inscriptions 13
TRANSCRIPT
INSCRIPTIONS 13WALL 3 PANEL 1
HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS ISSUE:1) FINANCIAL PYRAMID= 2)SUKANTA SINGHA ROY TALKS ABOUT HIS JOURNEY TO MDRT
AND THE SCULPTOR INSCRIBES TALKS ABOUT WORK ETHICS: THE DIFFERENTIATOR - “OWNERSHIP”
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TITLES SPACE FOR P.NO
Sculptor Inscribes RG 2
Gurus speak Faculty Members’ space 15
Caterpillar Space Students and Trainees 32
News Channel Happenings at Gopast 41
Inscriptions 13
WORK ETHICS-THE DIFFERENTIATOR
“OWNERSHIP”
WORK ETHICS:THE DIFFERENTIATOR
“OWNERSHIP”WORK ETHICS:
THE DIFFERENTIATOR
“OWNERSHIP”
While the world is offering opportunities to everyone, it is always a very few people who use them and lift themselves up to heights un-seen and unheard of before. And they do this consistently. They do fail in their attempts at times, but they succeed to such a great ex-tent, their failures become pale and their suc-cesses are glorified. They set benchmarks which take considerable time and effort for others to even near it.
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How do they do it again and again? Is it that they have been blessed with talents that oth-ers are deprived of? Or could it be that they are the blue eyed boys (or girls) of God. Are they super intelligent?
All this may appear to be true in their cases, but the real factor lies elsewhere. It is their work ethics.
Their Work Ethics. Work Ethics is their big-gest strength, not just knowledge and talents.
Ethics means a set of values which have been adopted voluntarily. They become their guide posts whenever they are in any dilemma.
There are 5 aspects of Work Ethics: 1) Integ-rity 2) Ownership 3) Quality 4) Discipline and 5) Unrelenting hard work. In the last epi-sode of this series we saw about the first fac-
tor that is “Integrity”. This time, let us exam-ine the second one “Ownership”.
“OWNERSHIP”
Ownership is a very encompassing feeling. “It is mine”. “I belong here”. Devotion, Pride are all resultant of this feeling called “Owner-ship”. Super performers posses this in abun-dance. They own it. They never disown it. They become an integral part of it. Grateful for its availability.
If you watch a professional playing Sitar, Veena or any instrument, see how they treat that instrument. As if it has life, they kiss it, worship it, respect it. Many a times they name it. They are very attached to it. They
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are very possessive about it. Look at some sportsmen, when they enter the Arena, they bow down to kiss that turf. Look at some businessmen when they enter their cabin they light up a candle or a lamp or murmur some prayer before they take their seats.
When someone asks a question like, “Is he your brother?” People reply yes he is my own brother. Mark the word “own”.
This is my Country. This is my team. This is my profession. This is my office. If the owner-ship feeling was absent then the terms will be “ I live in….. country”, “I play in this team”, “I work here”. I am employed as a………..
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and so on. That means it is “outside of ” them.
This world boasts of many great sportsmen. One of the leading lights amongst them is Sa-chin Tendulkar. His fans call him “God of Cricket”. I quote from his autobiography book “Playing it my way”.
“ On 16 November 2013, my cricket-ing journey finally came to an end at the Wankhade Stadium. After somehow managing to complete my farewell speech, I was having conversation with my family, trying to soak in every mo-ment, when my team-mate Virat Kohli
walked up to me. He said, “You asked me to remind you that you had to go to the pitch one final time”. To be hon-est I hadn’t forgotten; I was just trying to put the moment off for little longer. It was to be my final visit to the 22 yards that had nurtured and cared for me for so long.
As I walked across the outfield I knew so well, my mind was a complete blank. A lump was forming in my throat as I reached the pitch to pay my final regards. I was there for barely
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fifteen seconds and all i said was, Thank you for taking care of me.”
A SENSE OF DEVOTION TO THE JOB ON HAND:
For super success this feeling of oneness with the profession/ job/business is a prime factor. Talents can make a person great tem-porarily. But to consistently perform at that levels, Ownership feeling is required. This is where you take things seriously. Casualness erodes. You pay attention. There is a sense of devotion to the job on hand.
This is the secret behind the sports people spending hours on physical fitness by doing
drills. They take it seriously. This is the secret behind speakers spending more than re-quired hours in preparation and rehearsal of their speeches. They take it seriously.
ACCEPTING THE WHOLE AS A PACKAGE:
One great advantage of “Ownership feeling” is that we accept the whole as a package. For example, as an Indian, I love India. I take it as it is my country. Therefore it is my responsi-bility to contribute. There can be some things which i feel should improve in this country. But then I accept this as a package. The whole is a package and I love the whole. Some parts of it has to change, but I like the whole. America is a package, and the country-men who feel that it as their own country
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will accept the whole, even though they may feel the need of improvement in some as-pects. China is a package. If this ownership feeling is not there, then people will always be complaining and never be satisfied at all. Because they feel it is outside them. They do not feel a part of that country is in them.
DEVELOPS LOYALTY:
Employees who feel that the customers are theirs, they treat even the smallest opportu-nity to delight them seriously. Those who do not have this feeling will be casual and some major issues also will be treated light. They will keep blaming the company policies and rules for being inefficient. No need to guess, who gets promoted to higher cadres, repeat-edly, at every chance. Same way with profes-
sionals. Customers prefer such professionals and they distance themselves from the com-plaining ones.
Ownership feeling develops loyalty. Owner-ship feeling develops selflessness. Ownership feeling triggers unconditional support. Unre-strained use of inherent energy flows. Follow-ing rules becomes a natural instinct.
TWO EXAMPLES:
1) Let me give you an example of owning a client by a professional. I know a leading Life Insurance agent in India. His client died of a road accident about 2000 kms away from his city. The place of accident was on the high-way near a small village. The police reports,
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the hospital reports, eye witness reports were all to be submitted to claim the acci-dent benefit on his life insurance policy. All of these have to be obtained from that village. The wife of the policy holder is a housewife and has no clue on the formalities. The son of the policyholder was just 12 years of age.
The agent travelled to that village. The village does not even have a good hotel to stay. He stayed in a lodge for 4 days and approached all the authorities persistently and got all the required documents from them and came back to his city and submitted them to the in-surance company and got the claim of 74 lakhs (7.4 million) settled in favour of the nominee within 2 days of his submission. It was financial year ending, and the agent has
targets to reach. Losing valuable 7days during the closing period can cost him heavily.
When i spoke to this agent, on what prompted him to go to an unknown place and get this job done, he said “He is my cli-ent, I owe my profession to my clients. My family is being nourished by the money I earn from their patronage. They have options, but they chose me. Their interests are my inter-ests”. The client’s family know the hardship he had undergone. They not only expressed their thanks to him, but even after several years they are still patronising him. That 12 year boy has become a big man now, second in command of a big multi billion dollar soft-ware company and is now based in USA. He sends birthday cakes to this agent on his birthday. Client sending cakes to agent on his
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birthday. Talent or intelligence of this agent can be equal to many others in the industry. But this man is a super performer and has been qualifying for the prestigious MDRT qualification for 20 consecutive years, which not many could do.
2) There is a big tea brokering house in Sri-lanka. It has a history of more than 100 years now. In a freak accident the roof of their warehouse storing tea got blown away in a unseasonal whirl wind. The stocks were ex-posed to unkind weather. Millions of dollars worth tea would be damaged. When the cli-ents of this company came to know about this, they advanced their taking deliveries and within the same night each of them arranged to pick up their stocks and store it in their respective warehouses. They could have
taken advantage of the situation and got a ma-jor discount on their forward prices, but they did not do it. When i asked one of them, he said, “They are our associates, what else will we do?”. This empathy has a historical background. There have been many times in the past, when this broking company have held the interests of their clients as theirs. If the brokers have felt that the clients are theirs, the clients also felt that the brokers are theirs. Otherwise in this materialistic world, such instances can never happen.
All the instances i have mentioned above seemed natural to the respective parties con-cerned. They never felt any other options, be-cause they feel the ownership very strongly.
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HIGHLY RECIPROCATIVE:
A big benefit of Ownership feeling is that it is highly reciprocative. When the employees feels that this company is his own, the com-pany also feels similarly about the employee and takes care of him big time. The company feels the ownership towards its customers, they also reciprocate the same way. “Treat thy neighbour the way you would like to be”.
WHERE SHOULD THIS START?
The big question is where should this feeling start. Should the company feel that first to-wards the employee. Should my customers feel that way first towards me and then I must respond?
The answer is simple: It always starts with us first. Towards our clients, our company, our profession, our country, our fellowmen.
Now the next question is what if they do not respond the same way. No need to bother about it, we need to continue our feeling of belongingness, for that is the cor-rect thing to do. We are whatever we are to-day, because all these elements around us have in some form or other contributed for it.
ITS MINE ITS MINE AND ITS MINE
I DO NOT FEEL THAT I AM WORK-ING, I ONLY FEEL THAT I AM
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OWNING IT, AND MY WORK IS MAKING IT SHAPE BETTER.
Next issue of inscriptions we will be cover-ing the 3rd factor of work ethics that is: “Quality”
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CHAPTER 2
GURUS SPEAK
WEALTH THAT LASTS FOREVERPART 8
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8 Governing principles:
1) If a person adopts the formula “Income - Expenses = Savings” then he can never become wealthy. The correct formula is “Income - Savings = Expenses.
2) Regularity is the key to wealth. (The key to wealth is not the ROI, IRR, CAGR etc)3) Start early and reach safely.4) Gold and greed can never stay together.5) Purpose must decide the choice.6) Financial Pyramid7) Draw the map before you start the journey.8) Professional support helps.
WEALTH THAT GROWS AND LASTS FOREVER
PRINCIPLE NO: 6
“FINANCIAL PYRAMID”
“PROTECTION- THE FOUNDATION”
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In the last issue we saw the introduction of the Financial Pyramid and we agreed that we will be discussing about this in detail in the coming issues. Keeping up our promise, let us start this issue with the Foundation level of the pyramid named “PROTECTION”. It was also mentioned in the previous issue that Financial Products that offer Life insurance, Critical insurance cover and Disability insurance cover will find place at this stage of the pyra-mid. Let us see why is it so?
God gave 3 resources to humans. 1) Body, 2) Mind and 3) Time. It is the hu-mans who invented a resource called Finance (money). How do they earn Money? By using the three resources called body mind and time. People pro-duce money by using these 3 resources in various propositions. A roadside labourer may use more of body and less of mind, while a political leader may use more of his mind and less of the body in comparison with the for-mer.
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This 4th resource finance invented by humans have become an integral part of the day to day life and in the business arena as well. If a company wants to expand its operations, it needs finance. If a person is planning for a vacation long distance then he will need money. For children higher educa-tion, we need money.
So how do we generate money? By using the 3 resources. Body, mind and time. If any of these resources are affected, then the money flow is af-fected. That is a serious risk. What events can trigger such losses in a big way. Death, disability and critical illness.` There can be minor or temporary losses in terms of ill-health, loss of job etc. But Death, Disability or Critical illness can have a major impact and long lasting or even a permanent on the finances of the person or his family.
If a person can ensure that his earning capacity is protected, then he has the capacity to climb up the next stages of the financial pyramid. He and his family can continue the ascent to the higher stages of the financial pyra-mid without any set back.
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Let us the fundamental reason that provides this capacity to the family and self. Out of all the assets available in this world for purchase, Life insurance is the highest leveraged asset. Look at this picture down below:
In a normal situation this is what happens: Person earns money by working (Body, Mind and Time) out of which he spends on his personal expenses and invests in personal assets almost 90%. Personal assets meaning that such assets that are not intended to be sold. They are bought primarily with an intention of to be used and enjoyed. Jewelries, Gadgets, motor cars, residential houses etc are examples of such assets.
Only 10% of the income is used in buying financial assets, such assets are ca-pable of generating profits or income later on.
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What happens if the income stops? The requirements for the personal ex-penses of the money to finance the personal assets which the family have been used to will continue to a major extent. At that time the financial as-
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sets play a very important role. They now produce income to sustain the personal expenses and the personal assets.
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Then how can 10% Asset substitute 90% requirement? IF it has to do then the financial asset should be a highly leveraged asset, and the highest lever-aged asset in the world is Life insurance. If you divide the Sum Assured of the life insurance policy by the premium payable per annum it could be as high as 200 times and on the low side can be 10 times. There is no any other such asset that can be leveraged so much.
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How does an insurance company get this done? How can they offer such a high value leverage? The basis of this is “pooling of funds” and working on the law of averages. The source for this topic will be in the science called “Risk Management”. We will see more about this science in the coming is-sues of inscriptions.
Now what is Leverage?
In physics we would have in our school days covered this topic. Leverage means “With little efforts getting more results” I will give you an example here. To lift a rock weighing 50kg as much (50Kg) effort is required. But if we let a lever (crowbar) under the rock and have a cylindrical rod at the ful-crum and lift the rock the efforts required will be only that of lifting a 5kg rock.
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In life insurance fund the same thing happens. When a group of people pay the premiums, they are not certain about who amongst them or when can die. But upon death, the family has to maintain the current standard of liv-ing at the least, if not a providing for regular enhancement of the life style in future too. Only a few of them die during a given term, but then the sum assured under that policy is paid to the family of the life assured from the fund that got pooled by the contribution of many. If Individually we had to
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fund the needs of our family by our-own-selves, then it will be near impossi-ble.
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When we donate blood to a blood bank, we may not know for whom this particular sachet of blood will be given as a life saver. The same way when for some reason we need to avail blood form the blood bank, we do not know as to who has given that blood, our life saviour.
Life insurance is a community by itself, each one supporting the other. It is a very noble instrument. The invention of the principles of insurance can be traced back to very ancient times. Therefore if not for our sake and for the sake of our family, for the sake of the society we need to have adequate in-surance coverage on our life.
The principle here is that of a leverage.
There is a difference between finance and money. Finance is the overall sky which has assets, liabilities, plans, budgets, instruments, markets, econo-mies and also money. Money is basically a instrument used to transact busi-
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ness. It is a medium of exchange, therefore becomes all the more impor-tant aspect of finance. “Cash is the king”
Why should anybody en-cash the assets suddenly to continue to fund their needs and wants, which so far was done by the father or their mother or a responsible person in the family? There is an easier alternative available in the form of Life insurance.
When I happen to meet some wealthy people, who have a few properties, cars and assets worth some millions, then they ask us, will they also need to be insured. They many times express that it is the middle class or the lesser ones that need insurance. Of course they need insurance, they need more of it. What is the logic? Let me explain with some examples in the next issue.
The very important question is “How much life insurance is adequate or ap-propriate?” There are scientific methods to estimate that. Stay in touch
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with “Inscriptions” we will see with examples on how to calculate what is adequate? This will make us understand as to why some people have in-sured their lives for billions? I myself have been associated with a insurance planning to one wealthy, middle aged man worth 1.5 billion.
The coming issues are vital in terms of technical knowhow of the insurance principles, so if required make a compilation of these articles into a folder or file to string them together for a clear understanding.
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CHAPTER 3
CATERPILLAR SPACE
THIS SPACE IS MEANT FOR THE STUDENTS OF GOPAST
This is a sharing of personal experience by Sukanta Singha Roy who is a financial advisor and an insurance agent from Kolkata
I joined LIC in 1999 after completing my education. There was a lack of job opportunities and in a way I was forced by my father to join this profession. I had a distinct dislike for the agent profession. Initially I received good support from my dad to start the firm and I did well professionally for the first three years. However the se-cret of my success was my father who delivered 90% of my business goals and I was just a shadow agent. The firm achieved the LIC Chairman’s Club Membership within the first 3 years and won a number of LIC rewards at that time. I also achieved the first position in my branch based on the net number of life insurance products sold.
But being honest here, I did not have any knowledge about the industry nor did I develop an interest for it. My view was that the work entailed requesting people to buy life insurance products when they probably weren’t even interested in it.
But gradually this changed in 2007. I got took greater interest in the industry and joined the “ Life Insurance Study Circle “ which is a renowned education and marketing learning centre in Kolkata for insurance profession-als.
I can vividly remember that there was a programme called “TOT TOUR “ in Kolkata Hyatt Regency. An this meet-ing the then MDRT President, Mr Walton Rogers and Mr Mark Hana, Mr Jaydev Patel, Mr R K Shetty, Mr R K Sa-tosakar and Mr Anand Jathan were present as speakers. Itwas there I heard about MDRT for the first time. But I was not serious about it and I regret it as a missed opportunity. In 2008 my father was detected with lung can-cer. He passed away and my whole life changed. My father’s primary business in garments suffered as a result of his death and I thought of concentrating on this business rather than the secondary LIC business. Between 2008 and 2011 I only used to meet the bare threshold of 12 minimum lives for LIC. I still remember that I used to think back then that it was a wrong decision to have joined the LIC. Rather if I concentrated on my father’s business it
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would be better. But today I blame myself for wasting time in the garments business. My father’s clients owed us a huge sum of money and they refused to pay up, leaving me in debt. One fine morning in 2012 I decided to visit my LIC branch to apply for a loan. After completing the required paper work I went to see the branch manager for his signature and he flatly refused to sign.
When I asked him for the reason he clearly mentioned that I was unproductive for the last 3 years. When further pressed him to sign he asked me to get of his office. I was angry at him. But today I can say it with pride that this was a turning point in my life and I thank him for what he did to me.
I started thinking how can I prove him wrong that I am not an unproductive and useless agent. It then struck me that I would achieve MDRT and present it to him in the next 12 months. The rest is history and I completed my first MDRT in 2013. It was very tough but it was not IMPOSSIBLE and in order to achieve it, I not only changed my working habits but my thinking process and completing life-style.
I also started using social media like Facebook as a medium to expand my network and client profile. When I used to extend Facebook invitations to senior MDRT members some of them used to ask me if I was an MDRT member. I would say not but I will in 2013. I used to dream that the there will be an MDRT certificate in my of-fice I did it not just in 2013 but in 2014 and 2015!
I believe MDRT is not a business result which we are all trying to achieve but it teaches you every aspect of self discipline.
I have immense respect for Sir Gopinath who has influenced my thinking. I still remember his teaching that work hard, concentrate on the root of the tree and fruits will follow automatically.
So if you want to become an MDRT member I will say that start by changing your attitude to work and life. Take small but impactful steps such as sleeping early and getting up early, do prospecting everyday, be honest with your work, be accountable to your clients, be disciplined about your calendar. ,
When I achieved my first MDRT I visited the MDRT Experience meeting in Malaysia to understand how MDRT works. I realised that MDRT teaches you to the spread the message and influence others to achieve t as well.
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Since then I have been very active in the MDRT circle and have expanded my network immensely. MDRT also asked me to represent MDRT as a local chair of Kolkata. MDRT invited me as a speaker in the 2016 Hong Kong Experience and Global Conference Meeting and also for the next 2016 MDRT Annual Meeting in Vancouver. I was privileged to speak to Hong Kong AIA agents. This year I also received an invitation from an USA based in-surance company called State firm Insurance as a PGA Director.
So for those who are not yet MDRT members, I will say that if I can do it why not you. While for those who are MDRT members my suggestion would be that it’s time to give back to the MDRT community.
YES! WE CAN ALL DO IT!
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CABIN WALLS AT MR SUKANTA SINGHA ROY OFFICE
CHAPTER 4
NEWS CHANNEL
PALM LEAF HAS NEW ADDITIONS NOW
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PALM LEAF NEXT RENEW-ALS ACCEPTED ONLINE
WITH 3 OPTIONS:
1) ONE YEAR RENEWAL
2) THREE YEARS OPTION
3) FIVE YEAR OPTION
ADDED NOW1) PURPOSE DECIDES THE CHOICE IN “MY RESOURCES”
READ ABOUT OTHER RATIOS
2) A WRITE-UP ON “RECESSION” IS ADDED TO MY RE-SOURCES. THIS WILL EXPLAIN ON HOW COUNTRIES FACE RECESSION IN ECONOMY AND WHAT STEPS THE CENTRAL BANKS AND THE FINANCE MINISTERS DO TO GET OUT OF SUCH SITUATION.
DEVELOPMENT OFFICERS PARTICIPATING IN THE “MASTER MENTOR” TRAINING WORKING IN GROUPS DOING A QUIZ WORKSHOP ON THE TOPICS COVERED FOR THEIR FINAL
EVALUATION AT HYDERABAD
“MASTER MENTOR” PARTICIPANTS AT HYDERABAD DOING A GROUP EXERCISE
“MASTER MENTOR” PARTICIPANTS AT HYDERABAD DOING A GROUP EXERCISE
TEAM OF MR SUNIL SHAH AT VADODARA ON COMPLETION OF A 10 MONTH COURSE CALLED “GENIUS”
SPEAKUP BATCH AT MADURAI HONOURING THEIR FACULTY MEMBERS
“SPEAKUP” ENGLISH SPEAKING COURSE FOR AGENTS AT MADURAI.
“GENIUS PARTICIPANTS AT VADODARA SETTING QUES-TION PAPERS FOR THEIR EXAM