Your story isn’t just a tale; it’s your most powerful tool. It builds trust, creates connections, and turns your business into a brand people believe in. When you tell it right, your story doesn’t sell; it inspires and attracts, telling people who you are and persuading them to do business with you.
If you don’t think you have a story, think again. Everyone has a story.
Welcome to Mark Brodinsky’s You Matter Storytelling.
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Mark Brodinsky Storytelling: It’s Your Choice
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” – Carl Jung
Elliott Leniton had it all figured out. His road in life was going to be paved with gold, or maybe we should say paved with “goals”, one goal after another. Elliott felt his path was going to lead him to be a professional soccer player.
But then he wasn’t, he couldn’t. You make your plans and God laughs.
“Growing up I played sports all the time,” says Elliott. “I played soccer and basketball and going into my senior year, I felt like I was invincible. I was in the best shape of my life. I was dominant mainly in soccer. I had multiple full ride scholarships. I had the opportunity to play in Italy through my competitive soccer coach. And then, my senior year I had about five injuries back to back to back. I dislocated my shoulder and didn’t have to get surgery on that immediately. But then I tweaked my ankle, I had a hernia surgery, I hurt my hip playing basketball. So all these things piled up my senior year and I lost all my soccer scholarship opportunities. They gave me walk on opportunities at some of the schools, but I didn’t have the grades to get the academic scholarship.”
“That was probably the lowest point in my life. One of my greatest challenges was overcoming those adversities because I lost all my muscle, I lost everything. And people were wondering what happened because everyone was sure I was going to get a scholarship and play soccer in college. That was probably the lowest point in my life for sure. It was tough. It took a few years, but over time I was able to finally get out of that bad head space and start elevating in my life.”
Dreams can get dashed. But life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you. Elliott went back to his roots to find the inspiration and determination to dig deep and build a new future.
In 2018, Elliott’s redesigned future brought him to the doorstep of USHEALTH Advisors, where he has excelled, writing more than $4 million in personal production and more so leading his teams to produce nearly $121 million in team business, just shy of being one of the all-time top 50 leaders at USHA. Elliott is only in his mid 30’s.
But Elliott says it all goes back to basics, it’s what you learn through your life experiences that matter.
“I grew up in Land O’Lakes, Florida, in north Tampa,” says Elliott. “My dad, he was a general contractor, so he sold custom homes and did renovations as well. So I actually grew up and got experience outside of school because I was working with my dad. He had me on that job site when I was like five or six-years-old, sweeping floors, taking out the trash. And as I got older, he started teaching me the tricks of the trade and really didn’t treat me any differently than his other workers and he really taught me the value of the dollar.”
“It was a good upbringing. But my parents got divorced when I was 12, and that was obviously a big change. My sister, who is 4-1/2 years older than me moved out when she was 18, so it was me and my mom at home and we kind of struggled financially. My mom did everything she could though. My parents always supported me and instilled that belief in me that I could do whatever I set my mind to. My mom’s my biggest fan, so no matter what, she’s always got my back.”
“My dad would be the one who, if I was slipping, which I didn’t, I was a really good kid growing up, but he would kind of lay into me a little bit. But he was still super supportive as well, and confident. My dad was the entrepreneur, so he was the one who was self-employed. I learned a lot from him.”
During the 2008 recession, when the bottom dropped out of the construction business, Elliott’s dad moved to Denver, to be closer to his family and to continue to try and build. The construction business, being all he knew well, Elliott moved out west to join his father.
“So at 18 or 19, I went out to Denver to do construction to work with my dad because that’s all I ever knew,” says Elliott. “My main goal was to play soccer professionally, or take over my dad’s business doing construction because I loved home building. I grew up doing it. So I went out there and I was working with him, but after my shoulder surgery and certain injuries from soccer, I didn’t want to work being on the construction job site for the rest of my life. So just after my 21st birthday, I ended up moving back home to Tampa. My mom and my sister were still there. And I’ll take beaches over mountains any day of the week. I started searching for work and the next thing I found was the car business.”
Elliott went from being a car porter at a dealership to one of the top service advisors. But when the commission structure changed and Elliott says he started losing money, he decided to put the brakes on his car dealership career and found a new opportunity to build something sustainable, with no ceiling, at USHEALTH Advisors. But Elliott says living the reality of being forced to give up on his soccer dreams, to his long-time experience in the construction business, to his customer service experience in the auto business, they were all building blocks for his incredible success at USHA.
“Building myself up after losing everything that I worked my whole life for – being able to rebuild it brick-by-brick, day-by-day, mentally, physically, and spiritually – definitely helps me with any challenges here at USHA. If things don’t go my way, if a client ends up not working out, or now in leadership, with certain things that arise, it definitely has helped me handle any adversities that happen, for sure. At the end of the day, it’s perspective. Everything’s your perspective. So sometimes you’ve got to look at things through a different lens and always look at the big picture. Whatever’s happening you should look at it from a bird’s eye view, sometimes we get so in our business and in our own heads, that we need to just take a step back and look at it from a different lens, different angle, a new perspective. It’s all about how you let it affect you.”
Elliott says it took him about six months to really get things going at USHA, but once he did, it was off to the races, and he has helped innovate at the company to give new people an even better chance at getting in flow faster than he did.
“Six months into it is when I started really elevating,” says Elliott. “I think it was the learning curve of something brand new. It just takes time. But training back then was different. Now we have a well-oiled machine, more trainings, more structure, all those things, they’re important. So we’re able to teach people how to do this at a very quick pace, comparatively speaking, to how it was seven years ago when I started.”
It’s also about staying calm, if you’re at peace, so are the people you lead. Monkey see, monkey do. Elliott says this is one of his superpowers.
“With me, and you can ask anyone, I’ve always been the kind of person where I don’t let my highs get too high and I don’t let my lows get too low. And probably because of whats happened in the past in my life, I know things can change for the better. Everyone thinks I’m chill, I’m calm, which I am, I’m calm.”
Speaking of change, what about the biggest change in Elliott’s life? It’s the one he points to now as his greatest personal accomplishment… becoming a dad.
“I would say personally it’s having a son,” says Elliott. “That is something that seemed a little farfetched in my early twenties and even when I found my wife, or well, she found me. Let’s say we found each other,” he laughs. “I was 24, so we’ve been together for about 10 years. Our son Everett is now two. He turned two in January. But that’s definitely it, it’s such a big deal, becoming a father. People say just wait, you don’t understand until you have a kid. Now I get it, I’m that guy. It’s such a blessing and so rewarding, watching him develop and grow. You don’t actually know the type of love you can express until you have your own child. When I get home and see Everett, he lights up. He lights up every time he sees me and watching him develop every single day, it’s always something new. It’s the best thing ever. I mean, it’s truly the greatest thing. I don’t know what other feeling could be greater?”
“And my wife, Shawna, she’s the best. She’s an amazing wife and mom. When I first met Shawna she was bartending, but she was also going to school to become a teacher. She taught for a few years, but because of this USHA opportunity, she’s now able to stay home and take care of our son. Shawna loved the kids she taught, but it got to the point after Covid and all that stuff happened, she just wasn’t happy teaching anymore. She joined me for a little bit in the business to help me out. She still helps me out today, but mainly her focus is to take care of everything at home. I couldn’t do what I do now without Shawna. There’s no way.”
There’s also the rest of the family. Elliott’s dad passed in September of last year and Elliott knew his dad would want him to step up and be strong for everyone.
“My Dad had just moved back to Florida in January of last year and got to be here to celebrate Everett’s birthday in January. And then we spent a lot of time together. But a week after his birthday in September, my dad had an aortic aneurysm that ruptured and unfortunately we lost him. Again, it’s all perspective when it comes to adversities.”
“Obviously you want to mourn the loss and remember all the good times, but it’s all about what you think about. So at the end of the day, I know my dad would tell me, get back to work. He would always get back to work no matter what, because he loved us, loved the family. He worked, he always worked. So the last thing he would want me to do is sit there and just mourn his loss and do nothing. So I was very strong. I was able to be very strong for my family, for my sister, my stepmom, and my half-sister, to support them.”
Elliott wants to be there for everyone, his family at home and his work family, the agents on his team and other leaders, and he’s doing that, big-time. Elliott has advice for those coming in to join the USHA opportunity. He wants to share the secret of his success. But the secret is there is no secret. Feel it in your heart, see it in your mind, hold it in your hands.
Belief.
“I would say the best advice is to be open-minded,” says Elliott. “You have to be open-minded, this is all new for most people, it’s completely different than what they’re used to. You have to be coachable for sure. And you have to stay present. When you’re here working, don’t think about whoever you were and what you did before this. You create your own destiny, right? You can be who you want to be. So don’t worry about anything, any adversities you went through in the past, anything from the past. Don’t worry about that. Just be present. If you focus on the future, you’re going to have anxiety, focus on the past, you’re going to be depressed. So you just have to be present and put in the actions and be coachable and hungry. This is what I believe works.”
“You have to be a student. You have to stay a student. Even to this day, I’m still a student. And treat people well. Whether it’s the janitor or the President of the United States, I treat everybody the same way. That’s how I’ve always been.”
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
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Want to share your story? Contact me here: https://markbrodinskystorytelling.com/#start
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