What We’re Carrying: Parenting, Business, and Medicare with Brian McArthur

Running a business. Parenting teenagers. Caring for clients. Trying to stay healthy and present through all of it.

In this episode, I’m joined by my friend and colleague Brian McArthur, owner of Design My Medicare, for a conversation that starts with Medicare and turns into something much bigger.

We talk about what it means to carry a lot at once in this season of life—raising teenagers, coming off a stressful work season, thinking about health and aging, and trying to be intentional about how we show up for the people who need us.

We also get into some important Medicare conversation, including:

• why the Medicare enrollment season is so intense
• the difference between Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage plans
• why neither option is the “villain”
• how our different business models shape the clients we serve
• and why Medicare can still be good news, even when the system feels complicated

This one is part personal reflection, part business conversation, and part practical Medicare education.

If you’re parenting teens, building something, feeling the weight of midlife, or trying to make sense of Medicare for yourself or someone you love, I think you’ll find something here.

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Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants 1:08

Welcome back to Piece of Work. I'm Danielle Tantone and today I have on the show with me a good friend of mine who's also a colleague and someone I highly respect. Brian MacArthur. He is the owner, CEO. Lead guy at Design my Medicare. So I originally met him when I first started doing Medicare about six years ago. We were both working for another company and he's since branched out on his own. And now I actually hang my Medicare hat with him on his team. Even though I'm not super active, I do still serve a Medicare book of business and, grow it a little bit here and there. But anyway, I wanted to bring Brian on. I think we have a couple of valuable things that we'd like to share about Medicare, but also just about life and coming off of busy season and balancing work life, which is never a really good balance, actually. So Brian I don't know, take a minute to tell me to share a little bit of who you are and why you wanted to come on my podcast and what you wanna talk about today. No, I appreciate you having me on. Actually. I've been on before. Yes. And when I listened to your episode with your friend Jenny, which I took the time to. Watch and listen to and suggest anybody did it. I think I texted you and I said, boy, I wish I talked less the last time that you had me on, because it was just so nice hearing your perspective on a bunch of different things. So this is my, maybe my, you, the you've extended me the grace of a take too to spend some time with you today and yeah. I live in San Diego. I have a wife and two 16 year olds, boy, girl, twins, and run a, small book growing business and trying to juggle a bunch of different chainsaws at the same time, so I know how that goes. Yeah. 16-year-old twins are no joke. I. I tell my new moms at the hospital, I'm an OB nurse as well, and every single day I say, teenagers are way harder than toddlers. Just wait till she's 18, 16, 17. So yeah, it's a whole different ball game, isn't it? Taking, the things that you, the struggles and the worries that you have about a 16-year-old versus a, 16 month old. Yeah, we're going through it right now. Yeah. And then every kid is different. I'm sure even with twins, you have seen that, of course they're boy and girl, but even if there were two girls, I bet there would be differences in how people experience the world and the struggles that they have through that. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, it, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say, you feel like you're doing the best you can. And then you don't always get these moments to self-reflect on whether you're doing well. And if you think you're doing well with it you could be right, you could be wrong. And I think once, and usually you're a little bit of both. There's not, it's not really something that's black and white or that you can get right or wrong. We all make mistakes every day. Little ones, big ones. And we do the best. We can, as parents, you don't get a rule book. It's not a clean path. It's like a windy road and one day things are good and you think, oh I'm winning there. She's actually talking to me and then the next day she won't even reply to your text. And you're like, what the heck did I do wrong? Yeah. It's interesting. About 10 years ago I attended something called the Hoffman Process which is like this. Seven day retreat, you kind of work on yourself. It's amazing. And without giving away all of it,'cause I would never do it justice. I would suggest anybody does it if they can do it it's a great gift to give to yourself. But you do spend a lot of time reflecting on your childhood and coming to a place where you. They get you to this place where you just realize your parents were doing the best that they possibly can, which was probably not perfect. And yeah, so now as a parent and I'm starting to hope that my, our kids, come to that realization at some point. And it's tough'cause once they start growing and it's not just that, oh, they're getting closer to age 18, not that your parenting responsibility stops or or that they stop being your kid. When they physically start growing and you just see them walking around with their chewing, with her mouth open and you realize, I cannot believe I didn't address that. And then you have, I'm, and that reflects on me. And then you just think I, I had 14 years to fix this and I didn't, or to lead by example, and now you want to fix it in five minutes and it's also the way it works That's such a good point. Yeah. I was gonna say I do have, my oldest is about to be 20, which is absolutely unbelievable. And we've had a, it's been a rocky road the last couple of years. There's been a lot of resentments and just it's, it hasn't been easy even though it's, been my easy child. In some respects, our relationship has been tough over the last few years and just there is some. There is some growth and some healing happening there, and it's so nice. And it, so it can, it does sometimes come around even faster than you might think. Like just a year ago I was like really devastated about where our relationship was compared to where I always thought it would be. And just the other day she texted me and said, wow, I really misunderstood you. I really, so it's neat to see that happen. And sometimes you can't force it be, it has to just, they have to come around in their own time. So you just gotta love them through it, through the hard times. And you gotta really swallow your pride and swallow your, try to be humble when they really can be cruel and, judgemental of your choices and your, the way you parented them. And this is like a really wacky analogy, but sometimes I imagine things in extremes just because it makes it easier to see and sometimes it's, I. Laughable, how ridiculous it is. But it proves the point. But I remember right when my kids were like one or two, I had stumbled upon this YouTube video from 60 minutes or so. I don't remember who the 60 minute hosts were. It was at Barbara Walters or something like that. And they were. Interviewing Jeffrey Dahmer in prison. Oh my gosh. So this isn't gonna get any more salacious than that but it was interesting is that they were showing the host and then these two chairs at some meeting room in the prison. And I remember thinking like two chairs who's going to sit next to em? And I thought is it gonna be his attorney? He's already convicted for life and that didn't make sense. And, he comes on it in his orange jumpsuit and his father sat next to him. Oh, wow. And I remember my first reaction was like, total judgment. Like I can't even believe his father would sit next to him. And it didn't take long. My kids were only, maybe there were two or three at the time, and suddenly it clicked. And I thought, wait a minute, if his father doesn't sit next to him, who on earth would, right? And and then I went down the rabbit hole and his father actually was a devout Christian and really tried to spend he's passed away since, but trying to, do good in his life. Yeah. To make up for his son sins. But it was interesting where I realized oh man, we are all in, like it just. If that dude could sit next to his son I'm like I, it's my job to sit next to my kids. No. And thankfully my kids are much more well behaved than that. Yeah. Jeffrey Dahmer. But it, I just remember it was this moment where I thought oh, this is all in yeah. If that guy could do that then, I'm supposed to step up on, on everything, I don't know. That's really beautiful. It reminds me of something I brought up, I've brought up on a couple podcasts about an, it's an Al-Anon principle, but it's something that we've gone through in the recovery program that I'm doing with my daughter, and it's, you didn't cause it, you can't control it and you can't cure it. But you can contribute to it. And so as a parent, it's a huge honor and it's a huge responsibility. But at some point, you do, we do have an influence on our kids, but we can't, we don't have all the influence. There's other things that internal external that shaped them. So anyway, we got way deeper, way quicker than I expected. I do wanna talk a little bit about Medicare because today is April 1st as we're recording this, and we've just come out of the entire selling season of Medicare. I don't actually, I've never run my business where I have really a selling season because I've worked predominantly with people who are turning 65. And obviously that can happen any day of the year. Or retiring, but there is a definite selling season in Medicare, just like if you were a tax attorney or something like that. And that is, we have our AEP annual enrollment period from October 15th through December 7th. And then we have a little break for the holidays, a break to suddenly catch up on all the things you didn't have time to do during that whole AEP season. Buy all the presents, do all the decorations, and then we come back at it January through. March with the OEP, which is a lesser known selling season, and it's just for the Medicare Advantage plans. But a lot of people that might be listening to this don't care, don't give a crap about Medicare, and then some of the people that will listen to it are our clients and our colleagues, and they care a lot about it. I don't wanna get too much into the weeds, but I do wanna talk about first of all we chatted right before we started recording about. Just recovering from a, from an intense business cycle like that, how you do it, any tips and tricks, what you're doing today besides talking on my podcast, how you recharge, and and then at some point I would like to talk about our different, or our little different philosophies on Medicare and how we grow our business and who we serve and how we serve them. I don't know, what do you have to say about that? Yeah, no. Let's see. I get to think if I can address that in order, but yeah, it's it's I remember right when I started in the business and I was just like thrilled to be busy and I saw a. My kids were going to this school where every parent except for me was like wildly successful, or at least that's what it felt like. And I was talking to this nice dad who was, really successful guy and I told, I was telling him how busy I was and I'm sure I had a bunch of enthusiasm about it. And he was from Belarus, which to you and I is Russia, but if you're Russian, you would say Belarus is not Russian. Whatever. It's not quite Russia. But he said he added several businesses. He goes, this is a time where everything needs to be done in a short period of time. And I said, yeah. And he's this doesn't make any sense. And I never even thought about it'cause I was just. This is the way it is. And I thought, man, it took a guy from like the Eastern block to point out how insane it is that everybody has to make changes in seven weeks. Yes. Which is, primarily the open enrollment period. And like you just mentioned, we just wrapped up a lesser known less flexible enrollment period, but. It's crazy. The insurance companies are at capacity. They hire temporary labor that's usually not that skilled. They're behind, we're behind. And it was really exciting the first couple years. I was just gonna say, not to interrupt you, but I am gonna interrupt you right there because I. I agree. I think I have always thought that is the most ludicrous thing ever. And in Arizona, that is the most beautiful time of the year. The heat has just lifted. Everyone wants to be outside. The last thing I wanna be doing is sitting down at kitchen tables inside houses with 65 to a hundred year olds talking about their healthcare and their insurance. Not that I don't love them, but. That is not the time of the year, especially because it's also the middle of the holidays. Right when you, Thanksgiving literally falls in the middle. You're, trying to decorate for the holidays. My mom's birthday is December 8th, so literally every year right up to her birthday, and then, so then I have her birthday and then frantically trying to do something for Christmas and feeling so behind because even though I'm not somebody who tries to grow my business. Tremendously, and I haven't even focused on growing my business. I still have to take care of my existing clients during that time because that is the only time that they can really make changes, especially if they're wanting to go to a Medicare Advantage plan from a supplement, or if their plan is disappearing like it happened last year. Typically, my clients don't make a lot of changes, but this last year they were forced to and I had to meet with. So many of them either in person or on Zoom or on a phone call. And it takes a lot of time, especially when you're working full-time. For me, this is a part-time thing. I work full-time at the hospital, then I, so anyway, that I digress, but I just wanted to share that like the timing of it, even the denseness of the timing is ridiculous, but also just whoever picked that time of the year, I know it has to be leading into the new year and I guess that's why, but. Oh, I hate it so much. Love to hate it. Yeah. It just takes, it takes a lot out of you and clients are surprisingly patient because I guess they just get used to it as well. But it's it just feels unnecessary And, I'm 10 years into really being hyper-focused on Medicare. And I've never heard a rational reason. And it's not just Medicare, other health insurance is like that as well. But Medicare is like a seven week window. It's very tight. It's particularly narrow and I've never heard anyone come close to a rational answer of like, why it has to be that way. It's crazy. I don't think one entity enjoys it or thinks it's good, like the clients it's not help. Nice for them. It's not nice for us as agents. It's not nice for the carriers. It's probably not even nice for the providers, yeah. It's interesting. But that being said, it is what it is, but it is what it is. Like we're not changing it. It takes like an emotional ramp up period, like late summer I find myself getting serious. Almost too quickly and I realized like three weeks into being like hyper intense and serious, I go, oh man, like this doesn't start for another five weeks. And I'm prepared and I'm starting to be more self-aware of like, why rob myself of enthusiasm and a lack of focus with other things that are important, but it, you get this anticipation or anxiety, whatever you want to say on the ramp up. And then, it's crazy. During the season I and I, every year I convince myself that, oh, if I just work a little bit harder, we'll get in front of this and it'll be okay. And every time. You take care of. So it just gets more and more insane in the last three weeks and takes a, takes a lot out of you. Like you said, then you jump into the holidays and you're trying to make up for your, absence in your family during that time. And then I always say I am gonna have this emotional hangover month in January where I just chill. Honestly, it usually lasts more than January, so usually, about two weeks ago. So it's at halfway through March. That, we're still, the business is going great and everything like that, but as far as like things that I really want to actively, proactively improve and enhance and optimize, like I. I definitely don't have the enthusiasm for that in January. And I usually go through most of February and maybe even a little bit of March before I really kinda lock in. And it takes a lot, there is, there's a lot of benefits to it as well. We have a lot to be grateful for, but it's, it. So how do you navigate these changes of seasons and how do you recharge when you've been through a tough season? Whether it's an emotional thing with your family or whether it's a, a stressful business season. Boy I don't think I, I'm gonna write a book on how to do it because I dunno if I'm great at it. But I think my family has kinda learned to prepare for me to be, physically present, but largely absent in every other way during the fourth quarter. My birthday's December 13th, so usually, a week later I get to celebrate my birthday at my family, which is nice. And then I, I think as we evolve and get older and, are, realize the importance of maybe not being. It's a zero sum game, right? You just can't you can I wasn't very present for my family in the first seven years of building the business. I honestly wouldn't have known any other way to do it. But I also don't pretend there's no consequences to that. So I just think you have to be real about it. And then I, like we mentioned before, once the kids become teenagers and you realize you have this shrinking window to solidify a relationship, to help prepare them for life, to bond with them, that it comes. You start having to set better boundaries. This year in particular so I've got two full-time employees, one part-time employee, and. I I keep having this recurring theme that I keep reminding myself of. I think a lot of us are driven by fear, even in ways that we wouldn't even use the word fear, but if we really broke it down and spent a lot, we, we often have fear, or I do. And I, I heard Jordan Peterson say two years ago. And I think it's even more than this, and he says something like 85% of the things you fear will never happen. And as I've. Sat with that. I've I'm like 98% of the things I fear never happen. So I bring that up because one of the things that's easy to fear when you're growing a business, especially if you started it on your own and it was the Danielle Cantone show or the Brian Authur show, and now I'm trying to move the whole business and process from the me to the we. And I've just gotten to the point, which is what we're both trying to do in some ways, in different ways. Yeah, and I've just real, I've come to term, especially in the LA in fourth quarter last year, as I said, Brian, you're, there's 0% chance that everybody's gonna be happy with the result. And that's not to be dismissive of other people's experiences or feelings, but and gosh, this is not gonna come out the right way, but. Our clients tend to adjust, our family adjusts, but like on the, it's easy to focus on the clients and, but our processes have had to evolve. Like every year the business gets bigger and the seven week period stays the same. So the only way we can cont try to continue to deliver good results is with technology and staff. And you know this deep into it, I think, you could argue time management if it was newer. Medicare agency that ramped up really quickly, but we've been doing it for 10 years. So you recognize the seriousness of preparing before the season and that sort of thing. So I, yeah. I think we all have to realize we're only one person. We all have the same amount of time. There's only so much you can do and if you have competing goals and things that you wanna do with your life there's only so much you can do in a week, in a day, in a life. Yeah. And even right now without going into detail we have a teenager going through something right now, and I sure can relate to that and we'll have to talk about that offline sometime. Yeah. Yeah. I heard when you mentioned with Jenny I you had shared that, you had a, your relationship I think was. Struggling with one of your daughters and then when I heard your episode with Jenny I got a little bit more clarity on it. But and I told my staff and they said, Hey, Brian's got a family emergency and it's not something that's resolving overnight. But then I also thought about. And I said, honestly, it is sincere for my staff to tell people that for the last three months because it's true. But I just thought one day that's gonna be resolved. And, I like what's the real truth here? And the real truth here is that Brian's role is changing a bit, right? And I just. Rather than have a temporary reason you can't speak to not even that you can't speak to me, but that's just, we have people and processes in place to try to resolve what they can. And I'm always here if something falls outside the bell curve. But I even in the midst of. My operations manager saying, Brian's got a family emergency, which is true. It's that won't always be the reason. And I was just like, okay, what's the, what's, what's the core message that doesn't have to change? Which is, we're here, we've got a. People, processes. Let me see if I can resolve this. And of course if you need to speak to Brian after that, you can we'll arrange that. But but what I've realized is when I would just say yes and yes to everything, my time with my family was already. Low on the priority, which means it's the first thing to get squeezed even more when you're indulging and indulging not only time with family, but time for your own health, time for your own, like all the things that recharge you and refuel you and nourish you, which is super important. You can't take care of anyone if you're unhealthy. Or dead. That's a very real thing. We have a friend from our, in the business that passed away. And it just, I don't, I don't know the circumstances, but it's oh gosh, life is precious. Yeah. You gotta take care of this body that we are given. Yeah. And I I'll, you're always pretty forthcoming, so I'll just share. I'm 51. Yes. And when I turned 50... same I my birthday's in September. Yours is in December, and I'm also 51. So there you go. So I thought you beat there, but I remember, I'll tell you what, once I turned 50 I've never really focused on age, but man, like once I turned 50 I just, I've. I've gotten way more nostalgic, I've gotten way more conscious of health. I'm not mastering it yet, but I, I spent more time in the gym last year. Not a ton. I'm not writing a book on physical fitness by any means. But I spent more time exercising last year than any year in my adult life. That's awesome. Which all sounds great, but like a lot of it is just realizing like even if you're gonna convince yourself you're gonna live till a hundred. Which I had to tell myself at 50. I said, Brian, people who eat and drink the way you don't live till a hundred. But let's just say you're right Brian. And I'm making improvements in those areas as well. But I thought you're still halfway through this thing and the fact is you're probably not gonna live till a hundred, which is okay, but i've just started to observe and start to relate to clients a bit more. It was always like, I'm not as far, every year, I'm a bit closer to 65 myself. Which is yeah. Pretty soon we're gonna be, we're gonna be selling Medicare to our friends, our close. I know which, Holly, our age, our peers, I guess I should say. Yeah. And I, and one of the I'll wrap up with this'cause I don't want to monopolize, but the my, my kids. Started this new high school last year and all of our tuition was going there and, so we, everything you do is related to school, right? So we started gonna high school football games, which, we didn't have a horse in the race. Our kids don't play football. But, as a community we would go still part of the team. Yeah, and there was this family who kept bringing like this 93-year-old grandpa, I presume maybe they had a kid who was an athlete or something. And I, and he was in the same row. So he would come down the concrete steps and he'd kinda shuffle. We'd all get up and shuffle just like you would for anybody. And he was doing it. But everybody has their arms out'cause they're like, you can't let this guy fall. Not that he ever fell. But after about six home games of watching this guy, I realized number one, that this guy's like 92. I go, yeah, I'm probably guessing this football game is probably the highlight of his week, which is great. But I thought in order for this guy to be here, three things need to happen. One, he's gotta be healthy enough. To do it. Even if you do handicap parking, it's a good walk. You gotta go down the concrete steps shuffle, shuffle back. So number one, number two, mentally he's gotta wanna go, right? Because you can get old and grumpy with ailments and stuff like that. And I'm starting to recognize like. I don't feel old and grumpy, but I know I'm capable of being that way if something, some curve ball showed up. So I wanna stay out in front of that. And then the third part I realize is his family's gotta wanna bring him now. He was in very good shape for being 92, but I'm like, it's a little bit more effort to bring grandpa, right? And I was like, it's three outta three. And if it's two outta those three, that guy's not at the football game, it won't happen. Yeah. Yeah. So I find myself in this kind of like mapping out of life, which is. Which is okay, and I welcome it. But it's interesting. I did not expect to be thinking this way at 50 or I've gotten like way more nostalgic, which is interesting. So speaking of nostalgia and speaking of games, and speaking of being part of the team, I just, I told you I was talking to a friend before we got on here today. I was talking to my college roommate. Who I haven't seen, haven't even talked to and we had a lot to catch up on, but she is a huge basketball fan. We went to U of A, by the way, which you and I have discussed, and they are going to the Final four. And she's guess what? For we, we hop on the phone and the first thing she says to me is, guess what? I'm going to wait, hold on. And then she like backed up and I'm like, is she going to Italy? I'm going to Indianapolis, and I'm like, and for a second I'm like, okay what is in Indianapolis? I, and she's the Final Four is in Indianapolis, we're gonna the Final four. She's this was a bucket list for me to go see our team in the final Four. And so we chatted a little bit about it because she recognized that yeah, I'm not even on the team. Like I'm, she did actually play basketball even though she was like a five foot three white girl. But she, she's always been a huge fan and she always wanted to see her team, in the Final Four. And so she's going she went to great lengths, had to pay a lot of money to get the tickets, to get really crappy tickets and to get a flight and all that. She lives in California. But that was just, it was like on that same vein where like being part of the team, like a lot had to happen for her to go to that game. And she's, I'm actually probably gonna be able to see the game way better on my sister's big screen TV in her house than she is.'cause she's it's in a football field, it's a basketball game in a football field. So it's hard to see when you're up in those seats. It's a small. Court. So anyway, I, that was just a little side note that we, I know we're, I know you're also a big a sort of wannabe u of a fan, you said your family is, and so side note, that's exciting. Yeah. No, it's great. It's yeah, it's been an exciting. You're I basketball's a game. I've played the least of my whole life, but my son plays, competitive and basketball and plays at a pretty competitive high school. So it's become a big part of her life. And my wife is the only member of her family that didn't go to U of a immediate and extended family. Wow. They're Wildcat fans. And then my son, as a result, is a Wildcat fan. And to his credit, he was an Arizona fan before this amazing season. So he is not a front. Same with my college roommate. She has been a fan through thick and thin all these years. She's it took 25 years, but I'm finally going. Amazing. Yeah. That's been a big theme is just realizing, wow, like a lot. It just, time flies. How are we 50? I don't even say 51. I just even 50 is like how ah, and I know that our clients, our Medicare clients who are turning 65. Have to feel that even more like how I've just met with a friend of mine who's a personal friend that I used to walk with in the mornings and she's a little older than me and she's turning 65 in September and she, so we met'cause she was getting nervous about what she had to do and so we talked about the whole process and what her choices are. And it was just that thought that like we said, some of our. Our friends, like our friends in our spheres, are going to be turning 65 now, and it's not just our parents' age anymore. Our parents are well over 65. Yeah. Life just flies by and there's always changes on the horizon, I think. I think that's why I've to circle back to the other work that I do about resilience. My goal is to help people at every stage who are facing a life change. And that could be my Medicare clients who are, going on Medicare, which makes you feel so. Old, like, how did I get here? Most of them still feel young and dynamic and healthy, and yet they're going on senior citizens insurance, right? And then and then I, at the other end, in every week, I'm also doing a couple shifts at the hospital as an OB nurse, helping new moms, in their twenties and thirties, birth their babies and learn how to breastfeed. And then watching babies literally take their very first breath. And it's a very interesting dynamic to be with people in these life, huge life changes, positive, negative, and all around, like in the same week, in the same day even. I, I know I can, I just said a lot of different things, but No, I don't know. Any thoughts on any of that? Yeah. I think it's great that on a weekly basis you get to experience. That broad spectrum of people's lives and contribute to it positively like you do. Yeah, the I know it's interesting. I I'm never aware, I'm always aware of people who, if they're older than me, but I don't I am a little bit clueless when I'm around somebody who's younger than me. Which like I'll be talking to. Colleagues or, I teach a course in the Medicare industry and like I have to realize man, I'm like 17 years older than this, young buck of a Medicare agent who's, trying to grow his business like I am. And but it's crazy. Even my, my mentor Justin Brock isn't even 40 yet, right? Yeah. And and, so what's interesting is, one of the things I've noticed with you is I just never refer to my clients as seniors, and I don't know, I don't notice it. I don't feel like either. No, I don't either. I said it just now, but I don't usually either. Because I just honestly, in the first couple years, I'm trying to be a little bit more physically fit now, but I was like, most of these people are in better shape than I am. At 65 than I was at 40. So that's a i'm trying to solve that now, but and it's like the, and people say, oh my goodness, I can't believe I, I'm turning 65. And I go, look, I'm not saying this just to be nice, but so many of our clients are, on, Cialis and Viagra and estrogen and all. Nobody feels the way as old as they thought they'd feel at this age. It's really and I tell them that, not to just blow sunshine or be kind, but I'm like, it's. I can tell you all I do is meet 64 year olds all day. And the overwhelming majority of them, everybody's living a way better, more active life than they probably would've thought of if they looked at their, their parents. Totally. And and I, to me I think that's, pretty awesome and wonderful, especially at somebody who's eventually gonna be that old. But it's it's wild. It's really, I don't think it has to be some big event. It's obviously this kind of. Timestamp event, right? But it's but Medicare is good news to great news. I always say the good news is there is no bad news at Medicare. You really, anything you do is gonna wind up being the best health insurance you've ever had. It's almost impossible for that not to be the case. So there's plenty of room for optimism. I think that's such an important point that even those of us in the medical sphere, in these Facebook groups, there's so much doom and gloom right now. There has been a lot of changes and it's been really hard and oh, the carriers are doing this and they're taking away our commissions, and they're dropping these plans and, oh, everybody's out to get us, and oh, we're gonna be extinct in a few years because it's AI's gonna take over. And I think that what you just said is. Like it's still true. Like even with all the changes and even with all the annoying. Changes it. It is the best insurance you've ever had for the least amount of money you've ever paid, regardless of which direction you go. So I would like to chat real quick just in case somebody is coming near to their 65th birthday and or their parents are, or whatever the age of the listener that might be hearing this, or even if you are. A Medicare agent. I'd like to talk a little bit about your philosophy and then banter back and forth about how my philosophy and do a little bit more of that give and take than we did last time about how we come at it a little differently, but I think in some ways come to the same place. So when you started Medicare, what was your tell? Tell us about, I know it, but tell us about how you chose to grow your business and who you chose to serve and what your overwhelming philosophy was between the. The two different, the two main ways you can go with Medicare supplementation. Yeah, so it, it's I'll abbreviate it'cause it's probably a, you could probably do an entire episode on career transitions, but it was a career transition for me. I'd had a great, cushy corporate career wholesaling, investment insurance products to financial advisors. So rather to try to convert that to English, if you can imagine a pharmaceutical sales representative buying donuts for a doctor's office and trying to get them to listen to them while they eat the donuts and say, please prescribe our stuff. That role exists in financial services and yeah, it was different mutual fund. I did a similar thing in real estate. I worked for the title company and I was a title rep and basically, did the same thing with the realtors. Yeah. Yeah. So I did that for about 20 years. Everybody who I'd ever met were financial advisors. And when I took a step back from from doing that or that career was coming to an end, it's very disruptive. I'd watched people do it before where, you get this pretty consistent, you never made lesson. Six figures, and you might make a couple hundred thousand dollars in a given year, and then suddenly, if, they laid off people or whatever, you're, you've got all these great relationships with financial advisors, but you don't have a job to go calling them. So you get these ebbs and flows of that. So anyway, you go from on top of the world to feeling pretty vulnerable. But anyway, when I stopped my wholesale career, I just. It felt like everybody talks about relationships, but I always put a high priority on. Building and keeping good relationships and I didn't want to make such a big change that would render whatever value those relationships had as useless or maybe a better way to do it. I wanted to continue to serve the same audience, but with a bit more autonomy. You and I have talked, I actually built my business in amidst a mental health crisis, different episode. But, and you can, I'll link to that episode. You can go back to listen to it. It is a pretty, pretty neat episode as well, but. So I just got really focused on helping financial advisors demonstrate leadership on Medicare in their financial planning process. So we don't do any direct to consumer marketing. I, no disrespect to people that do it, which is great. But, our, we serve the financial advisor audience, and then ultimately they trust us to guide their clients through Medicare and, the client satisfaction is of course of highest importance. The very close second is making sure that everything we do reflects well in the financial advisors. So that's the approach that. We've taken and it's, you have to, theorize and you can flatter yourself that your theories are a good idea. Then you have to get off your couch and go execute. And, 10 years into it, it appears that I've been right on that. Great. So pretty much everything we reduced. Great. That's a great financial, that's a great little niche and a great direction. Because people. Your clientele already has an advisor that they value and the, like you've said before, the advisor doesn't really wanna deal with Medicare. Even if they're licensed in health insurance, they don't want, it's so tedious and there's so much to know and so many changes every year and it's not a huge income source. For us, when we build in in bulk, it, it can be lucrative, but the individual commission on each Medicare policy is very small for these financial advisors. So they're not able to get into the weeds the way we are, nor do they want to. And yet, and like you, you've said, I think it's a great way that you can. Offer something of value to their clients and then, send the clients right back to them and really build them up. Even it's, it becomes a valuable offshoot instead of any kind of competition. So I think that is great and I've done a little bit of that in my business. Just to circle back to what I've done the way I got into it a friend of mine who I had worked with in real estate had told me about that, that he and his wife were doing this business and I ended up coming to the same company that you work with, you were with at the time, and. I decided to focus on people who were just turning 65. So I sent out a letter. I got a list of people who were turning 65, and I sent out a letter and I was just really real in that letter. It was a really basic letter. It was like, yeah, I know you're getting piles and piles of mail and it's so confusing and overwhelming. I'm a nursing school. I'm a mom. I can sit down with you and help you make sense of it and. People would just call me. It was the easiest, quote, unquote sale I had ever done because people trusted me after reading that letter. There wasn't a lot of competition. There wasn't a lot of people really reaching out in a personal way. And sharing, I had a picture of me and my kids and it was just very personal. Not. Not corporate and not professional, and they invited me into their home and I'd sit down at their kitchen table and tell them, okay so you're gonna turn 65. The first thing you need to do is sign up for part A and part B. Part A covers the hospital. Part B covers the, outpatient care and this is what it's gonna cost per month. And then you have two different options about how you're gonna, if you only had original Medicare. That would be 80%, but nobody wants, 80% of a hundred dollars is great. They pay 80, you pay 20. But if it's a hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars, obviously that's not gonna work. So where I come in is I help you. I not, I help you not only sign up for Medicare,'cause I do actually get pretty involved in that, but I help you. Figure out how to cover that, that gap. And that's with where we call it a Medigap plan or a Medicare supplement. So I tell them about the two routes and there's the Medigap Medi Med sup route, and then there's the second route, which is the Medicare Advantage plan. And at one thing, I know we don't have a lot more time, we both have a hard stop in about 15 minutes, so I do wanna wrap it up, but I think it's really interesting how, because of our different clientele. Or even actually a maybe more similar clientele than we realize, Mo, the majority of your clients, at least in that first five years of your business or, and maybe still. Ended up going on the Medicare supplement route because of their net worth, because of their their traveling or whatever their reasons were that, that seemed like the better option for you, for your clients. And even though I always like to be transparent about this part because I think it's really interesting that we actually, I, I don't the commissions are super confusing anyway, so I don't even really know exactly what they are. But as agents, we actually get paid. Less on a Medicare supplement than a Medicare Advantage plan. And that has never factored into my, my the, how I try to sell them. I don't even really sell anything. I usually just show them the options and frankly they choose. But a lot of people have asked me, I think you've maybe even asked me like how I sell so many advantage plans when to, to you and to a lot of agents, the supplement is the better option. If you can afford it, and I think, and I've said it before, the way I do it is because I truly don't see it as the supplement being the better option. I and I don't see it. I don't try to sell anybody on an advantage plan either. In fact, my friend who I met with a couple weeks ago, I did, after looking at her individual situation, I said, you, you really should go. With a supplement, you get it for guaranteed issue, you, it makes more sense. So I never, ever have pushed people toward one or the other, but because I truly believe the advantage plan is a great plan, the majority of my clients have chosen that option. And, as I've mentioned before in Maricopa County where I live for years, we had a lot of PPO plans as advantage plans, and that has changed a lot in the last year and it has been disruptive for my clients because they, many of them chose that because it was like, to me, an advantage plan is just like the insurance we've had our entire life up to 65, so why? The agents and the clients suddenly expect and are only happy with a plan that has no networks and no requirements and no pre-authorization when they suddenly turn. 65 is be beyond me like I don't understand and why the providers say, oh, those Medicare Advantage plans, they're so horrible. The insurance tries to put restrictions on the providers. I know, I'm like I'm a little bit on a soapbox right now, but it's never made sense to me because we've always had the, like when you have to get, if you needed a surgery this year, you would need to get pre-authorization from your insurance plan. I would need it, whether I'm on an employer plan or I'm on a marketplace plan or anything like to me it was no big deal that, that there's a network. And even as we've gone from PPOs to more HMOs, I've really tried to share and teach my clients that HMO is not all bad. We have this bad taste about HMOs, but it's really managed care. And one thing I say all the time is. The idea is that you don't wanna go to a podiatrist for a stubbed toe. They want you to start with your primary care provider and then allow the, to go to a higher level of care as is appropriate. And it's supposed to be managed by your primary care provider, and that's in the real world. Probably doesn't work as well as they'd like it to because the primary care provider's office is, you can barely even get in. I've been talking to my dad about some healthcare issues and he's. He's in New Mexico and it's not always easy. But anyway, sorry. Sorry for talking so much, but that's my take. That's a very wordy version of how I've evolved, how I started my business and how I've evolved over the years. Yeah, no I always like hearing your perspective on that. And it's funny because I think we touched on this last time you had me on and, I feel like we stay agnostic and explain both. The result of what I feel like is our agnostic process is that probably about 80% of our clients go with a Medicare supplement plan. Now, again, if they come by way their financial advisor, they're usually good savers.'cause you need to be a financial advisor and they just don't. I think the metaphor that, two things I'd bring up is that comparing Medicare advantage to Medicare supplement is not comparing a hero and a villain. Both options will be the best health insurance you've ever had. There are trade offs between those two, but it's not a hero and a villain, sort of thing. But the analogy I think of which I feel like is what. Why our clients go often with a Medicare supplement plan. Do you remember the scene in Forrest Gump where he checked the mail and he got a letter from Lieutenant Dan? And Lieutenant Dan said, Hey, I took the shrimp boat money and I bought a fruit company, which was, or his understanding was a fruit company. It was Apple. Computer. And so apparently we don't need to worry about money no more. And I thought, that's good. One less thing. And like he just went back and mowing the lawn. You just, I totally check the box in a major way. And I think that's what our clients see in the value in the supplement, but that's not, in order for that to exist, that doesn't mean Medicare Advantage has to be awful. It's still going to be the best health insurance you've ever had. And I think people. I get it. Like I, even if people tell me they want a Medicare supplement, I go, okay, I want you to understand the advantage plan anyway. Yeah. Because I sometimes just having the bookend to compare it to is helpful. And if I tell you nothing about a Medicare Advantage plan, you're gonna get all this mail trying to scare the stuffing out of you. And you're gonna call me up frantic and say, Brian didn't tell me that. I think you didn't think you didn't. They're gonna think you didn't share something that was important. Yeah. And I do the same thing. I, and some, I do have some Medicare supplement clients but even this year when their advantage plans were disappearing and they had the opportunity to go guaranteed issue into a Medicare supplement, I really quite strongly, I even said, most people in this Medicare space would tell you this is the better. Insurance. This is the best you can, and you have an opportunity to get it for the lower cost and without any underwriting. This is a really cool opportunity and most of them still were like, Nope. Why would I do that? I've been really happy with my Medicare Advantage plan and it's served me really well, and it's a myth that you're not gonna get the best healthcare with a Medicare Advantage plan because they literally have to cover everything that Medicare covers. And more. But there, that said, there are, there may be certain providers you can't go to like the Mayo Clinic, for example, that's here in Scottsdale. You can't go there if you have a Medicare Advantage plan. It doesn't cover that. So there is, and if your travel, if you live in two different homes, if you just wanna be able to get a second opinion. If you wanna just be able to make an appointment with your podiatrist for a stubbed toe, then yeah. If you can afford it. Supplement gives you a lot more freedom and flexibility. One more thing. I know we're really running outta time, but I in the book that I started writing last year about Medicare, I ended up putting that one aside and finishing up the book on resilience instead, but I'll go back to it eventually. I used it. I the, I used it, the analogy,'cause I used to be in real estate, so I used the analogy of a house of a home, building a home. So Medicare, the Medicare supplement route is like building a custom home where you choose the foundation and you choose the windows and you choose the electrician and all of it. You you put it all together piece by piece and you get the very best exactly as you want it. And then a Medicare Advantage plan is like buying a spec home or buying a model home, from a builder like where it's like just cookie cutter. Like you don't, you get a couple choices, but it is what it is. It already includes everything. It al you don't have to pay separately for the flooring and the roof and the, it's all included. But there's a trade off. You don't get to, to have the exact countertops you want, you have to take the, from among the choices that are given. So that was like, to me, like a, so it's not like it's a lesser, you still have a home and you, it still could be a beautiful home. But yes, most people, if they're, if they can afford it. They would way rather have a custom home. That's exactly the way they want to design it. I love your name of your company, design My Medicare. And that's what you get to do with a supplement, with the supplement route is you get to design your Medicare and your overall. That's another thing, you add in quite a few ancillary plans that I haven't even really gotten into with most of my clients because you're creating an entire portfolio of healthcare. For these people, not just Medicare. So I think that's really neat and I hope to learn more and grow in that direction with you this year or next year. Sure. Some time in the future. Yeah. Yeah. It's no, I think that's a fair analogy. It's just keep in mind it's not a hero and a villain type thing. It's gonna be good news, regardless. And, and I guess the other thing I would bring up is that even though a lot of our clients come to us, predisposed to PPOs, because I, they just I don't wanna say more successful people are used to PPOs, but whatever. The people who come to us, I just want the freedom and the flexibility they want feel like they're in control and nobody's telling'em what to do. That said, most people just. Go to whoever the heck their primary doctor tells'em to. Even if you're on a PPO, your primary doctor is if you have a good one, right? Yeah. They're gonna, but they're gonna refer you. Now you don't have to have that referral to go see the specialist, nor do you go need to see, go, need to go see their specialist. But most of the time. We're happy to have our primary doctor quarterback us and tell us, where to go, so the flip side of the Medicare supplement plan, and you were the one that brought this up to me, is that there's no managed care. You're on your own you're which, doesn't have to be a bad thing, but nobody's kicking you in the pants to, to go ahead and maybe your medical group might try to move you and your annual physical. Yeah. Get your blood work done, get your, the, and that, that's another thing. So I, the one more thing point, I know we were like really running outta time, but I feel like it's funny that people that are all about freedom and flexibility are okay with the federal government running their healthcare, but they don't want an insurance company to lead them in the right direction. Because, obviously the federal government is behind the whole thing. You know me, we're all driven, governed by Medicare, even in ob, even in the hospital. But what I was thinking was that insurance companies, what I've learned, I did employee benefits for years before coming into Medicare. And what I, my thought on insurance companies is we all love to hate them, but they actually are pretty good at. Understanding what is best for overall wellness. Because that affects their bottom line. The weller we are, the more we are the higher their bottom line. The le more they can keep us healthy, the less we're gonna be in the hospital. So all these things that they include these extras that could be seen as like frivolous or unimportant to me are actually very important. Dental care is like hugely important to overall health, like it, cardiovascular system. You don't even realize it's not just about having nice teeth that look good. It's super important. And dental vision the gym membership that's included. Even meals like after surgery, like there's things that are included with these advantage plans that people like to, just, to joke about that are not really as important as the real healthcare. But the bottom line is the real healthcare is there. They all cover your doctor visits and your hospital stays. The extras are not just. Extras. They're, care to me. They're healthcare, not just sick care. So I think that they have the real, the advantage plans have a real advantage even for wealthy people. That's my, yeah. True opinion. Yeah. No, it's great. It's and it's funny because like I said, I feel like I stay agnostic, but last time I explained it to you, you said, boy, you just romanticize a Medicare supplement plan. I said I don't feel like I do. And you're like, no, you do. Which is but that's not my intention. And it's funny'cause if I mention Medicare Advantage plans to just, because our clients, 80% of them have the supplement. They go, whoa, you're really pushing the Medicare Advantage plan. I go, that's funny. Just it's not. It's not red pill, blue pill hero and a villain, and it's, and then we try to maintain that agnostic process.'cause that's the way our financial advisors present things to their client. Yeah. And the other thing is, someone can always go to an advantage plan later on. My parents were both on supplements for 10, 10 years before I got into this business. And I said, Hey, why don't you try the. Advantage plan, and both of them have never looked back and they've been very happy with it. But so someone could be, wealthy client having high net worth and choose the supplement because they're active, they're traveling, and later go to an advantage plan, which is counterintuitive because the whole message out there is, oh, when you get old and sick, you're not gonna have the best healthcare if you don't, if you're on an advantage plan. But it's not true. Agree. They're both great, like you said. All right. We talked about a lot of things. It's been great to have you on. I know we both have a hard stop right now. I wish we could keep going and we definitely packed in a lot of different subjects here, but I think it was a good conversation that is relevant to people of. Any age. And if you want, I'll put Brian's contact info in the chat if you're interested in designing your Medicare and or if you're a financial planner especially. He's great. And thanks for listening. See you next time. Alright, take care. Thanks for having me.