Mentor Moments with Lee Richter and Tim Francis

10 Jul 2018 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:39

In this interview segment, Lee Richter asks Tim Francis about a pivotal moment that reshaped his outlook on business and life. Tim recounts a severe health crisis that left him bedridden for days, during which his personal and business finances collapsed to zero. He credits his mother for temporarily covering his mortgage, preventing the loss of his home. This ordeal led Tim to realize he had been chasing quick fixes—believing a single campaign, product, or assistant could transform everything—rather than embracing a patient, long‑term growth mindset. He reflects on the "compound interest" of maintaining enduring relationships, such as with his long‑standing assistant, and the importance of nurturing roots over seeking instant breakthroughs.

Is there a moment in time along the way where you're like, wow, because of this it's going to change my outlook or the way I do business or the way I run my life? I know that you just relocated from Canada to Austin, Texas so that you could have more impact in your personal life and not be on as many airplanes. But what are one of the— what's one of those key moments for you that really changed everything?
So thinking back to when I was sick and I laid in bed day after day after day after day, the swelling had gone through my whole body. I couldn't even type.
Oh my goodness.
So I went, you know, personally my finances went to zero, my business finances went to zero. Had it not been for my mom paying my mortgage payment for me for a few months, I would have lost my house. Thank God for moms. Yes, thank you, Mom. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I just, I really realized that I had been trying to cheat the process. I was drinking the Kool-Aid of just one campaign will change everything, just one product will change everything, just the right assistant will change everything, just one, just one, just one, rather than allowing that natural growing of roots. If you know that the long view, right? And kind of getting back, because you've had your assistant for a long time as well, is there's something about the compound interest of having the long-term view in a relationship with an assistant.
Yeah.
There's something about the long view and the compound interest of us putting the right building blocks into a business and Mm-hmm. So that it isn't just a really tall teeter-totter tree. It actually has deep roots that are just as prolific as the canopy that goes over the top.