Upgrade Your Life | Best of the Own Your Future Challenge

Everything that you've done up until now matters. It all has meaning. It's all enough.

Everything you want is on the other side of yes.

First they make fun of you, then they call you crazy, and then one day they ask you how you did it.

Small mindsets will never be able to comprehend big visions and big dreams.

If you fight for your limits, they're yours. Okay, Your brain is this incredible supercomputer and your self talk is the program it will run.

You're in the right place at the right time.

How do you take that notion and put it into motion?

That's the thing that people are going to come to you for because they see the excitement, the energy that you have on that topic.

Because that is the type of thing that drives you to go, no, I'm listening to the voice of I can not. I can't.

Let's face it, you've got something that you are excited about. You want to share with the world, but you got to figure out how to get it to them.

Own your future. Because if you don't, someone else will. When I was 19 years old, I lived mostly with my grandmother, ah, Graham's house. I lived there most of my childhood. My grandmother, oh, I still think her to this day. I could just smile. She was amazing. I'm the man I am so much because of her. It was my safe place. At 19 years old, she ran out of money. My grandfather died when I was 10. So nine years after my grandfather died, she ran out of money. She couldn't afford. The house that my grandfather lived in, my mother was born in it. I lived there, my mom lived there, my grandparents lived there. My great grandparents lived there. It was in our family for over 100 years to let it go and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I tried and I couldn't. I was 18 or 19 and I thought about that house almost every year of my life. And about eight years ago, my friend called me from the little town I grew up and he said, your grandmother's house is for sale. I bought it in an hour. I still own it. I go there now, I take my kids, we play on the same field, we carve our name in the same tree. I get emotional. The blueberry bushes I planted at six year old, six years old. We were just there a couple days ago in New York and my son was picking blueberries. I want to tell you in my dark days, when I question myself, when I question if it's possible, can I move forward, I would dream of that. House. And there's other dreams, some people. The car, the vacation. I'm not judging any of that right now. In your head, think of your grandma's house, whatever that is. The freedom, the joy. Retiring your wife, retiring your husband. Making sure your kids are okay. Leaning into the man or woman you're meant to be, not who you're settling to be. Whatever your dream is, we have to remember that. And you should put it on your journal and write it on every. Every page today, because that is the type of thing that drives you to go, no, I'm listening to the voice of. I can not. I can't.

There's an incredible quote from Wayne Dyer where he said that when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. I want you to change the way you look at your past so that you can own your future. Everything that you've done up until now matters. It all has meaning. It's all enough. Your pain is enough. Your stress is enough. The challenges you've been through are enough. And I want us to start there. Now, I was talking to one of my friends, and he was saying to me that, Jay, you know, I'm struggling to start. I'm struggling to start. And I asked him this question because I've been asked this question by my mentor. I said to him, are you struggling to start, or are you struggling to start from zero? Right. Think about that for a moment. Are you struggling to start? Are we struggling to start from zero? Because we live in a world full of numbers? I've got to start with zero revenue. I've got to start with zero followers. I'm going to start with zero subscribers. I'm going to start with 0 people on my mailing list. As you've been hearing about earlier today from Cody, I'm going to start with 0, 0, 000. And when we look at the number 0, we have such a, like, visceral reaction to it. How many of you actually have a negative reaction to the number zero because it's so scary? And by the way, that's valid. It's natural. It's natural for us to be scared to start from zero, but the truth is, we all start from zero. Every single person you love, admire, appreciate, I promise you they started from zero. The people that you really turn to in times of need. And I went a bit further with him, and I shared this quote that I absolutely love. It's from a writer named Charles Horton Cooley, and he said this in the 1900s, but it feels so relevant. Today he said, the challenge today is I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. Let that blow your mind for a moment, right? Charles Horton Cooley said. He said, today the challenge is I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. Which means we live in a perception of a perception of ourselves. Let me break that down further. What it means is if I think you think I'm smart, then I feel smart. But if I think you think I'm weak, then I feel weak. We let what we think others think of us not only define how we feel about ourselves, but about what we're capable of. So many of us are paralyzing ourselves by putting pressure on ourselves, of figuring out every step of the way how many of you are not taking that leap or taking that moment right now because you're like, jay, I don't know what step seven is. Raise your hands right now if you're like, jay, I don't know what step seven is. I can't get started until I know step seven, eight, nine, ten. Right? We all do that. Stop getting lost in this idea that you have to have a million followers to make an impact. You have to have a huge podcast to make an impact. You have to have a best selling book to make an impact. That's not where it starts. This is a post I put up on Facebook August 2, 2014. Right. Today is August 2, 2023. And I wanted to show this to you because I was sharing a quote from someone I knew called Mike Moore, who was sharing a quote from Wayne Dyer. And as you can see, this post has three likes. Three likes, right? There's one person and two others. This is from 2014. August 2nd. I went onto my Facebook today. I typed in on this day and I put it in there. And it's crazy, right? It's like I remember posting that and just being so happy that I was reading and learning and sharing. And I want you to remember that when you put that post out there, when you throw it out there, it may be only two likes, but that's where it starts. And that's okay. The three things you need to change any habit, to make any leap, to make any change in your life is coaching, consistency, and community. I remember my coach saying to me again and again and again, jay, you're an entrepreneur, you're not an employee. And I'd be like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm an employee. And he'd say, no, no, no, you're an entrepreneur. And I'd say, no, no, no, I'm an employee. He'd say, no, you'. And it was always like someone had to say it like seven times for me to even replace the idea in my head. So I want you to remember that whenever you invest in coaching, whenever you invest in consistency, whenever you invest in community, it's because we need so many reminders to break through the wiring that has been created by society, in the world so that you can go and build a life of service and impact that not only you need, that the world needs. I often sit back and think about if I hadn't taken the plunge, if I hadn't taken my moment, how sad I'd be that I never got to know all of you, that I never got to connect with all of you, that I never got to have this opportunity to be with all of you. If I think about the life I would have missed out on, and yes, you could argue I wouldn't have known it then, but what I did know is I would have regretted if I didn't try. All the studies show that we don't regret what we did do. We regret what we didn't do. And I hope that this is your reminder to not have that regret.

I used to be just a contractor. I come up from a family of 12 kids. I'm third in line. I've got eight sisters and I have four brothers. Mom and dad still married. I'm very grateful for that. That gave me a leg up. I watched what a great marriage looks like. My parents taught me to work my guts out and to love work. In fact, this was something that my parents did. They woke us up at 5 o' clock in the morning and they would have us sit in one room, go around the room, all 14, 12 kids, plus mom and dad and a couple of dogs. And we would go around and read a Bible verse each. And after we read each, we would all share ideas and we would share inspirations and how we were going to apply those Bible verses to the day. And I learned community by my mom and dad. I learned community. I learned how to connect. I learned how to find other people's weakness. If I needed a ride to work, my sister gave me a ride to work. She didn't wait for me to ask. She said, hey, I know you got work today. You need a ride. And I learned that that's what community was at a very young age. Now, my mom and dad would not only have us wake up at five o', clock, but get ready and showered, eat breakfast, put our shoes on before 6 o' clock in the morning. Now, I didn't think this was weird until I got married to my wife, Laura. I moved in with her after we got married, and she noticed I'm up at six o' clock in the morning every day with my shoes tied. And she says to me, probably after three months, she says, what are you doing with your shoes tied at 6 o' clock in the morning like you got someplace to go. Your first meeting is not till 10 o' clock in the morning. What's going on? And I remember a flashback of my mom popping up into my brain, saying, she's yelling downstairs at me, she's saying, pace, get your shoes on. And as a teenager, I would go, why do I have to have my shoes on? And my mom always said, you never know who's going to call and need your help. My mom taught me community. My mom taught me to serve. And when I got into the business world, it seemed to be the opposite. I really struggled. I became a contractor. Why did I become a contractor? Why did we all become whatever we became? Why did my eight sisters, all of them, why did they all go and cut hair for a living? Because my mom cut hair to save money. In our family, my sisters learned that's the path. Ultimately. Here's what's happened in my life. I was a contractor for a good amount of time. And I would call my dad and I would ask for advice. I say, dad, I need more. I know I deserve more. I want to make more. What do you think my dad told me? What was the advice when I called my dad? Work harder. And guys, this got so bad that my wife and I tried to have our oldest daughter, which is Corbin, for six years. And the doctor continually told me the reason why we weren't having children was because of how hard I was working. I call my dad, he says, work harder. And I go, dad, what do I do? And he goes, well, sometimes, listen to the words he said to me. Sometimes you have to work half day Sunday to catch up with the bills. What was my dad teaching me with spoken word and unspoken word all the way through my life? He taught me that catching up was the way of life. He taught me that just working through half day Sunday and sacrificing time with my wife and kids was a way of life. Now I love my father. He raised 12 children, worked two jobs his whole entire life. But at some point, I had to upgrade where I was getting my information. And here's what happened. I took my dad's advice because that was the only option I had at the time, and I went and got a second job as a loan officer. So here. Here I am working 60 to 70 hours a week as a contractor, and then I'm working another 20, 30 hours a week as a loan officer. So as a loan officer, I go underneath somebody's team. That person says, you cannot be on my team unless you hire a coach. I go, fine, I'll hire a coach. And in the back of my mind, I'm a coach. What do I freaking need a coach for? And I fought myself and I fought my future, but ultimately, I relented and I said, fine, if it means I got to be on your team, I'm going to hire this coach. Great. Who is. He Goes, his name's John. Here's his address. Here's his phone number. And by the way, he's $500 an hour. I'm like, man, this guy better be freaking phenomenal. So I get the address, and I drive to the address, and guess what? I'm like. I pull up, and I'm like, there's no way that this guy is going to charge me. I'm looking at the address. He's going to charge me $500 an hour to sit in a Starbucks with him. The address led me to a Starbucks, and, boy, did I have a broken mindset. This gentleman changed everything in my construction business. He taught me how to move and maneuver and hire people and be a. Oh, my gosh. Every hour I spent with him, I felt like I was getting 25,000 or $50,000 worth of value. It was insane. And he was so good. He was so good that he's now the head Cardinal or the head coach mindset. Coach of the Arizona Cardinals. And I had. I was lucky enough to only spend $500 an hour and lucky enough to have a moment at a little table with this guy before he went and went to stratospheric success. He made my business a lot more efficient. I started making a lot more money in my construction company. So I no longer needed to be a loan officer. So I was grateful and I was happy. And I was doing. I attracted clients like Zillow and Opendoor and Offer, and I became the biggest contractor in Arizona. And I ended up getting a client. This client changed my life forever. This client hires me. I go do a job for her, do a bid. I went and did her renovation. She sold the house. She was a fix and flipper. I then did a second job for her, same thing, Did a bid, did the job, she sold the house as a fix and flipper. On the third job, she calls me up and she says, pace, I need you to show up 30 minutes early. I have something to tell you. So I show up early to the appointment. She pulls up, she knocks on my glass on my truck, and she says, get out of your truck. Sit on the back of the truck bed. We need to have a conversation. And she started yelling at me in a loving way and serving me. And she started saying to me, why are you not in real estate? You've been telling me on all these job sites and we've been running around that you're trying to build your portfolio, yet you've never done one, and you've been a contractor for 10 years. What's keeping you? And guys, how many excuses do you think I gave her? I gave her every imaginable excuse. She actually called me an ask hole at one point in this conversation. If you guys have ever heard the word askhole, it's somebody who only asks questions and doesn't take any action. And so she says to me, she says, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna invite you to a meetup. And I'm like, what's a meetup? What is this? Like, you're. What are you guys doing in a meetup? I have no idea what this means. She invites me to a meetup, and I go, sure, I'll be there. I'll come. What am I going to get there? And she says, look, everything you told me, you don't know where to find real estate deals, you don't know where to find the money, you don't know how to manage. You don't know how to do all these things. I have an individual person that excels at those things in my community. You join inside my community, everything will change in your life. I'm like, okay, this sounds like a promise that is just too good to be true. And what do our parents tell us? Also, they tell us to work really hard, sacrifice weekends. They also say, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Okay, so what did I do? Did I show up to the meetup guys, or did I make an excuse? She called me the day of the meetup, and I cleared her call, and I said, I'm on the other line. I wasn't. I was not on the other line. I text her and say, I'm busy. She goes, okay, great. She let that slide. Two weeks later, another meetup comes. This is what she does. She calls me again. I clear the call. I'm on the other line again. I wasn't. She then texts me, and I go, I'm busy. So this is what a great leader does. Somebody who has an attitude of servitude. She calls my wife and she says, hey, please don't let Pace know that I'm on the phone, but please hand the phone over to him. So my wife takes the phone, hands it over to me. She goes, hey, somebody wants to talk to you. And she says, hey, I'm on my way to pick you up. We're going to go to this meetup. You're going to come and hang out with my community. And I go. And right when I was gonna give her an excuse, she says, let me remind you something, Pace. I learned a long time ago, everything you want is on the other side of yes. Everything you want is on the other side of yes. So before you give me an excuse, remember that. And I said, okay, yes, I'll go. She goes, perfect. I'm sitting in the driveway. She's literally sitting in my driveway. She had that much faith that she was going to be able to change my life. She takes me to the meetup. Guys I meet lenders. I meet people that want to take me on appointments. I meet people that show me everything. And that first month in my foray in real estate, not being licensed or knowing anything, I made $50,000 in my first month because of this community that she brought me into.

My biggest regret is basically that for the past 15 years, let's say I lived other people's lives. I worked in corporate America, in jobs that I didn't like, with people that I wasn't that excited about. I was married to a gent that wasn't right for me. Basically, this whole period of my life was doing the thing I thought I was supposed to do, not the thing that I really knew I wanted to do. And if I could have done one thing different, it would probably be to start this adventure of mine sooner. It took me 15 years to even think about that I could be worthy of sharing some knowledge to other people. It felt egotistical. It felt like maybe I didn't know enough. And when I started doing it, that all changed. But I think that you guys might be a little bit like me, that you might have this anxiety that deep down inside, you know you were meant for something bigger. You also Might have what I call my little it in the closet, which was the Cody that I just kind of kept shoving in there because I wasn't ready to deal with it because I was having some success already and I didn't want to let it out. And I thought that it might be scary if I did. Or worse. What if I go all in and I fail? What if I actually try all the way and it doesn't work? I had never kind of tried all the way in my life. I'd worked pretty hard, but I'd never gone all in. And I wish I had a group like all of you here and like Dean and the business that he's built to start, because I didn't. I just kind of did it. And you'll see what happens when you do it, even if you don't do it the right way with a bunch of guidance like these guys have. You see, I probably, like many of you, I actually think I played pretty small. I lived everybody else's life like I told you about. I did the safe thing. Until one day something happened. I was actually. I was walking on a beach with a billionaire. This billionaire happened to be the CEO of one of my last companies where I worked for somebody else. And he drew a line in the sand. And that line in the sand changed just about everything for me. And the line in the sand kind of went like this. I was building this company. We were really successful. We were the biggest international division. We had amassed a billion dollars in assets. And I had done that from zero. That had been me and 80 hour weeks and a divorce and unhappiness and not being very healthy to get to that. And then we're walking along the beach at the Montage in California and I don't really know what the talk's about. He wanted to do a walk and talk. And he looks at me and he's like, cody, what are you doing at this firm? And I was like, I don't know, making a lot of money. Like, what do you mean, what am I doing at this firm? And he's like, listen, at this firm, we do things my way. We get rich quietly. And the way you're building with social media and online newsletters, it's not how we do things here. And so if you want to do that, you got to find a new boat. But it's not this one. So I drew a line in the sand, an ultimatum and a business that I had spent years building. I walked away with nothing. No severance, no equity, nothing. And you'd think that that one conversation would be enough for me, but I'm actually kind of a wuss, you know? Have you guys ever had a big push and been like, I'm gonna do it, and you hear the Rocky soundtrack in the back of your head, and then all of a sudden, like, 24 hours passes and you don't do the thing, and you're just like. You stay in your lane. You're like, yeah, that sucked. But I'm actually gonna. I'm comfortable here. I'm still hanging out. No big deal. That was me. And it actually took this until I jumped. And I found a little example just for you. Excuse. My mom's on this call, so there's a dirty, nasty word in here, so you're just gonna have to excuse me on this. I call this my meter, which is basically, have you ever been in a company, in a job, in a life wherever where, like, your tolerance is? Oh, man, it's getting tested. It's getting tested. One more zoom meeting that's useless and could have been an email. One more bill that you can't pay, but you're making so much money for other people. Well, mine was kind of getting to the end, and right about at the top, it starts to wiggle. Just like a thermometer. It's ready to break. And my meter broke. And what broke it was this. If y' all can see this, this is a text message, a real one from a gent named Daniel. And I really wanted to put his last name on here for you guys, but I thought, be an adult. So I didn't. And he basically said, you're dumbing us down. I hope you've gained more followers this week because you didn't help the firm. Now, at the time, I am the number one producing international business, but I wasn't doing it their way. We've always done it this way. It's not impossible at all. But for you, it is. It'd be better if you were just quiet and in the corner. I don't know if you've ever felt that way. Now, they had a point. They had a point in that it was their boat. I was on it, and I was rowing really fast, and they didn't want that same thing. And so what I kind of took with me then, and I made this my mantra at the time, and I didn't tell anybody, and I didn't know if it was going to be true, honestly. So that first they make fun of you, then they call you crazy, and then one day they ask you how you did it. And I took this as my mantra and I said, what if I actually believed this? What if I believed that, yes, they're going to make fun of you to start, but eventually, once you succeed, they're going to ask you how you did it. And I basically determined that, you know, you've made it when you've got your first hater. I think that's what you guys should shoot for. Everybody's showing clients up there. I'm like, nah, tell me when somebody sends you a text message that gets you right in the gut so that you get a chip on your shoulder so big that every time something hard comes, you go, oh, yeah, I remember you. Watch me now. I am speaking before an actual monk, Jay Shetty. So I bet his message is gonna be a little bit different. Mine's a little bit more hardcore, but I do have this belief that, that the haters, the difficulties in your life, can be the very thing that drives you. There's a famous story about the CEO of Yahoo, and I'm going to mess it up, some of the details, but basically, they went to go sell their company. No, no. Reddit went to go sell their company to Yahoo, supposedly. You guys, Anybody use Yahoo still? That's right, nobody. And Reddit went to go sell to them and Yahoo told them, listen, guys. Yeah. You're not really worth us buying you because you're a rounding error to us. You're so small, you're like a couple cents, basically. And what did the founders of Reddit, Alex o', Hannon, do? He put that sign up on their office where they could all see rounding air. So every time it got hard, they looked back at that little chip on their shoulder and they said, watch me. So I think you guys should actually look for your first hater. Now, that might be a little painful for you to do because maybe you're a people pleaser. Actually, I am. I think sometimes I'm so intense and do all of this because deep inside I just want everybody to like me. I just want us all to be buddies. I just want us to be friends. And I felt safe in the world in which it was set out explicitly for me. I mean, I went to Georgetown. I did go to ASU before that. Any sun devils on here? There's a bunch in here. I went to Georgetown. I worked at Goldman Sachs. I was on the nice TV screen at Wall street talking about stocks, doing the thing that my parents could be proud of, right? They had worked so hard for me to have this life. And Now, I was kind of gonna throw it in the trash because what do I do now? Basically this. I make TikToks on the interwebs. Right? I mean, oh, how the mighty have fallen. And I think I actually have some live footage of my mom when I told her, which was something like this.

Oh, no.

It was such a good punchline. And dead. Okay. It's not connected to the terminal here for some reason, I don't know, but I see it over here. She basically died on the inside. I do have one rule, so you can have some parameters when you get on the Internet. I don't dance on the interwebs. I don't know if anybody's with me there, but I don't do that. But I actually think I should go give that crotchety CEO a hug. And the reason why is because I think sometimes someone else's no is the only way to get to your yes. That's what I realized. If you're like me and you've ever been scared to do just about anything, you ever feel like the universe kind of pushes you sometimes? It's like, oh, you're not ready. Watch this. That's what happens. And I think what makes a difference between a successful big life and a life living somebody else's dreams is what you say. When that punch to the gut comes.

To you, there's something inside of you that's aligned, that says, I'm the one. I'm the one that changes the generations to come. I'm the one that changes my family. I'm the one that changes my community. I'm the one. And some of us, when we think about that and we know that, we try to find external validations to discredit that. Well, I can't be the one because my past is too bad. I can't be the one because I don't have a big following. I can't be the one because I'm not qualified. I can't be the one because I don't have a coach. Well, you about to get one now, right? I can't be the one because of all these things. And I'm going to tell you words that changed my life. And we're going to get into what I'm about to talk about in a second. But these words changed my life. Three words. I was actually in Phoenix, on the mountain, because I was the same way. Just like you saying, man, like, I believe I'm the one, but my past is too bad. But I don't even know how to speak. I'm an introvert, me being a speaker, I don't look like a motivational speaker. All the things, all the limiting beliefs, this changed my life. Why does it have to be you? I didn't say why. You want it to be you. Why does it need to be you? Why does it have to be you? What's dependent on you to make the choice? Three words that changed my life. Why not me? And it gives me chills. As you can see, I'm shaking right now. Why not me? Why can't it be me? And I thought about all the reasons why it shouldn't be me. And I had the one reason why it had to be me. Why it needed to be me, why it must be me. And that reason was I wanted to live the rest of my life helping people know their self worth when it wasn't popular. I know right now picking up a cell phone, everybody does it. People wasn't doing that over a decade ago when I started. But I said it had to be me. But you got to make a real decision right now and stand on that. We all talk about the why and the reason. What's that? Deep rooted reason. So when fear shows up, when failure shows up, when haters show up, when the numbers ain't going right, show up. What's going to keep you committed? What's going to keep you consistent? And I don't want to get into my consistency talk, but I will drop this in here. You've been consistent in a lot of stuff in life and you're trying to say that you can't be consistent at something that you love. You can't be consistent at your dreams. You can't be consistent at something that means the world to you. You've been consistent at the wrong things. You've been consistent at pleasing people. You've been consistent at working for somebody else. And you're telling me you can't bring that same energy to what you called to do? Come on. It just takes a perspective shift. And in this moment right now, I want you to shift your perspective from your prison to your power. I want you to realize this truth. Perspective is everything in life. And the beautiful thing about perspective is perspective is in your control. Nobody else can control your perspective. And I believe in my beliefs. God has given each and every one of us a unique perspective. But when your perspective is your power, you know that things that happen to you, what as Tony says happens for you, you know, the things that are supposed to break you, actually things are going to build you, you know, the failures that happen in your life. Actually, the failure is just feedback to grow something better in your life. That's a perspective show that everything is working for me. Everything. My torn Achilles was working for me. My mother dying, I know, as crazy as that sounds, is working for me. Taught me how to appreciate my family more. It taught me how to not take advantage of the time that I've been given here. It taught me how to serve more high level people that make a difference. They keep their perspective in their power. I believe that each and every one of us has been given a vision uniquely designed for you. A vision. And so many of us, we don't trust our vision. So many of us we're going to leave here today and we're going to bring our dream to somebody who ain't a dreamer. And they ain't going to understand it. What you want to do that you want to start a class? You doing that. And you're taking advice from people who have never been successful at what you're trying to do. I mean, would you take advice from a plumber on how to fix a roof? Absolutely not. But you're taking advice from somebody who has never been successful at what you're trying to do. Of course they're not going to understand it. Don't you dare. And I say this with all niceness in my soul, don't you dare bring your vision to a world of people who aren't visionaries. Because they are not going to understand it. They are not going to get it. Your vision has been given to you. But so many people make the mistake that of what I call VV vision validation. They take their vision and they want to get external validation from everybody else. Hey, do you see what I'm doing? Can you understand it? How does it look? No, they can't. When I told people I would go speak to Africa, people thought I was crazy. Trent, you should start in Texas first. Like you live in Fort Worth, Africa. I don't get that. But I trusted my vision. If you're going to trust your vision, raise your hand for me. Let me see it. Trust it. Hold on to it. Protect it, cherish it, preserve it. Give it to the world. It's your vision. It has been given to you. The greatest gift that we can have is our vision. But I want to talk about three perspectives that most people live in. And maybe you're in one of these. I've been in all of these, so I'm not judging you. I'm just keeping it real with you. But I believe I Brought these glasses, not gonna put them on. I think they're pretty cool, though. But I believe that God has given us whatever you believe. God is the source of my life. I believe God has given us a unique prescription that's been given to us by him. It's kind of like going to the eye doctor. I always get the eye doctor's name wrong. Y' all can type in the chat. I'm not gonna try to butcher. It's like some with a O, right? The eye doctor, I'm going to just say that. But we go to the eye doctor when we can't see, and what we do is we go to the eye doctor. They put up all these things that look the same, right? They're like a and a. I'm like, it looks the same. And they flip the thing. I'm like, it looks the same. And then they give you a prescription, then they give you a set of lenses, and you put on those lenses and you see better. Well, I believe that you were created with a set of lenses, a perspective that is meant for you. But what a lot of us do is that we take off those lenses that have been gifted to us and we give it to the person next to us and say, hey, vision validation. Can you see my vision? They put it on, and their prescription wasn't for them. They put it on and say, I can't see what you're seeing. That ain't clear. What you want to reach millions of people you don't even know 10 people. What you want to start a business? What small mindsets will never be able to comprehend? Big visions and big dreams.

Big.

I remember When I was 18, I went to college and I just couldn't cut it, and I wanted to quit. And a friend said, hey, I'm going home for the weekend. Why don't you come with and get some perspective? Because I didn't know how to tell my parents, because we didn't, you know, my parents immigrated to the US didn't have money, didn't speak the language, living in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. You know, and everybody has their own story. But for me, when I got to visit the family, the father walked me around his property by the water and said a very innocent question, which was the worst question you could ask me. Said, how's school? And I tell my whole story about having the broken brain. I'm ready to quit school. He says, well, why are you in school? What do you want to be? What do you want to do. What do you want to have? What do you want to share? And I, and I offer you those same kind of questions. What do you want to be, do, have, share in your life? And I tell him my list and he's like, you're this close to everything on that list. And I'm thinking, no, give me 10 years, I'm not going to crack that list. And he takes his index fingers and puts them to the side of my head, meaning what's in between. My brain is the bridge or the key. And he takes me into a home, into his home in a room that I've never seen before. It is wall to wall, ceiling to floor, covered in books. Now, I never read a book cover to cover. I was a very poor reader. My teachers would have been surprised if I wrote a book, read a book or wrote a book. And he starts handing me these books and there were these early personal development books and biographies of incredible men and women throughout history. And one of those books happened to be Tony's book, Unlimited Power. How many of you have had this book? And I studied this book and I remember later on, a couple years afterwards, in the 90s, I just turned 50 this weekend, so I'm just kind of thinking about life cycles. Thank you. But I was reflecting on it and I went to one of his events in the 90s, one on competitive edge and I wrote in it, I swear to you, one day I was so impressed, I was like, I want to share stage with this guy. And it's funny how the mind works, right? When you don't believe it's possible, but you have that intention. We are the sum total of all the choices we've made up to this point. Where are we going to live, who are we going to spend time with, what are we going to eat, what are we going to pursue as a career? And I truly believe that these difficult times, they could diminish you. These difficult times can distract you or these difficult times can develop you. Ultimately, we decide. So these are the choices that I'm looking for. The first one is to really pay attention, right? And be able to focus. So do all the things to be able to manage your environment. Turn off your phone, right? This is time for you, time well spent, right? You are the greatest project you're ever gonna get to work on. So take time, make time as you're doing to create magic. Now, the ODD stands for let me go through this. So the first one was observe. The W is work out. Now, I don't mean physically like going, you know CrossFit or Pilates three times a week. Although what's good for your heart is going to be good for your head, right? Blood flow, oxygen flow also as well. And if you could do a workout beforehand, wonderful. But I mean, moving, they say sitting is the new smoking. And what I love about Tony and Dean's, you know, programs and their events is it gets you up and moving as. Please write this down. But as your body moves, your brain grooves. As my body moves, my brain grooves when you move your body. Right. I'm going to show you an exercise right now, my favorite exercise. To be able to wake up your brain and focus when your body moves, you create brain derived neurotropic factors, bdnf, which is like fertilizer for neuroplasticity. It's like fertilizer for new learnings. All right, and do this with me. So everyone stand up real quick. Stand up. You're like, oh, he's one of these guys, right? And so what I want you to do is I want you to take your hand or your elbow and touch your opposite knee, raise your knee and just go back and forth. This is an area of science called educational kinesiology. What popularized this was brain gym. These are cross crawls. As you cross the midline, you know you could do this throughout the next five days. It wakes up, it helps communication between your left and your right brain. All right, These are called cross crawls. Another exercise, good workout while you're, you know, taking a brain break is massage your earlobe with the opposite hand and do the other hand also as well. Just get a good massage into your earlobe and I want you to inhale and squat down and exhale and come on up. Inhale and go down. Exhale, come on up. Inhale. Are we getting this on video? Good. Inhale, go down. Exhale, come on up. One more time. Inhale, go down, Exhale, come on up. This is called super brain yoga. So these are two quick exercises you could do to keep your focus and keep you in that learning state, all right? Which you can do throughout the day. Now, the N as we go through it is note taking. Now, everybody knows there's a learning curve, but you know what? There's also a forgetting curve. What percent would you say you forget within learning something? Once you hear it in a challenge, you hear it on a podcast, you read it. Once you have a conversation, what percent do you feel like you forget? 80%. All right? That's what research says, 80%. And one of the best ways to Mitigate that is taking notes. Now, how do you prefer taking notes? Do you do it digitally or handwriting notes? We've done many podcast episodes on this, but here's a simple way to do whole brain note taking. Put a line right down the page. And I would challenge you to do this the next few days. And on the left side, I want you to capture. On the right side, I want you to create. So on the left side, you're taking notes. On the right side, you're making notes. So it's a left brain logic and right brain imagination, creativity. So on the left side, you're putting things like how do you remember names? How do you read two or three times faster? You know, kind of things I'm teaching, what are the best brain foods. But on the right side, instead of your right brain taking you somewhere else and distracting you, your imagination, I'd rather it distract you and put you on the right side of the page. How can I use this? How does this relate to what I already know? What questions do I have during the VIP? Q&A, Right? So note taking and note making. Now the Y in your is going to stand for you. And now this is obvious, but this is again, principles and processes to help you learn faster. Have a limitless learning and limitless life. The you is just reminding you that it starts with us, right? We have agency, meaning that believing in yourself. It's kind of like that bird. Because I had three traumatic brain injuries as a child. You know, I'd also lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's when I was seven years old. It really affects, like, my inspiration really was my desperation. But I don't like heights. And if you've ever seen. Actually, earlier today, going for my walk, I saw this bird up in the tree. And the bird was like chirping and singing. And I noticed that it was calm and it had confidence. How many of you want more calm and confidence in your life? Right? We all do, right? But I noticed it's not because it puts its trust in the branch. And it's calm and confident because it puts its trust in its own wings. And you have wings also as well. So just remember, you are responsible. I remember when I got to introduce two of my favorite people together. Superheroes. I talk a lot about superheroes. They wanted to meet each other and we go to dinner, and it was Richard Branson and Stan Lee, right? The creator of what? All of the most amazing superheroes. And we're in the car and I was like, can I ask Stan? I was like, I gotta do it. I'm regret not saying this. I was like, who's your favorite superhero? And he says, jim, my favorite superhero is Iron Man. He said, jim, who's your favorite superhero? And he was wearing, I posted this on Instagram, a big Spider man tie. And I was like, spider Man. Without a pause. In his iconic voice he goes, with great power comes great, you know, it, responsibility. And maybe because I had too many head injuries, I tend to reverse things. Sometimes when I read or when I hear it, maybe you know what that's like. And I heard something different, I was like, you're right. With great power comes great responsibility. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great what power? When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to what, make things better. But when we complain and we put things off, right, that just wastes a lot of energy and time. And we can't be upset. Let's get real. This is a coaching. We can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do. But it starts with us, right? The you now, the O in your stands for outcome. Knowing your outcome. One of the videos we have online has millions of views is my morning routine, right? The things. And I know Tony and Dean, everybody has their own morning routine. Mine's about getting my brain right. So one of the things I do when I'm in bed instead of picking up my phone, first thing that rewires your brain for distraction and reaction, I say, I fast forward to the end of the day and if a family member, my wife, friend asked me how was my day? And I was like, today was amazing. I crushed it today. And I asked myself what had to happen in order for me to say those words right? And I don't focus on my 200 things on my to do list. I think about three things personally and three things professionally, right? That I could celebrate because things have to go from your head to your heart to your hands. Because we are not logical, we are biological. You think about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins. We are this chemical feeling soup. But you need to have an outcome because you can't hit a target that you can't see. So what are your three major goals? And keep them very critical, crystal clear is clarity. As Tony talks about his power, the you is understand. And when I say understand, I mean understand yourself. And then the R in your. And I'm going rapid fire is rest. You know, at Tony's events and I've Been going to him for a few decades now. Sleep is interesting, right? And here's the thing. If you want, how many of you want a better long term memory? All of us, right? When you sleep, that's where you consolidate short to long term memory. You clean out plaque that leads to brain aging challenges. But it means prioritizing your rest. My favorite ways of doing that, getting daylight first thing in the morning, get 20 minutes of sunlight. First thing in the morning will reset your circadian clock. No caffeine past 2pm if you're sensitive to caffeine because the half life, it could stay in your system upwards of 8 plus hours. Also set an alarm to wake up. But I would prefer you set an alarm to go to bed. Your circadian rhythm, even on the weekends, loves structure. And then finally a colder environment and a darker environment will help you sleep better. Now the B, this is a big one, is believe, right? Henry Ford said if you believe you can, or believe you can, either way, what? Right? You're right. People at events, they see me do these demonstrations, right? Where I'll have 100 people stand up in an audience and I'll memorize and they'll introduce themselves on a microphone. I'll memorize all their names, you know, and then people come to me and just, they'll say, jim, I'm just too old. I'm not smart enough. And I always say stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limits, they're yours. Okay? Your brain is this incredible supercomputer and your self talk is the program it will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering people's names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. Even as you're going through the next few days, if you say I can't do this or I don't understand this, just add a little word like yet at the end, all right? The R, this is a good one, is review. So one of the most practical things you could do to build your memory is to do a rapid review. It's called spaced repetition, right? It's spaced interval learning. And what that means is we don't always learn something the first time out. And when you could maybe review your notes from the previous day or when this day is over, an hour later, review your notes. That's where you consolidate short to long term memory. And there's nothing wrong with reviewing. The challenge is a lot of people take great notes and they never look at them again. How many of you are guilty of this? Also right? So what I would introduce you to is look at your notes and review it. And a good way of doing it. See, we do. I did a whole chapter on how to hack your habits in my book Limitless. And here's the thing. First you create your habits, then your habits create you. First you create your habits, then your habits create you back, right? And so your routines, I believe that the treasure that you seek, every single one of you, is hidden in your daily routines and in your habits. You do the habits of meditation, eating the best brain foods, prioritizing your sleep, right? Exercising each day. Those habits create you back. And so the key, though, to create better habits is you want to make the things that are bad for you, you want to make it difficult, and you want to make the things that are good for you. You want to make it easier for yourself. And one of the things that you would do is to trigger your review is tomorrow before you start. And you log on to be able to join us for day two is review your notes from the previous day. Does that make sense? All right. Rapid review and recall. They call it retrieval practice. If you want to be able to learn something, be able to practice review. Now, the A in the brain stands for apply. Tony talks about this a lot. Knowledge is not power. All the books, podcasts, trainings, challenges, none of it works unless we do, right? And so how I'm thinking about it is you could read a book, for example, and I, you know, if you've seen pictures of me with Oprah and Elon, people always ask how we bonded. We bonded over books, right? Tony talks about Jim Rohn saying leaders are readers. You read to succeed. You know, Dean was talking about Warren Buffett earlier when I asked Warren, he reads 500 pages a day. Because if somebody has decades, as Tony talks about, of experience, puts into a book and you sit it down, read that book in a few days, you could download those decades into days. As Tony talks about, you can compress that, which is the biggest advantage, right? But somebody who reads a book and doesn't apply it, they're no better off in their life than somebody who's illiterate, right? So what I do is I ask myself three questions when I'm learning. My first question, I would write this down, even on the. On the left side of your page. How can I use this? I'm obsessed with this. How can I use this? Because Tony talks about you have a reticular activating System, right? Your brain is primarily a deletion. Vice is trying to keep information out, what you charge, like your name. When somebody says your name, you look because you're trained, your reticular activating system, your ras is trained to pay attention. So what do you put a spotlight towards? The things you have questions about, right? And then all of a sudden, you have answers, answer answers. So if you're reading or you're learning, ask, how can I use this? And then you have answer answ. Answer the second question, why must I use this? Because it goes from your head to your heart, right? You get into the feelings. Write this down, please. Results. If you want better results, reasons reap results without even remembering someone's name. If you want to be better at remembering someone's name, ask yourself, why do I want to remember this person's name? Right? Maybe it's to show the person respect. Maybe it's the practice, you know, maybe it's to do these things that I've learned in, you know, own your future, you know, program and the challenge, right? Because if you can't come up with a reason, you won't get the result, right? So that's the application. The third question I ask, besides how can I use this? Why must I use this? Is when will I use this? What you have, all of you have the number one productivity performance tool there is, which is your calendar, you know, and you put your PTA meetings there. You put maybe a meeting with your boss. You put things, you know, doctor's appointment, whatever. But are you scheduling your own personal growth? I truly believe as a learning coach, you know, practice in accelerated learning and brain optimization. For every hour you spend learning something, listening to a podcast or reading or doing something like this, you have to spend an equal hour applying it, right? So that's kind of my framework. The I in Own youn Brain is Instruct, probably one of my favorites. This means learn your intention matters, right? And if you learn with the intention of instructing or teaching somebody else, you're going to learn it in half the time. And then finally, the end here is you want to be able to nourish. You're going to learn so many things. Insight instructions on how to nourish your mind, your business, you know, you're nourishing your heart and your spirit. And what I would say also is you want to nourish your body.

It was truly amazing when I began to see how I could change my life. I could enter another person's world. I could take a decade of their life. Experience. And I could learn from them so quickly and be able to apply that to my own life and change my body or change my mind or change my emotions. And the changes that came about in my life were unbelievable. Because I grew up, I'm a kid from Azusa, California. There's nobody in my family that had ever had their own business or had ever been able to do anything they called successful for their life or be able to contribute in a really meaningful way. And, you know, we were dirt poor. I mean, we had no money for food. My life was changed because I was 11 years old. A person came to the house and fed us or we wouldn't have had a Thanksgiving meal. And it completely changed my life because it made me believe strangers care. A big part of why I'm here today is because of what came out of that experience. Because I figured strangers care about my family. I got to care about strangers. And it shifted me psychologically and emotionally, but I still didn't have the resources to change anything. I knew I wanted to contribute something in a meaningful way to the world, but to go from that area to where I could feed two people and then four, and then a million people, and now about 10 years ago, I found out, I saw that, you know, there was a huge dip in food services here in this country, in the United States, anyway, we cut all the food stamps by $6 billion, which means every family needed food, would have to give up a week's worth of their food unless people like you. And I stepped up and helped. And so I called my foundation at the time and said, how many people have I fed over a lifetime? And it was 42 million people. And I was overjoyed. But then I said, what if I could feed that many people in a year? What if I could do 50 million meals in a year? 100 million years. 100 million meals for 10 years. And I'm proud to tell you, we surpassed that this last year. We fed over a billion people in eight years. All because of the things that I've learned through self education and made that possible. I tell you that just because it's unfathomable to understand where I started. I didn't start because I was a genius and had these great skills. I just got started because I love people. I had certain things I'd learned that helped me, and I wanted to help other people. And I learned most of those things from books, quite frankly. But it's like once I changed my body, changed my mind, my friends wanted to know I did it. So I started helping them and I saw how much it changed their life and made them so happy. And that made me so happy. And it became like a positive addiction. I wanted to learn more so I could help more. And gradually I learned how to turn that into a business. But it was nothing like what you can start with today. I mean, it was really, really rough. If you want to start a business, then it cost a fortune just to send out. Come up with a brochure and send it out costs 3,4000 dollars. You had to pay for postage, you had to pay for the printing. Not like today, you make something digital, you send it out for free. You have social media, expand everything. You know, I had to go rent giant rooms to do things, huge expenses, and sometimes it didn't work out so well. So I just want you to know you're in the right place at the right time. You're in a place today where anyone who's got anything they've had a problem with and they could solve, or anyone who wants to share with other people can build an extraordinary company, extraordinary business, extraordinary career, something meaningful, and something where you earn as much or more than you've ever earned in your life and where you do things on your terms. I mean, I began in this poor environment, this poor family. I worked even when I was junior high school and high school so that we'd have food. I had a producer income for the family. And on the weekends when I was in high school, I was always doing odd jobs to get additional income. And my mom and my dad were talking, I had four different fathers. And my fourth father was talking about this man that my mom knew, kind of a friend of the family. And she talked about what a loser. My dad said what a loser he had been. And then something had transformed and now he was so successful and now he's buying houses. This is in the late 70s in Orange County, California. He was fixing them up and then flipping them and making all this money. And so I heard he needed somebody to do moving. And I said, listen, let him know I'll come move, I'm strong, I'll do that. Because I wanted to get around him, I want to learn from him. And so I worked for a weekend with him, all day, all night, 12 hour days. And he said, man, you're a hard worker. And he said, you know, I'm going to take you to lunch or dinner, tell me when you want to go. I said, I would love to go because I want to take your brain. I hear you're really successful. I can see you're doing really well. And so we sat down at lunch, and I'll never forget, he says to me, I said to him, he said, why do you want to ask me these questions? I said, well, my dad said, you used to be such a loser. Now you're really successful. Only kids can say these things, right? And I said, so? I said, I really just want to know. He goes, your dad said that? I go, well, you know. He goes, well, it's true. I said, what changed you? He said, I went to a seminar. I never even heard of the term seminar. I said, what's a seminar? He sits where, you know, this man spends 30 years of his life and he becomes successful after going through all his challenges, and he basically pours all that knowledge into two or three hours and saves you decades of your life. I said, wow. And it really worked for you. He goes, yeah. I said, well, could I get in one of those things? He said, sure. I said, well, could you get me in? He goes, yeah. But he didn't say anything after that. I said, well, will you? And he said, no. And I said, why not? And he said, well, because, you know, you wouldn't value it if you don't pay pay for it. I said, no, no, I'm just getting started. I'm working. I'm in high school. I'm on my own. And he said, no, no, no, no. He goes, you'd have to invest in yourself. I said, how much is it? And he said, $35. Well, $35 would be like $200 today. To give you an idea. With inflation, 250 bucks. And I was like, $35. I was making $40 a week as a janitor. I was like, I can't take a week's pay and go there. And he said, listen, well, then just go learn on your own and take three or four decades and maybe never learn. It's totally up to you. Or you could learn there and you could compress time. And I remember I went away and it was so frustrating. I was like, why won't he help me? And then, you know, I thought to myself, you know, he's right. I gotta. I gotta do this. So I made what I thought was a giant decision. It really was. It was an important decision. It changed my whole life. And I went down. I heard this man, Jim Rohn, speak. I pulled up my 1968 Volkswagen Bug that used to turn off and explode. And I hand the keys to the guy at the seminar place and said, the hotel and said, park this baby for me. I was wearing a blue leisure suit I got at the thrift store because I've been sleeping in my car. My mom kicked my dad out after he went out. She thought I was on the side, so she kicked me out. So I'm literally sleeping in my car. And I go to this seminar, and I'll be more successful with Jim Rohn. And I take what seemed like a fortune to me to go make this happen. And I sat in that seminar, and I'd read so many of the same books, I was writing like crazy. And he'd finish. Say a phrase, and sometimes I'd finish it. And people around the table look at me like I was a little crazy, but I was just so excited about what was possible. And at the end of it, I went up to him And I said, Mr. Rowan, I said, I'm so moved by what you've done. And I said, I really want to help more people know about this. You know, I'd love to come to work for you. And he said, well, young man, you know, you have to go through all my seminars first and my leadership program and this and that. And he goes, and then we could interview you. And I said, I'll go to all of them. I. I said, but I don't have any money. And I said, I'm just on my own. I'm just sleeping in my car. But I got here to the seminar. I invested in it, but it was like $1,200. It'd be like $12,000 to go to all those programs. I said, if you loan me the money, I said, I'll take all that I've learned. I'll transform my life, and I'll tell everybody that you did it, and then I'll pay you back all of it as I'm successful. He looked at me and said, young man, that's not how it works. He said, I'm not here to be your banker. He said, if you are committed, you'll find a way. I said, but I'm just 17 years old. I mean, I'm not. He goes, if you're committed, you'll find a way. Everybody finds a way. Some people have to succeed. Some people should. If you're a should, it's not going to happen. It's a have to. I'll see you next Saturday. But you got to invest in all our programs. And it's $1,200. And I left. I thought he was a hero now. I was pissed. I was like, this guy doesn't Care about me. He's trying to get, you know, twelve hundred dollars, say twelve thousand in today's dollars. He's trying to get that from me. I mean, he doesn't care. And then as I'm walking away, I kept thinking to myself, he's right, he's right, he's right, he's right. You know, he's right. I've always gotten what I had to have, but I haven't had to have much. And so I decided I was going to find a way to do this. So I figured, okay, if you need money, what do you think you should do? Go to banks. Because I used to think banks was a place you go when you need money. Banks is a place that wants to loan you money when you don't need it, right? How many know what I'm talking about here? Make some noise if you're out there, ladies and gentlemen. Come on, make some noise, right? And so I remember I went to bank after bank rejection after rejection. I got so good at knowing they're going to say no. And I walked in and I was down to the last couple of days. And if I didn't get the money in this last bank, I knew I wasn't going to go to the seminar. And it was a must for me. And I'm telling you this because. Because the difference between those who succeed and fail is not intelligence. It's not ability, it is not skill. You can get everything you need. It really is hunger. If you ask me what I've learned over the last 46 years that I've been doing this and said, what is the one common denominator? Don't get me wrong, intelligence is invaluable. I love wickedly smart people. But how many of you know really smart people that can't fight their way out of a paper bag in their own life or their own finances? Make some noise if you know what I'm talking about out there, right?

So.

So sure enough, I found myself in this position, was like, okay, I'm hungry. I'm. I gotta find a way. So I walked into this bank of America in a place called West Covina, California. And before I got in, I didn't know what I was doing in those days. I now know I was getting myself in such a strong, certain state. And I walked in that place with all this passion, intensity, and I looked for somebody, looked persuadable. And I found this woman named Mrs. Williams who changed my life. And I went up to her and I shook her hand really vigorously because I was so excited. Mrs. Williams, my name is Tony Robbins. I'm here today to borrow $1,200. I don't want it so go on vacation. I don't want to buy a car. I want it so I can attend a seminar. She started to laugh, which was not a good sign, right? And I was like, oh, my God. I said, no, I'm serious. She goes, you want a what? Sit down, young man. Sit down. You got a lot of energy. Sit down. And she goes, you want. I said, I want to go to this seminar. I'm going to learn how to change my life and my business and my finances. I'm going to grow things. I said, I'm going to learn all this stuff, and I'm going to train hundreds of thousands of people. My vision wasn't millions at that time or billions of people, and I was going to train hundreds of thousands of people. And I said, I'm going to make a difference in the world. And she goes, slow down, young man. Let me see. Let me see your application. So she starts reading my application. The first thing she notices is my address. Remember, I'm sleeping in my car. And she goes, citrus Avenue. The bank was on Citrus Avenue. It's a huge avenue that goes through five cities. It's a commercial street. She goes, I didn't know there were any apartments on Citrus Avenue. And I said, well, I kind of have a mobile home. So she said, what do you mean? So I spilled my guts. I told the whole story. I said, look, I park behind Denny's and 711 because it's 24 hours, and it won't make me move. But it's temporary. But I made a deal with the mailman. He's such a Beautiful man at 7:11. And that's the address I gave you. And I'm there at noon each day to get my mail. And her eyes got this big. And she said, let me get this straight. You want us loan you $1,200 and we can send it to the 711 where you'll get it, where you're sleeping in your car? I said, yeah. She said, young man, I said, you don't understand. I kind of do this. She goes, all right, calm down. She reads a little more. She goes, you're 17 years old. I said, yeah, I'm 17. She goes, you can't even sign a legal contract until you're 18. I said, well, I'm almost 18. She goes, when are you 18? I said, When I have to be 18. I said, well, my birthday's in two weeks. She goes, okay, we can probably deal with that. And then she finally looks at me and says. She says, well, you know, Mr. Robbins, she said, I just don't know how the bank's going to loan you this money. And I said, no, you don't understand. And I went, I got into this really passionate, sincere place. And she said, listen, slow down. She said, I believe you're going to do something. You really seem to be committed. She goes, so I'm going to do something. She said, I'm going to talk to the bank and do everything I can to get this approved. I said, I would really appreciate that. She goes, but I don't think they're going to say yes without a cosigner. She said, if you look me in the eye, you shake my hand and you swear to me on your heart, on your soul that you will. I'll never have to go looking for you, that you'll pay these things on time. She said, I will consider co signing on this loan for you to give you your start. And I jumped out of the seat and grabbed her and hugged her and kissed her in the cheek. She was not quite ready for that shit. It's like a little crazy. And I told her I would always tell the story of how I started my career because of her. And I'm keeping good with that now. She passed away about seven years ago, and I owe her because I took that money. Twelve hundred dollars. Think 12,000. And I went to these seminars. And what was great about that was it was more expensive than my car. My car was $980, though I was sleeping in my Volkswagen. But when I went to the seminars there, I literally, I was gonna sleep in my car, and I met a guy there named Mike Keys, who to this day is still my friend 40 plus years later. And we were both really broke, but I was more broke than him. He at least had room for money for a hotel room. And so he let me stay with him. And we sat in the seminar, two of the most broke guys there, and we wrote notes on every word he said. If he said the, I wrote the down. At one point, he figured out I didn't go pee. I was like, I'm staying in this room for every moment. I'm not missing a word. I figured out every word was worth like 3 cents. So we wrote it all down, we took it all in. And the beauty of that is some people was easy to go do this, and so they took it easy. But we were committed. And I remember Decades later, I went and I was in the back of the room behind there. I was invited. Jim didn't know I was there. And Jim Rohn, I heard that he started his seminar the same way every time. Because Jim was very beautiful, but very programmed. Everything he did, he turned to the exact angle. He dropped the chalk in his hand at the same tempo. Everything was choreographed. He was a really elegant man. And he would start every seminar by saying, I want to do a good job today, just like I want to do for all of you guys. Because he said, you never know who's in your audience, and you never know how they're going to change their life or somebody else's. And I really remember that even in this moment now with all of you.

I started thinking, there's got to be something better than stressing out over bills, being trapped in a job that I hate, knowing that I'm meant for more, but not being sure. How do you take that notion and put it into motion? How do you take an inkling a notion and actually put it into motion, get it into momentum? And it started to dawn on me, like, it's going to be my time to take action. I'm going to have to show up in a bigger way. And at that time, I had always been the rising star. I don't know how many of you can relate to this, but reading your chats, I think I'm not alone. I was a rising star working for other people. I was always the straight A student. I was always the person who got to work early, who was the last one to leave. I was the one that contributed to everyone success. People are always like, ask Barry. She's got it. Give it to Barry. She'll handle it. Barry's amazing. Barry. Da da da. It was amazing to be amazing. But here's the thing that is not the same as being in your own spotlight. And what came to me all the time was, am I ready to be in my own spotlight versus always being in someone else's, serving somebody else? I had this idea that there was a new business idea in me. I knew that I was super passionate about live events. I had done events in high school and college. Every work I'd ever done, every career I'd ever had had in some way tied to live events. And I truly believed in the power of live events to change people's lives. But here's the thing. I did not come from an entrepreneurial family. And the success that I envisioned with my 9 to 5 dad and my homemaker mom was Just like it doesn't happen for people like us. I really get it. The struggle is real when there's not a role model before you that it's happened for and generations before. You haven't done anything different. And all of a sudden you're going to be the breakout star and you're like, am I crazy? Is this possible? Could this happen? Could this happen for me? And I knew that to happen it would take a considerable leap of faith for me to step into that. And at the time, again, our life was imploding. And I couldn't stop thinking, I'm meant for more. And it was like this constant drip, drip, drip, like a leaking faucet. I really remember it that way, that it was like that nagging sound of a leaking faucet. First kind of distant and then getting louder and louder and louder and a little bit more overpowering. I am meant for more. This is not my life. I am meant for more. This is not my life. I meant for more. This is not my life. I meant for more. This is not my life. And it was getting so loud, I couldn't ignore it anymore. It got so loud, I couldn't think of anything else. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to step into it. But it dawned on me that the only way to make that stop was to actually take action. To claim my purpose, to create my best life. To stop waiting for someone to save me. I had to be the one to save me. I had to own my future. And I have, like, butterflies just thinking about it. The fear of that is still palpable to me. I remember how scary that was. I also know that for how I'm wired, I didn't want it to be messy. I wanted to be crystal clear before I even took my first step. I wanted all the answers. I wanted a blueprint, I wanted a guarantee. I wanted to know that it would be okay. And I also had to admit that I was super scared of being judged, of getting it wrong, of having my family and my friends think that I was crazy of it not working. I'm being really honest of me not working. And let's face it, this is the truth. Dreaming about it meant that it was still real. It was a possibility. As long as it was a dream, it was still possible. And that was keeping me going. But if I did it, if I took action and I failed, then the dream's gone. And that was really scary. Who can relate to that if you're being really honest? Staying in a dreaming State feels safer than a doing state because it's still possible. But if you do it and it doesn't work and that dream gets ripped out from under you, then you have nothing. And I wanted a perfect plan. I wanted me to be perfect. I was looking for a perfect moment. I was wanting to be more perfect. I could be thinner, I could be younger. I need to be more confident. I wish I was more ready. All this focus on perfection before I could get started. And if I'm being really honest, I wanted permission from a higher power. I wanted a sign. Matthew McConaughey would say I wanted a green light. I wanted something divine to come down and be like, this is the path. You can do this, do this. And lurking in the background was this huge, overwhelming, sometimes debilitating fear of selling. Because I knew if I was going to do anything for myself, I was going to have to sell something. Sales were going to be involved in some way and that meant putting myself out there and possibly facing rejection. And as someone who'd been bullied in high school, that was the last thing I wanted to be. I felt like if I could be unseen and successful, that would be so much better than having to be seen and be successful. There it was, that drip, drip, drip. You're meant for more. This is not your life. You're meant for more. This is not your life. And the more I saw it, the more I couldn't unsee it it. And so I just did it. I did it messy, I did it scared, I did it imperfect, but I did it anyway. And I'm so glad I did. Because on the other side of messy and scary and imperfect, there's nothing in that scared 34 year old that could tell me that, could predict that. Just taking that first step would mean that I would go on to generate over a proven billion dollars in revenue for clients like Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi, Matthew McConaughey, Joel Osteen, Jamie Grin Lima, Jack Canfield, Gabby Bernstein, Russell Brunson and Pace Morby. Pace and I are working together right now. There's nothing to predict that that was going to be the future. Nothing. But I did it anyway. And here's the thing I want you to think about. There is nothing in a caterpillar that predicts it's going to be a butterfly. If you saw a caterpillar, you wouldn't think to yourself, if you had no knowledge, that for sure is going to turn into a beautiful thing that can fly, right? And that's how we are. We are that caterpillar we know somewhere in us there's a butterfly. But when people see us, a lot of them are like, I don't see it. I don't have that same vision. I don't know where you're getting. That doesn't happen for people like us. So you have to hold that space to own your future. This picture that I'm going to show you is a picture of myself at 34 years old when I started my business. And it cracks me up because I'm so serious. It's my first headshot that I was going to use for an article I was writing for an industry magazine. Half of my face is in a shadow. And I'm not really sure what that jacket is, but it kind of looks like I'm auditioning for Top Chef or something. Like, I think I'm going to go. It has like, it's crazy random, right? I think it's so funny when I look back on it. And I remember being so nervous picking that out and getting a friend to take that headshot. It's messy, it's imperfect.

And you know what?

It worked. And there's nothing in that that would predict that in the future that I'd be standing there shaking Tony Robbins hand.

You have the opportunity to get, to see what's possible and to take that kick in the pants and be like, that was the kick in the pants that launched me. Okay, so what, where did it begin? Okay, guys, I. Yes, I have six kids, but I didn't always have six kids. Kids, yes. Yeah. Okay. I had two kids. I had my first and I was pregnant with my second. And I was a schoolteacher. I loved being a school teacher. I loved teaching. I thought that was my calling in life. I was going to make more. Make more of an impact in these kids lives. And then I got pregnant with my second child while I was on maternity leave. And when I'm pregnant, I'm really sick. So I. So basically, guys, I wasn't fired, but I was done working, right? Because you can't afford two kids on infant daycare on a teacher salary. And I couldn't work while having an infant, so I felt like I was fired. How many of you guys have felt like you're fired or maybe you were fired or maybe you had a life circumstance that just kind of kicked you in the gut, Right? And so now here I am at home and I don't have money to fix my car that's in my front driveway and broken. I didn't have money for formula when my Daughter had some funky stomach issue, and she had to have all this fancy stuff. I knew I just couldn't stay where I was. I didn't know what my who was. I didn't know my dot. I didn't know my framework. All I knew was I needed to get out. Guys, what I'm so glad, so grateful, is that God gave me someone who is a step ahead of where I was. You, each and every one of you, get to be that person for that me who is back there and stuck.

Each and every one of you.

This is your chance to make a difference in someone's life if you take that first step. Okay, so how many of you guys are like, okay, great, but how on earth do I get started, right? I want to know the nitty gritty how? Guys, I love doodles. I'm just like a doodler. You got your dot right? Only I don't like thinking about it like a dot. I like thinking about it as the people I get to love. I get to serve. There are those people right there. So there's my dot. Now, I like to say that there's three different rules with my dot. Three different rules whenever I'm picking an audience. Now, guys, just so you guys know, I started out and I started out and I struggled. But every time I took a step forward in the right direction, it was a step up from that hole, right? You saw that when Dean told that story of the here's the bridge and there's that big gap, right? Every step was in the right. Every single step was a step in the right direction because there's nowhere but up, right? Okay? So every step was a step in the right direction. Now, though, I'm able to build multiple businesses. So today I think we have six or seven different audiences and probably eight different businesses under four different EI ends. So today, I can look back and say, wow. Each of those steps was a step in the right direction, but it took a little while to get there. But when I'm there now, looking back, I realize there's a trend of what I picked when I was picking businesses and when I was starting.

Whoops.

Okay, first one is, you need to have 1 million people, not 1 million people that you're going to actually be reaching right now today, but that the pool of the audience is a million people. So earlier, Joanne was talking about Yoga. Are there 1 million people in the world who need yoga in their lives right now? Yes, there are. Oh, I was listening yesterday. Kevin. Kevin helps divorced dads. Are there a million divorced Dads who want to be a better dad out there right now that need help him. Yes. There's a million. Okay, now is he going to reach all million?

No.

But because there's a million, that means it's really easy to get his little slice of the audience. Okay, so you need to have 1 million people. Okay, next up. So in your audience, I want you to think, do you have a million people? It's just a gut feeling, okay? You don't have to go look at numbers anywhere. Gut feeling. If you've got a million people in your niche, write it down. You've got your top. Your dot passed the first test. Next test. Okay, next test is can you make a million dollars in it? Now, it doesn't mean that you have to make a million dollars. It means is the pool of the pot a million dollars? Can I imagine any business that makes a million dollars at yoga? Yes. Yes, I can. Can I picture any business making a million dollars helping divorced dads like Cat or like Maria, who's helping people who are overwhelmed? Are there a million dollars worth of revenue in overwhelm?

Yes.

Okay, so a million dollars in revenue. That doesn't mean we want a million dollars. How many of us would our lives completely change if we could bring in $2,000 a month? Our lives would completely change. Stress would go down with $2,000 a month. If there's a million in that podcast, it's really, really Easy to get $2,000 a month. It's really easy to make that if you just take that first step, it's first steps in the right direction. Okay, so first a million people. Next, a million dollars in the pot. Next one is a million minutes. Can you talk about this topic, your topic, for a million minutes?

Can you?

What's the topic that you can talk about for a million minutes and you're not done talking about it? What's the thing that when you see it in your Facebook feed, if you see it in your Instagram feed or TikTok or wherever you are, be real. If you're in any of these places and you see it, you instantly engage and you will always engage in it. Okay, so this is actually. My father in law does this. My father in law is real. I love him to pieces, but he's hilarious with this. Okay, so he loves politics and he loves different, like things that he loves. Okay, so he finds a meme that he loves and he engages on the post. He hits an article, he likes it. He shares it into our family group chat text thread. Since we should all get engaged in this content that he's really excited about. And three, four, five weeks goes by, a month goes by, two months goes by, and guess what? He finds an article, he loves it so much, he finds a meme and guess what he does. It's the same one. Because he's that passionate about that topic, he wants to share it again and again and again. That's the thing that people are going to come to you for. That's the thing that people are going to come to you for because they see the excitement, the energy that you have on that topic. Okay, a million minutes. Now once you know that you've got a million people, a million minutes, a million things that you just need to spend, you don't need to spend a million minutes on it. But if you now could spend three hours, you'd do it for fun, right? You can reach your audience with that. You can find your piece of your audience with that little bit of time.

Let's face it, you've got something that you are excited about. You want to share with the world, but you got to figure out how to get it to them, right? Like that's great. You want to help people, but not for free. Like we still have to pay the bills. So what are your options? Let me be very frank. Your options are you can run ads, which costs money, which is difficult to do when you're like, but I'm not making any yet. You can sell your thing, you can offer it to people belly to belly. That takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. And if you're an introvert, that's not gonna be fun. Or you can leverage social media, which is friggin free. So I'm assuming that everybody it wants to, at least to begin with, you've got to leverage social media, right? Like it's free. This did not exist when Dean and I were doing infomercials. You had to buy media. Today you can get eyeballs, you can attract people and you can do so from your living room and you can do so for free. Can see all your faces. Nod at me if you feel like you're following too many people right now as it is, just nod yes. Okay, Give me a thumbs up if you wish. If you're really thinking like, gosh, I need to follow a lot more people because I'm not getting enough social media content as it is. Any thumbs up, people are like, I need to follow a lot more people. I see one thumbs up. Almost everybody else though is like, no, I don't need to follow more people, right? Like, I don't know about you, but I don't even see my friends. I don't see the things I want to see. There are accounts I follow. I never see those accounts. There's just too much. Like, there's so much social media that it makes me feel like I have worse ADHD than I do. Like, it makes me feel frantic. It makes me feel unfocused. It makes me feel envious. It makes me feel like, ugh, like everything's going too fast. I need to slow down. Does anyone else feel that way?

Yeah.

Anxiety, overwhelmed. Okay, y', all, this is a thing. It's a real thing. Pay attention to it, because it's going to impact the way you need to post. Okay? So when we think about social media, it's an economy, right? So if we can pull those slides up there, it's an economy. So if you think about any economy, there's demand and there's supply. And not too long ago, there was like, oh, cute.

Facebook.

This is so. Oh, my God. There's this platform where they play videos. It's called YouTube. There's this thing where you just post a square photo once a month. That was. Was Instagram, right? So there was. It was very interesting. Like, how many of you remember, like, way back when, when you started following people and it felt like, a little bit, like, voyeuristic. You're like, I want to see what they do. What are they up to, right? And. And so what was happening then is all of the early settlers, so people are, like, huge on Instagram now, who got there before everybody else? They started, like, just sharing their life, like, what they were eating, what they were wearing, who they were hanging out with. And now there's all these people. You're like, they're famous for what? Like, I guess they're famous because they have a lot of followers, right? And so now you're watching those people do that, and you're like, well, you know, success leaves clues, so I'm gonna do that, too. And you're doing what they do, but we don't care anymore. We don't have time to care. Just be honest. You won't hurt my feelings. Do you give any. Do you have any interest whatsoever in what I had for dinner last night? Or do you have any interest in seeing me posting a photo with my arm around my sister? Like, do you have any interest in seeing my dog? Like, I mean, not really. Look, okay, let me ask you this. Do you have any interest in seeing Those things in people you don't know. Do you have the time to be interested in those things?

Things?

No, we don't, you guys. And the reason why it's gotten worse is because there's so many more social media platforms now. Instagram itself feels like seven different platforms. Instagram feels like YouTube and TikTok and a blog post and stories and going live like, there's just on one platform alone. It's insane. So now there's all these platforms and. Oh, now threads. What? Leave us alone. God, can you breathe for a second? Like, stop already. And so now the demand for more social media is much. Aren't you, like, so over it? You're like, no. Like, when I heard threads came, I'm like, no, why are you doing this to us?

Leave us alone.

Right? Because we feel like we have to do it. So demand is very, very low and supply is through the roof. What does that mean for you? It means that we are in a social media recession. So what do you do about that? Well, I got you. What you need to do about that is think in terms of yourself. Okay? It's pretty simple. Here's what I want you to think about. When you're looking at the content that you're interacting with, what are you interacting with? Just think about what you're. You're like, this is really boring and not interesting, but I'm going to like it because it's someone I know versus this is really interesting. And I'm going to save this. Or, this is really interesting. This is valuable. I'm going to forward this. Or this is funny. I'm going to share this right? Versus this is interesting. So here's the deal, okay? Just take in this concept. Valuable content used to be enough. Interesting content used to be enough. And I'm just going to shoot straight with you now. It has to be both. Has to be interesting and has to be valuable in some way, right? The question is, how do you create that content? So you're attracting the person who wants the thing that you have that you can help people with. Okay, so we're going to break this down. The step one is your niche, right? So you can call it your dot. I really like the term dot because niche, to me is kind of like a broad term. So, you know, Rachel and I are in the same niche, but our dots are very specific to us. So some of you, as I was watching, you know, you're saying, I'm in health and fitness. I'm in. I'm in. I'm a yoga Teacher. I help people heal from trauma. So, you know, these are. These are niches. But your dot is very specific to you. But if we're talking about your social media, and this is kind of contrary to what a lot of people say, but it's just my opinion, your niche, your dot is going to change a lot. So don't get so freaked out about it. Like, don't feel like if once you declare it, it's going on your tombstone. It's y'.

All.

Did you hear him read my bio. I've done so many things. Like, I'm constantly doing something. Cause I get bored. So don't make me pick a dot for the rest of my life. Make me pick a dot for right now. Right now. So don't feel like you have to be married to your dot forever. You don't pick a niche and just start. Okay, that is step one, because again, and I'm gonna shoot very straight with you. No one's gonna follow you if you're posting everything. We don't care. No, we care. We don't have time. We literally don't have time. God bless you. Right, so that's step one. Step two is one social media platform. I know. I've heard a lot of people say, you know, be on all of them. Why so. So that you drive yourself crazy and you have a mental breakdown. You should be on all of them if you have a sizable team. I have a sizable team. So when you see everything that I do, I'm not doing much of it. I've got a team that does that. If it's just you and you're just starting out, crush one and it doesn't matter which one because they all have billions of people. Like, just pick one and know everything you need to about it. Like, really understand it. Know, like what people do like, and don't. Like, not. Not what's trending. But just think about you yourself. Like, you don't need to follow an expert who's going to tell you what is working and what isn't working. Just look at your own brain and go, like, I think it's so dumb. No offense, but I think it's so dumb when people do these. You know, there's a song and you're.

Like.

You know what I'm talking about in those reels. You're like, okay, I've seen enough. Like, stop. Right? Like, we get it. Like, so if you're sick of those, you should know that that trend is probably dying. And you should know that before someone has to tell it to you because just pay attention to your own intuition of what is working, what isn't working. Master one social media platform.