The Long Game: Meet Mitch Long

Why stories beat pitches, why showing up still matters, and what this series is about.

Eric Kasimov sits down with Mitch Long to kick off The Long Game. Mitch has been in the insurance business for over 30 years. He started with a pager and a roll of quarters. He built his book by showing up every Tuesday until people just started handing him the business. Now he's here to have conversations with business owners about how they got where they are — the real version, not the LinkedIn version.

What We Talk About:

- Criminal justice major to insurance salesman

- The 93-year-old woman and the bell story

- Why face-to-face still matters (and why it's not enough anymore)

- Pagers, Blackberries, and the quarantine pivot

- The buggy whip salesman problem

- NIL, college sports, and what it means to stay relevant

Chapters:

- 00:14 – What this show is and how conversations work

- 01:00 – Mitch's path into insurance

- 02:05 – College degrees as ticket punches

- 04:08 – Stories over structure

- 05:48 – The power of getting people talking

- 07:00 – The 93-year-old woman and the bell

- 08:27 – Podcasting as a way to connect

- 10:00 – Feeling heard in a distracted world

- 12:06 – 22 years of working together

- 13:00 – Old school meets new school

- 14:00 – Generation Jones

- 15:00 – Tangents are the point

- 16:08 – Face-to-face vs. Zoom

- 17:15 – NIL and staying relevant

- 19:00 – Aging up in college sports

- 20:17 – Opting in or opting out

- 21:30 – Adjusting how you reach people

- 23:00 – The Walmart joke and resilience

- 23:45 – Pagers, payphones, and quarters

- 25:00 – The quarantine as a reset year

- 26:00 – Blackberry, Gateway, and what happens when you don't evolve

- 28:00 – The buggy whip salesman

- 30:00 – Mitch's grandfather sold matches

- 32:30 – NIL and financial literacy