Executive TLDR
Most people confuse fantasy with achievable financial freedom.
Life has three phases: learning, earning, and yearning.
Primerica transforms the earning phase into a building phase.
Condensing your timeframe accelerates wealth creation.
Work ethic and sweat equity are non-negotiable.
Follow the system instead of reinventing the wheel.
Money provides dignity, options, and security in difficult times.
Build your own success story—don’t live through someone else’s.
Video Summary
In Why Most People Never Reach “Living The Dream”, Patti Schechter delivers a powerful message about belief, urgency, work ethic, and leveraging the Primerica system to create lasting financial independence.
She begins with a simple but revealing moment: many people casually say they are “living the dream,” yet deep down they do not believe true financial freedom is possible for them. Patti explains that most Americans remain stuck in a cycle of learning, earning, and eventually yearning—wishing they had saved, invested, or built differently.
She reframes the traditional earning years as the “building phase.” Instead of working 40–50 years and hoping retirement works out, Primerica offers the opportunity to condense the timeframe. Patti and her late husband Dennis committed fully to the system for 18 intense years—developing skills, building distribution, recruiting leaders, and duplicating consistently. By following the system rather than reinventing it, they created long-term leveraged income.
A central theme of her message is sweat equity. Success does not happen automatically. You must hone your skills, improve your communication, master recruiting, and commit at a high level. She emphasizes urgency—playing small for 10 years at a low level wastes opportunity.
Patti also illustrates how money is not the ultimate goal, but a powerful tool. Financial independence allows you to support family, contribute to charitable causes, create dignity for loved ones, and eliminate financial stress during life’s hardest moments. Because of their preparation, she and Dennis were able to focus on love and legacy—not finances—during his illness.
Today, her organization includes thousands of representatives and leaders, proving the power of duplication and the long-term impact of the system. Her challenge to the audience is clear: do not live through someone else’s success story. Build your own. Reach the stage. Tell your own story. Live the dream for real.
FAQs
1. What does “Living the Dream” mean in Primerica?
It means achieving financial independence through building and duplicating a Primerica business.
2. Why do most people never reach financial freedom?
They treat dreams like fantasies and fail to take consistent, urgent action.
3. What are the three life phases Patti describes?
Learning, earning, and yearning.
4. What is the “building phase”?
Transforming your earning years into focused business building years.
5. Why is condensing your timeframe important?
It accelerates growth and creates financial independence faster.
6. What is sweat equity?
Developing skills, improving communication, and mastering recruiting through hard work.
7. Why follow the Primerica system?
The system has already produced leaders and long-term success through duplication.
8. How does duplication create leverage?
By developing leaders who build teams, income continues beyond personal production.
9. Why is work ethic critical?
Focused, consistent effort separates average results from exceptional outcomes.
10. How does financial independence impact families?
It provides dignity, options, and security during both good and challenging times.
11. Can anyone achieve success in Primerica?
Yes, if they commit fully, follow the system, and develop their skills.
12. Why shouldn’t you reinvent the wheel?
Proven systems shorten the learning curve and increase the probability of success.
13. What does it mean to create your own story?
To achieve measurable success instead of relying on others’ accomplishments.
14. How long does it take to build lasting income?
It depends on commitment and intensity, but condensing your timeframe is key.
Glossary
Living the Dream – Achieving financial independence and lifestyle flexibility through leveraged income.
Building Phase – Focused years dedicated to developing a business and leadership structure.
Sweat Equity – The effort invested in skill development, recruiting, and leadership growth.
Duplication – Replicating systems and behaviors through developing leaders.
Condensed Timeframe – Accelerating effort and focus to reach financial goals faster.
Base Shop – A leader’s immediate organization and training environment.
Distribution – A network of developed leaders and teams generating leveraged income.
Residual Income – Income generated from a duplicated and developed organization over time.
Transcript:
So I was at a deli that I go to. For the past 40 years, I’ve been going to the same deli. And I walked in about five years ago, this was. And it was the summertime. And as I walked in, there was this guy standing there who used to be my landscape guy. And, you know, landscape guys work hard, right? And it was the summer, so he was dirty and sweaty and grimy, right? So I walked up to him. I was like, oh, my gosh, Mike, how are you? I haven’t seen you in so long. And he kind of like deprecatingly, I think he was a little embarrassed by how he looked. He went like this. He went, living the dream. And all those girls who work at that deli, they follow me on Facebook.
And you heard Keith say, and those of you who follow me on Facebook know I put everything on Facebook, right? So they see how I live. And one of the girls from behind the counter yelled out, patty really is living the dream. And he looked at me and he said, wow, I’m really happy for you. That’s great. And then he said, I didn’t think that was actually possible. And that’s when it dawned on me, folks. Yes, we sell securities, and yes, we sell insurance, and yes, we recruit people. But what we really do is get people to understand that the dream is real and that the dream is real for them. Because people don’t dream anymore. Oh, go out right now. Ask a waiter or somebody outside. You can have anything in the world you want. What do you want? Any.
And everybody wants a big house, a fancy car, travel all over the world. But for the average American who makes $59,025 a year, I looked that number up this morning. That’s not a dream. That’s a fantasy. See, I believe people go through three phases in life, right? So you’re born and you have mom and dad and grandparents and teachers. And the first about 18 years of your life I want to call the learning phase. Then you go and you get a job, and now you’re making money. Now, I used to say, and that earning phase lasts probably about 40 years, but people aren’t quitting after 40 years anymore. People are working. 40, 45. 50 Walmart greeters, 95 years old, right?
And I just read in US News and World Report recently, they did a survey and 25% of all Americans said they don’t think they will ever be able to retire. So that earning period is till the day you drop dead. That’s how long that earning period is. And Then for those who do get to retire, they go into that last period where they retire and realize, oh, crap, I don’t have enough money to do what I wanted to do. I don’t have. I didn’t. Because somebody like us never went to them. They never heard about primary. They never heard. They didn’t learn about investing and saving money. So that last period, that last phase, unfortunately, I want to call the yearning period, where they’re yearning for what they could have had. They’re yearning for what they could have done.
If I had a dollar for every person that said to me, I wish I would have listened to you and Dennis. Yeah, you do. But see, in Primerica, we do a couple of different phases. Yes, we go through that first learning period. But then when you join Primerica, you’re in your earning period. But I want to relabel that, guys, I want to call that the building period. Because you’re building a business within a business. You’re building your own future. And now it’s up to you how long that phase is. And it’s not 45, 50 years till the day you drop dead. It could be 15 years to a million. We got people in the company who’ve done it. And now you get to the last phase. That’s the living, the dream phase. And that’s the phase you want to be the longest.
And that’s the phase I’ve been in for a long time. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that today. Keith asked me to tell my story today. I said, oh, good, I have an hour. He said, no, 20 minutes. So I’m going to do this super condensed version. When I tell you my story or just a couple of things I’m going to tell you today, I want you to remember a couple of things. Four things. Number one, guys, I know people say this all the time, but if I can do it, you can do it. You’re going to see I’m just a girl from Paterson, New Jersey, Right? If I could do it, you can. Can do it. One thing that makes me a little bit different maybe, is my work ethic. You gotta have a work ethic, right?
I will outwork any. When I’m focused and I want something, nobody’s gonna outwork me, right? Number two, you gotta put in your sweat equity. What do I mean by that? You gotta learn the business, you gotta hone your skills. You gotta get good at this thing. Right? I think people think they come into the op meeting, they sign the iba, they’re all excited and they think a trapdoor is gonna open and money’s gonna fall out. Doesn’t work that way. Right. You gotta get good at this thing. You gotta hone your skills. Number three, guys, you gotta condense your timeframe. Can I tell you what makes me insane? One of my biggest pet peeves in life? I go out in the hallway, I meet somebody. Hi, how are you? Oh, I’m great. So how long are you in the business? 10 years. Awesome.
What level you at? District. What are you doing? This is the most incredible opportunity in the world. What are you playing around about? Tomorrow is promised to no man. Nobody knows. What you gotta act like this thing, it’s like you gotta get this done. Cause you do, right? So we’re gonna go quick. I was born in Patterson, New Jersey. Here we go. Where’s my. Oh, that’s the wrong one. Go back to the first one. There we go. This is the house I was born and raised in. It’s still there. 20817 Street Patterson, New Jersey. Lest you think this mansion was all ours, this was two story house. We just had the bottom floor. Four little tiny rooms on a 50 by 100 square foot lot. My dad was born in Patterson, New Jersey. First generation Italian American.
You heard Keith say, salt of the earth. My favorite person ever, ever. And my mom was born in Pennsylvania. She was a coal miner’s daughter. Hungarian coal miner’s daughter. So the reason I tell you that is Patty Schechter was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. This is where I came from, right? I was an only child, an only grandchild, an only niece. So everybody’s eggs were in my basket. It was up to me to be the one to go to college, up to me to get the good job, up to me to make the family proud. So I went to college. And in my first semester of my second year, I dropped out and got a job at the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, New Jersey as a sales girl for minimum wage. Oh boy, wasn’t that exciting. My father was verklempt.
But as God will have it and things happen for a reason, he got called to jury duty, talked to the court reporter. Court reporter is the person who sits in front of the courtroom with that little machine. You all know what I’m talking about. And anyhow, came home, told me about it, I looked into it, liked it. Became a court reporter. And on June 1978, I opened the door in the Morris county courthouse and there was this good looking older guy. With a navy blue pinstripe power suit. My kind of guy. And that’s how I met Dennis Schechter, my late husband, Dennis Schechter. Now, when I met Dennis, he was already in the insurance business. He owned a general agency. And so he sold house insurance and car insurance and he sold life insurance.
But back in the late 70s, early 80s, folks, if you sold life insurance, you sold whole life insurance because no company was paying you to sell term. They didn’t want you to sell term. We all know this. Why? We know why, right? Term was a dirty little secret. They shoved it under the rug if somebody brought it up and insisted they’d sell it. But nobody was pitching term insurance back then, right? It was because of Art Williams, our founder, that anybody even talks about term insurance, right? Anyhow, so that’s what he was doing. But he knew whole life wasn’t great, but that’s how he was making money. Anyhow, long story short, heard through the grapevine about this new company called Al Williams. And you all know that for those of you who are brand new, that’s our predecessor company, right?
And heard about this new company, like killing it down in Georgia, selling just term insurance. And he said, I’m going to go check that out. So he goes down to Georgia, he meets Art, he comes back and he’s on fire. I have never seen him so excited. Roy, right? He’s just like, so, like he got a new spring in his step. So he goes, I’m joining this company. It’s an amazing company. And I’m like, great, honey, I support you because I was a supportive partner. I didn’t have a clue what I was supporting. He was excited. So, okay, I’m going to support you. I didn’t understand what he was doing, but sounded good, like he was happy. Anyhow, he joins the company a couple of months in. I get a phone call at my office.
He goes, hey, listen, I found out there’s this thing called a fast Start school. I go, what’s that? He goes, well, everybody comes together, all the agents, and we talk about different products and we do recognition. I said, oh, that’s great, good. He goes, and I also found out there’s this thing called the Partners organization. I said, oh, yeah, what’s that? He said, that’s where all the wife of the guy who’s running the fast Start school runs a meeting for the partners and you talk about the different products and what we’re about and how the spouses could help their age and spouse. I Go, yeah. And who’s running that? He goes, well, you are. I go, oh, okay. Yeah. So in my head, I’m like, rolling my eyes. Yeah, like, right, okay. Anyhow, he said, I have Angela Williams phone number.
Give her a call. She’s going to tell you what to do. A couple weeks go by. I mean, I put the number in my desk drawer. I never even gave it another thought. He calls me up at the office. He goes, hey, did you call Angela Williams? We’re going to have that meeting. I said, oh, no, I’ve been busy. He goes, well, do it, because we’re going to have the meeting. I want you to run it. I’m like, yeah, okay, Dennis. A couple days later, I walk in the house, and he’s standing there, and he goes, did you call Angela Williams about that meeting? I said, dennis, what don’t you get about this? I’m not doing that. You want me to talk about insurance? What the hell do I know about insurance? I’m 26 years old, girl. My father still pays my car insurance.
I hate insurance. You want me to talk about insurance? Wait. You know what I know about insurance? I know if you’re at a cocktail party, Jimmy, and somebody says to you, so, what do you do for a living? And you say, insurance. All of a sudden, you’re all by yourself in the middle of the room with your cocktail weenie. Right? Right. I’m not talking about insurance. I don’t want to learn about insurance. I freaking hate insurance. I’m not doing it. And one more thing. I ain’t doing it. And he looked at me with this look that he got used to get. You know what I’m talking about? And he said to me, it’s okay, honey. I’ll find someone else’s wife to help me build my business. So that’s the day I joined the company for real, folks. I’m making a joke out of it.
I’m gonna tell you, hand to God, I didn’t want to freaking do it. And I went kicking and screaming. I kind of. I don’t mean to say it this way, but I’m gonna be honest with you. I hated him. I didn’t want to do it. This was not my thing. You do it. I don’t, but it was like this, or a divorce, it seemed, because he was adamant about it. He made me go get my life insurance. What do you call it? License, Right? He may. He made me go get my. What’s that thing? A license. Oh, yeah, I got one of those. He made me Go get my securities license. Thank you, Dennis. I didn’t want to do it, but then something miraculous happened.
All of a sudden I had to go to these meetings and I was sitting there and all of a sudden I’m listening. And all of a sudden I realized what was the difference between whole life and term. And all of a sudden I realized what we did. And it wasn’t about selling a Chevy or a Ford or Palmolive soap or Dove or this vitamin or that vitamin. This was about changing people’s lives. This was about doing something so unbelievable and so powerful. And when I realized that I could do this, that I had the power to do this, then, folks, you couldn’t stop me. I became a crusader. And you listen to any speech Art Williams ever gives. And what does he say in every single speech Art Williams gives. You want to win big in this company, you have to become a crusader.
And then I started giving meetings and speaking at meetings. Does this work? Do the next one there. Oh, wrong way. Go back. Speaking at meetings. That’s back in like 1983. And the next one, speaking at conventions. When our next one, when the company convention had 7,000 people in New Orleans and I was a speaker, I remember that 7,000. Now we have 60,000. Next one and doing MIT and I just. And I caught fire. And you couldn’t stop me. And you still can’t stop me. I don’t know if you noticed, I can’t shut up. Right? So. And so anyhow, get that one off, please. Thank you. So anyhow, so that’s. And this is what happens, guys. You have two people now committed to each other because Dennis and I were committed to a common goal that becomes synergistic. 1 and 1 isn’t 2 anymore.
1 and 1 is 11 and then some. And our business took off. We joined in 81, we became SNSDs in 84, and were cash flowing over a million by 91. It was unbelievable. So being in this crazy fired up mode where I’m talking to every single human being I ever met in my life, right? So I go to my cousin, and now, you know, on TV they say we’ve changed the name of the person to protect the innocent. Well, I’m going to change her name to protect the ignorant. Okay? So I go to cousin Mary Jane, we’re going to call her, and I’m all excited and I sit down, I go, so watch this. Look at this new business I’m in. Oh, my God, this is unbelievable. Look at how much money we’re making. Look at how much money we’re saving.
Look at how much money we’re helping our clients. Look at how much money our recruits are making. And I’m going on and on so excited. And I’ll never forget she got like this glaze across her face, Jim. And she kind of pushed herself away from the table and she folded her arms and she said, money, money, Patty, all you talk about is money. Don’t you know there’s more important things in life? And I said, well, yes, cousin Mary Jane, I do. You know what’s more important to me, cousin Mary Jane? God. And you know what I love, cousin Mary Jane? I love when I go to church and the pastor says we’re going to take up a donation because the van that we use for Meals on Wheels broke.
I love going to him after the service and saying, you know that money, you collect it, use it for something else. I’ll buy the van. That’s more important to me, cousin Mary Jane. And you know what else is more important to me? My mother and father. And you know what I love, cousin Mary Jane? You could put that next slide, please, if you don’t mind doing it for me because I can’t do two things at once. The next slide with the house. Yeah, I love that. When my mother and father were older, we built a wing, that whole left wing on the side of our house for them. You heard Keith and Danielle talk about that. You heard Hector Lamarck talk about that. Do it for the people you love so that they had their own place, dignity and self respect.
They weren’t in with us, but they were right there. And when my mother had full blown Alzheimer’s, I didn’t have to put her in a home, I didn’t have to put her in an even really good home. She got to stay in her own home right there with her daughter watching with a full time nurse. That’s what’s more important to me, cousin Mary Jane. And you know what else is more important to me, cousin Mary Jane? My daughter and I love the time and I love to travel and I love the time that she and I, since she’s a little girl, you can start putting. We have tra. I have taken her all over the world with me. Mommy, daughter bonding time. Danielle and Dominique know what this is about. And we have traveled the world together.
That’s more important to me, cousin Mary Jane. And you know what else is more important to me, cousin Mary Jane? My charitable foundation, the Schechter family charitable foundation that Dennis And I started in the 80s, and that thing has grown. And now I get to save. Stray cats are my thing. And I get to save thousands and thousands of stray cats. But here’s a news flash for you, cousin Mary Jane. All of that takes money. I didn’t write that rule. That’s the way the world works. And you either figure that out, or you could be the ostrich and put your head in the sand. But the lion’s going to come and bite you in the butt. Anyway, folks, what’s money all about? What’s it about? It’s for good times and bad times, right? And here’s another news flash that nobody here has to.
Every life will have good times and bad times, and every life will have really bad times. And my really bad time came in 2001, when my husband, the love of my life, he was my Svengali. Dennis Schechter was larger than life. He got really sick. Now, we’re positive people. We like to see the glass half full. We’re also realists. And there came a day when it was pretty obvious Dennis wasn’t going to make it. Let me ask you what the conversation between a husband and wife in that situation would normally be. It would be, honey, we have to talk. Doesn’t look like I’m going to make it. You’re going to have to sell the house. You’re going to have to get a job or get another job. Forget about private school for the kids. Forget about Bobby’s baseball camp. Forget about Susie’s music lessons.
Forget about helping your parents when they retire. And sure, folks, it would be a money conversation. Dennis and I didn’t have to have a money conversation. We got to talk about how much we loved each other, how great our 24 years were together. We had a money conversation. You know what he said to me? Hand to God. I said, what do you want me to do with all this money? He said, spend it. Spend it on you and our daughter. It’s what I worked for. That’s the kind of conversation we had. And why were we able to have that kind of conversation? Did we reinvent the wheel? Did we find a cure for cancer? Can I sing like Whitney Houston? No. Why? Because we bought into a system and we followed the system. We didn’t reinvent the wheel.
We put our own little spin on it. But we put our nose to the grindstone. We condensed our time frames, and we put in 18 solid years. Now, if you remember anything I say today, this is it. We joined in 2001 Dennis died in. I’m sorry. We joined in 1981, before most of you were born. 1981. Dennis died in 2002. He was sick the last couple of years. So we, for all intents and purposes, did not have a base shop. Did not do anything for the last two years of his life. So let’s say we put in 18 solid years. And when I say 18 solid years, I’m talking 18 hour day, weekends, 24 hours a day. Balls to the wall. 18 years. Not 45, not 50, not till the day you dropped. 18 years, right? All right, you ready for this?
When he died, I never opened up a base shop again. I haven’t made a sale in 23 years. I recruit people, but, you know, I give the numbers to all my. I’m not going to go out and train people, right? So I haven’t made a sale or a recruit in 23 years. I presently have 16,046 reps, 591 RVPs, 70 SVP’s, 40 NSDs, 19 SNSDs, $17 million earners. I think now 18 from last night, three $2 million earners, one $3 million earner. P.S. I’ll be a $3 million earner shortly. I’ve got $15 billion of assets under management, and to this day, not having written a sale or a recruit in 23 years, I’m the 12th highest paid person in the company. Clap. Don’t clap for me. Clap for the system that allows that to happen. And here’s the best part of the whole thing, guys.
We all have the exact same contract. Let me close with this. So you all know I’m on Facebook, right? So I get a. This is about five years ago. I get a message on Facebook from somebody who was a very important person in my life when I was, like, from 18 to 23. Okay, we’ll just leave it there. And I had not seen him in, like, 40 years. And he finds me on Facebook, and I’m like, oh, my God, how are you? Blah, blah. So he goes, listen, I’m living in Texas now, but I have to go to New Jersey. Would you like to get together for a cup of coffee and reminisce? I’m like, well, hell, yeah. He goes, I found you on Facebook and I’ve looked at all your Facebook. He goes, looks like you’re doing pretty good.
I’m like, yeah, I’m doing pretty good. So. And keep in mind now, you know I post everything on Facebook, right? So anyhow, we decide to meet at a Diner in New Jersey. Because if you’re from New Jersey, you meet at the diner, right? So I pull up in my Mercedes S550. I get a new one every couple of years. That’s what I drive. I like that car. He pulls up in his car, And so we go in and we sit down. Now, what would you expect this to be? You expect it to be, oh, my God, how are you? How’s your mother? How’s your father? How’s your brother? What you been up to all these years, right? And it was a little bit like that, Chris. But then all of a sudden, he pivoted, right?
So I said to him, so what have you been doing all these years? He says, well, I was a used car salesman for a couple years, okay? He said, now he’s older than me, so at this point, he was already in his 70s. He goes, and then I retired, but listen to this bs. I got bored, so I became a limo driver, okay? Nothing wrong with selling used cars. Nothing wrong with being a limo driver. Don’t tell me you’re in your 70s and you’re bored, so you became a limo driver. Yeah, Keith’s bored, so he’s going to go get a job as a limo driver. I mean, come on. Plus, I know this guy, so. Okay, now, so I said, oh, interesting. And then he pivots and starts to tell me about this woman that he drives.
She’s an executive with Coca Cola and how she goes on the private corporate jet. And he goes, can you imagine? I pull up in the limo right to the steps of the corporate jet, and she goes right onto the jet. Can you imagine that? And I’m like, well, yeah, I can, because, like, I have a job. And he goes, and she’s always decked out and designed her clothes. And, oh, she has an apartment in London, and she has this amazing place down in Florida on the ocean. Can you imagine that? Yeah, I can imagine that because I have an amazing place on the ocean in Florida. And on and on about this woman who I don’t know, who I could give a crap about. And I’m like, what is he telling me this for? And then it dawned on me.
He figured he had to keep up with me and he couldn’t. So he had to tell me somebody else’s story. He had to sing me somebody else’s song. And at first I was annoyed, and then I felt bad for him, like, how pathetic. And then it reminded me of something else. So, you know, when we play the music because we’re going to give out awards and everybody comes flying down to the front. 90% of those people, guys will never be on the stage getting anything. And they hoot and they holler and they wear our T shirts and our hats, and they’re very wonderful because they’re excited. Except that’s not the point of Primerica. The point is for you to become successful. And these people will never be up there.
And when you ask them about Primerica, they got to tell you about Keith and Danielle’s lake house, and Keith and Danielle’s amazing penthouse in Manhattan, and Tony and Shelley’s mansion in Connecticut, and Tony and Shelley’s amazing condo on the beach in Florida. And Glennon Zio’s penthouse in Manhattan. And Chris A. Chong’s villa in the Dominican Republic. And his place down in Florida. They gotta tell you somebody else’s story. They gotta sing you somebody else’s song. I challenge you today. Don’t be that person. Go out and do something so amazing that you’re on the stage and telling your own story. And you know where I’m going to be? I’m going to be in the first row clapping the loudest.
