Multi-Millionaire REVEALS His Simple Steps To SELF-MADE SUCCESS | Dean Graziosi

Life's going to be brutal, no matter what, for the next 10 years. You might as well focus on what you do have, focus on where you can go and be resourceful as hell, because that's where real success comes from.

There's so much happening right now, obviously. Covid shook the entire world last year. We went through a hot mess. You and Tony created one of the most expansive virtual events I've ever seen. I don't know how you guys pulled it off, but it turned out to be fantabulous. And there's so much coming down the pipeline. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. But, you know, one of the things that a video that you did recently that really stuck with me was this mentality of enough being enough. And I wanted to start there really quick because you and I both have had very difficult upbringings in past and have gone on to do some pretty powerful things. And, you know, when we start thinking about transformation and what it takes to actually transform yourself inside out, there is enough is enough moment. How did you discover the enough is a moment concept? Enough. Enough concept?

Yeah, really great question. You know, I think this, like, let's just face it, I read your bio today. So I really understood you more than just seeing you or hearing your podcast, right? So I understood who you are and I understand your upbringing to get here. A lot of times when things aren't right in your life, you're kind of running away from something painful, right? Like for me, we all have our story. I just didn't. My parents are amazing human beings. Like, their souls are amazing. But they both struggled financially so bad. They struggled so much financially, Steven, that they went. They were married nine times between them. My dad was very angry at the world, right? Because just things didn't go right and he couldn't spend time with me that he wanted because he had to work. And my mom would come home from work at 9 o' clock at night. My sister and I were always hanging out by ourselves. So it's okay that the reason I'm successful and the reason so many of you are listening to an amazing podcast like this is because we're disturbed with the. The way our lives was, the way our lives were or could be. And we want to take action, to go where we want. And I think that's okay to be disturbed. Like people say, no, I'm blessed. I'm grateful. You should be blessed. We're here. We're alive. 150,000 people die a day, Steven. We're here.

I Get to talk to you, man.

Freaking praise the Lord. Like, I'm here today. Right. But it doesn't mean that you can't desire more just because you're blessed or grateful. Dale Carnegie, one of his greatest sayings was, the plight of the human race is knowing you have more potential and you're not utilizing.

Yeah.

So I know this was a short answer. When is enough is enough. But I want to tell you, because it was deeper to me than just, oh, enough's enough. I want to tell you I was running away from not wanting to be my parents, not wanting to have money. Be the thing that squashes me like a big thumb on your head. Listen, if you think about oxygen, think about that, Steven. If I said to you, have you thought about the air in your room? You got a cool podcast room with your blue lights. Have you thought about the air in the room? Not once. You don't think about air. It's just abundant. It's there. But if someone grabbed your throat and you're bigger than me, so I wouldn't grab your throat, but if someone grabbed.

Your throat, I'm five foot five, so.

Okay, I'm only five, six and a half, five seven. But if someone grabbed your throat and you couldn't breathe, the only thing you would think about is oxygen, because there's not enough. So this leads me to a long answer to a short question, is I watched my parents both be choked by money, and it ruled their lives. And it made me push to want more, not just to be rich or get the Rolex or a Lambo. I wanted freedom. I wanted control. And the main reason I worked hard in my teens and twenties was to retire my parents. I feel blessed. By the time I hit 30, I retired both of them. Right?

Yeah.

But. So the answer to that was, and this is what I want to share with you, enough is enough, but only when, in my opinion, this is just me, Steven. This is not. Everybody that's listening is when I got money out of the way, when there was no longer a chokehold, the only person left standing in the mirror. It wasn't my fear. It wasn't me moving away from pain. It was not. The only person left standing in the mirror was me. And when that happened, I realized enough was enough to get me to a place where I didn't worry about money anymore. And I got to look deep inside this guy and become a better human. And that's the biggest byproduct of success that I've had. That's different than it's not the travel is amazing. Meeting amazing people, living in the house of my dreams, doing cool stuff, flying on jets and all that stuff, that's all great. But the biggest byproduct that I never saw coming is when I didn't worry about money anymore. I had to look at me and say, why did you go through a divorce? Why did things not go right? How can I be a better dad? How can I attract the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with? And it wasn't about looking for the perfect woman. It was about knowing I had to work on me. So Enough is Enough has so many different layers for me because when I got to talk about it, I got to that point, Steven. I worked on becoming a better version of me so I could attract the woman of my dreams. And I did. I'm married to my best friend. I'm passionate about her, I love her. I fall more in love with her every day. We have a one year old baby. I have a 14 to 12 and a one year old baby. And so I just want to encourage all of you today, if you're not quite there yet, there's a bigger byproduct for going after your dreams or tapping into your full potential than just the bigger house, than the nicer car, the fancy planes and all that stuff. It allowed me to become a better version of me. And I think I'm a better dad, a better leader, a better human, want to be a better role model to the people I care about. So I know that was again, long answer to a short question, but that's kind of enough is enough for me.

No, I think that's, I think that's a key awareness because, you know, it's funny, in my journey, obviously, you know, very difficult bringing, like you mentioned, not a lot of money, not a lot of resource, not a lot of structure, not a lot of mentorship, not a lot of empowerment, not a lot of, you know, emotional intelligence thrown around. Obviously all those parts and pieces kind of come into a collective because it seems like people either have a lot of financial resource, but yet they don't have any emotional resource, or they have a ton of emotional resource and no financial resource.

Yeah, really good, true point.

You know, and as I began looking at my own journey, you know, one of the, one of your last books that just did so well, it was amazing, was the Underdog Advantage. And you know, I know in my life I've always, for a long time I felt undiscovered, underminded, like, you know, completely like in that underdog. Underdog tenacity. Right. So talk a little bit about the power of the underdog advantage and why it's so important, because I really want people to see. To begin to shift their mindset into the person they want to be and not necessarily the person they settled to be, so to speak.

Yeah, I love that. Right. Because man settled to be. Think about this, you know, think about being at the end of your life. And someone else said that this isn't my term, but I think about this all the time. And I want to get back to your question about being the underdog, but I want to kind of back up and go forward. Think about at the end of your life, if you had the chance to meet your maker. For me, I believe that's God. And if I had the opportunity to talk to him, I don't think God would ever do this because he's not mean. But could you imagine if he just settled? Imagine if he said, well, I wasn't born in the right area. My husband, my wife never supported me. My friends didn't believe in me. I didn't have the money. I was too old, I was too young. Wrong area, wrong time. Just these beliefs. Right. And could you imagine meeting with God and he's sweet and loves you and says, you know, how was your life, Stephen? I was good. How was your relationship? I was good. How did you do with your economics? How'd you do with giving back to other people? You know, I tried. I gave some things away. And could you imagine God saying, you know what? I'm sorry to show you this, but this is who you are. I want to show you a quick little video of who you could have been.

Oh, wow.

And somebody shared that once. Every time I say it, I get goosebumps. Like, don't go to the end of your life thinking of the man or the woman you could have been. When we have the desire, we can rewind right now and make a difference. So you're asking me about being an underdog. It takes whatever it takes to get you to push forward, to realize this. Please hear this. All of us have been programmed to think that we need resources. I could scale that business. If I had the money, I could start that business. If my spouse believed in me, if my friends thought so, if someone would give me the time of day, if someone would believe in my dreams. We think about all these things that are through the lens. If I had this, if someone would give me this, if someone would partner with me. We. We think of resources as this outside thing, that if they were available to you, which they weren't available to you, Steven, and they weren't sure, they weren't available to me. But it is actually the biggest lie you've ever been told. And you were programmed that way. Think about this. In America, did you ever see how the percentage of people who hit lotto and go broke, Most of them had all the resources. They had a bank full of money. How the hell did all of it go away? It's because if you do the research, the most successful, the most happiest people in the world didn't have the resources. They were resourceful as hell. They took what they had. Listen, we have the ability to focus on what we want at any time. And our focus determines our lives. If you get in a car accident, you focus. My insurance going to go up. I can't believe this idiot did it. My car will never be the same. I hate life. That's how you feel. If you get in a car accident and no one's hurting you, get out and goes, who cares about a damn car? It's metal and offender. I have insurance. You okay? Want to go grab a cup of coffee before the tow truck comes? Right. We have the opportunity to focus on anything we want. And our focus determines our life. It determines our daily emotions. It determines how far we go or how far we don't. It determines if we have an anchor tied to our asses. Excuse my language. Or if we have a wind behind our sail. Right? So today you could focus on resourcefulness. You could focus on what you do have. You can focus on opportunities that Covid created, or you could focus on what you lost because of COVID and how no one supports you and. And how you don't have the money. As crazy as this sounds, I'm not trying to make it sound simple or easy, because none of it is. But life's going to be brutal no matter what, for the next 10 years. You might as well focus on what you do have. Focus on where you can go and be resourceful as hell. Because that's where real success comes from.

Absolutely. You know, it's funny. As I look back at my journey, one of the things that I quickly remember was, you know, the reason I'm even in this position now, even having this great conversation with you, and you're someone who I deeply admire, your work and everything else you put forth is because one person gave me an opportunity, even though I didn't have the. One of the companies that I own is a construction company. I Didn't have the tools. I didn't have the equipment. I didn't have the. I didn't have the fancy trucks. I didn't have the. I didn't even have team members. Like, it was just me. But I had an opportunity. And my father showed up for the first time in my life on a job site and said, hey, look, you do realize we used to make our scaffolding out of wood when you were a kid. I'm like, well, yeah. He said, start pulling wood out of the trash piles. And we literally built my scaffolding that I needed to start Monday out of the trash piles. So many times I get frustrated with some of the folks that I've worked with in the past because they don't grasp it. They don't understand that they could literally look around them and see the kind of assets and resources that are there that may not be financial, but that doesn't make them any less valuable. And that's one of the things that I love about the resourcefulness piece, because it's absolutely true. I mean, that company went on to employ hundreds of team members across several states. You know, but it all started in the humble beginnings. And I've learned not to despise the small beginnings. And I see that people are always in a rush to get to the end destination, not understanding that the process.

Leads them to the destination and then the other thing. And I know you guys have all heard this, but I want to tell you, one of my favorite books is Shoe Dog. Do you ever read Shoe Dog?

I haven't, not yet, but I'm going.

Great. Put it on your list. Everybody, put it on your list. It's about the founder of Nike's story and, you know, started with nothing. Started in a garage, just hustling one sneaker pair of sneakers at a time. Like the quintessential entrepreneurial journey failed miserably. Bank took their money. You know, government shut down imports from Japan. Everything you could possibly imagine go wrong went wrong. But they're Nike and they're here today. And he tells the stories. He tells it so good. I listen to books, not read. It tells the story. This time when the bank called his loan and he was late on paying people, and there were so many people he owed money to. He asked them to come to the building at one time, and he was making sure they didn't pass each other, because if they passed each other, they might see that two different people he owed money to. So he put them in different offices and all these different parts of the company and how they were stressed. And just when they thought they had it figured out, the merchant company said they could stop, like a million times. And he's like, all he kept thinking about is, when we get to a million, when we get to 100 million, when we get to a billion, when we become a household name, when we sponsor Olympic athletes, when we sponsor people in the NBA. And he said he didn't realize he cared. Kept saying, when, when, when, when. And towards the end of the book, he said, you know, I look back now, and he said, I'm going to give all the money away to charity. I'm already giving him 100 million a year away. When I die, it all goes to charity. And he said, I realized that. I kept thinking when, when, when. And if. They asked him about his bucket list, and he said, stephen, he said, if I could have one thing, I'd realize. I checked off all the things on my bucket list, and they really didn't move the needle. He said, I wish I could go back and realize that. When we were sitting at the conference table trying to figure out how to get the money or how to get the shipment from Japan, or how to get a merchant account back, or how to solve the problem, how to pay the bills, because that's when I was alive. That's when I was expanding. That's when I was taking uncomfortable action. I was moving forward. He's like, my bucket list would be go back and realize they were the times I was alive. Now I'm supposedly at the end destination, and I want to go back. And it just. I might have paraphrased that, but I felt that emotion, and it puts me back in this space, that this is part of it, all the things that went wrong in your life. My partner and dear friend Tony Robbins said something once to me that changed my life, and he said a lot of things that changed my life. He said, life happens for us, not to us. How would your life be if you realize that the divorce, the change, the bankruptcy, the person letting you down, the spouse cheating on you and leaving you, all the things that you think are your anchor? What if it happened for. For you to sharpen the ax, to sharpen the tool, to put you on a journey, to be listening right now, to have opportunity, to be a part of a world when it shifts, that knowledge is the new currency, and you have assets that live inside your brain that are the resources that other people want, and you don't even realize it. Like, there's so many things available if you can shift and say, okay, I'm sorry if things bad for you. I'm sorry if people let you down. But what if that was your plan? What if God designed that for you to say, are you worthy of what you really want by overcoming the crap that you went through? Through. And when I look through that lens, Steven, then I realized I'm glad I was broke. I'm glad I went to school and didn't have lunch money. I'm glad my father had a crazy temper and was a maniac. And I had to learn to emotionally connect with him through empathy and calm him down from not doing crazy stuff. All that stuff that seemed bad, that was my gift from God that allowed me to be the man I am, to start 13 companies and impact people and be married to the woman of my dreams. Like, I know that sounds crazy.

I failed miserably.

I've lived it, too, man. And the reality is, the very thing that we call struggle is actually the very thing we should be calling catapult.

Yeah. Great.

And it comes down to how we look at it. Right. You know, one of the things that I. That you, Tony, myself, and all of us know intuitively is the movie reel that's playing in our head. We can choose to change that movie reel at any point in time.

True story.

You know, it's the stories. Right. So let's break down a little bit of the stories, because you and I both had to overcome massive stories that we were telling ourselves and to go on and do great things. So talk a little about the power of a story, because I know it's something that you know very deeply.

Yeah. The power of the story. I know you've heard this before, so maybe this is just a time to hear it again. Right. We also know going to the gym puts us in good shape, but we can't go to the gym twice. We got to go six days a week. Right? Yeah. It's the same thing here about your story. How powerful in my. Like, in the overall scheme of things, when it comes to success, how important is your story? It's in the top 10. Like, it's. It's the top. Because the reason I'm going to be bold and say something, the reason you're not where you want to be at this very moment is in direct correlation to the story you tell yourself and why you can't achieve it. And I know that because I've been there. Right.

I touched briefly on my dad. I'm gonna tell you something really quick. When I was young, my dad was the youngest of 12. And again, I'm not telling you a story to brag about me. I'm telling you a story just to open your eyes to a different way of looking at things. When my dad was the youngest of 12, he was physically abused. He was sexually abused. He's open about it or I would never share that, right? And when he had me and my sister, my sister and I, I guess I should say he swore he'd never hit us like his father did to him. But he emotionally messed with us big time. He couldn't handle his anger. My dad was the type that would take a bat and knock the windows out of every car in our driveway because he thought something was sideways and come inside and smash the kitchen table. And, you know, 11 years old, I came home from school throwing up blood because I was so scared. And at 12, I moved in with my dad. My dad only saw him every weekend, every Sunday or every other weekend. And I moved in with him because he was getting, like, out of control. I was fearful for my mom's life. And not true now that I look back. But as a 12 year old, I was scared, right? So I figured, I'll solve this. I'll move out of my mom's house. Even though I loved it and had the BMX bike and a great stepdad. I moved out and I moved in with my dad. And I tell you, I was scared a lot. But then I realized that I could read my dad's emotions and I could tell when this anger, like he just had so much. I have empathy for him. He's my dearest friend. Now he's 85, he looks 60, and he's my dearest friend. I love him to death, but I look through this lens of this hurt man. Rather than being mad and rather than saying, poor me, I'm like this guy. I don't know what it's like to be physically abused and get his teeth knocked out. When he was 12 years old and his mom was blind in one eye because his dad punched my grandmother in her eye with her glasses on, she went blind in one eye. Like he watched all this stuff and he's just trying to navigate. Too strong of an Italian man to go get therapy or anything. Long story short, I'm telling you that I did have a bleeding ulcer at 11 years old. So, so stressed. But then I found a way, Steven, to get into my dad's heart. And I could feel when he was going down the bad path and I could turn him. By the time I was 14. I could spin my dad and get him to look through the lens of love and gratitude. And I found a new man inside of them. And we did fishing and hunting and had all these incredible experiences. I just want to tell you something. In my teens, I remember wanting more. And I can remember the tale of two stories. I remember when things got tough. It was like there was a voice inside of me, Steven, that would say, hey, man, it's okay. You're not gonna be able to make it. Cause no one in your family has money. Your dad's batshit crazy. Like, it's okay if you just settle for life. I remember that story speaking to me like a megaphone. But I also remember there was another voice that said, f K that, Excuse my language. Like, you are a strong man. You were able to tame a man that everybody was afraid of. You were able to do this. If you could overcome that, you can overco everything. So let me just fast forward 30 years. I can go on stage with my partner and dear friend Tony Robbins and be 40,000 people in the audience. And I truly believe. I feel their soul. I feel what they need. I can walk out on a stage and I can be prepared and have a, have a slide deck of something I was going to do. I'm like, no, no, that's not what they need right now. Hey guys, I'm not using the slides. And I could speak to that audience and get the only standing ovation and have people crying and cheering.

Why?

Because my dad put me through that. And I had to learn to read my dad's emotions intuitively before he spoke. And I feel that is my gift from God, a gift from my father. I have to blame my dad for that natural talent because I could do it. And I think that's why I'm a multiple New York Times best selling author and 13 companies. And my team is my family. They're like my dear friends. I think all of that was because of that. Now it's the same story. I could have had the story on why I didn't move forward because look what my dad did to me. Or I could say, that story is the reason I'm so successful. Now. That's only one of a thousand stories that I could have went in two different directions. So what's the story you're telling yourself? And today? How can you say, how do I shift that story to be empowering? I don't have money. I'm not that good at school. I didn't do this. That's why I'm Going to be successful. I have ADD that means that I could focus on more than one thing at a time. I'm going to crush the competition.

That's right.

That company's bigger than me. They'll never see me coming because I'm resourceful. They have lots of money. I have resourcefulness. Like, there are so many ways to shift the shitty story into an empowering story. If you do one thing, decide today that you want to switch it.

Yeah. What you're talking about is ownership, right?

Yeah.

I mean, you took ownership. You had to decide what voice to listen to. I had to decide what voice to listen to. A lot of our friends, mutual friends that are in this industry, they had to decide what voice they listened to. Almost every last one of them have some kind of horrific past of some kind that have been through enormous amounts of pain, enormous amounts of adversity, but yet they decided today that they were. They were going to own it.

Yeah. Because at the end of the day, if you don't own your future, someone else is gonna.

Exactly. That's my point, you know, And I think. I think at the end of the day, it's one of the things I'm crazy excited about for you guys right now, and I'm crazy decided to be even a small piece of it is the new ownership challenge. Like, it's coming out, like, almost like right now by the time you're watching this. Break it down.

Yeah. Because, listen, if we don't own our future, I said this, someone else will. And I think we're probably not. If you're listening to Steven, but we have a lot of people in today's society are kind of waiting for someone to fix it. No one's coming to save us. And I want people to feel that, like, I don't care if it's in your gut, because here's what I know. When you own your future, that means if things go well, that's on you. And if things don't, that's on you. If you procrastinate, that's on you. If you're waiting for someone else, that's on you. And it's so liberating when it's all on you, when it's not anybody else's responsibility. And because the world shifted, I think it's time that people really take ownership. You said before Tony and I did a challenge in January, had 837,000 people. It was called the new world Knew you. It's a new world. You have to have new thoughts. And Tony and we went Deep on emotions and your mindset. Now it's time. We want to do a challenge to help people own their economic future. Because the world has shifted. The tide has gone out. It is completely different. And if you don't have new, if you don't focus on where the world is going, if you're not open to new ways to generate income, to share what you know, to understand the powers that you have to enter the digital economy, you could be left behind. So Tony and I got together and said, let's do it. Let's do a million person challenge. Let's make it like the super bowl, the world cup. Let's make it the biggest event ever. This will be the biggest challenge. We're shooting for a million people. I think hands down, we're going to blow right by a million people. And over five days for free, about two hours a day, we're going to pull back the curtain on what's going on and how you can evolve, pivot, shift into this new world. And we're stoked. We got some great guests, too. And I know if you're listening and you want to go, hurry up because time's coming up. Go to ownit68ownit68.com yeah, ownit68.com and go see some of the guests we have from people like Serena Williams. Talk about a woman who owned her future. Brendon Burchard, Russell Brunson. We got Jenna Kutcher, the boss, babe Brand. We got Shailene Johnson. That probably started where you did. And now they're owning their future in a big way. And the last thing I want to say about this, Steven, and I've been saying this a lot, but I mean it only because of where we are in the world, would you be able to attend an event like this for free.

Exactly. Yeah.

Because in six months from now, Tony will be out on the road 250 days a year. You won't be able to tie him down. We got together and said we're home for a little bit more. We called in favors with our dearest friends. In any other world, you'd spend 10 grand for an investment, easy.

Maybe 20.

That's a true story.

Yeah, easy. All day long.

Right. Tony's got a waiting list of people want to give them a million a year just to consult. I mean, in any other world, it's ten grand. So here's what I love. Pretend you paid ten grand. Yes. When you go to ownit68.com it's free. Not kind of free. Totally Free sign up, pretend you spent ten grand, write it in a journal, put it like, I spent 10 grand for this event. Because then you'll show up. You'll show up with your journal in hand. You'll understand this. Knowledge is the new currency. Knowledge is the new power, and you're learning from the best in the world. I'll just say it. And especially our speakers. And the other thing I do is get a friend to do it with you. Get an accountability partner. Take ownit68.com and text it to three friends and say, hey, this is the super bowl of understanding how to pivot from some of the best. Do it with me. Keep each other accountable, and it's going to be a blast, man.

Dude, you can count me in. I'm excited. You know, I'm. I've been very blessed in the financial world. I've been very fortunate to go through a difficult situation getting to this stage in life. And as a result, the one thing always remains true. If you can get at the root of your life, you can change the fruit of your life in a heartbeat. And this is the way to do it. Man, it's going to be incredible. I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to be part of it. It's going to be amazing.

Well, man, I appreciate what you're doing for the world and you're giving back. You know, you went through some tough times. You created your own success, you created your own future, and now you're giving it back. So I applaud you. That's why it was a pleasure jumping on here with you today, man.

Dude, it was gonna be amazing. I learned a long time ago one of the greatest purposes, life you'll ever have is serving the person used to be. That's the whole purpose of the journey.

I love that saying.

You know what I'm saying? So how can anybody else find out more about you? I know everybody probably is already connected with you at some level, but where can anybody else find you?

I try to do a story every single day at Instagram. I think that our following is kind of blowing up there. So Ingraziosi on Instagram and the Dean Graziosi show that my podcast, it's deanspodcast.com but most importantly, get to the ownit68.com and save your spot. And then don't just save it, put it in your phone, set the time aside. We'll probably go two, two and a half hours a day. And it's truly a once in a lifetime gig and we're pumped to have you there, dude.

I'm looking forward to it, man. Well, dude, I know you got to get back to your day to day responsibilities. I really appreciate you spending some time with me, man. And I can't wait to join you on this journey, man. It's going to be amazing.

All right, man, see you guys on May 11th. Take care.

All right, bye. Bye. What an incredible interview with Dean Graziosi, man. I tell you what, every time I get around that guy I just get like super fired up. In the meantime, don't forget to register for the own your Future challenge@ownit68.com and in the meantime, if you love that video and that interview, I know you're gonna love this one right here. So check it out.

Money. You don't need money.

And that's why I did this show to prove.