Part 1 - Write Your Way To Freedom: Dale L. Roberts’ Story

Welcome to this edition of the million dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

Let's have some fun this afternoon, everybody. We're talking with Dale L. Roberts. Dale is all over YouTube. He's got. He's a self publishing giant. He's a great teacher of people on the way up. And he's got the self publishing with Dale. Is that your podcast or is that the YouTube or what is self publishing with Dale?

That is all encompassing. That's the full brand. Because I actually have two different channels. But a lot of people didn't realize the first channel started out self publishing with Dale, which. But then I ditched it because I started a podcast with the same name. Not smart on my behalf there. There's a first mistake that we can go ahead and discuss is. Is splitting into two.

Okay. So welcome, Dale. Glad to have you on. Thanks for joining us.

Love the intro, by the way. That was good. I need you as my hype man, Larry.

Yeah, I'm a hype man. Yeah, I just call me Bondini Brown or something.

There you go. There you go.

Dale, you're in the world of, you know, you moved in, you've had a lot of things that you've been involved in. And so why don't let people to get the background, the one thing they need to know is you've been incredibly successful here in the last few years writing books. You got. How many titles do you have? How many books you have out there?

Oh, good lord. It's over 50. I think last count I saw was somewhere in the 70s. But I have delisted some of those nonfiction books. But yeah, it's a lot. It's one of those cases you just lose count after a while. And after a while, like, should I even flex that? I've done over 50. It's just you get past 50, it seems almost like. It's like, sit down, stop. Quit bragging.

Well, and then how many languages you're in? Multiple languages.

Let's see here, we're in seven different languages, so Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian. And I know I'm missing one more. Beyond English, of course.

So let's talk about how you came up. Let's just start when you started. What was in your mind as you grew up? What fascinated you? What caught your attention? What captivated you?

Oh, man, as a kid I was very self entertained. Like you could put me Into a room with some books and some action figures. And I could go all day long without bothering a single person. And I've been a lifelong reader and writer, love to read books. It's just one of my favorite things to do, to just escape. So you can only imagine, like the whole full circle type vision of where I was to where I am now. The small kid in me is living this dream.

Yeah. And so where did you develop a personality?

Oh, man.

Staying in your room. Usually that's because you just don't like to be around people or you'd rather be. You prefer your own company. But when you. You come out of the room, what got you coming out of the room and interacting with people?

Oh, I wish I could blame it on any one person. I think there's a variety of factors. It's. I think the people I've surrounded myself with, a lot of people that are very personality driven, a lot of people that are very forward, a lot of people that are very opinionated, especially in a public capacity. So being around that, I think influenced me a lot. My mother, I. I've inherited a lot of her traits where she's a very social bug, she likes to talk to people. So I think I'm very fortunate in that capacity.

I think what happens somewhere along the way, we either get around, we find ourselves in situations where we are around more interesting people, or we realize something causes us to start focusing on them and what they have to offer and the adventures they're going through that you can learn from and get fascinated by that rather than withdraw into our shell. And it's not living if you just stay like a hermit crab. This is not much of a life, but you got to get out there and circulate. And I think what that people hold back for some reason, like fear of public speaking just as a huge thing. Hutch, you find out you're just talking to people. You know, it's like on here, we're just talking and you can open your mouth. We used to say about prospecting and sales, it's like, I've run out of people today. I don't know who I would talk to at sales. You know, it's like, well, you talk to your friends. Well, I don't have any friends or my friends or this or the other. Say, well, let me tell you this. I said, do you know how to make friends? If you don't know how to make friends, think of the last time you made a friend. Go do that again. Okay? And then that's a great Advice. Or go find someone who seems to have a lot of friends and ask them how they do it so that you could. You know, making friends is a skill. And it's a matter of getting out in life and meeting the world is full of interesting people. And so. And then what you'll learn is that some of the most interesting are just con artists. However, you pretty much learn if they're too interesting. Whoop. Is almost like a stock that has too big of a rate of return. It's like, whoa, too many stories. You had 17 careers by the time you were 18 years old. Or a bronco rider in Montana, you'd have jumped out of planes in California, put out fires. You served in Congress as a intern. Wait a minute. But, you know, there are a lot of legitimately super interesting people out there, and that's living to get out there and meet people because you. It sparks things inside you. If you are the kind of person that has the freedom or interest or desire to try new things and move in new directions. And if you're going to be an entrepreneur, that's what you're trying to do, reinvent your life, grow your life. And there's no better. That's why we've got you on here today, is because there's no. No better person to get on as somebody that has had achievements. This is not. Had a life of doom and gloom. And they've got like, well, try this, try that, try that. You fall down, but you get up. And so there's a way that attitude is projected. And so the more you can get yourself out around people like that, the better. So when did you get involved? Let's just talk about how you came up through high school. What were you in? What did you do in college, things like that. What motivated you? What caught your attention?

High school, it was a little bit of. This is the same thing. I say high school and college would probably interchangeable because that was back in the days when I had a long head of hair. I used to play music all the time during high school. I love playing guitar to this day. I've actually got a few guitars hanging up over here on my wall next to me. I still dabble. I love to play guitar, but that was then. And of course I continued to read and I loved writing. In fact, I went to college to get into journalism. And I discovered about a year and a half into my experience on college, that wasn't my cup of tea. Like, I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready. And I will Tell you, like, straightforward Larry. It was a lot to do with my maturity. I couldn't accept the fact that I went from being in high school where I was praised for being an excellent writer. Like, you're great at everything that you do. You're fantastic. This is awesome. They would, you know, put pieces of a mind inside the local newspaper. Like, I thought I was amazing. And then I went to college and they kicked me right down a few pegs because they were like, dude, you kind of like. My first paper I handed to my English class, I got an F. I was like, what?

What's going on here?

I thought I was way better than this. So I lasted a year and a half where it just really humbled me. Looking back, I'm glad I had the experience of going to college because I met some really cool people and I did learn some in that process. But I think I discovered more about myself and my ability to internalize and understand what the world's trying to present me. And rather than being kicked down a few pegs and like moping about it, I think now, if that were to happen, I would take a step back and go, okay, why did I fail this? There is something obviously that I've done wrong in my processes that I need to improve on. And I think that again, that comes down to maturity. Because there's a big difference between a 48 year old version of Dale versus an 18 year old version of Dale.

Yeah.

For those of you who are sick and tired of fooling around and are dead serious about wanting to move up fast, I've got something especially for you. I've combined the best insights from over 40 years in business and making $70 million in income and compressed them into a free webinar. That's right, it's a free resource. If you want to find out exactly what the concepts are that I use in coaching mode, dollar earners Register now@widelawnwinning.com you'll discover the five part framework used by so many to reach their financial, personal and professional goals. You can find that link in this episode's show Notes.

You remind me. I took calculus in high school up in Long Island, West Hampton Beach. I aced. I aced calculus in high school. I go to Georgia Tech. It's the same. I got to take calculus your freshman year. It's the same book. I said, piece of cake. I've already spent a year learning this thing. Easy A. I made D minuses all the way through.

Oh my gosh. That's exactly my story right There what.

Happened was they actually expected you to understand and be able to use calculus at Georgia at that level, rather than just parrot it back. You know, all the little formulas. Yeah, but that is an education. There's like. You can't deny that real. That's the whole thing. You know, I was. I'm on this thing lately that if you are in denial, we've got this going in political world right now. But if you're in denial about your career, about. And you just talked about it right there. That was the way you reacted with. When things went wrong. You didn't go into denial. These people are all against me. I don't know what it is they're discriminating about with people from my party, the country, or whatever. You said, I got to get better. And so. But you don't do that when you're in denial. And when you're in denial, this. This never occurred to me before. But when you're in denial, you can't be helped. You can't be reached. Because when you're in denial, you won't accept reality. And reality is really, most of us that are stubborn is the only thing that can get through to us. We run into, like, you say, turn in a paper and you get an F. I go into the same course and I get a D minus. It's like, that's reality. I can't. I gotta accept it. And so I responded differently than you. I changed majors.

I should have done that. Maybe I'd be a different case right now. Maybe I'd have a degree by now.

Now, as you went through that thing, you made your adjustments, and then how did you proceed forward?

Oh, I proceeded to just screw up a good portion of my life where I just spin my wheels. I truly thought I was gonna become a rock star at that point because that was my intent, literally. I remember the moment that I dropped out of college, and it was right in the middle of a semester. I got up in the middle of a Spanish class and I left my books there. Which, by the way, is so stupid. Cause you know how much books are. I mean, they were expensive back then. I left my book. I literally just walked out with a smile on my face and I said, I'm going to become a rock star. I literally believe that there is no turning back.

No turning.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh. And.

And it really. It got hard. It got hard. From that point on. Did I become a rock star? No. Did I play in a lot of bands and fail miserably at them? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Did I spend countless hours, days, months, years playing around with something that never loved me back.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

But I think the big thing that happened was while that's going on, me trying to become a rock star, I continued my quote unquote career at that time in the healthcare industry as an activities director. I actually, I started out as a nurse aide and then I progressed to assistant to activities director, which anybody that's not familiar with an activities director is at a senior living community that is a person that's paid to play. Like, I get to come in and play bingo. I take them out shopping, I get to go to the movies with them. I get to do a lot. I mean, it's just so much fun. And that was a career I never saw myself getting into, but I loved it with all of my heart. And to this day, I still have just a strong passion for that business. And if someone to ever go, hey Dale, give up the YouTube thing. You have to, you got to go get yourself a quote, unquote real job. Yeah, I definitely would return to that, doing activities director work because it was very fulfilling.

Yeah. And so there. Something happened along the way.

Oh yeah, yeah, something definitely happened along the way. And that's where, let's see here. I was about 20 years into the business because, you know, I started when I was 17 and I had a corporate wellness coach that saw how much I was very passionate about health and fitness. And she was like, you should write a book about it. And that is when the light bulb went off above my head. But I wasn't thinking like, this is not something, Larry, that I was thinking intentionally, like, I'm going to become a best selling award winning author, I'm going to sell thousands of copies of books and I'm going to get a massive YouTube channel. No, it wasn't even that. All I wanted to do was scratch a niche. That little inner kid in me was saying, you got to write that book, Dale. It's about time that you do that book.

Yeah.

And so me pulling that trigger was the thing that, that was the catalyst that put things into motion.

You're what age now?

Let's see here. I am 48 now. So I was about 37 then.

So the thing is those are listeners need to realize or just accept the factor and get encouragement for the fact that you went down a road that you was fulfilling. And I don't know how much potential or you know, how far you could have gone in that business, you know, how many promotions or whatever you could do, but income this and the other, I don't know where you are.

Income wasn't the greatest, but.

If you were out there circulating and then somebody, you know, ideas come from a million different places, you know, that could, that thought could have come, those words could have come from all, anywhere. But it happened to come from another person who knew you and said, boom. And it's funny, we can be prepared for things that we don't even know we're being prepared for and we can be very close to a tipping point and we're just so tied up in our day to day activity, we not even realize what's happening and how the planets are aligning, how the glacier is melting and getting ready for a big piece to fall off. And then when it happens, it can happen very fast. So talk about. So you said, okay, the book is like, that's something I could do. That's something I could do. I've got enough experience writing, I can put my thoughts together. I've got a body of material that I excited about getting out there to the public. And so how did that go? How long did that take and how did you do?

Took roughly about a year. And it's because I honestly, I knew that I could write. I didn't know that I could be able to write a full length book.

Yeah.

And I didn't even have an idea of what a full length book was like. I was like, how many words do I need to do? I didn't care. I just sat down and I'm very much, I love my wife. I love the time that we get to spend together. So rather than sacrificing that time every day, I would get up two hours early. That was every weekday before I'd have to go into work. I'd get up for two hours and I would sit down and I would write at this manuscript. And this went on for about roughly a year and I finally ended up getting a fully churned out manuscript. Now was it great? No, not by any stretch. But it ticked that little box of completing a book because that was my mission, was let me complete this book and I'm going to go like to a local print place and just have it printed off so I can give friends copies. That was my original intent.

And how did it proceed from there?

Oh, it got worse. It got worse because my wife knew that I was getting up. It wasn't like a surprise to her. She knew I was working on a book and she was obviously very supportive and she appreciated the fact that I wasn't sacrificing our personal time together in order to scratch this particular itch. But it wasn't until I went to the local print shop that was next to my work and I already knew like the owner of that print shop. And so I was like, okay, I went over, presented my manuscript to him, gave him the COVID design and the interior and everything else like that, everything ready to rock and roll. And he gave me a quote of $1200. I go back and I'm just, I'm excited because I'm like, oh, it's only $1200, you know. Now mind you, $1200 to me right now is much different than it was back then. Because what I briefly alluded to was being an activities director. It's not a very high paying job. It's not going to be something that $1200 is definitely more than a drop in the bucket.

Yeah.

And so it was a hard no from her. It was like, where are you going to get that $1200? How do you plan on getting that money back? And my plan of just printing out a book to give to friends and family for $1,200, that wasn't. She didn't like this whole like, oh, we're just going to give our money away to people.

Twelve hundred dollars worth of Christmas presents. Not. Not a good idea.

No, no, not. Yeah, exactly. And so she brought up a very good point. And I think that this is where, you know, a great instance of how resilient and resourceful I am because I said, okay, I don't have the money. She's not even willing to even part ways with $5 or our money. And that's, that's totally fine. So I said, okay, I have to find a way to do this. And I'm going online and I'm researching, researching. And this is when I stumbled over the Amazon owned company, CreateSpace. Now, they used to fulfill print runs for Amazon. Now it's part of kdp, which is called KDP Print Now. But at that time I was like, yeah. And with CreateSpace, I tell you what, it was a game changer for me. It opened up my eyes. I didn't have to spend a dime. I could publish it and it would go out to different marketplaces, sign me up. I was like, okay, this is a big bonus here.

Yeah. And it was even better than if you had spent the $1,200 and then you had this and you had followed through in your original plan. So the point there is when you run into a big hard no that might be on purpose for. To prepare you for something better. Right. I know that lesson, by the way, Dale. I know that lesson, but I still don't like to hear it.

Right. Yeah, exactly.

When I'm going down the road and I got an idea and I run into a hard no, I know I've got a thousand examples myself that's probably something better is coming, but I don't believe it at that moment.

Yeah. Sometimes you just got to take that l and you have to think about it for just a second and go, okay, what can I do with this? How can I process this in a more positive way? And that's why I've always been. So if I've get a video that I've put hours upon hours into and it flops over on YouTube, my inclination. I see a lot of YouTubers that will go, oh, it's the algorithm, or, oh, it's the wrong time of day, or, oh, I didn't scratch my head and pat my stomach at the same time, like a bunch of excuses. No, me, I'm going to go, okay, what can I do next time to make this where it's better? And so that's why I'm just always just trying to figure out because I like winning. I don't know about you.

I like winning. You know, I used. I talk about. The thing was, I got. I lettered in about every sport in high school. And the way you do that is you go to very small schools.

Good tip.

Yeah. Go to a very small school and you're likely to make the team. But the thing is that I didn't have any college offers to sort through when he came. Graduation time, you know, too slow, too short. But the thing is that to be a big basketball star, football star, whatever, you know, it's like, no, but, you know, I still got out of the experience. The most important thing is that winning is better than losing. And once you get the taste of winning, you don't want to start losing again. And that has to do with your approach to life. Right. So you can set yourself up for losing, or you can set yourself up for winning. Thank you for listening to part one.

Of this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. Commit to your personal and professional evolution with our free training video. It's designed not just as an educational session, but as a transformative journey for.

Those bold enough to aim for the stars. This isn't just any webinar.

It's a roadmap to achieving the extraordinary.

It's tailored for those who dare to dream big.

And yes, it is completely free. Join us in a network of ambitious professionals ready to take their careers to a new heights. Secure your spot now@whitelonwinning.com and let's unlock your potential together.

Thanks for being part of this community.