The NEXT BIG THING with Keith D. Terry

How Knowing Yourself Changes Everything

• Keith D. Terry • Season 1 • Episode 29

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What if understanding your inner self could be the key to unlocking true career satisfaction? Join me, Keith D Terry, alongside Mr. Steve Hagerty, the brilliant CEO behind Hagerty Consulting and former mayor of Evanston, as we explore this compelling question. We navigate pivotal historical shifts from the Industrial Revolution to the Human Relations Movement, uncovering how these changes have redefined career fulfillment. Our discussion delves deep into how modern factors like the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of purpose-driven work are altering the professional landscape, emphasizing the critical role of self-awareness and mental health in achieving a balanced work-life harmony.

Takeaways

  • Career satisfaction has evolved over time, with a shift towards personal fulfillment and self-actualization.
  • Self-awareness, strengths, and well-being play a crucial role in job satisfaction.
  • Entrepreneurship and leadership skills can be developed from a young age.
  • Cultural differences influence the emphasis on career satisfaction and self-awareness.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a reassessment of careers and an increased focus on mental health. Know yourself and showcase your unique experiences and skills.
  • A whole-of-community response is crucial in emergency management.
  • Misinformation and disinformation pose challenges in emergency management.
  • Strong social networks and trust are essential in communities.
  • Pursue a career in public service to make a difference in your community.

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Keith D. Terry and JJaed Productions, LLC produced this episode. www.jjaedproductions.com

Please Follow us on our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@keithdterry

For podcast guest recommendations, contact kterry@terryperformancegroup.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the podcast. The Next Big Thing I'm your host, keith D Terry, a consultant, a coach and a serial entrepreneur. The mission here is to teach, inspire and to motivate. I am truly excited about our guest today. Mr Steve Hagerty is the founder and CEO of Hagerty Consultant and the 21st mayor of Evanston. Now the topic that we're going to talk about today is truly knowing yourself to be the best guy to having a successful life and career. This man has done a lot. He started a very successful company and he's been publicly elected as the mayor of a pretty major city here in Illinois. But before I formally introduce him to you, like I always do on my podcast, I like to give a little bit of a historical perspective and background on the topic, so you understand kind of where I'm coming from. Now. You know the history of career satisfaction in the US and globally has evolved significantly over the years and I just wanted to take a moment and give a little bit of historical perspective.

Speaker 1:

In the early 20th century there are two things that happened the Industrial Revolution. During this period, career satisfaction was really not the primary concern. It was job security and the financial stability. As you can imagine, factory jobs, manual labor dominated and personal fulfillment was rarely considered. There was a second phenomenon during the early 20th century and that was what they call scientific management, where they emphasize, from a company perspective, efficiency and productivity over the expense of worker satisfaction. However, as we shifted into the mid-20th century, a couple of things popped up Human relation movement in the 30s and 40s. Studies like the Hawthorne study highlighted the impact of social relationships and worker satisfaction on productivity. Then it was the introduction of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Now, if you haven't heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it came up in the 40s and the 50s by Abraham Maslow. He introduced the concept of self-actualization Pretty significant People use that today.

Speaker 1:

Then you move into the late 20th century. A couple things happened. Job enrichment and design happened in the 60s and the 70s, where they were focused on meaningful work and opportunities for growth, for worker satisfaction. Then it was the rise, we all know, of personal development. In the 80s and 90s Saw a growing interest in this area. You know books came out like Color your Parachute by Richard Boyles, who encouraged individuals to align their careers to their personal strengths and interests. That was pretty successful. Then we enter into the 21st century. A couple of things Work-life balance predominated in the 2000s, brought increased attention to work-life balance and the importance of aligning your career for personal values.

Speaker 1:

Employee engagement came in. Organizations started to focus on employees' engagement as a key driver of employee satisfaction and productivity. Millennials how can we get away from them? They're the new drivers to the workforce now and the purpose-driven work. As millennials entered the workforce, there was a significant shift towards purpose-driven work and, you know, during this time we saw a meaningful alignment of personal values. Traditional markets such as salary and job titles took a lesser meaning. Traditional markets such as salary and job titles took a lesser meaning.

Speaker 1:

Now, what does all this do have to do with the impact of self-awareness on career satisfaction? Three things that I wanted to just mention. One positive psychology movement happened in the 2000s, where, you know, psychologist Martin Slugman emphasized the importance of self-awareness, strengths and well-being in job satisfaction. Then we also saw career assessment tools and coaching like Myers-Briggs, like StrengthsFinders. Career coaching became very popular during this time. Then the third one is mindfulness and self-reflection. This is all the rage. People are talking about it, but there are a couple of things that I have yet to say Now.

Speaker 1:

When you consider what's happening in the United States versus what's happening globally. There are some things that come up that are different in this country than out. Cultural differences predominate outside the United States. What I like to call career satisfaction and the emphasis on self-awareness vary across cultures, as you can imagine, individualistic cultures like the US, where personal fulfillment and self-actualization often dominate, but in those other countries they don't. Last point, as you can imagine, in developing countries we revert back to the economic necessity. It's less about personal satisfaction versus stability.

Speaker 1:

Now, the last thing I'm going to say before I introduce our guest is we've just went through something pretty significant, which was the impact on COVID, and I just want to take a minute and talk about this. The pandemic accelerated a trend towards remote work and flexible arrangements, where we all saw that, you know, many individuals have reassessed their careers, leading to what some would call the great resignation, and then the emphasis on mental health. There's a growing recognition of a link between self-awareness, mental health and job satisfaction. Now I did some more research just to look at a couple of things pre-COVID, post-covid. I looked at overall job satisfaction and, based on my research, 55 pre-COVID if you ask someone were they totally satisfied with their job About 55 percent of the respondents said they did Post-COVID, it dropped 50 percent and this was across.

Speaker 1:

Were you not somewhat satisfied? There's about a 5 to 7 percent drop in every category, about a 5% to 7% drop in every category. Then, when you look at it from an age perspective the 18 to 29, the 30 to 49, the 50 to 64, 65 plus again every category dropped by 5% to 6%. I then went on to look at Is there an industry difference? As you can imagine, when looking at healthcare, technology, education, retail, manufacturing, finance again there was a reduction, the highest being in healthcare. As you can imagine, they were really taxed.

Speaker 1:

Now the conclusion that I come to here is we're seeing a trend towards people being aware of who they are, which leads me and gets me excited about this conversation, because the person that I'm about to introduce you to has started a pretty successful, well, very successful company, and it's not easy to get elected publicly in the city of Evanston. He did that having run a major campaign. So who are we talking about? Let me introduce Mr Steve Hagerty. Steve Hagerty is the founder and president of Hagerty Consulting, one of the nation's leading emergency management consulting firms. Steve also has served as the 21st mayor of Evanston and is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, napa. Hagerty Consulting now employs more than 450 professionals in emergency management nationwide, helping clients to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters, including federal, state and local governments across the United States, as well as global and I didn't as well as large and private corporations. Steve, welcome to the show. How are you, my friend?

Speaker 2:

I'm good, thanks for having me, keith.

Speaker 1:

I'm looking forward to this discussion, all right. Well, steve, I just want to start by saying I've known you for many years and you are a delightful person and I love that and I'm just looking forward to this conversation. So I know you, but my listeners don't. So who is Steve Hagerty?

Speaker 2:

Steve Hagerty, you know, is just like anybody else. Really, I'm no different than anyone else, you know. For me, you know, I grew up on a small farm in Massachusetts. My parents were school teachers. They had read these James Harriet books all things, you know, great and beautiful, and he had a whole line of books and they, you know, became consumed with the idea that they should build a farm, build a barn and fill it with animals. And they did that. Back in like 1975, 1976 period. My dad and a friend built it over the summer and you know, a farm creates a lot of opportunities for kids and in their case there are three.

Speaker 2:

In my family. I'm the oldest, I have two younger brothers. We're all two and a half years apart and at a really young age we just started working the farm literally, you know collecting the eggs, milking the cow, planting the garden, harvesting the garden. We all had a section of the garden that we were responsible for. All the scrap lumber that my dad didn't use for the barn turned into this magnificent three and a half story fort that we've built.

Speaker 2:

Some people that have been to my LinkedIn page or my my Facebook page have seen this for it, and it literally elicits so many comments. You look at this for you like how in the world is Steve Hagerty still alive? How did he and his brothers not like you know crash? And my father did inspect the fort. Uh, it would never have passed any kind of city permit process. Luckily we didn't do that. But it was a great way to grow up, because on a farm there's a lot of work that needs to be done, but there's also a lot of opportunities to become entrepreneurial. At a really young age and my brothers and I were that way. Literally, we'd harvest the vegetables and we'd have so many zucchini and summer squash and tomatoes and everything. Literally my dad would be like well, get the wheelbarrow and start going down the street and knocking on doors and seeing if any of these neighbors want to buy it. Yeah, ok, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean, we were organic before organic was a big thing and you know who knew I could have put a premium on.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, who knew I could have put a prime premium on? Well, you know, it's interesting, you know, does your?

Speaker 2:

family still have the farm. You know my father. My parents divorced when I was in my separating the divorce when I was in my 20s. Uh, my dad still uh lives next door to where I grew up, um, and has a little farm. He has a horse, he has a goat, he has, uh, some chickens a couple of them get to run free around around the yard. He had about 10 acres. He gave eight of those acres to the Audubon Society a few years back. But yeah, I was just there last week and it's great.

Speaker 1:

It's. You know, steve, I was going to say you know my, my, my family hails from the south and my mom, my mother's side, still has the family farm. It's about maybe it's a huge one in mississippi, and I, I think back to you know, when my mom they're 11 of them get around the table and they're talking about what they did the entrepreneurial spirit. If you want something to eat, go out in the field and get you some blackberries, autumn yelling and, and eat it and do what you need to do. So that's great. So you know you, you, you, you left there and did you ever become a big city guy?

Speaker 2:

or you went from there to no, I mean I would do like the class trip, like a lot of us did in high school, to say New York city, and oh, I didn't like it. It was way too big, there were too many people, all all of that. It was only later in life that I came to love urban areas in this country and have spent a lot of time in urban areas. But no, growing up I mean Attleboro, where I grew up, was a manufacturing town. It used to be the jewelry capital of the world. Balfour's and Jostens Jewelers was there. Everyone worked, had some connection to that industry and then with globalization it left and it's pretty much sort of a commuter town now, affordable commuter town to Boston or to Providence, but it was a great place to grow up.

Speaker 1:

So, as we meander this conversation, what you know reading your bio and using your background, did you see? Is there a connection between where you are now, both as a public servant and as a CEO? Is there a journey that you can share?

Speaker 2:

Sure, Of course. I mean. I think everybody has a life journey. The problem is none of us know exactly we're on the journey each of us individually.

Speaker 2:

We don't know where that journey is going to end or where that journey is going to take us. But in hindsight we can look at our journey and say, yeah, it made sense until I was really in my 20s. Later in my 20s, mid-20s, you know, all those things that I was doing as a kid absolutely played a part in being willing to go out on my own and start something. I mean, we were big time into 4-H, and so 4-H is a youth development organization focused on kids that you know tend to grow up on farms. 4-h is a youth development organization focused on kids that you know tend to grow up on farms, and lots of people in Mississippi or Kansas where Lisa, my wife, is from, you know are members of either 4-H or Future Farmers of America. Those are sort of the two youth development organizations. And so we were really big into 4-H, and so 4-H provided all sorts of leadership opportunities for me and my brothers and other members.

Speaker 2:

My parents were both the leaders of the club.

Speaker 2:

It was the Red Wing 4-H Club.

Speaker 2:

It was focused on poultry and gardening and I ultimately sort of rose up through 4-H at the county level, at the state level, at the national level to win sort of a national leadership award when I was quite young level to win sort of a national leadership award when I was quite young.

Speaker 2:

And so you know a big part of being an entrepreneur and starting a company that ultimately, you know, has, you know, 450 employees and hundreds of other independent consultants that work with us, you know a big part of that is creating a sense of purpose and inspiring people to join you on this mission that you're on. And I think a lot of that started just with the kind of childhood that I had and all the different you know 4-H clubs that I was involved in and was sort of a leader of at a young age, or the sports clubs at Attleboro High School that I was a member of and ultimately became the you know what I find interesting when you start, when I do my podcast and I've done 40 of these sessions now it's interesting how people where they end up from a career perspective.

Speaker 1:

Is there a connection? What led you into emergency management? I you know, in the context of knowing yourself. I mean, I get it from the context of being a smart businessman seeing an opportunity. But did you know you would be as successful or happy you know, looking at the happy happiness meter as you are?

Speaker 2:

Keith, I had no idea what emergency management was. So let's be honest here, I never thought when I was young, or even like in my 20s, like, oh, I'm going to have a career in emergency management. What I knew is that, you know, I had an interest in public service, in government. I mean. Both my parents, again, were school teachers my mom just for a couple of years, and then she raised my two brothers and I, my dad for his entire career. Um, you know, I was a good student and athlete and all that stuff. Uh, grow growing up, Um, but I wasn't good enough to like play in college or anything like that. So then, when it came time to apply to college, um, like lots of young people, uh, I said, okay, have I done everything that I that I can in terms of being involved in things and have studied hard and all that, and I probably had a B plus average in high school, the thing that I did really poorly at, and I still do to this day.

Speaker 2:

If you gave me, if you gave me, a standardized test to take, I will guarantee you I will finish probably in the bottom 10 or 15 percentile and, true to form, I did back then when I was in high school and you know that created some real challenges for me, because we have relatives in Ithaca and I really wanted to go to Cornell University. I've been up there a few times. Okay, Beautiful, but I had terrible SAT scores. I took Stanley Kaplan, which is the prep class, four times. They guarantee that they're going to get your, your, your, your score up so many points and if you don't get it up, then you can take it again. I had to take it four times and my score went up like 30 points and it was literally. I don't even want to share it with your, with your, with your listeners here, because it's so, it's so amazing. Other than I set the bar so low that my children will be able to exceed this. Okay, Like that, that, that that should be a. The bar has been set pretty low.

Speaker 2:

Um, but I applied to a lot of colleges and this is at a time right when you and I applied where there weren't these standardized forms, that the uniform, right, and so I ended up applying to 16 colleges. Wow, that is a lot. That's a lot at a time when you have to do separate applications for all of them and everything. I had gone on a tour of the country to visit these colleges and literally my parents were working, they couldn't come with me.

Speaker 2:

I drove the family station wagon around the East Coast by myself and stopped at all these universities and the last one that I go to is Syracuse university. And I go and I meet with one of the admissions counselors and she spent about an hour with me and at the end, and we have a nice conversation and at the end she says you know, Steve, it might be best that you not apply to Syracuse, Like your SAT scores are just too low, that low. And so I applied to the 16 colleges and my mom says Steve, would you do an application for Syracuse? I was like mom, didn't you hear what I told you? Like the lady told me don't even bother applying You're.

Speaker 2:

you're that dumb. And she's like, just do it for me. And you know how moms can be right which is a wonderful quality of moms, okay, and stuff. And so I'm like, fine, I'll do it just for you, mom. But I wasn't happy about it and so I submit the application. Well, I get the you know the, the feedback you know, three months later, from all these universities, of the 17 total colleges I've applied, I've gotten rejected from nine, including my own state college, which was UMass, which people still give me a hard time about that. I couldn't even get into my own state university and um, and again, you know, I had good grades, I had leadership, extracurricular activities, I had all of that. And um, I get this letter from Cornell and the Cornell letter is a rejection letter, but it's the nicest rejection letter you'll ever get.

Speaker 2:

It was like dear Steve, thank you so much for applying to Cornell. We wish we had a position here for you, but we don't. But we want you to go to another university. We want you to take these classes and they specifically laid out the classes they wanted me to take and then we want you to reapply to Cornell. And so I then, of those eight acceptances, I get into Syracuse University. Despite what that admissions counselor said, they accepted.

Speaker 2:

And we do have a family and I may have been the beneficiary of legacies, right, because my uncle went there, my cousin went there. It was very close to that part of the family. I ended up going there. My younger brother, my middle brother, jim, ended up going to Syracuse. So I go to Syracuse and I miss home for the first year, like a lot of kids, especially that first semester, you know, and I thought I was doing well. And then I got my grades and I got like a 2.7 GPA. And then the second semester I sort of turned it around, I got a 3.4 GPA. It's all together it's like a 3.0. I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to apply to Cornell again. So because Cornell, told me to take classes.

Speaker 2:

I applied to Cornell and I got rejected again, so I'm a twice rejectee from Cornell. That will come back later in our discussion.

Speaker 1:

So now you know what I'm going to ask. So from there you go to PricewaterhouseCoopers and then you start Hagerty Consulting. So very quickly is there, you know. Since we're talking about knowing yourself, clearly, I can see that you knew yourself in college. You knew you need to hustle, you needed to do all those things. What's the connection? What gave you the inspiration to first go into consulting? And then the second one is how you, you know, start Hagerty Consulting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's the same thing with emergency management, keith. I knew nothing about consulting. I couldn't tell you what management consulting was. All right, I mean, the reality is, you know, I have four great years at Syracuse. I have to, of course, listen to these Cornell students. When we'd be playing basketball with them at the Carrier Dome, syracuse would be beating them by like 30 points and they would start to chant that's all right, that's okay, you'll be working for us someday. It was like a dagger in my, in my heart, you know.

Speaker 2:

And so, um, uh, you know, I I thought I wanted to go to law school. Uh, I did as poorly on the LSAT as I did on the SAT. I um was in tears when I got the feedback about what my scores were. I went to an advisor of mine, dr Margaret Charters, who's deceased but was a wonderful, wonderful advisor, and she was like well, why do you want to go to law school, steve? And I'm like well, I don't really want to be a lawyer, but I want to have the skills of a lawyer. And she said well, you know, we've got one of the best public administration programs in government schools in the entire country right here, the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and why don't I set up a meeting with you over there? And so I went over there and they were kind enough to accept my LSAT score not make me take the GRA and I put my application in and.

Speaker 2:

I ended up going straight from undergrad to grad school, so I spent six years at Syracuse, and now it's time to graduate. Now it's time to get a job, and all I know is that I want to work for the government, keith, and so I apply for 50 to 75 government jobs.

Speaker 1:

Now why the government.

Speaker 2:

You know what? Again, I think it was I've always had an interest in serving other people. Again, I think part of it's the fact that my parents were school teachers and all of that. And so you know, that's why I wanted to study government and everything, and so it sort of made it made sense to me and I thought, like I should get one of these jobs. I mean, I was qualified, in my opinion at least, for a handful of these jobs, but I was rejected from all of them. Again, you know, rejected from Cornell, rejected from all of these jobs. And so you know, here I am.

Speaker 2:

We finished school on, let's say, may of 93. I don't have a job. I see this thing in August of 93 in the SU Career Center newsletter. It wasn't even coming out of the Maxwell School and it basically says hey, we're looking to hire a management consultant at Price Waterhouse in the Office of Government Services. I have no idea what management consulting is. I have no idea what Price Waterhouse is, but it has the word government in it and I want to work for government. So I'm going to apply for this job. I apply for this job. I should also say, after getting rejected 75 times from all these government jobs.

Speaker 2:

I retooled my resume because I thought this must be the problem it's my resume, and so I created a four-page resume. Wow, early's my resume. And so I created a four page resume. I'm not communicating enough to these folks why they should hire me, and but it was really a one page resume. But it was on paper, where you could fold the paper in half, where it would become eight and a half by 11. So on the front it had my name, it said Steven Hagerty, and by each letter of my name I had an adjective to help them understand who Steve Hagerty was. And I differentiated yourself.

Speaker 2:

Exactly so. My favorite one was why, and my why adjective was youthful, because isn't that what you need as an employer? Doing? You would think, like man, I need a youthful employee here. And so you know. You open it up and it's got all the my quote, my quote, my experience. And then on the back page, it's got my thing.

Speaker 2:

So I, I, I sent out my retooled resume. Price water house calls and says hey, we want to fly you down here and interview. So I fly down and I and I interview with them. And the last guy that I interviewed was the most senior guy at price waterhouse and he was a director named Dave Ziske. And Dave leans back and opens up my four page resume and he goes Steve, I see that you graduated in May. It's August now.

Speaker 2:

Like, what have you been doing? I said, well, dave, I've been taking tennis lessons. And I said, oh, and my brother and I, we have this loft building business. He goes loft building business. What's this? I said, oh, and my brother and I, we have this loft building business. He goes loft building business. What's this? I said, well, you know, the dorms are really small and so a lot of those students would like to raise their bed. My brother, jim, is super handy and can build things. I can't, but he can build things. And so we basically created this loft building business.

Speaker 2:

We had flyers all over the campus. The flyer said get it up, build a loft. And then my contribution to the flyer was don't be loft out, call. Now. I knew one of the owners who owned a retail store down on the main strip of Syracuse which is called Marshall street, and she's like Steve, we need a model loft out here. I'm like, okay, so we put a model loft out there. Lisa, my now wife, who you know, literally sat there at the model loft and people would walk by with their son and their daughter. They'd be like, oh my God, mary or Johnny, you need one of these. They would write us a check for $110. We would schedule them in for when we were going to do that. We cut a deal with the lumber company. We had all this wood dropped at our apartment that we're renting. My brother had a Geo Metro. We could fit two of these pre-cut lofts into there.

Speaker 1:

I see the entrepreneurial connection here, you know, from early selling of fruits and vegetables to a loft business, which is pretty ingenious. You know back in college, you know.

Speaker 2:

It was a nice way to. It was a good way to make a buck, keith. I mean, we made several, and the funny thing is so I tell this story to Dave Ziske. All right, the next day, not even 24 hours after this interview, I get a call from Pricewaterhouse says we want to offer you a job. Finally somebody. After all these rejections, somebody wants to offer me a job. And I always tell young people when I'm speaking on campuses or anything if someone offers you a job within 24 hours, unless it's my company, you should ask for more money.

Speaker 2:

Clearly they want you, right? I mean, man, we definitely need you. I was so excited that somebody wanted to offer me a job. I accepted on the spot. And then the story ends this way and again. I love the ending of this story and I think it's important for your listeners and everyone just to think about. So the story ends that I start at Pricewaterhouse on September 20th 1993.

Speaker 2:

That evening there's a reception. So all the partners are there, all the staff are there, and Dave Ziske says to one of the senior partners. He says oh, kevin, kevin, come on over here. I want to introduce you to Steve Hagerty. And Kevin Bacon is his name. He likes to say he was born seven years before the Kevin Bacon we all know. Kevin Bacon comes over and says and looks right at me and says Steve Hagerty. He says you're the loft man I heard about.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't your good grades that got you this job or your extracurricular activities or your leadership. It was your entrepreneurial spirit. And you know something, keith Nowhere on that four-page resume was my loft business. I never looked or thought of myself as entrepreneurial, even though it clearly was. You know, growing up on a farm and all of that. Yet I never, ever, put that onto my resume. It only came up because Dave Siskey said well, it's August, now what have you been doing, steve? And so I always tell people like it's really important to take some time and think about the essence of you, who are you really, and make sure that that's conveyed in your cover letter and in your resume and in your communication when you're interviewing for different opportunities.

Speaker 1:

Now, are you seeing that? Because I want to, I want to get a little bit further into the emergency management because, again, you're in a business that's serving You've been mayor that's serving Are you seeing that people are not really able to get to the essence of who they are? Are you finding that it's harder to find people who truly know themselves, or is it easier?

Speaker 2:

No, I mean you know what I actually think. With the younger generation in particular, there's a real attunement, you know, to who they are and what they want to do. But I do think, like you choose a job, you choose a career, and so there can be something that you're really passionate about. There can be plenty of people that are really interested in helping people on their worst day. I mean I get the privilege and all the people that work for my company of helping people when something really bad has happened, and we're very fortunate because the United States government and our elected officials over the years have said we're going to help our neighbors when there's a tornado or an earthquake or a terrorist attack or all of that, and there's lots of people that want to be a part of that.

Speaker 2:

The challenge is the eight years that I spent at Pricewaterhouse. The first four years of when I started Hagerty Consulting, I was on the road 90% of the time and I wasn't coming home every weekend. And I wasn't coming home every weekend. I mean when you went on the road to work a recovery after the Northridge earthquake or 9-11 or Hurricane Katrina. You went out there and you were working 70, 75, 80 hours a week. You were in it and you were working weekends, and so you would only get to come back once a month for what we call the rotation, and you'd rotate home for four or five days they give you a little extra than a weekend and then you went right back out into that?

Speaker 1:

Was that your life at Pricewaterhouse, or was it your that was my?

Speaker 2:

life. For the first 12 years of my career, keith, I was a nomad. I lived all over the United States. Uh, I had no sense of community at home. My, my career, from when I was a young person certainly wasn't unfolding the way I thought it would, in that, from when I was a young person certainly wasn't unfolding the way I thought it would, in that, probably, when I was younger, I thought well, I'm going to be embedded in a community and really know a community. But I grew up in Attleboro, lived in Attleboro until I went to college, so that was 18 years.

Speaker 2:

After that, I lived in Washington for four years, baltimore for four years, evanston for four years and then, ultimately, lisa and I made the decision to settle down here. But for that 12-year period of Washington and Baltimore and Evanston for the first four years, yeah, I was on the road constantly. I didn't know anybody. We moved to Evanston. We didn't know a single person. Lisa and I knew nobody. We have no relatives here. Are you serious? No, and it's one of the things I'm super proud of personally. Like, well, we moved to a community where we knew nobody and, like, 16 years later, I became the mayor of a great one of the best urban ring cities in America.

Speaker 1:

That is a phenomenal story. That makes me feel pretty good Now so let's peel back the onion a little bit. So I love this. So you, you know, over time, I would assume, helping. I mean, you've seen some of the worst calamities in the United States. Did that change you? How did that impact you? And you know, because I want to get further into the connection now to why you ran for mayor. Sure, let's stay on this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So in terms of the disasters, right, I mean, I was in New York soon after 9-11. Terrible historic event. I was in Northridge after the earthquake long ago. I've seen terrible floods, fires, all of that stuff, the thing that I just want to make sure your listeners were.

Speaker 2:

So when Hagerty goes into an event, we're generally working with, you know, the city manager, the mayor, the finance director. We're not out there necessarily working with the victims per se, okay, and so we're a little removed from that. So all we do at Hagerty Consulting is we help communities prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters period. We aren't an accounting firm, an engineering firm that has a unit that quote does disasters. We're not distracted like I think some of our main competitors are, who are doing debris monitoring, who are doing housing inspections, putting needles in people's arms, putting blue tarps on roofs after hurricanes, all of which are important but none of which is management consulting. So all we are doing is focused on management consulting. I think we have the broadest sort of in the deepest expertise in that area.

Speaker 2:

I actually, I guess you could go into a disaster and either feel really, really sad and, like you know, be pretty depressed about it OK, and that's a natural and understandable feeling. Or you could also go in and say, wow, this is a time when the government, when the people really need the help of the government and I tend to take that approach like we are very, very mission focused during a disaster, because you don't have power, you don't have housing, you don't have food All of this, you know materials and resources need to get into the community. We need to stand this community back up that have a strong social fabric before a disaster are communities that respond better and recover faster from those events, and so I just find it actually I wish none of these events ever occurred, you know.

Speaker 1:

So let's stay there for a second because I want to make sure I understand. You said a strong social fabric, yeah, and when you say social, you mean the city has programs to help people. What do you mean exactly?

Speaker 2:

What I mean by that is it's the community, like what are all of the different networks that exist in that community? Okay, I sometimes say to people and and uh, uh, I said this when I was mayor and people said, oh, you can't say this, steve, and I said, give me a break. Uh, but what I said is I said, listen, if your plan is, after a disaster, that the government's going to save you, or that your business is going to save you, or that your church is going to save you, then you don't have a plan. Like it's incumbent upon all of us, okay, to have a plan. And so communities that have strong social networks to me that means service organizations, faith-based organizations, you know, business organizations, nonprofit government, all of that it can't just be oh yeah, we have a really strong social fabric from our government. The government alone is not going to do this. And so when we had COVID and you saw everything that happened in this country we were very, very involved in COVID and I happened to have been the mayor at the time here in Evanston during that. Evanston did a phenomenal job, in my opinion, on that, and it was because it was a whole of community response and recovery effort and that you know, we very much preach that out of the gate, that we all have to work together, and so those communities that already have that before something bad has happened, not surprisingly, are going to do better responding to it and then recovering from it.

Speaker 2:

But those communities that are sort of more divisive or torn apart or don't have those kind of solid networks. And so I think there's an opportunity when we talk about resilience in this country. There's an opportunity for every single person to be involved in thinking how can I help make my community stronger? It could be as simple as I'm going to join the Rotary Club, you know, or I'm going to, you know, I'm going to go to that church picnic, or I'm going to start to go to some of these city council meetings and actually see what happens, or I'm going to join a city board or commission. There are opportunities there for all of us, um, but we have to take that, that step forward and and put ourselves out there and not be afraid that of rejection. You know this whole story like I got a lot of rejection and and the reality is, you know, if you are pushing yourself, you have failed more on a absolute basis than you have succeeded, but on a real basis you've succeeded more than you failed.

Speaker 1:

I see, I see, and I would assume, given your, your experience, you decided to run for mayor. What was the thinking behind that? Was it to serve?

Speaker 2:

My thinking was I've spent 20 years helping people on their worst day. I want to help my community every day and that was a line that I used during the campaign. And you know, again, I've always had an interest in working for government. I applied for all those jobs. Government didn't want to hire me. So I said, well, I'll put myself out there to the people and we'll see if the people want to hire me.

Speaker 1:

I lived there when COVID happened and I know your background and so I would have you know COVID was. So my background, my undergrad degree, is bacteriology and when they said it was a novel virus I got it was the first time I was really, really terrified. And I mean terrified because I know I've been around viruses and bacteria for a long time in my lifetime and so but, given that you had emergency management experience, entrepreneurial experience, were you what was going through your mind the early days of that? So just just you know, cause not often do I get to talk to someone that started the successful business and been a former mayor, so I want to know what was going through.

Speaker 2:

So um, so if we take everybody back right to early 2020, um, uh, there's terrible stuff going on with COVID over in Italy. We're all seeing it on TV. Then we start to have a couple of cases out West, in Washington state and California, here in the United States. Now we're in the February, early March time frame. What I'm thinking is we need to have a whole community response. I don't want anybody out there thinking like, oh, the mayor is somehow single-handedly going to handle this, or is going to, is going to handle this, or the fire department's got it, or whatever the health department, like we're all going to have to pitch in. And so I had two young kids actually in this community and their mother, who I know, who had called me and said my kids are really worried about what they're seeing on TV. Would you mind talking to them? And this was in late April. This was in late February. I invited them to the office. We met in the mayor's office. Their mom was there as well. I invited our health department director and the deputy director and we talked to them and we tried to alleviate, you know, some of their, some of their concerns about what we would be doing to make sure that we are prepared if this comes here. And after that meeting I sent a communication out to the entire city and at the time I think we had 45,000 people that followed the mayor. In my newsletter it went up to over 80,000 people in a year, so lots of people. That was our main method of communicating with people and I basically had a photo of the two young boys, me, the health director and everything, and I said they're worried and I use that as sort of a launching pad for us as a community.

Speaker 2:

But the next thing that happened is the president this President Trump at the time declares a national state of emergency. Keith, I've been in this business my whole career. Never have we had a national state of emergency. Right, a national state of emergency would be a pandemic, it would be a war if we were attacked. Right, as a country, they might declare that, and so that was big news. And that happened on Friday March 13th. That was the same day that I was supposed to do the State of the City Address, which I was excited about doing because it's the one time a year I get to sort of put everything together about what we're doing, why we're doing it and where we're going and am I going to have 300 people in a ballroom when this is going on, even though we don't have one case in Evanston yet? I cancel it right, because again I'm trying to send a message president comes out, we cancel the state of the city.

Speaker 2:

And that weekend and I was the first to declare, and I had the authority as the mayor of Evanston to do this to declare a local state of emergency. We were the first city in Illinois to do that I was a little nervous because I thought, well, you know, some people are going to ride me and say, oh, hagerty's overreacting. We don't even have one case of COVID here. The reality was it's coming and I'm trying to like send up a flare to everybody in Evanston and say, folks, this is coming our way and we all need to do something. Okay, we all have a part to play. And so that was why I declared the local state of emergency. I then followed up again with another bit of communication.

Speaker 2:

Then the third thing that I did in that same week that I think was critical to our recovery and it's something that I preach to our clients when I'm out there talking is that it has to be a whole of community response and recovery from these events. If you're trying to do that, it means you need to put together and gather the community leaders in all the different sectors. And so, for us, what were those sectors? I literally sat in the mayor's office and I'm like OK, I got the business sector, the nonprofit sector, the faith community, the senior living community because this is going to affect them the healthcare community. And then I thought, okay, who do I think are the strongest leaders in each of those sectors that I'm going to call on and ask them to be part of the mayor's COVID-19 task force? And I have a request of them. When I call the president of the hospital and say, listen, I'm putting this task force together, um, we are going to meet twice a week initially, and then, as time went on, it became once a week. Um, there were ultimately about 50 or 60 people that were on this.

Speaker 2:

Uh, this task force and this, these calls, I am going to ask each of you, as the leader of your sector and oftentimes I had two leaders, so I had sort of like co-leads you guys are to go organize your entire sector. I don't have time to go organize. You're going to go organize the whole education sector here in Evanston. You're going to go organize the nonprofit sector and you are going to have working groups that are feeding information up to you. And that's what I created that first week of the pandemic, right after I declared the local state of emergency. And the other thing that we did and we were the first to do it is we activated the Emergency Operations Center here in Evanston. And, just an interesting fact, we have a joint Emergency Operations Center with Northwestern University. It's actually at their public safety facility up on Ridge Avenue but because of the nature of this disaster, we had to abandon that facility because we were all too close to one another.

Speaker 1:

And again, none of us. It was novel, as you said. None of us knew exactly okay, what is this virus?

Speaker 2:

And what if one of us has this virus? And now we transfer it on all of us who are like the leaders of the city, from fire and police and parks and rec and all this. All of us get sick, like this is going to be bad. And so we moved it over to a brand new community center State of the art is one national award the Robert Crown Community Center. We moved the operation over there and that hadn't even been open to the public. So the first thing that Robert Crown Community Center was ever used for was as the emergency operations center for COVID-19. And it was that facility. It was used in that capacity for the first six months of its existence.

Speaker 1:

And how much of your time during that, because this is the last question on that I assume you were an example for other cities across the country. Were you in communication with other mayors and they were modeling? Yeah, the US Conference of.

Speaker 2:

Mayors did a great job of creating a forum for mayors to communicate and talk to each other. I was on lots of calls with Dr Fauci, with other mayors and stuff like that. I also got to say I mean Governor Pritzker, jb Pritzker did an outstanding job, and Dr Ezekiel who was his secretary of health and human services for the state of Illinois. I mean, just like I had created this task force here in Evanston, they were bringing together all these mayors and then they were feeding information down, bringing together all these mayors and then they were feeding information down. So I would have a once or initially it was twice a week call with the governor and Dr Zike and 400 other people that were on this call. But they did an outstanding job of that. We then did the same thing.

Speaker 2:

There was a cadence to these calls and a lot of thought put into how that agenda was going to work. In the beginning of that agenda I was basically pushing information down to this group of leaders within the city and then I would have a spotlight. I would take somebody, let's say Congresswoman Schakowsky. I would have her on periodically and say, hey, jan, give us an update on what's going on in Washington and some of the aid packages that you're all discussing and maybe coming down to the local level. Then we would turn to all of the different working groups that we had and I would have report outs from OK, senior living, community report out you know, nonprofit report out. It was incredibly effective and, in fact, a year later, when we had a vaccine and all of that, people didn't want this task force to end. They said well, mayor, we've got to pivot this to something else. But, as you know, I opted not to run for a second term, and so I was like well, this will be up to the new mayor and the new council.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but I would assume that some of it continues in the work that Hagerty Consulting does, because you can now take that model and suggest that other cities follow a similar kind of plan before we run out of time. And that is you know, um, I can see the trend. You know from an early. You know, when you were on the farm helping people selling uh fruits and vegetables to the, the, you were the. What do you call it? The loft guy? Yeah, helping people, um, to price hot water house. Uh, what's next? For Steve Hagerty and Hagerty Consulting to continue to grow?

Speaker 2:

Now you're asking the tough questions. I mean, look, the reality is that climate change is real. We're living it, right, we're experiencing it all the time. I mean the size of Hagerty Consulting. It's funny.

Speaker 2:

Now, I think a lot of us get distorted in the world that we live in now because you know billions are thrown around all the time, or you know even trillions. Now you've got five companies that have all exceeded a trillion dollars worth of value, and so some of your, some of your listeners, to pride context, some of your listeners might say, oh, this company is not that big Four hundred and fifty employees and all that, 450 employees and all that. But the reality is, keith, we are, as a company, just in this space and we just have this niche, as I described earlier, in management consulting. But in emergency management, we are larger than most emergency management departments across the entire country, right, I mean big states, right, and so they depend on us, and so we have lots of standing contracts with counties and cities and states and even the federal government to help. So we always have to be ready.

Speaker 2:

We're going into hurricane season, you know, there's going to be more intense storms, all of that. We're out there, we're meeting with our clients. We are working. We have a cadre of another thousand plus people right who, if something happens, we already have existing agreements with folks we can move really quickly. If there's an earthquake in California tomorrow and they need 50 people out there with certain specialties, we have the ability to move quickly to do that. We're laser focused on just helping people on their worst day when something goes that happens.

Speaker 1:

Do you see a threat or an emergency around AI?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think there's going to be amazing positive things that come out of AI. There are going to be negative things, yeah, of course. Look what I can tell you now in terms of the threat in emergency management. It's really around more misinformation and disinformation, but AI is being used for that, right. There was just something that came out recently in the New York Times that says it's advanced so far that now people really can't tell the difference between images, right, that are AI generated and real images. And now, all of a sudden, you're going to fake people out and think, okay, did this really happen? Because I'm looking at it with my own two eyes, and yet it could be manufactured.

Speaker 2:

We are seeing myths and disinformation by our adversaries, and we saw that with the train derailment in Palestine, Ohio, right, yes, when Russian they think it was Russians got involved and they started putting all this stuff out on social media that was untrue about the chemicals and the government, where a bunch of misinformation came out about that.

Speaker 2:

This is a new weapon that the United States was experimenting on, where we can create these fires and burn down communities. Right, and again, to the extent that people believe some of this stuff, you know we have real challenges as a country and as communities and again I would I would think that where do people trust the most? They trust at the local level. They trust people that they know. And so when I talked about the social fabric earlier, it also applies to the relationships that we have and having those kind of relationships right. So somebody, if a disaster happened here in Evanston, they might be spewing things, adversaries might online for some kind of advantage or whatever they're trying to do. But if we have trusted relationships here and people trust the fire chief and the police chief and the mayor or business leaders in town and people say no, no, no, that's not what's happening, that's the best way to combat this stuff. But that's hard. It's almost hand-to-hand combat because there is a lot of distrust of government out there, right, now?

Speaker 1:

And, steve, my final question is this what advice would you give young people or anyone who is looking to pursue a career in emergency management or public service in the context of what we were talking about knowing yourself, so that you can live a happy life?

Speaker 2:

We need you. I think the government and all these nonprofits and so many of the nonprofits now are doing aspects of what the government used to do 40 or 50 years ago and it's sort of been offshored, so to speak, to nonprofits. The homelessness epidemic in this country, all of that I think, look, if you want to make a difference, a real big difference in your community or in your state or with the federal government difference in your community or in your state or with the federal government there are so many exciting jobs because of all the challenges that we face as a country and in a community to get involved. So figure it out. You could have a particular discipline. I'm interested in transportation, or I'm interested in the environment, or I'm interested in, you know, recreation and parks. I mean, there are opportunities in all of those areas within the government and it's an amazing group of people.

Speaker 2:

I have yet to work with folks that work for the government and think, oh, these people don't care or they're just here for the paycheck. That never has crossed my mind. I mean, I am so impressed with people that have dedicated their careers to public service and I hope, you know, young people will look at the challenges that we have out there and think, well, how can I make a difference with my life? And one way is certainly spending your time, because you spend more time working than anything else. Spending your time working on some of these challenges that we have. It's the only way we're going to move through them.

Speaker 1:

Well, steve, thank you so much for joining me here on the Next Big Thing. I just want to thank you for joining me. It's a delightful conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to the Next Big Thing with Keith Terry. Our guest today is Mr Steve Hagerty, and I just want to invite you to do a couple of things, as my listeners One follow me. We are now being distributed on Apple Podcast, iheartradio and Spotify for the podcast version. I also have a YouTube channel. My YouTube channel is Keith D Terry. Please like, subscribe and follow me, because we have a number of different episodes that I'd love for you to listen to Other folks who are as passionate as Steve, in different avenues across the United States, across globally, and I just want to thank you guys for listening.

Speaker 1:

Steve, it was delightful. You have a phenomenal day. Thanks for listening to the Next Big Thing. I'm your host, keith D Terry. If you've enjoyed this episode and you'd like to support this podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and a review. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on my YouTube channel at Keith D Terry. If you want to recommend a guest, please email me at info at terryperformancegroupcom. This has been produced by your host and Jade Productions.