Dear Friend,
A few years ago, I caught myself saying something that didn't sit right with me.
Someone asked, "How's the business going?" Without thinking, I answered, "I'm trying to build a business."
Driving home later, I kept replaying those words in my head. And then it hit me.
No. I'm not building a business. At least not the way I used to think about it.
I'm building opportunities for people who took a chance on working with me. I'm building careers for employees who show up every day trusting that someone is steering the ship. I'm building trust with clients who hand me their biggest concerns and believe I'll handle them. I'm building something my family can be proud of. I'm building something that, Lord willing, will outlive me.
And sitting in that car, somewhere between the office and home, I realized something that changed how I think about everything I do:
Businesses don't need protection. The people connected to them do.
The building isn't what matters. The dreams inside the building matter. The trucks aren't what matter. The families depending on those trucks matter. The computers aren't what matter. The people whose futures are stored inside those computers matter.
Maybe that's where we've been getting protection wrong all along. We've been protecting things instead of protecting people.
That's why I stopped asking business owners, "What do you own?" Now I ask a different question: "Who is depending on you?"
Because that answer changes everything.
If no one depended on you, protection wouldn't matter very much. But they do. Your employees are depending on you. Your customers are depending on you. Your vendors, your spouse, your children, your community — they're all connected to decisions you make every single day, most of which they'll never even know about.
That's the weight of leadership. And it's also the honor of it. One of the greatest privileges of owning a business is that people trust you with part of their future. One of the greatest responsibilities is making sure you protect it.
I've spent nearly 30 years in this industry, and the longer I do this work, the more convinced I become that protection doesn't start with insurance. Protection starts with love.
Love for your family. Love for your employees. Love for your customers. Love for the dream God placed in your heart.
Insurance is simply one of the tools we use to express that responsibility. It's important — I've built my entire career around making sure it's done right. But the policy isn't the point. The people are the point. The policy is how we honor what they mean to us.
That's why I created The Protection Circle. Not because I wanted to build another insurance newsletter. Because I wanted to build a community of leaders who understand that protecting people is one of the highest callings in business. Leaders who see beyond the balance sheet. Leaders who carry the weight of responsibility not because they have to, but because they love the people counting on them.
That's what separates protection from insurance. Insurance is a product. Protection is a conviction.
Protection Principle #5: The greatest thing you'll ever protect isn't your business. It's the people your business was built to serve.
Continue the Journey
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Before you unlock your office tomorrow morning, ask yourself one question:
Who is depending on me today?
You'll discover that's what you're really protecting.
Protecting what matters,
John Crist Founder, Prestizia Insurance Founder, The Protection Circle Author, The Prestizia Protection Playboo