“We are all capable of much more.” And 9 Questions with Josh Morgan
Question 1:
Are you a ‘JP’ Morgan, like John Pierpont Morgan?
Josh:
No, no. I sometimes joke with people that we probably wouldn't be having this conversation if that were the case. Those are my initials, but there is no family connection to the more famous JP Morgan.
I am Joshua P. Morgan. The P is for Phillip, which is my Dad's name.
Question 2:
What's your background?
Josh:
I was born in East Liverpool, Ohio, which is a small river town along the Ohio River about an hour west of Pittsburgh. I have three younger sisters. I'm the oldest sibling.
We lived out in the country. Our home was surrounded by corn fields and cow pastures. My Dad worked for the power company.
When I was in fifth grade, he was transferred to Akron, so I did the rest of my growing up in a little town called Canal Fulton, Ohio, which is in the Akron-Canton area. My parents still live there today.
Question 3:
Are you a Steelers fan?
Josh:
I am a Steelers fan. I grew up closer to Pittsburgh than Cleveland and so all my allegiances from a professional sports standpoint are in Pittsburgh. I'm probably the biggest fan of the Penguins!
I grew up a Mario Lemieux fan. I idolized Mario Lemieux. In my opinion he was a better hockey player than Wayne Gretzky. If he didn’t get cancer midway through his career, he probably would have broken most of Gretzky’s records.
I thought everybody scored on breakaways, and it turns out they don’t. It was just Mario Lemieux. He just never missed—and he made it look effortless!
We went to a few Penguins games every year. Once, they were playing the New Jersey Devils and Mario scored in every way possible. He scored shorthanded, he scored at full-strength, on a penalty shot, power play, and he scored an empty netter.
It's the equivalent of hitting for the cycle in baseball, but harder!
As we drove home, my father said, "We will probably never see that again. You can live your whole life and you may never see that again."
Question 4:
When did you work in Washington, D.C.?
Josh:
I was there in 2002, which was a very different time in Washington, because it was just after 9/11. I worked as an intern for the Joint Economic Committee. I worked on economic research and policy.
It was a really weird time in Washington. You had September 11th and the ‘anthrax attacks.’ The political climate was very different back then.
I thought I wanted to work in politics in some degree, like working at a think tank doing research, or working for a member of Congress in their office. But I just got turned off at the end of the day because of the special interests primarily, and I'm just not a fan of the polarization.
Question 5:
Why are partnerships important?
Josh:
Partnerships are enabling. Partnerships are a form of leverage. They allow us to unlock potential that we otherwise wouldn't have access to.
Partnerships are human nature, we do it every day. I didn't build the house that I'm in—I partnered with a contractor and a list of specialists who built my house for me. We bought our house in '13. I'd still be pounding nails if I'd tried this all on my own, so it makes sense to partner.
I could go down the list. I partner with my wife, and I got two great kids. I partner with my child's school, and she gets a great education. We partner every day.
It's in our interest. It's in the interest of the other party. We're helping each other.
Partnerships are at the core of what we do too at Keystone Agency Partners. We genuinely consider ourselves to be a partner with our agencies, and through our affiliation with Keystone. Keystone's mantra is “independence works better together.”
Question 6:
How do you view AgencyKPI's relationship with Keystone Agency Partners?
Josh:
You guys are a strategic partner. Going back to my answer about partnerships, AgencyKPI is helping us to do things that we wouldn't otherwise do—or be able to do on our own.
We aren't capable of writing the software that you guys can. We aren't capable of going out and forming all of those relationships that you have and translating it into technology that's transformative for our industry.
Question 7:
Can you share what you learned about yourself when you served in the United States Marine Corps?
Josh:
Fundamentally, you learn that you're capable of a lot more than you knew about yourself going into it.
In the military, you're tested all the time. In training. In war. Wars are not fought on 72-degree days in the bright sunshine. You're never comfortable. Ever. You learn how to deal with hardship at a whole other level that you didn't even know existed.
So probably the biggest lesson from the military is, we are all capable of much more. We've just never been tested.
Question 8:
What are some misconceptions about PTSD?
Josh:
There's a lot to say about post-traumatic stress disorder. But I think the overarching thing is that we hear about it so much. I mean, there's actually a PTSD awareness day. As a veteran you hear about that term so often it's constantly in front of you.
A lot of veterans don't like to use the word ‘disorder.’ I agree with that to some extent because post-traumatic stress—and your body's reaction to it—is your body working as it should. Your body is adjusting the fight or flight mechanism. It's working to help you.
Trauma is trauma. Whether you experience it in war or during COVID or in some other environment, like a car accident, so I don't think we should disassociate one trauma as greater than another. It all depends on how the person who goes through a traumatic experience processes it. Everyone processes it a bit differently.
My contention is that we almost hear about PTSD too much, and that the narrative isn't balanced with post-traumatic growth, which is the positive impact of the trauma. The media often promotes the negative impact thinking they are doing a good service by citing the suicide rate of veterans or rattling off stats about veteran homelessness and mental illness. I think this can create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy for many veterans where they see only one path available to them.
You can experience both post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress. In fact, the more post-traumatic stress that people exhibit, the more prone they are to post-traumatic growth.
Research was done in the 1990s with parents of children who succumbed to childhood cancer. That's where post-traumatic growth studies began. They studied these parents' reaction to how they dealt with the trauma of losing their children. And what they found was a lot of these parents, they went on to do these crazy, amazing things. They started charities. They climbed mountains. They did these things that they otherwise would not have done but for the trauma that they'd experienced. The funny thing is, is if you talk to a lot of veterans and you actually introduce this concept, they'll latch onto it and say, “Oh yeah, that sounds a little bit like me.” But if you don't know that it's a thing that can be explored, you don't go down the road of exploration of growth.
I've spoken to a couple veteran resource groups about my own personal experience with post-traumatic stress and about overcoming it, or dealing with it, because it's not something that ever goes away.
We have to balance our narrative between PTSD and post-traumatic growth and introduce the concept to people. That's all that I want to do. So, whenever I talk to a veteran's group that's what I talk about, and people can take it for what it's worth.
I can still trace myself back to meeting with my VA counselor after 18 months of counseling, and she just said, "Have you ever heard of post-traumatic growth?" I said, "No. What is that?" And she said, "Well, it's kind of like what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
That was it for me. I understood that there was another path available with a more promising future.
Question 9:
Why do you buy clothes on eBay?
Josh:
I guess the question for the rest of the population is, why don't you buy clothes on eBay?
I like paying 30 cents on the dollar for high-quality clothing and I don't like shopping in stores.
I just don't get why everyone else hasn't latched onto this.
About Josh Morgan
Josh Morgan is Vice President of Organic Growth at Keystone Agency Partners, a fast-growing independent insurance agency partnership platform formed in 2020 by Keystone Insurers Group and Bain Capital.
Before joining Keystone, Josh served as Unit Manager of the Sales Recruiting Practice of MarshBerry, one of the nation’s leading management consulting firms in the insurance industry.
Prior to MarshBerry, Josh Co-Founded Intense Debate, a tech company specializing in commenting systems used in websites and blogs. In 2007, the company was selected as one of only ten startups in the founding class of the TechStars accelerator program in Boulder, Colorado. The company received accolades in feature articles in TechCrunch, Mashable, and several other industry publications. In 2008, Intense Debate was acquired by Automattic, makers of Wordpress.com and primary developers of the Wordpress.org software.
Upon graduation from Ohio University, Josh joined the United States Marine Corps. He is a decorated combat veteran, having served with the Ohio based reserve unit, 3rd Battalion 25th Marines, during their 2005 Iraq deployment. While serving in Iraq, Josh earned The Purple Heart Medal after being wounded by a roadside bomb while on a combat patrol.
Josh resides in suburban Cleveland with his wife and two daughters.