This is a transcript excerpt from a YouTube interview ("How To Make More Friends And Be A More Likable Person") featuring Dean Graziosi in conversation with another speaker. They discuss likeability, authenticity, and Dean's motivations: an unstable childhood (parents married nine times, moved 20 times) drove his desire for control and financial success. He emphasizes letting pain drive action, leaning into transparency (sharing divorce, imperfections) to help others, and striving for congruency between public and private self.
Chapters
I bet you've not been asked this before.
Okay.
And I think this goes all the way back to the lady who sold you the collision shop with nothing down. I think people have different ways of being persuasive. And I have found myself, over the years of watching you on television and then meeting you, you have what I would consider to be a high likeability factor. And I find myself, even when I would watch you and I didn't know you, and I don't know if you're aware of this or not or if you've been told this before or you're conscious of it, because I think some great salespeople have this. I kind of root for you. I find myself, like, rooting for you even though you're already so successful. Are you conscious, like, of. Do you think it's just your spirit when you communicate with people, or are you conscious of projecting a certain version of you when you talk to people?
No, I don't think I'm conscious of it. I'm not. But what I have learned through the years, we all got in business for different reasons. I wanted to be successful because I hated not being in control of my life. As a kid, my parents were married nine times. Between the two of them, I moved 20 times.
Nine times.
Nine times. So never stability, you know, getting a new house, you gotta leave, go here, leave, move in with Grandma. So I think I hated the insecurity of my childhood, but it was my driving force. So thank you, God, the universe, whatever you believe in, thank you for that, because it pushed me to go. Hey, hey. I don't want. I don't know about you. You and I hit it off in the first three minutes we were talking, but I'm not a control freak. But I don't want anybody to ever tell me how to live, how to dress, what to wear. If I want to wear orange sneakers today, I want to wear orange sneakers. I live where I want. I raise my kids the way I want. I don't get into peer pressure. I don't hang out with the Joneses or try to impress the Joneses. I just want to live my life. But I know that happened at a really young age. So backing up with your question is that drove me. So sometimes you need pain to drive you, and then you start being successful, then you can go to Aspir. Now, I want to be a better dad, be a better man, be a better human. But if you need pain to drive you, let it drive you.
Great point. Totally agree.
So that's the first Part let the pain. And the thing is, don't ignore the pain. Let it seep into where it really disturbs you. Action comes from being disturbed. You don't move until you're uncomfortable. You don't put the air conditioner until you're hot. You don't go to the next level until you feel the pain. So feel it. So anyway, I felt that. And when I first started, all I wanted to do was get out of that. I wanted to sell a lot of cars, fix a lot of houses, and when I got in the infomercial business, I wanted to help people. But I really wanted to create a business that made me money. I mean, I'd love to say I'm Mother Teresa. I'm not. I wanted to be wealthy so I could retire my parents and nobody tell me what the fuck to do, for lack of a better word.
Can I stay in with you? I think one of the things that people have a misnomer about is they see these very successful entrepreneurs. They think we had these grand visions of changing the world in the very beginning.
Hell, no.
Most of us wanted to move away from something and we wanted to make money. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.
But then I got addicted to the business, just like I know you are, dude. I see it in your heart. I mean, I've been obsessing on your videos lately. I've been watching them for a while. But obsessing on them lately is I know the difference when someone's heart driven. I'm not talking about spiritual, and your chakras are aligned. And I'm not making fun of that. I'm just talking about I'm addicted to helping people change their lives. And I love to get paid really well for it, but I'm addicted to it.
Right. I know you are. And maybe that's just the goodness that I see that comes out of it. Yeah.
So let me back up. But what I do know is I'm not consciously aware of it. But what I know through the years is I've allowed myself to be more transparent and say it like it is than anyone, than most people I see. And when I even go back and watch old videos, I go, wow, that seemed to me. I'll be like, that was a tiny bit pretentious, man. Just let that shit go. And then I'd find stuff that I used to be embarrassed of. Like, I went through a divorce. I mean, it was, like, embarrassing for me at one point that, like, I'm the success guy, but it was never right in the beginning. And now we're dear friends, and our kids are amazing, and they're thriving. But instead of me hiding from that man, the more I leaned into why it happened, it can help other people, and the more it healed me. So I think what you're probably feeling, which I appreciate you saying that, and no one's ever said that ever, but is I'm trying to be the most authentic version of myself that exists. Like, I don't ever want somebody. And you know this, too. How many times? Because you've had amazing guests, dude. The lineup you've had is incredible. But every once in a while, it's not so good to meet your heroes. And I don't mean, like, you meet them, and not that you're a hero and you idolize them, but you're like, man, that guy's a badass. Or that woman, she's incredible. And then you're in the kitchen with him for 10 minutes, you're like, wow. Like, I don't ever want that. I want someone to say, I saw Dean on video, and then I met him, and then I saw him in a tight situation, and I saw him with his kids. All the same guy.
Yeah.
And I think that's where life, like, that's. I just want to be the same guy in all areas. And I think even though I'm working on myself, it comes through on video and my sales go up.
I think you're right. I think you're, like, having met you, it's your congruency. You are who you appear to be and more. And I think that just moves people. I just think people feel energy. You can't transfer to somebody that which you aren't experiencing. Your energy levels. Bananas, obviously.
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.
