As my favorite annual weekend of playoff football just occurred with four big games, it caught my attention that multiple media outlets were showcasing many of the most famous “pep” talks in movie history to help fire up fans for the games.
Beyond the locker room speech from Al Pacino’s character in “Any Given Sunday” and the ubiquitous Knute Rockne “Win One for the Gipper” story, they played bits from non-sports themes including Braveheart, Animal House (“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”) and more.
When I tuned in to The American College’s annual “Town Hall Update” webcast on Jan. 10, I unexpectedly heard another compelling pep talk from guest speaker Joe Jordan of MetLife, who moonlights as a motivational speaker and recently wrote a book, “Living a Life of Significance,” published by The American College.
Here are some thought-provoking excerpts from Jordan’s impromptu call to action for agents:
- “I think you’ve got to recognize that you can be the most important person in someone’s life — that as a result of your actions, a family can continue, a business or a legacy is spawned.”
- “I think your unique purpose is to make sure the money outlives the people. And if you buy into that purpose, then, by definition, you have to sell protection products because some people die too soon and many of them are going to outlive their money.”
- “We have to insure against what can go wrong to gain the luxury to invest in what goes right.”
- “The value of the advice you provide and the products you sell is worth far more than what your clients pay for, because price is only an issue in the absence of value. It’s not only enough to know that — you have to believe it.”
- “You’ve got to know that your beliefs really drive your behavior. And if your desires do not hook up with your beliefs, you will always manifest your beliefs, and if you don’t realize or believe that you do something worthwhile, you can be subject to something that I know nobody talks about in this business, and that’s low self-esteem. When you have low self-esteem, you’re not going to be in the frame of mind to pick up the phone and face rejection. So one of the things you’ve got to come to grips with is that all chronic production issues are behavioral — your behavior.”
- “What you need to do is create a culture — a personal one and one within your agencies — that celebrates the potential impact that you can have on others.”
- “You control the culture that goes around in your head. Today most of the social entitlements that people have grown accustomed to are going away. So you’ve got people living longer; the entitlements are going away — that makes you more important than any time in the past.”
Good advice, Joe, which is why I wanted to help spread the message. For more from The American College's Town Hall webcast or information on ordering Jordan’s new book, visit The American College website.
