Executive TLDR
Put God first and trust the bigger plan.
Prepare for obstacles—they strengthen your faith.
Protect your dreams from negative voices.
Burn the bridges and commit fully.
Sacrifice and preparation unlock greatness.
Video Summary
In “Faith, Focus, And Family: Rene Sabadogo’s Path To Greatness,” Rene Sawadogo shares his powerful journey from Burkina Faso to leadership inside Primerica. He credits his success to faith, sacrifice, and unwavering focus, explaining that God’s plan often exceeds personal ambitions. After arriving in America with limited English and a master’s degree, Rene chose entrepreneurship over limited job opportunities and committed fully—burning the bridges to eliminate distractions. He teaches the importance of setting daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals, embracing temporary criticism, and developing an “eagle mindset” that stays locked on the target despite obstacles. Drawing inspiration from Art Williams, he reminds listeners that everyone has a defining moment of greatness—if they prepare themselves for it. His central message: faith, focus, sacrifice, and preparation position you for extraordinary results.
FAQs
What is Rene’s core success principle?
Putting God first and trusting a greater plan.
What does “burn the bridges” mean?
Eliminating backup plans to fully commit to your main goal.
Why is sacrifice important in leadership?
Growth requires leaving behind comfort and old habits.
What is the eagle mindset?
Maintaining unwavering focus on the target, not the obstacles.
How do goals turn dreams into reality?
By breaking big visions into daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly action steps.
Glossary
SNSD (Senior National Sales Director)
A high-level leadership rank within Primerica.
Burn the Bridges
Committing fully by removing fallback options.
Temporary Loss of Social Esteem
Accepting short-term criticism or doubt from others while building long-term success.
Eagle Mentality
Focused, disciplined pursuit of a clear target.
Defining Moment
The unique opportunity where preparation meets purpose.
Transcript: For those who don’t know me, my name is Anna. And for those who are curious, I’m Italian. So I really want to take this opportunity because I’m very thankful from the bottom of my heart to Chris for putting all this together and for all of us being here. Um, he did a great job. But most of all because he made of this team a workplace, a family.
That’s unbelievable to me. With no further ado, I’m gonna introduce my lovely husband, Rene Sabadogo.
How you guys doing?
Man oh man, um, I’m so grateful. There’s no word that can express what the Lord has done in my life so far, and the best is yet to come. And I’m gonna start with this. I know the plan that I have for you. Declares the Lord, right, plan to prosper you, not to harm you, a plan to give you a hope and a future. If you are sitting here and you’re still asking yourself, is this the right place for me?
Let me tell you, this is the right place. You’re not here by mistake. Everything happening by design, right? And um, I’m from Burkina Faso, right? The land of integrity people.
Um, like, me coming in America was a miracle, right, and to be part of this company is a miracle. Everything that’s happening is just by the grace of God. And uh, as I said earlier, I came with a game plan to become a CPA and go back and create my own company. But the plan that you have, you think that your plan is better?
God has a plan way, way better than that. Right. And, um, so I was in a, I grew up in a family where, but not in a country where there’s no opportunities. I graduated from, uh, I got my master’s degree in economics and management, and I look at like job opportunity. Everybody want to work with the city. And sometimes they, they looking for like two, three people for a position.
And there’s over like 10,000 people competing for this, for these two positions. And I was like, no, that cannot be life. Right? There’s something way better out there than that. And that’s how the desire for me to go out of the country came. And uh, just to fast forward, I was here and I was introduced to Primerica in 2014, after two years being in America.
speaking really barely English, right? So if you, you, you don’t believe in yourself that you can make this happen, it can happen for you, right? It can happen for you because it’s, this guy that’s talking to you can become a vice president in America. So you can also do it. Don’t doubt yourself. And you have to always put God first.
Number one, put God first. In everything that you do, put him first and ask him, beg him, beg him. To make your path straight, right? That’s number one. Don’t do anything without putting him, uh, first, right? Because he’s he knows better. He knows the future. He knows everything and uh, he’s the He’s the masterpiece, right?
And um Number two prepare yourself for the worst so you can enjoy the journey. Don’t focus on the problems Problems are not there to break you They are there to test your faith and to to see if you deserve this opportunity Because this, this, like the obstacles are there to make you stronger. And God, he doesn’t give his, uh, his toughest battle to, to the, uh, to the strongest.
He makes you strong for the, he prepares you. And just, just position yourself, prepare yourself because God has, uh, a lot in store for you. Right? And be careful to whom you tell your dreams. I remember, I was instantly aware of not coming in America because I was somebody that I really. Uh, respect, and, uh, he was telling me, Nah, don’t go, you’re gonna waste your time.
You have a master’s degree, you can make it here. I have a lot of friends in America, and they, they, they’re not successful. And I didn’t listen to that. So if I, I was to listen to what he was saying, I was just gonna give up. And just say, okay, with my master’s degree, I can make it here, right? But just be careful who you talk, you, you tell your dreams to.
And number, uh, number four, right? Be ready to accept temporary loss of social esteem from ignorant people. So, and this one is a big, a lot of people they left the business because of people looking down at them, because of people laughing at them, so let them laugh, right? They’re not gonna laugh forever.
So your time is coming, then you’re gonna win and show them, prove them wrong, right? And, uh, and dream big. But understand that dreams without goals are just what? Dreams. It’s just wishes. You have to set some goals. Daily goals. Weekly goals, right? Monthly goals. Yearly goals. You have to have those goals ready.
And that’s how you’re gonna get to your, your, your, your dreams, right? Don’t be afraid to take risk, right? Make that leap of faith, right? No risk, what? No gain. If you don’t risk, you’re not going to gain anything. I remember Gap coming full time in this company as a district leader, right? It was scary, right?
Because like, as a district leader, you’re still trying to find out how you’re going to close business and stuff like that. But we didn’t look at that. We decided that we’re going to burn the bridges. Because if you have an option B, it will distract you from the, what, the real deal, the option A, right?
Don’t have those options. Burn the bridges, right? Um, develop an eagle type attitude, meaning like how the eagles behave. They focus on the what? On the target. And they don’t move their eyes from the target. You gotta focus on the, the, the destination. Don’t focus on what, the obstacle, right? And um, I’ll go really quick, I have one minute left, right?
And I’m on eight. The problem, I got this from T. D. Jake, he said like the problem is not where we are trying to go. The problem is what you are willing to leave behind to get to where you’re trying to go. So are you willing to sacrifice? to get to where you’re trying to go. Are you willing to leave the old men behind?
Are you willing to quit that job? Put a game plan together to quit that job, right? So the problem is not the destination. Becoming SNSD is possible. We have tons of people that’s doing it. It’s possible. Just believe, believe in yourself and understand that people, God placed some people in your life for a reason, right?
I’m so grateful to Tony that introduced me to this opportunity. I’m so grateful to Chris. I know how Chris impacted my life, right? So work on yourself every single day because God is positioning you. For the blessings to come and if you’re not ready like the people that’s gonna push you to vice president The people that’s gonna take you to snst they exist.
They are born they exist You have to prepare yourself work on yourself so that when they come you are ready to take them to the process There’s people that’s supposed to be in your business But because you are not ready god not gonna send them to you because you’re gonna mess up their opportunity their life prepare yourself prepare yourself for because the God has something amazing for you and I leave you with this And it’s come from Art William.
There’s come a special moment of everyone’s life. A moment for which that person was born. That special opportunity when he sees it, uh, will fulfill his mission. A mission for which he’s uniquely qualified. And that moment, he finds greatness in himself. It is his finest moment, right? So go out of this up, this, this event and make a decision that you’re going to change your life.
Don’t, don’t let your family down. Right. And, uh, our biggest wife is right here, right? And I was asking her, we went to her parents and I see how like they have this big, big beach house and all this time. And I was asking her, why did you leave all of that to be with me? Right. And we’re going to make sure we can deliver.
We can deliver for our family because the great is yet to come. That’s what I have for you. God bless you.
