"The 1% FOCUS On This For SUCCESS!" (Mindset Of High Achievers) | Dean Graziosi

If you're not in the arena with me, if you're not playing ball, if you're not bloodied, if you're not marred, if you don't have failure, then don't dare judge me. Don't dare give me a word. I refuse to listen to anybody who sits in the sidelines and points fingers at me. What it feels like is some of it's surreal and it wasn't a smooth ship. It was like, oh, I got my infomercial. Yay. My life's been growing on a 45. It's like, yay, I got this. Holy shit. No I don't. I'm gonna lose everything. Oh, no, no, wait, wait, wait. I got it. Like, it is the entrepreneur ride. But all of those build character, all build muscle. All of those failures allow you to navigate new territory. So you realize, and this is one thing I would write down, remember forever, you solve bigger problems, you get bigger checks. And as you fail, you realize, I just got to solve bigger and bigger problems. So how do I feel besides it feeling surreal. It's what drives me at this phase of my life, right at this phase. And so could Tony and him and I talk every single day. We could check out, right?

You don't have to.

And I don't say that to brag, but I could check out and I don't want to. I'm more motivated today than I've ever been because now I realize I was put on this earth to share a story, to give capabilities, to make impact. So the deans that are in their 20s right now thinking, I don't think I could do this. It's the wrong time, wrong president, I missed my window. All that, all that same fear was the same fear as I had. I wasn't smart enough, I didn't have the money to start. No one gives me a chance, no one believes me. People think I'm insane. People call me dreamer. Like I'm the oddball, I'm the black sheep of the family. I'm the underdog. All those feelings so many people have and they're one shift, one little shift not a million away from getting course corrected. They're one shift away from being 30 or 20 years later like I am now. And looking back, my brand's broken. A billion dollars in sales from that guy living in a bathroom working out of an old beat up barn, right? So I just hope and I know you universe great people and I love the inspiration, but I hope today you see, like I would love for you to say, holy shit, Dean's not that smart. Yeah, Like I would love you to say, oh, my God, if Dean could do it, I could. I have a seventh grade vocabulary. Even if you read my books, I write the way I talk. I mean, if you read my book, you know, I write. It's a dialogue, it's a conversation. Right. So if nothing else of that story, just knowing that you can. Because a lot of times, all someone needs to hear. And that's why I commended you for what you do. Sometimes all someone needs to hear is a story because the capabilities are out there, the personal growth is out there, the tools are out there. But if you don't have the foundation, if someone doesn't give you a chance, if someone doesn't show you can, then you start believing you can't. And then there's this certain age where you find like, maybe later, and I'm gonna do another thing to hopefully disturb you. Screw later. Because the last five years went by too fast for all of you. Wait till you get older. Five years goes by in a minute and you start saying, well, let me take this shit ass job for five years and then I'll work on me. Oh, let me. I'm gonna get married. Let me keep the job. Telling me, oh, oh, we got pregnant. Let me wait till the first kid's old. Oh, let me wait till they're in high school. Oh, let me wait till they're out of college. And all of a sudden you're 60 years old. You're like, where the hell did my life go? I want it back. You know how many people I talk to? Like, I didn't take chances, I didn't take risks. You want to get disturbed. Picture being 90 years old and you lived someone else's life like you always had this desire to do it. You're going to be 90, going, can I get another shot? Like, I don't want that. I would much rather. Did you ever hear the Theodore Roosevelt quote, man in the arena? No. Oh, you got to Google it. I don't have it. But basically, I don't remember it off the top of my head, but it's really. It was this amazing speech he did in France, and it was like, at a paraphrase, you got to find it. But basically it said, if you're not in the arena with me, if you're not playing ball, if you're not bloodied, if you're not marred, if you don't have failure, then don't dare judge me. Don't dare give me a word. I refuse to listen to anybody who sits in the sidelines and points fingers at me. It said I would much rather end my life knowing I tried valiantly and failed and than to sit on the sidelines and poke fingers. But the ultimate end would be that I went after it. When everyone told me I got goosebumps, everybody told me I couldn't. And I figured it out along the way, like, it's such a great quote. And basically what that means to me is I don't want to sit in the stands and wear someone else's jersey on my back. I want to be on the field. Even if I'm losing, at least I'm fighting for what I want. So don't wear someone else's jersey. Get in the arena and fail. Like, you can't win unless you're in it. I love that.

And in your study of studying some of the most successful people on the planet across multiple industry, talk to some of the audience here about a lot of people might say, like, oh, becoming a millionaire, of course Dean could do it or Omar could do it or they could do it because they have some mythical, magical thing. But talk to me in your study about how imperfect you found a lot of successful entrepreneurs are. How possible is it through taking just a series of, like you said, small pivots, small habits that could totally change the trajectory of your life. Can you talk to me about what you found in your study?

Absolutely. So I love to talk about what's going on right now. So I'm here with you now. I literally was in Puerto Rico this morning for breakfast. We're in Beverly Hills right now. I was there masterminding with some dear friends. We get together and we find hidden little spots all over the world and we meet a couple times a year. I chartered so I could be here on time. I landed, I came here, sat down. So if I look a little dishevelled of a little laptop plane for seven and a half hours and I drove in traffic and now I'm here, right? But I was there with some people you might know. I was there with Lewis Howes, Russell Brunson, Trent Shelton, Rachel and Dave Hollis. Rachel's got the hottest. Her books are like number one in five in the world in Amazon. Overall, she's crushing it. I think I said Russell Brunson from Click Funnels. There was so many. I can't even like people that you like when you watch them on social media, right? They're just doing amazing things. My buddy Brendon Burchard, right. Tony and I, we're doing something special. I want to tell you about that a little later. Like, if you take Tony Robbins and all the people I just mentioned, when you see them flying on jets, doing cool things, you're like, God, I could never get there. But we just mastermind for three days. And when we do, we're dear friends, and we opened up, and I can't tell you who, but there's not one of them that has a story that's not, like, severely tragic. I mean, two people in the group talked about this weekend how they were molested when they were young. Three people in the group talking about how their parents stopped talking to them because they called them dreamers. Other people, their parents split and left them on grandma's doorstep, like, broke, no school, couldn't graduate. Like, everybody's got the story. And I don't say that to make what you're going through, to minimize what you're going through. It doesn't matter if you came from perfect parents and you still feel empty on the inside or you came from unbelievably horrific background. The only thing I know is there is no ingredient for success that has to do with your past. Omar, I know a little bit about your past. You struggle with a lot of things. Your past was there, and it was designed for you to be the man you are today. And those that realize that, those that can say, okay, today's the shift today. And this is the most important part. What every single one of them had in common. Some of the top influencers in the world that I just mentioned. Right? Influencers. When I say an influencer, people who are really doing it, really making that don't just have followers. Right. What they did is found a way. And this is kind of Tony Robbins 101 is they found a way to change the story. And Rachel Hollis, amazing woman, like, killing it right now, and inspiration to millions of women. Her mom, her father, her siblings didn't believe in what she was doing. They thought she was crazy. Right. She's gonna. Her husband. I mean, there was a point with her husband, and she writes about this in her book, where he didn't believe her. He thought personal development was for broken people. And his wife is literally going to Tony Robbins and writing books and doing. And he felt that. And there was a point in their. And they got the best relationship you've ever seen. Like, amazing couple.

And it's a classic challenge that you find in the personal development world.

Yeah.

One spouse is into it, one's out.

And one day, she literally said, to him, you're either on board or you're not. Like, basically. And the good man that he is, he went to Tony Robbins with her, he started doing it, and now they work together, managing, but like a riff and a relation, like all of these things. But one thing is different is they found a way to say, I'm not gonna fail or be held back because of these circumstances. I'm gonna use them as the fuel to keep me going.

I love that you say that. And it touches on something that Tony. I know Tony has had a massive impact for both of us. Tony says, when he says that nothing in life has any meaning except the meaning that we give it and so speaks to that is that, you know, you could use, for example, you know, a lot of my audience knows that I started the show out of the pain of a breakup, being in a rock bottom situation. And I use that pain as power to start the show and get these impossible guests and build an audience. I could have used that pain to, like, woe is me, be broken, have trust issues, abuse other people in relationships. Because I. You know what I mean? But I chose to adjust the narrative. And I think that's kind of what you're saying too, is that all these people, you know, in spite of what happened to them, they were able to use it instead of have it use them.

Yeah, I mean, I did a podcast, I remember probably six months ago, and as a younger kid, and at the end he said, hey, man, if you ran into your younger self, he goes, no, heck no. Tell me what advice out of all you've learned over a billion dollars, failure, mistakes, all the success books. He said, what could you tell me was just one thing, which is a hard thing. And I didn't think about it in advance. And I said. He said, what would it be? I said, learn to observe your thoughts quicker. It took me till I was in my probably 40s to really understand that your thoughts lie to you and your thoughts will steer you down the road. Like, when your thoughts have you ever. And you're listening. Have you ever, like, thought a girlfriend did something wrong and all of a sudden you're all fired up, like, how could she do this?

Emotionally response.

You're emotionally respond. Then you get there and you find it was all bs, it didn't even happen right. Or like, I can't believe my buddies went to the movie and they didn't invite me. And. And you realize they left you a voice memo like, things can happen to fire us up that are just our perception of a Situation or insecurities that.

Are bubbling up or whatever it is.

I mean, think about when I. When I say that is like, think thoughts, right? Two identical situations. There's a car accident. Two people are involved. One circumstance, someone gets out and screams their head over, how can you do this? I'm gonna be late. My insurance is gonna go up. What are you stupid? How can you do this? Fuck you.

Like, don't you see it? Yeah.

Then you see, like, are you blind? Right? That's one same circumstance. Someone else does it and gets out and says. They say, I'm sorry. Oh, no big deal. It's cars. It's metal. We have insurance. Nobody's hurt. Who cares? Hey, can I buy you a coffee? You look a little shaken up, right? So when someone says no, when somebody says, get real, or this is what actually happened. Nothing is what actually happened. What happened is the perception of a situation. Now, I know you probably heard that a million times, but maybe this is the first time you actually think about it. Your situation right now is being held back or being fueled simply by what you think you have, right? And when you change that story, you change your life. Like. And one of the ways that I think is really important is if you feel like you can't start your own company because you don't have money and you're not smart enough, then go Google John Paul digiorio and look at his story. Who started videos?

We actually had him on the show.

What's that?

We actually interviewed him.

I love John Paul. Go Google Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, me, everybody I know, everybody I was with this weekend. None of them started with money. None of them were like, hey, here's 100 grand. Go start your business.

Or a blueprint on how to do it.

Three quarters of the people we were with this weekend didn't go to college. Like, not that you find someone who you say, I can't do. I don't have a supportive spouse. Find someone who didn't have a supportive spouse and they did it anyway. And prove that the story that your subconscious has developed to protect yourself is bullshit. Like, literally, when it pops up, that limiting belief, that doubt talk, that inner villain says, it's the wrong time, Wrong president, wrong economy. Just prove it wrong and call it a liar and start figuring a way to empower that. Like, I believe. I believe people all feel that they're an underdog in one shape, way or form. And I believe if you can use that as a practice to spin those, like, I love this underdog advantage that I call the power of you can't. There was a part in my life where my sister wanted to protect me and said, dean, you're trying to go up to this big business. You didn't go to college, you're from a little town, you're doing really well for yourself. Don't push it.

Be grateful.

You really can't do this. Be grateful for what you have. You know, my dad would just tell me, you're a dreamer, Mr. Big Shot. You're not gonna make it right. I had my best friends that I grew to high school with. It's like, come on, Dean. And there was a part that used to, like, hurt me and pull me down, but I hated the way that felt. And somehow I shifted that and I became. I created in my head this, like, little fantasy world that I have inside here. And it would call it the power of you can't. So if I told you my idea that Tony and I are doing right now, we're launching a company together, and you were like, oh, you can't do that. I'd be like, oh, yeah, I can't watch. You know, watch this, like. And I would get, like. It fuels me. So I watch some people where a parent or someone will say, hey, man, that's not gonna work, Omar. And you're like, okay, maybe I will. Or even if a little, like, just so you know, when someone gives you that, you only need 5% of that to stop you. You don't need the whole like, oh, yeah, I can't do it. You're right. It's like, no, I could do it anyway. Then you go home and you're sitting in your room and you go, well, maybe I can't. Yeah, maybe they're right. So you only need a little bit of self doubt. But how do you. How do you switch that is play all these games, do all these hacks in your head when literally when people tell me they can't, I smile. Like, I don't even. Like, this is the phase I'm at in my life. Someone says if I said, hey, I'm going to the moon in two years, like, oh, you can't do that, I would smile. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'll take a picture and send you.

Like, send you a selfie from space.

Yeah. So start thinking of what you think is an underdog disadvantage. And every time you have it go, wait, I identified that. How can I make that an advantage? Okay, tell me. I can't. It's going to fuel me, right? So anyway, can you give Me, one.

Or two examples where you actually, you know, encountered a situation where you're like, oh, shit, what am I going to do? But then you, like, thought with it, wrestled with it, and then we're able to turn it around. Anything off top, just so we can give a practical example for the audience dealing with it.

So I started a company called Motor Millions. My first infomercial was teaching people how to make money with cars. Because I used to flip cars without money. I'd find people that wanted to sell, people wanted to buy. I'd match them up, make a grand in the middle.

And how much had you made doing this before you decided to do the infomercial? Just out of curiosity.

A lot.

A lot you had done.

Well, that was the foundation for me to get into real estate. So probably a million bucks in gross revenue, right? So I create the course, I film my infomercial gets on tv. It's on TV about four years. And now I want to go to my real estate course because real estate's where I made the big money, right? So I sell. I sell the company. Somebody comes along, like, perfect timing, like serendipity, like, this clouds open. Guy wants to buy my company. I sell it to him, and. And they're going to pay me royalties every quarter. First quarter, I don't get a check. Second quarter, no check comes in. I'm trying to contact them. Nothing. And I find out they really messed up the company fast. Put it in about a million and a half dollars in debt. I call my attorney. He calls me back. He says, dean, the company's a million dollars in debt, which might as well have been 10 million back then, or 100 million. And he said, you're probably going to have to file bankruptcy because a lot of the stuff is still in your name, even though you sold the company. Merchant account was in your name. All these things that I was just. I was a little naive, right? I was excited to sell. So I was.

Entrepreneurs are.

In the beginning, I pushed it out, and I wanted to move on to my next thing, right? So my attorney says that I. I got centered and balanced, and I meditated. No, I didn't. I was like. Like, I was so, like. Like, I was wrecked. Like, my heart was racing and I couldn't breathe. And all those old limiting beliefs come back. I'll tell you how your. I'll answer your question. This. Like, I literally had a. Not a cell phone. I had a cordless phone, and I smashed it against the wall, put a hole in the wall. And I remember Thinking, who do you think you are? Like, terrible self talk. Like, who do you think you are? You're not smart enough to do this. Maybe your father was right. Maybe your sister was right. Like, all these things just keep flooding in, right? And there was a point where I was stacking. And I'm sure you've done this, Omar, especially with your transition. You remember when something goes wrong. And you can think about this, too. Like, from a girlfriend leaving you to losing your money to the business didn't work. And then you don't just go, wow, she left me. You're like, wow, she left me. I'll never be in love. I'm gonna be miserable. I'm gonna. Maybe I'll be bad to the next girl. I'll be alone forever. I'm never gonna have kids. Like, you stack all this negativity.

When it rains, it pours.

Yeah, you look this negative future. And I think we're designed that way because I can remember staying up all night just stacking stuff. Like, so when that happened, I was already supporting my mom and dad. I had never worked. I've never worked for anybody in my entire life. And when that happened, I started thinking. I started stacking all the negativity. I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna go broke. Oh, my God, it's gonna be in the paper. Oh, my God. All my friends are like, I told you you couldn't make it, dreamer. And then I said, oh, my God, I'm probably gonna have to go to work so I can keep supporting my parents. Like, I stacked so much. Like, one thing happened, and I'm stacking.

Like, a mile, right? So it's true. Most of us deal with some variation of this, so.

So what I've learned through the years, and I didn't know I did it then, but I kind of. I call it this, like, success loop now. I'll just go through it quick because you said, how put it in real process. Like, this was a pivotal moment in my life. Like, I didn't have a million and a half dollars, and I invested all the money I had into my next business. And that business was eating money. And now this money was going away, and I owed money, and my attorney said I had to file bankruptcy. Stacked all the negativity, didn't sleep sick to my stomach. But then what shifted? It is somehow now it's a process now. This is a process I go through and take this process. Don't do this to yourself. I started stacking what could go right. And it was kind of off balancing. What could go wrong? It was like my brain want to go wrong. Like, no, what about right? Right, Right, wrong, wrong. So I was balancing and it started to. I calmed down a little bit. As soon as I calmed down, I started focusing on solutions. Like, how can I fix this? How can I get through it? No, I'm not filing bankruptcy. And I worked on solutions. But then what really got me is I started thinking of who I didn't want to be. I didn't want to be somebody who used to be successful. I didn't want my friends to say, ah, dreamer. Knew it. I didn't want to be the guy that almost made it and had that story for 20 years. Like back in the night, back in the early 2000s. I was almost there, but then this guy ripped me off and screwed me. How many people do you know that have that bitter moment?

Exactly. Big business, it's all crooks, right?

Right. The real estate market turned and robbed my life 20 years ago. Time to jump back on the horse, right? My boss fired me. My partner stole my money. My wife cheated on me and left me. Okay. That's your. Like, you can either loathe on that and focus on that, or you can learn from it, call it research and development and go forward. So I started saying to myself, dude, who do you want to be? The guy that used to be, or may almost was successful. And then I started writing down who I wanted to be. I wanted to be the guy that got through an almost impossible situation. Situation. No money, a million and a half in debt, partner had to go to court, take back a broken company. I want to be the guy that gets through this shit. I want this story.

You literally, consciously thought this in the midst of the shit?

Yes.

After you vent.

And I love this.

How could I turn this around?

Yeah. And then all of a sudden, I started getting excited and I started writing down all the things I could do. So now I wasn't writing down what's gonna go wrong in my life like before. And I wanted to go get therapy because I literally have anxiety about it. And I started writing down what could go right. And then I started. And this is something Tony teaches well, but I started projecting what my life would be. And this is a. This is like we move for pain and pleasure. And what I realize is. And I do this consciously now, that was subconscious. I didn't even know what I was doing. But we make moves for pain and pleasure, so why not incorporate both? Don't just set big goals. Think about if you don't move. Where are you going to be? So I started thinking, if I don't fix this, where am I going to be in five years? And I started thinking working for someone else. People calling me dreamer, like mom and dad being right. Ego, like envy, jealousy, and like, that felt like shit. And then I. Then I went over and said, but what would an ideal five years, I started thinking, people going, wow, remember when that thing went wrong? Like, I'm talking to you. It was terrible. I'd love to say, Omar, that moment, I felt better and I just fixed it, man. Man, it still was shitty for six months. But I started writing down a compelling future. And the more I wrote down a compelling future and who the person I wanted to be, not the person I didn't want to be, man, I started catching fire. And I'm like, nothing's going to stop me, right? So I started taking what seemed like a disadvantage, and I think most people let it linger as a disadvantage. And I found a way to mentally shift it. Now, I love to say I had it overnight. It was easy. Easy. None of that was. But it. Was it worth it? Absolutely. And then soon as I got my head clear, I realized what helped me before was gaining new capabilities. So I started searching out people that almost went bankrupt, people that were taken advantage of, people that turned around companies. How do I get my new company thriving? And I started searching. That's why I obsess on masterminds and groups and trainings. Self education changed my life. So I started finding people who already done it. I'd ask every older person with money I could find. Hey, listen, I'm going through this. I really don't understand. I. And I got the best advice. I joined a mastermind group at the time.

Wow.

And I turned. I turned that around. I launched Think a Little different, which was my real estate course. And literally, that Think A Little different course just soared. I paid off all the debt from the company I sold, and I want to say the rest is history. But then I had really great momentum. Incredible.

So basically what you're saying is you turn that rough situation of, oh, shit, what do I do? Into an opportunity to, like, master your own mind, master your own emotions, take control of the narrative, and also use it to dig deep, to like, okay, how do I avoid this happening again? Yeah, now you're learning about bankruptcy. Now you're learning, you know, things that I'm sure you implemented in your later business. Right? Things you might have gotten comfortable. Say the company was paying your residuals. You might have Got comfortable and we wouldn't be here today.

True story.

You know what I mean? So in retrospect, that was a blessing.

It was. And here's the thing. When you're going, if you're going through a really tough time right now, it's like, it's hard to go, oh, this is for me. I'm gonna be so much better.

Blessing in 20 years.

Yeah. It's like, no, you don't. But that process, I told you, if you have to watch this video or listen this audio again, that process is what I use today. Because my businesses and companies are thriving right now. My book just passed 600,000 copies. Every part is going. Tony Robbins and I are launching a company. My buddy Brendan Burchard and I own Growth Dot Com. That company is crushing. We have all these different things going on. But I'm not naive enough to think, omar, I promise you, I'll be going through some kind of shit fest in the next three to five years. It just happens. They change a regulation, something goes wrong, a publisher that owes you money goes bankrupt. Like, these things happen.

It's part of the business.

And the more you go through it, the more you're like, I got this. What's coming next? And the more you create a framework. I didn't have a framework. I looked back in retrospect, how did I get through all those things? And I did have a framework. Now I know it. It's like, okay, something goes wrong. There was a situation in my life. I didn't plan it, Okay? I got to deal with it. I could stack the negative or I could stack the positive. I could focus on what goes wrong, focus on what go right. I could focus on who I want to be, where I don't want to be. I can create my compelling future. I can go out and obsess and gain capabilities. And then after I gain the capabilities, you got to do the most important thing. You have to have courage. You have to jump out of the plane and grow wings on the way down. And that's the hardest thing, because you know this, your situation, I don't know how much you share of it. I'm grateful that you shared with me. But once you learn new capabilities, you had to trust Jim Rohn or Tony Robbins or Wayne Dyer. You had to trust what they say, holy shit, this is going to make me a better man. This is going to get me through this. And that's hard for some people. So after you go through that and you gain new capabilities at a mastermind, a book, a Mentor a trainer, a consultant. You have to take that and go, okay, this guy was or this woman was qualified enough to give me that. I got to go do it blindly. Because at that point, you have to realize, and this is one thing I try to do all the time because I want to grow is. Our best thinking got us to this place. Our best thinking got you in that chair. Whatever you did, you went with my team. My team was like, omar is a badass. You got to do this interview. Your best thinking got you there. But it's going to take new thinking and new capabilities to go where you want to go. Is this where you want to end? You got a lot more aspirations you're going to hear. Right. But the thinking you have today won't take you there. It only got you here, which is not bad. But we always want to upgrade that thinking, upgrade our capabilities. That's why I'm obsessed with learning from other people. That's why I just got back from masterminding. Like, we. We literally sat down. All the people I tell it told you and more. I can't think of all of them right now. My buddy, Craig Clemens, who has a massively successful company, we all sit around and we share the biggest breakthrough that we've had in the last 90 days. What's the thing that moved the needle the most in our life or our business? Do you know what it's like to be in a room with those guys sharing? Incredible.

At that scale.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

It's like, boom.

Now can you share with some of the audience? Because I'm sure that a lot of times it wasn't even a big thing. Right. It's a subtle shift.

It's always subtle shift. Always. It's always subtle. And then we also share. And I'll share whatever you'd like. We also share. What's our biggest obstacle? Probably problem or opportunity that you need help with from the group. So it's, like, amazing. One little piece, right?

Yeah.

And so anyway, getting back to that loop of going through it and then we'll go in any direction you want is once you gain new capabilities, you have to trust that it's going to work. And you got to put the gas down. You have to go in a direction that's going to feel uncomfortable. There's no way to the next level of your life without being uncomfortable. In most cases, your next level of life lives on the thing on the other side of your biggest worry, your biggest obstacle, your biggest challenge. If you don't face them, you can stay where you are. You see, a lot of people will grow, grow, grow, grow. Even if they get to a half a million a year and then they're a half a million a year person their whole life, it's because there was one thing they were scared of. They were scared of losing it. They were scared of hiring people, they were scared of sales. They were scaled in marketing, and instead of facing it, they just were like, maybe I'll get to it someday. And they coast. And if you believe any of the personal growth we both geeked out on for years, if you're not climbing, you're sliding.

That's right.

So people think are hovering. You're not hovering. People are blowing by you. Yeah.

You're growing.

You're dying.

Yeah, absolutely.

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 right over here and watch them and I'll see you there.