The Commission Code for Success

Unlocking Your Potential, Passion, and Purpose with Joel Steele

The Commission Code For Success from Sims Training and Consulting, LLC Season 1 Episode 31

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Imagine what would happen if you completely removed doubt from your life. According to Joel Steele, doubt is kryptonite—the enemy that prevents us from reaching our full potential. In this compelling conversation with Morris Sims, Joel shares the philosophy that propelled him from uncertainty to extraordinary success across multiple fields.

Joel unpacks the core principles from his new book "Life Switch," revealing how the three Ps—potential, passion, and purpose—create the foundation for a transformed life. His journey from reluctant financial services professional to consistent top-50 performer at New York Life demonstrates the power of aligning what you love with what you're good at. "I didn't love financial services," Joel admits, "but I loved what it allowed me to do—help people and solve problems."

What makes this episode particularly valuable is Joel's practical approach to achievement. His two-step formula—figure out what needs to be done, then do it—cuts through complexity and excuses. He challenges listeners to focus exclusively on what they can control rather than wasting energy on external circumstances. Through vivid examples from his career and personal life, including his unexpected path to NBA championship ring ownership, Joel illustrates how consistent daily choices compound into remarkable results.

The conversation explores the power of building "streaks"—how maintaining momentum creates a self-reinforcing cycle of success. "When you get on a streak," Joel explains, "it starts to build a life of its own because you don't want to go back to zero." This concept applies universally, whether in business development, healthy habits, or creative pursuits.

Ready to make your own "life switch"? This episode provides the blueprint for identifying what makes you come alive, removing self-imposed limitations, and taking consistent action toward your most ambitious goals. As Joel puts it: "If you're going to play the game, put in the time, suit up—you might as well play to win big, or else, why are you playing in the first place?"

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Speaker 1:

You have to have passion, Again the burning fire. When you really believe something, that you can do something and you want to do something, then you can and you will. But if you're unsure, if you have doubt, doubt is your enemy. Doubt is kryptonite. I mean, if you can remove doubt honestly, remove doubt from your life. What you're trying to accomplish, you will achieve whatever you're trying to achieve. But people have a hard time. They limit themselves, they put down limits.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business. From time to time, you know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business. Or maybe feeling overwhelmed, just trying to make ends meet and yet it seems like you're always working. Or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but now nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Speaker 2:

My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for this show. I've spent years okay, decades really in the corporate world teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting and training business about seven years ago, I guess, and I'm helping my clients do just exactly that Get more revenue, increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But I've got to tell you I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code. For your Success, for your success. Joel Steele is our guest today on the Commission Code, and I got to tell you I've known Joel for a number of years and now he is so busy and doing so many different things. He brings a lot of great ideas and philosophies about life to the table and I'm just excited about having Joel on with us today. Joel, thanks for being here on the Commission Code. Joel.

Speaker 3:

Feiglman, PhD. Thanks for having me, Morris. I'm so thrilled to be back with you. It's been a while since we got to see each other and talk, and we're talking offline about some of the memories and cool experiences we had together, and this is definitely a cool experience and I hope people enjoy our little chat today.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm sure it'll be interesting for somebody out there. We hope that's for sure. Hey, joel's an author now as well as a top producer for New York Life Insurance Company. He does a number of different things, including minority owner of professional sports teams. Joel, I can't imagine how you get it all done, but let's talk about this book. That's new for you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the book has just been a labor of love, as people say a lot, but it's something that people say well, why did you write the book? The book told me to write it. That's kind of what it felt like. I just had this amazing passion, this element of hey, you need to do this and you need to do it now. And I just started typing in this book. Actually, about 10 years ago I started typing it out of nowhere and I typed the whole thing up. I saved the document and I just put it away because I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know what its value was. And I was at a conference, an investment conference, not long ago, and something just lit a spark and it said it's time, it's time to open this up, it's time to move forward. And I opened it and I started adding to it like crazy. And what was a 67 page Word document became a 305 page Word document and I thought to myself you know, this is really good. It's not, it's very raw, it's not done, but it's really good. It's something. And I linked up with a publisher and it's coming out October 21st.

Speaker 1:

It's called Life Switch and it's about the three Ps that everybody has potential, passion and purpose. And it's through the telling of my story through ups and downs, failure, successes, some really low points. I really try to help people understand how to maximize these things for themselves. Maximize your potential, find and live with passion, live out your purpose. Don't just identify it, but live your purpose. And just like the book you don't read the book, you can live the book. If you live the book and the principles within it, I believe you'll be a lot, much closer to, much more closer to your ideal life, Because I think we all have that. We have our point A where we're at now. Generally it's not perfect, it's not ideal. And there's the point B it's where we want to go, but a lot of people don't know where they want to go or even why they want to go there. And then other people don't even know where you're going. So some people have one or the other and some people have none. And even if you know where you're at, where you want to go, how do you get that fuel to power you there? And that's what it's all about is making sense of all this. And here's the best part, right, I tell people sometimes the book is free, right, the value in what you're paying for is what you're getting out of yourself.

Speaker 1:

I'm really trying to help people dig in, look in the mirror. Everyone has assets, traits, characteristics that are massively valuable but are being underutilized, and that's something I've done. You know, I was a kid who had no talents, no skills. I looked around. I saw people that were athletic, they were, they were academic, they were just good at things, right, all this other stuff. I'm sure you've seen this too, but I realized some things that I had I didn't realize were valuable. They were right.

Speaker 1:

I liked working hard. I like busting my butt because I liked the results that came from it. So I started to love grueling work physical and mental, right when I started working out, when I got into the financial business working seven days a week, calling people, visiting people, having doors closed, on my face, being told no, because I knew every no was getting me closer to a yes. So I was making progress every day, no matter what happened.

Speaker 1:

And that's the thing that I think people forget. They want these results, only the good results, but you have to sort of tear open the present each day. That is each day is, you know, the present opportunity to unwrap it, and you're not always going to get what you want. But if you keep going, you can work your way towards getting what you want, to getting to your point B, your desired destination, be your desired destination, and so so many of these answers people are looking for on the internet and out there and over a beer or whatever, they're in you. So when you look in yourself, you get the answers you're looking for. You got to spend time with yourself, right, morris? We're all bombarded by breaking news, but breaking news isn't going to fix your problems.

Speaker 2:

No, it's not and, joel, you hit on something early on that. I really I don't know. I camp on it a lot with my clients and that is determining what you want. We can pretty well usually define where you are right now. What are the good things, what are the bad things, where are you right now? But so many people that I work with don't have a real clear picture or vision of what that end point if you will, the next point is for them and what they really want. Out of this thing it becomes what, well, mom and dad told me I should be an engineer, or you know, the world says I'm supposed to get married by now. Whatever that may be, they forget, wait a minute, this is my life. I get to do that. How do you help people get to that point where they define that future point that you were talking about getting to?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, you know, to do something you really love, you're passionate about, you have to have a fire, a burning fire, like my book was a burning fire. Right To do that. How I had time to do that, I almost don't know Right it was. It was incredibly difficult to write a book, especially a pretty, pretty lengthy book, and do the audio book, by the way, but it was. It was a love, it was a passion, a burning fire, and that starts with a spark. And if you're doing something that you think you're supposed to do or someone told you to do, you're likely not going to have that spark and therefore that fire is never going to get lit. So you have to do the things that I would say, if I could be real simple about it find what you love to do and what you're really good at, and try to find a way to marry the two together. And you know, financial services.

Speaker 1:

Look, I didn't love financial services. Financial services for me felt like an arranged marriage, right, my mom was in the business. I purposely didn't want to be in the business. I thought it was the most boring thing you could ever do. I know I assumed that she just, you know, talked about life insurance and people brought her checks. Couldn't be less interested. Couldn't be less interested. And what I found is that I had two things I was really passionate about, and part of it came from my childhood, where I was a pretty bad kid, got in a lot of trouble never really hurt anybody, but got in a lot of trouble and I just wanted to help people, because I was not helping people for the early part of my life. So I desperately wanted to actually help people and solving problems. I love solving problems. I love putting puzzles together, put the right piece in the right place. It's such a fulfilling feeling when you do that, and so I put those two things together helping people and solving problems in financial services. And so my career took off instantly and has doubled several times in 20 plus years, not because I loved financial services, but I loved what it allowed me to do, and that's again help people and solve problems. And so those were traits of mine that became, quite frankly, million-dollar traits, and everyone has things like that within them.

Speaker 1:

What do you like doing? What makes you wake up and jump out of bed and get excited to start your day? Is it talking stocks and bonds? Great. If not, okay, how can you introduce that into your life? If you don't love your day job, how can you inject passion into it?

Speaker 1:

And you mentioned about pro sports ownership. For me, that's something I started doing a while back because I love sports, I love basketball specifically so I started looking for ways to get involved and I found a couple opportunities. And you might think, well, it's distracting. No, it's the opposite it recharges me, it keeps me fresh. So I'm really juggling three balls being an author, being involved with pro sports and owning a financial operation, being a financial advisor slash owner those three things actually keep me fresh and charged up because I can sort of rotate through them, versus just kind of keep pounding my head against the desk in one area. And so for some people, sometimes, if you think you're making progress by just going down and hammering straight ahead, you might actually be hurting your progress. So you have to just ask yourself that question Do you do more of the same, or might you want to take a step back in order to take several steps forward?

Speaker 2:

Oh, you're so right, my friend, and you talked about passion, joel, and that's your why. That's the fuel that gets you up in the morning to put your feet on the ground when it's cold outside or whatever the case may be. It causes you to be able to run through the brick walls or jump over the hurdles. That's what gives you the oomph to keep going when things aren't necessarily going your way. I like to tell folks that stuff has to be wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion, and when that happens and you've got the intersection of things that you love to do and that you're really good at man, that's when everything comes together and it just seems to work so much easier than if you're chasing something that you really don't love, you're really not passionate about, you really don't have that burning why it just sort of all kinds of falls apart. I firmly believe that's the foundation. You've got to have clarity around that before you can worry about much of anything else.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know you have to have passion Again the burning fire. When you really believe something, that you can do something and you want to do something, then you can and you will. But if you're unsure, if you have doubt, doubt is your enemy. Doubt is kryptonite. I mean, if you can remove doubt, honestly, remove doubt from your life, what you're trying to accomplish, you will achieve whatever you're trying to achieve. But people have a hard time. They limit themselves, they put doubt in limits. I remember I had a couple agents work for me over the years and they would give me excuses of why people wouldn't want to meet with them. The people didn't give them excuses, they gave excuses for them. Of course it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. So you don't want to do that. You don't want to be what a lot of people do and that's be your own worst enemy. You want to be your biggest advocate. You want to be your own biggest supporter, Because if you don't believe in yourself, why should anybody else?

Speaker 2:

Oh, isn't that the truth. And it shows. It shows it comes through all over the place. When you don't have that confidence and that, as you say, burning desire, it just sort of falls apart. It just really really does. I mean, golly, it's been around for a long time. People have been writing about it from Think, thinking, grow Rich on down the line, but that burning desire, having that specific passion, that specific desire, is what gets it started, and then figuring out why that's important to you. So, man, I think it's just come together for you beautifully. That's wonderful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm loving life for you beautifully. That's wonderful. Yeah, I'm loving life. And another, you know I mentioned about when the book hit me. I wanted to do it to share everything I learned, everything I felt was valuable. You know it. Just like I said, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And that's why I'm speaking to different companies, specifically a lot of financial companies, because I want to help people do what I did and that's start living my best life, not in 10 years, but today.

Speaker 1:

Right, you don't have a guarantee tomorrow or next year or next decade. If you want to live your best life, you have to start making progress toward it today and, quite frankly, every day. And I talk about the importance of being on a streak. When you get on a streak in sports or anything else, it starts to build momentum and starts to build a life of its own, because you don't want to go back to zero, you don't want to start over again. But the hardest part is getting that streak off the ground. Whether it's eating healthy or it's hitting a certain minimum number of contacts or sales success, whatever it is. But if you can get yourself on a streak again, the hardest part is the beginning. But once you get a streak going to seven days, 10 days, two weeks, 30 days, you start to realize that the potential you thought you had is a lot higher than it actually is.

Speaker 1:

And that's the cool thing about potential is you never hit a point and go, oh yep, that was it, that was my best. Your best always can be better. And that's not a chore. That is exciting, that is fun, right. So many things that we've done. We probably felt we never could have done it. In my book I highlight several things I've done. I never thought I could, but I didn't say I couldn't. I just never thought I could and I just kept going. And the things that have come from it. Like I have an NBA championship ring now because of my involvement with the NBA G League. I didn't see that one coming, but I pursued my passion and something amazing came out of it.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's amazing, Joel. Tell us some of those things you didn't think you could do, but all of a sudden it came in too for you. Give us some stories.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, that was one of them is in getting involved. How could I get involved with basketball? And I found opportunities within the ownership group of several different NBA G League teams and ended up basically getting affiliated with the Nuggets G League team, the Grand Rapids Gold, and I had no idea that if the Nuggets NBA team won a championship, I would get an NBA ring. That's a great example. That, to me, is the most tangible example of a, you know, wow, like didn't see that one coming. But in my business. You know, I started my business in New York life 22 years ago and I remember I'd get these booklets they used to be physical paper booklets of the chairman's cabinet, which was the top 50 people. I used to skip right past that because I'm like I'll never be there which was the top 50 people. Why is it to skip right past that? Because I'm like I'll never be there. These aren't my people.

Speaker 1:

And the last 19 years out of 20 or so I've been chairman's cabinet, been a top 50 agent. I didn't see that happening and what I did? People say how'd you do that? What'd you do? Did you get some huge cases? I just worked really hard, tried to maximize my potential every day and every year. But when you think about it I mean every day there's a lot of time in the day, a lot of hours, a lot of minutes, right, a lot of choices pick up the phone or don't call, go see someone or don't, you know, put yourself in an uncomfortable situation ask or don't ask. And when you do these things consistently every day for a month, a year, five years, 10 years, you really really could get a lot further than you maybe thought. And that's what's cool is putting yourself out there every day.

Speaker 1:

You know, if you try to every now and then throw a shot up like basketball, maybe you make it, maybe you don't, but if you're not shooting 20 or 30 shots, you know you're shooting one or two shots. You know, even if you make one, it's only one, right. If you shoot 30 shots, you make half of them. You made 15 shots right, it's 30 points. So you got to shoot more. You know a lot of people don't shoot because they're afraid they're going to miss. And you don't stick to that. Even if you miss, what if the next one goes in? And have that confidence the more you shoot, the more confident you are that the next shot's going to go in.

Speaker 2:

I have a friend that wrote a book Pardon me, her name is Mindy Audlin and she has a whole community of folks all around this whole idea. What if it all goes right? You know, I was talking to my grandson the other day and it's just oh, pop-pop, it's all going to fall apart, everything's not going to work. I'm not going to get better. He's got a back problem. I'm not going to get any better, it's just going to hurt. But son, what if it gets better? What if the PT does help? What if good things begin to happen? Let's talk about what happens if it goes right instead of all the time worried about what happens if it goes wrong. It just makes all the difference in the world to me and my attitude.

Speaker 1:

It's so much more fun when you look at the possibilities, what can go right, even if you're a kid with a lemonade stand. Do you want to bring over 10 cups and one small pitcher 10 cups and one small pitcher? Or do you want to bring over like the big giant, like Gatorade size you know container that the college football teams have and like you know five stacks of cups? Right, because if you're going to do something, you want to do it right, you want to do it big.

Speaker 2:

If you're going to play the game, put in the time, the effort suit up you might as well play to win big, or else, why are you playing in the first place? Yeah, amen, oh, it makes all the difference in the world. And, joel, tell us, you've got a lot of great principles in your book from our conversation that we had earlier. What are one of the top? What are two of the top principles that you like to speak about that are in the book that you'd like for everybody to know?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, good question. I'll keep it real simple. There's three points that are coming off of the three Ps, which again, it's potential, passion and purpose. But A to B, b to A, one to two, those are the three principles. So A to B is you're at point A right now. You want to get to point B, but you've got to know where you're at and you've got to know where you're going and how to get there in as straight of a line as possible. Right, I've gone. My path was not a straight line. I took the harder path and I'm trying to help other people take a straighter path, but it won't be perfectly straight, never is.

Speaker 1:

B to A is believe to achieve. I talked about that earlier. You have to truly believe. When you believe, you can achieve. And I know that sounds very hokey and people have heard it before, but it's not a quote, it's instructions how to live. So believe to achieve is hugely important. I talk about some amazing experiences I had, from a child to an adult to even today, you know, just by believing and then going out and doing that.

Speaker 1:

And then the one two real simple. I have a simple two-step formula for success and it applies really well to anyone in financial services. Step one is figure out what needs to be done. Step two go out and do it. You know, we were told earlier in our career you need to make 15 contacts a day asking for an appointment. So what did I do? I went out and I made at least 15 contacts a day, but I started to do 20, 25 and 30 because I didn't want to hit the minimum target. That wasn't my goal, that was the minimum expectation. So I wanted to start to blow that out of the water. So that's step one. That was what I needed to do.

Speaker 1:

And again, step two was just do it. You know, call people, see people. I had people in a district agency that I had formed. I mentioned some other people I bought in. I asked them to text me every day how many contacts they made, and it was very clear the goal was 15. Yet I would get texts to say well, I made 12 contacts, today I made 14. I would say you've got to be kidding me. Go out right now. Go to a local convenience store anywhere and just ask someone to sit down with you. 15 is the minimum. So to come to me at 14 is inexcusable. It's admitting and signing up for failure.

Speaker 1:

And that's the thing about another A to B. You're making a choice either choice A or choice B. Choice A is to fail right or choice B is to be successful. But you're making a choice in one of those categories A or B every day. Are you gonna pick up the phone? Are you gonna reach out to that person? Are you gonna ask for their business? What's the worst thing that's gonna happen? Are they gonna pull a gun on you? Probably not right. They might say no, that's the worst thing that happens. But every day you have to choose between A and B. And if someone's listening and they're in financial services or an advisor, just think about that. You are in control of your future. You control your life not everything, but you're playing the primary role in your story and if you want to be the hero and you want to win and be successful, you've got to make the right choice on a pretty consistent basis Choose to win.

Speaker 2:

It's incredible to me, and always has been, because what we're talking about here are the things that we individuals we have control over. 14 or 15,. I control that. I decide whether I'm going to get that 15th contact before the day is out. Am I going to pick up the phone or not? Am I going to make these 10 phone calls I have sitting in front of me or not? I'm in control of that. And if we just focus on the stuff we control and I find that so many people love to ruminate about the things that they can't control instead of focused on the things that are within their control- yeah, no, you're right about that, morris, and I honestly don't know why people focus on that.

Speaker 1:

I think there's just a slant or a bias people have towards negative things. But you want to do your best to try to resist those, you want to try to move away from those and you know, ironically, I learned in BMW driving school years ago, probably about 20 years ago. We're doing a road test. They had a BMW buffet, all these different BMWs, and you would go around and they told you to look at this or look at that, and I was amazed that this vehicle, this thousands of pounds vehicle, it would always go towards wherever I was looking. If I looked at the curve, I started to not gravitate towards the curve. If I looked away from it, I would go away from it, and I still use that today when driving. But, more importantly, I and we should be all using it in our lives you want to be looking towards where you want to go, not looking where you don't want to go, because you're going to gravitate to whatever you're focused on.

Speaker 2:

And then you've got to focus on the things that you can do something about. It's so many folks in the sales world that I've been involved with for years now they want to worry about. You know, did I make a sale or not? Well, folks, let me tell you. You can't make a sale. Somebody has to choose to buy. You can do everything you can do to influence them or to share with them why maybe it's a good thing for them to do, but you can't make it.

Speaker 2:

They've got to decide to buy. They've got to decide to well, in the olden days, write a check. I don't know how they do it today, but they've got to make that decision. I can't worry about whether you buy or not, but I can worry about how good I am at showing you the reasons why you should and showing you the benefits to you from the product that we're talking about, whatever that might be product or service or whatever. And it's again, it's back to let's focus on the stuff we can control and then we can get better at, because I think you said it earlier we always have the opportunity to get better. That's never going to stop, is it?

Speaker 1:

No, you're exactly right, you can always be getting better, and even if you get to the point where you've achieved a certain level, you can go on to the next chapter. Right? Look at athletes. Look at Kobe Bryant right, he retired after 20 years I believe it was with one team. You just really can't have a better career than that.

Speaker 1:

But he really did some soul searching about what he was passionate about, and writing was something that he was passionate about, and he won all these awards for that in his next career after basketball, because he spent time with himself really soul searching what made him feel alive. So he couldn't do any more on the basketball court, but he continued to grow, continued to get better and accomplish more in a different game, if you will, and so everyone can do that, and that's again what I've personally been doing. I love being an author, being a speaker, being involved with pro sports, and I don't have to leave the financial services business behind to do that. So that's one of the cool things about our industry is, unlike an athlete, we don't have to have a sprint of a career. We can have a marathon of a career and introduce other things we want to do at the same time into it, because it's a great business that really can feed other things.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's just amazing to see your success, my friend. I mean I remember when you came into the business in New Jersey and when all that started. Now you're a senior in ILAC over 20 years with the company and chairman's cabinet. Just congratulations to you, joel. I'm so very proud for you.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, Morris. I really appreciate it and I love catching up like this. It feels like no time has passed since we last spoke.

Speaker 2:

It does, it does, and your mom's been in the business now for how long.

Speaker 1:

Around 44 years she's been in here, so she loves the relationships. And just talking to the people, I say she's chairman emeritus. You know she's shaking hands, kissing babies at this point, but she can still do that because this business allows you to do it the way that you want to do it over time.

Speaker 2:

And, as you say, it can be a marathon, it doesn't have to be a sprint, and that was why I wanted to ask that question. It can be a marathon in whatever business you're in, if you want it to be. And that's the beauty of being an entrepreneur, of out there running your own business and making things happen. And that's what you've been able to do. And again, just congratulations to you, brother.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Congrats to you on this podcast and everything that you've done and all the success that you're finding not just personally but, excuse me, not just professionally, but personally. You know fulfillment. You're doing things with your time that make you feel alive and fulfilled, and that is a choice that you made and I applaud you for that.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate it and I appreciate you being here. Joel, if we want to buy the book, is there a way to buy it before it comes out? I think you told me it's coming out on the 23rd of October, but can I pre-order a copy?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you can. It's coming out October 21st. You can get it at Amazon or Barnes Noble. But if you just Google Life Switch, joel Steele, you'll see it at Amplify. That's my publisher. You can actually get a copy from Amplify early. It will ship. We have down free shipping for another week or two and you can grab the book, start reading it and really start living Life Switch and I can guarantee you you will be living on, not off, thriving, not just surviving.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic. Joel, thanks again for being on the Commission Code with us today. We really appreciate you and best wishes to you. Good luck, I hope everything turns out exactly the way you want it to.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, mark, appreciate it. Great talking to you.

Speaker 2:

Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisSimscom for more information and in the meantime, hey, have a great week, get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes. I'm Morris Sims, you.