Millionaire Success Habits: The PROVEN WAY To Achieve ANYTHING YOU WANT | Dean Graziosi

The more success you have, the more you realize it's less shifts in your life than you would think. The space between failures is really a huge determining factor of your success, right? It's like, if you can fail fast, you can win quicker, right? People buy from you, love you, adore you, will learn from you if they feel understood. And I want to enter conversations going on in their heads, not mine. I was in the business, and I read it. Now you know what it's like. You look back if you're someone who grows. I look back at that now and I'm like, oh, cringe. Can I take it off the shelves? But I wrote that book because I had already been in the education business for 10 years. And when you know, when you find. When you obsess on getting people results, right? And which everybody watching whatever you do in life, like, there's nothing better than being passionate about what you do. And when I'd look where people would fall short on doing a real estate deal or taking their life to the next level or taking action, it had nothing to do with my tactical skills on what I taught in real estate, because what I was teaching was exactly what I did. I literally, you know, not to go to the story, but I was. Lived in a trailer park. I was homeless with my dad for a year. We lived in a bathroom. I went through that. I didn't go to past high school. I had dyslexia. All this stuff that a lot of us have gone through. I know that the strategies worked in real estate. When I got so frustrated, I'm like, I don't need to write a real estate book. I need to write a book to get out of their own way, to get over the obstacles, to just use the crap that I'm giving you so you can take action.

Because they would have the strategies, but they want to get the results right.

They couldn't. You know, the first obstacle, they turn around, go backwards, right. First time, it doesn't work. You know, limiting beliefs, people from the outside, the stories they tell themselves, all the things that we all know. And if you're. If your audience is watching this, they get a lot of that stuff. So I wrote that book and then went on to write four or five, five more real estate books. Been blessed to sell, lots of millions of books sold. And then in the last couple years, it's just been on my heart to share the process in which I went through, and then being blessed to be friends with really successful people and billionaires. And the more success you have, the More, you realize it's less shifts in your life than you would think. I think when you're struggling and you want more. If you think back to when you're on the couch at your sister's house, you probably thought there was 100 or two things you had to change about you. You had to discover the latest and greatest and technology and all the things. The complexity of today's world. Right. We're overloaded with information. We're overloaded with delivery systems. If anybody's in marketing, it's like, do I do Facebook? And if it's Facebook, is it? Facebook Live is it? We get all so much complexity with the delivery systems, and we forget that it really boils down to about a handful things. Handful of things that make someone successful or not. So through my years and touching the lives of millions of people and reading tens of thousands of posts and doing live events, you realize that people are just laughing, lacking these habits that they could shift. And that's what I got on this obsession about 18 months ago. And that's why millionaire success habits.

Who was your biggest mentor growing up?

You know, I would say I didn't have a lot of mentors growing up. I was probably more running away from the life I had. You know, I hated watching my parents struggle. I mean, all they ever worried about was money. Right. Right. There was no time for coaching Little League. And I was telling you. I'll tell you more. My daughter's here with me today, too. Her first business trip when she turned 10. She's here on the business trip. But, you know, I get to coach Little League. I get to go to every dance recital. I play at the park in the middle of the day. I watch my parents not have any of those options. They were great parents. They just didn't have those options. So I think I was running away from the pain of money and broke and all that. But that I would have to say, 18 years ago, Tony Robbins made a massive impact on my life.

Just.

I mean, he's one of my dearest friends in the world now. But 18 years ago, it was his course and my journal where I said, someday I hope to meet him, you know, and. Right. So I would say that he made a big impact on me, for sure.

That's crazy. Wow. Okay. Was there. How did you get out of the. I guess the scarcity mindset or the scarce life you were living in, where you were in the trailer park or you were living in a bathroom and your parents had these conversations. How did you shift? It was there Information you learned from Tony or from someone else that helped you get started.

You know, it's funny, I've been asked that question before, and I don't have a specific epiphany like, oh, this one moment, I can remember thinking throughout high school and even in my early 20s, maybe not my early 20s, I flipped pretty quick right around 20 years old.

You didn't go to college, right?

I didn't go to college. I barely got out of high school. But I can remember thinking in high school, whatever years that was is, I hope someday I can get a job and make a thousand bucks a week and just get by. I'm not that smart because I had trouble reading. I still can't read great. But I had dyslexia is what I think. It's been diagnosed now, but I still can't comprehend good when I read. But I didn't realize I was an audible and visual learner. I could listen to a book and I'll memorize the whole book, watch somebody on stage and emulate that if it fits my life. But sometimes we're judged by a scorecard that doesn't. It's an outdated scorecard. Right. So not only did we not have money, I also felt, well, I'm not smart enough to go to school. And something changed around 17, 18 years old. Just something flipped. And I just. I noticed. And this is going to sound like it's a pitch for the book, and it's not. But I noticed the people in my town, this little tiny town I grew up in, upstate New York, the people that had money, the people that seemed happier, I don't know behind the scenes, but they seemed happier, more fulfilled, they were more relaxed. Like life just happened. Like they were walking up a ladder instead of like, my family seemed like they were running on a treadmill. You know, it's like, we're going fast, but we're not going anywhere. So why is this guy and this woman is town doing so well? And I remember just obsessing on it. And. And what I noticed it was. I didn't. I didn't call it habits. I'd love to say I figured this out when I was in my 20s, but what I realized is they just did different things than my family and my friends were doing. And I just started obsessing on that. And I was young enough and naive enough to just think I could do it. Wow. You know, I mean, sometimes you wish you could give that gift to somebody in the 20s, 30s, 50s, 70s, right. I had the gift of being Naive and a little dumb and not listening to anybody. I mean, I was. In 1998, I did my first infomercial. Wow.

And almost 20 years ago.

Yeah, 1998, I filmed my first one. And my sister, my daughter's aunt. My daughter's sitting here with this. My sister drove from Virginia because by then. So in 1990, I had. I had an apartments, I had a collision shop, I had an auto sales, and I was building houses doing. From. From that broke kid I was doing.

How old were you when you started that?

Probably in 1998. Was 20 years ago. Is 28, 29 years old.

So in your early 20s, you started to do.

Yeah. So by the state. Yeah. Yeah. So I hit it big in real estate. By time, I was 26, 27 years old. Just by taking action, knocking on a million doors, and finally got someone to do a no money down deal with me when I was 20. And then another one. And I rolled that into the next deal. The next deal.

And consistent action.

Consistent action and consistent, you know, failing and getting back up. Right. The. The space between failures is really a huge determining factor of your success. Right. It's like if you can fail fast, you can win quicker. Right. So I remember the first. I decided to do an infomercial. I'm going to write a book on how to make money and go on tv. And my family lost their mind. Like, my sister drove from Virginia to sit down with me and say, it's time to get real. You. You did good. You got lucky. Not lucky. You work hard, you got here, but you're blow it. You're. And I remember that, defending it, that. That conversation like it was yesterday. My sister, and she did it out of pure love. She thought she was protecting me. How many people listening right now want to listen to you or do something? Oh, you're listening to that. Wasting your time. Just get real, you know, do something. So I remember that conversation and I. I literally almost gave up on it. I remember going to cancel the whole thing and say, what am I thinking? I can't read that good. I'm gonna write a book and all this stuff. And luckily, I just remember thinking, if I keep these patterns, I'm gonna continue the same process my family has, and I want more. And we filmed it and the show went on TV and, you know, it aired in 1999, and I went 17 years straight without missing a day on TV. 17 years without missing a day on TV.

Does it stop now or.

It stopped because we're going from my real estate book to this. So we're just pausing until this. This the show I did with Larry King's gonna roll out on Millionaire success habits sometime.

17 years.

Yeah. I didn't miss a day on TV.

Was it all throughout the US over the world.

Just us. Just the US, yeah. Wow.

And how'd you know? Is there a guy named Big who was a part of this?

Big? Yeah, Big. He bought my media.

Gotcha. I met him.

He bought some of my media when we were. Yeah, he's a great guy. He's an interesting character. I love that guy. Yeah. So he worked for Mercury Media and Merc. I had three meat at one time when we were really cranking, I had three media companies at the same time.

Just buying media for us.

Yeah, we run it out of media. It was converting so well, so amazing.

Now, is this the same infomercial for 17?

No. No. You shouldn't do it. About every. Really? Wow. Yeah. Somewhere. It was an interview. Some. I drove in my car. That was one of my biggest ones. I just put a camera on the dash of the window, the windshield, and I drove in the car for a half hour and pitched. I'd stop it. Literally. I'd stop at streetlights and pitch my book. I'd stop and then I hold the book up and be like, everybody. I'm driving to my house right now from my office, but if you want my book, call the number. Wait, Light screen. I gotta go.

How did you think that these infomercials were to do well for you? You had a good system already. You were making good money. Why risk something like this?

Yeah. If I lost all my money, I'd have to blame him because he was on tv. He was on tv and he inspired me. I'm like, I want to inspire people with my story. So I didn't. I didn't even know. I didn't know about direct mail or the Internet. Really wasn't there yet. It was AOL dial up. That would, you know. So it wasn't the Internet. And I was naive enough. I mean, I shot the infomercial and then I didn't know how to get it on tv. I was calling, like, stations and like, who books the media? How do you get on? Like, so naive.

How did you know what formula was gonna work?

Didn't. I didn't. I just watched Tony and I.

Let me try this out.

Let me try this. And I just. I remember I was a nervous wreck and scared, but my. You know, there's. And I'm happy to talk about me, but I really Want to serve today? I want to. I want to give back anything that I can do to help. Somebody watching right now that wants to get over that obstacle or they feel like they're at a plateau or just they're. They know there's more, and they can't mean. That's the biggest frustration in life is knowing you have more gas in the tank and you don't know where to go, how to go, or get that momentum. But I digress that I got off.

Track, but I guess how did you know what. How it's gonna work? And how did you tweak it? Or were there big failures early on in the infomercial?

Yeah, that's what you. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, so I. I did the infomercial, being so naive, had no idea how to get it on. And I just. And that. The part I was gonna tell everybody is persistence. Like, I didn't. I literally flew to Arizona to meet a media buyer, and I said, I have no idea what I'm doing. And I just kept pushing. And one of those things that I think during the evolution of growing from wherever you are to where you want to go is do whatever you do best. I mean, do whatever you're doing the best you can, knowing there's the bigger horizon. So I literally was working during the day on cars. I was. I'd paint cars. I was doing collision repair. At night, I'd go work on my apartments, and I was a plumber and hung Sheetrock, and I'd work till midnight on houses. And I was tired. But I had a dream. I knew I wanted to help people do better, so it made what I was doing okay because I knew there was more. So the big problem I see is people want more and they hate what they're doing, so that they're in a state of mind where. God, I just. When I'm done with this crap, then someday I'll reach my dreams. And if you can flop that to go, no, this is the gateway to my dreams. I don't care that I'm serving coffee or I'm painting cars or I'm a teacher right now, or I'm on my sister's couch. Like, this is what I have to do, and I have to do it the best.

Become a master at this.

Just become a master at that. Because. Because. And that's the income and the security and the mindset that fuels the next level. It's not. This is miserable. I hate it. I feel the next level, and now I'm amazing. It's like, you need to master that.

Yeah, the process.

Yeah.

You got to fall in love with that process.

You do. And the evolution and the failure.

You're not going to have like overnight success. You know, it took you probably 10 years until you got into that.

It's like the first time you see an actor in a movie and you're like, man, I never saw that person. Overnight success. It's like they don't show the summer stock and all the stuff, you know, the millions of theater and no money and all the extra work that he did there.

Drinking coffee in the background. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Exactly. Wow. Okay. Can you share? I wasn't even going to ask about this, but I'm fascinated about infomercials now. Since you've done it for so long, is there a formula to like the most successful infomercial, like five or six things that you must have.

Yeah. You know, it's so funny. When I went dead before, when my brain, there was a thought I had and I never happens because we just got off a plane, it might be the Dramamine. But I went flat for a second because what I was thinking, what I was going to tell you is you said, how do you know it was going to work? What I'd share with anybody watching in any kind of marketing or any kind of persuasion or any kind of getting some. Attracting somebody, persuading someone and get them to take action. When I look back at those original infomercials, I had two things going for me. I wasn't the smartest guy in the world. Struggled reading, insecure about that, wasn't college educated. I don't have a really incredible vocabulary. It's hard for me to articulate certain words because they just. They're not in there. Yeah, right. But what I had was, is enthusiasm and authenticity. When I look back at those infomercials and they hit like monsters. I mean, one infomercial, I did one of the first sit down in infomercials. I did, did 150 million in sales.

Wow.

One infomercial.

And how long a period Was that?

Over 18 months. Wow.

It's amazing.

And I look back at that and I don't say that to brag and that all that's not profit, you know.

Of course you spent a lot of media.

So I don't want anybody. I'm not. I barely say anything about money. I'm saying that to an impact because I wasn't the smartest guy. I didn't go to college. I didn't come from anything. Most people watching are Way further ahead than I was when I started.

You weren't trained on the camera.

You weren't. But what I did have is I look back even at those old shows where I'm embarrassed to see myself and my New York accent was like super heavy. That's where I grew up, is I had authenticity and enthusiasm. And I think people could see this guy really wants to help. It wasn't scripted, it wasn't perfect. I stuttered, I. I said words wrong. I mean, I look at some of those. I use the wrong words in the wrong context, but it's still converted. And as I evolved. So I said, what's the foundation like? As I evolved and I did. The first time I did a sit down, Larry King style infomercial, he's the one who gave me the idea for that. Then I did the one where I was driving in my car. The reason I did that, driving in my car is I wanted people to know that I wasn't using a teleprompter. There wasn't somebody scripting me. There wasn't a million cuts. It was me just driving. It wasn't produced. It was me driving from my office. I started it with a backpack. I said, I'm going home. You want to take a ride with me? And I talked. I got home. You, Brianna and my son were probably 3 and 1. When I got to the door, they came running out. That was the infomercial.

That's cool, right?

And that wasn't even planned. They just ran out because dad was home. Right. But I did that because I could tell the authenticity and the enthusiasm I had to change people's lives was there. So what I'd say for an infomercial, for any kind of marketing, for selling yourself, you still need the. I mean, what I wrote in this book, but what you need is the core foundations of what success are. Now, I would say a couple of things. When it comes to persuasion. Out of all my years of doing this and being lucky to sell, I wasn't a scientist of selling. I was just an innate. I had an innate ability to sell through that passion. And then you get your 10,000 hours in and all of a sudden becomes good, right? So on the job, training, of course, when I look back and if I. If I go off in an area that you want to reel me back in, real back in. But people buy from you, will love you, will learn from you, will give you a promotion when they feel understood, not when they understand you. And that was one of the biggest lessons ever. When you watch Someone who is so full of knowledge, so full of wisdom and wants to sell their products, sell themselves, get the raise, close the deal at the boardroom, they're always want to just exude who they are, their credentials, what they have and how they could solve the problem. And that will get you so far. Like being great at sharing who you are will get you out of Egypt. Understand how people feel and letting them feel understood will get you to the promised land. Right. So when you go to an audience or you're talking to close a deal, most people want to share most of the time you just need to be quiet and find what's going on in that person's life, be an expert at the temporary state of mind, like understand what they're going through at that minute and let them feel understood. When you let people feel understood, when someone's watching you and you do an amazing job, dude, I've been watching you forever and I love what you do. But when someone watches you and go, man, that guy gets me. He understands where I'm going at, he understands my struggles, he understands where I want to go. That's someone I can hitch my cart to rather than someone who's got great credentials and tells you can go, I understand that person, but I don't think he understands where I'm at. Right, right. And so the two things, when it comes to an infomercial, comes to anything with persuasion. The two things I always tell myself is how do I make sure that person feels understood? And secondly, how do I enter a conversation going on in their mind, not mine. You know, when you on your sister's couch, you had different struggles, right? Now I come to Dohany Drive in la, you're in a completely different world, completely different space, flying to the White House and all this stuff going on. The conversations in your head have changed dramatically from when you're on your sister's couch to now. Yeah, so what happens? And I've watched this with marketers and people in business, as they evolve, they hit a certain. You remember that pain, that passion, the desire for more. I mean, and you could probably close your eyes right now and remember that desire and thinking, am I ever going to make it? And even a little bit of envy for maybe some of your buddies who made it, or a little jealousy doesn't mean that you wished ill thoughts on them, but it's like, damn it, they made it. I don't have it. What if I never get it? If you remember that pain, if you remember that process, you remember that thoughts, you will Always serve anybody watching. Who needs that? But what happens to some people is as they evolve. And you're going to join the country club. Maybe you're going to get married. You're going to move to the suburbs. Now you got an accountant, and you got two assistants. And now should I got a private jet? And then is the pilot going to be late? And then. And then, you know, and then you're like, I got a Facebook team. Should I outsource the Facebook market? And all of a sudden, your conversations change. You get to do an interview or you pitch on camera, or you do an infomercial, and all of a sudden you're having conversations in your head and your audience feels disconnected.

Yeah.

And you don't even know why. Like, what. What did I miss? Because now you're asking questions of a completely different group because you've evolved. So the two things again, I always go back to. Even before I turn a camera on, before I go on stage, before I do an infomercial. I said, people buy from you, love you, adore you, will learn from you if they feel understood. And I want to enter conversations going on in their heads, not mine. Wow. Powerful. So two. Two simple. Like such simple little things, but it's a foundation for persuasion.

Amazing, man. So what are some of the habits, then, that you learned over the years that the millionaires have that the rest of people don't have?

So this is going to sound. This one's going to sound crazy, but this is one that I've. I shouldn't say it sounds crazy. It sounds too simple. But this one has been a passion of mine for the last. Probably two years more than ever. Last six months especially. I told you before, with. With being a dad, you know, you always want to be able to look in the mirror, no matter how much money you're making and what you're doing for a living, and look at that person and say, are you good with you? Like, are you compromising who you are? Are you going against your values to be successful? But, you know, you just. You have to have that conversation with the man in the mirror, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

But when you have kids, it compounds times a thousand. Anybody watching who knows exactly what I'm saying? Kids don't do what you say. They do what you do. So you have somebody watching. If I want to be the best dad possible, I want to. I need to keep evolving and faster than ever. So I would say a morning routine, this is just one of them that's been huge in my life, is setting my Day up for success. And in an interview like this, there's so many different directions we can go. But I want to give some really strong takeaways here. Is everybody watching? We suffer on all different levels of suffering. Some people suffer on a high level. Some people suffer because is the job going to get done? Is the deal going to come through? We have these moments of suffering. No matter if it's five minutes of suffering or an hour suffering or months of suffering. Some people lose a relationship and they suffer for years. Some people have a partner take their money, they suffer for years and they're stuck in that. And if you can limit the time you suffer, the more you can work on the solutions to better your life. People stuck in suffering are stuck forever. And we know right now I'm saying it, and you're thinking of friends that you have that are stuck. Some they went found some suffering and.

They just crippled or moments where I was suffering and I didn't let go of it.

You can't let go of it. Right.

Or I held onto it for too long and it hurt me.

Right. And if you hold on to it, there's not enough energy or focus to keep moving forward. You could. That's when you still. Right.

Yeah.

So what I've been on this obsession and literally Tony Robbins flew out him and I got really close. He flew out and him and I had lunch about nine months ago. And he's on the same thing, like eliminating, like complete suffering gone. Like instead of hours or weeks, it's moments that you catch it. So morning routines help me more than ever. And I'll tell you mine. Anybody wants to steal this? This works for me because I want to set my days up for least amount of suffering. Feeling grateful and ready to, you know, just rocket the day. Like, nothing can get me off. Now everybody knows gratitude is a key to success, happiness, joy. You can't be grateful and depressed. Grateful and sad. You just can't do the two together. But it's hard. Sometimes I feel like the Roadrunners before your time. But when I was a kid, remember beep beep, the roadrunner there was the Tasmanian Devil. So most of our lives with Facebook and social media and cell phones, and we're like the Tasmanian Devil. There's so much dust around us, it's hard to like, see, see through it, right? Like, it's like, I just got to get through this storm and then I'll be okay. How do I. You want me to set a goal and be grateful? Like, how do I get out of this dust storm. Right. So I just obsessed on how do I start my day to make sure it doesn't happen. So one thing I do is at night, put your. I put my phone on airplane mode. And for the last year, especially when I wake up in the morning, I do not check email or texts because I can't if I check email or text, especially in bed.

Right?

Right. And I've done it for years. I'm not telling something I haven't done. But the great text put me in a good mood. Bad text, I become the anxious. Yeah. Like, if you're like, you know, should get this done. I should just get this out of the way. Right. And you become the thermometer of life. Life just grabbed ahold of you and they're going to tell you how your day is going to be. I don't know if I'm gonna adjust you on the heat, up the ice cold or stressed or anxious or. So I leave my phone on airplane mode and the first thing I do is I feed my soul. Right. And that's not this. I'm just being honest. I don't chant. I don't do hours of meditation. What I've done is I've lowered the bar of gratitude. Now these are habits that you think, oh, this is revolutionary. These are the habits that I look, have made me successful, make me keep going forward. The negative times keep reaching for the next thing. So I, I find gratitude. But I've lowered the bar and I just said this. But I'll wake up some mornings and be like, damn, these sheets are amazing. You know, I mean, 150,000. You can Google 150,000 people die every day. There's some days I just wake up and go, damn, I'm not one of them. I'm here. And when you can find gratitude on the lowest level, not I conquered, I did. Look, I see your wall. You've interviewed such amazing people. You got to be so proud of yourself. I look at it, I admire that's amazing goals. But sometimes we just set ourselves up until you get the next one of those pictures up there. The rest of stuff is just mundane. It's not. We're in this beautiful world. We're blessed every day. We're learning every moment. Even an interview like this, take, take all the stuff I say. Throw most of it away. If you get one thing I say today, it was worth your time with us being together. So just one thing, right? So I find a way to be grateful in, like the first few moments. I wake up by Lowering the bar. No big special thing. Or sometimes I'll open a book. Like, I just read the Untethered Soul for the second time. Love that book. I'll read two sentences out loud, and then I feed my body. So I immediately get up, and I do. I mean, it's just my personal thing, but I do a glass full, big glass of water with a lemon, a green juice, some essential oils, and I down that because I feel like I'm feeding my body. And then I go move. Whether it's workout, Run, exercise, and someone isn't working out, I just move. And those three things set me up for a successful day. And then when I get back, this is something I've been doing for a year. And I'd say, rob this, because there's things that. Listen, you're in business. There's things that you love to do. It's your core competency you were put on this earth to do. It's interviewing, it's meeting people, it's networking. Whatever you have is meant to be. But there's some things that you do. It's like, I don't want to do that conference call. I don't want to sit with my accountant and go over numbers, whatever it is, right? And I used to think, man, I have to do that today. And I just switch that in the mornings. I write a quick little list every day of what I get to do. I just put that word, what I get to do. When I think about that, I. I used to. I used to literally live in a bathroom with my dad and I in my teens, I worked on cars every day and smoked, you know, smelled fumes because I was like, the rooms were always smoky. I was the only one painter in our collision shop, and I'd have headaches, and, like, I could be doing that. So I have to do conference calls on Tuesdays, and I don't like conference calls. What do you do now? When I say I get to do conference calls, it changes everything. So that little root.

Not a victim anymore.

I'm not a victim anymore. Right? And. And again, on every level, it's. It makes a difference.

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