Every one of us is worried about maximizing our potential. But my question for you is, how do you even know if you’re getting close?
We’ve been dealing with it since we were kids in school. “David needs to reach his potential.” But the question is, how do you even know if you’re getting close? Your potential is the absolute best you can do with the skill set you possess to show that you utilize all the tools you use to achieve success. This concept applies whether it be in your career, in a sport, or an extracurricular activity. We are all pressured to reach our potential. There are a couple of things I want you to think about today that will help you understand just how far away you are.
Number one, if you’re getting close to achieving your potential, you are uncomfortable more than you are comfortable. Suppose you’re pushing the boundaries of your own skillset, and you’re trying to be the absolute best that you can be. In that case, you have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to expand your skill set and ability to succeed.
The second thing that you need to do is you need to lose. If you’re not losing, you’re not pushing yourself as hard as you can. You have to beat the best to be the best. And that means you’re going to have to lose sometimes to learn from that and push yourself forward. If you’re not uncomfortable, and you’re not losing at least a little bit, then you’re probably not getting close to your potential.
The third thing you can do is have accountability partners or an accountability partner, and they can sit back. They can give you an objective view of what’s going on in your life, your career, whatever it is you want them to provide you with feedback on, but having an unbiased third party that tells you, “No, you need to do this. You need to do this.” Whatever they can give you in terms of feedback to help you reach that potential is priceless.
Those are just three things of many, but I absolutely implore you that if you’re not uncomfortable, if you don’t have accountability partners, and you’re not getting your butt kicked at least once or twice a month, you got a lot of work to do to push yourself to the next level. And until you do, never going to kill it in commercial insurance.
If you are still walking into meetings talking about premiums, coverage forms, and carrier options, you are already behind.
The middle market is evolving. Business owners are more sophisticated. They are more aware of their financials. And most importantly, they are tired of writing checks for insurance year after year without seeing a return.
Workers’ compensation is one of the most misunderstood and underestimated lines of coverage in the middle market. Too many producers view it as a commodity, something to quote, bind, and move on from. But as the market heads toward 2026, that mindset is becoming a liability.
For years, commercial insurance producers could survive by being good enough across a wide range of industries. They could write a little construction, a little manufacturing, a little hospitality, and a little habitational business and still build a respectable book.
The commercial insurance industry is in the middle of a quiet evolution.
While most conversations still revolve around premiums, deductibles, limits, and carrier appetite, a different category of risk transfer has been gaining traction beneath the surface—parametric insurance. It is not new, but it is finally becoming accessible, relevant, and actionable for middle market producers who are willing to think differently about risk.
In a recent episode of the Power Producers Podcast, I sat down with Brian Thompson from Descartes Underwriting to unpack what parametric insurance actually is, what it is not, and why producers who ignore it may be leaving their clients—and themselves—exposed.
This article breaks that conversation down into practical, producer-friendly language and shows how parametric insurance fits into modern middle market risk management.
The last several years have reshaped the landscape of property insurance across the country. While most national carriers have retreated from coastal states, wildfire zones, and other catastrophe-exposed regions, a handful of disciplined players have taken the opposite path—leaning into difficult markets with a strategic, data-driven approach.
For most entrepreneurs, the decision to start a business is rooted in the promise of freedom. Freedom from a boss, freedom to control income, and freedom to build something meaningful. Yet for many business owners, particularly in service-based industries and middle-market companies, that freedom slowly erodes. What begins as ownership eventually turns into obligation, where the business demands constant attention and the owner becomes the single point of failure.
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