Episode 377: Who You Hang Around Matters with Dean Francis

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm here this afternoon with a great, longtime friend of mine doing great things around the country. Help me welcome Dean Francis. Little, little applause for Dean Francis.

Hey, Dean.

Hey, good to be here with you today, Dr. Wydell.

You got a pause from one. So, Dean, congratulations on a lot of things, but the transformation you made coming into a business with something you couldn't, you know, you couldn't be trained to do for in college, you know, you had fundamentals, but not getting off to a fast start, but staying with it and becoming a master of the game step by step, which, you know, I respect because that's what I had to do and felt like I could, but I didn't know why I wasn't doing it, but stayed with it. And piece by piece, you know, they, it got a little more clear and I got a little bit more productive. And you've done that and been able to put it into words and you've got a audience of. I don't know if it's up to the tens of thousands, but in the multiple thousands on your calls that plug in to communicate, build, share, how many are, how many are on those zoom calls every week now?

Recently we had just under 17,000, but we're probably averaging about 15 to 16,000 a week now.

Good lord. So if you keep growing, that's going to amount to a pretty decent number.

Yeah, yeah, it keeps growing. We work really hard to provide a lot of value to people every single week. And you know this. When you work hard to provide value, people show up.

But the thing about the weekly deal that's important is so much of this stuff. I don't know if it's because we're dumb or it's so many ways we have to integrate these, this information into our life or so many changes we have to make early on. But you really need to hear this stuff over and over and over again for the light bulb to really go on for you. Have you noticed that?

Yeah, I think I heard a quote many years ago. People don't need to be taught, they need to be reminded.

Yeah. And so when you're doing your, you're doing your training and you're seeing the numbers that are growing? What are the things that's exciting to you? You know, your own business is growing? What's the excitement that that's coming to you, that's making it really, really worth beyond, you know, your own business growing?

Yeah, it's. It's really true. I mean, you know, Sarah and I, we've had a lot of success in business over the years, and you always want to have more success, and things are going great in our business. But there's something about having an impact on other people's lives where you see people full of hope and enthusiasm, people that maybe were ready to give up, weren't sure if they could do it, weren't sure if they could make it. And now there's this restored confidence in their future and watching people where their numbers just, you know, after just two or three months are just making gigantic leaps. And I get. Not just texts and emails, I get cards, I get messages. And it, you know, I think that's. That's what life is about, is being, you know, not just rich financially, right, but rich in those relationships, rich in making an impact. And, and of course, it's not just me. I got tons of people that are helping me. So just being a part of something that is special and having an impact, it's. It's been absolutely awesome.

Well, the other thing, Dean, is what we find is a lot of the things you learn in life come from the sides. It's not necessarily what you're going for. In going for things, you put yourself in motion, and all of a sudden you'll stumble across an idea. Someone come in here, come in there. It's almost by accident. Early on, we used to have these prospecting campaigns, and they never worked. You know, you'd go to the guy, you're like, art was always talking about so and so. He's got the greatest campaign, recruiting is going through the roof. And we go. I remember calling one of the guys up and said, ed, what's this thing you're doing? He's, well, we have this letter we send and, you know, follow up with a call. So I said, send me the letter. I'm all excited. Send me the letter. And letter said something like, dear sir, our gentleman had some goofy type awkward wording. I read one sentence. I called him up. No, it was Ron and Ron Wright. And I said, ron, what in the crap? This is the crappiest letter I've ever read in my life. And most awkward, this cannot be the key. And he said, well, Larry, you're right, but he Said, you know, we're stupid enough to send it out and what happens is because we're doing this and calling people, we just lock up into people, you know, we bump into people. And he said, none of the people that we have recruited from this explosion can we directly chase to that letter. Not one. But he said only because we started doing that letter did people start falling out of the sky or we start, you know, maybe we started thinking of other people or something. So he said we're afraid to stop sending the letter now. But when you're doing these things, a lot of benefits come to you from the side you didn't even expect. But you know, it's gotta be working because of the feedback, you know, and the growth of the numbers. And I know your numbers are growing, your 12 month cycles, the hundred thousand dollar earners that you are spinning off, the financially independent people that you're coming out of, your organization, the offices that are opening up is giving you all that positive feedback. But what was it like for you, Dean, when you got started? I know you can relate to these people because you went through the painful experience of so hard to get a sale. You know, like the memory of the early years is nothing but when people said no, or things went wrong or you did make a sale and then they would cancel it and did get an appointment, they would cancel the appointment. But somehow, you know, you struggle through. Like in my case, all I can remember is failure about the early years. But now I look at and we've got 5, 6 billion in assets under management, something like that. It's like, how did this happen? I can't consciously ever remember making a security sale, but somehow there it is. And so Dean, in your life early on, why do you think it was so hard for you to get started?

Well, first, if it's okay, I want to comment on something you said there a moment ago in your book Serial Winner. That book is the heart of entrepreneurship. And you know what this is like here recently, you're referring to the leaders for innovation and collaboration and this organization that we created 18 months ago. And, and it's kind of like at times being like a mad scientist in a lab. Entrepreneurship, you got to try stuff like the letter example that you just gave. And I know that your example to me sharing your stories early on where you're sitting around trying to come up with another way to make things work and you wonder sometimes am I half crazy? But if you stick with it, eventually you start figuring out the things that really work. And so just for Us the idea of a motion and graphic video that could be used in the financial industry. It was just an idea, but we got excited about it and we about fell flat on our face early on. But now because of that, there's nine incredible productions that are now out there that people are able to use to grow their business. And it has been a blast. And I just have. I guess I value entrepreneurship probably even more. Just kind of going through that experience so much that you learn.

Well, you know, you made me remember that way back at the CRO Magnon man era, when I expanded up to North Carolina. You made me remember that part of my traveling equipment was I actually took up a little makeshift machine. There was like two toaster ovens standing. I mean, standing on top of each other that had a little screen, and you put in a cassette tape and it would flash pictures, kind of like a primitive video. And that gave me the confidence I need. I never remembered anyone paid much attention to it. I don't know where it went. I do know that nobody I recruited ever asked me, hey, where can we get one of those? You know, but somehow it was what I needed to get myself going. And I don't know if I would have gone without it, if you want to know the truth, you know. But it was. It worked. So the thing is, somehow that little sucker had to work for me, but I forgot about it. But it. You got to be proactive when you move forward. And I'll tell you this, Dean, I don't know. Nobody can listen to all of the podcasts out there, but I talk to a lot of people that are on Shark Tank, you know, winners on Shark Tank, and some of the most successful people coming out of that and Entrepreneur of the Year here and there. And almost all of them have a similar thing like you've got going where they call them these little startup groups or innovators or, you know, where they're meeting with other entrepreneurial type people in the community. And it's like an idea factory. They get together and they still. And they're different industries. Nobody makes any money off each, but they stimulate each other. And so it's kind of a common thing. It's like the leaders have got to stay fresh and stimulated because the leaders are the ones got to be inspired. And you've got to have some source of inspiration. And other people trying to do the same thing usually are the best ideas because some of them will be successful. You know, there'll be some good ideas that come out of it. But rather than Just doing your own fumbling and stumbling. If you can get in and benefit from a whole group of people fumbling and stumbling forward, you're going to go through and you're going to churn up some really good answers and ideas a whole lot faster than if you stay out there as an island unto yourself. And so that's been a big. You found that to be a big key here in the last few years.

Oh, yeah. I think, you know, I get stimulated probably two ways. One is sometimes in a quiet moment at night where I can just really think and write and begin to create. But the other part is getting around some other people that are creative and can dream and that are kind of buying into the direction that you're going. You know, this recent organization we had, there was no grand plan. It was just an instinct, kind of a gut thing. And we're still feel like we're very much at the beginning, but the impact that it's having on people and, you know, all of a sudden now there's 15,000 people a week showing up. And, you know, it's. It's exciting. I think we were, you know, as people, we are created to work in teams. We work best and we function best. We're healthiest when we are with other people. I'm an introvert by nature, so I like that quiet time and so forth. But I am often sparked. You've use the word over the years. Provoke. You know, one of the greatest things a leader can do is provoke, you know, provoke us to think bigger, differently about, you know, don't be scared to ask the question or explore something. And, you know, it's scary at times, but it's fun. It's a. It's a great way to live your life.

And the thing is that we've always got to keep. It's important for us in the early stages to go through that period of time where we are on the fence. You know, we're teetering. You know, one sale here, one sale there, we may stay in. We don't get that sale, we may fall off the fence and never try again. And those, you know, those. It makes you more able to encourage the people going through that because you've been there yourself. I mean, there's a guy, Bobby Tan, up in. In the securities business up in Toronto, and he talked about his fifth year in that business. He was made. He made. He finally made a sale and it was a particular month and he had a dry patch, but it's almost like a hitter in professional baseball, you know, they, you know, they've got a. Haven't had a hit and so many games or something, but he finally got that sale. And then five years later, he was like, superstar. And so it finally got him going. And so look for the inspiration wherever you can. And usually it's some kind of fresh idea. But bottom line, Dean, when you're getting beat, you've got to come to the conclusion is, I've got to get better. And I've seen that about you throughout your career. Whenever you stall out, you know, you can be mad here, mad there, mad these people, but ultimately you come down and say, I got to get better. I just don't. I'm not happy with this. And you've been able to go through those changes. How did you get to that point? Why? Why do you think that way?

Yeah. And I don't know sometimes if that's a gift or a curse. Right. You know, you can drive yourself crazy. But I don't know why for sure, but I think just getting exposure to people that have had success at higher levels, not just in business, but with their life, and just compelled to want to be like that, to want to achieve like that, to be able to be in those discussions and then to have impact. I mean, you know, it's. The business success that you had, Larry, was just. Has been unbelievable. It's extraordinary. But 10 times bigger than that, a hundred times bigger than that is the impact you've had on people's lives. And I think when I got exposed to that, when I saw that my life could have that kind of impact through business, that was just. That was exciting. And so the idea of settling means that I'm not settling for me, I'm settling for other people. You know, when we back off, then we are going to have less impact with our lives. Not just our ability to give financially, but to be able to pour into people, to touch people's lives in some regard that we wouldn't have been able to if we settled. So I think who you hang around is a big deal. I think hanging around you, hanging around. A lot of people I hang around, they keep me in that state of mind.

And what are things you had to learn early on?

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion in assets under management, and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar now. I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up.

Yeah. So I've got two words for you today, Larry. This really hit me recently. I was talking to one of our kids who's young, in business right now, and the word that finally struck me was two words. Forced structure. So I remember, you know, you know, kind of my story. I was struggling early on. I'm literally playing Tetris in the closet late at night as a, you know, married man trying to beat my best score. I'm watching cartoons on Saturdays. I'm watching Mama's Family two hours a day. I'm taking Sarah to work at her minimum wage job at a daycare center, then coming back and getting in bed. This is not a good formula. So we, you know, everything you could do wrong, I did wrong and I'm a disaster. I'm a mess. And then of course, I learned that Sarah's pregnant. And just as a reminder, Sarah and I, it was kind of a pact that, you know, she, she wanted to be that stay at home mom. That was her dream. And I, I sold myself on that. And so that day comes now. We're, you know, we're married and the first one's on the way and I have to deliver. I mean, she is going to be coming home. She's not going to be working anymore. I have got to do it. I have nowhere. She didn't even flinch, you know, she's like, well, you better figure it out because I'm coming home. And so I remember distinctly that next morning, you know, getting up early and going to work. Well, I've always told people that's when I made a decision and hear that, you know, the power of making a decision. And I don't want to take away from that. That's true. But it dawned on me that as motivated as I got at that moment, I still needed structure. I mean, until we actually have that daily weekly routine in a productive spot, we can't, we're never going to get anywhere. And so because we only had one car, I wanted to make sure Sarah had a car. So I called my sister in law and I said, listen, could you pick me up on your way to work and drop me off at my office? And she said, sure. In fact, she forgot that she did this. I was talking to her recently and I, you know, you can tell by my Habits at that point, even, even, even today, I still don't like early morning. I'll stay up as late as you want, but don't make me get up early. But I had no choice because she had to come by at whatever it was, 7:30 in the morning and I had to be up, I had to be ready. I had no option. And. And so then she would drop me off at my office, an office I was sharing with others. And there was no Internet back in that day. So once you showed up, you had to work. I mean, there was nothing else you could possibly. I could possibly do. And it dawned on me. It created for. I needed some force structure. I didn't have yet those habits and routines in place yet. Yet I needed something that would help me do it. And when I look back, I'm realizing how significant that was. It forced me to get up early to get going, to work, to make things happen and to follow through with the decision I was making to really, to win in business the way I needed to, to provide for my family. And everything took off from there. Everything happened then. I think what happened in time is I created a lot of those habits where you could take away the fourth structure and I was still going to operate that way.

It was internalized.

It was internalized. There you go.

It became internalized. And that's where people talk. It became a habit. Well, the structure. Habits could fall apart. But when you have that structure built in, because internally in your bones, you know, I got to do this. You know, your body, your bones, your structure says stay on track. You know, we've been the lazy route. You know, we've eaten the whole pizza. We know what happens, you know, when you let yourself go and inside you have those internal controls. But you know the funny thing, I went through the same thing when I started out and living on commission, you know, commission and having two kids, two boys at home and a wife that didn't work. I knew I had. Somehow I knew I had to motivate myself because I hated the mornings too, always have. But I had this thing about me. Whereas if I had an appointment, if I had someone to meet, well, I'm not going to lay in bed when I've got somebody waiting for me. And so what I did is I. The way I made myself work was I schedule breakfast every morning with somebody I meet schedule somebody for breakfast. And so they're going to be over there for breakfast. I got to get up and meet them for breakfast. I did that for years to keep myself, to start the day with a bang, you know, and at least I'd have one appointment. And people will come if you buy a breakfast, you know, I found it very easy to get people to show up. And then Andy Yum took it another step where he would have like four or five breakfasts in the morning. What he would do is at the ihop, he would have breakfast over here and he'd have the waiters know, I got a guy coming in here in 45 minutes and he's going to be looking for me for breakfast. Just take him over to a booth on that side of the restaurant and tap me on the shoulder and then he'd have to go have breakfast over there. But he'd be having like five breakfasts at the same place. The same reason, you know. You know, it's just you got to find ways to get yourself to work. And that's one reason with a big inter call, people say, why do you keep still doing the big hitter call? I say, well, for one thing, it keeps me from letting myself turn into a negative SOB because I start the week off talking to gung ho, happy, fired up people. And where it bothers me again, the morning person, 9am East coast is 7am Mountain time, even if you are in Aspen, Colorado. And so you got to get up at 6 to be ready to go at 7. And then, you know, we have the pre call 50 minutes early. And it's like, I can't tell you, Dean, how many of the early years it was like every Monday morning in Colorado, it's like, this is the last time I do this stupid call. I'll never do another one of these again. I'm not getting up this morning. And then a couple of minutes into the call, I'm so fired up I can't see straight. But you have to be able to keep yourself on track because that's really the only way you can get yourself to do these superhuman things that nobody else could force you to do, but have got to be done for you to have the extraordinary success you're capable of.

Really, it is such a big deal. I remember before COVID we had a monthly full timers meeting and everybody would drive in and I would work really hard for this meeting. But the reality is you do them, you reach these points where you're like, do we really need to do another one? I don't even feel like doing it. And you know, and gosh, it's got to be inconvenient for everybody to drive in here. And I mean literally, like the Night before, I'm like, I'm ready to cancel it and talk. I'm talking myself out of it. But then of course, every single time, you know, we'd have the meeting and of course I'm not the only person talking. I got lots of people speaking and sharing and even talking to people before and after and going to lunch. And by the time the whole thing's over, I'm pumped up, I am jacked up, I am ready. I'm like, man, what in the world was I thinking last night? I'm thinking about canceling this meeting. It's like, what a mental, insane person you kind of feel like on the inside. But it is true. It's other people getting around other people. It's critical that spark us, keep us focused, fired up.

Yeah. The thing is the biggest breakthrough I had in my life where the four point game plan came out of. And I use that it was a turnaround where we went from recruiting 50 people to 1800 people from 1979 to 1980. Came from me going to the convention Art Williams had at Sea Island, Georgia. And he ran it in December because cheap rates and, you know, back in the company was so small he had categories for downlying people. So I had a training manager underneath me, Richard Drouin. And there was like 20 slots or something for. Or 10 slots for district leaders division, whatever he was. And I sold him on. I said, it'll change your life, you know, if you can qualify for this thing, it'll be unbelievable. And you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, being around the store. And so he got so psyched up, he actually qualified for the contest. And in spite of everything, he qualified me too. So he basically, basically the only reason I qualified was I psyched him up about qualifying. So here's the problem though, Dean. It was my first year in North Carolina. I worked around the clock. I gained 50 pounds. I was fatter than a tub. You know, you lose your mind when you're starting these things. And I didn't want to be around happy people because the numbers were not good. And the last thing I wanted to be around was successful happy people. I did not want to see happy people. And I would have not gone to that stupid Sea island convention except Richard was going, Richard and Marty. And I couldn't let him see how much I did not want to go, you know, So I had to act like, oh, yeah, unbelievable. We'll drive down together. It's the only reason I went, but because I was there. And when I was there, I hid in My room most of the time because I didn't want to be around the happy people again. But I don't need to say that again. But I was forced to be with the happy people. But in the hallways, I met some people, asked some questions, got some missing pieces to the puzzle, and I got super. You know, what we tried to make work, but just really didn't understand it. So we got the last pieces. I went back at three months, three weeks of December to work on my strategy to launch the New Year. And son of a God, if we.

Didn'T recruit 1800 people.

But it all came because I went to a thing that I. But I had psyched myself up into being forced to attend by getting Richard to go. And that's the same thing. You set up a breakfast, you do these things. Because you know what I found, Dean? You can't change how you are. Like, if you're not a morning person. You got to find a way to work yourself around that and deal with it. You're not going to say, okay, I'm going to be a morning person. Those are the phonies. The thing is, like, how can you get yourself to do it in spite of the fact that you'll never be a morning person? But you got to do things in the morning. And so those. You know, there's always going to be things that we have to get ourselves to do that we don't want to do. And mastering those, figuring those out equips you for being able to figure out a lot of the tougher problems, more complex problems you'll have as a leader going forward. Because if you can't figure out how to motivate yourself, you're not going to figure out how to motivate an army, you know?

Yeah. You had a quote from for me many years ago. You said, dean, to a certain extent, you gotta figure things out for yourself. And I think that's really true. How do I keep myself in the right frame of mind? And what that might mean for me might be different for somebody else. I think one of the mistakes people make is they look at someone else and they think, okay, I need to be like that. And that's not how they're wired at all. And so then they fall short, and then they beat themselves up. I think somewhere along the way, I just thought, you know what? I'm not like that person. I can learn great things from them, but I'm me. I got to figure out what works best for me, what fires me up, what keeps me excited. And one other point here. I like this quote. We are a product of our own environment. You know that the environment I'm in, the people that I'm around, the experiences or meetings I'm in during the week that is shaping the way I think and how I feel more than anything else. And so I have to keep asking myself, what am I doing to create a great environment every day? You know, what is it? Maybe I'm listening to? Or what is my routine? Or what are those things that they. Again, they get me excited, but they create an environment that keeps me going in the direction that I want to go. It never, never stops. It's a lifelong mission.

Absolutely, really, really great information.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to widelawinning. Com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Widell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.