Career Relaunch®
Joseph Liu
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Seeing the Bigger Picture with Michael McEvoy
Walking away from a family business comes with its own unique set of challenges and emotional dynamics. In this episode of Career Relaunch, Michael McEvoy shares his story of walking away from being a partner at a law firm, the same firm his father spent his entire career, to found his own public adjusting company. We discuss making time for those who matter in your life, the importance of following a path that makes you truly happy, the impact your career can have on the people in your life, and dealing with the judgements of others. During the Mental Fuel segment, I also explain how much your job satisfaction can affect your life outside of work. Key Career Insights When you walk away from a career you spent years creating, people will have different reactions to your decision, some positive, some negative. As long as you’re doing it for the right reasons, you have to stay focused on the upside it provides you in your life regardless of what others think. Even when you’re an adult, the judgement of your parents can still have an impact on your career decisions. Your family’s wellbeing can and should be a factor in any major decision you’re making in your career. Inevitably, it involves trade-offs. Letting go of your professional identity is never easy. It forms so much of who you are, so it’s completely natural to feel a sense of loss when you step away from it. Even if you’re not happy in your job, reflecting on what drew you to that path to begin with can be very useful. Certain elements of your job may still make you happy and could be worth carrying over into the next chapter of your career Resources Mentioned What Color is Your Parachute is the book Mike referred to in our conversation that helped him uncover where his interests were. I actually read this myself after college, and to this day, the book has informed how I’ve navigated my own career pivots over the years. Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I challenged listeners to think carefully about the bigger picture of your life beyond work–specifically, one area of your life outside of work that’s recently taken a hit because of your work. Then, to decide what change you’re going to commit to making to at least START undoing that damage. It may mean you will need to make some sort of decision that inevitably involves some sort of a tradeoff that allow you to have the life you want outside of work. About Michael McEvoy Mike McEvoy started his career as a licensed attorney in 2003, and spent the majority of his time with a large insurance defense firm in Los Angeles as an associate and then as a partner. Through his legal work, he discovered he had a passion for handling the damages side of wildfire litigation. He eventually walked from his career in 2015, unsure of what he was going to do next. After a lot of time and self-reflection, he found a new path as a public adjuster and business owner. In 2018, Mike founded Integral Adjusters, a public adjusting company, to help insurance policyholders protect their rights, navigate the insurance claim process, and maximize their benefits and financial recovery. Follow Mike on LinkedIn and Twitter. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Michael know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Subscribe: Be sure to subscribe to Career Relaunch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android so you can automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow Career Relaunch on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also follow host Joseph on Twitter and Facebook. Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Grammarly for Supporting Career Relaunch Built by linguists and language lovers, Grammarly’s writing app finds and corrects hundreds of complex writing errors — so you don’t have to. Career Relaunch listeners can download Grammarly for free by going to GetGrammarly.com/relaunch. Episode Interview Transcript Teaser (first ~15s): You have to put up your professional face when you’re in that situation, but when you bring it home, you’re living it again. It affected my wife and my son to the point where she said, ‘Look. We need to talk about this.’ Joseph: Good morning, Mike. Welcome to Career Relaunch. It is great to have you on the show. Michael: Good morning, Joseph. Thank you. Joseph: We are going to talk about a range of topics today, including the realities of being an attorney, the dynamics of turning down opportunities, and also a lot about family today, which I think is going to come up as a theme, especially the dynamics of being part of and leaving a family business and also the impact your own family has on your career choices. I was wondering if you could kick us off by just telling me what you’re focused on right now in your career and life at this moment. Michael: Right now, I’m focused on my public adjusting business, which I started last year. Towards the end of the year, I formed a business Integral Adjusters and focused on public adjusting which is advocating on behalf of policy holders in property damage claims to maximize their benefits from their insurance company. That’s where my focus has been lately: just trying to build on that and develop rapport with my clients. On the life front, just continuing to find that balance as things start to pick up with the business and taking it from there. Joseph: I was also wondering if you could just give us a glimpse into your family. I know you’re married. Can you remind me how many kids you’ve got? Michael: I’ve got the one son. He’s eight years old right now. Joseph: Okay. I know that you haven’t always been the founder of Integral Adjusters, but you have been a licensed attorney since 2003. Could you take us all the way back in time to when you started off in your career at a Sacramento law firm? Then we can move forward from there. What were you doing at that time? Michael: In 2003, I passed the bar, and I had been working at an insurance defense law firm in Sacramento as a law clerk. I continued to work there once I passed the bar as an attorney. Eventually, I wanted to move back to Southern California where I grew up. An opportunity arose. My family is a family of lawyers. My dad’s a lawyer. My wife’s a lawyer. My brother’s a lawyer. My dad had been practicing since 1968 at the same firm. He said there was a position opening up and if I wanted to come down and work at the firm. He’s actually in the Orange County office of this firm, and I was moving into Los Angeles. I decided to come down, and my wife found a job down here. That’s where I really developed my legal career, in Southern California at this firm. Joseph: Can you just give a glimpse into what it’s like to be offered a role and then to join a business that was started by your father? Because I think you’re the first person on the show that we’ve had that has been part of a family business. Michael: When you do join where you know your dad is working and where everybody knows that, ‘Okay. Well, he’s coming in and his dad has been here forever,’ there’s certainly a little bit of pressure to separate yourself and make a name for yourself, which is certainly what I wanted to do. I don’t want people to think, ‘Well, he’s only getting a paycheck because his dad is a senior partner here.’ Certainly, I wanted to find my niche and work my way through the ranks there. Joseph: I know you were there for many years, and you eventually became partner in 2013. Can you remember the moment you became partner? If so, what was that like for you? Michael: I didn’t know I was going to be named partner, but I remember I was having dinner at night here with my wife, and I got a call from one of the senior partners. At this firm, the senior partner is equivalent to an equity partner, and so they’re obviously the ones that are making the decisions. I got the call, and he said, ‘We’re going to make you a partner.’ I was just overjoyed. I was really excited because that’s what I was working hard for, to advance my career, and I was going down the traditional path through the firm. With that comes also added pressure that, now, you’re going to be expected to bring in business. I saw it as more responsibility also. Joseph: For those people out there who aren’t as familiar with the significance of becoming a partner in a firm, I know you mentioned that there’s additional responsibility, and I’m assuming there’s also the financial rewards to that, what’s the day-to-day significance in terms of your experience in your job of becoming a partner? I know that it’s something that a lot of people aspire to do, and at the same time, we’ve had somebody on the show who had that dangled in front of her, and she wasn’t sure if that’s what she wanted. I’m just curious, what’s the significance of becoming a partner, and why do you think that’s so important to many people working in firms like this? Michael: There are different levels of partnership. You come in as a junior associate, then you work your way up to maybe a senior associate and then partner, and then there’s equity partner which there’s very few of those typically. It’s just the next step, and the significance is that you’re now expected to try and move into the next step, which is you’re now expected
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