It was a weekend chock-full of learning! No better way, we reckon, to kick-start your week than with these pearls of wisdom

Wendy Wallace, Sagicor Life financial advisor and 2017 Rookie of the Year

1. Keep away from negative energy, negative people, negative thoughts and negative words.

2. Everything you go through in life helps to build your character, instead of saying you’re having a bad day, look at it as a “character- building day”.

3. Vision boards work, if you do the work. Write down your goals, dreams and vision for your life and put in the work by staying focused, motivated, dedicated and committed to what you put down on your vision board. Her achievement of Rookie of the Year and being speaker [for the very first time at SMS] was on her vision board and just as she envisioned it and worked for it, she accomplished it.

4. Wendy has coined a new term “financial renovation” referring to periods of what many Jamaicans would call “bruk”. Wendy says, “Yuh nah guh eva hear mi seh mi bruk; I am undergoing a financial renovation”.

5. Growing up she had behavourial issues and many people spoke a lot of negativity into her life. Her mom was a teenager, aged 16, when she got pregnant and her dad died just two weeks after she was born. She had a very difficult life, but she said she was always persistent and determined to win at life, is a big self-motivator, and is always looking for a solution than focusing on the challenges.

Peter Melhado, chairman, Sagicor Group Jamaica

1. A homebody, he says his favourite place to have a good time is at home with friends, where the hang-out invariably culminates in a party. He also enjoys hanging out by a ‘magical’ river in St Thomas.

2. Loves music and enjoys a good reggae concert- favourite artistes are Agent Sasco and Popcaan and loves how Ding Dong has brought back the fun culture of dancing.

3. Loves to read and is a big fan of Russian literature.

4. His favourite wardrobe items are jeans, T-shirts and sneakers.

5. He has been married for 27 years to Nicola, who he says is his best friend and confidante; he has two children.

6. His biggest pet peeve is filling out immigration forms.

7. Has been associated with Sagicor for 15 years, since the merger of Pan Caribbean.

Ravi Rambarran, group chief operating officer with responsibility for Sagicor Life, Southern Caribbean

1. Trinidadian – lived in Trinidad first 18 years of life; 14 years in England and past 23 years has lived in Jamaica.

2. Great grandparents were indentured labourers who came from India to Trinidad and became rice planters.

3. First-born of five siblings where he grew up in an extended family, where he said there was always someone looking out for the other.

4. Learnt about responsibility and leadership at a very early as he was the eldest child and had the responsibility of taking care of the family as the first-born.

5. Developed his “hustling” skills during high school when he used to sell roti and channa to help with money to go to school.

6. He is the first in his family to gain a formal education; he received an Open Mathematics scholarship after doing his A Levels which led to him pursue his undergraduate degree in Actuarial Science at the City University, London, and an MSc in Financial Economics from the University of London. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

7. He believes that we are placed on this earth to live not only for ourselves but as a community/village to help others – “You cannot and should not just live your life for yourself.”

8. Taught a short course in Indian Philosophy at Shortwood Teachers’ College for five years.

9. Loves the arts, Caribbean and Indian history and philosophy.

10. Head hunted to come to Jamaica as an actuary in 1996 (during financial meltdown) to work at Life of Jamaica (now Sagicor) – said intellectual curiosity was one of the reasons he took the offer.

11. Reads one book a week.

12. Believes life should be lived with relevance and must improve the lives of others — which is a core part of Sagicor’s vision statement – “Committed to improving the lives of the people in the communities in which it operates”.