How To Build Your Self Confidence - Dean Graziosi

What if your future, your current, and your present was designed exactly for you? What if you already had all the tools you needed and you didn't need more resources, you needed more resourcefulness? Pivots happen for two reasons. One, when you decide that moment, that day, enough is enough. I'm not sticking in this relationship. I'm not sticking in this business. I'm not sticking in this career. I'm not surrounding myself with these negative people anymore. I'm not playing small anymore. Like in those moments where our brain decides, enough is enough, like, it might take us three years. You know, some of you have been in a relationship where you knew you wanted to leave for two years. You had one foot out the door. You were planning your escape. But there was that one moment where you said, enough, and I'm shifting. That's when we're all of a sudden like, oh, crap, I have to pivot. But then on the other side, pivots happen when the world pulls the carpet out from underneath your feet, like Covid did for so many people, or you're happy in your relationship and someone leaves you, or you're happy in your career and you get fired. That's not in our control, but both ways. The end result of both of those circumstances is you must pivot. Because if you stand still, like the book who Move My Cheese and cross your arms and hope somebody brings you more cheese, it may never come back. In the whole metaphor of who Moved My Cheese? One, the cheese used to be brought to these two mice every day. Finally, the cheese stops coming. One sits there and says, I want my cheese back. And the other one says, I don't think it's coming back. I must pivot and went and look for different cheese. Here's what I know. If you don't pivot, we die. You might not die for another 40, 50, 60 years, but you really stop growing. And what's life if we're just like, right? So pivoting, to me, is a crucial part if you want another level of success. And I'm guessing if you're spending time with us right now, you're listening to this awesome podcast with David. You want to gain capabilities to go faster, quicker, shift, pivot, change your life. And there's so many different things in pivoting, because as soon as you go to pivot, you might go, yes, I'm finally going to start my business. Oh, crap, I got to start my business. I got fired. Okay, I'll do my own thing. Oh, crap, I got to do my thing. So the first thing is when you pivot, you must find ways to protect your confidence and watch your story. Because the two things that happen is all of a sudden that inner self doubt, or your husband or your wife or your friends start saying, oh, my God, you lost that job. You should just go look for a job. Don't try to do your own thing or whatever. The news that we're going to hell in a handbasket, or Covid saying all these jobs, all I know in doing the midst of a pivot is the most crucial time for you to do whatever it takes to protect your confidence. Fill your brain with podcasts like this. Read books of people that had nothing. Read books of underdogs. Read books of those that had no money. Figure out how to be resourceful. Outline your ideal compelling future and stare at it every day. Sell yourself in the mirror every day that you deserve more. Because if your confidence doesn't go up and it doesn't stay up, it's obviously the opposite of going up goes what? It goes down. And when your confidence goes down, you let all those limiting beliefs come back in. Oh, you weren't that smart in school. You're not that good with numbers. The world's going to hell in a hand basket. I don't know if we have the right president. I don't know if we have the right Senate. What if I don't have money? And if your confidence goes down and that shit story comes in, the only thing left to do is you'll retreat back to where you were.

You hit the nail on the head. I absolutely love that. And that's what I preach, the gospel of confidence, true self awareness, confidence. That's what you're saying. Like, we have to know when to pivot. We're going to go through this area where we fall into the pit, this difficult situation, and can we just thrive in these situations where most people are trying to survive? So I love that. And you hit on a word, underdog, as you have a book called the Underdog Advantage. There is no better time than now to really embrace this type of mentality being uncommon, being the underdog. Can you talk about how this has driven your life of you being an underdog? Because I'm sure not everybody said, hey, you're going, Dean, you're going to be where you are right now at this point.

I doubt anybody did.

Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, I think being an underdog seems like a hard thing because in most cases, whatever an underdog means to you, you don't have the support of friends and family, or you don't have the finances, or you live in the wrong area, you don't have the cash to launch your business. And I think we can be like, well, if I had this, I would be better off. But what if. What. Whether you believe in God, the universe. I believe in God. What if your future, your current and your present was designed exactly for you? What if you already had all the tools you needed and you didn't need more resources, you needed more resourcefulness? Think about that. Go read a book on George Washington, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Abraham Lincoln, anybody. Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King. Quintessential underdogs. They were not supposed to make it, but their lack of certain assets and resources was actually the launching pad that made them so successful in the impact they made. So let me ask you this. I get a dm, David. Probably. I mean, we get thousands a week, but I probably get hundreds a month of people saying, oh, my God, Dean, I have this great idea. We could make millions together. If. If you'd lend me the money or you would support me, we could make this happen. And most of the time, I feel bad for that mindset because think about this. Did you ever look at the crazy percentage of people who hit lotto and go broke? What happened? They had resources, David, but they weren't resourceful. Right? They didn't learn resourcefulness. What about, I don't know, if you have any friends or people that you know in your life that are trust fund kids? I don't mean the trust fund kids where their parents make them work for it. I mean the ones at 18, 22, 30, and 35. They get a chunk of money. I'm not being rude, but everyone I know is searching for some kind of purpose in their life. They burn through the money. Some of them party too much. They've been through too many relationships. They're trying to find something that just fills their soul because they have the resources, but they never learned resourcefulness. I have three children now. If I could teach my kids one thing, it would be the art of resourcefulness. Your answers lie in front of you. After four or five more failures like your next level lives on the other side of the thing you fear the most or you avoid the most. And that's what makes an underdog so unstoppable. That's why Netflix as an underdog, when Blockbuster could have bought them for 30 million bucks, and they said, oh, that little company will never do anything. Do you know a Blockbuster? Right. That's why Kodak, big old Kodak invented the digital camera. When everybody was saying, we need to go, we use digital, I go, now we're more in the printing company. No one's ever going to want pictures on their phone. They're going to want to hold it in their hand. Do you know anything about Kodak right now? These underdogs throughout time, throughout history, starting in their garages and the Bill Gates and all of them, nobody saw them coming, nobody believed in them. They were told no a million times. They didn't have resources. But why do they dominate the world? Because they learned to turn a disadvantage into their superpower. And the cool part is we all have that superpower locked inside of us. We just have to believe that we can unlock it.

That's beautiful on so many levels. Let me unpack that real quick. And you talk about setting the foundation, building the foundation with these great habits which I want to get into this next. Talking about the success habits. But and also when you say that God is your way, same for me, that is my foundation. That is. We know that everything that we're doing is literally house money, like we can serve. And you live out that service mentality, that genuineness about you. So let's talk about these type of habits. So when we talk about underdog advantage, you have to develop habits that you can be able to keep this self confidence, keep these negative thoughts suppressed and away from you. Talk to me about the success habits that you do personally.

Yeah. So you know, we all have it. Certain things I'll have to taste because I saw that the word confidence really rang a bell with you is I believe if we want more out of life, we want a better relationship, more income, change our career, launch our career. We must protect our confidence. So one of my habits is really, I'm going to go a little deeper on confidence here because it's so important, is one of my habits, and I believe it's an underdog habit, is I must be the observer of the things that rob my confidence. And here's David. This is where you'll see my brilliance. Kind of joking. It sounds so simple, but it's so true is I have to be the observer of things that take my confidence away and I have to do less of them or say no to them. Simple as that sounds. Let me give you three examples. And you go, oh shit, I'm not doing that. When is the last time you watched the news, especially in today's crazy world, and got done watching it went, wow, I feel empowered, I feel amazing. I feel like I can conquer the world. You watch the news, you're like, oh man, the world's going to hell in a handbasket. To me, if I watch the news, it reduces my confidence and I can't have that because I need to be a confident man to be a leader, to be a role model to my family, to my team, to the world, right? So to me, I've been on a news diet for a decade. I snuck in a couple of weeks right before this election and it was like disgusting. I felt gross. And I'm back on my news diet, right? Another thing is, what about when you're with that friend that every time you tell him about your dreams and your desires, tell you you're a dreamer, you're wrong? It won't work. We have the wrong president, wrong time in the country, wrong time in the world, but you still talk to him about it. Every time you have that conversation, it is reducing your confidence and making you question what you do. How about focusing on your weaknesses? Ah, you know, I'm not that good at Excel spreadsheets and doing business plans. Neither am I. And I still can't spell. And I'm a multiple New York Times best selling author. I found a way to find what I'm good at and get amazing at it. It'd be like taking a pitcher on a baseball team, right? And one of the top pitchers and put him as a catcher and then judge him, like, don't catch, you're good at pitching. Find out what you're good at and get amazing at it. And I mean, when you work on things you're good at, does your confidence go up or down? Right? So I'm only giving you three examples. In my life, I don't watch the news, I don't surround myself with negative people. I don't have anybody that calls me. I'm sure I'm holding my phone in my hand. If you're listening. Who's got a person in their life when their phone rings and they look at their screen, they go, oh, crap, should I answer this now? I don't feel like having this conversation. I don't have any of those in my life anymore because that robs my confidence. I do little things on a daily basis. I don't wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is look and check all my messages because there could be a bad one in there that robs my confidence. I do everything in my power to protect my confidence, my courage, so I can take write this word down. We all must take uncomfortable action in our lives or we'll play small. You don't take uncomfortable action when your confidence is low. Because when your confidence is low, your courage is gone. And you just sit and you wait for someone else to fix it. No one's coming to save us. No one's waving a magic wand and going to fix our lives. It's all on us. It is freeing to realize it's all on us and know that if you want that next level, one of the habits and being an underdog that you must do is protect your confidence. So whatever that means to you, what should you stop doing? Who should you stop having certain conversations with? What should you stop watching? And then on the complete opposite side, what builds your confidence? Is there certain books? I listen to an audio at least an hour a day, every day of my life while I work out six days a week to seven days a week. I got a book in my ear or a podcast in my ear. What do you listen to? What do you read? Who can you surround yourself with that when you're done, you go, I got this, I can do this. I read a 62, listened to a 62 hour book on George Washington. That guy talk about the quintessential underdog. That guy should have lost 400 times. He should have given up 400 times. If you live in America, we should be sipping tea and drinking with a, talking with a British accent. There is no reason we should have won the war here in America. Why? Because he was the quintessential underdog and he used that as his advantage.

I love that. On so many realms, like everybody listening to this, you need to hit, pause, rewind that, listen to it again. Listen to it every single morning. That is super powerful. Dean, talking about confidence, literally what I coach NBA players on, that's the foundation of these high level, high performing athletes is all confidence. And you just hit on there too is confidence through comparison. As most people will think comparing is a bad thing. But if you compare yourself, hey, George Washington did it or so and so did it, I can do it as well. And people can find that in you, which makes it like it's amazing seeing you as an underdog, finding confidence that you've done it, we can do it too. So I absolutely love that. Thank you for that point. Just hammering in on confidence. So important we protect it right now. And Dee, what juices you up in the morning? You're so passionate and so giving and serving. Like, what juices you up when you wake up every morning to just continue to do what you do?

Yeah, really good question, David. Here's what I would share with everybody. Know what the heck success means to you at this phase of your life, right? Success. In my 20s, I was a broke kid. I didn't go to college, I didn't have money, I lived in a trailer park. That's just my journey. It's not poor me, but you know, being restricted. Coming from a little tiny town in upstate New York, man, I wanted more out of life. And I saw the shiny things in life. And by my early 20s, I had already started a collision shop, I had a firewood business, I had a tow truck company, I had like 20 apartments. I was already starting to build houses. Starting from nothing, just a lot of hard work. Do you know what success was in my twenties? Literally on a Thursday night or a Friday afternoon, I would jump on a plane in New York and I'd fly down to Miami and I'd party all weekend. I'd get bottle service, I'd dance on tables and I'd stay up till 5 o' clock in the morning. To me that was success because it was like I was this broke kid. Now all of a sudden it was like freeing and fun and music and energy. You couldn't pay me enough money to go do that right now. Not in a million years. Oh my God. Do you know what success means to me? This is no joke, David. I have a 14 year old, a 12 year old, and I have a nine month old and my 14 and 12 year old, I have 50, 50 custody. A week with me, a week with their mom, and their mom's a great lady, we co parent wonderfully. But when my kids are with me every single morning, not some mornings, every morning, and my wife begs me, let me do it every morning I wake up, I make them their lunch for the day and I make them breakfast and I take them to school, there's nobody gonna stop me from doing that at three o' clock every day when they're with me, I'm waiting outside the school and I pick them up. There's not a billion dollar deal that could take that away. Today my daughter's gonna be here at 4 o' clock because she's trying out for her next softball team on Saturday. Today she'll be pitching to me from 4 to 5 30s slotted in my phone that I'm gonna be catching for my daughter at 14. She throws really hard. I gotta start wearing like the full gear because I'm afraid of her when she throws right. My whole point is what success mean to Me right now in my life. And what do I fight for? To be the dad I want to be. To be the husband I want to be. I'm madly in love with my wife. I fall more in love with her every single day. And I do everything in my power to keep that. I love my relationship with a higher power, my relationship with God. I love that. I love that I'm getting better with that as I grow as a human and practice more gratitude. I love growing as a human and being a better leader to my team. I have the greatest team in the world, and I want to be a really good leader. And I want to impact those around the world that I can. If one person listening today grabs one little thing and shifts their life, that's the reason that you and I spent this time together, David. But what I want to share is besides being a good dad, a good husband and what that means to me, I identify that a leader and try to share and grow. I pretty much say no to everything else, Right? Everything else is a no. I don't go to fancy parties. I wear a T shirt every day. I drive a pickup truck. Like, I feel blessed. I live in a dream home. I have 13 different companies. I have more success than I could ever be. I can't be blessed enough. I can't be grateful enough. I get to donate and contribute in areas. This year, we donated $600,000 in cash to Operation Underground Railroad. Every 2,000 Buc saves a child from slavery, right? We just passed 7 million meals. We donated through Feeding America. We built this year in 2020, we built a church in our school in Africa. That school is going to teach kids for decades. Right? I didn't say all that to brag. I said it because I know what success means to me right now. And when I wake up every day, that success drives me. No one's going to take away me being a dad. No one's going to take away me being a good husband. No one's going to take away me being a good leader. And 600,000 bucks. I feel amazing we were able to donate that. I want to donate more next year. So what drives me is impacting others and living life on my terms. 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. Sam.