Executive TLDR

• Success in Primerica requires personal growth and permission to change.

• The business is skill-based—sales, recruiting, leadership, consistency, and intensity must be mastered.

• Most leaders struggle with consistency, not capability.

• Your circle determines your ceiling—upgrade your environment.

• Self-awareness is the starting point for extraordinary results.

Video Summary

From Ordinary To Extraordinary

In From Ordinary To Extraordinary: Your Primerica Journey, Chris Achong delivers a direct challenge to District Leaders and above inside Primerica:

If you want to win, you must grow.

No one can force growth.
You must give yourself permission to grow.

Chris emphasizes a foundational truth:

Everyone who has ever won in this business had to change.

No one started at the top.

The Honest Truth About Winning

Winning requires:

• Personal growth

• Skill development

• Emotional maturity

• Self-awareness

Most leaders do not lack potential.

They lack consistency.

Chris points out that many could already be RVP if their best six months were combined. The issue is not capability—it is stopping and starting.

Primerica Is A Skill Business

Success is not accidental. It is skill-based.

Chris outlines core skills leaders must intentionally develop:

• Sales skills

• Leadership skills

• Consistency

• Mental toughness

• Recognition

• Warm market development

• People skills

• Work ethic

• Follow-up mastery

• Recruiting excellence

• Prospecting

• Presentation skills

• Duplication

• Intensity

• Selling the dream

• Charisma

• Empathy

• Producing districts

He emphasizes:

You cannot bypass mastering recruiting.

You must pull that card at some point in your career.

Your Circle Determines Your Ceiling

Chris explains that environment dictates growth.

If your circle is not pursuing a million-dollar income, you likely won’t either.

He highlights leaders such as Dave Kim as examples of proximity-driven growth. When you align with driven leaders, momentum increases.

Upgrade your circle.
Upgrade your results.

Consistency Over Talent

Some leaders appear more talented.

In reality, they simply work more.

Chris references examples of leaders running 25–32 appointments in a single day—far beyond what most do in a month.

The difference is volume and activity.

Intensity And Selling The Dream

Intensity is non-negotiable.

Leaders must:

• Bring energy to meetings

• Maintain urgency

• Cheerlead events

• Inspire others

He reminds the audience that life is short. Having lost his wife at age 30, he stresses the importance of living while building.

Selling the dream is not reckless spending.

It is demonstrating what freedom looks like.

Self-Awareness Exercise

Chris walks leaders through a powerful reflection:

Are you focused or unfocused?
Reliable or unreliable?
Growing or stagnant?
Motivated or uninspired?
Enthusiastic or boring?

Growth begins with brutal honesty.

You cannot fix what you refuse to acknowledge.

Words Become Identity

Chris shares a key principle:

Learn the meaning of powerful words—and live up to them.

If you say you are reliable, act reliable.
If you claim leadership, lead from the front.

Personal growth requires conscious effort, not autopilot behavior.

The Challenge To Leaders

To District Leaders and above:

• Produce new leaders

• Master recruiting

• Become intentional about skill building

• Fix consistency

• Raise your intensity

Primerica offers the bridge between where you are and where you want to be.

But only if you grow into the person capable of crossing it.

FAQs

Who delivered this message?
Chris Achong.

What company is the talk centered around?
Primerica.

Who was the primary audience?
District Leaders and above.

What is the core theme of the talk?
Personal growth as the foundation of success.

Why is personal growth essential?
Because everyone who wins must evolve in skills and mindset.

What is the biggest issue holding leaders back?
Lack of consistency.

Why is recruiting emphasized so heavily?
Because duplication and expansion require constant recruiting.

What role does environment play in success?
Your circle influences your income ceiling.

Which leader was referenced as an example of high growth proximity?
Dave Kim.

What does Chris say about intensity?
Without intensity, teams will not stay motivated.

Is talent more important than activity?
No. Activity and volume often win over talent.

What is selling the dream?
Demonstrating what financial freedom looks like.

Why is self-awareness critical?
You cannot grow if you refuse to admit weaknesses.

What skills must leaders master?
Sales, recruiting, duplication, leadership, follow-up, prospecting, and consistency.

What determines whether someone becomes extraordinary?
Their willingness to grow, adjust, and master core skills.

Glossary

District Leader
An early leadership rank within Primerica above entry-level representative.

RVP
Regional Vice President, a senior leadership rank responsible for building and leading a large organization.

Warm Market
Prospecting among people you already know or have some connection with.

Duplication
Teaching others to replicate your systems and behaviors for scalable growth.

Consistency
Maintaining sustained effort over time without repeated stops and starts.

Intensity
High energy, urgency, and focused execution in daily activity.

Transcript:

All right, how we doing? Hey, just got some quick stuff for you. Incredible, incredible messages today and yesterday. Just shout out to all the leaders, what’s up, a unit? How we doing, man? I was just standing back there. Well, not back there, up front here. And while all the recognition was going on and I was just so blown away and so freaking proud of all the leaders. I mean, it was a. What’s the word I’ve been using? Domination. And I just want to say to the A unit hierarchy, I’m so proud of all the leaders. It looked like Christmas. The score build was lit up, man. It was insane. I’m just so blown away, man. Unfreaking believable. Wow. All right, let’s get some stuff going on. So just kind of digest these next couple of things.

I’m going to read it to you, but you want to digest it, especially if you’re a district or above. Stand up. District above. All right. So you’re exactly who I’m going to be talking to with this talk.

Okay.

I know we’re going to have a lot of new people here, too, but we need to make some adjustments and grow. Who would agree with me? All right, so I’m going to give it to you in detail. He says, our business is a bit. This is the science behind it.

Okay.

Dave Kim was actually talking about our business is a business of personal growth. And at some point, you will have to give yourself permission to grow. Is that okay? So no one can make you grow. You have to give yourself permission to grow. Too many times, people stay the same. I know some people for 510, 15 years, and they’re still exactly the same. I don’t do that. I don’t act that way. That’s not me. They say things like that, and I want to challenge you to just add some different things in or kind of copy what works. So the first thing you must know, believe and accept is the honest truth. Who’d like to hear the honest truth? So you got to know it. You got to believe it and accept the honest truth.

And the truth is everyone that has ever won or is currently winning has had personal growth. No one started at the tOp. Is that about as accurate as a statement as it could possibly get? So just accept it. Everyone that grew, everyone that’s winning or ever won, they had to grow. They had to give themselves permission to grow. So why is this so important? This is so important because we all have or continue to deal with this thing called can I do it? Is the business for me. Can I get better. We all deal with this on a day to day basis. Can I grow? Will I win? And the answer to all that is what? Yes, you can win. You can grow. And the reason is because you can. What? You can get bigger in the business. You can grow.

Okay.

So I’m going to give you just a couple of things. That our business is a skill business. And the more skills you have is, the better you’re at dealing with certain areas and certain things in success, right or wrong. And so I’m going to give you. I have a list of probably like 35. There’s a lot more, but I’m just going to kind of run through some of these. But every day it says here, what skills must I master to be successful in Primerica? Learn and implement each one of these skills. My challenge to you is probably every day grab one or two of them and start working on these skills and start emulating some people that have these skills. Like, let’s say you got a shitty attitude. Look at the skills of someone that has a decent attitude and start working on that.

Okay? I’m just not a happy person. You don’t understand. Well, just start pretending a little bit.

Okay.

Don’t worry. Acting is okay, too. Trust me. A lot of people are acting. So the first one is sales skills. It’s the door to becoming a millionaire. It’s the only door, actually. Everyone that’s ever become a millionaire, they learn what sales. So you can’t get around that. You need to learn what sales skills. Leadership skills. You need to spend a lot of time working on leadership skills. If people are not following you, if you stop, then no one’s bumping into you. And it’s not making everyone feel good and everyone feel happy, even though that is Part of being a leader.

Okay.

You got to get people to go in the right direction. You got to find a way coach for them to hate you at times, but love you. Everybody got it. Leadership skills are so important. Like Keats, an incredible leader, the RVPs and the A unit hierarchy, incredible leaders. And they constantly keep working on that skill. Consistency, which is the problem with most people, businesses, is not that you can’t win. Do you know there’s probably about 70%, maybe 80% of the divisions and above that’s in this room would have been RVPs already if we just took six of your best months and put it together. So it’s not that you can’t be an RVP, it’s because we had, what, a consistency issue? Does that make sense? You just can’t continue to keep stopping. You got to continue to keep mental toughness.

Do you ever have to have mental toughness? You ever see some people that are just soft like a sponge? Anything you say to them, they come off the groups. You see all kinds of stuff that they do. They run. They don’t return your calls no more. Well, you said something to me. You got to have some mental toughness for success, man. You can grow up with Carol. Carol was tough with you. You had to have mental toughness to deal with cows. He’s like, no, Mr. No excuses. You got to get this thing what done? Recognition. You got to become a master at recognition. We do probably about a two out of ten, and I got to get better at it. We probably do a two out of ten of what recognition needs to be. You got to be a master recognition, okay? Warm market.

You got to have the skill of how to get into a warm market. Somebody asked me earlier today, did you build it in the coal or the warm? I says, I started in the coal, but then I turned the coal into warm. And I think you have to do that, okay, from all different ways on how to get into that warm market. People skills, so important. People skills is extreme. I still lack people skills, okay? Some of it I intently do, but I lack people skills. We all lack, but we have to get better at people skills. We got to work on that, okay? Getting people to like you and trust you and want to go in the same direction.

Okay?

Work ethic, man. Who’s ready for that one, right? You got to learn work ethic. That’s a skill that you have to learn, by the way. You have to show people work ethic. One of the things that the A unit hierarchy did, the RVPs and the leaders that started this thing, is they created a system called work ethic. When I first analyzed that’s probably one of the most important systems. When to work, how to work as a team. And they created that in place where people learn, like, People are setting appointments and they know when they’re setting appointments, they’re not supposed to talk. So many people learn from Fritz when he’s setting appointments. He’ll be there for four or 5 hours sometimes. And you can’t have a conversation With Fritz.

You can’t go over there and try to talk to him and get into a conversation with him because he’s just like, what appointment after appointment, you got to teach what work ethic.

Okay?

These are so important. You got to make people feel special. It’s something you got to do. You got to be able to get people to feel special, make them feel special. You got to learn patience, which I got very little of.

Okay?

But I’m working on it.

Okay.

Just be patient with me. You got to learn what patience, okay. You got to learn follow up Skills. Never stop following up. You’ll probably double your production. You’ll probably double your recruits if you got better at what following up. Following up is so important.

Okay.

Master in recruiting. You got to master recruiting from prospecting. You got to learn how to turn everything. I think everyone here needs to become a master recruiter. You have to make a decision and go, I’m going to become a master recruiter. You have to pull that card out at some point in your career. You’re not going to be able to bypass that one. You got to become a master recruiter.

Okay?

So you got to work on that skiLl. You got to be in places where you can recruit. You got to have friends. Like, if you’re hanging around of four guys in your office that don’t recruit, you will never recruit. You got to go hang around with the people that do recruit. We’re in a business where we’re trying to get free. You’re not going to get a whole a unit hierarchy from not recruiting. You’re going to have to what? You’re going to have to recruit. You got to form friendships. You got to become friends. I said it earlier, you’re not going to the million if your circle is not going to the million. One of the things we’re going to start doing is because there’s only so much that can come from me.

But we’re going to start attaching a lot of our RVPs that are over 200 with other RVPs like Dave Kim and some of the leaders that are moving, that want to go to a million. Like, if you hang out with Dave, I’m just using him as an example. Okay, let’s say you’re 200, 250. You could go backwards. Oh, yeah, this shit is real. But we go start hanging out. We put Dave Kim, Bacon, we put Oliver, we put Fritz, we put them in that circle. If the circle is going to a million, you’re going to the million. If you’re around a circle that ain’t going to a million, why do you think you’re not an RVP? Because your circle ain’t going to RVP. You got to change your circle. It’s not about friendship. It’s about getting this thing done. Okay?

You got to presentation skills. You got to learn how to duplicate yourself. That’s a skill you have to learn. Somebody said earlier gave you some ideas on how to do it. Being simple and duplicatable. Work ethic. Did we say work ethic? Okay. A lot of people are winning not because they’re better. A lot of people are winning because they work more like, I had people tell me I had three appointments fall apart, and I go, three. Joshua and Carissa did 25. They had 25 set up for today. Taji told me he had 32 appointments for today. So how you got 32 appointments? You’re looking at the forecloses he had, and you’re not realizing that he Just did more appointments in one day than you did all month. And you’re trying to figure this thing out. Yes, it is possible.

They do it all the time. But you got to get in that circle. The onesies and two Z’s ain’t going to cut it. So you got to learn and obviously, remember these things. You got to grow into, okay? Duplicating yourself, setting appointments. You got to get great at prospecting. You got to become a master at prospecting. But you got to work on these skills every single day. You got to be creative as a leader, you have to be creative. You got to be able to say primerica, but you got to say it in 85 million different ways. Because you just got to get people to go in the right direction. You kids can’t keep being dry, right? That’s why you wake up early and you start planning to figure out different strategies and things like that.

Right?

Selling the dream. You got to get great at selling the dream. I think too many people are too cheap. Live a little bit. Show them what it’s going to be like. You can’t save when you die. I lost my wife. She was 30 years old. Don’t tell me shit can’t happen. Go live a little bit. You’re supposed to do what’s right. Max out your steps and do all that cool stuff. But at some point, you got to go, damn, I got to spend some of this. Who’s with me? When you stop recreating in your state, when you post stuff and it’s stuff of you doing stupid stuff, that’s called hanging out and wasting time. But if you’re in another country like you guys was, that’s called selling the dream. So when you take off, that’s the only time you take off. Right? Intense.

You got to picking up referrals. Intensity. You got to have intensity. You got to learn that skill of intensity. Waking up. If you’re a leader and you don’t have some intensity going on. You can’t lead a team. Well, I don’t understand. My people ain’t working well. You ain’t up, you ain’t fired up, you ain’t excited. But if you get fired up and excited, I promise you they’ll get fired. So intensity level excitement is really important. Keeping a sense of urgency so important. Joe Cardinal talked about being a crusader. How important it is what we do. Producing districts, you got to master. Producing districts, you got to master finding out what people want. All recruiting is. Is figuring out what people want and then showing them Primerica and then telling them Primerica is the bridge to go from where you’re at to what you want.

So let’s get that bridge going.

That’s it.

That’s all recruiting is. Charisma. You got to have some kind of charisma where you’re able to talk to people and sell them the dream. Right? Empathy, whatever that one means. You got to feel sorry. People do are going through stuff, really. If you learn how to be there for people, especially people that ain’t making you any money, you it. Years ago I learned that you’re supposed to love on everyone the same. It’s not always about the override. Okay, I know we’re in business and all that cool stuff. Persuasive. Obviously that’s a skill. You got to learn. Cheerleading meetings and events. You got to become a master. Cheerleading meetings and events. Anyone that gets big are able to do that. We’re not going to call it a leadership school, Keat. We’re trying to figure out the name. I don’t want to be associated with school.

I don’t like school. I never like school. So we’re trying to figure out a name, what we’re going to call. But January 20, we got the explosion event. The A unit hierarchy is having a massive event. 1000 plus people in a room. It’s going to be insane, man. Inspire others. You got to learn how to inspire others. I’m going to give you some things to think about. Leading from the front, field training, closing. All products stand up. When this relates to you, it says, words are powerful. I learned the meanings of certain words and then I started living up to them. Okay, so you ever take a word, look at the meaning of the word, and then start living up to those words? You ever see people read? They just read, read.

How about you use some of the stuff you read or implement some of the stuff you read? So all I did was started acting like what I read, the word that I read, okay. And I wanted to win for my family so damn bad that I was willing to make any adjustments that was necessary to align myself with the words and the meanings. Like if I said right now, stand up, everybody. Districts and above. Anyway, stand up.

Okay.

I’m going to give you two words.

Okay.

The first word, you sit down. The second word, you stay standing. Focus. You would sit down if you’re focused. Stay standing. If you’re unfocused, don’t lie. Don’t lie. Honesty is the best policy.

Okay.

You see? Right. Districts and above.

Okay.

Unfocused.

Okay.

Go ahead, sit down. The next one, stand up again. You’re going to do three minutes of this shit. This is for your family. You bringing it to the table. Reliable. Sit down if you’re reliable. Unreliable. Stay standing. No, this is not a game, guys. This is how growth happens. You got to be aware. You got to be clay on. You can’t be unconscious and think you’re going to change things. You got to be conscious of what’s wrong. If you’re conscious, then you have an opportunity to. What? You just can’t keep lying. Right. It says happy. Stand up. Happy. That means if you’re happy, sit your ass down. Unhappy. Stay standing. By the way, I’m always unhappy. It seems that way, right. Okay. I’m unhappy. I’m not comfortable with where I’m at, who’s uncomfortable.

Maybe you’re happy with some areas, but there’s some areas that you’re unhappy with. Call it what it is. Right. All right. This one is important. And don’t stand up because I know some of you guys. Enthusiastic. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. You’re not too big to stand up. Okay. Enthusiastic. If you’re enthusiastic, sit and sit down. If you’re unenthusiastic, boring as hell, stay standing. Don’t lie. I know some of you guys. You don’t get excited anymore. You got to fix that. Do you think I really want to do all the things I do on a day to day basis? The other day I was at a pool Party. I couldn’t even tell you what happened to pool. I busted all my toes up, fell and slipped. Thank God there was no videos.

And I don’t want to be involved in all those things all the time. But dad Gummett, I had a million dollar team next to me. Shell and her primetime team. They was hanging out with me and, man, we just had to play the role. I’m still suffering today from know. Stand up. Stand up.

Stand up.

We got two, three more. Growing, not growing. Stay a standing. If you’re not grown, you know your numbers. Don’t bullshit. Look at this room. I am conscious. I’m not grown. I’m willing to make some growth adjustments. I understand we just came from an event like this, but you got to be aware if you’re growing or not grown. Right. Everybody stand up again. Motivated. Sit down. If you’re motivated. Right. Unmotivated. Stay standing. Two more. Inspired. Stand up. Oh, I don’t like this. Yes, you do. Trust me. Inspired. Uninspired. Stay standing. Always. A zillion people are uninspired. You got to find out you’re not tired. You’re just what? You got to work on that. That’s something you got to work on every single morning, trying to figure out and figure out all the people you love and why you got to do this thing.

What we have is an incredible opportunity that could fit into whatever goals and dreams it is that you want. Isn’t that awesome? But you got to grow. You got to work on these things. You got to be aggressively working on these things every single day. There’s all types of words and meanings, and you got to learn the meaning, the words and meanings to every one of these words. Lazy. You got to be 100% clear on what lazy is. You got to be 100% clear on what unreliable is. You got to be 100% clear on what being a liar is. If you want to build a business, you have to have these things going on. You got to be 100% clay on when you’re uninspired. You got to be 100% clay on when you’re scared, when you’re a hider, when you’re not a provider.

I want to challenge all the leaders in this room to go produce some leaders. Go develop yourself. Go get great at Primerica. Go change your. Go do something special, and let’s win together, man. Thank you so much. Keaton, Danielle, for an incredible event. Thank you, guys.