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Dan Lok™ University

Pacific Lutheran University

Coaches, Speakers, Business Owners and Executives: How Would You Like to Have a Book or Steady Stream of Digital Content, Written IN YOUR VOICE, Without Having to Write a Single Word Yourself?

Greater Seattle Area

I launched into entrepreneurship at full-throttle, organizing a launch for my first book. It met modest success.

Apart from that, the first 17 months of my journey were a $50k "degree" in learning to truly serve the market.

I joined masterminds, published books, hosted a podcast and networked ... but I didn't have a solid OFFER. I didn't even know what my service was; I only knew I was broke.

Through a long, dry season, God revealed to me that PRIDE was my #1 enemy. I thought and acted without His counsel, or that of trusted advisors.

I'd agreed that if, by the end of 2019, I had no leads or opportunities, I would go and find a job.

But I'd never stopped building relationships, or making introductions. And that included Aaron Walker, my mentor at the Iron Sharpens Iron Mastermind.

He joined my podcast in late October, just six weeks before I was due to call it quits.

He said, "Paul, you've introduced me to so many incredible people and you've never asked for anything in return ... you need to let me do something for you."

I didn't know what to ask for.

- Well," he said, "what's something you're good at, that the market pays for?"

- Writing," I said. "I'm a gifted writer. I've done it for 30 years."

Aaron was months behind on content creation. We agreed to "test drive," with me ghostwriting some content for him.

Shortly afterward, people in the know began to inquire: "We know you're too busy to do this. What's the secret sauce?"

TWO DAYS before my quitting deadline - I had my first serious call with someone interested in paying me to write. Three days later, I got my first client.

It's never been the same since. We've gained experience in diverse fields such as mortgage, environmental engineering, radio, masterminds, law, nutrition, digital marketing, SEO, PPC, sales psychology, holistic medicine, family business, change management, in-home services, fitness, financial advising, personal growth and business administration.

The Reluctant Thought Leader

CEO and Founder

As I networked among business owners, I fielded requests for help with commercial insurance. But Liberty restricted me to selling personal lines.

Insurance Services Group acquired their Lacey office from an agent who had retired, and invited me to join and cultivate their book of business.

The challenge was to live up to my brand, and "niche down" into a select class of entrepreneurs who had a lot of "stuff" to insure - businesses, commercial vehicles, homes, personal vehicles, boats, toys, you name it.

I dove in head-first, and threw everything (including the kitchen sink) at networking and building relationships.

But by 2017, I was burned out. I underwent a personal transformation, as I slowly overcame some residual bad habits and addictive behaviors.

Looking back at it, the challenge was to EXTRICATE myself from the world of insurance. It wasn't my destiny or my passion ... but it was familiar and predictable.

In the late summer of 2017 I journeyed to Colorado to attend Wild At Heart Boot Camp, hoping to receive some new direction.

Instead, I walked away with a REVELATION of God as Father. Only a few weeks afterward, I could feel it - my days as an insurance salesman were numbered.

I kept doing the things I knew how to do - networking, adding value, building relationships. It still worked to generate leads ... but I couldn't get ANYTHING to close.

In the meantime, I was also going through personal transformation under my mentor, Vince Del Monte. I'd lost over 15 percent body fat on his fitness guidance, and devotedly listened to his podcast.

At the age of thirty-eight, I reasoned, it was "now or never" to take another look at entrepreneurship. With Vince egging me on from his show, I decided to write my first book - "10 Secrets to Networking Success."

By June, it was clear - nearly six months had passed, and I hadn't sold anything.

ISG fired me on June 14. It was the best day of my life.

Insurance Services Group

Commercial and Personal Lines Insurance Agent

On the day I got hired at Liberty Mutual, my branch manager told me something I took to heart:

- We don't want to see you in the office all day," he said. "Unless you're here to meet with a client and close business, you need to be OUT IN THE FIELD, prospecting."

I never forgot what he said. Unlike AmFam, at Liberty I had to farm my own prospects, and convert them into customers.

It was here that the seeds began to take root, as I learned to network and build powerful relationships.

I'm an extroverted guy, so I was happy to join civic clubs, networking groups, nonprofit boards and social circles where I could go and do business through socializing.

Still deeply mission-oriented, I discovered I could "out-network" most people. I had the energy and stamina to log more miles and hours than anyone else I knew.

In 2014 I joined my first online insurance mastermind, the Agency Alliance, where I learned to replicate that energy on social media, and started building my brand - The Business Owner's Personal Agent.

Wherever I went, people enjoyed getting to know me, and many of them became great referral sources. A mentor and friend challenged me one day to create a mini "seminar" on how to network, and I did.

Not long after that, a Seattle-based independent agency caught wind of what I'd been up to, and approached me about taking on sales duties in their Lacey office.

Liberty Mutual Insurance

The Business Owner's Personal Agent

My post-military career was shrouded in futility. The first position I got ended without explanation, in less than two months on the job.

It was the bottom of the recession, and a second attempt - commission-only media sales - also flopped.

I looked at some positions for becoming an insurance agency owner, but at this point I still had trouble believing I could sell.

If I was going to learn, it had to be from a source that made a LOT of sales.

The challenge with insurance was manifold: I had no interest, passion or experience with it. It isn’t a “sexy” subject; in fact, no one wants to discuss it. So how do you sell it?

I could only find out if I tried. I was 32, unemployed with my bride and two kids at home, and I wanted to work.

Insurance sales is an entire “new dialect” of communication, one I learned within a very well-built structure at Jeff Kearin’s AmFam office.

I learned to stride through one objection after another, hang-up after hang-up, walk-out after walk-out … and then I began to rack up huge numbers.

I listened to a recording of myself one day, verbally “vomiting” all over a prospect, and I suddenly realized how little LISTENING I did.

That changed everything. From then on, I resolved I would talk 15 percent or less of the time - and the rest of the time, my prospect had the floor.

I also learned that high-pressure environments like the military and mass-production insurance offices chafe at my soul.

There was yet more work to be done internally, and I could no longer do it at breakneck speed. In June 2013, I accepted a new position at Liberty Mutual, and resigned with honor.

American Family Insurance

New Business Specialist

I kept getting fired or quitting jobs, so I applied for a job where both of those options were nearly impossible.

They brought me on as a truck driver. I thought it meant I’d chauffeur some senior officer around Europe, where they gave me a guaranteed duty station.

But this was the spring of 2003, after all. I joined the ranks of the “Ramrods” - 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry in the tiny German hamlet of Vilseck.

They sent me to war - “OIF II,” in Diyala Province, Iraq. Forward Operating Base Normandy, where we observed the 60th anniversary of D-Day by receiving 1st Infantry Division combat patches.

I had some growing up to do. They kept sticking me on guard duty, until I stopped whining and took ownership and responsibility for my failures.

Then I enjoyed some adventures for the ages, including participating in Iraq’s first free elections in over 30 years.

Reassigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, I got absorbed into the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division in 2005.

They promoted me to sergeant, where I learned an even harder lesson in maturity - leading others. I wish I could say I excelled … I’ll just say that I was a slow learner.

They sent me to war again, this time in Taji, Iraq, where I went on some even riskier and memorable missions.

For a special treat, I spent several months back at FOB Normandy on a detachment to support infantry soldiers there.

In the spring of 2008, as my active duty enlistment drew to a close, I publicly defied an order to participate in an awards ceremony I disagreed with, and got demoted.

The experience taught me the value of freedom and self-determination. Most Westerners have no idea how free and independent they are.

But when you surrender years of your life to an authoritarian institution, you know - we've got it good.

I finished my service obligation in the Army Reserve, leading a public affairs detachment covering local news stories, officially left service in December 2010.

Paul Edwards