What you focus on expands. So if you focus on always getting better, and becoming more, not just doing more, your life will soon be tangible evidence of that focus.
Living a great life means being a person of value. Build your business based on that same principle – bring tremendous value to the marketplace and you can’t go wrong.
You won’t just survive, you’ll thrive and others will want to know how and why.
That’s your story to share.
Everyone has a story.
Welcome to Mark Brodinsky You Matter Storytelling.
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Mark Brodinsky You Matter Storytelling: A Higher Calling
“As long as we have basic fundamental traits in a moral compass, it doesn’t matter about the degrees and all of the other stuff. Those are just for me. But you have to have a good heart, and you’ve got to really want to work for the people.”
– Sanquetta Taylor
You can call her Sanquetta. You can call her Mamma Tay. You can call her mom, wife, leader, boss, co-worker, friend and maybe, by the start of the next decade, you can call her President.
That’s right, Sanquetta Taylor has a dream and she’s learned, trained, mentored, led, served and created years of goodwill and financial freedom at USHEALTH Advisors that has prepared her – and perhaps one day soon will propel her – to the most important job in the world, President of the United States of America.
More about that later, and you won’t want to miss it, but first, let’s talk health insurance, or more interestingly let’s talk Sanquetta and health insurance.
Some would say it’s been a match made in heaven, and heaven definitely plays a big part in Sanquetta’s life.
“If I had to write my last words, I would say, “God first. Everything follows,” says Sanquetta. “I mean, the one thing I do when I wake up and say, “God let your will be done. I mean, 10 years ago, I didn’t know I was going to be in insurance. I had no idea.”
Sanquetta came to USHA nearly a decade ago after working in many different arenas, from finance, to technology, to the TV and radio ratings industry, to criminal intelligence for the government. Some time ago Sanquetta even ran for the US Senate in Maryland, losing to the long-time and popular incumbent, Barbara Mikulski.
So politics was put on hold and in 2015 Sanquetta moved down to Florida expecting to do some traveling, until she got a spur-of-the-moment call from Kelly Greif, the wife of Jason Greif, Regional Leader with USHA. Kelly saw Sanquetta’s resume online and brought her in for the pitch.
“I came to a presentation and sat in a room full of people,” says Sanquetta. “I’m an open-minded person so I listened to the pitch and thought, “Wow, all of this opportunity and I don’t need another degree, all I need is a health and life license. I will have the autonomy, I can build generational wealth on top of what I already have and it seemed like a pretty good atmosphere. I got a call back on Friday to come in for an expectation interview and told them I’m pretty sure I can do this. I started studying for my license Saturday morning, took my licensing test on Monday, passed it and came in that same afternoon to start working. I can’t say enough about how Jason Greif helped me and helped propel my career right from the start.”
There’s a cliche that seems to fit here… the rest is history. But here’s the thing, Sanquetta is making history at USHEALTH Advisors. Nine years with the company and she’s been in leadership for literally her entire tenure, without interruption. Working 80 hours a week is the norm for Sanquetta and after her first year, she has delivered a top tier team and top standings every year. She’s opened three offices and worked out of five, which has added tremendously to the growth of the company. Sanquetta is the 4th highest-producing female in team standings in the history of USHA with issued team AV of almost $227 million dollars.
Those are numbers not only to be proud of, but they are proof of Sanquetta’s commitment to servant leadership, discipline and resilience.
A lot can be learned about success by living a work day in Sanquetta’s life. But first wrap your head around the amount of sleep she is able to live with… and it’s been going like this for years!
“A day in my life, so number one, I wake up at 3:30 in the morning,” says Sanquetta. “That’s my internal clock. I don’t sleep with a stopwatch, or alarm, or anything like that. My body naturally wakes up between 3:15 and 3:30. I generally like to do something cold. I do like cold swims, but something cold in the morning to get the body going. Bible too. I like to read a few scriptures in the Bible, meditate, maybe a little bit of yoga. I’m not really deep into yoga, but stretching, definitely. Then, of course, I love a good motivational podcast or something like that. And then on the way to work, I’ll listen to something else, maybe some music. I love to dance to get the body going. And I arrive at work about 7:30, or 7:40 am.”
“I walk the building, make sure that the building is safe, make sure all the trash cans are emptied, make sure that the temperature’s good, make sure that the music’s playing for when the agents come in. I want to just make sure that they come into a building that is world class, that’s clean, that’s conducive to the environment in which they can thrive. The food is then on the way. I sit down and I look at the production numbers from the night before, what went in the system. And then I look at the numbers for today based on the update on the sales dashboard. Then I write down the goals that I have for my team and myself for the day. And when the agents start coming in, I like to high five ’em.”
“Sometimes I call it a biscuit and a ticket. So if they come in before like 8:30 am, I’m there at the front high-fiving them and give them a ticket. I like to do morning raffles. I love that because I always tell ’em, you can have coffee and leads or you can have lunch and leads, but it’s just something that gets them excited to come in early and to start their day early already feeling up and motivated. Remember, I’ve been up and awake since 3:30!”
“There’s never a day that’s the same as the one before. Plus, on Mondays I do two recruitment pitches. I do an online Zoom, for which I usually have anywhere from 20 to as many as maybe 50 people on that recruiting pitch. And then in the evening on Mondays, I will do an in-person pitch, and then I have expectations meetings and things like that. So there’s never a day that’s exactly the same. But also I always have a calendar I keep. So throughout the day you can have fires that you’re putting out and then you have maybe 10 minutes of your own development time. So I take real good care of that 10 or 20 minutes that I have for myself. I usually end the day at the office around about 9:30, or 10 o’clock at night. But then when I get home, I usually cook, so I’m usually in the bed by 12 am and I do it all again, starting between 3 and 3:30 am.”
Tired yet? Not Sanquetta. After baking herself into her agents’ lives at work, Mamma Tay is back home, stirring the pot, literally, to make food for the family for the next day, since she’s not home for dinner. Sanquetta says even at that late hour it’s an honor to do this for her family, because they are her pride and joy.
Sanquetta says she was first introduced to the young girls who would become her daughters, when she met her husband Branett, in 2013. The girls were only four and six-years-old at the time. Now they are 17 and 19. And Sanquetta says one of her biggest personal accomplishments has been helping get her daughters through school, with one of them now working alongside her.
Sanquetta’s 19-year-old daughter has worked with her every day, recently, helping out and in the office. And now – big news here – a few days before publishing this story, she passed her health and life insurance exam! So one of Sanquetta’s newest agents is her own daughter, Brittney!
“And then I have my 17-year-old daughter, Brittany, who’s in the 11th grade now,” says Sanquetta, “and I’m so proud of her! Brittany got all A’s and one B this past grading period. It is a major accomplishment because she’s had some struggles with the school system, education and things, and through working everyday and getting a little bit better and learning a little bit more, she’s come out on top.”
Sanquetta’s husband has also come out on top, building a construction business like any good home should be built, from the ground up.
“Branett has a very robust construction business,” says Sanquetta. “He’s the face of the franchise, he does everything for Rock Solid LLC. My husband has been a builder ever since he was 15 or 16 years old. He is one of the best. I’ve seen him take a piece of dirt and within a week or two have a structure up and standing and I’m thinking, “Oh my God, he’s a solution creator.” And I love that about him because it’s not always formal education. Someone can have a doctorate degree and not know how to create a solution. So I really believe that’s his God-given talent is to create solutions. And he’s definitely a builder. That’s his gift from God. No matter what it is, if it’s broke, my husband can fix it. And so I’m just so happy that God introduced us when I was on a vacation what seems like many years ago.”
Sanquetta is also a major builder – of people – and along her journey at USHEALTH Advisors she is fully aware and embraces the fact that she has not created success on her own. Her focus is great leadership and bringing along others with her. The saying goes that a fish stinks from the head down and if the leader is a poor role model, then it’s not long before the team “smells” the same. In this case, with Mamma Tay, you could more relate her leadership attributes to that of a dog, where there is constant and meaningful unconditional love – like any dog gives – and her other leaders excel because of it. There is no defense to love.
“I tell you, I have the best leadership team period,” says Sanquetta. “And I know everyone says they have the best, and I give everyone the right to say that, but pound for pound, I have the most humble people. I’ve never had a leadership team in my entire career, in any industry I’ve worked in, like the team I have now.”
“Michael Farhad, he’s actually been with me since day one. He is coming up on six years. He is, in my eyes, one of the top three leaders in the company’s history, period. I hope that he’s in my life no matter where I end up at the end of my life. He is truly someone that I trust and I always say, whatever Michael decides, I agree with it. We literally have the same moral compass. I don’t question his decisions because I know that they’ve been well thought out, and I know that he makes the decisions based on the best outcome for everyone involved. So it’s not done selfishly, it’s done with the focus of a do-no-harm type of spirit. That’s how I am.”
“They all have a place in my heart that’s crazy, right? Cal Williams, he’s the son that I didn’t give birth to. Also De’Sean Maytum, I was with him his first full week, just he and I in the office. And I remember when he came, he couldn’t even have a conversation because he was such an introvert, he was so scared to speak. I gave him some books to read to build his confidence and today, literally, there’s a video on our Instagram and De’Sean is speaking so eloquently, and to be able to watch and be a part of that change, that just warms my heart.”
“Then there’s Sage Farhad, he’s a Field Sales Leader, literally one of the strongest in the country. And I’ve seen him just evolve and transform. We also have Natalie Gianascoli, who is one of the strongest builders in USHA’s history. She has led some of the strongest leaders, current leaders that we have today that she trained from their first day in the business. And there’s a number of them. Two of them are in the top three in the company’s history, so that’s a testament to her grit and her fortitude as well. We also have some young, strong people, too, Andrew Seaford, Frantz Pinard, Tommy Mayer. We also have Paula Rabat. And Trevor Raymond, who has been with me since day one.”
Speaking of day one, very early in her life, and not everyone knows this, Sanquetta faced an uphill battle.
“I was born with something, some condition,” says Sanquetta. “When I was three-months-old, they nearly cut me in two to reconstruct my inner organs. No one has the records and my mother can’t remember exactly why, but I have a scar on my body that runs through my entire stomach. They told my mom I wasn’t going to live. My mom had to endure that possibility and I had to endure the surgery, even though I was too young to remember. But I think having that happen at such a young age has made me so tough. A lot of times toughness comes from the things you can’t see. My scar might be hidden underneath, but it’s been there in all that I’ve done – all the accomplishments and the hardships – I think I get that from being born and going through such a traumatic experience.”
But that wasn’t her only near-death experience.
“In 2001, I was physically hit by a shuttle bus at BWI airport,” says Sanquetta. “I opened my door to exit my car when the passenger bus struck my door. “I was pinned to my car and I lost consciousness because the bus had me pinned where my neck was, between the door and the frame of the car, so I couldn’t breathe. My family dropped to their knees and started praying, while my mother held me in her arms and wouldn’t let go. Ten members of my family watched as the First Responders brought me back to life. It was a time life took on another meaning for me.”
Meaning is definitely a word that is in Sanquetta’s soul. And she’s ready and willing to give all she has to what we mentioned earlier in her story – a run for the highest office in the land.
“It will be 2032, as long as I have breath, I’ll be on the ticket to run for President of the United States,” says Sanquetta. “I’m already prepared. I’m overqualified. And that’s not saying anything special, just comparing myself to those who have held that office, comparing knowledge about policy and being able to bring people together and able to call out good ideas regardless of what side of the table or aisle it comes from. Being able to make sure that we move forward in the best interest of the people. That doesn’t take anything but a good heart and a way to have respectful conversation and communication. I mean, I have a political science degree. That’s my first love. I know about law, I know about engagement. I know how to bring calm in the peace of the storm. I believe that’s the issue not only in politics but in the world, is that we don’t have respectful engagement and communication. I mean, the basics of life is just to respect one another and know that we’re not going to agree on everything, right or wrong. But let’s come together and take the best ideas from both sides or multiple sides and whatever works, let’s focus on that and whatever doesn’t work, or whatever is not a good idea, let’s not move forward.”
“I don’t have the best ideas. That’s why I have a great leadership team. That’s why I give them the floor and I value their opinions and their opinions are just as valuable as mine. One person doesn’t lead. You lead with a combination of people that are doing the right things for the right reasons, going in the right directions with the right people.”
In all of what Sanquetta does, her mission, her purpose and her results speak volumes. So if she’s leading an insurance team, or one day standing in the Rose Garden leading the nation, it will all come down to Sanquetta’s belief in herself and in a higher power.
It’s a higher calling and every day Sanquetta lives her life to heed that call.
Good luck, Mrs. President.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky