Expectations and Awareness ( in the insurance industry)

Being a leader in the insurance industry is confusing. We recruit and train FC and expect them to be independent, self-employed individuals working for their own income and lifestyle. At the same time, we expect certain minimum standard in their activities and results and if they fall short, we become super-nannies making sure every working moments of their lives are monitored and accounted for. We give them sales ideas, prospecting platforms, knowledge and skills training, and, yes, incentives to help them maintain their focus and bring in the result. We cling on to every hope that an underperforming FC is going to wake up one day, and turn into the ideal super- performer.




Being an FC in the insurance industry is confusing. We enter the industry to learn and train, expecting ourselves to be independent, self-employed individuals working for our own income and lifestyle. At the same time, we expect our leaders to be there for us all the time, ensuring our activities and results are of a certain minimum standard. We expect our leaders to be able to provide us with as much support as possible, be it in sales ideas, prospecting platforms, knowledge and skills transfer, and even incentives! Of course it will be great if everything is given free-of-charge. When we are underperforming, we expect our leaders to be able to wield his magic wand and transform us into the super-performers that we should be.



This scenario presents an age old question, which comes first, the chicken or the egg?



Are the different expectations of both the leader and the FC congruent?



Why can’t we live up to both our own, as well as others’, expectations most of the time?



The dead loop will continue its vicious cycle so long as we continue to turn outwards for a solution. The mind of every individual is so conditioned to keep seeking support and dependence outside of ourselves, to seek the strength to act and the answers to our problems. And as the ego-mind for all is self-serving, expectations created by one can never be met by another.



Tension and conflicting events may occur if this loop continues. In this case the usual scenario we face is the prospect of the FC leaving, after a lengthy period of fallen expectations.



When the conditions are right, anyone can come to a new awakening to awareness and change their perspectives towards their expectations. Whatever that we would like to achieve in the future, depends on the actions we make in the present. And without the awakening there is no choice, for choice only comes with the awareness of all the conditions. Without this awareness, we will just continue to be pushed forward by the energies of our emotions, like a bottle drifting along the currents of the big oceans. When there is awareness, a choice will present itself, for we can now choose not to be pushed by such negative energies, and decide to take the wise action that is fitting for the moment.



With awareness, expectations lose their hold on us. We are able to open up to the situation at hand more closely, and consider options with equanimity. The internal conflicting and paradoxical ideas of our expectations disappears, and we treat each issue on hand now as a new experience.



The leader with awareness will no longer be lost in judgmental thoughts, and will have the courage to allow the FC to grow on their own; giving the support they need regardless of their performance.



The FC with awareness will no longer be lost in judgmental thoughts, and will have the courage to allow themselves to grow on their own; using whatever available support given by the leaders and nothing more.



We are all only human, and as human beings we are not infallible. This truth can only be lived when we are aware. And awareness is the only thing that’s here all the time.