Unlock Your Greatness Through Self-Awareness w/ Joe Stumpf

As a coach, I'm always wondering, where are you right now? Because we can't figure out where you're going to go until we know where you're at right now. And if you look at Google Maps, the most important part of that algorithm is Location Finder, because Location Finder tells you where you're at and then you plug in where you want to go. Everybody has a sense of where they want to go, but they're not sure where they're exactly at. In order to map out what's the first and best next step, own your future.

Because if you don't, someone else will. Welcome back to the Own youn Future podcast. I'm super stoked today for this interview. Get ready, pull out your pens. This is a gentleman I've known for. I bet you it's been 15 years. But even deeper than that, I could tell you he started coaching before coaching was cool. 1977 leads, one of the largest coaching companies in North America, has impacted so many lives. This is a guy that knows not have to. It's a guy that knows the secret to longevity of going deeper with a client. So they stay with you rather than kind of the new trend of going out and just get as many clients as you can over and over like a rat race. And if they don't stick, who cares? There's always more people on the Internet. I would say this gentleman is kind of old school in a way of saying, go deeper, care more, do more, serve more, deliver more, take them through a whole journey. Half of his clients have been with him at least a decade. How crazy is that? It's one of the most incredible stats in today in a life of burn and churn. But before we bring this incredible man out, who's going to fill you with so much wisdom today in marketing, in sales and advertising, in life, in the journey of life that goes alongside the journey of business. I got to tell a little story. About 11 years ago, this gentleman, maybe 13, oh my God, probably 13 years ago now, this gentleman came to my house. I hired him as a consultant. We ended up bartering. We talked half a day on my stuff, half a day on his stuff. But this gentleman came to my house and you've probably heard me mention his name. If you've been a follower of mine for now, this time for 10, 15 years, is because that day I asked him how I could get my clients more results than that was my big question. And it wasn't about a hack. It wasn't about add more stuff or change more Stuff. It went into the human condition, it went into the heart. And this is the man that taught me the seven levels deep. And I've been sharing it ever since. It has been dramatic. Hands down, the number one thing that's impacted my life. When I'm having a tough day, I go Back to my three top things. My 5, 6, and 7. I remember them like it's yesterday. I don't want to go backwards. I want my kids to have choices. I want to be in control of my life. I said it to this man for the first time 15 years ago. I've been saying it probably every other week or at least 20 times a year since then. I am so glad to have this incredible human on our show today, Mr. Joe Stumpf. Whoa.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. You know Dean Cabot Roberts? You remember that name, Cabot Roberts?

I do.

That goes back a ways. And I was at an NSA National Speakers association meeting, and he said, you can either A, keep the same talk and find a new audience, or B, you can develop yourself, constantly evolve your message and keep the same audience. And he says you can do both, but not well. He says if you can pick one, and there's not like a right or wrong, but if you could pick one path and just say, okay, go down that path and keep working on you, then you'll keep the same audience. I've watched you do that. I've watched you extraordinarily well develop the tools to go out and find new clients. But at the same time, you keep evolving yourself. Your. Your. Your intelligence, your physical well being, your emotional well being, your relationship wellbeing. You keep cultivating that. So when you show up, you bring a fresh message, and that keeps people coming back. And it's just. It's an honor to be with you. It's not. Or just to be part of this process that you've created for the world to enjoy and the world to grow through. So thank you. Thank you for all your work.

You're welcome, Joe. And I mean that. You know, there's never a time, and I try to remember it every single time. I even bring up a point of. With the seven levels deep and understanding your why. Because, listen, we've all heard got to have purpose, got to have passion, got to know your why. And I've probably read. I don't know. You and I are. I'm an avid reader. I listen to a book probably on average once every three weeks, once a month for last decade or two of my life. And I've heard a lot of things around purpose and passion and your why. But that day, you were the right teacher at the right moment with the right message. It just cut right through the crap and got right to the heart. I had you there. Because I want to have more success for my clients. I. I wanted to. And when I really dug into it, the reason, you know, when people say business and life, keep them separate, there's an integration. If you don't have an integration, there's no such thing as business and life separate. It's finding the magical integration of the two. And that just cut to the chase. The reason I worked so hard is because I didn't want to go backwards. I wanted my kids to have choices. I obviously felt like I didn't have choices as a kid. I didn't like moving 20 times. By the time I was 19, I probably felt out of control, and I wanted to have more in control. Not control freak. More in control of my decisions. And I want to get to marketing. I want to get to how deep you go to keep clients. Because I've learned so much from you through the years, Joe. But I really want to say thank you for that gift of that day, because it's not only helped me now I have a bigger megaphone than I've ever had in my life. And when I get to share that journey with people, it's millions of people that are hearing it each year now. And it is always the thing that comes back and say, so glad you learned that. Because it's. It's impacted my life. So when I say that and share. I have a lot of great guests on there. A lot of them are friends. I just really want to honor you for that gift that you gave me.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I get it. Can I just amplify that a little bit? You know, the concept of adversity, there's a certain chemical. I don't know what it is, but there's a certain amount of adversity that leads to significant greatness. And then there's a certain amount of adversity that leads to a life of survival.

Right.

Or where people can't get out because the. The adversity was so difficult in their childhood. And there's a thing that Kaiser Permanente put out. It's called the aces. Have you ever heard this? Aces.

I haven't.

Aces. 10 questions. And if you sc a certain number on this, they look at your developmental trauma, like what happened in early development that causes you to score so high? And the. And they're you definitely would be scoring in the 2, 3, 4 numbers you like. I knowing your background story, and there's a lot of people who score 2, 3, 4, 5 on that test, some 6 and 7 that go on do some significant things. And there's a lot of people that are on skid road that could never overcome that.

Right.

And seems to be. And it's just a gift. I don't know what the gift is, but there seems to be just this perfect combination of adversity and also education. Mentors and people come into our lives that bring us into a significant place that we play from. And that's what I look at. I look at that day that I sat across from you. What I got to see was the amount of adversity that you've gone through and how you've turned that into your seat for greatness and how you made this choice that I'm not going to let my children experience what I had to go through in order to develop and cultivate the way that I'm being in life today. Wanted them to have a different path. And so isn't that really the gift that we break the pattern that we were given and so we could give our kids a better chance? Hopefully it's a better chance. You know, like my two daughters, they're not well, you know, I'm really excited about that. And I. My promise is it does turn out better for them when they have a father and a mother who are working through their stuff. And the 5, 6, 7, is that pathway in. It's like really understanding what's the drive behind the drive. Yeah. And that's what I think we tapped into that day when you said, I want to be in control. And it wasn't, I want to be a control freak. I want to be responsible. You know, my mom and dad weren't all that responsible, and I want to be responsible and I want to give my kids responsibility. And I see one of the biggest challenges of success is people just don't want to take on that level of responsibility. And I look at the level of responsibility you've taken on. Extraordinary. And. And it starts with knowing, you know, deeply what. What is the. The root. The root motivation behind the. The drive behind the drive. And all we did was gave language to it. It's our limbic system. Our limbic system lives in our gut, and we don't usually have words for it. So when you turn to a client, say, so, hey, tell me what's important about playing to you. You take it up to the 5, 6, 7. They say the words. Like you say, for the very first time in their life, they knew the feeling, but they didn't know the words.

Yeah, that's a good word. Yeah.

As soon as they say the words and you're in their presence, you're the one. Yeah. Who helped them connect that and that they transfer that power onto you. So if I can help you understand that control is where it is, I probably am going to be a person in your life that can help you find that control, too. Yeah. And that's why it's so powerful that when coaches sit with a client, start out by saying, hey, so tell me what's important about success to you? And go up to 5, 6, and.

Because if you think about it, I, I so many times people say, you got to have grit. Right. You got to grind. You got to. Like Ogmundino says, you must persist until you succeed. But if you go upstream from grit and persistence, you have to overcome the fear of stepping outside, being different than your family, facing the unknown, doing the things that feel uncomfortable. I know your next level of life lives on the other side of the thing you fear, but how the hell do you get into that fear? Right. So people could say, grind. Oh, just overcome your fear, Joe. You'll be fine. But if I look at everything I've learned, and this is almost my 30th year in this space, Joe, none of that works without going upstream one more notch and having a compelling enough reason why you should face your fear, why you should have grit, why you should grind. Right. The grind isn't enough. It's the compelling reason. And can you find a compelling reason that's not unhealthy? And that's where I've evolved to my life and why it was really important to me, and then it was a thing I did, and then now maybe in my 50s, it's beyond the most important thing. Like, I want to scream it from the mountaintops that if you don't dig into that, then you don't get all the byproducts. When somebody literally from all you shared, and I want to get to some other stuff, but when someone says to me, I don't have the time in my head, you know what I think? You don't have a why you don't have five, six, and seven. When someone says, I procrastinate, you don't have a five, six, and seven. Meaning asking yourself that why? Question 10, you know, seven times. And I've kind of equated so many things that I Hate to feel. You know, I get four different questions, and people think there's four different answers. And I say, well, why do you want it in the first place? Like, well, you know, I just don't want to be in this situation anymore. I'm like, there it is. It's got nothing to do with time. Right. You probably feel the same way.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's because I work mostly with real estate agents.

Yep.

And so they're sitting across the table from a client who's going to sell their house. The. So what's important about buying a home? Or what's important about selling a home? And it's always surface shit right at the beginning. Well, we want the most money possible. You know, we want a bigger house. But when you start to get into the 5, 6, and 7 and it turns out to be my son and my daughter are going to have a big backyard because I never got one.

Yeah, exactly.

And I want to make sure that those kids, they can go run around that backyard, and they can have the freedom to play and be safe. And then you go, well, what's important about that? Well, here's the truth. My mother left me some money in my will, and I told him that I would spend the money on a bigger house for that. And then you go, oh, wow. And people are saying things to my clients that they've never said to any real estate agent. And so when the real estate agent is showing them home, they're saying, is this the house that's going to give the backyard to your kids that your mom and your dad really wanted you to leave the money for? Is this the house? Yeah.

I'm doing business with you. I'm doing business with you. Yeah, exactly.

Because you're connected to something more important. And that is a real important role that people play in the lives of their clients. They hold a vision for them that's bigger than the one that they hold for themselves with the right language. So. And what most people are missing is language, the words to describe what's really important. And the. And the technology of the 5, 6, and 7 just helps people find that language. So I'm thrilled that now.

Well, thank you. Thank you. I know every once in a while we get a chance to chat or text, and I say, thank you, but I'm glad to be able to look you in the eyes and say thank you again. So I got some notes here that I wrote from watching your stuff and. And talking to you and watching what you're doing. You talk about the right blend of challenges to propel you through stages. And I wrote this down. I really want to ask you. Here you have survival to stability, stability to success, success to significance. But then significance to sacred. That journey is so like. Because I know the way you think, I'd love to unpackage that a little. So maybe again, I just wrote this down. There's something I forgot that you use all the time is you're so right when it comes to language, right? How do you know your dog? You name your dog, and then all of a sudden you know the name of something, right? You know the name of stress or you know the name of anxiety or excitement or joy. But sometimes we don't name the journey, the emotions we're feeling or the phase that we're in in our life, or we don't name the thing or give language, not name it, but more so of language. Around 5, 6, and 7, right? That's just language that comes out of you so much because, you know, the part that I share and I'm going to back up here and then I really want to go through that journey with you is you didn't share this with me that day, but what I've been saying, well, I was on stage yesterday with Tony and I shared the difference. When you go just yesterday, the difference for me when I was on, like, question five, like, why you said to me, why would you hire me to be here? I think I said, because I want people to step up in this industry. We want to create a better industry. And then you said, well, why is that important? And I know it's much. And I think this is all these years ago, I remember saying something, I want to leave a legacy. Here's what. I don't even remember the next couple things I said, but I remember the moment that it felt like my thoughts left my head and slammed into my heart like a. Like, it was like a. How I explain it now, 15 years later was like a thud, like, get out of your head. Get in your heart. And the moment I got in my heart and the goosebumps came out and I felt differently. I knew life was going to change forever. And I think that's what language and naming it, it really allows you to go, oh, I need that. So I love how you name the survival to stability. Stability.

Success.

Success to significance. Significance to sacred. Maybe you can explain that or unpackage that a little.

Yeah, it's a progression. And you meet people at all different stages, emotionally, physically, mentally. As a coach, I'm always wondering, where are you Right now, because we can't figure out where you're going to go until we know where you're at right now. And if you look at where Google Maps, the most important part of that algorithm is location finder, because location finder tells you where you're at, and then you plug in where you want to go. Everybody has a sense of where they want to go, but they're not sure where they're exactly at. In order to map out what's the first and best next step. So I get in my car and I plug in. I want to go to my masseuse. It's over in Santa Rosa. And so it starts to map it out, but it starts with where I'm at, Location finder. So I developed this model to find out where are you right now. Are you in survival? Now, survival is different than victim. Remember George Bush many years ago when Katrina hit? He was saying, oh, the victims of Katrina are the victims of this hurricane. And somebody got to him and said, change your language. Don't call them victims, call them survivors. Because a victim is below survivor.

Yeah.

So victim is that part of you that is like, you're helpless. But survival is no matter what, I'm going to get out of this. And so when I meet somebody and they can say, I'm in survival financially right now, or my relationships in survival right now, or my physical fitness is in survival, this is a good sign because we all have been there, not, not. There's not a person that escapes it on any level.

True.

But it's the commitment to get out of survival. Like, how do I get out? And how fast can I get out? I liken it to, like, you got these towns on a map. You got survival, stability, success, significance. And then there's this elusive town called Sacred right up the road there. And we get in our automobile and we start traveling through life. And it's like, when you're in survival, get out, move out, don't make friends, don't get married, don't buy a house. Like, move through survival and get to that next level called stability. And in business, stability is start to put some systems in place, start to automate, start to systematize, put things in process that worked once, that will work again repetitively. So stability happens when people start to say, you know what? I am going to create something that has more predictability to it, more consistency to it, and that calms down the nervous system a bit. In business, you know, I've noticed that when I meet somebody and they're not Getting enough referrals. And then I look at their business. I can say, God, you're really in survival because you got all these amazing clients who love you, but you've never consistently and predictably at a predictable point in the process, introduce the concept of them introducing people to you. You never really talk about that and a consistent manner. And so they introduce that little simple thing of sitting at the initial consultation when they're with somebody, just saying, hey, before we get started, my purpose is for you to be so outrageously happy with the help that I provide you that you're gladly introduced at least a person or two to me even before we get the transaction closed. And they introduce that thought right at the beginning, and it brings some stability to their business. Is most clients will say, oh yeah, I have a couple of friends that would love to buy a home or yeah, yeah, we'll keep you in mind. They start to talk about the referral process right at the beginning versus all the way at the end, hey, how'd you like what I did? You know, do you want to refer anyone to me? Kind of an afterthought. And so we introduce a stable way of building your business is really speak to the highest behavior that the client could perform when you're at your very best. And the highest level of performance is referring to, to recommend, endorse, bring somebody on. So that's where we notice. And then when people get to that place where they're, they're, they've got a stable referral business and they're enjoying the fruits of that, because there's a lot of beauty in a referral business when people are coming towards you, you know, and, and versus you, you know, going after people. So when people come towards you, you, you have this ability to say, hey, you know what? I'd like to have a more successful business take it up another level. And success is then when we start to build team, we put the start to build, you know, delegate, and we start to teach others what we're doing. We start to move into a leadership role. What you've done so well it build. You're very, very successful in the concept of you built an incredible infrastructure to support the scalability of your business. And that's a choice. Now a lot of people can stay in stability and have a very stable income and, you know, three, four transactions a month for some real estate agents, maybe even one or two in some marketplaces, maybe even one in some marketplaces, and, and they can make eight, nine, $10,000 a month as a Real estate agent, they're very stable. But then there's that certain group, usually people with a high level of adversity that they're spurned on. I want more. And so they step up into success. And success means I've got to start to build infrastructure to support a scalable business. And then from there they make that choice. Do I want to become significant? Do I want to leave a legacy? Do I want to create something that's going to be a mark? And that would be like a Gary Keller or the guys that own these big, huge companies that start to say I want like you play, you and Tony played a very significant level, a global impact. You know, the, the impact that you're making has such a processional effect, such a high impact. The what you do, the money that you spend and how that ripples through the economy and what it has the potential to do globally. And, and, and then there's there is a place and I am discovering this my life because I've reached a significant place in my business. I've got all the money that I want. I, and you know, I wouldn't say, yeah, I'd say all the money I want and need. I don't need anything else. And I've built a community of 2,000 people. I have 2,000 members in the by referring community, you know, they pay four or five hundred dollars a month to be a member. And right now 41 of them have been with us for 20 or more years.

That's so amazing.

Imagine that team like I, I just, I just kick myself. I go what's going like what a blessing that is. Thank you Cabot Roberts for giving me that concept of develop myself. And so I've been on that progression and today I say all paths lead to Compassion Ranch. That's the name of my home. It's Compassion Ranch. And this is the journey where we go from success to significance to sacred. And that takes the attention is off money. And it's now on to contemplation, introspection, meditation, slowing things down a bit, making sure that every behavior has a long term legacy effect. Everything counts. Nothing does not count. And so I say Compassion writes where today I sit with 10 or 12 people three times a month to come to my home. And we work on what it takes to get to a place where you can start to surrender a lot of the things that got you here. As Goldsmith says, what got you here is not going to get you there. You know, there has to be a transition that a transformation that occurs and it's a beautiful journey. Success to significance to sacred. It's more of a. It's more of an introspective journey. It's why I created this whole concept called private work. Private work. Your members are welcome. I have a lot, quite a few of your. Your clients join me@privatework.com and it's a free service that I provide. It's a.

And please Ron, while you share that, where's the best way for people to find you, Joe?

Is it private work.com privatework.com is my gift to them. My gift is to help them learn how to sit in stillness. Introspect for anywhere from 10 to 30 to 60 minutes a day, you know, and cultivate an internal narrative, a dialogue in between with your most important conversation you have is the one you have with yourself when you're by yourself, you know. And so how to cultivate that conversation and deepen that relationship with yourself. That's what private work is. It's very private. And so you go there and there's a whole algorithm that we teach. It's pretty self explanatory. But right now we have anywhere from 5 to 8,000 people every single morning go to privatework.com and spend an hour there doing the private work. And it's the path from success to significance to sacred is the deeper conversation with yourself when you're by yourself.

I love that. You know, as, as you were talking about, I said I was writing some things down to. I love that saying, right? What God is here won't take us there. Right. But deeper than that, some. Maybe this is too harsh of a word, but it's the death of some things, right? It's the death of running away from pain. Possibly it's the death of running away from insecurity. The depth of being afraid that you're not worthy or not enough. The depth of the insecurities that you've masked over the years that are actually the driving force. And I know in my own life, Joe, and I'm not quite at that sacred level, but I'm bouncing up against it more now than ever before in my life. Especially. You probably know I have two little ones now at 50, going to be 55 and I got two little ones.

Well, they'll bring you to your knees.

Yeah. But you kind of got to pull the mask off. And I'd love your. Because I just love the way you think, Joe. Sometimes we might be running away from pain and we know it at a young age, but then as we grow through it, we can Kind of mask it and put flowers on it and, and, and we can pretty it up and, and paint little ponies and, and puppies on it, but it's still running away from this thing. The insignificance. Like I said, maybe I'm not good enough for a fear of failure. And that, that pace, like, I feel like we can reward that gift of what it gave us. Like, I was on a. I don't know if you know Tom Bilyeu. He has a great podcast, and Tom said something he's like, I used to live, I used to live in. He called it the, the dark side. He goes, I used to live in the dark side. That's what drove him to build quest bars. He said, now I'm at a place in my life that I just visit the dark side once in a while when I need some extra energy. And I thought that. I don't know if anybody caught it during the interview. I wanted to stop the interview, Joe, and go, did you guys hear that? Like that. We don't have to live there if we need a little, like, the rocket takes a, a lot of energy to get off the ground, but once it's a space, a little touch, you go fast, right? And I feel like I'm at a, at a phase. And you have to feel that you're a little bit older than me. And I, I, I appreciate your wisdom so much. I feel like I can do more with my pinky than I used to do with my whole being in my 20s. But every once in a while, I'll visit the dark side for a little rocket boost. So I'd love your perspective on that.

Yeah, it's, it's, that's the private work. You know, the private work is, and I, I use this as a, as a metaphor. This is the balancing stick. And if you can imagine, like a tightrope walker, you know, you're walking the tightrope of life and you're balancing between those parts of you. There's the, the achiever, me, and there's also the imposter syndrome, me. And I understand them both, and they both live in awareness. So I'm aware. Joe, who holds a part of, part of himself that is an achiever, also has a part of himself that's an imposter. And I can feel it. I, I know that I have to balance between those two. It's not all achieving and denying the imposter, because the imposter feeds me the juice to keep going, you know, and I want to touch that, not live with it. And so I have a pusher self, and I have a do nothing self. I have a very hopeful self, and I've got a pessimistic self. You know, I've got a teamwork Joe, and I've also got lone wolf Joe. You know, I've got analytical Joe, and I've got intuitive Joe. I've got this very persevering part of me, and I also got this very skeptical part of me. I've got a part of me that's very judgmental, and I got a part of me that's very understanding. I mean, literally, one of my gurus is a guy named Sri Bhakwan. He's a guru at Oneness University. Tony actually introduced him to me a long, long time ago. And he said, who are you? He said, you're a crowd.

Wow.

It's who. Who's rising now? Yeah.

Standing up to speak.

Yeah. Who's. Who's open? Who's talking right now? Is it courageous or humble? Is it rebel or is it compliant?

Right.

You know, and we have all of those selves inside of us, and who we are is we're aware self. We stand in between these selves and we're saying, who's present right now? And, you know, my morning ritual would look like this is to sit and just listen to. And I learned this from Ken Wilber, who called Zengast, a guy who wrote an amazing book. I'll think of the name of it in a minute, but I wrote an amazing book. He's a Zen monk. He said that in the Western world, it's almost impossible to shut the mind out. Almost impossible because we're not. We weren't raised that way. You know, in India, the kids are meditating when they're coming out of the womb, but here we've got so much stimulus. So when we sit down, the first thing we do is bring awareness to what voice is active right now. Oh, fearful self, you're here. What do you have to say and actually give it a voice? Well, I'm a little afraid that the podcast isn't going to go as well as I thought it was going to be. I got. You know, Dean is expecting me to do something really good in the. I really want to. Really? Great. Good, good. Thank you for sharing. Who's the opposite of you? Wise, encourage yourself. Wise, courage yourself. What do you have to say? Everything you've done in your life prepares you perfectly for this moment. Let your fear guide you. You're going to be fine. Now sit back and hold Those two selves and show up, not try to suppress or get rid of.

Because whatever you're trying to get rid of gets louder.

Ugly head gets louder, you know. And so I have learned that I hold those selves. And that's what private work self coaching is, understanding self and all the selves that are included. And so you only get to know that by taking your journal and writing and going, oh man, that self seems to reappear over and over again.

Huh.

Wonder what the opposite of that is. And just play with it for 15 minutes.

Hence your balance, hence your balancing stick.

Hence you got into the world like this a little more like. And you'll go on a higher rope, you'll take bigger risks, you'll play a little more engaged. Because when you're all one sided, you seem to fall off, you know, or you get scared, you know, like be over courageous or over forgiving, you know, like the opposite of forgiving is being angry. Listen, I gotta, I gotta experience my anger. If I'm gonna forgive, you know, I've got to experience both of them. It's not just forgiven. Forget, you know, I'm really pissed off at you that they did that. I also want to move on with my life and have an amazing time. But the pissed off, like so they lived together and if I can hold them there now try to get rid of them and say, okay, what is the highest version of myself? What do they want to own in the future? Who do they want to be? Yeah.

Joe, this is so good. I love this conversation. Did you ever read the book the Shack?

No.

So it's a. It's. It's a pretty amazing book. It's about this father who could have the worst thing ever happened to him. On a camping trip with his kids. One daughter falls in the lake while he's out trying to save the one daughter. His youngest daughter is kidnapped and she's taken. And I thought it's written so well that I thought it was a true story. It's not. But long story short, his daughter's taken to a shack in the middle of the woods. She's brutally raped and murdered. I'm not giving away the whole book. Right. The worst possible thing that could happen to a father. And this man turns against God, turns against life, turns about everything. How could there be a God? How could there be a higher power? How could there be anything? And I'll just paraphrase it real quick and I'll tell you why I'm sharing this with you. I promise it all. It'll tie together. All of a sudden, the middle of winter, he's depressed, can't go to work, just mad at life, mad at everyone. He gets a letter in his mailbox that says, I'll meet you at the shack. And he's like, what? This has got to be the killer. He borrows a gun, borrows a car, doesn't tell his wife. I'm getting redemption. This guy that killed my daughter, that they never caught, he's going to be. How would you know about the shack? No one knows about. Is this a joke? He drives up there. Long story short, he spends a week with Jesus. And this dialogue and this connection, it just answers so many of his questions. And it is. It. It's a book. It was so powerful for me, Joe, that I remember listening to it. And I was. I listen to books not read. And. And with usually a journal in hand, if I can, I remember pulling into my office and sitting in the parking lot for an hour and a half, weeping and listening while I'm listening to this journey of healing this man, but healing everybody that's reading it. But long story short, I geeked out on him when I was done and I googled it and this is the part I wanted to share about your balancing, because I thought it was written so felt like a true story in the beginning. And he said, he called at the shack. He was a pastor who, he said through his life all the things that he didn't. Like maybe on the wrong side of the stick that you held up Prior. Every time he found something like that or he did something he wasn't proud of, he had infidelity in his relationship. Instead of facing it, he took it and he put it inside the shack and locked the door. And then he put something else in and he locked. And he put something else in and he locked the door. And he said the reason he wrote this book, he said one day the lock bust open and he couldn't close the door and the stuff just piled out and it was. It was something he couldn't control and he had to face all of it. And it really reminded me of what you just said. Because if you ignore the imposter syndrome or you ignore this self doubt or you ignore the. Ignore the things that maybe you regret doing or whatever it is, they don't go away. You're just hiding it someplace. And it can manifest in so many different ways.

Yeah, I love that. And Dean, the beauty is that awareness creates its own momentum, just bringing in an awareness. Just like the awareness that the lock Fell off the door. And it just. All that stuff was gushing out. That just. That's a high level of awareness. But I got goosebumps when you just told that story. Because a little back story for me is when I was in Chennai, India, I was at this ashram for 90 days. And I'm laying on the floor doing breath work and. Oh, God, thud in my stomach. And I was like, what was that? And I sat up and there's about 400 people in the room doing this breath work. I'm looking around, there's no monks, there's. Nobody hit me. But I definitely felt something. And I laid back down. I go, what was that? And a voice came to me and said, I'm home, Joey. Joey, who is that? And it was. It's Jesus.

Wow.

Now, I'm not born again Christian, and I don't have. I have a tumultuous relationship with that, the whole Catholic Church and stuff like that. But I sat there like, I'm home. What the hell is Jesus doing in India? Like, and I went home team that that at the end of the retreat, I went home and I went and I started journaling. Joey and Jesus, Wow. And I have written. I got 400 journals of conversations with Joey and Jesus. And this is. This is Joey and this is Jesus. And we work together. And Joey is the dark and Jesus is the light, you know, and it's like I'm balancing between those two. And it's not whatever voice or name you want to give that part of yourself that's the light and the dark, albeit. But that's what private work is. Private work is cultivating a relationship with all your voices. And I use that avatar, Jesus, because of the consciousness that that holds for me and the story about Jesus. And I love that story. And at the same time, I love Joey the human. So this is human Joe, and this is soulful Joe. And I'm a human with a soul. And sometimes I forget that. And I'm running around, you know, getting into all kinds of chaos. Is the human. But Jesus brings me back. My soulful Joey brings me back into. Into equilibrium, into balance. And it takes a. It takes a conscious effort to do that. It's not accidental. I gotta sit down for an hour in the morning and bring myself into equilibrium. And then I bring that to the day.

Good.

Yeah. Bring it into the day. And then whoever crosses my path gets touched by that light. And I love that. And when I go to sleep, I go unconscious. I wake up in the morning, kind of bring back the consciousness.

I love what you're doing at this chapter of your life, Joe. I really do. I love what you're doing at private work.

Yeah. You know, thank you.

I didn't plan on going down this road, but I. I think you were. Did you end up going to with Evan? Did. Did we meet in Paris? Did you make that trip? It was a couple years after that.

No, I didn't make that trip.

We. We get a bunch of guys together and we. We mastermind each year for about six years in a row. It was fantastic. I gotta tell Evan to fire that back up. That was a. That was a great chance for us to connect. But law story short, I read that book, Joe, and, and I. After you shared it, you just said, not only do I want to see your notes, I hope you publish that. I hope you publish that. You will enjoy this book. Because there were so many questions he had asked. Whether you're a believer in Jesus, God, or you're an atheist, whatever your beliefs are, I promise you this is a book that. It asks the questions you wish you could ask a higher power. And they come. I feel like this guy was. He was downloading from something bigger than him, the way he. I mean, imagine pure forgiveness of after that happening to your child and a great journey. But long story short, I didn't know when I first read that book that I was a couple years away from a divorce. And when I went through that, it was a difficult time because there was some things that I must have put in my shack. And the reason I'm sharing this, why your message. I know I want to talk about the Brovance principles real quick, and maybe that's what we're already sharing, but I know that's a note I have here for you, but I think this is really important for everybody listening today. When I went through a divorce and picturing my kids were going to go through what I went through, right. It was just. It was stuff that was looped in my brain that I had ignored, that I had put in my shack. Probably the reason I was going through a divorce, because I had a shell on my heart since my parents were married nine times and marriage didn't seem like a real thing. But I remember the day, Joe, I was. I had moved out. We were in the process of divorce. I had a separate house. And I've only told this story probably twice in my entire life publicly, but it was really quiet. You know, you have a house with kids, if you remember. When your kids are young, it's noisy and Then all of a sudden you're in a house and there's no noise, noise, nothing. And my kids had stayed over the weekend and they went back to their moms and I woke up and my kids shoes sounds crazy now. My kids shoes were there Joe, but they weren't. And when I saw their shoes something you. The reason made me think about the punch in the side. I went down on my knees and cried like a baby and I started having panic and anxiety attacks that I had never had in my life. I, I've been anxious, I've been stressed but I never had something crippling that I couldn't be alone, I couldn't be in silence. I didn't want to get on a plane. I was in, I thought my brain had. I said I got 40 something years. I snapped like it's like I felt so so. And the reason I'm sharing that is because I want to, I want to encourage everybody not only to go seek Joe out, go seek out this next level version of you, seek out both sides of the balancing stick. Because at that point in my life I think all the things I had locked away, I had ignored. The things that I went through in my childhood, I'll always say thank God for my childhood. It made me the strong man with perseverance that I am and I'm grateful for it. Love you dad. Love you mom. Thank you. But I must, must have been tucking stuff in that poured out like the lock broke off my shack. And when you're in it, you, I, I wasn't sure I could recover from it Joe. I mean that all the years of doing this work. But I'm sharing that because it made me hyper focused and hyper villagent diligent on solving this. And what I found I, I had to go back and spend some time with my younger, younger version. It made me meditate, it made me have conversations with my 5 year old and 7 year old and 12 year old version of me. And then I found a calling. And I'm sorry, this might digress from what we were talking about. I found the message for me was replace all other emotions with empathy and compassion in dealing with the separation of your wife. And the day I made that decision, my ship was out of the storm. I went from the bay where it was calm to a 20 tornado with 20 foot waves. And the day I said that's the answer. Compassion and empathy. No matter what I get, I'm going to feel an emotion, I'm going to pause and I'm going to reply with compassion and empathy. And because of that, my stress went away, my anxiety went away. My ex is a better friend than ever before. We co parent amazing. I mean, on Mother's Day, my current wife is sitting with my kids making Mother's day presents for my previous wife. I mean, that's the family unit we created. But it was that one day and it made me have more compassion and empathy and want to be a better educator, a better teacher because I have access to Joe Stump and Tony Robbins and Brendon Burchard and so many. And I went and saw Dr. Amen, who helped me, who helped me hypnotize me. I have all access to everything. And I thought of how many people are out there without a lot of access and maybe they haven't had time to read and they have no mentors in their life and they don't feel any different than I felt. They're feeling anxious and scared about their divorce, about their kids, about their job. And it made me put my shoulders back and said, you got to get better, you got to do more. Got to be bigger, you got to be stronger, Got to be bold. Got it. More people need you. So anyway, I didn't mean to digress on that, but I love what you're doing so much, and I couldn't promote you any more than I, that I'm saying today is I hope it's Joe, I hope it's us, I hope it's somebody. But don't go at it alone. That, that walking that tightrope is not an easy task. Unless you got that big long stick that helps you balance on the tightrope. You're falling off it.

Yeah. You know, guide by your side. Not sage on the stage. I love guide by your side. Yeah, not sage on stage. You know, and, and, and that's. I, I was a sage on stage for a long time. I loved that role. Traveled all over the world. 23 days out of the month I was on stage 1500, 2000, like what was Tony doing? But I was doing all in the real estate industry. And eight years ago, I decided, you know what? Guy by side, sitting next to people. So I sitting in the yurt. I sit in that year with. I have a yurt. I got this beautiful property here, a couple of yurts, you know, you know, you know, like Mongolian yurt. People come and we, I got a five star show. We have an incredible experience. But I sit with those folks, I sit across from them and I, and, and it's that opportunity to be that person that can hand them the key to the lock on their door so they can open up the shack, you know, and they can open, they can be responsible and feel safe to open it. Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, they, the only way they're going to walk with somebody to the door and I'm going to hold them, their shoulders while they, they shake and open up the door, you know, and then they open it and they find a version of themselves that they never met before like you did. You met compassionate Dean. What a beautiful man that man is. And he'd been dormant whatever happened. He had to go to sleep for a while in order to create what he needed to create. And, and he did an amazing job. And we don't diminish anything that got us to where we're at. We're so grateful for it. And now it's time to let compassionate Dean be present and let Dean, the Dean, compassionate Dean, work with all these incredible gifts that he have. And I've watched that transition for you, Dean, as a, as an influencer, like going from. To a much more compassionate way of expressing, enrolling, influencing people because it's woven into your way of being, but not getting rid of the old way of being. You know, you still have that tenacious.

There's that, you know, I think probably one of the big challenges, you especially, I'm sure you help a lot of very successful people and people on their way to success. But sometimes we're in that success trap, right? That strong, non compassionate go getter guy is what got me here. A woman got me here. And I bet you I had a feeling of me like I had to be that relentless guy because I came from nothing. I'm not that smart. I didn't go to high school, I didn't go to college. Right. All those things. And I realized when I let all that BS go, I'm more, I, I have more success now than ever before in my life. And I do it with more love and more compassion and more openness and more, more questioning myself and more realize I'm making more mistakes than ever before. But I'm doing it in a loving, creative way. And it was all, it was all a story. I told myself, Joe, without being that Dean, you're never going to. You got from the trailer park to here. Don't lose that edge. It's like, no, I find myself the more I lose it and the more I go towards love and balance, the more things just take off without measuring the roi. The ROI is exponentially growing.

I love that the survival is run by ambition. I got to be really ambitious to get out when I hit that level of success and I'm on my way to significance. The opposite of ambition is compassion. And when I see men that are my age and they're driving around in a Ferrari with a 25 year old girlfriend, I go, ooh, ooh. They missed it. They missed it. Not, not judging them.

No, I get it.

They missed. They missed it. Their ambition is still driving their life as opposed to trading it in for compassion. And that's a real developmental sign is when people move into the compassion self. And it's a beautiful place. It's a. It's the path to sacredness.

Yeah, so true. This year Tony and I just got done with one of our yearly big launches. We do one every year. And Tony and I had a conversation. Joe and I know you'll agree on this. We had a conversation about what we do. So it's cool when Tony and I, I just flew up to, to Idaho to spend a couple days with him and we talk about business and life and family and kids and then we'll get into these deeper conversations. And this conversation was about what do we really do? And you know, he's made such an impact on my life before I knew him, and now we get to be partners and do a lot of these things together. And he said something that was pretty cool. He said, really? I'm a coach. Like we're coaches and we just present ourselves in different ways. I'm a coach, but I might create a course. I'm a coach and I might coach a group of people or coach one person. I'm a coach and I take that same essence. And I write a book through the lens of a coach. I do a podcast through the lens of a coach. I go into a corporate meeting where we're trying to close a hundred million dollar deal. And I go in as a coach, because as a coach, I listen. As a coach, I'm more compassionate. As a coach, I try to nudge, try to help people go in a direction. And I'm either learning or if I have a pattern or something that can help, I'm nudging him in a pattern that I've recognized the win. And it was just this conversation like, well, God darn it. All these years of doing a million things, we're foundationally all just co. But we're presenting it in different ways. Do you agree with that?

You know, I love that. The foundation is we're learners, we learn, we're perpetual learners, Then we Integrate. We walk our talk. You can't give away what you don't have. Then we teach it. Yeah, you learn by teaching, but you only learn after it's been integrated. Yeah, it's part of who you are. Then you go teach it, Then you coach, then you start to move one on one with people. Then you package it, then you market it. And that's really learn. Integrate, teach, coach, package, market.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's life.

Great way to explain it.

Tony, do you know? Full on, full on. You guys are first and foremost amazing students of life. Learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. And then integrating, Integrating. And you know, I, I've watched myself, when I've learned something and I try to teach something that I haven't integrated, it falls flat.

Ah, guilty, guilty. You know, even sometimes my team will give me something and go, I think you're really good at this, Dean, would you teach this for a different topic? I'm like, like, no, I don't live that at the deepest. It's not integrated in my life. They'll know. Like, no, they won't. It's like, no, but then I'll know.

And it won't.

It'll fall flat. Like a joke that gets a couple smiles.

Yeah, there's the thin clank of the unauthentic. And you can feel it when you're saying it and the people who are receiving it. It doesn't resonate. It doesn't. Now I'm doing it because I want to look good. I'm doing it because my ego wants me to have something new to say. And when it's not integrated, it's not complete. You know, it's like something coming out of the oven that it could just stay in there just a little bit longer. Like work with it a little bit more. And let's see it mature. Let's see it. Awesome. I. I do this thing. You know, one of the things I've just become really fascinated with is, is all of the different modalities in therapy. So I'm in the process of doing a 12 week session called EMDR. Eye movement desensitization reprocessing. And I'm also playing with a scene called Body Tails. I'm a date. I don't. You don't know this about me, but I'm a dancer. I've been dancing for 20 years. I'm an ecstatic dancer.

That's.

So I travel. Yeah, I travel all over the world and I dance and it's my alter ego. I just.

That is so fantastic on my Arm.

I got my arm fixed because I want to dance more. You know, I want to. There's a lot of movement and body Tales is Lisa Castro, who's my coach. She'll just sit and I'll get up and I'll start talking and moving and talking about what's going on in my body. And the body never lies. You probably have read that book. It always tells the truth. So in movement, the body is expressing itself. Now can you connect the language with your movement? And that's what I found. Dean is like a real cool hack to integrate. So if you want to take your private work. So you're going to do private work with me. Private work, calm. And then take your work and then close all the doors, put some music on and just dance with that, just move with that, your body and it integrates it. It brings it into this at a cellular level. And then if you could speak it out, like talk out loud, like what you're experiencing while you're moving. And. And it's like the diamond lane to integration. And you know, now it sounds like. No, it doesn't.

I mean, how many times are you in a car singing you could worst mood in the world and the right song comes on and you're moving and your physiology changes and everything goes in a different direction. If you could do that with your own work while you integrate. I love what, what a great, great lesson because we have so many people that want to be coaches, course creators, and, and people just want to live into their best lives. Of course. But what a great lesson because we all must learn it, then integrate it, then teach it, then we can pack it, then we can market, then we got.

Then we can coach after we teach first. I love what you guys do. You're on stage, you're teaching, you're guys.

That's true. Coach to teach.

And then when you say, come here, I want to talk to you now, it becomes very personal. It becomes a coaching experience.

Yeah.

And that, that is very different than teaching because coaching is allowing people to tap into their own resourcefulness. Teaching is done. You've got my course, you've read my book. You've done everything. Now let's talk about the. How it works for you and your life. Where are you right now? Survival, stability, success, significance, Sacred. Where are you right now? And what's the commitment to go to the next level? That's where it gets really. And then once you do that, then you can package it it and then.

You can authentically market it and authentically.

Without any Samskara is the.

Yes, perfect word. Without any scars, right?

And without any scars. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's funny, you said the last thing. I'll share on that one. Is the transition I've had in the last five years, I would say is in this journey, I've always loved what I've created. But I would say in the last few years, last five years, I've fallen in love with my client. And that transition has allowed me. If I love you, then I have to create something I love. I have to love the outcome that you get by using my product. Therefore, I feel bad if I don't market to you. And Elegant way. And I know that's an easy thing to say, love what you do so much you feel bad if you don't sell them. I may have said that 20 years ago. I feel that every day of my life. This. This last. Everything we put on the team will be like, dean, you went over this 20 times. I'm like, I know, but I love these people. I want to love it so much that when I look in the camera and I ask them to give me their credit card, I know that if they say, if they don't do it in that moment, I'm truly doing them a disservice. And they can feel my love. They can feel my heart. They can feel my authentic. Authenticness. Authenticity. And since I've found that place, Joe and I try to do my best on a regular basis to teach that to our students, because I wish I found that love sooner and it could feel a little. Come on, Dean. Just give. Because a lot of times I know, and I've had friends like, dude, I saw the offer you made the other day. I saw you were McConaughey. The offer you made was fire. Tell me how you made that offer. I said, you know how I made that offer. I spent two weeks with McConaughey staying up till midnight every night, and I saw how much he loved serving people. He wrote Green Lights out of service. He created this course out of service. He kept asking me, dean, will this really change lives? Will this park. Does this land with people? I really want. Want them to know they can find. Like, I watched this man for three months on Zoom, two weeks in person, create something that was purely driven to help people get through things he went through. I said, when I. I was selling because I. I knew what this man did. I felt bad if they didn't say yes. And I think that's. That's a gift. I. I'm so blessed to have and one that I'll scream from mountaintops. Just fall in love with your client. Everything changes.

What would you call that part of yourself if you were to give that a name like that name of that when that Dean is present where he is so committed and so convicted to what he has to offer that he doesn't let any of that stuff get in that holds him back. Who is that?

It's funny. I love probably the challenger. Right. Like I'm challenging you to try something new. Try something different.

Yeah. And isn't that is really powerful. Like I am gonna. I want to challenge you. You know like in an X and then that like that's almost like the. The embedded command. Challenger come forward now.

Yeah.

Like bringing that review forward. And then what's the opposite of challenger?

The opposite of challenger would be. Maybe you can help me find the right word. Like almost the opposite of challenger would feeling bad for asking. There's probably a better word. Okay.

But there's some discernment in that.

Yeah.

There's. There's a part of you that's hyper vigilant around do. I'm not going to hurt anybody. Am I going to betray? Is this going to upset anybody?

True story.

There's a lot. But there's a lot of wisdom in that. So it's like discerning. Hyper vigilant. Don't want to shake the cart. Challenger. The two of them together are an awesome team because you got to bring him into the challenge.

Yeah.

You know.

Because he wants to.

I need you.

Because if he doesn't come with you then. Then you might be offering in a way that doesn't seem authentic. You're not leaning into the compassion side of it.

Right. There's a filter that this guy brings but without Challenger it gets over oversensitive. Like you know, like he just shrugged his shoulders. He mustn't be interested. You know like.

Yeah.

See things that doesn't even exist because. And he's just doing his job and he's doing an amazing job. Imagine the collaboration between the two. And I think that that's the wisdom of like sitting in private work is who am I bringing to the day today? I got an appointment at 9 o'. Clock. Who's going on that appointment with me? I want you both there. Our very best selves. Let's go. You know. And that's that. That I've watched you give rise to the challenger. But you didn't leave behind discerning because your. Your language is so clear and it is. There's no dukkha in it. There's no crap in it. There's no feeling like you're not trying to impress me or do anything that's going to make me do anything that's not in my best interest, you know, like. And I can feel that in your heart. And then there's sometimes, you know, like, that kind of was a little misfire there, you know, and it's like. And we're all dancing with that. Yeah, you know, we're all dancing with that every moment. You know, I'm dancing with it right now. Like, I'm thinking, like, okay, how do I express myself? And I, you know, and I want to bring my best at the same time. Am I overdoing it? Like, that voice, then the other voice is not. You're good, you know, Stay with it, you know, and so, like, being in the aware seat, knowing what's really happening. And isn't that what Johan Noah Harari. Noah Harari says that the meta skill for the 21st century is self awareness. Yeah, Selves awareness, I might say. Selves awareness. Awareness. Aware of all the selves. And most people think they're one self. Really. That's. I love this metaphor. And I know that we wrap it up our time soon, but this metaphor. I'm a corporation, I'm a company. I've got all these selves that are on my team. A couple of them are such good friends. They sit at the boardroom with me. They sit right next to me, you know, and then a lot of them, I've banded to the. To the basement. Like, I don't want to hear from you at all, you know, but they're all down there, like, ranking around and, and causing all kinds of havoc. And my job as CEO is to invite them all into the boardroom. But I make the decisions. Aware. Joe makes the decisions, not the selves. The awareness does. And I get collaboration from all those. And that's what private work is. That's a private experience. That's not a public experience. That's very private. And you're cultivating that relationship on paper with your pen, with yourselves. And then you close your journal and go, I'll be back tomorrow. You know, we have a journal that people use, and they take a private work journal and they come in and they. There's a whole algorithm they follow. At the end of the hour, they just go away. It's okay. We'll reserve this conversation tomorrow. And for me, it's like. And I always start out, join Jesus. Okay, let's have A little chat, you know, and then I just walk them through a process and it's a beautiful thing.

So, Joe, this has been so amazing. I'm so glad we got the chance to catch up on camera. I love what you're doing at Private Work. Please go check it out. Private Work dot com. Joe has the depth and the breadth, but I don't think if you listen to this entire interview, you already know that. The phase you're at in your life, I admire it. I want to find a time. Let's make sure you and I find a time to meet up someplace. If I got to fly up and see you, I'll check out your yurts. I'd love to see what you got going up there. Everybody else, make sure if you liked today. If today hit your heart, make sure to share it with someone. Make sure you subscribe like, you know, I don't run ads on my podcast. Joe, I feel blessed that since we launched about 14 weeks ago one of the top podcasts in the world, how grateful am I that we have the opportunity to be? I think this morning when I woke up, we were number three in our category. It's amazing what we get to do. And I think, say, remind yourself that there's a lot of busyness out there. There's a lot of noise. But take from this interview what serves you. Throw the rest away or put the rest on hold, but take something from this interview and implement it right away. Go check out what Joe shares. Share this. We appreciate you. Make sure you subscribe and we'll see you next time on the Own youn Future Podcast.