Moderator Belman: In this session you will learn how leveraging interpersonal relationships, managing ego and finding balance between social and emotional well-being helped financial professionals like yourselves take their MDRT membership to the next level.

Milne: I was born in Scotland. I had a good family upbringing, but my family wanted me to go to university and have a good job in the medical industry. I didn’t want to do that. So I moved all around the U.K. and eventually settled in Bristol, England. I became a financial advisor and went into financial services in 1998.

I was surrounded by lots of successful financial advisors. I thought I could be like them, and I could make my family proud. My problem was, I was just a little bit naive at the time, and I didn’t really understand exactly how much was needed to have that level of success.

I started to use credit, and it got out of control and caught up with me. In 2004 I went broke, and I lost everything. I went back home to Scotland, dejected. I thought my family would help me get me through it. But they didn’t. The self-loathing began. It went on for about four years. Then there was a glimmer of hope. I had managed to qualify for MDRT in 2003, and I had connections with MDRT. They told me that I still had something to give. Initially I didn’t listen, but they kept going on at me. “Come on, Elaine, you can do this. You’ve got a future that you can have.”

Eventually, something clicked, and I started to listen. I started to do the right things. I requalified for MDRT. I just kept going a little bit more and a little bit more. I started to understand that when I did things for other people, I got things back. There is lots of gratitude there now that was never there before.

Kagawa: I’m a third-generation Japanese American, and in our culture, you look to the eldest son. I was the first son of my father. And so it was natural to think that I would take over the practice of the family, which was doing very well in Hawaii.

My dad set me up in an internship at an insurance company. And this young lady, who was supposed to be teaching me about policy issues, taught me a whole lot more. She invited me to her house for dinner. I went to her home. And she told me this story: “My husband and I owned a business in the garment district. One day these guys came over to our business and asked us for money in return for our protection. But my husband was a proud man, and he was a boxer, a tough guy. And so he refused, and they shot him dead.”

I guess tears started to come down my face and she said, “No, Steven, that’s not the story. The story is, months before that happened, some salesmen came over to our house to try to sell some life insurance. After they talked to us, I told my husband, ‘We should buy that.’ He said, ‘You have to die to benefit from that. Let’s not spend our money on that.’

“A couple of weeks later, he said, ‘I keep thinking about what kind of father or husband I’d be if tomorrow didn’t come for me and I left you financially unprepared.’ And he bought that life insurance. So when that day came, everything changed. But that life insurance saved my life. You need to stay in the business to protect people like me who count on it for our lives.”

I went out and got my license in California, and I set up shop. I had a mission: I was going to talk to every single mom on the floor I worked on. I just had one question I wanted to ask, which was “Who’s going to take care of Johnny if the unexpected happens to you? If you don’t have a plan, maybe you want to get some of the life insurance that this company makes.” I started to sign some people up for coverage and sign applications. That was the start of my career.

Moderator Belman: Karen, you can help our audience understand the importance of these interpersonal relationships and becoming a top advisor, and not just getting to the top but staying at the top and maintaining exceptional performance. What input do you have for us?

Atwell: One of the things that I spend a lot of time involved with is the concept around emotional intelligence and the value of not just knowing our craft well, but also the value of knowing ourselves and knowing how to connect with other human beings.  

Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that we grow over our lifetime. There are five buckets of emotional intelligence. The first group is around how I see myself, how I know myself. The second group is around how I emote or express myself. The third one is around how I create interpersonal relationships. The fourth one is around decision-making capabilities, and the fifth one is around stress management.

I hear a lot about stress management, resilience and optimism. I hear a lot about social responsibility, wanting to help other people, getting back up from adversity in an effort to help others. It’s these emotional intelligence markers that cause us to be able to keep going and to keep pushing ourselves against all odds, to be able to get to a place where what you do all day long is help people, and you understand why.

Moderator Belman: You mentioned intelligence that comes from the gut. You mentioned five different realms of emotional intelligence. Could you elaborate more on those?

Atwell: We actually have three thinking centers in our bodies. We have the brain, which is what we think with. That is where our decision-making comes from. We also think with our gut, and we hear that all the time, right? I say, “My gut tells me this.” The third one is our soul, our heart. There is proven science that says there is intellect or influence that comes from our heart center, physically sent through the body to the brain, which is where our moral compass sits. And when we put these three centers together, it’s very powerful.

Moderator Belman: Steve, maybe you can add perspective to times where we may feel like we are lost in the business.

Kagawa: Well, you heard how I got into the business. I started to learn the concepts, learn the products and sell the products. I was chasing everything and trying to learn everything. But at the same time, I was mastering the art of selling and not really mastering the art of being an advisor to focus on people’s lives. And so I had to find my way back on track.

I started to hear these things about work-life balance. I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “How is it that you can keep going, and what is making you do that?”

I identified the core values of my life with five Hawaiian words: “aloha,” “mahalo,” “imua,” “pono” and “‘ohana.” “Mahalo” is to fill your life with gratitude, be thankful for whatever you have around you. The meaning of “aloha” that I prefer is love, to do things from love. “Imua” is to always seek to be better, to move forward. “Pono” is to do the right things for the right reasons. “‘Ohana” is to treat others as though they were part of your family. I integrated these into my business and the whole of my life.

Moderator Belman: Elaine, I want you to share how you did it. We know that your MDRT friends were crucial in your journey to the top. So how was it that you made the comeback?

Milne: I started to be my authentic self. Rather than people telling me who I was and who I was supposed to be, I took a step back and thought, What do I really want? Who am I? And I started to listen to other people. I always say that everyone we ever meet will know something that we don’t, and it’s good to listen to that.

Moderator Belman: Karen, how does a person know when they experience that, that they’ve connected with their inner self? Is there a certain feeling that we can look for?

Atwell: Generally, we feel this inner self-connection when we are doing what’s called “transformational work.” I think everyone can think of a time in their life when they had a story, which we call “transformational moments,” where whatever it is that you’re doing is not serving you. It’s dragging you down. So you need to let go of that.

Moderator Belman: I was asked the question once: Do people give because they have, or do they have because they give? I know Elaine and Steve are big contributors to the MDRT Foundation. Can you give us just an idea of your involvement in the Foundation?

Milne: I think the first thing I did for the Foundation was a service project back in 2015 in New Orleans. About 200 of us were assigned to go to a community to help finish the restoration of some houses of people who had been living in trailers for the last 10 years because their homes had been flattened by Hurricane Katrina. I was assigned to a group to paint a house.

When we finished, we had lunch at the woman’s house we had finished restoring. She was disabled. She was in a wheelchair, and she said, “You haven’t just given me back my house. When you give someone back their house, you give them back their home. And when you give them back their home, you give them back their life. And when you give them back their life, you give them back their dreams. And when you give them back their dreams, there’s no telling what they can go on to achieve.”

I gain because I give. And what a privilege it is to have something now that I can give to others.

Moderator Belman: What’s the best Whole Person concept that you could give an advisor who wants to get to Court of the Table and Top of Table?

Kagawa: I’ll start off by saying have a vision. Have a vision of a world that you want to create, and then be rooted in your core values.

Moderator Belman: Elaine, also Court of the Table and Top of the Table, what would you say?

Milne: Never give up. Not every year will be a good year. Not every day will be a good day, and understand that sometimes the toughest experiences that we go through are where we learn our biggest lessons. Then get up out of bed the following day and just do it again and keep doing it again.

Moderator Belman: Karen, do you have anything that you might be able to interject?

Atwell: It would be to ask yourself many times every day, How do I want to be remembered? And just write it everywhere, and ask yourself that many times a day.