In this week’s podcast I am bringing you an interview with the legend Dean Graziosi. Dean is a multiple New York Times best-selling author, an entrepreneur and an investor. We are going to be talking all about mindset and how Dean has got to be the success he is today.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- If you want to be in a different place in a year or 5 years from now, you have to start planting those seeds today.
- The only person you have to be better than, is the person you were yesterday.
- “The definition of success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm” – Winston Churchill.
- It is okay to fail!
- Success isn’t easy, but it’s beyond worth it.
- Share what you know and get paid for it.
- You have to be the guardian of your thoughts.
- Don’t regret your past mistakes, just keep moving forward.
- Keep on Innovating and implementing.
- It is down to you how you come out of this crisis.
- Whatever gets our attention, gets results.
- Identify what is truly important to you, and then say no to everything else.
- Make a list of things you are going to stop doing.
- Don’t let anybody dim your glow.
- Replace envy and anger with compassion.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
There is no such thing as an overnight success, but the opportunity is there if want it. You are choosing to better yourself and level up, and I know you are capable.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
- An introduction to Dean – 07:37
- Mindset is everything – 14:05
- Marketing and mindset – 20:24
- Stand out moments – 27:48
- Levelling up your mindset – 33:03
- Thriving during a crisis – 35:43
- Commitment – 44:00
- Managing your time – 45:42
- What’s next? – 53:10
Transcript below
Hello and welcome to this very special episode of the podcast. So you might be sitting there thinking, why is it so special Teresa? Well, I've got an interview for you today that to be totally honest in my wildest dreams I couldn't have imagined doing this interview. But I want to give you a little bit of a backstory before I tell you who it is as to how it came about because it was kind of a little bit strange but wonderful. So you know that I am a little bit woo-woo now. I never used to be and my friends and family who have known me for obviously a very, very long time don't recognise that side of me, but I am and I just think, well, what's the harm in trying? What's the harm in giving this some thought or doing this thing? If it helps, then great.
So the other week I was on a Zoom call with my good friend Biz Paul and we were chatting away about the podcast and I just happened to say to him, do you know what I could do with like a really amazing guest? Now, I have had some of the most amazing guests, so it certainly wasn't me sitting there going, I need someone good, I haven't. It was like, who on earth could I possibly go for next? Because I have had such amazing people. And if you're new to the podcast, you might not know that I've had Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn, Jasmine Star, Tyler J. McCall, James Wedmore, Michael Hyatt, Mary Hyatt. Like honestly, I've had some really amazing, amazing people and so many more and I know I'm going to miss off the names and I feel terrible.
But I was just sat there saying to Biz Paul, I can really do with like a really good guest, that'd be A's. I'm going to have, to have a think about who I could approach. Obviously Brene Brown is always on the list. And I'm working up a highway approach here. So anyway, I sit there and then 30 minutes later, I am not even kidding you. I promise you I'm not making this up. 30 minutes later, a DM came into my Instagram which presented this opportunity of this interview to me. Like if the universe wasn't listening to my conversation and trying to help me out, I don't know what or how that happened, but all I know is how very grateful I am for it and how I welcome even more of it to come.
So let me tell about today's guest. Today I am bringing you an interview with the legend and yes I can say that because I think he is a legend, Dean Graziosi. Now, if you don't know who Dean Graziosi is, you're going to want to Google him for starters. But let me read you his bio because seriously, it's crazy. So Dean Graziosi is a multiple New York Times bestselling author. He's an entrepreneur and investor and he has started or has been involved with 13 companies that have resulted in over a $1 billion revenue. For 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 get this, Tony Robbins. Yeah, their friends like, oh my word. Launch the knowledge business blueprint with a goal of making self-education viable for millions. It began with one of the largest online trainings in history with over 200,000 people live. Like could you imagine doing a webinar where you've got 200,000 people live watching you? He lives in Paradise Valley, Arizona and I was looking at Arizona and it looks amazing. I think that's on our list of places to move to, with his wife Lisa and his three children.
So this guy is not small fry. He is a very, very well respected and well known business person. Let me just tell you a few people who've interviewed this guy. So he's being interviewed by Larry King, like a proper person that interviews people, the worst English ever, that Teresa. He's been interviewed by Ed Mylett, by Louis Hughes. He has testimonials on his videos from Richard Branson and his best mates with Tony Robbins having spoke at Tony's events. Like honestly in my wildest dreams, I couldn't imagine that someone the size of Dean and how well known and well respected he is would ever give me the time to have this interview. I am so, so very grateful, not only to be given the opportunity for me to speak to him for a good 45 minutes, but also the opportunity to bring this interview to you because everything he says in here is like music to my ears and I just want you to take it in.
Now, I know that people listen to podcasts and I listen to podcasts while doing something else, but I really want you to concentrate on some of the stuff this guy has to say because he knows what he's talking about. And honestly, I think you're going to love it. I want much love for this episode and for Dean. I want us to put it everywhere, tag me into every social media profile you've got with this episode because honestly, I could not be more grateful to bring this to you. Thank you so much as always for listening. I love that you give me your time and I really hope that you love this episode as much as I loved recording it.
An introduction to Dean
Here we go. Okay, so today it gives me the greatest honour to welcome to the podcast, entrepreneurial and personal development legend, Dean Graziosi. Dean, welcome.
It's good to be here Teresa, how are you?
I am great. Thank you. I'm really, really good. How are you?
Fantastic. Fantastic. Besides, you might hear a little chainsaw in the back from my neighbour, but other than that we are solid to go.
I think we can do it with that.
Yeah. And listen, I just want to say something, Teresa, it's amazing what you do. My team gave me a briefing of all the things that you have going on, the impact you're making on the world. I want to say congratulations for what you've accomplished, the people you're helping, people listening to this podcast right now are going to gain capabilities to go faster and quicker towards their goals. And that's a pretty amazing thing. And the other thing I want to promise everybody who's listening, there's millions of podcasts. There's millions of videos you could be watching. If you're with us right now, I promise this is my desire to serve. If I'm going to take the time, we're going to light it up. So let's have some fun.
That sounds perfect. Thank you, Dean. Okay, so let's start by normal standard question. In case my audience have been living under a rock and don't know who you are, can you just give us a really brief overview of who you are and how you got to do what you're doing today?
Yeah, so I'll do it. I'll share it in a way enough to give you insight to understand why I am qualified to give you some great advice today. I promise you I'm not going to share anything today that's a dream, a hope or something I think could work. I'm going to share it through experience. So I've been an entrepreneur my entire adult life, by 11th grade I had a firewood cutting business and by 12th grade I was buying old rundown beat up wrecked cars, fixing them and selling them. But I think more than that, and I'll give you a quick brief of that, more than I think what's important for everybody listening or watching right now is that I know what it's like to want more. I know what it's like to feel left behind.
I know what it's like to have envy of other people getting ahead and you just don't know where to start or you started and you don't know how to scale it. I've had those emotions, the sleepless nights, the stomach aches, the feeling like I'm never going to reach my full potential, but I've also, I know what it feels like to break through with that, to figure out authentic marketing, to get my first sale, my 10th sale, to get to a hundred grand a year and then a hundred grand a quarter and then a hundred grand a month and then a hundred grand a day and then a hundred grand by lunch. I've been through all of those journeys, failed miserably in between. Felt like an imposter, had family and friends tell me I was an idiot and a fool for trying to do something above my pay grade. I didn't to college. I barely got out of high school.
All of those things so that the best thing I could share about me is I'm here today that I've been blessed to start 13 different companies. I'm a multiple New York Times bestselling author. I've had more success than I ever imagined possible. I get to partner and be friends with the people that were my heroes at one point of my life. And I didn't come from anything, I didn't go to school for this. So I think the best thing about my story is that I'm qualified to deliver advice. But no matter where you're sitting, just wanting to start and don't know what the first step, in the middle wanting to scale or you're crushing and want to optimise. I've been at every one of those. So that's why I think it's a good thing that we sit and have a little conversation today.
Absolutely. So, I mean that is incredible. And also, obviously as I was prepping and re-looking at things and re-reading things, I went back and looked at your YouTube, your main video that you have on YouTube of who you are. And show rule of showreels, like that is, I couldn't even start to imagine or I'd love to imagine having something like that. Did you ever think in your wildest dreams when you first started or when you even started getting some of your success that genuinely that's where your life would end?
No. That Richard Branson would be like deans of bad-ass entrepreneur and Tony Robbins and Larry King, no. Heck no. Let me be blunt. Hell no. I remember in high school, listen, here's one thing I did know Teresa, and I would bet this for everybody listening, because if you're listening, your somebody who wants another level, right? You could have bingeing out on Netflix right now and beyond your 14th different series, right? But you're here so you want another level. So I just want to tell you this, there were points in my life where I was just hoping I could make a thousand dollars a week and not be broke like my parents. Right? And I know what that feels like. But then there was a point where I hated watching my mom struggle to make nothing.
And I knew I was going to be successful no matter what so I could retire her and then retire my dad. And I did both of that in my 20s. But no, I didn't … But here's the thing. Here's the part that can crush everybody and this is a part I want everyone to listen right now. Like right this moment, get rid of distractions. This is really important is when you see someone that has success, yes, I live in the house of my dreams. Yes, I get to do cool stuff like fly private and do all this cool stuff with Tony Robbins and go to Richard Branson's island with him for a week and all this crazy stuff, but it didn't start there and what that can do when you see other people on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube in their Lambos, their fancy watches and the jets, you're like, oh, it's so far from here to there.
Can I really even get there? And what it can actually do is not inspire you but demotivate you to think I'm starting with four followers. It'll never work. Listen, we all started there. We all started as underdogs. We all started questioning ourselves. We all started feeling like imposters. We all started with hoping to get one person to believe in us. If you want to be in a different place a year or five years from now, you have to plant seeds right now. No matter where you are, because here's the thing, you're still going to deal with crap in your life, no matter what job or career you're in. Shit happens, for lack of a better word, people disappoint you. You're let down. You have to deal with problems. You're going to be stressed, and the next five years is going to go by anyway, so why not start today, right?
Why not start planting seeds? Listen, farmers plant apple trees, they don't produce crops for seven years, but then they produce apples for 25, right? We all have to plant seeds. We all have to start somewhere. And here's the thing, there's one person out there right now that needs you, needs what you're going to share with the world, needs your product, needs your service, needs your course, needs your book, needs your mastermind, your workshop. They need it. And don't look at, I need to change the world. Change one person first and then change five and then change 50 and then go to a hundred and in a year from now, you'll look back and see a culture of progress. And in five years you could look back and not even recognise yourself. And in 32 years for me being an entrepreneur, I can't believe I'm here, but I didn't get here overnight.
I've been working my ass off for 30 years. I love it. I wouldn't change a thing. But I think sometimes social media, Teresa sees a young kid in a Lambo and it looks like it happened overnight. Half of those people are renting it or taking a picture in front of a friends. Other ones had great success at a young age. And I love it, but they also haven't faced the recession yet. Or a shift in the economy. That's when wisdom comes in, allows you to thrive in those times. So just know the only person you have to be better than is the person you were yesterday. And if you look at that, anything's possible. Believe me, I am a shining bright example of that.
Mindset is everything
And do you know what? I love the message of this isn't an overnight and often people look at someone who is successful and think, oh, it's okay for them because look where they are right now. Look what they've got. It's easy for them to say these things, but they don't see the journey or they haven't seen the journey. And like you said, when we're sat in a position where we're like, okay, we're not there yet. Having the faith and the absolute tenacity to just keep going and going and going. And no matter how many times I'm not dying to get back up again, and I think for me, the thing is, I know I'm going to be there. I can't tell you when. I can't tell you how.
Yeah, of course. Exactly.
But I know it.
What is my favourite quote from Winston Churchill is the definition of success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. That's just it. Listen, and here's the thing you guys all have to remember, while I'll talk about marketing, I'll share anything. There's no question off limits, I'm here to serve. But I want you to know something, if you don't have the right mindset, you'll never make this. You'll never make it because I believe there's like a success auditor and you have to fail. All those failures, all those roadblocks, people not believing in you, the money not being there, the partner letting you down, all of those things, the spouse thinking you're crazy and a dreamer. What if that was all designed for you? By God, the universe, whatever you believe in. By the success auditor, and you had to get through that because it might take you three failures and I'm sorry to say it could take you 30 failures.
It's all by design, but what if on the 31st try or the seventh try, your next level of life appear? I promise you, your next level of life, abundance, income, wealth, lives on the other side of the fear you have or the mountain you have to climb. Success isn't easy, but it's beyond worth it. It's not worth it just a little bit. It's worth it that you have control of freedom, time and money. When you have control of your time and money, what else can you do? When people say money can't buy happiness, I say, you haven't given enough away yet, so don't give me that crap because there's nothing better than cutting a check to solve other people's problems.
I can only imagine, that would just be such a peaceful thing to do. Was there a point where you were like yeah, now I've made it? Or is it a continual gradual thing?
No.
Oh great.
I'm always afraid it's going to go away. I am like, I am. I'd love to be honest and say yes, there was this moment in 2009. No, no. Because being an entrepreneur, there's always new challenges, well, I think that's the only way you get to the next level. It's not a 45 degree angle, it's the quintessential, infographic you see online about being entrepreneur. It's like just when you think you got it COVID-19 comes, right?
Yeah.
Just when you think you got it, United States is attacked by an outside enemy and 911 happened. It's like those things happen. Just when you think it's working Facebook changes the way you advertise. Just when you think it's working your accountant robs a half a million dollars or $10 million from your account. That's just part of the journey. I'm not saying you should enjoy it, but it's part of navigating new territory so you could evolve to your next level and I think that's where the success auditor goes, “Oh, that person's not willing to get through that problem. Okay, let's just stick them as an Uber driver for the rest of their life.” I'm not saying being an Uber driver is bad in any means. I love Uber drivers. I'm just saying there are certain people that get to that fail and check out. And there's certain people say, this sucked, I hated it. What can I learn from it? And now how do I go forward?
And that's got to be done to that mindset piece, hasn't it?
It does.
Because if you don't have that, then that's the point in which I guess you check out because you don't have the tools in your mindset.
I'm going to give you a little story Teresa, you're going to like this.
Yeah, I love it.
And then I'll let you guide it with questions because I can talk too much.
You carry on.
So I have a high level mastermind and I was teaching mindset, right? And it's about they're there to scale their companies to a whole nother level, right? So everybody was on fire, but one person, one person at lunch said, “Hey, I don't need the mindset, that's for other people. I need the tactics, give it to me.” So I got back up on stage and I addressed it for that one person. I said, “Okay, someone … ” I pointed them out, I said, “Wants tactics, not the mindset, so I'm going to teach you the hook, this method I have for videos. So hook-story-close model that I teach.
And I said, “Okay, let me just ask, did I ever teach it to you before?” That guy raised his hand. He said, “Yes, you have.” I said, “Okay.” So I said to him, “Why aren't your videos converting better and why hasn't your business doubled? Have you put it in play?” And he's like, “No, I haven't put it in play yet.” I said, “Why haven't you put it in play? You have the tactics. I told you exactly how to do it. I told you your videos aren't converting because you're missing one whole piece of it.” He's like, “Well …” And after five questions, you know what he got down to? That his wife didn't support him and it threw him off emotionally and he didn't have the stamina to do the video and I called bullshit.
I said, “So you're telling me you want another tactic, you want another good idea when you didn't do crap with the last good idea and why didn't you do it? Because you don't have the right mindset. So sit your ass down. I'm giving you another hour of mindset so you can take what you already know and put it in place.” And the audience went nuts. Like they went crazy over it because it's like there's a point in life where people just think, give me the next tool. So again, you didn't put the last tool in play. You dabbled in the last three companies you started, you need a rock solid mindset to keep moving forward.
And do you know what? For me, that was the biggest journey I took having started my own business, because I had done marketing for like 16 years and I knew it and I loved it and I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff. So I thought to myself, how hard can this be? This is exactly what I do, but obviously I hadn't appreciated that I could have every tool and tactic and strategy in the book. I could know all the stuff to do, but if I wake up in the morning and go, I don't want to do this today, that's it. Game over, I haven't-
Or that inner self doubt says you're not good enough Teresa, don't try to play with the big guys. You're going to fail. You need to go back and get a job to be safe. If you don't know how to talk to that voice, you go back and get the job and play it safe and then you're 90 years old. You look back and go, I wasted it. Dammit. Why didn't I work on my mindset?
And I see it all the time. I see it with lots of small business owners, when the fact is like you said, they come to you, they say, I need the tool, I need the tactic, and you give it to them and it's like, but it's the fear. It's not having the courage to take that step for whatever the reason is, but it's like there's only so much that you need, now you need to really work on the inside and would grow.
Yeah.
Marketing and mindset
So I was watching the interview with you and Jenna Kutcher and you were talking about what would you do if you started your business again, what was the one thing that you would do and I just want you to touch on that for a second for me. Because you talked about two of my favourite things, mindset and marketing and the fact that it didn't matter to you what the product was. And that, I want to get that message across to my audience who I see an awful lot of, if we build it, they will come and it's like, no, no, no, no, no.
If you build it, tell them, tell them, tell them, tell them again, tell them again, show it a different way, do it a different way. Then maybe they might go, oh, what's this thing you've got? But yeah, I just want to touch on the point of like said, the fact that the marketing, the mindset for you were the key elements.
Yeah, so I have to tell you, I'll give you a little story here. So my wife, when I met her she's an amazing entrepreneur. She's been voted the number one hairstylist in Arizona for like 10 years in a row. She makes 10 times the average hairstylist, right? And when I first met her, it's really cool because she's so smart and she's such like an entrepreneur at heart. It's what I love about her and I love the mindset she works on. Well, her first book was Tony Robbins, two decades ago when she was a little kid and worked on her mindset. One of the reasons she was so successful, but as she started to identify my business, I got to sit with her and all the girls that she's friends with are hustlers. Like she hangs out with this amazing group of women, right?
They're all bad asses, for lack of a better word. And sitting around with seven of them or 10 of them, just getting to meet them, we're first dating. I was listening to all these girls who were doing really well but felt stuck at the level, like we all want to achieve another level. Doesn't matter what mountain you climb, there's another one higher, right? We want to get to it. And I could see the common thread in all of their voices and some of them wanted to go into the information business, which I'll talk about if I had to reinvent myself, that's the business you want to be in. But I'd listen to all of them with the mindset of being taught in school, being taught by the world that if they created something cool, people would come.
I'm finally going to write that book. I'm going to create that course. I'm going to start teaching people how to do what I do and all the energy … And then what I would bring up. I said, “Well, how are you going to sell? Sell it to me.” And like, I'll worry about that later. That's the easy part. And that was the sediment of seven badass women in their 30s, a couple in their 40s, like accomplished women. But when they wanted to do their own thing, most of them worked for somebody else who had a business like my wife's. It was like a solopreneur, right? Just themselves, the scaling, all of them just thought if they build a better product or they go into information by sharing what they know, if they create it good enough, they will come. It's like people who spend a year and a half writing a book and then they put one Facebook ad up, and it doesn't work, like ah, the book is not good.
No, the book's probably amazing, you just didn't ask in 400 different ways until someone said yes and then replicated that version. Right? So if I had to start over, I would absolutely continue. I would work on my mindset because I might feel like you're a loser, you lost everything. You have to start over. Just give up. So if you don't work on your mindset, nothing would work. That's the first thing. I can go deeper on that, but I already kind of touched on some of those things. Secondly, I would go in the information business. Right now we are in, especially at this very moment, two thirds of the world is home. Two thirds of the world are online, more than ever before in history and people are buying information faster, quicker than ever before in history. We want to scale up. We want to skill up.
We want to finally learn that extra language or learn to paint or learn to fix our relationship or go vegan or workout from home and we're not going back to colleges. That's broken. That system is busted. We don't want to learn through our trial and error, so people want to learn just like us. We're on a Zoom call right now, this is how people learn in today's world. You listening right now have knowledge, information, skill, hobby, passion, or even an experience that people will pay you for so they can avoid the pitfalls that you found, that's a fact. It's an industry growing to a billion dollars a day while so many other industries are struggling, right? So it's an industry, it's growing. You have something to share and people are paying for information. When I bought Tony Robbins course 22 years ago, my dad told me I was nuts.
Get my money back. You paid for audio, you paid to have someone talk to you? My dad's like, “I'll talk to you.” You just don't get it, dad. That's why you make $25,000 a year and work 80 hours a week. Right? So it wasn't that cool back then. It's cool now. So you work on your mindset, you work in the obsessive, be an investigative reporter to really understand what the information industry, the knowledge industry is all about. Share what you know, get paid for it. And the last thing, the three things, mindset, information age and obsess on marketing. If you don't obsess on marketing, you're going to be, it's like a sea of red shirts. Everybody's got a red shirt, everybody's on Facebook saying crap, saying crap. Instagram, crap. How do you become the only black shirt in a sea of red shirts? How do you stand out?
How do you connect with people? How do they know, like and trust you? How does the message resonate with them? How do you finish conversations already going on in their mind? How do you make them feel understood and they go, yes, Teresa is the person I want to learn from. Dean is the person and here's the cool part, the days of thinking you did initials at the end of your name or you need to be a doctor or you need experience are gone. Your life experience is what people want, but you just have to remember if you build it they won't come. Build it and then obsess on marketing.
Yeah, absolutely. And for me, one thing that I find moving over from traditional agency marketing, having clients, doing marketing for them to moving into an online membership programme where I can teach the small business owners and they can get me for a fraction of the cost is the fact that A, I can help way more people, which for me lights me up. Like, I remember when I first started the membership and I was worried. I was like, what if I don't like this? What if this isn't my thing? And I got-
The energy it gives you back is unbelievable.
Oh my goodness. I got my first coaching call and I stood there and they all came in and we're all on the screen and I'm like, okay, this is how it's going to go and you can ask me questions and I'll give you my opinion, thoughts, ideas. And I was on that call for two hours and it was in the evening and I came off and I literally was like-
On a high.
Oh my goodness. I was climbing the walls with excitement and I was like, I could do that every single day for the rest of my life, literally.
I mean, for a living in the information business, you are in the business of helping people go faster. You are in the impact business. You are in the meaningfulness business. You are in a business that I believe at the end of our lives go, oh my God, I've been blessed to impact so many lives. I mean, listen, everything needs to be sold so it doesn't matter what you sell, but selling information, man and allowing people to reduce the learning curve and go faster. I mean, I get it Teresa, I've been doing this for over two decades. I get it. I get off stage my wife's like, “Oh, you can tell, you just got off stage, you're on a high,” because you get to make an impact.
Stand out moments
I bet. See, I speak, I love speaking. Again, that's like if I could do that all day every day as well, I'd be great. I'd be very happy. Is that like one stand out talk or one stand out event that you can think of that you were like, this is phenomenal? Because there's a few in my head that I think if I could get on that stage, if I could be stood in that position, well, I can't feel what it would feel like, but that would be the most amazing thing ever.
So an event that I did?
Yeah.
Okay. So I'll tell you, the first time, I've been blessed to be on some really amazing stages. And I'm at a point in my life again over time, 30 years everybody. So this isn't bragging, but there's not a stage I can't get on now. Right? And I get asked to be on every stage possible. I just got offered $350,000, I'm just telling you where life can evolve to a guy that barely got out of high school. I just got offered $350,000 for a 60 minute keynote.
Oh my.
And they're going to pick me up in a private jet to go there, so that's where you could go with a little bit of evolution with time. But that didn't happen in my first week. It didn't happen in my first decade. Right? So you just got to really understand that. Right? That's not bragging, I'm just telling you where you could go. But I have to tell you, the first stage that was nerve wracking and scary to me and exciting all at the same time is truly 25 years ago, Tony Robbins had an infomercial. I bought his course, the ultimate edge. It changed my life significantly. I was already successful, on my way, but it shifted my mindset. And within two years I created my own product, I had my own infomercial going, right? It's all because of Tony. I wrote my journal someday I want to meet him, a decade ago we met and we were supposed to meet for a half hour and we spent a whole day together and we've been best friends ever since.
Amazing
So we got a decade of … we talk five times a week. Right? He's probably the closest person to me, I talk to him more than anybody else. And it was just amazing because if you would have asked me a decade ago, if you could meet anybody in the world, who would you meet? It would have been Tony to say thank you just because it just shifted my life. I didn't think the way my … I love my parents, but it stopped me thinking the way that kept them trapped. It stopped me thinking in the way that it kept my cousins and my relatives trapped or the people in my little town. It shifted me forever. And for that I was just completely grateful. So we're friends for three or four years, and I didn't ask to do business because I've watched everybody in the brother want to do business, want to email his list, want to get on his podcast.
I'm like, I just want to be friends with this guy, that's it. And we built this amazing bond. So he calls me one day, he's like, “Hey, I got three events, Sydney and then we'll fly over to Tokyo. And then from Tokyo we'll go to Shanghai. Each one has 10 to 18,000 people. I want you to come and speak on stage.” I'm like, “Okay, all right, I'll do that.” Now, again-
As if I'm free.
Yeah. And here's the thing, I had massive success up to that point. But when someone's your mentor, I felt like a little kid. Does that make sense? Have you ever seen Tony on stage, Teresa?
No, never live.
Okay.
It was on my-
Live, it's like, there's truly no one that does what he does. Like I believe that I'm like second best to Tony, but I'm not even close. Like that's his master. I think I'm master video and live events online, Tony masters stage like nobody, like he reaches into your soul and you're not only connected to him, you're connected to the audience, but not in a way where you're looking at him as like your leader or your cult leader. It's like he's connected because you're finding a better version of you and that's a really distinct …
So long story short, I go and Tony's on stage for four hours and I got to follow him and it was the first time in a half a decade, I'm backstage completely cotton mouth. Like there's 18,000 people in this audience, I'm completely cotton mouth. I'm a nervous wreck. I'm half hyperventilating. And I hear Tony, my brother, Dean Graziosi, and I come out and it's like, I was a train wreck. Like I beat the sweat coming off my head. It hadn't happened in seven years, eight years that I was like, my confidence was so strong and I went out there and I think he said I did great, but I knew I was off.
But by the second one, I lost that nerve and we went to, that was Tokyo. We went to Shanghai, Japan or Shanghai, China. And by then, him and I spent the whole night together kind of going over what I did and he gave me some amazing feedback and I crushed it. And that one really stands out in my head because I felt like I totally tanked and then flying from Japan to China, I transitioned it and I had the audience, like I never had an audience up until that point out of their mind dancing, jumping up and down, screaming. So anyway, that stands out in my head.
That is a phenomenal story. And again, you couldn't even imagine it. You couldn't imagine that one day he was going to call you up and go, do you want to fly to here and speak on my stage and to follow him. I mean, who could. That's the thing.
It's not an easy task.
No, not at all. So you've obviously, not obviously, you are so successful and continue to be so successful. Is there particular things that you do in your routine for your mindset, for your … to keep you moving forward because surely like everybody, you must have days where you think, no, I'm not, I'm struggling or my dad's kicking in or …
Levelling up your mindset
So what sort of things do you do that we could do in order to start to level up our own mindset?
Yeah. And it's practise, but one of them is just, I know most of you have heard this and you know it, but I really want you to hear it for the first time. Eckhart Tolle wrote about it in the Power of Now. Michael Singer wrote about it in The Untethered Soul. Two amazing books if you-
Oh, I love them.
Put them on your list, but you have to, like it's an absolute must to be successful you have to be the guardian of your thoughts. When you're having a day where you feel like you can't, you won't, you're allowing your thoughts to tell you a story that dis-empowers you. A story that evokes an inner self doubt, a story that invokes you feeling like an imposter or that it's the wrong time or the wrong president or prime minister or the wrong Democrats or Republicans. If you're here in the United States, it's conservative or liberal, your religion, your parents, your husband, your relatives, all of that is a story. It's not real and we know that, but I really want you to hear that, reality is nothing more than our perception. How many times have you felt a certain way, I can't do this, this is off. And then you listen to a podcast or you read a book and you're like, I got this. There's nothing stopping me.
Just think about, nothing shifted. Your husband or parents don't support you more, you didn't get 10 million bucks in your bank account to make it so you could do it. There wasn't a new president elected, it's not sunny out compared to a rainy day. Nothing changed except your perception of your situation. So I'm always doing things to protect my confidence, protect my thoughts and protect the actions that actually move the needle in my life, right? So I have down days, I still question myself, but then I realised that's because of a bad thought. I have to and I fight and I observe it and I put a different thought in and I find a way to move forward.
I find a way to set my sights on what actions can I take today. I can't do anything about regret of past mistakes. I can't paint a movie of a future five years from now, I'm in this moment in quarantine, the world has shifted, how do I become innovative? And then as soon as I understand that innovation, how do I become massively creative in implementation and obsess on action? And that's really all we can do is innovate and implement, innovate, implement, innovate, implement and between that observe your thoughts that are trying to throw you off track.
Thriving during a crisis
And your so right. When I think about taking the next step or doing something, it's the thoughts in your head that it's going to say you shouldn't do that or you can't or who are you to do that? And I'm very, I guess similar in a sense where my parents they worked really hard, working class people all their lives. And it's really interesting because strangely enough we did a Zoom call just the other day, which my brother who lives with them had to help them with.
And I sit on the Zoom call and I'm like, so tell me something that's really positive about this current situation and they literally looked at me like I'd got three heads. And it's like, well, and the mindset thing has moved. I've moved so much, but I don't think I could do what I do if I hadn't, going into this while I'm actually-
Impossible.
I went into a default mode of, oh well, it looks like all my goals for the year have just gone out the window because corona has just arrived. And I'd probably just take it easy for the next few months and it was just really odd because I did some meditation the next morning and I do one with Dr. Joe Dispenza, I use one of his.
Yeah, Joe's awesome.
And it's about visualising the future, and suddenly my brain kicked in and went, what are you doing? Hang on a minute. You teach people how to run a business online. You show people how they can take-
And everybody's home online-
Exactly.
Light bulb, ding.
Yeah. And now is probably a really good time that you ought to step up and do something. So it's been non-stop. I've literally been non-stop this entire time, and I could have been-
I'm busier now than I've ever been.
And it's crazy, isn't it? But it could have been so the other way if we'd just gone-
But listen to me, if you think about it Teresa, like we talked about, nothing is different about the outside world. You can't control the virus, you can't control what the government's going to do. You can't control if you get stimulus money or not. No knight and shining armour is coming to rescue you and nobody's coming to rescue me either. This is on our shoulders. This is on us. Nothing changed except your perspective and now you're thriving in the same time. There's some people sitting home right now, you two are lucky. It's like, no, we're not lucky, we shifted our thoughts into what could be possible and the ones …
Listen, here's something that'll really sting you if you're listening right now. During this shift in the world, our world has been through worse. Our world has been through a lot and we always come out okay. Unfortunately, world Wars are horrible, 911 for here in America, horrible. But we got through it and we thrived. Here's something to really know, this too shall end. Next month, three months, six months, a year, this will end. And here's the question you got to ask yourself, who are you going to be on the other side of this? The person that lived in fear, that obsessed on the news, that binged out on Netflix, that didn't gain capabilities, that didn't find peace. You've been begging for time for a decade, the universe just gave you time. What are you doing with it?
At the end of this you will be somebody. You could be somebody who just wasted six months or a year or you could be somebody who gained new capabilities and you're stronger, better, bigger, faster, and no downmarket will ever affect you again. That's your choice. It might be hard to hear. You might say, well, that's easy when you have money. Yes, I've been through down markets when I was broker than broke and when my mindset shifted and my innovation started and I took massive action, I was able to thrive when most people we're just trying to survive.
Yeah. And I am hearing success story after success story. I've got a lady in my academy who is a personal trainer, so you would imagine personal trainer, that's it, there's not much you can do. You can't physically meet people. She's got four new clients in the last week and has never had such a good week, ever. In the whole history of her business.
I mean, that's just people who are gaining capabilities, gaining perspective and taking action. I'm going to give you a great example. A friend of mine lives in a Salt Lake City, Utah. Two restaurants on each side of the street, right? Both family owned. There's a great story and maybe I'm embellishing it a little, but this is the way I was told the story. One of them when all this happened got frustrated, really annoyed and has been obsessing on trying to get stimulus money and blaming people. He knows both of them. The one on the other side of the street owns a barbecue restaurant. Him and his two brothers, soon as it happened, like the weekend it happened, they went to Home Depot, they got lumber and they built this outside barricade drive through because they never had one before.
They shifted up their team. They put them so they could all be separated. They've put up some semi kitchens, half outside, half inside, and within three days they were doing barbecue takeout where you drive under this little pavilion, they hand it through a window. So it's completely safe. They are doing three times the business they've ever done in their lives. They're still employing their employees, but doing it in a safe way and the guy across the street has a restaurant, had the same opportunity. Dealing with COVID, is just bitter and pissed and probably going to go out of business. That's just life. They both have the same circumstance, one chose a different path.
Yeah, absolutely. And that is such an amazing story, so strong in terms of, like you said, they have the same cards dealt them, the only thing they could effect was what they did with that card and what they thought of that card. They couldn't change the card, they couldn't change what was coming their way. So the other thing that's interesting thing, which you haven't mentioned yet, is that you have the most perfect excuse to say, I'm too tired, I can't do this now because you've not long had a baby.
I have a six week old, he's six weeks old today.
Oh my goodness.
Or yesterday.
And how is that going?
It is amazing. I have a 13 year old and an 11 year old and you totally get baby amnesia.
Oh, I can only imagine.
So you forget. But I have to be completely honest, my wife's a badass and she's up, she's breastfeeding naturally for the baby and she wants to do that. So every three hours she's up and I'd love to … sometimes I'm just up with her like, hey babe, this is great. Like my eyes are half open, half closed, but she handles the majority of it with my support and I'm hustling and working, and she's fortunate enough that she could focus completely. She had to shut her salon down that she has, so her total focus is our baby. And it's going great. He's the cutest little bugger in the world.
He is beautiful. And what a gift, and I know people wouldn't look at what's happening right now as a gift, but what a gift that because of the fact she can't do what she does in her day job, that she now gets to flip and be completely focused on him-
I know.
And have this time and do this stuff. So that is just so beautiful isn't it? And what do your other children think? What do the two others think?
Oh my God, they're so happy. They love him.
I bet they do.
They just absolutely love him. They're infatuated with him, so it's good. But none of that happens, those who are from a prior marriage, my older kids, and nothing happens by accident. I was a product of divorce and no one ever worked on bonding me with my step-brothers and step-sisters. I never had any half-brothers. We don't call Luca, their half-brother, it's their brother and sister. But we worked on it. I paid for counselling for six months in a row to learn how to bond the family, to bring my ex and my current wife and make sure they had a great relationship and how my kids felt safe and they didn't feel like there was tension between, and I obsessed on that.
And again, it's self-education. I had a love coach, I had a coach to help me make sure our kids bonded and I feel so blessed. My kids are thriving. They don't know the difference between each house when they're here. I mean, they'll be here tomorrow and my wife will help them create mother's day gifts for their mom.
I mean, right? It's beautiful. It literally is beautiful. My daughter lives a week with her dad and a week with me and I'm a step-mom and she has a half sister who is obviously just her sister. And it's tough. Like I don't know who thought that this was got to be an easy task to do, but you are literally trying to force two families, two rules, two everything together and make … And everyone just would think, oh, it's going to be fine and easy, but it's … And what a gift to be able to go and have that coaching and work through those things because honestly it is a constant learning curve, isn't it?
It is, and it's worth it though.
But the children-
Commitment
And remember this, in life, whatever gets our attention gets results, right? If you have a great relationship, you focus on your relationship and you learn from other people and you read books about it. If your relationship sucks, then you're not committed to it. I mean, just being honest, right? If you're ripped and got a six pack, it means you're committed to exercise and diet. If you're not, that's okay, but maybe you're just not committed to it. It's the same thing with your business, it's the same thing with marketing, it's the same thing with having children or step-children or half … It's where attention goes, energy flows, results happen. That's just it. If your businesses have failed in the past, then you just didn't commit to it. You didn't put the focus in.
Now, I know you might be saying, oh, it was my partner. It was just … And I'm so sorry if there was circumstances outside, but remember the two restaurants, the one guy said, my business went … Guaranteed, the story in 10 years. One of them is going to say, I was crushing it, my restaurant business but COVID, it wiped me out. The other guy across the street is going to say, I was doing good in my business, but COVID put me on another level. Now we got five restaurants. I mean, I hate to be so simple about that, but that's really the difference between two. It's what's your focus, what's your attention and how much is it worth to you? Right?
So how do you balance that? Because the one thing I find the most amazing about the most successful people when I look at them and see their businesses and their lives, and their … it's like you have an extra 12 hours in your day, right?
Yeah.
Managing your time
And I know or I'm pretty confident you have the same 24 that everyone else does. So how do you or what sort of tips or ideas have you got from my question on that?
Great question. And I'm going to share this with everybody and I'm going to share it with you too, Teresa, because as you evolve, as your company grows here's what you need to do. You need to identify what's truly important to you. Truly important, not 50 things, not 10 things, like five, maybe four. Like what is important to you? So for me, I'm going to give you an example. What's important to me and not in any order is my wife, my children, the impact I make on the world and my team. My team is amazing. I love my team of 80 people, they're like family. My impacting the world means everything to me, it's what gets me out of bed every morning to be able to impact and drive.
My children, because I believe at the end of our lives, we look back, nothing's going to be more important than how we left our children. We give them the capa- not leaving money, but do we leave them to be resourceful? Do we leave them with capabilities? Can they live a fulfilled life and my wife, I messed up on last relationship and I wasn't perfect by any means. This relationship, I'm obsessed with being a better man and it's resulted in the greatest relationship in my life. My wife falls in love with me more every day and I fall more in love with her. Everything else I say no to, everything, everything. Remember this, yes got you out of Egypt, that's why you're a hustler. You said yes to working later than your brothers and maybe your parents and doing more and you said yes to taking chances that your family wouldn't take.
You said yes to the inner self doubt that said you're crazy, Teresa. You said yes when maybe your fiance husband said, are you sure you want to do that? You still said yes, that got you here. Yes gets you out of Egypt, but no takes you to the promised land. The only way you could fit in being the mom, the step-mom, the wife, the leader, the impact you want to make in the world. The only way you could fit that and master those important things is everything else has got to go. Legit. I get offered to go do the coolest things, going to the Emmy's on a private plane and sit next to celebrities. It doesn't fit. Does it serve my wife, my kids, my impact and my team? No. It's always a no. Legit people. I don't golf, I don't do boy trips. I don't go to happy hour and get wasted. I've done all those things and I'm not knocking it, it's just not on my priority list anymore.
You know what's on my priority list? Is I coach my daughter's softball team. I coach my son's little league team. When my kids are with me half the time, 50/50, I pick them up from school at 3:00 every day Teresa, I don't care if the president of United States, the leader of the free world wants to get on a phone with me or, nothing takes me away. When my kids come out at 3:05, dad is sitting out there waving and that's just a priority to me. So I get to move the needle because I obsess on work when I can and I obsess on being a family man and a leader when I must and everything else gets a no. So what I would say to you and to everybody listening is make a list of things you're going to stop doing.
Like literally document everything you do over the next seven days and just analyse it. Does this serve me, my bigger future, my family, serve God, greater income, greater impact? If it doesn't, you have to make the hard decision to say no. And unfortunately that's why your circle of friends will end up getting smaller as well because there's going to be people who rob your energy. There's people in your life right now that are battery chargers and there's some that are battery drainers. The battery drainers have to go or you have to limit their time in your life because you don't have the time to bring them up every time you talk to them just so they could fall and the next time you see them you got to bring them back up. They're just robbing the energy from your battery. You can't let anybody dim your glow. If you have a glow to go to another level, don't dare turn it down just to make someone else or an old friend feel good. They either come with you or they get burned and they run away and a new friend will replace it.
Honestly Dean, you are such an inspiration. Just your journey, your message, what you've built and carved out for your life. The fact that you are doing things like picking your children up, you would perhaps wrongly think, well, he wouldn't have time for that because he's jetting off doing this, that and the other. Or he's got this thing going on, or he's speaking at this event, but like you said, to focus on those things and to only pay attention to move forward. And it must be so hard to say no to some of these absolutely phenomenal things. It must be really, really difficult.
Yeah, but think about this. Think about, what is something that you wanted to buy that was … Have you ever wanted to buy a watch or a car or a vacation house or a certain piece of jewellery?
Yeah.
What's something you wanted to buy, you were excited about buying it and now you barely remember what it looks like. That's everything. You want that Rolex. When I get successful, I'm finally going to get the 5,000, 10, 50,000 whatever it is, watch. And then all of a sudden, six months later like, oh, this thing is all scratched up and it's got this special battery. It's annoying. The car, still got to wash it. Like none of it makes sense. None of it means anything after time. Experiences, love, impact, bonding, connection, those things last a lifetime. The end of your life you're not going to go, okay, I'm in this hospital, but someone bring me my watch, someone bring me that fancy necklace I bought. You don't give a crap about them.
You want the people you love standing around you saying thank you for what you've done for me. And if you don't plant those seeds for life, for abundance in your business, that shit ain't happening on its own. I'm just being honest. And with you personally, Teresa, with step-kids and once on a week, off a week, I'm going to encourage you that whatever time you're spending to maintain that, spend twice as much time, say no to something else in your life and fix that because here's what I know, it's going to take your energy no matter what. It's going to take your energy to solve problems or it's going to take your energy to bond and build a connection that no one else can.
And I will just say some of the things that helped me is replace any bits of keeping score, replace any bit of envy, any bit of anger with compassion, no matter what happens. When my ex and I were splitting, every time I got to a point where I was frustrated. Like I can't believe she would ask for that or say that, I took a moment and said I'm going to replace it with compassion, where's she coming from? And I would just say, okay, let's do this. And now I have a dear relationship with my ex. We're actually closer now than ever before. Our kids are first and there's no conflict. And I grew up in such conflict, oh my God, my step-brother, step-sister. Like it was just, it was non-stop energy.
And I see so many of my friends go through it and I'm like, just take a year, fix that shit. Like take a year and fix it because it's going to take energy anyway. But if you put extra energy for three to six months, you can have a lifetime of peace. So I encourage you-
Thank you.
To find that next level. I'm sure it's great, make it even greater.
Yeah. And you're right, there's always room for improvement. And especially with something like that where for me, because the work thing is so easy and so, I'm so-
Yeah, so you default to it because it's easy.
It's like, I got to do this difficult thing in the home or I can sit at my computer and do my thing and I'm just like, Oh, I think I'll do that. Because obviously that's the easy thing, isn't it? So, no, you're totally, totally right. So Dean, I'm so conscious of time and I'm so very, very grateful that you've given me your time today. Honestly, I am honoured.
What’s next?
So just a final question then, what's next? What's coming? What are you sat there thinking, this is where I'm trying to get to next? Is there anything?
Tony and I are on a mission to help make self-education more of the new normal where people realise that, I'm just being honest about university and college, it just hasn't kept up. I'm not one of those people who just bash it for no reason, but the world is exponentially growing and colleges have grown linear. I mean, what's different with colleges today than they were 10 years ago or 50 years ago? The world is completely different. The world needs to learn from those who've already done it, not professional teachers, and they need permission to do it. And we're carving a pretty good path to show people how to do it.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's such a great message because my step-son's 17 and he was going through some exams recently and he's like, I don't even know why I'm doing this because if I want to know something I can just Google it. And the problem is, I almost couldn't argue with him.
You can't argue with them. Listen, I'll just be honest. I hope that my daughter does not go to college. If she wants to go for the experience, great. But if not, she's going to waste four to six years of her life, unless she wants to be a doctor or something very specific because she can learn and be mentored by somebody who's already done it and get there a lot faster.
Yeah, absolutely. Dean, thank you so, so very much. I really, really appreciate you being on the podcast, sharing your very impactful message with my audience and thank you so much.
Yeah, this has been awesome. I appreciate you, keep up the good work and I'll keep pushing forward.
Thank you. What did you think? Honestly it felt like the entire thing was like I said, music to my ears. I loved everything he said. I agreed with everything he said. I love the fact that he has worked so incredibly hard, that he agrees this is not an overnight success, but the opportunity is there if you want and I know … And like he said, the fact that you are listening to this when you could be doing something else like watching Netflix means that you are that person, means that you are the type of person to step up and be amazing. And I know you can be, and I am here for you.
I'm here to cheer-lead you along, to help you, to educate you, to support you, to keep you accountable. Just let me be here for you. I am so grateful that Dean gave us this time and so honoured that I could bring this to you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode and I will see you next week.
