Executive TLDR
Recruit multiple people at once to avoid emotional dependency on one teammate.
Emotional intelligence in the field determines long-term leadership success.
Leaders must adapt their approach to three core personality types.
Flexibility plus vision creates retention, production, and legacy growth.
Video Summary
Legacy Requires Emotional Intelligence
In Building A Legacy, Jessica Gordon explains that success in Primerica is less about talent and more about managing people effectively.
Dealing with personalities can be frustrating—but emotional intelligence separates strong leaders from reactive ones. The key? Recruit and train multiple people simultaneously to protect your mindset and momentum.
Recruit More Or Become Emotionally Stuck
Jessica emphasizes a critical rule:
If you only have one person on your team, you become emotionally dependent on that one person.
When that teammate:
Misses training
Feels discouraged
Gets frustrated
Stops producing
Your emotions fluctuate with theirs.
The solution is training five to six people at the same time, even part-time. This builds resilience and stabilizes your organization.
Rigidly Flexible Leadership
Borrowing from leadership teachings, she explains the concept of being “rigidly flexible.” Maintain your standards and vision—but adjust your approach based on the person.
Life happens:
Vacations
Illness
Family emergencies
Scheduling conflicts
Leaders must keep multiple “plates spinning” instead of relying on one.
Three Personality Types In Your Business
Jessica outlines three core personality types every leader encounters:
1. The Coachable Cultural Person
Follows instructions
Makes calls
Attends training
Takes notes
This is the dream recruit—but they may not be your first recruit. When you find them, protect and develop them carefully.
2. The Busy But Willing Person
Limited time
Limited resources
High potential
They need a fast start plan and quick wins. If you get them into the field fast and help them earn early income, they stay. Results create belief.
Your skill determines whether they survive.
3. The Questioning Or Difficult Personality
Challenges your direction
Thinks they know better
Not immediately coachable
Do not shun them.
They may become major leaders once they experience success. The strategy? Send them to class, focus on licensing, and let production teach them humility.
Clear vision removes friction.
Sell Vision, Not Just Tasks
Jessica highlights the importance of vision:
Build their client base
Help them earn while licensing
Show them long-term leverage
When people see where they’re going, they stay longer.
A plan must benefit the newest person more than it benefits you.
Team Size Is The Prize
You must go through the numbers without treating people like numbers.
Not everyone stays—but if you recruit consistently and manage personalities wisely, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
The goal is scale. Growth stabilizes leadership.
Legacy Leadership
Legacy isn’t built by avoiding frustration. It’s built by:
Training multiple recruits
Developing emotional resilience
Adapting communication
Maintaining clear vision
Staying patient through the numbers
When you master people, you master production.
FAQs
1. What is the main message of Jessica Gordon’s talk?
Effective leadership requires emotional intelligence and managing different personalities strategically.
2. Who is Jessica Gordon?
Jessica Gordon is a Regional Vice President known for leadership development within Primerica.
3. Why recruit multiple people at once?
To avoid emotional dependency and maintain momentum.
4. How many recruits should you train at once?
Ideally five to six, even part-time.
5. What does “rigidly flexible” mean?
Maintain standards while adapting to individual personalities.
6. What is the first personality type?
The highly coachable cultural recruit.
7. What is the second personality type?
The busy but willing recruit who needs quick results.
8. What is the third personality type?
The questioning or difficult personality who may become a strong leader later.
9. How should leaders handle difficult personalities?
Focus them on licensing and production instead of arguing.
10. Why is vision important?
Without vision, recruits lose motivation and direction.
11. What keeps new recruits from quitting?
Early results and field experience.
12. What does “team size is the prize” mean?
Growth stabilizes leadership and increases production leverage.
13. Should leaders treat people like numbers?
No—but they must accept that growth requires volume.
14. What skill determines retention?
The leader’s ability to produce results in the field.
15. Why is emotional resilience critical?
Because dealing with people requires patience and adaptability.
16. How do you build a legacy in business?
By developing people consistently and managing personalities wisely.
Glossary
Emotional Intelligence
The ability to manage your emotions and respond effectively to others’ personalities and behaviors.
Rigidly Flexible
Holding firm standards while adapting leadership style to different individuals.
Fast Start
A structured plan to get new recruits licensed, trained, and earning quickly.
Field Training
Hands-on training with new agents during live appointments.
Cultural Recruit
A highly coachable teammate who follows systems and duplicates easily.
Team Size Is The Prize
The principle that sustained recruiting volume creates stability and leverage in business.
Transcript: Everybody doing good? All right. We’re back from lunch. Super excited. Everybody ate good food. Man, I was just praying not to trip up the steps. Okay, so first off, I want to say, uh, thank you God for waking us up this morning. Who’s, who’s happy that God woke you up this morning, right? Give him the honor and praise.
Thank you for team made. I love you guys. I’m really, really proud of you guys. And, um, also thank you to my amazing uplines, um, Eddie and Sandra Gonzalez. Without them, I would not be a regional vice president today. So I’m gonna actually, I supposed to have the clicker, right? Okay, so I’m going to actually, uh, share with you guys, um, emotional intelligence going into the field, right?
So while building this business, who would agree that sometimes it could be frustrating dealing with people? Yeah. Look to the person to the left and be like, yes, and look to the person to the right and say, absolutely. Right? Yeah. So the reason why I say that is because I came into this business in 2013 and, um, I had to take my degree off of my resume to get a job, right?
And I ended up with about four jobs, those working six days a week, constantly burnt out. So when I came into Primerica, um, I went to my first leadership school and David Kim was speaking at that school and I joined Primerica at that school, you guys. So you never know. When you’re going to have a superstar in your business, shout out to David Kim.
Um, but I say this because when I came into the business and I got my license, I quit all of my jobs within a year. Don’t do that. Um, I had to get my skills up and I had to get my skills up very, very quickly. So one of the things that you want to make sure that you do write this down. Is you have to recruit a lot of people because if not, if you just have one person in your business, you’re a slave to that person.
Yeah. So that means if that person’s not, not, not happy with you, you’re going to find yourself dragging yourself in the mud. If that person’s not showing up to training, you’re going to find yourself being sad or upset or frustrated. So one of the things that I got really, really hip to very quickly, hopefully I could, Oh wait, no, this way.
All right, cool. Um, is you got to learn how to be flexible, right? So Bill Whittle said that you have to be rigidly flexible. I’m like, man, another one of those contradictions, but um, I’m like, okay, I’m a Gemini. So I’m a walking, talking contradiction anyway. So we’ll get, we can make this work. So here’s what you’re going to have.
You’re going to develop a lot of resilience when you have a lot of recruits that you’re training, but in order for you to have the emotional intelligence in the field. I will tell you that you need to have five to six people, even if you’re doing this part-time, five to six people that you are training at the same time.
Right. Randy just talked about the piston theory. Right, and that’s exactly what this sounds like. You’re gonna have to know that there’s some people that are gonna be sick, so they can’t go to a training appointment or they can’t go to the class or somebody’s gonna go on vacation or someone. It’s gonna have a death in a family.
Something is going to happen, but you need to be spinning all your plates at the same time. Who would agree with that? Okay, great. So same direction. So I kind of learned how to pay attention in the field. And what I mean by paying attention was I learned that you’re gonna learn two ways. One, through either a mentor or through or or two through mistakes.
Now I learned through both, but prior to primerica, I was only learning through mistakes. So if you’re going to learn through a mentor, you’re going to have to track what’s going on. So the first thing is you’re going to come across different types of people, right in your business. So number one, the first type of person is the cultural person, right?
Everybody loves the cultural person. The person that does everything that you tell them to do. The person that says, get, uh, you ask for a list, they give you a list. You ask them to make calls, they make the calls. You ask them to go on appointments and make sure they take notes, they take the notes. Who loves that person?
Who, who, who, who would, would, would kill, not, not really kill, but who would be super happy to have those type of people in your business? Everybody, right? But guess what? That might not be the very first person. It might be the 10th person, right? You might come across someone who is going to have a different type of personality, but what you sell to them matters.
So I’m really, really big on. Bible, scripture, right? And it says when there’s vision, people flourish. And when there’s a lack of vision, people perish, right? So you have to let them know, listen, I’m going to build you a team, right? You’re going to have a client base that’s going to be built. I’m going to make sure that when you pass class, you have money as you’re graduating out of that class.
Who’s excited about that? See, I learned that Zig Ziglar said, you have to have a plan that benefits the newest person. It has to benefit them more than it benefits you. See, I have someone in the room who is the prime example of that. Thomas Porter, if you can just stand up really quickly, right? He came through the licensing process, went on 17 appointments, you guys, and then built a team of people.
He has 10 people on his team just passed his test on Monday. So the reason why I say that’s so important is because when you have that first type of person, you’re going to have to make sure you handle them with care, right? But then you’re going to have a dip, a different person, right? Person two. And person two is a person like me, okay?
I came in and I didn’t have time. I came in and I didn’t have a lot of money. I didn’t have a lot of resources, right? But guess what? You might recruit someone who has young babies or someone who needs a little bit of time in order to go to class. That person, right, might have a busy schedule, but you still have to have a plan to get them off to a fast start.
Because then when they have teammates, they won’t quit, right? They will not quit. You got to get them into the field fast. You got to sell them on the vision, right? So when you do that and you get them through the field, they’re going to give you their list, but they’re waiting for you to show them results, right?
You have to know that your skills is what’s going to help them pay their bills and remain in the business, right? So, so you, like I said, have a plan that benefits that person. But then you’re going to have that last person. Anybody know the person that’s not coachable? They question everything that you do.
You tell them to do. Right? They, they, they know a better way for you to do Primerica. You’ve been here ten years, but, but, but they don’t care that you’ve been here ten years. They have a better plan. And guess what? Do not shun those people. Because that could be a Gabrit Singh. That could be any of those leaders who come into the business that probably just need to experience some level of success.
So what do I do with them? Mario Arizon told me, send them to class, right? Send them to class, check on them after class, make sure that you have a plan that still benefits them, right? Um, where you tell them, listen, you go and get this license. I’m going to show you how to build this business, but if you don’t get a license, I don’t know.
I can’t do much for you, right? But that person will have a clear vision of what’s going to happen. They will not have a team if they don’t listen to you, right? They will not have clients. They won’t even have a bonus, but they will have a license at the end of the game. So when you come across those three different types of people, please don’t get frustrated.
Just know who they are, right? And make sure you put them in the appropriate category and you continue talking to them, right? Why? Because team size is the prize. We’re helping Primerica get to 150, 000 licenses. Who’s in the game for that, right? Raise your hand. If you’re going to have a part, a portion of those 150, 000 licenses.
Nobody in here? Just two of us? Okay. So, I’m gonna end off with this. Go through the numbers. Don’t treat people like a number, but go through the numbers and accept them because when you do, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But keep yourself sane by training multiple people at the same time. Thank you very much.
