HL Conf Call August 7,12

Hey, good morning, everybody, or good day, everybody, depending on when you're listening to this message. I've got, I just wanted to share something with you about what's happened to me so far this year. I don't usually do this, but some people have been asking me to do this, and I thought it might be an appropriate time to talk about this. But first thing first, I wanna first congratulate Alex and Lisa McInvan, she's one of our teammates, Director Rick Susie, who just went over a million dollars of personal income over the last rolling 12 months. I mean, it's an amazing, incredible accomplishment. So proud of Alex and Lisa and their team and what they've done. It just shows you, you know, no matter what, no matter how you're doing, there's always someone doing fantastic. It's one of the reasons why, you know, bitching and complaining about what's wrong with everything, all that, and being woes me, you look around, even in a tough economy like we're in right now, there's always winners. There's always people who are just, you know, no matter what, they get it done, and that could be you if you have the right kind of thought process, okay? So obviously, Alex and Lisa have the right kind of thought process. They're building an amazing business, and I talked to them the other day about going, you know, what's the goal now to go to two million? Because if you can make a million, why can't you make two million? If you can make two million, why not four million? You know, there's no reason, it's just numbers. It's an equation, it's a mathematical equation. Whatever your income is, to double your income, you double the number of people you have that are producing, you know? You just work like crazy to make that happen. There's no matter if you're making 100,000, you know, 10,000 a year, 100,000 a year, or a million dollars a year, you can always double your income if you are thinking correctly. That's a big key. So other thing I wanna topic, you know, since this is right now, we're during this time, there's a compensation change coming this month in the month of August, 2012. So if you're hearing this message, you know, two years from now, it's gonna be old, but it doesn't matter. The message is still appropriate regarding the compensation change. You know, somebody asked me, what do I think about that? I said, you know, no matter what the compensation is, getting wide, training your people to be pros at the kitchen table, and a relentless focus on building a big bay shop, which then leads, you know, and then promoting strong, out of that big bay shop, promoting strong money-making regional vice presidents who know how to get wide and train their people to be pros at the kitchen table, is how you build a big hierarchy that will provide you security and total freedom. This is what all of you serious about, really winning big at Pro America must do. So you may not wanna do that. You know, most of you aren't doing that. Most of you have a focus, my experience is the majority of people in Pro America have a focus just on trying to make a living, trying to make money, and they don't think long range, and they don't think about building, and they don't think about building people, and developing the right people, the motivated people, and they're chasing dollars, and that's why they just, you know, and they do a good job with that. You know, a lot of them make $100,000, $150,000 a year chasing dollars, but if they could ever get to the point where they focus on building a business, recruiting good people, motivated people, and then working very, very diligently on trying to, you know, turn them into pros at the kitchen table, they can make a lot more money. You can double, and then you can start double, triply, quadrupling your income. Unless you focus on building people, developing people, you're never gonna have that huge, explosive kind of growth and income growth that you want. You know, chasing dollars is never gonna get you there. It just isn't. You can do it. A lot of you, most of you, most of you are doing it. Most people in my hierarchy are doing it. Few of them are building, like Alex and Lisa McImmann are building businesses, but that's not, that's actually, you know, not the norm. But sad, because it could be the norm, and it should be the norm. All of you should be focused on exactly what I just said there. So I'm gonna repeat it several times, so. Because, you know, debt freedom and financial independence is the ultimate goal in Prime America. It's not winning a contest. You know, it's not getting recognition. All those things are great to do. You should work hard and try to win contests and try to get recognition. And, you know, I wanted to be recognized. There's no question about that. But, you know, what I really wanted, what I was really chasing in Prime America, the number one thing that I focused all my energy on, okay, was getting debt free and getting financially independent, okay. That was really, for me, why I was able to build a big business, because I didn't focus on the money. I didn't focus on, I focused on building something so that I could have freedom in my life. And I'm gonna talk about the kind of freedom that I have in a second. But debt freedom and financial independence is the ultimate goal. And all of you should have a financial needs analysis that you've put together that you and your partner are following to a T, that you're really focused on getting rid of all your debt and focusing on saving and investing money and focusing on growing your business so that your income grows. Not that you can buy things. Not that you can buy a big house on the hill and a fancy new Mercedes. Those are all fine things to have once you're financially independent. But the goal should be to save and invest more money to put you in a position where you don't need Prime America income to survive. That's what you should all be doing. That's what I've done. That's what a few other people in Prime America have done. But that was the focus for Jan and I, is debt freedom and financial independence, right? And I wish I could imprint on you how unbelievably fantastic being debt free and financially independent actually is. If I could focus, if I could get you to focus, right? And improve your self-discipline and your work ethic, right? If you knew how good it was, your focus, your self-discipline, your work ethic would immediately go through the roof. If you could have an idea of how good it is to actually be completely debt free, have a lot of money saved and invested, that the income that that money puts off takes care of you, it's an amazing place to be, okay? That you don't understand it or you don't believe it or you don't believe you can do it is really why people lose their focus, right? Because if you believe that you could do that, accomplish that, your focus would be laser-like, right? And it's why you don't work remotely hard enough at mastering your craft, prospecting, following up, training and teaching your people to be pros at the kitchen table is because you don't understand it or you don't believe it or you don't believe you can do it. Look, when I talk about being debt free, this is what I mean, okay? And I used to say this to clients. I said, listen, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, I want you to imagine for a second if you were totally debt free. Because one of the goals that I have while I'm sitting here with you, one of the reasons that I want to, for you to do an FNA and allow me to help you with this is my goal is to help you to get debt free. And when I say debt free, this is what I mean. No mortgage, no car payments, no credit card payments, no student loan payments, no furniture TV payments, no payments, owe nobody. You gotta pay your light bill and you gotta pay for your insurance every month and all that kind of stuff, right? You gotta pay to put gas in your car. But I'm talking loans where you owe somebody or some entity some money, being completely debt free. And I would just ask the question, I'd say, and I'm gonna ask this of you. What would your life be like right now if you had absolutely no debt? None, okay? How much freer would you feel? How much less tension would you feel? How much more relaxed would you feel? How much more at peace would you feel if you had no debt? No house payment, no mortgage, no car payments, no credit card payments, no student loans, no payments of any kind, no credit card payments. You paid for, if you had a credit card, you paid the balance every month, you had no debt. How much better would you feel? And when I would say that to people, and they would say, well, I'd feel a lot better. I'd feel fantastic, I'd feel great. I said, on how much extra money would you have every month that you could put towards saving and investing to create even more freedom in your life? And then they'd say, well, I could probably save 2,000 a month, 3,000 a month, depending on the family you're talking, it'd be five or $6,000 a month, okay? Could be a lot of money. And so if you could do that, you could get where you want to be much more quickly. So one of the primary reasons I'm here tonight, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, is to help formulate a plan, an in-writing game plan that's gonna allow you to get there in a very reasonable amount of time. I don't know your situation, that's why I need to get all your info so I can structure that. But my goal, my intention was for it to be somewhere between five and 15 years, somewhere in that range to get you to that point. And if I could show you how to make additional income where you could increase your income and you could start eradicating that even more rapidly, would that be something that you would be open to exploring? So you can talk about the business, right? If I could show you how you could increase your income so that you could more rapidly start chipping away at your debt and get there more quickly, would that be something that you would be interesting in exploring? And if they say no, then they're not very bright, doesn't matter, then you go ahead and do the F&A. If they say yes, then great, that's something we'll talk about after we complete your financial needs analysis. So you've already set up how to recruit them. That's what I would do, that's how I did it, just like that, okay? So if you notice, it's just all questions, okay? So financial independence, folks, is having enough money invested, right, in whatever, it's mutual funds or whatever investments you have, so you can live on the income it generates in exactly the way you wanna live so you can travel and do the things you really wanna do when you want to and in the style you want to. For me, it's staying in five-star hotels, flying first class, going wherever I wanna go whenever I wanna go, eating at the very best restaurants that are available wherever I'm at, which is what we do. That, for me, is financial independence, and I've achieved that quite a long time ago, okay? So I don't have any debt, I don't have any car payments, I don't have any home payments, I don't have any credit card payments, I don't have any debt, none, zero, nada. And I built a business that even today, my income, it fluctuates somewhere between 200 and 250, $280,000 a month, not including investment income. I'm just talking about primary income. I have a lot of investment income as well. But I have no debt and I have significant income which allows me and my family to have a really remarkable level of freedom. And I wanna talk to you about that because I'd like for all of you to experience that. And the beautiful thing is that you all can experience that if you do certain things, if you focus your energy in certain areas, which of course most people don't, and I'm gonna tell you exactly what you should focus on, and still, most of you aren't gonna do it. I already know that, that's sad, but I know that's a reality. But you know what? Some of you, like Alex and Lisa Mekvin, are gonna do it. And those of you who do will have an amazing future and you're gonna change your life. It's gonna be a lot of work, it's gonna take a lot of self-discipline, it's gonna take a lot of perseverance and tenacity and persistence and all those things, but it's doable. The beautiful thing is if you're in Primerica, you have a vehicle, many of us have done it, you have a vehicle that can allow you, if you master the business, you master your craft, if you get great at it, if you pay attention and get really great at the business, you have a vehicle that can actually allow you, legally, morally, and ethically, to build a massive income and create enormous freedom and flexibility for you and your family. Now, you probably won't choose to do that. Most people don't, most people don't even get a license, and even when they get a license, most people don't write even a sale, and even if they write a few sales and recruit a couple people, they quit before they learn how to get great and build a business, okay? But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Primerica, that means there's something wrong with those individuals who simply don't have the work ethic, the self-discipline, the perseverance to do it, because anything difficult, look, if you wanted to play in the NBA, or if you wanted, like the Olympics are going on right now, to be an Olympic athlete requires enormous dedication, enormous sacrifice, tremendous self-discipline, and work ethic, you cannot be in the Olympics competing for a gold medal, or any medal for that matter, unless you have that criteria. Now, do most people get there? No, most people don't, but the same thing's true in Primerica, how many people make it to the NBA? How many people make it to the NFL? How many make it to the Major League Baseball? How many people become superstars in music, or in writing, literature, or in acting, or whatever, right? Not that many, okay? How many people make it to CEOs of a company? Well, not that many, but the thing is, anybody could really do it, and in Primerica, virtually anybody could become a senior national sales director, and make millions of dollars, and get their life, their families free, and get themselves free, you could all do it. Now, you probably won't do it, but that, again, doesn't make the business opportunity any less fantastic. The business opportunity is fantastic, and many, many of you, many people within my organization have done incredibly well, are doing so much better than you ever would have done. I mean, you know, I just got a text from one of my RVPs, Gary McCrummon, Gary McCrummon, when I recruited him, had a broken foot, and was struggling, he had been on the Price is Right, and he was selling, he had won the big prize on the Price is Right, and he was selling off all the stuff he won, because he was going broke, because he was on disability, and he couldn't work, and he had, his foot was mangled from a water skiing accident, and he was going broke, and he was trying to sell me and other people the stuff that he won, so they could just have some cash to stay, keep his head above water financially, and then I recruited him into the business. He was a liquor deli manager for a Vons, which is a grocery chain in Southern California, and, you know, he's making 30,000 a year, or whatever, or something in that range, you know, he and both his wife, Linda, were both working in the grocery business, making, you know, for them, that was a pretty good income back then, probably tied him up to making 100,000 plus a year as a couple, back when I first recruited him, I think it was 1986. Well, Gary's financially independent. He's financially independent. You know, he's got a lot of money saved, he still has, you know, still making about a half a million dollars here in Prime America, and he's financially independent. Folks, that could be any of you, any of you. He wasn't like, he didn't have a college degree, neither one of them went to college and had a college degree, they were just really motivated, hardworking people. Folks, that could be any one of you. The McCrummins aren't any more special than you are. The Lamarks aren't any more special than you are. The Susies, you know, the Mac and Vans, anybody, they're not, we're not any more special. Now, we did certain things, which I'm gonna talk about in detail right here, but that you have to do, okay? Look, all of this, you know, what I'm talking about is 100% achievable with your Prime America opportunity. The gotcha, there's a gotcha, though. Every, there's always a gotcha. Okay, what's the gotcha? And I used to hear this all the time when I was recruiting. What's the gotcha? The gotcha is you have to do what I mentioned earlier. You have to make a decision to get wide, which means recruit directs. Get wide. And when I mean directs, I mean a direct that writes business, not a direct that has a code number. A code number means nothing unless that code number is producing, unless they're writing business, unless they're closing life sales and security sales and whatever else we sell, okay? Any code number is useless to you unless they are producing business, okay? And the only way they can produce business is if they're well-trained, they know what they're doing. That people don't focus on training people is, to me, idiocy. And most people don't do that in Prime America. It's crazy. How would you expect to have an amazing company without well-trained people, okay? So you've gotta get wide. You've gotta focus on building a big base shop. A big base shop, to me, is not 30 grand, okay? It's 50, it's 75, it's 100. Now, some of you in certain states are saying, well, you know, a 50 grand base shop's not, yes, it is, it's feasible, I don't care where you are, you can do it. Now, does it take work? Of course it does, but you can't produce great RVPs out of a 15 grand base shop. It's not possible. The kind of RVPs you're gonna produce are gonna be just mediocre at best. You might get lucky and have somebody that's a real motivated individual, but, man, you can't count on that. You've gotta build a big base. To me, it starts about 50 grand. That's a big base shop. And today, a 50 grand base shop, right, is 50 sales a month. That's like having 20 people, you know, doing two and a half transactions. It's not even a big base shop to me, but let's say it's a big base shop, right? 50 grand is having 20 people doing two and a half transactions a month in your base shop. When you break it down like that, it's like, wow, 50 grand's not that much. Yeah, but you've gotta go find the 20. To find the 20, you've gotta go through a few hundred to find 20 that get licensed and actually start writing business. So it takes work. Yes, it does, it takes work. And for you to make big money, it's gonna take work, which, of course, most people are completely allergic to, in my experience. Nobody really wants to work. Everybody wants great stuff, and nobody wants to do the work, the preparation to create that great stuff. That's okay, but some people do. So that's why you have to go through so many numbers to find those people. And you've got to be, personally, a tremendous example of what a person must do. You've gotta be recruiting directs. You've gotta be closing sales. You've gotta be growing your business. You've gotta be making money. You've gotta be an example. You've got to learn how to be the perfect example. I used to tell people all the time, what I really focused on was being the perfect example. I recruited the most people every month. I closed the most sales every month. I had the best attitude every month. I was working harder on myself than anybody else. I was preparing more stringently than anybody else. I was the perfect recruit. For a lot of years, I was the perfect recruit. If I could've recruited 10 or 20 or 30 of me, man, I'd be a bazillionaire right now, okay? Because I haven't recruited many people like me. But I knew that I needed to be, personally, the perfect recruit in order to attract the right kind of people. Most of you, if you look at your personal productive number, your personal recruiting number, personal production numbers, they're pathetic. They suck. They're terrible. And you're trying to create this amazing, amazing, phenomenal business with no leadership. Nobody's setting the tone. Nobody's setting the pace. Look, do me a favor. After you hear this message, or as soon as you can, get on the computer, go to POL, run a printout of your personal recruiting production numbers, year to date, okay? I promise you, most of them, if you're recruiting probably one or less recruits, you're doing maybe a couple, two or three. Now, there's a few of you who are gonna be doing a lot, but you're gonna be the minority, believe me, okay? You, RVP, should run all the personal numbers of everybody in your base shop, and sit down with them and show them, with the current activity that they're exhibiting, there's no way for them to become successful. There's no way for them to become an RVP. They've gotta change that. So, for me, I had a real simple goal. Three direct recruits every month, and 10 or more life sales every month, and I did that from late, from 84, all the way to 1992, okay? So, that's a lot of years. Like, eight years, on average, I had about three direct recruits, and about 10 or more life sales every month for eight straight years. Not eight weeks or eight months, eight years I did that, okay? So, I'm not, I'm telling you what I did. I'm not talking to you about some theoretical thing that you should do, right? You've got to work. I know most of you have never made that kind of commitment before, but I'm talking to those of you who really wanna do something great, okay? After I tell you what my life's like, there may be a few more of you who might take an interest in doing what I'm talking about right now, okay? So, you've gotta get wide, you've gotta build a big base shop, 50 grand or more, my opinion. You've gotta train your people to be pros at the kitchen table, because unless your people are pros at the kitchen table, they're gonna miss more sales than they make, they're gonna get dejected, they're gonna quit. When they're pros, they're gonna close more sales than they lose, they're gonna make money, and they're gonna stay in Primerica. Why do I want my people to be pros? Because I want them to make money, and I want them to stay, because the only reason people leave Primerica, folks, listen to me, is they don't make money. You want people to stay in your business? You better focus on teaching them how to make money. No money means they will all quit at some point. If you don't have a relentless focus on teaching your people how to close and make money, in other words, they gotta master those seven fundamentals, know how to close, know how to get results. If you don't teach them how to do that, they're gonna quit. You're gonna have, it's gonna be like a bucket with holes in it. People coming in, people leaving just as fast as they're coming in. To be able to grow, you have to have fewer people leaving than are going out. Most of you have more people leaving than are coming in. Okay, so to have growth, look, I've got 10,000 agents within my hierarchy. You cannot get to 10,000 agents, right, to 1,000 agents, unless you have a lot less people leaving than are coming in, folks. The only way ever, ever you're gonna be able to do that is your people must know how to make money. It absolutely just shocks me that nobody talks about this in Primerica. They don't talk about it. Like, they think if they talk about, you have to be a professional at the kitchen table, people will quit or something. The reality is people will stay if they become pros at the kitchen table because they will make money. So very few people are gonna do this, but those of you who commit to it and do it, are you gonna radically change your life, folks? You're gonna radically change your life. Look, this is what being debt-free and financially independent looks like. I'm gonna just tell you my schedule, Hector Lamarck and Jan Lamarck's schedule from January 1 through September 2012. So I know September's not here yet when I'm talking about this, but we've got plans through September 12th. I don't really know what I'm gonna be doing in October and over December yet. I haven't decided, but right now, this is our schedule so far in January. Look, the first three weeks in January, folks, Jan and I were in Hawaii. I played in the season-opening PGA Tour Pro-Am, the Hyundai, which is a PGA tournament where all the previous years' winners, so the only people that are eligible to play in this tournament are all the people who won in 2011. And so I was really fortunate. I got to play with Webb Simpson, who is the current US Open champion. He just won the US Open championship at the Olympic Club in June. Super nice guy. Got a chance to get to know him, talk to him every day over coffee and stuff, and Leanne Rimes performed at one of the dinners. She was amazing. I mean, the food was incredible. They just put on the dog for you. It's really amazing. It was the Ritz-Carlton in Maui, right? There were the tournaments. So we stayed at the Ritz-Carlton with all the players. We had a complete blast for a golf junkie like me. It's amazing, right? And then the second week, we moved over to the Four Seasons Waialea, which is on the same Maui island, but it's in a different part of the island, and we loved the Four Seasons. They have incredible, they have a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. I mean, it's just a great place. It's beautiful. The service is amazing. Best pancakes that I've had in Hawaii. Just a great place. We love that place, okay? So we spent the second week there, and then the third week, we moved over to Lanai, which is one of our favorite places in the whole world. That's our favorite place in Hawaii. Lanai has two hotels. One is a place called The Lodge, which is kind of in the mountains. It's a totally different kind of feel for Hawaii. There's pine trees, and it feels like you're in the mountains. It's very serene. It's almost spiritual there. It's called The Lodge, Kuali, Four Seasons, and then they have one down by the water, which is another one, and they take you back and forth. You can use all the facilities at either one, but we love that place. Matter of fact, one of the times we were there, we've taken our kids there, and we've actually taken some Primerica people there, and we heard about our first grandchild while we were at The Lodge there, but it's fantastic. You look it up. Four Seasons at, go online and look at these places. Four Seasons at Kuali, and then the Ritz-Carlton Maui, and the Four Seasons Waialea. Go online and look at these beautiful places that you could experience, okay? And then the fourth week, we flew back. We actually flew back on a Friday. The next day, we went to Park City, Utah, because our daughter was premiering a film, and so we spent the fourth week of January at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. We rented this incredible house, beautiful home, really adjacent to the downtown area, so we could walk to all the restaurants, walk everywhere. We actually spent most of the week babysitting our granddaughter, but we went to Janae's film premiere, which was really exciting and fun, and then afterwards, she was up front answering questions about her film, and it was just amazing to see your daughter doing what she loves and being successful at it. She just absolutely just wrapped up shooting her first feature film that she wrote and directed called The Pretty One, right? If you go to IMBD or look up Janae Lamark, Google her name, you'll see there's a bunch of articles about this film that's coming out and all the hoopla. Matter of fact, the lead character in that film has got a movie coming out this month called Ruby Sparks. Her name's Zoe Kazan, and this film that she did is getting brave reviews, and she was the feature actor in Janae's film, along with Jack Johnson, and who's on a show called with Zoe Deschanel right now. I mean, I don't know what the name of the movie show is, but he's, anyways, it's great. It's coming out, and it's a lot of fun watching your kids succeed, folks, and a lot of the stuff that's happened, you know, Janae went to Stanford, and then she got her master's at AFI, and, you know, that's not cheap sending your kids to those schools, folks, and she went to the very best schools she could possibly go to, and as a result, man, she's starting to have tons of success. Her husband is a composer, and he's got a movie coming out that he composed the music for that's, oh gosh, I can't remember the name right now, I'm sorry, but you can look up Julian Wass, and his career is just starting to take off right now. No, Bradley Cooper's the star of it, so if you like Bradley Cooper, the movie's coming out. It's kind of like a hangover movie type of movie with Bradley Cooper's the star of it. He did the music for that movie, so they're just taking off. I'm just kind of putting this stuff out there just because this is the kind of stuff that can happen to you, you know? Then in February, folks, Jan took me to St. Bart's. I hadn't been there before. In the Caribbean, it's a French island for my birthday, and we stayed at this incredible little boutique hotel called Le Sereno, which is just gorgeous, just gorgeous place, and we'd never been there before. It was fantastic. We're foodies. We love food. Whenever we travel, we go to the concierge, and I ask, what are the top three restaurants in the city? Money's no object. What are the best restaurants? Everywhere we go, all over the world, we ask that question, and we just love great food, and I don't mind spending money on great food, and I've spent a lot of money. Our food budget's pretty hefty every month because we do that a lot, but we love doing it, and it's incredible. People say, well, my wife's a great cook, or I love home-cooked food, or my mom was a great cook, and my mom was a good cook, but I'm sorry. I've eaten a lot of people's homes. I've never eaten anywhere in any home where the food was like the food at the best restaurants in the country or in the world, nowhere. I'm sorry. That's a B.F. You know why? Because you just don't have the facilities and the ability to do it at your home, so that's just the truth. I've never eaten. The best food I've eaten has not been in somebody's house. That's for damn sure. It's been in great, amazing restaurants where there are professionals. It's like saying the best basketball game I ever saw was in a playground. B.S. It's in the NBA where the best players in the world are. The same thing's true with cooking, okay? Somebody that does that every day that's a pro that studied it, I'm sorry. There's nobody in somebody's house, somebody's mom's gonna outcook that person. Now, you may have a favorite dish or something. That's fine, but overall, sorry. Best restaurants have the best food. March. In March, we spent at a place in Las Vegas. The top two things we love about Las Vegas, since we don't gamble, are the restaurants. Las Vegas has more great restaurants than Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome. Every great chef in the world has a restaurant in Las Vegas. And so, all the great restaurateurs from New York, Paris, Rome, New York, everywhere are all in Vegas. You don't need to go anywhere. If you wanna go eat amazing, incredible food, Vegas is the place. They just, everywhere you go, every hotel, every major hotel has an amazing, sometimes they have two or three or four amazing restaurants in the same hotel. Sometimes even more than that. It's incredible. So, we're foodies. We eat out every day. We eat out every single day. Jan only makes reservations. She does not cook. She has not cooked in 25 years, okay? So, we eat out. You might think that's crazy, but you know, food's better. We actually go see all the shows. We love the shows, and we love music, and we go to a lot of concerts, and we take full advantage of it, because every week, there's new people coming into town, and we have a blast when we're there. We're in Vegas, it's like we're on vacation. It's amazing. I belong to the best private country club in Las Vegas, so the golf's fantastic there, too. Look, our food and travel entertainment budget is crazy, okay? Because you only go around once, why not enjoy all life has to offer? If you've done the work to afford it, right? You know, so, we can afford it, and we do it. We, you know, I don't have any debt. I have lots of cash flow, and so we go, and we go whenever we want, wherever we want, and we go first class every time we go, folks. And I don't say that in a braggadocious way. I'm saying it, that's a viable thing for all of you to accomplish. If you have the work ethic, the self-discipline, the focus, the energy, the commitment, the persistence to master your craft and get really great at it, you can all do that. I mean, this is not just for Hector and Jan Lamarck. There are other people in Primerica that do it. Mike Sharp, you know, you named the person, and it's big in Primerica. Everybody who's big in Primerica has a similar kind of situation that Jan and I do, right? We all have that same, all those million dollar earners that you see, the 50 or 60 or whatever million dollar earners, folks, they all have the same kind of ability that I'm talking about. It's not just me. I'm just telling about my personal situation and how my year has been so far. So, look, you only go once in a life. You can have all that if you can afford it. So our commitment to getting wide, building a big base shop, promoting money-making RVPs, and training our people to be pros at the kitchen table is what made our life possible. Telling you exactly that's what you've gotta do. So now if you don't get wide, like you only have two or three directs, well then you're not serious. If you don't build a big base shop, if your focus isn't relentlessly on building, you're not serious about doing something great, right? If you don't promote money-making RVPs and know what they're doing, right, you're not serious. And if your people aren't pros at the kitchen table, you're not serious about building a great business. You just wanna figure out how to do something without doing the work. Well, that doesn't work long range. So a lot of you have tried to do it another way. A lot of people in my business, I've been telling everybody in my business for years, I've been telling everybody in Primerica this for years. You know how many people do it? Hardly anybody. But the ones that do, the ones that do build big base shops, like Omar Oppressi or Alex McImband or Neil Gerfine or the Rolls or Brandon Neal did it, Chris Howard did it, Rick Susie did it, the Youngers did it, I mean, you know, look at Sam Shepard, who's one of, he's a protege of Rick and mine, right? He's number one base shop in the country right now. Mario Arizon, who's not in my hierarchy, big base shop, he's same thing. He's following and listening to what we're talking about here. You think of the people who have done that, Keith Otto, I mean, the list goes on and on and on, right? You know, Richie Falcone, there's a lot of people around the country who have built big base shops. You know, Jimmy Meyer, you name the person who has a big business right now, they all have built big base shops. That's what they've done. That's what you do, that's how you do it. You think you're gonna get to a million bucks a year and not have a big base shop? You're crazy, it's not gonna happen for you. How do you do it? How do you build a big base shop? You get wide first, and then you train people. It's not very complicated. Now, the get wide part takes so much work because you gotta go through so many numbers, and most people don't do it, but you gotta be willing to do that, okay? Look, April, we had such a great time in St. Mark's. We went back for two more weeks in April, and then we went for a week in Palm Desert where I played in our Bighorn member guest, which is an amazing member guest tournament. Then May, we went back to Las Vegas, had more fun. Then June, we were in Newport Beach. I have a place in Newport Beach. I'm right now, I'm talking from Newport Beach. I'm looking at the ocean. I have an incredible view from my place in Newport Beach. Ocean view, right on the water. It's incredible, okay? Love Newport. Newport has the best weather in the whole world. It's phenomenal here, right? Love Newport Beach, right? And then in July, folks, I played in our member guest at Shady Canyon, which is a club that I belong to in Newport, and we won the low gross by nine shots. My partner, Sean Lim, and I won the low gross by nine shots. It was, we had a blast. The next day after that was over, we went on a 15-day African safari. Just got back Sunday with Mikado's. Go look up mikado.com for safaris, right? It's rated the number one safari company eight years in a row. It was on our bucket list, and it didn't disappoint. First class in every respect. We saw all the big five, right, except for leopards. The only animal we weren't able to see were leopards. For some reason, they're really hard to see. We didn't see one. But we saw tons of lions and elephants and rhinos, black and white ones, cheetahs, zebras. You know, you name the animal, we saw everything that you could think of there. It was incredible. Incredible trip, right? First class. We stayed in the best camps, right? Because everywhere in Kenya and Tanzania, the different places, the Masamar and Ambazeli, and different places we stayed. The crater, which is one of the seven wonders of the world, or eight wonders of the world. We stayed at this incredible place there. But every place we stayed, the camps were fantastic. They had amazing food. They had amazing chefs at every place we stayed. We traveled first class in these really nice airplanes, because you go from place to place. You're far apart, so you'd have to go on an airplane. And then we had a guide who took care of everything. To make sure our luggage got on, make sure our luggage got off, make sure our luggage got transferred, made sure whatever we needed while we were there, he took care of it. Made sure we needed anything. Took care of everything. He was with us the whole time. The whole trip, like our personal assistant. The whole trip was, it was awesome, right? Everywhere we went, and all we had to do was show up. It was amazing. The food was great. These accommodations were fantastic. Check out makado.com and look at this. You can't believe how awesome. Everybody should do an African safari before they die. Everybody should do it. It's not cheap, okay? I'm telling you right now, it's not cheap, okay? But it was worth every penny of it, and it's phenomenal. You will love it, I promise you, okay? August and September, we're taking our kids and our grandchildren to the big island, and we're renting this beautiful home at the Four Seasons Resort there, and it's got a private swimming pool. It's just, it's spectacular. We belong to this travel organization called Inspirato. Check out inspirato.com. Inspirato, I-N-S-P-I-R-A-T-O.com, and they have houses all over the world. One of these houses is called Sugar, I think it's called Sugarloaf, and on the big island in Hawaii, and you can even look at that. It's where we're staying. It's just spectacular, and we've stayed all over the place for this place. It's a fantastic company, and we travel so much, and you stay in these two, four, five million dollar places everywhere you go, and you have a concierge who takes care of everything, personal chef who comes in and cooks for you, anything you need, concert tickets, whatever. You call in advance. You tell them all the food you want in the fridge, and whatever, when you get there, you get there. Everything's there for you. You don't have to deal with it. They pick you up at the airport, or get your rental car. It's just, they do everything for you. It's awesome, all right? It's a way to travel. All over the world, they have places in Paris, and London, and New York, and every mountain area, Vail, Aspen, even in here, Newport Beach. They've got all over Hawaii. They've got places, and you name the place, everywhere, all over the place. Fantastic, fantastic company. South of France, they've got Provence, Tuscany, Florence, you name it, right? So, next year, we're gonna probably spend two months in Europe, all right, going to all these different places, which is incredible. And we're gonna spend two weeks with our kids in Hawaii, all right? It's gonna be awesome, because we love spending time. You know, we had dinner with our kids yesterday, because we hadn't seen them for, we'd been gone, and we love that, love doing that, and they love it, and they love being, they can't wait to go on vacation with us, so that's nice that your kids actually wanna be around you, you know, we love sharing those times, like I'm sure those of you who have kids feel the same way. So, folks, there it is, it's a glimpse of what's possible for you, for you, right? You know, some of you might look at this, or hear what I'm saying, think that's not fair, because you're struggling right now, but what you should be thinking is if he could do it, I can do it. Of course, there's a price you must pay, you gotta get wide, you gotta build a big bay shop, you gotta train your people to be pros at the kitchen table, you gotta master those seven fundamentals, like I've talked about relentlessly, so you can teach your motivated people to be as good as you are. Look, you may not be willing to sacrifice to do that, but that's on you, that's your fault. You don't succeed, if you don't win, it's your fault. You could try to blame me, you could try to blame your upline, you could try to blame the company, you could try to blame everything, right, that you wanna blame, but you can't. In the end, it's you, it's on you. I've got somebody who sends me these messages, and you know, like, you know, well, most people don't make it in primary, you know why most people don't make it in primary? For the same reason, most people are fat. They have no self-discipline, they have no work ethic, they don't wanna do the work, they want it to be handed to them, they don't wanna have to sacrifice, you know, they wanna watch their TV, they wanna go bowling, they wanna play softball, they wanna do all kinds of stuff, and they don't wanna sacrifice at all. Folks, you gotta sacrifice some of your time to get to master the, our profession. You're not gonna make big money in primary and not be good at it. You've gotta dedicate yourself to being great at your business, or you're never gonna make big money. Some of you are complaining you miss meetings. How could you miss a meeting? They tell you you should listen to these audios and you don't listen to them. They tell you you should read these books and you don't read them. They tell you you should master these seven fundamentals and you don't do the work to master the seven fundamentals. They tell you you should get wide, but you don't get wide, you don't prospect. They tell you you should build a big base, but you don't focus on building a big base. It's not like it's a secret what you need to do. It's not like there's no information on how to do it. If you're focused, I don't care if you're under the worst upline in the world, if you wanna win in Primerica, there's enough information online, out there, for you to figure out what you need to do to get good. There's enough sales training and recruiting training and product knowledge training to wear out the most focused individual on earth. There's no reason for you to fail in Primerica. There's no reason for you to struggle in Primerica if you're willing to do the work, if you have a semblance of work ethic, self-discipline, you can focus your energy, you can stop being distracted, right? The opportunity's real. It's real and it's available if you stop making excuses and you get busy doing the work. I hope you do because it's worth it a thousand times over, folks. I was trying to just try to give you a little glimpse of what our year's like so far. If that doesn't do it justice, you'd have to be there, man, to experience it and how great it is and how unbelievable it is that every day, folks, I live my life, every day I do exactly what I want to do today. I know there's a lot of talk, Hector doesn't come to the company meetings, he doesn't do this and he doesn't do that. Hey, that's too damn bad. I did, I came to Primerica to get debt-free and financially independent, save a ton of money and free my life up. That's what I came here for. I did that and I'm enjoying what I did. That's my life. If you want your life to be different, then you design your life the way you want it to be. Don't make excuses, don't use somebody else's situation to cop out why you're not where you want to be. Get off your rear end and go do it. Stop making excuses, stop complaining, right? And be happy that you have an opportunity, be grateful that you have an opportunity that can allow you to create an amazing life for yourself, right? Nothing stops you but yourself, folks. Is there sacrifice involved? Are you gonna have to work your tail, yes! You're gonna have to burn the can of both ends, absolutely! I'd be lying to you if I told you you didn't have to do things, but I also know that it's worth it 1,000 times over if I'd have known how good it was to be debt-free and financially, I'd have worked even harder and faster and been more focused, folks, and got it done even sooner. You can do that. Go do it. You've got a great, great, great opportunity at your disposal. Primerica's an amazing company. John and Glenn and all the whole crew there at Primerica, they're doing a great job, phenomenal job. They really care about your success. It's not phony, it's not made up. They want you to succeed. They're doing everything they can except do it for you right now to try to make things better. This compensation change, the whole point of it, of this compensation change, is to ensure that Primerica's here for the next 50 years, right? It's not just to mess with you, right? I know people don't like change, but so what? Change is part of life. There's no way that you can avoid it. Embrace it, take advantage of it, look at the good of it, and go get busy building a big vase shop, getting wide, building a big vase shop, and training your people to be pros at the kitchen table, and go make a ton of money, and make the life of your dreams. What I talked about, maybe that doesn't turn you on at all. I don't know, it turns me on. To me, that's awesome, okay? Maybe that's not for you. I love to golf, I belong to great clubs, right? I love golfing, right? I love a lot of stuff. You might like something different. It doesn't matter. What I like doesn't matter to you. The only thing is you creating your life, the life you want, the life you love, the life that's important to you. You know what that is. I don't know what it is for you, but man, you better be clear about what it is you want, and then you go to work and do it, and go make it happen.