My Success Tips for LIFE

I'm going to ask you, in fact, I want to challenge you to decide this weekend what kind of life you want to live. Welcome to the Dean Grazios Show. All success starts right here today. And in this event, we are going to celebrate the thing that changed my life. We're going to celebrate self education. I want you guys to listen to that word. I just read an amazing book called Leverage Learning and it shows how I liked it so much. I got on the phone with the author yesterday and we ended up talking for like an hour straight. And traditional education is kind of done. It's not working. It needs to be transformed. Just even MIT students. Did you know MIT students, one of the best colleges on the planet, Students in year one. By the time you get to year three, what they learned is obsolete. That's how fast the world is moving. So the people who find success are the ones smart enough to get self education. Instead of just trying to learn through learning, you're learning through trial and error and learning from those playing the game at the highest level possible. When I was in high school, my guidance counselor legit said, hey, good thing you're into cars, because I picture you mechanic, you know, maybe managing a mechanic shop someday, right? But what everybody missed was the thing that I discovered was self education. Tony Robbins changed my life 30 years ago. I cut him a check because of an infomercial. He gave me information. Everything changed in my life. Four years later, I was on my own infomercial. So this event is about celebrating you guys being in this room to gain the knowledge from people playing the game at the highest level possible. You're not. You're not here just to be inspired. That's a great thing. I hope I inspire you. I hope I motivate you. But you're here to gain capabilities, to go faster. And a lot of times when you think you know why you're here and you think you know what you came for and what capabilities you came for, in most cases, you're wrong. Let serendipity work, figure out why. Let the event show you why you're here. Your answer to the next level lives in this room. So I'm gonna ask you to be more open in your life than you ever were before. I'm gonna ask you, in fact, I wanna challenge you to decide this weekend what kind of life you wanna live. What kind of life do you wanna live? You see, I know this, and this helps me a lot. And if this sounds morbid, I'm sorry, but I a lot of times picture myself at 95 years old, or 105, whatever age you're gonna live to. And I pict on my deathbed and my family is standing there and they're talking about me. And I picture what they'd say. And if they said he lived an okay life, what if they even said he lived a good life, he had a good job and he had a good relationship and he was a good dad, how disappointed would you be if someone was saying you did good? Who wants good? No, I got you on that one. Sorry. Who wants outstanding, right? We want an outstanding life. So I want you to think through those eyes this weekend, and I want to challenge you. Of what kind of life do you want to live? Do you want to be scared and fearful? Because a lot of us are. We think we're entrepreneurs. We think we want more. And then the world tells us we can't. People tell us we can't. The news tells us we can't. The news is horrific. And we watch that kind of stuff, and it's cumulative. So you think you're on fire. You think you could do your own thing, but your ex, or someone you don't like or someone you do like, or somebody who's supposedly a dear friend tells you you can't accumulate. And all of a sudden, one day, you start playing a little small. You just back up a little bit. This world is moving too fast. You can't back up a little bit. You have to lean forward. When people tell you you can't, that's gotta be your fuel. When they say it's not the right time, you show them it's your time. This is what we have to do. Cause if not, thank you. Because when you lean back in a busy world, then you know what happens after that? If you play a little bit scared, a little bit fearful, then you start seeing other people who are still getting ahead. And if you're not in the right space, let's all admit this. Cause I'm human, too. When you see other people your age doing something similar to you, and they're crushing it. Some days when you're in a grateful space, you're like, good for them. I'm proud of them. If they can do it, I can do it. But I think this inner villain that lives in us most of the time says, shit. Anybody get a little envy sometimes of someone else getting ahead? And you not. If you're not, you're not human. You get a little bit of jealousy. And then if you're doing that, the next thing is you say you know what? I'm gonna do it. And you kind of break through and you get an opportunity or you get new capabilities, and then we do something. What I see all the time is we dabble. Like, we think we're putting time in, but not really. We're not dedicating the time. We're doing six things at once. We're checking social media while we're watching the course. We're answering the phone while we're. We're not really. We're texting while we're. Don't dabble. I'm challenging you to decide what kind of life you want. I'm guessing everybody in this room wants a better life. Who wants a better life? Okay, you know what we're gonna do? We're start something. I stole this from Trent Shelton too. When we get to a part like that, if we're gonna play full out, I wanna hear you guys say, yup. Is that good? Let me hear you say it. Real. One, two, three. Yup. Beautiful. But here's the thing that I want you to think about. We can live a life being scared, a little fearful. We can live a life of being envious. We can also live a life of hope. Hope is great. You need hope. But there's a lot of people that don't just hope and they don't take action. What about if you combined them together and you had hope, but you also lived a life on fire? That at 95, when you look back, you're like, I squeezed every bit of juice out of this life it had to offer? Who would rather have tried and failed than sit and play small? Who'd rather try and fail? So this weekend, I want you to play full out. I want you guys and challenge you guys to live a life on fire. To don't listen to the world around you. Most people are wrong. You've never seen them build a statue of a critic. If you guys know one, let me see it. I'd like to take a picture of it. They build statues of the crazy bastards. The people they condemn when they're alive and 50 years later, they realize they were the revolutionary. They were the one that saw something when no one else did. Don't let anyone talk you out of your life, because here's what I know. There's two types of people, and I really want you to think through this. There are battery chargers and there are battery drainers. Who follows me on Instagram every time I post that it goes viral. A couple hundred thousand people watch it. The truth of the matter Is there are some people in your life that when they call you or they text you or the phone's ringing, not that many people call in today's world. People call me. I feel like I'm being violated. It's like, why would you call me? You could text me. It's like somebody knocking on your door and coming over without telling you. That's how I feel when my phone rings. But who has people in their life that when you get a text or a phone call, you're like, oh, shit. And then you have to let it ring the whole time. Cause if you hit the end, they know you sent them the freaking voicemail. So you gotta sit there and be like. And then if somebody sees the phone, they're like, you gonna answer them? Like, no, no, don't. Don't touch that. Don't touch that. Right? There's people in your life that when you see them, you're the one that gives the energy. You have to talk about the same shit that they've been talking about for the last five years that they saw you. I had a really great comment that I love from my buddy Joe Polish. He's gonna be here tomorrow. Is Joe said when people ask me for advice that I've already given advice in the past. I always say to them, well, you didn't apply the first bit of advice I gave you, so why would I dare give you more? Right? So think about that, though. In battery drainers, there's people in your life. I'm being funny, but now I'm being serious that when you're with them, they make you doubt yourself. True. Can I get a yup? They make you doubt yourself. They make you doubt your opportunities. They make you doubt your capabilities. They make you doubt what you could do. And I want you to know this and remember this. You've probably heard everything I'm saying before, but this is me. Small, intimate room. Before we have 5,000 people in a room like this. I want you to realize that that is also cumulative. If you hang out with battery drainers enough, they will run your battery down. And all of a sudden you'll start questioning yourself. You'll have stress in the midd. The night. Maybe I won't get another relationship that'll be loving. Maybe I won't be able to take my income to the next level. Maybe I won't be the best parent I think I can be. Maybe this isn't the right time. Maybe it's the wrong president. All those things. So I want you to identify people that are battery drainers. Alongside of the opposite side are the battery chargers. They're the people you go to lunch with, and when you come back, you're on fire. You want to accomplish the world, and a lot of people don't have many of them in their life. That's cool. That's why you got me. But anyway. But in today's world, we can find it online. We can get into different groups, find different peers. Listen, as you evolve, some friends will go away. They can't handle that. You're focusing on what's right and they're focusing on what's wrong. That's okay. That's the journey they're supposed to be on, and you're supposed to be on another one. So I'm gonna tell you right now, like, I literally. I know this sounds terrible, but I have two conversations always going on inside my head. Anybody else? Anybody? Thank you. Look at that. We got a good. Yup. Who has ever spoke on stage? Okay. Did you ever speak on stage or in front of people or even a group of friends? And I could be on stage talking just like this. And simultaneously, I'm going, why the hell would the guy in the third row be sleeping right now? Like, I'm gonna walk back there and smack him. And that's all going on while I'm talking. Right. So this sounds crazy, but I do that with battery drainers and battery chargers. I literally will have a conversation and meet somebody. Can't you tell? In a second, which is who? Right? And in a second, I'll literally be meeting someone. Oh, hi. I'm like, oh, what a drainer. Hi. Yeah, hey. We should communicate. Yeah. Text my assistant, Jeremy. I give everybody. If you say, let's hook up. And I give you Jeremy's info. I judged you. I'm sorry, I did. You wanna plug your battery and drain me? I don't want that. And then as that evolves, there's two types of people. There's bigger past people and there's bigger future people. Bigger past people is when you talk to someone and they talk about back in the good old days. I hate that so much. He talked to somebody. Yeah, well, when the other president was in, when there was a Democrat, when there was a Republican, when it was this, when it was that, it was like, there's, you know, back when Jesus was here, it was so much better. Like, there's so many different things about the past. It's like my bigger. My best days are ahead. How about you guys? Let me ask you something. Who in this Room wants to make more money next year than they're making this year. Who wants to be happier next year, more fulfilled? Take your relationships to the next level. That's what this room is about. That's not the whole world. You ask a lot of people, you know what they'd say? You guys are dreamers. You need to get real. Listen, who in here had someone tell you you were crazy for coming to this event? You know what I always think Two things. Bigger past, bigger future. I love thinking when somebody's talking about the past. They're not somebody I can spend time with. I want somebody talking about what's going on tomorrow. But here's the thing. When you have a family member, someone you love or a friend, and they're telling you how to fix your relationship, how to make more money, how to do all those things, you know, another one of my two stories, two conversations going on at once, you know what I immediately do? I say, if I woke up tomorrow morning and looked in the mirror and I was them, how would I feel? And I'm always like, oh, shit. I'm not taking their advice. Think about it like someone is in a shitty ass relationship going, oh, you shouldn't put up with him. You should just tell him to. It's like, yeah, you're on your sixth relationship. The broke friend telling you how to make money, the single friend telling you how to fix your relationship. Just immediately replace that with what I be them. And all of a sudden, things change. Okay, here's what I want to talk about now. Could we pull up. Could we pull up the. Could you take those slides down, please? Let's see. Let me get to this next one. There we go. Pull that one up. All right. This little barn is in the town I grew up in, Marlborough, N.Y. and Marlboro's representing today. That's awesome. I was there about two years ago, and I took a picture of this barn. And the fact of the matter is, When I was 21, 22 years old, my dad had a collision shop. I'll tell that story in a moment. In fact, let me just share this. I was 22 years old and I didn't go to college. I didn't think I was smart enough to go to college, didn't think I had the money to go to college. And when I was in high school, it was cool. My dad named his collision shop Paul and Dean Autobody. So I was like, I don't need to go to school. I'm good. I'm solid. And plus, you know, I barely got out of high school. I was the worst student possible. And I want to share something with you guys. The reason I'm telling this story is because I don't care where you are right now as you sit in here. If you're struggling and your back's up against the wall financially, or maybe money's good, but emotionally things aren't the best. I don't care if you're sitting. If you're in this room right now and you're dying to get your business started and you're struggling and you have a little envy for people who are going, I don't care if you're in the business, but it's not making you money and you're running and gunning. You feel like you're on a treadmill and you don't know how to get off. Or maybe your business is doing pretty good, but you want to go the next level. Or maybe I know some of you personally here are freaking killing it, but now you want more time back and control in your life. I don't care where you are. I promise you, I've been there. And I know what it's like to have family that you're responsible for. I know what it's like to want to take care of people that you love. I know what it's like to want to tap into your full potential because you know you have more to give the world. I know what it's like to want to make an impact, leave a legacy. So as I share everything over the next three days, I want to let you know that I understand each part. I understand what it was like to want to make 100 grand a year. And then I got to 100 grand a year, and I wanted to get. And I got to 100 grand a month, then 100 grand a week, then I got to 100 grand a day. And at my peak, we were doing 350,000 a day in sales. Now, thank you. I only say that because all of it along that whole journey was so easy. Nothing went wrong. There was no sleepless nights. I didn't fight with anybody. I didn't feel like I was taken advantage of. Not one bit of worry when things started going sideways at all. No, I failed miserably. In between there, I went broke twice. In between there, I had family members stop talking to me because they said I was such a dreamer. So I've been through all of them. So as I tell that story, I want you to know that what I love about a room like this, I Was literally in a room two days ago with 14,000 people. I love that too. But this is intimate. When I sit, look out in this room, I know what you guys desire. And I'm going to do my best to deliver that to you over the next three days. Are you guys open minded to just listen? Okay. So that barn my dad had Paul and Dean Autobody. I said, you know, I told a lot of my friends were going off to college. I'm like, I don't need college. I'm gonna work with my dad. I got this. So it was a couple things. First off, I covered the fact that I felt inferior because I had dyslexia and never told anybody. So reading wasn't an option for me. I just never read books. I didn't realize, well, listening to a book was a little harder back then than it is now. But I had Paul and Dean Auto Body. So I'm a couple years in, I'm doing pretty good. I got a pretty cool car, I got a Bronco that I got all this cool stuff. And then when I'm about 21 or 22 years old, my dad went through his third divorce and it hit him really hard and he gave up. And not only gave up, he moved out of his house and said, let it go to the bank. And he moved out of the collision shop we're in. He said, give it back to the landlord. So at 21, 22, I moved everything out of my dad's house because I didn't want him to lose it. And I rented it so I could pay the mortgage on it. My dad checked him in, checked himself into some facility to get his head back out, get his head clean. And they wouldn't let him out. True story. And it's funny now, so they wouldn't let him out. And then the collision shop, I had to move all the stuff out of the collision shop and that barn. I literally moved a compressor, my tools and a wood stove into that barn. And I worked out of that barn. I have some dear friends that helped everybody I knew. I did collision work. I fixed wrecked cars, I would change engines, I would do anything I could to make a dollar. And I lived in the apartment house right next door that I had bought and I lived in a little 300 square foot apartment. And I want to tell you, besides the fact that I was like, I thought I was going to be something and I'm not, I'm working in a Barn. And at 21, 22, you don't realize the whole world's in front of you, right? I just thought that was the end of my Life. I had 30, $40,000 in credit card debt to try to cover everything. And working out of that one car at a time. I remember the biggest thing. If I look back and wanna be honest, it's good to tell a story now. Like, oh yeah, I worked there and then I got rich. I wanna tell you what the pain was. There is I was embarrassed around all my friends. I was the one that said I had my own business. I got this. I own Paul and Dean Autobody now. I'm working out of that. I got a freaking wood stock. I'm putting wood in to keep warm. I'm painting cars and I'm painting cars with no. There was no fan in there. So every time I painted a car, I'd get such a headache, it hurt. And I never told anybody. I'd still go out with my buddies, I'd have a great time. But I'd get up at 5:30 in the morning, go work out of that shit ass barn, embarrassed. And I remember at that moment telling myself, this is your life. Everybody who told you you weren't smart enough, they were probably right. And I got into this terrible self talk and. And we'll talk more about that tomorrow. But then something happened. Something shifted. And I thank God. Cause I'm not really quite sure at that time where it came from. But I started thinking, screw that. This is just a test. This is just somebody's shin is trying to see if I'm worthy of what I want. I know where I'm going. I know where I want to go. And I'm not saying I had this revelation on my knees and again the stars opened up. But. But I felt that. And all of a sudden nothing changed in my life. I was still working out of that barn. I was still a little embarrassed. I still didn't know where my money was gonna come from. But because I had a different focus. Because I started adopting new habits. Because I love my dad dearly, but my dad worked hard, my mom worked hard. But working hard does not correlate to making good money. Can we all say amen to that one? So I watch and all of a sudden I started shooting, shifting my habits. I started doing things that I saw wealthy people did, happier people did. My father and I literally, and I'm just being completely honest, my father and I got in a fist fight in that barn. Because he told me I was a dreamer. He told me to grow up, he told me to go get a job At Red's. It was a factory. He said, grow up. And he literally, I was working on a car and he kicked the side of the car, a customer's car. And I pushed him and his foot went into a bucket. And he got so embarrassed, he came at me swinging. I never swung back at him. But it was just this terrible time in my life and there was something that just shifted. And one of the reasons I think I'm into self education, self growth and push so hard is because that was one of the many defining moments. Because part of me wanted to say, okay, maybe I go to Reds. This is my life. I'm not that smart. I don't come from money. I don't have a college degree. Part of me wanted to go there, but there was another part that said, screw that. There was another part of me that fought for it. And I went on and I went and made a friendship with the woman who owned the building where my dad had Paul and Dean Autobody. Her name was Mary Lopresti. And I went and had Sunday dinner with her about four weeks in a row and got to know her. And she said, you know what I love about you? You're nothing like your dad. I'm glad my dad's not here right now. I'd be fist fighting again. Kidding. Kinda. So about the fourth Sunday dinner at Mary Lopresti's house, she says to me, how about you move back into the collision shop? We didn't rent it yet. I said, I would love to, but I don't have any money right now. She said, move in, pay me rent when you can. Built a relationship with her. I moved back into that collision shop, started doing one car at a time. And this time I named it Dean Collision Center. And one thing led to another and I got Enterprise Rent a Cars account, I got tow trucks. I started building houses, I started renovating apartment houses. And by 27, I was officially a millionaire. Thank you. And I want to show you something going from that and a 300 square foot apartment, just to let you guys dream a little bit. This is where I. This is my new house I bought three weeks ago. You could take that down. I hate the whole look at my house. I made this check in five minutes. If you guys follow me. You know, I'm not about to make magic money machine. I say that to inspire. I say that so you guys and show that so you guys can see it doesn't matter where you are. It really doesn't. What if everything that has happened to you up until this Point in your life. What if every bit of it was actually designed for you? What if that was God or the success otter that lives in the sky going, they want more. It works on personal growth. Okay, Their partner screwed them over. Check. They still got up the next morning and went to work. Their spouse doesn't believe in them, was unfaithful to them, screwed them over. Check. They got through that one, and they're still freaking kicking ass. I believe that each of us have a path of. I'm gonna use a really technical term here. A path of shit in front of us that we have to get through. And we can't get to the level of life we want unless we get through that and find a way to continue to go. There was 6,000 times I wanted to quit. 6,000 times I almost believed the people around me. But I didn't. And now. And you're gonna see a framework around this tomorrow. Now I realize that all of it was put there to see if I was worthy. So think about your past. What if right now? Because I know there's a lot of you facing some obstacles in your life. What if right now you could look back at your past and realize that it was all designed for you, that you had to go through that? And if you're facing something right now, it's part of your journey. Because guess what? Your next level of life, the best version of you, lives on the other side of the thing you fear the most. And sometimes it's not like you just blatantly fear it. It's the thing that you avoid. It's the thing that you ignore. It's like you got used to the bad relationship. You got used to the partner you work with that's not supportive or doesn't have the same values as you. You got used to the employee that works for you, that you, as you're so annoyed by, but you think you need them anyway, or whatever it is in your life. You have these things and you decided, you know, I'll just ignore it. Ignoring it allows you to stay in a hypnotic rhythm and stay right where you are. It's time to be disturbed. It's time not to let inaction be the answer that's gonna take you to the next level. Cause it never will. It's time to step up and be the best version of you. It's time to face who you are, your values. Values and go forward, even if it's in the direction of the storm.

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