John Assaraf on Donny Deutsch on Creating Change!

The big idea is your portal to the American dream. My job is to give you the playbook to turn your passion into profits. And tonight, it all starts with the courage to change.

The economy is forcing Americans to make changes every day at the gas pump in their 401ks in their own neighborhoods. These changes are hard. They're frightening. But change brings a unique opportunity to live a bigger life. And in the end, only embracing change will bring you success. When you reach your must change moment, will you have the tools and the guts to make a 180 and be the hero of your American dream?

John Osarok, your company One coach Helps people go for their dreams, teaches all about change. Why the heck is everybody so afraid of change?

Everybody's afraid of change because it's not normal to want to change. We become conditioned to behave a certain way, to think a certain way, and. And anytime we think about changing, it scares us. And we don't want to be scared. We like to keep everything the same, even though we want to grow.

Well, why are we often conditioned to think a certain way when it's not the right way? For us, the status quo is not necessarily our ideal way. How does that happen?

Well, what happens is 50% of our thinking is based on our genetics. The other 50% we learn from when we're toddlers by mirroring our parents, our teachers, our siblings. And so we become conditioned. By the time we're in our early twenties, our. Our thought patterns and behavior patterns are just about set for the rest of our lives. Anytime we try to change, that release chemicals released in the brain that causes you to have doubts, fears and anxieties. And those are feelings we stay away from.

So is fear. The main culprit here is fear the bad guy.

No, fear is actually not the problem. Fear is an effect. Anytime we want to change our lives, anytime we want to grow our businesses, if it's not where we're used to, if the level that we want to get to is not what we're used to, we'll actually release epinephrine and cortisol into the bloodstream, which causes us to feel fear, which we have to learn that that's normal. You feel the fear, do it anyway. There's two sides to our personality. One is the spiritual side, the side of us that wants fuller expression and expansion, that wants more. There's the other side that likes homeostasis. We like it just the way it is. That's why most people that win the lottery, 80% of them, within two or three years they lose all of the money because their comfort zone is without money. And that's the hardest part is.

And they also change their lives versus staying the course and just enjoying that money.

When is it too late for change?

Because a lot of people watching, you know what ship has sailed me by? I'm 38, I'm 43, I'm 52. When's the late the Late show for change.

I've done a tremendous amount of research on the brain and what really happens in the brain for change. And they used to think that we were hardwired from birth and we would just be the way we are. That's not true. There's something called neuroplasticity now that tells us as long as we keep using our brain, as long as we keep growing, as long as we keep doing new things, change is possible till the day we die.

What's the difference between somebody who's just interested versus somebody who willing to make that commitment? How do they get there?

Well, first and foremost, people have got to stop buying into the stories they're telling themselves of why they can and why they can't. Interest means you're going to do what's convenient. Commitment means you're going to do whatever it takes. And the highly successful people that we work with all over the world, they do whatever it takes and they achieve their goals and they achieve their dreams.

Give me another example of what would be a change conducive environment.

There's a great story. There's a project called the Delancey Street Project in San Francisco that Mimi Silbert runs. She's a seven year old psychologist and she takes the most hardened criminals in the world, rapists, drug users, and she brings them into her program. 70% of the people that go into her program actually stay out of prison. Whereas people who are left to their own devices go back into prison about 70% of the time. And what she does is she works on their self esteem, she works on their environment, she works on them getting their lives back and feeling great about themselves and contributing to society. So the environment is critical for change. And you're absolutely right. When we put ourselves in the environment for change with the support mechanism in place, that actually works 100% better than just trying to do it on your own.

How do you recognize when you have a must change moment?

Murray Smith grew up being told he would never amount to anything and wound up cleaning sewers 100ft below the city of Toronto. That's when he decided he had to make a change. Murray pulled Himself up, seeing opportunity everywhere. He started a telephone company and a clothing line using just his guts and instincts. So where did Murray get the fearlessness to face change?

All right, Murray, give me your must change moment. The moment that flipped it all.

You know, Donnie, when I was young, I realized that I didn't want to live a below average life. I didn't even want to live an average life. I wanted my piece of the American dream. And I started to realize that these people that I was working for, they weren't any smarter than I was. Even though I grew up with a learning disability, I started to realize that they were doing very specific action steps. They were focused on the critical few, as opposed to the trivial of many things in business that you're required to focus on in order to become successful. So I simply mirrored what they were doing and started to get the confidence that I could do it myself.

So many people are in your situation where they're working for the man. They go, you know, I can do that. He or she is no smarter than me. But you took matters into your own hands. And I said, wait, maybe there is an opportunity. Let me ask John, why do so many people don't even go for their potential? They don't even imagine or allow themselves, like Murray, to. For that opportunity.

A lot of times we've got to ask ourselves is, what do I really believe about myself? What do I believe I deserve? Do I believe I should work for myself? Do I believe that I should make $100,000 a year or $500,000 or a million dollars a year? Our beliefs drive all of our behaviors. So if we want to change, if we want a better life, if we want to have our business, do better. Ask yourself, what do I really believe at the core level about myself? And if you change the beliefs, then your thinking changes and your actions change, and your results change.

Murray, it's not as hard as people think, is it? I mean, you made the big C, the big change. It's not monumental.

No, it's not. You know, on one hand of the. Or the side of the equation, you've got the American dream in the fight of its life with an enemy that it can't see. Those are the fears and the doubts and the anxieties that deal with change, the very change that will allow people to achieve that. On the other hand, John and I at one coach, we work with people to teach them how to go about making that change so that with the confidence and certainty that they can move forward to achieve it. And at the End of the day, you're right. It's not that difficult.

Okay, Sean in North Carolina, how are we going to change you for the better? Man, Coming from corporate America, I wanted to completely reinvent myself by helping people find lost children or persons with disabilities. How do I do this and achieve financial stability at the same time? Okay, we're not talking about baby steps here. We're talking about a complete reinvention, a very, very noble task, something different. How does he go about that?

First and foremost, he's got to set up the vision that he's got and get absolute clarity on the vision. Then he's got to make sure that it's viable. Okay. That there's a need in the marketplace for it, because there's obviously a financial model that he's looking to achieve financial freedom from. Then he's got to set up the right belief systems that he can do it and that it can be achieved. And that he's got to have an action plan of what he's going to do first week, second week, third week, fourth week, and follow that blueprint.

All right, let's get right to our plays in the playbook about change. Feel the fear and do it anyways. Man, it's okay to feel that big F word. Watch for the red flags that you need to change. They're pretty simple. Pay attention to them. Notice the difference between interest and commitment, and learn how to turn that interest into commitment and create a change conducive environment. Make sure it's all around you. Set up the right way. More big idea. We're going to bring the good doctor in a second to talk about the brain rewiring, because I'm getting frightened as it is. We also talk about there's a grand fallacy. We're talking about this whole way of thinking.

Absolutely. Let me share a riddle with you. Let's say there are six frogs sitting on a lily pad and one makes a decision to jump off. How many are left?

It depends whether the other ones follow them or not, but I'm gonna guess five.

No, there's still six because making a decision to change.

Dumb host. Good riddle.

Making a decision to change doesn't constitute taking the action to change. That's fascinating. And so we have to really understand. The latest research is so fascinating about the nature of change, about the nature of how we get ourselves to take action. We wrote about it in our book the Answer, and it is one of the most highly read chapters that people are actually thrilled about.

So is there an actual action plan.

For change there is. The first thing you've got to do is something we call neural reconditioning. And what you've got to do is set up brand new vision for your life or your business. Then you've got to create some new declarations or affirmations. And if you add emotion to declarations and affirmations, add visualization techniques to that and add some meditation to that as well, we start a process called neural reconditioning, which means we're actually rewiring our brain to a brand new reality. Right? Right.

I'm getting a little scared here.