Latest / The Driven Crowd / The Driven Crowd | Episode 2 | Ft. John Powell

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The Driven Crowd | Episode 2 | Ft. John Powell · The Driven Crowd

• 0:00
  When you're driven the need to accomplish a goal is relentless.
• 0:04
  Hard work and ambition compel you to do whatever's necessary.
• 0:07
  In my work as a personal injury trial lawyer for 18 years, it's common to meet driven people.
• 0:10
  Those with drive can have different personalities, careers and backgrounds, but they possess one common factor, despite their passions, driven people want to surround and motivate themselves with other driven people. If you want to learn how to overcome obstacles by learning from others, then tune in here, this is The Driven Crowd Podcast .
• 0:34
  Thank you for tuning in to episode two of The Driven Crowd Podcast fueled by Snellings Law.
• 0:38
  I'm your host, Scott Snellings.
• 0:42
  And I am super excited to have as a guest today, John Powell. I met John several years ago at a networking event. And I knew exactly who he was, as soon as he walked in the room. I didn't know him by name, but I knew the personality. He walked in the room. And immediately, he just knew everybody. He had clearly been there before, but he's one of those personalities that you're just automatically drawn to. He made his way over to me introduced me and immediately introduced me to about five or six other people that he knew I would have a symbiotic relationship with. And that's the kind of guy that John is.
• 1:15
  So, John, welcome to The Driven Crowd Podcast.
• 1:18
  Thanks for having me, Scott. I appreciate it.
• 1:19
  Absolutely. John is the principal agent at the Powell Agency located in Plano, Texas.
• 1:23
  The Powell Agency is recognized as one of the top 10% of agencies nationwide. John began his financial services career in 1997, and holds an MBA from Dallas Baptist University. He is also a United States Army, Army National Guard veteran, and deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and later served as the state retention, noncommissioned officer in charge for the state of Arizona.
• 1:49
  Most importantly, John is married to his wonderful wife, Katie, and has two sons. They're involved in PTA, Boy Scouts, VFW, rotary and other civic organizations. And, John, I'm glad we finally got you on.
• 2:02
  I know, it's exciting.
• 2:04
  So tell us a little bit first about the Powell Agency.
• 2:07
  So the Powell Agency, excuse me, we're a multi-line Insurance Agency, which is a really boring way of saying that we help a lot of people with a lot of different risks. So home auto, commercial, little thing that most people don't think about, it's called an umbrella. It protects all those other things in there. But really, our agency serves to educate people. And so we like to tell our partners and our clients, hey, we're here to help you understand what you're buying, why you're buying it, and how you can expect it to form a claim sign. And we've done that. We've done our job.
• 2:35
  Of course, we want you to do business with us. We'd be delighted if you do. But we want you to understand how insurance works, because it is a very misunderstood, important pillar in everybody's life.
• 2:47
  Amen. Hallelujah. You and I've had many discussions. I see I see the wrong end of it typically. As a personal injury lawyer, I can't tell you how many times we have people come in, and they don't have the right insurance. They come in saying I have full coverage. To which we always raise our eyebrows, we give them the stink eye and say what does that mean?
• 3:09
  [Yeah.] And more times than I care to count. They've been involved in a crash. The other side either doesn't have insurance, doesn't have enough insurance. And they're left with this, wait, hold on, I thought I had good insurance, whatever good insurance means right, and so you and I are both passionate about educating the public before they're involved in a crash or before they have issues with their house that they need to have repaired. To educate them in terms of what are the different types of coverages?
• 3:41
  What do they need? What are kind of add ons for extra protection?
• 3:45
  And educating the public. So thank you for doing that. I know you put out a whole bunch of material online, we'll get all your social media stuff here at the end so people can come check you out. But thank you so much for doing that. [Absolutely.] Tell me this. Where'd you grow up? Kind of give us your your life story in a few minutes?
• 4:03
  Sure. I'll do my best so grew up in Southern California. Most people here in Texas don't like hearing that. I always have been gone since about oh seven. So I'm not that California and driving your home prices up.
• 4:13
  Please don't throw rocks at the Powell Agency, and you know, really grew up in a bedroom community just to suburban area wasn't too great. It was east LA. Dad was a truck driver. Mom kind of worked odd jobs. And you know, they they grew up in that area and they wanted to stay there. And as soon as they got a divorce, we left. You know, we we ran for Newport Beach, which wasn't a bad place, but about 16 I found myself on my own. And so at that point, I was working at a grocery store as just a box boy bagging groceries, lived on my own and, you know, tried to make ends meet as a 16 year old.
• 4:52
  And when I was in high school, it was about my junior year, I kept showing up late to school and the teacher's like,"Where have you been?" I said, well I've been sleeping, she goes, "Well, if you want to sleep, stay at home." And so I said, okay, like challenge accepted. And so a couple of weeks later, I rolled back into first period algebra, and she said, "Where have you been?" I said, "I've been sleeping," she goes, "Go to the principal's office. So I thought she was serious, evidently, she wasn't that I could just stay home and sleep. And so when I got there, he said, kind of what's your problem? You know, what's going on here. And as well, I got bills today. He's like, What is like, I've got bills to pay as I'm just like, you, I've got rent, I've got food, I have expenses, I work. And so I was working at a grocery store, about three o'clock until midnight. And so I was just tired in the morning. And he goes, Hey, here's what we're gonna do. We have this program, and it's called independent studies. He's like, I don't want you to drop out, I don't want you to get a GED. I want you to finish high school, I want you So Iraq, you deployed?
• 5:49
  to get a diploma. And so he had a lot of grace for me. And thank God he was there. Because I think if it wasn't for him, my life would have gone in a different direction. But in his program, I got to go to school one day a week, did all of my academic work with the instructors, they gave me a week's worth of homework, I did that and went back. And we did that, I was able to graduate on time, which was fantastic. And then from there, you know, really, wouldn't say floundered, but I think I was probably a little bit lost, went to work in retail, did that for a month.
• 6:16
  That was terrible. And so I quit. [Did you say a month?] A month, yeah. Because to back it up a little bit in the grocery store, there's this other guy, his name is Brian. And Brian looked at me, he goes, "Man, he goes, you're really smart guy you need to run." "What do you mean?" He goes "In the grocery industry, they'll always pay you just enough to not leave." And he goes, "You're bright." He said, "There's something about you." He goes, "Leave." And I was on a manager path at that time. At that time, I was a clerk, which was a big deal, making decent money at 18. And I went into the boss's office, I go, "Hey man, I'm giving you a Two Weeks Notice." He's like,"What, what do you mean, you're leaving?" I go, "I'm leaving." And he's pretty offended. But I had to take Brian's advice, I just trusted that he had my best interest at heart. So that was where I entered that period of lostness. And then, you know, always wanted to join the military was kind of kicking that around wanted to be a firefighter, we haven't talked about this, but my ultimate goal was to either serve in the military as a career or to become a firefighter. So I joined the Army Reserves as a medic, so that I could either go to Cal State Long Beach, and get a bachelor's degree and become an officer, or go through a fire program become firefighter. And when I was in medic school, it came out that my visions really bad. So I'm here I've got my glasses and everything going on there. And I found out that I wasn't eligible to become a firefighter. So that was kind of a punch in the guts. But I went back and, you know, found my way into banking. And I was back at a grocery store, because that's what I knew. And there's this in store branch. And they're like,"Hey, you should come work at a bank." And I'd worked at Bank of America for a whole 90 days before going to the army. That was just a terrible job as well.
• 7:52
  I said "Nah, I don't think bankings for me. They're like,"Come on, man. Like, you have the personality for it." I go,"I don't think that's happening.
• 8:02
  Thanks, guys." And they're like,"Well, hey, we pay double what you're making right now." And I go, "So I could work part time, make the same amount of money, and then enjoy my life at the beach living in Southern California." They go, "Yeah, absolutely." I go, "I'm in." And so that's how I really got into banking with this bank and just rose the ranks with them went through just a start up teller gig and then went to corporate for a while, and then got into management. And the rest is kind of history between that and all the interaction everywhere else.
• 8:33
  Deployed, yep, 2005.
• 8:34
  Ok, tell me about that.
• 8:37
  It's always a interesting conversation, because I genuinely enjoyed my time in Iraq. And not because we were in combat, not because we were overseas, but the people that I met there, especially my best friend, David Shelton, you know, we talk at least every other day, sometimes once a day, and you know, we're talking about 17 years now that we've had that close knit relationship, and they do say you serve for the people next to you. And it's 100% true. And so it was an experience where I felt like we were challenged and challenged and challenged again. But through that adversity through that challenge, you get to find out what you're made of, you get to find out what your peers are made of. And it's inspiring. I mean, it really challenges you to be a better version of yourself, and to give everything that you have everyday because ultimately you are fighting for survival. And I think that goes one of two ways. I'm fortunate that it drove me to be better.
• 9:33
  Alright, let's dig into that a little bit. [Okay.] One of the things that I love to talk about that we talk about a lot on this podcast is problem solving. How do you approach issues? Give us an example in Iraq, one of the one of the issues that you would face, whether it be mission related, whether it be barracks related, whatever, and how did you take that on? How do you face it, and what was the result?
• 9:58
  You know, I think the challenging thing of Iraq is, it's referred to as asymmetrical warfare, which means that there's no battle line, there's no front. And so the war is a 360 degree environment. And it's, you know, open windows, why are they open? It's rubble, rocks, why are they there? It's people on the street. And so I think you have to have a lot of discipline in being agile in your thinking while still being compassionate in your actions, because the last thing that you want to do is create more insurgents and create more bad will, because ultimately, I felt like we were in Iraq, to rebuild the nation, I would tell people who asked me from California, how could you as the vice president of a bank, re enlist because I'd been out for two years, I re enlisted to go back to Iraq. And he said, How could you do that? And he said, Well, we have a moral imperative to rebuild the country, right? We disrupted it, Saddam Hussein, good, bad and different.
• 10:52
  Whatever your opinion of him is, he was the stability of that nation. And when that stability was disrupted, it really did devolve into chaos. And so we have a moral imperative to go back and to help them rebuild.
• 11:03
  And so being on the streets, with your local nationals with your civilians, you know, I think it takes a lot of risk assessment in real time, to determine who's good, who's bad, who's suspect, and to engage in those conversations to leverage your interpreter who's with you, because none of us are fluent in Arabic. And so being able to have those conversations and also being able to read them. So as soon as you're like, hey, ask them if they have any weapons on them, and then have this five minute conversation. Like, I'm pretty sure you didn't ask what I just told you to ask. [And so like one simple question, not a five minute conversation there.] And it's in reverse, you know, when there's a five minute response, and he's like, they're good. There's something more going on here. What is it? And so I think it teaches you to read body language, it teaches you to read people. So to answer your question, I think problem solving is always an evolutionary process of self development. [Okay.] How do you think having to fend for yourself at such a young age affected your ability to assess problems and grow in that area?
• 12:16
  You know, I think it's developed a certain amount of self reliance, which is sometimes good or bad. I mean, you know, in relationships and marriages, it can be very difficult to trust other people in tough situations. And when your own parents are gone, you know, the people that are there that are supposed to support you, and they're supposed to care for you, when they leave you at a young age, when you're still in development. I think it has massive implications, a ripple effect throughout life. But at the same time, being able to look back and say, hey, I was able to make that work, there's probably not much that I can't figure out. It develops a certain amount of tenacity, I certainly don't think that I would have the amount of grit or tenacity that I've developed without that experience, I think it would have been a different life for me.
• 13:08
  What's an example of something that happened either in Iraq or just in your personal life, where you came to a precipice?
• 13:16
  You looked at a problem ahead of you. And you said, I don't know how to overcome this. And what did you do?
• 13:25
  Hmm, that's a good question. You know, I think to a certain degree, leaving banking was really hard for me. The year I left, I was the number one banker in the US, for Bank of Texas, Bank of Oklahoma Financial, it was the 21st largest bank in the US. And I was their number one small business banker, and I was doing well, I mean, you know, I was making good money, we were earning the trip to go to Half Moon Bay, I was able to take my wife there. It was really professionally successful, but not personally fulfilling. And I think most people if you, I don't mean to be dismissive, but I think if you really have internal drive, to be the best version of yourself, we all run into that wall where you just feel like something's missing, like I should be doing more, I should be accomplishing more, the outcome should be greater whatever the case might be.
• 14:16
  There's something that exists inside of us. And so that's a challenging year I finished my MBA at DBU, we were doing financially well, but something was missing. I was very unfulfilled and my wife was really the one that continued to bring it up and said, you know, you should be happier than you are. And I'm like hey, man. I'm living the American dream, right? I got two kids, two cars, a house, a wife. I'm supposed to be miserable. And the whole thing is if I'm miserable long enough, one day I'll get to retire. And she said that's not good. [That is not a good life philosophy.] It was mine, right?
• 14:53
  I mean, it really was I was I was in the grind, if you will, right, I was kind of in the same right as I think a lot of successful professionals feel like they aren't, because that's just not good enough, you've got to go figure out a better way.
• 15:08
  And so I seek counsel, you know, whenever I get to a place where the situation is bigger than I am, a lot of people that know me is probably shocked to hear, I'll pray about it. I reflect to do a lot of prayer. And then I ask that the right people get put in front of me, to provide me with the right guidance. And then I seek out people who are either where I want to be or whose guidance I trust. And I asked him for help. And through that, it's always been a successful formula of getting real, honest feedback and guidance. And that's, you know, led me down the path of being an entrepreneur.
• 15:48
  Super important point that you just mentioned, there is surrounding yourself with the right people. I mentioned, I met you at a networking event, and we became quick friends, I've found that one of the things that's helped me the most in my journey, is making sure that I'm always surrounding myself with people who one, I want to be like, , two that I respect. And three, quite frankly, are smarter than I am, or more experienced than I am. Tell me your thoughts on that.
• 16:20
  You know, it's funny, we are having some turnover at the agency right now. And so we're going through the process of growth. I mean, we are a growing agency, we started March of last year, and we were able to become one of the top 10% in agencies nationwide in 10 months. And, you know, that was that was a dramatic expansion of growth.
• 16:38
  And it was, you know, through the hard work, dedication, support of our team. But there's always that adage, what got you here today won't get you to where you want to be tomorrow.
• 16:50
  [Right.] And so as I was ironing and thinking about the day ahead, I kept thinking about Steve Jobs, I don't hire smart people to tell them what to do.
• 17:02
  I hire smart people, they can tell me what to do. And I think any successful person that enjoys their success, I think has a healthy dose of humility.
• 17:12
  And they are introspective. And I think they realize where their weak spots are. And they do seek out people to fill those voids.
• 17:22
  And I think being self critical, self analytical, and not to a point of depression or feeling bad, but of just having a real objective view of your capabilities. And your shortfalls leads you to the ability to find people who can help you become better.
• 17:43
  One of the interesting things that I've heard several successful people do podcasts that I listen to books I read, is they do the 360 review. Have you heard of that? [Absolutely.] Very painful process.
• 17:52
  Essentially, you take the people that are closest to you, the people in your work environment.
• 17:59
  And you can tell them carte blanche, tell me everything that you think I'm good at. And even more importantly, that I'm not.
• 18:06
  And I think it takes a whole lot of humility to just subject yourself to that. Because it hurts, it stings. One of the things that we do with our team is is we try to do that we go through whether it be the review process, I'm not a fan of yearly reviews, I like real time reviews. But we'll sit down in team meetings and say, what is it that I struggle with? And I always start, what is it that I struggle with? Where am I missing the boat? What do I need to improve on to help better lead this firm. And so I think that's a really important point that you brought up the humility aspect, I have yet to meet a strong leader that I want to emulate who doesn't have a healthy dose of humility. I think when you're lacking that you're in danger.
• 18:57
  Oh, and it's such a critical balancing act as well, because we ran into a situation a couple of weeks ago, where I had to take a hard line on something and you know, I was talking to my wife about it. And I spoke to the district manager who's a friend of mine about it as well.
• 19:12
  And he said, you know, at a certain point, you really are battling for the soul of your organization. And so where do you take that feedback, and leverage it to enable your team to do more? And where do you stop and say this is a core belief of this organization, are a core tenet of this organization. And it's something that's really non negotiable.
• 19:35
  It's something that it just is who we are, and I want you to be part of that we but being a part of that we really encompasses you embracing this philosophy, and that is a very big challenge. I think it's it's probably one of the most difficult parts of business ownership of entrepreneurship is balancing the needs of others versus the needs of the organization. It's never, and I mean, this, it's never really about me, you know, I think most of us build the organization for a bigger reason I'd love my children to come in and have a passion of insurance. I'm trying to just beat the fun out of them. Very boring insurance people. You know, it's one of my big goals in parenting is to make them boring. And, you know, it's a goal, so really I see this as building a legacy for my children and doing a public service. And that need is just as critically important as meeting the needs of your team, I think.
• 20:33
  So I assume you have core values for The Powell Agency?
• 20:36
  [Absolutely] How do you how do you go about instilling those in your team?
• 20:40
  I think to add to that accurately, I look to bring on people that already espouse those values. And so through the interview process, through the conversations, I have a very strange interview process, right? It's not a a question and answer, it's not a give me time that this happened. It's a conversation, I'm just talking to people. And I'm trying to get a bead for who they are and what they value, and how they respond to certain situations, just in their general life. And I think that tells you a lot about who a person is, it served me well thus far. And being able to go through that process, we really do look for people that already hold the same values of, you know, if somebody's best interest is met, and you don't make the sale, you've still done the right thing. If someone is in a better position today than they were yesterday, because of something that you've helped them understand, then you've done your job, are we a revenue creating organization?
• 21:50
  Absolutely, right, we're not a nonprofit, we have to pay the bills, keep the lights on, make payroll. But there is something greater than just the pursuit of money. Money enables us to do what we are here and called to do day after day, but the core is doing the right thing for the individual. Because as you know, in insurance, you can't go back, you can't go back and fix that policy provision. You can't put that endorsement in there. You can't put uninsured, underinsured motorist, once an uninsured person hit you, you just can't do it. [Right.] And so being able to guide them down that path so that they have what they need when they need it. And that's really our goal. And so finding people that have that mentality is what enables us to succeed.
• 22:37
  What do you struggle with, as a leader?
• 22:42
  You know, I think, to a certain degree, one of my biggest troubles right now is where to draw the line. And I want empowered team members that see themselves. And people say this often. And I think it's a little cliche, but they see themselves as operating their own agency inside of my agency. So I want them to have the autonomy to be themselves to be able to be successful, to live out a version of their success, because I was telling people, I can't write you a big enough check, I earn a portion of what it is in revenue that you're generating, right? I see it backwards. When people like, well, you get a portion of what I make, and I'm like I get a portion of what you make, right?
• 23:21
  That's really how the business operates. And so if you're trying to be something that you're not, if you're not having genuine conversations, if you're not genuinely connecting with people, then you're never going to be successful, right? If you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, it's just not going to work. But at certain times, I think you do know when there's not a fit. And you do know when there's misalignment. And I think I struggle with, at what point in time, is it preference versus necessity? And where to have that redirection?
• 24:02
  Sure. One of the things that, that I struggle with as well is putting into effect, there's a great book out there, it's called turn the ship around. I don't know if you've ever read it. It's fantastic. It's about empowering. It's a submarine commander who was basically empowering his sailors to do their job to be the best at their job. And a performance of it was the Santa Fe. And the performance of that sub just went through the roof. And it's how he did it. And instead of having his sailors come say, Hey, can I do this? It's sir, I intend to do this. And instilling that mentality is incredibly difficult, right?
• 24:46
  Because not only do they have to have the knowledge to do it, and the ability to have the presence and the motivation to do it on their own. But you got to step back. And if they sit there and they say, hey, I intend to do this, and you're like, well, that's not how I would do it, you got to take a step back, right? Because there's plenty of ways to do any given task. And you have to let them because otherwise, they'll never accept ownership. It's always still your task.
• 25:16
  And they'll never believe you either, then they'll never believe that I had a one of our managing partners at the firmware as a retirement planner, he would use the term the video has to match the audio. And he always asked and he goes, when you're out in the community, does the video match the audio? And I think that's a very powerful question. And I think if it doesn't, then you lose trust, you lose loyalty.
• 25:39
  100%. You are big into networking. I think a lot of people listening to this want to know, how do you effectively network? I mentioned at the opening how you walk in the room, and you just know John Powell is there. You're not the six, five, you know, 250 guy.
• 25:55
  But you're not, you know, somebody who just walks in and people just naturally going to notice you. So what is it? Do you think about you, or how you carry yourself or your presence or your ability to network that makes you successful doing that?
• 26:16
  Yeah, again, it goes to the service of others. When I meet people, so you know, our bread and butter in the insurance industry is real estate agents and mortgage lenders. And everyone is going with their hat out asking for deals, right? And I think that that's misguided.
• 26:32
  Because there's this mentality, well, hey, you have to have insurance to close. So you might as well get insurance from me.
• 26:40
  But if we really look at the flow of the transaction, insurance is kind of at the bottom of the food chain. And when you get down to that point, it's almost an afterthought, like oh my God, I didn't get my clear to close because I don't have my evidence of insurance on file and I'm going to call somebody, hey, how quickly can you get me an EOI so I can close? And that's just not a good way to do business for anybody. And so when I approach people, I really ask, how can I help fill your funnel. And when we have those conversations, there's a mortgage lender that I'm working with right now. And we had about a 45 minute conversation two weeks ago about where she's struggling for marketing. So for her, the best use of our time together, is coming up with marketing ideas and plans. And so we ended up CO hosting an open house wine tasting for real estate agents at a Toll Brothers house up in McKinney. And I think she drew in about nine agents, people that she'd been pursuing, who she'd had lunch with who she'd met, but they'd never sent deals. And through that event, they were starting to have a deal flow, they were starting to give her an opportunity. And so I think, you know, understanding how you can best put into your partner's funnels is really the only way to network in my opinion, because if not, you're just out asking for things and no one likes beggars. So that's a big point. I think number two is understanding people's business. So being a business banker really helped me in being able to understand pain points.
• 28:12
  And so being able to leverage that knowledge, that experience saying, hey, this is what you do as an attorney, you spend a whole lot of money, getting depositions from expert witness testimony from getting medical assessments from physicians, X rays, MRIs, physical therapy— personal injury law takes a lot of money before you even see a dime, which may be challenged anyways. Right? So how do you manage that cash flow situation when you have that conversation, people oh my God, like he, I feel like he's in bed with me at night as I sit awake. And think about these things that keep me up at night. And it helps a great deal and being able to empathize. And then being able to introduce them to people who can help, at least mitigate if not solve that problem for them.
• 29:00
  And so networking to me, is more about what can I do to help you build your business because a rising tide does lift all ships.
• 29:13
  And it's amazing when you go to networking events how few people understand that. One of the things that we talk to new attorneys in our office about or even paralegals, whomever— is this is all about relationships.
• 29:27
  It's about relationships with our clients. It's about relationships with insurance adjusters, it's about relationships with opposing counsel. You know, yes, those can be combative, of course. But there's plenty of times where we go try a case and during the lunch break, I'm having lunch with opposing counsel. There's zero reason for there to be animosity there. He has one side of the issue. I have the other side of the issue. We battle it out and when the bell rings, hey, we can still be buddies.
• 29:54
  But it's all about relationships and my philosophy on that is be a giver. Be a giver. For instance, when you came up to me, you said, "Hey, Scott, I'm John, let me introduce you to somebody who I think you know, would be a good connection for you." We try to do the same thing. By being a giver, I don't mean, hey, let's go take somebody out to lunch and buy him wine, or let's, you know, go get tickets to XYZ and give them those. No, it's It's deeper than that. It's showing that to your point, you understand them, you understand their business, what they're passionate about, and that you're adding value to their lives. And I think that is something that is just incredibly missed over and over, like I said, at the networking events, you have people coming up to you all day long, oh, hey, if you if you need tchotchkes here, here's this, if you need your office cleaned, here's this and those people, it just kills me, I can't hardly stand it. And but you look for the one or the two there that get it. And then all of a sudden, there's relationships that are being developed, that're of consequence.
• 30:56
  It's interesting. We went to lunch with a title agent yesterday. And it was one of my lending partners, myself, and one of my team members. We were talking and I think the question came up, you know, insurance kind of what do you do? Right?
• 31:12
  How do you help? As well, we've really worked to develop a reputation as a Knowledge Center as a help desk, and so I'll have lenders and realtors call me and say, hey, this is what's going on in the transaction. Maybe the roof has damage? Should we file a claim? And well, you know, let's, let's talk about that.
• 31:31
  And they're not even my policies. It's just how's that going to impact the CLUE Report?
• 31:34
  How's that gonna impact inspection? How is that going to impact insurance for your client moving forward with the claim, and also the buyer now that they're gonna claim on that residence? Was it within a period where the claim can no longer be filed and paid? So are you filing a claim, just to file a claim to hear no, and then have that on the CLUE report against the home? Right, or can it be repaired outside? Can it be paid through close? And she goes, no insurance agent I know does that. And I go, well, that's a shame, right? Because we should be an integral part of that team of having conversations. You and I've spoken about different policy provisions over time, and people that are trying to find coverage, because rightly so right, they are injured, and it might not be on its face, something that is in the policy, but can the argument be made to the claims adjuster, that the spirit and the intent are there, if not necessarily the verbiage.
• 32:35
  Right, switching topics up on you, in the army they tell you what time to get up. They tell you what you're going to be doing all day, tell you what to go to bed, what time to go to bed, you have a forced routine.
• 32:46
  After your army days did that carryover? Or did you say, Hey, I am not a routine guy, I'm pushing that off and go the complete 180 degree opposite direction of having a specific routine each day.
• 33:03
  So I often joke that I hate mornings. And I hate exercise.
• 33:07
  So I joined the Army to force me to do those two things, right?
• 33:10
  It helped me do those. I mean, there's certain routines as far as I like to get to my office at 730. I like to get work knocked out before the team comes in.
• 33:19
  You know, there's certain I think routines there. But I subscribe more to a work ethic than a routine ethic, if that makes sense. So it's consistently being available for my team, my partner's, my clients, to be able to adapt to whatever their need is, and it's fluid. And I think routine, in my opinion in that type of environment hinders that. I could probably be a little more disciplined and working out and doing some of those other things that are healthy for me. But you know, as far as routine goes is not necessarily even shunning routine for routine sake. It's just I think there's a lot of fluidity in our day if you're going to be in the service of others.
• 34:03
  You mentioned earlier that you're doing well, as a banker Bank of Texas, I believe you said, and you just didn't feel fulfilled. There's a whole lot of people in that position right now. A lot of people are contemplating, do I switch jobs?
• 34:21
  Do I go out on my own? And there's this huge fear, right, I faced it. When I decided to leave my job at a big firm and go start a law firm. How did you make that jump? What was the decision point? What was the thought process of saying you know what, I'm doing great. I'm taking care of my family. I'm living you know, quote, unquote, the American dream. But it's not enough. It's not fulfilling. I'm not, I don't have that feeling that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. How did you approach that and what was your decision point?
• 34:51
  So there was a catalyst I think like everything else in life, where we have to make a really tough decision. And it was a deal for a lateral utility line driller in Arizona, so basically the guys that take power lines from up high and they put them down low, and company had really good cash flow, good credit, good assets, the underwriters didn't like the deal. I'm like, hey, man, we're like a federally regulated institution, it doesn't really matter what you like the underwriting guidelines say this guy qualifies. Let's write the check. And they're like, well, you know, we really don't want to write for that much. What if we write it for this much? Like, no applied amount, is this right? Like, they applied for this amount of credit, they qualify for this amount of credit, we need to extend this amount of credit.
• 35:31
  And the battling just really finally came to a point where I was like, I'm just tired of arguing over what is right. And that's one thing I did take from the Army. I love Army regulations, because it says things like leaders at all levels will not should, not could, you will. And it's very implicit. And I think underwriting guidelines are very similar, insurance contracts are very similar. Maybe I have more concrete thinking than I think I do. But you know. [Lots of gray in there, man, a lot of gray.] So, you know, so there's this thing where I just got really tired of arguing over right. And there's something that you were talking about a couple of minutes ago that brought this memory, and I always take it with me, we had an inspector general, in the Army. And he said, The Army is a just organization, it's not a fair organization, because it's not fair that infantry men get shot and cooks don't. Right, it's not fair that you leave your family for 18 months and civilians don't. We're not an organization based on fairness. We're an organization based on justice.
• 36:36
  And justice is the unilateral application of principle. And so, you know, when I look at the the theory of justice, as it relates to lending, as it relates to insurance, I just didn't feel like I was in an environment where I could deliver justice, I don't know I'm not Batman, but you know, where I had that ability to, to, to live that moral principle.
• 37:00
  And so it came to that point where I finally had to do something. My wife was right, Katie was right, it was time to do something. And so we were fortunate in that we had a savings account, you know, we worked really hard to save for the potential. We'd been talking about it for a while. And so we knew that if we wanted to make the jump, we needed to have assets on hand, liquidity, because I knew that I never wanted to be put into a position where my morals could be questioned, where I myself would question my morals, where I would have to say, Am I making this decision to feed my kids?
• 37:33
  Or am I making this decision for my clients? I didn't even want to face that. And so we made sure that we had enough on hand to not have to ask that question. So that was a big one.
• 37:43
  The second one was fit, right an organization that aligned with my objectives, my goals? And then I think the third one was opportunity, right? Did it really align with what I wanted to do, where I wanted to do it and how I wanted to do it. And so that led me into retirement planning. And that was a good ride until I was recruited away to help teach entrepreneurship to agency owners, which led me into agency ownership, because one of our agents became very ill, and just could not go on any longer. So we bought his agency so he can medically retire. So it's been kind of a zigzaggy road, I think, at the same time, if you're going to go down the entrepreneurial path, again, you know, embrace fluidity, and the fact that what your ideals look like today may be changed for you or more may change because of you. But if you you have the ability and the position to take that jump, and you're not harming your family, in doing so, I think it's a worthwhile journey.
• 38:46
  One of the things I talked about on the last podcast with James Creedon is we talked about his optimism. And I think that is something that is incredibly prevalent in all entrepreneurs, is that, that belief that things are going to work out. [100%.] That this is going to hurt. I don't know how necessarily, but I believe it's going to work out. Do you find the same thing?
• 39:13
  100%. Every day, every day I wake up and you know, it's gonna be better today than yesterday.
• 39:16
  And, you know, I think you have to have that healthy dose of optimism. To stay sane. I mean, honestly, it's, it's, you know, I tell my team that all the time regardless of what's going on around us, right. I know the numbers of agency ownership, I understand the activities that are required. So there's a certain amount of academia I guess that goes into that. But you have to have that optimism that what you know is going to materialize, and that that's where optimism I think comes into play and I'd say I am an extremely optimistic person. And not world peace, unity denuclearization of the world, but optimism that, hey, if we do the right things the right way on a consistent basis, we will be okay.
• 40:05
  Yeah, the healthy optimism. I mean, you don't want to be an optimistic to your detriment where you're just ignoring reality.
• 40:11
  No, I don't think you can just, you know, sunshine, unicorns and rainbows, it's— Sure. But that optimism going back to problem solving. One of the things that we preach is no matter what the problem is, we're going to approach it with a hey, we will come up with a solution attitude. And we're going to find the best solution, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. But we're going to approach this knowing that if anybody can solve this we can.
• 40:38
  And there is a solution out there, we just got to find it.
• 40:41
  Do you find the same thing in problem solving? Is that how you approach it? Is that how others that you know and are close with approach it?
• 40:47
  Yeah. So I mean, one of the reasons I was a successful business banker was because unless it's like, hey, you're just not paying your bills, I can't give you a loan. The thing I love about business finance is that you can structure deals.
• 41:00
  And so being able to go in with that optimistic lens and say, there's a way to make this deal work. I just haven't seen it yet. I'll go back to heck, when I left Recruiting Command in the Army, and went back to banking.
• 41:10
  You know, I owned a home in Arizona, and I left in '10, which was a really bad time since the market collapsed in'09, right? [Right.] And I was I was beating myself up like, come on, man, you're a smart guy, at least, I'd like to think I'm a smart guy. You know, you've been in finance a long time, there's something here that you're not seeing. What lens are you not using to look at this problem from, and I beat myself up pretty hard. And then one day I was getting ready for work, and I go, why don't we just convert it into a rental, we can hold it, we don't have to short sell it, we don't have to get foreclosed on, we don't have to, you know, try to put it on the market, let's just convert it into a rental, that'll take care of the problem, we'll be able to cash flow, pay the mortgage and go back to the civilian world.
• 41:54
  And that's what we ended up doing. And I think optimism allows you to believe that you can find a solution. I often talk about lenses. And so are we looking at it through the right lens? And I ask that question a lot of everyone I know because we tend to look at problems from our perspective. And if we continue to do that, right, what's insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the same results, you have to put on different glasses, you have to look through different people's eyes.
• 42:19
  And when you do that, then you start to get that 360 picture.
• 42:22
  And the view starts to become a lot clearer of where the breach or the problem or the barrier lies and exists. And then you can take action. And that's the hardest part, because then you can take action to remedy it.
• 42:34
  And so getting all of these different lenses together, who do you use, but for instance, you know, at our firm, we do a roundtable every single week.
• 42:40
  And we talked about different cases. And I might, I might have one view on it. Rocio might have another one, Hannah might have another one, Christian might have another one. And we take all of those and all of a sudden, we do kind of have a little bit more of a 360 view, if it's a business problem. Or I might take it outside the firm to other trial lawyers who are friends or just other people. I run quote unquote, focus groups all the time on friends, family, other people that I know, just to get their views, right, because I think a lot of times we approach problems from our point of view. And it's really hard to step into someone else's shoes, especially someone outside of our industry or whatever problem that we're working on. For a fresh perspective. How do you do that?
• 43:28
  You know, very similar and as fortunate when I went through the the grad school at DBU, the past dean of that school, did a lot of consulting here in Dallas, and he wrote a book
• 43:40
  about it, it was called: "Thriving in E-chaos." And it wasn't E-chaos like the E-commerce it was E as in environmental chaos. And he used some really good case studies about Texas Instruments. When PepsiCo split off Yum, when Southwest Airlines was looking to expand and the one that really stuck with me was TI and so TI, you know, in the I believe is the early 90s started selling off all of their profitable divisions so that they could go into digital. So they sold analog, they sold defense, everybody thought they were out of their minds. They're like you're selling the only things that make money. But what they learned is through using this 360 degree program of talking to vendors, talking to competitors, talking to suppliers, talking to clients, talking to engineers, talking to salespeople talking to everybody inside and outside of the organization, that was a stakeholder— they were able to develop this picture of the future. Of where everybody felt that things were going. What they realized is that analog was going away. The Cold War was ending. All of these things that they were making money on today, were not going to make money tomorrow. So they sold them while they still had value to recapitalize a resurgence of growth to become the powerhouse that they are today. I mean, there's Sherman, Richardson, Dallas— I mean, it's a huge organization, they would be out of business, had they not utilized that process. And so that really stuck with me. And you have to talk to all of your stakeholders in order to get every perspective to make an accurate decision.
• 45:14
  about it, it was called: And you have to have a leaning towards action. Right? I can't tell you how many times, you know, I've had ideas, and I just haven't acted on them, or we've seen something occur. And we've talked it through and we come up with a game plan, and then all of a sudden, it just kind of falls off the radar. How do you make sure that you and your team are oriented towards action?
• 45:38
  about it, it was called: I think we act quickly. We act decisively. If you if you shelve it, it's probably not going to happen. So once you identify a change that needs to be made, we work on changing it in our process, we work on changing it in our system, we work on changing it in our presentation.
• 45:54
  about it, it was called: And I always tell them, hey, it's gonna be uncomfortable, right? So we started doing video quoting, and a lot of folks are hard to reach throughout the day. And we want to make sure that we build the best proposal that we can. And that takes explaining that takes educating, that takes conversing. If this happens, would you want me to pay for it. And a lot of times, you can't get that in a reasonable time in when the client wants to purchase because when people are shopping, we're in an instant gratification Amazon now deliver same day, environment. And so embracing video quoting was a great example of that, where it's like, I think I'm gonna look terrible on camera, or my voice sounds terrible when it's recorded, or whatever the case might be. And I'm like, hey, go suck, you know. I've always had that mentality, go fail, right?
• 46:42
  about it, it was called: Go fail, go fail, go fail, and just do it. Because after about 10 reps of just about anything in our industry, you're going to start to get a little more comfortable, it's going to look better, it's gonna look polished, I'm like, hey, look, it's my money, like, I'm paying you to do this. It's okay, right? If we burn a couple of leads, and we don't close, and, you know, we didn't get the desired outcome, but we're improving so that we can get the desired outcome on a consistent basis moving forward, then it's worth the investment of time, effort and energy and money.
• 47:12
  about it, it was called: You have employees? How do you instill on them the fact that it's okay to fail, encourage them to fail?
• 47:20
  about it, it was called: We still struggle on that, you know, I had a conversation with one of my team members, I think on Monday, and this has been a rough month, really rough month for us, it's our worst month, yet on record the power of yet.
• 47:31
  about it, it was called: And so, you know, when we were sitting there, she goes, I just feel like I'm, I'm a bad employee, and I go, okay, I'm gonna ask you something that doesn't make a lot of sense here. But I'm gonna ask you to quit seeing yourself as an employee, right? You have an entrepreneurial mindset, you have an entrepreneurial leaning, right? You just are utilizing my capital to exercise that entrepreneurism. And so I really want you to get away from that mindset, and to look at this as your practice inside of my practice. And so that said, it's not easy, you know, I think we all see ourselves as kind of employees or employers, you know, we fit into these boxes, and that's just where our minds at and so trying to pull people, at least partially, from that box isn't necessarily an easy task, but we just continuously try to reinforce it.
• 48:29
  about it, it was called: I think when you see people fail, and you don't have a boss screaming at them. You see, okay, a failure occurred.
• 48:38
  about it, it was called: Alright, we had this happened last week, a failure occurred.
• 48:41
  about it, it was called: How did it happen? How do we keep it from happening again?
• 48:45
  about it, it was called: And what do we learn?
• 48:46
  about it, it was called: One of the things we use in the military is called an after action review, and AR. And so most people forget, the first line is Commander's Intent, right? Like, what was the commander's objective? And then you started going through, you know, what went right, what went wrong? What do we want to sustain? What do we want to improve? And so we actually did that at the end of the year at the end of our first year. And the teams that they found it really helpful to utilize that format, and to be able to brained up to be able to visualize because a lot of times we talk about these things, but it's not necessarily something that we whiteboard out, and we get up on the big screen. And, you know, that process, I think, is something that we don't do enough of, frankly, at my organization. You know, we should be doing that probably monthly. The other thing is, Katie heard something, I can't remember where it was, but basically, they, they, it was a family. I think like at family dinner, they're like, what are three things that we failed on today? Right, right. And she's like, you should really start doing that at the agency. I'm like, yeah, I really should but I didn't implement it immediately so we're not and it's a good thing to get back to. Because I think those are things and you know, even the Army, I still keep up on what's going on in the military and they've gone to a mentality of, I won't say celebrating failure, but to a certain degree, embracing it in the training environment. Because what they found is the last, you know, 22 years of warfare, we've created an environment of perfectionism that's driven a lot of psychological disorders, a lot of OCD, a lot of PTSD, but also an environment and a culture in which mistakes are covered up and buried, instead of learned from, addressed and then used as a launchpad to go on to bigger and better things. And so the last chief of staff that came in was like, hey, we've really got to start creating a culture of safety where you can fail in the training environment so that you can win in the combat environment, right. And I think that's a big shift for an organization that's been around as long as our nation to finally come to that point of saying, hey, we train for a reason, right? We, we've been talking about perfect practice makes perfect for so long, we forgot that perfect practice makes perfect, because you eff up along the way. And then you learn from that, right? And I think that that's an important cultural embodiment for any organization to be able to say, hey, it's okay. When I was a business banker, people would ask me all the time, how did you get so good? I'm like, because I sucked, I failed. I went into business owners offices, and I didn't know anything about medical practices. And they asked me questions. I'm like, I don't know. And I went in, and I looked stupid a lot. And so I went home, and I studied. And I started to keep a list of what are the commonalities that people in different industries asked me questions on. And then I started to become an expert on those industries, to the point that I can go into a bread bakers place and talk about their commercial proofing boxes for getting the buns to rise to send off to stores across the nation, to speaking to attorneys to talking about, you know, the Affordable Care Act, and how to recapitalize medical practices to make payroll while they're waiting for all of their receivables to come in from insurance companies.
• 52:07
  about it, it was called: One of the other things in that,"Turn the Ship Around," book that he implemented was basically a log of screw ups.
• 52:13
  about it, it was called: Right? And he encouraged everybody to say, hey, if you screw something up, please come write it down here. So we can figure out alright, why did this happen? How often is this happening? And how do we fix it?
• 52:23
  about it, it was called: How do we change procedures? How do we change whatever, and no one gets in trouble for logging their mistakes? Right, which is a huge thing, because the the reason mistakes get covered up, the reason that people are scared to fail is because they don't want to get in trouble.
• 52:40
  about it, it was called: Right? Well, the only way you get in trouble is if you don't add it to the log.
• 52:44
  about it, it was called: My wife always jokes, I'm extremely comfortable with getting yelled at. I made a career out of it in the military, right? I mean, like, I'm one of those guys, where I'm a little flippant about things.
• 52:49
  about it, it was called: I had a professor call me out on it in grad school, and I do you know, my platoon chart would always yell at me and I go, what are you gonna do send me to Iraq? I mean, we're already here, right? The worst thing you could do has already happened.
• 53:00
  about it, it was called: And, you know, and I'm fortunate, but I told him, like, I made a career of getting yelled at to where now, you know, it's not something that pushes me down into my shell, um, you know, somebody's yelling at me. So what's the core issue?
• 53:12
  about it, it was called: Right, like, what're you really upset about here? And yeah, I think that you know, there's there's things to be learned at, you know, I embrace customers calling, I don't want us to have upset customers. But upset customers are one of the best things that we can have. Because it's how we learn. And it's how we make it right and how we show them you trusted the right organization to protect you.
• 53:34
  about it, it was called: Because we didn't know that we should have I apologize, but we are going to make it right. And so those screw ups are the only known growths through success.
• 53:43
  about it, it was called: Well, and it's amazing too, the customers or the clients for me that just fly through with no issues whatsoever. They're happy. The ones that come through and have issues and we solve those issues. They're even happier. They're delighted, because they see, hey, look, these guys care. They care.
• 54:00
  about it, it was called: They're really good. And they care. And whenever something didn't go our way, they fixed it, or they they had a workaround or whatever. We're running out of time. I want to ask you one last thing. Passion.
• 54:06
  about it, it was called: What are you passionate about? I know you have developed some things through The Powell Agency. Tell us about that.
• 54:14
  about it, it was called: Yeah, so the one thing I tell people is, is an entrepreneur work life balance doesn't exist.
• 54:17
  about it, it was called: It just, it's a misnomer. But what we have is work life congruency where we have the power to embrace and bring the things that we care about into our business. So I have my kids come in once a month and take the trash out and clean the agency because I want them to have some ownership there. I'm very passionate about veteran causes. So right now we're doing something called quote for a cause, where for every quote that we receive for home and auto, if it goes through a special link or it comes in on our website, or people call the agency and they say hey, I'm quoting for cost for the VFW we give $10 to the Frisco VFW because we're already paying lead vendors, I would much rather pay a local organization.
• 54:57
  about it, it was called: To be able to help with whatever their charter, their mission is, and have that money, go to something, and then we're all doing good together, you need good insurance, we have good insurance, they have a good cause, we want to capitalize that good cause, that's what I think we're able to do as business owners is bring these interests. And you know, my wife, Katie just was recognized as a lifetime member of the Daffron PTA, which was a big recognition for her. So being involved in that is really important. So I think, you know, there's a lot of passions, but at the end of the day, my biggest passion is really just helping. I mean, if it's helping a nonprofit organization, if it's helping our clients, if it's helping business partners, whatever the case might be, having the opportunity to get called into really sticky situations and show that we can do it is where my passion lies.
• 55:48
  about it, it was called: So to your original question, problem solving, right? What is the problem that we face, as a society as a community as an agency, as a business partner, as a client? And how can we brainstorm that together? How can we use different lenses to go through that problem? How can we find either potential resolution or resolutions, identify which one's best and then move forward with course action?
• 56:14
  about it, it was called: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here today. John, where can people find you online if they want to do a quote for cause or just follow you on social media?
• 56:22
  about it, it was called: NTX for North Texas. At the same place on Facebook and also on Instagram. So ThePowellAgencyNTX is where we are for everything.
• 56:35
  about it, it was called: Alright, y'all look up, John online. Help them do a quote for a cause for the VFW. And John, thank you so much.
• 56:41
  about it, it was called: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Scott. [You bet.]