Timeless Vitality Podcast with Kate Beck and Amber Stitt

Navigating Capitol Hill: Diane Boyle on Promoting Financial Security Through Legislative Action

• Timeless Vitality • Season 1 • Episode 3

Share episode

👋 Welcome to another enlightening episode of the Timeless Vitality Podcast, where your co-hosts Kate Beck and Amber Stitt delve into the inspiring journeys, resilient stories, and timeless wisdom of remarkable individuals. 

🏛️ Today, we're thrilled to have Diane Boyle, NAIFA's Senior Vice President of Government Relations, join us for a riveting discussion.

🕛 Diane shares what a day in the life of a government relations specialist and chief lobbyist entails, offering a behind-the-scenes look at her work on Capitol Hill. 

🏦 She explains the critical role of financial services advisors in educating lawmakers to ensure informed policies that support families and communities. 

☑️ This episode highlights the importance of participating in the legislative process, even through small steps like voting or joining advocacy organizations.

🗣 What You’ll Learn:

  • Insights into Diane Boyle’s role as a chief lobbyist for NAIFA.
  • The importance of grassroots advocacy and building relationships with lawmakers.
  • Key legislative issues impacting financial security, including tax reform.
  • How ordinary citizens can get involved in advocacy to support financial security.
  • The timeless principle of staying informed and proactive in personal and professional settings.

📢 Key Quotes:

  • Diane Boyle: “You need to develop a relationship with these lawmakers so that as they are considering issues, they actually are developing an understanding for what it is that you do to serve families.”
  • Amber Stitt: “You have to have these conversations. And right now, there’s really no excuse. There are ways you can participate – it could be from a Zoom room or with boots on the ground. You can be involved.”

🔗 Connect with Us:

📅 Stay Updated:

Subscribe to our channel to stay updated on future episodes that inspire you to thrive well beyond 100, embracing resilience and purpose in every step of your journey.

📱 Follow Us on Social Media:

📧 For Queries & Collaborations: Contact us at: hello@timeless-vitality.com

Thank you for tuning into the Timeless Vitality podcast. Remember, your story is still unfolding, and every step you take adds to the timeless legacy you are creating. Until next time, stay vibrant, stay empowered, and continue living with purpose.

#TimelessVitalityPodcast #AmberStitt #KateBeck #DianeBoyle #FinancialSecurity #GovernmentRelations #NAIFA #PathwaysWithAmberStitt #LegislativeAdvocacy #Resilience #Purpose #ThrivingBeyond100

TVep3

Kate Beck  [00:00:03]:
Welcome to the Timeless Vitality podcast, where co-hosts Kate Beck and Amber Stitt explore the unique journeys, inspiring stories and timeless wisdom of those who embody vitality and resilience.

Amber Stitt [00:00:17]:
Together, we discover what it means to thrive well beyond 100, sharing insights that empower you to live with purpose and create a lasting legacy.

Kate Beck  [00:00:27]:
Let's get started with today's episode.

Amber Stitt [00:00:29]:
Hello and welcome to the Timeless Vitality podcast. I am your host for today, Amber Stitt, with my co-host, Kate Beck.

Kate Beck  [00:00:37]:
Hi, welcome.

Amber Stitt [00:00:38]:
And today we welcome Diane Boyle to the show. Welcome, Diane.

Diane Boyle [00:00:42]:
Thank you, Amber and Kate. I'm happy to be here.

Amber Stitt [00:00:44]:
So, Diane, you are all over the place when it comes to what I see online. And as a government relations specialist, I'll call it, you're going to tell us a little bit more. Can you tell the audience, a day in the life, what do you do in your work? I won't really say it's a day job, but with the organizations that you support.

Diane Boyle [00:01:03]:
Sure. And it's funny, the way that you phrased it reminded me of my younger son asked me that is, you basically eat and drink and talk to people a lot. And that's exactly what I do. And so I serve as NAIFA senior vice president of government relations, and so I'm their primary, or chief lobbyist. So a day in the life is we basically are educating lawmakers. So we have conversations with them. Some of that is we go out to eat. Some of that is you sit down and you have a drink with them, but you have a conversation and you talk about the issues.

Amber Stitt [00:01:36]:
And you've been working with regulation policy for a long time, actively on the Hill. But when Congress is out, you're still doing work.

Diane Boyle [00:01:45]:
Oh, absolutely. So this never ends. And it's not always as glamorous as people think. So we do, Amber, I know you and I have gone to the Hill together, and we'll say, "Oh, make sure you get the head shot with the Capitol in the background." It's beautiful and it's glamorous. And Kate, if you haven't done it, you need to come, and we're going to do that for you, too. And it's fantastic. The flip side is, I say, look, you're going to go in and you're going to have conversations with members of Congress.

Diane Boyle [00:02:10]:
We'll set up meetings. We'll go in, we'll talk about the issues that are important to you and your clients, how you serve families, because you actually bring something that lawmakers don't have. You have a level of expertise that they actually need. They're establishing policy in your industry, of which they know very little. So we need to get you there to tell those stories. And I serve as sort of that conduit. The not pretty side is, a day in the life you're going to be hiking from House to Senate side, which is a trek.

Diane Boyle [00:02:42]:
You're going to go up and down stairs. The beauty is, if you're a constituent, they don't usually have the conversation over a trash can. But I've had conversations with legislators where we're moving and we're standing over a trash can because they just came off the House floor and grabbing whatever few minutes that they have to talk about something. And so it's not always as pretty. Actually, one of our past presidents came, and it was a rainstorm, so it's horrible outside. And he's like, "Oh, my God, are we still walking?" And I'm like, "Yes, we're still walking because it's raining. You're not gonna be able to find a cab to go house to Senate side. Suck it up.

Diane Boyle [00:03:15]:
Let's go. We've gotta move." So we're walking, and then we get inside. And the best line was from a colleague of mine who represented a completely different issue. And she goes, "Yeah. I look at my male counterparts, and they come in, and if they start whining, I say, yeah, do it in four inch heels, and then you can complain."

Amber Stitt [00:03:32]:
Yep.

Diane Boyle [00:03:33]:
Now that I'm getting older, I'm not doing it in heels anymore. Cause Covid killed my feet. I don't know about you guys, but, all of the sudden, I wasn't wearing shoes for two years. You go to put the heels back on. I'm like, "These are my comfortable heels. They don't fit my fat feet anymore."

Amber Stitt [00:03:46]:
Diane, I met you right after the Covid timeframe where they were still not letting people in the buildings. So what I didn't know my first time is that you probably should have an umbrella. Rookie from Arizona. Nobody told me that. And of course, the guys weren't telling me what to prepare for. So in addition to blisters, and your feet are shifting because it's now kind of wet, you have the cherry blossoms. Here comes the allergies. And they're not letting you in to go to the restroom.

Amber Stitt [00:04:11]:
So I'm thinking, "Oh, I'll walk in and I'll freshen up." So in front of the trash can, things like that. The point here is, there's people doing work. We only see, really what we see on the media is there's politicians and there's this press of all the things that have happened in the last five years has been pretty wild, but the work is being done. People are in the cold, in the rain, and they're having these conversations to help. So, Diane, you are saying that advisors and others are really, they're the ones that are helping the lawmakers see what is needed in the home. And you being on our podcast was so important to me because you are seeing the fruit of what's working, what's not working.

Amber Stitt [00:04:48]:
So from a legislative side of things, families don't really see all the laws, all the bills, all the stuff that's being packaged. Now that you can really bring it home and just identify one thing...But as we talk with the people and our listeners, I want them to think about is if they can help themselves along with the resources, like people that are working under you, with you to advocate for homes and families, for financial security, what's happening on the Hill current day, or what's coming up that we could be maybe excited about? I'm sure there's some things that are not working, but is there anything that we should really highlight to grab ahold of to do within our own personal lives?

Diane Boyle [00:05:24]:
Yeah, you know what? A lot works. I'm going to take the positive side of that because you're right. You see a lot of craziness. There's a lot of craziness on. There's a lot that's not happening on the Hill because it's an election year. Election year brings about really crazy times. Congress is on recess now, so that means they left DC. They're in your district, thank goodness.

Diane Boyle [00:05:43]:
I get a little reprieve, but not much because the conversation is never ending. And you know this, Amber, from being on the Hill, as soon as you left the meeting, another group was right behind you to sit down and have that conversation. So you actually need to develop a relationship with these lawmakers so that as they're considering issues, whether legislation is moving or not, they actually are developing an understanding for what it is that you do to serve families. And you have to do that on a continual basis. And so when Congress leaves the district and they go on their summer recess, we make sure that NAIFA members are establishing those relationships back home. And so we're scheduling meetings. As a matter of fact, some of them turn out to be virtual meetings. Some of them are in person in the district and election year is weird because if somebody's in a safe seat, then they're campaigning for their colleagues.

Diane Boyle [00:06:28]:
And so they're actually not in their district. So some of our meetings are actually going to be virtual with some of those guys. Others are in the district and they're still taking meetings. They still want to hear from you. And the beauty there is that you can develop a better relationship because the time frame is a little longer. You can actually sit down and have a conversation that's longer than 15 or 20 minutes because they'll sit down and say, "Hey, let's grab breakfast together," and you'll share a meal. And so that gives you a little while. You break bread with somebody, you're having a better conversation.

Diane Boyle [00:07:00]:
And so it leaves a little more time for those relationships to be developed. That's the positive side, is that you can develop a relationship. And what I tell people, especially in a really divided country right now, politically, right? Our issues aren't, when you talk about financial security, that matters to everyone.

Amber Stitt [00:07:20]:
Yeah.

Diane Boyle [00:07:20]:
And so take the partisanship out of it because you can find champions on either side. And what I say to people who come in, I play with whoever you throw in the sandbox. You have elections, you get to decide who you want to send to Congress. You send them there. And then I have to play with whoever those people are. And we're going to educate them. We're going to make sure they understand and they're going to have a better understanding and they have a better understanding of the issues when those of you who sit across from their constituents and help their families plan, know what you do. So that's where we bring the advisors in and the agents in to have those conversations, so that legislators and their staff who can be incredibly young but incredibly smart and important people, they're looking for information, too.

Diane Boyle [00:08:04]:
And a lot of them haven't gone through some of the life experiences that you're working with your clients on. So somebody has a better understanding of long-term care needs when they've had to care for someone.

Amber Stitt [00:08:16]:
Yeah.

Diane Boyle [00:08:17]:
And they haven't experienced it yet.

Amber Stitt [00:08:18]:
So picturing for those who have not done this, we're walking up the Hill both ways, like they say in the olden days in the snow, right?When we used to walk to school, or whatever they would say. But no, literally on the Hill, you're walking, you get in these rooms and you have limited time. Sometimes you don't meet who you want to meet, but you have your staff. And so naturally people go, "Oh, well, they're young and they don't know." But I have to say this, and I'm very excited about this...There's two things, and we'll jump into more of the financial security talk...The younger folks are sharp and they have the questions, and you sit across the room and they know those laws inside out. So they might not have those life experiences.

Amber Stitt [00:08:51]:
But I really want to give some kudos to the generation that's helping us lead because they're the ones that are going to be in office one day. And I've seen some top notch over just the last few years that are supporting, and they are like the bulldog to the person that's very busy going to the floor, coming back. Their days are never structured correctly. But the staff, if you can create a relationship with any of those parties, you can take that back home to your home state. So I want to give kudos there.

Diane Boyle [00:09:15]:
I have something to build on, Amber, what you said about them being young and sharp and they may be the next lawmaker. They absolutely are. If you look at, Hillary Clinton was an intern, if you look at former speaker McCarthy was a district director for a member of Congress. Those kids, if you want to call them that, especially if you walk in, the first one, that's the receptionist, or the scheduler, is who you see if you're there. And we try to make sure that people come on at least an annual basis, sometimes a couple of times a year, you can go in, and within six months, that person has moved from the front desk, which is the scheduling desk, to the back office where they're doing policy. So they move up very quickly because they are really smart and they do become ultimately the lawmakers at some point. And you know this, right? A warm call is always better than a cold call.

Diane Boyle [00:10:04]:
So if you're going in and you're developing those relationships with those staffers who, as you said, are super smart, they know the issues. They don't necessarily know the real life side of it. And that's what we can bring to them and should bring to them. You help them do their jobs better.

Amber Stitt [00:10:20]:
But they might also see something else that we're just too close to. The second part of NAIFA, too, is that it's bipartisan. There's education. Here's what's in front of us. Here's the statistics. What are we going to do about it? And that's what I've really liked about NAIFA growing up in the insurance business. My brother dad had the NAIFA membership, and I was like, "Oh, insurance agents. That's just what you do."

Amber Stitt [00:10:39]:
Oh, my gosh. There's so much more on the other side that you can be really proactive with. So going into the room. So, Diane, what are families, what are these advisors asking the lawmakers to figure out for us? So let's kind of go into the juicy part. What is that top couple things that are just trending right now for families?

Diane Boyle [00:10:56]:
By and large, tax reform. So 2024, it's an election year. Very little is going to get done. It's August. They've gone home. They'll come back. There are very few legislative days they're going to need to fund the government. So they'll come back and do that.

Diane Boyle [00:11:11]:
Nothing else is going to get done in 2024. It's just not on the legislative front. What does happen is you'll actually start seeing a number of bills being introduced is kind of interesting, and it's lawmakers establishing their record to go home and run on the legislative issues that they've introduced. So you do start seeing bills introduced and what's important about that? Because people will say, "Well, you just said nothing's going to happen then I don't need to engage. I don't need to talk about this issue." Once legislation is drafted, it dies at the end of the Congress. When Congress ends in December, we'll start out with the 119th Congress. In 2025, everything has to be reintroduced.

Diane Boyle [00:11:48]:
But you know what they do? They pull it off the shelf. So you want to make sure whatever gets put on the shelf in 2018, the 118th Congress, 2024, I actually do know what year we're in. They're going to pull that off for the next Congress and dust it off and that's the starting point. So even if it's a bad piece of legislation from our perspective, you want to make it less bad so that when it's picked from the shelf, your starting point is better than what it was before. To your point, the down and dirty of it, the not glamorous side is making sure that we're involved in all of those things. Now, before we get to the new starting point, I digressed a little bit. Tax reform, because the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that went into effect in 2017, that was enacted in 2017, a number of those provisions expire in 2025. If we don't establish a baseline of what works, what doesn't work, what our concerns are now, when 2025 comes, we're going to be at a disadvantage.

Amber Stitt [00:12:52]:
Okay.

Diane Boyle [00:12:53]:
And it doesn't matter, as a matter of fact, I'm working on a presentation for later where I show, okay, if the election results in a democratic sweep, what are we looking at? How is tax reform going to evolve? It's going to happen because there's this expiration and something has to be done. So Congress is going to act, but how are they going to act? Where are they going to lead? What's their starting point going to be? What if it's a mixed Congress? What if you have one of the...House or the Senate that's controlled by one party? What does that dynamic look like? What does a mixed administration look like? What happens if it's a republican sweep? What does that look like? And you know what? There are challenges in all three of them. So the solution to all of them is explain what we do. Because the biggest challenge that we face in this tax bill next year is if they need to pay for it, are they going to come to our industry and change some of the tax status that our products, or our services currently have?

Amber Stitt [00:13:48]:
Okay, so I wasn't even thinking about that aspect. But you're saying...

Diane Boyle [00:13:52]:
That's number one, Amber, that's number one. And so if they don't understand what you do, or what a product or a tax status of some initiative is, then it's easy to look at the numbers and say, "Oh, I can generate revenue there." Because Congress, and I say this all the time, Congress doesn't have bake sales. The only way that they generate revenue is through tinkering with the tax code. It's the only thing available to them. So if they want to do something and pay for it, they have to change the tax code. So are they going to change our products to pay for something else? Well, not if they understand what our products do. But if they don't understand what our products do, then you're just a dollar sign, and it makes it really easy for them to snatch it and do something else with it.

Amber Stitt [00:14:34]:
All right, so two things are happening, Diane. The financial services advocates need to keep working on this because what we bring to families is so important. And if you change the dynamic, it's going to be huge, not just for our paychecks, but literally to provide services that we need to for the family. So that's important. We have a whole audience of listeners that are in that network and want to support. So we need more of that. And we can certainly go offline and collaborate. Any one of us can pull more people in, and we're happy to give resources for the families at home.

Amber Stitt [00:15:03]:
The pearls of wisdom for Timeless Vitality is having empowerment, resilience. So not the fear mongering. We don't want any of that. But we want to have people potentially build in habits, mindsets, money mindsets that can help them get through the next year to two as there's going to be some changes. We don't know what they are. But if we can have some resilience in life is to build some strategies personally, so that we can weather the storm and we don't have to turn the news on and say, "Oh my gosh," now I have to react. So that's really what I want to focus on next is for the person at home listening, that's not on the Hill. Probably not going to get to the Hill.

Amber Stitt [00:15:39]:
What can they be doing? What would you say to your son...sons...two? What should they be doing to be thinking about this into the next couple years?

Diane Boyle [00:15:46]:
They need to be involved. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to go to the Hill. Whatever your profession, whatever your passion is, whatever you want to protect, preserve, advance, they're probably going to be laws around its success, or its challenges, right? I mean, if you look at just the regulatory environment, or legislative environment, those are the rules, right? That's the game plan of how you can operate in anything. If you want to make sure that you can advance whatever that passion is, whether that passion is your profession, or your passion is something more personal, you have to have the conversation. So the first step is you have to vote. You have to register. You have to vote. We have something that's called GOTV Financial Services.

Diane Boyle [00:16:30]:
I think I'll get you that link later. It's, again, not partisan. It's, this is where you go to register right now. We just sent out Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota and Wisconsin are having their primaries today. Go vote! For women, we fought too hard for the right to vote. Don't waste it. I don't care who you vote for, but go vote for somebody.

Diane Boyle [00:16:50]:
Write somebody in. Make sure that you take advantage of it. So make sure that you're participating in the process. Join an organization if you're not going to do it, but that is advocating for you. So for the insurance industry and financial services professional, you know, for me it's NAIFA. If it's, we have a son who's an engineer. He belongs to his professional association. I have a son who is a, probably going to be an architect.

Diane Boyle [00:17:13]:
He's still in school. And the little one, who the heck knows what he's going to do? He'll probably end up being one of our lawmakers but organize because if you think about how lawmakers make decisions, especially if you look at the House, they're elected to represent a district. They're supposed to vote and advance the causes of those constituents that elected them. So if they're representing their district, how are they going to know how to represent their district if you don't tell them what it is that you want. And if you have an organization, its numbers. So in order to get elected, you have to have more numbers than your opponent in order to get those numbers. There's a political mathematics, too, right? And it's repetition and addition, is all it is. You want to see more people.

Diane Boyle [00:18:01]:
You want to add on to what it was that they did before. So if you belong to an organization, then if I'm the legislator, and I know both Kate and Amber agree on something, then I'm like, "Well, okay, well, that's two people." If it's just Amber coming in that could be just kooky Amber. I don't know that I really want to go in that direction. So you want to have the support of a bigger organization, even if you're very actively involved, because there's an advantage to having those numbers from a lawmaker's perspective. So I'd say get involved, and there are a gazillion ways to get involved, and you can pick how involved you want to be. You want to come to Capitol Hill? Great!

Diane Boyle [00:18:37]:
You want to go to just an in district meeting? Fantastic. Our industry is regulated a significant amount at the state level, so you need to go to your state capitol, and there's an opportunity there. And it's the same thing. You talked about the young kids sitting in the office advancing to law. The lawmaker's political life is very cyclical, as well. Learn who your county board individuals are, because they're going to be your next state legislators. Your state legislators are going to become your next members of Congress, by and large. And so when you develop those relationships on the ground level, and that's something, that's an advantage that NAIFA has, is we do have lobbyists in all the states.

Diane Boyle [00:19:14]:
So when a state legislator makes their way to Congress, they already know NAIFA because we've already established that relationship in the state. So, I'm not cold calling, I have a warm call. And the same thing when they come on committees, we have a lobbying team, and we focus primarily on the committees that have jurisdiction over our issues because they're divided that way. They're going to have the first vote but when it comes to ultimate passage, you need every member of Congress, and we don't have the staff to have relationships with every member of Congress, but what we do have is members that have a relationship with every member of Congress. And so that's how we build that surround sound to make sure we're getting our issues addressed and covered and we're engaging in those conversations.

Kate Beck  [00:19:58]:
I'm over here hearing about relationships and joining different industries, and I'm curious, what do you suggest to build trust amongst your peers and also the legislators? Because trust has been a very big topic amongst industries from other industries, as well, like NABIP and WIFS and NAIFA. So what is something that all of you have in common, or at least you can speak to NAIFA about building trust within our community and legislation.

Diane Boyle [00:20:27]:
The first thing is show what you do. People ask...I've been with NAIfA for 32 years, right? "Oh, that's a really long time." It's easy. I believe in the work that you do. Other lobbyists that I work with, you know, some of their issues don't sit right with them. My issues sit right with me because I know the good that you do.

Diane Boyle [00:20:44]:
So to answer your question, the way that you develop that trust is you actually have to be honest with what you're doing. I'll walk in and as soon as I talk with the legislator and I'll tell them who's with me. Who's going to be against me. Why, if I know it, if I don't know it, I obviously can't share that. But I can tell them what the opposite position is going to be and why I think our industry is correct. And so if you can have those honest conversations, it's like any other relationship. You build that trust over time, but you build it by being honest and showing people one of the things that, and Amber's probably heard me say this before, when I work with a legislative office, they'll say, "All right, Diane, we've known each other for years. I know that to be true. Is that true in my district?" And it does matter. I can remember this goes back years, and I'm going to forget what the issue was...

Diane Boyle [00:21:36]:
I can tell you the people, it was Senator Chuck Schumer, and Blanche Lincoln was a senator from Arkansas at the time. They were going to vote on something, and Schumer said that, "I told Blanche, you can't vote for that." And it was his bill. "You can't vote for that because that's not going to sit well with your constituents." So they do have a real understanding of who it is that you're representing and what you're doing. So trust doesn't mean that they're going to vote the way that I want them to all of the time, and they don't.

Diane Boyle [00:22:06]:
But trust does mean that we can have a conversation and we can be honest with each other on, "Yeah, I see your point there. I hear what you're saying, and I don't think that you're lying to me. I just don't know that I'm going to be able to do that."

Kate Beck  [00:22:19]:
What I'm hearing is clarity is kindness.

Diane Boyle [00:22:21]:
Yeah.

Amber Stitt [00:22:21]:
And those trust trees that we talk about, Kate, on our podcasts come from the...I call it communications...like the currency of life since the beginning of time into the future. We have to have these conversations. And, Diane, that's what you're doing. You're meeting with people, having the conversations, not always agreeing, but that's okay. And you're building these alliances, but the clarity can be there. Like Kate's saying, "You got to get out there and do the work."

Amber Stitt [00:22:44]:
And right now, I mean, there's really no excuses. There are ways you can participate. It could be from a Zoom room, boots on the ground, you can be involved. There's really no excuses anymore. So to make the change for our families and financial security, you got to have your voice out there and just align with some of those people that can help. Like you said, the advocacy and the organization, whatever your industry is, you can definitely do that.

Diane Boyle [00:23:05]:
It really is as simple as telling your story, telling what you do. That's what's needed right now, because there's not legislation that we're saying if you're looking at even the tax bill that we expect next year to be incredibly challenging. You're talking just to renew the TCJA provisions that are expiring: $4.6 trillion. That's not insignificant money. Where does that come from? How do you generate that? How do you not generate that? How do you add something different? So, this is the funny one to me. Both the Harris/Walz and the Trump/Vance campaigns have come out and said, "We're not taxing tips." Really? Okay.

Diane Boyle [00:23:44]:
Excellent idea. How are you going to pay for that? What if that means that employer provided benefits are no longer tax free to the employee, tax deductible to the employer? Could we pay for it that way? Those are the questions that are going to be asked. So, whatever your issue is, you need to explain why it's important, because there are going to be new challenges that come about, they're going to be looked at and said, "Would we be better providing a tax change here or there?"

Amber Stitt [00:24:09]:
There's layers to the story. So as we go into this year politically and we hear these surface level topics, we have to then also, like, how does it cook? How's the sausage made, or the cookies made? I don't like to use the word the "sausage made," but it's not just going to happen with this one sentence of, "We're going to not do tax on X." It's a combination. There's a formula. So we have to be free thinking in that bipartisan way and think about all the ingredients to the cookie. Just keep doing some of the work to do some investigation just into the information. So we're just not hearing everything surface level.

Diane Boyle [00:24:38]:
Right.

Amber Stitt [00:24:38]:
You talked about things being easy, and I think even on my other podcast, I talk about doing what you love. That's really the pathway into having this successful life. So you talk about it being easy, and I know that with the relationships you've built, just kind of to bring it back home is it sounds like if you tell your story that's going to help multiple people who might not feel like that. We might feel a little insecure about, "Oh, why would people want to know about my story?" But all of that matters. Is there a part of this story, or in your experience where you could say what would make somebody timeless, or something timeless based upon your experience seeing this in action over this 30 plus years, you've been helping people?

Diane Boyle [00:25:17]:
For me, a timeless person is when that individual knows who they are, what they stand for, consistently. You can't change what you actually stand for. But at the same time that you're taking time to learn and grow to become a better version of themselves, that's what's timeless to me. You have a firm sense of who you are, but you take in information and you're willing to grow. And as long as you're willing to grow and learn, you make tweaks to where you are. That's okay.

Kate Beck  [00:25:47]:
Well, Diane, how can our listeners find you? How can we support you and celebrate you?

Diane Boyle [00:25:51]:
Sure. So I am on LinkedIn, and now I'm gonna forget, what the heck, my little LinkedIn thing.

Amber Stitt [00:25:58]:
We'll link up anything.

Diane Boyle [00:25:59]:
So it's Diane. Diane Rentin Boyle, I think, is what it is. Anyway, you can find me there. And if anyone wants to reach out, I'm happy to continue the conversation. My email is dboyle@naifa.org.

Amber Stitt [00:26:12]:
Yeah, we'll put up the NAIFA information and potentially links to some of the information, like these laws that are coming up so people can get informed. And I know NAIFA has a ton of information of just grassroots information that we could put on someone's kitchen table. So we'll definitely offer that. So as we get into this end of the year, into our next season of life that's coming, we can do our own research to be informed. And so I really appreciate my opportunities so far to be able to work with you and the others that are supporting the for profit and nonprofit NAIFA, both sides. And then we'll get Kate on the Hill and we'll bring some others with us. So I can't wait to do more to help support.

Diane Boyle [00:26:51]:
It's really fun. And if you think about the clients that you serve, when you're able to go up and say, not only am I down with you and designing a plan that protects your family and business, I'm actually going and meeting with legislators to make sure that the plans that we put in place aren't changed with a change in legislation, or regulation, so that the laws actually support the plans that we put in place. That distinguishes you from your competition.

Amber Stitt [00:27:18]:
Awesome. Thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you taking the time out to do this.

Diane Boyle [00:27:23]:
You're welcome. No, this was fun. Thank you. Have a great afternoon.

Kate Beck  [00:27:26]:
Thank you for joining us on the Timeless Vitality podcast. We hope today's episode has inspired you to embrace the journey of thriving well beyond 100.

Amber Stitt [00:27:36]:
Remember, your story is still unfolding, and every step you take adds to the timeless legacy you are creating. Until next time, stay vibrant, stay empowered, and continue living with purpose.

Kate Beck  [00:27:48]:
We'll see you on the next episode!