On this Journey Into Insurance, I have learned many things. Many things about myself. Many things about other people. Many things about insurance in general. Many things about insurance agencies. And I believe many things about the future of the insurance industry.
Throughout my career in Architecture and on into my career in Computers, I began to form an "ideal" for the kind of employee, employer, and business owner I wanted to be some day. I have personally experienced co-workers and bosses with all levels of integrity, and perhaps so have you. Integrity, I have learned, is worth only what the person who possesses it is willing to trade it for. It seems that integrity is worth very little to some people. I decided long ago that my integrity was of great value to me and I have striven since to maintain that level of integrity in every area of my life.
I spent about 7 years growing my computer business part-time in addition to a full-time job. At the end of those first 7 years, I walked away from my full-time Architecture job and devoted myself to my growing computer business full-time. The next 2 years were tough. But then in the next year, things took off. I hired my first employee and moved to a bigger facility. Business grew like crazy for the next several years. Bigger, better, more money, more employees. Growth and struggle defined the next several years. During all of this struggle, I did my best to maintain my integrity, always pulling wisdom from my earlier years about how things should go and how my customers and employees should be treated. Honesty was our number one priority to our customers. I thanked my employees after every shift for the work they did that day. I did everything within my power to create the kind of business and workplace that I would want to work in, and would want to utilize. Things went very well for us for many years. To this day, I believe that any of my former employees would tell you that my business was a great place to work. And had the computer repair industry not taken a TV-repair-like nosedive around here, I would likely still be doing the same thing.
But here I am starting over as an insurance agent. A new career, in a strange new industry. This new adventure presents many new challenges and opportunities for me as a person, and perhaps as a business owner too. At this time, I do not know how things will go for me. Or how my future as an insurance agent will go. But as I go forth into this industry, I will take with me the same values that brought me here. Honesty, Integrity, Service, and Value. These are the things that I will continue to strive for, because that is the kind of person I want to be, and that is the kind of insurance agent I want to be.
