You were at work at your first insurance job for a whole week before losing your firm its biggest client, and you're back out on the streets. Who was to know your boss wouldn't like you pushing your band's latest CD to clients on company time?

You sell property and casualty insurance at a small, eight-person firm. Your life is dull and uninspiring, but that's okay—so are you.

You're a senior sales agent handling the health and disability department of your insurance brokerage. While you don't completely hate your job, a little disability now and again might be nice.

You're a life insurance agent in NYC—in addition to selling insurance, you also sell annuities and offer financial planning services. You must have taken some of your own advice, because you're doing just fine.

In addition to being one of the top-earning insurance sales agents in the industry, you also recently represented your country in the 2011 Stockholm Insurance Olympics, picking up a bronze in the 100-meter Loss Ratio Relay.