The Underdog Advantage: Underdogs Have Nothing To Lose (Audiobook)

I was stunned speechless, lip quivering. Not even two minutes ago, I was the happiest I'd ever been in my life. And now here I was in the middle of my worst nightmare.

Welcome to the Dean Graziosi show.

All success starts right here. Chapter one. Underdogs have nothing to lose. I was full on crying. I'm talking about heaving, ugly, sobbing, hyperventilating, crying. I was 26 years old and I thought I'd peaked. I was sitting on the floor, Indian style, rocking back and forth, looking out the window of my hotel room, down onto the Sunset Strip into Hollywood, California. Only two hours earlier, I'd agreed in principle to do a deal with two of the biggest stars in the world to help them create a groundbreaking new website. Back in the early days of the Internet, 1994. I'd come out of nowhere with no chance to get it. And I got the deal. It was the ultimate underdog triumph. I left the meeting and drove around Sunset Boulevard in a rented convertible, the sun on my face, and I was feeling so fulfilled and totally high on life. I'd arrived, I was in Hollywood. And I found a next level piece of significance that I craved. So why was I crying? Like a six year old who had lost their favorite blanket or stuffed animal, I'd lost the deal. And with it the importance and the significance I'd gotten from it. I thought this was going to be the catapult to get me out of my little town, to be something bigger. And just like that, it was gone. I reached for that brass ring and I thought I had it, only to have it ripped away from me. Here's the thing with this story. I didn't eventually get the deal. I never found a way to make it work. I just failed. And I cried. And that's it. Or was it? You see, I didn't actually lose anything. In fact, looking back at the failure or tragedy as I perceived it then, I now see it was actually designed specifically for me. Maybe a test to see if I was worthy of a next level life or to build my success, muscle and learning that changed my whole life. The privileged are expected to win. Everyone looks at those with the cards stacked in their favor and expects them to win. If anything, it's a letdown if they don't win. That's what makes them privileged. After all, they're the ones who are supposed to win all the time. They're the favorites. But underdogs, no one expects anything from them. If they lose it, so what? They were supposed to lose? They didn't Have a shot. Anyway, when you look at this from the outside, it's kind of depressing. The tall, handsome, tan, good looking, rich guy who wins everything, why does he need more? Why does he need to win again? Can he take a few rounds off? Give me a chance. I mean, it seems like he always has the advantage, right? And once someone has a lead like that, where do I go? It seems likely they'll never lose. It seems like they keep winning forever. Wouldn't that be great to be the big shot, to be expected to win and just cruise to victory every time? But let me ask you, is that how it really works? Do the privilege actually just cruise to victory? Yeah, I guess, sometimes. But here's the thing. You aren't seeing that the one with the so called advantages has to win. All the pressure is on her. If she doesn't win, it's a huge letdown. Everyone is mad at her. She goes from hero to the pariah. That's a lot of pressure. In fact, that's why it's so hard to repeat a championship in sports. The first time you had nothing to lose. But once you're a champion, all you can do is have it taken from you. Keeping it is twice as hard and you're half as motivated. I don't know about you, but in my life, when I became privileged in a certain area of life, it's been a major disadvantage. I get complacent, less motivated, without even thinking about it. I stop working as hard, I'm expected to win. And yet there's more pressure to win. It's why I work daily to keep this underdog mindset. It can be frustrating. This is why it's so common in sports, for good teams to take the slightest hit of disrespect as a major insult and blow it out of proportion. You'll hear on SportsCenter, no one believes in us. They shout as thousands of people cheer them in the background. Why? To keep themselves from the expectation of winning. This is their subconscious at work here because they don't truly understand what you're about and how you'll want it and even fight for an underdog mindset for life. Going to Hollywood around the start of the Internet boom in 1993 or so, a friend and I started a website that got some traction. You all know those Instagram, meme and joke accounts. It was basically that before smartphones we had funny and gross videos, all that stuff. We charged people $19 a month for access and people loved it. One day I was at my collision Repair office? Yes. I fixed cars and ran the Internet site from the same place. I got this email from a name I recognized. Tommy Lee. Yeah, that Tommy Lee. The drummer from Motley Crue. He was a subscriber, loved the site and sent me a message in quotes. This site is cool as shit, man. Keep sending me stuff. I had to pinch myself. Tommy Lee sent me an email. In the 80s and 90s, Motley Crue was the shit. So this was like the greatest thing ever for me. Before I had time to think about, I wrote a response. Hey, Tommy, this is Dean. Cool that you joined. Been a fan of Motley Crue for a long time. Yo, man, Internet pay per view is going to be the biggest thing in the world. We should build a website around you and Pamela. Yes, he was married to Pamela Anderson at the time. Where you and she do unique things. Not porn and just show your crazy life behind the scenes. And then sell it to people on a monthly basis. I bet people would pay $19 a month, probably more. Just an idea, man. Hit me back if you're interested in talking more about it. I was about to hit send and immediately felt sick to my stomach. I mean, who is I to be talking business with one of the biggest rock stars in the world? What the hell did I know? Then I thought about it for a second. I was a pretty successful businessman at that point. I had some resources and I knew some things. Maybe not at his level, but hey, I wasn't a bum living on the streets. And Tommy was paying for my service. And he did email me first. Okay, maybe this wasn't totally out of line. Then my emotions swung back the other way. I'm fooling myself. I have this piddly little website and here I am trying to make a deal with Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. At the time, Pamela was the hottest thing since Marilyn Monroe. He's going to laugh at me and call me an idiot, just like the popular kids in high school. And I'll deserve it. I worked on Cars, for God's sakes. Who did I think I was? I was about to hit delete and I stopped again. I thought to myself, what's the worst thing that could happen? What was Tommy going to do? Not invite me to the Hollywood parties I wasn't even invited to anyway? Tell me to screw off and laugh at me? It hit me. I had nothing to lose. Worst case scenario, I was exactly who I was at that moment. So I hit send. I get up from my desk, let out a huge exhale, and honestly, I felt Good about myself. Yeah, he'd probably dismiss me, but so what? I was working in my little collision shop in my little town and talking back and forth to Tommy Lee. That was cool as hell. Even if nothing came of it, I took my shot. If nothing happened, so be it. At least I tried. I went to get an iced tea, sat back down at my desk, and Tommy had already responded. Holy fuck. This is an amazing idea. Send me a proposal. Here's my attorney's contact info. Send it to him too. Let's talk. Holy fuck is right. What do I do now? All the calm I had about trying my best and not caring if he dismissed it. That stuff went right out the window. I got super anxious. Now I had to write a business proposal. How the hell do I do that? I pounded my st brain, dumped my idea in a word doc, sent it right away to him and his attorney without hardly even thinking about it. I was too nervous. I knew if I thought about, I'd never send it. The next day I got a call. Dean, this is David Rudick. I'm Tommy Lee's attorney. How'd you come up with something so ingenious? I can't even remember what I told him or the rest of the conversation. I was such a nervous wreck. There I was, a nothing with dirt under my nails talking to one of the most famous attorneys in Hollywood. But I do remember this part of the conversation. Dean, I want you to fly out to la. Can you swing that? Let's talk about this in person and get moving asap. I had cars to fix, houses to remodel, and all the rest, but I canceled all of it. I just said screw it and went all in. Tommy was emailing me every day. David and I were talking on the phone constantly. And both of them were really nice to me. I got someone to help me create a formal business plan and made sure I had all the different parts of the plan. The charts, the graphs and our splits and how we'd run it and all of that. I finished it. I FedExed it to Tommy and David. Then I got on a plane to LA to see David. His office was right on Sunset Boulevard. I knew David was a famous attorney, but I had no idea just how famous he was. His office was covered with memorabilia and pictures of him with all kinds of super famous people. I had gotten lost in the work before getting to la, so I didn't have the time to feel anxiety then. But as I stared at the pictures of the most famous people on earth, all with this lawyer, I was about to meet. All the anxiety came back. I was still 26 at this point, feeling insecure and really out of my league. Eventually, the receptionist told me David was ready to see me. I walked into his office and he was just as nice as he was on the phone. Dean, I have to tell you, this is impressive. Your whole proposal was great. I want to do this. Let's figure it out. When my leg stopped shaking and I was finally able to say two coherent sentences, we started to get a dialogue going. We Talked for about 45 minutes, hammered out a bunch of details, and he was a straight up gentleman the whole time. Then he put his phone on speaker, dialed the number, and I heard this woman pick up. Pamela. Tommy, I want you to meet Dean. Tommy, what's up, man? Pamela. Hey, Dean. Holy shit. That was Pamela Anderson saying my name. David says, guys, this is a home run. Like, I don't know how we found this guy. This is amazing. I'm going to start formalizing the agreement. Let's do this. Tommy says, awesome, we're in. David says, hey, do you guys have plans tonight? How about you do dinner with Pamela and Tommy tonight and celebrate? Heck, we'll do the four of us. I was like, yeah, I can do that. He shook my hand, walked me out, and I felt like I was in a dream. I mean, I made it. I'm going to dinner with Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, the coolest rock star alive. This was my first time in la. So I rented a convertible like a tourist. I. And there I was, driving down Sunset Boulevard, blasting the music and smiling to the point of embarrassment. I cringe as I write this now, but honestly, driving around LA in my convertible, I felt like I'd made it. I was the poor mechanic with dirt under his nails that the biggest names in Hollywood wanted to do business with me. All that anxiety, all that fear, man, that was bullshit. I do belong here. I am good enough. As I was taking in all the colors of LA in my rented car, fantasizing about which house I'd buy and what restaurants I'd have private tables at, when my cell phone rang. It was David. Hey, listen, I'm sitting here with Pamela and Tommy's manager. He just wants to get clear on a few things before the meeting with Pamela and Tommy. Could you run back over here? Won't take long. I drove right back over, walked into the office with a newfound level of confidence and went to shake the hand of Tommy's manager. He didn't shake my hand. I need to know something. How the fuck did you get in here? You're probably some nobody from upstate New York. You didn't go to college, you got some little Internet business. How much do you do? A million dollars a year? Is that what you do? Are you a millionaire? I bet that impresses all of your small town friends, doesn't it? And you think you can come in here with your bullshit idea and work with us? We don't need you. I was stunned speechless, lip quivering. Not even two minutes ago, I was the happiest I'd ever been in my life. And now here I was in the middle of my worst nightmare. Everything I worried about, all of my anxiety, all of it came flooding back. I tried to answer, but all I could do was stutter out a few choppy phrases. I'm sorry, I know it's a little site, but I have the merchant account connections. You can judge it on its merits. I have all the video streaming technology already set up. I can make this work. It's already working on my site. He cut me off. Yeah, the idea may be good. So then why the hell would we do it with you? You don't think we got better connections than you do? You're gonna have to leave. We'll talk to you tomorrow. David said to me during the dinner with Tommy and Pamela tonight. The manager barked at him. There's no fucking dinner. I canceled it already. Goodbye, Dean. I went back to my hotel room and for three hours I did nothing but cry. I heaved and sobbed and cried like I was dying. And honestly, part of me felt like I did die. I couldn't sleep a wink that night. All night, between my sobs and all my negative self talk coming back. Who the hell did I think I was? He's right. I'm a nobody from Marlboro, New York. I'm just a dreamer like so many people have accused me of in the past. I don't belong out here. I should have never let this happen. David called me the next morning, apologized, and told me what I already knew. The deal was off. I got on the next plane back to New York and slunk home. Believe it or not, it actually got worse. I got off the plane from California, tail between my legs, feeling pathetic. After a full day of travel, I finally got back to my place that night. My answering machine was going crazy with messages. One of my apartment houses had a literal sewage explosion. There was an issue with the septic tank being clogged and all the waste from the three stories above dumped into one little bathroom. The sewage was literally knee high in his bathroom. And of course he's calling me screaming at their shit all over his house. I called everyone I knew and no one, not a single plumber or handyman was available late on a Saturday night. So I went over there and started shoveling shit into a spackle bucket. What else could I do? I had my fishing waiters on, no exaggeration and painting mask on. Shoveling raw sewage for three hours on a Saturday night. I've had some low moments in my life, but that might be one of the worst. Underdogs have nothing to lose and you can use this to do anything. Everyone looks at all the advantages that the so called privilege have and miss the massive advantage that the underdog has. When you have nothing to lose, you could do anything you want, you have no risk. When no one expects you to do anything, then you can do everything. As an underdog, you almost can't lose. All you have to do is try because even the attempt is better than where you were before. Underdogs can take risks, they can experiment, they can try and fail because who cares if they lose? It doesn't matter. It's all upside. This is not unique to me. Lots of underdogs do it. One of my favorite examples is the actor Danny Trejo. You most likely know him without realizing it. He's the super tough looking guy in pretty much every movie. Danny was a bigger underdog than me. He grew up as a child, drug addict and criminal, in and out of prison for years. While serving time in San Quentin, he competed and won the prison boxing title. He got out, cleaned himself up in a 12 step program and began to sponsor other guys. One of the guys he sponsors was an actor and had an emergency on a movie set. Danny rushed to his aid and the director was so impressed with Danny's appearance and manner, he offered Danny a role as an extra in the movie. It gets even better. The director learned of Trejo's boxing skills and paid him to train the actors for a boxing match that was later in the movie. And he did so well training the actors that they recast Danny as the main competitor for the lead actor in the boxing match. Now think about this. Danny was the furthest thing from a Hollywood actor. He had no business on a movie set. He knew this. So he just had fun with it and tried his best. And because he had nothing to lose, he ended up doing a great job and became one of the most iconic character actors in America today. I now look for ways to constantly put myself back in the mindset of an underdog. Even though in so many ways that's not who I am anymore. I put myself in that state of mind because it frees me up to do what I know I have to do to succeed. Take risks, be free, explore, and just have fun. Because everything is a bonus. Underdogs have nothing to lose. Underdogs have no one to impress. Underdogs have no expectations to meet. Underdogs have nowhere to go but up. I'm telling you, as a guy who's been at the lowest of lows you can get to and some of the highest highs, I actually did some of my best work when I was down and out and no one expected anything from me. When I had nothing to lose, I felt free to be who I really was. The whole time I'm shoveling this shit in my rental house, I was thinking to myself, I guess this is where I deserve to be. This is just a sign from God. Obviously that's the stuff you think about in those moments like that, don't you? But as I thought about it, it started to get better my self. Talk changed. You know what? I'm successful. I own several apartment houses. Yeah, I'm cleaning shit out of one of them, but I still own them. I'm not poor, I'm not broke. Several months later, I saw they launched the site on their own. They took my idea down to every detail and did it themselves. Pamela was on Jay Leno. She was talking about it and she was using the exact language I'd written my proposal about what she'd say on his show. I got sick, literally sick to my stomach. She was considered to many one of the hottest women on earth. And I couldn't even look at Pamela as she said my words. It hurt me on a deep level and it brought back my insecurities. I thought to myself, I reached my plateau. I tried to go to California with the big boys. I stepped off the path, got bit by a snake. I can just get back on the path. I'm a car guy who does houses and that's okay. Of course the site failed. They took the concept, but they messed up on the details. Most importantly, they missed the relationship aspect between Tommy and Pamela. That was the whole key to the site. Basically, I envisioned this concept as having the intimacy in the drama of reality TV before it was really a thing. And they didn't get any of that. Like I said, there's no happy ending to this part of the story. I didn't do the site later on. I've never met Tommy and Pamela, I never got into Hollywood. And at that moment in time, this episode was a failure in my life. Unless you look at it in the context of my whole life. I honestly don't remember if it was two weeks or two months. But for a while I said to myself, I just need to do what I do best, cars and real estate. And I did that. I pulled back my ambitions and I was cool with that. In fact, it was me pulling back that taught me one of the most important underdog advantages. I learned I had nothing to lose by trying. Yeah, this episode hurt, and yeah, it knocked me down. But when I got back home, I still had my houses and my car business. But after a few months, I learned that I hadn't actually lost anything. The only thing I lost was a deal I never actually had. And yeah, that made me feel really bad about myself, but that was just my ego. I realized I felt bad about myself generally and that by having Hollywood accept me, it made me feel important. It gave me significance. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Hollywood couldn't tell me who I was. So what? That they didn't want me? That doesn't make me a bad person or less or anything. Think about it. What was the only thing that I actually risked? The feeling of importance and significance I would have gotten from being in Hollywood and working with Tommy and Pamela. Okay, I'd risk that. And yeah, I did feel bad about myself when I got rejected. But once I got past that, I realized that I had it all wrong. I stopped looking at the whole event as something that would have given me significance if I gotten the deal. Instead, I saw myself as having significance simply because I took the shot. And when I looked around, I didn't see anyone else going after it like I was. In fact, the more distance I got from the incident, the more proud of myself I was. I mean, I came from nowhere and almost signed a huge deal with one of the biggest stars on earth. How cool is that? Yeah, I didn't get it. But so what if I could get that close with no experience and no connections? Think of what I can do when I get some more experience. Looking back, if I hadn't done this, if I hadn't taken the risk and failed, I think I would have quit. What ended up becoming the thing that launched me into the self education world. Motor Millions. I'll tell you that story later. And the only reason I kept going with Motor Millions is because I knew I had nothing to lose. To share a little update on this story Many years later, I got a call out of nowhere. I picked up the phone and the caller said, dean, this is David Rudick. David, oh my God, I can hear your name now and not be sick to my stomach. David. Oh, that's funny. So sorry all that happened. I just wanted to tell you I've been following your success and I'm really proud of you. I had no doubts about where you were going. I wish it hadn't gone the way it did, but I'm thinking maybe it happened exactly the way it was supposed to. I said, thank you, David. That means a lot to me. Then David said, how about you come out to la? I'd love to catch up with you. I flew out to la. I went to his office with a completely new perspective. I walked through the door not feeling intimidated anymore. Now I felt accomplished. We embraced and caught up, then jumped in his Range Rover and he drove me to his house and then drove me to a piece of property he owned on top of the Hollywood Hill that used to be owned by a prince and asked my advice on what he should do with the property. It was that moment I realized that it was all part of the plan. It was part of me paying my success tax. It was part of building the grit, the muscle it takes to be successful. It was part of learning how to take underdog disadvantages and make them my empowering advantage in my life. Underdog challenge number one. What's the story in your life that's been an anchor for you? The story of why it didn't happen, the story of whose fault it was when you didn't reach that plateau. Make it happen. Get the deal or get the desired outcome, no matter how awful or horrific or regretful that story is, how can you take a moment right now and reframe or retell that story and see it through a different lens? What if that horrible event was actually designed for you by God or the universe or whatever you believe in to get you to the point you're at right now? What if life happened for you, not to you, as Tony Robbins likes to say? What if this so called failure, loss or pain was actually the ingredient to the greatest version of you? How did you come out stronger, better, wiser? How can that event allow you to become braver and more capable? To recap, what's the story holding you back? What could you have actually learned from it? Take the power away from the negative thoughts regarding the story. Prove it's a lie. Get mad that it held you back even this long. Then reframe that story so it becomes the wind behind your sail, not an anchor holding you back. So what's that new story?

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