I used to dream about owning my own independent insurance agency. I didn’t get very far though.
My favorite diss came curtesy of Country Companies. The recruiter told me I passed my two interviews but I failed their standardized test. Miserably. He said I had one of the lowest test scores he had ever seen. I laughed and kept looking.
When I did eventually get an insurance gig it was just a “sales job”. It wasn’t owning an agency or anything. I worked there nearly three years before I flew to Marvel.
My first year of being a work-at-home artist, I was having a merry time. Instead of questions about bodily injury limits and personal assets my question of the hour was, what shade of red to make Captain America’s shield.
I didn’t miss insurance at all! Until I received a call…
An agency owner I knew called me about an opportunity in Casa Grande, AZ (about 70 miles from me). He said he needed someone to manage the office now but it would lead to owning the agency within a couple of years.
There it was. I got what Lisa Sasevich calls an irresistible offer. I could stay on my current path or I could fulfill my dream of owning my own agency.
I deliberated back and fourth like I was a juror on the OJ Simpson trial. I knew I could make freelancing my side hustle again so it wasn’t necessarily about “leaving” Marvel to sell insurance. The day before I told him I’d call back with my answer I realized something profound for me.
I never gave my art business 100% effort.
When it came to working for others or my non-art businesses I could be a beast. I’d kick in the door with guns-a-blazing! But with art, I always played small. Whenever I planted the seed I’d stop watering it the moment things got tough. This was just another one of those times.
I declined the agency offer.
In the end it wasn’t about choosing jobs. It was about getting rid of the decades of head trash and conditioning that grew silently in my mind like mold. It wasn’t the people who told me I couldn’t make it, it was ME telling me I couldn’t make it.
ME telling me I wasn’t good enough.
ME telling me that I was going “try this”.
I decided to make me an irresistible offer of my own. I would play all-out and leave nothing on the table. I would work just as hard FOR myself as I did for other people.
Just because an offer can seem irresistible, that doesn’t mean there’s not an even better one out there for you.
Adam