I’m Back Episode 56

Bringing Rural Back Podcast

I really hate that I am having to do an I’m back post. In fact I started not to do one at all. But as I look around I realize a lot of people are or have gone through the same things we have. So I decided I would share what we went though. I hope you get something out of this.

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The last time I posted an episode was last April. At the time I was working nights and still trying to produce content. My heart was in the right place but I couldn’t stay consistent. I was making okay money, but my energy level for almost everything else was in the tank.

The Friday before Independence Day I was called into the office after my shift was over and basically told they no longer needed my services and I was being let go. Calling my wife that morning and telling her that I no longer had a job was very difficult.

If you haven’t heard me say this before let me state here emphatically that my wife a awesome. She was incredibly supportive and never even appeared to doubt that I would land on my feet. With her encouragement, I looked at this time as an opportunity and that is important.

What I learned

Something that I had always heard, but really didn’t believe was that the older you get the more difficult it is to fine employment. When I was dismissed from the company for which I had worked for over 5 years, I hit the ground running. I didn’t sit around for a single day without looking for opportunities, submitting resumes, filling out applications. Since I had this sudden freedom I started shooting for the really good jobs that I really wanted. I was qualified, for everything that I applied, but I shot for the moon.

After a couple of weeks with no employment, a buddy of mine asked if I had thought about getting into insurance. I had not, not at all. I have had some bad experiences with insurance agents and just couldn’t imagine trying to sell things to people they didn’t want. He told me that stigma was really on the life insurance market, he was talking about property insurance. This is the area for automotive and home insurance, but he told me if I really wanted opportunities to open up to study and take the test for Property and Casualty. This covers business insurance, worker’s compensation, automotive both private and commercial, as well as several other areas.

I did a little research and decided that maybe, just maybe I could take my outlook on the world and be one of the “good” insurance agents. I signed up for a self study course and passed the course. I scheduled and paid for the state exam and passed it as well. I learned more about the insurance industry than I really ever cared to know, but it was worth wild.

One thing that I learned was that a lot of people, especially in the poorer areas will let their insurance lapse during November and December so they can spend that money on the holidays. That means that the holidays are the time of year that many insurance agents make the least money. When you take that in addition to most insurance agents are paid on a commission based salary, my wife was not happy. There is the opportunity to make incredible money, but there is also the opportunity to make very little.

I want to state something right here. Security is an illusion. I know that, my wife knows that, we have talked about it a good bit, but she believes that somethings are more secure than others. This isn’t a lack of faith in me, this is a lack of faith in an industry. After I passed the state exam I talked with a few agents about working with them and they all wanted to wait till after the new year for the reasons mentioned above. We needed me to have employment before that.

Another friend asked if I was still looking for a job and said that there was a department in the company that he worked for that needed help pretty bad. He did warn me that is was a hard job, he was right. But I took it and before long moved into a job that was much better on me physically.

So we made it through without too much difficulty. Why were we able to do that? Were we just lucky? Do we live in an area that is more economically vigorous that other places? Or is there some secret ingredient? I would be foolish if I said the local economy didn’t have some impact, but I believe the “secret ingredient is how we dealt with the challenges we faced.

Tools For Dealing With Adversity

Attitude

You have probably heard the saying that Your Attitude Determines Your Altitude. This is true to a major extent. When some challenge arises, our reaction sets the tempo for our recovery. Some people sit down and cry, others protest or picket, others just pick themselves up, dust themselves off and start off again. You can see all of these responses around you everyday.

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