Recently during a coaching session Samantha announced that after 27 years in the financial services industry she had had a record month of gathering assets and had officially broke The Bannister Barrier. Elated but stunned and confused, I congratulated her and then asked the most obvious question, “What is The Bannister Barrier?”
She went on to explain that in 1954, Roger Bannister was the first man to run a four minute mile. Soon after, a number of other runners also ran faster than a four minute mile.
Intrigued, I did some research to find that 127 people have done that since Roger Bannister but what is even more amazing is that in 1964, Jim Ryun became the first high school runner to break the barrier. By 2011, four other high school students have done so as well.
Samantha went on to explain that The Bannister Barrier is a phrase which she uses to refer to breaking through mental obstacles that hold one back from reaching their true potential. Once Roger Bannister did the unthinkable, other runners reached beyond their limiting belief systems to reach the same goal (or better) as well.
Samantha had a goal of gathering $25,000,000 from retail clients in a twelve month period—a goal she believed was the pinnacle of her potential. In our coaching session, she proudly announced that this month alone she gathered $12,000,000 in new assets from new clients—a personal record asset month! However, what was even more amazing was that she did so by opening just four new accounts, thus, putting her over her year-end goal with three months to spare.
Her limiting belief system had been that she thought she could only gather two million a month. As a result, she had been reinforcing her belief system by averaging that number. Also, she had believed that since her average account size was around $500,000, she would need to open four new accounts.
However, after opening up two accounts of five million dollars each and two accounts of one million dollars each she broke her personal The Bannister Barrier. In other words, her previous limiting belief system is now a thing of the past as she realized that the pinnacle of her true potential is really a product of how much she believes in herself.
In addition, she went on to tell me that clients of the five million dollar accounts she had acquired had originally told her that they had an advisor and that they were all taken care of. Undeterred, she had continued keeping them on her mailing list and followed-up from time-to-time with phone calls until they finally agreed to meet with her. Both clients eventually felt they were not getting the level of service they had been promised with their advisor and thus Samantha was the person they both thought of when they decided to take their business elsewhere.
This brings me to another point about limiting belief systems. While most advisors would have let their limiting belief systems hold them back from continuing to prospect investors who were “all taken care of”, she did not. She knew that if they were one day unsatisfied, she wanted to be the first person they thought of, she didn’t let anyone else’s limiting belief systems become her own.
Can you relate to Samantha’s success story? If so, then you may be asking yourself this important question…What happens when I reach the pinnacle of my potential?
Typically, the answer becomes apparent when you realize that you now have a new reference point for what you are capable of doing. Now you can focus on pushing beyond your limiting belief system to obtain a whole new level of success.