Ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut, facing obstacles that seem impossible to overcome? You’re not alone. Many reps struggle with turning challenges into stepping stones for success. But what if you could shift your mindset and see every hurdle as an opportunity for growth? That’s exactly what Ted & Tracy Agelis dive into in this powerful session. They share real, relatable stories and strategies that can transform your approach to obstacles, making them the fuel for your success in Primerica. It’s not just about surviving the journey; it’s about thriving through it. Watch the video below and discover the breakthrough tips that can change your life and business forever.
Video Transcription:
Awesome.
Hey, hasn’t this been a phenomenal event? I got to tell you, before I get started, I wanted to obviously thank our team sin in the back there.
I want to thank my beautiful wife Tracy, for always putting up with me.
If you guys can give her, she’s awesome.
And I want to thank Keith and Daniel Oto, for obviously putting on this event.
And every.
Everybody in the front two rows, I actually had a talk plan, but as I’m sitting here, and for those of you who speak at these events, you go through this, too.
You’re like, I’m going to talk about this.
And then you hear everybody talk, and you’re going to talk about this.
I’m going to kind of shoot off the cuff a little bit, but real quick, raise your hand if this is your first event.
All right, cool.
Awesome.
So I want to talk to you guys specifically, because I’m sitting here, right? And I’m listening to everybody speak and all these phenomenal speakers, and I’m just sitting there going to myself, man, would I have understood what was happening or what was being said if I was sitting here today? And the truth is, I probably wouldn’t have been.
I really wouldn’t have understood anything you guys were talking about.
My father’s an immigrant, right? He immigrated here illegally, once.
Legally once, right.
I always hear Harvey say that I want to get in my immigration joke, but it’s crazy.
I think about just how much luck played into me even being born.
If you heard the story of how my folks met, it’s, like, unbelievable.
And I also think about the fact that I met a guy who I didn’t know previous to in my previous life, who invited me to some office about some financial thing.
And 17 years ago, I would have never imagined that it would have became what it became.
And just like my wife and I went on our first date, May 4, 2013.
Prior to that, I didn’t know it would be my last first date.
You get what I’m saying? I hope you thank your lucky stars that somebody had the guts to talk to you about Primerica.
Okay.
But now you have to get the guts to go talk to somebody else about.
Know theme for this weekend has been fundamentals, right? And I’m going to kind of give you a fun spin on it.
But I’ll tell you this, lack of resourcefulness.
Lack of resources has never stopped anybody from being successful.
Just lack of resourcefulness.
And I’m going to have you guys write down the word.
I’m going to give you a little fun with that.
I want you to write down the word fun, all right? And then under that, I want you to write down the word duh.
Like, D-U-H.
Can everybody say duh for me? Duh.
Like, duh, right? Like, duh, right? Like, when it’s raining outside, somebody’s like, oh, it’s raining outside.
It’s like, duh.
Yeah, we know it’s raining.
I get it.
And then the third one is mentals, right? So, fundamentals, right? So I’m going to kind of break this word down.
And have some fun with this.
So, first one’s fun, right? For all of you who are brand new, enjoy the process of not knowing what you’re talking about yet.
No, really, just, like, enjoy it.
But also understand that the fun comes after you start winning.
Everybody says, oh, there’s this joy in the journey.
I think that’s bullshit.
I think the journey is stressful as hell.
Really.
When I was a regional leader, trying to become an RVP, that was stressful, right? When were opening an office, that was stressful.
Right? Becoming parents, it’s fun and stressful, right? So enjoy the process.
But also know that the fun comes later.
Okay? Number two.
Duh.
Right? So there’s a bunch of things you have to learn in our business to be successful.
You can’t avoid them, right? Like, I love basketball.
I can’t play the game.
But I do love watching the game.
And if you’re going to play basketball.
Or you’re going to play a professional sport.
There’s some basic things you need to know about the game.
Like, you got to know what the rules are.
You got to be able to run past, dribble, shoot.
Right? You got to know those things.
You got to be in great shape.
Right? Those are, like, the duh things, right? And I don’t have enough time to teach you all the fundamentals.
But I will tell you this.
If you have Primerica online, there is no excuse why you shouldn’t master the fundamentals.
Because before we had access to all the great leaders we have access to.
We had access to them via videos and audios on Primerica Online.
Right? I used to listen to a CD of Keith speaking at a Builders event.
Before I ever met Keith Oto or shook his hand, right? And what’s crazy is, I didn’t have access to people like that prior to Primerica.
And now, I think I heard Glenn say this once.
Glenn Lee.
He said, the net worth of his cell phone.
Is incredibly different than it was previous to Primerica.
Like, before Primerica, I didn’t know anybody who had 30, 40, $50 million to the name made millions of dollars a year.
I didn’t have someone like that I could call.
You get what I’m saying? So you have access to those things.
So those are like, those Duh things.
Sometimes we’re, like, looking for these big answers, and they’re right in front of us.
Right.
These duh moments, right.
And then the third one is the mentals, right.
And I’ll just say, this is kind of a phrase I live by.
If you want an easy life, get good at hard things.
And if you want a hard life, keep doing easy things, right.
Because the man or woman you are will determine what you accomplish here.
See, the situations you’re going to go through are either going to make you or break you.
I guarantee you.
And I don’t know this for a fact, but I do.
The people in the first two rows have had situations over the course of their career that would bring most people to their knees.
And the people that they were getting in front of the room, or again, in front of the room of, had no idea it was happening.
See, some of us love talking about our problems, and the challenge is, when you become a leader, you forfeit the right to talk about your problems all the time.
Right.
I think that’s some that gets lost.
And when you’re brand new, I’ll just tell you this.
The biggest error you make is bitching about the hardships of your business to the people who are closest to you.
Right? No, I’ll just tell you.
Because I was recruited in the cold market, but I built my whole business in the warm market, and a lot of us, right? We don’t realize that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot, talking about all of our challenges all the time versus talking about the direction we’re going in, right? So I wrote this down.
The difference between pros and amateurs, right? There’s two things.
Well, a couple of things.
One, pros get paid, amateurs get practice, right? And then the other one is how they handle failure.
The biggest difference between pros and amateurs are how they handle failure, right.
It’s all about attitude and activity.
I’ll give you an example.
Anybody a baseball fan? Okay, I’m not, but let’s just pretend, right? So watch this.
If you’re a baseball player, if you’re a batter and you have a 300 batting average, you’re a professional baseball player.
You’ll make $10 million a year.
That means that you hit the ball 300 times out of every thousand at bats.
So that actually means that you miss more than you hit.
Right.
But see, you don’t get paid for the hits.
You get paid to be emotionally mature enough to handle failure and get up at bat again.
Right? And the pros, the people in the front of the room know that, right? Like when you recruit ten people, you’re going to have eight or nine people quit on you.
When you recruit 20 people, you’re going to have 16 people quit on you.
When you recruit 30 people, you guys know them.
I’m not great at math, but you guys get the number, right? As you get bigger, you actually experience failure more than when you’re small.
So what you end up doing is you end up avoiding that direction because you think you’re moving in the right direction.
But the truth is, if you’re experiencing more failure, that means you’re going to experience more success.
Does that make sense? Right.
Thanks, guys.
I had a story I was going to tell you.
I can’t remember it, but hopefully the next minute I remember it.
So really focus on asking yourself the right questions.
So here’s some questions I would ask myself if I’m brand new, right? Do I want to lose small or do I want to win big? Am I willing to accept that there’s a process and a price to be paid to be successful? Here’s the big one.
Right? Pay attention.
Am I paying attention to the people who are ahead of me? And here’s what I mean by during recognition, Keith made everybody stand up.
You know what’s crazy? If you look at all the highest paid people in this room, when recognition is happening, none of them are sitting down.
None of them are in the back of the room.
They’re all up front here because they know part of their job is giving to the environment as much as it is getting from the environment.
And I know for me that all I ever do is I pay attention to what the people ahead of me are doing.
So if I see them doing it, I’m doing it.
If I don’t see them doing it, I’m not doing it.
It’s really that simple, right? You just got to pay attention to what it is that the people ahead of you are doing, right? And I’ll leave you with this.
I remember the story as I was making that point and I forgot it again.
So here we go.
But there’s three kinds of leaders in our business, right? There’s the winners.
These are people who wake up frustrated every day and they go after it.
There’s the potential winners.
These are people who wake up frustrated, but don’t go after it.
And then there’s the losers, right? I know.
I grew up when we called people losers, right? You actually won or lost.
But these are the people who don’t want to work and don’t want to compete.
So, to all you brand new people, right? Get up.
Focus.
Compete.
Give it your best.
Lean on your uplines, because I promise you, this business will change your life like it’s changed hours and so many people in this room.
So thanks so much for listening.
Thanks.
Locke.
Eyes.
Proud to be your teammate.
