The goal is not what you get, it’s what you give. If you believe you’re here for a reason then that reason should drive you, inspire you, move you to action. When you build a business build on that foundation, then the lives touched by that business become abundant…. as does yours.
Build it and they will come. Then what a tale you’ll have to tell, a story others will want to hear.
Everyone has a story.
I am Mark Brodinsky and this is Storytelling for Business.
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Storytelling for Business: Be Someone’s Miracle
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
Miracles don’t always happen, sometimes they’re built from the ground up.
“My greatest accomplishment… that’s a tough question,” says Jason Greif. “But I truly believe that building this sales force, and now producing more than $2 million in sales each week is a pretty big deal.”
A big deal indeed. Jason serves as a Division Leader for USHEALTH Advisors, leading a team in Tampa, Florida, that is far-and-away the number one Division in the country. But Jason didn’t start at the top, just like he did when he was building homes for a living, he always knew you had to start with a strong foundation, build it from the ground up. Lead by example, set the standard then create a playbook for success.
“We have a proven program for success,” says Jason. “I have a playbook for new agents, but I tell them when they come in the door, you’ve gotta burn the boats, just like Tony Robbins says, burn those boats and be all in for you and your family. The new agents not going to be successful if they don’t. If you have an agent that’s going to do exactly what we tell them to do, there is no way he or she won’t be successful. We have a proven system here that works, but the program requires sacrifice. If you want success, you must sacrifice.”
Jason’s mission, his goal, the dream he wants to see come alive, is to build a dream team. “The most gratifying thing is to see someone plug into our system and see it change their life,” says Jason. “So I want to have 150 agents, all earning well over $150,000 a year and if we can do that – and we are getting pretty damn close – we can transform thousands of lives, not just 150 of them. (Do the math, that’s $22,500,000 in income from a single USHA Division). We can do that if we sincerely care about the agents. I tell my leadership team if you are getting into leadership you’ve got to check the agents’ checks before you look at your own. Because if you do that and put others first, then you are destined for success.”
Jason says much of his drive and desire to help others become more is because of what he learned from his father. “My father was super successful,” says Jason. “He was up in the morning like someone shot him out of a cannon. He was an immigrant from Germany, escaping from World War II. My great grandparents were killed in the concentration camps, but my dad made it to America. I watched my father growing up, he built a very successful shipping company and I got to travel the world with him. I saw how people would always come to my father for help. They trusted him and sought his counsel. That was always big for me, to watch that, I always wanted to be like him and have people come to me for advice.”
In life it’s not just about success, for success without fulfillment is empty. Fulfillment comes from being a person of value. Jason says he knows his worth because he is not a rags-to-riches story. He didn’t start from scratch, but eventually, life has a way of catching you on the blind side. Jason says he never saw it coming, but at one point he ended up scratching just to survive.
“I grew up wealthy,” says Jason. “My family lived in a very affluent area, Cold Spring Harbor in Long Island, New York. I went to a small public high school and always strived to take part in sports, like football, wrestling, and lacrosse. I always wanted to be popular too, and I was. But I also got a little too caught up in trying to be the cool kid.”
Jason continues: “I got involved with the wrong crowd, which got me in trouble quite a bit. I got kicked out of my high school for fighting, then kicked out of my boarding school for mooning the headmaster,” he laughs. “Lucky for me the high school took me back my senior year, mainly because I always somehow managed to keep a good GPA. I got into college, graduated in 2003, then tried to find a job. But nobody was hiring. So instead my twin brother Eric and I opened up a deli, called it Twins Deli, and we were successful. But I realize the real benefit now is that it taught me how to run a business, especially the people, the employees, handling all aspects of it.”
The deli did well, but once again Jason was lured by the temptations and the distractions of life that keep us all from being who we truly are meant to be. “We were making money, but I was spending all of it,” he says. “I was still living with my parents, but I was got involved in gambling, drugs, partying…everything. My brother decided he wanted to get out, he wanted to be a doctor, so he went to med school and left me with the deli. Now I was on my own with this business and knew that if I was going to be super successful I had to get away from the environment I was in which was detrimental to my future. But I also knew I didn’t want to cut meat all my life, so I started looking for a new line of work – my dad helped me out a great deal, he got me a job with a construction company, but not in New York… in Palo Beach, Florida.”
Jason moved south and did well for a few years, very well. “It was easy,” says Jason. “It was the housing boom and everyone was buying properties, we were making money hand over fist. We got a little greedy and started building too many spec houses, then the market crashed, for some reason, we never saw it coming. I lost all of my money, lost the money my parents invested, lost the money my brother invested, I lost it all.”
A hit from the blind side. But within every setback, no matter how big, there’s a silver lining. For the first time in his life, Jason was poor, but the path was about to lead him to riches he could never have imagined.
“I started waiting tables,” says Jason. “While I was a waiter I met a beautiful girl named Kelley. She didn’t know I came from money and that’s what really drew me to her, but also inspired me to be successful, because I knew Kelley wouldn’t hang out with me if I didn’t provide for her. She’s a very independent woman, her family was from Michigan and they didn’t have much at all. But I was so attracted to Kelley and so respected her independent spirit. I knew I had to become a man and be successful so I could marry this woman.”
While still waiting tables, Jason also started working with a life insurance company. “I was driving all over the state,” he says. “It’s how I learned to sell face-to-face, to call leads at night, to learn how to come back from the no-shows and the ‘I want to think about it’ appointments. When that would happen you made no money, so when driving two to three hours just for an appointment, you had a lot of time to think about how to get better. I learned to overcome objections and set more solid appointments. But Kelley was the driving force that kept me going. I wanted Kelley to feel confident in me. So I started working really hard in the insurance business.”
Eventually, Jason found his way to USHEALTH Advisors, a subsidiary of USHEALTH Group, offering health coverage and supplements to the self-employed, individuals and families. Jason says he didn’t set the world on fire at first, but then his father became ill.
“My dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2010,” says Jason. “I remember going back to New York to be with him when he was dying, but his response to seeing me was typical. He said, ‘what are you doing here? You need to get back to work, there is no reason for you to sit here and watch me die.’ “That’s the hardcore soul of my father. He told me to never put off tomorrow, what you could get done today. Treat everybody with respect, from the janitor at a company to the CEO. And don’t care what people think, because at the end of the day, they are not thinking about you.”
What Jason was thinking about was how to best carry on his father’s legacy. At age 71, Norman Greif died, just two weeks after Jason and Kelley’s wedding. “I believe my dad held on because he wanted to see the last of his offspring get married,” says Jason. “Like I said I wasn’t setting the world on fire with USHA, but after my dad passed away all of that changed. He was gone, I had married the girl of my dreams and I realized if I wanted to be anybody even close to who my father was, I needed to become a better man. My dad was such a character and helped so many people. I knew I always wanted to be like him so I could help as many people as he did.”
So many times, after a great loss there is a newfound love and zest for life. After losing his dad, Jason decided to turn it up a notch, finishing as one of the top producers in the country for USHA and eventually being asked to open up his own Satellite Division in Tampa. “I knew if I could show somebody how to live our mission of HOPE, Helping Other People Everyday and show them how to make money in this business then I could be super successful,” says Jason.
“I wasn’t given a team, I built this from nothing, one agent at a time. It took me about two years. The biggest challenge was finding people that were as committed as I was because I found myself caring more about their success then they cared about their success. I found that to be true a lot – I had to go through a lot of people. When you are recruiting you have to become immune to getting discouraged… and if you can do that, eventually it starts to happen. I found one agent, then two, then four, then it really started to roll.”
Like with any success, however, nothing is accomplished alone. We are always better together and together we accomplish great things. Jason says he had such tremendous help getting to where he is today with USHA. “I had a lot of assistance along the way,” says Jason. “I found some key people who helped me build my team like, Marcos Figueroa, Liz Byrne and my wife Kelley. She’s first and foremost. You need a spouse who has your back 100% and is willing to sacrifice as much as you are. We have a family now with Kelley and my kids, Owen and Eliana. I wasn’t home a lot of the time following this dream and without Kelley, I wouldn’t be able to build what I’ve built. My wife still helps me out with the business, handles some properties we have and she’s also now the bookkeeper and full-time mother. And then there’s my Regional Leader, Taraina McCants, she’s been a huge influence in my life because she and her work ethic and attitude remind me so much of my father.”
Jason lives his life not just to model his father’s success and values, but also to make sure his mother’s words ring true. “My mom has always told me I could do and be whatever I wanted because I was more than capable of doing it. She always had my back, even when I was wrong, and she never told me there was anything I couldn’t do if I set my mind to it.”
It’s the same philosophy Jason is using with everyone who joins his Tampa team at USHEALTH Advisors. To date, (the second week of March 2019), Jason’s division has already produced more than $15 million in business for the year and still going strong every week. In order to produce at that level, you have to be strong, in work ethic and in mindset. “If you want to be part of our team we expect no less than 60+ hours a week,” says Jason. “The middle class works 40 hours a week, if you want to make more money than the middle class you work more than 40 hours a week. It’s that simple.”
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“Our office creed is: “No complaining. No blaming. No excuses. Just sell a policy,” says Jason. “Everybody’s got problems, it’s the same problems, different details. You have to manage your emotions and manage your team, even if it’s a team of one, just you. These are your problems, not anyone else’s, but if you can handle them then you’ll be successful. I overcame addictions to drugs, gambling, and more. I wasn’t always confident in who I was. No one is special, we all have weaknesses, everyone struggles, we are all in this together. The ones who are the most successful are those that handle their problems better and realize they have to work on themselves to get better every day. Then help other people every day. The more people you help, the more abundance you have in your life. You see that in every religious tenet. If you can be someone’s miracle, then you open yourself up to miracles. The more successful people we have on this earth, the better the world will be. So be someone’s miracle.”
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
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