From Mark's Desk

People sometimes ask me how I stayed calm during high-pressure investigations, catastrophe management, or major leadership decisions. The truth is: that calm was forged in one of the harshest seasons of my life.

When I stepped into the insurance field, I didn’t enter it gradually. I went straight into one of the most overwhelming situations I’d ever seen. Not long after I finished adjuster training, St. Louis was wrecked by one of the worst hailstorms in recent history. It tore cars apart, shattered windows, collapsed roofs, and left families displaced from their homes. And in the middle of that chaos, I was handed 100 claims at once, with the expectation that I would contact each person within 24 hours.

That alone would be a challenge. But the storm had taken out phone towers. Communications were barely functioning. People were scared. Some had nowhere to stay, and money had to get into their hands fast so they could find shelter. The pressure was immediate and unrelenting. It was trial by fire, and I was still a young adjuster. But something kicked in that I didn’t fully appreciate until that moment: I had already lived inside crisis before. EMS had trained me to thrive in emergencies, not because they’re comfortable, but because people need you to be steady when they can’t be.

So I took those same skills and applied them to this new battlefield prioritize what matters, move decisively, communicate clearly, lean on the network around you, and never forget the human beings on the other end of the situation. Because behind every claim file is a family looking at what used to be their home.

The effects of that hailstorm lasted three years in total. And during it, I went from being the guy buried in claims to the person managing 60–70 responders, organizing teams, coordinating the moving pieces, and keeping people focused when the environment wanted to tear everything apart. It stretched me, forced me to grow, and taught me that leadership in chaos is nothing like leadership in comfort.

When everything around you is functioning well, leadership looks easy. But when the pressure hits, when the phones are down, when people are counting on you even though you’re out of breath yourself  that’s when your training matters. That’s when humility matters. That’s when you learn to rely on the strengths of others and recognize that success only happens when the right people are put in the right places. I learned early that micromanaging collapses under crisis. You have to trust good people. You have to rely on their vision and capability. And you have to be willing to stand in the role that keeps everyone moving against the headwind. That season taught me something permanent: Leadership isn’t defined by control. It’s defined by endurance, clarity, and the ability to keep moving when everything else is shaking.