11. Out Front in Long-Term Care Planning

I’ve always enjoyed helping people. I truly get more enjoyment out of helping people than anything else the relationship might bring. It’s rewarding to see the lights go on in people’s eyes when they understand you have a solution for one of their problems. It’s not really work for me.

While working with traditional insurance policies in the mid-1970s, my employer introduced a new product called long-term care insurance. Around that time, I began to be faced with aging relatives who would likely need this kind of help. I set about learning everything I could in this relatively new field.

People often focus on the monetary side of a business relationship. That’s always a red flag. Compensation includes the joy, the fun you have with a person, the personal satisfaction, not just money you reap from a relationship. You must judge your compensation by all of those factors.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande