Evolution of a Bad Ass

Hey guys, Alberto Riehl l here and in this video, I’m going to be talking about the evolution of a bad ass. Now, this is one of the most important lessons that I ever learned in my life. Until I learned this lesson, I kept starting stuff and stopping and starting and stopping, I’m not sure if that sounds familiar, right? Things would feel a little uncomfortable, I thought, okay, somebody’s giving a signal that I should not be doing this. And it wasn’t until I understood this that things started happening for me. Now, what’s cool is I’m actually documenting this, you’re probably thinking right now, man, Alberto, why should I listen to you, you really suck at this. And you’re absolutely right.

: The first step of the evolution of a bad ass is really sucking. Anytime you do something, guys for the very first time, we’re going to suck at it, right? This is my first video that I’ve ever shot so, guess what? I’m really sucky at it and I gotta confess, this is actually my second video that I’ve shot. The first one was so bad, you couldn’t even hear me. Now I have this little microphone right here so hopefully you can hear me a little bit better. You couldn’t even hear in the first one, that’s how much it really sucked. I had to throw it out. Now, with this video, I’m still kind of far away, right, there’s a little bit of shade, the lighting isn’t completely right, it really sucks but, the information’s really good. So I’m going to be documenting my own journey through the evolution of a bad ass. Alberto Riehl

I started shooting these videos, which makes me uncomfortable, which are some of the characteristics of anytime you start something for the first time. Now we keep pushing, we keep practicing, the good news is, we’ll get to the next stage kind of sucks. We’ll get to the next stage in the evolution of a bad ass and that’s kind of sucking. Hopefully, after a little while of filming these things you’re going to be like, Alberto, you’ve gotten better, but you still kind of suck my friend. And we can apply this to anything. I’m watching Federer play now and he’s the best in the world, best to ever have played the game. But the first time Federer was handed a tennis racquet when he was a kid, he really sucked at it. He had to go through this process so, it’s really important that we understand this.

Now, at this stage, kind of sucking, we still feel very uncomfortable, we’re out of our comfort zone, we are nervous. And can you tell, I’m nervous right now, I’m kind of stiff. You’re like, yeah, you’re still really sucking but, hey, we’re talking about kind of sucks, this is applied to anything that we do. Maybe you’re new in our industry, selling life insurance. Or maybe you’re doing a presentation for the first time, a new presentation. Well, you’re going through these stages, which are the evolution of a bad ass. Now, the good news is, as you keep doing more and more, keep practicing your craft, keep doing more presentations, keep role playing, keep simulating, you’re going to get to the next stage very quickly.

Which is being alright. After I do a few more of these, hopefully, you’ll be like, hey, you’ve improved, you’re kind of alright. And as we do more of our insurance presentations or any type of sales or, anything we do for that matter, we’re going to start all of the sudden becoming alright. Now, we’re still going to feel uncomfortable, we’re still going to feel maybe a little stiff, a little nervous and we probably won’t see any results yet. And here’s where people get in trouble. Is that, because they see no results, maybe you’re a sales guy and you don’t get a sale yet. And you’ve been working at it for weeks, maybe months. But still, no sales, you’re not making any money. This is where most people quit in their evolution to being a bad ass. They never really gave themselves a fair chance. They quit right here at just being alright.

Now, if we just keep pushing a little bit more guys, keep pushing, we’re going to get to the fourth stage of the evolution of a bad ass. And that’s being pretty good. As we keep doing this and we keep practicing, and pushing, we’re actually going to get pretty good. Hopefully down the road, you watch one of my videos and you go, hey, look at Alberto, he’s improved. He’s done a lot, he’s pretty good, right? Pretty good that’s not really where we want to stay but, at least, this is where all the nerves are gone. We’ve done it enough that now we feel comfortable. We’re no longer so stiff, we’re no longer so nervous for most of us. Now, that all sounds like good news but, the reality is pretty good stage is the most dangerous stage out of the evolution of a bad ass. Alberto Rielh: This is where most people go and die. Just being pretty good because what happens is, that discomfort leaves us, we’re no longer nervous, now we get comfortable and so another word for being pretty good at something, you’re kind of mediocre. You’re mediocre, you’re average. The average person, guys, dies being pretty good. They die being mediocre. The average life insurance agent is mediocre and average. If you’re watching this, most likely looking at the statistics, you’re one of these guys. 80 percent of life insurance agents and people for that matter are average. 80 percent are pretty good at what they do. Now, this is so dangerous because I don’t want you stop evolving there and dying there like most people do. I want you to be able to identify it. So here’s how we identify it.

Alberto Riehl

First way to do it is, you’re living paycheck to paycheck. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, that means you’re average, that means you’re mediocre, that means you’re pretty good at whatever it is that you do. But, again, we’re talking about insurance here. If you are probably not taking your family on as many vacations as you would like, you’re average, you’re pretty good. Now, if you do take them on vacation, most likely you’re driving. You’re not flying anywhere, Hawaii is not in the cards, you will not be taking your family to Hawaii any time soon. When you do check in, you’re not checking into a hotel, most likely you’re checking into a motel, right? That means that you’re pretty good at what you do. And when you’re checking out, you’re putting it on a credit card, which means, unfortunately, you have a lot of debt. You have credit card debt, you have student debt, you have this huge weight on your shoulders. Maybe you’re even medicating to handle that. I know the truth hurts sometimes but I’m going to be very real with you. The average person, this is where they get stuck. Alberto Riehl

The other way that the average compensate is they start adding letters by their name. You see, they don’t have any results to show for anything, right, they’re living paycheck to paycheck, they have bunch of debt, they’re average and they know this. So they start adding letters to their name. Now, we do have some bad asses that have some letters by their name, you know the letters. But they’re becoming fewer and fewer and fewer because they’re less important in today’s business world. These letters in our business are CFP, CLU, CHFC, maybe even an MBA. Again, not all but in a lot of cases, that’s what the average do. When you know they’re average is when people brag about it. They can’t brag about their results because they don’t have any. But they’ll brag about, I got a CLU, I got an MBA. They have no results to tell you about.

Now, the last way you can diagnose if you, maybe you or one of your friends is average, pretty good at what they do, is that … This is a good one. This might piss you off. You talk about how long you’ve been doing something. Oh I got 20 years experience in the insurance business. I got 10 years experience. Definitely you’re mediocre. Now, the latest studies show there’s absolutely no correlation between how long you’ve been doing something and how good you are at it. So who cares? Also, there’s no correlation between how much experience you have and your actual results, so who fucking cares? Now, the one though that we do know is that again, these guys have no results, that’s why they’re not saying, hey, I helped a thousand agents last year. Or, hey, I protected a thousand families last year. Or, hey, guess what? Our business went up 300 percent last year. They can’t say that, they had no results to brag about so, instead, they brag about I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I got 10 years experience or 20 years experience.

And guys, here’s what’s really going to piss you off if you’re one of these guys. These guys are lying and don’t even know it. When somebody says I have 20 years experience in the insurance business, they don’t have 20 years experience, they have one year experience repeated 20 times. Did you hear that? Get a little closer. If you say you have 20 years experience in the insurance business, you don’t have 20 years experience. You have one year experience repeated 20 times. I sense some confused faces. Here’s how it works. So, in the first year in business, very first year, some of you watching, your excited, you’re learning, you’re shadowing your manager, you’re learning new things, you’re studying your products, you’re learning, studies show, that you go from really sucky to being pretty good in the first year. Now what happens? You get comfortable. Once you’re average, mediocre, maybe a little bit of bills are getting paid.

You get stuck in that first year and then you just do it over and over again. You got one year experience repeated 20 times ’cause you stopped growing a long time ago. We talk to guys like this all the time. I talked to a guy yesterday, who has been, for the last 17 years, earning the same. Little clue, guys, if you’re earning the same for the last 17 years, you don’t have 17 years experience. You have one year experience, repeated 17 times. Okay? So, that’s the pretty good.

Now for the very few that say, you know what, I don’t want to be average, I want more out of life. You push more, you keep pushing, you keep learning, and then you get to be damn good. Running out of space here, gotta remember I’m still in the really sucking stage when it comes to presenting this. So damn good, and you know those people. 80 percent of the people out there are pretty good, they’re average. Maybe you. Only 20 percent are damn good. Now for that extra effort, they’re taking care of 80 percent of your clients. They’re also servicing 80 percent of what’s out there in the market. They’re adding 80 percent of the value and guess what? They’re also making 80 percent of the money. This is the top 20 percent. These guys are making anywhere between 110 thousand usually, up to about 350 thousand. This is the number one group that comes into our program.

Alberto Riehl: These damn good guys, everybody who’s coming to our group today to get better, they’re already damn good, they’re true professionals. If you’re in the top 20 percent, congratulations, that means you’re making six figures, probably multiple six figures, tapping out about 300, 400 thousand a year. Now, for those very few guys that keep pushing, they want more. They have this hunger that never goes away, they have this fire in their belly. They’re not satisfied, now they’re happy, they’re fulfilled but they’re not satisfied. They know that there’s more value to add to society. There’s more to give back. Those very few are the bad asses.

Alberto Riehl: That’s the sixth stage, call that the bad ass or also a master is when you master something. You’re a bad ass, you see them, they walk into a room, you know they are a bad ass. Less than 3 percent of the population is a bad ass or a master at their craft. Now, these guys are up early when everybody else is still sleeping. They’re working on themselves. They’re committed to their business more than anybody else. They’re combining technology, strategies, with psychology, mindset of a champion, putting it all together. They’re spending more money, here’s the catch to this, these bad asses, invest more to themselves every year in the form of mastermind groups, mentorship, coaches. You know the best people in the world, the best athletes in the world, the best performers in the world, they all have coaches and guess what? Coaches are very expensive. These guys here, the bad asses, invest more it their personal growth every year then what the pretty good earn. Let me say that one more time. The bad asses invest more in themselves every year than what the pretty good earn.

Alberto Riehl: It’s tough to be a bad ass, it takes more time, more commitment to get from here to here than it does from here to here. It takes more money, more investment, more sacrifice to get from here to here, from being damn good to being a bad ass, then it does to get from really sucky all the way to being damn good. So, less than three percent, these people are really committed. Now, they also get rewarded. 97 percent of the value given back to society, comes from the bad assess. And guess what? We live in a very [fairy 00:14:06] universe. That means that 97 percent of the income, 97 percent of the money is earned by the bad asses. So, this is why people join our group. They’re damn good at what they do but they want to be a bad ass, the bad asses are earning minimum 400 thousand a year, we have guys earning multi million dollars a year, one guy earning three million dollars a month. And now, you’ll probably say, what’s the difference, if you’re a bad ass why is this guy making half a million a year and this other guy is making half a million a month.

Well, guess what? There’s different degrees of bad asses. Another way to say bad ass is master, also like a black belt. There’s different degrees of black belt. Second degree, third degree, you just keep getting better. You see this journey never ends. You can always go to another level. You can always keep improving and the bad asses, they thrive on that. They’re always looking for improvement, they’re always looking for the best level. And there’s a lot of pressure here guys, another thing that we didn’t talk about is, when you’re a bad ass, when you’re at the very top, you get a target on your back. Everybody wants to bring you down. Watching the tournament, again, Federer, he’s number one, everybody, all they’re talking about is who’s going to beat Federer? Who can beat Federer? Who has a chance at beating Federer? They all want to bring Federer down, he’s a the top. You get a target on your back when you become a bad ass.

Alberto Riehl: That’s the other thing we don’t talk about, it’s usually the pretty good, the average. Average people, the mediocre, do not like the bad asses. Now, the bad asses don’t even know the mediocre exist. We don’t have time to be focused on that but, these guys, the pretty good, they definitely know the bad asses exist. They know exactly who they are. They see them on the scoreboards and they’re envious and jealous. Unfortunately one thing we didn’t talk about also, these guys with all their free time, the pretty good, they go online on forums and stuff and talk negative shit about the bad asses that are actually out there doing things of consequence.

Alberto Riehl: There’s an old saying that says that criticism is part of the price you pay for leaving past mediocrity. The bad asses don’t even know who the average are. We don’t care. We just care about adding more value to the people around us, to our clients and we care about improving. So I hope that this helps guys, ’cause I used to always quit right here where most people quit in the first couple stages. I’d start feeling uncomfortable, I wasn’t getting the results I wanted, I thought, this isn’t for me. I just talked to somebody yesterday that said, “Oh, this isn’t for me.” But in reality, we just keep pushing then we give ourselves the chance to ultimately become a bad ass. The good news is, that right now, at this exact moment, you are closer to all your dreams and all your goals than you ever have been. So, before you quit, remember why you started. And on the next video, what I’m going to cover is, compression of time. With this concept, we’re going to compress time so we can help you get from really sucking to being a bad ass in record time. This is Alberto, Riehl’s Rants and we’ll see you on the next video.