Executive TLDR
Life is unpredictable—don’t waste time; build urgency and purpose.
A fresh start begins with clarity, short-term wins, and a written game plan.
Growth requires constant improvement in leadership, sales, and personal development.
Primerica is a tool to gain freedom, time, and control over your life.
Video Summary
A Fresh Start Is A Decision
In Fresh Start, Big Impact, Ryan Elliott delivers a powerful reminder: life can change instantly. After losing his wife unexpectedly, he speaks from experience about urgency, perspective, and making every day count.
Whether you’re brand new or years into your career at Primerica, the message is clear—don’t waste time. If you’ve hit a wall, lost motivation, or faced disappointment, today can be your reset.
Problems Versus Challenges
Ryan draws a distinction between “problems” and “challenges.”
A challenge can often be solved with more income or better strategy.
A true problem is something money can’t fix.
This perspective reframes setbacks in business. Missed promotions, rejection, slow momentum—these are challenges, not permanent problems.
Find Your Purpose
Fresh starts begin with purpose. What gets you out of bed? What are you fighting for?
For Ryan, purpose became living fully each day and cherishing time with family. When purpose is clear, small frustrations lose their power.
Commit To Growth
He emphasizes three growth pillars:
Leadership
Sales and marketing
Personal development
If you are the same person ten years from now as you are today, that’s a problem. Growth must be intentional. Read books. Join discussions. Improve your skills. Become the person capable of achieving your goals.
Stack Small Wins
Momentum builds through short-term victories:
Pass your licensing exam.
Recruit a new direct.
Help a family with coverage.
Small wins restore confidence and lead to larger breakthroughs.
Create A Written Game Plan
Nothing shifts momentum faster than clarity. Writing down a plan provides direction. Most people drift because they lack one.
When you commit your goals to paper and take action, tomorrow immediately becomes different than yesterday.
Condition Your Environment
Ryan shares how he conditioned his family to adopt empowering language—replacing “problems” with “challenges.” Your environment must align with your mindset.
Energy is contagious. Positivity must be intentional.
Primerica As A Vehicle
Primerica is positioned not as the goal—but the vehicle.
Want:
More income?
More time?
More freedom?
More control over your schedule?
The opportunity provides leverage. It allows you to build a life where you control your time instead of trading it away.
Cherish Every Moment
Ryan closes with an emotional reminder: we only do life once. Spend time with people who matter. Build income that gives you flexibility. Use business as a tool to create your best life—not as an escape from it.
A fresh start doesn’t require a new calendar year. It requires a decision.
FAQs
1. What is the main message of Ryan Elliott’s talk?
Life is unpredictable—act with urgency and use Primerica to build freedom and purpose.
2. Who is Ryan Elliott?
Ryan Elliott is a longtime Primerica leader sharing lessons from nearly three decades in the business.
3. What does he mean by a “fresh start”?
A mental reset to regain clarity, urgency, and direction.
4. How does he define challenges versus problems?
Challenges can often be fixed with better action or income; true problems cannot.
5. What are the three growth areas he highlights?
Leadership, sales and marketing, and personal development.
6. Why are short-term goals important?
They create quick wins that rebuild momentum and confidence.
7. How do you regain motivation after disappointment?
Accept the setback, don’t quit, and charge forward with renewed focus.
8. Why write down a game plan?
Written goals create direction and accountability.
9. How can you condition your environment?
Encourage positive language and avoid negativity around your vision.
10. What role does urgency play in success?
Urgency prevents procrastination and maximizes time.
11. How long has Ryan been in Primerica?
Nearly three decades.
12. What perspective shift does loss create?
It highlights the value of time and relationships over minor frustrations.
13. What is Primerica described as in the speech?
A vehicle or tool to achieve your desired lifestyle.
14. Why is personal development critical?
You must grow into the person capable of sustaining success.
15. What happens if you stay the same for ten years?
Stagnation limits potential and impact.
16. What is the ultimate challenge Ryan gives the audience?
Cherish life, act now, and build your best life using the opportunity.
Glossary
Fresh Start
A deliberate decision to reset mentally and recommit to goals with urgency.
Regional Vice President RVP
A senior leadership position within Primerica with organizational leverage and override income.
Personal Development
Intentional growth in mindset, habits, skills, and character.
Short-Term Goals
Immediate, achievable objectives that build momentum.
Game Plan
A written, actionable strategy to achieve specific business or personal outcomes.
Urgency Mindset
Operating with awareness that time is limited and action must be taken now.
Transcript: Awesome. Awesome. It’s so exciting to be here. It’s, um, you know, no matter this, my 29th year in Primerica and no matter how long you’re in Primerica, you still, you get excited and you get passionate and you’re driven, um, especially when you see new people and people making money and people doing some amazing things.
Um, what I want to talk to you about today is getting off to a fresh start. You know, we talk a lot about getting off to a fast start when you’re brand new. The best thing you have is your story. Right? You’re developing your story as you’re coming on board. You’re developing your story. You’ll be telling that story for your entire career in Primerica.
So it’s the best thing to do. But if you’re around a little while, sometimes you might hit a wall. Sometimes you might lack motivation. So that’s who I’m talking to today to try to help you get some motivation to get you moving. Um, talk about having a fresh start. Uh, this time last year, you talk about life, you never know what life’s gonna bring ya.
Or where, where you’re gonna be at in life. But this time last year, I was in a hospital room with my wife who was in a coma that would pass away four days from now, uh, last year. And, um, it’s just absolutely insane to even think about that. Yesterday I got a phone call, two days ago I got a phone call from my uncle.
My cousin who’s 36 years old has non, uh, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, has to spend, uh, six months with chemo and she’s getting married next month. It’s crazy. You just never know what, where life’s going to bring you. So what I want to challenge you to do is what Primerica. Don’t waste time. Have a sense of urgency, have a passion, have a drive to go out there and do something here.
Because I promise you this, life is different going through challenges and problems. Those are problems. Joe Ansel used to talk about challenges and problems. Problems are things that you can’t fix with 10, 000 extra every month. Challenge, that’s a, a challenge is that a problem, right? I mean, it’s crazy.
But going through a problem and being able to. Have the time and energy to be able to invest your time with your loved ones. It’s just unbelievable. So here’s how you get off to a fresh start. If you are experiencing any type of challenge right now, any type of thing that’s maybe holding you back, you’re getting some rejection, you’re taking some hits.
Maybe you thought you’re going to get a promotion today and maybe you came up a little bit short. You’re a little bit disappointed, right? It’s okay to be disappointed. If you don’t quit, if you take the disappointment and you charge forward, then you’re going to be successful, then you’re a champion. So, here’s some things that you could do, and realize this, every single regional vice president could tell you about all the challenges they went through.
But what they could also tell you about is how they overcame them, and that’s why they’re regional vice presidents. So let’s talk about what you need to do. The first thing you need to do is you need to find a purpose. You need to know what’s going to get you out of bed every single day. For me, that’s very simple now.
I live life to the fullest every day. Every single day I go out there and I treat it like it’s my last. Right? I don’t get all caught up, all worried about the things that I normally would have gotten worried about or have caught up in the past. I just don’t care. I don’t care. And maybe sometimes that comes across wrong, but I’m living my life.
Right, that’s what we’re doing. So you got to find your purpose. You got to go out there, figure out what it is that you want out of life, and you need to get after it. You need to work on getting better, right? One of the things I love about, you know, the, the David Kim team, is they’re always getting better.
Every time I talk to them, I, I talk to both of them, right? They, they’re talking about books they’re reading, book clubs, all these different things. And it’s because they focus on getting better. I got better in three areas of my life. I got better in leadership, sales and marketing. I don’t know anything about this social media stuff.
It’s kind of crazy. It makes me feel old when people talk about it. Um, and personal development. If you were the same person today, ten years from now, that’s a problem. Right? That’s a problem. If your best days were behind you, That’s a problem. You got to get better. You got to grow. You got to become the person that God destined you for, right?
That’s where you need to be, right? You need to set some short term goals, right? Very simple. Get some little successes under your belt, right? Nothing feels better than winning and you could go out there and it could be a simple thing like passing your test or hiring a new direct or going out and helping a family with life insurance.
Right? Go out there and do something. Have a little win. Those little wins are going to lead to big wins and big goals. Develop a game plan. Right? Nothing ever got me out of a standstill than, like, better than just going out there and putting a plan together. Right? You can not be where you want to be, but if you put a plan together and you write that down and you’re committed to it, I promise you your next day is going to be different than the last.
Because now at least you have direction. Most people are walking around life with no direction. And five, you need to tell your family about it. My family always thought I was crazy. And you know what? They were probably right. Right? I am crazy. Right? They always, like, I would always get mad at them. Like, oh, we have this problem.
I’d say, you don’t have a problem, you have a challenge. Right? Now, you get, get this. My parents don’t talk about problems anymore. They talk about, I know, challenge, Ryan. Challenge. We have a challenge. Right? But I conditioned my family to not around me, right? If they’re going to be negative and frustrated, and I, like, I couldn’t have that.
So what am I going to do? I’m going to condition them. I’m going to get excited about life. I’m going to get excited about what we’re going after, right? Yeah, they still think I’m crazy. Trust me. I’m moving, April 1st, I’m moving upstate New York. Never in my life did I ever think that I would be moving upstate New York, right?
I don’t even like New York. Rather be in Florida, warm, sunny, palm trees. I’m moving where it’s cold. Fresh starts, right? But like we’re trying to make adjustments and do different things. But I promise you this, whatever you want out of life, Primerica is the answer. You want more money, Primerica is the answer.
You want more freedom, more time with your family. You want to cherish every single day, right? I can’t even, it makes me nauseous, makes me sick to think about all the people that get up, go to work, leave their spouse. Work nine to five, every single day, spend more time with co workers than they do with the person they love and they married, right?
They do that and they go out there and they, and then something happens like what happened to me, right? I could promise you this, I spent every day with my wife. We went to breakfast every morning. We did everything together. I’m just glad, I mean, if something happened to me, she wouldn’t have been able to survive.
She couldn’t get a cup of coffee without me. Um, actually I wish it was me and not her, but, um, she would have done a lot better job on this side than I’m doing right now. But, um, you gotta cherish it. You gotta cherish every single moment. I look at my kids, I look at my friends, I look at my family, right?
You gotta just put everything aside. Cherish life. Go out there and utilize Primerica as a resource, as a tool, to get what you want out of life. We only do it once. So if you’re fighting for something here, if you’re excited about the business, it’s a means to an end to give you your best life now. And I challenge you to go out there and do that.
Thank you so much.
