Ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut, watching others succeed while you struggle to gain momentum? You’re not alone. Many reps face the same challenge: the fear of reaching out, the hesitation to recruit, and the doubt that creeps in when things don’t go as planned. But what if you could break through those barriers and transform your vision into victory? That’s exactly what Ray and Carol Costello dive into in this powerful session. They share their journey from doubt to triumph, offering insights and strategies that can help you ignite your business and achieve the freedom you crave. It’s raw, real, and packed with the kind of motivation that can turn your dreams into reality. Don’t miss this must-see moment that could be the breakthrough tip you’ve been waiting for. Watch the video below and get ready to change your life.
Video Transcription:
Good morning, man.
What an incredible school.
I don’t know if you guys who got something out of this school so far, right, maybe you should all be raising your hands.
I mean, it’s just crazy to see not just the success, but the message that you had received this week.
I mean, you, this weekend, you had gotten everything you needed to win with just based on the messages that you received.
And I don’t know who was taking notes.
I mean, I was taking notes.
Okay.
We’ve been here, like 27 years already.
Okay? So real quick, they wanted us to tell our story.
And you’ve heard some of the various leaders here.
Their different, you know, we resonated with a lot of stories.
You guys did really a great job.
I want to first start off, before I get started, I want to say thank you to Keith and Danielle for putting the school together.
I want to thank you all for showing up, because that means that you want to win and you want to do something special in your lives.
But we got started in 1995.
That’s like ages ago, right? Ain’t that something? And it’s just crazy to see.
When you first get started, you got to have this burning desire to do something special for you and your family.
And when we first got started, I remember I had a conversation.
I’m going to tell you this because it’s a factor of timing.
Two days before we saw our first dot meeting, I said to Ray at the time, I was 26 years old.
And I said to Ray, I know we’re doing good, but we could do so much better.
And then he says, he looked at me like, what is wrong with you? You crazy? And I said, no, I really think there’s something out there that could be so much better.
Three days later, he gets invited to a presentation, a corporate overview by Roy Lipson.
And at the time, he says, carol, do you believe Roy asked me if I knew anybody that wanted to make a lot of money.
And I said, did you tell him about me? He goes, hell, no.
I told him about me.
And I said, wait a minute.
I got to come with you.
He goes, Carol, what if it’s of those things? You got to bring people? I said, I don’t know.
I haven’t been to one of those things, but I want to go.
And he says, no, there’s no way.
You’ll never be available.
You got to go pick up the kids.
Mind you, we had three kids at the time before we had Matthew, but we had three kids, and obviously they were in Montessori school.
And I said, you’re never going to be ready.
And I said, it’s amazing when you really want something, how fast you can turn on the engine to get it done right.
So I picked up the kids.
I was home, ready to go, and he wasn’t even home yet.
And I said, I’m ready to go.
He goes, what? And I said, roy will be here in five minutes.
When are you getting ready? And then after he says, all right.
And then he asked Roy, do you think Carol can go? And he goes, I don’t know.
I said, what? What is wrong with this guy? He’s crazy or something.
I’m going, there’s no choice.
It’s not a know.
If somebody wants something bad enough, they’ll do whatever it takes, right, guys? And I say that because you got to make a decision to make this business work.
You got to decide to win.
And even though sometimes when we first got started, I was listening to Joe’s story about what he was saying, that he was worried that maybe he was doing the wrong thing, about the wrong type of life insurance, and he didn’t know if he wasn’t going to mess up his friends.
Believe me, we all think that.
How many people ever thought that before? Oh, man.
I’m going to invite people.
My God, what if maybe what they’re telling me is really not real and I’m going to look like a fool.
Nobody wants to look like a fool.
Okay? I’m going to tell you right now, we all felt that way.
But you know what? We saw past that.
And we had blind faith.
And the blind faith that we had in the leadership that was showing us what to do actually has taken us to the life that we live today.
And a lot of you guys, maybe I’m going to talk to some new people.
A lot of you guys might say, man, it’s so easy to say that while you’re up there and you’re talking.
Believe mE, were sitting in the same position that you were at one point.
It’s called the opportunity briefing, okay? And we wanted to be vice presidents.
We saw everybody that was making money.
We were hoping that one day it could work for us.
We didn’t know if it was going to work for us, but we knew if we stood the course and did whatever we had to do, it was eventually going to work.
And thank God for Roy Lipson, because all he would tell us is, you got to bring people.
I said, roy, what do we got to do to make 100,000? You got to bring people.
And I was like, all right, I guess we’re going to bring people.
He goes, to what? To the presentation.
Believe it or not, the first month and a half to two months, we had no training.
Our presentation was our training.
We would sit in the op meeting, and I said, I guess I could do that.
I just got to bring people to the meeting.
And believe it or not, that’s what built the business that we have today is focusing on the front end of the business, bringing people, showing them a little bit of what the opportunity could look like.
Buying into the dream, into the opportunity of freedom.
I don’t know what you guys bought into, but I didn’t come here to sell life insurance.
I bought into the opportunity of being free to do what I want, when I want, with whoever the heck I wanted.
And that’s the life we lead today.
It’s just an incredible life that’s happened.
I mean, it didn’t happen in two years or four years like some people have it here.
But I could tell you, in our first five years, were financially independent.
And we got up and moved to another across the way to the West Coast.
Lived in Arizona for 20 years.
And the life that we have today is what we have today.
We have freedom.
We do what we want.
We have money saved.
Our kids live an incredible life.
And just because you.
How can I say? Sometimes you might doubt yourself that you’re capable to do this business.
I’m going to tell you something right now.
I was the shyest person you can ever imagine, and they told me I Had to go get people, and I said, oh, man, how am I going to go talk to people? And I said, carol, if you really want this, get out of your own freaking way.
You got to go do this.
And it’s amazing how I would actually get out there and I would talk to people.
We would do presentations.
I was telling the guys yesterday, we would do presentations, and we didn’t even know what the heck were doing.
We do a presentation, and just because we did the presentation, were all excited.
Idiots.
We were like, high five.
We did it on a presentation.
They didn’t kick us out.
Remember those, Chris? Chris and I, we’d go, and I said, man, they listened to us.
And then after they listened to us, we finished the presentation, and we’re like, high five.
We did a presentation.
We did good.
I said, we call you next week.
We were so scared.
We didn’t even call them next week.
We were like, oh, hell, no.
We’re not calling them.
They might change their mind.
They were happy.
We were too excited.
Idiots.
And we just kept on going and talked to more people.
And little by little, we started building the confidence that was needed to be able to go build a business, get on appointments.
Guys, I tell you, if you really want this, you can go make it happen.
I was thinking about it while I was listening to all the speakers.
Throughout our career, I was a regional leader.
And then afterwards, we got promoted to vice president, and I earned the watch on my own dime, on my own writing my own personal business.
You could do anything you want.
It’s not the contract.
It’s not the RVP contract.
It’s what you do with your contract.
And if you get after this opportunity, it’s going to pay you a thousand times more than what you can anticipate.
You got to get out there.
You got to go recruit like mad.
You got to talk to people.
If they don’t listen to you, it’s okay.
Because as long as you do what you need to do, you’re going to win.
Ray has a big family.
Do you know he has 360 nieces and nephews? Not one is a client.
Imagine that.
You think we could build a big business with that, right? He had nine brothers and sisters.
None of them are clients.
You think he’d actually have an army of people underneath him? And, you know, I’m glad they said no, because when we did what we had to do, we made it without them.
And they can never, ever say, you made it because of us.
Guys, let’s go win.
Doesn’t matter if people don’t want to do with your business.
You go do your business.
You go win.
I couldn’t do this business without my partner.
Let’s give it up for the awesome Ray Costello.
Man, is she awesome or what’s.
I want to start off by saying thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
And thank you to everyone in the room because of all of you.
You show that this opportunity is possible for each and every one of you.
Even if last month you were zero by zero.
Do you know the Yankees have people that sit on the bench that never really get to play in the game, but if the team wins the World Series, they all get a ring.
So, although you might be sitting here saying, I didn’t get recognized, I didn’t get a plaque, nothing happened.
Something happened because you’re here.
You got the information that you needed to go change that zero by zero from last month to maybe ten by ten this month.
But it starts with you changing.
You can’t go back home after this weekend.
Which was a phenomenal weekend.
Thank you, Keith.
Thank you, Danielle.
Thank you to.
I mean, everybody that put this thing together.
You can’t go back and be the same person.
You got to go back a little different on Monday morning to work.
Maybe it might be something a little crazy.
Because in primerica, crazy equals rich.
Normal is poor.
Normal is average.
Ordinary.
I used to be a New York City cop.
And I’ve been cursed at, spit at, bottles thrown, cinder blocks off the roof thrown at.
And you could call me anything.
Just don’t call me average.
An ordinary.
You want to call me crazy, great.
Because then I know I’m in the right percentage group of the winners.
Because everybody that ever had a statue erected to them.
A plaque put up on a wall of a building at one time, they were called crazy.
They were called.
Nah, he lost it.
Cal said, we have a big family.
Nine brothers and sisters.
Every one of them said were crazy.
Every one of them told us we wouldn’t make it.
I had my sister make fun of us on an ongoing basis.
And what gave me great pride was one day her son came to me at a wedding.
And he said to me, he says, uncle Raymond, I heard you’re making so much money.
Everybody’s talking about what you do.
And why didn’t you ever tell my mother about this business you’re in? I said, what do you mean? I told your mother about the business.
She was one of the first people I approached in the family.
No, my mama said, you ain’t never talked to us about.
Never talked to her about the business.
So I said.
She said, what? So I grabbed him by his hand.
Now he’s a grown ass man.
Got four kids.
I grabbed him by his hand like a little kid.
I walked him over to his mother.
I said, dinah, Dinah.
She goes, yeah, you told Steve that I never came to you with Primerica.
And never talked to you about Primerica.
And never told you could do Primerica.
And I’ll help you every step along the way.
And we’ll get you to make big money.
You told him that? Oh, Raymond, not now.
We’re at the wedding.
Not now.
I said, bullshit.
We’re doing this right now.
You told him that because he just told me.
You told him that I never approached you about the business.
Yeah, you did approach me.
I put your IBA in, I put your paperwork.
I picked you up and took you to PFSU.
And on the first break, she brought her books to me and said, I can’t do this.
And left the first break in PFU.
I can’t do left.
So her son looks at him.
Why did you lie? Why did you lie to me about.
And he says, could I do it? I said, no, you’re a felon.
You can’t be involved.
So for some of you look at some of your family members, and you get upset because they don’t listen to you.
Maybe your best friend says, you’re crazy.
Forgive them for they know not what they do.
Now, how do you get to be free in this thing we call a business, how do you get free? You be the number one person with guests in every op meeting in person in your office.
Now, I’m not know in today’s primary, I don’t know.
Maybe it’s too professional.
Now, you got videos, Instagram toxics.
You video yourself and say stuff about what we do.
You talk to people professionally.
You put on a suit and tie and carry a briefcase.
You’re the financial person.
But you forget that it’s about more people.
You might do a presentation with them, be a slam dunk, close, get their life, do an investment, do a prepaid legal, do a senior health care, do everything.
But you forgot the most important part.
If somebody gives you a check, if somebody gives you their routing number, they better give you their IBA.
They have to give you their IBA, because what if that IBA, they’re a little hesitant.
They get a slow start.
They don’t go to PFSU right away, but then eventually they do go to class, and they don’t pass the first time.
They don’t pass the second time, that test.
And you look at them like, oh, this guy.
Why’d bother? He’s such a pain.
Always asking me the same question.
He never listens to me.
But then all of a sudden, one day, they come to an event like this, and they snap, and they say, I’m sick and tired of not getting recognized at an event.
I’m sick and tired of them not calling out my name.
I’m sick and tired of doing the walrus and clapping for everybody else at the next event.
I’m going to clap for everybody.
I’m going to cheer for everybody because I want them, when I go up on stage, for them to cheer and clap for me.
For me.
If you ain’t said that to you need to say that to you.
You need to have a pep talk with you.
You need to go in a corner, sit down with you and change.
I’m shy to I’m invincible.
Change from I don’t know, if I could talk to strangers, I could talk to anybody.
Change.
From that person that says, I don’t know how to do the presentation.
I’m the best presenter that anybody ever been in Primerica.
Change.
You’re supposed to leave this event changed.
Even my best friend didn’t come to the op meeting.
Forget them.
There’s millions of people that went to bed last night and said a prayer.
Some of you said the same prayer before you got invited to the presentation.
Please, God, show me a way.
I want to take care of my kids.
I want to take care of my family.
I want to be rich.
Remember when you said that prayer and then you got a phone call the next day and someone invited you to a meeting? Like, someone invited us to a meeting.
And every day we thank our lucky stars that Roy Lipson invited us to a meeting.
But here’s the key.
He not only invited us, he picked us up and brought us to the meeting.
I’m not talking about a Zoom.
Some of you want to be Zoomers or zoomies.
You can’t get a high five on Zoom.
You can’t go up to somebody while they’re in the room sitting at their chair and whisper in their ear, you’re going to be rich.
You can’t pat someone on the back.
On Zoom, you never see anybody cry on Zoom.
You never see anybody get choked up while they’re on the screen.
But if you were in this room over the last two days and you didn’t get choked up, you didn’t just feel something inside you.
You didn’t just go and you shook it off because you’re too macho, then something wrong with you.
Something wrong with you.
I don’t know about you, but I used to be a cop, and I remember driving in the precincts, and I’d see these cars drive by with my partner, and I would tap them.
I’d go, hey.
And he go, what? I said, that’s my car.
You ever do that? Any of you ever do that? Right now, that’s not the car you’re driving right now, but that would be the car if you could afford to drive it.
And then you get involved in Primerica, and you go to the dealer and you get a brochure, you think about buying it.
You think about one day.
One day.
Now, it’s not just a dream.
It’s, this can happen for those of you that have ever done that, and you get a feeling inside, if you ever had that feeling inside, and you said, I want it.
I want that car, you ever drive by a house and say, one day that house is so me? You ever drive by a school and say, that’s the kind of school my kids are going to go to? Then you got it inside.
See, it’s not just saying, that’s my car.
That’s how we’re going to live.
It’s about you saying inside, I want it, I want it.
And I don’t care what anybody says.
I’m going to go get it because I’m in primerica and I got a shot to get it.
So let’s go get it and go back, change, and your life will never be the same again.
