How Dean Graziosi Turned His Knowledge Into a Multi-Million Dollar Business

Some people in winter freeze and other people ski and snowboard. When the world shifts, we need to have that foundation, we need to have that anchor. In a shifting world, we have to go to where the puck is, right? That was Wayne Gretzky's quote when he was asked. He's the famous hockey player, came from Canada, played here in the United States. And they asked him, why? What's your number one secret of why are you so good in hockey? He said, a lot of people will skate to where the puck was. A lot of people will skate to where the puck is. He said, I figured out how to skate to where the puck was going. And the self education industry, which is really the knowledge industry, sharing what you know, selling what you know, that's where the puck is going. And you know, Tony loves talking about winter, right? When we have shifts in the world, it's wintertime. And I love when Tony says some people in winter freeze and other people ski and snowboard. When the world shifts, we need to have that foundation, we need to have that anchor. I hope this pandemic gets behind us. I hope people are healthy, I hope people are safe. But we don't know if it's going to last six weeks, six months or six years. So we can't sit on our hands. We can't wait for someone else to come wave a magic wand and fix it. Because nobody has. I don't care if you're a liberal or a conservative, a Republican or a Democrat, or you're just fed up with it and don't care about any of that. Wherever you are. We know throughout history of time, nobody has come and fixed it for us. Nobody waves the magic wand and we get rich or famous or we fulfill and live into our full potential. We got to do it. And isn't it liberating when you know that it's on us? Isn't it liberating when you know success or failure is on us? Right. Listen, I know so many of you have had tough times. So many of you have been let down, carpet pulled out from underneath us. We can either use that as our anchor or we can use it as our fuel to say this is our time. So I'm so excited to be here with you guys today. And I want you to think about this. Think about this. And I've shared this before. For those of you who are part of Own youn Future, you may have heard this, but I want to remind you today, when I say knowledge is the new currency. For those of you that really need to Understand this. What does that mean? It means that people are realizing that the fastest way to the end result is to pay you for your experience so they can go where they want to go quicker. That's really what it is. So think about it this way. And this was. Tanner on my team gave me this story about six months ago, and he's like, you know, it's like. It's like a cell phone. Imagine if you had the opportunity to have an unlimited amount of new iPhone 15s if there was 15s in the warehouse, that you could sell as many as you wanted over and over again, but you didn't have to pay for them and you didn't have to ship them, and you didn't have to keep them warm or cold or put them in trucks or put a stamp on them. That would be pretty awesome, wouldn't it? Well, that's really what people have discovered, why this industry is going towards a billion dollars a day. And I wrote this down, and I love sharing it. Because right now, your experience, the mess you went through, the skill that you've learned, the hobby that you love, the passion that you have. Your experience is your inventory, your knowledge is your asset. And our brain is our warehouse. And that's why Tony and I have been. Have fallen in love with. This is why it's become a movement, because we're helping people unlock that. Listen, if you're already a coach or considering coach, you're in the right spot. And this is what people are doing. They're sharing what they know. And that's why this industry is exponentially growing. Now, what can get in the way of you doing this thinking to yourself? I don't have a following. I'm an introvert. Who would listen to me. I'm not a doctor. I'm not an expert. I've never done this before. I've dabbled before, and it didn't work. I tried, and no one bought from me. I don't know where you are. You could be one of our KBB or project next family members who are crushing it. I'm glad to have all of you here, but what I'm going to ask you to do right now is don't judge your past based on where we are now in history and what we can teach you to do at this very moment. What if I told you that every single influencer, everybody who sold the course, we've all started with that place, but the world wants to learn from somebody who's been there now more than ever, And I'd hate For you to look back in six months or six years and say I missed this. You know I always talk about surfers, right? When you catch a wave, that wave will push you all the way to shore. But if you hesitate and you miss that wave, you could paddle as hard as you want, the wave goes under you and you miss it. Right? Now I want you to get open minded, be open minded today because this industry won't wait for you, but this industry definitely needs you and we're going to show you how to do that. In fact, you know I love the story again, I've told this before, but I want you to just answer this. If you had a week to prepare and you had the opportunity to spend a couple hours with your 20 year old self, you had a week to prepare and you had a couple hours, you had the magic wand to go spend two hours with your 20 year old self and you could only share on one topic, maybe relationships, right? It's time to don't settle. You deserve more. Like love is so important and so pure and these are the things I learned about love at 40, 50, 60, 70. You had two hours to spend about love or you had two hours to spend about making money or starting your own business or taking care of your health or finding self love at an earlier age. I don't know what you would share with your 20 year old self. What would you share? But you had a whole week to prepare. You created a course, videos, blueprint, you drew it out, built slides, whatever it was. Let me ask you this, what would it be worth to you today if you could go back and spend two hours with your 20 year old self? That's what the self education industry is, right? We get millions, Priceless, priceless millions. Listen, there are people today just like your 20 year old self no matter what age they are. They're starting off where you left off. They're starting off trying to figure out something you've already been through. They're going through a mess at this very moment that you already been through and you're on the other side of the mess and you could give them the bridge, the ladder, the gift of knowledge to help them get out. And that's what the self education industry is. And we're so excited. If we shift into the self education industry, I don't know where our lives would be. When you see Tony Robbins, so dynamic, what he does, oh my God, best in the world. But he started out as a kid going to a Jim Rohn event where he had to borrow the Money literally from a bank to go to the event, had no clue, was living out of his car and had the opportunity to be impacted by self education. He learned from Jim Rohn. You know, when Tony started his first event, he thought 500 people were going to show up because it was free. And like five showed up. Right. And he didn't have anything to share. When he first started, he shared what he learned from Jim Rohn. Right. We all started someplace. None of us were born to be in this industry. None of us were. I'm going to be a knowledge broker. I'm going to be in the self education. No, we all started out with imposter syndrome. A little scared, not sure if we could do it. But the one thing we were missing is realizing that our experience is priceless because we can help people go faster. The second thing, when Tony started 40 something years ago, the self education industry wasn't that cool. When I started over two decades ago, it wasn't that cool. Right now the world is realizing the fastest way to get there is to learn from everyday ordinary people who are willing to share what they know. Yes, they want to buy your knowledge. And that's what we're talking about today. In fact, you know, when we talk about this sometimes I know so many of you have been with me for a while and you've heard this, but I want you to hear it again because if you're not a part of this, then you're missing this wave. And if you're new, I want you to think about, you know, if it comes to your mind, well, I'm new or I'm not an expert. I want you to think about this. This is Nancy Lee. Now, maybe you would never think Nancy would work with Toni and I and be in the self education industry because she was an immigrant from China who when she got here, everybody said, oh, when you start off in America, just get a service job and work your way up. And she wouldn't accept that. She's brilliant you, she's smart. She had a good job in China. So she found a way to get a high level job of being a product manager and a project manager here in the states. And I'm so proud of her. But then when she did it, she realized, wait, if I could do that for me, could I do that for other people coming from China? You would think, is that a niche? And right now this is what she does full time. She's outpacing her job. I'm not saying you're going to do it and have the success she had, I like to disclaim that I but she's doing insanely well. And what does she do? She teaches Chinese immigrants how to get a better job than just a service job. And she's absolutely crushing it. She's in the self education industry. She went through a little mess. She went through a learning experience and now she has the outlet, the opportunity to use social media rather than it using you be a producer, not a consumer. We're going to talk about that today. And now she gets the impact and help people coming from China while impacting her own life and creating success. Take somebody like Lisa. Lisa had a dance studio and Covid came and what happened to so many people? Shut down, didn't know what she was going to do. Luckily she started working with Tony and I and got this process. She's like, okay, I'll just do it virtual. I'll do virtual workshops about dancing. And she did so well, started doing better than she did when her actually brick and mortar business was open. And now she not only teaches dance studio stuff that sounded terrible, but I'm not the type that goes to a dance studio. But she also teaches other businesses how to transfer from in person to virtual. She's absolutely crushing it. So I just want to give you a little example. And we have people that are coaches and they're going on to another level. People that are in this space using this unfair advantage and realizing that this is the time and knowledge truly is the currency of the future and the present. Or maybe life's okay, you're not here because you're desperate or want to move from pain, but you know there's more. Maybe you're called to serve, maybe you know that there's more impact that you have. You know, you have more to give the world that at the end of your life, when you're 100 years old, you want to say I squeezed the juice out of life and you want to learn more, be more, do more, impact more, make more. That's great. Be here, be disturbed with inaction. If you're not moving away from the pain or not moving towards a bigger future when you're called to, then you should be disturbed. But I want to share why this industry is so important to me and maybe you can relate to it a little bit. Listen, we all have our own journey. I talked about Tony's journey before when he borrowed money living out of his car to go see Jim Rohn. For me, I just remember being broke as a kid. My parents, who are amazing people, but they were married nine times between them. And my mom and dad didn't have the best relationship after they split when I was three, my mom worked three jobs to make nothing. Like my earliest memories of wanting to be successful. And I remember mine was watching my mom come home at 9 o' clock at night when I was in second grade with her hands hurting from cleaning houses and cutting hair. And she painted houses on the inside, on the side. She did everything she could to support me and my sister. She was selfless. I don't think I could get emotional because I think it took me till I was 50 years old to realize what an amazing woman she was and the sacrifices she made for me. But I remember being little second, third grade, saying, I'm gonna get rich. That's what I remember saying. So I can retire my mom. I'm rich. Back then was probably thinking I was hoping to make 1000 bucks a week to take care of my mother. And I did everything possible. I cut firewood at 16, I fixed wrecked cars. And I went after life hard. And I feel blessed. I started getting momentum. I ended up, by the time I was 20 years old, I already had bought a couple, no money down real estate, houses. I was building houses. I had apartments. I had a collision shop by 24 years old. By 25, I had a tow truck company. I, I was on my way and I was taking care of my mom. I retired my mom by the time I was 27. I've sent my mom a check every single week since I was 27 years old. I buy my mom a new car every three years. I bought her her house not that long ago. And that was my muse, that was my driver. But I have to tell you, from a lot of the dysfunction as a kid, I think I was doing it in kind of an ugly way. Ugly on the inside. You guys ever have success in your life, but you know you're not doing it in a healthy way? And then at about 27 years old, I see Tony Robbins on an infomercial. And I felt like that man was speaking right into my heart. And I bought everything he had off of this infomercial. I had never really read a book. I have never been to a personal development course. I've never been to an event. But I just said, the heck with it. This guy's speaking to me now. When I bought that, I have to tell you, friends and family in my life were like, you spent what? Because I bought like every upsell possible. I bought all of it. And everybody's like, you spent several hundred dollars on tapes. And I remember it was so long ago that I had a cassette player on my side with the orange Sony walkman. Remember the little orange earbuds? If anybody, I'm dating myself, right? And I got that. And I devoured every second of it. Like, I listened to it. I was like, oh, my God. It was all the stuff that I believed somewhere in my heart. You guys ever hear something from Tony, myself or somebody else, and you go, wow, I knew that. And you just. You feel like, wow. I'm not the only one. I'm not crazy. And it did two things for me. I have to tell you, it did two things. Number one, it released me from a lot of my childhood pain. It made me realize that life happened for me, that all those things I went through are my fuel. They're not my anchor. I changed my story. I had new beliefs. I mean, this guy empowered me. And truly, my life changed. I went on to have more success than I could have ever imagined possible. And I contribute so much of that to Tony. And I'm so grateful for him now that he's my dearest friend and partner is wonderful. But back then, it was just the guy that I paid for his knowled. But here's the second thing that did for me, and I really want you to hear this. I paid for knowledge. I cut Tony a check. He sent me information, and it shifted my life. I didn't get a car. I didn't get a watch. I didn't get a ring. I already, in that moment, I learned the value of knowledge. 25 years ago, it was so exciting that I said, I got to be in this industry. This is what I'm going to do. So not only did I feel better now, you think my family thought I was crazy before. Now I'm taking every dollar I have. Back then, you couldn't go online. You couldn't be@mastermind.com. you didn't have a course. I had to go do an infomercial, which back then was hundreds of thousands of dollars. By the time you did an infomercial and got inventory and got a phone company, it was a completely different world 25 years ago. So now I'm cashing in everything I got and using credit card money to do this. You talk about my family thinking I'm the most insane human being alive. People thinking they're protecting me but really telling me what a nut job I am. So I don't care. I'm on fire because of what Tony did. And at the Time I made money by selling cars. So I said, I'm going to build a course. Think about this. I'm teaching people how to flip cars. I called it Motor Millions. Now, it sounds cheesy, it sounds silly right now, but I was on fire. And you know when you just feel something that I hope you feel today, and you're like, I'm going to do this. This is it. I'm all in. That's how I felt. But then maybe you guys, when that buzz wore off, when I borrowed money and I started filming and I started writing a course and my sister, who's. I love my sister. She's an amazing woman. She's my big sister. She lived in Virginia. When she found out I was doing this, she drove all the way from Virginia to have a sit down with me, like an intervention, Like I was on drugs. Literally sat down and said, dean, I love you, but enough is enough. Look at what you've done on your own. And now you're going to risk everything. You're going to lose it. So I get that. And then I go to my friends. Of course, my friends give me positive. No, my friends are like, you're an idiot. They weren't elegant like my sister. So now I'm thinking to myself, well, maybe. I don't know. So I remember being on the same road, and I'm going to share this with you guys because maybe you can relate to it. I remember being on the same road where I spent most of my childhood was with my grandmother, and I was walking down her road. It's a true story. I know exactly where I was. And I started thinking to myself, who the hell am I? I'm not Tony Robbins. I don't have the money he has. I'm not 6 foot 7 and have that amazing voice and that power. I don't have wealthy friends. I haven't transformed the lives of people. Who the hell is going to buy a course on how to make money with cars? My sister says I'm a fool. My friends think I'm an idiot. I'm kind of. I'm doing okay. I mean, by then I had an apartment house, I was building houses. I had a tow truck company. And I'm risking it all. And I remember being on it. I remember being a millimeter away from saying I should be happy. And I remember just walking down that street thinking all the reasons this was stupid. I'm not an expert. I barely got out of high school. I have dyslexia. I don't have the. I'm borrowing money to film this infomercial. I'm an absolute idiot. But in that moment, I had an epiphany. I said there was two things. I remember thinking to myself. If I do what other people tell me to do, if I listen to my inner self doubt, I'll regret it forever. I know I will. I'm called for more. What is the worst thing that happened? I have to start over, right? That's the worst thing. But if I go for it. But the worst thing, if I don't, is looking at my whole life knowing what could have been. But this is where my big epiphany came in. My epiphany was this. I was thinking through the lens that I had to be the guy that shared and everything about cars. I never started a new car dealership. I didn't make $100 million in the car business. I didn't know how to create KPIs and SOPs and Excel spreadsheets. I didn't know about car financing at a high level. I started. I was thinking I had to know everything. What I realized is I was really good at one thing. I knew how to flip a couple extra cars a month, buying and selling through the classified ads to make someone an extra thousand, two thousand, three thousand dollars a month. And when I realized that's all I'm sharing, I'm not sharing all that other stuff. If someone wants to do new car dealerships, they shouldn't learn from me. If someone wants to learn how to flip a car a month and make extra money, I'm the best person on the planet. Because it's how I started, it's how I made money. And between realizing I didn't want to give up on me, that I was called to serve on another level, I had more potential. And then realized I didn't need to be the smartest guy in the world in everything. I just had to be good at showing people how to shift, flip one car. And when that happened, my confidence went through the roof and I launched my course, Motor Millions. That was my first course. Yes, it was. Before digital. I had to create them and put it in that course. It did okay and it got momentum and it started doing better. Like when I did this course, think a little different. It was about real estate. I had only done about 25 real estate deals in my whole life. And guess what? I told everybody. I've only done about 25 real estate deals. But I started with no money. And this is how I did it. I didn't say I'M the expert who has $14 billion and 47 Lamborghinis. In fact, I didn't even have any testimonials because I hadn't taught anybody yet. So I just went to the houses that I bought and flipped and I was like, hey, this is my first testimonial. Me. Hi. See this house behind me? I did this, this, this and this and I flipped it. See this house behind me? I did this, this, this and this and I rent it. And that course went on to be one of the best selling real estate courses in America for from a 30 something, 29 or 33 years. I was 30 something years old. I didn't make hundreds of millions of dollars, but I just got to be honest, going after exactly who I wanted. If someone wanted to buy multi unit apartment houses, I wasn't your guy. You wanted to learn how to flip your first house with no money down. That was me. And I feel so blessed that since then I've gone on to do so many incredible things. Be partners with Tony and spend time privately with Richard Branson and be interviewed by, you know, the top people on the planet and just do more than I ever thought possible, be a multiple New York Times best selling author, have more success than I ever could imagine possible. And it's just a pretty cool journey to be here. And I owe it all to the self education industry. So if you hear me talk about this industry with love and passion and trying to show you why you should be a part of it is because it saved my life. I owe a debt of gratitude to it. Yes, I taught real estate, I taught cars, but now I get to teach people the main thing, I get to teach you how to unlock what you know, unlock your experience. This is my next 20 year run. Tony and I didn't need to do this. This is our passion project. Self education saved our lives and I know it can do the same for you. And it doesn't mean you're desperate, it just means that if you're called to serve, called to do more, I don't know anything where you get to impact people, allow them to go faster, change your life at the same time.