December 31, 2020
If you’re feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, discouraged, tired, or just plain confused after this wild ride of a year… then we have a belated Christmas gift for you, my friend.
We are so excited about today’s show as we have the INCREDIBLE honor of talking to the man, the myth, the legend: Dean Graziosi.
If you’re not familiar with Dean… this man is incredible. He’s a multiple New York Times best selling author, entrepreneur, and investor. He has started or has been involved in 13+ companies that have changed lives all around the world.
For over 20 years Dean has been dedicated to delivering self-education to those seeking transformation and success outside the normal path of traditional education. Recently, he and Tony Robbins launched the Knowledge Business Blueprint, intending to make self-education viable for millions. It began with the largest online training in history with over 200k people live and has since become a movement.
This guy kinda knows what he’s talking about. And today, he’s gonna light a freaking FIRE under your butt and give you an ARSENAL of tools to CRUSH your goals + change the world as we say “so long” to 2020 and head into 2021.
Today we talk to Dean about his 3 components that distinguish millionaires from the rest and how to cultivate and protect those components in your life, his definition of success, and why finding your own will help guide you through all of life’s ups and downs, prioritizing family amid success, building a legacy, and he wraps it up with his thoughts on the year of 2020 what we can do moving forward into 2021.
We were ready to get up and run a marathon or something equally intense after this talk with Dean and we know he’s going to leave you equally inspired, equipped, and ready to take on the world.
No matter what stage in life you are in or where you are emotionally, Dean can promise that he has been there. He knows what it is like to feel uncertain or to feel like an imposter. He also knows what it feels like knowing that you have more to give to the world, that you are dying to but you don’t know where to start. Or you started and now you don’t know how to scale. He also knows how to not have people in your world believe in you because they think you are a crazy dreamer entrepreneur thingamajig. He wants to share his story only to let you know that he has been where you are, he knows what it is like to be down in a ditch, saying this is brutal, tough and deserves it.
On the other side of facing your biggest fears to start or scale, on the other side of facing the thing you worry about is truly your next level. He wishes that if one thing sparks from his interview that it is momentum. Take what serves you and throw the rest away.
With his parents getting divorced back when he was three and was raised by his mom who had dyslexia (which he inherited) and worked three jobs to make close to nothing. Living in a trailer park together, she would return from work around nine o’clock, exhausted with aching back and hands from cutting hair, cleaning, and painting homes. Dean remembers seeing this and thinking she was too young to feel that way.
Around the age of ten years old, Dean decided that he was going to retire her. He wanted to be rich not to have a Lamborghini and private jets with the fancy watch but wanted to be rich so that his mom didn’t have to worry. This was his incredible driving force.
Right from the start, Dean faced doubts and skepticism from his uncle. Many times that is the mindset that is around us, but his uncle was wrong, way wrong. Remember they don’t make statues out of critiques.
In high school, Dean started cutting firewood and then he started buying wrecked cars and fixing them. Then after that, he started a collision job, then had a tow truck company, and then got into real estate. Along the whole journey, he failed miserably, struggling with self-doubt, wondering when was the day people realized he’s not that smart and is going to fail. But he kept pushing forward.
Uncomfortable action. You never get anywhere in life without moving forward. Courage is not taking action in absence of fear, courage is taking action even though you are still scared to death.
Through his journey of starting his businesses, working and failing, Dean kept moving forward, and in his mid-twenties, he had to work on his mindset. Buying Tony Robbins course two and a half decades ago and realized he was working hard and had great ways to work hard but wasn’t working smart. Was stressing all the time and focusing on limiting beliefs and what could go wrong. Was worried about what other people would think of him and feeling like an imposter. The more he worked on that, the more his business exponentially grew.
In 1998 he created his first course to help other people. Within a few years, he had his first New York Times best-selling book! Now with six books and a multiple New York Times bestselling author. Starting over thirteen companies, now partners/best friends with Tony Robbins, and is a husband and dad.
Despite where Dean is at now he knows that life is going to be brutal sometimes no matter what. People are going to let you down. Things are going to go wrong and the money won’t be there. But that is going to happen no matter what you do in your life. Whether you work for someone else in a job you hate or you work for yourself, you’re still going to have that disappointment.
When Dean was in 10th and 11th grade he would leave school by 11:45 am and be working on cars by noon. He went after it. Most entrepreneurs know that you have to put in the extra work.
Working that hard so early meant having to say no to a lot of things so that he could build his foundation. To take care of his mom, be free, could make different choices than his parents had. In his early twenties, Dean had a collision shop, auto sales and was building houses. He was doing pretty well. Success to him in his early twenties was on Thursday’s sometimes he would jump on a plane from New York and fly to Miami and party all weekend. To him that was success. He wanted to fight for the freedom to do that and was already sending his mom money every week. By the age of 26, Dean retired his mom, and then at the age of 29 retired his dad. That was two huge things for him. For him, success was family and enjoying himself.
Thirties were completely different, he wanted to build momentum and build a legacy.
In his forties, he had his first two kids, and then it changed completely. He wanted to be the dad that was present and not the dad he had growing up. Right now he wears the same grey t-shirts every day and traded in his Tesla for a pick-up truck. He knows what success means to him. Dean is blessed that yes, he could have retired years ago, but what success means to him is being an amazing dad who is present. Who picks up his kids from school, makes their lunches EVERY day. Everyday success means to him that he grows.
Dean is intentional and that is the definition of success for him. At the end of his life if he has billions of dollars and his kids don’t talk to him and have multiple ex-wifes that don’t talk to him, then he feels like the biggest failure.
If you asked Dean this in his twenties he would have said that you have to be a hustler, work hard and find the perfect opportunity.
In his thirties, he would have said you have to work hard, find a great opportunity and you have to have a great mindset as well.
And at fifty-two he would say 90% of what you need to be successful lives between your ears. You already have most of what you need. Mindset is way more important than you think. Some of you don’t have the money right now or don’t have your husband supporting you and thinks you’re crazy and juggling three kids a job and trying to start your own business. Dean has been there, but trust him because he has been there. Having been in business for 33 years himself and have never worked for anyone else. He has failed miserably. Has been broker than broke. People doubted him and had family members sit him down for an intervention and told him to stop trying to be an entrepreneur. You don’t have the money or the smarts they told him. He has been there.
They lacked resourcefulness, if you look at successful people who continue to thrive, they know how to make things work relentlessly. And that’s not only them, it’s YOU right now. It’s when you decide that no one is coming to save you. It is all on us. No one to lend us a helping hand. No one to make it easy and grease the runway.
We need to tap into that underdog mindset that lives inside all of us and become massively and relentlessly resourceful. If you look at the most successful people throughout time, all quintessential underdogs. None should have made it! It’s when somebody tells you no or that it is not going to work, or you’re not smart enough. Do you go, probably not, or let me show you how? Ask yourself this, the last time things didn’t work out the way you wanted, did you quit? That’s not being resourceful. If things don’t work out the first try, you try a different angle. And what if that doesn’t work? Try again. And what if that doesn’t work? Try again. What if that doesn’t work seventy different times, you try seventy different ways because the seventy-first time changes your freaking life forever.
He writes books on this and is how he makes a living and still has a voice saying “you’re not good enough, you’re not going to make it, you’re going to fail”. That voice may never go away, but we must find a way to be stronger than that voice.
Is there a belief or a story that you tell yourself when you are close to a breakthrough that is the reason you are not having that breakthrough? It has cost you more than you can imagine. It has already cost you income, money, time, and freedom. We all have them.
You might say if my husband would support me.
If I could be in the right relationship.
If I had money or find the time.
If people would believe in me.
We’re not saying those might not be true but if that is the belief your subconscious grabs ahold of it will then tell you to pay it safe. Think about what our subconscious is there to do, it is there to protect us. Our subconscious wants to give us an easy path so that we are safe. BS! Question that, question those thoughts. They don’t make statues of that inner self-doubt, that inner wimpy person that is telling you to play small, you are meant for more.
It’s easy to say I didn’t make it because I had dyslexia and had no money, but what is cooler to say is that I made it because I had dyslexia and no money.
The last time you thought about scaling your business or starting your business, was the first thought you had about what you lost during Covid, what could go wrong because of Covid, what could go wrong if you live in America in this crazy election that we had, or did you focus on the opportunities that this shift gave you? Think about that right now. When you think about scaling your business do you focus on what you lost, what could go wrong, or what you gained, and what could go right? Successful people look for the gaps. They look for the openings. They look for the shifts. They watch where the world is moving and focus on what they have.
Did you have your biggest breakthroughs in 2020? The whole world has been asking for time. God, the universe, whatever you believe in has given you more time. You were forced to be home, forced to look internally, judge your job, your life, and look and see if you are living your full potential. There are more amazing things that have happened to you in 2020, but what are you focusing on? Are you focusing on what was taken away? What you focus on is what you get. This is how you need to start training your brain. When you think about scaling your business, but then go oh but, you have to physically say “I will not focus on what can go wrong”. If you continue doing what you are doing now and having the same thoughts, you will be in the same spot five years from now.
What if life was happening for us and not to us. What if you went deeper on that conversation with God. Could you imagine saying all the things that went wrong and God pulling out the playbook saying you needed that so you could become a stronger version of yourself? You were going down a road that wasn’t great and that situation made you stronger. That it was all designed for YOU.
Many people believe when they hit an obstacle that it wasn’t designed for them, but what if it was absolutely designed for you? What if what could get you from where you are now to where you want to be, is faith that you have the capabilities to do it.
We can have faith in God, but we have to have that faith in ourselves. We can’t see a bigger future if we don’t see it or believe it. We have to have blind faith sometimes. Sometimes the original thought is, “This is happening for me”. That is sometimes the declaration we need to say to go for it.
You have probably seen on the east coast all the lighthouses. They are for the fisherman to find their way back.
We need a compelling future that gets us out of bed every day. Dean pictures it like a lighthouse, the thing he stares at every day. Take that lighthouse and always have it twenty to thirty feet out in front of us and always striving to get to it. It’s our compelling future of where we want to go. Then when we reach it we have to come up with our next-level compelling future and push that thing fifty feet out and then work hard to get to it. Then when you get to that you need to upgrade a compelling future and push it back out. We always need something to be working towards.
It’s not about the destination, it’s the journey! We have to have a compelling journey to be on.
We must find something that drives us. We have to find something that gives us a reason to jump out of bed. To be enthusiastic, to learn from people that have already been there, to take uncomfortable action. To be courageous. If it’s just about the money that will never work. You have to get into your heart. Get out of your head and into your heart. Find something that lights you up, but keep moving your future out in front of you. So many of us have already passed our goals, create a new compelling future, and fight for it.
Those of you that you are in a situation that you hate. Trick yourself into loving what you do right now. Because know that it was designed by God, the universe, whatever you believe in and it is a part of your journey. How we do one thing is how we do everything.
Find a way to enjoy what you are doing because it is only temporary.
Dean has tried to raise his kids as if they are in the middle class, even though they don’t live anywhere near the middle class. He tries to set up ways where they have to figure out things on their own. They have to find solutions. We put them in sports and have taught them since they were little that you win games when no one is watching. They know how hard their father has worked and they know they aren’t getting his money, but they are going to gain an opportunity to grow. The philosophy he teaches his kids is that it is like a relay race. Dad ran the first leg of the race and if they want to run the next dad will hand the baton off to them. He is not handing them the trophy.
What trust-fund kid do you know that is happy? They are always looking for fulfillment and they can’t find it. Speaking to them as an adult and they know they are not inheriting Dean’s money but they are inheriting an opportunity.
Teaching them how to be entrepreneurs and the skills that they can use to be successful.
If you are given a gift to earn. If God gave you the opportunities to make a ton of money, then do it and then give a ton away. If you have the capabilities to make it then go earn and then help people that need it.
Looking back on 2020, were there things you ignored that were incredible lessons? There were lessons built-in hardships that you went through. Force yourself to go through your phone and look over the last 12 months, look at your photos to remind you of where you were, what you were thinking, and find that tough situation or circumstance and realize what the gift was in that situation. Take that lesson, and picture a line in the sand between 2020 and 2021 and you can’t drag everything over the line, you can only bring over the things that serve you. What lessons did you learn?
Imagine 2020 as a burning building. Inside that burning building on the shelves is your whole history of that year. There are some things that you want to pack in your suitcase so take them off the shelf so they don’t burn and carry them over the line into 2021. There are a lot of things you want to let burn. Leave it in the past, leave those mistakes in 2020 that didn’t work out the way you hoped. Whatever it is, it is okay. Give yourself a pass. But don’t carry that crap into 2021. Let it burn down with 2020.
The last thing is to decide in 2021 what you must say no to. You must say no to things that don’t serve you, don’t serve God, don’t serve your bigger future, don’t serve your company, or the parent you want to be. You must say no to them, say no to the people that bring you down or the thoughts. Whatever it is that doesn’t serve a bigger version of you, say no to it.
Peter Drucker said marketing and innovation are the only two things that move a business. Everything else is a cost. If you are not obsessing on being innovative or ethical marketing then really you are just spinning your wheels. If you are not innovating or marketing in today’s world, you just have a good idea.
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WASSUP FRIENDS. We’re Evie + Lindsey, co-founders of this wild partayyy called The Heart University. Our goal is to empower entrepreneurs to kick freaking BUTT in their businesses, dive down into the heart of their why and how, and serve you with all possible tools you’ll need to up-level your business game and CRUSH those goals of yours.
Whether you’re coming to an in-person workshop, joining our online course, or soaking up all the strategies via this blog or our podcast, we’re STOKED you’re here + can’t wait to see you out there kicking butt.
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