Balance is about knowing when to step back - Mike Schroeder - S6 - E16

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Website: https://roundstoneinsurance.com
Company's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/roundstone
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelaschroeder
YouTube: https://youtube.com/user/roundstoneinsurance

What does it take to build a business that lasts more than two decades?

In this episode, Mike Schroeder, Founder and President of Roundstone Insurance, shares his entrepreneurial journey from a childhood fascination with business ownership to building one of the leading health insurance captive programs in the United States.

Mike explains how he applied established insurance principles to healthcare, creating a model that gives employers more control, more transparency, and more savings.

We also discuss family, accountability, leadership, health, travel, and why entrepreneurs must learn when to push harder—and when to step back.

What you’ll learn:

• Why ownership creates a different mindset
• How Roundstone transformed health insurance through captive structures
• Why family often becomes the driving force behind entrepreneurship
• The role of fitness, gratitude, and faith in long-term success
• Why entrepreneurs must get comfortable with accountability

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to A Founder's Life. I'm your host, Leo Gestetner On this show, we dive into the real stories behind the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and how we pursue a more balanced and meaningful life along the way. This podcast is sponsored by Thankz, helping founders like us scale with reliable remote talent. I'm excited today to be joined by Mike Schroeder Mike, thank you for joining. Would you please introduce yourself? Hello, my name is Mike Schroeder and I'm the founder and president of Roundstone Insurance and it's nice to be here with you today, Leo. Thank you. Do you want to talk a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today and then a little bit more about what you're actually doing for your clients? Yeah, the journey really goes back to when I was a kid and I recognized that folks that had their own business had more money than my family had. So I always thought to myself, if I wanted to do some of these things these other folks are doing, go on vacations and drive nicer cars and that kind of stuff, I might want to figure out... how they did it, how they came about to have their own business. And I just kind of paid close attention to that. And along the way, I kind of learned that, you know, when you work for yourself, whether that's shoveling driveways of removing snow or cutting lawns or, you know, a whole host of different things I've done over the years, you know, you can make some money. And then I went off to school and I went to college at Tulane University and that was just a very fortuitous event because Tulane is an interesting place a lot of the students come from families that own their own business it's a very entrepreneurial school regardless of what you're studying not just the business school but there are kids there that are in pre-med and pre-law but they come from families that have their own businesses and all different types of businesses everything from real estate to you know media and so on and so forth so I was around and kind of learned from folks at Tulane University about being an entrepreneur and owning your own business. And I went on to school and law school and worked in corporations. But the whole time in the back of my head, I really thought, man, if I ever have a chance someday, I'd like to start my own business. And so when I had that chance after spending 15 years in the insurance industry, I jumped at it. Excellent. And what does the business do that's different to your competitors or better than your competitors? Yeah, so, you know, I've always been in insurance and I've always been in the self-insurance side of things, what folks call captive insurance. And captive insurance, regardless of the coverage, offers folks three things that are different than traditional insurance. You tend to get more information, more data when you're in a captive. You get more control, certainly. And lastly, since you own the insurance company, you get the savings, the underwriting profit or the surplus you keep. So those three basic benefits had never been brought to health insurance before. They had been applied to workers' comp and medical malpractice and auto liability, a lot of property and casualty exposures, but never to health insurance. And so I just thought, hey, why can't some of those advantages be brought over and offered to employers providing health benefits? So 21 years ago, That's what we, started, that was the business idea that I came with. I took a very well established insurance principle of self insurance or group captive insurance and I applied it to the healthcare system we have here in the states where employers provide benefits to the employees. And that's to this day, that's what Roundstone does. We insure thousands of employers throughout the United States and we run and insure their health plan. for those employees. And are you actually providing sort of the insurance coverage or are you more maintaining plans for them? No, we provide, we assume the risk, we provide the coverage, we issue a policy known as a stop loss policy, which pays claims over a certain dollar amount for that employer. But yeah, we take on the risk of their health plan. It's all through insurance layers, which gets into the weeds, I won't bore you with that. But we're on the hook for the claims, if you will. Interesting. And tell us a little bit about how family looks for you. I've been married for longer than I've had my business. I've been married for 32 years and Molly and I have three children. They are now young adults. My oldest, my son is 30 and my oldest daughter is 28. And then I have a 23 year old as well, another daughter. Most of my life, everything I was doing with the business was really for their benefit and for their opportunity. And it's turned out well, but that's been a lot of fun raising those kids. And I'm fortunate to say that two of them still live in our area. And so last night we were eating outside and enjoying the beautiful weather and my youngest is overseas studying. So she gets home in a week, but yeah, you know, family is what it's all about. You know, would I have worked as hard and spent as much time and been as persistent as I've been with this business? If it wasn't for them, I think the answer might be no. I probably would have taken an easier route. definitely gives you different perspective. Absolutely, know, your life changes when you get married and have children. The day that you have that first child, it's no longer about you and your life is really about making sure you take care of them. At least that's the way I look at things my life changed for sure that day that Jack showed up. Yeah, definitely agree on that. And tell me a little bit about how health looks for you, whether that be mental health, physical health, nutrition, sleep, however you look at these things. Yeah. And I think those things are all tied together. I exercise regularly. I guess they call it weight training. I think it's probably better to find as resistance training. I do that three days a week and then do aerobic stuff the other days. And for me, that is mental health, spending an hour in the morning from seven to eight AM, like I did this morning in the gym to me, you know, clears my head and get some good chemistry going in my body. And so I really tie those things together. And I enjoy it. I like to do things like golf and I like to hike. And if you're not taking care of yourself, you can't do those things effectively. So my objective is to try to stay healthy. I've coupled that with diet, because I had a trainer one time tell me you're never going to outwork your diet. And so I do pay attention to what I eat and how I eat it. And then on the mental health side, yes, the physical activity helps with that, but also just having quiet time and time away from the business and opportunities to reflect. I was raised a Catholic and I am religious in that I do believe that it's very helpful to be grateful and I frequently spend time. reflecting on the blessings and the gifts and the gratitude I have. And I have that gratitude for God. And I vocalize that and I tell myself that on frequent basis. I mean, on simple things like if it's a sunny day, how grateful I am that we have a nice day. But I do think that from a mental health point of view has been a very helpful area for me, that gratitude and that faith in God has really helped me out. Makes sense. And what do you like to do for fun? I love the golf. was at the PGA Championship in Philly this weekend. I like to watch golf. I like to play golf. I like to hike. I like to go out to nice dinners with friends and family and also have dinners at home. you know, I would say food, golf and hiking are probably my fun activities. I like to travel. I like to explore new places. I don't know, I'm named after a fellow who came here, my great uncle who came here from United States, from Ireland. And the story goes is when he got here, he dropped his sister off at some relatives in Youngstown, Ohio, and then jumped on a train and rode and told his family, I'm going to go see what this new country is all about. And he spent the next two years riding trains throughout the United States. And I think that adventure, some you know, explorer attitude. I must have inherited some of that. So my uncle Mike and I'm named Mike as well, uh we like to travel, we like to explore. He's long gone, but, and I'm not riding trains. I travel a little differently, but yeah, I like to travel. It's just the whole world is such a beautiful spot. Did you know your uncle? No, never met him. passed before. I knew his sister who he brought. That was my great-grandmother and I did know her. But he had passed prior to I... And if you look at those different aspects of your life, how do you find balance across them in some form, some equilibrium? Yeah, you I think you have to stay focused on it. And I can feel when things are tipping, when I'm burning the candle at both ends, or if there's too much stress and, you know, I'm pretty, pretty cognizant of it. So I, I pull away, I back off. It's something I, you know, you struggle with as a founder of a business. knowing when to let go, knowing when you've kind of reached your max. And that changes as you age, as you get older, you know, your capacity is not what it used to be. So just being aware of that potential and uh then having that time of peace and quiet. And, know, if you look at my activities, travel is, along with reading, is a great opportunity to sort of reset your equilibrium and set your balance between what's really important. And so I think that's kind of my, I would say my secret sauce for equilibrium is I do travel enough and that gives me that quiet time to reflect and not get too fixated on one. I mean, I'm not gonna mislead you. There are times that I, the word that my wife uses is ruminate and there's times she catches me ruminating and that's where I'm getting too fixated on. most likely the business. Yeah, I mean I always say to people that to me balance is not permanently in balance because none of us are. There's times that we've got to work 20 hours a day and you know there's a deal that's happening or there's you know a problem or there's an opportunity whatever it is there's times you've got to do that. There's other times we focus on family but it's that sort of overall balance. And what for you has been a pivotal moment in your life? Pivotal moment in my life. You know, when my father passed when I was a senior in high school and within three months I was going to school a thousand miles away. And at that point in my life, I could have made a choice to not do that. And that ended up being a really, really good decision to go to Tulane University. opened so many doors, I met so many people, I learned so much. But you can imagine... how difficult that was for my mother to take her oldest child a thousand miles away and say, hey, make a go of it. so I'm glad I pushed through that. I'm glad I stayed the course. There was lots of folks that thought I should have maybe not done that stayed home. but, uh, from there on out, um, I gained a lot of confidence that I could essentially accomplish what I put my mind to. that, that I think that was a pivotal. period of my life. What is one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur? I one time had a fella when was working in a, in a law firm and he owned his own business and you know, we were talking and you know, I shared with him, Hey, someday I'd like to be in your shoes. And he said, when you do, you have to give it your all. You know, you have to basically give it your best effort. It, you know, whether people will tell you it's healthy or right, it will become your life and you will think about it always and you'll always be working, but if you if you give yourself into that business, it'll succeed and so if people go into being a entrepreneur because they think it's less work or if they think it's you know easier or they're gonna have more free time or all that kind of thing then I would tell them pause a moment because this is going to become you know very very important to you. Yes, you're gonna have your family and your children and that. They're equally or even more important, but any free mind space you have is going to be on your business. you have to get comfortable with that. know, it's even to this day where I have a great leadership team and hundreds of employees that are doing the day-to-day tasks and it looks like I have all the time in the world. The reality of it is, is I'm constantly reflecting on things we could do different or better. how to improve, how to grow. And so it never leaves you and you just have to get comfortable that you're gonna always be thinking about. Even on those trips where I having that balance and that equilibrium, it's still in the back of my mind. I might wake up in the morning with a thought for the business that I have to capture. Yeah, I often say to people, if you're just looking to make money, get a job, you'll probably make more money and it'll be a lot less stressful. Maybe long term you'll make more money, hopefully, but you know, the short term, medium term, you definitely make more with getting a job. it'll always take mind share and in the end, as the entrepreneur, as the founder, the buck stops with you for the good and the bad, you know, and there's a weight of that. Yeah, you know, that's an interesting comment. I had someone tell me that one time, in discussing the business, they almost presented it as a negative, like, well, now it's all up to you. Well, yeah, but I'm okay with that. And there's another way to look at that. I'm also the one that gets to make the decisions. I don't have to live with decisions that someone else made that I don't agree with. So, hey. I'm more than happy to take accountability and responsibility if I'm the one that's making that decision. So that never scared me. That never intimidated me. but I have, I know, I know some people it scares them to death and it, just, my personality, doesn't bother me. I've never had it phrased that way. But I think in the end, you've hit the nail on the head, which is if you're not happy with the buck stocking at you, don't be an entrepreneur. Because there's all the upside that goes with that as well. But there's lots of downside. I'm going to have someone on my podcast. I don't know, a few months ago, probably last year now. You know, she was like, yeah, in Covid, she's got a nice, profitable, decent business. But in Covid, she had to get a double mortgage and had to, you know, The staff care on getting paid every month, they don't have all the stresses. But in the end, you've got the stresses. Now, yeah, hopefully there's upsides that go with that as well. I believe in the decisions I make. I'm passionate about the business and our mission. So I'm comfortable living with the decisions that I make for the I'm a big believer, like to be a leader is I really spent a lot of time trying to create the environments that other folks can make decisions and execute. so that, you know, not every decision is being made by me, but when ultimately the buck still gonna stop with me based on the environment and the decisions that happen out there. I think you're right. I think that's a good filter as to whether someone should be an entrepreneur. If you're worried about being accountable, forget about it. Forget about it. And thank you, I appreciate you joining us today and it's been great to hear your views and your journey. Well, like any business owner, your favorite thing to do is to talk about your business. So it's an easy conversation and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Thank you. And how can people find you? know, roundstoneinsurance.com or know, Mike Schroeder Roundstone. I'll come up in a variety of ways on, you know, whether you're Googling it or nowadays with the AI tools, but roundstoneinsurance.com is a good spot to find me. Well, thank you. And thank you for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the channel, tell your friends, and leave a review.