Dean Graziosi
Appearances
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Honestly, I mean this. I love sitting down with you. Even when we're just sitting down after me playing a game of basketball with you, I feel like you're four foot two playing this guy in basketball.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
You want to know the truth? I've never been asked that question, it's so good. Part of me didn't think I should heal it because I thought the pain was the reason I was successful.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And I'm like, if I fix this, I might get soft.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I thought that for years, and since I fixed it, I'm hungrier now than ever.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I'm hungrier now. So if someone said, never been asked this, if someone said, would you rather heal it first, like you just asked, Yes, I would have, but I would have kept it in the vault. The hunger or the pain? The pain. I would have kept enough, just being honest, to visit the dark side. Like when you're going, like cars, if you know anything about cars, they have nitrous oxide.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
You ever see it in the movies? They hit the nitrous, the car goes fast. But if you hold the nitrous oxide button the whole time, the motor blows up. You only can do it in second spurts. It makes the car go fast. Sometimes I would dip, because I still do it today. There are certain things to still being Tony's partner. People say when you get successful, problems go away.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
No, you just get better at handling bigger problems. Stuff still goes sideways. You still got to go in and find a next level hunger, right? If it's hard enough, I will dip into the dark side of, what if I end up being the dad like my dad was? Like, I'll still do whatever. And then it's the nitrous oxide button to go moving forward. So I would have healed it and I would have kept it as a tool.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
For all you amazing therapists and coaches out there, you're probably like, that is completely wrong. So I'm just saying my personal experience.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
We all move because we're moving away from pain or moving towards pleasure, right? That's, you've talked about in the show a million times, right? You've written about it, you live it. My belief was that I needed that pain to run away from to be successful. But if I had the chance now, I'd go back and work on me sooner, and my driver would have been the compelling future.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I would have made it just as strong. Imagine if I could, I've fed tens of millions of people. I get to build schools in Africa. I get to make sure I retired my parents. I make sure my family is safe. I get to employ hundreds of people. I get to do fun stuff. When the fires were here in California,
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Tony calls me out of the blue and said, a lot of people with money, a lot of people don't, they can't afford Airbnbs. Should we put up a million bucks real quick and get some Airbnbs? I said, I'll wire my money right now, right? I get to do these things in the invisible. I didn't put that in a press release. Probably the first time I ever shared it, right? I get to do all these cool things online.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Now, because now it's a compelling future. I want to help more people. I want to serve more. I want others to see that they don't have to, they can live into who they're meant to be, not who they're settling to be, that they could move forward. And the people that just need a meal, I can help. And some people who need a word of advice, I can help.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And some people, part of our programs, we can help. So I've found a way where my hunger is no less strong today on a compelling future. So what I'd say is, if you need to dip your toe into the painful stuff, Use it just to get the rocket off the ground. Push the button a little bit. Push the button, but don't hold the button.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And then feel like, hey, that happened to me, but how can I use that thing to create a better human being?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Such a great, honestly, love this question as well, is we can't live a happy today unless we have a compelling tomorrow, right? And again, everything I'm sharing today, I'm just being a reminder, so you guys have all heard this, but maybe just hear it through my frame.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
You know, we have a generation right now that is on more antidepressants than any other generation, more suicide than any other generation, more loss of hope than any other generation, right? Some half of millennials and Z, And I believe I've had these long conversations with Tony about this, like how do we do our part to help lift people up?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Not criticizing, not blaming, but how do we lift people up? And the conversation we had, and then make sure you reel me back into the conversation if I missed the question. But when you have a whole generation where the media is so divided and so bad, and this is not being political, but whether the world is gonna end because the environment or not, right? Are we sick because of vaccines or not?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Are tariffs gonna ruin our world? Does the last president screw us up or is the current president screwing us up? Are dollars gonna be like Venezuela and you're gonna need a bushel basket of it in 10 years to buy a loaf of bread? If you tell a generation that enough, you rob the compelling future. If you say, why would I do good today?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
when the environment's gonna burn the earth up, when the dollar's gonna be worth nothing if you're here in the United States, when there's gonna be an oligarchy or a non-oligarchy, all the stuff that comes out, we have a media that's so, just so horrible right now, there's no other word, it's so toxic, that's the word I'm looking for, that I believe, and this is what Tony and I believe, we've taken the compelling future away from a whole generation, so how could they not be depressed in the current moment, right?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
It's like, why do anything? And I believe that the greatest thing to even when your back's against the wall, if money's tight, when you can dream a compelling future, it is like a rope pulling you. And I would say someone who feels there's no hope, there's no way I can do it. Is there no way? I've tried everything, right? Have we really tried it?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Have we really been resourceful at the level we need to be resourceful, right? But our resourcefulness, our courage, our confidence to move forward is in direct correlation of how big our compelling future is. You want proof? Just go Google some of the most successful people in the world and then find when was their lowest time.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
You'll find from John Paul DiGiorio to Richard Branson to anybody in your generation, somebody you admire. There was a point where they were broke, hopeless, no way out of it. So many people. And those stories just inspire you, but they had to find first, before they found the mechanism, the tactics, the marketing strategy, the business to be in, the product to launch, before they found that,
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
They found a way to say, it sucks where I'm at, but someday it's gonna be so good, I can accept the suck for a little while because tomorrow's gonna be better, right? And in hindsight, don't we all have to live the hard way for a certain period of time to live the good way, right? I mean, even in life, if... you have the opportunity to do something really cool in sports.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I don't know if you made it public to everyone, but I think it's awesome what you're doing and hopefully represent the United States in the Olympics. How freaking amazing is that, right? That's gonna be hard for you. It's not easy. You're getting in shape now, it's three years away.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
It's gonna be hard to do, but you're willing to go hard so someday you could tell your children, your grandchildren, look what dad did. That's it. It is hard to go to the gym every day and eat right. But it's easy when you're 75 still playing, running with your grandchildren and not letting them beat you. It's easy right now to...
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
eat horrible, not work out, but really hard if you got diabetes and struggling older. It's easier now to say, the world's screwed up. There's no room for success anymore. I should be happy with this job I have, even though it doesn't serve me financially or emotionally, I should be happy.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
It's easy right now to just settle, but really hard to be 75 years old and look back and realize you missed who you were meant to be. It is hard right now to go, I am broke. It is tough. I'm struggling, but I'm going to freaking focus on the woman or the man I'm becoming. I'm going to do this. I'm going to gain skills. I'm going to model proven practices. I'm going to fail miserably.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I'm going to get back up. I'm going to keep going. That is hard. But in five or 10 years now, when you look back and you created something that you're in control of your calendar, your time, no glass ceiling. I have goosebumps thinking about that. You can go pick your kids up from school or say, I'm taking a trip this week and nobody could tell you you can't. Live hard now.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Live unlike other people now so you can live completely like unlike everybody else later. Yeah, that's the best. There is no magic money machine. There is no one that's going to fix it. We all are in those spots. But those that find their way out found something so compelling that it just is like a rope pulling you towards it.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So I wanna answer that question, and I wanna do that great question justice. With every choice we make in life, There's pros and cons, true, right? I heard somebody say once, I love repeating this, for every level, there's a new devil, right? You moved into this beautiful studio. New challenges. New challenges, right? Last time I was here, you had three people.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
It looks like there's 30 in there, right? Like amazing, but now it's like leadership and what's the smart way to diversify and do we go bigger and who do we take as sponsors, right? New level, new devil. So there's always something, right? I got to tell a quick story.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And if he watches this, I'm not going to say his name, but growing up, you could imagine I didn't come from money, didn't go to college. A lot of my friends went to college. I just had this dream of doing something financially better because I was running away from what I shared with, plus I wanted to retire my mom. Like if I really get to, I just wanted to, my mom worked three jobs.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
She was a badass, but didn't have a plan. Like I always think my mom was a badass without a blueprint, right? So what did she do? Cleaned houses. cut hair and painted houses for people to support me and my sister, right? And if I think of, so at a young age, I'm like, I'm doing my own thing, I'm gonna figure this out, I'm gonna get rich and I'm gonna retire my mom.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Like that's all I can remember and around my friends and I was a hustler, right? And by the time I was in high school, 12th grade, I had a firewood cutting business, I was fixing cars and selling them and then I had apartments and all the stuff that I was doing. But long story short,
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I had a dear friend and he went to college, came back from college and he's like, dude, you've been hustling like crazy. He's like, my uncle, we lived in upstate New York, my uncle runs the union, the bricklayers union in New York City. He said, we can go down there, work for my uncle and start off at $1,250 a week. We could start off as shop stewards, like managers, right? Yes.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And I want to tell you, $1,250 a week when we were young. Like, nobody was making that in my little blue-collar town.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I mean, you grew up in a similar town. I mean, mine was smaller than yours, right? That's a lot of money. So he's like, this is what he said to me as a friend. He's like, dude, I'm watching you chase all these dreams, man. That's not where we come from. We don't have money. You didn't go to college. And I'm not knocking you, brother. I love your... But let's go do that.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
We can ride the train together down to the city once a week. We can go grab a drink after. And I have to tell you, it was like, you know... Maybe that's the way, right? Long story short, I couldn't do it because I wanted to retire my mom and I wanted to be in control of my decisions. I wanted to do my own thing. I found this thing, even though I had no proof it was gonna work.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
No one in my family had ever done it. Well, you understand, in this little town, like you go back for your event, I bought a 20 acre farm in my hometown. I go there all in the summer with my wife and all four kids. We fish and we plant gardens and all this cool stuff, right? I still see these guys. I've been out of school 39 years. I still see these guys.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Just two years ago, my buddy comes to the farm. Same guy. Same guy. And he's such a sweet guy. Still sweet. And he said, hey, I want to tell you something. I said, what? He goes, you know, we're proud of you. I said, oh, good. I don't talk about anything, Lewis. I don't, I mean, I fly there on my plane. They would never know I have a plane. They would never know.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I'm always like, ah, things are going okay out in Arizona, right? I'm not gonna- Working hard. Yeah, like just working hard kind of thing, right? So he's like, I tell you, we're proud of you. I'm like, ah, thanks, man. He goes, no, no, no, seriously. He said, I gotta tell you something. He goes, I thought you were insane.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
He goes, I thought you were nuts. You didn't take the opportunity to go down the city. I did, and you became a manager. Did well for himself. He said, but I gotta tell you, I see it now. I see all of it. I'm like, what? He goes, I missed it. Wow. I'm like, I missed it. I said, missed what? He goes, I got up before his two boys. He said, I got up before they woke up to go get the train.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I got home and they were asleep for 20 years. Oh, man. He said, they're in college, Dean. And I can get emotional because he said, he looked at me, he goes, I missed it. Wow. And it just made me realize whatever choice you take, there's resistance, there's pressure, right? So all I know is I went, I just went a different, not that his life wasn't hard, but yes, I looked like a fool.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Yes, I did things. I went against what the percentages, most businesses aren't supposed to make it. I didn't start with money. I didn't have a college degree, but I found this thing in me. My mom was the first thing that I just kept moving forward. So when you say, how do you get out of it? Can you picture yourself at 90 years old or 80 years old or 60 years having that conversation with somebody?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Do you want to go? I missed it. I wish I would have at least tried. Even though my back was against the ball, money was tight. People thought I was crazy. I found a compelling future and I went for it. I'd rather like the man in the arena quote. I'd rather get to the end and go. I tried like crazy. And even if it didn't work, at least I know I gave it all. Yes.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And in the best outcome, I tried everything, even though I failed a lot. I lived into who I was meant to be. And that's the best thing I can say is there's no easy route. We're here. But I'd rather take the route that gives me the opportunity to be me.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, this is getting juicier now. This is getting juicier now.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
If you would have said in your 20s, at this age, you would pursue it, like never happen. But the thing is that... your compelling future is so big. And it's pulling me. It's pulling you, right? I have to tell you, one of the things, as you said, first off, I'm so freaking happy all these things aligned.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Because now if you feel you're good enough and you make the team, you get to play in the Olympics. If I stay on the team. I give you my word, I will be there. You're going to look up in the audience and I'll be the streamer, right? I tell you, I had the chance to get close with Matthew McConaughey. We did a fun event together and all that stuff. And he's become a dear friend.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
He's such a great guy. But he had one that's really similar to this, I think. A dream. No, just a thing that he thinks through. Oh, the 10-year self in the future? The whole Greenlights was about looking at his 30 years of journaling. And what he realized when he was going through all the journals that he had, that's where Greenlights came from, is there was one thing. He had...
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
The fear of not knowing, we called it. So whenever there was something that was in his heart, not knowing if he could have made the team, not knowing if he could have started the business, not knowing if he could have got out of debt and finally did the thing you're passionate about, then not knowing would eat him up. Yeah, I can't do it. If you talk about like, he tells such great stories.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
He was talking about being in Africa when he just put a backpack on and went to Africa and went into a tribe and he ended up fighting the, I don't know if you remember reading the book, but he fought the village fighter, the big guy. And he said, he's in a little tent, putting like a loincloth on, gonna fight this guy and it's 300 pounds. And he said, they asked them to fight.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
He's like, I was in there thinking I'm not gonna do this, but I'll never know what it's like to fight this guy. And he said, you never know what's on the other side of the fight, right? And he said, I just was in there going, you're going to be mad at yourself if you don't do it. So he went out there and he said he lasted as long as he could.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
The guy beat him, but he said he lasted way longer than he thought. And they gave him a nickname, something scrappy white guy. He said the next day in McConaughey style, as I put my backpack on, I was going to walk 35 miles to the next village. He said, when I woke up that morning, Rene, his name was. He goes, Rene, the guy he fought, was waiting for him. And he walked the whole 35 miles with him.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Wow. And he said, when he left, he gave him a hug and like respect. And he said, that's why I was supposed to fight him, to have this connection. Then he went back to the tribe 20 years later and he walked him again.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
and he just was using that as an example, but he was talking about so many things came out of that with the tribe and what he did and how he feels connected to Africa and all these great things. He goes, I wouldn't have known. And I think that's, I don't want to take it in a light area because some people do have their backs against the wall. Of course.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Don't you have a fear of not knowing living into who you're meant to be? Like, I feel like we all have this person we are and this person we could have if there was no constraints. Yes. So why not just work on the constraints and be bold enough to just go after it, right?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But I think we also, I think we're a little bit, and maybe this would go down a whole nother road, but I think we're a little bit programmed. Like we're kind of standing in line. A lot of times we got to get good grades. We got to do the right thing. Got to get into the right school. Got to get the job. We should be absolutely grateful for the thing.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And thank God there's people that are in careers, right? You have amazing employees. I have hundreds of amazing employees. Thank God for them, right? But if you're called for more, I think it's so far out of the norm. Like I love that video that went viral about three years ago. When you see the guy, it's like a Coachella type place and the guy goes dancing in a field that's like kind of a hill.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Did you ever see that? I'm not sure. He dances out there by himself for like 10 minutes and everybody's like, you can see everybody looking. But finally the second guy goes out, still no one, but it took the third guy. And then all of a sudden there's 10,000 people dancing, right? Yeah.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
we never want to be the first person dancing in our family, even though we may have been called to be that crazy dancer, to be the rebel. It's like when you go after and do something different than the norm, you are the crazy one until you're not.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And then all of a sudden it's like, it goes from, oh my God, that's so crazy, to I can't believe that's happening, to wow, did you see that, to hey, I used to know Lewis. There's this crazy evolution. So I think it's really, sometimes we're programmed to stay on the path and it feels like we're stepping off the path a lot when we do something outside the norm. And that's always hard to do.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Oh, man, that's a good one. Acting rich and actually rich.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
You know, there's a certain level of wealth where, at least the people I get blessed to be with, that it flips completely from making it to how to give it back. And usually, and you can call this karma, God, goodwill, I've watched so many people get to that point and when they start obsessing on ways to give back, their businesses exponentially grow. It's just crazy.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I've been thinking about this a lot lately and why I'm in this phase of my life that I wanna give back more. I love that I get to make more, I'll just give more away. But one is the heart kind of shifts from what can I do to who can I serve. That's at least people I get to be around, that's number one. Number two, the ones that keep going,
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
always, we talked about earlier, but they just replace the hunger. If one was to get out of being broke and now they own a billion dollar company, then how do I serve more, do more, be more? How do I grow as a human? Like there's, there's a term I've been using lately. It's a thought process is like, there's a whole bunch of people. We have a group you're coming to in July.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
We have a group of people that we get together a couple of times a year, very successful people. And it's the type of people where when everybody looks at him, they go, oh, he made it. He's the top, got everything, she made it, she's the top.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But when they look in the mirror, they know there's another level and it could be another level of contribution, another level of finally loving someone else or maybe loving themselves, another level of service, right?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So it's, there's this transition that happens of like, hey, it's time to be, maybe what we talked about earlier, money's out of the way, time to be a better version of me, leave the world a better place. And you also see on the way up, like this is the stuff that's obvious, is from the cars and the flash and kind of the The positioning and how you position yourself.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
When people get to a certain level, it's almost they regress back to who they were when they started. How so? What do you mean? Like, simple. Very simple. I mean, if I think of the wealthiest people I know, we do simple stuff.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Yeah, we do simple stuff. Go fly fish or go to a pizza restaurant because we haven't had pizza in a while. You know, it's like, it's a really good question. I'm going to think about that one more, but it's, And I could just be lucky with the people I surround myself with, very humble. You find very... you realize there's another time you realize it's not us.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Like, I think as you're doing things like I have to conquer this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, my podcast, I'm not saying you are. And then you get to a certain point, you realize I never could have got here without the collection of everything.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Whether that's my beliefs in God or spirituality, the team that worked around me, the parents who did their absolute best to put me on this earth, the past relationship that even though it went bad, it taught me to be a better man. Like you start realizing that God of the universe put all these things in place, even the struggles.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And then for me at least, I'm gonna just share with me, I'm starting to appreciate all the things I went through because if they weren't all collectively added up, I wouldn't be who I am today. And maybe for the first time in my life, I really love who I am today. I love the husband I am to my wife. I love the father I get to be to my kids. I love the friendships that I have in my life.
The School of Greatness
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I didn't always feel that way. And maybe it's because I'm really grateful that everybody had a part in like raising me, even the relationships that went sideways.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Not to oversimplify it, but it's gratitude. And I hope that all of them feel that they find this place. Sometimes... we need to look in the rear view mirror because there's always a bigger jet and a bigger house and a bigger yacht and a bigger vacation. There's always bigger. It doesn't matter what you do, there's somebody who's got more.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And if you have envy in what someone else has, there's no way to find peace in your heart. And for me, and I don't know if it was Tony, Or somebody said at one point, whenever you're feeling that way, just look in the rear view mirror and see how far you've come. And look at the culture of progress that you've had from where you were.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And there's no way you can't be grateful because where you came from, you're further than 99.9% of the world. But if we look at the bigger we get in our ego, we're chasing. I heard somebody say once you're chasing a sunset, but you're running east forever. You're just gonna chase something that doesn't exist. You're chasing the ideal perfect version of yourself when really you've done so much.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
You know, I have a, in one of the groups, I go live every Monday for just like five minutes. I kick off a Monday in one of the groups that Tony and I have created, right? And I start off every call saying, this group, we are a culture of progress, not a culture of perfection. and not a culture of comparison.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Because comparing yourself to the perfect version of you, I should be in better shape, I should listen a little more, I should work a little harder, I should make a little more money, can only depress you. Or saying, damn, look at Lewis. He's got this, he's got school grades, his book's a New York Times bestseller. Lewis is doing this, I try. So if we...
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
don't focus on our progress we focus on perfection it messes us up and if we focus on comparison it messes us up so the only thing we have to focus on if we can is our own progress if you're a better version today than last week last month last year then we're moving forward some people move a little slower some people move a little quicker some people move too fast here's the other thing that you don't get most of the people that you and i'm not saying you feel this way that you see
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
In your life, you get to interview so many great people. A lot of them are 10, 15, 25 years old. Yeah. Dude, you are on such an incredible journey of, I mean, I watched your transformation of the man you are and watching your love when you're now amazing wife in this journey. Like you're one of the richest people I know.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I mean, would you replace, would you take a billion bucks to get rid of that and be unhappy? No. You're so wealthy.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I've never met you without a smile. And this is not for you, but I'm hoping somebody else. I've never met you without a smile, without an open hand saying, what can I do for you? And so we just got to remember to look in the mirror at ourselves and look in the rear view mirror of what we've accomplished. And I think that just helps us in the present.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I love the way you frame that.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Really great question, and it's so awesome to be here with you again. So you said what I love about the question, because you've been doing this for so long and you understand both sides, that one doesn't work without the other, meaning the outside doesn't work without the inside.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
My intuition says you have to try to eliminate a lot of the noise on the outside. Yes, so good. If you just watch the news, I went 20 years, most of the 20 years, haven't watched the news. But I've watched it once in a while recently because so much crazy stuff is going on.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But if you think, when we were watching this, it was a couple of Mondays ago, the market fell really hard. And it was, the sky is falling, it is over. everything's going to hell in a handbasket. It's the beginning of the end.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And a couple of days later, there was an announcement and it went back up and everybody's bullish. It's going to be great. In fact, it's going to be higher than ever before. Yeah, yeah. I think we have to watch. We have to protect the inside. We have to... You know, today, so many things we talked about today, Lewis, people have heard before they've done, but it's like a gym.
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You got to go work out every day. You got to be in the gym doing the exercise. You got to do the personal development workout on your mind because you got to create an invincible inside because you... we can't let the outside temperature control who we are. Because if we do, it's like, I'm gonna sell everything on Monday. No, I should hold it. Like we're reacting rather than being in control.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And we can't be in control of the outside world, but we surely can be in control of our emotions. And I think we have to do whatever it is to give ourselves a sense of calm, a sense of peace.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And if it's not watching the news, if it's focusing on us, if it's gaining the skills, if it's finding somebody who's doing what we're already doing and modeling proven practices, it's kind of a compilation of everything we talked about. If you have an incredible, compelling future. You know, one of the things I've been working on a lot this year
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And it's helped me a lot because I get to help run Tony's main company, which I don't run it as much as I used to, but I'm always there for him. I ran it when he had to switch from in-person to virtual. When the world shifted, he was an in-person company. And then my company, it's hundreds of employees between the two.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And I want to be the best leader I could be to help them be happy with what they do and take this company to the next level. So I geeked out on a whole bunch of leadership and culture books in 2024. So I could go into 2025 with a new sense. And out of everything I read, here's a couple of things that I think can help all of us. And I draw it as like a pyramid in my head.
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I could give the most tactical thing in the world to thrive in a down economy, but if the inside is insecure, if the inside, you know, your confidence goes down, you're playing a little scare, then you don't make the moves in the first place, and it's self-fulfilling. I tried that, it didn't work, but you really didn't go all in. You know, I...
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But we have to think of, now this just sound common, but you have to think of a goal, but not just a goal. You have to think of the goal that can actually move the needle in your life. Like what is the main goal? Like if I'm looking in departments of my company, I go to a department, I say, what's your goals? And they give me six or seven.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
If you have six or seven different goals, you got none because you can't focus on all of them. If you're focusing on seven things at once, it's like a bunch of turtles kind of crawling across the desert. This one moves up, oh no, I don't have time, I gotta work on this one. Oh, I gotta go work on this one. You work on multiple things, you think you're multitasking, you're going really slow.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So how I describe it to my team is let's collapse those into the most important one first and turn it into a rabbit and keep going until it's done. And then when that's done, come back and grab the next most important one. People think they can multitask. We can't. It's like having six projects at home. You got the outside, you got the lawn, you're building this little craft.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
You got six of them going. Weekend comes like, which one should I work on? Sometimes you go, there's too many of them to work on, none of them. Yeah.
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And then piles up. So condensing your goal. To one goal. To one goal.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And... I would consider, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, is how do you stretch the goal? How do you make the goal bigger than you could ever imagine? And why I say that is because when you make the goal bigger than you could ever imagine, it stretches your brain to think about things you've never thought about before.
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So if I have a department that's doing 10 million a year, if I say, guys, next year, I want you to get to 10 million, 100,000 bucks, your brain goes, how do I fine tune? How do I adjust? How do I tweak? How do I make it a little bit better? If I say, hey guys, we're going to 20 million next year, but we're 10. going to 20.
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I don't expect the team to get there, but they're going to come back to me. I got an idea. We can outsource this. We can use AI. And I'm already doing it. I'm watching my departments come back. And the team members come back with these incredible big ideas. And some are brilliant. But a 5% lift, they were just polishing what they have.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So maybe in your personal life, you have to set a goal so big that it makes you think outside the box. It's not just polishing the career you have. It might be a complete disruption. Right? So set a goal that scares you, right? But then after that, if you draw a line underneath, and I appreciate you doing this, is the next part is what are the constraints? I think it's just a different one.
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What are the constraints holding you back from achieving that goal? Right? So in different team members, it might be, hey, I'm lacking a team. I'm lacking the right AI. I'm lacking the right person. I need to hire more people.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But if you understand the constraints, and here's how I told them, if you have 10 things you're working on and each of those things have three problems, you've got 30 problems to solve. No wonder you're not getting anything done. But if you got one thing and said, hey, I want to build a sales floor. Great. What's the biggest problem? I don't have a sales manager. Great.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
if you Google it, you probably know this, that Fortune 500 companies, did you know the majority of them were started in a down economy? Really? Or in a recession. Wow. And I try to really, I thought through what that is. I've been thinking through a lot of this because I've been in business long enough to be, this is my third time in possibly a recession, right? Or possibly a shifting economy.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Let's go work on a sales manager. I don't have a team, great, let's go build a team, right? Like you can break it down in these chunks and once you understand the constraints, then all of your focus should be solving one at a time. Back to that one, one goal, they stretched, now what are the problems I have? And start chipping away at the constraints.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And as you chip away at the problems or the constraints, what will arise is the strategy, right? If I solve this, then there's a path to keep moving forward. So first one is a goal that moves the needle and you stretch it, make it impossible because think outside the box. Number two, what are the constraints holding you back to achieve that goal?
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It could be somebody like, I finally want to start my own business, but I'm scared. I got the wrong mindset. Great. Listen to Tony Robbins or somebody listen to Lewis Howes, like read something, inspire, surround yourself. Great. I got the mindset. What do I do next?
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Search out industries that are exponentially growing that feel like you could do it right like that's your constraints Then you know what to do next the third though is really important than most people do is you need to measure your progress None of us would play again. You wouldn't would you play in the Olympics if they didn't keep score?
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
What would be the reason?
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Even when my son was six years old and they wanted to give participation trophies, I explained to him, I don't think that's good, kids. I want you to feel what it's like to lose because we need both sides of the coin. We need the yin and the yang, the wins and the losses. If you don't measure your progress, you'll think you're working hard and not getting anything done.
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When in most cases, if you're working, you're making great progress. You may not be where you want to be, but you're making progress. So the third one is you have to measure. You might say, hey, I'm gonna quit the job I hate and start my own thing. If you measure, it's like, hey, I've read three books. I feel more positive. I looked into two different businesses. I've done this.
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You're making progress and you're measuring. So you can go, no, no, I'm not standing still. And then the last one, the fourth one, and the most important is gotta set a deadline. This is the part most people don't do for ourselves. It's gotta be an absolute deadline. This is gonna be done by this time. I don't know many people that miss deadlines.
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but I know many people who procrastinate for years because they didn't set one.
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Right? So if I, my daughter reminds me of me so much. If her deadline is Wednesday, second period for an essay she has to write, she's writing it at midnight on Monday, on Tuesday. Like for sure. Or maybe first period. Or maybe first period. That was me on the bus ride there. The hope in the person next to you that you could copy it.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But why is my daughter up at midnight getting it done is because she has a deadline. People say some people like to work with the deadlines. It's like every successful person I know needs a deadline. So goal that stretches you, that's a singular goal or just a couple. What are the problems holding you back? Solve them, then the opportunity will expose themselves.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Measure that you're making progress and set yourself a deadline. Those things have changed my life in 2025. I've had employees for almost 40 years, but this one exercise is a game changer.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And why is that? And first off, I believe, One is when things, when you have a little bit of insecurity, if you have a little bit of imposter syndrome, what you call it today, is a little bit of doubt, that gets magnified by the outside world, true? You watch the news and say the dollar could disappear, tariffs are gonna ruin the world, inflation's gonna go through the roof.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Yeah, there's a bunch. I'm going to give you two really quick, and I'll go quick, so maybe we get to a couple more of your questions. One is, when COVID happened and there were so many shifts in this company, I went over to the company as his brother and friend to convert from an in-person company to a virtual company. We built virtual studios and all that stuff, right? Yeah, that's amazing.
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And I was working really fast to get things done. And so many of these things, him and I, I've been in the same business as him. I've been in 30, he's been in 45. So I could see it really clear. It'd be like me starting a podcast tomorrow, knowing nothing. You come in and go, Dean, do this, do this, do this. Not that camera. And don't do it. And make sure everybody's outside the room.
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And here's the temperature. Everything, right? Here's how to market. Here's how to talk to people. Here's how to get good guests, right? So I went over to go, to virtual that I had been doing forever, I was being very efficient, right? So I was like, let's get this done. Let's get this done. Let's get this done. Tony calls me out of the blue one day and says, brother, you are killing it.
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Thank you. I owe you a debt of gratitude. We talk almost every night. But he said, I got to give you a little advice. You okay with it? I'm like, absolutely. He said, you're being incredibly efficient, but you're not being effective. I'm like, what do you mean by that? I'm getting so much done. He goes, no, no, no, you're going fast.
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He said, but in your desire to go fast, you're forgetting other people's emotions. You're like a stepdad. You just came over.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
He said, to be effective, you got to work on the human condition and build relationships. And it hit me immediately, him and I talking like code, but it hit me, I was building plans and I wasn't bringing people into the plans.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Once I got that, I'm like, oh, if I create a new sales plan, say, not that it needed it, but if I had a new sales plan, instead of me saying, hey, I crafted this, I'm like, hey guys, I have this plan, but I'm sure there's holes in it. I'm sure I'm missing stuff. Could you guys co-author it with me and help me make this plan better? And then everybody's a part of it.
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And I got what he meant by being effective. That's what an effective leader is. That's how you do it with your family, your kids, even in the mirror or your spouse to get her on board or get him on board for what you want to do. That was number one. And number two, Tony truly is who you see is who he is. offstage completely.
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And I've always felt that way, but I realized how much easier life is to be one person. One person at church, one person to your wife, one person with your friends, one person when you're out alone, person when you're traveling. One person is like, it's like the biggest exhale in the world.
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All the things you hear, if you already have some insecurities, then what do you do? You back up into the goal and go, I should just protect what I have. You played sports your whole life. Can you win games if you're just playing goalie? Now you got a score, right? So if that's the case, then we have to identify.
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Yeah, so it's called, this year we're calling it Thrive in 2025. And with all the shifts and the craziness going on in the world, people need a foundation. Yes. So I'd say who is it for? It's anybody that's unfulfilled in their current career or maybe started a business and they're working harder in the business but not actually making money. Yeah. So a lot of people have done that.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Somebody who's been waiting on the sidelines. You know what it's for? I said this about my mother before. It's for bad without a blueprint. And somebody that knows they're meant for more, but they're not quite sure what to go. We talked about in a shifting time, three things, make sure you're in an industry that's growing, model proven practices, and then keep taking uncomfortable action.
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So on May 15th, 16th, and 17th, about three hours a day, we're gonna pull back the curtain and show a model on how to be in the industry. Well, you're in and I'm in, is how to take your life experience, a skill, a passion, something you learned,
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and be a creator and turn it into a product, turn it into an information product, a knowledge product, whether that's a membership, a community, a coaching program, create a course, write a book. Over three days, we're gonna show you why this industry, why now, why it is absolutely primed. It's at a billion a day, head towards a trillion a year. This industry's on fire.
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and it's growing by regular people. It's not just Tony and Lewis and Dean and people that you know. People want to learn from somebody who's a chapter ahead, who've already experienced what you've done. If you're in a job for a year and somebody's starting on day one, you're a year ahead. They'd love the condensed time.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So over three days, even if you never thought about it, we're gonna show you how to identify what you should create, then how to package it, then how to sell through service, how to get followers, and man, it's turned into a movement. This is gonna be our, it's gonna be between the two, we do two a year, two different ones. One is personal development, one is this. This is our seventh one.
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We've averaged about 800,000 people per event in over 100 countries, and it's become a movement.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I don't think there ever has been a better time in history, and I mean that, I don't say that every year, than right now to see you are enough, you know enough, and if you have the right plan, you can accomplish anything. So that's what we're gonna do.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
It's thrive750.com.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Thrive750.com.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
What I should say is I think those companies did well is because most people sit on their hands. That's what I wanted to say, because the insecurities hit and you go, probably not the time to start my own thing. Probably not the time to hire that COO. Probably not the time to start my coaching business or really. No, not now. But those that have.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Yeah, and what's cool about... If you think why most businesses fail is because they don't have the blueprint or the guide, right? They don't have somebody saying, no, no, no, Lewis, don't go that way. I've been down that road. You go off a cliff, go this way. No, you can, like the accountability, the capabilities.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And that's what we're, I mean, especially now with all the changes going on in the world, we're so freaking stoked. I mean, one of the things we're going to share and let people work with it, use it as well, is we built an AI that thinks like Tony and I in this industry. Like imagine having... tapping to Tony and Dean's brain to help you keep moving forward.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And at this phase of our live, I'll just end it with this. What's really cool. No matter if you want to be in our industry or not, you'll leave fired up. It's Tony Robbins, myself, Matthew McConaughey's coming. Our buddy Jay Shetty's coming. We've got a couple fun people coming. You're going to leave fired up.
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You're going to leave with skills, but possibly you're going to leave with your, your new compelling future and have the ability to, to see a path and a plan to, to being in this incredible industry.
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And we should, but just one at a time.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I mean, I watched you do it with this podcast, and not to start another, but two years ago, I remember you calling me, or I was talking, like, I'm getting rid of everything. I'm going all in on the podcast in one big event. I mean, I just watched your YouTube channel, your podcast just soar from...
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Right, but you went back to the base, made it incredibly successful. Now it's time to take those capabilities and say, where should I point the next advantage?
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The hunger or the passion, and we could talk about that, actually move forward when everybody is silent, I think it gives you a competitive edge. I hope the world doesn't go into a recession. I'm not saying it is, but it is definitely. I mean, I remember talking to you during COVID and said, these are uncertain times. I think they're way more uncertain now than they were during COVID.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Even you saying that, how cool is it, and I wish that for everybody watching, what a great way as we come towards the end here, or I think we're getting towards the end, When you're in it long enough and you put the work in, which you did, going from your sister's couch to this right now, unbelievable. And who you interview and what you've done is so amazing.
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100%.
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56.
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The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Yeah, really good. These are the good old days. And something that really stuck with me, and I'll make a long answer out of this, but I read the book, Shoe Dog, founder of Nike. At the end, they asked him his bucket list. One was about his son. It's one of the reasons my boys bring me here today.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
The second one was, he said, when we were starting the company, when we were struggling, when the bank called our loan, when Japan couldn't ship the shoes anymore, when our merchant didn't work, and we had to sit around a table with people figuring stuff out, stressed out of my mind, trying to find solutions.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
He said, when I was in that room, I thought, oh, when this company goes big, that's when I made it. He said, my bucket list would be go back to sit in that room and realize that's when I was alive. I was solving problems. I was tapping into my brain. I was stretching my goals. He said, that was life. He said, now I'm gonna just give all my money away.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And what I'd like to say is that I wanna remember every day that these are the good old days with my children from 18, 16, five and two with my wife and hustling still like I'm broke and solving bigger problems. I want to enjoy these moments. And like even saying, I want you to know, I still sometimes don't.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So when you have a moment like this, when you get asked the question, that's why I love listening to you. It's why I listen to your podcast when I don't see it for a year. I listen to your podcast all year long because it only takes one thing to spark an emotion and go, I'm going to spend the rest of this month every day realizing I'm in the good old days. So thank you for that.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So I think a couple of ingredients, and I don't want to oversimplify it, Lewis, by just saying hunger, but you've been around so many successful people in your life. You wrote some amazing books. I love this book, by the way. I promoted it like crazy to our... family because it's such a good book and people need to hear it. But when you're around successful people,
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I don't think, I never discovered anything completely unique about them, right? They're just like you and I, just like everybody listening. But if you ask, if you look at a couple ingredients that's a through line, at least for me, and you've interviewed way more people, successful people than me, one of them is a depth of hunger that the outside world does not affect their inside game.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Do they still get scared? Do they still doubt themselves? Do they still, like I always talk about, what do you do in the invisible? In the invisible, they're still probably freaking out. They still probably got butterflies. But when it's time to play the game, when they put on the jersey and it says time to get in, they play with a sense of hunger, like someone's gonna take it away from them.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And it's just a common thread. So I think whatever it takes to find another level of hunger in a shifting economy, you could call it a bigger why, a bigger purpose, a bigger reason, it's your family, you wanna protect them. Whatever it takes to get the momentum moving when most people are sitting on your hands, I actually think you have an unfair advantage.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And we definitely weren't taught hunger in school. I love that you created this school of greatness. Yeah, I mean, I still think of Miss Thompson in seventh grade telling me, just sound it out, are you dumb? Like, sounding out doesn't work, right? And I didn't mean to digress on that, but I love what you do. It brings so much value to the world.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So if I was going to say number one is, how do you find another level of hunger, no matter what that is? And the second part that I don't think we were taught in school is, since you used that reference at School of Greatness, is to model proven practices.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
We read books, we watch stuff, but when we go to do our own thing, sometimes I believe, we feel it's so unique, my vision, my dreams, my goals are so unique, I have to go figure it out. Man, we have access to everybody. Somebody's already figured it out. And I think that is one of the big secrets. It's like obsessively search and find somebody who's already done what it is you want to do.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Mentor with them, go work for free, read their book, read their book, listen to their podcast, do whatever you can because you're just getting the shortcuts. to go further faster because they've already found out where the holes are and you can avoid them.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Yeah, this feels like you're choking, you know That was the first time I ever shared that publicly and I and I got so many comments on that and it's it's worth repeating is
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
us sitting in this room because there's abundance of oxygen not once did you and i think about the oxygen in this room or say i'm grateful for the oxygen i'm glad there's a lot it's always there so if we don't have to think about it then you and i can think about this podcast how do we impact this incredible audience of yours how do we make sure we deliver everything we can to help them go further faster and all those things we're doing that's what we're thinking about
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But if somebody had a switch and they shut off all the oxygen in this room and started getting tight, you couldn't think about us, our friendship, you couldn't think about us delivering value, because all you would think about is the oxygen in this room if there was lack of it. And I realized that watching my parents, they had lack of money.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So when the lack of money came in, they couldn't live into who they were meant to be. My dad couldn't come to my baseball or football games or any of those things like that. he didn't find a way because money was so important. It was how do I make the next dollar to stay alive, to survive?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Therefore, he was choked by the oxygen, by the money, and he didn't even realize that his whole life was kind of wrapped around that. And so, not that that gave the answer on how to get more of it, but if money is bugging you, it just means that not enough is coming in, or you're spending too much.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But the fact of the matter is, it does occupy your brain more than ever. And now that I said that, think about it. How often is money a decision? Should we go on that trip? I don't know. Should we finally start our own thing? I don't know, right? Honey, I want to follow my dreams. I want to start that business.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I've been drawing crayons on our kids' paper forever of what this logo looks like for my business. Can I do it? What about the money, right? And when you don't realize it, it compresses so much of your decisions. then I just, for me, that I wanna fight as hard as I can to get money out of the way, right?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Now, let's talk about some ways if you want for how to do that, how to start a business, how to scale, but there's one thing I think, I may have shared this last time, but I think it was profound. So many people ask me, about success, what was the biggest byproduct of success? I get to do cool things with really cool people. Matthew McConaughey and I did cool stuff.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So many cool things, and I get invited to things I never would have dreamed of, even though I say no to most of them. I'd rather be my wife and kids. But I don't think I had the same answer as most people when it comes to money.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
When I got money out of the way, when it wasn't choking me and it doesn't happen overnight and there's no magical money machines and you don't get rich easy, all the cliches are true, but worth it. But when money got out of the way and I had no excuse of what I was running away from anymore.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
some abuse as a child, being really dyslexic. I mean, my dad, and I love him to death, he's still alive. He was the youngest of 12, was physically abused really bad. Never got help, old school Italian guy from the East Coast, rugged, but because he got taken such advantage of, he always felt people were taking advantage of him. He fought everybody.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
So my sister, who's four years older than me, hasn't talked to him in 20 years. His ex-wives don't talk to him. His brothers and sisters didn't talk to him. And when his parents died, they weren't talking to him. So, and he was a little, At 12 years old, I had a bleeding ulcer because I was so stressed about what this guy would do. Oh, man. No poor me, I wouldn't change a bit of it.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But the whole point is, all I did when I got older is I got to be successful so I can make my own decisions, make my own choices. I don't have to listen to this guy. I don't have to move so many times because he got married, divorced, married, divorced, couldn't afford to be in this house, couldn't afford to be that one. Move, move, move.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I'm like, I'm going to get successful and I'm just going to go. I don't need anybody. I don't need counseling. I just need to go. And I went hard. like nothing in my way, but right.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
And then finally I made enough money where I wasn't worried about money. I wasn't worried about my future. And guess what? I was still that kid with all the crap that I never faced. So long way of saying.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
Right. It was this thing that I was running away from. So when people say, what did money do? It made me stop and look in the mirror and go, hey, that insecure kid with those issues got to work on you, bro.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
It didn't. And the thing is, lack of it just made me want to make it so I could breathe. I could breathe. But guess what? When I breathe, all that crap was there and I had to face it. Right. So the fact of the matter is, I probably went through a divorce because of it, all those pieces, right?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But I became a better human being because when money was out of the way and I could breathe, I could focus on the things of, hey, let me forgive my father totally. Let me heal that little boy inside of me. Let me become the man that if I get married again, I'm the man my wife can be proud of, my kids can be proud of.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
If I'm your friend, I want to be a friend that you know, God forbid something was wrong at three o'clock in the morning, something was wrong. If I call Dean, his ass would be there right there. Like once money was out of the way, I got to become just a better version. I mean, I'm far from perfect, but that's the biggest byproduct. It's not the plane, the house, the cars that it's,
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I got to spend the time working on me. And when I look, and I'll end it here, but my dad never took that time because he was always chasing money. So for me, we could talk about how to do things to make more money. But sometimes what we really need is leverage. We just need leverage. We need something stronger. What did they say? With enough pulleys, you can lift the world, right?
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
With the right leverage, you can lift the world. If you have enough leverage in your life, if you're like, I can't be like my parents, I got to get money out of the way so I can live into my full potential. All of a sudden... sometimes that just raises your level of resourcefulness, right? It's like, I need to do this so I can be a better man.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
I need to do this so I could be a better woman, a better mom, a better spouse, a better daughter. And I don't want to make it all about the mindset, but most people quit because because they don't believe in themselves. Couple failures, they go back and retreat.
The School of Greatness
The Money Expert: How To Become RECESSION-PROOF Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty
But if your deep enough reason to keep moving forward is there, you'll try another corner and you'll try around the next corner and you'll get up after less failure. You might curse like crazy and quiet, but from the outside world, you're still playing the game.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
When you face rejection, conflict, when you face problems, instead of retreating, you might not love it, but you run into the fire to fix it. And people say, find your purpose, find your passion job. Sometimes you gotta get dirty, fail, and be in it enough to go, damn, this is worth fighting for.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I'm sure you hate when somebody is just hocking a vitamin that they don't even know what it is. It's built with horrible products. It's got worse ingredients and it's got to drive you crazy.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Well now, I mean, Tony's my partner now, but I look at Tony as grade A and there's so many people that was just like step up or step out. Right. So I said some things like that that came out of my head. I don't even know what I said for the first four or five times. But man, when he got to the fifth time, he goes, why is that important? Something shifted.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And this is the part everybody should hear. Something shifted from my head to my heart. It was like, like I physically changed. I felt like, you know, you get the goosebumps. And I said something I had never said. I said, I don't ever want to go backwards. I'm sitting in front of my team. They're probably like, and I'm like, I remember being broke as a kid.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I remember not being able to go to restaurants. I remember my mom struggling for money. And in this moment talking about why I hired a consultant with my team around, I'm like, I don't want to go backwards. And he's like, thanks, Dina. You're in your heart. I feel that he goes, that's real. I really appreciate you. And he answered it just, this is what he did really in a soothing voice.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Like he was, he was like Matthew McConaughey. He's like, but why would it be important for you not to go backwards? And I said, um, I want my kids to have choices. And I was a dad, you know, exactly what times now I'm emotional. I had a tear running down my eye. And all I remember is I didn't feel like I had choices as a kid. Right. I wanted my kids not to be entitled.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
The world doesn't need more entitled children, but I wanted them to have more choices in the world. Now I'm in my heart. I got tears running down my eyes. He goes, Dean, that's only number six. And you were a hustler before you had kids. So I got to ask you the final time, why is it important that your kids have choices? And I said, the thing that shifted my life, I said, I need to be in control.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And for me, not a control freak, what I realized at that moment, I'm an adult with children sitting around a team. I realized the reason I worked so hard is because my parents were married nine times between the two of them, five and four. I moved 20 times by the time I was 19 years old, right? I never felt in control, Gary. I had a step-grandfather, Leo Rizzo.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
He was the greatest guy in the world. He taught me how to hunt, took me fishing. Come home from school one day, our stuff's on the front yard in a moving truck. Never seen Leo again, right? Step-sister. Really? Stepbrother, Gus Valentino was a stepbrother of mine. We were like buddies. We shared bunks. Dad got divorced, never saw Gus again. And all these things come racing in my soul.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I realized I work so hard because I want to be in control of my decisions. I want to raise my kids in a different way. I want to be the husband to my wife in a different way. I dress in a black t-shirt every day of my life. I want those choices. And that day, so again, I just shared about me. I'm not trying to make it about me.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So good to be here, Gary.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But I would love for you, if take nothing else in this podcast, is find someone to do it with or do it on your own. And every time you think you have the answer, you've got to go deeper into your heart. And it's usually seven times. And when it clicks, you feel this, you feel it through your body. So to this day, I mean, we all face adversity. People think as you get more successful, it gets less.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
You just deal with bigger problems.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
When I hit adversity, hundreds and hundreds of employees, the things we get to do around the world, partner, like all this great stuff. I literally go back to, Hey, if I just wanted to make more money, I'd quit. If I just wanted to make my students, even though I want them to be more successful, I'd quit, but I'm never going to go backwards.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I am never going to let my kids down and no one is ever going to tell me what I'm going to do with my time. Like I still take my kids to school. I still get to ballet. I still get to jujitsu. I still go to tennis practice. Imagine if someone said, no, sorry, Gary, you got to finish that project. You can't go watch that. that ballet session of your daughter.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
That would, like to me, I'd choose death before that. So get out of my way, right? So just all I know is in times, and I'm going to keep going, but I'll share this. In times of uncertainty that we have right now, we don't know where the world's going. There's lots of stuff could go amazing. Who knows? Anything that's negative in your body is compounded.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So if you don't have a strong enough purpose and why, the outside world will control you. You'll play small. You'll sit on your hands. You'll do what most people do. You'll wait to see what happens rather than saying, now is the time. Not tomorrow. Not next week. This purpose is so strong. Nothing in my way. I got to go.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Oh yeah, we did a podcast just now.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
You were living a life that wasn't yours.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah. So I think if you separate it, one is the reason why you want to live into your meant to be whatever that is. And the second is the vehicle to get there. Right. So I think, I think they're, they're not the same. Like one is, like you found your purpose and then your why kind of creeped in.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right. But imagine if you did the exercise first and you're like, I'm supposed to have more time. I'm supposed to impact people. I want to change lives for a living or whatever it is that you want to do. And I want more freedom. Then it's time to go research and find the vehicle. And it doesn't mean they're going to hit it out of the park on the first one.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right. But again,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And the other thing I'd love to say to people is when people say, find your purpose, find your passion job. You're like, right. I think you're waiting for like clouds to open sunshine, pop out of the box. Heaven's part.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And like be written like this is, this is, ah, like sometimes you got to get dirty, fail and be in it enough to go, damn, this is worth fighting for. Yeah. So, so you really just line your ship up in the direction you think you want to go and Do the research on it. Model people who've already been there. Like, don't try to figure it out on your own. Somebody's already done what you want to do.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right. So just find somebody who's already done what you want to do. Model what they do. And roll up your sleeves. Get dirty a little bit. Get in it. Fail a little, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Confidence comes after courage.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
which I thought was... Oh, that's such a... He's a very simple... Oh, my God, so good.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Beyond profound.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But it's so true.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I don't even know what I want for lunch.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It's like, do you ever hear the saying when you have kids, you wait about six months and you call your parents and say, thank you. And I'm sorry. Yeah. I had no idea. I had no idea what you went through to keep us alive, right? It's funny, your dad's saying, there's a saying, Ogmundino, there was a section in his book. It's kind of old school therapy.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Old school therapy is don't let your emotions dictate your actions. Let your actions dictate your emotions. So true. Right? How can you be depressed and sad when you're on the move? So sometimes we got to get on the move and then we find the thing we should be doing along the journey. Just what your father said, beautifully said by your dad.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Good to be here.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Did you ever see that meme where it shows, be careful what you wish for. And it shows three meals a day, safe, protected, all this stuff. And then it shows a lion in a cage.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah, really great question. You know, courage is not moving forward in the absence of fear. Courage is moving forward even though you're scared to death, right? And how they all stack up, if you got a good enough purpose, then that pushes you to be courageous, right? And people say I need confidence. Confidence to me doesn't really come until you're actually in the game. right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
You have the courage to start the game. You learn how to play the game when you're on the field. Like the Theodore Roosevelt quote, the man in the arena, right? And you're on the field, bloody and marred. You don't want to be in the stands with someone else's name on your jersey cheering for them. You're horrible, you suck, but you're sitting in your chair doing nothing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I want to be on the field even if I fail. You're learning, right? So courage is that thing that you need to move forward so you can see if you like it. Right. And so there's a, there's a couple of reasons you need courage. So I'll try to answer both the questions. Like, how do you, what are some steps you should take?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
One thing you got to realize now, and I know we're on a pod, you have the absolute best podcast in the world on health and longevity. And we're talking about success. I get that. It's a little, but it all goes at the end of our lives. We want to be successful and healthy.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right. You're a better version of yourself for everybody.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So what I would start, again, if I could answer both those questions, like how would you start? One thing, we don't realize it, but we fall in a hypnotic rhythm. We fall in a routine.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
right what's probably the biggest thing to get somebody healthier is to get out of the current routine that they have even if it's not a good routine i i wake up i have my first cup of coffee i eat this certain thing i do this certain thing and you got to shift that morning routine is hard enough not even your whole life just shift the first thing you do in the first 45 minutes of waking up right yeah but if you can get them to shift that little bit then you go oh you got that
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
How about you doing this once a week? Oh, how about three times a week? Right? So it's these, so first off, it's like Kaizen. All shifts start with micro shifts that lead to bigger shifts that lead to bigger shifts. Everybody who starts New Year's resolutions, I'm going to do all this stuff, never going to eat bread, no more sodas, no more things.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
By January 1st, it's all, January 15th, it's all gone, right? Because it's too big. Yeah. So one thing to realize, say you're in a career and it's unfulfilling. And you know you're meant for more. I love using that term. Like, you're enough. You know enough. You could do more. You could impact more. You're just not quite sure where to go.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But without realizing it, in a career, sometimes we start that career thinking, hey, I'm going to get this career. I'm going to get promotions. I'm going to get raises. I'm going to knock it out of the park. Mm-hmm. In a hierarchy of a business, sometimes you don't get recognized. Your lessons aren't heard. Your ideas are passed over. And over time, you start shrinking on the inside.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Like, hey, nobody listens anyway. The heck with it. It's a safe spot. I get my check. I get my check. Everybody in my family tells me I should be lucky to have this job. It's okay. But then there's one day, right? We all wake up and say, I'm like, I watched a Steve Harvey interview just this morning. I was on the treadmill this morning. I thought it was so good.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
There's a day you wake up and go, enough. I need to be healthy today. He heard about you on a Friday. He was here on a Monday. I love that. He flew down to see me. Because we all get to a moment where you go, I'm not doing it. I'm living someone else's life.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And whether it's because you're let go or AI replaces you or you decide, there's got to be that definitive line and say, today, enough is enough. I'm getting healthy. I'm starting my own thing. I'm going to shift my financial future, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
When that happens, what you don't realize is the years of maybe a career mindset made you turn down your innovation, turn down your drive a little bit. And you got to find a way to wake it up and you got to be courageous to do that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right. And you got to realize that maybe the guardrails go away, but you were meant to drive with no guardrails. You were meant not to be in that cage.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Probably as privileged as yours. Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It's like the calcium. It gets harder, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I love this question. First off, I tell my kids that all the time. I'm like, don't say you're going to make your bed every day and then you don't because you're lying to yourself and then you'll get in that habit, right? And even though that's a little thing. I'm just accepting it. No, it's very true.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I like to think about it as, here's three things and then I'll give you a tool that I use, like a tool in the toolbox, right? The more tools you have, the further you can go, right? Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And we can talk about this later, but first, if you're going to, you want to do your own thing, then you need to spend the time understanding the industries that are going to be here and grow in the future, right? You might say, I would never invest in a taxi cab business. It's over, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But would you even invest in an Uber business right now when they say within two years, 90% of the cars are going to be autonomous, right? So you have to, you got to make sure you could be the best in the world, best Uber driver in the world if it's replaced by a machine and there's driverless Teslas and Waymos all over the country. It doesn't matter how good you get.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So you got to spend the time to find an industry that's growing and that we could talk about that a little bit. Number two is you got to model proven practices. We don't have time in today's world. Everything's moving exponentially. Nothing's linear anymore. AI has changed everything. There's no like, oh, in three, it's like, no, we can figure out what took three years in three seconds, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yes, it's so true. So you have to find somebody who's already done what you've done and do what they've done so you could start off where they left off.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And the third thing is you got to have that purpose strong enough that you take uncomfortable action because it is uncomfortable to do something new. If you do something you've never done before, it's going to be uncomfortable. Most people retreat. If you don't want to be the person that retreats, you got to take uncomfortable action.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So I don't want to oversimplify success, but if you're an emerging company, you model someone who's already done it and you keep persisting. I don't think there's any way you don't succeed, whether that's with your health or the business you want to start. So if I add a tool in our toolbox, like courage is a big thing to me. It's a word I use often with my kids.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I use it in my own vocabulary to myself is I want to have the courage to move forward. And one thing I think about, I shared this once. I'll always ask, we're doing an event. I'm so glad you're coming. Oh, no, I'm so excited for this.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Oh, me too. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But you'll see there's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people live. And I love, because we got this big chat wall where the chats come in.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah, on these virtual events, right? You're going to freak out when you see because you get instant feedback, right? So I'll say, hey, What is the thing holding you back from living into your full potential? In your world, you might say being your optimal health. In me, it's like most people there will have 800,000 people that are all saying, I want to do my own thing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I say, what's holding you back? It'll be things like, my family doesn't believe in me. It's kind of embarrassing. It's hard to start small. My husband thinks I'm crazy. I want to wait till we have a different president. Like it'll come in, but you'll see it like, like our data. And then we take that and run it through AI.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I know the top things, you know, one of the top things is the fear of looking small, the fear of starting over the fear of failing, like all these things. So I've taken them through an exercise and I'll not next. I'll do it in two minutes here. But I say, okay, so think about that fear.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And what is that fear on a scale of one to 10 that your husband doesn't believe in your friends will think you're crazy for starting your own thing. You're already paid for college. So why should I do right? All these things. I'm like, what is that story? Cause that's the story holding you back. Like there's, there's nothing else. There's, that's the story. I'm not good enough. I'm too old.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I'm too young. My husband, but that's the story. So on a scale of one to 10, how strong is that holding you back? And everybody will do a seven to 10, seven to 10. Like, okay, great. Now stop for a minute. Now it's the end of your life. You lived in 90 years, 95 years, and you're sitting next to your maker, sitting next to God.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
God pulls out his iPhone and plays you a video of the woman or the man you could have been. And you see this life of living into what, it scared you, but you did it. And you had a breakthrough. Then you failed three times. Then you had a bigger breakthrough.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And you watch this version of you that you didn't even, you knew it existed, but you let that story of your mom, your sister, the age stop you. I said, now I want to tell you, tell me what that feels like. On a scale of one to 10. And it's like a hundred, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand. I'm like, and what is the only thing you would say to your maker?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And everybody writes, go back, go back, go back, start over, start over, go back, go back, go back. And I look at the camera and I say, wish granted.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
You're here today. Today's the day you could start over. Today's the day you don't let that story stop you anymore because your family doesn't believe in you. You're going to show them what you're made of. Because you're older, you have wisdom, not just information. Because you could shift that story and that motivation. Because then I sometimes go back and I say, okay, now rate the first story.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And it's like, one, one, one, one. That stupid thing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Really great question. And first off, before I get started, I just want to say, same for you. I've been watching you. My wife fell in love with how you speak and how clear you are and how you give transferable information so freely. Meaning, when I say transferable, there's a lot of great people, doctors, physicians, and people out there that are helping. Sometimes it feels so out of reach.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Who gives a shit? That might sound like, hey, yeah, but Dean, how do you actually make the money? This is the foundation to have the leverage, right? It's the leverage to go, I'm freaking doing this no matter what. I fail, I'm getting up. My parents criticize me. I'm getting up. My family thinks I'm up. I'm getting up. I'm going.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Because when you have that, you can give a person with that much reason to do it a B opportunity, a C opportunity, and they'll make it work. Give somebody without that passion an A plus opportunity, they fail every time.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
impact at this phase.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah. I hear Tony talk about that a lot. I think about it a lot too. He's my dearest friend, right? I was with him until midnight last night. I'm in Florida because I spent the last three days with him and I get to hang out with you two. So what a great couple of days, right? And I'm a biohack like a madman. But at this phase is... you always need that compelling future, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So Tony and I co-founded, we own multiple companies together, but we co-founded a company called Mastermind. And we started Mastermind, we were on a golf course. We just talked about it yesterday. We were on a golf course seven years ago. We were already friends for five years. And I watched so many people.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Before we had any business. You know why? Because we started to become friends and every time I'm with them, we have a meeting, everybody's pitching them. And you see this, especially with your podcast, but you're going to have a hundred times more in the next, you know? Oh yeah, yeah. So I'm like, you know what? I don't want to do business with this guy. He's becoming my dearest friend.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Let's just be friends. Cause I was doing well. He was doing extremely well. But then about seven, eight years ago, we're on a golf course. And we said, if we were going to start a business, what would we start?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Literally like that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And he said, you know, he went to a Jim Rohn event, old school personal development, Jim Rohn event when he was 17 with his last 40 bucks, fundamentally shifted his life. He started teaching Jim Rohn stuff and then he became Tony Robbins. Really? Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
For me, I was already, I had a car business, a collision shop and auto sales. I buy Tony Robbins stuff 27 years ago. I jumped into this industry. So we just decided why not show people
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
how to do what we do, how to take your life experience, what you do right now with your VIP program, with all the things you're doing all over the world, this podcast, you're delivering value to people so they can condense time. If you model proven practices, it could take you 10 years to figure it out on your own. I'd do what Gary did. I could do it in a year, right? I could do it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Tony took 40 years to do it. I could do it in two, right? So we decided why not create a company that pulls back the curtain and shows people that their life experience might be the most valuable asset you own. So then we said, this will be our passion project. We'll show people what we learned. I have 28 years. He has 48 years. We had 76 years of combined in this industry.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
We're like, we'll show people. You don't realize it, but the skill you have at work, it's valuable. The mess you went through and you're on the other side, it's valuable. the passion you have that you learned so much about somebody starting day one on the passion. Yeah. It's valuable because they want to condense time.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And what you're so good at is taking complicated things and making it simple for all of us to go, hey, I could get healthier doing that. I just want to say watching you grow has been a privilege and a pleasure. And we had passed each other a million times. So I was glad we finally got to meet.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So we started a company called mastermind. Now it started, we launched it and it became, it became a movement, right? Um, we've, this is going to be our seventh event that averages almost a million people. That is incredible, right? We're good people all over the world. Yeah. And I can't wait for you to be there. It's going to be amazing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But the cool part about it is it's so mission driven because now Tony's got a really good way about him. He's like, brother, you know, he got to invent this industry in so many ways and, and create it. And it's been a legacy for all of us to model, right? I get to, I've been doing it probably second longest to him almost 30 years, but he's like, Hey, when we're gone, we can't help people anymore.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So if we show people how to do what we do, we can make millions of people, armed with the tools to live a fulfilled life, to live into their full potential, an industry that's always going to keep growing. He found a way to make it about a legacy, about impact. And the byproduct is the company's growing exponentially. But we get up every day. Again, I said that to you, you work like you're broke.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Tony and I were joking. We both work like we're broke. Same here. Because now he's like, we got more things to do. And the byproduct, you know, he fed a billion people in eight years. 1 billion people. Provided 1 billion meals through Feeding America. He wanted to do it in 10. He did it in 8.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
A billion meals.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I don't know another human being. Somebody fed him when he was a kid at Thanksgiving when he had nothing. And it just left this lasting impression on him. But the things that he gets to do, right? You asked what drives me.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
brother there's a lot of people with money they go wherever they want there's a lot of people without money they lost their houses they lost everything they can't even afford an airbnb yeah he's like what are we gonna do we like he takes what are we gonna do right i don't know what can i do what can i help justice he can't he can't live with it yeah and you know he donated millions of bucks then he calls me back and he says hey let's let's put another million and buy airbnbs and just give open tickets to people who can't afford it i'm like tell me where to wire the money
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And having that ability to send money like that in a moment or build schools in Africa or help kids out of slavery, all these things you get to do in the invisible goes right back to why I get up every morning. I'm fine because our business mastermind gets to show people how to start scale, live into their full potential and the byproduct, we do this cool stuff for people.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I get to meet awesome people like you. We're building a friendship. We're not just doing a podcast, which is totally awesome. Yeah. Right. It's like, Man, I want everybody to experience that. And I'm 56. Like, I don't have a lot. I got to go fast. You know what I mean? I got to get more people in. Well, I'm going to give you another 30 years. Yeah, thank you. I'll take an extra 30.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Amazing stuff. And it's a privilege to be here. You know, if I think about it, not to go too deep on my story, I'm here for you guys that are listening and watching right now. But if you think about this, there's a philosophy that I didn't say this for the last 40 years of my life, but it's something that hit me a couple of years ago.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I'm so excited you're speaking at this event. People are going to absolutely love you.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It is. And once you find it within you, then the mentors appear. You didn't even know there was all that. And the mentor could be the book, could be the podcast, could be the interview that you listen to, right? Because it's like when you buy a car, you think nobody has it, right? I bought a white Ford pickup truck. I love it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
There's 200 of them in my neighborhood. What? And it's the same way. Sometimes when you shift, when you go, I don't want to get to the end of my life and realize I missed it. Ooh, I got to take action today.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So if you don't have a strong enough purpose and why, the outside world will control you. You'll play small. You'll sit on your hands rather than saying, now is the time, not tomorrow, not next week. This purpose is so strong, nothing in my way. I got to go.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I do have a purpose. I want to be in control of my time or whatever that is. All of a sudden you get hungry. Like if you look at the common thread for the people who get healthier.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And if you're watching right now, listening right now, you know you're someone that's meant for more, you want to do more, you want to be healthy, you want to live into your full potential, live longer, impact more, just do more, right? Right. But if you think about it, most of us get hit with stuff.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
that finally do their own thing, it's a depth of hunger. Where does that hunger come from? It comes from a purpose. It comes from running away from something. Whatever it is, you use it to get that momentum. And all of a sudden, I believe the white Ford pickup truck starts showing up all over the place, right? There's a mentor. There's an event I should go to. There's a speech I should listen to.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
This is a book I should download, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And they never end. Everybody's like, well, thanks. They just get bigger. Thanks, Gary Dean.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah. Not only do they continue to come, they get bigger. Yeah. They get more complex. The one that I thought I couldn't get through is so you got to figure I, I did own a collision shop. I own Dean collision center at 19 years old. It wasn't a monster, but in my little town, I had Dean collision center. I had about 15 apartments. I would buy rundown apartment houses.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So I work on cars during the day and I'd go home and eat and I'd work on my houses. I learned how to be a plumber, a carpenter. So I had 19 apartments and a little collision shop and I bought a tow truck. So long story short, and I watched Tony Robbins on an infomercial. And I was already doing well. But when I listened to Tony, I bought his whole course.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I remember listening that life happens for me, not to me. I could use my past as the wind, not the anchor. All this stuff we've been talking about today. Foundationally, I got a lot of that from him 27, 28 years ago, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Long story short, not only it profoundly shifts some things in me, I was already having success, but I knew I was meant for more. Just like what you said. There was something, I was living someone else's life. I wasn't supposed to be painting fenders. I'm not knocking that, but that wasn't where I felt I belonged.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But the second thing that happened by buying this course is I said, wow, I gave Tony Robbins money for information. Like, think about it. It's inflation-proof. You don't have to store it. You don't have to warehouse it. He just shared with me stuff to be better, and it worked. You don't have to pay a tariff. Yeah, exactly. So I decided to go in that business. So the two things shifted.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right. Whatever that stuff is. And there's a philosophy that I've been living by. I probably have lived by it for a long time, but now I say it is, it's not your fault. It might not be your fault that your parents didn't tell you they loved you. It might not be your fault that you got Lyme disease. It might not be your fault that no one believed in your dreams.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I decided to go in that business and create a course. I did an infomercial. People are like, why did you do an infomercial? It's because there was no internet when I started, right? Sorry, I'm just older, right? But long story short, picture this blue collar guy in a little town. I have two desks in my collision shop. One is my new business, creating an infomercial on a product.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I had no clue what I was doing completely.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
back now but that was your favorite desk because i know what you mean yeah so like i have a desk with all my yeah so like somebody come in for an estimate on their car and then the other phone oh my god i gotta like this is my future right so long story short i start getting momentum i produce a product i produce an infomercial i put way back then to do an infomercial and buy media it was a couple hundred grand which i didn't have i put a lot of it on credit cards so i'm launching this and then i find a company out in arizona who knows more than me about this space so now picture i go about two years
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
working in New York and upstate my collision shop. I sold cars, apartment houses, flipping houses. I'd go back to New York three weeks being that guy. I'd make money. I'd take it with me to Arizona and I dump it. What seemed like this bottomless pit of this infomercial product company. Like I'd put 25 grand. I'm like, Ooh, we're good. And like two days later, it's gone. Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And it's like two days later, they're like, it's gone. I'm like, Oh, I'm hustling back and forth and I'm finally getting momentum, Gary.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I finally, you know, you know, the breakthrough you've been there a million times when you're like, it's the moment before you quit that you just say one more go. And that's the thing I wish everybody could have is like, sometimes we quit inches from the touchdown, the field goal or whatever it is you want to say. Right. I'm about like, can I really do this in my mind?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
The story, my sister told me, I'm not Tony Robbins. You're five, seven. He's six, seven. He's got friends. He's got money. Yeah. Like I remember all these things, right? Of them trying to protect me. And right before it's quitting, Gary, I'm starting to get momentum. And I see it. I see people are starting to say, thank you for the product. And we're getting momentum.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And me going back and forth, I hire someone who's at this time is probably the age I am now. I thought older, wiser. I hire him as like CFO, help me much as I could afford. Help me run this when I'm not here. Cause I got to go back to New York and actually make money to fund this, this whole, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I start getting momentum. There's a little money in the bank. We're getting success. The infomercial is starting to rank. Like I'm the fourth infomercial in the country. Tony's number one. Yeah. My mentor that he didn't even know it back then. I'm like number four or five. And this guy at 56 years old, never gambled a day in his life. He gambled his wife's retirement money away.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And when he lost that, he drained all my bank accounts, went to the casino, put it all on a collar. Who was this? It was a CFO. It wasn't a CFO. Back then it was an accountant. Accountant. For you. For me. Oh, my gosh. He took all the money out of all my accounts, went and gambled to try to get his wife's money back, and he lost mine. So I'm just barely afloat, right? You got to think.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It's not your fault that the economy could go a certain way or tariffs or inflation or, but it is your responsibility to do something about it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I got people saying... You're a dreamer out there in Arizona, infomercial guy. And back then it wasn't, it was like, you were called the infomercial guy. Like you want to be the infomercial guy. And I go out there one day thinking we're doing good. And he calls me and he just, he says, can I talk to you? He says, it's all gone. I'm like, what do you mean? It's all gone.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So to me, we don't have $1. We can't make payroll on Friday. We finally put a cushion away. Go get the cushion money. And he told me the story.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Crying like a baby.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I threw it so hard against the wall. It stuck in. It went straight in and stuck. I went to the floor and cried. And this is the part I want everybody to hear. The human part is all of it came back. I said, my sister was right. I didn't go to college. I don't have a business degree. I don't know how to run businesses. This is for people way smarter than me.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
This is for people who have money backing. This is for people who weren't blue collar. I'm a damn car guy. Like I remember just saying, you should have never left Marlboro. You should like all these things, no matter how much I didn't work on myself as much back then. But I remember all of those things. And I thank God that something shifted.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I don't know if it was a day, three days or five days, something shifted. And I just said, if I can get through this, I bet you I can get through anything. That was honestly a shift. I'd love to say it was miraculous. It was praying. And I probably did all of that. But I just got this thing in my head. I'm like, well, what if I could get through this?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I think those that have the opportunity to live into their healthiest self, their most successful self, to live into where they're meant to be, not settling to be, realize it's on them. Right? It's not your fault those things happen.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Like, I bet you if I got through this, nothing will ever stop me again. And just the switch of the thought, Gary, went from crying in my soup, I woke up the next morning like, how do I fix this? How do I fix this? I mean, I did things like applied for 10 credit cards at once so they wouldn't all see my credit card get checked, the credit check.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right, you can't do it anymore. Right, AI, they can find it. I applied for all these credit cards. Soon as I got them, I went to the bank and got cash advance on all of them. Big payroll. My dad had a house with no mortgage on it from years prior that I helped him get. I'm like, dad, can I do a home equity line of credit on your house? But I need to do it right now. I'll pay the whole thing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
He's like, do it, do it. He got me a hundred grand off his house. And then all of a sudden I'm like, I got 80 grand here. I got a hundred grand here. What about this? I sold the house I was living in. I sold the house I was living in. I moved into a $1,200 a month house rented down the street. I got $300,000 in equity or $200,000 in equity in the house.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I put all that in, and all I kept saying is, imagine if I get through this. And that's the gift I hope we inspired other people to see.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah, even if you just don't die. You stayed alive.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But how do you take that and make that into fuel in your life rather than the anchor? Now, I know this is a made-up story. Then I'll get to my story really quick. But did you ever hear that it's probably a made-up story about twins?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And you get more tolerance.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And then if you start thinking, what if God, I know your beliefs.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
What if you had to experience that to be the Gary you are today? Yeah. I see the relationship you have with your wife. And I feel blessed to say that I have that with mine. And I'm not saying not critical, but I know a lot of people that it looks like that, but behind the curtain, it's not. What if you had to go through all that to be the man you are to your wife?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
What if you had to go through all that to have the resilience to impact so many lives? What if you had to do that to do this podcast? Yeah, it's all worth it. Right. Then, then you look, you have an ability. I know this sounds crazy, especially if you're young, you might think I'm nuts, but you have ability to change your past. Everybody says you, you can change your future.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Can't change your past. Not really true. You could give a different perspective to the things that happened.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Like why the hell I forgot the damn sunglasses on my head. I walked out. It wasn't my fault, but I guarantee if you had a way to look at the dots, when you get to your maker at the end of your life and say, why did that happen? He's like, Oh wait, let me pull out page 47. Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I was trying to tell you to make the left, Gary. You weren't. So I made a hard right for you, right? And you're like, oh my gosh, right? Whether it's true or not, if you believe it's true, it feels just the same.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So one twin is a drug addict in and out of jail. And they say, how did this happen to you? And he said, my father was physically abusive. and drank too much. And he was so mean to me. How else could I turn out? And they went to the other brother who was massively successful, happily married with kids. And they said, Hey, how did you become so successful?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
He said, my father was a drug addict in and out of prison. What else could I be? Wow. Right? Yeah. So one found a way to use it as fuel, as the wind behind their sail, and the other is an anchor. And I think that's our job in life. How do we take what happened to us and make it the inspiration, not the anchor?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right, exactly. Thank God that moment- It's just a different, rewire, reframe.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
You know, it's like focusing on the spilt milk. It's already spilled. It doesn't matter whose fault it is. It doesn't matter if it's going to stay in the carpet. It's already spilled. Might as well get a towel and a new glass of milk and try to fix it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
The thing is, to be the father I want to be, I have an 18-year-old, 16-year-old, 5-year-old, and a 2-year-old, right? So I got a big spread there. And my 2-year-old... I got to be, I want to be here for a while, but how can I impact the world at the level I want? Or just impact the world might sound like a big, how do I live into the best version of me?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
The only thing I can do is be, I want to be better today than I was last week, last year, last month, right? So it's a culture of progress, not perfection or comparison, right? If you just compare yourself to who you were last year and you're better, you're moving. So for me, um, I don't feel I could be the man, the husband. I want my wife to look at me a certain way.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I want my kids, but my kids, my, my older kids just work out. I never asked them to, and just see dad working out. They started working out. They're both in great shape. Right? So I don't get to be the, have the energy, be the man. I want to be the husband of the leader. I want to be, and I need the energy at this age to go with the pace. I go, I run hard. So therefore I,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I need to have my body as optimized as possible. Like my next year, I want to work with you to, I want to go from being in good shape to the best of my life, right? To be, you know, the ultimate human.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah. So I say that. So therefore it pushes me to take care of myself. And one thing I want to share, I know this is, I guarantee you got the psychology on a way different level than me. And then I'll tell you my routine. But everybody says, you know, I do work out seven days a week. I don't miss it. There's nothing. I can be up all night. I can fly. Like, I don't miss it, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And that's just a routine for 30 years, right? And when people say, God, you must love to work out. The fact is, I don't love working out. And people will say, it must be nice to have your own business and have your own world. Here's what I know. Nothing great comes easy. But if we focus on the task, if I focus on, I got to get up at five again so I can make everything work.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Then I got to, you know, I got to get ready. I got to go out in the gym. Oh, I got to, today's leg day. I don't love legs the best, but I should do that. Like, if you think about the doing it,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
it's hard when i have days that i don't want to do it all i can think about is i want my kids to see by example i want my wife to still look at me with the eyes that she looks at me that way i want to live a long time my two-year-old i had her when i was 54 like i want to be here when she gets married yeah so all i do and i think about how much better i feel my clarity is there i feel more alive when i'm done working out i'm like ready to rip something open right limitless
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So all I do is think about how I feel at the end, how my kids are going to be, how my wife will look at me better. And if I think about the outcome, then therefore I'll do the work.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So it's like starting your own business. It's like, oh man, I got to figure out the first step and the next step. And do I do an LLC? That's kind of a lot. But are you going to leave yourself in a job that's slowly killing you?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Think about the two years from now when your business is thriving, when you're in control of your decisions, you're in control, like all the things that you wanted to happen. I need to focus on where I'm going to be. So the moment doesn't seem so hard. So if you ask me why I, how I work out consistently is I'll focus on how I'll feel and the things that will come after.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And therefore it gets me to do it. My routine is I do the same thing. I get up about 4.30 every day. I get up, I do a green jink and some fish oil and some other stuff that you're going to make better for me. Yep, I am. And then... I do about a half hour of catching up on creative stuff that I like. I don't look at stuff that brings me down a rabbit hole.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So my 4.30 to 5.15-ish is my creative stuff, thinking about the day, having fun, like looking through those things. And then I go work out about 5.15 every day. So three days a week is three or four days a week.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I do.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I do.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Not meditation. I would love to say I meditate.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I don't, but I'll think about three things. So in the morning, I try to think about one thing I'm grateful for. I know everybody's like practice gratitude. Sometimes you run out of things to be grateful for. Like if you ever tried to do a gratitude journal, you're like, I think I wrote everything down.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So I try to like lower the bar of gratitude. Lower the bar. Like I woke up some mornings. I'm like 170,000 people a day die. If you Google it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah. And you know what I think? I probably would have said victim or the opposite side mentality years ago. But what I realized now is some people just aren't taught how to think differently, how that they can actually change their childhood. They could change their past. They could change the meaning of things. So, so you asked me a little bit about me. What was that thing?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Like some days I'm like, Hey, I woke up today. Golden. If I'm in the right mood, that's enough. Or, or I slept good or my pillow felt good. Right. Like you gotta just lower it. Right.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
My kids didn't get up last night. Damn. This is good.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah, exactly. And then I think of one win from the day before, because a lot of times as someone listening, if you're still listening right now, you're a hustler, you never give yourself credit for the things you accomplish. You'll beat yourself up for what you miss. So I just say, what's one thing I accomplished yesterday that's cool? And sometimes it's business and sometimes it's monster deals.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And sometimes it's, I made it to jujitsu and when my son did good, he looked up and saw him. I was there and he smiled. That's enough of a win from the day before. And then I'll think of one win I want that day. So that's the little routine as soon as my eyes open up is a little gratitude, lower the bar of it, a win from yesterday, a win I want today.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Sometimes I'll also send love to maybe my mom or send somebody appreciation in the air of like, thank you for that. And it sets the clock a little different for me. It puts me in more of an offensive way to approach the day rather than defensive. Like I think a defensivist, if I woke up and looked at all my emails and I found the one bad one, I'm like, oh, it puts me in a different state.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So I want to avoid that in the morning. And then I do, you know, I drink this concoction in the morning that I can't wait for you to make better. And then I move, right? Then I move, then I go exercise. And if I do that, which I do most days, I start the day ready. Oh, you're just stacking good habits.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I just make smart. I never diet. I just make smart choices with my food for years.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I went probably two decades with barely eating anything bad. I didn't eat a dessert for two decades. Then I met my wife. And she always has issues like we don't dessert a lot, but when it's the right, like, I'm like, babe, it's always the right time for you. So last year I probably cheated a little bit on desserts, but other than that, yeah, that's the routine.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So Millionaire Success Habits is a great book. It's over a million copies. It was from years ago. It just consistently sells on a regular basis. It's a great book. I'd love to invite everybody to come to the event you're going to speak at.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It's on May 15th through the 17th. If you liked anything we shared today, if you like my partner, Tony Robbins, Gary Brekker is going to be speaking, Jay Shetty, Matthew McConaughey, some amazing guests are coming and everybody's there is going to be talking about how they took a life experience and turn it into a product.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Turned it into impact. So Tony and I believe with the company we founded Mastermind that every single person listening has an experience, a skill or a mess that can turn into the message that is valuable in the marketplace.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
If I go back to my earliest memory, I mean, for you, there has to be, there has to be a new compelling future that you create for yourself every year. You've already passed. I guarantee you far surpassed anything you thought was possible in No question. Right. So if you don't have a new compelling future, then you're just the good old days and you're not a good old days guy. Yeah. Right.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And once you realize that that could be a side business or the full-time business, and you realize the leverage of a business and industry, it's at a billion dollars a day right now, heading towards a trillion a year, they predict. So this is one of those industries that's growing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
If you're intrigued or ever thought about doing that or being a creator, May 15th through the 17th, we're calling it Thrive in 2025. It's our seventh one. We'll probably have about 800,000 to a million people joining from over a hundred countries.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
They can do it remote. So thrive900.com. Thrive900.com. I'm sure you'll put it in the show notes as well. But go register. Reserve a spot. Okay. If anything I said today was intriguing, you'll really enjoy it. It's the only time a year we do three days for free. Really? No charge. Wow. And at Dean Graziosi on Instagram.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It's so funny. Of course, I've seen you ask that question, but when it's asked to you, it's a little different. I know. It puts you on fire. I'm not prepared for this stuff.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Well, I'll tell you what the first thing came to me.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Is at the end of my life, I could close my eyes, and if my wife's still with me, which I'm sure she will be, and my kids, I can feel like I did everything in my power to be an example to show them how to be contributing humans and live a fulfilled life.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Like literally when you said it, the first thing that came to my mind is if my kids were like, man, my dad set us up, not money, but set us up to be good humans and live a resourceful kind of life.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Oh, that's awesome.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It's the exact thing that we teach. You should be doing it. You took all these years. You've failed on so many things that made you win. There's no reason other people should fail. So true. Go jump on that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It's like, you know, for a fact, next year is gonna be better than this year. True.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But not everybody has that. And it's one of the things my partner, Tony Robbins does so well. And I try to do, he does it in the personal development world. I do it in business and crafting a business and making it successful. You do it in health is it's a bigger future. So if I think about when you asked me that question, I don't think it was one moment at all.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
At seven years old, I realized my dad and mom split when I was three. And I realized probably seven, eight, that my mom was working three jobs. You don't know the difference. She was cleaning houses. She was cutting hair. She was painting houses. Come home nine, 10 o'clock every night. Wow. To make nothing. I mean, Gary, we lived in the only trailer park in our town.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
We lived in that until my mom couldn't afford it. We moved in with grandma. Right. So I remember, I don't know if I was seven, 10, 15. I just remember thinking I need to get insanely successful for a couple of reasons. One, money controlled my mom. She didn't control it. She wanted to be there for our baseball games and
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
and try to take us to school and all that but she couldn't my grandmother ended up doing all of it because my mom was working her tail off right so i realized money controlled my mom she didn't control her own life right and secondly i just wanted to retire her i mean i remember i remember being 10 years old i want to retire like i wanted my mom like i remember my uncle larry who's very college oriented asked me at like 12 years old what are you gonna do i said i'm gonna be rich and the first thing i'm gonna do is make it so my mom never has to work again and i remember him saying to me
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I remember him saying to me, well, that's a great dream, but what college do you want to do? What's your profession, right? Right. And I think the why behind you want something is way more profound and important than the how.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
If you think about it, most of us get hit with stuff. It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility to do something about it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah, great question.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Right, and whether this is leading into the healthiest version of you or the most wealthy version of you, right? It's all the same, right? So if you think about it, sometimes we don't realize it's the questions we ask ourselves. It's like, how come I could never get healthy, right? I've heard Tony do this so well.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Or saying, the question is, who do I need to model to become the healthiest version of myself? So sometimes you just got to watch the questions we ask ourselves because we can give ourselves bad questions, therefore we get a bad answer, right? In my 20s, I would say, as long as you do what the best in the world do and you model proven practices, how could you not be successful?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But the problem is you could give... a business on how to sell $20 bills for 10 bucks to a lot of people and they'll still mess it up.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And nobody wants $20 bills anymore. You know, they're kind of old. These are kind of crinkled. I didn't get a good batch. They showed up late. My wife thinks it's a dream. I don't think, you know what I mean?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
It's like, I got bigger problems to solve.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I want to get fired up over in your terms would be, I want to get fired up and upset about if I can't live to 110.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I want to get fired up about a hundred million dollar business or a billion dollars. And I'm not, I'm just saying, you just realize all problems can feel the same weight.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But they aren't. Solve bigger problems, get bigger results. Yeah. Right? It's what you do so well. So at this phase of my life, I realize that if the mindset isn't right, that it doesn't matter about the opportunity. Right. So I want to share a little something with you. I... About 15 years ago, I had something so profound shift my life. I hired a consultant. His name was Joe Stump.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And I hired him and said, I want my students, people who follow me, like yours, you would want more of your people to actually do the stuff you teach so they can actually get healthy. Join your VIP, buy your supplements. I mean, I know the passion you have for people. I see it when the cameras are off and you talk about how to, like you're on this earth to change lives.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Like that's someone you follow. That's someone you model, right? Yeah. So I hired him to come in and said, how do I get more of my students results? Because like, I know this thing works. Right. Because I spent 15 years figuring it out and people say yes, but then they actually don't do it and they still are upset that they're not getting results.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So I hired him and said, how do I get more results?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
And he said to me, I want to do this seven levels deep exercise on you. And I'm like, no, you don't have to do it on me. Just give it to me. If it's, I paid you 10 grand for half a day, just give it to me. He's like, no, I can't give it to you. I got to do it with you. And it's shifted my life, Gary. Like I would ask, why? Okay. You still work. Like you broke. I said that to you. So true.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
You like you work.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I know. I said, do you want me to come back?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But yeah, let me just say you work so hard to, if I said to you, why do you work so hard? What would your answer be?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
I get it. I get it. I can't wait to wake up every morning and then I stretch it. So I'm like, how can I get up a half hour earlier? So there's more of the day. I only say that because for you to work the way you work, have the success that you have, the depth of caring. Congratulations on this podcast being one of the top podcasts in the world. Thank you so much. Well-deserved. Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
Yeah. Well-deserved. And you're listening to the right guy. But there is something in your soul bigger than the fear, bigger than what's going on in politics, bigger than inflation, bigger than tariffs, bigger than politics, bigger than the news being negative or what it is. So they have clickbait.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
There has to be something bigger in your, your, your reason for doing it has to be greater than the reason not to. And I want to oversimplify it. And what Joe Stump gave me that day was such a frowned shift. I was already successful. I already had a great company. But it shifted everything for me because I understood with clarity why the heck I did what I did.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So I want to tell you, you just gave me a great reason why. Your purpose, God, healing. I know you want to impact people. I know you want to make this world a healthy place. I know you're doing it bigger than most people realize behind the scenes. I know what you're doing behind the scenes to make this country a healthier place. It's amazing what you're doing. I see it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
But that comes along with something that when you face rejection, when you face conflict, when you face problems, instead of retreating, you might not love it, but you run into the fire.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So I'd love to give everybody listening, if you take nothing else from this podcast, take this. Joe Stump, this guy Joe, I'm sitting in front of my team. I got about six of my team members, and I'm waiting for him to give us gold to get more of our people to do the things that we know will change their life.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
If I say, what's one thing everybody should do right now to be healthier if they're not doing it? Sleep. Sleep, right? So it's like you give them this process to sleep. You know if they sleep. You know all the benefits of it. but they still don't sleep. It's like, what can I do to get your butt in bed and do the thing, right?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So I'm just waiting for the, oh, this will help me. And he said, Dean, why did you spend 10 grand for me to come here today? And I got to tell you, when you start, he calls it seven levels deep because you ask yourself the reason why seven times. And I have to tell you, it's crazy. Five's not enough. Eight's too many. He's right on point because the first five or so questions come from your head.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
163. Dean Graziosi: The ‘7 Levels Deep’ Exercise That Transformed His Life And It Can Transform Yours!
So he asked me, he's like, well, I said, well, I want, I want more of my students. My clients have the results I got to have. It was great. That's such a noble reason. Why do you want them to have success? I said something like, I want to leave a legacy. I want this industry to step up. You know, I, it's like, it's either do better. Right.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
When I started 27 years ago, listen to this, Hala, I had to produce an infomercial because there was no internet. People are like, why did you do infomercials? Because I'm old. There was no internet. So I had to produce an infomercial, which was $150,000. And I used credit cards to get half that done. I had to get product built. This was when there was DVDs and cassette tapes
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
and booklets, I had to get product printed and I had to put it in the warehouse and tapes and DVDs. I had to hire a company to ship it. Then I had to pay $50,000 in TV media just to get a test. So I was in over $200,000 and I was selling a $37 course. Like my family's like, you're an idiot. Like how many of those $37 courses do you have to sell just to get your money back?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
All of that had to happen. Fast forward today. You could literally use AI to help you unlock your life experience to turn it into a coaching program or a course or a workshop or a monthly membership. You literally could do that in hours, right? You could get the framework of what you do. I would love to know your entrepreneurial journey. When I met you, you wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
Now you've got 60 or 80 employees and a thriving business. Yes. I would pay anything. I want to know your story. If you were 27 years ago, you'd have to do all things I did.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
Right now, you literally could go to AI for a day, lay it out, film on your phone, and plug into a system where by the end of the week, for the cost of like five cups of coffee, you could be online targeting your ideal client and making sales. So if you look at why it's been easier, things are getting exponentially easier every single day. People say to me, is AI going to take my job?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
I'm like, no. People who use AI the right way will take your job or take your career. That's all it is. It's not stealing your job. And everything new, maybe not for a younger generation, but everything new for a little bit older generation thinks it's the end of the world.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
and booklets. I had to get product printed and I had to put it in the warehouse and tapes and DVDs. I had to hire a company to ship it. Then I had to pay $50,000 in TV media just to get a test. So I was in over $200,000 and I was selling a $37 course. Like my family's like, you're an idiot. Like how many of those $37 courses do you have to sell just to get your money back?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
All of that had to happen. Fast forward today. You could literally use AI to help you unlock your life experience, to turn it into a coaching program or a course or a workshop or a monthly membership. You literally could do that in hours, right? You could get the framework of what you do. I would love to know your entrepreneurial journey. When I met you, you wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
Now you've got 60 or 80 employees and a thriving business. I would pay anything. I want to know your story. If you were 27 years ago, you'd have to do all things I did.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
Right now, you literally could go to AI for a day, lay it out, film on your phone, and plug into a system where by the end of the week, for the cost of like five cups of coffee, you could be online targeting your ideal client and making sales. So if you look at why it's been easier, things are getting exponentially easier every single day. People say to me, is AI going to take my job?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
I'm like, no. People who use AI the right way will take your job or take your career. That's all it is. It's not stealing your job. And everything new, maybe not for a younger generation, but everything new for a little bit older generation thinks it's the end of the world.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Future-Proof Your Content and Business with AI | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
When I started 27 years ago, listen to this, Hala, I had to produce an infomercial because there was no internet. People are like, why did you do infomercials? Like, because I'm old. Like, there was no internet. So I had to produce an infomercial, which was $150,000. And I used credit cards to get half that done. I had to get product built. This was when there was DVDs and cassette tapes.