← School of Hard Knocks Podcast
School of Hard Knocks Podcast
Dean Graziosi | 9-Figure Entrepreneur & Investor on Overcoming Struggles, Finding Mentors, and Achieving Success
00:51:13
Dean Graziosi is a multiple New York Times best-selling author, entrepreneur, and investor. He has started or played a major role in over 14 successful companies that have changed lives all around the world. His mission for over 20 years has been to de...
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- [00:00]
A
What's going on, everybody? And welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James, and I'm here with my brother Jack. And we've got a very special guest for you guys today. We are out in Scottsdale, Arizona, with business legend Dean Graziosi, who's, you know, ran and operated over 13 businesses, done over a billion dollars of businesses throughout his career. We're super happy to be out here in Scottsdale with you today.
- [00:21]
B
Good to be here with you guys, man.
- [00:22]
A
For those who are tuning in right now, maybe they haven't seen you before. Could you give a little bit of a background on yourself, how you got to where you are today, just to let them know, you know, who we're talking to right now.
- [00:30]
B
Yeah, you know, I. I will end in a frame of reference that allows you to see that my story is only going to be shared, and I'll do it quick to see wherever you are struggling, been trying, not hitting it. You got a little momentum, but not sure if you can go to the next stuck or on fire. I've been at every one of those phases. And before I get started, I just want to commend you guys. You said 23 and 21. 23 and 21. You guys are doing amazing things. And what I want, what's really great about what you're doing is not only are you bringing entrepreneurs to the world so they could see through the lens. When I was a kid, when I was your age, there was no Internet, so you didn't have this access. Where did you do it? You had to read books or hopefully find an old video from Earl Nightingale or something. Right? So it's so cool because there's so much information online. There's so much. People say we're in the information age. We're in the overwhelm of information age. People are overwhelmed with information, but they're starving for wisdom. And I love what you guys are doing because you get to interview people who've had success and they open up to you and they share the road. And other people get to see, hey, it's not quick, it's not easy, I might fall down. But simultaneously, it's freaking worth it. And to be at your age and do this, and I hope, and I know you are, I hope these interviews, I know you want to get views, and I want you to keep growing, and I want your business to grow, but I hope you really understand the power of what you guys have. You have what I believe is one of the greatest gifts that exists today. Is the fastest way. And you should hear this. The fastest way to gain success in your life is to model proven practices. And you are getting proven practices every time you guys do an interview. And I hope you're really stopping, like on your plane ride home. It's like, what is another common thread that I shared that the past guy and the person before that or the girl before that, there's common threads. Jim Rohn, an old school personal development guy, used to say, success leaves clues. You guys have the opportunity to get clues every day. Others are watching your interviews. You're here when the camera goes off, you're still asking questions. Be obsessed with that. Because what you'll realize the more you interview, what you guys will realize at home. Success isn't magical. There is a formula for it. And you're going to see that common thread. It's those that are willing to stay in the game long enough to fail forward, to not look for pie in the sky, not look to get rich for doing nothing, not look for the hack, not make their first 10 grand and go buy a 10, $10,000 watch. Like there are subtle little shifts that you'll see in successful people that'll say, I promise there'll be a day, if it's not already happened, where you go, oh my God, there it is. Like it's right there. And so it's really awesome what you're doing for me. Listen, I'll go quick. As a kid, I watched my mom struggle. My parents split when I was three. I watched my mom work three jobs to make nothing. And watching her come home and every night at 9 o' clock at night, tired with her hands hurt, she cut hair, she painted houses and she cleaned houses. And my dad's a great guy and I'm dear friends with him now, but at the time, he didn't help my mom, so she had to pay for everything. And watching her come home exhausted and pass out on the couch as one of the most amazing women on the planet, I remember being 12, 13, I don't know, we all have our story and something just snapped me. I'm like, money would solve this. Like money would. I don't care. When people say money doesn't solve problems. Bs, Money solves problems. When people say that, I also say, if you don't think money solves problems, you haven't given enough away, right? I've been blessed to provide 30 million meals through Feeding America. We were able to help 30 million meals of somebody that was hungry that night. We've helped save thousands of people from slavery. We've built churches in Africa. And I'm not bragging. I'm just saying don't tell me that doesn't solve a problem, right? So money can solve problems. And I remember it 13, 14 years old, just going, or maybe, maybe I was 10. I don't know. Just going, I'm fixing this. Like, I don't know how. I wasn't the smartest kid. I had dyslexia. School was rough for me. I barely got out of 12th grade. I didn't even think of going to college. It wasn't even on my radar. But being successful was. And along that journey, journey, some of the things you learn and I'm hoping you can resonate. You don't have to have a horrific past to be successful. So please know that I'm telling my story. If you're just driven, I don't care if you have the perfect parents. My, my kids, I believe, were raising them in such a beautiful state. They've never wanted for anything. I hope they still have that same drive. So it doesn't. I'm just sharing my story. I also know that I got some momentum in a car business. I had a collision shop. I had auto sales. I ended up buying some tow trucks. I had apartments. I ended up buying raw land and flipping houses. And then something shifted for me, just for me. I bought Tony Robbins course 27 years ago. It was called personal power. And I listened to it. It just freaked my mind out. I realized that all the things that happened wrong in my life were actually meant for me so I could be stronger. I realized I could focus on solutions. I could change my own story. I could change my state of mind. I could enhance my competence. All this cool stuff. And I was like, this is everything. Like, I wanted everybody to see this, right? In fact, I bought 10 different courses and sent them to everybody in my family and everybody I cared about. And one person, listen to him. They should have. Yeah.
- [05:38]
A
I wanted to ask you, right? You know, somebody, they're coming out of school, you know, maybe they don't come from a family that has a lot of money. They don't have those mentors. One of the most important decisions that somebody will make is ultimately choosing that right money making and who they follow. Right? And. But that right money making vehicle in the sense of like we talked about earlier, that you got to be rowing the correct boat because you can be the hardest worker in the room. But if you're in the wrong industry for you, you're going to go, you're not really going to go anywhere you need to be. So any advice to someone, they're trying to find that niche for them. They're trying to find, you know, what their calling them to do, but still being in the same vehicle. So kind of, again, finding that balance.
- [06:10]
B
I totally get it. So I'll just end that really quick by saying, when I bought Tony's course, not only did it shift my life, it made me realize I wanted to go in his industry. I wanted to sell information. I wanted to find a way to create proven practices for other people too. And I was doing well in real estate. So I created courses on real estate and things like that. And along that journey, I just want to say, wherever you are, I know what it's like to want to get ahead, to do more. And I also know what it's like to look in the mirror and go, what if we never do it? Like, what if I never get wealthy? What if I never take care of my family? What if I don't retire my mom or whatever your dreams are. Man, that could be such a punch in the gut. But I'm blessed enough that I stayed in it long enough to realize what the other side was. Where I got momentum, where I called my mom and said, you never have to work a day again in your life, where I called my mom and said, hey, there's a new car getting delivered. A few years later, I called my mom and said, hey, go over to this house. It's yours. The keys are getting mailed to you. I know those feelings, so I know the desperation. Where to start? Is this real? Can I really make this happen? And I know what it feels on the other side. And I'm just saying I just want to share to everybody I've been in all those emotions and it's possible for every single person watching. But you're going to probably think it's going to happen quicker than you think. You're going to be frustrated when it doesn't. And what if all of that is meant to be? So now let's get to your question is, and sometimes we're in the wrong boat with the wrong people, rowing in the wrong direction, and we wonder why we're not getting where we want to go. And I would just say if you're someone determined to be an entrepreneur, determined to do your own thing, determined to make more money, you might as well pick something now that sparks some interest in your life. Because I promise you, if you just pick for the money, there'll be a time you'll bail on it. It won't fill your heart. You might not feel in alignment with God or your maker. Like, you might as well if you're going all in. Because it takes a lot of work to be successful. You boys know it. You're watching it. You interview, you're doing it yourself. It takes a lot of work. So if you're going to put the. And if you're going to miss hanging out with your friends and when you get married and have kids, you're going to miss dance recitals and you're going to miss, you know, baseball games. If you're going to miss it for a season, it better be something that lights up your heart, lights up your soul, but simultaneously has no glass ceiling. And you got to pick that. You got to pick the right vehicle.
- [08:18]
C
Yeah. We had interviewed a gentleman. He basically told us that we'd asked, are there. Are there shortcuts to success? And he said, yes, there is. He said, it's mentorship. And when we talked with you earlier, he's 100% right. We had talked with you earlier, and you said one of the key pieces of getting to where you want to go is you need to go find someone that's doing what you're doing, right. That you want to do and go follow them, attach yourself, be an apprentice. But there could be some people out there that they don't know. How can I go and provide value for this person? How can I, you know, work for. Maybe it's working for free. Maybe it's just working for low pay or just building something for them and bringing them to them and say, here, I don't want anything for it. Just take it.
- [08:53]
B
We.
- [08:54]
C
What would be your advice to that young person out there or anybody that wants to go be attached to that mentor, and they just need that extra step to be able to make that happen.
- [09:02]
B
I have no connection to this book. I don't get an affiliate pay. Read the book Mastery. I just had my daughter, who's going to be 18 years old, read it, and it explains that whole model. I'll give you an example. My daughter's going to be 18. She's going in 12th grade. Today's her last day of 11th grade. I can't believe my daughter's. This is her last year since she was little. What I told her is, you have two choices after school, if you want to go to college. I'll support you, get good grades, if that's what you want. I personally think in today's world, unless you pick certain things I think it's a waste of time. Just say it like it is. Schools teach you general knowledge. 78% of everybody who gets a degree doesn't use it. 57% of the people who get a degree and get the job and the degree hate the job they're in. So it's about 12% of people who get a degree use it and like it. 12%. Right. Schools have, you know, endowments, and they have. They have a schools, big schools with a billion dollars in their coffers have become hedge funds that they happen to teach a little. And so. So let me share what I really feel, right? And I'm not saying that's all schools and all teachers, but I gave my daughter the choice, and I don't talk to her like that. But I said if you want to go to school. But if not, what you have to do is you have to find something you're passionate about or you think you could to investigate. And then you're going to go mentor under someone. You're going to be an apprentice. And this is what I told her. And I'll tell this to anybody watching. Find somebody who's doing what you want to do and go tell them you'll work for them for free or a minimal amount if you can, if it's possible. You go to college most times you're not working and become the most. Become the sponge, become the greatest employee they've ever had. Make it so they can't live without you. And what you get to do is condensed decades into days. If you read the book Mass, if you read any of it back in 2000, 3000 years ago, that's how everything was structured. It was all apprentice. People would give up six, seven years of their life to work under somebody who was a printer, a painter, Leonardo da Vinci. All of them had apprentices that learned underneath them. So what I would say is, how do you do it today? Literally, no, no exaggeration while we're here, my daughter had interest in being interior designer. She loves fashion. She loves the way houses are decorated. Whenever it's an open house, she wants to go see it, see how it's laid out. So I had her do the research and find three of the top interior designers here in Scottsdale, Arizona. She had a phone call with one of them today. She's meeting them for coffee tomorrow. And I said, you go there and sell yourself and say, I will be the best intern you've ever had over the summer for free if I could come work for you. So that's that's the approach I gave. And, and all of them responded because she, she DMed him in that way, saying, hey, I'd like to be the best employee you have for free, but I would love to learn your craft. I see you're the best at what you do. Whatever it takes. If it's buying a course, if it's going to an event, if it's getting in a community, if it's being a part of a coaching program, if it's finding a mentor, if it's working for free, that will crunch time. That will change time. Yeah, that's my advice on that. Yeah.
- [12:01]
A
And mentorship is a crucial component of self improvement in that personal development. Along with that, you can read all the books, listen to all the podcast, take all the courses, and information can change situations, but it ultimately comes down to the implementation of that.
- [12:13]
B
Absolutely.
- [12:13]
A
And a lot of entrepreneurs, they're paralyzed by inaction. So when somebody, they're starting to get in the right rooms with people, they're starting to learn from great people, you know, get that knowledge in them. Any advice when it comes to actually executing and carrying out taking the action, like, what are some of those steps that you're like, okay, you're, you're with the right people and, and you're, you're filled with the right information, the right vehicle, like, and it's time to start taking action. At what, at what point is it time to take?
- [12:36]
B
So this goes down, this goes down a slippery slope in a good way. I think of it as, you have to go upstream, meaning you have to find the reason that would cause you not to take the inaction. When people aren't taking action, a lot of times they think, I'm a procrastinator. I need a time management program. It's not true. You need a bigger purpose. If something is purpose driven, you guys, it's great. You have a connection. If your brother had an issue and someone said, if your brother said, hey, your brother is in New Mexico, he's dying for a cup of coffee, could you bring him one right now? But you can't have a car. You just got to get there. Like, I'm not bringing my brother a cup of coffee. There's no purpose. But if someone said, hey, your brother's in New Mexico and something happened and he needs your kidney and you got to get there right now to save his life, but you don't have a car, I bet you would run out of this room right now, literally, because it would be a strong enough purpose. Those that succeed have a purpose that outweighs fear. It outweighs imposter syndrome. It outweighs feeling like you'll be judged by your peers and your friends. So foundationally, people come to me go, I need a time management program. I need to stop being a procrastinator. I'm like, no, you don't. You need a big enough. Why you need a big enough purpose that nothing gets in your damn way. And then you must take the actions that are uncomfortable. Where I see people get stuck is they do all the stuff they like. I get to post these cool videos. I get this. Oh, but I don't like marketing. I don't know if I want to make a sales page I don't like. They find these certain areas that aren't attractive to them and they put them off rather than saying, I need to face that fear, that demon, that thing I've been putting off, because that on the other side of that is my next level of success. But you don't have the stamina to do that unless you have a big enough purpose. My brother wants a cup of coffee. Yeah, maybe tomorrow. I'll go. My brother needs something from me or else he might not live. I'll sprint to New Mexico, I'll get a ride, I'll steal a car, I'll borrow money like that. You got to think through that lens to be successful. You got to be so innovative, so creative, so persistent that if something gets in your way, you get over it. If there's glass, you crawl through it. If there's steel, you bend it, you melt it, you tunnel under it. And you don't do that with just saying, I want to be rich. You need something deeper, right? You got to be. And sometimes you got to run away from the dark side. If you didn't like your childhood, think of a shitty childhood every day of your life and say, this is going to be my whole life unless something changes, right? Or thinking about taking care. I had my mom as my first muse. Once I took care of her, then I found another one. Now my biggest purpose is for me, my biggest purpose is to leave this world better than I found it, be a good dad, be a good husband, and have the choice to do what I want when I want to do it. That's enough for me to get up every morning. I wake up at 4 o' clock every morning on fire just because I've been able to replace what my big purpose is year after year.
- [15:27]
C
Yeah, a big common trend with a lot of the people that we Interview is they talk about risk taking, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. You have to have certain tolerance to risk. And there's a lot of people that watch our channel that I think they get to a certain point in their career and they get to a point where maybe they don't kind of like you mentioned earlier, they get the degree and then they go into a job that they don't like, and they spend 10 years in that job, and they're just like, what was the point? What is. It's almost like a sunk cost. But they don't want to take that risk. It's comfortable. They get the paycheck every week. How can maybe people increase their risk tolerance or get more comfortable with risk? Is that possible? Can people jump into entrepreneurship or into that career path that they want even though they spent 10, 20 years doing something that might not be fulfilling?
- [16:09]
B
Yes. So let's think. Because the fear of failure, right? Fear of losing, fear of some of your money come out of your bank account, Fear of your peers looking at you like you're a fool because you gave up a job they wish they had, right? Think of all those things. So as you're listening right now, you might not have a pen and paper in front of you. So think of this in your head. Think of the fact if that's you, right? If Jack just described you like, yeah, I'm in an unfulfilled career or I've mastered this career, I'm bored. It's time to live into my full potential. I know I'm meant for more time to do something. Feelings most people have, right? And then I want you to think about. You try and the thing you're afraid of. I want you to rate it on a scale to 1 to 10. Think about this in your head. Like, even for you boys, if you want to think about it, right, you rate it on what if. What if I try this thing? What if I try my next level community? I try this next level product, I try a coaching program. What if I go to sell it and nobody buys it? What if they're like, oh my God, this guy was just a YouTuber. Now they're going to sales page. Oh, my God.
- [17:07]
A
That's.
- [17:08]
B
That's messed up. Guys, no more free stuff. You guys are idiots. You think about all that stuff, right? I'm sure you both think about those exact things. I see the smile on your face, right? Rate that rate. If you did your first, I'm gonna ask you guys then, rate your first sales page goes out, you do your first launch of a product and you go on, you start reading comments and they say, sell out. Freaking guy. Just want our freaking money. No wonder you brought all this stuff to us. How would that feel? Rate that feeling on a 1 to 10. How bad would that feel on a 1 to 10? Would it be a 9? Right? So think about that. I'm gonna write that down. So say a nine, meaning it'd be extremely painful if you saw that, right? Then you go, should we do that now? Let me ask you to rate this. Now I want you to picture you guys are 88 and 90, and you didn't do it. You missed it. You had a little buzz where you had this YouTube channel for a while, got you some stuff, but it didn't work out, didn't turn into a business. You played it small because you were scared of that fear. And you guys went and found jobs. It was all right. You guys text once in a while ago. Remember those days when we got to interview all those cool guys? And then you meet your maker, you pass away, and God plays you a video of the men you could have been. The unlived life. How would that feel? Rate that a 1 to 10. Yeah. Is that other one really a 9? You guys just being soft. Like, I'm just being honest. I'm saying this for everybody else. It's all in comparison, right? It's all in comparison. Could you imagine God, whatever you guys believe in, you meet your maker and he says, God, you guys had so much talent. I was watching what you're doing and you said, well, I was afraid if we put a sales page up, people wouldn't like me. Could you imagine, like, God or whoever you believe, like, just like, oh, my God, not another one. God, just go in that line, right? I want you guys to get to the end of your life and God play a video and go, these two guys are crazy. They're insane. Do you see what they went after? And here's the fact of the matter is, when you find the innovation, when you find the passion, when you fall in love with what you do, you might get 1% of the people not like what you do in your next evolution, but 99% of the people will, and they'll love what you do, and they'll change their life. You can't let the loud minority. Right now we're living in a world where if we have different parties, if we vote differently, we should hate each other. And it's all being controlled by the loud minority on either side. The extremes, the rest of Us are the same. We want better for our children than we had. We want to be connected. We want to live into our full potential. We want to be united. We want to have freedom. We want to be able to live with no limits. 99, 95 of us are all the same. We got extremes on both ends make making it so. We should hate each other if we happen to vote differently. Right. It's the same thing. Don't let the loud minority, the loud extreme, the, the, the, the, the, the noise stop you from being who you're meant to be.
- [19:55]
A
You could throw, you could throw 10 things up on a wall, nine of them fall off and you got one left up there. You're still ahead of that person that never tried.
- [20:01]
B
Of course.
- [20:01]
A
You know what I mean? I wanted to ask you because, you know, you've talked a decent amount about faith throughout this podcast. You're a faith based entrepreneur. Both Jack and I are Christians. We're believers. And I'd argue that everybody out there, regardless of whether they believe in higher power or not, we're all faith based because the opposite of faith is what it's fear. And regardless of it's within that higher power, if it's in yourself, you got to have faith. Even from a business perspective, you know, from a capitalism perspective, in your business, for somebody struggling to be able to find that faith, that bigger calling, that, you know, something bigger than themselves for their business and whatever it may be. Any advice to somebody out there, they're trying to that, that more of that faith and that fulfillment.
- [20:40]
B
Yeah, really great question. I mean, isn't faith the foundation of everything, whether you're a believer or not? And I believe most people are, but like you said, believe in something. But isn't faith everything? I, I mean, I heard Tony Robbins say one time, someone says, I really don't have faith in anything. It's like, really? Do you drive? And I was watching him do an interview and he said, the guy goes, yeah, I drive. Because you don't have faith in anything. Because then how do you go out on the road? There's only that little yellow line that divides you and cars coming the other way at 70 miles an hour. How would you, you have faith that they're not going to cross the line and kill you, don't you? He's like, well, yeah, I have faith in that. And then he went through like 10 things like that. He's like, you leave your wife. What if some like he went through all these things? Well, I have faith in that. He's like, well, you have faith. You just didn't put faith in the right direction of your own business or what it is. And I. We can recognize where we already have faith. And if we can borrow that faith from one area, if we can borrow it from other people and apply it to who we can become. You get to bet on yourself. I mean, I think that's what faith really does. It allows us to bet on ourselves and bet on being connected to something bigger than ourselves. And. And if. And if it's God, if it's. If it's something different, I feel like we got to be connected to something. If it's not God at this phase of your life, then be connected to other entrepreneurs. Have faith that they did it. You can do it.
- [22:02]
C
Yeah. There's a lot of people like to use the analogy of, like a poker or blackjack game when talking about people's positions in life, where they started. Almost like, I was dealt a bad hand, things like that. People might grow up in a different socioeconomic background than someone that found success. They feel like the cards are stacked against them when they started that game of life. How can someone, I like to think, ignore that position, almost act like you started with a winning hand? I got the winning hand.
- [22:30]
B
You're asking me a question. My last book I wrote seven years ago is called the Underdog Advantage, because there's two frames to look at it. I have enough friends that I'm blessed to have that are extremely successful, and all of them felt like underdogs, and they used it as power. So let me ask you if you're thinking the underdog when everything. Listen, my biggest fear with my kids. My biggest fear with my kids. I'm blessed to have incredible children. I have four children. They're polite, they get good grades. They make the right decisions, all those things. My biggest fear is that they don't have underdog traits. My youngest kids have never flown in a commercial plane. They don't even know what it's like to go to an airport. And simultaneously, I want them to have hunger when they just drive up in our car and get on our plane and fly to one of our houses and get off. And some everything's waiting for us. I'm like, oh, my God, am I like, I almost want to. I wish I could recreate when they felt like, I'm broke. I don't have anything because of that drive. Right? And one of the reasons I wrote the Underdog Advantage is because I always felt like an underdog. But when I really look back, it Was actually my strength. Like, I don't know if my kids feel like they have to make it. I tell them all the time I'm donating all my money to charity, so you better get on your. On your horse, because it ain't coming to you. But I don't know if they feel it. But when you're an underdog and you try something new, do you think people around you go, hey, that's not for us. Hey, we didn't come from that side. Nobody in our family's ever done something like that. You know, many times I heard that in my family. My people say, hey, my own family sat me down. It's like, hey, I love all your energy. But that's not. We're blue collar. You know, this is where we come from. This stuff you're doing about, that's people who are smarter, went to different colleges, have a pedigree, all of that crap. Let me just ask you if you use that as they're probably right, or could you split that and use it as fuel and go, oof, Wait till you see when I freaking do this. Right? So I call it in my book as a chapter. It's called the power of you can't. You can have somebody say you can't and go. Probably can't. Or you go, please keep telling me I can't, so you can eat crow. Watch when I do this. When you're an underdog and they don't. And you don't have all the pieces, I love when nobody sees me coming. I love the fact when I create something, why do some of the biggest companies on the planet, why did they get started? You ever see the meme when it's all the different garages where Walt Disney and all the different companies, Bill Gates all started in garages? What does that mean? It's like they were building this as this underdog, and what did they do? They skyrocketed out of the gate because no one saw them coming. They weren't a Fortune 500 company with all the money and the perfect executive with the perfect tie, right? So to me, it's like we have an option to say, I'm an underdog, I probably can't make it, or, wow, I'm an underdog. Good for me, right? Do you ever hear that silly analogy where twin. Twin boys, One was a drug addict and struggling and one was super successful? Did you ever hear that silly analogy? And they interviewed both of them, and the one that was a drug addict and unsuccessful, their father was a raging alcoholic. And used to beat them. And they interviewed the alcoholic and when it finally got down to him, he said, well, why are you in this space? He's like, how could I not be? My father beat me and was an alcoholic. And his twin brother, who was massively successful when they boiled it down, said, why are you successful? You know what he said? How could I not be? My father beat me, was an alcoholic, and nobody's gonna stop me.
- [26:02]
A
It's almost like, like there's two types of people. The man who thinks they can and the man who thinks they can't.
- [26:06]
B
Yeah. And, and it's just how you, how you position that. Thinking is really the driving force.
- [26:12]
A
We were talking earlier how you've got two components, right? The mindset and the money making vehicle that you're in. And you had argued that it's 90% mindset. Whereas a lot of people will say, man, you need to get in the right business, the right niche, the right initiative, the right money making vehicle. Yeah, right. You know, and when people grow up, you know, there's a lot of programs that people are faced with, right. Where if they're from a certain area where, you know, people think, you know, the epitome of success is that that six figure government contracting job or religious structures or sports at whatever schools they go to, the people that they're around. But it's very imperative for people that they want to achieve that success. They have to rewire their mind, reprogram themselves to start thinking more abundantly. Any advice? And what is that mindset shift that you think people should really undergo to again, start thinking about, man, I can achieve these great things and make big things happen.
- [26:57]
B
Yeah. So there's so many to unpackage that there's so many answers. Right. I think people think, I don't need any positive thinking. Right. And positive thinking kind of has a bad name. And maybe we should reframe that and we will in a second. But let me ask you something. Would you take, let's just look at it in the lens of you guys hiring somebody. Would you take someone with the perfect degree, all the perfect pieces on paper, to be your videographer? Let's just use as example, had all the. All the. Right. Checked all the boxes, but really wasn't that passionate about videography? Or would you take someone who hardly ever held a camera, but they love what you do, they're extremely passionate. And they came to you and said, give me three months, I will be the best videographer. Who would you choose?
- [27:40]
A
I can tell you right now, because that second person, he's the one that's going to do whatever he can to get that right shot. Exactly what I mean. And he's coachable.
- [27:46]
B
So. So if you instead of thinking about positive energy or personal development and I don't want to read foo foo fluffy books, just give me the way to make money. Maybe don't look at it that way. I told you guys earlier, and I'll say it again. In my 20s, I would say it was 90% the right vehicle, the thing that could make me money. Oh, and 10% I better stay positive. I'm 55. I've been blessed to have some pretty good success in my life. At this phase of my life. I know it's the complete opposite. It is 90% mindset and 10% vehicle. Give someone with an unstoppable mindset a bad opportunity and they'll make it work. Give an amazing opportunity, somebody with a shitty mindset, and they'll fail every time. That's just a fact. Why do you think people take things that should never work and make them incredible? Because they found a way to become unstoppable. How do you become unstoppable? There's so many answers. One, we talked about this earlier. One is to have just a bigger purpose than you. You know, we talked about the purpose of you going to help your brother if you needed to. It's big, it's bold. You don't stop. So one is finding that purpose. Number two. Trick your brain. You're talking about if you're in a place like that, you might think, hey, where I come from, if I can get a hundred grand a year working for here, that would be amazing. Because a guy like me, a girl like me doesn't make it. It's BS go find proof. Go google and find. Go use AI. Find 20 people that are insanely successful. That started out just like you. We're conn everybody. So then all of a sudden your brain goes, wow, I could have a bigger purpose. The story I've been telling myself is a lie. Then you got to find out. You got to root out those stories that you've been telling yourself. Not to get into a whole personal development lesson, but we got to find the subtle stories. Like, I could make it, but I didn't come from a good area. I can make it, but I don't have a college degree. I can make it, but I'm really not that smart. I can make it, but I don't have any money to start. You need a lot of money to Invest to start your own business, all those things. Find somebody who was had dyslexia, started with no money. In fact, that's me. You can Google all my stuff, right? Like, my whole point is we have to prove the stories that been holding us back are a lie and then we have to sell ourselves on our big vision every single day. I still have a, an inner villain, whatever you want to call it that's like, hey, you're not that smart. You're not going to like. I still have that voice, but I found a way to overpower it, to call it a liar and to show that there's something different. So I don't have the. It could take us hours to say. What I'd say is start looking into understanding that what's probably holding you back is the story you tell yourself on why you can't achieve it. And when you really address that and face it, then find someone in this space that you like. I like Dale Carnegie. Tony Robbins is my partner and dearest friend. I love Tony for 27 years, but I love them all. I devour personal development still. I read at least one personal development book a month, always.
- [30:32]
C
Yeah. And over your career you've had, you've been able to work with a lot of high level people, entrepreneurs, athletes, just people who in your mastermind, specifically with entrepreneurs, a lot of the higher level people that you work with, Maybe they're doing 100,000amonth, million a month. What are some of the challenges that you see people do at that level? Because I know a lot of the people watching, maybe they have found some success, maybe they're in that vehicle and they want to take it to the next level. What are some of the challenges that you've seen, those high level entrepreneurs that they're dealing with and how have they been overcome them?
- [31:01]
B
One of the biggest ones is when an entrepreneur starts hitting it and when I say like getting momentum, we are relentless. I'm sure you boys are too. And I'm sure so many of you watching, especially when you start getting a little freaking momentum, you start seeing the sales come in, you start seeing the revenue come in, the impact come in, and your hard work is paying off. You're relentless and there's a couple phases. One is taking that energy and harnessing it and trying to hire a team around you. When you're used to doing everything yourself, ah, they're not doing right. I'll just do it myself. I'll just do it myself. You can do it yourself to 5 million over that. You need A team, especially in an online business, you can get to 3,5 million a year without a massive team. That didn't exist in the normal world, but it exists for the younger generation today online. Once you get to that next level, then all of a sudden you start bringing people in. And it is hard for people to keep up with a crazy entrepreneur who's got vision and dreams and just has an idea and goes for it. And you're going to bring people in with structure that you're going to feel is slowing you down. I got to train them. They'll just do it myself. You will do so. I've watched so many people go, no, I can't handle employees. I'm never hiring employees. I know they're $3 million or a million or 800,000 or whatever it is for the rest of their life. You got to break through that barrier on how to transcend what's in your mind and hire people sometimes that don't think like you, that contradict you, that and building a system and a process. And during that time, that one year, 18 months, two years of doing it, it feels like you're going backwards. Like, I'm not growing financially anymore. I'm not making more money. All these people are costing me money. I should get rid of them and keep the profits. If you want the profit today, then just stay the size you're at. If you want to build a true empire, you have to learn leadership. I said this earlier. Somebody said to me, what's the best things you should learn right now? I would say fall in love with your product. Love it so much you feel bad if people don't say yes. Understand marketing deeper, stronger, better than anybody else. Third, understand leadership principles before anybody else does. Most people don't start digging into true leadership until they're 40, 50 years old, including me. I wish I would have started at my 20s. Leadership is the key to everything.
- [33:02]
A
Yeah, I wanted to ask you because, like, the first business that you were in was like the auto body, auto collision with player. Eventually you ventured off, kind of diversified more into real estate and let's say somebody you brought up. Another thing you talked about earlier was like, you become master. You want to try something else. At what point do you see, is it a good time for business owners to start to diversify or vertically integrate that business? Because a savvy entrepreneur, they look at their entire business and they see, you know, who else make money off my efforts or just in general, maybe not even from an integration perspective, but, like, at what point from what you've seen from all the people that you've met and you're for yourself. Is it a good time to start diversifying?
- [33:34]
B
As a really, really, really solid question, I would just say sometimes a fragmented or scattered mind doesn't allow you to maximize and learn the skills you needed to learn. I would say if your company is at a point where it is profitable, it's running strong, you have a plan and it can grow with without all of your obsessive focus, then maybe it's time to say, is there something I can bolt on? Is there something I can add to this? But I watch most people do it too soon and that's where they get. Then they become a master to two things and neither one of them is doing well. And a lot of times people hear me on this one. This might be the most important lesson you can hear today when you're doing something that was once a dream and now you're doing it and you're bored of it and all of a sudden this was cool, but I want to do this. And now all of a sudden you're all excited about the next thing. What happens? You start resenting the thing you're in and ignoring it and it's slowly going down and you quite, you haven't perfected the next thing. You get caught in the middle. It's why businesses go out.
- [34:40]
A
And something that you touched on or something, a big thing that you've preached is reciprocity. You're a very relationship centric person. A lot of people you know, in whatever industry, whether it's real estate, they're in tech, they're very transactional based. And I love the quote that there's two types of people in the world, givers and takers. Life gives to givers and it takes from takers and it keeps very accurate accounting. How important has it been for you going into, you know, business with other people and just life in general, not looking at it from a perspective of if I do this, what is this.
- [35:08]
B
Person going to do for me? That's such a great question.
- [35:09]
A
How important has it been?
- [35:10]
B
Things that are near and dear to.
- [35:11]
A
My heart, how important has it been for, you know, being so relationship centric throughout your career and how has that really paid off for people watching this?
- [35:17]
B
It's a hard one to see. And the only reason I could say I'm good at it now is because I've done it the wrong way. Right? So just I say model proven practices. This is, this is proven practices. I've had frustrating partnerships in my 20s and 30s, keeping score, I did this, you didn't do that. Here's what I know. What if in a relationship, either one of you boys in a relationship, I.
- [35:44]
A
Am my first one.
- [35:45]
B
Yeah, here's a good one. Two things to learn is, what if you felt loved when you gave love, not when you received it? How would your life change?
- [35:55]
A
Can you say that one more time?
- [35:57]
B
How would you feel? How would your life change if every time you get in, you're in a relationship, every time you gave love, you did something nice, you felt love then, not when you were waiting to receive it back.
- [36:10]
A
You're in a one sided relationship.
- [36:12]
B
Really, if you give love, think about this. You really got to think about this. Could you get hurt in a relationship where you feel like you're doing more? Of course. But think about when you find the right person in a partnership, in a personal relationship. I know because I have it in both of my eyes. Tony Robbins is my dearest friend in the world. I can't do enough for that guy. I do as much as humanly possible for this guy. And you know what I get in return? Guy tries to outdo me in everything I do. Tries to outdo me. I try to show up my wife and give her so much love and do stuff for her that she would never know and surprise her. And guess what I get? I still walk in a room and my wife looks at me like she just met me. Like, I never want to lose that look because I feel love. Hear me on this one. I have trained myself over years. I never could have done this in my 20s, probably never in my 30s. It's probably why I went through a divorce, okay? I have trained myself that when I do something for her, when I show her love, when I ask her about her day, when I got 16 things on my phone and two things pressing and I shut it all down and I still actively listen, even though I'm dying to go answer my phone and get business done. When I show her love and I feel that love, I feel it by giving it to her. It lights her up and I get more in return. And the whole key to that is the best partnerships I know, the best relationships I know do not keep score. Let me tell you how a relationship dies. You're a hustler, he's in a relationship, you're not yet, right? Imagine you come home, you're like, man, I just traveled to Scottsdale. I did this interview, I'm working and I come home and nothing's done. And I thought There'd be a meal waiting for me. It's like, all right, no big deal. And you kept score. You check. Next morning, you wake up with a little bit of an edge, right? And your significant other is like, well, he's a little awful. I'm not gonna give him love if he's feeling that way to me. And all of a sudden, both of you are like, well, well, if she does this, if he does this, if he does this, if he does this, if she does this, if she does this, all of a sudden, you're a year in. There's no intimacy. You guys aren't having sex anymore. You're barely talking, and you don't know why, because you kept score all the way, and you ruined the part. If you find the right person in the right partnership relationship, if you treat the other person the way you want to be treated on a regular basis, if you don't keep score, you either find the other half or you know you're in a wrong relationship. I'll give you one example. There are times where I will hustle. Right now, Tony Robbins and I are doing a big live event here coming up. I've barely been sleeping for 45, 60 days. We put a million people on an event like this. It's our event of the year. We freaking love it. I run most of this. This is my jam. This is my thing. Imagine I go 60 days and go, man, I've been killing it for 60 days. I haven't seen Tony here at the office. He's working on his other project. Wow. Damn it, Dan. I'm doing all this work. This thing's gonna, you know, do well and enhance our company and do all this thing, man. I did all that. I only need to think that once, and my relationship with Tony starts to falter. You know what that guy's done for me? Sometimes that guy moves his pinky because he's been in this business for so long, and we land a $50 million contract. We buy something amazing, or he mentors me on something that I was thinking completely flawed, and one sentence goes, holy crap, Tone. And he shifts my life. And there are times where Tony's putting in the 45, 60 days for our company that we're working together. But if I kept score along the way, that partnership would be nothing. You know what I do every time I kill it on an event or have a great podcast like this that supports a company that him and I own. I feel good that I did this for my brother, but he feels it. I know this Is a hard concept. But imagine if you did not keep score in relationships and imagine you felt good when you did something for the other person. Now are you going to get taken advantage of? Potentially, you could. That means that's not the right partner and the right person. Weed him out of your life sooner than later.
- [40:03]
A
Yeah. I was going to say that was genuinely some of the best relationship advice that I've ever heard anybody spell. I was going to say, though, a quick follow up to that one. At what point did you know whether it is a relationship, a marriage, a partnership? At what point, though, do you walk away from that or do you realize that, hey, like, this may not be the right.
- [40:17]
B
I got one for you. So you're in a new relationship.
- [40:21]
A
Relatively.
- [40:22]
B
Yeah. Puppies, rainbows, everything's perfect, right? Like, if you watch somebody in the beginning of a relationship, it's like if somebody eats and they got a seed in their tooth, it's like, oh, that's so cute. You watch somebody married for 10 years, like, oh, my God, get that seed out of your tooth. Oh, my God. It's the same disgusting, right? Beginning. When you're in love, does anything bug you? You're like, no, everything's great.
- [40:43]
A
Everything's perfect.
- [40:44]
C
There's no flaws.
- [40:45]
B
What's that?
- [40:46]
C
There's no flaws.
- [40:46]
A
You put them on the pedestal.
- [40:47]
C
Yeah.
- [40:48]
B
It's like, oh, in the morning, your breath smells a little funky. You're late. It's like, could you brush your teeth? Jesus. So I got one for you. You ready for this? Partnership, personal relationship. If you're not sure, spend the next 90 days treating it like it was the first 90 days. And at the end, if it doesn't feel reciprocal, it might be over. And at the end, when they felt it, if they gave it back to you, you realize you needed a jump start. Yeah.
- [41:15]
C
Yeah. That's great. There's kind of this quote about Abraham Lincoln that, like, if Abe was going to spend six hours cutting down a cherry tree, he'd spend the first five sharpening the axe, the preparation. And I want to ask you this in the sense of not only just about money, but as someone's coming up in their career and their life and things, what are some of those things that they can do to sharpen the ax? And is it all about money?
- [41:39]
B
No, I thought it was about money when I started. Once the money's gone, then it's. Once the money is not an issue anymore, then you realize why you've been doing it in the first place, and you really start working on you money is the great. I don't want to say equalizer money. When you worry about money, which most people do, think of it this way. When's the last time either one of you thought about the oxygen in this room? Do you guys think about it? Not at all. Why? It's abundant. It's everywhere. You just got it. You're not going, how? There's no oxygen. I don't feel good. Is there enough oxygen? What if I don't have enough? Right? If I reach around and grabbed your throat, it'd be the only thing you thought of, right? Money's the same way. People don't realize their lack of money in their life has them focused on it all the time. The decisions they make, what they do, where they go, how they feel like they can date. If I had more money, I could. If I could do. It is. It is like it's choked. It's choking them. So it dominates their thoughts more than. Than they think. So if you think of if money was like, I'll just ask you guys, if money was like the oxygen in this room, and you never didn't have to think about it was just abundant. The only thing left is because you. You could say, I'm hustling for the money. I want to change my family. I want to retire my mom. I want to do these things. When that goes away, the only person left is you and the guy in the mirror or the woman in the mirror. So what if I want to give you the greatest gift that money can do is when you're not worried about it anymore. You got to work on you. When the money was not an issue anymore, and I went through a divorce and I was still running away from a crazy childhood, I had to stop and go, hey, how do I become a better man to be in this next relationship? How do I be a better man as a partner to Tony Robbins? How do I be a better leader to my team of people, hundreds of employees, how to be a better, inspire, motivate people? Like, I had to work on me, and I had to dig into my past. I had to get through some old scars and all this crazy stuff. So the greatest gift money can give you, it's not the Lamborghini. It's not the travel, it's not the plane. It's because it'll take away the pressure to give you a moment to become the man you're meant to be, not the one you're pretending to be now.
- [43:45]
A
You know, over these last 20, 30 years, you've been in entrepreneurship, you sold over a billion dollars in the online space. I wanted to ask you, what is your best advice to someone trying to find that winning product and service that can generate them that kind of money? You know, we talked earlier about your secret to sales. Is it necessarily. It's making people feel understood. But how can somebody create great offers and products to where it's like, again, you know, to where somebody can't refuse it? You know, any advice to someone trying to find those winning products, regardless of the industry that they're in?
- [44:10]
B
Listen, and I know you guys are going to share it, but Tony and I are doing a live event on June 13, and that's exactly what he'll be teaching. We're going to go deep and obsessive on that, because once you find that, it becomes an irresistible offer that you love and they love. And what I'll share that most people don't do is they will create something they love or something they think people need. And most of the time, neither one of those work people don't buy what they need. I need to go to the gym a little bit more. I go to the gym about five days a week. I want to make it seven. I need to eat a little bit less in between meals. I snack too much. I need to always listen to my wife more. I need to shut my mouth and just listen when she's telling me something that I have the answer to, I got to shut up and not give her the answer. She just wants me to listen. Right? I need to do those things, but I won't do any of those until I want to. People have gym memberships. They need to go use them. They don't until they want to go to the gym. So what happens is people will create products they feel people need or products they fall in love with. So my advice would be, is once you understand what lane, what boat you want to be in, what do I want to serve, what do I want to create? What product do I want to create? A course? A community, A workshop, A mastermind? Do I want to do podcasts? Once you create that, then you need to find your ideal client. Who are the people you're going after? Who's going to listen to me, who's going to want this product? And then you have to obsess on. What problem does it solve, what solution does it provide, and what goal does it help them reach? And you need to obsess on understanding your ideal client better than anybody else. You want to win, Understand the pain, the problems, the fear. The desires, the goals, the dream, the anxiety of your ideal client. Solve it better than anyone else. Not pretend. Don't just put it out there. Go. I think this should create something so powerful. How do you think Tony and I, we got 74 years in this industry between us? Because we create things that when people get it, they don't go, this is okay. They go, oh, my God. God, this is exactly what I needed. Why? Because we just understand our client. We're not magicians. We've just gone deeper on understanding. I know your fears. I know your worries. I know where you get stuck. This solves your fears. It gets you unstuck and gets you the results you want. When you do that and you fall in love with the byproducts are huge. You never sell again a day in your life, you just can't wait to tell people. I asked you guys earlier, when you have a meal at a restaurant you love, do you brag to your buddies like, you got to go to this restaurant or you got to read this book or you got to watch this movie? When you fall in love with your product because you know it does that, you won't. You can't help but sell. You'll outsell every single person you know.
- [46:38]
A
Yeah. And I wanted to ask you, I got this one, I'm gonna do one more. And then if you got one. But something we talked about outside is that a lot of the times it takes the same efforts to solve a thousand dollar problem that it does a $10,000 problem, that it does a hundred thousand problem. Like, even though, like every new level has a new devil. Like, ultimately it's like, focus on solving solving rich people problems. And, you know, take like real estate, for example. A lot of the times it takes the same effort to do a house flip that it would to, you know, sell a commercial real estate property. Right. So I wanted to ask you, like, what is the emphasis that you put on constantly trying to solve and pinpoint those problems for, you know, like, again, solving those rich people problems?
- [47:15]
B
Yeah. So it depends. I try to solve problems all the time of people just starting as an entrepreneur get stuck. So that's a problem I want to solve all the time. But it's not necessarily rich people problems, but I want to solve it for a million people. Right. Our event in June will have, I believe will have a million people. Our last one was a million one. The one before that, we had 2.5 million people registered. It's insane. I want to solve on June 13th. I want to solve the Problems of a million people. And what I realize. And again, I've been in this for a long time. One step at a time. How do you win Kaizen? How do you run him? A thousand mile race. One step at a time. And don't expect to be where we are overnight, but it's the same amount of effort and Energy to put 10,000 people in an event. I'm just telling you because I've been on both. It's the same Energy to put 10,000 people in is to put a million. And when you start thinking through that lens, like, if I'm going to put the energy and effort in, it might be 10% more work to go 10 times bigger. 100,000 people, 10% more. You put a million people in. Right. And I found that with real estate deals when I first started. I found it with everything possible. Because here's the deal. Most people think too small, and you have a lot of competition of people thinking small. When you think big, there's no competition. I know that's. That might sound like, oh, must be nice now that you have money. But I did that when I was broke. And I'm not talking about being a crazy dreamer. I just expected myself to step up and do the work and go bigger because I saw no one was playing at that game. And every time I play at that game, I'm able to hit it and win because no one else is fighting for it.
- [48:45]
A
Yeah, I think it was Naveen James who The billionaire. He was asked like, hey, how can somebody become a billionaire? And he said, don't focus on answering a billion questions, but how can you solve, like, you know, a billion problems through that? Like one question?
- [48:56]
B
Yeah, that's great. Great answer.
- [48:58]
A
Yeah.
- [48:59]
B
Follow up.
- [49:00]
A
Absolutely. So we'll kind of end this off by saying, you know, Dean, your last message to the younger generation watching this right now, you know, they. They want to live that abundant life. And you've given them so much wisdom on life, relationship, financial, business advice. But if you could give them with one last message just to. To wrap things up here today. For those who are tuning in watching.
- [49:15]
B
This right now, realize that mindset is more important than you think. You have old scars. You have old beliefs that someone gave you. They were downloaded into you. It's not your fault. Doesn't mean they're bad. But you need to find them. You need to root them out and replace them with new beliefs. You are enough. You know, enough. You can do this. You also need a path and plan. You need to model proven practices. You need to find people who have already done what you want to do. Buy their course, buy their training, work for them for free. Do whatever it takes to extract their knowledge so you could start off where they left off. That is the ultimate unfair advantage.
- [49:50]
A
Wow, guys, that's a wrap on today's video. Be sure to like and subscribe for amazing content we have coming very, very soon. Dean for everybody tuned in watch right now. Where can they find you at?
- [50:01]
B
Of course they can find me at dingrazziosi on Instagram and also I'd love to invite everybody to come to our live event we're doing on June 13th. It is not kind of free. It is totally free. It's Tony Robbins, myself amazing guest that you will know some surprise guests and if you liked anything we talked about today. The whole thing is about entrepreneurship, how to start and scale in this industry, the self education industry, selling what you know. And every one of you has an asset more than you realize. Look at these amazing kids. And I call you kids. Sorry I share that but to me you are. And it's amazing what you're doing, but you are making a living by providing information to others. That is the new way to wealth in an area. Does it make you feel good what you guys do every day? Do you love what you do? You wouldn't trade it for anything, right? This is the industry. People can find purpose, passion. Maybe they're too big of words. You can just enjoy it with no glass ceiling. I have a link for you. Deanantonylive.com James deanatonylive.com James it's about two and a half hours a day for three days and you want to get fired up and gain some skills. Don't miss that. We're calling it the game has changed because the game has changed.
- [51:06]
A
All right, you guys, everybody click the link down in the description below. Tune into the event, you will not want to miss it and we'll see you on the inside.