Dean Graziosi grew up in poverty, living in a bathroom with his dad, then built a business empire through self-education and mentors like Tony Robbins. He explains how masterminds—groups working toward shared goals—create a collective intelligence that accelerates growth faster than going alone.
In the journey of being a leader, in the journey of being an owner, a manager, someone that owns a department or owns a piece of business, we all fail miserably. We all question ourselves, we all have self doubt sometimes. It's called imposter syndrome. And all the other pieces for me, I was a kid who grew up in very humble beginnings. I remember living in this house behind me. In fact, I lived in the bathroom with my dad for a while. My parents were really good at marrying and divorcing and I moved a lot. My parents were married nine times. Between the two of them, I moved 20 times by the time I was 19. And at 20 years old, I just decided there's got to be a different way, there's got to be something else. And I just started, I got lucky enough to realize that you can learn from others who have already been there. And I started obsessing on others that were living a life that I wanted to live. And I started my own firewood business, my own car business, my own collision shop. Then I got into houses and flipping houses. And then the reason I'm in This industry is 27 years ago I saw Tony Robbins on TV. I bought his course and it fundamentally shifted a lot of my thinking. Maybe some of you have had that same shift from Stephen Covey or others. It shifted my thinking. But the other thing it did, it made me realize Tony sold me his life experience.
Write this down. People like people who are like themselves or who are like how they would like to be.
Heck, I want to do that. So 27 years ago, I decided to create a course. I wrote my first book a few years after and I've been in this industry ever since, sharing my life experience, sharing the patterns that I discover, sharing the things I've learned. I've been blessed to grow multiple successful companies. I we now am the co founder of mastermind.com and other companies with now partner Tony Robbins and dear friend. And I think I've been through every single phase of leadership success and lots of leadership failure. And I'm in a place in my life where I get to be a father of four, husband to my amazing wife. And I love the fact that we get to make impact for a living, why we own mastermind.com and why we built a company around people helping people monetize their mind, really monetize their experience. Right. It's what Stephen Covey does so well. Right. You foundation of, of one man and and partnership that found patterns that allow people to go faster and then turn to business. Around it. And that's what you keep doing. You're selling information to allow people to go faster. So Tony and I, we were together, I don't know, eight years ago, seven years ago, and take. Taking a walk, literally taking a walk. I golf twice a year with Tony. He golfs twice a year too. We got done golfing and we were talking about what was the one thing that moved the needle for him and I. More than any one thing, the truth was Jim Rohn moved the needle for Tony. That's how he started. If you know the, you know, the personal development, one of the leaders, Jim Rohn and Tony Robbins, was the spark for me. And then we realized how self education, learning from others was so important and so critical and we believe saved our lives and allowed us to have success. And then we thought deeper. What really is that foundation? It was a mastermind. And I'll explain that in a minute. So that's how we got started in that business, is it helped our lives so much. How could we allow others to monetize their life experience? To me, Napoleon Hill kind of put masterminds on the map and he said, it's the collectiveness. I could get the exact definition. If you Google it, you can see, but basically the collection. More than two minds come together with the same desired outcome. And when more than one comes together with the collectiveness of thought, it makes a third mind that's much smarter. So think of some of the biggest breakthroughs you may have had in your life, in your business, in your company. Sometimes when you're sitting around a table with your team or with a consultant and your team, or sitting around the table with your family, the biggest breakthroughs in your family, it's usually the collectiveness, the perception exceptions that you're not used to. It's bringing to the table your biggest obstacles. And collectively, people are trying to help solve that. It's bringing your opportunities. And collectively, people with the same outcome and desire are trying to help fuel your opportunities. It's also bringing your biggest breakthroughs, your knowledge, the things you've learned through trial and error and sharing that selflessly and holding nothing back. And when you truly create a group of people with that focus in mind, I'm going to solve problems, I'm going to fuel opportunities, and I'm going to bring my biggest breakthroughs, man, that's the foundation for real growth. Especially in a world like today. Things are moving so fast. When we try to learn on our own, we can't. You can't keep up the world's growing exponentially. And a lot of times we learn in a linear way. So I believe Tony believes. And we've had our experiences. The collectiveness of masterminds have really allowed us to grow faster than anything else.
