All Up In: Being a Nomad, Knowing Your Value & Getting That Paper with Meg McKeen

Music.Welcome to All Up In My Lady Business. I am your host, Mary Nisi. On this podcast,I'll explore the fine line between having it together and losing your shit. Here I share my journey as an entrepreneur, a mom, a wife, a DJ, and randomly a beekeeper. I have no shame and no filter except the ones I use on Instagram. My stories of resilience, a little structure,and a lot of resourcefulness can show you how to take those same things and live your life life with your whole ass. Thanks for listening.Music.Thanks so much for tuning in today. I am super excited today to have a kind of old but relatively new friend. It feels like I've known Meg forever, but it's only been about five years or so.She is one of the coolest people that I got to meet in my ampersand days. So Meg McKean works in insurance at the very base level of things, which sounds like it would be lame.But insurance is a thing that Meg can actually seem interesting and exciting. And I met Meg.She was a person who rented in the co-working space that I used to own.And we just kind of became fast friends. And then she decided to fuck out everything off.And she decided to become a digital nomad. And I have no idea even where she is right now.She could be anywhere. She could be in Australia or the Cape of Good Hope or some other place in the Southern Hemisphere. Maybe she's up here. We're about to find out. Meg, thank you so much for being on All Up in My Lady Business. It's so fun to be here, Mary. You're hilarious.Where do I even go from there? Yes, insurance is boring. We're going to get into that. I have found.My way to make it not boring or less boring. And to answer the burning question, I'm in Wisconsin.Not glamorous, same hemisphere, even same time zone that you're in right now. But I'm here for the week and next week I'm making my way out to Montana where I'm going to be for the summer,which I'm really excited about. Wow. So I actually don't know where to start. Let's start with the insurance of it all. Because I mean, how does a cool lady like you become an insurance maven? Oh, Mary, the series of bad decisions. No, I'm kidding. You know,it's interesting. I'm doing a lot of work around this idea that you can be really grateful for something, but you can also resent it in a way. And I think that that's how I would sum up my insurance career. One of my best girlfriends has always remarked, for someone as creative as I am,I have one of the least creative jobs in one of the least creative industries. And all of that is a stereotype. And I've certainly worked very hard in the last five years in building my own business to make sure that I'm building a business that I want to work in, frankly. And I've done that and I'm accomplishing that every day. And I'm super proud of that. But to get here was tough.There was a lot of misalignment of my values, of my skills, of my beliefs about things in in the world and of myself that I really wasn't able to explore in a traditional way.I'll say corporate environment, which is a lot of what we think of in the insurance industry.Fortunately, we've entered into a season in the business of change and pretty rapid change,and that's really what I represent in my business. Is the rapid change of the perception of insurance?Well, it's both. There's a lot of things happening all at once. We're in a really tricky,market in terms of the economics of insurance, the things that are happening with,with the ability to find insurance and also the cost of insurance.And also, we are in a talent crisis. So shockingly, not a lot of young people are running to the recruiters at job fairs to talk about careers in insurance.And we have not been good stewards for the business, meaning those of us that are here,haven't looked over our shoulder at the young people around us and said, hey, come and join us in the insurance industry. There's opportunity here.The reality is there's huge opportunity here.The average age of the person working in insurance is over 40 in their 50s even.And we don't have a lot of bench strength. And so there's a lot of opportunity for young people to do well in our business.The problem is the business hasn't evolved as the opinions about work have evolved.And so we're catching up a little bit right now, but a lot of our work is still done,in a nine to five environment, clock in, clock out, butt in seat kind of energy.And I represent obviously a very different way of not just conducting business,but also marrying my life and my work in this industry.And so I've chosen to be very vocal about that because I think that represents a lot of the change that we need to be able to show the next generation that it can look different than maybe it did for your parents or your grandparents.And that's what they're asking for is flexibility and creativity and opportunities to grow in advance,but not be stuck and stagnant and burnout, and I love it.I think the part of the problem with insurance is it's one of these things that everybody needs and it's super confusing.And a lot of the times you can't even use it when you have it.And so there's this sort of this like, well, fuck it.Why should I even have it if it's not going to be able to work out for me?I mean, I personally, we had a filed a claim on a really minor like water damage thing when I was living in my condo.Like I had water that had gone into the one below me and it was like $150 claim.It wasn't even very much.Know that you weren't supposed to use insurance unless it was a big deal. And then we had a huge hailstorm when we moved into our house, and it ripped off the whole section of our deck.And they were like, we used our insurance. And then after that, we got dropped. And it was like,whoa, I just used my insurance and you can drop me? And it was because I had that one weird dinky claim that threw me over the edge. Fun stories. It's hard. And it's hard because I'm a consumer of insurance too. And I have my own headaches and frustrations that I'm navigating as a business owner, as a solopreneur buying health insurance in America. It's a bit of a mess these days. And so I have my own feelings about it. It also does an amazing amount of public good. I had a chance to listen to a podcast yesterday about the tornadoes that went through Arkansas yesterday. Well, the tornadoes were earlier this spring, but the the podcast dropped yesterday.And it was just this beautiful reminder that insurance exists to help us in our hardest moments.And it did in that case. And it's a clunky process. It's not fast, it's not efficient.We need documentation and paperwork. And that's the part of the business that people are working on from a technology standpoint.But the perception is that's up to each of us who are here and who understand the business from the inside out. you've got to start telling a different story.The interesting thing is, like, I can't defend.The industry, you had a bad experience, right? And a lot of people have had bad experiences.And I can't fix that for you, except to know from the place that I sit now,there are exceptionally intelligent, hardworking, disciplined, ethical,empathetic people working inside this business to create a different experience.Now, you don't really see insurance playing out in pop culture in many ways, but one of the ways that I think of is in The Incredibles when Mr. Incredible is like,no, I'm not telling you to fill out this form and I'm not telling you to take it to this place.I feel like that's the only time I've ever seen insurance being talked about. And I feel like,how come not everybody does that? How come everybody doesn't tell you which form to fill out? Are people advised to fuck people over within the system? I mean, I'm sure they are,but how is that legal? Yeah. And it's not, right? Insurance is regulated at the state level. There are systems in place to make sure that the bad people are no longer in business. It can take some time to figure out who those people are. And one of the things, you nailed it, we aren't taught how to navigate the system as consumers. I believe firmly every young person as some part of their early education should be introduced to insurance. And you don't need to understand insurance from a technical standpoint, but you need to understand how the process works and the system and how to,to navigate the system.And I think this is true for banking and investments and all of these sort of financial obligations that we have as consumers in this world, but everyone assumes we know,or we are going to pick this learning up along the way, and many of us don't, and insurance is one of those things.The answer in the absence of that education is to align yourself with someone who is all of those things that I just described and does understand this from the inside out.And, you know, as a business owner, I've been kind of shocked at the many different types of insurance that I have to have or I can have that make running the business a lot easier. And,you know, like I had a problem employee as they were leaving, they seemed like they were going to be problematic. And I'm like, what happens if, you know, I get sued? And then I was informed about EPLI insurance. And so now in case you have a claim against you, I have insurance now for that.So that won't mess my life up. But then I have to have like liability insurance for events,liability insurance for my office. I have key employee insurance in case a key employee leaves. I mean, it's amazing the number of policies that one can have as just a business owner.And then on the consumer side, just like the layman, it's like umbrella insurance in case your nanny slips and falls in your house while they're taking care of your child, your house insurance, your car insurance. I mean, there's so many different things. And I'm sure there's somebody listening to this, who is either a business owner is like, what the fuck is EPLI? And another person who's like, wait a minute, my nanny could sue me if they slip and fall in my house. And it's like, the various ways in which you can get screwed is many.Yeah. And you have just highlighted, like, thank you, Captain Obvious, insurance does not generate or resonate positive thoughts and feelings, right? It forces our minds to go to these really dark places and think all of these worst case scenarios that may or may never materialize. And that's the mystery of life, right? We don't know. What has become an issue in our business and probably has always been an issue is that predatory salespeople find that weakness in you and that dark spot in you.They amplify the fear and then they dangle this insurance product in front of you to solve the ambiguous fear.And I don't actively sell insurance anymore. I'm still licensed to give coverage advice, though I don't have a vehicle to do that anymore.But the approach that I always took was to understand what really mattered to you in in your business and what you wanted to protect.And so I'm thinking about, wasn't your insurance agent when you, well ever,but when you started Toast & Jam and you took this idea from concept to action,you didn't need all of the things that you have now in your insurance portfolio.You needed what you needed in order to get started, to take that first next step.And what you need at that step is somebody who understands that that's where you are in the cycle of your business,who understands what your budget is, but also, and this is the part that we miss, your risk tolerance.You don't have to buy any of this stuff. You get to buy it. You choose to buy it.You look at your total investment financially and then you look at those risks and you say,yeah, I think it's time to buy those things. And then if you have a claim, you're really glad you did.If you don't have the coverage, then maybe you buy it at that point.But we don't.Empower the buyers of insurance to make the decisions that are right for them.We believe as professionals that our job is to show you every worst case scenario and then put coverage in front of you and a heavy price tag and say, if you don't do this, you're going to be making the worst financial decision of your life.That may be true, but it's your decision.And I think there's a nuance to this that we really miss. And no surprise, the work I do now is a lot of different things, but I do work with salespeople,to change the way that they're having these conversations, but also to change the way that they view their role in all of this.Because that misalignment that I felt, it's multiplied across the industry right now as we're evolving as humans.Well, think about the things... So for instance, my parents are dead, so I don't have to worry about dead parents.Me personally, what's going to happen when they get, you know, but I have a lot of friends who are dealing with that. And I keep hearing things about long-term health insurance and how it's like insurance in case you need to go into a home and it covers you because my son, I mean,he's autistic. Who knows if he's going to have the executive functioning to deal with John and I as we deteriorate. So it's like, oh gosh, I'm 48. I need to kind of figure this out. And then I start thinking about it. Then I'm like, I can't think about this. And then I shut down. And I don't I don't even know what even the options are,if it's even worth it at this point.I'm too old to get it, where the premium's gonna be low enough that it's gonna matter.Then you shut down, you don't do it.And then all of a sudden I'll be like 80 and need a home and I won't be able to finance it.Well, it would be inappropriate of me to opine on your personal situation because I don't know all the details and the answer isn't a yes or a no, it depends.And it depends on a lot of things, all the things that we just talked about.I think what I recognize in you is just the awareness.That you know that it's an option out there and you know that it's something that you should prioritize and you will. At some point, something's going to happen and it's usually someone we know.I lost a friend and former client in my social circle earlier this year. Tragic, untimely death.And it started a whole conversation around life insurance because you assume that it's not going to happen and then it does happen. And GoFundMe campaigns are great and well-meaning. No,No, they're not. They're terrible. It's awful that we have to rely upon those to get through horrible situations in our lives.Well, they serve a place in the modern society and crowdfunding. It is a way for people who want to express condolence to do that in a meaningful way. And I'm here for that.I agree. I'm not ripping on it. I'm just saying it sucks that we don't have safety nets in place to take care of when those things happen.Yeah, and you know, life insurance isn't accessible for everyone.That's the reality. You know, it isn't free and the older we get, typically the more expensive it gets.And so it just depends on the choices that you've made up to this point, but it's always worth having a conversation.And I think that's the first step that once you have the facts and it's explained to you in a way that works for you, that computes in Mary's brain, not the brain of everybody else, but in the words and in the stories that are meaningful to you.Then you get to make a decision. And I think there's so much angst and fear, like we talked about initially, because these conversations force you to deal with your mortality.Who wants to talk about this stuff? But done in a way that is proactive. And, you know,life insurance is a gift, you leave those behind, right? It's not something you do for yourself.And when you can look at it from a different lens, and alongside of someone who knows what is what they're talking about, it changes the dynamic.And there's a lot of different ways. I'm excited by some of the different things that I'm seeing out there, just in the way we're explaining some of these complex topics,but also the way we're making it safe and comfortable to talk about these hard things.And a woman I know is an attorney in the small business community,and I don't know that she's doing these anymore, but she used to do a will party.And so she would invite women to come over and drink wine and learn about estate planning.And she did really, really well with it. And I'm thinking to myself,if I were a life insurance agent right now or long-term care.That's what I'd be doing, is I'd be inviting groups of women because we love to get together.That's our gift, right? Is to build deep connection quickly.And I would be neutralizing the environment. Get out of the conference room,get off the phone call at seven o'clock at night or the kitchen table with the kids screaming in the background,and give yourself the space to process this in a way,that breaks down some of those walls and those barriers because it's important work, it's necessary work,but we can do better as an industry.So one of the things I wonder about, and this is just, you know,like I think about the Geico-ification of insurance and if you just get the online thing without a person that's helping you, because I feel like when I first started out in my life,I just went online and got, you know.State Farm because it was there, you know, that was like the insurance that I got.And then as my business got more complicated, I had to have an agent.I have a guy and he is the guy that does all of my insurance.And it's great because he's helped us out of some binds. He's advised us on things.He's been like, you don't need this policy anymore. Let's take it off.He's a really good guy.And I think to myself, gosh, I wonder like how this would goes for other people that don't have a guy like, or gal, I shouldn't say a guy is getting like the online Geico or just doing something online and just having a policy, I suppose this speaks to the risk tolerance that you were speaking of earlier on.But like Is it worth it to probably spend a little bit more and have an agent that can help you really work out everything you need? Or in some cases, is the guy co-okay?Yeah, it's definitely an individual decision. I would be doing a disservice to the entire industry if I said one was better than the other. I have been a licensed insurance agent.For a significant part of my career. Most of my clients work with people like you described at at Toast & Jam, they are the guy or the gal that are helping people make these decisions.It doesn't mean that there aren't other ways to access insurance that are perfectly acceptable at the time of a claim, right?That's really what you're buying insurance for, is your car is on the side of the road and you've been in an accident, or you had that flood damage or that water damage in your home.And so that's really what you wanna be thinking about when you're making the purchasing decision,is I'm not buying a piece of paper, I'm buying a promise, that what I've paid this money for is going to be delivered upon. And insurance gets sticky, it's confusing.And think about your energy when you're in a claim situation when your kitchen is flooded.Is this the best day of your life?Are you happy about this?No, like there's a lot going on in that moment. And so sometimes, again, I'm showing my cards here,but just knowing that there's someone,that you can reach out to who's gonna advocate for you and really kind of hold your hand through this process that you've never been through and don't wanna be going through is really valuable.We always say, you really buy insurance at the time of the claim.That's when you realize the value of what you've bought. It's when you start to see it work for you.And I said it initially, I have a very love-hate relationship with this business.It's taken me 25 years to find my sweet spot where I can show up and be and speak and use the words and language that are in alignment with who I am.I'm hopeful for the future, But there's a lot of the way we've always done it in our business. And a lot of what we see as consumers is just a duplication of that.It's a depersonification of it, depersonalization of it.Is there any like a crib sheet or like a tips like, if you're going to file a claim,don't do this. Or like, this is the thing that like insurance, we have a thing where like,it's one of those people and they're not going to get dealt with because they said this one word.And when they say that one word, that negates everything or whatever. Is there any?Yeah. So, I mean, yes and no. There are humans in this business making these decisions,but there's a lot of data that's circulating in the background and a lot of analytics and also,you know, pricing models and things that would blow your mind from a layman standpoint about how these decisions are made. And so, whether or not your insurance coverage is acceptable or.Your pricing is going to go up has to do with so many factors that, frankly, I'm not meant to understand and it depends on the insurance company that you work with as well. And so,you know, you buy insurance, right? You have a right to use this thing that you have bought.And insurance companies are for-profit endeavors, and so if they realize that you're using more than the piece of the pie that you have paid for, they may make a business decision to part ways with you. Nobody has a crystal ball. Nobody's able to guarantee if this, then that. Again, not to sound like a broken record, but having an insurance agent or a trusted advisor who's been around,and has experienced and been able to sort of draw some conclusions about what might happen hypothetically is a really good person to call, hypothetically.You know, hey I'm in this situation. So thinking about like how you said earlier on how there's not a lot of talent that's replacing the people who are aging out of the system, like what would be like tantalizing to like a Gen Z person? Like because of the way you make it sound, you almost make it sound like kind of awesome to work in insurance and like you get to be there with people in the worst day of their lives and help them get better. Like what would you say,And I feel like when you get, I don't, I don't know what I'm trying to say, is that when.Like, is it almost like you're, it's almost like you want to get more people that, like,are therapy-minded or, like, people who are, like, coming at it from the position of, like,you just said, this is a product you paid for, you should be able to use it.So how can we get people in, like, so it's not just, like, I'm an unoriginal guy and I'm just going to get a job at insurance because I don't have a personality or whatever. Like, how do you you get somebody like, how did like, first of all, how did the industry get you? Because like, you it feels like you could have been, you know, a lot of things.And I love you for that. That is a story actually. And I want to answer the first part of that first. And then we can go down a totally different path. But the way historically we have positioned a career in insurance sales in particular is the financial upside. And so insurance agents when they sell policy, earn a commission, and it's not as much as you would think, candidly. I think most of them are working really hard for the pennies that they're earning from an individual client. That's been my observation. But we have dangled that carrot, unlimited earning potential. And so we talk about.The second home in the Hamptons, and the Maserati in the garage, and the vacation, and golf on every Friday. And that's possible.The issue becomes it takes a while to get there. And we don't really talk about that on the front end.And so we bring people into the industry who are financially motivated, and we say, all this can be yours. Just put your head down.I'm aging myself, but grab the yellow pages or the Rolodex and start dialing for dollars.And then after six weeks and six months and a year, you're not getting the sales and you're not finding the money and the results and you're like, this is the worst job ever. So you quit.Or the company that you're working for fires you because they expect a certain return on their investment in you in a short amount of time.And the truth is it takes three to five years or more to really hit your stride and find your voice and your personality and the clients that see you and value you the way that you you deserve to be valued.And that's the part we've never talked about in the insurance industry.You should just be grateful that someone answered the phone and wants to have a conversation with you.You should be grateful that they're willing to pay you money for this insurance product,even if they're the worst humans on the planet.Just take what's in front of you, take what you can get.The difference now is the generation that's coming in wants their work to have meaning and purpose.And so the story that we need to be telling about the work today is exactly what I described to you.You get to be with people in their hardest moments. You get to make it safe and comfortable to talk about hard things.That's exactly what I did when I was actively selling insurance,and it's why I was able to align myself with people who just allowed Meg to be Meg.I didn't have to put on an act. I didn't have to be a different persona.I didn't have to fake it till you make it.I just was me, and it repelled a lot of people.But it brought the right people in. And I think that's a lesson for life in general,in knowing who we are and showing up in places where we're wanted, rather than trying to squeeze ourselves in places where we don't fit.The other piece of it is the flexibility. So lots of workers in the next generation, much like I have,I'm self-employed.I have one legal source of income. But within the business, I do lots of project work.I'm like a gig worker, essentially. I don't have a 9 to 5 anymore.I do bits and pieces of little things that feel good and are in alignment and allow me to fund this amazing life that I'm living.And we're not talking about that with the next generation of worker coming in.Insurance sales is very entrepreneurial.You can choose the clients you wanna work with. You can choose the kinds of businesses you wanna work with.You can choose the insurance products specifically. What you mentioned, Mary,EPLI is Employment Practices Liability Insurance.You can just focus on that.You could make a living just going around to small businesses and medium-sized businesses and talking about the things that you learned in that conversation. And it is very entrepreneurial and it can have that gig vibe.The issue becomes that a lot of the organizations that we're walking into are still very much entrenched in kind of the old way of doing things.And the reason I've become so vocal about my experience is because we have to start looking at insurance careers differently.It is not butts in seats anymore. It's people outside in the world, in their communities,doing work that's meaningful for them and making a living and feeding our economy.Because ultimately nothing happens in the world, I can't say the world, in America without insurance,if you think about it.I don't want to get completely off, but then I think about, like, does insurance in the rest of the world, like, in Germany, if you have insurance, are there agents also trying to not pay for claims?Like, is it, or do they have different laws, like, different laws, different regulations,and frankly, different language.So it requires a whole different set of skills, different attorneys, different, I mean, the whole system is different.Many insurance organizations are international, and they'll have a presence in different countries.But my experience unilaterally is here, here in the U.S., so.But I mean, I guess, does it work better in other countries, or is like insurance just sort of an opaque nightmare everywhere?Oh gosh, I don't know. I can't answer that.You know, I don't, I don't have boots on the ground feedback.You know, I know it's an important part of the economy in most places that utilize the insurance system.You know, it's not just the way you've described it, but it's also, there are a lot of people employed in the insurance industry and it feeds the economy in different ways.So I can't answer that though. Good question. Sure.Yeah. Thanks for tuning in to All Up In My Lady Business. If you're looking for something fun to do on a Monday from 12 until 3 p.m. in Central Standard Time, you can tune into the Noonday Underground, my radio show on tripradio.org.Every Monday I am there to get you through your lunchtime into the early afternoon.And it's sort of like this podcast, but with way less talking and a lot more dope jams.Tune in to chirpradio.org on Mondays from 12 until 3 and if you go to my bio at chirpradio.org,on the DJ's page, you can find an archive of the last two episodes that I DJed.Do it.Yeah. So how did I end up here? I'm going to tell Mary Nisi the real story. The real story is, and I'm going to get like real deep real quick, but I got dumped in college, like on the day of my college graduation. I was in a very, I think we'd call it a situation ship in these days, but it was a very ambiguous, undefined situation with a person who was very meaningful to me. And so my little young woman heart was pretty crushed. And at that point, the job market was really good. This was the spring of 2000. Basically any company,if you had a heartbeat and a college degree, they would hire you. And so I had all sorts of different avenues that were open to me, and I'm exceptionally grateful for that period.And I had accepted a job originally with the Hyatt Hotel chain in Chicago to do event planning,which is a very full circle moment that I'm having now in my business.But I made that decision largely because it would have kept me in Chicago and kept me near this person who I was gaga.Situationship. My situationship, yeah.Where'd you go to school? Illinois Wesleyan down in Bloomington, Illinois.Central Illinois, little tiny school, but a great experience and they've been just wonderful to me in my adulthood and my business.So shout out the Titans down in Bloomington. To the alumni network at Illinois Wesleyan.But I decided, literally, that day to reroute.I wasn't going to hang around in Chicago. I was going to spread my wings.I was going to see the great wide open. And so I called a recruiter back who I had originally turned down,turned down and it was a small insurance company in rural Ohio outside of Cleveland.And I was like, is that job still available? And he was like, yeah, because he's got quotas and people are turning him down for other opportunities left and right. And so I rerouted. And a couple weeks later, I packed up the car and my parents followed me and drove me and all my worldly possessions out to the middle of nowhere, Ohio. And subsequently, I met on the first day of work.It was a training environment. So we were all fairly recent college grads. And I met the person who would become my husband, my now ex-husband, in that environment. And so really in the course of six weeks or so, my life went from sort of plan A to plan B, and it was that decision to start that job in that area with that insurance company that set me down my insurance career path. So it's wild how these things happen, isn't it, Mary?So you were living in rural Ohio as a 22-year-old? Oh yes.Yes. However, I'll say in the company that I worked for then has been a client of mine in my business now.Some of my best relationships and my strongest advocates are there.They really created a pretty cool environment for young people.It's Amish country. It literally is.It's a very rural part of the country, but they did a really good job.They had corporate housing for us, which was not free, but very subsidized.And so we were able to afford our very paltry, I mean, we were not making anything at that time in our careers.And so rent was cheap. You're like, I'm making $11,000 a year.It was more than that. But interesting, not a whole lot less than what the industry is paying entry-level folks today.And it's been 23 years since I graduated. So I think we have some work to do there too.But they created a really cool, social environment for us. We did a lot of hanging out on the weekends and after work and really built some pretty solid friendships. And I don't know that that would have happened You If, let's say, I had stayed in Chicago and lived with my parents and commuted an hour and a half each way, I don't think I would have had that experience.So I was speaking at a DJ conference in Ohio in February, and the place that the conference was at, was it Nationwide's, like this complex?It had a bunch of rooms, like the company that it was with, they do a lot of weddings at this place, but it was like, there was a bar and there was a hotel and there was a bunch of conference rooms, and it was nationwide. It must have at some point been their entire corporate campus, and now there was a bunch of other conferences that were going on. They must have retrofitted. But was it kind of like that? Were you at a place like that.Or were you at that place? It was outside of Columbus.The place where we lived was maybe 15 minutes away from the headquarters. The headquarters,this is an insurance company. Anybody that's listening in insurance is going to know who this is, but they have a beautiful facility, two 18-hole championship golf courses right on site, and just beautiful, beautiful facilities, doesn't at all have a corporate vibe to it.And so very comfortable to be there, very familial. There's a lot of people that work for the company that are related or lots of generations going on. And so in that sense,it felt very safe and comfortable. I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't what you've I think you're describing version 2.0 of where I was working at the time, this whole work-live concept and really reimagining what do these big companies do with all this real estate that they're sitting on right now? And also, interesting, just drawing this line through the things we're talking about, how can insurance companies get a little bit more creative with their marketing and branding? They've all got their names on baseball stadiums and arenas and things like that. Do you know the podcast, Terrible? Thanks for asking, Nora McInerney.Yeah.Nora and I are not BFFs. At least, she's not mine. I'm her BFF, but she's not mine.I've been listening- Oh, it's like a parasocial relationship.Probably creepy and unhealthy, but big fan. She's got a new podcast that just came out,and I was listening to it, of course. The sponsor is an insurance company, the Hartford.And I'm just so grateful. It's a podcast that focuses on mental health and wellness. And to me, that's what marketing for the next generation and marketing in the future looks like. I just think it's brilliant. It's brilliant collaboration and partnering with Nora and that company. And,you know, having your name on an event space, not a bad idea, you know, good way to get your name out there. But I also think there are more impactful and meaningful ways to do it. So I like Well, I think that when they put their names on stadiums, I don't think that's necessarily a marketing effort.That seems to me like an ego stroke, like a victory lap. We don't have any ego in insurance.Oh my God, it's everywhere.Really the hardest thing for us to overcome is ourselves in the business, frankly.So, you were an agent for this place, and then what happens?So I'm not going to get super technical because this is where people would tune out, but you can do lots of different things, wear lots of different hats in the insurance industry,and I've done a lot of them.So at that time when I was starting out, I worked for an insurance provider, if you will,and so I wasn't an agent then.I was doing more technical stuff on the back end, really learning the science of underwriting,And then many years ago, became an agent.So really flipped kind of from one side of the business to the other side of the business.And so you were on the back end.And then I became the front end. What a weird thing to say.Front of the house, back of the house, you became a salesperson.You sold the product, you weren't creating the product. So I had all this really strong technical knowledge.I knew what I was talking about, which was a huge leg up for me from a competitive standpoint.And I had this desire to try something different, which was sales and a lot of freedom and flexibility to figure that out and really enjoyed it.And also realized that we did a lot of things really well in the industry and we needed to work on some things too. And so didn't ever see self-employment or entrepreneurship as part of my path.But what we haven't talked about very specifically six years ago, I was classically burnt out.We didn't talk about that then in that way. We didn't have that language necessarily, but just really misaligned.I was making a good living. I was supporting myself. I was now divorced at that point.And really reevaluating who I wanted to be as a woman in our world and looking around and realizing the insurance industry, as lucrative as it can be and as important as the work that we do is, it's an industry that was very much built for the success of men.I really wanted to do it my way, and I wanted to sort of...I was doing a lot of appeasing, I was doing a lot of trying to do it the way others thought I should or the way that they did it because that got them success, whatever that means.And so there's been a lot of other work that I've been doing on who I am as a human and a woman and how I want to show up in this world and use the space that I take up.And so the business really came from frustration, healing, recovery, and also just a huge big old gamble on myself.I say what I mean out loud and actually make a living and find a way to do it?"And gosh, it took a while and a pandemic didn't help.But that's what I do today. And we always like, what are the lessons you learned in entrepreneurship?What's advice you'd give a young...I'm like, oh, I just... All of that, I repel all of that because it's just so freaking hard.And like, someday is the answer.And your path is your path is your path. You can't... And that's the thing.I feel like people are always looking for like a thing to say to, you know, to like.You know, cut a step out or, you know, jump over a fence. And it's like, I can give you all the advice in the world. You have to live it.Yeah. And like there are going to be days, many days in a row sometimes when you're like laying on the couch in the fetal position crying and starving. Not, you know, I could always feed myself, but emotionally starving saying, what am I doing here? Am I making the biggest, most colossal mistake of my life? And then somebody signs a contract or, you I still get this weird, I can't believe it's true response. I use QuickBooks for my accounting and people make electronic payments and I get the little alert that so-and-so has paid you money.And I'm still like, I can't believe it's like they actually pay me for this. And I laugh the first time I tell this story. I've told it before. The first time I got paid, I didn't have any of that set up, any of the system set up in my business. I just started talking about it and and somebody said yes, and so I sent them a fake invoice that I made in Word, and they mailed me a check,and I remember getting the check in the mail and just sort of like touching it and then putting it to the side of my desk.And it sat there for weeks, and the accounting person at the office called,and she's like, hey, did you get that check because we haven't seen it clear, the books?And I was like, oh, oh, I must have misplaced it. No, I was scared to death that they were gonna ask for it back.True story. Like, I was scared to death. That's why you didn't cash it?Because you didn't think you'd be able to follow through? And had you started doing the work for them?Yeah, I'd done the work.Done the work. Successfully done the work. I mean, that's how I won't say- Too much trauma.Trauma. Money, right? Money, finances, all of that.You're in those moments you don't realize how deep.It is and how debilitating it is. And so again, you know, I'm working on it. Every day I'm working on it and it gets better and I trust it more. I believe in it more. I trust myself more than I ever have. But there are still days where I wonder when this beautiful dream is going to come crashing down. So what do you do exactly? You said you're no longer selling insurance.So like what do you do? I do whatever I want, Mary. Like that's the answer. And I can say that with confidence. I mean, 99% of what I do is in the insurance industry. There's only one thing that I do that's not industry specific, but I'm a project-based consultant. And so I work with organizations, all sorts of different sizes and missions on different initiatives that they're working on. And the thread is, it's usually something that they've never done before.It's not necessarily that it hasn't been something done in the industry before, but they are doing it it for the first time, and they need sort of a third party to hold their hand and to help them through the process.So one of the cool things that I've really morphed into post-COVID with the world coming back open is a lot more event speaking and planning.I love to emcee, I love to moderate panels and fireside chats, and also because I've built this beautiful network of really competent women, it's now doing some event planning as well. So helping organizations to create curated events specifically for women in the industry. And I get to tap on my friends, people who I love to help get them on stage and get them paid more. And it's really cool. That's like just one, one little tip of the iceberg, but I'm a coach.So let's say a new business, they pay you to come in and tell them where they need insurance.Nope. I don't do anything with insurance anymore. That's an important distinction. So everything Everything I do focuses on people and culture working within the insurance industry.I don't give coverage advice. I don't earn commission from selling insurance policies.All my clients are people that do.No. Oh, so you're doing this for people in the insurance industry.You're just not. Okay. Okay. Got it.Right now I need to add a zero. I need to add a zero. I always do.Add a zero. For an event leader this summer, they're doing a women's conference virtual over the course of a few days and they want me to come in and do kind of a closing keynote,if you will. And so helping them, you know, the audience will all be women insurance salespeople,essentially. And I am not going to be talking about how to sell more insurance. I'm going I'm gonna be talking about something much more squishy,and much more, in my mind, compelling to the women in the room.So that's just an example of something that's coming up.But the thing I do that's not in the insurance industry specifically is a lot of companies right now are either defining for the first time or redefining their core values because a lot of us-We actually just did that.Yeah, thank you for doing that because there's a lot of reasons to do it.But as a facilitator, as a person who knows how to keep a conversation flowing and can pull Larry out of the rabbit holes and keep Judy on schedule and all of that.I go in and work with companies for a day and we write core values and write a mission statement and they take it and run with it from there. And I just love that work.Is that all within the insurance industry? I do it in the insurance industry,but that's the one thing I do outside of the insurance industry.Do you have a core values and mission statement and vision statement for yourself? I do.I do. to share it. I'm going to send you to my website to look at it. How's that? There we go. Let's get some people in a in a funnel. Yeah, I love it. Adjunctadvisors.com forward slash. No, it's very new. And one of the things that I, you know, I talk about being a values-based business and then the light bulb went off and realized that I had not specifically identified my core values because is what's happening now that I use.Them in my, not just my marketing speak, but in my decision-making, right?I turned down an opportunity because the organization wasn't willing to pay me as a speaker and,one of my core values is respect and,I respect myself and I respect my clients and my stakeholders and the respecting myself means I don't work for free.And I do and right as a business decision, I allow a certain amount of time to give philanthropically back to the industry, but for for-profit entities, multi-billion dollar companies to say, could you come in and chat with a group of women and do a lunch and learn and help them realign their day-to-day and their work-life balance, you got to pay me for that. That's just the truth. You got to pay me for that.Well, and I think that there's so much unraveling that needs to be done in just the gall that a for-profit company could ask anybody to do anything for free. And free can mean a bunch of different things. Sometimes free means money, or payment can mean different things. So I get asked to DJ shit for free all the time.Oh, I bet you do. I never thought about that. Yeah.Especially through Toast & Jam, we'll get people who are like, I'm a non-profit. We're having our gala. It's our biggest fundraiser. And would you be willing to DJ this thing for free. And it's like, the only things I will do for free is if it's abortion-related.I'll do abortion shit for free all day long because that, to me, is a thing that's very important to me. But if someone comes to me and they're like, oh, we're just trying to get classical music out in the world. It's like, well, I care about classical music.I know what you mean.But I don't care enough about it to do it for free. And also, your venue didn't give it to you for free. Your food's going to cost money. Why should I have to be the one? Because I'm doing a service and you can't see the physical value of what I bring, you can't give me money for it.Yeah, and I think about, there's a lot of conferences and events in the insurance industry.We're in event season, the spring conference season right now. and.The ticket prices are amazing and the sponsorship dollars that flow through these events. And if you think about it, if there are no speakers at these events, there's no event. You don't go for the food. You don't go for the lighting. You don't go for the ambience. You go for the content.Why don't you pay the people? Yeah, exactly. And then what we're seeing in the insurance industry, and one of the things that I am balancing is overexposure. So you see the same cast of characters at every single one of these conferences and then we've got a diminishing return of thought leadership and the benefit that I have always had when I started my business and it's still true today, I'm always looking outside the insurance industry for ideas.The reason that what I do feel so radical to so many people is because it's already being done by everybody else, just not in the insurance industry.So it feels fresh and different because I'm bringing it to the table, but it's not necessarily my original concept.I just see this sort of regeneration, I was just talking with a gentleman who's become a mentor of mine in the business yesterday, and it feels to me like the 2023 version of the way it used to be, like the way it's always been.It's like the old boy network, the bravado and the machismo and the kind of stand on stage and beat your chest energy.I repel that at this season of my life. I always have, and now I'm comfortable enough to say that, and I know so many other people feel that way too. And so I think we're just clamoring for something different, but yet,you know, the loudest voice in the room is unfortunately usually the one that gets the attention in our business. And this is not a woe is me. I'm astonished every day at the proposals that I send out and the ideas that I have in companies are saying yes, because they're meeting me there. They recognize the need for something different. And what we see in social media is not always representative as we know of what's really going on out there. So it's actually never, it's actually not at all accurate. I mean, I do think that there's a movement towards that of being more real or whatever, but you're still showing what you're willing to show is real. Yeah, exactly.And there's a lot of, ugh, I hate social media. And that's the thing. It's like, I hate the social media of it. I'm really bad at it. I don't understand it. I don't care. I'm not on TikTok. I was on TikTok briefly, and then I lost time. And I turned it on, and all of a sudden, it was three days later. And I'm like, wait a minute. But I did know an awful lot about like, you know,doing it was around the time where people were stripping their laundry. Yeah. Yeah. No one talks about that anymore. So how can you help people that my dozens of listeners listen to my show?Like, is there any we sort of dipped our toe at the very start. So, you know, these are the ways that I make a living, if you will, though, part of the cool thing about this scrappy.Business that I've built, where I want to do work that's in alignment with who I am,I want to use the skills that come naturally to me and aren't forced. And I want to make a living,that does open up opportunities to do different things. So that I've been in the insurance lane is because it's easy. Frankly, I'm very networked here. I don't have to convince people that the things I work on are true. And so I have stayed very much in that lane and been challenged to,move out of it candidly. And so all the things that we've talked about are relevant in other industries. It's just not where I hang out. So, you know, strategically, a listener who's working in a different field might resonate with part of this and say, oh, I wonder if we could use her in XYZ capacity. Sure, let's talk about it." Beyond that, I love to write. I write a newsletter once a month. It's just a glimpse in my world in any given moment and what I'm interested in and what's resonating with me. And in that, I include some notes from my nomad travels.And so it's my answer to, you know, I'm in the same energy you are, Mary, with social media. I bought a new phone at the Verizon store a couple weekends. I'll say the gentleman who sold it to me. I was going to say the kid, but he's talking about Snapchat and TikTok.I'm on neither, never have been. And I'm like, oh my God, it's happening.Like I've become- I'm aging out of the system. Yeah, and I'm like, how am I gonna do this?Am I gonna lose my relevance? Am I going to fade off into the sunset or?Am I setting a boundary? For me, my representation with my relationship with social media has been a boundary. I am present. I'm active on LinkedIn-ish. I write this newsletter. I am available to the world if the world wants to find me, but my consumption of social media got really out of whack in the last year or so. I completely fell into the trap of the likes and the comments and the engagement and trying to beat the algorithm and even just understand the algorithm. Social media was winning and I needed to take the power back. And that sounds very dramatic, but.I shut down all the apps. I still have a presence on Instagram, but I don't post new content. And,the gurus would say, oh, your ideal clients are out there. And that may be the case. But,again, building the business in the way that I am, I want to spend the time and the energy in places,that feel meaningful and valuable to me. And so the representation right now that I'm enjoying is this newsletter. And it's not spammy or gross. I'm not pitching anything. It's just different.And I've really enjoyed expressing myself in that way. And I own it, which is the biggest thing about social media that we have to remember, right? Is like, we don't own that content if these platforms go away. They can change the algorithm at any time and all your shit's lost.And I really do, briefly, we were almost out of time here, but I do want to, about the digital,or the nomadiness of it. You haven't had like a lease or a mortgage in how long?I sold my place in Chicago. We closed on March 1st, 2021. So two years and a couple months.And you just, all your stuff you have, like, do you have like a storage unit somewhere that's got all your shit in it? I don't. I did a major, major, major,major purge, sold a lot of things, Facebook marketplace. Coincidentally, to bring it full circle, I connected with a woman on Facebook marketplace, and this could have been a lie,but she claimed to have lost everything in a house fire and didn't have insurance. So she She was starting from scratch.And so basically I said, here's the contents of my condo.How much can you pay for it? And she got a really good deal,but I got rid of a lot of stuff and that felt really good to me. That was the goal.Also donated lots of things. I have...A couple of rubbermaid totes in my parents' basement in Michigan.And every time I go visit, I look at them and think, what am I keeping this stuff for?The things we carry around with us our whole lives because we think someday we're going to want them.I pitched my yearbooks. I pitched love letters from ex-boyfriends, all the notes I passed to my girlfriends in middle school, all that stuff.I have all those too. Dumpster. Yeah.In a cold sweat since then wondering, you know, what did John Smith wear in his eighth-grade photo? Like, it hasn't crossed my mind.So you've got like a suitcase and you just go around? I have a little more than a suitcase, but I am limited to what fits in the trunk of my car.Oh. And so I have, you know, my clothes for two seasons at a time. Right now I've got spring and summer fit essentially in a carry-on suitcase. And I've got a reusable shopping bag that has my kitchen stuff in it, my Nutribullet and my nice chef's knife because Airbnb knives always suck.So you're just staying in Airbnbs or people's houses or whatever.Yeah, like some house sitting, pet sitting here and there. It's getting to be more tricky as the world is opening up because I'm traveling for work now too. So I've got to figure out,you know, I'll be in Montana for the summer but flying to San Francisco and flying to Pennsylvania,from Montana. So the mental gymnastics of this can be a little much sometimes,but it's just a big puzzle and I have a really ridiculous spreadsheet that reminds me where I need to be when and I really enjoy the planning and the research and it's been far more. I mean,we could talk for another hour on the lessons I've learned just about that, but zero regrets,Not a single regret.Amazing. You are an inspiration. You truly are. You are. Thank you so much.You are. This whole thing. No. Can I tell you one more story? Just one more quick story. I have a cousin. She was born when I was 18 and we caught up a couple weeks ago in Chicago. And she's like, Meg, I started DJing.For fun as a hobby. And I was like, oh my gosh, you need to meet my friend, Mary Nisi. And I was,like, she owns Toast & Jam DJ company. And she's like, you know the coolest people. And I was like,I do. I mean, I'm fortunate to know a lot of really cool people. And then I told her,because I'm still a 12-year-old girl in my brain. And I was like, Mary's the kind of woman that I would have wanted to be friends with in high school, but she wouldn't have wanted to be friends with me. She was the cool... I'm glad we met in this season of life because I think other biases and things would have prevented a genuine friendship, but I'm glad that we've arrived here now. The Mary Nisi in high school, can't believe that someone would say that about the Marianisi that was in high school because that Marianisi was not cool. That Marianisi,well, I was cool, but no one appreciated it. Maybe that's what, but no, there was,there was no one clamoring to be my friend when I was, I mean, not that I was a drip and didn't have friends. I had a great group of friends and we were a big ragtag team of weirdos,but no one appreciated what we were doing except for us.Well, in a different lifetime, maybe we would have been friends in high school. Who knows?Yeah. Well, now we're friends and that's the most important thing. Love it.All right. Well, thank you so much, Meg. Find her on LinkedIn where she's apparently more fertile. And you know, join our newsletter at adjunctadvisors.com. And again,thank you so much for being on this. You once again, managed to make insurance cool.Oh, one conversation at a time, Mary. Thanks for having me.Thanks for listening to All Up In My Lady Business, a podcast from a Mary Nisi production.It is written by me, Mary Nisi. It is edited by Amelia Ruby with Softer Sounds.It is recorded at the Toast & Jam offices in Logan Square in Chicago, Illinois.And it is also sometimes recorded in the attic of my house in Evanston.You can find resources and links from this episode in the show notes at all up in myladybusiness.com.And if you enjoyed this episode, and you did, smash that subscribe button and send it to somebody who's ass could be a whole lot holer. Oh, and also, if you're the kind of person that reviews things on the internet, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.It really does help people find the show. And don't forget, whatever you do this week,Do it with your whole ass.Thanks for listening!Music.