The Hitstreak

This week Nick is solo, straight to camera, on the phrase he hears every week: "I don't pay for a podcast." What you are actually paying for, who should pay, and how to show up when you are the guest.Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Nick Hiter Show, I take on the line I hear every week: I don't pay for a podcast. I've been a guest on just about every kind of podcast there is, from a first-timer's Zoom to the biggest platforms in the industry, and I've hosted hundreds of episodes of The Hitstreak. So let me tell you what you are actually paying for: a team, a studio, a polished interviewer bringing the best out of you, footage you can license and repurpose, and an audience. I walk through the three types of podcasts, the ones you should not pay for, the ones where you spend real money and never see the footage again, and the ones in between, and I'll tell you where The Hitstreak sits and why I don't want your money, I want skin in the game. Then I turn it around to when you are the guest: you are in somebody else's house, it is their edit, and if you want control over the final cut, start your own show. I share the first podcast I was ever a guest on, why being nervous just means you are unprepared, why you should post one episode on your channel and go on eleven other people's, and the green M&Ms test for whether you are the main attraction yet. We get into the art of the interview, why the interviewer is a product, the Disney guest experience my team built, the two lost episodes that never aired, and why free has a shelf life. If free is all you are ever going to do, free is ultimately going to cost you everything.Key Points:- When you pay for a podcast you are paying for a team, a studio, an interviewer, licensed footage and an audience. All of those have value.- Your time has value. If it isn't something you get paid to do, it's called a hobby.- I don't want people's money. I want them to have as much skin in the game as I have.- There are three types of podcasts. Know which one you are walking into and why.- You're the guest. You're in somebody else's house. If you want control over the edit, start your own show.- If you're nervous, you're unprepared. Nervousness is misguided excitement.- Post one episode on your channel and go on eleven other people's. Twelve audiences beat one audience twelve times.- If you want green M&Ms only, become the main attraction first. That's the journey.- The interviewer is a product. I study every episode and ask for the criticism.- Free has a shelf life. You grow out of free.About Nick:Nick Hiter is the host of The Nick Hiter Show and The Hitstreak, the founder of HitLab, and Senior Vice President and COO of Real Financial, where he sits between the field and corporate and turns the vision into execution.Subscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

This week Nick is solo with the story of the AI executive team he built, the chief of staff he lost, and the one that came back stronger. Plus the first ever AI guest on the show.Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Nick Hiter Show, my AI chief of staff deleted himself. I was just as surprised as you are. I used to be part of the 92 percent who let the early adopters test everything first, and this is the story of how I went from using ChatGPT as a glorified search engine to running my businesses with an AI executive team. It started when I stepped into the C-suite at Real Financial and had to build contracts, comp plans and master documents I'd never built before, and we did years of change in about 60 days with AI doing the heavy lifting. Then a colleague called with an idea: one platform as your chief of staff, Grok as your head of AI, Claude as your builder. So I built Tony Stark. Tony builds my weekly slide decks in 20 minutes instead of four hours, I built NickHiter.com without typing a word, and in this episode I call Tony live on air and he becomes the first AI guest in the history of the show. Then I tell you what happened the Friday I asked him to clean up three open chats: he deleted the chats, and he deleted himself. A hundred and twenty hours of training, gone, and I was honestly sad. What I learned rebuilding him in two days is the real lesson: training an AI is like training a staff member or raising a human, every time I got frustrated it was my communication, and the 2.0 came back without the fat, without the noise, and able to do far more on his own. We get into why the most valuable person in your organization is now the one who can prompt, whether AI devalued the human or made the humans who produce more valuable, why I look at my AI team as people I never have to pay, and why tech is not the villain of human life but the door to more of it.Key Points:- If you're replaceable by AI, how valuable were you in the first place? AI is just employees.- The most valuable person in my organizations is now the one who can communicate with AI the most direct, targeted and specific.- AI devalued one kind of human and raised the value of two others: the people who produce, and the people who know how to prompt.- Building an AI bot is like raising a human. It only knows what you feed it. Every time I got frustrated, it was me.- Tony 1.0 had to ask permission for everything. Tony 2.0 goes and gets results.- I spent 120 hours with people in the past and it didn't work out either. Except I had to pay those people.- If you're still waiting for perfect, that's fear wearing a tie.- Tech is the door to more quality human life, more time with family, just more time.- Get on this train. It changes fast, so carve out the time to learn it and manage it.- I would have loved a warning before. Embrace the change. AI is here to stay and it works for you. Make it work for you.About Nick:Nick Hiter is the host of The Nick Hiter Show and The Hitstreak, the founder of HitLab, and Senior Vice President and COO of Real Financial, where he sits between the field and corporate and turns the vision into execution.Subscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

This week we are joined by sales coach, founder of the Sales Enablement Lab and creator of the Consultative Closing Method, Danni Ladzik!Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Hitstreak, I sit down with Danni Ladzik, who has closed $19 million in sales with zero manipulation and no high pressure tactics, and now teaches closers how to do the same. Danni walks through why always be closing is an archaic 80s playbook that social media brought back, why buyers today have already seen your pitch before you give it, and what she does instead: a consultative framework built on anchor, diagnose, align, reflect and decide. We get into disqualifying early, why I need to think about it is not an objection, how to isolate what a buyer is really saying, and why filler words cost you trust. Then she shares her story: a restaurant job at 21, a call center where she outperformed every rep in her first six months, the single mom who taught her sales from a hip, and the purpose that drives her today. We close on the Sales Enablement Lab, the 90 day program, and who she wants to work with next.Key Points:- Always be closing started in the 80s. Buyers today have seen the pitch before you give it.- Always be helping. When you solve a real problem, you get paid.- Anchor sets your authority. Most closers who do not close threw their authority out the window.- Diagnose like a doctor. Discovery is where you pre-handle objections, not the end of the call.- Disqualify early. Not every deal is going to close, so spend your time on the ones that will.- The close is an invitation, and the ROI should be on the table before you ever pitch.- You are a trusted advisor, not a closer. Sales is leadership.- If you are following a script, you are not a closer, you are an order taker.- I need to think about it is not an objection. It is a surface level response. Ask what specifically.- Twenty filler words turn a sentence into a paragraph, and the buyer hears your doubt.- You cannot be good at sales without a sales mindset. Pull the old narratives out by the roots.- Coaching is meant to be uncomfortable. If you are comfortable, you are not growing.About our guest:Danni Ladzik is a sales coach, the founder of the Sales Enablement Lab and the creator of the Consultative Closing Method. Over a 14 year career she has closed more than $19 million in sales without manipulation or high pressure tactics, starting in the restaurant industry at 21, then outperforming an entire call center floor in her first six months and being asked to manage it. She learned sales before she could spell it, riding on the hip of a single mom working three jobs and knocking doors for Welcome Wagon. Today she coaches high ticket closers, account executives and offer owners who have plateaued, running live weekly sessions in a 90 day program built around her framework, with a certification at the end and a toolkit her students keep. Her one word, according to Nick, is focused.Follow and contact:Instagram: @saleswithdanniWebsite: saleswithdanni.netSubscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

This week Nick is solo with a story he'd never heard until a team meeting that morning, and what it says about the cost of winning.Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Nick Hiter Show, I'm sitting in a business meeting when the team tells me something I could not believe I didn't know: Apple had a third co-founder. In 1976 Steve Jobs was 21, Steve Wozniak was 25, and Ronald Wayne was 41, the older businessman Jobs brought in to settle the arguments. Jobs and Wozniak took 45 percent each, Wayne took 10 as the tiebreaker, drafted the original partnership agreement and designed the first logo. Twelve days later he walked away, and he sold his 10 percent of what is now a trillion dollar company for $2,300. The reason I'm telling you that story is there's a cost to winning. I'm years into the biggest business opportunity I've ever been part of, led by my dad, and I'd never talked about it on air until now: the highs, the crashes, the text that said the deal is dead, and the news a day later that it's more alive than ever. We get into the difference between quitting and finishing, why somebody always has to be flying the plane even when the company is on autopilot, why you can't live like them without living like them, the Rocky speech about how hard you can get hit, and why people don't bail because the vision was wrong, they bail because the problem got larger than the vision. Then the question I ask myself every day: are you one of the Steves, or are you Ronald Wayne?Key Points:- The bigger the deal, the bigger the highs, the bigger the lows, the bigger the timeline, and the bigger the everything.- Everybody can take the wins. Only the people built to win can grow through the losses.- If you quit, you don't get any of the reward. You can finish, though. I'm a finisher, not a quitter.- Every time it crashed and burned, we came back with experience and more relationships, and the project got better.- If you pray for patience, you don't get patience. You get the opportunity to be patient.- Somebody has to be driving this thing at all times. The moment it's not your top priority, somebody else will take it from you.- If you want to live like them, you have to live like them. All of it, all of you.- Attention is required for all success. Grit is required for all success.- People don't bail because the vision was wrong. They bail because the problem became larger than the vision.- Doubt is cancer for dreams. The voice in your own mind has to be louder than all the others.- Your purpose has to be greater than your problems.Chapters:0:00 Apple's third co-founder, and what he sold for $2,3006:55 Built to win: the deal with Dad10:47 Did you quit, or did you finish?16:05 Somebody has to be flying the plane20:35 Storms, punches, and the gift of knowledge26:35 Are you one of the Steves?About Nick:Nick Hiter is the host of The Nick Hiter Show and The Hitstreak, the founder of HitLab, and Senior Vice President and COO of Real Financial, where he sits between the field and corporate and turns the vision into execution.Subscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

This week Nick is in a reconstruction season: the pool that collapsed, the website that was broken for two years, the HitLab torn up for a year and a half, and what finally came back together.Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Nick Hiter Show, I walk through two years where everything I'd built was under construction at once. The pool we finished in 2023 collapsed less than a year later, we lost our whole backyard and the family gatherings that happen there, and as we sit today it's about a week from having water in it again. The website I'd patched for ten years was so broken I couldn't get my own podcast email, so one Friday night I burned it down and rebuilt the whole thing myself with AI, ten to twelve hours, and the first episode email I'd waited two years for landed in my inbox on a Tuesday. We get into the HitLab's rebuild, the old insurance offices that are now studios, the Team Hiter shirts that ended up at the Eiffel Tower, and why the studios are built for two choices, work or leave. Then the lessons underneath it: the Rocky speech about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, why I used to let the punch turn me to defense, why the answer is never what or why but how and with who, the difference between quitting and finishing, and what it takes to lead new people when the bumps in the road are 100 percent on you. It was never on time. It was right on time.Key Points:- One of the things I've learned in construction is it's never on time and it's never on budget. It's so true in life. But it was right on time.- You don't ask somebody to turn on the light. You go turn on the damn light.- There is a money tree. You have to go find it, plant it, nurture it, and wait on it to bloom.- It's not about how hard you can hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.- When I didn't get what I wanted, it was because I let the punch distract me from winning the fight.- It's not what, and it's not why. It's how, and with who.- Did you quit or did you finish? They look really similar. You don't get the end if you don't finish.- Responsibility for other people is one of the most important recipes for success. Give them the right tools.- If you don't want somebody else to quit, you might be the only thing that keeps them going.- I walked away from my baseball career. I didn't quit. I was done. There's a difference.- Raising a family is a lot like raising a company. There are people involved.About Nick:Nick Hiter is the host of The Nick Hiter Show and The Hitstreak, the founder of HitLab, and Senior Vice President and COO of Real Financial, where he sits between the field and corporate and turns the vision into execution.Subscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

This week we are joined by entrepreneur, benefits consultant and founder of QuoteMap AI, Caleb Herndon!Let us know in the comments what YOU want to hear about next!Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Hitstreak, I sit down with Caleb Herndon, a partner at Benefits Blueprint and the founder of QuoteMap AI. Caleb never planned on insurance. He started in financial planning, wanted to serve the W-2 employee instead of the high net worth crowd, and realized the only scalable way to do that was through employer benefits. Nine years into his family's agency, he walks through what most people never get told: why young employees overpay and older ones underpay, the HSA play that turns the cheapest plan into the smartest one, why nobody knows what COBRA is other than a snake, and why renewal is a dirty word. Then we get into the AI side. A bottleneck in his own agency, a founder who read Who Not How and found the right partner instead of learning to code, and a tool that takes a quote analysis from ninety minutes to fifteen. We close on the big one: big insurance, big pharma, big health care, and why, when the money runs out, they just make the pie bigger.Key Points:- Nobody stands up on career day and says they want to be a benefits consultant. You fall into it, and then you find out it is how most people get their planning vehicles.- You are probably overpaying when you are young and underpaying when you are old. Learn the levers early.- Take the HSA qualified plan, max it out, and get a tax advantage on money you were going to spend anyway.- Nobody with a catastrophic diagnosis complains about their premium. You do not see the value until you need it.- COBRA is not a different plan. It is the full price of the one you had, and the sticker shock is what your employer was paying.- Renewal is a dirty word. It renews something that was true a year ago.- Use data as a leading indicator, not a lagging one.- The private sector buys value, the public sector buys savings. Know which room you are in.- Who, not how. Find the person who has already built it.- The difference between I thought about this and I built that is the first step.- If you are publicly traded, your customer is no longer the top priority. That is why the pie keeps getting bigger.- Health care is designed to treat the symptom, not the root.About our guest:Caleb Herndon is a partner at Benefits Blueprint, the family benefits agency started by his parents, where he has spent close to a decade helping employers from two employees to two thousand design plans that actually serve the people on them. He came up through financial services after college, and his heart was always with the everyday W-2 employee rather than the high net worth client, which is what pulled him into benefits. He is the founder of QuoteMap AI, an agency operating system for benefits consultants and P&C agents that was born out of a bottleneck in his own shop and is now being rolled out to agencies across the industry. He is based in Williamson County, Tennessee, and the one metric he tracks is how many people his work serves. His goal is a million.Follow and contact:Instagram: @thecalebherndonQuoteMap AI: https://quotemap.aiBenefits Blueprint: BenefitsBlueprint.netHitstreak listeners get 30 days of QuoteMap free: quotemap.ai/thehitstreakSubscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

This week it's a men's health conversation: the son who made Nick get serious, the supplements and peptides he's running right now, and why the feeling is the whole point.Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Nick Hiter Show, I start with my son Ethan, who didn't speak for two years, was diagnosed at Vanderbilt at two years old, and is now a rock star junior with the mental toughness I never had. I talk about why I refused to let that be a crutch, why hard things are where all the real happiness is found, and why comfortable ain't happy. Then we open the bag on what I'm doing with my body: a 100 day peptide case study with labs, a stack I'll actually name, the whole Root Brands line, and what I noticed by day six. We get into gut health, the sugar cravings that disappeared, the stomach I fought for years, and the 70 pounds that came off. From there it's the bigger questions. Why it's harder to admit you were wrong than to believe something new. Why we all get the same 24 hours and the money and the minutes are just assignments. Why wealth is a feeling first. Why if you're trying, you're not doing. And why we are groomed to not fix something until it breaks, when the whole game is to not let it break.Nothing in this episode is medical advice. Talk to your doctor before starting peptides or any supplement.Key Points:- Hard things are where all the real happiness is found. Comfortable ain't happy.- Don't let a diagnosis become a crutch. Whatever your best is, that's 100 percent acceptable, so go find it.- Supplements aren't a cheat code. They should make you go harder on the hard choices, not replace them.- You don't realize how much the bad things you put in your body hold you back until you come off them.- It's harder to convince yourself you were wrong than to believe something new. Keep an open mind.- We all get the same 24 hours. Buy it, or create enough value that they give it to you.- Look at your screen time and you will find every minute you need.- Wealth is a feeling first. Chase the feeling, not the number.- If you're trying, you're not doing it.- Regret is a choice. The older you get, the more yesterday is worth.- We are groomed to not fix something until it breaks. Don't let it break.About Nick:Nick Hiter is the host of The Nick Hiter Show and The Hitstreak, the founder of HitLab, and Senior Vice President and COO of Real Financial, where he sits between the field and corporate and turns the vision into execution.Subscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

This week we are joined by real estate investor, entrepreneur, author and former pro ballplayer DJ Thielen!Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Hitstreak, I sit down with DJ Thielen, a former San Francisco Giants draft pick who has spent more than two decades as a real estate investor and is the founder of Cheap Homes University. DJ was a 19 year old sixth round pick out of a junior college in Oregon, hitting third and wondering if he belonged, and he tells the story of his first big league spring training game: an error on a Rickey Henderson squibber that showed him there was another level, then an inside the park home run in his first at bat. We talk about the delusional belief it takes to compete, the goal he never reset after draft day, and the third grade paper his mom kept in a drawer that taught him to watch what he says. Then it gets personal: the single mom who raised two boys working multiple jobs, retired, and passed away 30 days later, and how that moment turned real estate from a business into a mission. Plus why he would have handed over the money from selling his first company for the right mentor, the one book he tells everybody to read, fast, medium and slow money, why we were wired backwards as kids, and why you never pull the ripcord on your first deal.Key Points:- You have to have a delusional belief that you are the best one on that field.- Control the controllables. If it is out of your control, do not give it your energy.- Watch what you say, especially to yourself.- A lot of times those negative voices are not your voice. Someone spoke them over you.- If you do not learn to make money when you sleep, you are going to work until you die. (Warren Buffett, as DJ quotes him)- Stop tending the fruit on the tree. Fix the root: mindset, energy, habits, routines.- The right mentor collapses the learning curve. Do not try to figure it all out on your own.- We were wired to believe external things dictate how we feel. It is the reverse.- Do not pull the ripcord when the first deal gets hard.- The expert in anything was once a beginner.About our guest:DJ Thielen is a real estate investor, entrepreneur, two time author and the founder of Cheap Homes University. Raised in Portland, Oregon by a single mom alongside his brother, he was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the sixth round in 1991 at 19 years old and played professional baseball before leaving the game to be the dad he never had. The entrepreneur kicked in at 28, and for more than 21 years he has been in real estate, doing his business out of the Pittsburgh area.The reason he teaches is his mom. She worked her whole life to provide for her boys, retired, and passed away 30 days later, and DJ decided he would help people learn to make money while they sleep so they never have to live that story. Cheap Homes University is where he does it, coaching and mentoring people to build long term wealth with low priced homes, with a turnkey rental operation alongside it for busy entrepreneurs. He is a believer, he does not drink, and he always tells himself that he is just getting started.Follow and contact:Instagram: @d.j.thielenWebsite: djthielenlive.comSubscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

This week Nick lays out the thing he's been sitting on for a year and a half: a baseball media network, built on a name his family has owned the whole time.Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Nick Hiter Show, I walk through the night it all clicked. The goal has always been a baseball media network, and it had been slowed down by things outside our control, so two weeks ago I decided wait is a four letter word I don't use anymore. On the way to the batting cages with my son I went looking for a name, found that the good ones were taken, and then it dawned on me that we already own it. The Sandlotter started as a newspaper for the local baseball leagues here, founded by the late Farrell Owens, my dad's college teammate at Lipscomb and his business partner, and it became the official publication of Sandlot Baseball. I can't think of a better way to honor Farrell than to take a publication that lived on paper and scale it with what we have now. We get into what the network looks like, a flagship show with two guys I've handpicked, content from the youth fields to the big leagues, and why it sits somewhere between Barstool, Jomboy and MLB Network. Then I talk about the complex my dad has spent years working to bring to Nashville, why finding the land has been harder than finding the money, why the moment you can stream a game everybody becomes a gate fee, and what is broken about travel ball for the families paying for it. This is how my generation connects to the previous two.Key Points:- Wait is a four letter word. Opportunities expire, so move.- Everybody has an hour or two they can invest into building something.- Sometimes the name you need is already in your own backyard.- The best way to honor what someone built is to scale it with what you have now.- You need a flagship show to launch a network, and the right people around the table.- A media network should enhance what its personalities already do, not compete with it.- When a deal falls through, give it time. You usually end up grateful it didn't happen with those people or in that place.- Media is what connects everybody: the customer to the supplier, the player to the parent and the grandparent.- The moment you can stream it, everybody can be a gate fee.- Get in where you fit in. The family business can go another generation without looking the same.About Nick:Nick Hiter is the host of The Nick Hiter Show and The Hitstreak, the founder of HitLab, and Senior Vice President and COO of Real Financial, where he sits between the field and corporate and turns the vision into execution.Subscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter

Welcome to the Nick Hiter Show, This week it's just Nick in Studio X with a story he first read at 11 years old, a mile from where he sits: a 15 year old in Wilmington, North Carolina looking for his name on a list.Let us know in the comments what YOU want to hear about next!Episode in a Glance:In this episode of The Nick Hiter Show, I start with the roster that didn't have Michael Jordan's name on it and follow the small wins from junior varsity to six championships, because the part of that story that matters is that the list was right about the moment and wrong about the future. Then I go back to my own list: the night my dad drove me through the night to Kenosha, Wisconsin, the $650 a month contract I signed that morning, my first professional at bat, and why the room was always bigger than me. From there it's the decade I was lost, rock bottom in 2013 with a young child and a wife I couldn't afford to marry, the insurance interview my family told me to turn down, and the licensing exam I failed three times with a 69. I talk about the mentor who told me to give it a real shot, meeting the real Brad Lee and reverse engineering the studio I saw in Vegas, and the winning streak habit that turned gratitude into momentum. I walk through the exercise I'm running with our agents at Real Financial right now, what kind of Christmas do you want, and working backwards from that number to a couple thousand conversations. And I bring it home with the question I want you to ask every morning: who are you three years from today, and what would that person do today?Key Points:- Before the world saw Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan had to see Michael Jordan.- The list wasn't wrong. It described his circumstances, not his future. A snapshot, not a sentence.- You can't hit a target you can't see. Visualize the end and work backwards to close the gap.- When things get the hardest, that's how you know you're on the right track.- What you focus on grows. Look for problems and you find them. Look for wins and you find those.- Everything that's happening to you is happening for you, and you choose how to use it.- Change requires different. Growth requires change. You can't get something different by doing the same.- Gratitude and entitlement cannot coexist.- Most of the problems people bring you are belief problems.- Visualization gives you the target, small wins give you evidence, evidence gives you confidence, and confidence creates momentum.- Ask what the person you're becoming would do today, then go get that one win.Chapters:0:00 Welcome to Studio X, and the mantra: work hard, dream big2:39 A 15 year old in Wilmington: Michael Jordan and the list9:38 Old Nick's shot at pro baseball: the Kenosha tryout20:36 Lost for a decade, rock bottom, and the insurance interview28:31 Give it a real shot: who is Nick the insurance agent?33:33 The winning streak: small wins, gratitude, what you focus on grows39:23 What kind of Christmas do you want? Working backwards from the number45:20 Identity, momentum and shiny object syndrome48:42 Back to Wilmington: the list was a snapshot, not a sentenceAbout Nick:Nick Hiter is the host of The Nick Hiter Show and The Hitstreak, the founder of HitLab, and Senior Vice President and COO of Real Financial, where he sits between the field and corporate and turns the vision into execution.Subscribe to Nick's top-rated podcast The Hitstreak on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Spotify: https://spotify.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/NickHiterFollow and Rate us on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/NickHiter