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A History of Blood – Vol. 1, Chapter 5

The first official business owner that I’ve sponsored into my insurance business.

Last week, I sponsored a man named Mark Carter into my insurance business. We met while we were both working at a company called Just Energy, while we were both working in the Management Consulting industry.

Mark had something that I didn’t have: he had professional connections and a team of blades at his disposal: smart, well-dressed, and sophisticated young professionals who knew how to grind and why, while having the emotional intelligence to make friends instead of enemies. It was a sight to behold.

We had comparable sales skills, which is saying a lot due to how talented I am, but Mark actually had one critical skill combined with a variable that allowed him to get promoted significantly faster than I could: he was a great recruiter with a great reputation.

At the time I met Mark, I was already an established salesman, working under an assumed name, and I’m still 50/50 on whether or not it was worth it to bring him onboard, but Mark and I have stayed in touch for years and since he was willing to pay his own platform fee, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

My FMO always talks about the dangers of recruiting salespeople and after the debacle with Jaime, and the difficulties of Mark, I actually get it. You would think that, the people with the most experience are the best fit, but the reality of the situation the best people to sponsor are the ones you spend the most time with. At the time I sponsored him, Mark and I were fairly close.

Earlier this year we had actually went to an NBA game together, where originally discussed our partnership.

The game was on Mar 27, 2025 @ Captial One Arena. The Pacers blew out the WIzards, 162-109, with the Pacers being led by Tyrese Haliburton, who dropped 29 points in 25 minutes. Its worth noting he also dropped 7 threes, with the 162 being their franchise record amount of points scored in a single game, and in the same game, they set a franchise record of most 3-pointers in a single game with 27, best 3-point percentage with 57.4%, and largest victory margin with 53 points.

As far as the basketball game itself, it was my first actual NBA game, so naturally my team would get annihilated. The Washington Wizards are “tanking” and are usually one of, if not the worst teams in the league. They ended the 2024-25 season with a 18-64 (.220) record, That being said, after living in Baltimore for so long, it felt wrong to not support my local team, especially since I’m genuinely a fan of basketball.

Mark on the other hand, is a fan of the Pacers (which is why we went in the first place), so the game was a lot more enjoyable for him than it was for me (probably what lead to us doing business down the road) but on the plus side, I got to see Tyrese Haliburton have a pretty good game, Jordan Poole hit a few threes, and considering the Pacers would go on to the finals (and Haliburton would get injured) it was pretty cool to see him live during the legendary run he was on.