Story & Lesson Highlights with Kurt Kelley of The Woodlands

We recently had the chance to connect with Kurt Kelley and have shared our conversation below.

Integrity, with energy not far behind. Integrity brings effort and predictability. If someone has integrity, it’s not certain they will be successful, but it‘s predictable they will try and won’t leave you hanging if they aren’t. A mentor of mine once told me, “We don’t work with jerks.” That is another way of saying integrity matters. That’s a life-simplifying, life-improving rule.

I create insurance and risk management solutions for business owners and managers operating in the manufactured housing, aka mobile home, industry. Insurance solutions require knowledge of our client’s operations, knowledge of available insurance coverages, and the trust of specialty insurance underwriters and lenders. There’s little cookie cutter about what we do. All properties and risk are different. Accordingly, transaction costs are higher and personal effort demands are more. And because some business actions aren’t insurable as originally structured, and some property characteristics are effectively uninsurable, I often act as a business management counselor to guide business managers into risk manageable operations. My background as a business manager and formal training as a lawyer make me more valuable to my clients.

My father.  He owned and operated a single location retail store in a small town. He worked Monday through Saturday, 8 am to 6 pm, fifty weeks a year. Over the years, he found novel ways to acquire inventory faster and cheaper. That helped his business thrive. On Sunday’s, he took my mom, my sisters and me to church and then we went for a few hour Sunday Family Hike. We’d find an interesting canyon, hill, park, etc to walk through and enjoy nature. That was discipline.  My mother suffered no fools.  She was bright and demanding.  We regularly played checkers and chess when I was a child and she never let me win.  I didn’t beat her until I was good enough to beat her fair and square.  

I was often frustrated as an adolescent boy. My parents were in the process of separating, my sisters were preoccupied with their lives or moving out of the family home, and I wasn’t finding my footing in class or in sports. I needed to do something to combat the frustration incited by not being in control and not exceling at anything. Thus, I made some changes.

Reading became a source of knowledge that set me ahead academically. My parents had a set of World Book Encyclopedias and I studied them regularly, with particularly interest in Geography and History. I was reading novels before my peers. During the same time period, I found a cheap set of weights, put them in my empty sister’s bedroom, and worked out every evening after school. Weightlifting added both mental toughness and physical strength.  Next, a growth spurt took me from an afterthought on the football and basketball teams to earning player of the year awards. From there forward, I knew I had more control over my future, my rage quelled, and I become more confident, more at peace.

Far too many live this life with little or no understanding of the value of God’s teachings.  He created us and wrote the human maintenance manual. Many have become focused on worldly matters that are at odds with true life fulfillment and success. Many who achieve business or financial success are focusing most of their energy on acquiring things, or placing themselves above all else. Those are paths to emptiness and despair. Life on this Earth is short in relation to eternity. A focus on the actions and perspectives that lead to eternal fulfillment lead to the same here on Earth.

My faith, my family, my friends, my self worth. I love many of the worldly pleasures of life – comfortable bed, snow skiing, playing golf, riding my motorcycle,… But the touch of my wife brings me more pleasure than all of those things combined. The time with my family and friends is priceless as is time on the phone with my daughter or son.  My dog sitting near me at work and leaning on my leg brings me great joy. My faith provides a foundation that protects me from purposeless or destructive wandering.  My character doesn’t blow with the wind.

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