Why It’s More Critical Than Ever to Support Mental Health and How Insurers Can Help
Editor’s Note: Disability industry professionals have a lot in common with March Madness’ Cinderella team, the Saint Peter’s Peacocks from Jersey City, New Jersey.
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- They’re strong in understanding the fundamentals of disability and absence,
- They work hard, and
- They execute.
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I don’t often talk about my undergraduate alma mater. The most likely reason is I graduated a few decades ago so, really, who cares? But my other hesitation is I wind up giving a fairly long explanation about the small Jesuit college I attended that is relatively unknown outside of the New York tristate area.
But all that changed last weekend during March Madness and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Yes, I am a proud graduate of Saint Peter’s University – only the third 15 seed to ever reach the Sweet 16 and persona non grata in the state of Kentucky after knocking out both Kentucky and Murray State.
As I thought about how Saint Peter’s is still in the hunt to wear the glass slipper, the similarity between this tough Peacock team and the people who work in and around the disability industry became clear to me.
Strong in the Fundamentals
Cura Personalis – Care for the Whole Person
If you’re a student of the game of basketball and watched the Peacocks play last weekend, you noticed their strong orientation in and execution of the fundamentals, including their half-court offense, hitting the offensive and defensive boards, and mixing up zone and man-to-man defenses. They also kept their heads when all around them people were losing theirs. (My apologies to Rudyard Kipling.)
People who work on the rehabilitation and advocacy side of disability or the income protection/disability insurance product side (especially brokers, agents, financial advisors, and benefits consultants) are strong in the fundamentals, too. They understand the issues and risks associated with temporary and permanent disabilities. And they employ a core value embodied by educational institutions such as Saint Peter’s University: cura personalis.
Cura Personalis: A Latin phrase meaning “care for the whole person.”
Having concern and care for development of the entire individual.
People and companies who work in the disability industry care deeply for the whole person. They fully comprehend the impact that disability has on individuals from a physical, emotional, and financial perspective. They spend their careers trying to find ways to package, repackage, and evolve how to explain how income protection strategies are critical to everyone – especially so people can avoid the financial toxicity that can accompany injuries and illnesses.
Hard Work
Magis – Excellence and Rigor in All Things
I don’t know the men on the Peacocks’ basketball team nor do I know any of the students on campus today. But I suspect they’re similar to the people who were undergraduates with me.
If there was one thing that stands out in my mind about my Saint Peter’s University experience was that every professor expected excellence from every student. Many of us delivered with their encouragement and we did it by participating fully in our university. I can’t think of a person I knew who didn’t attend all their classes, worked part time, and volunteered or participated in extracurricular activities. We had a great time, but we also worked hard.
Magis: A Latin word meaning more or greater.
Freedom to choose.
Excellence and rigor in all things.
Hard work accompanies any job in the disability industry. We are in an uphill battle when trying to persuade people, including medical professionals, that disability is a more significant risk –during your working years – than death. Yet, time and again, people will weigh the risk of mortality over morbidity.
Peter Sandman, the famous risk communications consultant, expressed this phenomenon well through his equation (Risk = Hazard + Outrage) where people weigh outrage factors such as trust, control, voluntariness, dread, and familiarity as heavily as mortality or morbidity in what we mean by risk.
In a March 17th New York Times article, Abigail Dumes (a medical and cultural anthropologist) wrote in an opinion piece about long Covid that referenced that even the medical profession overweighs death:
“In the same way that conventional medicine prioritizes signs over symptoms, it often prioritizes mortality (risk of death) over morbidity (a diminished quality of life).”
Execution
You Think We’re Scared of Anything?
I think my favorite moment from the post-game interview of Saint Peter’s head coach, Shaheen Holloway, was how he responded to a question about Murray State’s physicality and how he kept his team calm “when they were trying to push them all around.”
“I’ve got guys from New Jersey and New York City. You think we’re scared of anything? . . . We’ve got tough, hard-nosed kids. They’re ready to play.”
The bottom line for me is this. Choosing to work in the disability and income protection industry is a labor of love, especially for advisors and consultants. If these folks wanted relatively easy jobs in the financial services industry, they could have chosen selling mandated insurance coverages such as auto and homeowner’s coverage. Convincing people to plan for the future and for events that may – or may not – happen has to be a passion if you have any hope for success.
So, in my book, disability industry professionals have a lot in common with the hardworking Saint Peter’s Peacocks from Jersey City, New Jersey. They’re strong in understanding the intricacies of disability and absence, they work hard, and they execute.
And, oh yeah, they’re not afraid of anything.
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