These five critical keys will help put MDRT qualifiers on the path to reaching Top of the Table production year after year.

You will be able to take these actionable ideas and implement them in your own business with a positive plan to make the necessary changes in order to magnify and multiply your own production and profitability.

Critical key 1: Write down your list of clear and measurable goals and let the world know about it

I suggest you print out your goals, laminate them and put that list someplace where you will see it frequently.

I like to read my goals in the shower. This has a real benefit. Even if you don’t know how you will achieve that big goal, just the practice of reading it frequently will increase your confidence. It will also give your subconscious mind “marching orders” to do what it takes to start progress toward your magnified success.

Critical key 2: Goals don’t determine success — systems determine success

Author James Clear wrote in his book “Atomic Habits” that you don’t rise to the level of your goals, but, instead, you fall to the level of your habits and systems.

Great goals alone don’t get us to Top of the Table or to a place of magnified success. Instead, it’s the systems we put in place that determine our successes.

Critical key 3: Avoid the three sharp fangs of failure

Why do your systems or new habits seem to fail? There are three “fangs of failure” that can prevent you from reaching your goals.

First, we focus on the “what” of the goal, but we don’t understand the “how” of a system to reach that goal. We focus on the end result instead of focusing on the new system or habit that will eventually bring the desired result.

Second, we give up on the new system or habit saying that it didn’t work because we didn’t see progress fast enough. Systems help us work. Don’t quit because you’re not seeing results fast enough; your systems may just need to be tweaked. Systems and mentors can boost your patience to keep you moving toward your goals.

Third, we focus too much on our problems. This may give us a distorted identity, which sabotages our success and blocks our belief in our future self of success.

A distorted identity is what someone develops when they connect their failures to their identity. It happens when you identify with the fact that you failed and believe, therefore, that you are a failure.

But you’re not a failure. It’s your weak systems that have failed you and need to be modified.

Critical key 4: Do what you do best and delegate the rest

As an investor, I have invested millions of dollars in people. Investing in people creates leverage and allows you to duplicate yourself and become far more successful.

Building your dream team allows you to free yourself up to do what you do best. Strategic Coach Dan Sullivan points out that Frank Sinatra didn’t move pianos. Delegate, dump and distribute to others to earn far more money.

Critical key 5: Always be looking for your next new mentor

I often say, “I’m looking for a good person of integrity who makes $1 million more than I do, so I can learn from him or her.” I have met most of my mentors right here at MDRT.

When I was young, at my fourth MDRT meeting, I nervously reached out to a long-time Top of the Table member. After offering to buy him lunch, we struck up a conversation, and a mentorship ensued.

Although we worked with different insurance companies, I would visit his office, and eventually my staff knew his staff, which helped us implement the necessary new systems. That mentor friendship showed me the new systems to reach Top of the Table within two years.

There you have my five most critical keys to achieving Top of the Table.

Paul S. McCready, CFP, RFC, is a 33-year MDRT member with three Court of the Table and 25 Top of the Table qualifications. Working with a team of 10 employees, McCready emphasizes values of integrity, care and competence to build and protect wealth for his affluent clientele. He specializes in systems and delegation to give him lots of free time to pursue his passion of helping people in the Third World. He is an Excalibur Knight of the MDRT Foundation.