The Identity Trap Most People Never Escape

What is my identity? Is my identity who I was in the past? Is my identity some of the bad decisions I've made? I've made plenty. Is my identity some of the good decisions? I think it's about the choices we make in the future. I'm gonna look through the lens of maybe all the things that don't align with maybe— I know there's things in my past that I don't align with now. So the way you show up today will build the story of how others and how you will look back at your life. But what if you decided today to shift that? What if today I am the relentless one? I am the one that's not gonna stop. You don't have to accept it, and you can craft a new story. And you can create a new identity if you so decide. Isn't it funny how we attract what we say? If every time you see somebody you say, ah, there's just no good men out there, there's— if you're single, right? There's no good women out there. It's almost possible I'll never find my right person. Isn't it amazing the more you say that, the more you attract that? Imagine if you're single and you said, I know the perfect person is out there for me, and I can't wait till the universe brings us together. Isn't that just a subtle shift in the same thing? And doesn't it just come across better to say it and put it out into the world? Identity— I believe going upstream to identity is the depth of your values and what they really mean. Because if you say, hey, I want to seek to understand my son, but one of my core values is I must always be right. So can we reclaim, can we release, and can we redefine our values? What about if we brought back some old values that once inspired you but got lost along the way, that life wore them out? Think of some of the values you might have thought out of high school, out of college, in your 20s or 30s. But if we were going to reclaim an old value that you lost along the way, what would that be? What is something that you remember? You know, is it feeling unstoppable? You can do anything. I can do anything. A sense of wonder. So if we reclaim what's good, the next one I said is release. What if we let go of outdated beliefs and habits that no longer serve our goals? What if there's a value that if I'm not wealthy by 40, I'll never make it? What is a belief that slowly fell into your life? I'm not enough. I don't know technology. I'm a person that just completely resistant of technology. That's not gonna serve you in a world that's AI and technology coming, right? What if your new belief is, yeah, I'm a little older than others, but I'm curious. I have depth of wisdom. I have intellectual curiosity. One of the greatest gifts you could ever give anyone in your life is teaching them to have intellectual curiosity. What is an old outdated belief, habit, or value that doesn't serve you and you want to get rid of. Why me? Ego and separation. I don't have enough. I don't have enough time. I'm unusable. Throw that baby away. Hard to change. Imposter syndrome. I'm stuck. Asking for help is selfish. Release that one. Asking for help is joy. It's love. And the more you ask for help, guess what? The more people will ask you for help. Isn't that how this world works? Isn't that how our masterminds work? The more you ask, the more you give. Just think of those core values that land in all of us. I've been there. If you have a deep down value that I'm not good enough, doesn't matter what you put on top of that, you'll get to a certain point, go, well, that's why it's not working, I'm not good enough. That's why it's not working, I'm too old. That's why it's not working, that I need people to support me or it won't work. And then you wonder, like, how come I can't get through this darn marketing? It's because you don't believe it in yourself enough. So if that, if that value has already cost you too much, that belief has cost you too much, then we must release it. And a lot of the stuff I'm sharing You've already heard. I know that. What personal development, what success habits are about, it's not about learning something like, "Oh, that's it." It's a reminder service of the things you've already used that help you, but sometimes we forget and we fall back into old patterns. Isn't that true? But we're always looking for like the magical thing. It's, a lot of times it's not magic. It's the small things that are the big things that we have to learn to adopt and put into our lives. If you made healthier choices, and you got up a little early and went to gym 3, 4 days a week, in a month from now, 6 months from now, a year from now, you'd see a massive difference. So when people say, Dean, I've heard this one before, I'm like, yeah, but are you doing it? Are you actually going to the gym? No. Are you eating smarter? No, I was gonna. All right then, then how many times do you need to hear it? As many as possible until you actually do it. So if you've heard any of these before, don't let your brain go, yeah, we heard this one. It's like, no, am I utilizing this one? Am I implementing this into my life? Okay, so if we reclaim some old ones, we let go of some crappy ones, then the third one is redefine. What is a new value that you want to put into your mind, into your soul? And I think whatever one you write down, you should put on pieces of paper and put all over your house. You should stick it to your computer, stick it to your refrigerator, put it up on your makeup mirror or the mirror you brush your teeth in in the morning, and you should look at this New value, right? I am a massive success. I am about consistency. I am capable of anything. You can and you will. I decide powerfully. I am success. I am a gift. I am unrelenting focus. I am enough. I can do it. I'm abundant. I can learn. I persist. I'm unbeatable. The world needs me. I'm the creator of my reality. I can do it. Nothing will stop me. It's my time. When we think of values, there's two things that I think can really help you. Values and your identity are not what you say, they're what you do. You say, "I'm a fighter, I can do anything," and then you get free time and binge out on Netflix for 3 hours. You say, "I'm doing this, I'm taking my life to the next level," and then you surf on the internet for 3 hours and get stuck doing this. Who you want to be is it's not for anybody else. No one else needs to see your video. You need to see it. You need to see it. And if you get to watch that video and feel proud of yourself, then that's who you are. So I'd love for you to think through that, because today, hopefully, you make some changes. You decide to do something different. What if we just reversed engineered a life that matters? I mean, because I think at the end of our life, what do we really want? Imagine that this is the end of your journey. What would you want people to say about you? If you're stuck, you didn't— you didn't overcome some of the things in your way. These are the little shifts that actually make the big shifts. So imagine the end of your journey. What would you want people to say? Your legacy won't be built on what you shared. It'll be built on the actions that you took. As a parent, you know that, right? We could tell our kids all the stuff we want, but they become who we are. Not what we tell them. If you were writing your own eulogy and you were really honest, what are some of the things that we have to change now that could shift our legacy? To make the change you want, sometimes you got to go to the dark side. I rented a house in Mexico for a family reunion. My mom lives in Virginia. My sister lives in a different part of Virginia. People were all over the country. So we had a little family reunion where we all got to stay together in this great place in Cabo, Mexico. Mexico. We called it a family reunion. My kids were there, and my mom and her husband, and my sister and her husband, my nephews. It was a magical time. My mom was married to a guy named Lenny, and Lenny and my mom were high school sweethearts. Then he went off into the Army, and it didn't work out. She married my dad, and then a whole bunch of stuff happened in between, and she married Lenny again when she was older. And he was such a great stepdad, and he was an awesome part of our family. I loved the guy, and I loved how much my mom loved him. Because we go away with the greatest intentions, and we're all having the time of our lives, and we're eating, and we caught— we caught some fish, and we brought it inside, and all this cool stuff. And then my stepdad's colon burst while we were there, and he started bleeding to death. And we got an ambulance, we got him to the doctors really quick. And he had lost about— I think by the time we got there, he lost like 40% of the blood in his body. He was— he was translucent, he was so white. He He was pale. He was see-through. Couldn't talk anymore. He lost consciousness. So he said two things. He wants to talk to Dean. Not my mom, not my sister. Everybody's here. He wants to talk to me. But soon as his eyes opened, there's anything he could have said— am I OK? Where am I? What happened? What's going on with me? The first thing he said was, Dean, I should have been better to your mom. She's the most amazing woman in the world. And I could have been better to her. I should have started that business that her and I were going to start. She's been asking me to start this business for so many years. They wanted to build their own log cabins. He's like, why didn't I listen to her? And then one more thing that was a little too personal to share. And then he passed out. And there was nothing else he said except those three things. And I realized, wow, at the end, our brain is just going to focus on the regrets. Like, 'cause he was a positive guy. He wasn't a negative guy. This is what I did wrong. He was the happiest guy you ever met in your life. And all he said was those 3 things. Now, they did surgery, they saved him, but he was never the same. He got 3 more years with my mom and then he passed away. But it hit me so hard. I'm like, wow, at the end of our lives, is that what we're gonna think about? Am I gonna regret what I missed, what I didn't recognize, what uncomfortable action I didn't take? Lenny Rizzo gave me a gift of saying, I want to figure out what those regrets are now, and I want to solve them. There was somebody in my life that I hadn't talked to in a lot of years. I forgave them completely because I thought at the end of my life, I'll probably regret not having them in my life. I made some big decisions about my dad. I I made big decisions about the man I wanted to be. I made some big decisions, and I have this new take because of Lenny Rizzo that says, if I don't do it now, I'm gonna regret it then. If I don't do it now, it's just gonna build up, build up, build up, and is that what I'm gonna think about? I'm not gonna get it perfect, I know that. But if I look through that lens, I hope I get to the end and I can think, what a blessed life. That's what I hope. If I didn't become the man my wife Lisa deserved, that would be a big regret. Again, not trying to make this a morbid inner circle, but I'm going to do whatever it takes to help you take bold, committed action towards who you're meant to be. Not my version of you, not your family's version of you, your version. You know who you could become. You're already amazing. You're already perfect. What's one bold commitment you could make this week? I'm being general because you know there's some things you've been putting off, and to do it, you have to be bold. So figure out that thing you've been putting off and have one bold commitment. I would pick one value or habit or identity shift, pick one and focus on that shift this week, right? From I'm too old to I have wisdom and I can do anything. I'm unstoppable. I don't know who it is, but maybe there's one value you could shift this week and focus on it all week. Maybe write it all over the house. Write it on the back of your hand. Maybe you can tie it to something meaningful to you. Tie it to the parent you wanna be, the loved one you wanna be, the friend you wanna be, the partner you wanna be, the business owner you wanna be. Tie it to something. Because your identity becomes real, your values shift when you actually put it into action. But maybe you can look through the lens of what is this impactful step? What's one step that you can look at and identify that is bringing you towards your best self?