Description: As a dynamic entrepreneur, the question is not if you’ll need to prepare for high-stakes, emotionally charged conversations, but when you will have them. If you’re looking toward a business conversation where you want the outcome to be positive-oriented and forward-looking, there is some risk involved. It is worth your time to prepare and differentiate yourself before any words are spoken. Risk, in this situation, means that it could negatively or positively impact one or more of the following: Relationships, business outcomes, timing/efficiency, quality metrics, performance, or more. There is a literal cost to this kind of conversation going wrong! In this article, Libby Wagner shows actuarial entrepreneurs how to hold tough conversations that demonstrate respect and bring about the results they want.

Description: How to design a meeting's environment to maximize participants’ positive mood, energy, and opinion of your meeting.

Description: Can quiet actuaries inspire others and get things done just as well as their louder, more social colleagues? This isn’t just a question that plagues quiet actuaries, of course. For the over half of us that identify as quiet people and wish to lead, it’s easy to second guess and doubt ourselves. This doubt sometimes holds us back from reaching for that promotion, or starting that new organization. Some quiet actuaries may try to adapt extravert behaviors, however those efforts can be draining and short-lived. This article shows how quiet actuaries can authentically lead and leverage their strengths.

Description: This paper delves in the four pillars that support the professional exercise of an actuarial mathematician: operating, teaching, consulting and researching.

Description: In a world filled with tweets, ever-breaking news, thousands of TV channels and millions of podcasts, is there any point to toiling away at an article? Or seeking a journal or magazine willing to publish it? It would seem that no one is likely to read about your hard-earned wisdom in this jam-packed world, much less be influenced or educated by it. Yet many of the reasons that have always propelled actuaries and their companies to take the time and trouble to publish an article (or two or more) still ring true today, ensuring that those of us who do make the effort will surely reap business development benefits. The likely competitive edge is just that strong. What competitive edge am I talking about? This article explains four reasons how and why this is so, especially when measured against competitors who would never even bother with this remarkable tactic.

Description: Can we learn anything about business success, or better yet about life, from the world of politics? One would presume not, given the seeming vast gulf between these realms. Yet perhaps this personal tale of a challenge I undertook decades ago might shed some light on how independent actuaries (and entrepreneurs in other corners of business) might adopt a refreshing perspective that advances, or even transforms, their current actuarial practice’s trajectory.

Description: Now that Covid and other viruses seem to be leaving us (hopefully!), what is left of the aftermath? For two locked-down years, we no longer could network face-to-face, meet with colleagues at work, do lunch or breakfast, enjoy meeting for coffee, nor attend conferences or other events to experience great speakers up close. Nor could we show up as one of those great speakers ourselves! This article explores what's next in our newly virtual world of public speaking!

Description: Effective strategic planning can have a profound effect on the development of your team and the growth and direction of your actuarial organization. This article shares the elements that will set you up for success before the meeting even begins.

Description: Aneesha Deshpande tries to make a case for Writing as a way for individuals, particularly at larger organizations to drive impactful change.