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I know what a crazy busy time of year (fourth quarter) this is for those in the employee benefits industry. It's just ridiculous, and I was reminded of that recently. I had just started a new book, Never Finished, by David Goggins. I must thank my good friend and one of our clients, Jonathan Davis, for recommending it.
In the introduction, the author shares the story of an experiment scientists did using rats. In the experiment, they put these rats in a cylinder of water, and the rats would swim around for two or three minutes, looking for a way to escape. When they realized they weren't going to get out from the water's surface, they would instinctively swim to the bottom to look for a way out. And when they realized there was no escape hatch down there, they effectively gave up and drowned within a few minutes.
This surprised the scientists because, evidently, rats are really good swimmers. In the next phase of the experiment, after the scientists let those rats swim around for a couple of minutes, they would take them out of the water and dry them off. The scientists would then hold the rats until their heart rates and body temperature returned to normal. Then, they would put the rats back in the water.
Not only did the rats swim longer than before, they swam to their potential. They were swimming for 60, 70, even 80 hours in one instance because they now had hope. They had a belief that somebody was going to step in and help save them.
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That got me thinking about this time of year in the industry. I know it often feels like you're just treading water, doing everything you can to hold on. And because we don't have time, we tend to disconnect from our networks.
Whether that is a formal networking group like Q4intelligence, whether it's your local NABIP chapter, or whether it's just your team, we disconnect. We forget that there are those around to help us. We lose hope, we lose belief.
So please reach out and reconnect with that network. Somebody out there needs you to call and tell them, "Hey, I got you." Not only will it give them hope and the belief and the reminder that there's somebody there to help out, but it'll do the same for you.
I know it won't necessarily make fourth quarter easy, but I bet it makes it easier.
I got you, my friends. 🙏
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