Dean Graziosi on What True Success Looks Like

But at that moment, I realized I never want to go back there, and I don't want to go back to stay in the hotel. 6. I like the Four Seasons, you know, like, I don't want to go back there, but that emotion was strong. But I went even deeper. I'm like, well, why is that important? Why don't I want to go backwards?

What strategies do you use to stay consistent to the commitments that you make?

So when I really dug into it, I love to leave a legacy for my kids. I love that we're set a new standard in this industry. I love to impact people. All those things are great, but it really wasn't what was in my heart. When I really dug into it, I realized, number one, I never wanted to go backwards. So as a kid, for me again, and I'm just encouraging to get out of here and get into your heart. When you feel an emotion attached to your goal, life changes. When you get chills, when you feel different, when your physiology change, you know that you went past the point of thinking and you're in the part of feeling. And feeling anchors in the motivation to keep going, right? So when I really dug into it, maybe these resonate with you, maybe they don't. So you can pick your own. But what came to mind for me in my heart was I never want to get backwards. Like I said, my parents were married a bunch of times I moved. I had different stepbrothers, stepsisters, different schools, no money for lunch some days. And I literally lived in a bathroom for about six months with my dad. Like all these crazy things. And that was all designed for me, no complaints. But at that moment, I realized I never want to go back there. And I don't want to go back to stay at Motel 6. I like the Four Seasons. I don't want to go back there. But that emotion was strong. But I went even deeper. I'm like, well, why is that important? Why don't I ever want to go backwards? And the next one was, and if you have kids, you know what I'm talking about is I wanted to give my kids choices, not raise entitled kids and give them everything they want. Just the choices in life, right? And I just. Because I remember being a kid feeling I didn't have any choices. My parents made decisions, and to me, they seem like really dumb decisions. So choices. And then I was completely in my heart. And the next thing I did is I realized when I. I said, why is that important? Is I wanted to be in control of my life. And that Changed everything for me because for me, moving all those times and having different family members and different schools and not having money and being evicted out of the trailer we lived in, I was never in control as a kid. I'd be in a new neighborhood and new friends. Finally not be the, the new kid that gets picked on. Finally get friends, then move to a new school, start over, move to a new school, different stepdads, different. So for me personally, I just wanted control. I don't want anybody to tell me how to live or how to dress or how to talk or what I do for a living. I mean, I pick my kids up from school at least four days a week at 2:30. That's. Nobody's going to tell me I can't do that, right? I coach Little League, I coach softball, I coach flag football. Last night before I came, I stayed late because I coached. I went to flag football, my son's first practice. I want to do those things when I want to do it now. And I'm not bragging because I went through hell to get here and I'm on the other side of it. I realized that. But it's worth every bit of it. But I want to tell you if when the partner steals the money, the relationship ends, your family doesn't support you. The advertising you are using shifts and it's no longer available. The product you were going to sell, someone else took it and ripped it off. If you just think, I want financial freedom, that's why I'm going to this event. It's not enough. Financial freedom doesn't drive you. Financial freedom is one of those things where you go, go, go, and then something goes sideways. You check out and you ride the plateau for the rest of your life. Right when you get out of your head into your heart. When I have tough times, which I still do, I still go sideways. I don't go, I gotta keep my business thriving, I gotta bring the money in. I say no, I'm not going backwards. I'm gonna let my kids, My kids are gonna have choices and I'm gonna live life exactly the way I want. I need to be in control. When I say those three things, it literally sparks me to push through harder and faster. How to shoot through a glass wall, I would dig a tunnel. I'd do anything I could because I'm not going to let any of those fail. So I know life gets consuming, life gets difficult. Time is hard to find. Start saying no to the shit in your life that doesn't empower your bigger future. The things that don't take you, they don't serve God, they don't serve the universe. They don't serve a bigger version of you. They don't serve making more money. They don't serve your family. If it doesn't do that, throw it away. Figure the stuff out that moves the needle in your life and then apply that. Why, that emotion to the things that only move the needle and say no to the rest. And that's. That's not. I'm not brilliant. You've heard this before. But people need to do it. You know, I think, and I don't mean to keep going here, but this is something really important. I think when you see some. I know I did. When I used to see somebody who's a millionaire when I was young, I thought they had a secret no one else did. I thought they, like, carried a little box and, like, they open it and, like, sunbeams would shoot shootout. Like, oh, that's it. That's how you become a millionaire. And it's not. It's all the little things. It's all the little things you've already heard that you're not implementing in your life, right? So the. The one thing is when stuff goes sideways is stack the good against what could go wrong, and it really counterbalances you. And then the biggest thing that got me through, and I. I'd love to say that I knew this. This was just. I knew it as I was going through it. This is retrospect. This is looking back and be like, how the hell did I get through all that shit is I used to say to myself, who do I not want? And I don't want to be a guy that used to be popular. I don't want the guy that used to have a successful company. I don't want to be the guy where people say, oh, he's a dreamer. I knew that wouldn't work. I just don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be somebody who tried and failed. So when I start thinking, hey, it's five years from now and you're the guy that used to be successful, how does that feel? And it disturbs me so much that it will. It will immediately have me create a compelling future. And I'll go from saying, hell, no, I'm not going to be that person. And, hell, yes, I want to be that. You know, this is a compelling new version of me. So nothing fancy other than some of it's painful, some of it, I beat myself up, but whatever it Takes. I mean, at the end of the day, it's whatever it takes. Some people run away from pain, some people want to run towards pleasure, right? Whatever it is that motivates you, do it. If you're in a painful situation, don't ignore it. Feel the pain. Look in the mirror and go, wow, I, I'm 30, I'm 40, I'm 60. This is all life has to offer. You're pathetic. Like, literally, that feels painful. Because painful will cause pain will cause action. Somebody gets throat cancer, it's painful, they stop smoking. Then, like, if you can emulate pain to get you to move, you don't want to live in that pain place. But if it can get you out of the gate, then once you get out of the gate and start focusing on a bigger future, then you leave the past behind you.

You've been somebody that's been able to build a big, build a big company, but you've also been very successful at personal branding or spending an enormous amount of time, effort, resource to getting a message. Of all the things you're talking about now, what, what lessons have you learned that may be beneficial for other people?

Yeah, great, great question. I think we have too much training on how to be a good senior salesperson. Like sales bug everybody. Like sales just bug everybody. And it's the silliest thing in the world. Sales are the oxygen of every successful company. If people don't sell, they're not successful. People think if they build the right widget, they build the right thing. If you build it, they will come. It's the biggest lie in the history of the world. Every once in a blue moon, there's an outlier. You build something and it goes viral. But the other 5 million projects failed because people were afraid to sell. They can start. They wrote a good enough book, people would buy, they won't. If people are watching this, they probably see my ads all over. We just passed 400,000 copies shipped of my newest book. It's on its way to a million copies. I sell hard because I know if I get my book in people's hands, it changes their life. But what I could share is if you can reframe what selling means to you, if you can realize that if you have something that can change people's lives, you're doing them a disservice service if you don't get them to engage. I know my book changes lives. All 5 star reviews. People go nuts when they buy my book. The only people complain are the people who didn't buy it. Right. So I'm ethically obligated to sell is the way I look at it in my eyes. But then what I would share is we are at this place with social media and we have access to everything. People are sick of the hype. I feel this is something that's extremely valuable for everybody watching. Like we're back to blue jeans. Like nobody wants to see that. Get rich overnight and hold up fifty thousand dollar checks or get a Lamborghini like mine, like, or if it's the weight loss, like take this pill and have six pack abs in six minutes. Like people are just done. They know that it's a lie. I think we're at a place right now that the more authentic you are, the more real you are, the more enthusiastic you are. You can outsell some sort of fancy salesperson. So I think one of the advantages of being alive today, whether you have a business, want to start a business, want to scale a business, is get deeper, get more authentic, get more real. Be the best, realest version of you on camera in your writing, in your presentations and your sales, and watch it grow.

Where did that certainty come from? In the belief in you? You just said, when did you become aware of that certainty and when did you impact that or implant that certainty in. I need to, I need to offer what I have to other people because I'm that certain about it. Where'd that come from?

Question time. I don't think when I've been 20 years in teaching people how to be more successful. This is my 20th year and I, I would say in the beginning I was just like, wow, I can do it. You can do it. I wasn't that smart. I didn't have money. I did it. You can do it. And then over time I realized and went deeper and deeper and realized in the human condition is we're designed to screw shit up. We're designed. You give somebody a business on how to sell $20 bills for 10 bucks and they'll find a way to say it can't be real, or it doesn't work where I live. Or what if the bills are fake? Or let me read all the contracts first. Like we've created this self sabotage. This is just my archaic way of seeing it. I'm not, you know, a scientist or know any of this, but here's what I believe. What I believe is our subconscious wants to protect us. Hey man, if you don't try it, then we'll be okay. That, that can't be real. That can't be right. So I think we break, we build all these barriers that protect us from failing and we have to fight that, we have to push through that. You know, we have to find a way to self investigate, to, to learn through our own experience with each individual thing, if that makes sense.

What does success mean to you?

Oh man, that's it. There's a million. In my 20s it would have meant, you know, I couldn't wait to retire my parents in my 20s. And I liked having money. I mean I did, I liked not worrying about if I wanted to go someplace, I want to travel, I want to go to a nightclub and get bottle service. In my 20s I can. Like, that was amazing. That maybe that's what the success was. And retiring my pants 30s was probably something different. Success to me right now in my life is just the choice of what I do with my time. For me, success is. Yes, like I said yesterday, I delayed a dinner I had last night because I want to be at my son's first flag football practice of the year for his winter ball. I wanted to make it so if he has a good play when he looks over his dad standing, that was. And he did twice. And I'm like, I'm the richest guy in the world. Literally, I'm the richest man alive. My daughter pitches in softball. She's really, really good for a 12 year old. And she practices two or three days a week. And the only person she's ever thrown to is me. So two or three days a week, if she's in the mood to pitch, I don't care. If I'm in the middle of a meeting, closing a million dollar deal. If my daughter calls and she's like, dad, I feel like pitching, I'm like, I drop everything. I race out 100 miles an hour and I catch for my daughter, as silly as that sounds, that's success to me.

That's awesome. So what is it? Is life to you?

What is life? Really good question. I think it's the, and this is a question and I've never answered this way until the place I'm at in my life right now. I think it's the, the journey to find true peace for yourself. Like I ran, I became successful because I ran away from demons. I didn't like the way I was treated. I had, I had a crazy relationship with my dad. I didn't like being broke. I didn't watch my mom. Like watching my mom work three jobs, make 90 bucks a week and feel insecure. My mom had the opposite of significance.

She had.

She Just felt worthless. Like all those things were painful to watch. And I was like, I'm going to get rich and solve all that shit, right? So I think that drove me then. Being wealthy to help people in my 20s probably would have been my definition of life. Being a dad, great part of my life, but it's not my life. My life at this place at this point is trying to uncover the things that cause suffering and disturbance in my life and solve it to. And not only do it for myself, but for the people I love. And I really believe that. Not controlling it, but I think there's. There's so many things we can do around us with other people to in turn come comes back to us. So we get to live peace in the way we want. I know maybe that wasn't the greatest answer because I've never said it out loud, but that's. That's my goal in life right now. I want to keep making an impact. I have an incredible team, I have an incredible girlfriend. My kids are amazing. But I want myself and everybody around me to have peace while they thrive. I guess that's peace while you thrive. I'm not talking about peace and just sitting hope things come to me, I go after it, but I do it peacefully.

We're very grateful to have you here. Very grateful for everything that you do for other people around the world. Any last words you'd like to offer anyone?

Just to not learn through your own trial and error. There's so many great people out there. Investigate. Don't. Just the most costly advice in the world is bad advice. It's your Aunt Edna who watched tennis her whole life telling you how to play tennis. Or your broke friend telling you how to fix your finances. Your single friend telling you how to fix your relationship. Bad advice is really costly, but good advice, really someone who's playing the game at the highest level possible is the greatest thing that we have access to in the world. My. The needle in my life has moved more because of learning from others than any other thing. So find those that you, that inspire you, those that have already forged a path where you want to go, learn from, get engaged and go for it. 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 there.