How Frank Got the Ecuador Congressional Medal of Success with Frank Dillion

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 with a legend in the financial services world. He'd become a legend in two countries. By the way, very few people are that well known coast to coast in two different countries. But that's the opportunities available for you. If you do something great and you immigrate from one country to another and have insane success, it reverberates, you know, it's like throwing a rock into the water and people find out about you. And so maybe Frank will share some of those experiences. That would be kind of fun to hear again, but help me welcome Frank Dillon. Hey, Frank, how are you?

Hi, Larry. Thank you for having me today. I really appreciate that. And the first thing that I wanted to say, Larry, is that I want to thank you for being one of my mentors. If people don't understand or don't know, you really was one of the strongest men that I had since I was a division leader. You met me when I was a division leader, and then when I became a regional leader, Larry, you invited me to a leadership school. And that was my first experience going to a big hotel that you brought me. Very luxurious, powerful hotel. I never was one of them, never before. And I remember catching the vision that, you know, it's not what you really have right now. It's what you can have. And you exposed me to go to this hotel which had two soldiers, you know, on each side of the bed, and I was inside it. I never had that experience. I was scared that those metal soldiers were gonna, you know, follow me on the sofa. And I can't forget that experience. I always talk about that, you know, from the beginning. I really. Larry, I treasure you very much. I think that you are one of the biggest, you know, legends in the company because you started with a big vision. What a big hierarchy. If anybody really studied your work, you know, we will recover that big vision. Larry. When I came to this country, I came from my country, Ecuador, and I came like any other regular immigrant looking for a job, because in my country was no jobs. And my mother wanted to send me to a law school, but we didn't have the money. So I came to this country looking for something. And I come back and I can become a lawyer in my country. But then I fall in love with America. You know, it was something that, you know, you need to experience that there are beautiful people in this country like you, Andy, and other people that really care for people, you know. And so I came to this country, I started working on, you know, in many jobs. And one of them was basically pushing a cart at the district garment district in Manhattan.

How old are you now? How old were you?

Oh, my goodness. Well, let's say. Let's count about 42 years ago, 43 years ago. Okay. And I'm 70 now.

Okay.

But, you know, I still feel like a 40la.

Absolutely.

I'm still screaming. I have the energy, I have the inspiration, and I still running a bait shop. But the most important thing I read is that I always believe in God. And I thought that when I had those experiences in the beginning, like any other immigrant, I was pushing a car during the snow time. And I remember I was in such a cold thing on the street. And I always said to myself, I know this is not going to be it. It's going to be something better for me. And I think one of the things that I learned with myself and other people is that you never believe and never thinking or getting stuck and thinking that this is it. And I say, you know, this was temporary. Then I went to clean toilets and floors and all of that stuff. And again, you know, I didn't see myself staying like that for the rest of my life. And when I went to work to a factory for the factory in Manhattan, I started going to school, you know, because, you know, most of my family, both of my brothers and sister were professionals in Ecuador, and they were doctors and, you know, one another one that is a lawyer. And then, you know, different professions. They have an accountant and all that. So I came to this country and I went to school. I was working during the day and I went to school to college during the night and weekends. At that time, we had the bilingual. That's when we started the bilingual programs in the United States. And I've traveled into public buses from Manhattan to Montclair, New Jersey.

Wow.

And then I was. When the snow was there, I had to walk like two miles, you know, through all the snow to get to my classes. And I tell my kids about that, that, you know, life is not that easy in the beginning. But you know what, Larry? I took that as an experience. I took that as a training that God put me through to be strong with my mind. Most people think that's a negative and something that, you know, they feel sorry for themselves. But I didn't feel sorry for myself. I know that God gave me the strength to go through all of that experience. And I felt that it was an experience for me to get tough, to become tough, you know, to get a strong mind to get what I want in life. So I kept, you know, searching and searching. I graduated from college, I graduated from Rutgers University with a master's degree. And then I got my PhD when I was working for the medical school as a clinical director. I got recruited by Primerica. And two years before I retired from the college, from the university medical school, I realized that this opportunity was amazing. Two years before I get full retirement, I quit my job. And when I quit, I was a division going to re, you know, and I basically put all my heart. It's not only, you know, making money. What the idea was to help people and to understand what the crusade was all about. You know, people that didn't know about financial services and didn't have anything to, you know, to protect themselves. And we still, I still believe that is a great percentage. Especially, you know, now we're, you know, with our Latino community, we still need to educate them about, you know, how money works. So I came and, you know, I became a vice president. And after, you know, the first year, basically I recovered my income that I was making at the medical school. I was making at that time, 215,000. And I quit from $215,000 a year.

And late 90s, this was in the late 90s, so it wasn't. That, wasn't that terrible. Terribly far back in the past, and you had worked, what, 18 years, you see where it was a 20 year retirement. And so you like 18 years, you walk away from retirement two years into it. I mean, that's a big step. Either a big step or a stupid step. It's a stupid, it's a stupid step if you weren't going to work.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

But you know what? When you have faith in the Lord and believing that God is good to you and always, you know, understand that whatever is in front of you, it's an experience in that when you feel that's when God is with you, that's when you needed him, you know, to be by you. And basically the first year I recovered my 215,000. I left 215,000 and I recovered my first year 215,000. That was the biggest achievement for me to see that.

Amazing.

With those degrees, without those degrees, I can make that.

That was A big achievement for us to see, too. There's a lot of people watching you do?

Yeah. And then I look at Rick Susie's history, and nobody did him in terms of his numbers. And basically I did that after 10 years. Nobody did his records. I did it. And I basically, you know, through your mentoring, through you guys, you know, Andy, Ron and other people that were very nice to me, I was able to get my first million dollars in 39 months after I became a vice president.

39 months, new business. A million dollars not accumulated, total. You got your income driven up and had a business in place that was generating a million dollars a year in cash to you, which is correct. A record that's never been beat. And why do you think, you know, so many people are in jobs for a long time and they say that you can, you know, when you start, you have a lot of inspiration, a lot of energy and everything. But after you're in a job or in a corporate, especially a corporate environment like you were doing, a bureaucratic environment, that it just kills your inspiration and your drive. As you were going through those times, I bet you had ideas, you had things to change to make it better, this, that, the other, but you had to get permission. And then a lot of times, you know, that it's not that the people were bad, but they just didn't have the resources, maybe didn't have the authority to turn you loose. You probably could have revolutionized the health care arena that you were operating in had you been given the freedom. But does that sound right?

Yes, I was right. But it's impossible to be beating that system because it's so structured, so organized. It's look like a mafia. You cannot even become, you know, be promoted because the mental health as well as health, you know, that, you know, everybody had their own group. So it is very hard to break into or to break through that. And I basically, yes, I got tired. I was working with many patients. I love to work, you know, to help people. And remember, that was Newark, New Jersey. You know, you're familiar with Newark, one of the poorest city in the United States. You know, a lot of drugs, a lot of, you know, abuse. You know, it's a bunch of things, violence. But, you know, I was helping people. I took, you know, I. Basically, my experience from that is that, man, people come back from mental health because they got no money. And I saw that coming back, going back and forth like a revolving door to the patients. And I realized he said, man, people need money. People need something to be help. With it, people have to do, you know, to know something different that is there for them. And then I got recruited actually by fun. You know, the guy that recruited me, I was actually seeing a patient and somebody invited me to an investment seminar. And I said, wait a minute, I don't know about investment. Let me go and see it. And that was so interesting, Larry, that the guy said, well, you know, our next meeting is 12 o'. Clock. It was like at 10 o' clock day calling and said, I can't do that because I have patient. And the guy asked me, when can you do it? He said. I said, two o'. Clock. Hey, we have another one for two o'. Clock. Which was not true. But, you know, I show up and got. Larry, that's what made me realize that this business, whoever is involved, not accidental, you know, I think it's geared and direct and planned by God, by the Lord, and until this day, I share with people. That was the only one in the opportunity meeting. I was the only one. And since I was a doctor and I was, you know, you know, expecting to see a lot of people in the conference because, you know, to the conference that we go, 100, 200, I was the only one. So the guy keep coming back and saying, oh, he's given another five minutes, there's more people coming. So it made me believe that there was more people coming. I said, fine, I can wait another five minutes. And then he said, well, you finally, there is a traffic, you know, situation. Okay, go ahead. You don't hear. So I was looking back, expecting more people to show up. And I was the only one. And let me tell you, Larry, there was something that I realized in the middle of the presentation, that business was for me. And I asked the guy, where can I sign, what I need to do to be part of this company? And the guy keep telling me about the presentation. I said, where can I sign what I need to do? And the guy keeps telling me about the opportunity. Then I said, oh, my God, this guy. Maybe this is a joke or something. But you know what I'm telling you, when God selected you to be part of something big like this company, number one, you have to see that this is big. This is not a smooth thing. Like I tell my people, this is not rice and beans and pork chop. This is real really soft, you know. And I fall in love with the crusade. I fell in love with training people because that's something that I love to train. And I took off from that. I enjoy it, Larry. The point that kept Me in this confidence is that I was enjoying developing leaders and training people to become self sufficient, independent trainers and at the same time to have a relationship with them and believing me, what I saw with my vision, you know, so I trained my vision during training and things like that.

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. Absolutely. And Frank, I remember when I went to North Carolina and the first, probably second month there we had a football coach came in and I talked to him for about 10 minutes and he stood up. He said, it was just, you know, me and him in the office. He stood up and he said, I'm ready to sign. He said, sign me up. He didn't need to. Somehow, you know, I, I really think, you know, if we're challenging people, you know, there's, you're never going to have a company that everybody wants to join. You know, everybody is, has different motivations and things that, that they, that they're excited about. But when the thing is, whatever you're doing, you got to find your thing. There is a thing for you to, that you will respond to, you know, and you go by not what people tell you you should or that, that may be helpful. They may be right, they probably might be wrong. Only, you know, you. But you need to be aggressive. Like if you're buried in a job in a corporation or in a career, you know, you get people, they get into, you know, maybe you had stayed in Ecuador and become an attorney and. But then you could have been 20 years there and you're just bored out of your mind, you know. And so there's a lot of people that are bored out of their mind. They're frustrated, they don't enjoy it, they dread going in or. Well, look, start looking around because that's your fault if you stay in a situation that is uninspiring for you and you know that's your job because you're in charge of your own life. What good is freedom if you don't exercise it? A lot of people have died so you have the freedom to say, I want. This could be great. Everybody in the world could say, I've got the perfect situation, but for me and not that great because I don't like it, you know, and start putting yourself in front in different environments, looking at different things, reading, exposing to. You can see something that. Where those molecules inside your body, they start saying, this sounds right. You know, I can get excited about this and. Because that's, that's like a match going off inside of you. Because you've got to get on fire. To be successful anywhere, to be super successful, you've got to do more than most people do. And you're only going to do that in something that you love more than most people love, you know, because it's your thing. And so you got to find your thing. And you found your thing and went on. I want to wrap this segment up by. You got so successful in the company and the word got out tell let people know what happened back in your home country.

Okay. At the meantime, when I was here. Yeah, well, they were in my country was a lot of. Number one, the economy went down. My family was basically reaching the level of poverty. My brothers and sisters were professionals, but they could not find a job. And you know, the political arena there is very unstable. So basically all the people suffered there. I didn't go there until I basically, I had some money saved so that I can go back and help my family. And when I went back, basically I realized that, you know, my family was not doing well. I helped each one of my brothers and sister and I bought a house for my mom and I want somebody to take care of her 24 hours, you know, because she was basically, you know, getting old.

Yeah.

And getting a little bit sick. But I had that pleasure in my life, that satisfaction I had that I could not feel guilty, you know, being here being successful and helping my family. On the contrary, it was something that inspired me not to forget about my family because usually we don't have a compelling reason, you know, to do something great in life. And like you said before, I remember, you know, many years ago you say, frank, you know, for you to do this business, you need to have very strong reason so you can inspire yourself and inspire other people. That just took in my mind for years. And I said, you know what? Let me come out with a compelling reasons why you want to do this business, Frank. And that's what really, you know, helped me to develop to the next level competition, you know, and you know, you know, my story. Basically, you Know, just change the numbers in the company. I think I was instrumental in that, you know, and you were behind this. You know, Andy was behind this, Rob was behind this. But you guys let me run the show, you know, and that was the very important thing that we need to learn in this business. You have to have a coach, you have to have a mentor. You have to follow somebody that can give you something that you don't have, which is the vision and to inspire, to get to like something. If something like you, for example, I know you like to travel, you like to, you know, to go to the snow. You love that. I would not do that. I remember you invited me to one of those, and I could handle it because of the.

The Saint. Yeah, the Saint Regis. We had those leadership festivals out. Out at. Out at Aspen. You made. We got you out there one time.

Yeah. You know, and then I got. The guys threw me on the snow and they tried to, you know, play with me, but the other guys, they were there before, so I was not used to. But it was a great experience anyway, with a lot of, you know, opportunities to develop relationship, get to know each other and be, you know, be friendly and get to know the people.

But now.

But.

But now, in terms of inspiring people.

Yes.

The word got out in your. Yeah. What I want to cover. Didn't the word get out in your country about how successful you were in the United States and talk about how. What came from that?

Well, I was interviewed there in Ecuador by seven TV channels, seven TV stations that wanted to know why the Hispanic Ecuadorian guy was being mentioned in papers. And one of the largest papers there in Ecuador dedicated me one whole page about my history and everything. And I didn't know that, but this was through somebody that was a journalist there that was my friend. I didn't know that he was collecting information about me. But then I got recognized by the government. I got the Congressional Medal, you know, for success, you know, outside of the United States. And, you know, so I got a big recognition, big celebration, and I was able also to give a couple of conferences to different professionals to inspire them, you know, to get into our field. So it was a big experience out of that, you know, besides winning with my family there, I got a chance to be exposed to the television and newspapers and different conferences that I did. And the professional medal, the Congress Congressional Medal. I actually was a big, big experience for me. I didn't. I didn't, you know, I didn't expect that, you know, so I get that. That's what that Came out of there.

But you said you flew, you flew in and they met you at the plane. And it was just. It was just like all of a sudden you're the guy that you've seen, seen this happen to other people on television, but now you're the guy getting off the plane that everybody came to see.

That's right. But it was beautiful. It was a great blessing. You know, I guess also telling to people, you know, this. And this is not only my achievement, but the glory. The glory belongs to God. And guys, believe. Don't lose your faith on becoming somebody because God is with you. You know, no matter where you are, what you do right now, that doesn't mean that you can stay there. And people need to recognize that, you know, of course, you know, passion doesn't show up unless you really start doing something. You know, people want to get the passion first and do it. I think passion comes out of your mind and your heart after you start doing things. So that's what I learned, you know, in that process.

Absolutely. Things start to change when you start doing things. So. Thanks so much, Frank. This has been great. And. And what a chance for people to get to know the background of your story. And next time, I want to dig into how you got established in as your own man, you know, and you got the education, but gradually, step by step, you got promotions, you got more people under you had more responsibility, and the changes you went through with, which is like climbing the ladder of success, I mean, that's a progression. And things you didn't know, you learned. And for people that are listening here, they. It just reinforces the thing that winning is learned. The ability to win is something you learn because you study and then you work and you study and work and you see what happens. And maybe you say, well, I miss. I worked, but I misunderstood what they were saying. So let me go back and make some adjustments. And you can only learn from someone else if you're willing to work and apply what they tell you. A lot of people think it's. It's like a baptismal experience. I'm going to go listen to Frank. His words will wash over me, and I will be changed the rest of my life. And all of a sudden bigger paychecks will come in. No, you have to let those words go inside you. You got to think about it. You got to decide how you're going to use that information to make changes, and then you got to make those changes and how you work. And so, Frank, thanks so much. Lots of great information. I can't wait to bring you back again.

Sure. Galaria. I think that's a real pleasure. It's a blessing to connect with you and you know how much I admire you, respect you and, you know, continue to, you know, to follow your step, man, because you really have done a beautiful job for the company, you know, and thank you very much. Thank you very much on behalf of myself, my family, you know. So thank you, Larry.

And you know, I feel the same way about you, Frank. Thanks so much. 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.