How To Use Your Past As Your Fuel

Resources aren't your answer. Resourcefulness is. Welcome to the Dean Graziosi Show. All success starts right here. If you've ever in your life felt like an underdog, in fact, if you feel like an underdog right now, that you don't have the support from your family, you don't have the money, you live in the wrong place, your spouse doesn't even have your back, or you feel like an oddball, then this may be the most important message you've ever heard in your life. Hey, it's Dean. I'm here with my amazing wife, Lisa. Also, our baby's with us.

Party at 3.

Party at 3. Just can't see him yet. Hey, today I want to talk about underdogs because soon my new book, the Underdog Advantage, this book will be hitting stores, it'll be hitting online, it'll be on Amazon. It's not right now, no place you could buy it, but really soon, like the beginning first week of December. But right now, I want to talk about an underdog because most of my life, I felt like one. How about you?

Absolutely. Actually, I still kind of feel like one at times. It just always will come up from your childhood, right? I feel like an underdog because of my parents. I think more because they were such immigrants coming to America from Mexico that they literally, just by watching them live their life as underdogs, it trickled onto me. And also growing up in a place where all my friends were American and I was the only Mexican girl, dark girl with, you know, dark hair, dark eyes, and had a long last name like the Way. But, you know, I just was always different and it was always hard to blend in. And I feel like sometimes to this day, it still is.

But here's the cool part. Here's the cool part is what I want to talk about today. If you're an underdog or even if you're not at this point in your life, I keep that underdog mindset and so do you. It's what makes you a hustler. My wife Lisa has been voted the top hairstylist in Arizona for like the nine of the last 10 years. She does amazing in everything I've ever seen. That's why I'm so attracted to her, because she's not an underdog anymore. When I met her, she was doing amazing for herself, but she keeps that underdog mindset that gives her the hunger that pushes her for it. Because what we're going to do in this 10 or 12 minute videos, we're going to show you that being an underdog is actually the ultimate unfair advantage. And it might be hard for you to see right now. You might be going, dean, you don't understand what I'm facing and I don't. But we both faced a lot. In fact, I want to tell a quick story and then I want to get back to what you used to say to your dad. Yes, but I thought back. I remember a point in my life where I was sitting. I wrote some of this in the email, if you saw the email. But I want to tell you the story and I want you to see it on my face. I want you to hear these words. I was sitting in a 80 year old garage. Picture a garage just big enough for one car with about five feet on each side, two big barn doors, some holes in the roof, barely any heat. I got a wood stove in here and the pipe leaked a little. So imagine this little barn big enough for one car and smells like smoke. I'm sitting on a spackle bucket. I'm looking at a car that I got to change the brakes on. A friend of mine's car. They say, well what does that mean? Well, I didn't go to college. I decided to work with my dad in his collision shop. And stuff went sideways with my dad and a marriage he was in and he gave up and he was gone. So he gave up the collision shop. Now I didn't go to college cause I wasn't that smart and we didn't have the money, but at least I had my dad's collision shop. I was gonna be a partner with my dad. And that all went away and all my friends went off to college and I thought, oh wow. And I started having a little envy. So I remember a day literally feeling like the most, the quintessential underdog. I'm sitting on a spackle bucket. You know those white buckets, it's got water and sandpaper in it. Cause I used to sand cars, right? So I'm sitting out with my hands on my head, it smells like smoke, it's cold. I'm changing brakes on a friend's car that I had to ask because now I have money. The collision shops down. The only way I'm making money is working on one car at a time. I have no support. In fact, my dad, my mom lived in a different state. My dad like went through a really tough time in his life and he was checked out, he was gone. And I'm just trying to make it work one car at a time. I have nobody in my family that has money. I don't. Like I said, I don't have a college degree. I'm having envy of my buddies. They're off in college, partying, calling me up like, dude, come down here to Florida.

I'm partying.

I'm partying at Miami University, dude, there's girls all over. The guys are fun, and I'm literally sitting on this bucket and I'm like, maybe I'm a dreamer. Like, I have no advantages, I have no resources, I don't have any money. I already tapped my credit cards and I'm sitting there thinking, this is it. This is my life. I fix cars. Now I gotta bug my buddies to let me fix their car. And that moment that so many of us feel in our own different portions of our life, that was a moment at the time that I was feeling bad for myself. And how crazy is it now? I look back and I thank God. I thank God for that blessing. I listen, if you're in the middle of it, you might be like, you're never going to thank God for this. Yes, you will. Because here's what I know. What most people think they need for being successful, for starting their own business, for scaling the business they have. They think they need a partner with money or somebody. So many people say, if you just let me a million bucks in, I'd be off to the races. No, you wouldn't. Because what I realized being 50, I mean, 51 soon, a couple of days, oh, my God, how'd that happen? What I realized at this age is resources aren't your answer. Resourcefulness is. And that's what underdogs gain when they open their eyes. Literally. It's one of the chapters in my book. It says resources or it says underdogs are relentlessly resourceful. Imagine using my buddy Tony Robbins, words that life happens for us, not to us. And the reason I was in that collision shop, the reason I lost two businesses or things went sideways, the reason I didn't have anybody having my back, I had nobody to lend money from. I had no one to even partner with. The reason that happened was for me, so I could learn how to cash flow company. Because I didn't have a dad that could hand me a check. I didn't know how to raise money in Silicon Valley like people do in today's world. I had to start a business, and within two weeks, if it wasn't making money, I didn't have that business. So I don't want this just to be about me. I want you to talk about I want to talk about what Lisa here, too. But I want to convert this back to you. I want to show you right now where you're at, even if you're in your job, that makes you decent money. But, you know, there's more, and you feel like an underdog. How do you get out of the job? Like, we all feel like an underdog. But what if I told you that you could catapult out of that and literally and stop looking at the lack of resources and the lack of privilege that you have as an anchor? What if that was the wind behind your sail and you just need to flip the switch and your life has no limits? All right, let's get back to you.

So you just said, I love that, because so many people. I just can't stand. So many people are like, oh, my gosh. Well, because I had, you know, this struggle as a. As a child or because I didn't go to college, or because, you know, I wasn't smart or I have dyslexia, you know, all of that stuff, I feel like, you know what? Use that as an advantage, because fast forward a few years from now or whatever, and you become super successful at your career, which is one extra deal or 1,000 extra or whatever. And just because you are an underdog and because you had these struggles, people will recognize you even more. I always think, like, I feel bad for the people that actually don't have a story that, you know, showed them how to work harder or, like, had parents that struggled or whatever, because I feel like that's what makes successful people even better at what they do. Yeah.

Think about it. Do we all. We all love the underdog story. We all love Seabiscuit. We love Rocky. We love Rudy. So. But here's the thing, and I understand exactly what you're saying, but you've shifted your mindset. See, I want to get a little. I want to spend a few minutes here and talk about your childhood because you didn't feel that way.

Well, when you shift your mindset.

Okay, but, you know. But you didn't feel that way when you had to take the bus to beauty school or whatever. Cosmetology school? Is that what it's called? You had to take the bus, the city bus, to go to softball practice. You. I remember you telling me you said to your dad, why can't we have money like our cousins? Right. So I want to talk about that in a minute. So it's a shift in mindset. You see, what if. And this is not. Listen, a lot of you might be going through some really tough times right now. And we have empathy and we're sorry, we're not saying, oh, get over it. That's not what we're saying. But what if there was a process to shift where you just wake up tomorrow and nothing on the outside changes but the glasses you have on change? Instead of looking down the road of what you don't have, what if you could look down the road of what you do have that toolbox that you thought was full of lead holding you back. What if it was full with tools that could actually take you where you want to go in life. Like, think about that. And that's what I'm so excited about, being an underdog and what that can do for your life. Like celebrate being an underdog because you're the one that has. I mean, listen, I want to talk again. Get back. I want to share some of the chapters in my book. I'm so excited about this book. Millionaire Success Habits was my favorite book of all time and feel so blessed is one of the bestselling books of the last three years. I think this one is going to trump it big time. Like underdogs have nothing to lose. Right? Underdogs can use the power of. You can't. I want to talk about some of these underdogs act fast and improve quickly. Underdogs are relentlessly resourceful. Underdogs self educate. Underdogs don't have to care what other people think we do, but who gives a crap? They don't make statues of critics. And all of this can be learned as fuel. Underdogs know how to turn. Turn desperation into persuasion. Just some of the chapters that you're going to learn how right now you literally, I'm telling you, I don't care where you are, where you live, what your background is, how much money you have. I promise you that you have a Superman outfit underneath your clothes right now. And I want to show you how to open it. I got goosebumps. So I want to go back to you. So you didn't have money growing up. Her parents were immigrants. Her dad didn't even speak English for the first five years he lived here comes to America.

He's so cute.

He's the cutest guy in the world. Love your dad. Comes here. Quintessential underdogs. Why do you think there's more, you know, there's more immigrant new millionaires than millionaires that live in America. I mean, there's people all over the world listening because immigrants have that underdog mindset. It's like, I'm coming. I got nothing, but I got freedom. I can go for it. They're not looking for privilege because they ain't got it. And when they left, when they left their country, they had to leave all their baggage there.

Yep.

And they start fresh. So they don't look through the eyes of what they don't have. They look through the eyes of what they can achieve. That's what her father did. Her father's got a very successful company right now. Raised five amazing children. But when Lisa was little, being the firstborn, not only did you start speaking Spanish, English was your second language.

Absolutely.

As you got older, talk about, like, when you were, your mom said you said you wanted to join softball. What did your mom say?

My mom said, okay, well, go sign yourself up. And you know, I'm like, find the bus schedule. But mom, you know, all the girls moms are signing them up and taking the sheet to school. She's like, I'm busy. I work, I clean the house. I, you know, take care of you guys. Like, I don't have time for that. If you want to do softball, you know the paper, you know where the paper's at. Go fill yourself. Go sign it, sign for me and, and go turn it in.

And then she said, find the city bus schedule to get yourself back and forth to practice.

And that's the thing. Like, she, you know, works a full time job and had five kids by the age of 30. Had five kids and, you know, was the best mom. I had the best mom and dad ever. But it's also because they taught us how to do things for ourselves. And that's part of being a, even though I was not an immigrant, but my parents were, they, they translated that immigrant mentality to us. And so, you know, a lot of people that suffer from, oh, well, I, I, I am underdog, so I'm never going to succeed. It's like the worst way to think because, because you're an underdog, you had to be resourceful. And you are going to succeed more than someone that's just handed to, handed the, you know, the blueprint to them.

Think about this. I say this all the time for our, we call our son, we're having a boy and we call him Tadpole because like, one of the first things we saw online, it said is, he looks like a tadpole. So we've been calling Tadpole. So we keep saying, tadpole's almost here. We love you, Tadpole. But Taddy, yeah, that's our yeah, that's it. So here's the thing. I just said this. I just shared this with somebody recently. I said, when Tadpole grows up and he's 25 years old and he's ready to go in business, what would your wish be? Would your wish be that we could give Tadpole a million dollars to start his own business?

Heck, no.

No, let me finish. Like a million bucks to start his own business. But we were kind of lazy parents or we were too busy. Doesn't mean lazy. I should say. We were so busy doing our thing that we didn't really make our son res. Because we have resources everywhere. We didn't make them resources. So would you rather tadpole at 25, get a million dollars for us to go out and do his own thing, or would you rather us bring him up in a way that he is so damn resourceful that he goes. Finds his own money in his own way? Which one?

Yes, of course. Number two. And, you know, even though it's hard to. When you raise a kid right, and they. You try to raise them like the way your parents raise you, but then again, they see that they go to a nice school or, you know, they have food on the table and their parents sign them up for private league instead of, you know, city softball like I did. I mean, it's really hard to be, you know, to implement that into a child, but. Absolutely. I think that's the most important thing. And I think about it daily. Even though he's not alive yet, he's not born yet.

Well, because think about this. Think about. Think about how many trusts, how many trust funds. No, no knock here, guys. I'm just being honest about life. How many trust fund kids do you know that are really struggling a lot? Personally, I haven't met any that aren't struggling because they had all the resources, but they didn't have resourcefulness. They don't know how to be resourceful when it comes to happiness, relationships, building a company. I know one dear friend. He's not a dear friend. He's a friend of a dear friend. He's been a trust fund kid. He's tried 20 businesses. He's 60 years old, still hasn't succeeded because he just threw money at it, thinking that would work. No resourcefulness. He had privilege and never got the underdog mindset. I don't care where you were born. My cousin, my nephew Tanner, my sister raised him. They have the perfect family. And sometimes Tanner's like, I wish I was more of an underdog. Right. But they brought him up, in a way, with an underdog mindset. Even though he has puppets. He's the hungriest, hardest working kid you've ever met in your entire life. He's doing amazing for our company. He's part of our leadership team with Jeremy and Josh and other team leaders. He's incredible. Even though he was born kind of with privilege because they gave him that underdog mindset because my sister was an underdog. And it translated to him. Here's another one. Think about this.

They were hardworking and they.

Yeah, think about this. Exactly how many people who hit lotto are broke within three years? They got resources, not resourcefulness. Now, there's a whole bunch of chapters in the book, but just think about that one. Just think about that one thing. Now I want to fast forward with Lisa's story. I love having her here with me. We do everything together, which is awesome. So now we get to do this. I am sorry.

We're all over the board. I'm not used to this, like.

But here's what I want to say, and I'm going to guide you on this is. Okay, so, yes. You're like, oh, big deal. Your mom made you sign up for yourself. But think about this. She didn't go to college, decided to go to cosmetology school. Is that the right word?

Yes.

Okay. Not yet. Cosmetology school, she had to sign up for herself. She had to work three jobs to pay for it and had to take the bus to get this. Now, when she was there, I remember because you said it in front of your dad. You said to your dad back then, like, dad, why can't it be easy for me? Like my cousins? Why can't I have the fancy car? What did your dad say to you?

He's. Well, my dad's so wise, and he's just like, you know, never read a book in his life. But he's just. My parents are so, so wise. He would say, you know, everything happens at its own time. Let it happen to you when it's ready to. I don't want, you know, to be 15 with a Mercedes. And, you know, and unfortunately, the people in my life, that when I was that age and I would look up to my older cousins with all this, you know, luxury and.

And have envy.

They're not doing anything with their life right now. They kind of lived off their parents and they ran out of money and they're just, you know, I feel like I love them all, but it's just. I'm so happy that we all turned out the way we did.

Okay, let me ask you now. Okay, so let me ask you this now, you guys, immigrants came to a different country, no money, starting from scratch. You had to do your own thing as an underdog. Now, looking back, with all the success you've had, would you change any of that?

Absolutely not.

Okay. Are you ever going to lose the underdog mindset?

I wish my kids had that exact same upbringing, too.

But we can do our best to implement it. So here's the part I want to tell you.

I don't feel sorry for myself. Or, you know, a lot of people do. And.

No, but, you know, it's beyond that, though, babe. It's beyond feeling sorry for yourself because you're past it. Because you've shown. Shifted into understanding. That was your blessing. A lot of people watching right now might even hear you say that and say, screw you, Lisa. Like, don't say that. I don't feel bad for myself. I'm freaking stuck. Like, you have to think through that lens.

I totally understand that. But I know, you know, some people that I've spoke to, you know, everyone's different, right? Some people are like, what are you talking about? Feel sorry for yourself. But some people that I've spoke to do feel sorry for themselves.

Exactly. But if you tell somebody or feel pity, like, yeah, but here's the problem. Here's the problem. And you guys can agree with me. So if you tell somebody, stop feeling sorry for yourself, how do they react?

Oh, I wouldn't be happy.

Okay, so that's. So there's some people listening right now, going to you. Screw you, Lisa. Telling me, stop feeling sorry for myself. That's the truth. But we have to find a way for you to say, no. It's not about feeling sorry for yourself. That's how we're programmed. Our subconscious wants you to believe. Oh, my God, you could make it. If what? If you decided I can make it. Because I had parents who didn't have money because I went through struggle. So today, talking about the release of my book is coming out. I believe this will be the biggest book of my life. I can't wait for you to get it in your hands. And, yeah, I'm doing something really special because you guys are part of my family. You guys are gonna be able to get a free copy the first week of December. We're doing something ins. I'm doing a launch to get Let the world. I want. I want hundreds of thousands of people to have this book in their hand because there's so many people that feel like an underdog and not being mean but not feeling sorry for themselves, but just you got a lot of shit piled on your back, or at least you think it is. And I'm going to show you In a simple 200 and 200 page book how to convert that disadvantage into your freaking superpower. Because it's not about changing the exterior world, right? If you think of all the people in life that were underdogs, from the leader of America, the person who helped find America, was George Washington, the quintessential underdog. Wait till you hear some of the things I share about him in his book. But to anybody you think of, from Richard Branson, the billionaire, to John Paul DeJorio, who started Petrone Tequila and also started Paul Mitchell, to Arianna Huffington, who started Huffington Post in her 50s, these are all quintessential underdogs. But if you go back through history, if you go back through time, the most successful people, the best leaders, were always underdogs. What the hell did they have? Why were they able to take those disadvantages and make it their fuel when so many other people made it their anchor? And it's not stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's not that you just have envy or ego. It's these subtle little shifts. I obsessed on this book. I looked into my own life. I researched other underdogs, and it will truly be the book that makes you go, okay, I got this. Now my toolbox is filled with things for growth, for momentum. There's nothing going to stop me. If you love the millionaire success habits, if you heard about it, all my five star reviews, I feel blessed. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of copies around the world. This is the one that you'll go, okay, this one's just good. It might be a little better.

I don't know.

Just so different. It's so different. Completely different. But imagine being done reading this and being like, I got it. I totally get it, babe. Thank you so much for doing this with me today.

Oh, thank you for having me.

Yeah. So here's the cool part. Be on the lookout. First week of December, December 3rd or December 4th is the launch of the book. It'll be available on Amazon, which is on awesome. But I'm also doing a free cool promotion where you get the book free. I already bought them. I literally ordered 100,000 copies. They're going to blow out fast. Where you can get the book free if you cover the shipping hand. You know, I did that with millionaire success habits and we got it in so many people's hands. But for for the week of December 3rd, I'm doing a really special launch party with insane instant bonuses. I'm going to create an irresistible offer because the only way I can help you is is to get this book in your hands. If you just watch this video, I hope it helped. But imagine having 200 pages learning how to turn your disadvantages into the superpower that drives you to where you want to go. And if you know anything about me, it's always about going upstream and planting the foundation for lifelong ultimate success. And that's what we've done. So be on the lookout. I'm so excited. Thanks for joining me here today. If you liked this podcast, make sure you rate it and also make sure to click the subscribe so you never miss out. You can always follow us on Instagram and if you don't already have millionaire success habits, you can grab it for free@deansfreebook.com Remember, all success starts here.