We Are a Product of Our Own Environment 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 talking with Dean Francis this afternoon, and we're talking about winning. And so thanks for taking the time.

Dean. Yes. Excited again to be here. Love talking with you all the time about entrepreneurship and winning in business and in life.

Dean we finished up the last one talking about we're a product of our own environment, and that's never more important than in your family. What's you can really speak to, Dean, is not only succeeding in business over a long period of time, decades of compounding and growth, but five kids. And these are adults now, and they're moving into their own direction. You can't really tell kids how you want them to be. They're going to be the way they're going to want to be. They're born of a certain direction and energy and likes and dislikes and everything. But you can help them be the best and the most productive version of themselves. And so how have talk about balance? What have you learned about balance? I'm really curious about.

Well, I like that. I like the quote. I think it came from Craig Groeschel, pastor of the largest church in the country. And he said balance is a myth. You know, there's no such. No such thing. But certainly we can put those priorities in place that match up with the values that we have internally. And so, you know, we're in different seasons at times in our life. Early on, when our kids were young, that was a season where I needed to go build a business, I needed to go provide. So I put the pedal to the metal. And our, I think that's probably one of the early stages. It was okay. Saturday night is date night for Sarah and I. Sunday we're going to attend church. We're going to spend some time as a family sometime. Sunday evening I was back on it. And so it was, you know, it was pretty intense. Certainly during the week, we'd see things. And then as the kids got older, Sarah always made sure I never missed anything important. If it was important, she made sure I put it on my schedule so that I was doing that. And then, you know, I'd create those little opportunities when they were younger to take them to McDonald's. And maybe I'd do a little work while they're playing in the playground. And, you know, and just these little moments, I guess you find those things to kind of put those priorities in place in your schedule. And. And then as they got older, I'll tell you the big secret here. For anyone that's got teenagers, or you'll have teenagers in the future, this is the greatest thing that we ever did was I took them each to a place called JH Ranch in Northern California. Just like in business. I was trying to figure out, how do you do family? You know, and there's a guy out there named Greg Gunn out in Oklahoma, you know him, Larry. And he and his wife Rhonda, they went on a mission to figure out how to have the best possible family. And so I got a chance to hear him speak. And he said, the most important thing I can tell you is when your kids become teenagers, dads take them to a father, son or father, daughter week at JH Ranch. And he was so emphatic about it.

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And of course they do. Mother, son and mother, daughter as well. But we did it. We sold out to that. And it created this amazing experience between me and each of them. And so no matter, even though I've been busy over the years, I coach them in sports and things, but still, dad was busy. I'm a goal oriented guy. I'm blowing and going, but man, did that solidify our relationship. And, and it really, I don't know, put us on the same page. They always talk about how ages 15 to 25, you make most of the most important decisions in your life. And they talk to the kids about how God gives you parents that. That's your greatest tool, it's your greatest weapon to really win this victory, to make a lot of great choices that will affect the rest of your life. And then they can. Our kids all went back. You can go back to these, you know, two week programs they have. And so, but we embraced these values. Everybody in the family embraced these values that were kind of taught from JH Ranch, very biblical kind of values, but fun, adventurous, exciting, and allowing each, you know, member of the family to still be themselves, have that individuality and personality, but that without a doubt, probably the best thing that ever happened. And so I think them then watching us model what the best we could, trying to live our lives winning in business, but also trying to be good people and have a good marriage. And I don't know, it's amazing. Lots of good things are kind of blossoming from that today.

Of course, you made friends, they made friends. And those speakers can say things that your kids might be more open to listening to from someone else rather than you dad's preaching at them or, you know, just tune you out. But when you. How young did you start taking them?

I think it's best if a girl. You take a girl at about age 15 and a boy 16 or 17, just because the maturity, because you have. You do these fun things together, you have a blast. It's very adventurous, very fun. And each experience you have together, there's a purpose behind it. It gets you talking, get you talking about how that relates to life. And so you end up in these amazing discussions about life. And so anyway, that's. Those are the ages.

What did you learn about.

Did this come naturally to you?

The balance and how to approach that, or, you know, there was a lot of learning that had to go on before they got up to 15 years old.

I think we did okay. I think Sarah is a very structured person. And so by personality, she always made family happen. She was kind of the anchor. And it freed me up to go and kind of let it rip in business for a period of time in our lives. And, you know, but I think the. The one thing that we. We did right was, you know, a date night each week. And then I think a lot of times at your events, Larry, that you hosted, although they were business conferences, we were always hearing people speak that were married, had families, and many of them referencing, you know, just little things that they did to keep that balance in place as best you can, and then trying to model that. And we would. We would end up with great discussions at those events and after those events of, you know, maybe adjustments we needed to make in our schedule. So as our kids got older, we kept making adjustments. We kind of found that the more you communicate as husband and wife about, hey, what's our schedule look like? Where are we at? What are the things that are important? Are we on track? Do we need to change something and having that constant communication, those things help. We were certainly not perfect, but they helped a lot.

Thank you, Dean.

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 and put them into something for you to watch. Go to forward slash webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Widell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go.