Richters Rats: A Story of Hope and Potential

I quit.

I was a Live Insurance agent in 2020 for about 4 months, and I’ll never forget a conversation on the back deck sipping wine with my wife. She looked at me so clear eyed and said: “Jim, I’ll greenlight you doing about anything in the world you think would benefit our family - except this. This insurance business is sucking the joy out of your soul and you need to quit.”


So I did.

I had lost hope that I had what it takes to win at life insurance - and when you lose hope, you stop trying.

HOPE is the catalyst of all action.
 


HOPE is the breath of potential.
 


HOPE is the seed, the acorn, the pregnancy...

HOPE is the spark that can spawn a BONFIRE, launch a BUSINESS, birth a NON PROFIT and change the world- or flame out and leave nothing but a puff of smoke, or an unrealized dream.
 

2 years after I quit, I called a friend in the life insurance industry who was killing it and I said “Hey, I think I might wanna give this thing another go.”


The success that she and a mutual friend had put a new little seed of hope back inside me that maybe if THEY did it, I actually COULD do it?!?

And all it takes is a little hope to take action.
 


HOPE brought you to this blog today.

Maybe you’re a life insurance agent and you're hoping for some insight on how to grow an agency or get better at sales. Maybe you know me from the MLM space and you're hoping for some mindset tips. Maybe you're just hoping for an entertaining bathroom read.

Maybe you’re just hoping to get enough out of this blog to not be like me and quit - because any worthy endeavor can be hard - and you’re not sure you have what it takes either.



And I’m not going to tell you coming back to life insurance was easy. I had 6 months of money in a savings account, a family of 5 to feed with a stay at home wife.


I had a history of quitting and of failure.

I walked into 18 months of sleepless nights and gray hairs, crying, wondering if I had what it takes and worrying my wife would wake up regretting that she hitched her wagon to a guy that couldn’t provide. For 18 months, I barely kept my head above water, and I could have vomited from stress at any moment...

Sometimes even HOPE just clings by a thread. 

Curt Richter was a scientist back in the ‘50s and he got curious one day to know how long rats could swim before they drown.

So he set up a pool, dropped some rats in and set a timer. Turns out, they can swim for about 15 minutes - and then they drown.

He cleaned out the pool, got some new rats, and did it again.

This time though, just before the 15 minute mark, he pulled them out and saved them. In my mind he dried them gently and gave them some cheese and peanut butter for their trouble.

He set this up a 3rd time. This time there are two pools. In one pool he drops a new batch of rats and in the other he drops this group of “previously saved” rats.


As expected, the pool of new rats died at around the 15 minute mark - but the other rats were still going...

For how long?


30 minutes? Still going. They’re DOUBLE their counterparts.


An HOUR... still going...they’re 4x their counterparts.


2 hours, 4 hours, 24 hours, 2 DAYS later, and theyre still swimming...


This group of rats lasted 60 HOURS. 240x longer than their counterparts.


These were not olympic trained rats. These rats weren’t on performance enhancing drugs. These rats weren’t born with or surrounded by privilege. The ONLY thing these rats had was HOPE.


They had a story of hope that said THIS MIGHT LOOK HARD BUT I’VE BEEN THROUGH HARD BEFORE AND I MADE IT.


I MIGHT NOT KNOW HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE, BUT IF I JUST HANG ON A LITTLE WHILE LONGER - IT’S GONNA BE OK!

It isn’t that the inexperienced rats COULDN’T swim longer than 15 minutes - it’s that they didn’t KNOW they could.

I wonder which of you reading this has the POTENTIAL to outperform their counterparts by 240x - but just doesn’t know it yet.

I wonder which of you reading this has gotten used to giving up at the 15 minute mark when you have SO MUCH MORE inside of them.



I wonder which of you reading this is ready to let the spark of hope that inspired you to click this link today turn into a bonfire and to go achieve something that they never knew was possible!


***

You became a life insurance agent or started some other worthy endeavor for a reason.

There was something you wanted.

I’ve literally NEVER met a life insurance agent that said, “you know what? I was just so rich and so bored - I didn’t know what to do with my money, so I figured: Let me go get a life insurance license and I’ll spend my money buying leads and spend my time dialing them.”


That has NEVER happened.

You wanted something from this business - and then you ran head first into obstacles: Lead budget is small, clients ghost appointments, chargebacks hit your balances, new agents on your team quit - you hit the “hard”. You hit the “road blocks” - and I want to promise you something...

Your results have NOTHING to do with what happens TO you and everything to do with how you respond.

And I’m gonna tell you a secret - NO ONE was ever proud of themselves for doing something easy. 

It’s ONLY in the hard - when we rise to the occasion - that we learn what we’re capable of. That we learn we have more to give than we initially gave ourselves credit for. That we start to raise the bar and claim more.

Quitting is easy. And you’re never proud of yourself in the easy.

Those rats had 15 minutes OR 60 hours inside them - which one were they going to choose?
 


I had a quitter and a "top of the life insurance world agent" inside me. Which one was I going to choose? 
 


You have a quitter and a top of the world rockstar inside of you.
 


Which one are you going to choose?


Hope has the power to spark a BONFIRE or flame out to nothing.
 


And what HOPE does inside of you, and for your family, and for your agency - is your choice.

Are you going to honor the potential inside you?
 


 Are you going to honor the future of your children and your family?
 


Are you going to honor the IMPACT that can only be made when you achieve what you’re capable of?


The rats gave up in 15 minutes because they didn’t know they were capable of more.


I gave up in 4 months because I didn’t believe I was capable of more. I had it in me the whole time but I needed to see two friends that I trusted reach their potential so I could learn how to even HOPE for mine.

Who needs to see you hit your potential so they can start believing for theirs?


Which of you reading this has kids that need to see you rise up and do what you're capable of?


Which of you reading this has a spouse that needs to see you rise up and do what you're capable of?


Who in this big wide world gonna start HOPING for more because YOU decided YOU were worth more

Who’s going to fight for their potential alongside me - so that we can create a ripple effect and inspire more people than we can even count to rise up and fight for their own dreams.


If that's you, subscribe to this blog and let's go show them!