Overcoming obstacles to success - David Eric Appel

| 23 Jul 2018

There will be roadblocks on your path to success because life throws obstacles at us. Each of us has our own story - whether it's experiencing death of a loved one, divorce, or a similar traumatic situation. David Eric Appel, a 22-year MDRT member, shared his personal experience and the lessons he learnt to overcome those moments of struggle and difficulty.

(Photo: MDRT)

Sharing at a 2018 MDRT Annual Meeting focus session, he said, “To say my last three years were difficult would be an understatement.”

Double whammy

In February 2012, his 67-year-old father, who he used to and still refer to as his best friend, was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer called mantle cell lymphoma. How rare? At that time, there were fewer than 15,000 cases in the US.

The three years that ensued after the diagnosis were painful for David. There was a lot of chemo, a lot of medication, a stem cell transplant, and many long hospital stays with the longest being 70 days.

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From September 2014 to when his dad passed in February 2015, he travelled to Florida from Boston 18 times. “I knew the JetBlue flight attendants by their first names,” he said.

And at the same time that he was going through this painful period and frequent travels, he also decided that it was time to leave his spouse.

He said, “Most people told me they couldn’t have even handled one of these events properly, never mind two. My dad’s sickness and the reaction to it from my spouse was the impetus for me finally making the decision I had been struggling with for a decade.

“There just always seemed to be something going on—an event coming up, I couldn’t leave my children now or ever—any reason why I shouldn’t leave at that moment. But finally, after years of contemplating and debating, I summed up the courage to tell my children that daddy had to leave the house. That was the hardest day of my life to date.”
 

Life’s lessons

So what did he learn?

  • Get your personal life sorted out

You may think that your personal life does not affect your business life. But David said, “I promise you, it is.” And it affects your ability to perform at your best.

When he finally signed his divorce papers in April 2017, he felt the black clouds start to pass. He felt the backpack of guilt, anxiety, and the burden of breaking up the family start to lighten, and all of a sudden, he had a lot more clarity, a lot more energy, and he started to feel the wheels turning to step it up again and succeed, he said.

  • People are more resilient than we think

After mustering up the courage to tell his children that daddy had to leave the house, he said the first six months were brutal. “But kids are pretty resilient.

He said, “You hear people say that about children, but it’s hard to believe it until you actually experience it.”

Leaving a significant other, breaking up the family dynamic when there are children involved, making a decision to disrupt children’s lives is not easy, and it is not to be taken lightly.

But he added, “I can tell you today, the kids are doing great. They have adjusted to their new lifestyle, and, overall, it’s been pretty smooth sailing.”

  • The beauty of being in this industry

In the painful years of his father’s fight with cancer, he put his business on hold for the most part because his focus was on his father, his children, and his extended family.

He spent almost a year to focus on his dad and then to make sure his mother would survive and could function and move on with her life, after all they were married 55 years and met when they were 15 and 18.

It took a huge toll on his practice, but it’s something he doesn’t regret for a minute.

He shared, “I feel lucky that, being self-employed, I could make the decision to spend the amount of time with my dad that I did in the last six months of his life. I won’t get that chance again. Like I said to one of my friends, what other job would have allowed me to travel 18 times to Florida? No job.”

He was confident given the fact that he was coming off six consecutive years of Top of the Table production on life insurance production alone.

But no matter what your circumstances are, he said, “I always have the ability to rebuild my business, as do each of you.”


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