Stories matter.
They are the way we connect, the way we communicate, the way we inspire.
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 You Matter Storytelling: The Other Side of the Door
You’re never too young to take charge of your life and begin your journey toward greatness.
Just ask Brian Porrua. He’s 22 now, but when he entered the door at USHEALTH Advisors he was 18 years of age.
You’re reading that right, 18. Brian was just out of high school, starting his career as a health insurance agent, and Brian, while a bit unsure, Brian was hungry!
“I don’t want to come off this way, says Brian, “but honestly, I was “destroying” everything. In my first week at USHA I made $1,100 – in only my first week here, setting appointments for Sam Lamy, my trainer. I didn’t really have much of anything stopping me. And every week I was doing better and better. I was getting more confident on the phone because the thing about me is one of those random little mental things that people have that could be good, or bad – but for me it’s my confidence. I can literally think anything in the world and in my head I’ll tell myself I’m the best at it. So that’s how I always attack everything. For example, I never played golf in my life, but if you were to say, “Oh, I’m better than you at golf. I would say, give me two months and I would genuinely think in my head that I can beat you, even though I’ve never touched a club, or played golf.”
Survive and thrive, it might just be in Brian’s blood – since he is the son of two Cuban immigrants. Before Brian was born, his parents managed to daringly escape the rule of Fidel Castro, and learned to make their way and make a life here in America. Brian is the middle child of three siblings, one younger brother, 17 and the older one, now 37, who survived his battle with a heart defect and came to the U.S. from Cuba with his parents. It was far from an easy journey, but from the hardest times come the people with the strongest character and so the Porrua family knows all about having the mindset to face tough challenges and survive!
The mindset Brian got from his family is huge, but so is being open to learning, being a sponge and going all in on the opportunity. This is where Brian says he excels.
“When I started at USHA I was a fast learner,” says Brian. “Sam was doing the group training, you know, and doing it every single day. Sam has set up the best training system, but when we were done each day, I was always asking for more training on top of that, because I was learning it so fast. I would ask for advanced trainings because I was hungry and didn’t know any better. It was a perfect opportunity for me, just perfect. It was everything I’ve ever wanted because I could see this was going to be the gateway to the rest of my life. I knew it the second I joined.”
All in. All the time. From day one. Talk about a recipe for success. The world belongs to those who see and seize an opportunity with a predisposition toward one critical element: action.
In his first full year with USHA, Brian produced $1.6 million in personal business. At that point, he was the ripe old age of 19. You could call him an over-achiever, a baller… or even, a gamer.
In fact, gaming, might just be Brian’s secret to success.
“I believe gaming is where I get my competitiveness from,” says Brian. “Because all my friends and I, when we played there was a ton of strategy, you’re always thinking. We would always try as hard as we could. It sounds kind of nerdy, but I feel like that could be one thing about me, just constantly trying to be the best at whatever I do. Also, when you when you game a lot, you’re always always talking to new people as well and being social. It might seem like the opposite I guess, because don’t get me wrong there are some people who don’t have a job and just play video games all day and then they’re not very good in a public setting. But some people, if you like to talk, you talk to a lot to new people every single day or every week or whatever, and that’s how you build relationships. And so in the insurance business you’re talking to lot of people on the phone, communicating and selling yourself. Even at the start here at USHA, I was somewhat decent on the phone and felt like it could be because of my video game experience.”
While today, the gift of gab might be his secret weapon, Brian’s inexperience in the working world almost cost him his chance to join USHEALTH Advisors, forever. You’ve heard the cliche’: Get up, dress up, show up. But being so young at the time Brian never learned the middle part of that equation and so before his first interview at USHA, for this gamer, it was almost game over.
“When I was on the job boards I applied everywhere but really only two companies looked promising to me,” says Brian. “One ended up being some horrible start-up solar company, and the other was for an appointment setter, with a chance to earn, $100K. So I saw that one and I was like, “Wow, I’ll apply and let’s just see what happens.” So I get called into the interview and don’t forget I’m 18, I’ve never really looked at the grown-up world and how you’re supposed to dress for certain things. So I go into the office in Orlando for the USHA pitch, wearing jeans and a white shirt. I go up to the receptionist, and ask if this is the right place for the interview. The guy at the front desk says, literally, “What are you wearing, man? Why are you wearing a white shirt and jeans? This is a job interview, dude. Go ahead and go home. Like what is what is going on? Get out of here, man.” And I’m thinking, damn, I guess I’m not getting this job, right? And so I leave and my mom asks me, “So how did it go?” I told her what happened and she says, “Oh wow, I don’t know what you should do?” And I said, “Mom should I go back?” Because it was like a 45 minute drive, literally from the central Florida area back to where the office was located. My mom says, “I don’t know. It’s up to you completely. Do whatever you feel is right.”
“So, I thought I gotta I gotta try something. There was a Walmart down the street. I remember, I had like $70 bucks left to my name and at the time a nice shirt was $25. I figured, whatever, at least I’ll have enough for food. So I got a collared shirt and went back to the office and the front desk guy says, “Holy, (you-know-what), you’re back! I can’t believe you actually came back.” At the time, Mara Dorne (now a Super Region Leader), was doing the pitch. She explains what the career is all about to a whole room of people I was sitting in. When she finished talking she said, “If this is not the job for you, please stand up and then you can exit,” and like 75% of the people got up and left. Then, next thing you know, there were a bunch of other leaders there looking at our resumes and then choosing which recruit they wanted to have a talk with.
“Eventually there were about three people left who hadn’t been picked, including me. But then all of a sudden, Sam Lamy, (now a USHA Division Sales Leader), walks in. He wasn’t even supposed to be there at the time, but out of nowhere, he points to me and says, “I want to talk to him.” When I’m in the interview he says, “I see here by your resume, you’re a hard worker.” But then I straight up ask him, “What made you want to pick me? Because I was already feeling, like, not too confident. No one else was was trying to select me. They nearly kicked me out.” And Sam said, “You want to really know why? Because you’re wearing Yeezys, man, I like Yeezys. So you know, we’ll go from there.” And yeah, the rest is history. That was a Thursday or Friday. I did the interview and then got to see the to the office, and I’m like, okay, I’m in. And Sam says get start studying for the exam and get your health and life license. I started studying on Friday and on Monday I passed my test and I was ready to go.”
Talk about a gamer!
That’s a quick turnaround! It’s no small feat. Brian started studying for the licensing exam on Friday, and passed his test on Monday? There are older adults who drag out the licensing process for weeks, or even months. For those who want to fast track like he did, Brian explains how he got it done.
Brian says he was also driven to make his parents proud. Brian says he now helps out his parents, financially. He cares for his family at home and his new family, the people on his USHEALTH Advisors team, since Brian is now a Field Training Agent. The “kid” who worked hard to make his dream come true, is now leading others, even some older than him, to make a new life at USHA. Since becoming an FTA, Brian’s teams has amassed more than $23 million in team production.
Despite his team’s success, Brian says becoming an FTA was a significant challenge.
“Being able to like replicate myself and give others the life that I was able to get with this job, is probably my biggest challenge,” says Brian. “Because me being a younger demographic at the time when I came on board at USHA, there weren’t really that many other people my age here, so young, working here, so it was hard to try to train others up. I talk fast. You know, I go over certain things, I talk a lot, it was hard for others to keep up. Also, when you’re young you’re gonna make mistakes, so I’m pretty sure I blew a bunch of appointments when I was only 18-or-19-years-old. But now with those lessons that I learned and with all my new people on my team, I really try to slow it down and show them how it’s done. Plus I had to get really good at recruiting and that wasn’t easy. Sam Lamy actually sat me down and told me I had to turn things around. I told him give me 30 days and then one of my agents started catching fire and I did a better job at recruiting new people, but that was all a big challenge for me.”
Brian says even with stepping into leadership, his intense schedule hasn’t changed, nor has his desire to always be thinking up new ideas and ways to help himself and his team improve – especially after being at USHA for a few years now. At the ripe old age of 22, Brian is now a health insurance veteran, but his young mind is still spinning.
“I’m always trying to be so locked in here,” says Brian, “I obsess over his job, this opportunity, and I feel like that’s what kind of helps me succeed. When I close my eyes, all I think about is new ideas and stuff like that. Then I open my eyes and put those ideas into my notes because I’m like, shoot, I don’t want to forget this! I’ll put it in my notes and then talk about it in the meeting the next day and introduce new systems and processes and things like that. I don’t know, I’m just obsessed with this career and I hope it doesn’t change.”
So what advice does this successful young man have for others looking to join USHEALTH Advisors?
“I would say when you walk in the door, actually, focus on what’s on the other side of it,” says Brian. “Like, don’t look behind you. Always continue to have full confidence and trust yourself. Trust the systems that have been set up for years before you got here. Because if you look at the demographic on my team, I think the average age out of everyone is like 20, or 21, and for these guys, what I always tell them is look around, a lot of these guys weren’t supposed to make it. But that’s what myself and the leaders are here for. We’re going to be your support system as long as you trust us and you believe in yourself and have full confidence that you can do this, put in the hours, I promise you, I give you my word, your life will change. I always tell them, straight up, just like that.”
“It’s funny because before I started at USHA, I would say I was maybe 85 or 90% confident. But now, I’m 100% confident because I’ve grown these last three years. It’s been up, down, up, down, up, down. But you know what? Just seeing how everything adapts and taking a look at sales in general, I can say that an opportunity like this is nearly foolproof in the fact that you can succeed if you want it bad enough. Everyone is really team oriented because when you’re young like we are, it’s like a brotherhood and more. You know what I mean? It’s not looked at as a job. It’s like best friends hanging out together. So everyone’s got each other’s back. No matter what. There’s never any drama or things like that. So it’s a great environment too.”
Even in his early 20’s Brian says he has some wisdom to share, and there’s one thing he wants people to know about him in general.
“What I would say is you can do anything you want in this world. As long as you have belief in yourself, internally. Don’t just say I believe in myself, but have 100% full belief in yourself. Have confidence, give love to others. Take care of people. Have a big reason why. You’re the person who can control and manage everything. No matter the odds. No matter what anyone says about you, you can be 18 or you can be 60, but you can you can change your life at any time, no matter what. As long as like I said, you believe in you and then take care of others. What goes around, comes around. You take care of even one person, and one day it will all come back to you. Whether anyone sees you take that action or not. Good Karma sees it and, you know, and he’ll be taking care of you that way.”
Good Karma sees it. It was Mahatma Ghandi who said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Brian Porrua, at a very young age is learning and sharing the spiritual wisdom from a very old soul.
Brian takes great pride he had the courage to open the door, and on the other side of it he has found the life he never dreamed of, in service to others, at USHEALTH Advisors.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
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