It all begins in your mind. That one idea, that single vision. What makes it real is also one thing…the work.
There is simply no substitute.
All the wishing, all the affirmations, all the prayers, and all the hope won’t manifest it. As the great artist William H. Johnson said, “if it is to be, it is up to me.”
You can see the end result of the business you wish to build, then you go about the work of making it happen. One step at a time. One setback at a time. One moment at a time. The moments add up and the next thing you know, you have quite the story to share.
Everyone has a story.
I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.
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Storytelling for Business: Abundance
“You cannot teach a man, you can only lead him to find it within himself.” – The Great Astronomer, Galileo
Galileo was described as a polymath, a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning, besides that he could see the stars like no one else.
Joshua Cohen is reaching for those same stars, a young man soaking up the wisdom he’s gained from three decades plus on this planet, but ready to share what he’s learned to give back to others, especially his young daughter, Madeline.
“I think my greatest accomplishment and greatest challenge so far in life are both in the same realm,” says Josh. “It’s being a single dad and successfully growing and expanding my business at USHEALTH Advisors. It’s simultaneously doing what it takes to help Mattie to grow, develop and be healthy and well-adjusted and do the same with my business.”
After less than three years at the company, Josh is already a Satellite Division Sales Leader for USHA. USHEALTH Advisors is a subsidiary of USHEALTH Group, offering flexible health coverage for individuals, families and the self-employed. Josh is a rising star at USHA, but as even he will admit, it didn’t start out that way. First, he had to find it in himself to get better.
“It took me a while to get going here, a long time, because I was dragging my feet, procrastinating,” Josh says. “I’d say, ‘yeah, I’m gonna do this’. I’d get it in gear, but then like a lot of my life, I would wait until the last minute and most times I’d have results immediately. I was a short-term, instant gratification person, but that didn’t work here. I realized I’m playing with the big boys. There is no salary or hourly wage and the goals and quotas created for the masses out there in the workforce don’t apply here. I realized I was playing in the big leagues now and doing things the way I’d always done them was not going to work.”
“I contracted in March of 2017, but it wasn’t until the fall of the same year, end of August really, that I discovered what it would take. It was going all out, more than just a few hours at a time, I mean going all-out, morning to night, giving it all I’ve got which was hard. I had friends and family telling me to get a real job, that this is snake oil, multi-level marketing, a pyramid scheme. But I knew it wasn’t. I’ve always operated from the mindset that if other people can do this, so can I. It wasn’t some fluke. It’s not like Mark Zuckerburg from Facebook, or Jeff Bezos from Amazon, where it’s just that one person crushing it. It was everyone here who put in the time and effort, they were all crushing it. It was clear and obvious to me that there was some set of actions you had to take. I knew it, in the beginning, though I just didn’t know what it looked like. I was dragging my ass, going half-ass for a few hours or days and then expecting to have immediate results, and when that didn’t happen I realized I gotta up my game here.”
Josh says the realization came right around the time Jason Blank and Jesse Fabricant joined USHA and were top dogs in the company. He also credits other influencers like Shai Hatuel and Richard Danilo Attenza, who truly helped him find his way.
There’s always a way.
“I’ve got to give a shout-out to Danilo,” says Josh. “He and I became friends and before I had any kind of success he’s the one who helped me. He took me under his wing. I’d ask him questions, he listened to my pitch. He taught me everything I knew. I got a lot from him and I implemented his work ethic and methodology.”
Josh learned there’s also a method to overcoming mediocrity. When you are tired of being average is when you desire to step up to excellence and become the exception.
“It was all in Danilo’s system,” says Josh. “The methodology, his tonality on the phone, the background underneath, all the things that might not be talked about, but you have to see it to get it. He told me, ‘dude, you sound bad, you sound like a robot, you sound dull when you talk to people.’ “I practiced a shift in my tonality and practiced captivating someone on the initial call. And then there was the work ethic. You can’t stroll in at 9 or 9:15 am and stop at 6 pm and expect to have extraordinary results. It’s being there by 8 am ready to go and doing it until 9 or 10 pm. That’s the name of the game.”
In fact, it’s the game, or gaming for that matter, that Josh says might be the other secret to his success at USHEALTH Advisors
“I wasn’t really competitive in my early days of school,” says Josh. “I didn’t play a lot of sports in school and I was kind of floating, just going through the motions until I got into gaming. My parents had moved us from New York to South Florida when I was about ten. My gaming began soon after. I attribute a lot of the skill set I have in dialing, in navigating the computer tools, in typing fast, all of that came from the competitive gaming. You had to have an intense level of focus, to respond to something, to help others navigate quickly and send messages, etc. The development of that skill set transfers perfectly to dialing, to working the phones, to juggling many tasks at once.”
It also ended up forcing Josh into the workforce fairly quickly. “I got my first job bussing tables at age 15,” says Josh. “My mother had a real problem with the amount of gaming I was doing, so she got me a job. My focus and work ethic came from those jobs at a very early age. So when you take the desire to perform, to make money and cross that with the gaming skills, that’s why working the phones here becomes a natural fit.”
A desire to always get better has always been an underlying passion in Josh’s life. “The first ten years of my life I was in New York,” recalls Josh. “But then my parents moved us down to South Florida. I started fourth grade in a different school and it was a big, big change for me. My parents started myself and my brother in private school, but then quickly realized it wasn’t worth the $18,000-a-year-tuition, so by fifth grade I was sent to public school. It wasn’t an easy transition and it was not a high-performing school. In fact, it was the lowest-rated elementary school out there. That brought a lot of humility as well, because while we were no means, upper class, a lot of the kids there saw me as such because so many kids came from low income or even impoverished families. It taught me a lot about gratitude for what we did have.”
By the time he got to college, Josh was ready, more than ready to leave the nest. “I went to the University of Florida and I was thrilled to live on my own – and everything that comes with that – especially the freedom. I majored in finance, graduated cum laude with a bachelor of science in business and a minor in Spanish. But I stretched out my time there. I had credits coming into college so I could have graduated early, but I didn’t want to graduate sooner than the normal four years, so I took my time, partying and being very social.”
I was a server at a local restaurant, a bartender and even tried to open my own restaurant in Gainesville, Florida. I came up with a business plan, I did the research and developed a deal to present to an investor. But what killed it was the amount of work it would take to get it going. I had no experience, and I knew the investor I was speaking with was not going to hand over the money to a 22-year-old kid. So I changed gears. I called around and my cousin got me a job at a cell phone call center in Orlando. Then I met one of my best friends, Matthew Wester, who introduced me to a property-casualty company.
That’s where Josh started to gain his insurance experience, and more importantly, he met a number of the members of his future team at USHA. People like Ronald McGregor, Warren Hendry, David Kelley, and Jonas Occeus have all left the property-casualty world and joined on as agents at USHA. Josh figured why not reach out to them? When you find a good gig you should share it with others who are looking for a better tomorrow.
Josh says he has a new outlook on all his tomorrows since he recently made a major shift in his life. “Since college, I had been deep into the party scene, being a DJ, staying up late, partying, all that stuff,” says Josh. “But about a year ago I gave up drinking. I just tried it, I gave it a shot and it felt so good, I said, ‘hey let’s continue this thing and now I feel awesome.’ Also becoming a dad and having Mattie in my life was pivotal in that decision.”
Then there’s the responsibility of having a team and being a leader. These people are depending on me for their success and their lives. I wouldn’t have done this if it was just me. I need to be the embodiment of the kind of leader they need and to be an example for them.”
And what advice would Josh give to a new agent, to someone looking to join the opportunity at USHA?
“Recently I went to this conference and it was all about distinguishing how self-esteem is a grossly overvalued psychological state. They said what is really valued is persistence and resilience – meaning I will figure it out and do what it takes. The problem is people give in and give up so easily, they quit way too soon. It’s macro patience and micro speed. You can’t just show up and expect results immediately. You can’t expect to be a millionaire overnight.”
“But the one thing you can be sure of and believe in is abundance. You really can have it all. But too many people say, ‘oh I was going to do such and such a thing until I had my son or daughter. I was gonna be successful or start this business but then such and such happened and that’s why I can’t. I don’t have the money, I don’t have the car, or I can’t create the life or freedom I want to have.’ “The reality is all the necessary pieces or components are already inside you to have the global abundance, for every person to have it all. I want to influence people and get them to know they can have it all.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
Make USHEALTH Advisors your next career! Click and apply, (https://www.ushacareers.com/apply/)
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