Executive TLDR
Most join for money, but long-term success requires a deeper why.
Success comes from persistence through low-income months and discomfort.
Stop blaming others—ownership creates growth.
Building big creates freedom, options, and generational impact.
Quitting affects more than you—it impacts everyone connected to you.
Video Summary
Why Money Is Not Enough
In Beyond Money: Finding Your Why In The Primerica Business, Brittany Onstead explains that almost everyone signs their IBA for extra income.
Pay bills.
Cover car payments.
Relieve financial stress.
But she warns:
If money is your only reason, you may quit during slow months.
Your purpose must evolve beyond income.
The Coconut Story and Business Reality
Brittany shares a story from a family trip to Hawaii.
Her kids tried to open coconuts without the right tools.
One by one, they quit.
Only one kept going until both coconuts were opened.
The lesson:
Not everyone will support you at first.
Many will quit when it gets uncomfortable.
The ones who persist get the reward.
And interestingly—everyone returns once success shows up.
Success attracts attention.
Persistence creates it.
Instant Gratification vs Long Term Vision
She emphasizes that this business is not instant gratification.
Even “fastest to a million” required:
Months with zero income
Credit cards for groceries
Financial sacrifice
Emotional resilience
Effort starts high.
Results start low.
Over time, the equation flips.
She references the principle of decreasing effort:
As your organization grows, your personal effort can decrease while results increase.
Stop Playing the Blame Game
Brittany makes a bold point:
“You are the problem—but you’re also the solution.”
Instead of blaming:
Upline
Sideline
Family
The company
A difficult recruit
She challenges leaders to ask:
What could I have done better?
Ownership creates growth.
Blame creates stagnation.
Run Your Numbers, Not Your Mouth
Referencing the philosophy of Art Williams, she stresses execution over talk.
Goals mean nothing without activity.
Want to recruit? Recruit.
Want to promote? Promote.
Want to grow? Move.
Success follows numbers, not noise.
Building Big Creates Options
Brittany shares how building the business allowed her family to:
Spend a month in Hawaii
Fly 16 family members out
Cover housing and experiences
Help a sister going through divorce
Provide unforgettable memories
Money doesn’t fix everything.
But it gives options.
And options create freedom.
Impact Beyond Luxury
The biggest impact wasn’t vacations or cars.
Her team committed to building an orphanage in India after breaking company records.
25 children housed at a time
Education and meals provided
Ongoing, generational impact
This exists because someone chose not to quit.
Job vs Business Mindset
She contrasts entrepreneurship with her previous job experience:
Having to choose between:
Sick child
Work attendance
That was hard.
Building a business?
That is opportunity.
True difficulty is lacking control over your time and choices.
The Ripple Effect of Quitting
Every person in the room is there because someone else didn’t quit.
If that person had walked away:
Families wouldn’t be impacted
Trips wouldn’t happen
Orphanages wouldn’t be built
Financial freedom wouldn’t exist
Her final challenge:
Before you quit, think about who loses if you do.
FAQs
1. Who is Brittany Onstead?
Brittany Onstead is a Primerica leader known for emphasizing purpose, persistence, and impact.
2. What is her main message?
Money alone won’t sustain you—your deeper why will.
3. Why do most people join Primerica?
Primarily for extra income to relieve financial stress.
4. What happens if money is your only motivation?
You may quit during low-income months.
5. What is the coconut story about?
It illustrates persistence when others drop off during discomfort.
6. What is the theory of decreasing effort?
Early effort is high with low results; long-term effort decreases as results grow.
7. Why does she emphasize ownership?
Because personal responsibility drives growth and improvement.
8. What does “run your numbers, not your mouth” mean?
Execution and activity matter more than talking about goals.
9. How does building big create freedom?
It provides financial flexibility and time control.
10. What impact did her team make internationally?
They committed to building an orphanage serving children in India.
11. Does money solve all problems?
No—but it creates options and relief in difficult situations.
12. What was difficult about her previous job?
Choosing between work obligations and caring for her children.
13. Why is quitting bigger than a personal decision?
Because it affects teammates, family, and future impact.
14. How should leaders handle rejection?
Persist, improve, and avoid blame.
15. What role does partnership play?
Strong partnership is described as the only shortcut in business growth.
16. What is the long-term vision she promotes?
Building generational wealth, impact, and legacy beyond personal income.
Glossary
IBA
Independent Business Application required to start a Primerica business.
Theory of Decreasing Effort
The principle that sustained growth reduces personal workload over time while increasing results.
Instant Gratification
The desire for immediate rewards rather than long-term gains.
Ownership Mindset
Taking responsibility for results rather than blaming external factors.
Abundance Mindset
Belief that opportunities and growth are unlimited through effort and service.
Generational Impact
Creating financial and social benefits that extend beyond one lifetime.
Time Freedom
Control over how and when you spend your time.
Legacy Building
Creating lasting financial and personal influence for future generations.
Transcript:
All right, I’m excited. So I requested my own slot today because Andy doesn’t like to share his time. So every time we share, I don’t get much time, right? So I said I get my own minutes today. So today, though, I’m going to be talking about building it big, right? There’s a lot of benefits of building this company big, but also the impact we can make, right? So it’s funny, you guys, everybody comes here for a reason, right? Raise your hand if you came here for extra money to pay some bills. You know, pay your car payment, get your kids whatever they want. I’d say 99% of the people sign their IBA because they want some money. Yes, us, too, right? So we came on. We just wanted to pay some bills. I hated my job. We needed some money. We signed our IBA.
But as you’re here, your purpose changes, and you also have to figure out your why. Because there’s some months you may not make money, right? And if that’s why you’re here and you freak out about it, you’re going to quit. So it’s very important. You know, it said partnership on the thing. Partnership, plug. It’s the only shortcut. It’s very important. But I’m going to talk about the business today. If you have your partner here, let’s have the partner stand up and let’s give them a round of applause while we’re doing this. All right, my people. That’s good. So you have to figure out what’s going to keep you going in this business, you guys. And as you’re in Primerica, it’s funny how many people have kids. Most of us, right? As you’re going through this, we relate, like, everything to the business.
Like, everything the kids do. We’re like. It’s just like the business. See? And went to Hawaii for a month, and we flew 16 people out there with us. My family and the kids went out there. My nieces and nephews were there. They went for a walk and they got a coconut. They got two of them. They found two coconuts. They brought them back. And it’s funny, because if you look at the pictures, they were all together. There were seven of them all together. They found the coconuts. They were super excited about it. Got home okay. Well, we found we’re going to try to open them, right? And has anybody ever tried to open a coconut without the correct tools? It’s very difficult. But I didn’t say anything. I said, yeah, go for it. See what you can do.
And so as they started off, they were all doing it together. They were excited. Every time I looked up, there was one kid missing, one more had dropped off. They were dropping him off balconies, trying to cut them open, trying to do all this stuff. And then at the end there, you can see our oldest. He’s 14. And then our youngest two were the last two standing people. And I looked over, they got screwdrivers, they got knives. They have, like, these metal pipes they were banging them with. And it’s funny because at the end, the oldest one was the last one standing. All right? Not everybody’s gonna support you guys when you start this, and that’s okay. They don’t need to, right? Like Bill was talking about, you go make some money. They might come around to it.
So it’s funny because they all left him with the coconuts and he got both of them open. It took a couple hours, right? But they all disappeared. But guess who all popped up when he got them open and he was drinking the stuff out of it? All of them, right? So they’re going to show up on the other side where there’s success, and that’s okay, right? Just show them what’s possible. You got to love people where they’re at. You can’t let other people dictate where you’re going in your life, right? So it’s funny. They did that, and I gave them, like a 20 minutes speech on primerica. And that’s like recruiting and all the things. But he got them open, right? So people run from discomfort, right? They underestimate the amount of time it takes. Everybody likes instant gratification. This is not that. Okay?
Fastest to a million, like, that’s insane. What we’ve done. It’s great, but it was not instant gratification. Right? We had a lot, a lot of months where we made nothing. And that’s what it’s supposed to be like. Okay? And we show people this all the time. You got to trust the process. Right? Usually it says responsibility on there. We have theory of decreasing efforts when you start, you guys, your efforts are going to be way up here and your results are going to be way down here. Okay? That’s where you’re supposed to be. You can get upset about it, right? But everybody that has some sort of success here, that’s how they started your efforts. You’re recruiting, you’re sitting on all these appointments, right? Maybe your spouse is like, what are you doing? You’re spending all this time, you’re not making any money.
That’s the process. That’s where you’re supposed to be, right where you are now we once were. So as you keep going like Jimmy and everybody was talking about, your results are through the roof. But your efforts, you may not have to go on as many appointments. Right. When you have 300 rvps, you don’t have to sit there all day and recruit Joe schmo in his mom’s basement, hoping that he’s going to do something and trying to make people come to meetings. You’re going to make money because you built a business, right? You don’t just have clients, you have a business. So you have to make the decision. Right. Everything starts with a decision to build this thing and commit. If you realize that you’re the problem, then you can change, you can learn something, and you can grow.
So many people blame other people for why they’re not making it, right. They talked about it. My mom, my dad, my upline, my sideline, my this, my that primerical won’t do this for me, all this stuff, right. We have to realize that it starts with us. Right. You’re the problem, but you’re also the solution. So once you stop blaming others and figure out what we can do better, I feel like that’s one of the things we’ve done really well, is even when maybe it wasn’t your fault or a recruit goes crazy on you, right. There’s some people out there that can do some pretty hurtful things. We always looked at ourselves and thought, okay, they might be nuts, but maybe what could we have done differently to fix that, right?
So the biggest thing, you guys, is not playing the blame game because we all have the same opportunity here, right? We all sign the same IBA. And Andy, let me put this in here. It’s kind of savage, but you have to run your numbers more than you run your mouth. A lot of people talk about things. I put Art williams up there because that’s one of my favorite things. Right? I’m going to go RvP. I’m going to do 100 by 100. I’m going to go get my license. I’m going to go recruit people. I’m going to go do this. Like, great, just do it. Just do it. It’s constantly what we’re thinking about in our head. Fantastic. Go do it. Who’s going to miss out if you don’t give this your all? And I put all these slides on here.
So we just went to Hawaii for a month, right? We went for the primerica trip, but we spent 30 grand on a house for the month. And then we flew 16 people out there, and it escalated quickly, as it always does with us, because were going out there, were getting a house, and we always wanted to take my parents. And we’re like, we’re going to take. After we cross a million, we’ll go to Hawaii. We’ll do our trip that we’ve had on our vision board. We’ll take your parents because they’ve never been. Then Primerica announced the Hawaii trip, and we’re like, crap, we got to do it now, right? So we moved a little faster then. My sister has three kids. She’s been with the same guy since she was 16. Just got through a nasty divorce. Can I fix her divorce?
No, I can’t do anything about that. But I guarantee you, when I flew them out there and they stayed for two weeks, and went swimming with turtles, went on ATV’s. We gave each kid an envelope full of cash so they could do whatever they want. I gave my sister a bunch of money. I’m pretty sure they at least forgot about it or felt better for a couple weeks, right? You can’t fix everything with money, but it gives you options. And then my brothers, I have two brothers as well. They found out about the trip. I was like, all right, you’re not really going through anything, but you can come, right? So we flew my brothers and their wives out there, too. But you guys, like, it was the trip of a lifetime, right?
And they got to do it because we stuck it out, right? We didn’t have to say, no, we can’t fly you out there. Well, you’re going to have to pay your own stuff. We can’t afford that. We were here, we recruited a bunch of people. We stuck it out. We had months where were broke. We had months where we put groceries on credit cards because were doing other things. We paid for people’s electric bills. And then they quit on us still, right? So doesn’t matter if you take them to lunch, doesn’t matter if you pay their mortgage. Doesn’t matter what you do with them. If they’re going to quit. You can’t make people do anything, right? So who’s gonna miss out? Your family, future teammates? This is just from the last trip, and it’s missing a bunch of people.
Like, we had a bunch of couples with us in Hawaii. A lot of them. Some of them brought their kids, some of them brought their dads, right? But who’s gonna miss out if you quit because someone said no to you or uncle Timmy said, this thing is stupid, right? You have to think about how much further this goes than yourself. Kids across the world, were running for the million, and we have a huge incentive for our team, okay? We actually are building an orphanage now because we broke all the records and we said, if we break all the records, we’ll go build an orphanage over india. Amazing, right? We’re taking 25 kids off the street, and as they age out, new kids come in. So this orphanage is going to go forever. They get meals, they get schooling.
Because when you’re homeless over there, you can’t go to school. Most of them don’t have parents. Why are they going to have a house? Because we stuck it out, right? It’s not that bad. When you look at the big picture and you look back, we had bad months, right? We had tough times. Everybody’s business is up and down. But, like, is it worth it? Yes, it’s worth it. And the impact you have here is unmatched. Look at you guys. You got Jessica Pawpaw up there. How good was Jessica, you guys? She was amazing, right? I’ll give it up. So Jessica had her mom, her kids, her husband, all in Hawaii with her. That’s her daughter, VIP, hanging out with Dylan Scott. This is just the impact. And I know some of these are things, right?
But there’s so much stuff that’s not even on here. You got no one. Melissa bought a Lexus. They redid their closets, right? You got the Gandhis buying their kids new bikes, brand new in the business. You got all sorts of new cars up there. Megan Harder. Got an Audi, right? Jamie got a truck. You got people buying $30,000 rings as a family heirloom because they can, right? It’s not about what you feel like or is this difficult? You know what’s difficult is when I had a job and I had to pick between my kids and my job, that was difficult. I remember even being in the mindset of, like, what am I doing? They would be sick and I’d have to choose, like, oh, gosh, do I leave? Do I go get them? Like, I’m gonna get in trouble if I leave.
I don’t have any sick days left. Like, I was picking some crazy thing that had nothing to do with me over my own child. Like, that’s nuts. That’s difficult. This is not difficult. Right? You got to get your mindset right and have your vision big. And the biggest thing you guys, you got to think about is you got to think twice before you give up on yourself and quit, because it’s not just about you. Like, look at all the people here. Everybody in this room is here because of one person, right? And if that person would have quit, none of you would have been here. And your lives, your kids lives, your family’s lives, it would be all different, right? So you got to think twice before you quit because the impact goes further than you. Thank you.
