← The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
Episode #250 – Why Great Businesses Depend on Systems, Not Superheroes with Mark Parrish
01:17:43
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Mark Parish
Foreign.
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Patrick Francie
Hi there, and welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. My name is Patrick Francie, and I am your host. And I want to begin by saying thank you for listening. On this show, I am having conversations with seemingly ordinary individuals who have achieved some amazing and extraordinary results in both their life and business. My intention is to inspire and help you learn and grow by having my guests share their journey of how they face and overcome their challenges, but also how they celebrate their. Their many wins. And now let's get on with this show and have a conversation with today's guest. What happens when the business you work so hard to build becomes too large, too complicated, and too dependent on you? I mean, success creates opportunity, but it also creates weight. More employees, more locations, more decisions, more people depending on you to get it right. And without the right systems, without the right discipline and leadership, the very success you say you wanted can eventually begin to control your life. Today's guest knows what it takes to operate at scale. Mark Parish oversees at least 18 McDonald's restaurants, generating more than $75 million in annual revenue and employing more than 1,000 people. He spent more than two decades building teams, developing leaders, managing complexity, and. And creating systems that allow a business to perform consistently at scale, even when he's not standing behind the counter. Mark's also a commercial pilot. He's the founder of the franchise formula and the author of his book, the golden how to lead your family, business, and life with purpose. Today we're going to explore what McDonald's can teach any entrepreneur about systems and why accountability becomes more important than ever. Without any further delays, let's get this show started. Mark Parish, welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. Thanks for joining me.
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Mark Parish
Yeah, you're welcome. I'm actually really excited to be here with you today. Thanks, Patrick.
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Patrick Francie
So, Mark, I prefer to open with the podcast and my guests with a really fundamental question, and that is when people meet you and say, what do you do, Mark? You know, given all that you've got going on in business and in life, what's your answer to that question these days?
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Mark Parish
Yeah, and it really depends on who's asking the question. Right. A lot of people are. They're just asking about the money part. And I try to be a little bit private about it. So I say restaurants and real estate, for those people who I'm friends with and I know they're genuinely asking, then I'll share everything else. Like, for me, I'm. I'm one of those guys I don't consider a fun person. I don't go and Hang out. I don't socialize a whole lot. For me, there's three things that I do all the time. And so if it's not with my family, if it's not with work and it's not with church, then those. Then I really don't do much outside of that. So I consider myself a boring person because I'm so, I don't know, strict about just participating in those three things as much as I can.
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Patrick Francie
That's an interesting insight, you know, given what you've got going on. I mean, you're. I mean, you're. You own a number of franchises. McDonald's franchises is my understanding. Yeah, 22 of them right now.
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Mark Parish
Yeah.
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Patrick Francie
So you kind of. You're kind of accumulating them.
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Mark Parish
Yeah, that's the goal. So right now I'm. I'm trying to get to the 30 restaurants, but I don't get to control that. Many people don't know much about how Franchising works in McDonald's, and it's different than other franchising, but McDonald's is the one that gets to choose. So I may go to another McDonald's franchisee who wants to sell, and we have a deal, but McDonald's gets to choose. They can be like, no, we don't want you to sell to him. And then they'll buy them for themselves, and then anyway, they'll sell them to whoever they want. So I have to be, in their eyes, the top candidate in order for me to continue to grow. But right now, that's my goal. I've got five kids that all say they want to be a McDonald's franchisee in the future. So I'm trying to build enough that they can all be a part of it in the future.
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Patrick Francie
So, I mean, just out of curiosity, what's a big player in the McDonald's franchise world? Is it 100? Is it 50? Is it 500?
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Mark Parish
Right now in the United States, I'd say the biggest is probably 55, 60. The average is 8. So I'm almost three times the average, which is pretty. So it's a very uncommon thing. I just buying three restaurants right now from a guy in Wyoming. He's been in McDonald's for 25 years as an owner operator. He had three. There's another person trying to sell me a restaurant right now, and he's been in McDonald's for almost 30 years, and he has one. So having. Having 22 is very rare and uncommon. Extremely.
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Patrick Francie
Yeah.
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Mark Parish
So.
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Patrick Francie
But it's interesting that you've been able to do this now, you know, when you kind of mentioned the. That you're a little bit boring and that if it doesn't fall under these three kind of. We'll call it the framework of the categories that you place the family, church, and I don't remember the other one, then just work. Right.
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Mark Parish
Building.
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Patrick Francie
So, I mean, that seems to be quite an accomplishment given that. I think many would traditionally think that to achieve that level of success and to accomplish what you've accomplished would take a lot more time of schmoozing and being in the world and getting out there and doing all the things is so. It seems pretty narrow given what you've accomplished. I don't know where I'm going with that, but yeah, no, I've got.
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Mark Parish
I've got a great. So one of the greatest benefits about being A part of McDonald's is the ability to say no. McDonald's. For an example, once you sign your franchise agreement, you are required. You're committing your full time and best efforts to McDonald's, to the McDonald's brand. And so by doing that, it allows me to have that continuous focus, like, this is my career. This is where I'm going to make money. This is how I'm going to build everything on the financial side of my life. And because of that, it's allowed me to say no to other things and focus on what I can. So everybody wants to make more money, everybody wants to have a raise. The only way I can do that is by being great enough in McDonald's eyes that they allow me to buy more restaurants. That's it.
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Patrick Francie
Wow. That's pretty basic, but it's still a big accomplishment. Now you're relatively young men and so you've accomplished that. You must have started how long ago, how many years ago have you been kind of. Did you. When did you enter the McDonald's ecosphere, if you will?
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Mark Parish
Yeah, so I did get a head start. So I started when I was 14 years old and my dad at the time was in the McDonald's system. So he got up where he was at five restaurants. And so when I joined him, we were at 5. And then I've built it to the organization 22. And he's retired and moved on, but not moved on. Like he's still alive and he's still. He loves McDonald's, but. So that. But that's where I was able to have him, where I had McDonald's to go to in and out my entire life. So I worked on farms, gas stations. I went to door to Door sales. I served a Christian mission in Brazil for two years. I went to Iraq, Ramadi, Iraq, for a year and a half as a part of the army in 2005, 2006. So. But every time I left, I didn't have the intention of coming back to McDonald's. I planned on staying away because. Because I didn't like it, and I didn't feel like my dad made enough money. I love the food, but the work was tough and. But every time I came back, it was like, hey, there was a position equal to or better than the position I had before. And I'm like, well, I'm not sure what the next step is. So, all right, you know, come back from summer sales, I didn't really have the next step. I knew I'd go sell again the next summer, but that was it. Came home from two years in Brazil. I wasn't exact. I was like, okay, I'm going to go to school. But I wasn't sure. And I was going to be an attorney, but I talked myself out of it, and I'm glad I did.
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Patrick Francie
I'm glad you did. Well, it sounds like you came from that entrepreneurial kind of. Are you. I often investigate the question, you know, is being an entrepreneur, is it nature or nurture? Sounds much like, given what your dad was doing, it was very much nurture. You didn't really have a choice. I know you did. But ultimately, you'd been wired to be entrepreneurial in spirit, at least.
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Mark Parish
Yeah, in. In a lot of ways. But my dad and I also differ a bunch when it came to how we ran the organization. So he was up to five, and he was what I would consider a micromanager. And that was my. The most challenging part of me working with him and under him. And people who participate in a family business will know that there's the dynamics of working with families. Extremely complicated. But anyway, working with my dad, he was a micromanager. I'm not a micromanager. He. Him and I have had so many, let's say, arguments, debates, whatever you want to call it, even, like, small conflicts of how I run the organization versus how he thinks I should run the organization. I've been. I've been running the organization now and running and owning the restaurants for 15 years. And over those 15 years, he. He's not always enjoyed how I do it, but the way I do it is way different than him. But he did teach me a couple fundamentals. He taught me, and he's still one of my best counselors. So when I need advice. I do go to him. When I do, it's not. It's not as often as it used to be, but it's still often. But he taught me to always be reading books. He would always buy me leadership books that I could. I'd spend 50,000 miles a year on the road. And so I was listening to books while I was driving. That was a fundamental thing that he taught me. He taught me how to negotiate. He taught me how to work with people. And really, the, the greatest asset that he taught me was how to get people, how to care for people in a way that they care for you, that now they're willing to do whatever it takes to be successful. And everywhere I went, people would always say, man, your dad is so awesome. Your dad is the best. Your dad is so cool. Your dad is so nice. He's so giving. And that was the one thing that's helped me be successful the most out of everything he taught me.
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Patrick Francie
Well, I'd be interested in unpacking the whole thought process a little bit more. I mean, I, I align with you in terms of we have to learn as business owners, at some level, we have to learn how to delegate. You know, it sounds like your dad was. Not that he didn't delegate, but he then was really in it. And so if we're surrounding ourselves with great people, training people the right way, having and creating culture, not turning over staff, but that's where I kind of want to go. I mean, obviously you've cracked the code somewhere along the line. How do you deal with. Because McDonald's, I, at least in my story, would be quite relatively transient with staff.
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Mark Parish
Yeah, yeah, we're extremely transient with staff. So McDonald's is not a career for most people. Right. It's a stepping stone. Everybody knows that. And I would say that 10 to 15% of the people that workforce decide to make it more than just a stepping stone. And for those who want to make it a stepping stone, I'm totally happy with it. Right. I need everybody. Um, our turnover on a annual basis is almost 100%. So if you look at restaurants, being for math, we're just going to say an easy number. 50. It's a little more than 50 people per restaurant, but that means I have to hire 50 people per restaurant on an annual basis. So basically, one person per week, I'm going to lose. And I'm also going to re and hire a new person one per week and have to train and everything. So it's, it's, it's very heavy and intensive when it comes to training and, and going through that cycle of turnover,
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Patrick Francie
you know, I can't imagine. So, you know, I've got a specialty retail store, over 40 years in business and I really have come to depend on the key people. Now I'm an absentee owner, have been for 20 years, but I've been really cognizant of looking after key people. My general manager, his right and left hand guys kind of thing. And the training process is, you know, I think this speaks to how important systems and procedures and processes are. And I'll just share one brief kind of insight which was many years ago in my business when I was trying to figure out how to make it better, bigger. All of the things that we go through in business was I looked at McDonald's and I said, you know, the one thing that McDonald's has is systems. So whether I, you know, think that the franchise or I want to franchise my business or not, I mean, McDonald's is really a model that sets the benchmark for systems and processes and training. Because I can't imagine turning over that kind of staff and having to deal with it. Far too much pressure for me. So I guess that's really what McDonald's has become infamous for in the business world, is just how tight those systems are. Repeatable, doesn't matter where you go in the world. I remember in the book I read, and I know I'm going on a little bit Mark, but I remember years ago when I read the book, you know, it doesn't matter where you go. You pull up to that drive through and it's welcome to McDonald's, you know, and whatever other initiative they may have. Can I take your order and supersize and all the rest of it? But they don't. You don't ever pull up to McDonald's and hear, hey, how you doing today? And what can I do for you? And it's like it's even the scripts are that tight. So I don't know if you want to expand on that, but it is really about systems.
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Mark Parish
It is about systems and a lot of people who are trying to play the franchise game, that's what they need to recognize. It's about building the systems of success and then duplicating them across different parts. Ray Kroc, who's the founder of McDonald's, he didn't develop the systems, he just recognized them, saw them for their value and said, let's spread them out. These systems that McDonald's taught me has actually taught me how I manage everything in life now. It's not just how I manage McDonald's, it's how I manage my family. And so, and this is one of the key things that I love to talk about with people because I feel like it's a huge miss across the country and especially across parents and family members. So you think about on the business, you have a vision, you have a vision statement. You have, you have models, you have goals, you have, you have processes and priorities all written down. Rules, policies, all that stuff. In the business world, this is where I personally, I have taken all those things and I've also put them into my personal life, my family life. Because if they are successful and they are the mold and the systems, processes to make you successful in the business world, why would we not use those exact same strategies and tactics in the personal world to make our families as successful as possible? So the, it's. It's everything.
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Patrick Francie
So can you give me an example? In a, in a world like, I think this is an interesting conversation from what you said, is we, we roll this over, I can wrap my mind around it from a business perspective, but can you give me an example of how you, how you work it into what you do with your family?
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Mark Parish
Yeah, I'd love to. So it all starts with the vision statement, right? So in my vision statement for McDonald's is I want to be the fastest, most accurate and friendliest restaurants in the entire world. It's that simple. So everything we do is try to be fast, accurate, and friendly every single day. If we're doing anything outside of that, then we're doing the wrong thing. Okay, so that's, that's the vision. And then we measure our success with guest counts. The more people who come, okay, on the family side, it's, I'm trying to be like Jesus. So once again, it's just your big open vision statement. But then how do you measure that and what do you put in place? So we have six family rules that you follow. So just like you would have in at work, you know, show up on time, wear your uniform, that kind of stuff. Six family rules. And they're like, be on time. Always tell the truth. Let somebody know if you're going to go somewhere. Okay, Six family rules that are simple. Beyond that, we have what's called a family constitution. Inside of that constitution, we have articles. And articles are like how, how we interact with the community, how we interact with our family. And each one of those articles then have, you know, there's subsections or parts of that Explain what we do. And so it's like we tell each other that we love each other every day and we give each other a hug. Like those are one of the subsections. There's a part about finances and money and we treat the money that well. We treat it like it's God's money and we're just stewards over it. So therefore, we should use the money to build up God's kingdom. So all these things now that you put inside of a McDonald's system where it's. You've defined what it's supposed to look like, you've shared the importance, you've explained why you've helped people absorb and have that emotional connection. So they're like, okay, this is why I am who I am and this is why I want to be who I am. And then we move forward. Then once a month they fill out a report card for me. So summer is actually go time for us when it. And so I love that we're doing this right now. In the beginning of summer, my kids, the last three weeks of school, they have to go through and create a summer schedule. And that summer schedule means what are you going to do on a daily basis? What are you going to do on a weekly basis? Monthly basis? So all of them are doing a secondary language, either Portuguese or Spanish. So they have an app and then they have to do their lesson every day. They all have a sport that they have to do every single day. And they have a training video that they have to do. And then they have a chore that they have to do. And then they have a book that they're supposed to read. And the books are, they come from my list. So I have a list of 75 books that I give to my kids. And they have their age frames that they're supposed to accomplish and read each book. And so then at this report card they say, well, how many times did I practice piano or guitar this month? How many pages did I read? And so on. It's a report card. So once a month. And I would say that we have constant and continuous check ins. Because every day we're like, have you read today? Have you done this today? Then at the end of the month it's like, all right, here's the entire month's accomplishments all wrapped up into one. Same thing you do in the business world. You review progress, you review how they work towards their goals. We do a vision board at the end of the year, every year, or we update our vision boards, we write goals for the Next year. And so every time when we're talking about what you do on the daily, weekly or monthly basis, it's do those things help you get closer to your goals, yes or no. And if that's still your goal, then we need to be doing those activities. And so really I'm just trying to help them achieve their goals and their vision of who they want to be in 10, 20, 30 years. And then I help do it with the same process, systems and structure.
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Patrick Francie
Okay, so I, I know right now listeners are going, okay, this seems a lot better.
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Mark Parish
Yeah. And it seems like I'm micromanaging too.
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Patrick Francie
You're micromanaging, exactly. But listen, I love this. You know, Stephanie, my wife and I, we actually coach this within some of the groups that we put together is, you know, putting a family mission statement together, aligning values, understanding what values are, you know, who are you in the community, who are you as a family? So defining it and getting clear. So, which is along the lines of what you're talking about, you're actually taking it to a whole different level. But the first question I'm going to ask you, because I know listeners are asking, how old are your kids? You said you had five.
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Mark Parish
Yeah, so I have five kids. The oldest is 18, just graduated high school with his associate. He's about to go to Peru for two years to do his Christian mission. And then I have a 16 year old, a 14 year old, a 12 year old and a 9 year old. So almost two years apart all the way across.
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Patrick Francie
Yeah, one of our clients, great client, love him to death, him and his wife, they've got five kids. He happens to be a doctor, but they sit down, they actually sat down at the table when we went through this weekend of the work that we did. He has a, I think at the time was a three year old or a four year old. And they're actually sitting at the table and having these conversations about mission and who they are as a family and what they stand for in the community, et cetera. Well, how old are you and how old are the kids when you started having these kinds of conversations?
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Mark Parish
That's a great question. So I'm 45 today. I probably started this around the age of 32, 33. Right. I was already a McDonald's franchisee. I was a franchisee at 29. And so. But then just seeing how these things impacted and how having that vision and focus and then, and then it's because I also started using mentors outside side of books. So today I've always been A book reader. I make my kids read books. I'm always reading books. So I, I, I probably read just 15 books a year. Not a ton, but I'm always in a book. And then I decided to give myself a coach. And when I saw, I was like, why do I need a coach when I'm already successful, I'm already a franchisee, I've already, you know, a millionaire, blah, blah, blah. But it was, that coach is the one that helps you go to that next level and the next level and the next level. But every time they pushed me because all these coaches were all about business. And every time they push me on the business side, it's like, well, shoot. I come home to my family and I say, this is more important than my business. If it's working here, why can't I do it at home? So then, then we just kept going. But it, I would say we did these things step by step. Like, we actually did the constitution, what we call the family constitution first. And that's the one that had all the articles, the nine articles that talk about finances, recreation, education, right? And then how we participate with each one of those in our lives. And then we created a vision statement, and then we created family rules, and then we created those, those summer calendars. And then even if they have a day off from school, they follow the summer calendar. So in, in our family, in the parish family, they don't get days off. Like, a day off of school for them means they follow their summer calendar, which means about three hours worth of work is all. So it's like, yeah, you still get a day off, but you're still going to work towards your goals. You know, just because you have a day off of school doesn't mean your goals change.
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Patrick Francie
This is such a fascinating conversation for me, and I'm curious, how do you keep it fun for kids? I mean, how do you keep kids focused? I mean, they're kids, they're gonna go, push back. I'm assuming they're gonna go, no, I want to go play. Or I want to go, blah, blah, blah. So how do you keep it fun for the kids and keep it interesting, or is it just within the environment than the culture of your family that it all just kind of rolls that way now?
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Mark Parish
Yeah, there's a little bit of both. So they definitely. The biggest thing is I always tell them that we're, we're peculiar people. We're not the same as everybody else. So. And they know that. And we have a statement that matches that, and it's Just we are parish, as it kind of came from the movie 300, which my kids have not seen. But you know how he says, this is Sparta and kicks the messenger in?
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Patrick Francie
Sure.
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Mark Parish
I tell them with that type of emotion, I say, we are parish. We're different. And because we're different that we have. And, you know, you go back to. The more you have, the more. More obligations, you know, those types of. And so them knowing that, it's like, okay, then we have to be different. We have to act different. So when it comes to screen time on their phone and having access to screen time and being able to stay up late and all those things, my answer to them is, we are parish. So they know deep within them by being a parish, that their name means something. And it means that they have to be different than. It doesn't mean they. They agree, but it means they understand the why is behind or what. What we're trying to accomplish. They know their goals, and they set their goals. I have a. I have a wall in my office that I get. Have all these certificates where they're like, you know, 4.0 student and student of the year and, you know, lettered in these sports and all these things that they give me. And I don't talk to them about their grades. For me, I say, I don't care what grades you get in school, but because I hang them on my wall, they all now work hard in school and without me having to bug them just because they want to get their name on the wall. And so they don't start getting those certificates, really, until about intermediate school. And so the one who's still in elementary school, she, you know, she wants to get up on the wall. They all want to do it, and. And the only goal that they have that supports them is they want to be able to go play soccer at one of the universities here in the state of Utah. And they're like, I need to make sure that my grades are good enough that will give me that opportunity. And I say, great, that's your goal. Then if your goal is to be able to play here, you need to have at least a 3.7 or better. And then I just back away because it's their goal. And now I help guide them on what they need to do to achieve it.
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Patrick Francie
This is so great, Mark. And I mean, it sets kids up. You know, number one, it's aspirational the way you've set it up and the way you're kind of how I'm hearing you. You set things up aspirationally but it also teaches discipline, and it teaches what it actually takes, those incremental steps to achieve those kinds of goals. But you have to have the discipline to do it. You're there to support them in that discipline because, you know, we can all kind of fall in and out of discipline. We have it, and then it just seems to go away sometimes if we're not supported with, maybe with an accountability partner. So in some regards, as a parent, you're also their accountability partner.
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Mark Parish
Yeah. And that accountability goes to. So I have business principles, right? One of my business principles is what gets measured, or when performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates. So they know that's one of the business principles. They've had to memorize all 13 as well. And so knowing that, they say, hey, I know my dad's going to follow up and he's going to follow up on the things that I've committed to. And so every year I have them commit to this. So when I say three weeks before summer hits, they have to have their summer schedule built, it's them committing. It's not me saying, you have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this. It's them committing to the person they want to be, and they put it down on that schedule. And now it's me helping them have the discipline to do it on the daily basis. Most of the time, say 90% of the time, they do it without any reminding. And. And I don't punish them. Right. It's them achieving their goal or not. So I, I don't be like, well, I'm not like, hey, you didn't do your, you didn't read your book today, no TV for you, or you can't go hang out with a friend. But sometimes I'll say, well, if you want something and it's out of the ordinary, I say, well, did you get all your stuff done? And then if not, hurry and get it done. So anyway, something like that.
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Patrick Francie
Well, it's great though. I mean, at the end of the day, there has to be, at some level, there has to be consequences for going off track or not completing what you said you were going to do and whatever those consequences are. And I mean, ultimately the consequences, not achieving the go goal that you've set for yourself if you don't stay disciplined and you don't stay focused on taking those incremental steps. So I think that's kind of cool. I want to go off tack a little bit, you know, Interesting that you had mentioned you've got all the success you've had, you've made lots of money, you're building your business, you're doing all those things. When it comes to coaching. You talked about business coaching. Are you talking about business coaching from an operational point of view? What kind of coaching is somebody like you? Because this is often the kind of. The conversation is that many very successful people could use coaching, but their. Maybe their ego or whatever story they wrap around what coaching can be or is. How did that. You know, what does a coach. What are you looking for when, when you're looking for a coach or when you're talking to a coach? Where do they. Where do you go down that path?
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Mark Parish
Yeah, sure. Right now I pay for two coaches or mentors, however you want to look at it, and I pay them money. And it's an extreme amount of my opinion. One is Patrick B. David. I pay him $75,000 a year. Not sure if I'm supposed to say that out loud, but that's what I do. And I only get about 10 to 15 minutes with him per month. And in between that, that 10 to 15 minutes is really. He assigns me a book that I'm supposed to read. I'm supposed to report on the book. And then before I meet with him, I send a Google Doc that has one or two questions that I want to process with him. And so it's like the question about my business, about my family that I want us to go through together so he can give me insight the, the process of that. It's not always what Pat says. If anybody's never listened to. If you haven't listened to Pat, you need to, like, he's. He's a genius. But it's not always what he says that causes me to change or have the action. It's a lot of times me knowing that I've invested that much money and I'm going to go meet with somebody that I respect that much, and it's. I want to have something that I can report to him. That's awesome. And because of that, I'm now pushing myself. And then he is one who has an audacious mind. He is always pushing for more and more and more. And he's one of those guys that, that tells you to have a greater vision beyond wherever it is today. And because of that, it pushes me to be more that person and to demand more and expect more out of my life. So, like, it's the, it's. It's not that he says Mark do this, this, this. But it's Mark, this is the person you want to be. And he. And a higher level person you want to maximize your potential. And therefore. And he keeps instilling that belief in myself that I can do that, and I need to do that because then it helps me complete everything that I want to do. I mean, so if I. I look at my family constitution and be the person I want to be in that, in that constitution, my vision board, I have a part where it's what the stuff I want to have that's kind of fun and exciting and then the person I want to be. I've got quotes and pictures of the mentors and the people I want to be like. And it's. And having that coach helps push me and influence me to do it. I've done a bunch of things that I didn't even talk to him, but because I had him and I knew he was pushing me, it's helped me just take those steps. And those things make me nervous. And it's fun to go and push yourself out of the comfort zone and do things that make you nervous.
- [29:02]
Patrick Francie
Now, you and I are both Patrick Bet David fans. I'm less of a fan than you are, but I really respect Patrick Bet David a lot. I've been to his vault conference. Stephanie and I both went a few years ago, I think three years ago, whatever it was. And I mean, we learned a ton. But it's interesting what you just said because there's a combination of the business side of things where the lane I like to play in from my own kind of world, of how I coach and even just how I operate as an individual goes back to that fundamental quote, it's never about the goal. It's always about who you need to become to achieve the goal. And are you really conscious of how you're showing up, the commitments you're making? And it sounds like for you in this particular case and the work that you're doing with Patrick David, there's a combination of both of those things. But you even PBD kind of has a tendency to go to that. Who the hell are you being? How are you showing up? And are you being the individual and kind of rising to what you need to do to achieve or who you need to be to achieve what it is you say you want to achieve? Am I articulating that in the right way?
- [30:11]
Mark Parish
Yeah. I know that my business will never get better than what I, as a leader have the capacity to achieve. And I tell my managers and the People who work for me, they all are a part of a reading program as well. I have a, I have a reading list of 35 books for them that they have to be reading on a. I mean they only have to read four books a year, but I pay them for the books. But I also do. There is a, there is a punishment if they don't read the books. But we're always. I know that my company will never achieve where I am as a leader. And their restaurants that they run will never achieve more than they are as a leader. The Vault Conference. All right, so this year I'm taking my top. So I have five regional managers that oversee the restaurants. They're all coming with me to the Vault conference. My kids, 12 years and up have been going with me for the last five years. And so a lot of it's repetitive, but they say, you know, it takes six times to learn something. So my 18 year old, this will be his fourth vault conference. My 16 year old, her fourth vault conference. My 14 year old, it'll be her third. So when my kids are 12 years or older, they go with me to the Vault Conference. And it's, it's repetitive, right? But heck, it's an MBA in three days like almost everything. How do you evaluate a company? How do you, how do you hire somebody, fire somebody? How do you know who should be inside of your inner circle? Who do you trust? How do you, how do you have crucial conversations? All that's taught in three days. And so I truly believe in the home led community supported. So everything my kids need to know and I want them to know, I have to teach. And then I try and support those learnings outside of the home. And so the Vault conference is a place where I have that community support and, and any kid that's 13 or older have read two of Patrick by David's books, the The Your Next Five Moves and Choose your enemy wisely. Last night we had a conversation about my 16 year old's coach who was going against the philosophy taught about choose your enemy wisely. She was, she's kind of creating each player to choose an enemy on the team in order to try and drag yourself to be better. And that goes against what you would do. You're supposed to pick an enemy that's outside the family, right? Not be combative inside the soccer family. Anyway, so we had that conversation last night and it was easy to have that conversation because they've already read the book, they already understand who you should choose as an enemy and why and how you use that as an emotional drive to make yourself better. But anyway, home led community support and the vault's a great way to do it.
- [32:36]
Patrick Francie
It's so good. So many things I want to talk about now. You kind of open up this whole conversation for me. It's so interesting. I want to go back. So within one of the businesses I own, the Real Estate Investment Network, we teach people how to invest in real estate. Now that's systematic. We don't sell real estate. It really is. How do you be a real estate investor? Single family, multifamily development, et cetera. And part of what I teach is around the economic fundamentals that drive real estate. So being able to look at the fundamentals, see the future of a region, determine whether that's a good economy for what you want to invest into. The point I guess I'm going to get to is I'm repeating the same lessons time and time again. And it's a subscription based business. So I literally have community members that have been with me 20 years, 15 years. And I had a couple of people over the years and one particular, most recently came up and said, you know, Patrick, I've heard you share this particular thing, you know, 25 times. And it seems every time you share it, I pick something up differently. But I started to understand what's going on. And when you said you only. When I say only you read 15 books a year. A lot of people talk about the 50 books a year that they read. It sounds like you're reading 15 books and really digesting them because there is a part of it. So back to your kids going to the same vault and it's the same stuff or some similar lessons. Our brains are only able to process one thing at a time. And we can think about a lot of things, but we're only actually processing one thing at a time. And what I learned was this, is that you've done it. You've probably been reading a book and you may go back and read it. You get caught in the thought process and you keep reading and the next thing you know, you read three more pages and have no clue what you just read. The other side of that is if you're, I've listened to CDs back in the day or whatever podcast I'm listening to, and you realize if you listen to it again, you hear parts that you go, I don't remember hearing this. And I've discovered, and this is just probably know this, that you hear something, they say something, and you go, oh, that's so interesting. And your brain goes off on some tangent about thinking about what they just said. Of course, whatever you're listening to keeps playing and you may miss 20 minutes of it because you're busy thinking about the one point that they made. And so that is an interesting part of learning. So I don't know if you want to comment on that, but that, you know, so the kids going to the vault every year and it's the same thing. It's not really. I mean, you're hearing it differently the next time you go and a new set of filters based on what you've learned.
- [35:21]
Mark Parish
Yeah. And so while you were saying that, I actually have my vault book in front of me right now and the first page of teaching inside of the ball book by Patrick, but David, it says no man ever steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he's not the same man. And so. Yeah. And so anyway, that right there, every time you read something. So people, when I read a leadership book again, it's not like I haven't heard that principle before or that business idea or thought, but I'm a different person that time I hear it and therefore I'm going to respond differently. And it means something differently depending on the scenario and the situation that day. So you look at, we talked about McDonald's and processes and systems. They're simple. And the way that you be success, that you can be successful and create success is by doing the simple stuff over and over and over again. It's not change the formula of the Big Mac. It's not make the fries taste differently. It's to do it the right way, day after day after day, same process. I tell my kids you are who you, what you do on the daily. If you play music every day, guitar or piano, then you are a musician. If you play video games every day, you're a gamer. If you read a book every day, you're a reader. Right. And so all of these things, it's who you are, what you do on the daily. And it's doing the simple and small things that actually make the biggest difference. And so that's why I'm always reading, even if it's repetitive information. I'm not the same person who read that information last time.
- [36:49]
Patrick Francie
So you were saying, so Patrick McDavid's one of your coaches, you have another coach. What's the framework for them?
- [36:55]
Mark Parish
So Dan Martell, if you don't know anything about him, he's a buy back your time guy. And really that's Where I got to know him first was his book buy back your time. Excellent book because really it talks about the value of your time. And he does it very simply, where he creates a equation, a financial equation of what your time is worth. And then you're supposed to then evaluate all the tasks you're doing. And if it's below the certain dollar amount, which is 25% of your personal hourly, then you need to hire it out or delegate someone else to be able to do it for you, which then allows you to focus on the things that are most important or the things that generate the greatest outcome for you. You look at other people like 10x is easier in 2x. That book right there. Benjamin. Benjamin Martin. Yeah, sorry. And Dan Sullivan. But really the, the philosophy there is, you know, 80%, if you take everything that you're doing, 100 of what you do on a daily basis, probably 20% of it is the stuff that you should be doing, and the other 80%, you shouldn't. And so that 20%, that's your, those are your talents, your skills and abilities that make you really good. And so those are the talents and abilities that you should be trying to do as often as possible, because that's how you generate success. The other 80%, you need to find someone else where that fits within their talents and abilities and their wheelhouse to allow you to do the things that make you great and that make you successful. So anyway, same kind of philosophy, different people.
- [38:22]
Patrick Francie
Yeah. And it, it, but it's such an important one for people to kind of get. You know, for those listening to this, we, we look at, I kind of view it exactly what you described. But we have to consider return on investment. But when we think about return on investment, most people go to money, you know, like, what am I investing in? In the equity market or real estate or precious metals, whatever it's that they think about in terms of return on investment. But I think Dan Martell, Patrick Bet, David Hardy Sullivan, they break it down to the next level and which I've learned a lot over the years, which is what is the return on investment of your time, your energy, your thought processes? You know what you read? It is a return on investment of anything but money. Because, and as an example is if you're doing a job, a common entrepreneurial challenge is that people. Nobody can do it as good as me. Okay, well, that's great. But if you're paying your bookkeeper 50 bucks an hour and you're doing some bookkeeping, just know that in that moment You're. You're valuing your time at $50 an hour.
- [39:37]
Mark Parish
Yep.
- [39:37]
Patrick Francie
And. And it's hard for entrepreneurs, many, to kind of grasp that concept because nobody can do it as good as them. But if you start to shift it and say, what is the return on the investment that you're getting of your time, of your energy, and. And even in your mental and emotional state? I mean, if you're grinding through something that you hate to do, it's not a good investment of your time or energy, emotion, thought processes. Do you have your own philosophy around that?
- [40:04]
Mark Parish
It sounds like, yeah, you just hit something that's really difficult because a lot of people, when I talk about Patrick, but David and I share how much it costs in order for me to spend 10 to 15 minutes with him on a monthly basis. And it's me with six other people, but I get my 10 to 15 minutes of just him, one on one. You would say, well, how do you measure that return on that investment? You're spending almost $8,000 a month for 10 minutes with Patrick. But, David, how do you measure that and say that you're getting a return? And so for me, if I were to look at the financial. It's like, no, I'm not winning. That's. I'm not getting my return on the investment, therefore, I shouldn't be doing it. But when I started with Patrick, but David, I was at another stage of my life where I'd gotten a little comfortable and complacent. Everything was great. Everything was fine, though. It was just fine. It was good. And I. I'm not that person that just wants to be okay with fine. I'm per. I. I look at myself that I want to be. I want to be more than average and more. Well, and not more than average, because then once again, you're comparing to everybody else. It's. I want to be the best person that I'm supposed to be. We all have talents and abilities that have been given to us, and those talents and abilities are supposed to be used to build something great. And if you've been given those, you've got to use them. And so I don't use them to measure creating more finances in my life and more money in my life. Sure, that's a part of it, because it does allow influence and it does allow some legacy. But in order for me to have joy and happiness, I have to know that I'm reaching my potential, or at least striving to reach my potential, striving to do what I have the capability of doing. And so for me, that's where I see the return on investment financially. No, it's not there. Yeah. The financial side is just not there. But the other side, I've got to wake up with a purpose every day in order for me to be joyful and for me to be happy. And that's where I'm working towards these things, not just the money side.
- [41:55]
Patrick Francie
Back to what you just said. So, purpose. So for you, is there purpose outside of you being the best version of yourself? What. What kind of. And your family, of course. But what drives you? I don't want to put words in your mouth. What. What is. You know, what drives you? What is your purpose when you kind of look at it and have that moment in time and go, this is what I'm in this world for.
- [42:15]
Mark Parish
Yeah. So going back to my vision statement, I'm trying to be like Jesus. All right? So it's very obviously very Christian, very, like, religious, that type of thing. And it sounds somewhat cheesy, but you look at what he built. He built a followership of people who, by doing what he did, they changed their lives, and they became the people who they wanted to become. And then therefore, they got the results and the joy that they become. So it's the same. I want to build up God's kingdom in the same way that Jesus did. So I want to have influence not just over my life, but over lives of other people. Because of who I was when I was here on Earth, I will never amount to be even 1 billionth of what he was. Right. Or have the billionth of influence that he did. But it's me doing my little part to do that way. And for me, it really all comes down to is my five kids, if they live the life equal to or better than I did, then I won. And then if they can lead their kids to live their life equal to or better than what they did, then I won. That's really it. And so I'm not trying to go and change the entire world or create a religion, is just, can the people who I have influence over, can I help them be a little bit better if their goal is the same?
- [43:32]
Patrick Francie
It's an interesting kind of reality that when I've, you know, 10 years into this podcast, or just coming up, 10 years on this podcast, you know, I've had the absolute pleasure of interviewing some amazingly successful people like yourself, and it's been great, and I've learned a lot, but something that always comes back to. In business, in life, not everybody's Wired for it. But it has to be about being a contribution, you know, making a difference in the world. You know, the only comment I would have in that, you know, scale. You don't know the scale. You really don't know. You know, you may think, well, I've only talked to, you know, a thousand people this year, whatever the numbers are, but you don't know the evolution of what the impact was that you had on one or two other people who then take it. So when you start to extrapolate it, the ripple effect is pretty significant. And I've learned that, you know, at this point in my life, in this, you know, kind of deep into my age and reflection and all the rest of it, I've had the kind of privilege of touching base with people or have coming across people that I. I don't even really remember them per se, but they will come back. And, you know, you don't know this, but 15 years ago, when you did this and you did that, I did this, and now we're doing that, and I'm going, wow. So it really is interesting that if we compare ourselves or measure ourselves against some benchmark that we see, that we believe we see, we don't really understand the impact that somebody like yourself, you don't know the impact that you've had on the hundreds, probably thousands of people that have gone through your franchises, the impact that your general managers have had. So it all kind of gets pretty big when you start to step back from it and given what you've set yourself up and want to achieve.
- [45:23]
Mark Parish
Yeah. And the hardest part is, all right, financially, it's easy to see whether you're achieving something.
- [45:30]
Patrick Francie
Sure.
- [45:31]
Mark Parish
Are you, like, are you an achiever, an overachiever and underachiever? That one's so easy to measure. It's like, yeah, financially, I'm an overachiever because I'm making more money than the average or whatever you want to call it. But in these other aspects of life, how do you measure those seeds that you've planted and that story that you just told? I have people come up to me, and I've learned this is one of my personal principles now, is treat everybody like I know who they are. Because I have people come up and say hi to me all the time, and I look at their face and I don't know who it is. They're like, mark, it's so good to see you again. How are you? And there was a while, if I don't have my wife next to me, I won't know who that person is ever, because she'll remind me as we're walking away. But I will treat them like they're my best friend. And I know I'm. I'll match their emotion. But you're right, you run into people, you influence people. And one of the things I do most often is I go speak to mid management groups, so people who are regional managers across, you know, businesses, or I go speak at universities. So these are people who are trying to learn, are very. And. And they're trying to grow and figure out the next step. That's where I find the most joy personally, because I'm able to help teach them one or two business principles or one or two personal principles that they now are going to lead their lives with forever. And it's going to influence everything they do and everything their families do going thereafter. And so that's where I find the most joy is working with those groups.
- [46:56]
Patrick Francie
I think, you know, there's a part of it where you're. We're probably wired very similarly that if I'm not making a difference in the world or if I can't see where I'm making a difference in the world and having an impact on others, I just don't feel like I'm. I don't feel fulfilled. I don't feel like I've accomplished anything. Dollars and cents. As you know, money is not my highest value. And it's taken me a long time to kind of learn that it's in the higher values, but it's not my highest value, you know, relationship. And making a difference in other people's lives is really what drives me, whatever the psychology is behind all of that. But that really is an important part of where I find my joy and my significance and my feeling of being a contribution, because I think that's what it really boils down to, which is similar to most of the guests that I have on this particular podcast. Dollars. I mean, there's guys that I've interviewed worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet that's not really what it's about for them. It never was about hundreds of millions. Yes, they had those goals and aspirations, but it was always about being a contribution. And I think there's a lot to be said in that. And, you know, it took me a while. I was older than 45 when I finally figured that shit out for myself. You got it at a pretty young age. Would you think that comes part. I'm assuming it comes partially from your parents.
- [48:21]
Mark Parish
Yeah, I. Well, it comes from a little bit of everywhere. Right. It's also hard to say exactly where things come from. So, yes, my parents have that, but they also were different, and we differ quite a bit. The house I live in today is way too big by their standards, and they were mad that I built it. And the house I had before this was way too big. And they were even. They wouldn't even come over and visit. And that house, that house. So I made it one and a half million dollars when I sold it. And so for me, it wasn't just a place to live. It was also. I knew that it was an investment that I'd be able to get a return later. And so. But then you talked about money and finances. Yeah, I remember 10 years or so ago, the first time I had a million dollars in cash in my bank account. And you would have thought that there would be some, like, emotional celebration. And it was like, oh, that's cool. And then I just. That was it. There was nothing to it. It's like, well, but the reason it doesn't have that excitement is because it's been slowly building. Right. Everything you do in life, that's great. It's not like it just happened overnight. It happened day by day by day by day. So I watched that account grow, grow, grow, grow over years. And so once it finally hit that mark, it's like, well, it's just a little bit more than I had yesterday. So is there a celebration? Yeah, no, but you're right. And being able to measure that influence, you don't see greatness like there aren't in sports. You get to see championship games and you get to win a championship trophy, and you have that one emotional day. In the normal world, you want to have the small wins every day. And there's not that big emotional, hey, I've made it. Hey, I did this. Hey, I did that. Sure, there's things that are fun and there are things that are more exciting than others, but the daily, weekly, monthly drive, you have to make sure that you find a little bit of joy in it every single day and wake up with purpose to do it.
- [50:06]
Patrick Francie
You made a comment about your wife reminding, you know, at your side, reminding you of things. And it sounds like your wife, like, my wife is kind of an extension. She's a bit of a hard drive. She has a way better memory than I do. My. My wife actually has a crazy memory, and she says she trained herself for it, but she remembers names and birth dates and kids names. Like, literally, she would meet you and you would have a 10 minute conversation with her. You would talk about your five kids. You would. She would ask you, oh, what's their names? And. And then you'd say, well, one of them just turned six and whatever. And you would meet her two years later and she would say, hey, how's. Blah, blah, blah. And how's the. How was the birthday party? And you're looking at her going, who the hell are you? You know, you don't even remember her. So she has that magical memory. So I bring that up, but it's only to say this. Is that the question I want to really get to. I love that your wife has that. Is that that extended hard drive for you by the sounds of it. How important is your relationship with your wife and all that you achieve now? I don't want to minimize and say, well, no, it's very important. Like, how is that relationship? You have to, like, really work on it. How is it for you, given what you're trying to achieve as a family?
- [51:23]
Mark Parish
Yeah, there's a couple parts to that. So one, I'm just going to tell you a little about who she is. Okay. And. And her best attributes for me, besides being my hard drive and, like my helper when I need help, of memory, remembering somebody or somebody's name. Her most important attribute to me is that she's an agreeable person. She's so easygoing, so, like, never thinks of herself, always worried about everybody else. First that those attributes help the whole family. They help me in every single way. So that for me, that's the most important thing that she brings. The other side of her is some days I worry that I love her more than I love God. Because, you know, God in the Ten Commandments says, you shouldn't have anybody before me. Right. Love. And so she's that important. There. There is nothing that trumps or is greater than having her and her love in my life. Sorry.
- [52:18]
Patrick Francie
I think that's, you know, there's that phrase right behind every great man is an amazing woman or some phrase like that. And, you know, I'm blessed to. You know, Stephanie and I have been together 35 years. We're celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. Gosh, at the end of this month, as a matter of fact. So we start to understand just how important it is. And then we really start to. I think you've. You've got this appreciation for your partner. You've got a very strong appreciation and love be. You know, it's however that has kind of shown up for you over the years. But, I mean, there's so much of that is important that supports the success on the business side of it. The family. You. You are really partnering. Do you guys, as a, as a couple, are you sitting down, having conversations about how you interact as a couple, how you show up, the. You're aligning with messages for the kids kind of on a regular basis? Is that level of communication there for you guys?
- [53:22]
Mark Parish
Very interesting. I just want to follow up on the last thing. The, the reason that. So when I'm worried about her, loving her more than loving God, it's. I. Then I look and I say, well, God gave her to me, so therefore I can love him greater. So that. Right. So he still wins. I'm still doing what I'm supposed to. But I. So us. Us being aligned is really what that was about, right? Are. Are we truly aligned when it comes to the business and family and everything else? She. This is where it's an amazing thing is. I. I am constantly reading and I'm constantly studying and I'm constantly processing things and trying to measure how things work. And she, she doesn't do that as much, so she follows my lead on the things with the kids. And so if I say. But it also goes the other way, there's times where she'll be like, hey, no, I think we should do it this way. But if anything, if we say anything in front of the kids and it's the first time that that thing's been said, she supports me 100% and then we'll talk about it after. And most of the time, she agrees with it because once again, I'm leading my family as if it was an employee that I could never fire, right? That I'm stuck with that employee forever. So, yes, I want to help them achieve their best that they can ever achieve, knowing that I'm going to be stuck with them forever. And the way I look at my business today is also one of the greatest things. So I told you all five of my kids want to be McDonald's franchisees in the future, which means we're going to work side by side together forever, which is my goal. I want us to work together. I want us actually to live really close to each other. And I even want to buy them my whole cul de sac so that they all live in my cul de sac and their kids can, you know, anyway come over and that kind of stuff. But when you think about it that way, if you had to work with your kid for the next 20, 30 years, what would you teach them differently? Than what you're teaching them today. How would you hold them accountable differently than you hold them today? What would you want them to know? What type of attitudes, personalities, behavior? So I use that at times when I see a behavior that I don't really like, I'll say, hey, just so you know, I know you're frustrated with this, you don't like this, but later on when we're working together, this is going to look like this or this is going to cause. And so I can even use that now as a lesson today because once again, it's. What are goals 10, 20, 30 years from now? And how is it that I'm helping them achieve them and seeing and helping them be the person they need to be to achieve those goals? So it's just, it's just going back to that again. But now I can use the family business as a part of it.
- [55:48]
Patrick Francie
So let's shift gears a little bit. Mark, you know, you've accomplished a lot. You sound like a busy guy, although you seem to be, you know, managing your focus really quite well. Exceptionally well. Given what you've achieved. How do you look after yourself? What is kind of part of your day to day routine or your weekly routine, you know, aside from reading and that kind of educative part of it? How do you look after yourself? You know, physically, emotionally you're Christian, so spiritually you're kind of handled. But what do you do to look after yourself on a regular basis?
- [56:23]
Mark Parish
All of those things can fall apart if you don't do something daily about it. Right? And then if you do miss a day, don't miss twice. Those are kind of my internal rules. I do try to exercise every day. I mean, I, I'm not a big strong guy, but you know, I, I lift weights and then I play soccer and hockey. Soccer has become the family sport. And so one of the things I intentionally did when I was young, so I, I've coached every one of my kids, all five of them, for at least two years. So right when they were getting into soccer, and the reason is I wanted all the kids to do the same sport, is because now when we go, because we go to tournaments all the time, we're going to tournaments, we're going out of the state across country. I've got one kid that's a national champion in 20, 23 or 4, they got second place last year, another kid that got third place in nationals. And then I've got other kids that they've won the state multiple times. So they've won the tournaments in the state of Utah and got to go represent in regionals and then to national tournaments. So the soccer, I knew that I wanted the family to be connected on as many things as possible and physical activity was important. And once again, it's another place where they get to learn discipline, teamwork, all these life lessons that I wanted them to learn. So once again, home led but community supported. So I wanted sports to help teach those things. And so having that, that, that thing in common of soccer means that now when we all go watch, we all understand the game. Now we help each other with a little bit of guidance and coaching. And then when we want to go play outside. Yes. Together, guess what? All we need is a soccer ball. And, and we do that all the time. So anyway, your question was what do I do daily? Right. It's, it's really simple. I don't look at life as work, life balance, as many people look at life. When people ask me what I do for my job on a daily basis, I can't give them an answer because I don't see a separation in my world between work and life. I call it work life integration. I'm sure I hope you've heard of that before because I have people working for me right now. There's 22 restaurants where I've got at least 20 people inside of each one working for me right now. So my goal is to be able to support them whenever they need support and to take care of them whenever they need it. So there's no separation between work and life. But yet when I need to take care of my family, I take care of my family. When I need to go and support my kids in a way I can. And so I'm not stuck on this 9 to 5 schedule of work. It's if there's a kid thing at 10am, I'm there. If there's a kid thing at 2pm, I'm there. If I've got to go away for four or five days to go support my kids and I take my whole family together, I can do it. So it gave me that freedom which now allows me to do it so that work life integration. Because in the beginning, I wouldn't have been able to do it running one restaurant, two restaurants, three restaurants, I wouldn't have. But now I've been able to build my leadership teams where I don't have to be actively engaged in taking care of the customer. My customer is the people who take care of the people that take care of the customer. Right. So I'm taking care of my high level supervisors, managers, regional managers. And by taking care of them now, they take care of the people that take care of the people, take care of the customers, if that makes sense
- [59:36]
Patrick Francie
within the franchise of McDonald's. You know, when I look at business and one of the things that, to the degree, you know, as a, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner over the years is we've been really looking at culture and what is the culture of the business? You know, there is a, you know, within the McDonald's there's a view from an outside looking in of what that culture might look like. Do you actually, are you able to have an impact on the kind of in the trenches culture, or do you kind of have the culture of your management team and then they do what they do within the franchise? It seems that that would be hard to manage a culture within the McDonald's aside from what, just what the system and what the franchise does. But then your management team, culturally, you would be able to define that in your own kind of view of the world, if you will, the way you want to see it roll out is, is that accurate?
- [60:35]
Mark Parish
So the McDonald's corporation has some influence over the culture of every single location. And I would say their influence is probably 20%. So there's some things where it's like people who are attracted to working at McDonald's comes from what they see on the national level or the worldwide level inside of the restaurant. The greatest way for me to impact cultures, to impact the general manager or the restaurant leader, the one person who's in charge of that restaurant and the way I impact that culture is by me. I attract people who have similar attributes, you know, characteristics that I have. They're naturally attracted to me and I'm naturally attracted to them. So if I want my culture to change, it's how do I change myself to attract and to be attracted by that, right. That type of person that's going to run the restaurant the way I want it to go. Now it doesn't mean, you know, someone who comes in the restaurant, they've, they've been there for two weeks, that they've really adapted or adopted any of our culture. Because a lot of times we, we make, we make decisions on hiring just out of necessity. It's like, oh, you can work between 3am and 9am Perfect. There's not many of you. We'll take you, right? And so it's not, it's not like we're always hiring towards a cultural fit. It's something that we try to do, but that's hard. The people. And then even today, me managing my culture or trying to help my team really grasp onto my culture takes years. So I adopted the 13 business principles probably three years ago. And then the vision statement that we're using today was about that same time three years ago. And getting that as a part of my culture is taking forever. A good example. It's outside of McDonald's, but everybody knows my pleasure, right? And it comes from Chick Fil? A. Chick Fil? A used those two words to change their culture inside of the restaurants where now the hospitality side of Chick Fil? A is spectacular. People think that they're so nice and they're so sweet because when you say thank you, they say my pleasure in return. It's like, oh, wow. They did it because they enjoy helping me. They enjoy. And so, right. The statement is a golden statement. But it took over two years across the whole Chick Fil? A system. And at the time they had less than 2,000 restaurants like they were only in the United States. And it still took them two years to implement one thing inside of their culture that then changed everything. And so yeah, these things, these things take a bit of time. The bigger, the bigger influence you want to have, the longer it's going to take. And anything you do with people takes time.
- [63:06]
Patrick Francie
It takes time because. Yeah, it does. They have to kind of lean into that values or those value systems and adopt them for themselves so that it just becomes second nature. It's what they do. And that does take time. That's hard work in that regard. And then monitoring it and reminding and making it fun and doing all the things that you have to do to make it happen. The team that you've got, your general management team is how I heard it, that kind of run the restaurants. Have they been long time team for you?
- [63:39]
Mark Parish
So everybody that I, everybody inside of my organization, I promote with inside of my organization, I never hire outside. And that's because of that cultural fit. I want them to not only understand the McDonald's side, but I want them to understand the culture. And I want to know who they are and who they're going to be in the future. So inside of the restaurant. So this is just a little breakdown, right? So I have me the top as the owner, operator. Then I have what I call a director of operations that oversees the operational side of all 22 locations. Then I've got regional managers, which in the McDonald's world we call area supervisors. But they, they oversee between four and five restaurants and Then inside the restaurant now you've got the general manager, three department managers, and then 10 shift leaders. So that's the management team that I work on and spend time with. And so there's a little bit there. But earlier, how I create the culture and sell the culture is I am. My philosophy is I'm always selling the vision and driving the operation. So every time I'm meeting with anybody, I'm going to sell the vision. So on the business side, it's, you know, we're trying to be the fastest, most accurate, friendliest restaurants in the world. And I'm always selling that at home. I'm always selling the vision of we're trying to be like Jesus. And everywhere I go, I have to sell the vision. Okay. And that selling the vision means tell a story in a different way that drives some emotion and inspires somebody to be a little bit better. Right. It's not just repeat the same words over and over, but every time you're with them, they should expect a story or some type of motivation around the vision or some type of accountability around the vision. And so it's sell the vision and drive operations everywhere I go. That's my job. Sell the vision, drive the operations. So anyway, I love it, that culture.
- [65:24]
Patrick Francie
So, Mark, as we start to wind down, not a big hurry to wind down, but we're going to start to wind down, is there anything that we haven't talked about or is there something that you would really want our audience to hear that we haven't talked about yet?
- [65:42]
Mark Parish
No, but if. All right, if there's people who relate to anything that I've said and they feel like they would like to know more about what I've said, there's a couple ways. And I'm not saying that I'm an expert. I'm not saying that I'm great at anything, but the few things that I figured out, I have figured out, and I can help other people figure them out. I love to coach, I love to help people. So I. I wrote a book a while ago. It's called the Golden Blueprint. And you think about what it is. It's a blueprint for life. And. And I talk about those three things. How do you lead yourself to be the better that you reach your potential? How do you lead your family and then how do you lead your business? Those three things. And it's, you know, incorporating those business lessons into life and life lessons into business and so on. I'm also, you know, I'm on Instagram, I'm on YouTube, that kind of stuff. The Mark Parish at the Mark Parish. And then you know, it's really, if you want to reach out to me direct, there's this app called Manect, it's by Patrick, but David. I'm not sure if people have heard about it, but it's, it's a, an app that the name is. You want to take a minute to connect and so you can send me a text. I can, you can choose how you want me to respond or we can send, schedule a voice call. Because a lot of the things today, it's like, man, you, you hear those things and you say that's nice but you're not sure exactly how to implement it. And that's where I can help is like you say like, okay, I want to have a vision statement for my family that I'm just not sure which one to choose or how do we choose it? Because I'll tell you the process of how you go through and choose a vision statement and it's not something you just want to do by yourself. You don't want to show up to your family, be like, here's the family vision statement. Right. You don't want to do it that way. And so I'll talk about, you know, so if anybody wants help on implementing and, and I'll even share the examples that I have when it comes to the family constitution which, you know, it's a pretty, it's a detailed document but it's all in one page and has. But you know, that kind of stuff because I, I'd love to help, I'd love to be able to, I'd love to know that what I'm doing in life is creating an impact for others.
- [67:38]
Patrick Francie
Beautiful. Love it. Okay, so as we wind down you have what the little segment we call, you know, rapid fire. Questions that aren't so rapid.
- [67:46]
Mark Parish
Let's do it.
- [67:47]
Patrick Francie
We keep it up, keep it simple. I was just a warm up. Android or Apple?
- [67:52]
Mark Parish
Totally Apple. I was, I was a guy with Android first moved over to Apple. Can't, can't get away from it now.
- [67:58]
Patrick Francie
It's interesting that it seems in the bigger corporations it's all Android and PC and outside of most of the bigger, like when you get into maybe some marginally smaller, it seems to be we go to Apple. I'm an Apple guy myself, so.
- [68:15]
Mark Parish
McDonald's. Yeah, McDonald's is partnered with Google building AI systems today. So it's like they are and I'm not.
- [68:22]
Patrick Francie
Yep, yeah, there you go. Do you have a favorite genre of music Favorite song, favorite band or.
- [68:29]
Mark Parish
Yeah, yeah, that. This is another part about me that I haven't talked about. So I. I've created music videos for McDonald's and I listen to my music videos every day. So this morning I was lifting weights and I listened a little bit to some podcasts. But then if you go to the mark Parish on YouTube, you'll see I just made one called the era of beverages. But I love my music that I create. I listen to my six songs basically every day. But then, you know, everybody goes back to the age that they grew up in because those songs come with emotion. They're not just. They're not just music or a melody, but there is an emotion attached to those songs. I don't listen to music a lot when I'm in the car. I try to use that as my. My learning library. But, you know, when you get tired or you need a little amp up, then I'll turn on some music. But I do use music a lot in life.
- [69:16]
Patrick Francie
Beautiful. Favorite movie food.
- [69:19]
Mark Parish
Gosh, it's Blackhawk down. It. The older I get the video quality and my gosh, I wish they didn't do a remake of it. But because of the military tie and having served in the military and have been in war, just being able to see bands of brothers like that together and anyway, I love that. It just drives emotions for me, you know, it's interesting.
- [69:41]
Patrick Francie
I'm going to go back a little bit to our earlier conversation when you were talking about. I think it was your daughter or talking about the pick your. Or choose your enemies wisely or pick your enemies wisely, I think is the. What is Patrick Best David's book? Is it.
- [69:55]
Mark Parish
Yeah.
- [69:57]
Patrick Francie
Choose your enemies or pick your enemies wisely.
- [69:59]
Mark Parish
Choose. Choose your.
- [70:00]
Patrick Francie
Choose. Yeah, whatever it is. But it was. It is interesting. And then you're at that comment around your daughter. And I just recently picked up on a series on prime called House of David.
- [70:13]
Mark Parish
Okay.
- [70:14]
Patrick Francie
And it's actually a cool series and well done talks. You know, really goes back to the history. You know, the opening of the show is when David slays Goliath, et cetera. But. And it goes through the process in talking about King James and it's kind of cool and it's really well done. The set is fricking fabulous. Like how they've set it up. I think it's amazing. Anyways, my observation was. And to the degree it's accurate, etc. And they actually claim to be as accurate as possible. Of course they've done what they've done for the show. But in that moment, I was actually thinking about doing a podcast. We do a whole other podcast, but it doesn't matter. So the point is, is that I realized that right from the beginning, the start of time, there was an antagonist and a protagonist, and there has to be that in life. It's been that way throughout. Throughout all of time, you know, so we choose our enemies, but everybody. There's got to be a villain, an antagonist in everybody's life. It is where we learn. It's what we bump up against. It's what makes us better people. And we make it all wrong. We don't want those enemies, quote, unquote. But there's a part of it that, that is in fact life. That was my kind of high level takeaway. It gets much deeper than that. We don't need to do that on that show. Any comments on that thought process?
- [71:36]
Mark Parish
Yeah. To my kids, I tell them, opposition in all things. When we say that great things have to happen in this world, that means bad things have to happen too. So I just use the opposition in all things. But yeah, the exact thing. Antagonist. The same thing you're trying to teach. Insane.
- [71:50]
Patrick Francie
Yeah. Interesting. Speaking of God, or some version of it, when you get to the gates, what do you want to hear God
- [71:59]
Mark Parish
say, you good and faithful servant, please come in. Like, I. I just want to know that he's proud of me.
- [72:06]
Patrick Francie
Yeah. Isn't that the truth? Right?
- [72:08]
Mark Parish
We, we all work hard and we all try to aspire to be, and we all want to be and we all fail. We, when none of us reach the level that we think we could or should. There's a million mistakes I've made just in the last week. But I, I just want to look and be like, hey, my mercy has been good enough for you.
- [72:26]
Patrick Francie
Yeah, fantastic. You. You read the books you read and you been an avid reader for a long time. Is there a book that was really impactful in your life that maybe was a fork in the road for you? Was there something that was that impactful for you? A book that you would mention?
- [72:43]
Mark Parish
Yeah. People ask all the time about books and it's really as long as you're always reading, every book that you're reading is going to make some impact in your life. Are there some books that are greater than others? Of course I would. The Benjamin Hardy books that I talked about. 10x over 2x gap in the gain, the. The science of Scaling who not how. Those are great series of books to read.
- [73:05]
Patrick Francie
Yeah.
- [73:05]
Mark Parish
All with Dan Sullivan and I would Listen to them now. Read them. Because when you listen to them, they have an extra interview between Benjamin and Dan Sullivan at the end, which is extraordinary. And you don't get that in the written version. But then I would choose, like we all need to choose somebody who we. A mentor or a few mentors and then follow them and try to be like them. So when I say Patrick, but David, I've read his books and I watch his. I mean, he does podcasts every week, but they're kind of like a news story. But anytime he shows consulting or teaching business wise and going to the Vault Conference year over year, it's choose somebody who's ahead of you in that process and then try to learn from them. And that's what reading is. Right? You're just interviewing people who have been really successful at that category that they're teaching about. So it's always just going specific book beyond that. No, not, not that comes to mind.
- [74:01]
Patrick Francie
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I've followed Dan Hardy's career for many years now. I mean, he's done some really, really cool stuff and he's, he's a cool cat. And then with his partnership with Dan Sullivan, one of the books, I think it was him and Dan that wrote the book the Gap and the Gain, which was just a great, great book.
- [74:21]
Mark Parish
They did a book I read with them and I and my kids, we all listened it together as we were in Switzerland chasing around the team usa, the USA basketball team. So. Yeah, and that's, that's how I got introduced was through that book.
- [74:33]
Patrick Francie
Yeah, yeah, it is really, really great. Well, the final question as we wind this right down is what are you grateful for?
- [74:43]
Mark Parish
I'm just grateful for the opportunities. You know, it's easy to, it's, it's hard to look at other people's lives and say, man, if I was, if I was grown up in that circumstance, what would I look like? What would my life look like differently than what it does today? Because I know I'm extremely blessed. I, I've been in. Blessed with incredible parents and having parents that have been married together and faithful and loyal to each other for, yeah, some 50 years. I've been able to grow up where my dad was willing to step out and to change two things for our life because he, he grew up in a very poor household to a single mother. He was born to a 16 year old single woman and he had to try and raise him in Georgia and he worked on farms and picked cotton and okra and tobacco and, and he decided that he was going to change everything for us by one, getting into the McDonald's system and pushing until he became a franchisee. And because he became a franchisee of five, I've now become a franchisee of 22, because he taught me and helped me get and break that mold. And then the other thing is, he decided when he was 16 years old, some missionaries, Christian missionaries, showed up their door and knocked and taught them about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he committed to it. And because of those two things, my family is. Is in debt. And we're who we are today because of those two amazing decisions that he made. And so now I have to take what I've been given and I have to level it up and make sure that my kids have that opportunity to level it up as well. But just, we're all blessed with so many doors and windows that we're able to walk through, crawl through, and learn and grow. And so just having the opportunity to do what I do is. That's. That's the thing I'm. I'm most grateful for.
- [76:32]
Patrick Francie
Fantastic. And I don't want to sound cliche, but I'm always grateful for the opportunity to have conversations with guests like yourself. I always learned so much personally. And like yourself, I'm very, very grateful for my family, my amazing wife, daughter, grandchildren. It's fantastic. So, Mark, thank you so much for your generous time and insights and the lessons that you've shared today. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
- [77:02]
Mark Parish
Thanks, Patrick.
- [77:05]
Patrick Francie
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends, as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions you'd like answered, please email me@ceoraincanada.com that's ceorincanada.com I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, Patrick goes.