My Life is Over! My cell phone is dead! How can I live without it!

Hi everyone! I've been advertising a lot, as you know, about how our industry has changed and our lives for that matter, due to the dependence of smartphones and tablets, and the new digital world. On Wednesday of last week, I managed for the 2nd time in 7 months, to take my beloved Samsung S7 Edge running the latest updated software (Oreo), swimming with me in the pool. I knew it about 2 mins in the water and thought to myself, 'OMG, my phone is in my pocket', and got out of the pool as fast as I could. I knew that, the phone was water proof for about 5 mins so I dried it off and walked down into the Jacuzzi! As I got into the Jacuzzi I remembered "oh no, I have a screen protector and a case on it". I pulled the case and screen off of it as it dripped water out, and began drying it again. It looked fine but when I touched a button every app I had, started jumping around. My heart started racing, and if I could have preformed mouth to mount CPR on it, I would have. I took it into the house and used a hair dryer on it, thought about putting it in the oven and basically panicked. I googled on my wife's phone, how to dry it out and what not to do, like plug it in (I did), use a hair dryer on it (which I did) and never, ever put it in an oven! They suggested putting it in a bag of rice, which I did, and let it sit overnight.

And then it hit me! What am I going to do now? I can't look at it! I can't check Linkedin, or Facebook or Twitter. I can't call anyone as I don't have a land line! I could use our "Teleworker voip phone at home for our business, but what about in my car? What am I going to do? I can't answer any agents emails that normally come in after normal work hours, I can't send text messages about my golf league or to my wife? My life as I know it, is over!

I went into the bedroom and pulled out an old Kindle tablet, and logged on to my Office 365 email but it was so slow that it would have taken me hours on a normal night to answer anyone. So there I sat, anxious, kind of afraid and not knowing if my fully paid for Samsung S7 Edge that I love so much, was in fact dead!

The morning came even though I didn't feel like I sleep very much, and the first thing I did was try to turn on the phone---nothing! Dead! So much for water proof phones! When, all of a sudden it hit me that the phone probably needed charged. I unplugged my wireless charger (wires are always better) plugged it in directly, and went out to the kitchen to make coffee, when my wife yelled in that IT WAS ALIVE! I went running in to see the charge say 7%! I was so excited! My baby was alive! Then I realized how much we have become dependent on our devices! Sadly, the one key you need more than any--the "recent app" key must have shorted out and that key was needed. The rest of the phone was like it never happened. By Thursday night, I knew what I had to do! I had to go to my AT&T store and see what they would give me on a trade in.

I've always heard you'd get at least a couple of hundred dollars. After an hour and a half wait, I finally got to sit down with a salesman. I told him I wanted the new S9 Plus and what kind of a trade in would he give me for my baby, my S7 Edge! He fiddled around with it for a minute, realized that it was in good working order-other than the button not working, played around on his iPad that they sell off of, and smiled while offering me "$38.25"! I said "$38.25! Are you crazy? This is my baby and it sold for $795 6 months ago! How can it only be worth $38.25, and where did you come up with that figure?" He looked me straight in the eyes and said "the button doesn't work"! I kept my trusty S7 Edge and bought the new S9-Plus I wanted.

Yes, last week I learned a very valuable lesson (or 2). First always back up your phone on iCloud or Samsung or Google back up. Second, always have all of your passwords written down so you can reload all of your apps that you use on a daily basis. Third, never go in the water with your phone! What I really learned is that everything I advertise or talk about on here and on FB and on Twitter, is true! The world we live and work in now, is not the world of 10 ,20 or 30 years ago. The world we live in now is digital, virtual, and social media driven. We are attached at our hips with our smartphones and tablets and laptops and we can't live without them. We either get on board or get left behind.

At Harper-Cole we strive to keep up with technology and believe that the best way to build your business is through the advancement of social media and partnering with great companies like AIG Partners Group and Foresters Financial to name a few. With our companies, you can literally bring up our website at www.harper-cole.com, call your client on your smartphone, click on one button on our website and quick quote your client, send them an eApp signature page after you have taken the application on the phone or tablet, email it to the client and and once you have it back, hit send on your device, and it is in new business--and if it's done on a platform like iGo eApps it's in our Fast-Track 5 day turnaround. If it's Final Expense business, it's nearly immediate! The world is changing and you can ride this awesome train into the future with us. Please check us out on the web at www.harper-cole.com and send us an email at: [email protected] --or a text message us from our website--or you could call us for more information. We've been around 50 years but we are keeping up with the future of life insurance selling and we can help you do the same.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Give us a call at 800-266-5433 x 102 and let us show you how you can join our team. Hope to hear from you soon! Jack Cole/Harper-Cole Insurance Services, Inc. 2140 Eastman Ave. Suite 201, Ventura, CA 93003 CA Ins Lic# 0C60262