Jän Simon
Jän Simon is the Owner of Foundation Insurance Services, specializing in insurance for business and personal clientele. He has been a member of the Gilbert Community since 2003. Originally from Washington State Jän moved to Arizona in 1999. Jän just completed serving six years on the Board of Directors for the Gilbert Leadership program, with one of those as the Chairman, currently serves as Chairman of the Planning Commission for the Town of Gilbert, serves on the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce and Chamber Foundation Board of directors currently where he just took over as Chair to the Board and is an active Board member with Gilbert Talks and TedX Gilbert.
He is the proud father of four adult children. His two kids, a daughter and son from his previous marriage, and his fiancé Christine has two from her previous marriage. Jän feels that what sets him apart from others in his field is his desire to connect on a personal level with each of his clients and employees. Understand their “why” so he can strive to be a better solution for their insurance needs.
Episode Transcription
Guiding Growth. Conversations with Community Leaders. In this podcast, we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks and lessons learned. Come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals and rocket space, an event and meeting venue in the heart of the East Valley with a full service four person podcast studio and here we are, we're back for another episode.
It's been a bit, but it's been a long journey with you sarah. So here we are, Here we are, Okay, Who do we have with us today? Today's guest must have nine lives growing up in Washington. He was an active kid with a passion and aptitude for football and wrestling. He put himself through college as a fight. Firefighter for the Forest service in Oregon, spent a few months living in a tent on the beach in san Diego and somehow made his way to Arizona. He is now engaged to his best friend, Christine and they together share four incredible young adults.
Please welcome the Disney loving, humble leader we know and love Jan Simon, I'm here. Glad you're here. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. A little nervous. We're gonna start out with the program. We call rapid fire around that makes people nervous. It's okay. I'm here. All right, Here we go. Would you rather travel to the past or to the future? The past. What is your hidden talent, wow, that's a great question. Why we asked it. I can juggle fairly well. Would you rather attend a hip hop or rock concert?
Rock? Have you ever lived abroad? No. What is your go to snack? Pcs? Probably never heard of it. What makes you hopeful for the future? I mean, what what everything opportunity are you more of a thinker or doer do or I pretend not to think here's a tough one. You're ready. If someone was to play you in a movie, who would it be? My daughter would say, Will Farrell. I disagree. I would say Ben Stiller. What is your favorite pastime or hobby? Woodworking? Alright. I'll trade my question glass half full or half empty, depends on what's in the glass but half full.
Okay, that's awesome. Gilbert city lifestyles is a locally owned publication whose mission is to find and share great stories in our community and help build a stronger, more vibrant local experience, become a digital subscriber at city lifestyles dot com forward slash gilbert. Okay, good, good, good. Well, john, I know some about you, Sarah knows a lot about you. So, this is gonna be an interesting conversation as we put these two together. Let's start though. I always like to start the beginning. Tell us about how you where you grew up in kind of your childhood area and give us some background there first.
So grew up in Washington state um was born on Whidbey island. And when I was seven years old, we moved to a small town in northeastern Washington, uh, call ville and really grew up in a family that was very involved. My dad was a high school and junior high, uh, coach and teacher taught history in english, um, was a football coach, baseball coach and his philosophy was, you're gonna be involved or you're gonna get a job. So I was heavily involved um, through gosh, very young age started doing theater.
Um, both my parents were very involved in the theater in town. My mom and dad both are musicians. My mom plays the piano. My dad plays guitar and so just grew up around a lot of opportunity. Small town I think breeds that gives you the ability to do a lot of different things. Um, so I found that, uh, growing up, I very much enjoyed a little bit of everything. So I played saxophone and drums sang and both the jazz and ensemble choir, played football, wrestled, played baseball for a couple of years, ended up turning that into golf.
Um, ended up going to college because I didn't know what else I was supposed to do. So I just went to college, ended up wrestling in college. Um, and then while I was going to college fought forest fire. Um, six years part of that time I repelled out of helicopters, um, which was a blast. Um, would love to go back to doing that today except for my body wouldn't be able to handle it and started work and actually my degree, um went to school because I want to do strength and conditioning and wanted to work with sports athletes.
Um, and that's a very hard uh, industry to get into without just working in the gym and I didn't want to do that. Um, ended up getting into insurance and 26 years later, here I am, here you are, here I am. When you say small town, what's small? What is that? We had 5000 people in my town. Okay, so graduating class of 143 people I think. Okay. And what's your birth? I'm middle child. So yeah, I've got a brother who's two years older sister is two years younger and I'm the middle child who is an athlete.
My sister is a big time musician, she's a concert pianist by school. And my brother is a mechanical engineer and extremely smart and I'm just a dumb middle child. So you talked a little bit about wrestling and football and then I, in one of your notes, you had mentioned that, um, you had the opportunity maybe to play football in college and you didn't pursue that. Yeah, so, um, there's a couple different iterations of that story, I guess if you will depend on how deep we go, but I played football in high school was actually a fairly decent football player.
Um, I didn't know really at that time how good I was. Um and went to a couple different football camps, was encouraged by some collegiate level coaches to continue playing. Um And I was I was offered a partial scholarship to a school that I ended up not going to, went to central Washington University. Um And and initially just went because I had friends that were going there and decided, you know, I'm just gonna go walk on the football team. And when I went to walk on, they had um a list on the, on the door going into the um the locker room that had positioned height and weight what they wanted.
Um I was a quarterback, I didn't think I was extremely fast, but I was quick um and um had a really strong arm, but I wasn't tall, I was 61 about 100 and £63 dripping wet and it said they wanted 64 £225. I'm like, well that's not me, turned and walked away um and ended up wrestling, which was good for me, but I always kind of wonder, you know that what if had I said, you know, forget that and gone and if I could go back today and have a conversation with that 18 year old kid, I would have said, look.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, I um went to a couple different football camps in in high school um was was recruited by another high school to come play for them, ended up staying with my high school because I didn't want to leave my senior year, my friends. Um I was encouraged by uh one of the Washington state University, the coach that was there at the time, Dennis Erickson, who ended up going on to go for the Seahawks for a little while, encouraged me to continue playing and and um and I didn't and I always kind of look back and think, you know what if I don't know that I was good enough to play at the next level, but at least collegiate would have been cool.
But you mentioned that your parents were both teachers, is that my dad was a teacher. My mom actually worked in physical therapy. What so coaching, he coached as well as he football coach, wrestling, football, and baseball. Mostly he was kind of a jack of all trades. He played triple A football um coming out of college. So he played for a small team in Western Washington but ended up hurting his knees and couldn't continue playing. Um But he was a coach and he was a driver and and playing baseball, I mean baseball is the other one where I played up until high school and decided not to play after my freshman year.
Um But uh yeah, we're baseball camp every single summer growing up. So I'm gonna guess he was probably somebody who was very influential in your growth and where you're going or Yeah, he was. Um, but really, if you were to ask me who the most influential person in my life was at that time, it would have actually been my wrestling coach and I think that's probably why I wrestled in college. Um, he really put a lot of belief in me, had a lot of encouraging words for me.
Um, at that time my, you know, my dad, um, love him to death, but he's old school, um, and was very much a pusher and at that time I didn't understand what he was trying to draw out of me. I just saw it as he was kind of a jerk. Um, and so my wrestling coach had much more of a, he was younger. I mean, I was a freshman in his first year of teaching, so he was a young guy. Um, and uh, we hit it off, but he was very much um, encouraging of my development and, and, and pushed me harder than my dad ever pushed me, but in a different way.
So, so I'm guessing like 1 25 1 35 weight class. Um Actually, oddly enough, I weighed 100 and £63 dripping wet coming out of high school and I wrestled 1 78 and went to state, my senior year placed sixth and state, my senior year, but there were three of us that grew up together, wrestling from second grade on, all three of us were pretty much the exact same weight and I was one of the stronger of the three of us. So I actually wrestled up. So, so I find it interesting and maybe it was why you are, who you are today, but to see that list and to actually choose not to do it and to walk away.
That's not the yawn that I know is a risk taker and an explorer. Um, and I want you to talk a little bit about because when, when I read, you know, living in a tent on the beach in san Diego for a few months, I mean that's probably as much of a risk as anyone could take. Seems pretty extreme. Maybe firefighting and repealing from helicopters could be another risk as well. But what led you to that experience? So we were fighting fire and I, and, and I was going to school, but I had taken some time off because I didn't know what I wanted to do.
I wrestled, um, got in trouble with grades. I mean, I just, I wasn't a student, I, and I like, I said, I went to school because that's what I thought it was supposed to do. Looking back, it was again, I don't know that I'd do it again. Um, I, I definitely think there's, there's trades that probably would have been better suited for me, but school was what I did, um, taking time off of school had a buddy actually was supposed to do a backpack trip around europe and um, the guy that was supposed to go with ended up breaking an ankle, um, repelling, um, out of a helicopter, oddly enough, he lost control of rope and broke his ankle.
So we ended up not going, um, had another buddy that we just kind of decided one year, it's like, hey, let's rip the seat out of your car and throw this camper box in the back and go to san Diego. So we threw gas money in the, in the glove box, um, figured out exactly how much it would take us to get there and get back. So that's our gas money can't spend it on anything and we're just gonna stay as long as we can, we got down to 11 can of cream corn and we were driving back with the gas money, we couldn't buy any more food.
We're like, we gotta go back. But, but it was, you know, I was, you know, you go through things in life and um, I was a, I would say I was very much an adrenaline junkie as a kid. Um, and, but I didn't have a lot of self confidence, so I was, I was that kid, you know, whose older brother would say, hey, you ride your bike down this really steep hill and take that jump at the bottom and if you make it, I'll go and so I'm like, okay, cool, and I do it and I'd make the jump and be fine and then he'd wreck at the bottom, you know what I mean?
But that was me, I mean, it's just, I just do it, but it was more, I didn't want someone to see me fail more than anything, which is probably what drives me the most. And so, but then as I, we got married and and you know, I grew up, I guess if you will that risk taker kind of started to fade off and I stopped making decisions based on the adrenaline and more on the thought process that goes into it. Um and you know, you go through life, got divorced, been with Christine and and she's very encouraging of me.
And so for me to kind of, I'm not saying back to that person that I used to be, but she's brought out in me more of that individual that is willing to take a risk, although not necessarily always the best, best thought process on it. So, you have kids. And what you just said resonates with me on that and since that, um, reflecting back on it, and you're like, I was just growing up, right? Yeah. And I mean, at that point, absolutely, I mean, like, my dad was very old school, we grew up in a what I would consider a repressed household, but not, I mean, you don't drink, you don't swear, you know, I mean if I said jeez I got in trouble.
I said, gosh, I got in trouble. Um so you grew up under that? I brought home a def Leppard in a rush cassette in high school and my dad got Viciously upset with me because I was bringing double music into the house. Um so that was that was the life I lived, lived under after I got out of high school, it was like, you know, I left at 18, I'm like no longer anybody has control of me and I'm gone, you know? So um so you know, it's interesting because of now having kids that are that age when my daughter is 26 and Christine's son is 21, the other two sit in between there and just watching them and and I was way worse than than they are, you know?
And it's it's just interesting, but I feel like I had something to prove to myself. So where's your mom fit in this mix? Because your dad yeah, drove you mom mom was the rock she was and still is um gosh, we have conversations long conversations. A lot of political conversations, which is interesting. Um and that's a totally another story, but um she she's the lover, you know, but she's she was also the you wait till your dad gets home, you know? And I'd go cry in the doghouse, you know?
Um But uh she was always just the rock and she was, you know, she's a mom, you know, and unfortunately for us, dads, moms are the best, you know, dads are the, the raw, I mean the hammer, I guess if you will, but I mean moms can be the hammer, but I don't mean any offense that Sarah was going to say is my daughter would totally disagree. Her dad's the best. Well over the years you've shared a lot of wisdom with me and just been one of those guiding lights in my, my life, keeping our organization at the chamber, but also just my professional career on the right track and somebody that I've listened to and leaned on.
So we reading a little bit more about you and just even some of your words of wisdom. I just wanted to dig in a little bit on what some of this means to you. So one of them that I actually really enjoyed was says face your fear and the death of fear is certain thinking will never overcome fear by action. Well that's much easier to say than to live by, but you do your best. Yeah. And it's, that was a, I don't even know where it came from, but it was, it was a quote that I had picked up somewhere along the way And carried into my wallet for years.
In fact, I still have that wallet in my closet and that quote is still in that wallet and I mean it's probably been 30 years. Um and and I try to remember that that everything new is scary, right? The first time we do something, the first time we hear something, the first time we experience it, it's scary. But then eventually that scariness goes away, right? I mean we walk into a room And we have to talk to 500 people. That's scary. But at the end of the day it's like, well it happened and I survived and I lived, I mean rappelling out of helicopters were repelled from 250 ft out of helicopters into I mean I say into fires but near fires that that could have any moment blown up the first time I did, it scared the crap out of me.
But then then it's like you're going down that rope and that exhilaration takes over and it's like this is awesome, Do it again, you know? Yeah, let's do it again, Let's go again. Let's go again. So you know, that's that piece of it. Now, I can tell you there have been a lot of times in my life where I've allowed the fear to stop me even today. Uh I mean bringing on an employee, it scares the crap out of me. I know it's the right thing to do.
I know for in my heart of hearts that it's the right thing to do. It scares me to death. Absolutely. Um taking on a new position, you know, whatever that is, whether it's a new job, whether it's, you know, work within the community not knowing, you know, and then not seeing what it is that other people see in us because I think that that piece of it is the hardest piece to accept or or you know, accept into our lives I guess if you will is having that confidence that what we do and what others see we're doing um is exponentially impactful on those around us.
So I almost think sometimes for me, fear is actually an indicator about it's something I probably need to do and I need to push through it and get to the other side of it. There's probably something better waiting. Yeah, but just getting outside of that comfort zone. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think about starting the business um and it took me 23 years, 24 years to actually finally do it. I've been partners and to others. Um but to do it myself and but it took a straw that broke the back to make me go, I'm just done.
I can't take this anymore. I'm gonna go do it, but always felt like I wasn't ready. I don't think you're ever be ready. You just have to take that step right. Exactly. You never know everything you're going to need to know to do something. So just take a step. So then you got to Arizona what brought you here, my ex wife. So um I was working for farmers insurance at the time and uh she had just given birth to our son who is now 22 23 in september, which just blows me away.
But uh got home and she said I'm moving to Arizona and come with me or you can stay here and I said, I'll give it a year if I love it, I'll stay if I don't, I'm leaving, I'm still here. I love it. So I miss Washington. I missed Washington this time of year. The the trees, the water, you mean you don't like the heat? I will take the heat over cold any day of the week. But I do miss the cooler weather in the evenings for sure.
Don't like humidity, hate the humidity, but um but yeah, I missed, I missed the mountains. Yeah, I mean we have mountains here, but they're a little different. So I'm curious because I know you're very proud of your kids and they've gone on to do some pretty amazing things that I know you're so proud of. What does it mean to you? That relationship now that you have adult Children trying to stay relevant or or be relevant I guess in their lives um is a big thing, you know, I said, I got divorced um 12 years ago, the kids in my ex moved to Minnesota, so kind of lost a big chunk of life there.
Um my son is still finishing school, he's actually done in Mankato Minnesota, but his intention is to move down here, but trying to stay relevant, recreate those or generate those relationships, Christine's kids and I feel like have great relationships um were involved very heavily with them, but you know, just being able to be there for them and you know, it's so that that conversation when you're, you want to give dad advice, you know, but you know, they're not gonna hear you, you're like you just listen to me for like two minutes, I'm telling you this, not because I think I know better, but maybe I've had the experience, so, but yeah, I mean super proud of all four of them, we've been very blessed.
Um and and you know of any of them, I think I shouldn't say this on the air, my son will hear this, but of the four of them, I would have thought we would have had the most problem with him and he's just finished up his commercial pilot's license and he's doing his instructor rating right now and he'll be flying for a major airline here pretty soon, so I'm really excited for him. Do you feel like your, how did your parents influence your parenting style? Um I, you know, I think probably the biggest thing is going to be from my dad and that was I lived a lot in fear and uh you know, I can still remember my dad saying to me, hey, I'm a teacher, people are watching me if I can't control my son, what are they gonna think of me being able to, you know, manage their kids.
Um and that's a ton of pressure, but so I think that kind of always resonate in the back of my head. Um I think that it's important as a parent to make sure that we're keeping our kids. Um I'm gonna say in line, but I don't know that that's necessarily the right way to put what I'm trying to say. It's important to use means to help them understand the repercussions of their decisions and sometimes that is fear and I think that that's okay, but I think that we don't want to make it so much that the kid or that the, the young adult lives in that space where they're afraid to do anything out of repercussions of upsetting somebody or hurting somebody's feelings or you know, whatever it's like you have to make the decisions based on the experiences that you've had in which you think is best for you.
But also understand that whatever decision you make is going to have an impact on every single person around you and that can be good or bad, It's just that you got to figure that out. So I think, I think I try to, I try to promote that, I don't know if I do a good job of it, but try, I'm translating what you said in my own head and thinking like holding them accountable, making sure they actually know that there's consequences for their actions. That's kind of what you're implying.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So three years ago, I remember the day I walked in, I do, I remember, yeah, you came in, she was sweating all excited, it was great, you know, I don't know, somewhere three years ago is when he started the business, you started the business and it was an unexpected transition in your life. And I remember you coming immediately to the chamber and having some really hard conversations with our staff about where you were and how fresh you are were, and now three years later you're building this incredible business and um something that you totally didn't anticipate, but um I just want you to share a little bit about that journey, you know, it's interesting because in that moment I didn't know where else to turn uh which makes it sound weird, I mean, obviously there's Christine and and there should have been a conversation there, she was at work, I was just in that moment of what am I going to do?
And, and, and I felt like in order to do it in order to do what I needed to do, which was, which was build a business because I just was done. It's just broke that broke the back of the camel really, truly, and I just said, I just can't keep doing this. Um I felt like I needed a community and the only community I knew was the chamber and so you know, coming and having that conversation with you and Kathy was that was just, it was like, look, I'm going to do this, but I need your help, you know, I need the support to know that the chambers there and just knowing that that that support is there, I mean that's I guess in in a nutshell, that's how much the chamber means to me because there could have been, you know, obviously other places to go and other people to have conversations with, but knowing the importance of the community and what I do um is paramount and so so you know, in that moment the fear, the fear and the darkness of doing it myself was squashed by just my sheer I'm putting the blinders on them going forward.
And so yeah, so other than those two yahoos who had your back in that process, Yeah, Christine big time. And um I mean, bless her heart, she's she's put up with a lot um in me doing it and I've been extremely blessed to have her in my life. I don't know that I would have been able to, I mean, I I can probably say actually I wouldn't have been able to do it without her support. Um whether quiet support or you know, the cheerleader on the sidelines.
Um she's continued to do what she does and puts up with the crap she does every single day to allow me to, to push forward and hopefully hopefully allow her someday and someday soon the ability to say, okay, you don't have to do that anymore. So, and while you were doing this and, and um, could have easily said, okay, I'm letting go of everything else right now because I really need to focus on building a business, but instead you double down on your investment in the community, serving others, building those relationships.
Um, you've been on the chamber board. I don't even know how long at this point, you just completed six years on Gilbert leadership board. You serve the town. Um, I'm trying to, I just know you give a lot of yourself and I think it's a real testament to the character um, that you are and that you bring to the work that you do appreciate that. I think, I think it's so important for us to do that though. I mean, the only, the best gift we can give somebody is time, right?
Because we can never get it back. But it's time. I was brought up in a family. Very, very uh, faithful family. Um, and one of the biggest things was that, that you help when you can and where you can, and sometimes we don't have a lot of money and I grew up, but not a lot of money in my family. Um, one of my biggest things graduating high school and college is I'm gonna give my kids way more of my parents ever gave me. And now as I've gotten older, I've realized what they gave me was intangible versus the stuff that I was able to acquire, but I think that it's important to give up ourselves and give ourselves as freely as possible.
And, and I truly believe that when we do, it's gonna come back and it may not come back in the way we expect it, but it'll come back and it may not be tomorrow, maybe 10 years from now, but I feel for sure, you know, very much, and I've seen it in my own life. I mean, I've definitely seen it, but I, and I don't give, I don't do it. Um because I'm expecting it to get back, it actually fills me up. I would say that's the thing that probably fills my cup more than anything.
It's just to be able to help somebody or do things for other people. If I could get paid to do that, I'd do that. So looking ahead now, what's the future got in store for you? What do you, what's on the horizon for you? I want to build an organization that supports people in their success, I do insurance right? Um, I have the ability to establish a business that will help people gain wealth gain knowledge. Um, and if I can help them be successful in whatever it is that drives them?
That's what I wanna do? I wanna build an organization that people are excited to go to work at um that people, you know, wake up and and not necessarily can't wait to get to work. I don't think we'll ever be that, but but people that enjoy the atmosphere and the people in the camaraderie and and it helps us do better and the service that we provide to our customers. So if I can build that organization, I mean that's that's really the dream. Um I don't necessarily have a timeline for that, you know, I've, it's interesting because now being three years and I start started getting calls to sell the agency, you're not ready for that.
Um You know, is that 10 years down the road? 15 years, 20 years down the road, I'm starting to look at that. Oh my God. You know, someday I probably should look at retiring. But if I can build the organization the way that I think I can, it, it could be an auto generating business that allows people to be successful. So um really it's about helping people. So that's awesome. That's good and I think that's a key indicator of who you are and your persona and how you live your life, what's the biggest driver that keeps you going?
Like what's what's that motivator out there, is it for your, I don't want to fail. So is that your dad in the back of your brain thinking about that voice? I think it was um but I had a pretty big failure when the last market crash happened, my life imploded and I wanna experience that again. So I think that's what drives me and I want people to be happy and I want people happy, I want people to feel like and I tell people every single client is our only client in that moment that we have that conversation with them.
I don't care how big or small they are, they're our only client and and they need to feel that and that's how I hope I make people feel Yeah, while you do incredible things, it's an honor to be able to work alongside you in this community and um I don't know that I have the ability to say it, but if I could, I wish that you would see your opportunity the way the rest of us do because you do amazing things and and we're very proud of you.
Well, thank you very much, I really appreciate that and thank you for having me on. I greatly appreciate the opportunity so frequently we're glad you're here. All right. Well if you enjoyed this show because I know you did join our tribe subscribe and learn more and hear more from our conversations with other amazing people like yawn as we get guiding growth out there for everybody else. Thanks for being here today, guiding growth conversations with community leaders Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast?
This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it.
We'd love to hear from you, reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.
