An Unexpected Dream Come True
On the afternoon of Friday, January 24th, 2025, I checked off a dream on my list of 100. This dream did not make it to my list of focus for the year because I had zero expectations that it would happen this year. I checked off dream number 61 on Friday night: help my parents reach Partner.
Here’s a little background to this dream so that you understand what that sentence even means. My parents are part of an insurance company. They hire agents and are business owners but are also part of someone else’s business, called the Alliance. The owner of the company that they and I work for sold the financial piece of the business to another insurance organization called Integrity. That sale opened up the door for anyone in the Alliance to also be bought by Integrity and become a partner.
There are a lot more details, and there are different types of partners within Integrity. But overall, it means more opportunity, support, and perks for my parents as they grow their company. This recognition has opened huge doors for my parents and is a testament to their success in the industry. It is also a giant call to action because now is the time to really go all out with work.
I know that is a very basic explanation of what this means, and I am keeping it that way because I don’t fully know what we are even allowed to say, and I certainly don’t know the complete picture since all of this happened two days ago. But none of that really matters to you. If you want to get into the insurance business and talk more about what becoming a partner means and how you can get there, I am happy to discuss more! I know the average person doesn't really care, though.
What should matter to you is that a massive dream has come true for someone in this community. Yes, it mostly affects my parents (at least for today because everything they do going forward will have legacy impacts on myself, my siblings, and our kids), and I was not even remotely a significant part of them achieving this. But I was a small part of it, and going forward, I plan to be an essential part of their growth.
This is why we write out 100 dreams even if we don’t expect them to come true in the immediate future. This is why we write down the crazy things that seem so far away. This is why I keep putting my dreams out into the universe.
Writing down our dreams isn’t a magic formula to see them come true. There were 23 years' worth of work in insurance that got my parents to this point, even if they didn’t know this opportunity existed until just a few years ago. And they achieved a lot of different dreams on the way to this one. And they have found new dreams to chase now that this mile marker has been reached. But writing the dream down kept it at the forefront of our minds, and it meant that we always knew what the work was leading toward. This has always been a family business, which made it our dream too.
This dream is so important to me because my parents fully deserve it. Seeing our loved ones achieve their dreams is incredibly meaningful, which is why I will do my part to make those things happen. It’s why other people’s dreams often make my list. A little less than three years ago, my siblings and I worked together on a Father’s Day gift for our dad. Everyone who becomes an Integrity partner, at the highest level at least, is given a code name, and then at the end of discussions, there is a carved piece of wood with a design inspired by the code name hung up at the corporate office. This is so that the negotiations with each partner are kept entirely confidential. We decided that my dad’s nickname would likely be “Hebrew Hammer” since that’s one of his nicknames at the Alliance. We designed it, and then I drew his picture. It’s been hanging in his office ever since.
That picture was a promise of what would come. We may have gotten the timing wrong, but there was never a doubt that we wouldn’t see this moment. That dream came into our lives with a certainty that if we did enough, it would come true. That dream is just the beginning of a fantastic journey. I am so incredibly proud of my parents for making it to this moment. They fully deserve it all, and I am even more excited to get started on the next dream to come because I want this celebration to keep on going.