Ethics and Professional Practice
I decided to challenge the practice quiz on ethics (for my insurance broker license exam prep) without studying.
When I see or hear the word “ethics” the thought that comes to mind is: this is easy, use your common sense and pick the answers that do not cause harm to others.
So I didn’t study. And just as you guessed it, I failed…miserably. This could mean two things, either I…
- have poor/bad ethics OR
- totally misunderstood the word “ethics” in the insurance industry.
Much of the questions in the quiz have more to do with understanding the laws on insurance (“technical side” of things) than on operating at your clients best interest (common sense side of things).
This is where it becomes tricky – obeying the law does not automatically result in other’s best interest.
That’s why fraudulent claims exist – there’s always someone out there trying to find loopholes in the system.
That’s a pain-in-the-ass for the insurance industry and it makes it worse for everyone else: high number of claims = more expensive premiums.
I find the insurance industry to be a smart business as they aim for the “win-win” situation: the safer you are, the more money they make.
But it also feels like it’s a big scam because you wonder why you’re paying so much but doesn’t feel like you’re getting any of your investment back.
It’s the nature of the business. If you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, the business makes sense. Everyone is aware of the fraud claims and loopholes, that’s why they established laws around it.
Anyway, I thought I could fly through that module and ace the mock-up exam but I realized I’m way over my head.
I wanna skim through it as I’m getting tired of studying. Then the temptation to find ways to cut through it surfaced – but I resisted (I don’t want that to start the habit of finding shortcuts).
This reminds me of an interesting conversation with a co-worker when I told him how…
“Don’t Work Hard, Work Smart”
…f*cks you up in a very subtle way.
His interpretation (which was correct) was “work smart” means you innovate, to do things better instead of putting too much effort on something that barely adds value.
Ok, I get that. I used to think that actually. It just makes sense:
“Don’t work hard” means something along the lines of “do less than what’s needed”
“Work smart” means “find an easier way of doing it”
But after a while, I circled back to operate on simply “work hard” – none of that “work smart” bs we are so geared to operate on.
Why? Because we tend to take things too literally and so we focus more on “working smart” – doing the short-cuts, the hacks – on putting in the minimum amount of effort. But instead of using the time we freed up (due to that “innovation”) to do more, we use it to relax or slack off (which would eventually make us lazy).
His argument was: Why would you do things harder than they are?
My response: If you’re aware that there is an easier way of doing things and yet you continued to work the “hard” way then that just means you’re being stupid.
Then he goes “Huh?”
Ok, so what hell am I trying to say then…right?
Yea I understand how my idea is very controversial and complex to understand but accept it for a moment even for just 5-minutes.
I never said “don’t work smart” or “work dumb” otherwise we are arguing about semantics NOT the actual argument.
My issue with the phrase was the “don’t work hard” part as it diminishes the importance of hard work.
If I can rephrase the whole quote, I’d remove the “Don’t” part:
“Work hard; Work smart”.
The realization didn’t come to me until I saw this quote by Greg McKeown on Noah Kagan’s website (Facebook’s former Employee No. 30).
When I first got exposed to the world of online business, I spent a ton of time searching for the easiest and fastest way to make money.
But that burned me out. Only then I realized that the short-cut I was looking for was simply “hard work”.
Operating around that “mentality” improved my work ethic to focus on FINDING ways to DO MORE instead of finding ways to make your job easier.
The difference is soooo subtle which makes it so challenging to make my point across.
Design Request
from my website…
The name she wanted on print was a little too long for me.
But hey why b*tch about it? I should be happy someone out there is interested with what I want to offer:
Personalized designs – personalized in a way that your name is embedded in the artwork.
Here’s how it works:
- Send a request (for free)
- I send you samples of the designs (see below)
- If you’re happy with them then great (my job is done).
However, there’s a fee for requesting the file (high-quality) which you can then use to print on your desired accessory or apparel.
If you wanna know more details, simply send me an e-mail 🙂
Below are the designs I created for her:
If you want to send in your request send it by [clicking here].
That link will take you to the request form.
Word of advice: the more description you can provide, the better the design is.
How? The description will give me more ideas to draft a design.
I hope she liked it.
But regardless of the situation, her request pushed me to draw again.
I haven’t drawn anything in a while. This insurance license is keeping me occupied.
My goal is to finish that this year so I can get my focus back on drawing and writing.
*sigh* so little time, so much to do.
What about you?
If you had an extra day to get some work done (no not a day off), where/how would you spend it?
Let me know 😀