If you ask anyone about Nicholene Taylor, their first comment is likely to be of a diligent professional who clinched the prestigious Top Advisor award at Sagicor Life Jamaica for four consecutive years.

Some might point to the record $51.8 million she achieved in insurance sales, or her decade-long reign as Agent of the Year at the New Kingston branch.

However, Taylor remains humble about her accomplishments.

She takes you back to her childhood journey, vividly recalling the principles and work ethic instilled in her by her father, Eric Lloyd Taylor, a trade unionist by profession. These principles, she said, have laid the foundation for her success in adult life, in addition to her learned self-discipline and her unwavering determination to be “rich”.

“As a child I was fortunate, I never grew up in any form of poverty or wanting for anything; but one of the things my father always embellished in us is that in order to live a comfortable life, you must work hard. We didn’t have any trust fund, no one handing down any money; but he made sure that my sister and I had a good education.

“I have always had a burning desire to be rich and to have as much as I could accumulate because I never want to be in a position where I’m lacking…My father always said the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary and that lesson stuck with me,” Taylor told the Jamaica Observer in an exclusive interview.

As a child, an evening out with friends during the summer holidays would require Taylor to get straight A’s on her report card. The past student of Queen’s Prep spent most of her days studying, which earned her a spot at one of Jamaica’s top-performing schools for girls — Immaculate Conception High.

Taylor then went on to complete a double major in accounting and economics at The University of the West Indies. Thereafter, she landed a job as an accountant.

But it wasn’t long before she realised that she did not have a passion for the job.

“I quickly realised that that was not where I was going to remain. I was competent and good at what I did, but I didn’t love it.

“I did a bit of sales, I sold household items and goods, but I got introduced to life insurance through a family friend of my mom, Vanessa Francis. She was working with Sagicor Life, she invited me to interview for a job there when they opened a new branch in 2008. My branch manager now was operating the branch at the time, and he was the one who recruited me,” Taylor said.

The idea of her salary being performance-based in the insurance field was highly attractive to her.

Like many new recruits, Taylor said she was not a super producer when she started; she was very average at first. It was in late 2011 that she refocused herself.

Taylor was at home alone, broke, and in credit card debt. It was the closing of the year, December 2011, the traditional time when individuals who review their life choices and set new goals for the upcoming year. Taylor had one goal — to never be broke again.

She began reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, a book she said taught her basic tenets for success and in 2012 she embarked on new path to never go broke again.

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“One of the things I learned in Think and Grow Rich was that you have to write a business plan. If you don’t, then you are wasting your time. You need to declare to the universe what it is that you want and you need to declare it in specific terms. And so I wrote that down as a business goal, and at the end of 2012 I ticked off that goal because I achieved that target,” Taylor, who celebrates her 54th birthday in July, said, while adding that she realised how important thoughts are during that process.

But her first win was no easy feat. Taylor said she became a workaholic, consistently waking up 4:45 am and ensuring that she had three to four business appointments each day.

“My attitude had to change, it had to be positive. My work ethic had to change and the most important part of a successful work ethic is discipline, and because of that discipline and persistence I started to see the results.”

Discipline for Taylor meant putting in the work whether she felt like it or not, a truth she said most people don’t want to hear. “If you don’t do the work, you don’t get any pay, so while other people were relaxing in their beds at 6:30 and rolling over, I was on the road working,” she added.

It’s tough in the insurance business, but small wins such as constantly adding to her list of prospects through social events, cold-calling and portfolio reviews got her to the big wins.

“I hate making phone calls, but one of the things about doing your job and doing it well is that there are some things that you are gonna love and there some things that you will have to do even though you don’t like doing it,”she said.

“You can’t close the weekend without at least three contacts for each day of the week, Monday through Friday,” Taylor continued.

Having achieved success as an executive financial advisor, Taylor is looking to be promoted as a unit manager.

She is in the process of building a team, aiming to groom and develop financial advisors to excel, possibly even surpassing her own achievements. Her primary goal is to create a team of advisors who are focused, driven, and hard-working, attributes she says she particularly sees in female advisors.

“In the early days of life insurance, it was a male-dominated industry, just a few women but it is the opposite today because the top advisors now are mostly females. For example, right now the top three advisors at Sagicor Life are all females, across the branches.

“I think when women go into school or into the workforce, they are very focused, they are more driven. They know what they want and are more willing to put in the work. They are also willing to go through some adversity. I don’t want to bash the men though but it’s the reality, at least in insurance,” she said.

Amid her success in the corporate world, Taylor is also checking off goals she has set for her personal life. She recently wedded attorney-at-law Charles Ganga-Singh, and while she is not a biological mother, Taylor says she continues to play a role as “work mom” to new financial advisors.

Her ultimate aspiration is to attend awards ceremonies and witness the agents she has trained and mentored receiving recognition.

“…I have a spirit of giving back from my father and I have done so by being a mentor to new advisors at Sagicor Life,” Taylor said.