Train Your Brain To Find Solutions Instead Of Obsessing On Problems

We are in crazy times. The outside world is out of control, the outside world is uncertain. So this is a time we must master the inner game. We must master inner control. And the little things are the big things. If you're looking to make more money, make more impact, have more success in your life, be abundant during a down market when inflation isn't at all time high, or 31 year high, where winter or recession seems to be inevitable. I'm not an economist, but it seems to be sometimes we're looking for the magical money machine, when really we must anchor in the foundation for success, the success habits and today I got a story I want to tell you that I shared with my daughter this morning on the way to school that I think is a lesson for all of us. So in life, stuff will always go sideways. People will let you down, take advantage of you, the money won't come through. People that you thought had your back really are the ones talking about you or wishing you bad thoughts. All those things happen. No matter what, those things happen. So for my daughter, she had a birthday party. She turned 15. Unbelievable. I can't believe my little girl is 15 years old and she had a bunch of great friends over and the girls had the time of their life. But the next day she went to school, or two days later she went to school and one of the girls had a misunderstanding, thought that my daughter and other girls were talking about her. So fast forward a day. That's a big deal at 15 years old. So I said to my daughter on the way to school, I said, babe, what's bugging you? Nothing. You know, she's 15, she's kind of strong, independent. I said, I can feel it, I can see it. No smiles on your face. What's wrong, hon? Finally she tells me and she tells me the whole story. And she is so nervous going to school and she wants to talk to the girl and let her know she would never talk about her. She thinks she's amazing and all these things, but she was so worried. And no smile, no happiness, no joy. Now that was a Saturday, it was a Sunday, this was Monday, the first day at school. So why am I telling you this story about my daughter? You're probably thinking, hey, I got my own stuff going on. But let me tell you the lesson. I told her, but soon as I was done, I knew it was for me. For you. It's for all of us. So we're driving and I'm thinking, what do you tell a 15 year old? I'm always giving her lessons. And I didn't want her to be like, oh, dad, not another lesson. I wanted it to hit hard. So I said, you know, babe, I totally get it. And you're 15. It's going to be. You're going to feel it, you're going to have emotions, and you can't get this right. I probably didn't get it right. I probably still don't have it right, but I didn't get it right till I was in my 40s. I hope that I can help you get there a lot quicker. So I said, let's just talk about this weekend now. It's Monday. You're going to school, you're waking up, and the only thing on your mind is what went wrong, what your friends could say. People might have heard that you did something that you didn't do. There's nothing worse than being accused of something that didn't happen. Especially when you're a teenage girl in a new high school and all these things. And she goes, yeah, it's kind of what I'm thinking. I said, you see how your brain hijacks you? She's like, what do you mean? I'm like, man, your brain can just mess with you. And she's like, dad, I don't understand. I said, okay, this weekend, it was your birthday weekend. Her birthday happens to be on my birthday. Pretty amazing. So on her birthday morning, I woke up super early and I went to the store and I got all her favorite pastries and all her favorite things to drink. So when she woke up, she had this spread of muffins and donuts and bagels and she loves this orange drink with mango and all laid out for. She's like, oh, dad, thanks. And then we went to the store and we did cool stuff and then got her some clothes that she wanted. And then at 4 o', clock, her friend that she hadn't seen since last year who went away for high school has been gone for six months. Her best friend in the world since second grade showed up and she was like, oh my God. And they were hugging each other in tears. And then all of her nine friends came over and they had dinner an amazing time and laughs. And they did amazing things. They stayed up, they laughed so hard till one o' clock in the morning. Most of them lost their voice because they had so much fun. We woke up the next day on Sunday and my littlest boy, Luca was baptized. And she came to the baptism and got to witness that. And then she had this friendsgiving with a whole bunch of Friends. And all these amazing things happened. But Monday, what is her brain focusing on? What is all of our brains focus on? In so many instances, her brain was focusing on the one thing that went wrong, that could have gone wrong. Her brain. And that's why I said to her, you didn't wake up saying, oh my God. My birthday was amazing. I celebrated with my dad, all my friends were over, dinner was great. I saw my best friend in the whole world, I haven't seen in six months. I witnessed my little brother getting baptized. I had friendsgiving. Yay, Happy Monday. She woke up and her brain said, oh my God, the girls think you were talking about you. They're going to look at you funny and life is over. How many times do we do that when we want to start the business, start the next level of life, start the relationship, finish, fix the relationship, have a bonding, be bonded with our friends. Our brain goes, they're talking about you, she doesn't love you anymore, he's not that into you. The business is going to fail. This economy, winter is coming, inflation, the president, the last president, the future president. Our brains want to hijack our thoughts and drive us down a road of what went wrong, what we don't have, or what we lost. And here's the thing I want to share with you. If you then this quick message. Life can never be abundant. You will never create the level of happiness, joy, success, income, focusing on what went wrong, focusing on the one thing wrong rather than what you have to work with or what went right. So as I told my daughter this story as she left now, it's not like she was like, oh wow, I feel amazing. But I watched her come home from school and she's like in a good mood. And she was like, dad, thanks for before. That's the most I'll ever get right. But that's okay, I know she got it. And then the second lesson part of that, they were fine. By 10 o' clock in the morning, everything was settled. Once they talked, I said, here's something to remember too. Most of everything we worry about doesn't come true. But it's a crutch that'll keep us stuck if we let it dominate our mind. So that was my message for my daughter in ninth grade, 15 years old. But isn't it a message we all need? Don't we all need to focus on what we do have to work with, what we've been blessed with, the experiences went through, Even if the things were wrong in our lives, it built the grit, it built the experience it built, the knowledge and the wisdom. In the words of Tony Robbins, what if life happened for us, not to us? And we use that back, all that data, as the wind behind our sails. Realize that we're here to fight another day. These are crazy times. But in crazy times, that's when real wealth, real abundance, real success, real growth is formed. So we can decide to sit back and hope someone else is coming to save us. That ain't never happening. Or we could say, this is my time, I'm going all in. I'll take my past, I'll use it as my fuel. I'll check out what I do have and use it as an asset rather than focusing on what I don't. Let's take life to another level. When you can insert tiny little shifts in your life, then there's zero limit to where you can go. And that's what I want for you. So, so glad you're here right now. But let me back up. I want to tell you. When I was in my teens and Even in my 20s, when I was like, I did my first real estate deal before I was 20, I was working on cars, fixing old cars or beat up cars, fixing them up and flipping them for a profit. I cut firewood. I did all those things before I was 20 years old. And I have to tell you, I used to think the same way. I used to think there would be this one magical thing, this, like if I met a millionaire or met a billionaire someday, oh my God, they would, like, they'd have this secret, like, it looked like a ring case, and they'd open it up and starbeams would shoot out and that would be like the thing, like, heavenly music would play. I'm like, oh my God, that's the thing I need to be successful. And the fact of the matter is, now that I've been an Entrepreneur for over 30 years, I've been blessed to do some amazing things. I've been blessed to fail miserably. A blessing when I was in them, but they are now. I realize it's not one thing, it's a sequence of things. It's like, picture a dam. Everybody's looking for the gaping hole in the dam so they could fix it and let the water fill up. I use silly analogies, yes. But what I realized in life, it's like there's a million little holes. And after you, you plug them through time, all of a sudden the dam fills up. And the dam filling up to me is success, right? So with that, I still get this question so much online, you guys send it in non stop. What's the one thing? The one thing now I could say masterminds. Oh, my God. Masterminds changed my life more than anything. I've acquired knowledge from other people. I get to learn from their mistakes. I get to learn from their breakthroughs, and I get to share. Oh, my God. Real estate also transformed my life in my 20s, writing books. Oh, my God. That's the one thing or many one things on the tactical side, but none of them let me be really clear. It's why we're here right now. None of them could have worked without having the habits, emotionally, physically, how you handle situations. None of it would happen without dealing with what goes on between your ears. So if I narrow down the one thing, I want to tell you, there is no one thing. But I've been obsessing on what are the top five? What are some things that are a must in my life that. That move the needle that I could give to you? You've asked the question. Here it is. One of the top five, hands down, is training your mind, your energy, your focus to immediately. I said focus. Focus on solutions when things go wrong. I see this in my friendships of people that I've been friends with for 30, 40 years. Some of them still focusing on why things happen to them, why it goes wrong, why they were dealt a bad hand, why the friend was unfair, why the deal didn't happen, why the bank loan didn'. They'll focus on it so much, even if it takes 20% of their focus. There's not enough time for them to go to a next level now. I'm 50 this year. All my friends from high school are 50, 51. They have older kids, some of them. I have two friends that are grandparents. Oh, my God. That's insanity, right? But I know some of them are stuck and they don't even realize it when I say, hey, how about replacing. Trying to figure out why it went wrong with figuring out how you could solve it. And a lot of them go, oh, Dean, you. You're in that personal growth stuff. That's what you do for a living. You got lots of money now. You have nothing to worry about. But I started where they were. I lived in a trailer park as a kid. I didn't go to college. I didn't have money. I don't have a great education. I still have a horrible vocabulary. But these little shifts are what move me. So today, let's focus on the power of focusing on a solution. I say Focus a lot, but that's what it's focusing on solutions. And I've trained my brain over the years that when stuff goes sideways, when someone takes advantage of you, when, when someone goes wrong, when an employee goes rogue or a partner does something that hurts your feelings, or a loved one does something that really doesn't settle with you. What I've done is train my brain so much to focus on solutions that I know I can go faster and quicker than most people. And I'm going to encourage you to think through that. Hey, did you ever know anybody that was in a relationship that went really bad? The guy cheated, the girl was mean or conniving or whatever. Like there's a million different things. But let's just take a guy, girlfriend cheats on him and all of a sudden for years, like, I don't trust women, no way. I don't trust women. They all cheat, right? That is focusing on what happened, that's focusing on the pain. And you've known men or women relationship wise that have gone years being single, years being bitter. Rather than training the brain go, what happened? Was I a part of this? Was I not there emotionally? Or really was it just a bad person? Was I a bad judge of character? Did I not have the right values in me? Someone who's solution oriented would feel the pain and then let it go and immediately write down this is unacceptable in my next relationship. I'll never do this again. I need to be more transparent, I need to be more caring, I need to look out for someone's needs or I need to know someone's values before I start with them. Okay, this is what's unacceptable now. This is what I must have in my next relationship. Let's focus on the solution and go right. As subtle as that sounds, it's the same in business. Somebody will try, they'll buy a course and they'll try and it doesn't work. It's like, oh, those courses, you never get through them. Or they'll try a business and a partner will take advantage. No, you can't go in business because partners screw you over and partners suck and this sucks and online sucks. As simple as that sounds, they're not focusing on a solution. So I would encourage you today to have this little note. Write it on your hand, put it in your phone, have a reminder, have your alarm go off twice a day in your phone because you can do that in iPhones and other phones. Have the alarm go off with a little saying that says focus on solutions today. Because the more you can train your brain to go, ah, it's catastrophic. How do I fix it? The quicker you'll get through life. Because the one thing we all have is 24 hours in a day, right? All of us have the same time. But why does someone keep getting ahead? Why are you envious? I'm not being mean, but I was. Maybe you weren't. Why are you envious if someone else seems like they're kicking ass, like they have 40 hours in a day? When you have 24, you feel like you got the weight of the world on your shoulders. And they seem to be skating by and doing the fun stuff and coaching Little League for their kids and. And their businesses are thriving and they're doing. Why? I know one of them. The top five. You want the one. I think that's the top five. Be a person obsessed on focusing on solutions. So let me just tell you this quick story. So this weekend had a great weekend. We took the kids up to Sedona and Flagstaff, Arizona. It's out of the heat. It's like 109 here. As I'm recording this up, there is 85. So we go up there. We camped one night. That didn't go so great. So then we went to a nice hotel, had fun, took the kids fishing. So we're fishing, and I've trained my brain so much that when stuff goes wrong, I'm probably annoying to be around because it's like, as soon as it goes wrong, how quick can I solve this? But it took me years to get there, so don't beat yourself up if you're not there in five minutes. So we take the kids fishing. My son catches a nice trout, and he's like, dad, can you help me take it off the hook? So I go to grab the fish, and I grab the string. And if you're watching this on video, I'll put a little clip. My fiance turned the camera on. It was crazy. But if you're just listening, I go to pull the hook, and it pops out of the fish quick and slams right into the skin between your thumb and your forefinger. Now, it looks worse than it is, but the hook went straight through, about an eighth of an inch, quarter of an inch down. And it was just in there. And if you know anything about fishing and hooks, they have a barb on the end so they can go in, but. But then it gets wide. You can't get it out. Now, did it hurt? Yeah, but it wasn't catastrophic. But it's, like, weird. And Lisa, my fiancee, oh, my God. She starts to run. Like, babe, stop running. We're good. And I knew the only way to get it out. Immediately I started. My brain is trained this way. I said, how do I get this hook out? It won't pull out. Like, literally trying to just. There's no way it's coming out is you got to cut the barb off. So I stopped everybody immediately. My son's like, oh, my God, dad, that's gross. Are you okay? He's, like, holding me. Lisa doesn't know what to. I'm like, go get the owner and ask if she has cutting pliers. Like, this calm. She goes, gets the person that's working there at this trout ranch, and they come back with cutting pliers. And I literally see it. I know it hurts. It's already in there. I can't say, brody, why did you do this? Or, why did I do this? Or I should have grabbed the fish this way. Or maybe we shouldn't have been fishing today. Or I should have held it a different way. Or I should have had gloves on. Or maybe, like, there's a million things you could say. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. But guess what? There was still a hook in my hand, and it had to come out. So all of my energy went to getting the hook out. I got these little pliers. I cut it. Once I cut the barb off, there was still some of it on. I had to push the hook through even more. I snipped it off. It came right out. Put peroxide on it. I was fishing again in moments. Now, this isn't about my bravado and that I didn't cry. I just knew the hook was in there. I knew it hurt, but I knew I had to get it out. You watch some people in life when the business goes wrong, the relationship goes wrong. They start running all over and say, why did this happen? Who could do this to me? Poor me. My circumstances. No, now, put all your energy towards the fix. Now, the other thing, too, is to compound that is to learn. We caught more fish that day because we were at a trout ranch. It was kind of cheating, just being honest. Caught lots of fish. Every time I caught the next fish, I was like, whoa, I'm not doing that again. That stung. So I held the fish differently. I took my time. I calmed down. I got the little pliers unhooked. The fish wasn't even close. No more hooks. I learned I'll never have a hook in my hand ever again because I learned from it. But I focused on solutions so today, right now, as you listen to this, how can I challenge you to focus on solutions? Make it a part of your life. One step at a time. Do it today, do it this hour, do it for two days, do it for a week, do it for a month. If you can alter that one shift, I'm telling you right now, right here, it's one of the top five things that have allowed me, at least personally and most successful people I know, to go faster and quicker. When you're envious of others going so fast, you won't be if you train your brain to focus on solutions. 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 world to a whole nother level. Sam.