A Simple Trick To Be a Better Person
Dean Graziosi shares how unconditional love transformed his relationship with his nine-year-old son. A priest in Les Miserables forgives a thief completely, showing what radical forgiveness looks like. Money solves some problems, but real connection requires something else: choosing to love people even when they disappoint you.
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What does the play Les Miserables have to do at all with success? I'll tell you. Welcome to the Dean Graziosi show. All success starts right here. Now, I haven't seen the play since I was in my early 20s, so I didn't remember it exactly when I went. I'll just be honest. I wasn't a play kind of person. I was. One of the first plays I ever went to went down in New York City and didn't really affect me. I couldn't understand a lot of it. The music seemed louder than the. Than I could hear the words. But just two days ago, I was talking to my dear friend and partner, Ethan Willis. We own a company called growth growth.com together, along with my buddy Brendan Burchard. It's an amazing company. We teach high performance habits. And Ethan is not only one of the most amazing men I've ever met. Amazing husband, amazing father. He's got seven children. Yes, you heard me right. Seven. I did it wrong. Yeah, two and five. Seven kids. When him and his wife, they go someplace, they need nine people in the nine people for reservations. Think about that. And he runs it like clockwork. It's unbelievable. And runs our business like clockwork. And runs so many other things. So I'm having a little tough time with my son, who's nine. Just my daughter. So easy. So easy to have this relationship. So easy to just communicate. But with my son, sometimes it's like oil and water. I say something and we just butt heads and it's breaking my heart. He's the. You know, him and my daughter, the love of my life, they're just amazing. And, you know, know if you're a parent someday you'll know this if you're not. That when you're off with your kids. And if you're a kid and you don't. And you gotta realize this with your parents, when you're off with them, when you don't feel connected, it. It bugs the hell out of them. They love you to death. So, anyway, I don't mean to digress, and I'm not gonna go deep on being a dad. I love it. But maybe that's not you yet. So I'm not gonna bore you with it, but I want to teach you the lesson about success. Because here's the thing. I talk about this every week. It all goes together. If I could hand you a million bucks but your life was gonna be m. And you had no happiness and joy, would you take it if I was going to hand you a million Bucks. And I said, you can have 10 million, but you're not going to have real love in your life for the next 20 years. Would you take it? I doubt it, because it's lonely. Money doesn't solve problems. It makes things a lot easier in life, but it doesn't solve the issues. The thing I love about money is money gets all the other crap out of the way so we can work on us, so we can become a better version of ourselves. But why not do it at the same time? In fact, why not make more money faster by having all the areas of success dialed in your life? Okay, so now that I went on that rant, let me tell you what the heck Les Miserables has. Do anything. So I tell my buddy Ethan, circling back around, because I respect his father, and we share parenting advice all the time. I tell him about my son, how we butt heads, and he shares with me on how sometimes with a child like that, and he has one like that, he has a son like that as well. I mean, he's pretty much got a child. That's every version, right? When you have seven. And he said what he had to do with his son is find a whole new level of unconditional love. There's some kids and this. If you don't have kids, there's some people. There's relationships, there's business partners, co workers. Sometimes they push you subconsciously to see how far they can go, and you still are there for them. You still love them. And that's what, in Ethan's opinion, and he was 100% right, is my son is doing. He'll poke. He'll poke. He'll do things that would kind of push me away. So he tells me the story of misrab there, and. And I'm gonna tell this third party. I don't remember it from watching the play. I just got it from my buddy. But I want you to listen to this. He said there was a guy that went to prison for being a thief and a criminal. This is, you know, way back, hundreds of years ago. And when you got out of prison, then they gave you a tattoo. So everybody knew you were in prison. Everybody knew you did wrong, and everybody shunned him, and everybody wouldn't give him a job, and girls wouldn't date him, and people wouldn't be friends with him because he had this tattoo that he was in jail. So people were treating him exactly as he would expect it. And then that's what he expected of himself. So with nobody treating him well, he went a Priest that found him. Again, I'm telling this third party, if you saw the play, you know it better than I do. But a priest found him and invited him into his home and into the church and took care of him and gave him food and gave him friendship. And what did the guy with the tattoo do? One night he packed up a pillowcase and took the silver, took the dishes, took this plates, took the silverware, everything, and robbed him and left. Because that's what he felt of himself. He gets a mile down the street, cop grabs him, notices the silver, knows who he is, and brings him back to the priest. This guy who took him in when no one else would. This guy who gave him love and gave him friendship and fed him, and he puts him in front of him and says, we found him. We're going to put him back in jail. He stole your silver. And the priest looked at the man who stole this stuff and said, oh, I can't believe you left so quick. You forgot the candlesticks. And he took the bag of stolen stuff and he put more in it. I could cry telling the story. Me and Ethan were on the phone crying yesterday, and he put more in it. And he said, I didn't want you to leave without taking all of it. And the cop said, you gave him this? He said, of course I did. And that man's heart was changed forever because that priest showed him unconditional love in a way that most people can't. That's a rare kind of love. But I say that to you because my son and I have been having a tough time for about a year, and I've been trying a lot of variations. And I talk to a counselor about it the last few days. I've just shown my son unconditional love, not letting him be bad, not no boundaries. I'm not that kind of guy. Still has to do his chores, still has to be polite. But I showed him love in a way that I haven't ever before. Instead of saying, hey, your time's up, your half hour is up on your iPad, I say, hey, bud, I know that kind of stinks, your half hour's up. But why don't you and I go play baseball? Why don't you and I go play some basketball outside? When he says something that's off, instead of me getting insulted, my ego, me being the dad, don't disrespect me. I'm like, wow, why would he say that? I'm like, whoa, bud, I get why you said that, but do you think. And I switch it with love, with unconditional love. I'll never be like that priest in the story, but I did it in the last couple days. I can't tell you the connection. My son and I, we've had a better connection in the last 24 hours than I've had in the last 12 months by a little shift. Would you take 10 million not to have deep love? Would you take a hundred million to not have friends and a good partnership and a good relationship in your life? I doubt it. I don't want you just to be wealthy. I want you to be wealthy, abundant, joyful, and light up other people, light up rooms, light up your family. Be the inspiration, be the light in a dim world. We are the ones that can keep this world alive because we're not looking through the glasses of what's wrong. We're looking through the glasses of what's right. And a big part of that is love. So how in your life today, this week, this month, could you be more like that priest? How could you forgive people in your life who made mistakes? How could you love them for the person they are? That no matter what they do, if they're the person you love, family, parents, kids, spouse, what could you do to love them unconditionally so they feel better about themselves? That man's heart was changed forever because he felt better about himself. He felt worthy. This priest gave me a shot. He. He didn't put me in jail. He gave me more. How could someone love me that much? You have to love yourself more. Give some more unconditional love and love yourself more. You deserve it. There's only one of you in the whole entire world. You were made perfect exactly the way you're supposed to. Now go out and crush it. It's time to reach your full potential. What's up? What's up? Hey, before you go, you need to watch these next few videos. They're absolute game changers. Hurry up and click right over here and watch them and I'll see you.
