Do, Do or Die, Doing: The Action Recast Every Insurance Agent Needs to Hear Again
Hosts of The Insurance Dudes Podcast. 1,000+ episodes helping insurance agents build elite agencies.
Action is the only currency that builds an agency. Replace planning with testing. Set a 20-minute timer, take the imperfect version of the one move you've been preparing for, then learn and run the next imperfect version. Fifty slightly better actions beat the perfect plan.
Stop preparing and start doing. Take the imperfect version of the one growth move you have been getting ready to take, today, on a 20-minute timer. Then run the next imperfect version. Action produces real data that planning can only speculate about, and accumulated doing is what separates agencies that build something from agencies still about to.
Why does over-preparation kill otherwise good agencies?
The agents who struggle most with action are often not the unmotivated ones. They're frequently the thoughtful, intelligent ones, the people who genuinely understand their business well enough to see all the things that could go wrong and want to address those possibilities before moving.
That's not a character flaw. It's a cognitive pattern with real costs. Every additional day spent in preparation mode is a day the phones weren't ringing with calls you didn't make, appointments that didn't get booked, referrals that didn't get asked for. The losses from preparation delay are invisible, you never see the results of the calls you didn't make, which makes the cost easy to underestimate.
The fix isn't to stop thinking carefully. It's to build the habit of testing rather than planning. Instead of preparing a perfect outreach sequence before making your first call, make the first call and use what you learn from it to shape the second. Instead of building the perfect referral program before asking for a single referral, ask your next client for one and see what happens. Action generates data that planning can only speculate about.
Which mode are you in: doing, preparing, or dying?
The "do, do or die, doing" framing points to three operational modes worth distinguishing:
Doing actively: You're in the work. Calls are happening, conversations are being had, policies are being written, follow-ups are being made. This is the only mode that produces direct results.
Preparing to do: You're building the infrastructure, process, or knowledge that will enable doing. This is legitimate and necessary, but it has a time limit. Preparation that doesn't convert to action within a defined window is just delay with better branding.
Dying (metaphorically): The opportunity is expiring. The lead is going cold. The prospect who was warm last week is shopping elsewhere. The market condition that favored your approach has passed. This is what happens when preparation cycles extend past their useful limit.
Most agents spend too little time in the first mode and too much in the second, which means they regularly arrive at the third. The recast is a prompt to check: which mode are you in right now, on the most important growth activity in your agency?
Why does hearing this message again actually change behavior?
Behavioral change is more durable when it's reinforced repeatedly than when it's heard once. The agents who've made action their default operating mode didn't get there from a single motivating moment, they got there from repeated exposure to the same principle from different angles, in different contexts, until the pattern of thinking changed at a deeper level.
That's what recasts do. The original message planted something. The recast waters it. If the message lands differently this time than it did the first time, that's not because the message changed, it's because you have more experience now, more context for why it matters, more specific examples of moments when preparation delayed action and action would have served you better.
What's the one imperfect action you should take in the next 20 minutes?
Identify the one action in your agency that you know would move the needle most, that you have been preparing to take but haven't taken yet. Set a timer for 20 minutes. Use those 20 minutes to take an imperfect version of that action right now. Not the perfect version, the imperfect, incomplete, done version. Then learn from it and do the next imperfect version.
That's how doing compounds. One imperfect action teaches you enough to make the next action slightly better. Fifty slightly better actions over 90 days outperform the perfect action you took on day 91.
What's the bottom line on action over planning?
Do, do or die, doing. The verbs are intentional. This is not a strategy. It's a reminder that all strategy eventually collapses into action or fails. The agencies that build something real build it with accumulated doing, not with superior planning, better information, or more ideal conditions. They did the thing. Repeatedly. You can too.
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About Jason Feltman: Jason Feltman is co-host of The Insurance Dudes podcast and a producing insurance agent who has built and scaled agencies from the ground up. He shares the real tactics behind agency growth, no filler, no fluff.
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