"It’s not about the wins. It is about coming back from the losses."
Galen Hair Tweet
Galen Hair, owner at Insurance Claim HQ, is a property insurance attorney who has helped over 800 families rebuild their homes and businesses. He has been rated a Super Lawyers Rising Star and voted one of the National Trial Lawyers Top 100.
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Let’s learn a little about you and really get to experience what makes us tick – starting at our beginnings. Where did your story begin?
Galen Hair: My story began as a kid doing volunteer work post-Katrina. Seeing mass devastation really changes your outlook.
Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Galen Hair: I have had (and still do have) a ton of amazing mentors and supporters. Picking one would be borderline impossible. But, I can definitely share with you the first one. I worked for a business owner named Obie selling BBQ rub.
He ran a very successful business. He was well educated, well spoken, very experienced, and loved to share. Behind the “redneck BBQ cookoff champion” exterior was one of the best business people I have ever met. Had he taken private equity funding back in his day, he would still dominate the market.
Working for him was amazing, because it was like going to business school. They don’t teach you any of this stuff in law school. I still draw on things he taught me when I was 15 to manage a business.
Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. What’s the worst advice you received?
Galen Hair: I have received a lot of bad advice. Everyone seems to be a fake expert as soon as you start to succeed. There are entire industries around coaches that don’t know what they are doing. The next multi-million dollar idea may be finding a credible and trustworthy way to rate these coaches and flag the ones that don’t know what they are doing. The worst advice I ever got had to do with marketing.
A marketing firm initially provided a lot of free marketing advice as part of their marketing package. All of this advice always pointed to continuing the relationship and relying on their data. So – worst advice ever was really relying on data provided by those with an interest in the data trends. Collect your own data and religiously make sure your data integrity is high.
Resilience is critical in critical times like the ones we are going through now. How would you define resilience?
Galen Hair: Nelson Mandela said “Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” I can’t think of a better definition of resilience. We are thrown challenges regularly. It’s not about the wins. It is about coming back from the losses.
What is most important to your organization – mission, vision or values?
Galen Hair: What is more important: Heart, Lungs, or Brain?
Mission, vision, and values are critical pieces of your company’s anatomy. You can live without one or more, but life is more fulfilling with all three.
Delegating is part of being a great leader, but what have you found helpful to get your managers to become valiant leaders as well?
Galen Hair: You have to develop leadership. Hiring someone and telling them to fix it is not the right answer. It really is not. Teach them. Help them grow. Find out what their long-term goals are. Calling someone a leader doesn’t make them one. Having managers that aren’t leaders is setting up the entire team for failure.
How important do you think it is for a leader to be mindful of his own brand?
Galen Hair: I think people overthink the definition of a brand. I think of brand in terms of reputation. It is who you are, who people think you are, and what people think of you. I can’t imagine any reason a leader wouldn’t be obsessed with this.
How do you monitor if the people in your department are performing at their best?
Galen Hair: KPIs, interviews, departmental meetings, and reporting are all important pieces of the recipe for accountability. It is important to make sure people are meeting expectations and also to make sure that they are getting the support they need.
Do you think entrepreneurship is something that you’re born with or something that you can learn along the way?
Galen Hair: The desire to work nonstop – sometimes with little to no compensation – is not usually acquired. But, I do think the desire to build something and create something meaningful can be either innate or developed. Life changes lead to entrepreneurship all the time.
What’s your favorite “business” quote and how has it affected your business decisions?
Galen Hair: “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.”
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Galen Hair for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Galen Hair or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
Did you enjoy this article? Check out Galen’s previous interview!
Galen Hair – Insurance Claim HQ – Helping You Fight for the Compensation You Deserve
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