Mission Driven With Dr. AC Cristales

What if the family partnership your school needs begins with one positive conversation?

Dee Dee Harrison joins Dr. AC Cristales on Mission Driven to share how school leaders can build trust with families and connect that trust to student learning. Drawing on 31 years in education, including 16 years as a family and community engagement coordinator, Dee Dee brings practical experience and a deeply personal understanding of the families schools serve.

Raised by her grandparents after losing her mother at age four, Dee Dee understands why a family’s presence at school tells only part of its story. She explains how educators can recognize barriers, reach families who aren’t attending events, and make engagement part of everyday teaching.

For principals, district leaders, and teachers, this conversation offers concrete ways to create a welcoming culture, build relationships before difficult conversations, and honor families as essential partners. Dee Dee also shares the story behind her book, The Family-School Engagement Advantage, and her next chapter of helping educators put these practices into action.

Chapters

• 00:33 — Meet Dee Dee Harrison: The Heart Behind Her Work
• Her journey from kindergarten teacher to family engagement leader, and the childhood experience that shaped her approach.
• 11:00 — Who Counts as Family—and How Do We Reach Them?
• Expanding the circle of support, listening to families, and understanding why attendance at events doesn’t tell the whole story.
• 22:33 — Family Engagement as an Instructional Strategy
• Connecting teachers’ expertise with families’ knowledge of their children, rebuilding trust, and making meaningful contact during an ordinary school week.
• 36:35 — How Leaders Build a Culture of Partnership
• Setting expectations, modeling connection, welcoming family voices, and building trust before challenges arise.
• 45:49 — The Family-School Engagement Advantage and What Comes Next
• The purpose behind Dee Dee’s book, one action listeners can take this week, her upcoming workshop, and a calling that continues beyond retirement.

Connect with Dee Dee

• Buy The Family-School Engagement Advantage. Available now through Amazon and IngramSpark, with an e-book edition also available.
• Visit Dee Dee’s website.
• Register for the Fresno Pacific University workshop.
• View the workshop flier.

Upcoming workshop: Family Engagement for Educators

Join Dee Dee for an online workshop through Fresno Pacific University featuring practical strategies you can apply in your school or classroom.

• Begins: Thursday, January 7, 2027
• Schedule: Thursdays for 10 weeks
• Time: 6:00–7:30 p.m. Pacific Time / 8:00–9:30 p.m. Central Time
• Location: Online via Zoom
• Continuing education: Opportunity to earn 3 continuing education units
• Takeaway: Create a digital Family Engagement Toolkit with resources for building meaningful connections with families.

You do not need to be a current Fresno Pacific University student to register.

Your next step: Make one positive connection with a family this week. Share something specific you appreciate about their child. Small moments can begin lasting partnerships.

You don’t have to finish rebuilding your own life before you can help someone else.

In this final episode of the Brick by Brick series, A.C. reflects on lessons learned through career risks, relationships, and a business that didn’t work out as hoped. Those experiences didn’t give him every answer, but they gave him something he could offer. Sometimes the brick someone needs is a lesson. Sometimes it’s a prayer, a listening ear, or the simple reminder that they aren’t alone.

A.C. shares a way to show up for one person: notice, ask, offer. Who has been on your mind? Within the next 24 hours, reach out. Listen to what they need, then offer what you honestly can.

Your story is still unfolding. It can still help someone else build.

Episode timestamps

00:00 — You can help someone while you’re still rebuilding

03:29 — What career risks and setbacks taught me

07:57 — The power of prayer, presence, and an unfinished story

10:02 — Listening to someone who needs a safe place to be real

12:26 — Who could use your support right now?

14:02 — The 24-hour challenge: give one person a brick

What happens when you take a real chance on yourself—and it doesn’t work out?

You followed the dream, accepted the position, started the business, entered the relationship, or made the sacrifice. You burned the boats. Then the plan fell apart, leaving you to question not only what happened, but whether you can trust yourself to try again.

In this episode, A.C. shares his own experiences of returning to comfort after pursuing a speaking career, closing a business that didn’t succeed, and allowing other people’s expectations to define what his life could hold.

This isn’t a motivational speech about simply trying harder. It’s an invitation to stop letting disappointment hold the blueprint for your future.

Through three honest questions—What needs to go? What needs care? What happens next?—you’ll learn how to reclaim your authority, refine what you’re building, and take one meaningful step forward.

Because the crack didn’t make you better. The care you take afterward can.

00:00 — When taking a chance on yourself doesn’t work out

02:23 — A.C.’s experience with speaking, leadership, and a failed business

07:16 — Refinement: taking the blueprint back from disappointment

07:42 — Question one: What needs to go?

11:37 — The cracked bowl and the gold: what creates growth after pain

17:12 — What happens next?

What happens when purpose shows up before you’ve healed, recovered, or forgiven yourself?

In the fifth installment of the Brick by Brick series, Dr. A.C. Cristales explores grace—the brick that gives us room to take responsibility without allowing our worst moments to define us.

Reflecting on heartbreak, financial loss, depression, and his return to teaching in 2022, A.C. shares how purpose continued revealing itself while his life still felt like it was falling apart. His story is a reminder that functioning doesn’t always mean we’re okay—and that one damaged part of the wall doesn’t mean God has stopped building.

Grace doesn’t erase the consequences or excuse the choices we’ve made. It gives us the strength to pick up the next brick and keep moving forward.

In this episode:

• Why showing up doesn’t necessarily mean you’re okay
• How serving others can remind you of what is still alive within you
• Recognizing evidence that your story isn’t over
• Taking responsibility without surrendering your identity
• A 24-hour challenge to identify your “in spite of”

00:00 — Intro: What do you do when purpose shows up in the middle of your falling apart?

02:34 — 2022: the heartbreak, the depleted bank account, and the depression he hadn't fully talked about before

05:10 — Evidence that God wasn’t done with me

07:00 — Grace gives you strength to lay the next brick

10:50 — The “in spite of” challenge

What brick will you lay this week?

If this episode made you think of someone struggling to forgive themselves, share it with them. Subscribe to Mission Driven with A.C. Cristales and follow the show so you don’t miss the next brick in the series.

What if the reason you stopped pursuing your dream wasn’t only purpose—but fear?

For years, Dr. A.C. Cristales believed he had stepped back from speaking to be present for his daughter. That choice was real, meaningful, and rooted in the kind of father he wanted to become. But it wasn’t the whole truth.

Underneath that decision was another reality: after years of pursuing a dream that had not unfolded as planned—and after experiencing rejection and business failure—he was afraid to try again.

In Episode 4 of Season One: Brick by Brick, Dr. Cristales explores the clarity that comes when we stop hiding behind partial truths.

He reflects on chasing leadership titles, trying to force the wrong opportunities into his life, and discovering that a closed door does not mean the calling has disappeared.

A speaking opportunity in Stockton, California, reminded him that the gift was still there. At the same time, the years spent beside Isabella revealed that the delay may have been preparing him for more than one purpose: the platform ahead of him and the legacy developing in front of him.

This episode is an invitation to examine the stories you tell yourself about the dreams you have stopped pursuing. Sometimes you are protecting what matters. Sometimes you are protecting yourself from disappointment. Often, both can be true.

Ask yourself:

• What do I really want?
• What am I actually protecting?
• What am I trying to force into my life that I need to release?

Clarity begins when you become honest about what you want, what you fear, and what no longer fits the life you are building.

This is Episode 4 of Season One: Brick by Brick — an invitation to examine the stories you tell yourself about the dreams you have stopped pursuing.

01:47 — Chasing a title instead of following the calling

03:05 — Are you climbing the wrong mountain?

06:32 — The fear hiding beneath a meaningful decision

08:57 — When clarity reveals what no longer fits

11:03 — The opportunity that confirmed the calling

12:50 — Preparing for both purpose and legacy

15:29 — Making room for the life you are meant to build

Keep Building When No One Is Watching | Leadership Lesson #3

Most leaders experience seasons when the room feels empty, the response is quiet, and the work goes unnoticed. But silence is not failure—and a lack of recognition does not mean a lack of impact.

In this episode, Dr. A.C. Cristales shares why leaders must learn to separate a disappointing moment from their identity. Through practical leadership principles and a reminder that unseen work is still meaningful work, you'll learn how to stay grounded, keep building, and lead with conviction before the applause arrives.

If you've ever questioned whether your work matters because no one seems to notice, this episode is for you.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why one setback should never become your identity
• How to measure the mission instead of the applause
• Why the work is not only producing an outcome—it is producing you
• Practical ways to lead through disappointment with curiosity and conviction
• How to keep laying the next brick when the bigger picture is still unclear

Key takeaway:

“Unseen does not mean insignificant. Often, it simply means unfinished.”

What do you do when you're doing everything right and still feel invisible? When you've shown up, put in the work, given everything — and nobody's clapping, calling, or opening the door?

In this episode, Dr. A.C. Cristales tells a story he's never shared publicly before: speaking to a packed, standing-room-only session at the TASP Summer Conference — and walking into an empty room the very next day. He unpacks the gut-punch of that contrast, and why the real danger isn't the empty room itself, but what we start telling ourselves in the silence that follows.

Drawing on a rejection email from December 2025, a stranger's prayer in Bakersfield, and Matt Damon's reflection on winning an Oscar at 27, A.C. makes the case that the work is never wasted — even when no one is around to witness it. Because the work isn't just building your career. It's building you.

In this episode:

• The difference between a packed room and an empty one — and what each one is actually testing
• Why "the work is working on the worker," even when results don't show up on schedule
• How to tell the difference between questioning your timing and questioning your calling
• The Bakersfield story: a stranger's prayer that reframed everything
• Why titles and platforms were never meant to define you — impact was

Quote to sit with:

"Unseen doesn't mean insignificant. Unseen means unfinished."

This week's brick: What will you lay this week — even if no one's watching?

Keep Planting Because The Work Is Still Speaking | Leadership Lesson #2

Most leaders quit too soon—not because they lack talent, but because they mistake silence for failure.

In this episode, Dr. A.C. Cristales shares why the greatest leadership impact often happens long after the work is done. Through personal stories, practical leadership principles, and a reminder that faithfulness always outlasts applause, you'll discover why the seeds you plant today may become tomorrow's greatest opportunities.

If you've ever wondered whether your leadership is making a difference, this episode is for you.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why leaders often measure the wrong things
• The danger of letting metrics define your impact
• How consistent faithfulness creates long-term influence
• Why relationships outperform transactions
• Practical habits that help leaders keep planting even when they can't yet see the harvest

Key takeaway:

"Keep planting. The harvest doesn't forget—even when you do."

What if the work you thought nobody noticed is still opening doors years later?

It's easy to become discouraged when you don't see immediate results. You show up. You serve. You lead. You pour into your family. You build your business. You stay faithful...and sometimes it feels like nothing is happening.

In this episode of Mission Driven, Dr. A.C. Cristales shares two deeply personal stories that forever changed how he defines success.

One phone call came from someone who remembered a keynote speech years after hearing it.

Another came from someone who discovered an old YouTube video more than a decade after it was published.

Both carried the same lesson:

Your work may already be speaking...even if you haven't heard the echo yet.

If you're in a season where the results haven't come, the opportunities seem delayed, or you're questioning whether your work even matters, this episode will encourage you to keep planting.

Because no seed planted in faith is ever wasted.

• Why faithfulness matters more than immediate recognition

• How unseen work often creates future opportunities

• The danger of measuring impact only by numbers

• Why difficult seasons don't cancel God's purpose

• What it means to keep planting even when you can't see the harvest

Stop chasing applause.

Stop measuring your worth by likes, numbers, and immediate results.

Instead...

Be faithful.

Faithful to your calling.

Faithful to your family.

Faithful to your craft.

Because the seeds you plant today may become someone else's breakthrough years from now.

Leadership Lesson #1 — The Silence Isn't Wasted

What if the opportunities you've been praying for never arrived because they weren't the opportunities you actually needed?

In this episode of Mission Driven Leadership Lessons, Dr. A.C. Cristales shares one of the hardest lessons he's learned as a leader: success without alignment eventually drains you—but purpose sustains you.

After years of pursuing promotions and wondering why doors kept closing, he discovered that silence wasn't punishment. It was preparation.

Through personal reflection and the story of his daughter Isabella's final varsity soccer season, Dr. Cristales explains how one professional disappointment became one of the greatest gifts of his life.

In this lesson, you'll discover:

• Why leaders often confuse advancement with alignment
• Four powerful lessons hidden inside seasons of silence
• How disappointment can shape stronger leadership than promotion
• Why some of your greatest victories will never appear on your résumé
• Reflection questions to help you evaluate what you're really pursuing

If you're waiting on the next opportunity, don't assume nothing is happening. The silence may be preparing you for something greater.

Reflection Questions

• What am I chasing right now?
• Is this truly my dream—or someone else's expectation?
• Am I pursuing impact or simply another title?
• What can only be learned during this season?
• If this door never opens... who am I becoming anyway?

🎙 Listen to Episode 1 of Mission Driven: Brick by Brick to hear the full story behind this journey.

Follow for new leadership lessons every week.