Dean Graziosi - New York Times Best-Selling Author, Entrepreneur, and Investor | Millionaire Success Habits

We all want an unfair advantage, whether you say it out loud or not, right? And sometimes when it doesn't work or we try something, we don't realize we were missing some of the ingredients. The thing I'll say is sometimes to move to take uncomfortable action, you gotta go to the dark side. Do whatever it takes to get momentum. Use it. Use whatever dark side, light side, goals, dreams or pain you can to go no more waiting, no more hesitating. I'm freaking go. How would it feel after God described you current life and then played the video the men you could have been? What would you wish? There is no easy but everybody's looking for where's the button? It doesn't exist. You're gonna fail. You're gonna question yourself. You're gonna get in a fight with your significant other. You're gonna miss freaking baseball. You're gonna miss the dance recital. Some of that crap's gonna happen, but it only has to be for a season and a reason not your whole life. And if you don't change it, it could be your whole life. Your past can be your fuel or your anchor. You can decide is my past going to be the thing that says because of that past I must or because of that past I can't. Is the American dream dead? Solid question. In recent years I think... Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show since day one and I chose to partner with HubSpot because they support entrepreneurs. At the end of the day I'm an entrepreneur, a lot of people that listen to this show are entrepreneurs and it's hard and HubSpot creates solutions for entrepreneurs so it's not as difficult. One of the number one problems that all entrepreneurs have is keeping customers happy. It's one thing to acquire customers, keeping them happy, boosting customer satisfaction is a whole other can of worms. 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Visit HubSpot.com, slash service to do more for your customers today. Dean, thank you for joining me. I really, really appreciate you taking the time. I'm excited to do this. I'm going to be following that. It's going to be a lot of fun. I love to kick it off with just a very basic, simple question, just to frame it for the audience. And everybody's a little bit different, but I want you to tell me, is the American Dream dead? Solid question. In recent years, I think the American Dream, there's a lot of things that got a bad name in recent years. But if you look at the foundation or the fundamentals, at least in my opinion, and this is purely my opinion, the American Dream can exist wherever you are in the world. I mean, when I look at the American Dream, except everybody here could have their own opinion, first of all, great to meet everybody. Great to hope you're, hope you're shutting off your phones or distractions. I know there's lots of options that you have, but I'm in a mood today, and I know Scott's on fire. We're going to have some fun today. If you're looking to start scale, take that business to the next level, that's my whole life. It's all I've been talking about, 27 years, all I've been doing with my personal life. So I always want to say thank you for spending this time with me. It's going to be a good one. But I wanted to share my interpretation of the American Dream Scott is my grandfather left Italy in the late 1800s, early 1900s, left Italy, didn't have the money to really get a ticket to a ship to take him here. So his parents gave him permission to take his donkey. He sold his donkey when he got to the port, didn't have enough money. And then he made a deal with the captain that he could work and shovel coal in the engine all the way to America. So figure by the time he got there, he didn't have a dollar in his pocket, didn't speak the language, went to Ellis Island, get kicks off, gets kicked off in New York City and says, good luck. And this man left, I've gone back to where they came from. He left this beautiful place, but he knew his life. He knew he was meant for something different. He was meant for more. He had this calling. And he left and my thought of the American dream is he started as a waiter in an Italian restaurant. Then he became the manager of Italian restaurant. And before he passed away, he owned his own Italian restaurant in upstate New York that my grandmother worked at, that my, that my mom and everybody worked at when they were done. It was gone by the time I was born. But to think that that man left Italy with nothing and two generations later, I get to be blessed to make impact and do more things that I could ever imagine possible and be able to retire my parents and feed tens of millions of people through, through feeding America and build churches and employ hundreds of people and all those things. That is the foundation of the American dream. Some of the American dream was also crafted during the industrial revolution when there was lots of jobs available. I get that. But my opinion of the American dream is you have the opportunity to go as far as you want, not based on your pedigree, not based on your religion, not based on your education, based on your ability to model proven practices and persist until you succeed. Maybe that oversimplifies it, but that's maybe I'm the little naive, maybe I'm two rainbows, puppies, and butterflies. And me, it's like if you have a desire, if you can find somebody who's already done what you want to do, you can get rid of the crappy excuses that all of us have stuck in our head. And we can keep moving forward and have a culture of progress, not a culture of perfection, not a culture of comparison, but keep moving forward eventually around one of those corners of struggle will be your next level. And I believe it is, I believe we're going to have a resurgence of the American dream. I think since COVID, things have just been so fragmented and shifted. And if not forbidden, we don't have the same beliefs when it comes to government or politics, we should eat each other, right? The loud fringes, the loud 3% on the right, and the loud 3% on the left has made it to where all of us in the middle were so similar, feel uncomfortable. And I believe it went too far. Could be my opinion again, some people might not agree with me. I wouldn't. I agree with you for the record. I agree. I think it's way too far. It's way way. It's not reality. Yeah, it's not reality. I think it would so far that I think it's going to rebound so hard where the American dream, you'll be proud to say I want the American dream no matter where you live in the world. You'll be proud to say that I'm a capitalist. You'll be proud to say that I'm an entrepreneur. You're proud to say that I yes, I make money and I employ people and I donate and I take care of my family and I take care of my church and I tell or whatever it is you want to do. I think we're coming back to a place where you could be proud that you want success and you go achieve it. And with technology, you could be scared or you can get in front of it. I believe this is the time for prosperity. You just got to get this right between your ears. Yeah, and that's the hardest part, right? So what COVID did, what social media does is it fragments people. Like you said, everybody feels like they're living in this little isolated silo. And I mean, a lot of what you and me both subscribe to is alternative forms of education, community, finding mentors, networking, working with people who have figured it out so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. These are all things that make sense to us. However, I feel like COVID almost made people who have not already bought into the concept of if someone else can do it, you can do it as well. All of a sudden it gets scarier. And the career that you thought was stable that maybe you wanted to work for 20 years and then start to build a side house. All of that was pulled out from underneath you as well. So now if you're in this fighter flight mode and you don't even think a career stable will now entrepreneurship looks 100 times more scary, harder, whatever it is, right? So how do we fix this? What's the fix? Yeah, so here's the right thing. I think we all want an unfair advantage. I mean, whether you say it out loud or not, right? And sometimes when it does work or we tried something, we don't realize we were missing some of the ingredients, right? I mean, I love to look through this lens of, you know, if I haven't shared this much and I'm telling you now you're doing a live event here soon and I'm going to be sharing it that day, but I'll go deep-run it. But I want to share it with you because I love the way you think. You know, I said sometimes when we want success, right? That's something. So if you're here, you're listening, you're watching, you're somebody that knows you meant for more and you're looking for a competitive edge. You're looking for unfair and you're looking where to start and looking to finally break through to stop dabbling, to not feel like a procrastinator, to be scared and more. I get it. I felt every one of those emotions, I still do. We just know how to overcome. So please, no, I'm not talking to blaze. I used to be like that. I'm like that at every, every turn. Still, it never goes away. You know, I'm partners with Tony Robbins and that man pushes me so much and sometimes I'll walk in a room and there's three billionaires and we're doing something big. I'm like, I don't belong in this room. Why are they going to figure out is somebody going to ask me to leave like this? So those feelings never go away. But I wanted to share this. I thought this was a cool analogy. Sometimes we have two out of the three right things to be successful. We go all in and we don't we realize it's like having a car that's an eight cylinder, but you only had six spark plugs in it and you wonder why it will run right. So I was thinking if it was 1897 and you were talking about the American dream, let's talk about America in the late 1800s when there was the gold rush and people, if you were on the east coast, people would say, you got to go west. You got to go to California. There's gold. You can prospect. You can get land, right? If you were going to take that trip and a horse and carriage in the late 1800s, you would need three things. You would need a map. First off, you couldn't just say, I don't know. I'm going to go to where the sun is setting and drive that way. You go off a cliff. You go into a lake. You hit a mountain. You freeze the death. You you know, attacked by Indians. I don't know. So you need a map. We don't just need a map. You need the right map. I promise this will answer the question you're talking about. You ask me. No, no, you're a good storyteller and stories and stories make things stick. So go for it. I'm not. You need the right map. Somebody just wrote the map on a back of a piece of paper because they were there once you get lost. You're done. You're going, getting by Kyle. So you need the right map. But don't you also need a guide? Like, if you got the map, you need somebody to say, Hey, it's got I know you're halfway there. You're feeling down. Come on. We got to go. I know the wheel fell off the wagon. Here's how we fix it. Oh, you got a little turn around on the map. Don't worry. I've been here. Let's pull you back. Let's go this way. And you need the guide to help get you there. Inspire youth. Keep you accountable and bring you all the way to the cave or the mine or the gold set, right? The problem is even if somebody gave you the right map and you have the right guide, right? You don't want a guide that's like hung over. It was there twice. You want the right back. You want somebody who's actually done what it is you want to do. But if you get all the way there and they go, there's where the gold is. It's right behind that rock. And you don't have many tools. You're screwed. You can't dig through a rock with your fingers. And if they gave you the wrong tools at the hand, just spoon and go, Hey, get the gold. You're like, Oh my God. And what people don't realize, you need the right tools. You need a jackhammer. You need something to get through. You get the gold. What you may not have realized as you're on your this journey. I'd want to do your own thing in this crazy time is I'm just going to tell you be looking out for things where you can model proven practices. The map where you can get someone to guide you and keep you accountable. If you if you work out consistently, consistently, most of you either have an accountability partner or someone you work out with the gym or you have a train, right? You need a guide to bring you across. But at the end of the day, you've got to have the right tools, right? If you have yesterday's tools or the wrong tools, it doesn't work. And I bet if you look back at three past opportunities or even scaling your own business, I bet you one of those three were missing. You might have had education and tools, but no one keeping you accountable. You might have the right tool, but you know how to use it. You're you're you're you're jackhammering in the wrong direction. So I think when you look at where we are in history. So here's our title together. Why I believe, and so does my partner Tony Robbins. Why we believe this is the greatest time in at least in our history on this earth is because so many people are stuck because of uncertain. They're waiting to see what happens. They're waiting to see the way the world goes. Which way is the is politics going to go? Which way is inflation going to go? Which way is interest rates going to go? When am I going to what if I do this and people look at me sideways because I'm doing my own thing? Is that if I my greedy and I just want money and I don't want people to look at me that way? So maybe maybe I shouldn't speak by mind because maybe I'll this off half of the people that that could be my clients. Oh, this is just a hard time. All right. I want to just reach through the following and reach through the and shape people though. Don't wait. Don't you understand? You have no competition right now. You have no competition because everybody's waiting. This is the time to get the guide to get the map to get the guide to get the tool model proof of practices and take uncomfortable action. And the last thing I'll say is sometimes to move to take uncomfortable action. You got to go to the dark side. Like everybody says, what gets you to move? What makes you excited? You don't always have to live in the dark side, but sometimes you got to go there. What do I mean by that? Do whatever it takes to get momentum. If you think, hey, if I lead my life the way it is, I'm going to be like my parents. Well, no, I mean that in a bad way. Use it. If I don't use, I'm going to miss out on my children's entire childhood. I won't even know if that's painful. Use it. If you say, I don't, I'm going to be stuck in the career I'm in or the business I'm in that I freaking hate for the next 60 years. I'm going to be in my deathbed. It's off. Use it. Use whatever dark side, light side goals, dreams or aim you can to go no more waiting. No more hesitating. I'm freaking going. What was your dark side? I said it first. I don't want to be like my dad. You know, I could give a whole bunch of, I could give a whole bunch of reasons. My dad's an awesome guy still alive at 88 years old. My dad was married five times. He was the youngest at 12. Physically abused his whole childhood. Never really got help for it. And just amazing man, it was just a little off. I'd say if he was here and he knows and he's in a beautiful state, in a beautiful place now. But the youngest at 12 didn't talk to his brothers and sisters. My mom didn't talk to him since I was three years old. My sister is five years older than me. She doesn't talk to him. So this is a guy that struggled financially, struggled with relationships. And I just saw money was always an issue for me. It was always like choking never enough. When I lived with him, we run down cars, go to school without lunch money. And I just remember, and if I do what he does, I'm going to get what he has. And I have to do something different. And simultaneously, my mom worked three jobs to support us. And we come on late every night. And I'm like, so I don't want to be like him. And I'm going to retire her. I'm going to be thinking that at like 10 years old Scott, like we all have our stuff, right? But that was my 10 year old version. So that was probably by dark side. So when I'm not, when I'm, you know, if I say, I want to be a better version of myself, that's not enough. I look at me and I go, do you want to be your dad? It's hell, no, let's go. I asked why I asked what your dark side was because your dark side, I don't think is that different from a lot of people. I think that that's a very normal dark side. You know, they're going to have their own version of it. But I think a lot of people have even if they didn't struggle with money, you know, they were just comfortable or just okay. Or maybe they didn't go on as many vacations as they would have liked or some, some years were more difficult than others when they're spotlight on. Yeah. Sometimes when money is not there at the level you would hope is you're just lacking complete control of your calendar. Like that's, that's the easiest way for me to boil it down. It doesn't mean, you know, most, I'm betting most people here if money came in, you would take care of yourself first and then the people around. It's not for the Lamborghini and the this and the dad. It's, it's so I can do what I want when I want to do it. If I want to take my kids to school every day, if I want to go to a softball practice or tennis practice and I want to take an extra vacation, but I want to take off for six months because my daughter's a teenager, she's going to go away to college next year and I want to immerse myself with her to me. That's control your time, control your calendar. And that's a price I'd be willing to, I'd be willing to die for claw, claw through steel, you know, crawl through broken glass to have. Well, so why, why were you able to move yourself in a direction and understand what your dark side was and how you never want it to be there when so many people live in it every single day, realize it sucks, but they don't do anything to change your life. Yeah, you know, I could say, you know, when you look back, I'd love to say there's a lot of reasons, just luck. Maybe, maybe, I was just a little more disturbed than most, right? Maybe, maybe, maybe I let the pain sink in more than other people because I want to, I want to like find that thing and get, like, what's the motivator that gets somebody out of this shit and allows them to have the confidence in themselves to go do the thing? Yeah, so I'll, here's, I'm going to share this. So, um, yesterday, I had, I didn't interview with these younger kids and they're doing amazing. They're on YouTube. They interview entrepreneurs and, and uh, they, they flew out to my studio and they asked that they could, you know, they worked with my team, could I please interview them? And I just got to look young entrepreneurs that are trying, right? So I know that they have a huge following and they want to convert and I'm just going to hear this with you. They want to convert from just a following. They want to create a membership site, but I could tell they're scared to do it because what if their clients get mad and I have to ask for money and then I'll seem like a marketer, not an influencer and all this stuff, right? So I waited till we were filming live, Scott, and so I think this would be the best way to describe it. And I said to him, so, um, he said a similar question, why do people get stuck? And why don't they move forward? You know, they said, let me ask you, you're doing this, you want to create a site, you want to charge people, you're worried that people are going to mad, aren't you? And I could see their faces get red because I just brought it up, you're worried that you're going to get comments like trader like sell out, you just want to sell us and they're like, oh, I can tell they're getting flustered. I'm like, so I leaned into I said, what is that fear? Could that fear stop you from actually doing? They said, yes. So okay, secondly, on a scale of one to 10, how painful is that? And he was like denying like, it's so scary, so scary. I was like, okay, pause. Now they're, their brothers, the two years apart. I said, you're 90 and 92, you're at the end of your life. You go and meet your maker and your maker plays you a video of the boys, the men you could have been. But you didn't do it because you were scared and they play a video of you, how you impacted lives and you took that next level action. But you realized because you didn't take this action, because you played small, because you are afraid to move forward, your company dissolved. In fact, you two don't work together, you guys didn't work together anymore. You both took corporate jobs because it was safe. Even though you hated it, you both didn't work out as much as you liked in your relationship or kind of lackluster because the back of your mind, you knew you're this entrepreneur meant for more. I got goosebumps talking about it, right? Because I've met so many of these people and you just played life safe. I said, how would it feel after God described you current life and then played the video, the man, the men you could have been? What would you wish? They were like, they were flustered like, oh my god, I wish we'd go back to do it. I said, okay, so how scary is it now that you're afraid one or two people will say, sell out? They're like, nothing. It's a one. I'm like, how scary is this getting to your end of your life and knowing you missed it? You didn't live into the man that you could have been. You settled for who you were and scared to be and they like, I watched this whole release and that's what I would say. Whatever it takes, like, I know that might be a story you've heard before. I'm not the first one to say, you don't want to get to the end of your life and realize maybe today's the first time you actually hear it because life is going by faster than I ever could have imagined. My daughter is going to be 18. I can't my oldest like it is going by lightning speed. COVID seems like it was a year ago. It's like five now. It's like it's insane how fast things are going. So if it's going this fast, I promise you you're going to get to a time in your life and realize you did miss it or you did play small or you played it safe and I don't think that's what you want or you wouldn't be here. So start feeling those emotions. Get disturbed with leaving your life the way it is. Reverse that and say, what can I do today? So let me last thing. I'm sorry. I'm on a little bit. Why are you apologizing? This is good. Don't apologize. But think about this. So now let's just go back to that and you're sitting with your maker if you believe in God, which I do, but you're sitting with your maker and God shows you this is who you ended up being by playing small. This is who you could have been. What is your wish? Your wish would be can I go back? Here's the cool part. Wish granted. You're here today. 170,000 people died today. If you're listening, you're not want to. You're breathing. You're here today. It's a new day. I don't think you're 92 on your deathbed today. I'll care for 85. You still got time. Your wish could be granted and if you can take that to being more bold, more brave, more creative, then look for somebody who's already done what you've done. Model proven practices. Take uncomfortable action and keep moving forward. There's no mystery to success. You've interviewed some of the greatest people on the planet. I've seen your interviews. You've done amazing stuff in your life, Scott. You know there is no easy button. Everybody's looking for it. Where's the button? It doesn't exist. You're going to fail. You're going to question yourself. We're going to get in a fight with your significant other. You're going to miss freaking baseball. You're going to miss the dance recital. Some of that crap is going to happen, but it only has to be for a season and a reason not your whole life. If you don't change it, it could be your whole life. I love this. Do you subscribe to the Stoicism and like Stoic thought and being very aware of your own death? Not really. I think I read on everything. I think I have pieces of everything into my life. I just noticed that because it's just this concept of you're just it's not meant to be more, but it's just you're aware that at some point you're not going to be on this earth anymore. So like let's that have worked that light of fire. Yeah, let's get over it. So when you look at the American dream and the American dream does it feels that it's out of reach for a lot of people. There's income disparity. There's education disparity. So let's speak just to that for a moment because to not speak to the fact that some people do not start at the same level is ignorant. So how do we I mean you work with a ton of entrepreneurs, you work with entrepreneurs that probably came from very affluent families. Entrepreneurs that came from absolutely nothing. I mean you also had a somewhat of a regs to riches story. I don't know if you were ever homeless or God forbid at that level, but you work with people that probably have gone through addiction and came from absolute poverty and everything. So education, find access to finance from your parents from your front, you know, from just where you come from. What do we do? How do we serve these people? How do we enable the like a the American dream for these individuals that may not come from Ivy League and may not come from parents to make 500 grand a year, 200 grand a year, 100 grand a year, whatever. There's two things as you were talking. I love this topic. You know, I wrote a book called The Underdog Advantage because I really believe that we have both talked to people. I know you've heard that story that everybody shared. I mean everyone's heard is twin guys. There's two twins. One, alcoholic, broke, struggling, and the other one was extremely successful and they came from an abusive, alcoholic father and they asked the kid that was an alcoholic and followed his father's footsteps and said, how did you end up like this? And he said, how could I not look at my father? And then they asked the twin brother. It was massively successful. A CEO doing well, a credible family man, when he got tonset. What was the secret? He goes, how could I not look at my father? Right. And I believe the underdog advantage to simplify and is your past can be your fuel or your anchor. And I know some of you are saying, you don't understand my past. I get it and I'm not trying to diminish it. But the worst it is, it could be the more fuel to push you. You can decide, is my past going to be the thing that says, because of that past, I must or because of that past, I can't. And as simple as that sounds, that's the first choice you have to make. Listen, as someone who didn't come from money and I didn't go to college and I lived in a trailer park as a kid and all those things, I remember when I was going after bigger things. You know, even my own family, my sister included who loves me and I loved her. I was like, stop being a dreamer Dean, that's not where we come from. You know, you're doing, I had a collision shopping at auto sales at a young age and was doing apartments. She's like, I'm so proud of me or blue collar. This is who we are, everybody in our family. And I remember when I get done with those conversations and some of your buddies, they'll just be like, oh, dude, you're such a dreamer. Come on, we don't get stuff like that. You have two options with that. One, and you go, maybe they're right. And one, you go quietly, wait until you see me. You're not going to have to hear what I'm saying because what I do is going to be so loud. And I always talk about these subtle shifts. In my book, there's a chapter, I'm not plugging my book in anyway, but in the book, there's a chapter called the Power of You Can't. When your family and friends tell you, you have two choices to go, probably can't or now I must. Right. So there's a shift on all of it. And when you think I need money, let me just ask you something. You have any kids, Scott? Not yet. Not yet soon, but not yet. I wish you that gift of that something you want. And if you don't, that's cool too. But when you have children someday, would you rather leave your kids a massive amount of resources money? Or you knew that when you were gone, that they were massively resourceful. Would you at all? Definitely the second hands down the second. Okay. Do you know, because you know we both do, do you know trust fund kids that have the most incredible resources, resources at their fingertips who live miserable lives? I know trust fund kids and not only have miserable lives, but die from overdose personally. They lose generational wealth in a generation. Regenerations to make it and they blow it in one. Yeah. Right. So I know I know the story. Do we know the story of lotto winners with lots of money that within three years, they're broker than they were when they started. Right. So is it resources or resourcefulness? So when someone says, I didn't go to college. I don't have money. Damn, that's the fuel of resourcefulness. That is the fuel of greatness. Why do you think some of the biggest companies that started when you ever see the picture of Walt Disney and a Microsoft and Apple all started out of garages underdogs with nothing. And guess what? The third one. No one sees you coming. Dean. Come on. The kid that barely got it. I suppose he almost failed English in the eleventh grade. Come on. He's doing what? That that excites him. Right. So you could take these these leverages. You could take these levers and use them as a tool and your toolbox earn anchor that you keep dragging. And I'm not trying to diminish, but today is the day you could make a decision and go, you know what? I'm going to start saying thank you to all that crap I went through because I'm stronger, tougher and more. I have more grit. Listen, my biggest fear Scott is I did come through those strategies, you know, through through that process and no money and divorces and all that stuff. And now I have kids that are growing up in a different way. If you don't think that people I sell rich people problems, my kids that I haven't flown on a court, my youngest kids have never flown on a commercial jet. We find like kids are like, Dad, what is the big one? I'm like, they don't even know what an airport is. Can I just tell you a really funny story? One of my one of my friends also has these problems and it was like a wake up call for him. So he lives in beautiful beautiful condos in sunny isles in Florida. In the turnberry and I mean, these condos, they probably start at five million or whatever and go up from there. And one time he was visiting his parents and he was leaving his parents house lives in the parents live in a different spot and the kids were waiting at the front step of the front door to the parents house. They don't the parents live in a condo. They live in a regular attached home and he started walking to the car that was just parked down the street and the kids weren't walking and he asked like, what are you doing? What like, we're leaving. We're going home now and they said, well, we're waiting for somebody to pull the car around. No, believe me. So, so people say, oh, they're rich people, but no, I don't, I want my kids to want to fight for something. I'm afraid they're not going to have that underdog disability, right? I do everything in my power to try to create obstacles. Like, I wanted to buy my daughter a brand new car when she turned 16. We bought a three year old Hyundai and I made her pay half the down payment. Do you know how hard it was not to go buy her a new ranger over and put a bow on it? She's a good kid. She doesn't drink great grades. I'm so proud of her, but also it's like, take away all the things that she's going to fight for. Like, I'm trying to manufacture crap if you want to know the truth. So if you're underdog disadvantages are there to hurt you, I'm trying to find those for my kids so they become hungry. So it's just a balance. It is, it is just a pure balance. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot. Now HubSpot has an incredible podcast network, the HubSpot podcast network. My show success story is part of it. But if you love great podcasts, you have to listen to imperfect action hosted by Steph Taylor. She cuts to the chase. She dishes out actionable strategies on online marketing, content creation, social media and more. Steph is your marketing obsessed friend. She's been in the trenches for years. She shares what works and what doesn't. So you skip that costly trial and error. If you crave friendly educational content that gets results in perfect action is your new favorite podcast. Check out in perfect action wherever you get your podcasts. I was going to say that's the other thing that I love. It's like the immigrant advantage in entrepreneurship. It's, I mean, my take on it is when you've already figured out how to leave a country, move your whole family on nothing and then find a way to make it in a new culture, new society, maybe new language. It's almost like nothing can stop you. At that point, that's why you see all of these not only entrepreneurs, you see fortune 100 CEO, like you see all the, and this is not a black and white hard and fast rule. But you see this this cohort of people that just kill it basically is the for life. Don't you think they have a level of gratitude just for the opportunity? Of course they do. That's where entitlement kills success because they do have that gratitude. You know, anyways, so we have all this inequality. So where do people put their confidence in education and opportunity? Because again, you want to at least get people on the right track, right? You want to at least get people moving in the right direction because if they can stack a few wins in their favor, then they're going to continue to have to win behind their back, right? So here's, you know, they say if a carpenter has a hammer in his hand, everything he sees is a nail. So maybe I'm a little guilty of that for about what I'm about to say. But I've been in the industry of selling knowledge that I've learned are my own experience for 27 years. I'm partners with Tommy Rollins. He's been selling it for 45 years. This industry of impacting others by our life experience has given us so many gifts. Tony changed my life 27 years ago and I bought his course and then all of a sudden he changed my life and I said, I'm going in this industry. So I'm going to look through that lens for a minute. I really want to stick with me here on this. Think about whether you're how much money you have where you're starting right now. Will college degree or none do you have? What experience do you have? Think about the power of specialized knowledge. Think about this. You know, when I was in my 20s, there was no internet. There was no Wi-Fi. I didn't pull out videos. I couldn't have a great Zoom call like this with you, Scott. I couldn't go on YouTube and look for inspirational or entrepreneurial videos. How to get successful? You have to find a book and read a book. If you're lucky, you could do that, right? But what is specialized knowledge? Specialized knowledge is the complete opposite is a general knowledge. Prior to the last 20 years, if you wanted to do something, your brain would immediately think I have to go to school and I have to get a master's degree in that and then I have to go intern with somebody forever and then I could work my way up. We have collapsed decades into days. You just find somebody who's done what you've already done. They've already done what you want to do and you either cut a check for speed by their force of training, their workshop, their program, go mentor with them, become an apprentice with them and it's the fastest way to condense time by getting specialized knowledge. Meaning if you are an accountant and you've been working for a firm for 20 years and it's time to start your own business. You can go back to school to get a business degree and learn how to run spreadsheets and build templates and business plans and KPIs and SOPs and metrics in the first hire or you can find somebody who's done it and just literally rob this condensed decades and just get the specialized knowledge of how to go from employee to owner. This is where the world was opened up. That's why this industry of providing specialized knowledge Tony was Tony's I mean he's the godfather of the whole thing. Yeah. I don't think there's anybody been in his second as long as him as me. He's he's got 44 years. I got almost 30 in this industry every day and watching it grow like this. It's at a billion a day heading towards a trillion a year. I think it is the great equalizer Scott. I think it's the great equalizer because every single person watching and listening right now has an insanely valuable asset called your life experience. You have a skill that you learned at work. You have a life experience that you went through that you're on the other side. You have a passion that you could share with others and in today's world knowledge is the new asset. It is the new currency. If you know how to package it, you know how to deliver it and I think it's the great equalizer. If you have a business you should have an information product on your P&L. If you don't have a business what a great job start. You don't need product in the warehouse. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to spend anything for it. You don't have to warehouse it. You don't have to ship it on a truck. You don't have to worry about inflation because you're not paying for the product. Your product lives here and that's the business we've been in. I truly believe it's the great equalizer. So I have opinions about traditional MBA and traditional school and when I went to university or college called university in Canada they taught you how to learn and how to engage in new ideas that was great but it didn't really give me a lot of tactical and that's my issue with MBAs and that's my issue with sort of legacy education. I have a very strong feeling about legacy education but why do more people still subscribe to legacy education where not all professors but say pick a number 80 90% of professors haven't built a business in their entire life versus learning from people who have literally built a business own a P&L have hired somebody last week. Why is there that disconnect? I think it's just a habit. I think it's way been programmed. I think but it's changing. It's changing really fast and you see it. One of the reasons Tony and I built a company called mastermind.com is nine years ago we talked about it. Seven years ago we were on a golf course. I golfed twice a year. It's with Tony. He golfs twice a year. So two years times a year just gives time to talk. We're on a golf course and we said it's time. It's time to make self-education the new norm. That was our exact words God. So you and I when next time I come to Florida and we're together you and I have a lot of conversation around that. Like how do we make self-education the new norm and collapse time from start to results, right? Go to school for eight years, get an internship or go work for somebody who's freaking doing it today. Like you said they hired somebody an hour ago. They fired somebody a day ago. They have a P&L. They're reading. They have SOPs. They have keep performing indicators like they have KPIs at the start. So I think it is a hangover of an ancient time. I believe the school system I have my own opinions has been growing very linear and the world is growing exponentially. I had a friend of mine. He's got a couple hundred million dollar your business. He said if you took somebody from 50 years ago and you brought them into today and you showed them the phone and you showed them like oh they'd be blown away at everything. He said then if you brought them in the classroom they'd go oh the black boards now are whitewood. And I was like wow that's it that's a pretty right. It doesn't mean elk just all people. But here's here's some things that'll blow your mind. Did you know that only 72% of everybody who gets a degree right now doesn't use it. They don't get a career in that field and 57% of the people that do use it dislike the job they're in. So you got 22% maybe 10 people out of a hundred that get a degree actually use it and like it. It is it is exponentially going to shift and I see it and that's why I think this industry is being fueled. I think my daughter when she's 18 years old when she wants to do something she doesn't think in any other terms except going online going online and finding somebody who's already done what she wants to do and either watch their videos by their course or ask me if you can get coaching by my it is shifting and why I think it's the it's the great equalizer. So it's interesting because it's shifting but then it brings with it a new set of of problems as well because if somebody is going to be a self-taught individual somebody's going to be that that auto-died act right they want to go out into the world and start to explore all of a sudden there's no more regulation there's no more third party that audits the content and there's no more you know it just like the Wild West of learning and that's what scares people shitless. So how do you when you start to become a self-taught individual go out into the world figure out who's legitimate who's actually done it I mean Tony operates at another level like this not even it's not even in the realm of most people that post stuff online right and teach online but you have all these different opportunities so where do you go how do you understand what's good what's not. I think it's a great question that what I believe is looking at the experience they had now could someone young be great about teaching you something they've never done before probably I'm sure it's in some instances but I think we have the opportunity the way things are going there are going to be self-regulated people who don't deliver actual value will last long I think word of mouth is spreading so much that there is message boards everywhere talking about good online education not so good online education and we have the opportunity to do a little research right you find somebody that's in a lane that you're hoping to do you can see have they been in it for three months are they the teacher something they've never done or they somebody who did it for 20 years and now they're serving by delivering the faster half because they can they can give the blueprint of how to get there and what to avoid and I think it just I think as we evolve we will create new regulatory ways and and intuition that you can decide good band or otherwise because that's this is where it's going there's no question about it this is where it's going and you're right I don't want to knock professors but 80% 90% have never done the thing they're teaching you I'd rather learn from the person's actions that's another issue too I guess traditional education also has this problem yeah dad you know when you think about so at first of all that is the that is such a wild domain mastermind.com I love it I can't can't even imagine what that cost you but I was pretty painting but it was worth I have no doubt so masterminds are a very specific way of learning and a very specific way of of teaching and consuming knowledge I've actually noticed that masterminds are a little bit more prevalent in certain industries so I came from software where masterminds are not as as prevalent whereas in real estate there are a lot of masterminds so the mastermind format from somebody that owns the domain itself what is so special about this particular format like maybe just lay out this mastermind as a tailor to a certain kind of person that learns a certain kind of way versus any other kind of learning or whatever networking group. When 29 we co-founded the company and we just said what has moved the needle for us more than any other thing in the world and we we said masterminds and and when we say masterminds we think of it more collected it could be a workshop it could be a community it could be the collaboration of likeminds I think I Earl Lightingill coined a mastermind of two people with the same outcome get together and collaborate and it creates a third mind that's smarter wise I mean we have all solved big of problems when we're in a room with likeminded people with likeminded goals there's zero chance that it hasn't exponentially grown your life and if you haven't had that opportunity maybe that's the unfair advantage you're missing so the the reason that we bought that domain and decided six years ago like let's you know we've been in this business 74 years between the two of us and we're still we're not like we used to do it right we're still doing the biggest events in history we'll do one next couple weeks with you know a million people registered it's insane it's amazing but we said why don't we pull back the curtain show people the power of learning specialized knowledge or the collaboration of getting in a room or getting a course or getting a workshop or getting a you know a community of likeminded people that can help you solve your problems anchoring confidence and courage and give you past to go faster so for me we have a mastermind we have a Tony and I are you know we we have a super high-end mastermind small group that we do but our company has one along the way at each level of likeminded people we have beginners that group together we help them get into their first sales next sales right then we have people that are in the business looking to go from 100 grand a month to a million a month so we have a mastermind of people that are a hundred grand a month going to a million so we can collaborate and all share and we have a group we're probably the average person's worth 50 million dollars but they're the same group looking for the same things looking for more contribution and wealth preservation and family and things like that so it's likeminded people who come together that have collaborative ideas but also have wisdom and skills to allow you to go faster I hope that described it yeah no it does and I think that what I'm trying to get out is there's a lot of people that will put together a mastermind but for the audience is listening if everyone is sort of on the fence about I want to start a business I'm starting a business not going so well I'm starting a business going well but I want to take it to the next level whatever it is or maybe I need to understand how to get out of a business business because I've built it and I want to sell it and I don't even know the first thing there's a cohort of people mastermind networking group whatever it doesn't really matter the name it's the purpose of the people that are sort of activating together that really matters but I want them to understand how to get the most out of this particular format of education so you're doing an event it was a June 15th right so let's use that as June 13th 14th 15 so obviously all that we'll put in show notes and it'll be links and people can go check it out but that particular event you can talk about what you're trying to accomplish and what you're going to teach but it's more important how people are sort of positioned to take away from it and action after it's done or while they're doing it like how do you get the best result yeah so here's what I'd say if you are unfulfilled in your current career I've been thinking about doing this you're kind of a part-time entrepreneur or you have a business and you looking for an unfair advantage well Tony and I do once a year is we get together and share our best practices to accelerate what you're doing in the space we're talking about this year is going to be unlike if you've ever seen any of our prior events this is unlike anything we've ever done we're calling the event the game has changed because it has we've been in it for 74 years but because of AI that can think like Tony and I because of technology what used to take getting an email over he getting an email account and this business and that thing and all these different things all of that has been so shifted Tony and I talk about it when we got in it Tony jokes it goes when we got in this business we had to walk up no both ways in the snow right you know it's your father and grandparents or whatever said to you right he said but now we have the opportunity to condense time from when you start to get results we talked about specialized knowledge to learn specialized knowledge that we're going to take teach you over those three days and how to extract your specialized knowledge so high level on day one we're going to show you why this industry why now why you what has changed and literally by day one all than three hours identify the asset you should be sharing then Tony will come on and do what Tony does better than anybody he'll crush any limiting belief she had so you should just go get your limiting beliefs crushed because the man still to this day I'll be watching taking notes and I'll be 10 feet away from right day two like so I figured at the end of the day like wow this industry is pretty amazing I see how this could be the great like you know a regulator like you allow me to get in and the amount of where I'm starting I could create this product I do have value day two will show you how to find the person that wants it and how to get a yes through service not some cheesy sales tactics how to find the people that live online that already want to go faster by getting your specialized knowledge turn selling into service and show you how to go from first sale next sale a consistent sales got a great special guest coming on day two day three is how to deliver this message what is going to be the format how are you going to do it with confidence so over three days we're going to show you whether you want to do a mastermind or a community or you want to build a course write a book you want to you know start a workshop will show you how to do the framework where you could plug it into any of them so you see the value see how to find people say yes and see how it becomes a real business I love it because what you're doing is you're basically helping people productize themselves their knowledge their experience they build their own first little brand I mean I love it do work comes there and and here's our want to say we honestly could teach this in 90 minutes and give a glimpse if you know anything about Tony our first year when we did a big training we had hundreds of thousands of people show up we did a couple of hours and we didn't want to stop Scott and people were like thank you so much it won't work then we went to two days now we're three days three hours a day because we want people to really you're going to walk away with tangible pieces to do it's not just a motivation event motivation is great inspiration is wonderful it's fleeting and you lose it this is a capabilities event to show you what's possible in an industry that's exponentially growing this is this is one step ahead right this industry is exploding and you can either be in front of that wave or you look back in three years you go oh damn how to miss that right so that's why we're excited to do this and it's free I think one more thing it is not kind of free it is totally free I was going to say the the the business that you're helping people build I don't think they understand how listen I've built software products that's one form of leverage right you build it once you sell it a million times for a non technical person the the ability to sell knowledge and insight and wisdom and accumulated experience is by far one of the most lucrative businesses that you can try and figure out or learn how to figure out how to do because if you if you want to be you know the versions of entrepreneurship are endless you can you can be a consultant have done it hate hate it you can you can be a service-based business you can do a variety of different things this is probably the one type of business that can rival in terms of you want to talk about business metrics and KPIs like profitability leverage scalability that you can do as a non technical person just packaging up what you already know which is why I'm such a big fan of it I mean the world is built on leverage whether or not it's financial leverage or human leverage or knowledge or or social leverage and organic media everything has to be leverage if you really want scale and this is a great way to do it it's an absolutely phenomenal way to do I like to bring in the sales and marketing piece and you teach people how to identify the avatars and ideal customer profiles and package it up and serve don't sell and it's very very good very very good at how does how do how do people bridge the the knowing doing gap after they consume this content for three days yeah really really great point is the whole theme of this event is you need the map you need the guide and you need the tools and we're going to show people what we've spent the last year on is creating all three of those pieces because what usually stops it is I have the tool but I don't know how to use it I'm overwhelmed too much technology or I have the education but I'll have the right tool you know 74 years in this industry and Scott I think you probably realize is we don't have to do this anymore this is this is a passion project for us we freaking love it because at a time where everybody's bitching the world is going to a hell in a hand basket there's no opportunity Tony I want to be this light of going hey did you ever think about this and this is what you need to do it here's the entry point here's where to start here's how to scale here's how to get through that's you know the what we look at it as where people get stuck we're always looking the way to grease those spots where usually you get stuck on grease it and push you all and that's what we're going to reveal and really share at this event can you take it you know I don't want to just assume that people that are listening to this are people that are say W2 employees that are trying to start their own thing or early stage entrepreneurs you mentioned just one thing that I thought was interesting that I've never really thought of before having an info product on your P&L so maybe give me an example of that for a later stage entrepreneur so say you're doing I don't want somebody who's listening to this say you're doing 50 million or 100 million the top line and they're like oh this is not this is like not my thing like what I got my business I got my you know I got my offerings I got my customer base uh what's the message for that person I great question I was at dinner with my wife my wife owns uh when I met her now she's mostly full-time mom um but when I met her she owned hair salons she's got other called extension bar they're in Arizona she does hair extensions and I had no idea that they were so lucrative right it's like wow right so most are sure we're at dinner with a couple and guys very successful he's doing a company right he's got a company doing around those numbers and he said this is amazing what you and Tony are doing but how would it work for me and then he left he goes well give me example your wife has uh hair salons well how would it work for her I said okay let's go I said my wife I said babe at the end you teach the girls that work for you at the end do they offer the the person in the chair do they offer them shampoo conditioner she goes yeah every time and I said how much do you make she goes I don't know a couple bucks how much of the girls got a couple bucks I said okay you were you were voted the top hairstylist in Arizona eight out of 10 years you had propitia you found a diet on how to get your hair back full you know how make extensions last year what you created a seven module course that women can use to make their hair look beautiful at home what to eat how to get that shine back how to make their extensions last because they're too brand of bob and I said at the end of each one of those visits instead of them selling a shampoo that makes you two bucks what if they said hey and our founder Lisa Graziosi has the seven module course on how to get your hair younger again shinier again get your extensions the last longer it is so powerful would you like me to add that to your cart today for twenty nine ninety five or thirty nine ninety five the guy lost his mind my wife Elbow me and said why aren't we doing this but think of that on your P&L I said how much is that product cost you babe nothing how much does it cost to deliver nothing you can give the girls ten dollars instead of two bucks for shampoo give the girls ten bucks today make more thorough your your impacting people you anchor them in because you're building reciprocity and giving them value and it's an addition at the end this guy's brain exploding like well let's work and we worked on his business and how he can add it into his business and some people could just add it as a value add right for your real estate investor you might just create a course on how to avoid investing in the wrong properties and just train people what the right way is and then you happen to be the company that does it the right way right country company every one of you should have an information product attached to your business I love it dude I absolutely love it okay let's just a couple rapid fire to close this out we wanted to do a whole bunch of stuff I mean I'll throw it over to you first as well anything that you didn't have a chance to speak about that that we should have gone into no I love it I think here's what I'd say the event is free and sometimes when something's free we don't credit it pretend it's a thousand bucks because it should be it's Tony and I for three days I would pretend it's a thousand bucks but you got a free pass you can go to I'm sure that you got the link in the show notes but it's Dean Tony Dean and Tony event.com forward slash Scott I want to make sure yeah Dean and no Dean and Tony live.com I'm sorry Dean and Tony live.com forward slash Scott or it's in the show notes I take go register right now reserve the spot and I would say if you got an accountability buddy or somebody you work with or somebody in your office send the link and say let's do it together because it's going to be magnificent either way I promise you would if it's not for you you're still going to get value so I would say that I'm plugging it because we only get it once we only do it once a year and it is phenomenal people lose their mind over it and I think your your audience can absolutely love it no I think so too other places I mean you know Instagram social Instagram okay perfect so at Dean Graziosi on Instagram that's you'll you'll find everything else there you can go down the rabbit hole okay let's just close with this I want us to last questions biggest misconception about entrepreneurship that you see Dean's misconception I'd say in today's world greed and because in my opinion most entrepreneurs I meet enjoy employing people they enjoy giving money away they enjoy finding good causes they're innovative so they want to solve big problems for people and maybe I've been around the you know maybe I've been around just the right entrepreneurs but I see entrepreneurs when they have the opportunity to have a breakthrough that they do more for others in the invisible than anyone would ever imagine and just remember money earned ethically the byproduct of ethical businesses can produce revenue to that you can impact the world can change you can help make decisions to bring this world to a better place very good and then you know for yourself you've gone through so many seasons in your life you can go back and and tell 20-year-old Dean one thing what would that be think bigger sooner think bigger sooner I love it you know I because there's no competition when you think big everybody's thinking I'm at a hundred grand I want to get to 250 nobody's gone I'm at a hundred grand I want to do 20 million and when you think that big you just you find different things you look through a different lens everything changes and there's nobody else thinking that way so you might as well go all in because it's the same amount of stress to make a hundred grand as it is to do a hundred million