We recently connected with Bill Wilson and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Bill, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I made my living for decades first as an engineer working within the property/casualty insurance industry then transitioning as an insurance expert speaking and writing about insurance coverage issues for industry professionals. But, while doing this, I was secretly an aspiring musician. I’ve always loved music and played a little guitar, but I let the demands of making a living inhibit my efforts to get better at playing music. I never played a gig as part of a band until I retired at age 68 and I’ve been doing it for over 4 years now. If I had only devoted some time to improving as a musician and actively gigging, I’m sure I’d be much better now that I have time to do this as much as I want. The moral of the story is to always figure out a way to indulge in your passions.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I graduated from college with a BS degree in engineering, specializing in fire protection engineering and working within the property/casualty insurance industry. During my first 7 years doing engineering work, I acquired several industry-specific professional designations and segued from engineering into insurance education and consulting, writing and speaking extensively all over the country. In a career that spans seven decades, I’ve developed a reputation as an expert in the property/casualty insurance field, especially when it comes to insurance policy interpretation. Since retiring, I’ve written two insurance books, one being the highest rated insurance book on Amazon, as well as four noninsurance books.

But my real passion all these years has been music. Since retiring 6 years ago, I’ve devoted much of my time to growing as a guitar player and I’ve been the lead guitar player in a band I started, The Spyders, for over four years, performing regularly in the Nashville, TN area. We do mainly classic rock covers but we’ve also written about a dozen original songs that we perform regularly.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Two books that have impacted me professionally are books I’ve written. One is called “7 Maxims of Time Management” and it’s about lessons learned from my journey on how to identify and execute priorities to accomplish what is truly important to you and often to the people who are important to you.

The other book is called “Presentation Skills for the ‘Unprofessional’ Speaker.” It’s about my experience as a public speaker within the insurance industry and is written for people who, unlike me, don’t make their living largely from professional speaking gigs (or music performance today), but rather have careers that occasionally require presentations to others.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

As an educator in the insurance industry, I conducted seminars and spoke at conventions all over the country. For two decades, for example, I traveled from Sunday to Thursday 3 out of 4 weeks most months. After my son came along, he was involved in sports, school, activities, Scouting, etc. and I was missing too many of these events, so I made a career change, enabled when the internet came along, that allowed my to educate and consult remotely. So I transitioned to that for the last 2 decades of my career and was able to attend and be a part of almost all of my son’s activities, While I would likely have been much better off financially not making this change, I don’t regret it for a minute.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.InsuranceCommentary.com and www.TheSpydersBand.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheSpydersBand/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/bill-wilson-69937811
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@thespydersband5703/videos
• Other: www.amazon.com/stores/Bill-Wilson/author/B075GT2V5N