Shift your MINDSET to Achieve ANYTHING YOU WANT In Life! | Interview with Jeff Lerner

Dale Carnegie said it the best. The biggest plight of the human race is knowing you have more to give and not giving it. This is our time. Gain these capabilities and go out there and be courageous moving forward. Welcome to the Dean Graziosi show. All success starts right here. Jeff, I appreciate you, man, for putting yourself out there and helping others. And I know you have lots of options to listen to. So you're here with us. So we're going to make today amazing and, and I'll just give you this, take what serves you and throw the rest away. I promise in this next half hour, 40 minutes, we're going to deliver one too many things that could move the needle in your life. Make sure you implement, take uncomfortable action, move forward with that because the last thing that you know I'll say before I share a little bit about my past is if we don't own our future, someone else is going to. And that's something that punches me in the gut. I don't want anybody telling me what to do, how to live my life, how to move forward, how to, how to live, how to dress, how to raise my kids when I could spend time with them. So I want to do everything in my power to own my decisions. And I think you do too, or you wouldn't be here. And that's what we're going to share today for me. I'll go real quick. Jeff. We all have our story. For me, I had dyslexia, struggled in school, so it wasn't my thing. I barely got out of high school. In fact, principal, I was telling you this earlier, principal is a really great friend of the family and I think he kind of let me get out of 12th grade. But here's what I want to share and not go through the whole thing. I remember what it was like knowing I wanted more. I watched my dad work a hundred hour weeks and struggle and have nothing. I watched my mom work three jobs to have nothing. They were separated, so both struggling, they worked hard but didn't have anything. And I just realized at a young age it wasn't working right. Like they worked hard but they didn't have anything. And I was fortunate enough to become friends with some older, very successful people in my town. Dominic Afuso, Joey Noto and Mark Miller. These were great entrepreneurs, good human beings. And they gave me different guidance, different thinking processes completely. It was like being an alien compared to the way my parents thought. Jeff and maybe you felt this way at a certain phase of your life, but I started implementing and doing certain shifts and again, didn't go to college, started making shifts, got the entrepreneurial flair, started working on wrecked cars and fixing them up and flipping them, got a tow truck, started running, bought a couple houses with no money down. After trying 500 different deals, I finally got a couple deals, started working real estate and cars, started getting momentum, got apartments, started building houses. And then something really crazy happened. I was already on my way to be successful. Then something in my mid-20s changed my life forever. I saw an infomercial with Tony Robbins. It just spoke to my heart. I was like, oh my God, where's this guy been my whole life? Because I didn't read books, I didn't go to college. My guidance counselor, I remember telling me, oh, you're not going to college. And she wanted me to go apply at a minimum wage job, factory down the street. Like I didn't know. There was this thing called self education, learning from others. I got Tony Robbins course, and it fundamentally shifted me forever. I paid for knowledge. That knowledge put me in a different state, allowed me to use my weaknesses as my strength, to overcome obstacles, to focus on solution, to shift my beliefs, to love my family, but not model them. And literally, life was never the same. I decided to go into the knowledge industry. I wrote an infomercial. My first one was 1998. Jeff. I went on TV in 1999, failed miserably, learned, grew, got hooked, and obsessed on impacting people's lives for a living. And since then I've gone on to be a multiple New York Times best selling author, do some amazing stuff, live a life I never thought was possible, and now I'm just hell bent on giving back like I know you are, Jeffrey. You wouldn't be here doing what you do, but you know the world. We're in a weird place in the world right now. We're in a place where entrepreneurship and success is something you truly have to learn on your own. Because it's not taught in school, it's not taught by most people, and it's only about 2% of the world that has the nerve to gain the capabilities, take uncomfortable action and own their future. So anything I can do to share with this amazing audience to give you the strength through these uncertain times, the capabilities to fight folks forward, or the passion to take the uncomfortable action it takes to hit your full potential?

Well, yeah, I appreciate the backstory. I relate to so much of it. I have an anecdote I'll share that'll bring it totally current and present. I do have to correct something though. I Said that I've been watching you since I was a minor. But if your first infomercial was 1998, I don't want to age you inappropriately. I was 19 when your first infomercial came out. So I was probably. You were the guy in my 20s, not my teens.

You know what, you were almost a minor. You're only two ways. So you're only a couple of years off. That's great.

Tony was the guy in my teens.

Yeah, Tony was in my teens too.

Yeah. Yeah, he's, he's, he's the category creator for sure. Well, I don't know. Jim Rohn might take issue with that statement, but we'll give him a lot of credit nonetheless. So. Okay, I just gotta share. I mean, I. Literally an hour ago, I was driving back from Vegas to, from a trip with my wife, and I was on the phone with our editorial team for the book I'm writing, which is also called Millionaire Secrets. And it was about the publisher proposal. It wasn't about the book. It's weird. Like, everybody agrees on what's in the book, but the question was all around how to present it to the publisher. And the issue we were grappling with is so germane to what you just said, where they're like, well, is it a business? But the book's called Millionaire Secrets and the working headline is, pardon the term. The term is Millionaire Secrets. Shit, rich people know but don't tell you. Yep, that's the name. That's what the working title of the book. And they're like, well, is it a business book? Is it a personal finance book? Is it a self help book? And they were really concerned that the book was only for people that own a business or want to start a business. And there was this real, like, polarity on the call between, like, well, there's a. There's some people that need to know these entrepreneurial skills. And then there's all this other mainstream world. It's like the more personal finance category where like, they were, they were kind of thinking, at least in the mind of a publisher, a lot of what's in the book won't apply. And I'm like, you guys, this is the problem. This is the problem. The book's not the. The book isn't caught in the problem. The book is rejecting the problem. The book is being the change we want to see in the world, which is the 98% of people that are fully encamped in the employment 401k retirement mindset of the world that's a false dichotomy that's being perpetuated. And are we going to pander to that as the author of a book that's supposedly prescriptive? Anyway, it was just. And I can I tell you before.

I even see a moment of when that's booked. Right. I mean, what's in your book? You know, my best book I've ever written, we're about at a million copies, is Millionaire Success Habits. Right. So we're so aligned, Jeff. Right. And what I tell everybody is there's no particular framework or secret in that book to get rich overnight. That's. There's not even a business model on how to get rich in my book. It's how to go upstream and anchor in the strategies that actually allow people to become wealthy, happy, and fulfilled in their life. Because the magical money machines that you see all over the Internet, how is that working for people? People need to go upstream and make subtle little shifts in their life. Like I told you, I got to be friends with these three older guys in my town, and the way they talked to me was nothing I'd ever heard in school, nothing I ever heard from my parents. And when I started making these shifts, as you would call them secrets and I call them habits, when I made those, I started getting exponential bumps up in my life. By the time I was 27, I retired my mother. By the time I was 32, I retired my father. They both worked hard, but they didn't have the subtle shifts that successful people use. And I love what you're doing, and I already know what the book's like from without reading it. It's anchoring in that foundation. So success is possible no matter where you are and doesn't matter where you are financially or where you live in the world. And the one thing I know, when I wrote this, when I wrote that book, Jeff, and what Tony and I are doing with our challenge coming up is I love making people feel disturbed within action. Because, listen, at the end of our lives, when we look back, if we didn't go after it, we're not going to say, I'm so glad I played it small. I'm so glad I didn't go after my dreams. I'm so glad I let someone else own my future. You're not. You're going to be at the end of your life saying, shit, what the hell did I do? I want to redo, right? So that's why I love a podcast like this, a book like that. It's like, no, this is our time, gain these capabilities and, and go out there and be courageous moving forward.

Yeah. And that was kind of where we landed at is it's not about what you own, like whether you own a business or you own a job. It's about the word, the word control. We accepted the substitution of control for ownership because it's not like, oh, you have your step one is to go register an LLC and get a tax ID number. So now you own this thing that's going to magically solve your problems? No, it's own your life, control your future and control your income. I don't care if you have a job. Then you control your income based on your performance on an assumed between two and a half, 3% raise potential per year.

Yeah.

That's what you control, right, Is you control whether or not you get all, some or none of that 2 1/2 to 3% per year that they allocate to raises. There's a whole other world where you can own or control or whatever word you want, your income and your life and you can make an extra million bucks or you can spend a month on an island in Bali or like there's a whole other set of possibilities there's nobody talks about anyway. So, yeah, we are on the same page. But so I'm curious then, and maybe this alludes to what you're doing with Tony, but for where we are in the world right now, the chaotic state of things, the massive uncertainty and the wide disparity of some people, maybe they're coming from a multi, you know, a million dollar job that they're uncertain about because of changes in the medical system or whatever, to the kid coming out of college or even high school who's got nothing and is just trying to get a toehold in life. Do you have any sort of broad guidance for the full spectrum of people that are trying to grapple with the world as it is now, not as it certainly was or the way it was when education was created, modern education. Like, where do you steer these people now? What's your advice?

Okay, so the first thing is again, I like to go upstream a little. So there's two answers when you ask a question like that. One is, if we don't change the foundation. Right. My dad had, was diagnosed, he's 85 now. When he was 65, he got diagnosed with diabetes. Now I know there's diabetes that can't be cured through diet, so I'm not judging that. But my dad got diagnosed with diabetes. He had all this medicine prescribed to him And I asked them to try a different way. I said, let's go upstream and let's find out what's causing your diabetes and see if there's a possible. Through diet and exercise, we can get you off the medicine. We studied obsessively, called some, read some books, and we got my dad on a different diet 20 years ago. Within six months, he was off the medication. He's going to be 86 in June. He's never been on medication. His diabetes isn't there anymore because he went upstream. Solved the issue, right? Then there's. If that didn't work, then there's tactical things, right? So let me answer that in two ways. One is, I think we need to go upstream a little and realize that when the. The world shifts like it has, I look at it, you've heard this saying, forever, Jeff. When one door closes, another one opens. Yeah, we get that. But here's what most people do. They stand at the door that's closed and locked, jiggling the handle, dying for it to come open and complain in their head or their subconscious or their inner self. Doubt. It's like, God damn it, I want this door to open. Who would shut this door? I need someone to open it back up. I want life to be the way it was. But do you really, you know, one thing Covid did? Warren Buffett says, when the tide goes out, you see who's swimming naked. Let's look at it. The tide went out when Covid came. And when you really look at it, were you really living the life you thought you'd live when you were a kid? Were you really living into your full potential? Are you really living a life that at the end of your days, if you got a chance to sit with your maker, you could say, I was living a fulfilled life. I loved my job. I loved someone else squashing my dreams, or I loved being in the time and effort community, or I loved being around a boss that never let me have my freedom or not being in control. Most people didn't like it if you use Covid. Lots of bad came from it, but what good came from it? It exposed your life. You had time to sit and reflect. So so many of you are still jiggling the damn door handle, waiting for a life to open back up that may never be the same. The world's not going to be the same. And if it did, do you really want it? The other way is knowing that we must go, pivot, explore, investigate new ways where the world is shifting. Yes, some industries are Going down. Some are exponentially grow. So many of you already have assets, skills, things that you could do from home that can allow you to impact other people's lives and create success. So the first thing I want to share if I'm going upstream, like fixing the diabetes with diet and exercise is know when the world shifts, most people freeze waiting for someone to fix it. You have an unfair advantage. If you turn, pivot and look for another door that's open, you are amongst the 2, 3% that are scared, taking courageous, uncomfortable action or but you'll find what's next. And then the tactical side, what Tony and I have been sharing is the industry you're in, Jeff now and I'm in and I've been in for 20 something years, Tony, for 40 something years of being in the self education industry, being a part of the digital economy, sharing an experience, a passion, a hobby, a skill, a mess that became your message. Helping people get through or discover what you've already experienced. And it's one of the fastest growing industries in the world, right? I mean, according to Forbes, the self education industry, that means going online and paying for a course or a workshop or a mastermind or a zoom call and learn from someone who's already been there. That industry is heading towards a billion dollars a day by 2025 and we're just kind of shaking the trees saying self education is what changed my life. If it wasn't for me being introduced, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be on your podcast, I wouldn't be a multiple New York Times bestselling author. I wouldn't be the donate and impact and all the things I do. So shifting, pivoting, exploring simultaneously, there's industries like the knowledge industry, the self education industry that is exponentially growing and that's why we're teaching people how to be a part of it.

Well, I couldn't agree more. I mean, as a, as a high school dropout who was able to get into college regardless even without a high school diploma, because I self educated myself a skill that was desirable enough for a college that they ended up giving me a scholarship even though I wasn't admitted, they had, they had to go get the university to override their admissions policy.

Wow, that's cool.

On a piano scholarship that I taught myself to play. So like I'm all about it, man. And that's why I do what I do too. So I just want to say I, you know, a lot of people, I think they see, they see guys like us or entrepreneurs and it's. They probably assume that we're naturally competitive with each other. But I'm just like stoked you guys are out there validating what I'm doing. And I like to think I'm out here validating what you're doing. At the end of the day, there's a big bad world for us to serve and lots of room for a lot of us. And I'm just glad that the movement is sweeping. It's interesting you talking about COVID I had sort of a thought as you were speaking. Covid impacted people in direct proportion to, to their level of institutionalization. Let me explain what I mean. You think about who did Covid hit the hardest. It hit like all in order, taking employees, people that are completely invested in somebody else controlling their time and money and dictates and on the health side. And I sat next to an ICU nurse on a flight from Sacramento to Phoenix, where she was leaving. She works Monday through Friday in Sacramento in the California healthcare system. And she was telling me the truths from the front lines of triage intensive care. What's really going on with the COVID pandemic. It is by vast preponderance, the morbidly obese and people with essentially self induced metabolic syndrome, so dietary related insulin resistance, obesity, circulation issues, hypertension and so forth. And so you think, okay, what does that mean? It's basically people that are buying into society's life and career plan and people that are buying into society's Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland food plan. And like living through the drive through at the fast food. Those are the ones that Covid did. You talk about the tide going out. Covid decimated people who previously abdicated control of their own wellbeing in their life. And it empowered those of us who hadn't, frankly. And you're right, you can look at it through various lenses and say it's a tragedy, it's a horror show, it's economically, it's creative destruction, it's productive. 50 years from now it will have been a good thing. It's Darwinian, like however you want to look at it. That's not ours to judge morally. The fact is it is probably the cataclysmic entrepreneurial pivot moment of our century, maybe millennium, and here we are and you're evangelizing it. So in light of that, what do you tactically kind of steer people towards?

So if you think about it, right, Jeff, where did your career go after college? Where'd you start?

I was a working jazz piano player for A decade in Houston, by the way.

Just. That is the coolest thing in the world, man. I've always. I wish I could turn the camera. I'm in my home office and in the next room, I. When I bought this house, they left their grand piano. And I'm like, I've been walking by it for two years and I got to get my. I got to get lessons because I. It's amazing. I love watching somebody play the piano.

Well, yeah, I appreciate that. I have a concert Grand Steinway 20ft from me right now.

Oh, God.

But yeah, I did that. And I was fortunate to play. I played several gigs for like some billionaires and CEOs and company founders because I got in with this one booking agency. Like, I played at like Tillman Fertitta's house and Bob McNair, Jim Crane and all these billionaires in Houston. I played Andy Fastow, by the way, the CFO of Enron who architected the biggest financial collapse in history at the time, played at his house. That was fun. But anyways, and then I. So I got obsessed with business because I was playing for all these rich people and I started trying to start businesses. One failure, another failure, 10 failures later, finally clicked with online marketing. And, you know, now here I am. But this is, this is your show, not mine. But that's my story.

Yeah. So here's what I want to share with everybody listening right now because I kind of breezed through it really quick about this self education industry. You see people online doing extremely well, building legacy, building real businesses and helping others along the way. And if you've ever wondered how that happens, how did Tony Robbins and Dean and Jeff and so many other people do it, know that none of us were born in the self education industry. None of us were born to teach others. It is something that's created through time, through your life experiences because someone else needs it, Right? And the world has shifted. People aren't going back to college. College is struggling. College has grown linearly and the world is growing exponentially. Not much has changed. So people don't want to go back to college when they want to start their own thing. And we also know that you can't learn through your own trial and error fast enough because the world is moving too fast. So what's the end result is learn from someone who's already been there. So this is what I'd love to share with you guys at home when people ask me, tell me, why the self education industry, what am I going to share with people? And I Say this, if you had a week to prepare, I want you to think of everybody listening. Think of your 20 year old self, where did you live? What did you wear? Like I can remember what I wore at 20 years old about where I was. Think of a place where you would sit at your family's house or outside or a park and think if you had a week to prepare and you got to spend two hours with your 20 year old self, two hours. And you got to share like, oh my God, when it comes to your dreams, don't let people squash them. Here's the three things. When it comes to relationships, when it comes to making money, when it comes to business, oh my God. Like Jeff, you telling your 20 year old self, oh my God, when it comes to business, you think it's this, it has nothing to do with that, it's this, it's these four things. I want you to focus on this. And I do this in front of 20, 30,000 people. And I always say, especially when we're on Zoom and I'll say, what would that be worth to you to spend two hours with your 20 year old self? And there's only two answers, millions or priceless. Because priceless could mean I'd fix this relationship that didn't work or I wouldn't have got involved in it. But business, it's like millions, right? So I said think about this. You've had life experiences. You are a chapter ahead. There are potentially millions of people starting off where you left off, like your 20 year old self that you could teach how to avoid the divorce, or if you do put your children first or the mess of losing a business because you didn't understand finances or how to scale or how to market or how to sell or how to cut hair, how to do a million things. Tony and I are working. We have, we have people in 156 countries with 5200 different niches sharing their experience. So if you think about that is you've experienced something and some of it's a mess, some of it's a skill, some of it's an expertise, some of it's in business, some of it's in life. You found a way to be empowered, you found a way to eat vegan, you found a way to meditate and someone else is right now online looking for someone they can pay to show them how to go faster. You're on the other side of this learning curve and you can supply the bridge. And that's the self education industry. People that are willing to share Their knowledge, their experience to allow someone to go faster. But simultaneously it's heading towards a billion dollar a day industry. So I hope that kind of gave you a kind of a view of why we're so bullish and so passionate about helping people. If it wasn't for self education, I wouldn't be the man I am and neither would Tony. So we want to give it back.

Yeah, I think there's, you know, people probably because they're not in our world. I mean we study this like the way Goldman Sachs studies financial statements.

Right.

Like this is our world we nerd out on. I don't think people really understand, so I just want to vamp on it for a sec. How big the transition is, like what a big revolution there is. And I'll give just sort of a little flippant statistic. So my company Entre, we are one of the biggest self education, sort of structured self education companies in the world. We are currently teaching more student, we're enrolling more students than any university in the world every day. But our revenue is less than 1% of Harvard University's revenue. So there is still so much money going over here to the thing that is less efficient, less effective, less timely, less scalable, less relevant. And that's. And by the way, I realize I'm taking a big shot at a big target right now, it's Harvard University. But I would take an 18 year old kid, put them side by side and say, okay, you go spend a quarter million dollars in four years at Harvard, you come spend one year with me and let's see where you each are in 10 years. Because by the way, the average Harvard graduate is making $80,000 a year 10 years after he graduates.

And if you think about this Jeff, what you just described, you and I are so aligned is the world has shifted, that we need specialized knowledge, not general knowledge. And schools are still teaching general knowledge. You take 20 different classes even though you want to do one thing. All the way back, Napoleon Hill wrote in the 30s, he wrote General knowledge, no matter how vast and how much you gain of it will never accumulate to wealth. Ginnie Romney, the CEO of IBM couple of years ago, said, the hell with college degrees. I want people who have specialized knowledge. I don't care about all the stuff. I want somebody who went deep on one thing. And how do you learn specialized knowledge? The world has shifted. If you want to learn something, you can Google a million things. But when you want to find specialized knowledge to run a business, to scale a business, to go to another level, to create freedom in your life, to overcome the inner self doubt. And that imposter syndrome, you know what crushes imposter syndrome. Someone like Jeff, myself, Tony, someone who pulls back the curtain and says, this is how I got here. Don't avoid these pitfalls. Do more of this. And I look at it as a straight line going down rather than this wide, vast general knowledge. And that's why you're growing faster than all the colleges in California at once. It's why Tony and I's last challenge, we had 837,000 people attend, and we let them attend for free. And that's what we're doing with this next challenge we're doing. We're pulling back the curtain. I think we're going to hit over a million people because over five free, we're going to pull back the curtain and say, this is what you've been taught. These are the beliefs you had. This is what's holding you back. Let me show you a new path. And at the end of the five days, people say, this is not for me, or this is the beginning of a new me. And. And that's what we've been blessed to do. And the truth is, it never would have happened, Jeff, if it wasn't for Covid. Tony's my dear friend for a decade, but he's on the road 270 days a year. The guy's all over the world doing events. All of a sudden Covid comes and we got to find another way to impact people. And that's why we have the opportunity to do another big challenge before the world opens back up.

Yeah, I mean, 837,000 people, a million people. I mean, just to really put that in perspective, I mean, imagine, you know, let's pick something more, more accessible than Harvard, let's say University of Texas, big state school. Hey, we're having a free preview day at University of Texas. The city of Austin was shut down. If 837,000 people tried to. That ain't going to happen. There's just never been anything like this. And what's cool. And you know, kudos to you guys, by the way, for setting the bar. We're still in the first inning.

We really are.

This is like a 20 to 50 year shift. This isn't some strike while. I mean, by all means, strike while the iron is hot, but it doesn't mean the iron is cooling off.

Jeff, you and I are so in alignment on this. You know how I explained it? Literally, I was just on a virtual stage last Week with Tony and we explained it this way. It is like surfing. The wave is coming in of self education and surfers. Where do you want to be? You want to be in front of the wave because it pushes you to the shore. This is not a time to just paddle and let the wave go under because trying to catch a wave after it's gone is really difficult. And I believe this is a 20 to 50 year run. Like colleges better. Absolutely. Shift. And here's my hope. I'm not condemning colleges, but when a college like Harvard has, they're really a hedge fund that happens to educate, right. I mean think about the billions they have in their endowment, right. And so they either need to shift or they'll go extinct because there's the least amount of enrollment and people the least amount of enrollment in college history and more people bailing out of college than ever before in history because they want the self education from someone who's already been there. And here's the thing, they want what's in your head. And I think another thing I love saying is if you die with your knowledge in your head and you didn't share it, I think we should feel guilty because we can help someone go faster. Yeah.

And I mean the economic roi. I mean the way colleges right now are trying to fight the trend is just by jacking prices. But it's like you're just compounding the problem because you're just lowering the ROI on a college education the more you jack the price. And to your point, it's the major employers and you mentioned IBM. It's not just IBM. It's Hilton hotels, it's Google, it's Apple, it's IBM.

It's all of them.

It's you know, Royal bank of Scotland I think and there's like major banks now, Chase bank has certain pretty upper mid level roles now that don't require college degrees. As soon as those, you know, tape starts getting ripped off, how is it, how are colleges? Colleges are going to have to go the other way. They're going to have to race to the bottom just to attract people in. But they don't want to do that because it's pressure from the alumni going well no, no, we can't have an enrolling class at Princeton next year of 300,000 students because then my Princeton degree that I have on the wall won't be nearly as exclusive as what I paid for.

I never looked at it through that lens.

And we won't and we'll pull our donations. If you make this a Mass market offering. So I don't know where the college. I mean, I'm glad I'm not in charge of fixing college. I'm glad I get to be the antidote like you. But it's a big problem. I just don't think people realize the magnitude of it.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And the way you described it is so perfect. I mean, and here's the thing. People are self selecting. I mean, we're here sharing it, sharing it from mountaintops and yelling it. But we really don't have to. That momentum is building. It's coming. Listen, my daughter, who is 14, it's already a part of her culture, Jeff. Right. She wanted to learn. She loves to doodle and do artwork. And she said, you know, I want to learn oil painting. She didn't think about going to a class or going to school. Like, literally went online, went on to. Actually, one of our platforms found a guy, Anthony, that was doing weekend zoom trainings on how to do oil paintings for like 97 bucks. She said, dad, can I get a credit card? I'll use it towards my allowance. I want to take this class. I just handed her my credit card. And like two weekends later, I walk into the kitchen. We were in our house up in the mountains when it was really hot. I walk into the kitchen, and she's got her laptop open, she's got a canvas, and she's taken education from a guy who's not a college educated guy. He was just an artist his whole life. She liked his style. And the guy's doing weekend zoom calls, and he's got, you know, 50 people on that paid him 97 bucks each. My daughter one of them. And I'm like, this is where the world's going. That's why I want to shake everybody and say, you could either ignore it or you could be a part of it. Impact people's lives and simultaneously create success for yourself.

Like, it's like getting to hang out with Bob Ross, man.

Yeah, exactly. I would love to hang out with Bob Ross.

We all watched Bob Ross. But imagine getting to talk to him on Zoom, Right?

Exactly.

Well, why can't. What if you wanted to have the sun come up on the right side of the canvas instead of the left? Like, how would all the angles change and like, oh, my gosh. So, yeah, I mean, it is. It's right place. Not just right place, right time. It's right place for a long time.

Yeah.

So let's talk about maybe take a little different angle on the Question, though. There's, you know, I say that there's. The way college is structured is it has a systemic problem. And I'm not being so oppositional anti college. It's just this is how the world is. And you know, traditional education has some structural challenges, but they also have some content challenges because they're held to certain standards, whether it's political correctness, whether it's not losing federal funding or accreditation or whatever, where they have to keep their knowledge set and what they can teach within a certain box, where they have to focus a lot more on what than how and why. And what I mean by that is if you go take an mba, my guess is it would be illegal to sit in a class where they said, listen, if you don't work out every day and eat healthy food, you're going to burn out. You want this investment banking job so bad, you're going to burn out. Nobody's going to respect you because you're an obese slob. You're never going to get promoted because of bias, fair or unfair, whatever. If you don't appear, if you have slovenly habits, they assume you're not trustworthy with money. Like, you know, oh, and by the way, the way you talk to your wife, that's not going to work. Because if you're not a good empathetic communicator and somebody gets wind of it at work, which they will now because of social media, and you'll end up being on somebody's vlog, you're going to, you know, nobody's going to want to promote you. And like, there's this. The world has gotten so much more qualitative and connected and messy in a way, and yet they have to stick to stuff that's so quantifiable in school. I feel like they almost can't really have the conversation with students about what it actually takes to be successful in the world. They're like, they're almost prohibited from talking about it. Never mind the fact that a guy like you or me would never take a job, you know, $90,000 a year job as a college professor. So they're not going to be learning from us. So I think there's a content problem. So I'm curious, on the content side, what do you feel like self education offers people? And you offer people from a ha. You know, you talked about habits, daily, methods of operation, mindset, like, what are some of the qualitative stuff that self education can and does talk about that college can't or won't yeah.

What a great question. You know what I love, Jeff? I love when someone asks me a question or thinks so deep about something, something that it's new to me. So thank you for. Thank you for that. And I see why you have a great following and a loyal audience. What I think is if you look at life right in most cases and think about this, those of you at home or wherever you are right now, listen to this. When you think about going to the next level, it doesn't mean your back's against the wall, but wherever you are, you think of the next level. A lot of times our brain thinks how and who can how and the tactic, strategy or tool to get there. But now at 52 years old, I realize that the tool or the tactics or the strategies, though important. I love strategy. Being a strategist is something that I'm passionate about. And laying out the funnel, laying out the framework, laying out the process. But what I realized at this age, and so do you, Jeff, I'm sure, is that if you don't have the right mindset, the right discipline, the right habits, the right morning routine, then you'll never get to the depth of the effort you need to do to make it work. I believe most people, sorry to have a silly sports analogy, but I think most people give up on their businesses or their dreams or their life goals at the five yard line, they don't realize they're an inch away. They have the capabilities, they have the opportunity. They live in an area where there's no limits. We're in a time where we're connected to the whole entire world. We had 837,000 people on a challenge. Oh my God, right? We're connected. But what happens, what gets in your way is an old belief or you're married to someone you love, but they look through the lens of half empty and they're telling you it won't work and we're going to fail and we're going to lose everything. And that hits something that your father told you when you were 7 years old. If you don't have the discipline, the habits, again, I say the same thing. The morning routines that allow you to overcome the mindset, then you'll give up on the five yard line, not realizing. You'll think it was the tool or the tactics when actually it was an old belief that you didn't squash. So the cool thing about self education is you get the opportunity to shift your mindset so you become unstoppable. And then when you implement the tool, nothing can Stop you.

You know, somebody said a quote to me, I think it was yesterday on an interview, they kind of run together. But it was a Jack Canfield quote. And maybe you've heard said, 99% is a bitch, 100% is a breeze. And what he was saying is the way to make something easy, in many cases the way to reduce friction is to just go all the way in. Even if you're 99% of the way in, there's all this tension, all this friction. But if you go 100% in, where it's not just this is what I want to do or this is what I'm going to do, but it's literally, and this is, I think the only way to do this is who I now am. It's a total head to toe. You know, Tony Robbins would call it a lasting state change is a head to toe makeover of who I am. My identity shifts, so then my behavior, my execution, my results can shift. But any tiny little stopped shortage of that or short stopping of that is going to make things 10 times harder instead of 10 times easier. It's that last little bit. And that's what you're talking about, where it's not strategies that you piece together in your life, it's habitual behavior that you become in your life and then it's a breeze. But anything short of that makes it harder, not easy.

I mean, just think about the simple things in life. Has anything in your life worked well if you're not committed? Committed, right. Relationships, do they work if you're not committed, if you're texting or DMing or talking to other people, it never works. If you say you're going to the gym, but you really go there and sit on the edge of the bench and you scroll through Instagram, you tell your friends you went to the gym, but you know you really didn't do crap. Does it work out for you when you say you're eating good, but when no one's watching you're eating the things that make you overweight or make you unhealthy? Nothing has ever worked in our lives when we're not committed. But sometimes people dabble in business and want to be entrepreneurs and expect it to get the results. And here's the thing, last thing I want to share on this is the next five years of your life is going to happen anyway. The next five years you're going to have disappointment. The next five years you're going to be let down. The next five years things are going to go wrong. The next five years, your inner subconscious is going to make you doubt yourself. You're going to feel like an imposter. All of those things are going to happen anyway. But here's what I know. You could have all those feelings in five years now and still be in the same exact place as you are now. And how would that feel if in five years you were exactly where you are? Or you could take the next year, five years and go deeper in your entrepreneurial journey, deeper towards your success, deeper on your solopreneurship or taking your business to a next level, you're still going to have all those emotions, but on the other side, you're not still in a time and effort community and allowing someone else to own your future. You own your future, you own the next level. You get to make decisions. So you got the next five years happening anyway. You might as well find that thing, pivot shift, close that door, leave that door closed, that closed in front of you and go explore. And again, that's why we doing things like these challenges, so you can explore and investigate and see if there's a new path for you in this new world.

So I couldn't agree more. I say all the time, I'm like, look, anyone can. But clearly we all know everyone won't. But the fact that everyone won't doesn't mean that anyone couldn't have. So, you know, and you and I are probably both obsessed with the same question. Like, out of 837,000 people on that free challenge, or you know, exactly what it was, I don't remember. But, you know, let's assume maybe 8,000 actually took it and crushed it and changed their whole life. You know, like a 1%, 2% maybe, whatever it is, right? I think Maslow, Abram Maslow said 2% of people live at their full potential.

Right.

What is it that is stopping most people from. And we, you know, we can say it's childhood trauma, it's unresolved insecurities, but, like, how do you counsel people? Not just, okay, here's a clue to what it is, but like, here's how you go out and slay that dragon so that you can be.

I got it. I know.

What is it? Yeah, tell me.

I just. I only can go through my eyes because there's a million answers, Jeff. We could both sit here for another three hours and give answers, but here's what I believe. If you say I could be a millionaire, I could scale my company, I could start my company, I could live on my own. I could do this. But usually the but is your story, right? And we know that you've heard this before. Not the first time. Sharon, Jeff's probably shared this in a really elegant way with you. Your story of why it won't work where you live, your age, technology, don't have money, don't have time, your spouse doesn't believe in you, you failed before. You're a procrastinator. I. I don't know what it is, but that story is the only thing holding you back from where you are to where you want to be. Right? We know that. But here's what I would love for you to think about as we get to the end here. How do you get disturbed that story? Because right now you're giving that power to something that's bullshit. Because you could go Google a hundred people that started broke, no education, didn't go to high school, parents didn't believe them, physically abused, sexually abused, live in the wrong area, immigrant, got made fun of, was a nerd, broke, divorced, unhappy spouse. You could find. You could go Google people right now with whatever ails you, that they went on to reach their full potential and live a good life. So the story's bullshit. It just. As I say that you might go, dean, you're wealthy now. You're happy. But I had all those stories, all of them. And I had to elegantly bust. I don't even know if it was elegant. I had to find a way to break every one of those stories. And here's how I did it. I saw the power of what that story did on me. I felt its weight of holding me back. And here's how I look at it. I pretend it's five years from today and nothing's changed in your life. And if you're not climbing, you're sliding. So it probably got a little worse. You have a little bit less money, you dream bigger, but the dreams seem farther away. You didn't spend more time with your family. You're not the dad or the mom you thought you'd be. You don't have the freedom or time. Someone else owns your future. How would that feel in five years from now if that story was the reason you didn't go after it? Can you fail? Hell, yes. I failed more times. And Jeff would probably agree. I failed miserably. I've doubted myself. I've had sleepless nights. I've said, you're a fool. Why would you try? But I get up and go after it again because I deserve to be in control. My children deserve A better version of me. My wife deserves a better version of me. My teen deserves a better version of me. So I keep that uncomfortable action going forward. So all I can say is, if you let that story rule your life, in five years from now, life will be the same. And how would that feel? How would it feel in 10 years from now? Here's the last thing I'll say. I said, if you had, at the end of your life, you had the chance to meet your maker. And this is not me saying, I heard this from someone else a decade ago and it floored me. What if you got to sit down with God or whoever you believe in and God says, thank you, I'm glad you're here and I have five minutes for you. So tell me about your life. You say, I was going to go after it, but, you know, my wife didn't believe me. My husband thought that wasn't the right thing. It was the wrong time, the wrong president, the wrong economy. And all of a sudden, God said, wow, I wish you would have went after it, but can I just show you. I know you lived this life, but I just want to show you who you could have been. Could you imagine if God showed you who you could have been by taking that uncomfortable action, by busting that stupid lie of a story? So whatever it takes for you to be disturbed, literally be disturbed by this, be disturbed. At the end of your life, you won't be the man, the woman you destined to be. Be disturbed. You're not tapping into the full potential. Do whatever it takes to crush that story and then replace it with an empowering story. I didn't have anything. So my story, I switched it from, I'm an underdog with nothing to I don't have resources, but I'm going to be resourceful as hell, and I'm going to learn it, figure it out, and move forward. That was my story. That was my shift. You got to find yours, man.

Beautifully said. And if I could. If I could, you know, append it with this, it's that, you know, you're living in alignment with your story when you feel comfortable.

Yeah.

You know that you at least might be breaking out of your story when you're uncomfortable. And so the daily feedback mechanism to say, how am I doing? Is probably, how uncomfortable are you?

Yeah. Listen, we all know, Jeff, our next level lives on the other side of the thing that we put off or fear the most. So get uncomfortable. My term since COVID has been take uncomfortable action, and you'll be amongst the few that do during these uncertain times and you'll come out so far ahead rather than being left behind.

Tua man, tua tua. Take uncomfortable action. Isn't that a tua Tagliavoa? Wasn't that a new football player or something? Yeah, I'm going to think of that every time I see him play now. Ok, so Dean, thank you my man. I wish we had more time. I know we don't. I know you're a busy man, but this has been fantastic. Thanks again man. We Millionaire Secrets thanks you.

I appreciate you Jeff, man. It was great getting to know you better. As always, our podcast is free. We don't even sell advertising space, so how you could pay us back is by helping other people get this information in their hands. So if you enjoyed today's podcast, go ahead and take a second and rate and review the show and tell a friend. Heck, take a snapshot and put it on your Instagram. It's the best way for you to help other action takers get the knowledge they need to live into their full potential. And if you haven't already, go ahead and subscribe now to get access to new episodes three times a week. And as always, you can go to the description for this podcast and check out the special links I shared with you to take your success, freedom and abundance to a whole other level.