One Skill To Learn During Lockdown

Weaknesses, when we focus on them, rob our confidence and make us feel bad about ourselves. All right, these are lessons for my kids. Welcome back. Or if this is your first time watching, you're kind of getting to see behind the scenes of someone who's been thinking about this for years. This is to my daughter Brianna, and to my son Brody, and to any future children who might see this in case I have more kids, which we're kind of trying right now. In my journey of being an entrepreneur for over 35 years, of failing miserably to generating over a billion dollars, I've accomplished a lot, failed a lot. And these are the lessons I think are most important. So if you're here, I want you to know this is personal, this is private. In a moment, I'm going to just be talking to my two kids because I don't want this to be just another video that my kids see online and go, oh, yeah, my dad did this series on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or whatever platform exists. I want you to know I'm doing this for you. Just my team convinced me that I'd be selfish to keep this behind the scenes just for them. So, Bree, Brody, future children. Lisa, I hope you don't mind I'm sharing this. And today, guys, I want to talk about how important it is to not focus on your weaknesses. This is something I wrote about in Be a Real Estate Millionaire and other books I had. But I really want you to feel it today because I don't know where you are in your life right this moment. But weaknesses, when we focus on them, rob our confidence and make us feel bad about ourselves. I'm just going to give you an example. And I've probably told you guys this before, but in seventh grade, that's when it really resonates with me. Seventh grade, Mrs. Thompson, special reading room. She would always just say to me, just sound it out. She'd get so frustrated, she'd grind her teeth. And I remember, she would tell me, I remember things about Mrs. Thompson. She would say that she was actually left handed. But when she was young, I mean, you got to understand, I'm 50, so. And she was 60 or 70 when she was my teacher. So, you know, it was a long time ago when she went to school and being left handed, she went to a Catholic school. They thought it was like, that's what she said. They thought it was like the devil. They used to tie her left hand behind her back and they made her right. Right handed. So she was like, she had all this bitterness Built up. Long story short, she used to say to me, just sound it out, Dean. And then it got to a point, by halfway through the year, she's like, you are so dumb. You're so dumb. And that really shut me down because I knew I couldn't read well, I knew I couldn't write. No one diagnosed me with dyslexia, which, that's what I had, a form of dyslexia that made it really difficult to comprehend and read. So I just kind of shut down and I hid and I cheated. I'll just be honest, guys. I cheated to get through school a lot. It was the only way I thought I was. I thought I was being resourceful, which I guess I was being resourceful. But I don't recommend it because now I'm obsessed with learning. And I go back, I'm obsessed on history, on everything. I'm going back and learning all the stuff I could have learned if it was through different lens. Here's my whole point is I spent a lot of years trying to get better at reading. And then I beat myself up, and then I feel bad about myself and I'd play small and then I'd say, that's why I never went to college. Didn't even consider college. A lot of that had to do with Mrs. Thompson. I let that sink in. But what I didn't know then, guys, that I know now more than anything, that's not how God designed me. I wasn't meant to be good at reading. I wasn't meant to be good at grammar. I don't know what a prepositional phrase is. I'm 50 years old. I couldn't identify an adjective. Doesn't that sound terrible? When I right on my computer, if it could talk to me, it'd be like, are you serious, Dean? I don't even know how to spell that word. There's some times, guys, where I'm on my computer and I'm trying to spell a word and I'll try it like five times and still read. If it could talk to me like, dude, what are you trying to say? And then I'll just use a simple word. I don't have a vast vocabulary, but it doesn't matter. I have multiple New York Times best selling books. I've sold millions of books. I've impacted lives all around the world because I know how to tell a story and I have editors who are really good at grammar and spelling. Here's my whole point. I wish when I was younger, when I was feeling really insecure when my confidence was in the toilet, when I used to hide from people, when I'd blush really easy, it's because I thought I had to be great at the things I sucked at. And the older I got, I realized, the hell with the things you suck at. I want to give you permission right now to forget about it. The hell with it. You don't need it. If you're terrible at math. There's something else God gave you that you're supposed to get great at. And if you get great at that, it'll cover that part of you, like, right now. And early on, not even when I was broke, I found a way to just start doing the things I was really good at and be able to afford to pay someone to work on my weaknesses or create mutually beneficial relationships where I could do the things I'm good at and get someone to help me with the things that I'm not good at. And we could switch. So maybe today you could really analyze what are the things that make you feel insecure, that if somebody rubs you the wrong way, maybe someone hits you up on history and you don't know it, and you're like, oh, I should have known more history. And they hit you up on art, and you're like, oh, I don't really know art. I have no idea what art. I go to an art museum and I see somebody spends 50 million bucks for a painting that's like red paint. I'm like, I could have done that in my garage. I know to some of you that know art, you think that's really naive. I don't give a shit. Sorry, guys. I'm just gonna say it like it is. When people tell me that I should watch the news, I haven't read the news or the newspaper or watched the news in over 10 years. I have no idea what's going on in current affairs. To some people on this earth, that seems naive, that seems childish, that seems like, I'm not intelligent. I don't give a shit. I don't care. But guess what? You know what I got really good at, guys? Communicating on camera. I got really good at caring about other people and trying to give them tools to get out of their own way to be more successful, whether make money or be more success, feel more fulfilled, make more impact on the world. I got really good at that. I got really good at being on stage and inspiring crowds of 10, 15,000 people. I got really good at caring. I got really good at building a team of people smarter than me that run My business, that edit my stuff, that oversee what I'm doing, and I get to do what I do best. And guess what? I've been able to be the dad that I always dreamed of to you guys that was so important to me. I get to be an amazing husband now to Lisa. I get to impact people's lives. I get to live in a house with a life that I only once dream of. I got to retire my parents. I got to give you guys options in your life. Not spoil you, but give you options. And guess what? I did that. And I still suck at a lot of things, guys. I still can't spell good. I still don't know what a prepositional phrase is. I still don't have great grammar. I still am obsessing on history, so I know more about it. I still don't know art. I still don't have a vast vocabulary. I don't go to fundraisers. I don't know how to dress in a tuxedo. I don't know any of that stuff. But I'm happy. I'm fulfilled. I feel successful now more than ever before in my life. And it was because I got great at some of the things I was good at, and I ignored all the crap I sucked at. So that's my little lesson for today. A lesson that can apply to, of course, my children, but to every single person watching. What are you doing right now in your life? It's making you feel bad about yourself. Time to let it go. I'm going to tell one last story. So you probably know this, but I run events, and I run small masterminds. And there was one time that I had a mastermind, and this gentleman stands out. His name was Tom. Tom stands out. He's about 65 years old. He had retired. And this particular mastermind was about real estate. And I'm going around the table saying, what is your biggest obstacle and how can I help you? And I get to Tom. And Tom had done several deals where he made about $15,000 a deal, guys. So 15,000 bucks, depending on when you're watching this, what age you are, is probably really relevant. He done three or four deals, but it gets to him, and he says, I know what my biggest weakness is, and I got to work on. He said, I am the sloppiest human being alive. I'm so not organized. I clean my car. It's a mess. I clean my home office. It's a mess. In a week, my wife lets me know about it. I need to go to at the time, it's probably out of business by the time you watch this OfficeMax and get a filing cabinet and file everything and color code it. And he's telling me all this stuff and he gets done. And I said to him, which I would say to you if you were sitting in front of me. I said, tom, can I be honest? You're 60 something, almost 70 years old, and you're sloppy and you're not organized. You're going to be a slob for the rest of your life till the day you die. And he was like taken back. I said, but it's okay. And he said, well, I said, no, it's okay. I said, the hell with your weaknesses. Don't you dare go to Home Depot or to Office Max to try to organize. You suck at it. Here's the thing. You've done four deals. Three. Four deals made $15,000 each. You're really good at finding deals. You just started this six months ago. You're really good at negotiating. You're really good at getting a team. You're really good at selling it. How about this? What if you just went out and did one extra deal a year using what you're already good at, taking that. Take that money and get someone to come in part time to organize your home office. And he just sat there and he never thought about that. 60 something years old, he had been carrying around the burden that his teacher told him, his parents told him, his wife probably told him of being a slob. He kept that. It lowered his confidence. He felt bad. He apologized for it. And at that moment, I watched 60 something years of that crap fall off his shoulders. I gave him permission to say, it's okay to suck at it. It's okay not even to care to get better. Just go out and do some more deals, pay someone to organize. He ended up reaching back out to us. His wife ended up making a deal with him. They did this bribe like one extra vacation a year. She was an organized school teacher and she did his books, cleaned everything up. Only reason she never did, because he never asked. And he went on and did lots of deals and moved his life to a whole other level. So, guys, the hell with the things you suck at. Don't let anybody make you feel bad who's an art critic, English major. Something that you're not good at. Just go master something. I'm not saying suck at everything. Don't use that as an excuse to be lazy, but use it as a thing that drives you. Find what you're good at. Find what you like and go master it. Be better than anybody else. 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. Click right over here and watch them and I'll see you there.