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2021 has been a year of change, and part of that has been adding another income funnel. I’ve become a life insurance broker.
It will seem odd at first for many of you. For the last (more than) a decade, I’ve made a career out of writing. I’ve even started coaching people to become writers and bloggers.
For the record, I’m not stopping any of these to become a life insurance broker that is being recognized by the Flores & Pelaez-Prada PLLC in San Antonio. The new role is added on. It’s going to be a balancing act for sure, but it’s a challenge I’m looking forward to. If you too want to learn more about this subject, here you can now Learn how much life insurance you need at Affordable Life USA.
So, hold up. Why would I suddenly add another income funnel to my stream? It all goes back to the hell of a year 2021 has been. 2021 quickly proved that 2020 was nothing.
My marriage ended in 2021
March 2021 was supposed to be fun. I turned 35, and I was supposed to have a great time with my husband and family. Instead, it started off the end of my marriage. What initially seemed like my husband putting all his time into work and taking me for granted turned out to be an affair.
On top of that, I had one of those lightbulb moments. I’d been in an emotionally abusive marriage. I hadn’t seen it at the time, but when I say things to people now, I see those horrified looks on their faces. They tell me how what happened over the last 12 years was not right.
It’s funny, isn’t it? I can tell when someone else is in an abusive marriage, but couldn’t tell my own? We don’t like to see what’s in front of us.
My ex is clearly a narcissist. I’m not going to go into all the reasons why. I just look back at all his behavior, especially when we were supposed to be working on our marriage, and now see all the signs that I overlooked.
So, in April 2021, he moved out but our finances were still joined for a while. We were “trying” to work on things. By July 2021, it all came to an end ad we split our finances completely. I feared about myself financially with where I lived and having two children, so I realized I needed another income funnel to replace my ex’s income.
I’ll be honest and say that I’m glad we split our finances now and wished I’d never combined finances with him. It turned out all the blame he put on me for “overspending” has been him. That’s another story, though! But I still wanted to replace his income with a safety buffer. You just never know what’s going to happen in the future.
Finding my dream as a life insurance broker
Okay, so it’s still early days to say that this is my dream. However, something that I had always looked at was insurance brokerage. I knew I’d need a license, and I knew I would have to put some time in to study. That time was never made available to me. Every time I tried to start something, I’d be forced to quit because my ex would never give me the time needed, learn about how a Health Saving Accounts can help you in the future.
Come to July 2021, I didn’t have that problem. When I saw opportunities come up to start a career in finance, I signed up to Careers Canada. That led to an interview process with a company I didn’t even know. I wouldn’t find out until the second interview.
That does sound fishy, but there were genuine reasons not to share the name of the company at the first stage. At the second interview, I got all the information I needed and I was able to do my research. Very quickly I ended up signing up to the course to get my life insurance license and by the middle of December 2021, I got the confirmation I was life licensed in Ontario.
Now I’m working on a second license so I can work in mutual funds. I won’t just be a life insurance broker, but I’ll also be an investment adviser.
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Why do something completely different to writing?
Being a life insurance broker is different to what I currently do in the sense that the two fields are separate. However, the skills I need are the same. And coaching writers is actually very similar to what I’ll do as an investment adviser. The focus is on helping people.
I’ll be helping people create wealth for the future. It’s something I’ve become focused on in the last couple of years, and even more so with my marriage breaking down. We never know what life will throw at us so we need to be ready.
At the same time, diversifying in niches is powerful. If one niche fails, I’ll have the other one to fall back on. In this case, if writing disappears, I have insurance to help shoulder things while I find something else to diversify.
While the niche is different, I’m still building a business. I’m working with a company but I’m self-employed still. I get to work when I want and where I want. This has always been important to me as a mom. The skills I gained building my writing business can be used to build my life insurance business.
I’ll share a little about my life insurance and investment adviser journey. After all, it’s a job that a lot of work at home moms can do. Even if it’s not for you, there will be lessons to learn for your own business.
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Are you interested in learning more about my life insurance journey? Are you ready to build your own business in whatever you’re doing? Make sure you bookmark this website and sign up for my email newsletter.
