Episode #239: The Power of Presence: Why Fathers Matter More Than Ever with Marquess Dennis

Marquess Dennis doesn’t just talk about fatherhood—he’s on a mission to redefine it. As the founder of Birthright Living Legacy, he joins Craig Andrews to challenge cultural narratives, unpack generational trauma, and spotlight the deep systemic impact of absent fathers. Dennis shares his own journey from poverty in North Tulsa to building a nonprofit dedicated to helping fathers of all backgrounds reclaim their influence.

With unfiltered honesty, he discusses how fatherlessness isn't confined to any one race or class—“it affects the poor house all the way to the White House.” He weaves together personal stories, sobering statistics, and sharp social commentary, revealing how pop culture has eroded the public perception of fatherhood and how leadership begins at home.

Dennis makes a compelling case: fatherhood isn’t a footnote in a child’s life—it’s the framework. He urges dads to treat their families like million-dollar clients: full attention, consistent engagement, and intentional presence.

Want to learn more about Marquess Dennis's work? Check out their website at https://brlivinglegacy.com.

Connect with Marquess Dennis on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/marquessdennis/.

Key Points & Timestamps

[00:01:00] – Introduction to Marquess Dennis and the mission behind Birthright Living Legacy
[00:02:30] – Dennis clarifies: the organization serves all fathers, not just Black or single dads
[00:03:00] – “Fatherhood affects the poor house all the way to the White House”
[00:04:00] – Growing up in poverty and the early realization of the role of fathers
[00:06:10] – The connection between fatherlessness and systemic issues like teen pregnancy and incarceration
[00:08:00] – The psychological cost of growing up without mentorship and multigenerational wisdom
[00:10:41] – Why legacy should be lived, not just left
[00:12:05] – How lack of validation leads to destructive behavior in young men
[00:14:00] – Pop culture’s damaging portrayal of dads—from Andy Griffith to Tim Taylor
[00:17:06] – The science behind fatherhood: what changes in a man’s brain
[00:20:00] – How Dennis built a structured (albeit illegal) business model from scratch
[00:23:09] – The birth of a nonprofit focused on healing generational trauma
[00:24:50] – The myth of “being there” versus being present
[00:26:35] – Advice for high-performing dads who might still be emotionally absent
[00:27:51] – “The one product fathers sell? Influence.”
[00:28:13] – Why five minutes of intentional time can change everything
[00:29:38] – Final call to action: influence your children before someone else does

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment in my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on this show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;28;14
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Marquess Dennis. He is the founder and executive director of Birthright Living Legacy, that's a Tulsa based nonprofit dedicated to celebrating and supporting fatherhood and the black community through powerful storytelling, community outreach and advocacy. Marquess has transformed the way folks think about legacy leadership and the vital role of fathers. His passion for healing generational wounds and empowering families make him a dynamic force for change.

00;01;28;16 - 00;01;49;05
Craig Andrews
Now, I don't care where you're coming from, what your background is, this is something you should tune into, and I will just say, I believe that if we can change the role of fathers in the American household, so many problems, innovation would be fixed. And

00;01;49;05 - 00;01;53;26
Craig Andrews
so I don't care what your background is. Tune in. This is going to be powerful.

00;01;53;29 - 00;01;56;01
Craig Andrews
Marquess. Welcome.

00;01;56;03 - 00;01;59;10
Marquess Dennis
So glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

00;01;59;12 - 00;02;00;21
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You know,

00;02;00;21 - 00;02;02;19
Craig Andrews
when Camille,

00;02;02;19 - 00;02;12;12
Craig Andrews
first mentioned you to me, I was like, I need an introduction. I went and talked to them. You know, the little bit that she shared with me, I was like, this is somebody I want to have,

00;02;12;12 - 00;02;16;26
Craig Andrews
leaders and legacies because I think you have an important mission.

00;02;16;26 - 00;02;25;15
Craig Andrews
But let's let's kind of go back in town, but go back in time and tell me a little bit about where you came from, how you know, how you're brought up.

00;02;25;15 - 00;02;27;17
Craig Andrews
And just give us a little bit of your story.

00;02;27;19 - 00;02;28;21
Marquess Dennis
Yeah, absolutely.

00;02;28;21 - 00;02;35;22
Marquess Dennis
So the one thing I do want to correct, though, is we are for all fathers, not just black fathers or single fathers. It's,

00;02;35;22 - 00;02;40;19
Marquess Dennis
it's an organization that helps all fathers because, as you mentioned,

00;02;40;19 - 00;02;43;13
Marquess Dennis
you know, fatherhood affects everyone. And so,

00;02;43;13 - 00;02;46;14
Marquess Dennis
anytime we try to segregate it, we run into an issue,

00;02;46;14 - 00;02;49;02
Marquess Dennis
where, you know, this person thinks, oh, this is not for me.

00;02;49;02 - 00;02;54;02
Marquess Dennis
Oh, this means that no fatherhood affects the poor house all the way to the white House.

00;02;54;04 - 00;03;02;29
Craig Andrews
Oh, I love that all. Know. And I love that. And I appreciate that correction. Well, you say that again. Fatherhood affects what it affects.

00;03;02;29 - 00;03;06;12
Marquess Dennis
Everyone from the poor house all the way to the white House.

00;03;06;12 - 00;03;21;12
Marquess Dennis
And the reason why I say that is because, you know, when Hunter Biden was going through all of his daddy issues, you know, it was a publicly worldwide thing. And, you know, his father was the president. You know, so it's it's it disemboweled this,

00;03;21;12 - 00;03;22;13
Marquess Dennis
idea that.

00;03;22;13 - 00;03;32;05
Marquess Dennis
Oh, no, that doesn't affect me. I'm from this place or I grew up with this kind of lifestyle or I had this kind of privilege. It doesn't affect me. And this is why,

00;03;32;05 - 00;03;38;16
Marquess Dennis
birth, where I live and legacy focuses on fathers as a whole. Because when we start to talk about,

00;03;38;16 - 00;03;43;17
Marquess Dennis
how it negatively impacts everyone, it it's equal opportunity with these,

00;03;43;17 - 00;03;48;06
Marquess Dennis
outcomes, it's just more prevalent or more seen in certain areas,

00;03;48;06 - 00;03;51;11
Marquess Dennis
just because of economic disinvestment and things of that nature.

00;03;51;11 - 00;04;03;05
Marquess Dennis
But as I've had to explain to people, you know, the black population is only 14% of the population. They cannot be 100% of the problem.

00;04;03;07 - 00;04;04;18
Craig Andrews
Well, that's,

00;04;04;18 - 00;04;06;19
Craig Andrews
that's a mathematical way of looking at it.

00;04;06;23 - 00;04;14;00
Marquess Dennis
Oh, yeah. I mean, like I said, it's it's easier to to make it a Christian thing or a Jewish thing or,

00;04;14;07 - 00;04;25;28
Marquess Dennis
a black or white or a Hispanic, because then it's not your problem. It's not something that I have to do. But when you just say fathers, like, people have a hard time wrapping their mind around that.

00;04;26;01 - 00;04;33;04
Marquess Dennis
And as a guy that grew up, you know, I grew up in abject poverty, single mother outcomes.

00;04;33;04 - 00;04;37;08
Marquess Dennis
And so I grew up in north Tulsa in in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

00;04;37;08 - 00;04;41;17
Marquess Dennis
In the late 80s, you know, crack epidemic was heavy in our community.

00;04;41;17 - 00;04;48;06
Marquess Dennis
My mom got to this point where she just got tired of the situation and moved to a suburb,

00;04;48;06 - 00;04;49;17
Marquess Dennis
called Broken Arrow.

00;04;49;20 - 00;04;53;13
Marquess Dennis
Now, in the suburb. I went from being,

00;04;53;13 - 00;04;58;27
Marquess Dennis
one of millions to one of two, and then,

00;04;58;27 - 00;04;59;19
Marquess Dennis
being the,

00;04;59;19 - 00;05;07;17
Marquess Dennis
second only black family in this, in this community. I was like, why is this so different? I thought I lived in a whole nother world.

00;05;07;17 - 00;05;09;22
Marquess Dennis
I had never seen a convenience store.

00;05;09;22 - 00;05;11;22
Marquess Dennis
That wasn't a circle K

00;05;11;22 - 00;05;13;15
Marquess Dennis
I had never seen a bowling alley.

00;05;13;15 - 00;05;27;18
Marquess Dennis
Like, there was so many things. I was like, where did all this stuff come from? You know, I discovered a Brahms at the same time. I was like, wait, they have ice cream? Like, what's happening right now? And so what, I didn't what I ended up discovering,

00;05;27;18 - 00;05;37;25
Marquess Dennis
through that is, is that, you know, in these other areas, I thought, you know, with my feeble young mind, these people have a better lifestyle because they're white.

00;05;37;27 - 00;06;10;00
Marquess Dennis
And that was as far as I could think about it. Well, as I got older, I realized that poverty is one of those things that strikes everyone. You know, there's there's trailer parks, just like there are neighborhoods that are no good to go into, just like there's, you know, barrios and so on and so forth. So what I started to dive into when I started to realize what was making these outcomes so prevalent in certain areas is I started to look into, what happened to me, which was I lived in a single parent household.

00;06;10;03 - 00;06;30;25
Marquess Dennis
And so when I started to think back to this town or the city of Broken Arrow, I was like, wait a minute. Everyone on my street had a father in the home. It didn't matter if they're Asian, if they were white, if they were black, everyone except for us had a father in the home. And so when I started to see how that dynamic worked,

00;06;30;25 - 00;06;35;02
Marquess Dennis
what it did was it gives you a opportunity for balance.

00;06;35;05 - 00;06;36;03
Marquess Dennis
You know, moms,

00;06;36;03 - 00;06;44;08
Marquess Dennis
sometimes worked, sometimes they didn't work. But what it didn't do was it didn't put all of the pressure on one parent to do everything.

00;06;44;08 - 00;06;48;06
Marquess Dennis
I was a guy that struggled with with reading, with,

00;06;48;06 - 00;06;56;10
Marquess Dennis
homework and all this. Why? Because my mom was at work 90% of the time. It was me and my sister, latchkey kids coming home,

00;06;56;10 - 00;06;57;27
Marquess Dennis
letting the TV or what?

00;06;57;27 - 00;07;05;11
Marquess Dennis
I like to refer to as the Idiot box program. Us. It raised us and taught us how to think, how to be, how to be.

00;07;05;11 - 00;07;28;23
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And let me jump in real quick. So go ahead. Yeah. Something you said there about, you know, having it all on on the mother. You know, I'm one of those people that believe that God designed men and women to be different or more specifically, mothers and fathers to be different, that they bring different skills to the parenting complementary skills.

00;07;28;29 - 00;07;33;15
Marquess Dennis
Oh, yeah. And so what we say at birth, right, is you get your,

00;07;33;15 - 00;07;38;05
Marquess Dennis
values from mom, which is your morals, your ethics, and your,

00;07;38;05 - 00;07;51;00
Marquess Dennis
you know, your outlook, so to speak. And you get your value from dad, which is your worth, married and important. And so when the two of those come together, or lack thereof, that's where you need to fill that gap.

00;07;51;06 - 00;08;02;02
Marquess Dennis
Or what we like to call a God sized hole that you're looking for men to feel. And so this is where you find the statistics going wrong. So two times more likely,

00;08;02;02 - 00;08;03;00
Marquess Dennis
to have infinite,

00;08;03;00 - 00;08;04;15
Marquess Dennis
mortality, death,

00;08;04;15 - 00;08;10;19
Marquess Dennis
four times more likely to be impoverished, seven times more likely to be a teen pregnant,

00;08;10;19 - 00;08;13;14
Marquess Dennis
you know, alcohol abuse, physical abuse,

00;08;13;14 - 00;08;14;08
Marquess Dennis
obesity.

00;08;14;08 - 00;08;18;12
Marquess Dennis
All those things come from fatherless homes or,

00;08;18;12 - 00;08;19;13
Marquess Dennis
you know, being,

00;08;19;13 - 00;08;29;20
Marquess Dennis
being absent of a dad present. And this could be, you know, bio dad, this could be a positive male role model of any sort where you don't have those in those those,

00;08;29;20 - 00;08;32;03
Marquess Dennis
statistics start to come alive.

00;08;32;05 - 00;08;41;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Now you're. So you start figuring this out, you start making these observations as a kid. But you had a few bumps in the road.

00;08;41;13 - 00;08;42;20
Marquess Dennis
Oh, yeah. I mean, I,

00;08;42;20 - 00;08;43;26
Marquess Dennis
grew up,

00;08;43;26 - 00;08;50;22
Marquess Dennis
thinking that reaching out was the only way to go. And what I mean by that is, you know,

00;08;50;22 - 00;08;58;01
Marquess Dennis
a man is designed to do the three layer friendships. Okay, so you have those that came before you. So these are the older generation.

00;08;58;01 - 00;09;05;23
Marquess Dennis
And then you have your people that are your age, that you reach out to, that you hang out, you go ride bikes and go and play in the creek, all that kind of jazz.

00;09;05;23 - 00;09;17;06
Marquess Dennis
And then you have the people that come after you. And so when I grew up, I grew up with only the people that were around me. So their their values, their morals, their ideals was,

00;09;17;06 - 00;09;37;03
Marquess Dennis
all that I had to learn. And if you've ever been around a 15 year old boy trying to learn sex talk from somebody his age, you can see how destructive that could become versus having someone that is older to be able to give you proper advice, proper guidance on how to utilize and, be aware of certain things.

00;09;37;06 - 00;09;40;27
Marquess Dennis
You know, when you're asking a 15 year old boy or 16 year old boy that,

00;09;40;27 - 00;09;55;29
Marquess Dennis
has the same problem as you, pornography may be his only experience. And then once those things are introduced, you have an issue and you don't even know you have an issue. And so one of my mentors has said to me, this, this statement that has stuck with me forever.

00;09;56;01 - 00;10;15;18
Marquess Dennis
You don't even know the conversations that you're missing. And it really hit home because I was like, wow, I don't even know what I don't know, I know what I, what I think I know. And then he's sitting by me, having my great grandfather, my grandfather, my father. I have such a.

00;10;15;18 - 00;10;16;23
Craig Andrews
Wealth.

00;10;16;25 - 00;10;25;23
Marquess Dennis
Of knowledge and experience that I can tap into at any given time from any one of those individuals that are still living and from their journals or,

00;10;25;23 - 00;10;41;21
Marquess Dennis
life stories from their wives or whatever, that I can tap into, where as me, it's like monopoly. I am starting over. Every time I go around, it's collect $200 and start over and that's where we run into this generational issue.

00;10;41;24 - 00;11;02;24
Marquess Dennis
And this is why we're called birthright living legacy is because we are trying to remind fathers that having a legacy is something you need to be thinking about, but it doesn't have to happen until you die. You can start today because your birthright used to be the one thing that you passed on. It was like, nope, this is Craig, Andrew's father.

00;11;02;27 - 00;11;37;03
Marquess Dennis
Or son of such and such. And then whatever that came with, whatever your father did before you, you would inherit all of that greatness. But if you don't have anyone to vouch for you, so to speak, that makes you orphaned, imagine what it's like to run around wondering who you are, whose you are, and why. And so, as a young boy, trying to be impressionable, trying to fit in, trying to manage life, I don't know anything about the fact that, you know, the way that men bond is by picking on each other and yelling at each other and fighting and having fun.

00;11;37;10 - 00;11;50;01
Marquess Dennis
Like, I didn't know that that was normal. I just thought me and and nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. What is going on? So this is where you open a door for promiscuity, because then now you're looking for some woman to validate you.

00;11;50;01 - 00;11;56;12
Marquess Dennis
Then you're looking at drugs and alcohol to erase the pain because you don't know how to deal with the peer pressure that's going on.

00;11;56;12 - 00;12;05;11
Marquess Dennis
Your body's changing. All these things are happening, and nobody to coach you through it. And so you start to shut down, you start to clam up, and then that's where,

00;12;05;11 - 00;12;19;21
Marquess Dennis
you become a version of yourself that you may not even want to be, but it's the version of you that's respected. And that's how we have so many young people right now who are what we like to call crashing out.

00;12;19;28 - 00;12;23;23
Marquess Dennis
So they can gain respect from people they don't even like.

00;12;23;25 - 00;12;27;11
Craig Andrews
Wow. Well, how how did that play out in your life?

00;12;27;13 - 00;12;31;22
Marquess Dennis
So it played out in my life is I realized that I didn't like being broke.

00;12;31;22 - 00;12;34;18
Marquess Dennis
I ran into a situation where I had,

00;12;34;18 - 00;12;40;28
Marquess Dennis
children outside of wedlock, which I would not suggest for anyone, but I had three different children by three different women,

00;12;40;28 - 00;12;44;05
Marquess Dennis
and then got married and, and have two children with that.

00;12;44;05 - 00;12;45;18
Marquess Dennis
With my wife Crystal.

00;12;45;18 - 00;12;52;04
Marquess Dennis
And so we have five children total. And so as a young man, I had my two children,

00;12;52;04 - 00;12;57;12
Marquess Dennis
at the time and I was broke. I mean, I went to the bank, tried to write a check,

00;12;57;12 - 00;13;05;09
Marquess Dennis
when I was writing, said check. The lady was like, Marcie's here. $287 negative. And I just could not figure out life.

00;13;05;12 - 00;13;06;10
Marquess Dennis
Well,

00;13;06;10 - 00;13;08;01
Marquess Dennis
young lady was on the line with me,

00;13;08;01 - 00;13;17;05
Marquess Dennis
while I was in the bank, and she called me back and was like, hey, I know you don't sell drugs, but I have a guy that said he's willing to, you know, give you,

00;13;17;05 - 00;13;24;16
Marquess Dennis
x amount for this amount just based on my name. And I was like, I mean, even if I did sell drugs, I could get it wage.

00;13;24;18 - 00;13;31;05
Marquess Dennis
He. But let me call you back. So I hung up. And that's what started me to

00;13;31;05 - 00;13;42;08
Marquess Dennis
discover that making money brought me what I thought were friends and power and influence, and that was the drug that I chose, which was,

00;13;42;08 - 00;13;45;11
Marquess Dennis
trying to figure out how to become relevant.

00;13;45;13 - 00;13;49;24
Craig Andrews
Hang on. Are you saying it was the lady that worked at the bank that. No, no.

00;13;49;24 - 00;13;51;28
Marquess Dennis
No, no, it was the lady I was on the phone with.

00;13;51;28 - 00;13;57;10
Marquess Dennis
With the lady. Now, that would have been crazy, though, if the lady at the bank was.

00;13;57;10 - 00;14;00;19
Craig Andrews
Like, you know, you hear all sorts of things. You never know.

00;14;00;21 - 00;14;03;19
Marquess Dennis
Hey, well, you know, I just heard yesterday, Jamal,

00;14;03;19 - 00;14;11;19
Marquess Dennis
I can't remember his name. The pastor in Atlanta, he's about to buy land to start growing weed for the church. They're fixing to get into the cannabis industry. So,

00;14;11;19 - 00;14;14;05
Marquess Dennis
just not too far fetched these days.

00;14;14;07 - 00;14;26;05
Craig Andrews
That says that there's just so disappointing. I mean, that's that's a different episode than we're doing, but absolutely, there's a book out there called,

00;14;26;05 - 00;14;48;18
Craig Andrews
tell your Children. I think that's what it's called by, what's his name? Today's marijuana is dangerous. And yeah, drawing lives. And we'll cover that in another podcast. But the that just grieves me so much to hear that that that the church is growing weed.

00;14;48;20 - 00;14;59;00
Marquess Dennis
But you got to think about it like this. Based on what we're talking about now, you have a generation. Well, we're three generations away from fathers being in homes. Let me give you a,

00;14;59;00 - 00;15;08;14
Marquess Dennis
a juxtaposition that you can hold in your head and hold true. Right. If you think about Andy Griffith, right, versus Tim the Tool Man.

00;15;08;14 - 00;15;18;04
Marquess Dennis
Taylor. So Andy Griffith, Father Piller, the community sheriff, he did all the things, you know, he gave all the the quippy advice. He went fishing with his,

00;15;18;04 - 00;15;28;01
Marquess Dennis
taught them all these values. And then you had the guy that was not quite together yet, not quite mature, not, you know, quite all there. You had the Barney Fife, right?

00;15;28;03 - 00;15;55;05
Marquess Dennis
Funny guy. Hilarious. Everybody loved him. Well, then you go to my generation. My generation. This is after Homer Simpson and Al Bundy were introduced in the same year. In 1991. You go a couple of generations in, and now you have Tim the Tool Man. Taylor. Now, Tim is like a fourth child. Mom is work and come home to babysit the husband because he's just not capable of taking care of himself or the kids.

00;15;55;07 - 00;16;19;00
Marquess Dennis
He's seen as more of a glorified babysitter right? But who's the guy that's put together? Who's the guy that everybody wants to be? Who's the smart guy? It's the single man, which is Al Borland. And so when you take those two generations and put them together, Barney Fife was not all together because he was not complete. He didn't have a wife to cause him to have to take those maturity steps.

00;16;19;07 - 00;16;41;06
Marquess Dennis
He didn't have his brain opened up because he didn't take care of a child that belonged to him, that couldn't take care of itself. This is a God given thing. Like, this is why men don't mature when women do. They have nine months to develop and turn into mothers. They can't, you know, go to the sink. They have to change their eating habits.

00;16;41;06 - 00;17;06;06
Marquess Dennis
They're being sucked dry of their nutrients. Well, when fathers hold a baby and take care of that child for the first time, that can't take care of itself. There's a section in his brain that opens that causes him to start thinking, to start thinking like a father and think about how many young men have been robbed of that opportunity to be there at birth, to be there, engaged, to be there, to take care of a child.

00;17;06;06 - 00;17;36;04
Marquess Dennis
They're always having to prove as fathers, well, you got to prove are you capable? Are you able? Because you may not be able. But mothers, for whatever reason, seem like, oh, they're just you know, they just pop out ready to go and nobody is ready to go. Everyone needs to learn ways to be more engaged, more present. But if if a dad doesn't know what he brings to parenting, it's easy to negate those things and act like a Tim the Tool Man.

00;17;36;04 - 00;17;48;20
Marquess Dennis
Taylor. Now I love the show. Don't get me wrong, it was funny. It was hilarious. But now that I look back, I see how damaging that was. But Tim did the three layer friendship he had.

00;17;48;20 - 00;17;52;11
Marquess Dennis
Wilson, who was over the gate. So he reached up to that guy,

00;17;52;11 - 00;17;58;16
Marquess Dennis
to get wisdom, reached out to al, and then he also, you know, was there for his kids.

00;17;58;16 - 00;18;21;27
Marquess Dennis
He was a great father, don't get me wrong. But the way that he was depicted made it seem like he would not be able to survive without Jim versus Andy Griffith. They were they were interdependent. His wife could make it without him, and Andy could make it without her. But they chose to make it work together. And they became what,

00;18;21;27 - 00;18;23;07
Marquess Dennis
what we all,

00;18;23;07 - 00;18;30;11
Marquess Dennis
hope to get out of a world is a community of people that are working together, striving to create a better future for our kids.

00;18;30;14 - 00;18;33;26
Marquess Dennis
And it's hard to find these days.

00;18;33;28 - 00;18;46;06
Craig Andrews
You know, I'd never thought about that. I mean, I'd seen, you know, like, married with children. You know, I felt like that was just devastating for the American family and the lessons that that taught.

00;18;46;06 - 00;18;51;19
Craig Andrews
The. But I never carried it all the way forward to,

00;18;51;19 - 00;18;56;02
Craig Andrews
married, with children. But let's let's jump back a little bit.

00;18;56;05 - 00;18;58;26
Craig Andrews
So you start dealing drugs?

00;18;58;26 - 00;19;01;03
Craig Andrews
Yeah. What happened?

00;19;01;06 - 00;19;01;27
Marquess Dennis
So I,

00;19;01;27 - 00;19;03;13
Marquess Dennis
you know, I started to sell,

00;19;03;13 - 00;19;20;19
Marquess Dennis
and at the time, it was just to try to pay rent, try to figure out a way to overcome child support. Child support is is one of those things. Me. And they don't care how much money you have. After they make sure that they take what they want and when they take what they want, you still get taxed on that money.

00;19;20;21 - 00;19;47;20
Marquess Dennis
And when you go to reach out for help, they say, hey, we have to count what you make before child support. And so that leaves me with no option because the more I work. So if I work two jobs, they take more money. If I go to get a license to get promoted, they just take more money. So it's a demotivating process to say, hey, you know, if you just stay right where you're at, which is abject poverty, then you'll be okay.

00;19;47;20 - 00;19;51;13
Marquess Dennis
So it almost forces you into this process.

00;19;51;13 - 00;19;53;15
Marquess Dennis
So anyway, long story short, I,

00;19;53;15 - 00;20;06;16
Marquess Dennis
made a phone call. Friend came by. He laughed and thought, how crazy is this for you to be asking me? And then he said, you know, if there's anybody that can do it, it's you, you know, so many people. And I said, sure, whatever.

00;20;06;18 - 00;20;09;08
Marquess Dennis
And so I started a process of,

00;20;09;08 - 00;20;17;03
Marquess Dennis
and this is before a new business. This is before I knew that there were systems and processes in place. And so I modeled my,

00;20;17;03 - 00;20;19;25
Marquess Dennis
drug business after a successful convenience store,

00;20;19;25 - 00;20;29;05
Marquess Dennis
here in Oklahoma. And I was like, you know, if I just create these rules and operate by this process, it seems like it would be the same supply to me.

00;20;29;10 - 00;20;40;13
Marquess Dennis
Like, I didn't even know these terms. I just making it up in my head as I was going. And when I did, I started to have employees. I started to create these opportunities.

00;20;40;13 - 00;20;41;10
Marquess Dennis
I found these,

00;20;41;10 - 00;20;43;27
Marquess Dennis
what do you call them? Niches. So to speak.

00;20;43;27 - 00;20;44;25
Marquess Dennis
So I found,

00;20;44;25 - 00;20;51;23
Marquess Dennis
that there was a lot of single mothers that smoked, and they had people coming in and out of their homes all the time anyway, they needed more money.

00;20;52;00 - 00;20;57;27
Marquess Dennis
And so I was like, hey, this is a way for you to actually profit from all these people trying to take advantage of you,

00;20;57;27 - 00;21;20;15
Marquess Dennis
versus you just sitting around. I know you need money. This you're already doing these things and taking these risks. We might as well go this route. And so I helped them to create business plans and all this stuff to do it, which was wild then, because now that I look at it, it's like, wow, I didn't even know that these were things that are actually marketable in the world of business, that you actually,

00;21;20;15 - 00;21;24;05
Marquess Dennis
do this anytime you open a company or anything like that.

00;21;24;07 - 00;21;30;07
Marquess Dennis
So I created the system, help them to understand how the process worked, grew really fast.

00;21;30;07 - 00;21;36;25
Marquess Dennis
It was always an issue trying to stay supplied, but, you know, managed to make a little over 8000 a week.

00;21;36;25 - 00;21;44;01
Marquess Dennis
And it just was it just was insane. Like, I lived a lifestyle that was not,

00;21;44;01 - 00;21;45;13
Marquess Dennis
becoming of a young man.

00;21;45;13 - 00;22;13;23
Marquess Dennis
But what's crazy is, is no matter what happens, and this is this is where it really hits the rubber to the road. If you don't have the integrity to understand what you're doing, it doesn't matter how much money you make, your blueprint in your mind is going to tell you that you're poor. So you're going to always operate as a poor person because you didn't have someone that you trusted, that you believed to speak life into you, which is where men and fathers and mentors come from.

00;22;14;00 - 00;22;32;10
Marquess Dennis
Mom can tell you stuff, but it's not going to be the same. And this is why it's so important, because as we teach today, it's like your voice, your presence, and your touch are absolutely necessary in order for a young man or a young woman to fully develop into who they are.

00;22;32;10 - 00;22;35;14
Marquess Dennis
Doctor Warren Farrell has done a, just,

00;22;35;14 - 00;22;37;20
Marquess Dennis
a lot of research,

00;22;37;20 - 00;22;41;22
Marquess Dennis
on this topic of helping people to understand how important that stuff is.

00;22;41;22 - 00;22;44;23
Marquess Dennis
So doctor can, can feel so on and so forth.

00;22;44;23 - 00;22;48;07
Marquess Dennis
So there's a lot of research that has started to show now.

00;22;48;07 - 00;22;50;14
Marquess Dennis
And so I was a young man that ended up,

00;22;50;14 - 00;23;09;21
Marquess Dennis
you know, taking these risks, doing the best I could. And, and then when I got this idea to, to, to create a facility where fathers could be fathers all the time, no matter what their circumstances were with their child's mother, I was like, man, you know, this would be great.

00;23;09;27 - 00;23;17;08
Marquess Dennis
And I didn't know it at the time. But this voice that was talking to me said, okay, well, what would that look like? And so,

00;23;17;08 - 00;23;21;21
Marquess Dennis
I started to plan what it would look like in order for me to create,

00;23;21;21 - 00;23;26;23
Marquess Dennis
a place where fathers could come spend time with their kids, but also,

00;23;26;23 - 00;23;32;09
Marquess Dennis
break generational curses, but also make sure that men become well friended.

00;23;32;11 - 00;23;42;09
Marquess Dennis
And this is why I have to make sure that I correct people is because it's easy to believe that, oh, I'm a father. I'm at home, I'm married, I'm providing for my kids.

00;23;42;09 - 00;23;50;17
Marquess Dennis
That doesn't count for me. But what they don't understand is it's great that you're the baseball coach, but you're also sharing yourself with all those other kids.

00;23;50;20 - 00;24;11;23
Marquess Dennis
Your kids are going to be resentful over time. It's great that you're showing up to all the events, but you're also on your phone. And so the kids, every time they look out into the audience, they see you talking. So they're thinking, oh, he's not paying attention. Oh, but yeah, you, you talk to me when we're at home, but you talk to me through a newspaper or as we were to watching a TV show.

00;24;11;24 - 00;24;15;27
Marquess Dennis
We don't really spend one on one time where you're invested in me.

00;24;15;29 - 00;24;18;10
Craig Andrews
You know? And one thing I see when I'm out at,

00;24;18;10 - 00;24;28;03
Craig Andrews
when I'm out eating, it just makes me so sad. I'll look and I'll see a family of four sitting at the table, and every one of them has their phone in their face.

00;24;28;10 - 00;24;29;05
Marquess Dennis
Oh, yeah.

00;24;29;07 - 00;24;35;15
Craig Andrews
They're together. They're physically present. Yeah, but they're not together.

00;24;35;18 - 00;24;35;23
Marquess Dennis
At.

00;24;35;23 - 00;24;38;01
Craig Andrews
All. That's. That's not eating together.

00;24;38;03 - 00;24;57;19
Marquess Dennis
You know, and and we've traded that presence for being present. And so being shoulder to shoulder is something that men share. Like if you and I were sitting in the same room, we could sit next to each other, not say a word and still feel fulfilled. But women,

00;24;57;19 - 00;25;05;06
Marquess Dennis
for the most part, don't operate that way. They need to engage eye to eye, shoulder to shoulder, need any kind of conversations?

00;25;05;08 - 00;25;06;29
Marquess Dennis
And so on and so forth, but in order.

00;25;07;01 - 00;25;14;09
Craig Andrews
But I would actually challenge that. I, I, I'm seeing that amongst women as well where,

00;25;14;09 - 00;25;18;17
Craig Andrews
I feel like mobile phones have even made women less relational.

00;25;18;20 - 00;25;37;09
Marquess Dennis
Oh, yeah. It's made everyone less relation. I'm talking about how we're modeled. And so what is happening is, as with these devices, we've been programed to believe that being around each other is the same as being engaged. Do you know, they say Google was the killer of conversation.

00;25;37;09 - 00;25;40;27
Marquess Dennis
And the reason they say that is because, you know, back in the day,

00;25;40;27 - 00;25;47;19
Marquess Dennis
if you and I were arguing over a point like hey Babe Ruth hit 57 home runs, you'd be like, no, he hit 60.

00;25;47;19 - 00;26;00;08
Marquess Dennis
And I'd be like, no, no, no, I was 50, I'm telling you. And so we would just argue back and forth having a great time. Right. Well, now it's like Babe Ruth hit 57. You say no, you hit 60. And then we just Google it. And now that's the end of the conversation.

00;26;00;10 - 00;26;35;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah, it's well and you know, as for the one thing I want to make sure we don't miss as we're wrapping this up because there are people listening that are probably making very solid incomes, you know, six figure incomes providing for their families. And, and they're taking their kids to vacation. You know, when good vacations and, you know, doing all the things they think they should be doing, but I think are probably still missing some of the things that you're talking about 100%.

00;26;35;18 - 00;26;37;18
Craig Andrews
So what would you say to those folks?

00;26;37;21 - 00;26;38;26
Marquess Dennis
I would say to them,

00;26;38;26 - 00;26;43;04
Marquess Dennis
I, I challenge fathers to not turn work off.

00;26;43;04 - 00;26;59;11
Marquess Dennis
I think we've all been taught this idea that when you go home from work, you know, you turn, work off and you become a dad. I say, boys, I say keep work on. The reason is because as fathers, we typically treat people at work better.

00;26;59;17 - 00;27;22;14
Marquess Dennis
We treat customers better. We're willing to go in and do the sales process where we're building rapport, finding the hot button and then pouncing. If you do that to your wife and your children, you will be golden. Meaning when you come home, phone off just like they're $1 million customer. If you had $1 million customer come in, you wouldn't be texting and talking and, you know, talk,

00;27;22;14 - 00;27;24;20
Marquess Dennis
you know, eating while they're while they're doing their thing.

00;27;24;20 - 00;27;42;01
Marquess Dennis
You would sit down and give them full attention to make sure that you talk to them about their family or whatever it is that you know, is, is going to get them excited and then when you find out what they're interested in, you're just going to pounce on that and show how what your product is is going to get them there.

00;27;42;03 - 00;27;51;01
Marquess Dennis
And do you know, Andrew, what the one product is that fathers sell parents for the most part, but fathers for most?

00;27;51;04 - 00;27;51;22
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;27;51;25 - 00;28;13;10
Marquess Dennis
Do you know what it is? What's that influence if you are not getting your children and your your spouse to purchase influence from you, they are getting it from someone else. And so being able to make sure that you're getting that sale every day, meaning that you are giving them intentional time, doesn't have to be hours. It can be five minutes a day.

00;28;13;16 - 00;28;28;20
Marquess Dennis
If I come home and give my kids each individual five minutes each now they have grown to expect it. They start to trust. They start to let me in, and then I get the opportunity to influence them until they are,

00;28;28;20 - 00;28;36;00
Marquess Dennis
until I'm no longer here. And that's all you can ask for. You're not going to get perfect children to where they don't mess up.

00;28;36;02 - 00;28;56;13
Marquess Dennis
But the key is, is that they can trust you with their heart when they do to say, hey, dad, I missed it. This is what happened. And then you can give them the proper influence to help them, not berate them, not, you know, sometimes discipline is necessary, but you have to give them, depending on the ages and the stages, you have to,

00;28;56;13 - 00;29;06;24
Marquess Dennis
you have to make sure that your influence is key, that they value you, that they trust you, and they believe when you say it, that it means that your their best interests at heart.

00;29;06;24 - 00;29;09;21
Marquess Dennis
When you said whatever it is that you say.

00;29;09;23 - 00;29;16;20
Craig Andrews
Well, Marquess, this has just been this is some powerful, powerful stuff. And I.

00;29;16;22 - 00;29;19;12
Craig Andrews
I.

00;29;19;15 - 00;29;36;02
Craig Andrews
Really appreciate you bringing this here. And I mean, my I love the fact, you know, when you were talking about, you know, on the phone. So I just feel like as a society, we need to change and we need to be more engaged with people. And the stakes are high.

00;29;36;02 - 00;29;38;00
Craig Andrews
And I appreciate the work that you're doing.

00;29;38;02 - 00;29;39;26
Craig Andrews
How can people find you,

00;29;39;26 - 00;29;44;19
Craig Andrews
learn more about what you're doing, support what you're doing, and reach and connect with you.

00;29;44;21 - 00;29;53;08
Marquess Dennis
The best way is at WW. WB our living legacy.org. And that's you know Bobby Richard

00;29;53;08 - 00;30;08;17
Marquess Dennis
living legacy. So it just be our living legacy.org find us on all of the social media outlets. Or you could just give us a call or a text at (918) 922-9445. We got fatherhood summits, we got park crawls and events. And we would love to have you.

00;30;08;20 - 00;30;10;24
Marquess Dennis
Love to have you join in.

00;30;10;26 - 00;30;13;20
Craig Andrews
All right. Well thank you. Thanks for coming on Layers and Legacies.

00;30;13;22 - 00;30;17;01
Marquess Dennis
My pleasure.

00;30;17;01 - 00;30;43;25
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;30;43;25 - 00;30;45;20
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;30;45;22 - 00;31;09;04
Craig Andrews
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00;31;09;06 - 00;31;17;11
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up. Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.

00;31;17;11 - 00;33;19;16
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Ally's for me.com. Or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.