Work Hard, Play Hard, and Know Who's Got Your Back
A conversation with Allison Cosgrove
For this episode, I decided to do something a little different. I have had colleagues, HR experts, real estate professionals, and young staff members on this podcast. This time, I brought in someone who knows me better than anyone: my wife, Allison.
Allison Cosgrove is a first-grade teacher at Howell Public Schools, 23 years into a career she was absolutely made for. She is also the person who has been beside me through every phase of building PCIA, raising our family, and figuring out how to keep all the plates spinning at once. I thought it was time to give her the floor.
We talked about marriage, business, family, and what nearly 25 years of building a life together has actually taught us. Some of it applies directly to running a business. All of it applies to being a person.
How we got started.
We met at Olivet College, a small school with fewer than a thousand students, where somehow we had managed to never cross paths until a skip-out weekend in Lansing. We ran into each other at Meijer, in the frozen food aisle, both there with our respective pledge groups. We talked for hours that night, and I knew immediately. I was completely smitten.
We got engaged in 1997. Allison was a senior when we got married in October of 1998. I graduated the following May. We spent our first year of marriage in my parents' basement, saving money to buy a house. Looking back, that decision to avoid throwing money at rent and build toward something was one of the better ones we made early on.
The challenge of leaving work at the office.
When Allison pointed to my biggest challenge over the years, she did not hesitate: leaving work at the office.
She is right. PCIA is very much part of who I am, and I am always thinking about it. That is not a complaint. I genuinely love this agency, the clients we work with, and the team we have built. But when you love what you do, the line between work and the rest of your life can blur quickly.
Allison has started doing the same thing herself. She loves teaching with the same intensity I bring to this business, and she has had to consciously remind herself that the work will be there tomorrow. That shared understanding has made us better partners, because we both know what it feels like to care deeply about what you do.
The practical answer, for me, has always been time management. I teach courses on it, so I had better be at least halfway decent at practicing it. If I need to leave at three to be at one of my daughters' events, that means I came in at 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning. Family comes first. That is not just something I say. It is the way I run PCIA, and it is a value I look for in the people we bring onto the team.
The 50-50 myth.
One of the most useful things Allison said in this conversation was about the misconception that a strong relationship is built on a 50-50 split. It is not.
Some weeks, one of you carries more. Some weeks, the other one does. What matters is that you are both committed to picking up the slack when the other needs it, without keeping score. When you go into a marriage, or a business partnership for that matter, expecting perfect symmetry, you set yourself up for resentment. When you go in ready to adapt and cover for each other, you build something that can actually last.
Allison handles the grocery shopping. I handle other things. We divide and conquer on the kids' events when we have to. It is not always equal, but it works because we are both pulling in the same direction.
What it takes to show up.
A few things I have come to believe firmly after 25 years of running a business and building a family alongside it:
Get up early, or stay late. If you are not a morning person, that is fine. But if you want to build something, you have to put in the hours that others are not willing to put in. Let people see that. Be the first one in at least one day a week, or the last one to leave. It signals something about who you are.
Turn off the noise. I am not against Netflix or watching sports. But if entrepreneurship and growth are your goals, you have to be honest about where your time is going. Highlights over full games. Intentional rest over mindless scrolling. The hours you reclaim are the hours that move things forward.
Prioritize sleep. I spent years believing I would sleep when I was dead. That is not a strategy. Your body recovers, heals, and performs based on how much rest you give it. I target seven to eight hours a night now, and the difference in how I show up, at work and at home, is real.
The future.
Allison has 23 years of teaching behind her and has no plans to slow down anytime soon. When she eventually steps out of the classroom, she wants to write a children's book series, something she has the stories and the heart for in abundance. I have always believed she could do it.
As for me, I am not sure retirement is in my vocabulary. What I know is that I love this work, I love the people I do it with, and I love coming home to the family that makes all of it worth something.
We also recently completed our first short-term rental property here in Brighton, a home that had been owned by the same family since 1951. Taking something with that kind of history and bringing it back to life is the kind of project that reminds me why I love building things. Insurance is an intangible. Real estate gives you something you can see and touch. Both have their place.
There is no perfect formula for balancing a growing business with a growing family. What I can tell you is that having the right person beside you, someone who understands the drive, supports the vision, and tells you the truth when you need to hear it, makes all the difference.
Allison has been that person for me for 25 years. I do not take that lightly.
To reach PCIA, visit pciaonline.com or call 800-969-4041. My direct line is 810-224-5255.