Tune in to an enlightening conversation as host Chris Bowen sits down with Perry Lunsford, affectionately known as the Healthy Insurance Dude. Join Perry as he traces his path through the insurance industry, highlighting the paramount importance of customer service along the way. Perry advocates for a simple yet profound philosophy: success in business hinges on delivering on promises with a genuine smile. Delve into Perry's mindset for success, where self-esteem and a competitive spirit reign supreme. Beyond business, Perry shares his passion for cars and the joy it brings him. Discover how Perry's overarching goal isn't just personal success but creating opportunities and wealth for others while savoring life's pleasures. Whether you're in the insurance realm or seeking inspiration for a fulfilling life journey, this episode offers pearls of wisdom from Perry's unique perspective.
Tune in to an enlightening conversation as host Chris Bowen sits down with Perry Lunsford, affectionately known as the Healthy Insurance Dude. Join Perry as he traces his path through the insurance industry, highlighting the paramount importance of customer service along the way. Perry advocates for a simple yet profound philosophy: success in business hinges on delivering on promises with a genuine smile. Delve into Perry's mindset for success, where self-esteem and a competitive spirit reign supreme. Beyond business, Perry shares his passion for cars and the joy it brings him. Discover how Perry's overarching goal isn't just personal success but creating opportunities and wealth for others while savoring life's pleasures. Whether you're in the insurance realm or seeking inspiration for a fulfilling life journey, this episode offers pearls of wisdom from Perry's unique perspective.
What's up guys, Chris Bowen here with Level Up the Podcast. I am joined today by Perry, the Healthy Insurance guy. Perry does, among a lot of things, insurance, but we'll kind of get into that today. He seems to be a very fascinating individual and I think you guys are going to really enjoy this episode as we kind of dive into his business and his personal life a little bit. So Perry, why don't you introduce yourself, man? Oh, you're a healthy insurance dude. Healthy Insurance Guy is moronic. A Healthy Insurance Dude is way more moronic. It's absolutely a stupid name. It was a hashtag that took off and I got stuck with it and people are kind enough to pretend like it's cool. It's not. That's okay. I'm the DFW Stone and Tile guy, so I understand stupid nicknames. Yeah. I'll take it. Do you still have that? Is that what you used to do? Yeah, so it's what I do full time. So I work in the stone and tile business full time, doing outside sales. What was that? So it's not my business, but yes, we do. It's in Dallas, right? Where that whole kind of district right there. What was that? Heavy on the D part of DFW. Yeah, correct, yes. Alright. Well Dallas is like Fort Worth, but... Well, so we have a Fort Worth branch as well. I just don't work out of the Fort Worth branch. Where's your Fort Worth branch? It is in Haltem City, I believe. on Watauga Road. You're... Hold on, I can tell you just one sec. because I think you guys have done work for me before. It's very possible. It's very possible. So we don't do the install work, but we do a lot of the materials and stuff like that. So it is on. It's in Haltem City. It's on Airport Freeway. So yeah. Yeah. on, Chris. So how can I be of help? man. Tell us about kind of your business and what you do and how you do it, man. So, you know, I don't like to think of myself as being a health insurance agent. I guess probably nobody does. I'm a customer service agent. I own a marketing company. Basically, the way I like to think of myself is, and I mean, it's cliche. Everybody says this shit, but it's the truth with us. My job is to make people's lives better. I've been doing that my whole life. I've built companies around that since I was 18 years old. The problem is most companies have no margins and so it's hard to make a living, hard to grow, hard to change a lot of lives. I wound up in health insurance six years ago and the margins are insane. But also because of that, it gives me the ability to really hone in on what we do, which is customer service the ever living shit out of people, take care of people, care about people. And we monetize that through health insurance. Yeah, absolutely, man. I think that's one of the great things about health insurance is there are really great margins in it. And so it allows people to not only take care of others, but take care of their families as well through that. That's the... is the barrier to entry is really high. So like typically when I'm talking to people, I'll say, listen, until I walk into this room, you've never met a real true health insurance expert. In this business, you meet two types of people. Those who know they know nothing about health insurance and those who are wrong. And so, you know, if you own a lawn mowing company, Every person who's coming across the border right now is one $100 lawnmower away from being your competition. Every nine -year -old boy who turns 10 in your neighborhood is now your competition. But in health insurance, not only A, you have to get a license, but B, you need to be able to find a mentor that's genuine and doesn't have, that isn't just trying to trick you into selling. what it is they want you to sell to every person who walks in the door. You know, I got lucky enough that when I accidentally ended up in this industry, I wasn't buying. crap that people were telling me. And I was lucky enough to find some really great mentors out there who were like, listen, this is what this is great at, and this is what this is great at, this is what this sucks at, this is what this sucks at. And here's how you present it. And basically, I just decided we were gonna help everybody, hoping that... money would eventually find its way to us. And in most businesses, that's not the case. In the gym business, that is not the case. You know, it costs $2 million to open a gym. You're begging people for $30 a month. Nobody really wants to be helped. And if you're helping people and not concerned about making money, you just go broke. But in this world, just making sure, even if that means you're handing the baton off to somebody else, just making sure that people get taken care of. you can accidentally become very successful. Yeah, and I think that it helps that you're so customer service oriented. I think customer service is kind of a lost art amongst a lot of salespeople. A lot of people like to think that they're customer service. Yeah. run a successful business in America? Super simple, brother. You do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it, and you do it with a smile and you will have absolutely no competition. People suck. A person is awesome, right? You know, you can get a person and a person is amazing, but people as a whole are absolutely worthless. You know, why, I think there's two reasons that most small businesses go out of business quickly. Number one, people choose businesses with bad margins. People take advice. There's the two worst pieces of advice that people love giving. Number one is enjoy your 20s. That's stupid. That's what people who hate their 50s give advice to 20 -year -olds. That's stupid. Number two, the worst piece of advice people give people about having their own businesses. Find something you love to do and do that for a living and you'll never work a day in your life. That's stupid. That's the worst advice. Well, what it does is it takes what you love, it takes what you love and makes it work. All right. So let's say you're a preacher and you love worshiping the Lord and you love bringing people to it and then you become a preacher and it's like now you just monetized, right? And who are the people that are lining up and filling all your time or the people that are the wrong people, right? Or, man, I got friends who are porn stars. They became porn stars. because they love doing that and now it turns what they loved into work and it gets rid of the joy. But if you can start a business. that has good margins, right? Then let's say I want to be a race car driver. Well, that's a horrible idea, Chris. But if I can run a successful business with good margins, I can make enough money to pretend to be a race car driver on the weekends. And then you find the thing you love about it and just focus on that, right? Selling health insurance is not sexy. It is when I do it, it's really sexy when my wife does it. Chris, look at me. When my daughter does it, not sexy, bro. Kind of cute, but not sexy. But there are aspects of it that you can love, right? Helping people, you can love. Mentoring clients, mentoring agents, teaching young. My passion in life is being a father. So teaching young men and young women how to be grown men and grown women, whether they're my own children or other people's children, whether they're agents or, you know, even in entrepreneur coaching. Because I'm 50, I've been an entrepreneur since I was 20. I don't charge for that, I just help people. Charging for it, not gonna do. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it's like you're either worth my time. Right. Buy some health insurance from me. how I look at it too. I help people with... So I ran a construction business for six years, did high -end, pull construction. I love the industry. I love construction. I love seeing things go from nothing to something. And if I can help somebody else kind of build their business, hey, come support me. Come buy some materials from me. But I will gladly pour into you everything that I know in order to help. What I think, Chris, is I don't know anything. I think I'm an idiot. Now, I think most people are bigger idiots than me, not because I think I'm smart, but because I've just made so many mistakes in life where most people are frozen and make very few mistakes because they're afraid of the consequences. And I'm not afraid of the consequences. I've lost everything multiple times. And every time I do, my life gets way better, way quicker. And so it doesn't bother me. But so the only kind of advice I can give you is in my experience, I did this and this was the good part and the bad part. In my experience, owning a gym is the dumbest thing you can do, right? Doesn't mean that there's not some successful people out there. You know, like when kids reach out to me on Instagram and like, 50 a day and they're like well you know I want to and I love video games and I'm like well that's stupid you you have a higher likelihood of becoming an MLB player than a professional video game player but do it you chase the game you're never gonna be successful playing video games I guess success is everybody has a different version of success everybody has, yeah, what they consider successful. But in what most people consider successful, you're not going to do that in sports. You're not going to become famous. You're not going to be a famous streamer. It's just life. being famous sucks that means everywhere I go people are like hey you're that insurance guy I'm like it's dude the sexy healthy insurance dude I have to say that because otherwise people won't notice That's exactly right, yeah. No, I love it, man. And so you've kind of been able to take this and become successful at it. And so let's kind of talk about that a little bit and what you deem success. You know, what is it that you find successful in your life? Man, I think that's a difficult question, right? My whole... For decades, even before I came here, people would say, you know, well Perry, you're successful. And I would... It would honestly make my stomach turn. Because I've never felt successful at all. And that's not the case anymore. I feel successful now. But that said, you know, the interesting thing about success or anything would be this story. You know, I was in Ibiza, I took my wife to Ibiza for her birthday, and I'm sitting there and I rented a boat and we went out to this like area where everybody takes their boats and it's beautiful. And I'm in a nice boat, but I look to my right and I'm like, wow, that boat there. It is the nicest boat I've ever seen. Like that is incredible. Right. And then my eyes focused just a little bit past it. And I was like, well, that, that boat is twice as big and twice as nice as this boat. Right. And then my eyes focused a little past that and it happened again. Am I just talking a little past that? And there's, and then all of a sudden there's like the love boat made of gold. Right. And so. You know, the more opportunity you're able to create, the more you have the opportunity to be in rooms with people who are wildly more successful than you. And the more you realize that you are nowhere near the potential that the good Lord gave you. But most people never, never realize their potential. And that's okay, right? That's perfectly fine. Like, so if you, why did I, I didn't make seven figures until I was in my forties. And the reason is I'd never met anyone who made seven figures. I think once you get into those rooms... what the hell? All I got to do is, is help, is build a machine that helps lots and lots and lots of people, including the people that helped me. Right. So like, that's the wonderful thing about most, the insurance industry specific. And this is my favorite thing about the insurance industry specific. I can create a tide that raises in my Bay. and all the boats get to go up and all the clients get a better beach view. I like that. I like that. the gym industry or every other business, the tile industry, let's say you create this tile store, stone and tile place, and that stone and tile place makes you a hundred million dollars. Okay, great. Well, you have created jobs, but you didn't create wealth for anyone but yourself. And listen, creating jobs is honorable, right? Mark, you can out there, create jobs. go round. Absolutely. but creating wealth for the people that held your hand along the way? That's what matters. That's what matters. And doing it in a way that is remarkably ethical for the client and is nothing but helpful and betters their life. But it never occurred to me until all of a sudden I got invited to a party and went to somebody's house and I'm sitting there looking around and I'm like, wait, like this person's not smarter than me. This person isn't more charismatic than me. They're not taller than me. They have better hair than me, but... You know, the only difference between them and myself is a realization that I hadn't had until that moment. And it took me a year and a half to get where I needed, where that was, right? And then I got comfortable. And then I ended up at somebody else's house and I go, you know, Grant Cardone always says, in almost every book he writes, he always says the same thing. His biggest mistakes in life have been... look, his expectations were too low for himself. And, and I think that's everybody. And that's what I keep saying after they try to get his point across. low. And I think so many people can achieve more in life if they really put the effort in to doing it. Well, I agree with you, but yeah, absolutely. but 0 .0001. Right? Why is the washout rate in our industry so high? Mental health. That's it, mental health. There's so few people who have mental health. Have you ever read First Time Sales Manager? I don't think that I have. Okay? But basically, the most important thing I got out of that was I had made a list of things that I believe that it takes to be a successful entrepreneur that I developed this list. And then I created a list of things that it takes to build a company. And I preach these things and I believe in these things. But in this book, he broke it down to two things. If you want to be successful in sales, you need two things and you need them in space. Number one, the ability to be told F off over and over and over and love it. Right. Which another way to say that is an unhealthy high level of self -esteem. like self -esteem and nobody has it. Nobody has it. The second thing you need is an unhealthy high level of competitive nature. Like every stoplight is mine. Do not think that you're going to get in front of this. car because this is my stoplight you son of a gun right like punch a kid in the face and he beats you it shoots and ladders like whatever it takes and really if you sit back and watch everyone who fails it's always one of those two things. Absolutely. always, it's almost always self -esteem, right? What's the, what's the, Nick Saban, I was watching a, I saw this Facebook or Instagram reel a couple of days ago with Nick Saban and somebody asked him, what's more important, talent or attitude? And he was like, I'd give him attitude all day or day, all day or day, right? And that's why, that's why the failure rate is so high in this industry. It's that humans have no self -esteem. Well, I've got another good one for you and it's hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And what that means to me is that you can have all the talent in the world when it comes to sales, but if you don't have the work ethic and the drive behind it, you will not be successful. And that goes for any industry. why do people... So let's... I love it. But let's... So one of the games that I like to play is, okay, but why? Okay, but why? Okay, but why? Until you get all the way back to where you're touching the wall. So like yesterday... my son's mom and I were having a conversation because she's going off on my 16 year old. And I go, do you know, why do you think you're going off on him? And she was like, well, he did this and he did this and he did this and he did this. And I go, yeah, but why? Yeah, but why? Yeah, but why? Yeah, but why? And we get to this place and I go, listen, this is what I think you're going off on. And this is why I want to choke them out too. It's because we've spent 16 years raising this person thinking we did a good job. All of a sudden he's 16 years old and he's a jackass. And so the yeah, but why is really did Did I do a bad job these last 16 years? I only have two years to fix 16 years of screwing up. And that's why you're losing your stuff on our 16 year old son, right? And so with hard work beats talent, right? Why do people not work hard? It's not because they don't want it. It's because their mental health. And so they give themselves an out. They go, well, Because somehow we think we are able to trick our own minds like we're babies. And we go, well, I didn't make it because I didn't try. No, you didn't make it because you didn't try and you didn't try because you were scared of failure. So you gave yourself an out. Absolutely. Now, sometimes people just don't have the mental capacity to put insurance together. Life insurance is pretty simple most of the time, right? Chris, how old are you? How much you want to leave your family when you die? It's this much money, right? We can do that via text message. Obviously, annuities and stuff like that are going to take a higher cognitive, right? But health insurance, unless we're just order takers on Obamacare, is going to be, and that's okay too, right? We do that here too. a place for it. Yeah. but it takes a really high cognitive ability. So if you have a high enough cognitive ability and then then your only problem is do you believe in yourself? And the truth is nobody does. Relatively speaking. Yeah, when I say nobody, listen, I do. Maybe you do. My wife definitely does. But as a population whole, Yes. is it? Have you ever watched that Formula One show on Netflix? Here's what's amazing about that. So there's what? 16 drivers in the whole world that can get in there. And really only eight of them matter, okay? So of these eight or 10, All of these people are Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant level competitors. Right? Now in the NBA, there's only one or two. In the NFL, there's only one or two, right? But every driver is that way. Every owner of the teams is that way. Every CEO of the team is that way. Every person who changes the damn tires is that way. They're remarkable. Kobe, Jordan level competition and belief in themselves. And that's got to be the only sport in the world that is that elite. That's what I try to build in an office, but it's just not. love that. I absolutely love that and I agree with that 100%. And I think what makes those guys so special is not only do they have God given talent, but their mental capacity to handle failure and to handle the drive and work ethic that it takes to get to that level. Most people just do not possess that. No, nobody possesses it. 16 people in the whole world equals nobody. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It's pretty wild. I mean, that's why we only have so many billionaires in the world. We'd love to get there someday. Chances are I won't though, and I'm okay with that. Yeah, I won't. That's not my thing. It would be cool, but it's just not a goal of mine. Plus, I'm 49 years old. I don't know. Maybe my priorities change. So walk us through, we talked a little bit about Off the Podcast, Your Car Collection, man. We'd love to hear about that a little bit. I think viewers would be very interested in that. Man, you know, you only get one life, right? And hopefully when we're done, I end up in heaven. But my feeling since I was a kid has always been like, why don't we make heaven compete with this? You know what I mean? Yeah. our lives while we live them. And so, we all have different things that we're passionate about. I'm only passionate in a few things. And the only way that I have time for you is if you're involved in one of these things, and most of these things I don't know how you're gonna be involved in. So number one in my life, I love my wife, right? So, I'm not sure how you're gonna help me love my wife, Chris. people were not interested in that. Yeah. I mean, her mom loves her, so her mom's welcome. My mom loves her, so my mom's welcome in my life. Raising my kids, so man, you want to be Uncle Chris by all means, come on. Building my companies, it's not hard to help me with that, right? And driving my cars. So those are the only four passions that I really have in life. And I run, I have, you know, five companies that I run, they all pretty much revolve around one company, but it's like, all right, well, we got to build up marketing. So instead of doing marketing myself, I own a marketing agency called Lion's Den Marketing with a full, you know, $20 ,000 a week in payroll. And yeah. And so, you know, those things are time consuming. And so I don't, I don't like spending time doing anything that I'm not completely passionate about. And. And I love cars. I love old cars. The newest car I own with the exception of my truck, because sometimes it rains. I don't own a car newer than 1977. Okay, 1977, all right. I like that, so definitely about the older generation of cars. I like it. a couple of exotics that are newer, but I forget about them because I don't drive them. They're just a collector. They're just for collection, but yeah. But yeah, I don't drive a car newer than 9077. I'm driving a 73 Z28 split bumper today. Ooh, that's cool. I like that. It brings people joy. It brings me joy. I like building them. I like breaking them. I like that it gives kids joy. I like that each car has a different demographic that it's attracted that are attracted to it. You know, when I drive my wife's 1956 or T-bird, T -bird, right? That's older people flock, right? You know, and when I, when I drive the, when I drive the 77, Bandit Trans Am resto mod. That's, you know, there's, here comes the hillbillies coming in after it, right? Listen, I'm a hillbilly too. So, um, but yeah. And I, and then I, and, and, you know, if I'm driving the, the, the 55 Chevy resto mod, then, you know, that's a different demographic. And, and I love the kids drooling on the window when you're at a stoplight and, and I like dressing. that's what the passion is, that's... in the convertibles. Yeah. that's what fuels everything else, man, in my opinion. When you have a passion like that in life, you find ways to fuel it, you know, and I think that's what drives a lot of people's success as well. So we own a museum. We just bought three acres and we're building a 6 ,000 square foot permanent museum. So just to pay for the ride off, but also to bring joy to people, man, you know? So, that's my car. me the invite when you guys have your grand opening. You got it, man. You're down the street. We'll make it happen. Give me a year. man, I greatly appreciate your time today. We'll go ahead and wrap it up today. Anything you want to leave us with, man? Nope. Perry Lunsford on Instagram, healthyinsurancedude .com. Lions Den America, if you want to work on my team, lionsdenamerica .com is my recruiting page. It's very honest about what we do, very open about what we do. We have opportunities in a lot of different directions. And I appreciate you, Chris. Thanks for letting me spew and ramble. Absolutely, man, my pleasure. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Have a beautiful day.