First, let’s distinguish what we mean by the word “barrier.” What do you understand when you hear the word “barrier”? Let’s examine some barriers in our business.

Last year, I achieved the $1 million MDRT target, but how can I reach the $1 million target again this year?

Since the financial markets are bad this year, it will be tough. I do not have such big, quality references; the regulations have reduced the commissions; I have changed locations; I have been having too many rejections; there are no new products; last year was great luck as I got a big case closed, but how can I repeat it this year, and so on and so forth.

Every year, I declare that I will make Court of the Table and Top of the Table, and I fail.

Now, let me tell you all this: What you have experienced is something that has happened in the past.

Webster’s definition of “barrier” is a material block, fence, wall or hedge. It’s physical and real, real like the chair you are sitting on.

What you all shared as barriers, which are prevalent in our business, are actually only conversations. They are not physical as blocks, fences or walls. And these conversations are just in the language. They are thoughts, or past experiences, that are shared in words, language. They are something that has already happened, and we live our lives. That is how it is now also.

Can a conversation be as real a barrier as an object or a wall or a hedge? No, it cannot be real. The conversation is not as physical as the chair you are sitting on. When you are hit by a chair, that will impact you. When you are hit by a conversation, it will not impact you.

Now we will work on how to make our goals free of barriers.

Remember, you just distinguished that barriers, which are only a conversation, can be dropped since you created them — the same way you created these barriers in the form of disempowering context. You created these barriers in language, in conversation, out of the past experiences that you have had.

Once you declare that you have created these conversations, you have the ability to create new conversations, which are empowering conversations. These empowering conversations are also not real since they are created. They may not work. You have a choice to drop them and create another empowering conversation. This will allow you to take action and be creative.

Let me share with you how barriers work for me in my life. While I share this, I request that you all look into your own lives.

Currently, we are handling an overall wealth of $75 million in our portfolio.

It was the beginning of February 2008 (remember the financial crisis), and we had just started our weekly meeting at my office. During this meeting, we shared how the last week went.

Typical conversations in this meeting were about the calls and meetings and their results. One thing that was common for all of us was that business was very low. And this was real as there were no results.

What were some of the stories and conversations of the entire team?

• People do not want to invest because they are worried.
• Business owners are struggling to keep their businesses stable. Their profits are tumbling down.
• There are job retentions and pay cuts — as much as 40 percent.
• In this situation, why would people invest?
• Equity markets are crashing, and so is the real estate market.

Collectively, a lot of my colleagues had similar stories to share. We declared this as our barrier to achieve this year’s target.

This all seemed so real since we had experienced it, and our colleagues also had the same stories to tell.

I became aware that this is just a disempowering conversation, which is making me take actions accordingly.

With this disempowering conversation:

• I visit clients knowing that they will not invest or are fearing a pay cut.
• When clients call, fear sets in before saying hello. What bad news do they want to hear since their investments are performing poorly?
• In a fraction of a second, my mind tells me that maybe they want to exit and stop their investments.

With this created barrier — the disempowering conversation — can you imagine what result I will get? Half the battle is lost when I enter with these fears. Imagine Sachin Tendulkar, one of the world’s top batsman, fearing a fast bowler just because he was clean bowled once.

Now, I noticed that all of my actions and planning were around this conversation that there was a scarcity of money in the markets. People were living with fear.

So what I did was declare that this was just a disempowering conversation, and I was now going to create a new, empowering conversation and take action from this newly created empowering conversation.

My new conversation was that I would get to meet all the people who were clear that they were making lots of money and needed someone to guide them with what to do and where to save this excess money.

All incoming calls were from clients who wished to take advantage of the falling stock prices and top up their investments.

And guess what? The global recession of 2008 is the same as what we are facing here in 2018.

Keeping the same empowering conversation alive, we are only getting calls to invest more in these falling markets. As the clients are aware, life, like investments, goes through a roller coaster ride.

Given any time in their life, in good or bad financial times:

• Does a salaried employee need financial guidance?
• Does a businessperson need financial advice?
• Do HNIs need advice on legacy planning and how their wealth should be preserved?
• Do professionals like doctors and lawyers, who are busy in the service of people, need someone who can guide them on their wealth?

For all of these, the answer will be yes.

Just by creating this new conversation, I was able to take action, and I made Court of the Table for two consecutive years in 2009 and 2010. With a new conversation, I declared new actions.

What altered in my action was that the recession came. Yes, it’s there and has affected:

• Some business owners with an impact causing losses
• Some of them to increase their productivity
• The rest, for a bit, but caused no damage

Just by standing in the declaration that in any of the three stages these business owners will bounce back, meanwhile, I was working to get all new business from the ones who were not hit by the recession or were opportunists to increase their business.

The result was that we grew our business by 30 percent after a slide of 40 percent. Technically, we bounced back by 70 percent.

We, as human beings, tend to live from the past and are stopped by what has happened in the past.

Our brain functions to protect us. That’s the basic instinct of our brains. So the brain will create conversations to protect, and this will mostly be disempowering. It’s your responsibility to keep creating empowering conversations.

It’s just as simple as today, which is the second day of the Annual Meeting. We cannot bring back the first day, so the action required is for today.

What you have learned so far in all the sessions you have attended you need to put into action. What have you learned, and what is your action plan for the same?

What are the conversations you have that stop you from taking references, meeting people, meeting more and more people, meeting high-net-worth individuals or sharing anything related to our business?

Do you get that I asked you to share your conversations, and you shared all of your barriers as though they are real?

So, let’s drop them and create a new conversation from nothing. Once you drop all that’s on your plate, what’s left is nothing. A blank, new canvas emerges, and you can write and create anything new.

Moment by moment I keep my self aware of what conversations are driving me — whether it’s my relationship, health or work. This practice has been part of my life for the past 16 years.

I want to briefly share my journey in the life insurance business. In this sharing, I want to especially talk about disempowering and empowering conversations.

I started in life insurance in 2003. Later we added equity and real estate as an asset class in 2010.

In spite of the markets not performing well from 2008 to 2013, we could gather an average new business of approximately $20 million. That was a 40 percent growth year after year.

Like a few of you, I have had a roller coaster ride in my personal and professional life. In 2010, our regulator decided to cut down on renewal commissions on unit-linked plans. My conversation was that now it was time to triple the income. We did that.

I am very passionate about adventure sports, and there is a risk involved with these sports. In 2010, I broke a rib, and I had a relapse of my slipped disc and spondylitis causing enough pain that I could not lift my own briefcase of over 6 1/2 pounds. To continue the list of injuries, in 2012, in another adventure sport, the cartilage in both knees tore. To stand in one place for more than two minutes was a challenge.

With all these injuries, I could not do long-distance travel in the car to meet clients or prospects nor could I stand and greet people for more than a few minutes. That’s when the disempowering conversation set in. Now, my future growth was at a halt, and it may be difficult to achieve last year’s target as well.

That’s when I declared that this is a conversation to be dropped. So, I just declared that clients are very happy to come and meet me in my office.

Guess what? Ninety percent of the new business we got was from new prospects who visited our office.

I am fit and fine now to travel. We are still happy that we get approximately 40 percent of new business from prospects who visit us in the office.

I learned from some MDRT members how to look after clients’ well-being and comfort when they visit the office — from providing them car park service to their taste of tea or coffee along with their favorite snack. This keeps them coming in regularly and is a good break from their routine.

Some MDRT members share how to invite existing clients to their office, how to create a purpose and what benefits them when coming to the office.

My injuries were real and a good barrier, and that was enough of an excuse not to be able to perform. But that’s when I understood that performance has nothing to do with what or how I feel.

Let me give you the analogy of a car.

Whether I am happy or sad has nothing to do with the speed of the car. My feelings have nothing to do with the speed of the car. The car moves only when I press the accelerator. The action of pressing the accelerator moves the car. The car performs when I press the pedal to the metal; it’s independent of how I feel. The car performs only when I take action.

In life, performance is out there in the world and not in my head. All that is required is action.

When I dropped all of these conversations about not performing due to my injuries and the market conditions being poor, only then could I create a new conversation — that my clients love to meet me in my office. We are sure to give them an extraordinary experience during their visit.

Now is the time to take action with health too. I was clear that health is the true wealth.

The action plan was to get the office on autopilot. From 2011 to 2013, we spent time creating systems to ensure the entire office was on autopilot.

Thanks to all the learning from MDRT and the contents on the website. My team looks after 100 percent of the service issues and 80 percent of the annual reviews. This gave me an abundance of time. My business is growing by 30 to 60 percent year after year.

I got to learn one more thing, which is that performance has nothing to do with knowledge.

Here is another car analogy.

A mechanic will know that when you press the accelerator pedal, the fuel gets injected into the carburetor and gets into the piston firing the engine to thrust the motor, and the wheels move. Will that make the car move ahead? No, it will not. This knowledge will not make the car move ahead.

A novice like me just presses the car pedal, and the car moves ahead. The car moves independent of the knowledge we have. You do not need to know about the carburetor, pistons, etc.

Whether it’s health or financial goals, all we need to do is to take action.

It was time to take action with my health too. The idea to create this additional time was to alter my health. I took action with proper nutrition and exercise. Some of these ideas worked; some did not. What was important was that I took action. Today, I can dead lift 120 kilos.

Once again, sometime in June 2017, in another sport activity, I tore the meniscus in my right knee, which caused a small ACL tear. This causes the knee to lock, and it is tremendously painful to even take a few steps. At last year’s Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, I delivered my talk with a steel brace on my right knee.

All the top orthopedic doctors suggested surgery followed by bed rest for 30 days. Now that was very disempowering!

I declared that we would find alternate treatments, and my feelings would not get in the way of this exploration. We found an alternative therapy, and I was able to strengthen the supporting muscles of the knee and hip enough that now I do not need an operation.

I went on a seven-day surfing trip in Colombo in November 2018.

Now let’s get these barriers out from your life, and let’s work together on this.

Let’s apply this practice to handling objections also. Objections are also only a conversation, and we treat them real like barriers.

When we get an objection, we have a lot of internal dialogues and conversations, such as “Business has been lost,” “Now this case will be postponed,” “Once again the prospect wants to shift the meeting to a new date,” “The prospect says he has no money now, so let’s do this later.”

Let’s look at some barriers:

• I do not have quality references.
• Clients take too long to close, and there are too many postponements.
• Will I be here next year for the Annual Meeting?

Let me share my own experience. I had a fear, when I was here in Anaheim for my first Annual Meeting in 2004, which was seeing people like all of you great performers. One conversation gripped me: “Will I be here the next time?”

What made this conversation so real was that it was June 2004, and I had only achieved 20 percent of the MDRT target.

At this time, let me share the story of the fly in the glass.

Keep a fly in a glass and cover the lid with filter paper so there is lots of oxygen for the fly. The fly flies up, hits the filter paper and falls, and this goes on and on and on and on for a million times in a week.

Later, remove the filter paper, and you will be surprised to see that the fly only jumps up to where the filter paper was or to the top of the lid, but it does not fly out. The mind of the fly is conditioned with that barrier that its limit is up to the lid, and then it will hit the litmus paper and fall again to the bottom of the glass.

In spite of hearing success stories from some of our MDRT friends, I am sure a few here complete their MDRT goal in 10 to 15 days or less. Really knowing that makes no difference.

What worked was getting present to the disempowering conversation that it’s not possible to complete 80 percent in 5 months. When I gave that up, my 2004 MDRT goal was completed in two months.

Similarly, there is the elephant story. A baby elephant is tied to a tree trunk with chains, and when it becomes a big elephant, it is tied with a thin rope to a thin branch. Over the years, it realizes that there is no escape once it is tied.

Similarly, for us human beings, we know our limitations, and we live within them. We live in them as though they are real, as real as the chair you are sitting on.

We will do everything we have to do to break out of these limitations. Once we have regular failure in this area, we will put it aside and say to ourselves, At least other areas are working. Let’s leave this area and accept that there is no way out of here.

Since we are committed to having a breakthrough in the area of handling our objections, let’s address them.

I still remember. It was 2004; I had completed 20 percent of my business, and 80 percent was yet to be done with only five months left.

What showed up for me first was that 20 percent in 7 months, so 80 percent in 5 months did not seem possible. I realized that this was a barrier and not a conversation.

Then, I created a new conversation. I declared that this was my first day at work, and in the next four months, I would complete my MDRT goal. I was so passionate about what I said would happen. I knew it would be a roller coaster ride, but no matter. I would be unstoppable.

Not considering the 80 percent to be done, this declaration gave me a new place to stand and be creative. Over the next two months, by the end of September 2004, I completed my MDRT goal. It’s been 15 years since then that I have been qualifying.

Similarly, consider the action you are taking to create new references. What stops you currently from taking action in this area? You may have many ideas that can get you references. Some you have practiced, and some you have heard from your colleagues. As we learned a while back, knowing makes no difference.

The important thing is to be a player rather than a spectator. Just get on the field and bat. Sachin also gets out on zero. He bats the next time as if it’s his first time. Sachin does not play an individual game. He plays for his country as any other player of any other sport.

We, too, play to make a difference in the lives of our clients’ financial well-being.

Keep the purpose larger than us. Take action and meet people, collect references, do annual reviews, share new ideas you learned during this visit.

Have a goal-setting activity. The first step is to set weekly goals rather than focusing on results that can be achieved in a week.

Activity has no attachment to results. Activity is action taken on what we promise to do. Fifteen meetings in a week — that’s activity. The result of this activity may be less than what we declare.

Surely, we are specifically in control of our activity and not the results. We can alter our activity to achieve the desired results.

Note that we, as human beings, are scared of results because results are attached to failure.

We will declare a game of what is achievable and doable. Imagine Sachin playing gully cricket. Would he have ever made it to the international matches? No way. He has no clue how fast or tricky the bowler will be.

Out here we need to declare a goal that will give us a pinch in our stomach.

We human beings are scared of failure. We have a large mental block with the word “failure.” Failure is just a result declared in conversation about the failure of an activity. There is no failure of you or me. What fails is the outcome or the task we were working on.

Activity is just taking action. Action is the activity, such as to meet six new prospects and eight existing clients this week. Action is to honor my word.

How would it be to create a new conversation like “By the month’s end, I will have 30 quality introductions, and this is my plan to get them”? You might think, Wow, there are so many new lives that I am going to impact or Wow, my clients are so happy with my service that they are truly looking forward to sharing the numbers of their friends and loved ones so that I can transform their wealth.

Before I share more on this, let me provide one example. There are two kinds of 100-meter races — one with obstacles and one without. An athlete can run much faster and complete 100 meters in less time than a race of 100 meters with obstacles.

Similarly, a created conversation might be, “This month I declare that I will have 30 quality references” or “Wow, there are so many new lives that I am going to impact.” This conversation leaves you with more power, more possibilities and you take bolder actions by being fully self-expressed. You will be at ease and creative in this created conversation.

The conversation with barriers leaves me disempowered: “Oh, so many clients do not give me references. Whom do I ask for references? It’s tough to get references. The last time this client refused to give references, so this time I will not ask for them” and so on.

Taking action on the conversation with barriers (unreal) will leave you with limited and restricted actions and surrounded with the fear of failure. It seems scary and threatening.

The new conversation leaves you empowered. It leaves you with new openings for action. You are more adventurous.

Just simply take action on what will have an impact on your growth. All else that we have created will become a great insight.

Action and creating new actions and new possibilities will be the only source for us to accomplish our goals — be it MDRT, Top of the Table or Court of the Table.

Notice that when you are not taking action, you are surrounded by disempowering conversations.

A client told you no for business yesterday or an hour ago. It’s over now; move on. Go to the next one. Taking action is the key to being extraordinary. Taking action will give you extraordinary results.

When you are stopped and aware that conversations are stopping you from taking further action, take the following four steps:

1. Take a pause and acknowledge you are stopped.
2. Notice the disempowering conversation you are operating from.
3. Give this up and now declare a new, empowering conversation.
4. Take new actions.

Close your eyes now and get present to what your conversations are. While you breathe in deeply and breathe out gently, I want you to be present to all your conversations related to the life insurance business. Be present about these conversations, and now choose to alter them to be empowering conversations, such as:

• I have the best team in my office.
• I have the best products in the market.
• I understand there will be objections, but rejections are a part of this industry.
• I am clear to do my 14 meetings a week.
• I have the most supportive clients who are so happy with my service.
• I have an abundance of sources to get introductions.
• This year I will surely grow by 300 percent.

Remember, this is all a created conversation. And we always will work on what gets created in thoughts.

Your personal goals — I will be going for at least two holidays with my family.

While you breathe in deeply and breathe out gently, be with your empowering thoughts. Always tell yourself, This is my time.

Ravi Pahlajrai Rajpal is a 14-year MDRT member with two Court of the Table qualifications. He has served three years as Company Chair for MCC and is currently an Area Chair. Rajpal has delivered a 52-hour workshop as a trainer to more than 300 financial advisors and has spoken at two previous MDRT Annual Meetings.