Turn Your Biggest Problem into Your Greatest Success

What challenge have you had in the past that you're no longer going to let get in your way? I mean, think about that. That's really what's holding us back. The capabilities are there. You have the opportunity, especially if you're in our world, to be a part of our community. Welcome to the Dean Graziosi show. All success starts right here. I have a couple of dates for you. Okay, so let me. Before I get into my training today, I want you to do me a favor. Jot these down on your journal, put them on your hand, put them in your phone, write them here. Okay? First is February 10th. February 10th, we are doing a three hour workshop called the Secret to Scale. Secret to Scale is going to show you how to scale your information business, your online business. How do you go from launching to actually making this a career, a successful business that impacts others and creates income for you? How does that work? Three hour workshop. It's going to be amazing. Second date, I want you to write these down. March 4th, 5th and 6th. March 4th, 5th & 6th. That is the Impact Accelerator Live. Now that's not a three hour workshop. That's a three day immersive event. We do event. We do one event a year. Tony and I called the Mastermind World Summit. This is a new event that we're going to do every year. Now, Impact Accelerator Live is about scaling the business, right? So it's about launching, but going to another level. How do you make this a real business? How do you take it to a whole nother level? How do you replace an income, create a new income, create impact in others? If you create impact in other people's lives, I hope I've impacted your life. And when I impact your life, my business gets to accelerate. I get to help others on my team. I get to help more people around the world. Right? How do you follow that model? That's March 4th, 5th and 6th. I want you to write down this URL mastermindticket.com mastermind ticket.com. if you don't have one, I'd suggest you go to that page and you get one. Okay? Okay. Today I'm trying to think, what could I teach you guys today that I've maybe never taught you before? How can I tell you a personal story that attaches to this? Because that's how personal is to me. And this is what I wanted to share. When I was 45 years old, I was going through a lot. At one time, I was going through a divorce or at the beginning of it or somewhere around that I was going through a divorce. I had shifted my business. I had been in the real estate self education industry for a really long time and I dominated that space and got to impact millions of people with real estate. But I felt my heart calling me to go into more self education, teaching and personal development. I couldn't help it. That was just, that was where my heart was pulling me. Even though I had. I started with motor millions, right? Started with one dot, one niche, helping people make money with cars. Then I did real estate for so long. I went into helping people make money with real estate and dominated that space over a 10 year time. But my heart was called to say, there's so many people that need to be in this same industry, look what I've done. And also if they don't have the right mindset, where you see like accelerated success formula, that was a result of switching from real estate to personal development, you are the prime example of it, right? Because you're here. And I made that shift and when it shifted it was like, all right, you're doing this. I went all in. I'm like, I'm going from real estate into this. People need personal development, they need to know how to be in the self education industry. So I'm shifting that and I'm going through a divorce or at the start of divorce. And I have to tell you, there's some other things going on in my life. I worried about my kids, right? If you been through a divorce, I hope not and I'm not an advocate of divorce. But it was happening, there was no unwinding it. And as I was going through, all I could think about is my kids. You know, there's a lot of things you could imagine. Kids, time. Am I going to be single forever? Am I going to ever meet anybody that loves my children the way I do? If not, I'll be a single dad forever. I'll be a great single dad. And. And what about my business? And what about what will people perceive of that and will my kids lose faith in relationships and all the things, right, you could imagine. And I went and saw my dear friend Tony Robbins as one of the things I was trying to do to get my head cleared. Like I'm transitioning my business and while I'm transitioning my business, one business is going down, the other one didn't start to go up yet. And I still got 100 employees and, and you know, cost and I didn't lay off one single person even though my revenue went down by a significant amount. I didn't lay off a person. Right. We're transitioning, that I'm going to go through a divorce. Everything's going to have to get split. Separated is. Or attorneys. All this stuff is going on. I go see Tony and, you know, we've been there for each other on so many levels, and I feel blessed that I can go see him. And I'm at his house, and there's lots of great stuff. He shared me. This is the one I wanted to share with you today. He. He looked at me after lots of conversation, and I were talking about all these individual things, and he just looked at me and said, can I ask you something, Dean? Who do you want to become in your 50s? In my head at first, I'm like, what the hell does that mean, dude? I'm calling through hell here, brother. Give me, like, something. I'm like, wow, that's a deep fricking question. Who do I want to become in my 50s? He didn't elaborate much more than just saying that several times. And I started thinking, what kind of man do I want to be in my 50s? Kind of fought them five years away from it, four years away, whatever. It was like, kind of father. Do I want to be kind of teacher? Leader. Teacher to you, leader to my team. Do I want to be kind of man do I want to be when no one's watching, there's no cameras on, there's nobody watching, doing everything I want. Who do I want to be kind of man do I want to be with my connection with God or a higher power man? I have goosebumps sharing it with you right now. It really just hit me in a way. It wasn't about, like, what I want to accomplish or how much money do I make or what kind of dad do I want to be? Just like, who do you want to become in your 50s? And I think we can ask ourselves that question all the time. I think we can ask ourselves that question. In any area of our life because it solves. It's the one question that solves lots of questions. Who do I want to become? Not how much money do I. I want to become a man who creates more impact for the world that delivers so much on himself. Listen, I go live more than I've ever done since COVID I. I can barely fit things in my life right now, but I know my tribe, my team, my family, you guys, we need this. We all need to be connected. I'm going live more. I'm doing more because that's the man I want to become. I've decided to go deeper as a parent, as a, As a husband, as a. As a. As a son, as a brother in so many areas. How to be. So when I started thinking about this, oh, my God, it transformed everything for me. Who do I want to become? How do I want people to. If you weren't around and people were talking about who you were, what would they say? Who do we want to become? Who. What would we like people to say at our eulogy if they really knew who we were? Like, if they knew the nobody's watching you and that everybody watching you. And the eulogy was spot on. What do you want that to say when you're a hundred years old? Tony Robbins comes through and gives me that. And damn, I left there with my head freaking spinning. So I'm going to give you one thing I went through. If one question, if one question can solve a lot of things at once, where else could I maximize one thing? Hear me now we're really busy. What's. What? How could we maximize? Is there a way to leverage decisions and actions where one thing could actually solve lots of problems? You never heard me share this. I don't think. What's one thing that could solve lots of them? That one question made me think about so many areas of my life. It's like a pyramid. That one thing sitting up top. So where else could I maximize that time? Here we go. So I'm going through a divorce. I'm going to give you this as an example. I'm going through a divorce. It wasn't. There was no turning back. It was happening and I was freaking myself out. You've heard me say that before, probably. If you're part of my family, if you're part of. If you went through asf. I'm sure I talked about it. I don't remember exactly, but I want to tell you some of the things that were freaking me out. Okay, sure. That I just miss my kids. I take my kids to school every day. I made them lunch every day, picked them up for school almost every day. Every Sunday we had a family meeting. I coach at the time. I was coaching little League and coaching softball. I catch for my daughter when she does softball practice. All I could think about is, I'm not going to be there half the time. I'm going to be there half the time. Going to miss them. They're going to miss me. I thought, would they get fragmented? Would they be somebody for their parent, for their mom and somebody for me? Would my. Would their. With my kid's mom talk crap about me behind my back. Like he's, you know, that happens a lot. Even people who try to do it as friends, there's crap that happens, right? I said, would they feel. Here's a big one. Would they feel the way I felt? My parents were married nine times. Divorce was horrific for me as a kid. They didn't do it elegantly. They hated each other. So it was ugly every time. You know, stepbrothers, stepsisters, all this crazy stuff. Would my kids lose faith in what a relationship could be? Would they follow their parents? Am I following my parents? I started to think about all the traditions that I had created up until that point. Would they lose their traditions? I also thought about things like, I travel a lot for business. So what if it's my week and I'm traveling? Could I go two weeks without seeing my kids at the time? I want to share something with you. They were, you know, littler. They are than they are now. I thought about going. If I thought about going more than three days without seeing my kids, I literally could put myself in a panic attack, anxiety attack. And you got to understand something. Since my former wife and myself went many years as friends, this is getting too personal. I slept in the guest house and guest room for many, many years. And we were just co parenting. But I was there. I was there and the thought of not being there was triggering this. This massive. Like, I. I had a block. So let me ask you guys, have you ever had something that when you face it, it seems so scary that it blocks your thought to have vision for a compelling future? It blocks your vision to understand that things will get better. Like, you just think, this is so screwed up. This is so screwed up that I'm never going to be okay again. I'm going to miss my kids forever. I'm going to have this empty pit in my belly every time they're not around me. They're not going to get my influence. And not that their mom's influence is bad, but I want them to have mine all the time. And then will they lose traditions? What if we parent different? What if. What if my house is like, not the house they. They enjoy? They want to be at their mom's at all these crazy things. And then what if I find somebody who doesn't? All this stuff is driving me crazy. So picture that pile of. Can I just say it? Like his pile of. I'm focusing on all that pile of. And I'm freaking myself out. I've never got this detailed on it. It's why I was pushing myself into anxiety. I never had an anxiety attack in my life. I didn't want to get on planes. I was afraid to get in an elevator. I was literally freaking myself out because I was focusing on all the shit that could go sideways. Right? I wasn't focusing on the fact that things could go in a good way. So now all that stuff is causing problems and anxiety. I'm like, so what are some possible solutions? I started doing all this. Now I'm telling you my story, guys. This isn't about me just telling my story. I want you to insert whatever it is in your life and I'm going to tell you how we can get to this pyramid of. Is there one thing that could solve a lot of your problems? Right. So possible solutions. Yoga. I started taking yoga to try to. And meditation to try to ease my anxiety. I was journaling every single day. I was reading books. I got a therapist. I was meeting with experts like Tony and my buddy Dr. Daniel. Amen. I went and saw my buddy Brendan Burchard and I was getting. I could work harder on it. I could get new traditions. I could just suck it up and deal with the pain. There's a million possible solutions and I was doing all of them. I was all over the place. I was. I used the tapping method. I was doing this other thing that Tony suggested. I was meditating, listening to music. I did. I took a course on trans and something meditation. Dm. I went through all of. Was a lot. Still kind of freaked out. So I started thinking in this process, is there. I don't know why I thought this way. I don't. Maybe because of Tony's one question. But I started thinking there's got to be something. There's got to be something to get me through this shitstorm because I can't focus on. Listen. The fact of the matter is my kids didn't see their mother and father hold hands or be affectionate most of their lives. They saw two polite parents who didn't fight, who did a lot of things separate. I'd take the kids here, she'd take the kids there. The fact of the matter is my kids never saw love. They never saw connection. They saw really polite parents being friends. There were so many valuable, positive things that could happen, but I couldn't focus on any of them. I was all freaked out. But I started thinking, is there a way to solve this with one thing? And I'm. I'm giving you this to think of a pyramid today. If there's a problem you have to solve. I wish I was on a whiteboard, but I want to think of this as the one thing. And if this is the one thing, right? And this was all the stuff I read, all the, the problems, right. All the problems that worry about my kids and then the possible solutions, the yoga, the meditation and all that stuff, is there one thing that could solve all of it? Sounds like a big thing, right? Well, guess what I felt like when I was going through it. That like I was in the middle of a freaking. I was in a boat. I left my safe harbor, I'm out in the middle of a tornado, there's 20 foot waves, the wind is going there, my boat's going to sink. I'm freaking out, freaking myself out. And then all of a sudden, hit me. It hit me. What if I became true friends with my kid's mom, with my previous wife? What if not fake friends. What if I became friends with her? I have to tell you, I started thinking about it not as a strategy, but it's like, well, if I look at all things I'm worried about, if I miss my kids, if I'm friends with my ex, I could say, hey, I really miss them. Can I come get them today? Can I pick them up from school? A friend would say yes, put the kids in the middle, talking bad about me behind my back and try to separate and fragment them for friends. We had each other's back. That would never happen. What if I'm traveling for two weeks for business and I come home or three days and I missed my time? Would she be flexible? A friend would be flexible. What about summer vacations? I literally jotted that down. I was freaked out. What if we went to the same area? If I rented the same house, they stayed with me for a week, I leave the kids, stay in the same place. She could be there. Friends would do that. What about being honest about how bad it was when my parents got divorced and I don't want to do that to him. I could tell a friend that and a friend would want to co parent in a good way like that. What if we disagree on a parenting strategy? Wouldn't a friend say, hey, let's not talk about it in front of the kids, let's go talk about it. I'll meet you for coffee or I'll give you a call. That's what friends would do. What if we had traditions and I told her how important some of these traditions were? A friend would keep those traditions. And I'm not. I'm not kidding. In a moment, after a. A year, literally a year of just completely abusing myself. In a moment, when I came up with that one thing, it was like my ship sailed out of the storm. I was in calm water again. Literally, like, I got this. I got this. But then started thinking. Just saying something doesn't actually make it real. Saying something's just part of it. I have to anchor this in now. God, guys, this is not about divorce. We all getting this, right? This is not about divorce or Dean's story. I hope you understand. This is about how do you solve big. How do you solve the thing that's holding you back? Even if it's a little thing, if you're hesitating, if you're not moving forward, if you're not creating this big solution, it's going to be the anchor that you're dragging across the desert beside instead of the wind behind your sail. So I said, if I'm going to be friends with her, how does that really happen? I have to become an active listener. I have to be a real friend and listen. I wrote down a whole bunch of things here. I said, I have to. I don't even know where the sheet is. When I decided to do this for you guys today, I'm like, I can't find. It doesn't matter. I said, I have to be an active listener. I'll just remember the things that I did. I said, her voice has to be just as strong as mine. I have a pretty strong voice, right? I own businesses. I go when I want something, I freaking do it. I can't just diminish her thoughts. I have to appreciate her ideas and thoughts as much as mine. I have to have no ego. This was a big one. No ego. This was the biggest one. This is what I told myself every day because some days got a little crazy. I have to replace all emotions that may be triggered with compassion. Oh, that's a brutal one. I'm not Mother Teresa by any means, but I worked on it. You know, when we were going through mediation, right? We decided to go through mediation as friends. We met and laughed sometimes and. And the mediator's like, you two are insane. Like, you're really friends. I'm like, yeah, we're really friends. And sometimes she would say something not on purpose, just kind of like, you know, I've been working 20 hour days since I was 15 and said something maybe about money or something. And my first is like, yeah, compassion, compassion, compassion. Like, I see how you could think that. Let's Come up with a solution, right? Unconditional support with my kids. I will never disagree with her. Even if I disagree with her, I'll never disagree with her in front of the children. I'll talk to her afterwards. I'll. Don't. I won't take things personal. I'll make sure she feels safe in our. In our friendship. I'll talk great about her always. I always consult with her when I'm making decisions on the kids. I'll truly be a friend, Not. Not just lip service. So I came up with the one thing, but then I built the support underneath it. I have to tell you, that was, I don't know, 53. My kids never found a happier place. To this day, I'm remarried. I've been with my. I've been with Lisa, the love of my life, for five years. We have a new baby. Everybody gets along great. There's no issues. My kids don't feel any fragmentation. They love being in both houses. We live a mile from each other. They literally drive bikes back and forth. We. We are so flexible. It's like, oh, she had Covid two weeks ago, and the kids have been with me for two weeks now. Right? Because our family didn't get it. So when they're done, she's like, what do we do? I miss them for doing this. I'm like, how about you keep them for two weeks? She's like, oh, my God. Thank you. This is seven years later. The kids have absolutely no. Like, oh, Mom. It's fun. I. I've shared this last Mother's Day. I come home, my kids are on the kitchen table with my wife, Lisa, making Mother's Day gifts for their mom. There are so many things that came from that one decision of deciding to be friends and replacing all emotions with compassion by making shifts by. And committing to it. I got myself out of the storm. And best part about it is my kids are not split. And my kids can see that even though things don't go perfect, they can go right. Even though when things are hard, you can make it powerful, you can make it the best you could be. And now my kids get to see me. Mom's thriving, and they get to see me with a woman that I'm in, madly in love with, that we're connected every single day. And they get to see what a real relationship is like. They get to see love. I mean, some days I see. I see my kids looking at me and my wife when we're holding hands or. Or helping each other cook in the kitchen. And my kids are like. Like that. Happy. Like my dad's happy. That's what's love. They see what's possible. They also see that mistakes happen. But you can grow. Now, I didn't share this about divorce. I didn't share it because of me. I shared it because where do you need to come up with a big solution to break free from anything holding you back from who you're meant to be? I have to tell you, on the other side of this, I'm a better man all the way around. I'm a better man. I'm a better father. I'm a better leader. I'm a better teacher. I'm more compassionate. My company, my business grew exponentially since then because I got to be free. I got to live who I'm supposed to be. Is it scary? Hell, yes. So I don't know if you feel like an imposter. I don't know if you feel like people are going to make fun of you. I don't know if you feel too old, that you missed your window, that tech is too hard, or your husband doesn't really support you, or people will think you're crazy. I don't know what the hell you think it is. I get it. Our reality is nothing more than our perception of a situation. But when you realize it's a perception, I am the same man. I still went through a divorce. I still live in different houses. I only see my kids half the time. And I feel better, more alive, more connected to my kids than I ever, ever did. So the story was one story until I found a new story. And when I found a new story, my life changed forever. Tony always says, change your story, change your life. That is the epitome of that. We all have stuff. We all go through tough times. It's not if it's coming. Problems are coming, challenges are coming. It's how we handle it, what we focus on. And if you could find one thing that helps solve lots of things, if you could say, hey, I'm worried here. I need to find more confidence or more courage. I need to finally sit down with my husband and say, this is the woman I am, and I need you to support me like I would support you. I don't know what it is. If you tell your friends, hey, you could make fun of me. You think it's fair? This is my life. I'm going for it. I hope you support me. Right. I don't know what you have to turn towards, but you have to turn your ship towards it. You have to find that solution. You have to find the things that empower the solution and freaking pull the trigger. Because time waits for no one. One. We're moving fast. Let's not delay, guys. It's one of the most personal stories I've ever told. And guess what? Not an ounce of it was hyperbole. Not an ounce of it was fabricated to make the story up. It's my life. We all have life, but where we land is the most important piece of all of it. As always, our podcast is free. We don't even sell advertising space. So how you could pay us back by helping other people get this information in their hands. So if you enjoyed today's podcast, go ahead and take a second and rate and review the show and tell a friend. Heck, take a snapshot and put it on your Instagram. It's the best way for you to help other action takers get the knowledge they need to live into their full potential. And if you haven't already, go ahead and subscribe now. To get access to new episodes three times a week, you can go to the description for this video podcast and check out the special links I shared with you. To take your success, freedom and abundance to a whole other.