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I love this thread! Fantastic idea, Ben!
10 years ago, I was 25 and just starting my insurance career and winding down my running career. My boss had recently announced that he was moving the operation out the suburbs and told me that he'd find me another gig downtown. I interviewed with the guy that I work for now for the bottom rung assistant position, and he gave me the "scare-em off" speach that I've now used several times myself when hiring my own assistants. I had recently incorporated a new training theory into my running (the African model for those of you following along at home), and it was paying off big time. I won several hundred bucks in prize money that summer, won a race with 16,000 people (actually not as impressive as it sounds) and capped it off with a big win on my home course from college in an 8k cross country race. I had just started dating a woman who later on broke up with me over the phone while I was at work 72 hours after telling me that she loved me.
Five years ago, I was a new-minted senior assistant broker developing my own book of business. Traveling for businesses was still fun, and I had just moved out of the apartment that I had shared with two of my best friends for 3 years (that was a killer place) and into my own place. I 'd met the woman that I would marry and have kids with (see signature) in November, but in April we still hadn't started dating (mainly because I'm an idiot). I'd started to embrace the fact that my future held me being slow and fat and that my ankle was never going to get any better.
Five years from now, I doubt I'll be working for the same company. There are some retirements at the highest levels due between now and then, and the personality shifts could make the company implode pretty easily. That makes me very sad since this is a great organization, but I don't see how the various factions can coexist without having neutral management, and there are folks that will be scrambling pretty hard for the top jobs. Given my current book of business (assuming that we can keep maintaining it with the market in decline), I should land fairly softly, but I have no idea where. My son will be 5 and should be even more fun than now. He'll probably have a brother or sister, and we should have most of the house paid off.
10 years from now I'll still probably be doing exactly what I'm doing now, although I have no idea for who, but hopefully most of the core members of this group will still be in place. I have no intentions of ever running my own shop, and there is lots of strength in numbers in my business. Hopefully we'll have had a couple of market cycles by then, which should put my revenue pretty solidly over $2M. If I'm lucky, I'll be coaching baseball or soccer for Max (or at least going to as many games as possible) and whatever sibling makes an appearance. The house should be paid off and we'll probably be looking for a new one, hopefully in the city but maybe out in the suburbs.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
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