Mollie Kane

I attribute my success to my mom. She is a single mom and a nurse who worked very, very hard for my life. She started working as a manager in places like Taco Bell and Pizza Hut and Domino's, and in 2004, she got her license through Liberty Mutual, started as a CSR with them, and got licensed and became an insurance account manager, just like I'm doing now. Seeing her go from having a very unstable, very questionable kind of future to a very stable, very set future, and even an outlook of retirement and things that she never had before, is definitely my inspiration. Seeing her able to do this and the amount of pride that she put behind it gives me something to strive to, even still. She's also a designated school insurance risk manager, so she definitely gives me something to strive to.

The best career advice I have received is to read the room, essentially, but read the employer, read who you're working for, not just what's on the advertisement for the job that you're taking or what they say as values or how they operate as a company, but to really examine that and make sure that it aligns with who you are as a person. Building a career, especially a stable career, you have to make sure that the person and the kind of work that you do aligns with the company that you're working for. Without that, you really can't find a good, peaceful existence in the place where you spend more than half of your day. You want to make sure that where you're at is a good fit. You wouldn't marry someone that isn't a good fit. You shouldn't take a job with someone that isn't a good fit for you. The relationship between you and the employer who becomes your boss, the company you work for, is vital to the success in your career. You can be the smartest person, you can be really great at everything and need no help in onboarding or anything else, and get in there and find that the business and their business model and team don't fit with you, and then become miserable every day. The other best piece of advice I can give is just keep doing the next right thing. You will find a way through, and you will find a good, happy medium, good, normal outlook of what your day is. Even if it's something brand new, just keep doing the next right thing, and eventually you will find your stable setting.

Read the employer, read who you're working for, not just what's on the advertisement for the job that you're taking or what they say as values or how they operate as a company, but really examine that and make sure that it aligns with who you are as a person. Building a career, especially a stable career, you have to make sure that the person and the kind of work that you do aligns with the company that you're working for. Without that, you really can't find a good, peaceful existence in the place where you spend more than half of your day. You want to make sure that where you're at is a good fit. You wouldn't marry someone that isn't a good fit. You shouldn't take a job with someone that isn't a good fit for you. The relationship between you and the employer is vital to the success in your career. Just keep doing the next right thing. You will find a way through, and you will find a good, happy medium, good, normal outlook of what your day is. Even if it's something brand new, just keep doing the next right thing, and eventually you will find your stable setting.

I would say one of the biggest challenges is AI. A lot of people in our industry are not prepared to work with AI. They're prepared to work for AI, they're very nervous about it, they're worried about it taking their jobs, so that's something that's a real concern, finding a good collaborative point where it doesn't just totally take over our industry, but actually serves in a way that helps those of us who are licensed, actual, real human beings to be able to function and perform our job. I think that's going to affect not only our industry, but the United States and the world as a whole in this regard.

Family and connection are most important to me. If you're not able to take care of your family and your home life, it probably is coming over to your work life and every other portion of your life as well, so I would always put family first, and that means yourself as well. You cannot serve from an empty cup. My values are really about connecting with my community, making sure that I am contributing to our society in a way that is beneficial, in a way that is measurable, in a way that includes other people and does not exclude anyone. That is where my values lie, inside and outside of work.