cliopatra's blog

Image by Mykl Roventine via Flickr

For the past nearly-four years I have participated in my company’s participation in the American Heart Association Heart Walk.  All year long we have fundraisers, culminating the actual Heart Walk in November.  That was today.

This is my fourth time to do it.  I wondered that first year if I was even capable of completing the entire 3.2 miles, since I’d never done it before.  It turns out that 3.2 miles is not that far to walk when you’ve got hundreds of other people and a party atmosphere around you.  I don’t even think about it anymore, I just sign up when it’s time, raise some money, then get up early and head to the park the first Saturday in November.

It’s been kind of cold the past years, but this year it was perfect weather: sunshiney, not too cold, not too warm, breezy.  I loved being out there with my friends and coworkers and people from the community.

I walk because both of my grandmothers have had strokes.  I walk because my dad has heart problems, and so does my father-in-law.

This morning on the way out there I sent a ping (which crossposts everywhere) that I was headed to the park for the Heart Walk.  A friend from Oklahoma commented on the post on facebook, saying that she was proud of me for doing it, and that her son (who was born with a congenital heart defect) thanked me.  I have another person to add to the list of people I do this for.

Even though I don’t like getting up early on the weekends, I am so glad I get to do this every year.  I’m proud to say that this year I weigh nearly 40 lbs less than I did at last year’s walk, and God-willing I’ll weigh even less at the next one.

I’ve been in the insurance industry for most of the last 16 years, and in that time I’ve been an agent in 4 different states. When I moved to Florida 4 years ago I went to work for a large nationwide agency, and was immediately impressed by the knowledge of the people I worked with, and my boss in particular.  She is extremely knowledgeable and teaches continuing education (CE) classes both in-house and for the local insurance professionals organization.

I don’t know when I first started thinking about it, but at some point in the first year or so of my employment here, I started thinking about teaching CE classes, and maybe even pre-licensing courses for wanna-be insurance agents.  I’ve been in the industry a while, and I enjoy the ins and outs of the contracts and such.

One day I woke up and thought “I want to teach insurance”. 

I went online with the Florida Department of Financial Services and found out that I was only lacking either (1) a college degree or (2) a professional designation in the insurance industry to qualify.  My background was clean and I had more than enough applicable experience to qualify.

In August of 2007 I began working on a professional designation.  Most of the people I have admired throughout my career have been Certified Insurance Counselors (CICs), and that’s what I wanted to do.

CIC is a rigorous program.  You have 5 years to complete 5 courses.  The courses are 2.5 days of lecture, and then a 2 hour 20 question essay exam on the final day (and exam results mailed to you a nail-biting 6 weeks later).  You have to pass all 5 to get the designation, but you can retake them as many times as you need to (with applicable fees, of course).

In June of 2009 I completed my final course, and found out in July that I had passed the exam (I passed all 5 exams on the first try – go me!).  In less than 2 years I was awarded the CIC designation, and the first thing I did (after a celebration dinner with Irish) was apply to be a CE and pre-licensing instructor with the state.

Imagine my surprise when I got my approval in just 2 days!  I informed my bosses and the local insurance professionals organization as soon as I found out.

My office has scheduled me to teach 2 in-house ethics CE classes in January 2010, which I thought would be my first official classes, but today the local organization asked me if I would help instruct another CE course in December.

I was just thinking how much I used to hate CE classes, and now I’m going to be teaching them, and I’m excited about it.  I hope to make the classes that I teach fun and interactive so the students stay involved.

It just goes to show that if you dream and work hard, and you have people behind you that support you (like Irish, my friends and my employers and coworkers) that you can accomplish anything.