Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed  

guardian.wemagazine

@gmail.com 

As you read this to­day, Michelle Have­lock may have al­ready made her de­but pre­sen­ta­tion as the first Caribbean woman at a glob­al lead­er­ship con­fer­ence in Las Ve­gas. The event–Lead­ers and Man­agers Pro­gram (LAMP) 2023 is the pre­mier lead­er­ship event for the fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion start­ing to­day and ex­tend­ing over three days.

Lead­ers in the life in­sur­ance pro­fes­sion will spend three days con­nect­ing, learn­ing, and shar­ing their thoughts on the new trends with­in the in­dus­try and crit­i­cal in­sights in a post-pan­dem­ic world. Step­ping up the lad­der and start­ing her ca­reer path as a banker, then in­sur­ance agent, straight in­to man­age­ment and lat­er speak­er and au­thor, Have­lock is a mis­sion-mind­ed, high­ly mo­ti­vat­ed in­di­vid­ual.

Rec­ol­lect­ing the mo­ments along the jour­ney, she chuck­led, “Imag­ine hav­ing on­ly $1.12 (TT) and ... then ris­ing above it all, that takes gump­tion!” Fast-for­ward to Las Ve­gas, her pre­sen­ta­tion to­day is along­side co-au­thor of their re­cent­ly launched book, ‘Or­gan­ic Suc­cess–A paved path to record-break­ing suc­cess’, Christo­pher Lawe, a fi­nan­cial ad­vis­er in Ja­maica. Last year Have­lock was ap­point­ed as the task force rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the es­teemed GAMA Glob­al Caribbean, where she quick­ly ac­cel­er­at­ed to the vice pres­i­dent of GAMA TT. 

Have­lock’s voice was am­pli­fied with­in GAMA Glob­al as its fo­cus is cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment that en­ables peo­ple to pro­tect and en­hance their fi­nan­cial well-be­ing for them­selves, their fam­i­lies, and their busi­ness­es. GAMA Glob­al’s ex­em­plary train­ing and lead­er­ship pro­grammes are crit­i­cal for the pro­fes­sion and its in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is rep­re­sent­ed by nine chap­ters with mem­ber­ship in 22 coun­tries around the world.   

A ser­vant lead­er­ship mind­set–help­ing oth­ers un­lock their po­ten­tial is in her DNA, as are the life lessons and wis­dom shared with her by the late Clifton Have­lock, her fa­ther, first men­tor and coach. Steer­ing in­to a life of fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence de­spite any ad­ver­si­ty that presents it­self is im­pressed in all of her train­ing. 

“My fo­cus has al­ways been on help­ing oth­ers suc­ceed, and I found my pur­pose and pas­sion through my own ex­pe­ri­ences and per­spec­tives. With the help of oth­er men­tors, I learned the fun­da­men­tals of the busi­ness while stay­ing fo­cused on help­ing oth­ers, and I be­gan to feel in­trin­si­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

“My men­tor taught me the es­sen­tial rudi­ments of men­tor­ing and coach­ing, and my pas­sion led me to fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty. I used this learn­ing curve as the start of some­thing great. Con­sis­tent­ly I vi­su­alised where I want­ed to be, a ser­vant leader.”

Have­lock re­called quite a few hin­drances along the jour­ney, “Be­ing a sin­gle moth­er comes with its unique chal­lenges, such as the need to bal­ance work and par­ent­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, fi­nan­cial con­straints, and the emo­tion­al toll of not hav­ing a part­ner to share the load. In this sit­u­a­tion, I had to con­stant­ly strive to set a pos­i­tive ex­am­ple for my chil­dren through my ac­tions, as chil­dren learn more by ob­serv­ing their par­ents than by lis­ten­ing to what they say.

“This means that I must not on­ly achieve my goals but do so in a way that is au­then­tic, hon­est, and in­spir­ing to my boys. It re­quires a lot of de­ter­mi­na­tion, hard work, and sac­ri­fices to en­sure that my chil­dren grow up see­ing the best ver­sion of their moth­er and are mo­ti­vat­ed to fol­low in my foot­steps.”

 ‘Or­gan­ic Suc­cess’ is not Have­lock’s first book and def­i­nite­ly won’t be her last. In fact, her first book, ‘The New Re­cruit and the Sales Process’, was pub­lished 14 years ago in 2009, fol­lowed by its sec­ond mod­ule in 2014. These books serve as the fun­da­men­tals for many sales and train­ing mod­ules in the in­sur­ance sec­tor. Have­lock re­called dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, many en­tre­pre­neurs sought her con­sult as busi­ness­es dwin­dled.