about that, Mara.
A lot of my content right now talks and it all goes back to the power of the P. But another important lesson that I learned growing up is that you only got one shot at this. You have one shot. This ain't no dress rehearsal. My grandma used to tell me this. Got one shot at this lifetime. And my mom always said, the way you look the first time somebody sees you is a lasting impression.
You got one shot. And it holds true because people judge you from the way that you look. It's not vanity. It's truth. That's it's a hundred percent true. There's many studies that have been done that show that the way that you look govern the way that you act, the way that you perform and the way that people judge you.
The biggest lesson that I tried to teach all the new generation that's coming in is you have to look good. And I'm not talking about the Armani suits. Like they love the name brand bullshit.
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Chapter 6: How can one build real confidence without pretending to be perfect?
I'm not talking about that. Go to Marshall's. I don't care where you go, but you got to come dress for success. You have to, the way that you look is going to dictate your overall performance. If you're coming with a sweatshirt on your head and you're like slumped over and you're dialing, like that's how people are going to hear you. Hello.
But if you're upright and you look good, you're going to feel good. You know, shoulders back. I always tell them, say with your chest, you feel it. And that's what sales is about is synergy and energy. And if you have no synergy and energy, you got no sale. That is a big thing that I talked to all my kids about that come in.
even in zoom and stuff like if you're on the call with a client or in person it does matter and get anyone that says it doesn't sort of lying a little bit it doesn't mean it's not about necessarily the brand but it's about you just can't look disheveled you know like that's one thing in life is the way that you do everything in life if you show up like i do recruiting pitches online and this lady came literally with her shower cap on you can see the rollers in there am i hiring
There's no way, no way that I'm hiring somebody. You got to show up, at least put on like faking, you know, business on the front, like party on the bottom, right? You can't, you just can't show up looking like shit. It just doesn't work. And it dictates your performance.
We're talking with Mara Dorn. I do love B-I-L-F, BILF. Talk to me about BILF.
BILF actually started, honestly, my girlfriends, we were all sitting around a table and everybody makes fun of me because about the vanity and I hate getting older. My girlfriends from New York, they call me Mara. So they're like, Mara, you're like a MILF. And then my other girlfriend was like, she's not a MILF, she's a BILF.
You know, first it was like, boss, I'd like to, you know, and then my other girlfriend was like, you gotta be more PC. And that's how the whole thing came about.
Mara is an attractive woman, and she's practicing what she preaches. She looks fabulous. She couldn't look cooler on her little couch with her fluffy pillows and everything, and she's got it styled up. She is totally practicing what she preaches, but that's hilarious. I figured I was like, that started with something else. Also, I'd like to follow this.
I'm going to clean that up. We'll incorporate it, and then we cleaned it up. Yeah, we said if you're made for TV, you've got to clean it up a little bit.
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Chapter 7: Why is authenticity important in today's professional landscape?
We're still trying to figure it out. There's a few parts to that question. This generation now I see with my kids, they're the YouTubers and they want to get the coins and they want to get rich quick because they see it all over the internet. So there's like a huge false perception that can become really famous, Insta famous. And that's not really true at all because the concept still applies.
Everything in life worth having, you have to work hard for it. You have to. I don't care what you say. And hard work is going to beat out talent every single time. But I think within there, they've also lost somewhere along the way that you have to put in the work on the front end. It just doesn't magically appear.
This is the biggest battle that I face right now with my new guys that come in because they're young. They're typically anywhere from 18 to 20 something years old. They come in and you're right. They want that. balance. And I feel like you can get that balance or that, you know, that free time or that me time you can, but you have to work hard in order to achieve that.
And if you can't work hard and with insurance, I think pretty much any business that you're an entrepreneur, you've got to put in the work and there's no business in the world that you're all of a sudden going to be super profitable your first year. At least I don't know of one. You got to put in the time. It doesn't come overnight.
There's very few overnight successes, but I do think you can buy back your time. I think you can and meet them in the middle. As long as they understand that it's your long-term game. It's like your long game, not your short game. So you've got to put in the work on the front end. You have to. And then sure, we'll meet you in the middle. You can start pulling back.
Because my agents, listen, these guys grind. They're in the offices at 8 a.m., whether they're in Florida or 5 a.m. in Vegas. They are grinding from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. But I also have tons of them that are making six-figure incomes by the time they're 21 years old. You know, you've got to put in the work. You have to. Bottom line.
I've owned my agency now for 10 years, over 100 young people from 20 to 30 years old. And I don't know that there's like a single common denominator, but I will say it's not that they don't care as much. But the prioritization of work and what truly hard work looks like is different.
And I'm not saying it's right or wrong because I've tried to be progressive in different strokes for different folks because, look, if you don't want that and you aren't willing to work for it and you can accept less money so you can hire more people, then I guess that's okay. But that's been the different rewiring that I see.
Our generation wasn't all the way maybe you and I are wired, but it seems like it was more of a percentage of at least my peers.
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Chapter 8: What lessons does Mara share about embracing imperfections?
I would have sacrificed anything to work, to have a better life.
There's a lot of conveniences, technology and convenience and even AI and all this stuff is great. I love it. In some ways, it's made me more money with more efficiency because I can apply my own drive and initiative with these tools today and I get a lot more powerful. The generations now, they have more conveniences and more things.
And so they don't get the calluses that maybe we did because they don't have to. And so you almost have to generate false hardships to sort of challenge them.
The most upsetting thing about this generation is that they have the ability. We had to really learn. We had to go to, I was just talking about this with my son. We literally had to go to the library to learn about something. They can go on to chat GPT.
If they want to be the best in anything, they'll have a blueprint written out for them with an entire plan, five-year plan to show you how to achieve it. Everything's at their fingertips. yet they don't want to do it.
That's where I go back and forth, being progressive and wanting the kids to work for what they have because this generation is so spoiled that they really can utilize every possible tool within seconds that's at their fingertips.
It could literally become just about anything in a week. And not because you're going to have the experience, but you'll have the knowledge. Knowledge has gotten so cheap. It's like, it's more now the experience and the creativity of applying it. You have to have desire to apply it.
It's so true. And I see it with the COVID kids. They're just like, it's just like, whatever. Or it also could be a personality thing. Like my daughter's very driven. I have a daughter that's extremely driven. She looks like me. She talks like me. Like this bitch is bad. Then my son is just like,
oh whatever you know so i don't know me we'll see what happens with the smallest one what he does it has been a huge shift a cultural shift for me at the beginning of my career we were slinging that insurance and driving around we went door to door mind you i live in florida so you have to drive 30 minutes minimum and i was slinging insurance all over the state i would drive and i live in orlando so i would drive if it meant going to fort lauderdale which was three and a half hours
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