The Massive Advantage You Didn’t Know You had This Whole Time

What if I told you that being an underdog could be one of the greatest unfair advantages that you have? There are going to be some things that you've already heard, maybe you've already read a book on, or you went to a live event and somebody taught it. But what I'm hoping to be is the person who finally gets you to implement it into your life. Maybe it's the first time you heard it in the way I describe it. Maybe it's the first time you said, wow, it makes more sense than it ever had before. And these are the steps I'm going to take to get them into my life. And that's what I'm hoping because so many people are looking for a new wealth vehicle. So again, before I digress there for a second, I've been really thinking about this a lot, a lot now more than ever before in my life on how, let's just say your growth vehicle is your current job or your current business or your current whatever it is that makes you money. And let's look at it as a vehicle. There's dollar signs on the side, I'm visual. So you got your current vehicle, you're in. There's dollar signs on the side. And you want that business to make you more money or you're in that wealth vehicle, that job, maybe that business that's kind of, eh, doing okay. And you're looking around at all the other cars like, wow, that one's shinier, that one looks faster, that one's more silver, that one's brighter, that one's easier. And a lot of times people will go through life jumping from one wealth vehicle to another and go, oh, I'm out of that. The hell with that job. That was terrible. Got this new job. And then six months later it's like it's not really working. Let me look. Oh, there's another one. And you go, I'm going to start my own online business. And you jump and you throw that old job away, that old car, you trash it, you get it squashed and you're in the new one. Okay, I'm going to do online, make money online. Then you drive in this one for a while and you dabble and you try a little bit and that really doesn't work out either. In fact, now you're starting to stress out because you're not making money and you start looking around and go, maybe it should be real estate. And you jump out of that vehicle and you go, another. You get the point. I don't mean to go on too long. But I really want to make the point is it is so important to have the right wealth vehicle. But what's more important is to go upstream and make sure you have the success rituals, the success rules, the success habits to make those companies flourish. In so many cases, people think that the next magic money machine, the next vehicle, will be the one that takes them off into the sunset and allows them to live a life of prosperity and wealth and abundance and joy and doesn't. Today we are going to talk about the underdog advantage, as I like to call it. The underdog advantage. What does that mean? In some way, shape or form? Have you ever felt like the underdog? Have you ever felt like the cards were stacked against you? You didn't have the money. You don't live in the right area. You don't have a supportive boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, parents, siblings. You don't have the education other people have. You don't have a partner with a bunch of money. Have you ever felt like you were too small, you were too short? You know, whatever it is, I've been blessed to have thousands of people work in my companies under my brands. I've read tens of thousands of posts in my life of my students. Like the post you're doing right now, or you go to Facebook or Instagram. We get thousands and thousands and thousands of posts or messages every single week. And I obsessively read them because I want to know what you need from me. I want to serve you to the best of my ability. If I don't do that research, then I'm not. Then why would you follow me? Right? So I read that and I realize so many people feel that they're an underdog. In fact, I even had someone say, you understand, Dean, you had a lot of struggles as a kid. You didn't have money, you were stressed, you didn't have lunch money. So life was so painful when you were a kid, you have this desire for more. He goes, I have an unfair. I have a disadvantage because my parents were so good, they sent me to the great college, they paid for it. He's like, I didn't really need to fight for anything. And now I don't have that. His life was so good. He felt like an underdog, right? So I believe, and I appreciate all the comments, I believe so many people feel like an underdog. But what if I told you that being an underdog could be one of the greatest unfair advantages that you have, all with a shift of how you frame it when you're an underdog, meaning I'm going to give you an example. In my life, when you're an underdog, so many people say to you, oh, my God, stop being a dreamer. You can't do that. Oh, it takes money to make money. Hey, let me ask you, have you ever had an idea, like, you think of an invention? Like, I'm going to create this widget that's going to help moms or new moms, or I'm going to create this thing that allows your car to do xyz, or this app that's going to be amazing, or this something, something, something. And you tell some people and they say to you, that's a great idea, but somebody probably already did it, or, oh, to get on tv, you need so much money, or you know how to be a producer, or you need to take lessons on how to be good on camera, or, oh, my God, you got to trademark it. You got to get a patent. That's going to take years. Do you have money for an attorney? So people are looking at you like the underdog, and they're just taking their. Projecting their own thoughts and telling you that you can't. Now, here's the cool part is because of the change of story, the change of your thoughts, the change of framing, how things are positioned, you could say, they're right. I can't do it. And did you ever have that invention? And then you tuck those thoughts down and then a year later, someone else has the app, someone else has the invention, someone else has that idea, they're on TV making a gazillion dollars. Why didn't you do it? Because maybe people telling you you can't was the anchor. But what if we made that the wind behind our sale? I wrote a book. My first book ever was called Totally Fulfilled. Totally Fulfilled was a passion of mine because I had been teaching real estate for a long time. And what I realized is when I sat in customer service or I talk to people that weren't making money yet in real estate, I found out that a lot of times, most every time, it had nothing to do with the real estate education that I was teaching at the time. It would be like, my spouse doesn't support me. I don't think I have the money. My boss is paying us. I don't have the time. All these excuses, except for the one that they really wanted. They wanted this next level, but they weren't actually doing it. So I said, how can I obsess? How can I learn? How can I dig down and climb inside their head and help people have the tool to have momentum, right? So I decide I'm going to write a personal growth book. Now, when I look at that book, when I look at that book now, I wish that I would have waited longer. That's why I wrote Millionaire Success Habits. I look at it now, you know how we all grow. That was 10 years ago. I wrote that book. But let me just tell you, the Power of youf Can't. I wrote that book. First book I ever read. I had dyslexia. I'm not a good writer. That's a story. I don't know if I should write a book. I'm not that good. I. I don't know if I should write a book. I barely graduated high school. I don't know if I should write a book. My grammar is horrible. I don't know if I should write a book. That's what smart people do. I don't know if I should. I had all these beliefs, but I said, the hell with it. I'm just going to write it. So I write this book. I write totally fulfilled. I get done with it. I'm like, I think this is a great book. And I go out and I hire what I believe I heard is the best editor. Clean it up. So I send it to her. She lives in Virginia. I fly all the way to Virginia. I sit with her, I go over it. She says, okay, give me two weeks. She calls me three days later, I'm like, oh, I didn't think I was going to hear from her for three weeks. Two days later, she said, dean, I got to be honest with you. I can't edit this book. I'm like, why? And she said, I know you told me some of your insecurities. And it kind of shines through. This isn't a book. It's a 250 page conversation. It is so far off. It doesn't need an editor. It needs a real writer. It needs a complete rewrite. Wow. Felt like the underdog. As soon as I hung up, I'm like, what is wrong with me? Why would I try to. This is the stories that started. I'm going to show you the difference between the anchor and the wind behind your sail. The anchor sunk in. For the first couple days, I'm like, why did you think you could write a book? Oh, my God, I'm not that smart. And then literally at the time, I had just met Joel Osteen, I think, at the time. And I popped open his book and I read like five pages I'm like, now that's what a writer does. That was good. Mine does stink.

And.

Oh, God. And I had all these beliefs and at that moment, think of that pivotal moment. God, I couldn't think. The pivotal moment in my life. Anchor or win. Behind the sail. Underdog. Poor me. Underdog advantage. It's no good. It doesn't read right. And all of a sudden I went two days of thinking all those stories and I said, literally on the third day I woke up, I said no. And I switched it to an advantage. I didn't know why I was doing this. I'm sharing you in hindsight. But I switched it. And I'm like, no. She wants to say that I can't write.

Yeah.

In fact, I don't even want to fix the grammar. This is how I talk. The book is written like a 250 page conversation. If you read Millionaire Success Habits, you know how I write. I write the way I talk. I think it's conversational. I think that's why Millionaire Success habits were over 350,000 copies. It's one of the best selling books in the last 12 months. Let someone critique that now. What's it, 1/10 of 1% sell over 250,000 copies. And I did that because it's the same. Millionaires are totally fulfilled.

Totally fulfilled.

I've evolved a little. But anyway, I get this feeling and I'm like, I'm going to show everybody what I'm made of. She thinks that this book isn't going to be a best seller. Watch how many books this sells. And I started taking the power of you can't and said, really? You don't think I can? And I found this fuel. I can't tell you. Nothing changed. She still thought the book was shit. I never wrote a book before. I did have dyslexia. I was in special reading. All those factors were the same. You know what changed? The only thing that changed was my perception. I turned the underdog unfairness to the underdog advantage. And I started being empowered. Three days later, four days later, five days later, the power started to build, the thoughts started to build. And I'm like, literally, I was out of my mind. I'm like, no, this book is going to break barriers because everybody else wants.

To make it perfect.

I'm just going to create a conversation. And the momentum started to build. I hired another editor and I said, do me a favor, just clean this up. To make it look like I don't look too dumb, but let my words shine through. I Don't care if they're perfect. I don't care if I have a vast vocabulary. Just do it. They cleaned that book up. I got a publishing deal, and the book hit the New York Times best seller list within two weeks. It was my first book, and it hit the New York Times bestseller list. What if I look back, I've had a million of those. By the way, if you heard that story before, I've shared that on stage before. But what if. What if at that moment and many other moments, did I feel like the underdog and just tuck my tail between my legs and go, yeah, they're right. No. I found a way to take the power of you can't and go, really? You don't think I can? And shifted it. So now what I want you to think about is when people come at you and tell you, you can't, you're too small, you're not rich enough, you didn't go to the right school. That's for dreamers. It's not the right economy. You're someone that should work for somebody. Play it safe, play it small. Tuck your life in is what they're basically saying. I want you to start thinking now. Just flip the framework. Literally think of the words, flip the framework. Instead of it framing you down. I want you to think instead of it being kryptonite. It is the wind behind your sail. It's your motivation, it is the nitrous oxide. Because I have literally programmed my life, my brains, my thoughts. When people say that won't work internally. You know the two voices we have. Think about the two voices. Did you ever. If you don't think, you have two voices. If you think, I'm schizo. Sorry, but we all have two voices. I'll give you an example. Do you ever have a friend and you go to dinner and they show up and it's supposed to be fancy, and they show up with, like, sneakers on and, like, dressed horrible or weird colors, and in your head you're like, hey, what's up? And your thoughts going, why the hell would you wear that? Or anything? Or sitting with your spouse, and they say something or a friend and they say something like, oh, yeah, that's great.

And in your head you're like, that.

Was the stupidest thing. Why would you say that? Right? I'm giving you an example. We have two thoughts right now. I have a thought in my head when somebody says, that's not going to work now. Too many people have that, oh, Facebook marketing. That won't work. Oh, Barnes and Noble. Did you know that less than 5% of the books in Barnes and Noble sell more than 100 copies? Somebody said that to me. I'm like, oh, yeah, I know, that's. I feel bad for a lot of authors. They work so hard simultaneously in my head, I'm like, did you just tell me I can't? Did you just tell me.

And I could literally feel vibration, I.

Could feel energy, I could feel momentum. I'm like, so I have reframed, reprogrammed my thoughts, that when someone says they can't, that is my power. That's not my kryptonite. You're juicing me up.

Tell me more.

Tell me how many times that a guy that can't write good can't have a mo. Now, I have multiple New York Times best sellers, sold over a million books. Come on. I'm using that as one example, but I'm telling you, it happened when I was a kid and I wanted to go into real estate and I didn't have money, and everybody around me and my friends, family said, come on, you know, it takes money to make money in real estate. I made it happen because they told me they can't. So in your life, has anybody ever told you you can't? And how do you flip that around? As simple as it sounds, the reason sometimes we have that imposter syndrome, or we have that inner voice telling we're.

Not good enough, we don't have enough.

Money, it's not the right time. You're too old, you're too young, you, you live in the wrong area. Is simply because of the beliefs that have been embedded inside us, right? I know you've heard this a million times, but Roger Bannister, the first man to ever run below a four minute mile, right? They said it could never be done. Scientists said it was physically impossible for humans to run that fast. So in the whole history of the world, no one had ever done it. Ever. All of a sudden, Roger bannister breaks the four minute mile. And within the next 12 months, 18 people did it. How is that possible? Did everybody get steroids? Did evolution happen overnight? No. Only one thing changed. People's belief. When they saw him do it, they knew they could think about opportunities. You almost went for, you almost took the action. But then, like the train going down the tracks, you missed it. And then years later, you regret it. The knowledge industry, the self education industry, the information age, the digital economy is like a wave coming in and you can either get in front of it or miss out the world could go in a really crazy place if we obsess on what people could do for us. But when we take control, when we gain the resources and then become resourceful, then we get to fix the economy in our home, we get to fix the politics in our home and then we get to impact those around us. That's how we change the world. So I want to tell you, beliefs wise, you know, I'm really open to say that over 25 years ago, Tony Robbins changed my life with knowledge. He sold me knowledge and it course corrected my life. I was already on my way. I was doing well with cars, I was doing well with real estate, but I was all messed up in here. My beliefs were off, I was stressed. I had a bleeding ulcer at a really young age because of all the stuff going on in here. And Tony transformed all that. He gave me new beliefs, he taught me how to focus on solutions and compelling futures and all these things. And it was so amazing that I decided to go into the knowledge industry. Now you got to understand something. I live in upstate New York at the time in a town of 6,000 people. I didn't go to college, I have dyslexia, I don't have a lot of money. I work on cars every day, fingernails all dirty. And now I'm going to go in the knowledge industry. And I decide I want to teach people how to make money selling used cars. Now you just think about that niche. If you're thinking your niche is crazy, think about that. But I didn't have the opportunity you get to have in today's world. I didn't have Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and LinkedIn and all these amazing social platforms where you could target the exact person that needs what it is that you have in here. That didn't even exist Tony and I.

Back in the day. And when I started I had to.

Create an infomercial and pay for TV media and I had no clue what I was doing. You think people told me I was nuts Once in a while it was everybody, my family, my friends, my sister sat me down like an intervention. My inner self doubt was like, you're a fool. You don't know how to do this. You know how to do cars and real estate. But I was so inspired by what Tony did for me that I wanted to share what I learned with other people. I used to get up at 4:35 o' clock in the morning and type on my old big old computer. You know, it was one of the first computers with the Green screen and I type every single day. And then I got done. And I have to tell you, my beliefs kicked in. It was like, Dean, who's going to buy from you? Who's going to buy on cars? And maybe your family's right and you're not that smart. You're not a teacher. You barely read any books in your life. Who the hell do you think you are doing that? I remember that. But then I also remember one day I said no. I remember taking a walk by my grandmother's house. Legit. That's the house I grew up in. It was my safe home. I moved a lot with my parents. That was the home that like touched my heart.

It's so great.

Five years ago I bought it back and my family and I go there. That's for another day. But I was walking down this road and I was in this transition of going all in the information age in the digital economy, I should say the knowledge industry. But I had to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars back then to figure it out on my own, to build all these booklets, to have a shipping department and a phone center and then produce an infomercial and figure out how to pay for online ads.

I had to spend all this money.

And one day I just decided, I am not living someone else's beliefs. I'm not going to listen to my family. I'm not going to listen to this inner doubt. And that's what I want to encourage you this very moment. Right? Don't feel like the imposter. Remember, they don't build statues of critics. They build statues of the crazy people. What if I didn't create this? I took a leap of faith and I went all in. I even moved to Arizona and for a while I was commuting back and forth. I'd go flip cars and real estate, take the money and put it in my knowledge business. But I did that and I'm here because of it. And then I evolved to be a New York Times best selling author and top podcast. And I get to partner with my dear friend Tony Robbins, who changed my life and speak on stage in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people. My books have been in the hands of millions of people. And now I get to share with you and tell you, don't settle. Don't wait for someone else to fix it. Don't let the inner self doubt run your life. Shift those old beliefs, gain the capabilities and take uncomfortable action. I wasn't born to say, I'm going to teach, I'm going To share my knowledge and create great success for me and my family. Now I was struggling, but my struggle became my story. How I got into business and became successful with cars. How I got into business with no money and became successful with real estate. How I got into the knowledge industry not knowing what I was doing, but went on to be a multiple New York Times best selling author. And courses and trainings and live events, right? So you're not born to be in this, but life has been designed for you to tap into it. You need three things to be successful. You have to have the right mindset. Right the wrong beliefs, the wrong mindset, you'll never get started. But then if you get the right mindset and you're excited, you need the capabilities, you need the strategies, you need the tactics. And then last, you need to implement and you take action. You need an operating system, use the right words and have breakthroughs and shift those limiting beliefs so they never cause you regret of missing out ever again. You see, I don't know how to. I don't know how to start a company that's not making money and raise a whole bunch of capital and use other people's money to see if you make it work. Now, I'm not knocking that at all. It's because I'm limited on my knowledge on that. That's it. I'm just not smart enough to know how to do it. And I have so much many friends that are in Silicon Valley and everybody's fighting to come up with the next thing, the next widget, the next app, the next Facebook, the next Instagram, they're fighting for that. And a lot of these companies will go raise 20, 30, 50 million, some of them raise 400 million before they've made a dollar, before they've made a penny. And then I look at, you know, if now, again, I'm not knocking this. I don't want to seem like I'm bitter. I have so many successful friends that their families were successful and they just carried it on. That's what I want with my kids. I don't want to have to make my kids suffer. I want to teach them the right value so they take on what I've done and start off where I left off, right? But just think about if everything went smooth, you weren't an underdog. Nothing went wrong in your childhood. Perfect parents, perfect income, perfect location. Then you went to the perfect college. Then when you got out of the perfect college, you had the money to start a company. I've watched this happen sometimes when you have money to start a company, you're setting yourself up for failure because you don't need it to cash flow. So I'm going to use this one example, this one thought process is every company I've ever started. I sold firewood in high school, fixed wrecked cars out of high school, fixed wrecked cars for business, fixed wreck cars to sell. And then I had. Then I started buying rundown houses and remodeling them and putting apartments in them. Then I started, I started subdividing land and building houses. Then I went in the education business and then the book business and the live event business and then sharing now in masterminds and trainings like this. As I went through all those companies, never once in any of them did anyone ever give me money to start. So guess what? I had to be unfair advantage number three. I had to be innovative. I had to create cash flow, profitable companies. So now what you could say is, oh man, I have nobody in my family that's got money. I have nobody that's got faith in me to lend me money. I can't get any money from the bank, damn it, I can't go in business. Or you can say, hmm, I have no money. Banks won't give me money. I have no friends that will lend it to me, no partners. I gotta be innovative. I was an underdog with nothing and I had to use that to my advantage. And that advantage turned it into I had to find a way to be innovative. I keep using that word to be cash flow right away or I would be broke. So now take that underdog disadvantage and make it your underdog advantage.

You don't have money.

And if you don't think you can make something work without using money, then Google people that have Google, Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, meet so many successful people, started with nothing. I know you might be facing stuff that I don't even know about. I get that, but here's what I know. Did you ever have a headache and you go online and you Google for what could this headache be? And by the time you're done, you feel like you got a tumor and you got three months to live, Right? We find what we were looking for. If you went online with a headache and wanted to search for someone and said, ah, you just didn't have enough water, drink a glass, you'll be fine, you could find that in two minutes. But our brains want to go towards the tumor and what could be worst case scenario. So we do that in our own lives. Like, I don't have any money? My friend tried with no money. It didn't work. You're just searching for what went wrong. Your subconscious is looking for security so you can feel safe about your inaction. Get disturbed. Get uncomfortable. Go online and Google and find successful people who started with nothing, that had massive fear, that were scared. And all of a sudden you'll see all these people, all these millionaires, all these great, hugely successful people that started with nothing. And all of a sudden you start building momentum. And then you say, I'm going to create innovation here. I'm going to create cash flow. We're talking about business. But could that be the same in every area of your life? Of course it can. So think of the unfair advantage we have of being an underdog because we get to be creative. That was number three.

Okay?

Number four, unfair underdog advantage. Number four, enthusiasm over perfection. I want you to think about that. Enthusiasm over perfection. Now, I told you before about the books, but I'll tell you. In life, I don't have a vast vocabulary and I can't spell for crap. I spell so bad that literally when I type, there's so many words lit up, it's like every third word is lit up. And sometimes the words, I try to respell them like four times. And if the computer could talk, it'd be like, yo, bro, I don't know what you're doing. Try something else. Or you're an idiot. I don't know. I'm glad it can't talk to me. And I'll just come up with a simpler word. I don't have a vast vocabulary. I'm not the smartest guy in the room when it comes to book smart. I don't watch the news. I have no idea what's going on around the world. I don't. Clueless people come up and like, well, you know, what happened with, you know, Trump? Or you know, what happened in South America? Or, you know, I'm like, I don't. I don't. I haven't watched the news in probably over 10 years. All it does is bring me down.

I don't want to.

I protect my confidence. So I don't watch the news. I didn't have a lot of experience in these new companies. When somebody says, you're going to write a book or you're going to go on stage, and, hey, people say to me, I'm going to go on stage. And somebody say, have you. Did you take journalism in school? Did you go to college for that? Did you train under a mentor? No, no, no, no. No experience. And most of the times, like I said on the last one, I had no money. So here's what I know. Sometimes when you have all the I's dotted and the T's crossed, you're obsessing on perfection. You're obsessing on the details. You're over analyzing so much that it's causing you to be paralyzed and do nothing. Being an underdog, you're starting to wear this as a badge of honor, right? Did you feel that? I don't know if you did. I just. The way I said it, I felt it internally, like, I want someone to go, I want to have a shirt that says I'm an underdog. Right? Where I overcame things going where I didn't have the money or the vocabulary, or I didn't have the super smarts or the money or the experience, I masked with enthusiasm. And if you look at underdog stories from the movies, right, from the horse races and the Olympics and the games that shouldn't been won when you, when you take the. I don't know, what was it? What was in the 90s when the American hockey team won before they let American athletes that were professionals play in the Olympics? You might know this story. You probably know it better than me. You guys can tell me. It was just college kids. And at the last minute, they just round up these college kids to play against the world's best hockey players in the world. And America won. Biggest underdog upset. But one thing I noticed, what did they have? I remember watching the Russian team, like, just no enthusiasm. Just like, I'm not going to try to talk with a Russian accent. I was almost dead.

I.

But I'm not even going to try. But I remember, like, they were just like these guys, they're not going to have any chance with us. No enthusiasm. Just thinking they were going to do it. And then all of a sudden, the enthusiasm to me helped carry that team to win the Olympics. It was the biggest upset ever. But think of basketball games, think of horse races, Olympics in your own life, when you were the underdog. What carried me wasn't the book smart, wasn't the money, wasn't the experience, wasn't the vocabulary, surely wasn't the connections. I knew no one with money when I was a kid. You know what carried me? Enthusiasm. I just found a way to turn this. I can be the underdog with the anchor, carrying it, dragging it across the desert, or I could say, I'm a freaking underdog. They are never going to see me Coming. They told me they can't watch what I do. Oh, I don't have money. I'll just get Innovation Creative. I'll find a way to get the money. I'll get the money. And that led to this enthusiasm that drove me. I hope that you see this is authentic enthusiasm. But if I really boil it back down, it came out because I was an underdog. I didn't have all the other stuff. So I had to go to the thing that boosted my confidence and got results, and that was having enthusiasm. So as an underdog, your parents or your friends may not have faith in you or support you. And that's heartbreaking. Did you ever have just like you watch me one day, you read my book or somebody else, or you saw something online or you got involved in my real estate course and you're like, damn, I'm doing this. And you're using the power of you can't. You don't even know you are. You're being innovative. You're enthusiastic and you go tell the person you care about the most and they shut you down like a lid. Just like shutting off lights. It's like, oh, that's so dumb. This is the wrong time. You don't have the money and they shut you down. That's heartbreaking. Also, I've watched so many people when they have a desire for more. You're growing. Okay, so I don't know, maybe you guys can tell me. Ever happened in your life if you're watching me, you're someone who's working on your personal growth. You're working on your success. You want another level of life. You realize one of the biggest plights of our world is living knowing you have untapped potential. It's the worst feeling in the world. You know you got more gas in the tank, but you're not putting the throttle down because people are telling you and you can't. I just told my daughter I stole this from Sean Stephenson, my three foot giant. My dear friend. He said, don't ever let anyone dim your glow so you can match them. You're bright. Be like, nah, nah, nah. And a lot of times we turn down our lights so we can match that. Screw that. Brighten yours up more. But it's heartbreaking because here's what I want to ask and you guys can be honest with me. Have you ever been in a relationship? Could be family, friends, partnership or significant other. You're in a relationship, you. Because you're here. There's a million other things you could be doing. You're here with me. You're working on your personal growth. You are your success abundance. You want to tap into that next level, not leave it. Don't die at 98 years old and go, wow, I had a lot more to give the world, but I didn't. Oh, my God. Did you feel that? Screw that. I want to be like, nothing left. I'm done. Time to go. Nothing left. But think about this. You're working on your personal growth. You start with somebody, here they are at this level, but they decide this is a perfect level for them. And all of a sudden, you're continuing to work on your personal growth, and you're going higher, and you're going higher. And now they're saying, oh, stop, you're getting all foo foo. Oh, you're too. Oh, my God. What, are you going to go to a Tony Robbins event and jump up and down? You're going to go to a Dean Graziosi growth event and blah, blah, blah. And all of a sudden you're going and going and going, and you get to a point and they're like, oh, my God, we've grown. And somebody leaves you, or someone calls you, tells you that you're a dreamer or, you know, good. I've watched it happen so many times with people who desire another level of life because the people around you want to stay status quo, and you make them uncomfortable. So heartbreak is pretty high in this world, in this world of growing, of going next level.

And that's okay because that's the way.

It'S supposed to be. I believe God, the universe, whatever, designed it that way because they're meant to be with these people, and you're meant to be with us. It doesn't mean you have to hurt anybody along the way, but there's a lot of heartache. There's a lot of heartbreak. So what I noticed with underdogs who spin it into a win is they take that heartbreak from any area. From parents, from a relationship, from a marriage to a bad partnership. They take that heartbreak and they ball it back up. Poof. And use it as energy. So they transform heartbreak into leverage today.

And in this event, we are gonna celebrate the thing that changed my life. We're gonna celebrate self education. I want you guys to listen to that word. I just read an amazing book called Leverage Learning, and it shows how I liked it so much. I got on the phone with the author yesterday, and we ended up talking for like an hour straight. And traditional education is kind of done. It's not working. It Needs to be transformed. Just even MIT students. Did you know MIT students, one of the best colleges on the planet, Students in year one, by the time you get to year three, what they learned is obsolete. That's how fast the world is moving. So the people who find success are the ones smart enough to get self education. Instead of just trying to learn through learning, you're learning through trial and error and learning from those playing the game at the highest level, playing possible. When I was in high school, my guidance counselor legit said, hey, good thing you're into cars, because I picture you mechanic, you know, maybe, maybe managing a mechanic shop someday, right? But what everybody missed was the thing that I discovered was self education. Tony Robbins changed my life 30 years ago. I cut him a check because of an infomercial. He gave me information. Everything changed about my life. Four years later, I was on my own infomercial. So this event is about celebrating you guys being in this room to gain the knowledge from people playing the game at the highest level possible. You're not here just to be inspired. That's a great thing. I hope I inspire you. I hope I motivate you. But you're here to gain capabilities to go faster. And a lot of times when you think you know why you're here and you think you know what you came for and what capabilities you came for, in most cases you're wrong. Let serendipity work, figure out why. Let the event show you why you're here. Your answer to the next level lives in this room. So I'm gonna ask you to be more open in your life than you ever were before. I'm gonna ask you. In fact, I wanna challenge you to decide this weekend what kind of life you want to live. What kind of life do you want to live? You see, I know this, and this helps me a lot. And if this sounds morbid, I'm sorry, but I, a lot of times picture myself at 95 years old, or 105, whatever age you're going to live to. And I picture being in the hospital or being on my deathbed and my family is standing there and they're talking about me. And I picture what they'd say. And if they said he lived an okay life, what if they even said he lived a good life? He had a good job and he had a good relationship and he was a good dad. How disappointed would you be if someone was saying you did good? Who wants good? No, I got you on that one.

Sorry.

Who wants outstanding.

Right?

We want an outstanding life. So I want you to think through those eyes this weekend. And I want to challenge you. Of what kind of life do you want to live? Do you want to be scared and fearful? Because a lot of us are. We think we're entrepreneurs. We think we want more. And then the world tells us we can't. People tell us we can't. The news tells us we can't. The news is horrific. And we watch that kind of stuff, and it's cumulative. So you think you're on fire. You think you could do your own thing, but your ex or someone you don't like or someone you do like, or somebody who's supposedly a dear friend tells you you can't accumulate. Then all of a sudden, one day, you start playing a little small. You just back up a little bit. This world is moving too fast. You can't back up a little bit. You have to lean forward. When people tell you you can't, that's gotta be your fuel. When they say it's not the right time, you show them it's your time. This is what we have to do. Cause if not, thank you. Because when you lean back in a busy world, then you know what happens after that? If you play a little bit scared, a little bit fearful, then you start seeing other people who are still getting ahead. And if you're not in the right space, let's all admit this. Cause I'm human, too. When you see other people your age doing something similar to you, and they're crushing it. Some days when you're in a grateful space, you're like, good for them. I'm proud of them. If they can do it, I can do it. But I think this inner villain that lives in us most of the time says, shit. Anybody get a little envy sometimes of someone else getting ahead? And you not. If you're not. You're not human, you get a little bit of jealousy. And then if you're doing that, the next thing is you say, you know what? I'm gonna do it. And you kind of break through and you get an opportunity or you get new capabilities and. And then we do something. What I see all the time is we dabble. Like, we think we're putting time in, but not really. We're not dedicating the time. We're doing six things at once. We're checking social media while we're watching the course. We're answering the phone while we're. We're not really. We're texting while we're. Don't dabble. I'm Challenging you to decide what kind of life you want. I'm guessing everybody in this room wants a better life. Who wants a better life? Okay, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna start something. I stole this from Trent Shelton too. When we get to a part like that, if we're gonna play full out, I wanna hear you guys say, yup. Let me hear you say it. Real. One, two, three. Yep. Beautiful. But here's the thing that I want you to think about. We can live a life being scared, little fearful. We can live a life of being envious. We can also live a life of hope. Hope is great. You need hope. But there's a lot of people that don't just hope and they don't take action. What about if you just. If you combined them together and you had hope, but you also lived a life on fire. That at 95, when you look back, you're like, I squeezed every bit of juice out of this life it had to offer. Who would rather have tried and failed than sit and play small? Who rather try and fail? So this weekend, I want you to play full out. I want you guys and challenge you guys to live a life on fire.

To.

Don't listen to the world around you. Most people are wrong. You've never seen them build a statue of a critic. If you guys know one, let me see it. I'd like to take a picture of it. They build statues of the critic. Crazy bastards. The people they condemn when they're alive and 50 years later, they realize they were the revolutionary. They were the one that saw something when no one else did. Don't let anyone talk you out of your life, because here's what I know. There's two types of people, and I really want you to think through this. There are battery chargers and there are battery drainers. If you guys. Who follows me on Instagram every time I post that, it goes viral. A couple hundred thousand people watch that. The truth of the matter is, there are some people in your life that when they call you or they text you or the phone's ringing, not that many people call in today's world. People call me. I feel like I'm being violated. It's like, why would you call me? You could text me. It's like somebody knocking on your door and coming over without telling you. That's how I feel when my phone rings. But who has people in their life that when you get a text or a phone call, you're like, oh, shit, no. And then you have to let it Ring the whole time. Because if you hit the end, they know you sent them to freaking voicemail. So you gotta sit there and be like. And then if somebody sees the phone, they're like, you gonna answer them? Like, no, no, don't. Don't touch that. Don't touch that.

Right?

There's people in your life that when you see them, you're the one that gives the energy. You have to talk about the same shit that they've been talking about for the last five years that they saw you. I had a really great comment that I love from my buddy Joe Polish. He's gonna be here tomorrow. Is Joe said, when people ask me for advice that I've already given advice in the past, I always say to them, well, you didn't apply the first bit of advice I gave you, so why would I dare give you more? Right? So think about that, though. In battery drainers, there's people in your life. I'm being funny, but now I'm being serious, that when you're with them, they.

Make you doubt yourself.

True. Can I get a yup. They make you doubt yourself. They make you doubt your opportunities. They make you doubt your capabilities. They make you doubt what you could do. And I want you to know this and remember this. You've probably heard everything I'm saying before, but this is me. Small, intimate room. Before we have 5,000 people in a room like this, I want you to realize that that is also cumulative. If you hang out with battery drainers enough, they will run your battery down. And all of a sudden you'll start questioning yourself. You'll have stress in the middle of the night. Maybe I won't get another relationship that'll be loving. Maybe I won't be able to take my income to the next level. Maybe I won't be the best parent I think I can be. Maybe this isn't the right time. Maybe it's the wrong president, all those things. So I want you to identify people that are battery drainers. Alongside of the opposite side are the battery chargers. They're the people you go to lunch with, and when you come back, you're on fire. You want to accomplish the world, and a lot of people don't have many of them. And they're like, that's cool. That's why you got me. But anyway. But in today's world, we can find it online. We can get into different groups, find different peers. Listen, as you evolve, some friends will go away. They can't handle that you're focusing on what's Right. And they're focusing on. On what's wrong. That's okay. That's the journey they're supposed to be on. And you're supposed to be on another one. So I'm gonna tell you right now, like, I literally. I know this sounds terrible, but I have two conversations always going on inside my head. Anybody else?

Anybody?

Anybody? Thank you.

Look at that.

We got a good. Yup. Who's ever spoke on stage? Okay. Did you ever speak on stage or in front of people or even a group of friends? And I could be on stage talking just like this. And simultaneously, I'm going, why the hell would the guy in the third row be sleeping right now? Like, I'm gonna walk back there and smack him. And that's all going on while I'm talking.

Right.

So this sounds crazy, but I do that with battery drainers and battery chargers. I literally will have a conversation and meet somebody. Can't you tell? In a second, which is who? Right? And in a second, I'll literally be meeting someone. Oh, hi. I'm like, oh, what a drainer.

Hi.

Yeah, hey. We should communicate. Yeah. Text my assistant, Jeremy. I give everybody. If you say, let's hook up, and I give you Jeremy's info. I judged you. I'm sorry.

I did.

You want to plug your battery and drain me. I don't want that. And then there's. Then as that evolves, there's two types of people. There's bigger past people, and there's bigger future people. Bigger past people is when you talk to someone and they talk about back in the good old days. I hate that so much. You talk to somebody. Yeah, well, when the other president was in, when there was a Democrat, when there was a Republican, when it was this, when it was that, it was like, there's, you know, back when Jesus was here, it was so much better. Like, there's. There's so many different things about the past. It's like my bigger. My best days are ahead. How about you guys? Let me. Let me ask you something. Who in this room wants to make more money next year than they're making this year? Who wants to be happier next year? More fulfilled? 10, take your relationships to the next level. That's what this room is about. That's not the whole world. You ask a lot of people, you.

Know what they'd say.

You guys are dreamers. You need to get real. Listen, who in here had someone tell you you were crazy for coming to this event? You know what I always think two things. Bigger past, bigger Future. I love thinking when somebody's talking about the past. They're not somebody I can spend time with. I want somebody talking about what's going on tomorrow. But here's the thing. When you have a family member, someone you love or a friend, and they're telling you how to fix your relationship, how to make more money, how to do all those things, you know, another one of my two stories, two conversations going on at once. You know what I immediately do? I say, if I woke up tomorrow morning and looked in the mirror and I was them, how would I feel? And I'm always like, oh, shit. I'm not taking their advice. Think about it like someone is in a shitty ass relationship going, aw, you shouldn't put up with him. Uh, you should just tell him to. It's like, yeah, you're on your sixth relationship. The broke friend telling you how to make money, the single friend telling you how to fix your relationship. Just immediately replace that with what I be them. And all of a sudden, things change. Okay, here's what I want to talk about.

Now.

Could we pull up. Could we pull up the. Could you take those slides down, please? Let's see. Let me get to this next one. There we go.

Pull that one up. All right.

This little barn is in the town I grew up in, Marlboro, New York. And Marlboro's representing today. That's awesome. I was there about two years ago and I took a picture of this barn. And the fact of the matter is, When I was 21, 22 years old, my dad had a collision shop. I'll tell that story in a moment. In fact, let me just share this. I was 22 years old and I didn't go to college. I didn't think I was smart enough to go to college. Didn't think I had the money to go to college. And when I was in high school, it was cool. My dad named his collision shop Paul and Dean Auto Body. So I was like, I don't need to go to school. I'm good. I'm solid. And plus, you know, I barely got out of high school. I was the worst student possible. And I want to share something with you guys. The reason I'm telling this story is because I don't care where you are right now as you sit in here. If you're struggling and your back's up against the wall financially or maybe money's good, but emotionally, things aren't the best. I don't care if you're sitting. If you're in this room, Right now and you're dying to get your business started and you're struggling and you have a little envy for people who are going, I don't care if you're in the business, but it's not making you money and you're running and gunning. You feel like you're on a treadmill and you don't know how to get off. Or maybe your business is doing pretty good, but you want to go the next level. Or maybe I know some of you personally here are fricking killing it. But now you want more time back and control in your life. I don't care where you are. I promise you, I've been there. And I know what it's like to have family that you're responsible for. I know what it's like to want to take care of people that you love. I know what it's like to want to tap into your full potential because you know you have more to give the world. I know what it's like to want to make an impact, leave a legacy. So as I share everything over the next three days, I want to let you know that I understand each part. I understand what it was like to want to make 100 grand a year and then I got to 100 grand a year and then I Got to 100 grand a month, then 100 grand a week, then I got to 100 grand a day. And at my peak, we were doing 350,000 a day in sales. Now, thank you. I only say that because all of it along that whole journey was so easy. Nothing went wrong. There was no sleepless nights. I didn't fight with anybody. I didn't feel like I was taken advantage of. Not one bit of worry when things started going sideways at all. No, I failed miserably. In between there, I went broke twice. In between there, I have family members stop talking to me because they said I was such a dreamer. So I've been through all of them. So as I tell that story, I want you to know that what I love about a room like this, I was literally in a room two days ago with 14,000 people. I love that too. But this is intimate. When I sit, look out in this room, I know what you guys desire. And I'm gonna do my best to deliver that to you over the next three days. Are you guys open minded to just listen? Okay. So that barn my dad had, Paul and Dean Auto Body. I said, you know, I told a lot of my friends were going off to college. I'm like, I don't need college. I'm gonna work with my dad. I got this. So there's a couple things. First off, I covered the fact that I felt inferior because I had dyslexia and never told anybody. So reading wasn't an option for me. I just never read books. I didn't realize. Well, listening to a book was a little harder back then than it is now. But I had Paul and Dean Auto Body. So I'm a couple years in. I'm doing pretty good. I got a pretty cool car. I got a Bronco that I missed. I got all this cool stuff. And then when I'm about 21 or 22 years old, my dad went through his third divorce and it hit him really hard and he gave up. And not only gave up, he moved out of his house and said, let it go to the bank. And he moved out of the collision shop we're in. He said, give it back to the landlord. So at 21, 22, I moved everything out of my dad's house because I didn't want him to lose it. And I rented it so I could pay the mortgage on it. My dad checked himself into some facility to get his head back out, get his head clean, and they wouldn't let him out.

True story.

And it's funny now, so they wouldn't let him out. And then the collision shop. I had to move all the stuff out of the collision shop and that barn. I literally moved a compressor, my tools, and a wood stove into that barn. And I worked out of that barn. I have some dear friends that helped everybody I knew. I did collision work. I fixed wrecked cars. I would change engines. I would do anything I could to make a dollar. And I lived in the apartment house right next door that I had bought. And I lived in a little 300 square foot apartment. And I want to tell you, besides the fact that I was like, I thought I was going to be something, and I'm not. I'm working in a Barn. And at 21, 22, you don't realize the whole world's a frame. I just thought that was the end of my Life. I had 30, $40,000 in credit card debt to try to cover everything. And working out of that one car at a time. I remember the biggest thing. If I look back, I want to be honest. It's good to tell a story now. Like, oh, yeah, I worked there and then I got rich. I want to tell you what the pain was. There is I was embarrassed around all my friends. I was the one that said, I Had my own business. I got this. I own Paul and Dean Autobody now I'm working out of that. I got a freaking wood stove. I'm putting wood in to keep warm. I'm painting cars and I'm painting cars with no. There was no fan in there. So every time I painted a car, I'd get such a headache, it hurt. And I never told anybody. I'd still go out with my buddies, I'd have a great time, but I'd get up at 5:30 in the morning, go work out of that shit ass barn, embarrassed. And I remember at that moment telling myself, this is your life. Everybody who told you you weren't smart enough, they were probably right. And I got into this terrible self talk. And we'll talk more about that tomorrow. But then something happened. Something shifted. And I thank God because I'm not really quite sure at that time where it came from. But I started thinking, screw that. This is just a test. This is just somebody trying to see if I'm worthy of what I want. I know where I'm going. I know where I want to go. And I'm not saying I had this revelation on my knees and. And again the stars opened up. But I felt that. And all of a sudden, nothing changed in my life. I was still working out of that barn. I was still a little embarrassed. I still didn't know where my money was gonna come from, but because I had a different focus, because I started adopting new habits. Because I love my dad dearly, but my dad worked hard, my mom worked hard. But working hard does not correlate to making good money. Can we all say amen to that one? So I watch and all of a sudden I started shifting my habits. I started doing things that I saw wealthy people did, happier people did. My father and I literally. And I'm just being completely honest, my father and I got in a fist fight in that barn because he told me I was a dreamer. He told me to grow up. He told me to go get a job at Red's. It was a factory. He said, grow up. And he literally. I was working on a car and he kicked the side of the car, a customer's car, and I pushed him and his foot went into a bucket. And he got so embarrassed. He came at me swinging. I never swung back at him. But it was just this terrible time in my life and there was something that just shifted. And one of the reasons I think I'm into self education, self growth and push so hard is because that was one of the many defining moments. Because part of me wanted to say, okay, maybe I go to Reds. This is my life. I'm not that smart. I don't come from my. I don't have a college degree. Part of me wanted to go there, but there was another part that said, screw that. There was another part of me that fought for it. And I went on and I went and made a friendship with the woman who owned the building where my dad had Paul and Dean Autobody. Her name was Mary Lopresti. And I went and had Sunday dinner with her about four weeks in a row and got to know her. And she said, you know what I love about you? You're nothing like your dad. I'm glad my dad's not here right now. I'd be fist fighting again. Kidding. Kinda. So about the fourth Sunday dinner at Mary Lopresti's house, she says to me, how about you move back into the collision shop?

We didn't rent it yet.

I said, I would love to, but I don't have any money right now. She said, move in. Pay me rent when you can. Built a relationship with her. I moved back into that collision shop, started doing one car at a time. And this time I named it Dean Collision Center. And one thing led to another and I got Enterprise Rent a cars account. I got tow trucks. I started building houses, I started renovating apartment houses. And by 27, I was officially a millionaire. Thank you. And I want to show you something going from that and a 300 square foot apartment. Just to let you guys dream a little bit. This is where I. This is my new house I bought three weeks ago. You could take that down. I hate the whole. Look at my house. I made this check in five minutes. If you guys follow me. You know, I'm not about the magic money machine. I say that to inspire. I say that so you guys. And show that so you guys can see it doesn't matter where you are. It really doesn't. What if everything that has happened to you up until this point in your life, what if every bit of it was actually designed for you? What if that was God or the success otter that lives in the sky going, they want more, works on personal growth. Okay, Their partner screwed them over. Check. They still got up the next morning and went to work. Their spouse doesn't believe in them, was unfaithful to them, screwed them over, check. They got through that one and they're still freaking kicking ass. I believe that each of us have a path of. I'm gonna use a really Technical term here. A path of shit in front of us that we have to get through. And we can't get to the level of life we want unless we get through that and find a way to continue to go. There was 6,000 times I wanted to quit. 6,000 times I almost believed the people around me, but I didn't. And now. And you're gonna see a framework around this tomorrow. Now I realize that all of it was put there to see if I worthy. So think about your past. What if right now. Because I know there's a lot of you facing some obstacles in your life. What if right now you could look back at your past and realize that it was all designed for you, that you had to go through that. And if you're facing something right now, it's part of your journey because. Because guess what? Your next level of life, the best version of you, lives on the other side of the thing you fear the most. And sometimes it's not like you just blatantly fear it. It's the thing that you avoid. It's the thing that you ignore. It's like you got used to the bad relationship. You got used to the partner you work with that's not supportive or doesn't have the same values as you. You got used to the employee that works for you that you're so annoyed by, but you think you need them anyway, or whatever it is in your life. You have these things and you decided, you know, I'll just ignore it. Ignoring it allows you to stay in a hypnotic rhythm and stay right where you are. It's time to be disturbed. It's time not to let inaction be the answer that's going to take you to the next level, because it never will. It's time to step up and be the best version of you. It's time to face who you are, your values, and go forward. Even if it's in the direction of the storm. What's up? What's up?

Hey, don't forget to look at the action steps we've posted below. They are the perfect way to take your success, abundance in this crazy way world to a whole another level.