There’s a moment every August when I realize summer is basically over. The kids start talking about school, football shows up on TV, mornings get a little cooler, and Costco decides it’s apparently time to start selling Christmas decorations. Somehow, we go from the Fourth of July to Labor Day in about fifteen minutes. I’ve always liked this time of year, though, because it feels like a natural reset. And around Glidewell, “reset” might be putting it mildly. If you’ve walked through our office recently, you’ve seen walls disappear, desks move, people relocate, and enough construction dust to make you question whether we still sell insurance or have quietly entered the general contracting business. We’ve affectionately called it the Glidewell Glow-Up. Right now, however, we’re firmly in the stage of a glow-up where you look in the mirror and say, “are we sure this was a good idea?” But watching all of this happen has made me wonder something: What if the office isn’t the only thing that could use a glow-up?
I think that’s one reason I’ve always liked back-to-school season. Kids get something adults rarely do: an official fresh start. New teachers. New classrooms. New schedules. New goals. Fresh notebooks. New shoes. Everything feels possible because nothing has gone wrong yet. There’s no first day of 43rd grade for the rest of us. Nobody shows up at our house with a new backpack, a 64-pack of Crayola’s, and a note saying, “Congratulations, Brandon. Last year is officially over. Here’s your chance to try again.” Our lives just keep rolling. But maybe we don’t need an official first day. Maybe the end of summer is a good enough excuse to ask ourselves: What could use a glow-up in my life? Maybe it’s the way you communicate. Maybe it’s your attitude. Maybe you’ve gotten comfortable at work and need to challenge yourself again. Maybe it’s your health, finances, marriage, friendships, leadership, or how you spend your time. It doesn’t need to be some dramatic, burn-it-all-down reinvention. Just pick one thing you know could be better.
And because this is The Slidegood and we are, after all, an insurance firm, I’m contractually obligated to somehow make this about insurance. So here it is…maybe it’s time for a personal renewal review. We do this with our clients every day. What’s changed? What still works? Where are the gaps? What needs more protection? What are we paying for that no longer makes sense? We don’t assume that because a policy worked five years ago, it’s still the right policy today. Yet we do that with ourselves all the time. We carry the same habits, routines, attitudes, and ways of thinking year after year without ever stopping to ask whether they still serve us. Maybe there’s a little wisdom in underwriting our own lives occasionally. What’s working? What isn’t? Where have you become complacent? What’s one small adjustment you could make today that your future self would thank you for six months from now? We spend a lot of time helping other people prepare for their futures. We should probably spend a little time preparing for our own.
Here’s what our remodel has reminded me: improvement rarely looks like improvement in the middle of it. There are parts of our office that objectively look worse today than they did a month ago. That’s the deal. You don’t get the new wall without tearing into the old one. You don’t get the new office without temporarily working somewhere you never intended to work. And apparently you don’t get new carpet without discovering approximately 47 things underneath the old carpet that nobody wants to talk about. Personal growth isn’t much different. Getting better can be inconvenient. It can require changing something comfortable, admitting something isn’t working, learning a new skill, having a difficult conversation, or doing something differently than you’ve done it for the last ten years.
So as summer winds down, the kids head back to school, football returns, and the Glidewell Glow-Up continues, maybe this is a good time for our own little renewal. Nothing dramatic. No need to knock down all the walls. Just take an honest look around your life and find one thing that could be better.
Then get to work on it.
By the end of the semester, this office is going to look a lot different.
Maybe we should too.