If you’ve ever coached a team, led a business, or managed a group of strong personalities (which, let’s face it, describes most insurance agencies), you know leadership isn’t about barking orders. It’s about drawing out the best in people — helping them discover their own answers, not just giving them yours.

That’s the heart of something I recently studied called The Coach Approach: A Better Way to Live, Lead, and Leave a Legacy by Mark Stephens. It’s a short but powerful devotional series that challenges how we lead, listen, and believe in others.

And even though it’s written from a faith perspective, the lessons apply directly to the way we run agencies, lead teams, and serve clients. In fact, I’d argue this “Coach Approach” is one of the best business strategies you’ll ever use.

A Better Way to Lead Your Team

We live in a world of constant telling. Everyone’s got an opinion, a directive, a how-to video, or a motivational quote ready to go. But real leadership — the kind that inspires people to grow — often comes from asking, not telling.

Stephens calls it being an inquisitive questioner, a legendary listener, and a possibility pursuer.

If you’ve been leading for a while, that might sound simple, maybe even soft. But think about it: when’s the last time someone asked you a question that really made you think — one that helped you find your own answer?

That’s what great leaders do. They don’t just talk; they draw out.

At Jenesis, I’ve seen this firsthand. The best managers aren’t the ones who dominate the room. They’re the ones who know how to ask a good question, pause long enough for others to think, and then listen without interrupting.

It’s the difference between compliance and commitment. When people help shape the solution, they take ownership of it.

The Inquisitive Questioner

Here’s a confession: I used to be a “teller.” Maybe you can relate. You ask how someone’s doing, they give you a half-answer, and you jump straight to advice. It’s not that we don’t care — it’s that we’re busy.

But when we lead by telling, we rob others of the opportunity to think for themselves. We create followers instead of problem-solvers.

Stephens tells a story about joining a tongue-in-cheek group called Teller Anonymous. He realized that by constantly telling, he was missing opportunities to empower others. I could’ve joined that group, too.

The alternative is to become an inquisitive questioner. Instead of giving answers, we ask things like:

• “What do you think would work best here?”
  
• “What’s another way we could approach this?”
  
• Or my new favorite: “And what else?” (Stephens calls it the A.W.E. question.)

Try it during your next team meeting. When someone offers an idea, just say, “That’s great — and what else?” You might be surprised by how much insight your team already has.

Leadership guru Craig Groeschel says, “People would rather follow a leader who is real than one who is always right.” Asking questions shows humility and creates an environment where others feel safe to speak up.

If you want your agency to grow, create thinkers, not just doers. That starts with curiosity.

Becoming a Legendary Listener

We all know what it feels like to talk to someone who’s only half-listening. You can see their eyes glaze over while their phone lights up or their mind drifts to their next meeting.

In an agency, legendary listening can change everything. It deepens relationships with both clients and coworkers, helps you uncover hidden problems, and builds trust faster than any email campaign ever could.

Stephens uses the acronym A.D.D. for Awareness, Distractions, and Deeper Meaning.

1. Awareness: Give someone your full attention. In leadership, awareness means more than hearing words — it’s noticing tone, expression, and what’s not being said.
   
2. Distractions: You can’t listen and check your email at the same time (even if you think you can). Be intentional. Turn off notifications, close your laptop, and lean in.
   
3. Deeper Meaning: Ask questions that go below the surface. “What’s really driving this?” or “How do you feel about that decision?” Often, the truth lives under the first layer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “The beginning of love for others is learning to listen to them.”

When you practice legendary listening, you’re telling people, “You matter.” That’s powerful — especially in business, where people are used to being rushed through conversations.

And yes, it takes time. But listening is never wasted time. It’s an investment in relationships — and those relationships are what drive both retention and referrals.

Becoming a Possibility Pursuer

Every agency has “impossible” moments. Maybe you’ve said it yourself:

• “We’ll never find a good producer.”
  
• “We can’t compete with the big guys.”
  
• “We’ll never get caught up on service requests.”

But possibility pursuers see things differently. They believe there’s always a way — maybe not an easy way, but a possible one.

Stephens quotes missionary C.T. Studd, who said, “God is not looking for nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible.”

That line hit me. Because in business, as in faith, believing in what’s possible changes everything.

To lead this way, we need two types of belief:

1. Belief in our people. If you don’t believe your team is capable of greatness, they’ll sense it.
   
2. Belief in a higher purpose. Whether you call it faith, mission, or conviction, it’s the quiet confidence that there’s more going on than what you can see.

When leaders combine those two beliefs, culture shifts. People start thinking bigger. They stop saying “I can’t” and start asking “What if?”

That’s how faith shows up in business — not by preaching, but by believing that the best is still possible, and that every challenge can be a setup for growth.

How This Applies to Agency Life

The Coach Approach isn’t just theory; it’s practical. You can start using it this week:

• In team meetings: Ask open-ended questions instead of giving quick answers. Let others think it through.
  
• With clients: Listen for emotion, not just information. What are they worried about? What keeps them up at night?
  
• In one-on-ones: Focus on curiosity. Ask, “What’s something you’d love to improve in your role?”
  
• In your own leadership: When something feels impossible, remind yourself that progress always begins with belief.

At Jenesis, we’ve seen how these small shifts create big outcomes. When managers listen more and talk less, employees bring more ideas. When we ask thoughtful questions, we uncover opportunities we didn’t know existed.

The Coach Approach turns everyday conversations into growth moments.

Faith in the Workplace

My faith reminds me that leadership isn’t about control — it’s about stewardship. We’re entrusted with people, opportunities, and influence, and how we handle them matters.

The Bible says, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” (James 1:19) That’s good advice whether you’re leading a prayer group or a sales team.

Faith-based leadership doesn’t mean quoting Scripture in every meeting; it means modeling values like humility, patience, and belief in others. Those traits aren’t just good theology — they’re good business.

So even if you don’t talk about faith at work, you can live it out by leading with curiosity, listening deeply, and believing boldly. People will notice the difference.

Encouragement for the Journey

Leadership can be lonely. It’s easy to feel like you have to have all the answers — for your staff, your clients, your family.

But what if your greatest strength wasn’t knowing everything, but knowing how to bring out the best in others?

That’s the Coach Approach:

• Ask more than you tell.
  
• Listen more than you talk.
  
• Believe more than you doubt.

Do that consistently, and you won’t just run a better agency — you’ll build a better legacy.

And that, my friend, is a business plan worth following.

Last night, I watched a YouTube video from my friend and mentor Dan Martell called 8 Hacks to Stop Wasting Your Evenings.

I’ve had the privilege of working with Dan over the last five years, and one thing I’ve learned is this: when Dan talks about time, I listen. He’s not just another productivity “guru.” He’s lived the grind of 100-hour weeks, burned out, and rebuilt his life in a way that is both high-impact and deeply intentional.

He even wrote the bestselling book Buy Back Your Time, which I recommend to every business owner I meet.

This video grabbed me because evenings are where so many of us either level up—or lose ground. As Dan says, “Evenings are where winners are made.”

Here are the eight hacks Dan shared, along with a few of my reflections and personal experiences.

1. Use Your Feed to Feed Your Mind

Dan pushes back on the “delete social media” mantra. Instead, hack your algorithm to actually learn from it. Search for what you want to grow in—AI, marketing, leadership—and teach your feed to serve you. He calls it “friendventory”—unfollow or mute the accounts that drag you down, and curate the ones that lift you up.

It reminded me of Jim Rohn’s famous line: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Today, that includes the digital people on your feed.

2. Forget Work/Life Balance

Dan doesn’t separate work from life. He integrates it. Tuesday nights are date night with his wife, Wednesdays are mountain biking, and dinners with founders count as both social time and business development.

This is a great reminder for agency owners. Stop trying to build a wall between “work” and “life.” Instead, look for ways they can fuel each other.

3. Schedule Family Time

This one hit home. Dan shared a quote from Ryan Holiday: “There are people with kids, and then there are parents.” The difference? Intentionality.

If you don’t block out family time, your loved ones will always get your leftovers. For me, that means planning—not just hoping—my evenings with Lisa and our kids are meaningful.

Lisa and I spend almost all our time together—working, eating, exercising, going to church, and even just enjoying our patio every evening when we’re home. We’re intentional about FaceTiming with our kids and grandkids, and even more intentional about visiting them, even though they’ve all moved across the country. Add in weekly time with close friends, and evenings become not just downtime but meaningful, memory-making time.

4. Defend Your Downtime

Dan used to believe hustling nonstop was his edge—until it landed him with adrenal fatigue and shingles. His new rule: hobbies aren’t just hobbies, they’re strategy.

That resonates deeply with me. I’ve always believed in hobbies and have added them over time as life allowed. After 40 years, I’ve built quite a list: earning a 2nd degree black belt in Taekwondo after 50, getting my commercial pilot’s license (plus multi-engine, instrument, and flight instructor certifications) after 40, and consistently weightlifting since I was 15—including competing in a bodybuilding show at 20 and becoming a certified personal trainer in 2012.

Lisa and I ride bikes together, usually 10–20 miles at a time, though I’ve gone as far as 300 miles in 3 days. I’ve taken guitar, keyboard, and drum lessons after 50. We have a boat in Florida I learned to captain in 2017, which we’ve taken as far north as the Chesapeake Bay and as far south as the Keys. And yes—we love our two Harley Davidsons, one in North Carolina and one in Florida (though Lisa doesn’t ride her own, she rides with me!).

The point is, hobbies keep me sharp, healthy, and energized. They’re not distractions—they’re fuel.

5. Never Eat Alone

Keith Ferrazzi wrote a book with that title, but Dan lives it. Dinners, hikes, and workouts become his networking playground. And here’s the cool part: most of the opportunities that change your life don’t come from your closest circle, but from “loose ties”—the new relationships you intentionally create.

Agency owners, this one’s huge. How many referrals, carrier relationships, or client introductions have started with a simple dinner?

6. Avoid the Dragon

Dan’s phrase for this is gold: “Don’t try to slay the dragon, just avoid it.”

Translation? Your environment beats your willpower every time. If junk food is in the pantry, you’ll eat it. If video games are plugged in, you’ll play them. Remove the temptation, and you won’t need to fight it.

7. Do an Evening Reset

Dan gives his teams The Five-Minute Journal—a simple way to reflect, review, and reset. Each night, he:

1. Reflects on what went well.
   
2. Reviews his goals.
   
3. Plans tomorrow.
   

Think of it like cleaning the kitchen before bed. You wake up ready to go.

8. Set a Bedtime Alarm

Everybody talks about morning routines. Dan argues the evening routine is even more important. He literally sets an alarm to remind him to go to bed at 9:00. That’s why he can wake up at 4:00 a.m. without an alarm.

Your energy today comes from last night’s choices.

Why This Matters for Insurance Agency Owners

Dan’s hacks aren’t just about being more “productive.” They’re about protecting your energy and using your evenings in ways that compound.

For insurance agency owners, evenings often disappear into email catch-up, Netflix, or sheer exhaustion. But what if instead, you…

• Used your downtime to truly connect with family?
  
• Made networking dinners a weekly practice?
  
• Reviewed your agency goals each night so your team wakes up aligned?
  

Those small evening choices could create massive long-term growth—for both your business and your life.

I’ll wrap this up by giving Dan full credit. These are his eight hacks, and they’re straight from his YouTube video I watched last night. I’ve seen Dan model these in real life over the last five years, and I can say from experience—they work.

As Dan says: “Evenings are where winners are made.”

A couple of years ago, our Jenesis Team book club read Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar. I’ll be honest—I underlined so much of that book it looked like I was trying to highlight every page! It wasn’t just theory; it was practical, everyday stuff about happiness that made me stop and think.

One of the big takeaways for me was that happiness isn’t something that just shows up like a surprise gift. It’s something we choose and cultivate. Tal Ben-Shahar calls it “the ultimate currency.” Think about that—while we all chase money, success, or recognition, the real thing we’re after is happiness. The problem is, we often delay it. We tell ourselves, I’ll be happy when my agency hits $1M in premium, when we add that new carrier, when we finally switch systems. But by then, the goalpost has moved again.

The book challenged me to ask: What if happiness is less about waiting and more about building daily habits? Things like gratitude, meaningful work, exercise, relationships—practices that don’t guarantee life is perfect but definitely raise the average level of joy in your day.

At Jenesis, we talk a lot about growth—helping insurance agencies grow, helping people grow. But what good is growth if you’re miserable in the process? Happiness isn’t just about writing more policies; it’s about enjoying the people you work with, the customers you serve, and the difference you’re making in your community.

Here’s a simple example: Ben-Shahar suggests keeping a gratitude journal. Just writing down three things you’re thankful for each day. Try ending your day by writing down three things you’re grateful for in your agency. Maybe it’s a kind word from a customer, a teammate who went the extra mile, or simply that the phones finally quieted down after 5 p.m. Those little reflections change how you see your work.

As C.S. Lewis once said, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” That line sticks with me because it reminds me happiness isn’t fluff—it’s fuel. It’s what keeps us moving through tough seasons, both in life and in business.

So here’s the encouragement: don’t wait for happiness to show up when conditions are perfect. Choose it now. Build it now. Small steps, practiced daily, can add up to a life that feels richer—not because everything is easy, but because you’ve chosen to live with joy, even in the middle of running an independent insurance agency.