Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Dean Graziosi: Sell Them What They Want, Give Them What They Need - 095

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

Life is full of ups and downs;  just like business, personal moods, stocks, anything really. Just ask real estate/ life/ success guru Dean Graziosi and Bedros Keuilian. In this episode of Inside Look, Dean and Bedros get very transparent about their pasts, and how they use those traumas and negative memories to boost them into the world-class businessmen they are today. Watch or listen now to see how Dean was able to leverage that pain and turn it into empathy and success.   “I had a chip on my shoulder” “You don’t just go through trauma and come out on the other side” - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover: 1:25 - How Dean went from real estate guru to a highly sought after life/success coach 7:50 - Dean grew up being an insecure underdog, and turned himself into a great success story 12:15 - How hard work doesn't necessarily lead to the success that YOU want 20:32 -  What negative impacts past traumas had on both Dean and Bedros 33:15 - How important self-education and personal growth can be   “I was somebody who wanted more” “I gave people what they needed” “There is no magic money machines” “I never felt in control” “You don't see me, but one day you’ll hear me” “I’ll sleep when I die” “It's going to suck until it doesn't” -Dean Graziosi   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @deangraziosi Buy Man Up and get Bedros’s High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow

I was on stage at my event last week and I said to people in the audience, hey, who in here would buy a workshop? Come to a workshop with me if I was going to teach you how to do real estate, but I never did a real estate deal in my life. A couple thousand people, not a person raised their hand. I said, but what if I spent a couple months and I called and I interviewed the top 10 real estate investors in America and I correlated their best strategies and I found the top seven ways to profit in real estate from the 10 best?

Who would buy a workshop for me? Whole audience raised their hand out. Hey friends, Bedros Kulian here. Welcome to another episode of The Empire Show, an inside look. I'm here with a dear friend, someone who I consider a mentor, a multi-time New York Times bestselling author, investor and success coach, my friend, Dean Graciosi. Dean. That's up, man. Welcome to the Empire Show. Yeah, man. Amazing place you got here. Thank you. Appreciate it. Now, you and I have known each other for nearly a decade, and we met at Joe Polish's Genius Network Group. Yeah.

And in that time, I've seen you go from real estate. and the guy who was selling books on infomercials to now a success coach in line with Tony Robbins. How did that transition happen in your life? You know, a great question. First off, I want to give you props, too. I've watched your evolution. I watch the impact you're making on the world, man. It's really awesome.

You know, you and I don't talk every day, but every time we do, we've had this heart connection. And I just, I'm cheering you on from afar. We don't get to talk a lot, but I watch you grow. I watch your everything you're doing is just growing. And people are loving it. So just so you know that your reputation is growing in the way it should. Dude, you're like a built-in hype man. Thank you.

I appreciate that. It's the truth. It's the truth. No, I say it like it is. Believe me, watch my other interviews. I don't say this, if I don't know that. So I love watching it. So here's a thing.

You know, not going too far past, but like I was someone who wanted more, right? We all are running away from something. You have your past. Everybody watching has their past. I was running away from a past I didn't like. And I wanted more. I just didn't know which way to go. And literally over 20 years ago, Tony Robbins took my money off of an infomercial and I got it.

I was already on my way to be successful, but doing it like through pain, like doing it with agony. I was suffering to get successful, zero sleep, stress, but I was moving the needle. I was more successful than anyone in my family. And Tony took my money, gave me information. It course corrected my life. So fast forward, I went and did an infomercial because of Tony. So two years later, I was on TV in 1998 was my first year on TV with an infomercial sharing with people how I got well.

through real estate and through cars, right? So that's that part. So then fast forward, lots of failure, lots of mistakes, you know, 100 grand a year, 100 grand a month, 100 grand a week, 100 grand a day, 200 grand a day. And in between all those, as great as that sounds, was all the shit that happens to all of us, right? It's like if things are going wrong in your life, know that that's a sign that there's better on the other side not to get complacent and jump out like most people do. So I'm telling you this to give you some reference on why success so much. much because when I finally got it figured out and my heart was to really serve and to help change people's lives with real estate like I did, we started really gaining momentum.

2007, when the market crashed, I told people stop trying to fix and flip. All the strategies it wouldn't work. I was the only one that did it. And in 2007 to about 2011, we just took over the industry. We went from 10 million to a couple hundred million in a really short period of time. I mean, a few years. What do you think accounted for that giant growth in that time? One is I threw out scripts and didn't do traditional infomercials and I just sat down and talked like this and people were happy to just see a real person telling them what's wrong, what's right, being authentic, being real.

We just got momentum and that felt amazing. But here's what I realized. The reason I told you the whole story for one short answer is because I realized why we were getting an impact and why we were growing. My real estate education came from my experience. But there was a lot of other good real estate education out there. But here's what I realized. I gave people what they wanted. They wanted to make money in real estate and change your life.

I sold them what they wanted. But really, I gave them what they needed. And I obsessed on Tony and Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolley and all of these people became my mentors. And I realized you could give somebody a business and you know this, how to sell $20 bills for $10. And they'll still fuck it up. My family said this isn't real.

This won't work where I live. It's like, no, it's $20 bills for $10. And I just realized that I used to think it was capabilities people needed. But the capability, are the 20%, the 80% is getting out of their own way, overcoming the obstacles, not letting the naysayers in their life stop them, not let society, not let the norm, not let the inner villain that is filled with self-doubt saying, maybe we should play small, maybe everybody else is right.

And I realized there was no magic money machine when I got to, and so of you, when I was blessed to meet millionaires and then meet billionaires, then hang out with them and become friends like John Paul DeGiorio or Richard Branson, you realize there was no magic. It was all these little pieces of success that built up that a lot of the law. allowed them to excel. So now I'm selling real estate to people on how to educate and I'm getting more successful students than anyone on the planet because they come for that and I'm giving them a weekly video on personal growth and extra courses on personal growth. So they're like, oh my God, I'm making money, but I lost weight too. I'm making money. My relationship got better.

And as I saw that happen in your world, I was curious, is Dean giving them what they need intentionally or is he doing this because you're so passionate about helping people develop personally. Because remember, they bought a course on how to buy real estate and how to make money from real estate from you. You sold them what they wanted. You gave them what they needed to develop so that they can also develop their financial bank account. Yeah, because what happens is if you don't develop emotionally with success and habits, my newest book is a habits book, right? If you don't have the right habits, the first time the deal goes south, you go, I knew this stuff didn't work, I'm out. First time your wife says, honey, I think you risk too much, just go back to that job. You go,

you know, maybe she's right. First time your parents, okay, stop being a dream. You need to get real. You need to put more money in your 401k and do what everybody else does. You go, maybe I should. So what I figured out is my real estate strategies are the best they could be, and people still weren't getting the results I wanted. So I kind of inserted all this personal growth, and I started doing it so much that people started following me for personal growth

and not even asking about real estate. And it was actually a scary leap. I was the biggest real estate educator on the planet, and all of a sudden now I'm going to write a book on success and be a success coach. And I have to tell you, the first year, It was like a, um, like, because people didn't know. I launched Millionaire Success Habits. You helped me launch it.

And that book took off pretty good at first. Still one of the best books out there, by the way. Yeah, so I took off pretty good, and then it got better. And then all of a sudden people are taking pictures and put it on Instagram and social media. And I kind of ignored social media until about a year ago. And then all of a sudden, it just took off. And that book, we just passed 600,000 copies. It's still on fire.

It's one of the best-selling books of the year. It's cranking. My Instagram group, 400,000 people. And it just, so now I'm the success guy to a lot of people who didn't even know I used to be the real estate guy. But I have to be honest, I feel it's where I belong. Yeah, it is. I feel it's where I belong. It is. It is.

I, knowing you for almost a decade, I see how comfortable you are. This is your space. And I think it's worth taking a little tour going back into your life and figuring out why this is your space. Because people watching right now might be like, oh, you know what? Well, he was probably raised by parents who were well-to-do and helped him buy real estate, maybe fun. at him, trust fund, I don't know, maybe helped instill personal growth into him. But in reality, one of the most impactful videos I've seen you put out was the video where you went back to the home where your grandma raised you.

Yeah. And so let's just go talk about that young dean who was insecure, who was in pain and had so much doubt. Yeah. Let's meet him. Tell us about that. No, I'd love to, you know, we all have this ability to look at ourselves like an underdog, right and then I'll go back to that journey but I just want to share that it's okay like we're designed to think

wow I don't have the money it's not the right time I wasn't born during the right era my parents don't support me I don't have the money maybe you had parents that supported you but but they sent you off to college when you really didn't want you like we all have that and that's okay what what I share today my journey doesn't make mine worse or better than anyone's because listen the pain feels the same you can't listen when you're in pain you're in a bad relationship somebody abuses you you get taken advantage of you can't go oh my I feel better because I watched a video on people starving now and better. No, your pain is still your pain. Your story is still your story.

But if I look back, being insecure, so my parents split when I was three. A lot of people's parents split. My parents got married nine times. So by the time I was 20, I'd already moved 20 times. And I had this sense of never feeling in control. Like my mom met this great guy and I fell in love with his parents. So like I had step grandparents and stepbrothers and sisters. And I'm like, oh, I finally feel good.

And then they ended. So you get pulled out of that. And then I go move with my dad. And my dad never, my dad was the youngest of 12. I'm getting deep here. But my dad was the youngest of 12. And he was physically and sexually abused this old childhood. And he never fixed that.

It lived his rage inside of him. And I understand it. My sister and him don't talk. He didn't talk to his brothers and sisters. He doesn't talk to his ex-wives. because he had this inner rage that people took so advantage of him as a kid that he was never going to let anybody take an inch his whole life and he never let go with that. So he scared everybody away when I was 12.

I had so much empathy for him and my mom was going through another divorce that I moved in with him and I literally moved into a bathroom. He didn't have heat in his house. The walls were like open. He was trying to remodel it and ran out of money and we literally lived in a bathroom for about eight months, almost a year. We took the doorknob out and ran a little electric. cord, you know, extension cord through the door hole and we had a little round

here. Do you ever see those round heaters with the coils? Space heaters, right? So we would drag a bed in at night in this little bathroom, plug in the heater, we'd sleep in there in the morning, we'd drag the bed out. I'd wait outside the bathroom and each shower. How old were you at that time? About 12. 12 years old. That's, I mean, those are formidable years that leave a massive imprint on your psyche. Yeah. And I have to tell you, I'd love to say, I mean, I'd be lying to you if I said, oh my God, every day, I couldn't, like, he was just part of it. Like, you have your experience. You know, it's like you didn't, I didn't know any different. Like my dad was going through hell, I had to be with him, right?

And he had such a junky truck with the back window busted. I'd make him drop me off down the street from school. Long story short, like, I just never, there's two things I'm trying to share. I just never felt in control. And then I wasn't that smart in school. I had dyslexia, didn't really know it, so I couldn't read. I was embarrassed about that. So I had wanted nothing to do with school.

To me, that was like going to freaking prison every day. Like not one thing I liked. And then I moved school, so you're starting over and you get picked on again. And so I moved with my dad. I go to this new school. And there was a time, and I'll share it, so that all these things gone. So at home, home life, it's okay, right? My dad, my dad had a, I'm trying to put this politely, a terrible temper.

Like, we go to a diner, and he thought he was disrespected by the waiter. Two minutes later, he's on the floor, freaking pound in the waiter. I was always, so I don't do confrontation. I've never gotten a fight in my life. I can't watch MMA. I can't do anything with confrontation. And you were probably high anxiety as the young man. I had a bleeding ulcer at 12.

I threw up blood after school a couple days in a row, right? Because I was holding it all in, right? And then I wanted to be the protector of my mom. So I wanted my dad to be okay with my mom, and I wanted to make sure my grandma was okay. And then a lot of times when all that went, thank God I had my grandmother. She was the place, she was my, I have goosebumps. She was my sanctuary, right? So I'm sharing this just because I want people to realize no matter where you are, it really doesn't matter.

And so with my dad, I'm growing, I'm in high school, I decided not to go to college. I don't even take my SATs. My guidance counselor says to me, if you're not going to college, you didn't take your SATs. Maybe you go work with your dad fixing cars, or there was one factory in our town. She's like, you know, they're hiring at the factory. And I remember thinking of myself, like I was this split personality. And I don't know where I got this from. And you had to have something similar from the past I know about you.

is part of me was envious. Like, I'm screwed. Like, I'm going to be that guy for the rest of my life. Like my dad, my dad, I equated really young that hard work had nothing to do with success. Like, I know hustle is a huge word right now.

Hustle in the wrong direction. Hustle digging a hole. Just get you in a bigger hole. My dad works 60 hours a week. Knuckles busted. Paint fumes. Changing motors. Guy never had anything.

Right? So I figured that out. But my guidance counselor was like, no college, you're screwed. And I remember thinking, college, I have older friends that have dead and they still don't have a job. I was all confused. But the split personality I think I had, part of me was envy and ego, like I was saying, like I'll never envy and jealousy. I should say, I'll never be anything. I'm going to be stuck in this. Maybe, what am I going to do? And I felt hopeless. But then there

was this other side of me, for lack of where I was like, fuck that. Like, no, no, literally, like, fuck that. And I don't know where that came from, but I thank God. Maybe it was my grandmother. Maybe it was divine. I don't know. Do you feel you had a chip on your shoulder? Like you had a point to prove to the world? Yes, but me, because I was always shy, like really quiet. Like, I was the one no one saw coming, right? So on the inside, when, like, my guidance counselor, Maureen Kronosa, a great lady. When she said that to me, part of me was like, oh, and the other part was like,

you have no idea, lady, I'm going to make more in a day than you make in a year. Like, but it was internal. That's a really good kid. It was an internal chip. It was like, yeah, my quote in my high school yearbook was, I don't remember it exactly, but it was something like, you don't see me now, but I promise you're all going to hear me, right? You're right, I had an internal fucking chip.

So I remember that, and I remember there was a tipping point where I said, zero deaths. I'm going to be successful. And that's a gift I'd love to give all entrepreneurs of every age as being that young and dumb and naive, because everybody, my dad was like, stop being a dreamer. Family would sit me down and say, hey, you don't have money, you didn't go to college. You're doing really good for what you have. And I remember part of me, but maybe they're right. And the other part was like, fuck you too.

Like, excuse my language, but that's just the way I felt on the inside, even though I smiled and was shy and was quiet. I knew I was building momentum. I didn't know which way I was going. I didn't know how I was going to get there. But I guess the takeaway, and I only like telling my story if it inspires people, not to just hear myself talk and brag about where I've gone.

But the one thing I can say is, and I got this from Tony Robbins, Later on, he put words to it. But when I realized that all of that was designed for me by a higher power, I celebrate my past. Like it wasn't, it didn't happen to me. It happened for me. Listen, my dad, my dad, you've seen me on stage, you've seen me on camera. My brands and my company from that broke kid in a bathroom. I broke a billion dollars years ago in sales, right?

That gift came from, now that I look in retrospect, from my dad. My dad was two different people. He was super dead, took me fishing. At 14, I drove to school. My dad got me an old beat-up car. I drove to school at 14. Two years before I got a license, I'd park next to my teacher.

They'd be like, oh, you and your dad, right? Like, taught me how to hunt, brought me fishing, taught me how to work on cars, taught me how to drive a bulldozer, like man stuff. And simultaneously is the guy that gave me a bleeding ulcer. And I was afraid of him. So that dichotomy was amazing. But here's what I found out when I moved in with him,

Bedros is I could see when he was going like, like just, I don't even know the true definition of bipolar, but I guess in this later year that's what he was. When I saw him going down a wrong path, I instinctly felt it. I knew what he was going through. I had empathy and compassion rather than anger, and I figured out at 14 years old how to manipulate my dad from going from down a bad road to him knowing he was loved, he was protected, he was safe. I figured that shit out at 14. Look at my goosebumps.

That's nuts. At a young age, you learned how to de-escalate someone who was emotionally about to go down a rabbit hole of darkness. Yes. Interestingly enough, your ability to show empathy and compassion and to read people, I believe, with my outside eyes looking at my friend Dean for all these years, I believe that's the number one factor. Your ability to show empathy and compassion and see other people suffering is why you can communicate the message so well to them. No, and that's what I was going to say. In retrospect, looking back, God gave me, whatever you believe, in, I believe God, God, God, I'm full of goosebumps today, dude. We're doing, this is great. It's because I care about you so much. I'm opening up. That's what allows me to sit in front of an audience of 5,000 people, and I could feel what they're going through, and I feel what they need. I've been on

stage thinking I'm going to talk about that and be 10 minutes in and go, they don't need that. And say, forget the slides, and talk for an hour and a half, and get done and subtly offer them an opportunity and outsell everybody else by five times. Because I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I truly care. I'm not just trying to persuade because of money. I'm trying to persuade because if I don't get them to take action, if I don't get them my tools, I don't get them my book.

If you're online, you see my book ads are everywhere. If I don't get my book in someone's hands, I'm doing them a disservice. So I lean from my heart. I lean from that place of empathy. And it also taught me to be, how to be persuasive as shit.

Like, I can get people to say yes, but luckily I do it with compassion and I want them to say yes to something good for them. But look at the real-world training you got because dad was about to go bipolar. And again, no offense to your father. But he was about to go bipolar. He was about to disassociate. And one thing I've learned about disassociation is actually it's funny.

You say taking the stage going, all right, I'm going to talk about this and realizing the audience need X. Because two years ago at Joe Polish's Genius Network event, the annual event, I was supposed to talk about leadership. And I got on stage and I started realizing there's 300 millionaires and billionaires in the audience. Tony Robbins was just on stage. and then Tony got off stage, and myself and Craig Ballantine got miced up. Craig was supposed to talk about personal life structure, and I was supposed to talk about entrepreneurial leadership and how I built the franchise here.

And I realized within three minutes on stage, I'm like, Joe, I don't think my topic needs to be leadership. There's 300 millionaires and billionaires here. I think we can all hire the best leaders to run our companies and organizations. I think we ought to have the dialogue while we work so hard to make so much money to use money as insulation and isolation from our problems. My problem was that I was molested between ages of four and five, My problem was that I kept it to myself the last 30 years.

Rage, shame, and confusion is what ran me. I had a chip on my shoulder. And it wasn't until I worked with a therapist and realized that I would disassociate. I thought I was bipolar. I would disassociate. And the first time I learned that, Dean, was when my therapist said,

So, Bezos, what happened to you as a kid? I said, oh, what happened to that little boy? Yeah, you didn't say it was you. Yeah. He goes, what happened to who? I go, what happened to that little boy has been dealt with? Everything's great. I'm fine.

I'm a grown-ass man. I've gotten all these companies. Yeah, and I was beating my chest. I was seven when it happened to me. Okay. Just so you know. There you go. And that's what you and I really connected on there.

And I believe cats like us who have gone through abuse, and by the way, it doesn't have to be sexual abuse, could be physical abuse, mental abuse. Studies now show that the part of the brain that lights up is the same. When you've gone through physical, mental, emotional, sexual trauma, the same part of the brain lights up. And you've got one of two paths to go. You're either going to repeat the cycle. Or you're going to be someone who's going to be more of a savior.

I'm going to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else and have extreme amounts of empathy and compassion for others. And I believe, like, that's real world training for us. And when Kevin, my therapist, said, Bezos, that's called disassociation. That's the first step to creating a multiple personality. And you say to that little boy because you can't say me because it personalized. It didn't happen to him. It didn't happen to me.

I'm a fucking man. Yeah. And I said, oh, shit. And that's when I realized that's about deeper problems. We spent the next 16 months every Monday on his couch working through shame, rage, and confusion. And it wasn't until you guys saw me on stage. And everyone is like, you look younger, you look lighter, you look brighter,

because all that weight was gone. Yeah. But all that weight was great training for me in that time. And so I'm just curious, what had to happen in your life? Because I know I was self-destructive. I've been involved in police helicopter chases. I've been very damaging to my relationships and my marriage. Addictive personality.

You don't just go through trauma, and this is for everyone listening and experiencing this, and then come out on the other side, empathetic, compassionate, and be able to read people and sell things. There's that whole dark troth that you go through. What happened in your life? What are the negative impacts that that had on you? Yeah, really great question. And since we're going so deep on this,

I feel safe to open up. Is what I did is running away from that pain, right? Luckily, I ran towards just wanting to accomplish shit. I just wanted money out of the way. I saw my family suffering, and I put head down, and it was all about accomplishment, making money. And I obsessed on being in control of my life. Like, moving 19, 20 times by the time I was 20, leaving step-grandparents that loved me, and I had to leave them. Step-brother, I liked a lot, how to leave them, how to leave a school and all my friends.

It's like I always felt like I was at the mercy of people making bad decisions. I love my parents, but like all your bad decisions reflect on me. And I was like, screw that. I'm going to be in control. By 17, I was completely self-sufficient in my own apartment. By 25, I retired my mom. By 30, I retired my dad because I didn't want their opinion. I knew if I cut them a check, they'd have to listen to me.

I'm just being honest. So I had that obsession. In my 20s, I was obsessed with, like, dating uncontrollable. Like, I need to conquer. Like, see a pretty girl? I want that girl. She's got to be mine. Like, so it was money in that.

And I didn't go down the road of drugs. I drank, but I didn't go down the road of drugs. I didn't get in trouble. It was more of like, and I was the one that wore this badge of honor, like, I'll sleep when I die. I could work till 9 o'clock at night, shower, eat, be out till 3, 4, 5, 6 in the morning, get up, go again, and just go hard. Right? And I made bad decisions in my relationships. I ended up being in a relationship that didn't work out, but I had two amazing children.

It was flawed from day one. She's a great lady. Nothing had nothing to do with her, right? Just bad choices. It was a bad choice by me, but I had two amazing children. When I had my children, I would bet to say there was two instances of my life that made the biggest shift for me is I always put on the face. I always manage my parents' emotions.

I'm really good at managing everyone's emotions. Like, and you're probably the same way. I had to when I was a kid. I'm a people pleaser for that reason. Yeah. So the first thing was having a child. It was unexpected. All of a sudden I'm having a baby coming.

And all those things that happened to me, I said, I'm not going to let that. happened. So I stayed in a relationship, became super dad, stopped working weekends. I have two incredible children that I'm completely emotionally engaged with. I've interviewed 50 great dads. I've read 100 books on parenting. I have family meetings. I've engaged children. They're amazing. I'm just, I'm really blessed. When people say, and you know this, people say, oh, you're so lucky, your kids are amazing. It's like, it ain't luck. Like what we focus on is what we get. You're in amazing shape. You don't get that because you're not focused on it. You have an amazing family. You don't get that by accident.

You've gone through a hard thing because it was your focus. What we focus on is what changes. If somebody's making a lot of money but they're 300 pounds, they're focusing on the money. They're not focusing on that. Business is crushing, unfaithful and shitty relationship at home. You're just not focusing on it. So my focus was on my kids. So now I'm not in a loving marriage, but I have a friendship and co-parenting thing,

and my focus is my kids and my business. So now business is growing, kids are great. And the only thing missing was love in my life. And I just said to myself, you know what, I screwed around so much in my 20s. And maybe this is my payback. Sure. I deserve this. Sure.

Charmic justice. Carmic justice. And then this other part of me is like, listen, I was that kid who lived in a bathroom, who had no lunch money some days. And I'm more revenue coming in than I could ever have imagined. I have an incredible team. I've made an impact in the world. I'm friends with all my heroes.

People like Tony Robbins is now my best friend. And then I got to a point where I started justifying. I said, if I don't have love in my life, that's all. I don't want to be greedy. And then, like everybody, there was just one day. Like, I had thought about leaving my relationship every day for at least five years. Every single day I'd wake up. And again, nothing to do with her.

This is just the way I felt. And one day I knew it was enough. I had to leave. There was zero doubt, zero question. And all the shit I didn't work with, that's at the end of it when I met, when you and I talked to you. All of the things I tucked down. Like how I explained it, and I hope this is helping people, because I'm being really vulnerable. I've never shared this on camera.

All the stuff I felt like I tucked being molested. I tucked the craziness I went through with my dad that no one knows. It's beyond what anybody could imagine. Craziness, not good dad, crazy dad. I tucked all that into like a champagne bottle, and I had that cork on so tight. And I move out of my house, I move into a new home, and I walk up the stairs. really quiet. I'm used to my kids being around every day. I make my kids breakfast. I take them lunch. I pick them up from school. I coach Little League. I coach softball. Sunday meetings. All of that.

And that was the only place I found love. All of a sudden it's my couple of days without the kids. I walk up the stairs and my daughter's shoes are sitting there and she's not in the house. And the cork of that champagne bottle popped off. And I tell you, like feelings I've never, like, it's hard to even talk about it. Like, it was, I went into straight anxiety. I've never had an anxiety attack in my life. Like, I've been anxious, but I had straight up anxiety crippling, like, like losing my mind. Like, holy shit, I'm 40-something years old. I made it through this time.

I'm done. Like, I thought I was going crazy, Bajros. I couldn't handle the anxiety. I wanted to just go hug my kids. I wanted to drive to the school and just like stare at them and just hug them. I didn't want to go back to a relationship. I knew that wasn't the right thing. I was losing my mind.

And luckily, I flew down and spent two days with Tony Robbins, and Tony went through a similar thing, and he shared. I went and spent two days with Dr. Eam, and I got a great therapist. I talked to her day. I started yoga, started meditation, started journaling every day. I did all the stuff we know. And still, I was coming on glued.

I don't take medicine, but I was popping Xanax twice a week just so I could go to the office and not look like a fucking train wreck. I was drinking wine every night, two glasses of wine every night to hopefully fall asleep, walking around. And this taught me a lesson that I hope you can take. from this is our next level of life lives on the other side of the thing we fear the most. You've heard it, you've seen it in books, but maybe the first time ever you could see this in my face that I knew. It's like the analogy I had is like, let's say this is a storm. I don't

if you guys can see this. It's like a tornado and you're in your ship. Like this is what, this is the stuff that goes on in my head. Everybody thinks differently. And I felt like my ship was in the bay. And I had a pretty nice ship and it was safe. And I had one of the biggest, and I had one of the biggest ships in the harbor. And I could have just stayed on that ship, but I knew my next level of life lived over here. And the only way to get there was to turn my ship and drive it straight into the freaking eye of the storm. And what I knew I did for the last 10 years is I tipped the front of the boat in the storm and go, nah, I'm just going to go back to the bay. And this overwhelming feeling like, man, your next level lives on the other side. You have to get through

this. And I want to tell you, the reason I, my empathy of my heart and my impact and the reason I'm pushing so hard and Tony and I are partnering up on something that's going to help change the world. It's because, man, I had access to people like you and Tony Robbins and Dr. Daniel Lehman, who's top brain doc and psychiatrist in the world and all these great people. I hired the top psychiatrist in the world. And I'm talking to everybody. I'm able to take off work and do yoga and all this. Like, what about people who don't have access to that?

They need these tools. That's why I love what you do. Like, it's not just, listen, when you give people ability to make more money, that's great. But I want to give them all the other shit too. So money without happiness is emptiness. Money without fulfillment. Who would take a billion a year to never have love? Who would take a billion a year to lose one of your children?

You wouldn't, right? So anyway, I start in this storm, and man, I'm in the eye of the storm. The anxiety's terrible. Like no one else knows. I got, you know, I got booked to be on stages. I had to go. I got so freaked out. I didn't want to get in elevators.

I didn't want to get on jets. I literally was taking, like, I take private, and I'm like, I don't want to get on that little tube. and like literally thought I was losing it, dude. And in that moment, you're suffering in silence because you still have to be... The guy. The guy. Yeah.

The guy. Yep. Because where do entrepreneurs watching this, listening to this, turn to when you're writing the check, your name is on the front of the check? You're top of the pyramid. Yeah. Right? Top of the pyramid.

And so even though you had access to the world's best in class, you were suffering in silence. Let me ask you a question, man. And this is just friend to friend. This is no offense. did you feel that you weren't lovable? Is that why you said I can amass money, I can amass friends, I can amass impact and influence, but did you feel like maybe this is my way of being punished?

Did you feel that you were not lovable? You didn't deserve love? No, and I know that, because my therapist asked me that same question, I don't think I felt that. I felt I was able to love someone else on that deep level because I had a lot of people that thought they loved me and I'm like, well, it's a good person, but I can't go that deep. And I think it's because that champagne bottle

took up so much space in my body. There wasn't enough to let that depth of love in. I was unfaithful in my past relationship. I'd just say it and being honest. I'm not proud of it at all, but I wasn't happy. And I thought maybe that would give me some happiness. So I go through the storm, Bejros, and this is the part why I want to help you, no matter if you're going through the shit storm, or you need to face it, no matter what that is.

And I'm not trying to be an advocate of divorce, but that was the right choice for me and my ex. She's happier now. Long story short is going through it and just staying the course and focusing not on where I wanted, you know, not on the negativity of what happened, but where I could go, a compelling future, who I wanted to be as a man, who I wanted to be as a father, how I wanted to be congruent. I never wanted to be unfaithful. I wanted real love in my life. I made a list. Tony hadn't made this list of everything that was absolutely a must in a relationship and everything that was unacceptable in a relationship. And I just stared at that and I kept focusing. And then one day,

it wasn't a transition. I swear to God, Bezos, one day, the ship came out on the other side and it was all gone. And it was paradise. And since that day, I'm a better man. I'm a better father. I found the love of my life. She's sitting right there. She's my fiance.

I can't wait to marry her this year. Lisa's amazing. I never would have attracted that love in my life or have been open enough to, like the champagne bottle's empty now. That's the message I want to get across. It's empty. If you want that love of your life, if you want that fulfillment, you want that impact, you want that income, it's on the other side of that storm.

It is. And just tell you right now, since then, and I've been blessed that my company's do pretty damn good. Since that day, my company has doubled. My love is on a whole other level. I'm better on stage. I'm congruent. You're messaging. Dude, you've always been a great messenger of knowledge, wisdom, information. Your messaging has gotten even better, Dean. Well, thank you. And it's because, but I'm congruent. I'm not the guy that everything's great, except for this relationship. I'm not this guy that's everything's great, but I'm kind of texting this girl on the side. Like, all that shit is gone. Like, I can leave my phone out. I'm one human being

everywhere and the only thing I can say is it never would have happened until I went through what I had to face. And here's a thing. Sometimes that storm you have to face isn't like this horrific thing that I went through. It's just like, I'll get to that later because maybe you don't like selling or you don't want to tell your partner you want to start your own business or you don't want to quit the job or you don't want to scale because you got some screwed up thought about money and you go, I'll get to that later. I'll get to that later. It doesn't mean it's super pain. It just means it's not going to change. You're going to waste five years, 10 years, 20 years. you're going to look back at 90 and go, what the fuck?

Like, I want to do over. Like, stop playing small. Stop thinking that it'll go away on its own. Figure out today, what are the things you've been avoiding? What are the things that are somewhat painful and freaking turn your shit for it and just say, I freaking got this. And it's going to suck until it doesn't. I want you to come out here because I know that there's a person

who can deliver a message about the third way and there's no one who's more qualified than you. So I asked you to come out here. Because our parents, our grandparents, school teachers tell us, counselors tell us that go to college, go to university, and get a good job, become someone, something, or go become a cog and a wheel, a machine. Yeah. But you discovered the third way.

The third way. Yeah. And the third way has literally saved my life. Mine too. And there's millions like us who need the third way, but no one's showing them the path. What is the third way? It's self-education. And you can call it anything you want.

me, I call it self-education. Like my guidance counselor said, college or factory, or screwed. There was nothing in the middle. And how cool it would have been if she said, there's college, that doesn't look like it's for you. I don't think you're a blue. What if you just learn from other people who've already been there? What if you got involved in personal growth, in self-education? You want to be a florist? Go find the best florist in the world and learn from them. You want to own a gym? Go to Beidros. This guy's got the blueprint. You don't have to overthinking. He's already been there. Like, no one ever talked about that. And especially when I first got in this business, I'm 22 years in. The reason I'm bringing him up, Tony's 42 years in, is because

him and I have had these in-depth conversations for over 10 years. Like, how the hell do we make self-education the new norm? I know you're probably the same way, but half of my employees didn't go to school. Some of them are in their early 20s. I got two in their teens. No college degree, no past experience. You know why I hired them? Because they're badassers who've been obsessed with personal development. They've been obsessed with self-education. They're already in a player. All I had to do is hire a consultant, say,

teach this kid how to do YouTube. Boom, I'm crushing it on YouTube. Teach this kid I'd run Facebook ads. Boom, I got the best Facebook ad on the planet. He's 19. He's been working for me for two years. We book a couple hundred grand a week. He's in control of it at 19 because he's into self-education.

So we came up with like, how do we make self-education the new norm in people? And then how do we make it so loud by the time we're off this earth that employees have to say, screw college. If they got college and self-education, wonderful. But how do we make self-education when someone walks to the door and they go, I don't like your resume, go, no, look what I've been through.

And I'm like, ooh. Well, there's no two people more qualified to fight that battle than you and Tony Robbins. And the reason is, look who you're fighting. You're fighting old school universities. You're fighting the system. You're fighting old way of thinking. Moms and dads who are still telling their kids go to college and become something only because they don't know of the better answer to give.

Exactly. Because they don't know to say, go get self-educated, find someone who could be a great mentor, a coach, join a mastermind. There's people, success has left clues. So I'm dying to know what is it that you and Tony are working on and how can I help spread that message. Yeah.

So what we decided to do is create the blueprint. We got 62 years between us. So here's something to blow your mind. Right now, the self-education business, which barely existed. Like Tony and I, Tony before me, he's the reason I got in this space. So I got to give him that credit. He was, if you would have asked me 10 years ago, 15 years ago,

if you could meet any human being alive, it would have been Tony. Because he transformed my life when I bought off an infomercial, right? Now he's my dearest friend. If you, if you, it wasn't popular. Even when I started, like, it's like no one would tell anybody if they had a coach. No one tell anybody they were in a mastermind. It's like, it makes you, like you're almost admitting that you have a fault. where now we're at this tipping point where people like, I'm not going to figure out how to do a gym on my own.

I'm not going to figure out all these marketing strategies. Beidros has done it. I'm going to work with this guy. Like, you're blessed to work with this guy. You want to learn certain strategies. You're blessed to work with the top people in the space. And this industry that barely existed right now, the self-education industry is a $355 million a day industry, $125 million a day. It's expected to double in the next two years.

It's one of the fastest growing things that are happening. It's saving people. Right now, colleges have gone up eight times while salaries have remained flat. 27%, 24% of people who get a college degree get a job in that field, 24. And of that, 52% of those 24%, over half of them hate the job they're in. So there's like 12% of people who go to college get the degree, get a job that they actually like. And if I look at all my best employees, they're a part of self-education. What Tony and I figured out is how we fix this is you watch you.

You have a skill. You have a hobby. You have a passion in your head that people need. And we wanted to create the blueprint to teach people how to unlock their, like most people don't realize that people will pay you if you're just a little bit better than them and they don't have to fight and go through the woods and figure out the blueprint. They'll pay you. So we wanted to create a blueprint and the gold standard of helping the world unlock their

value and get paid for it. Like imagine having the ability to impact the world and get you. get paid in a $355 million a day industry. And we also have a blueprint. If you're not the expert, how do you become the reporter of expertise? Let me think about Tony, Money Master the Game. It's the top financial book ever written, right? Yep.

He's not a financial guy. He's not. He just went, interviewed the best, and he reported on it. So I was on stage at my event last week, and I said to people in the audience, hey, who in here would buy a workshop? Come to a workshop with me if I was going to teach you how to do real estate, but I never did a real estate deal in my life. thousand people and not a person raised their hand. I said, but what if I spent a couple months

and I called and I interviewed the top 10 real estate investors in America and I correlated their best strategies and I found the top seven ways to profit in real estate from the 10 best. Who would buy a workshop for me? Whole audience raised their hand. So what we want people to realize is if you have a knowledge, you should be ethically obligated to not die with it in your head. It's like taking a hard drive worth 10 million and throw it in the garbage. You should be obligated to extract it, create a process and get paid for it. We want to show people how to do that. And if you're not the expert, how do you become the reporter, like Tony did, get the knowledge,

gather, and still share it for a profit. And that's what we're doing. We're doing a special webcast for Tony and I. He hasn't done something like this in over 15 years. Holy smokes. Dude, this is so necessary because there are so many micro industries where people are experts in, but they realize that I might have an opportunity to share it with others, but how do I start? How do I share it?

How do I create a mastermind and mentorship program? It sounds like what you're saying is you have the blueprint for this where they can just take and replicate. And not being braggadocious, but Tony and I have got 60 years. I don't think there's two better people that could extract their knowledge. We've made many, many mistakes in those years. We've also generated billions of dollars. So I think this is going to be the great. This is going to be the gold standard.

Like our goal is when we're gone someday and this is the new norm. People, I've been in this field for 10 years, five years, 20 years. Oh, it's time to extract, share, and profit. Like that's what the new norm needs to be. So we're doing the special webcast. I'd love to invite everybody who's on here to it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

In fact, I want everyone watching and listening to this episode to go to bedroslink.com right now and watch this web class. I mean, this is going to be massive. What are they going to learn and take away from that web class? I think they're going to say, like, the way I look at it is what we want, we don't want to teach people. People are already in the space. Dude, you're going to love the blueprint we create. You're going to lose your mind. So people, if you're already in the space, if you're already an expert,

it's a no-brainer. What I want this, the reason we're doing this special training that you need to register for is because we want people who never thought about it to go, holy shit, I could generate revenue and impact the world by just doing a version of what Tony and Dean did, but in today's world. When Tony and I started, I had to start an infomercial. There was no internet 20 years ago. There was no Facebook.

Zuckerberg was in diapers, you know what I mean? So it's like there was none of these outlets, but in today's world, it's like we have immediate access to the exact demographic that would love to cut us a check. You just don't know how to do it. So our goal is the people who are in it, you're going to be like, Tony Dean, I'm in. The people who are not, you need to show up and be like, okay, okay, I see this. I never knew it was a thing, but it's a $355 million a day thing that I want to be a part of. Yeah. And no better time than now, like you said, because there was a time that if you had the wisdom, how do you find the people to educate and monetize fraud? Exactly. Today, you've got the internet. And two better, there's no

two better people than you and Tony. to teach this. Oh, thank you. And so the link is bedroslink.com. Just go to bedroslink.com and register for this class. Yeah, and there's two things I'd say is, as soon as you register, Tony and I did a training that no one's ever seen before. It's a quick training.

It's prep before we do the webcast. So you're going to want to see it. It's killer training. And then I'd say we're going to have so many people on that the chat's going to fill up. The unlimited amount of people can watch, but there's only going to be about 5,000 people in the chat. If you want to ask Tony and I a question, show up early. Like you need to get there 15 minutes earlier. Get in the chat and then go do something else, but be there early.

All the directions, all the information is at Bejoslink.com. Dude, so let's just talk about who this course, this education is for and who it's not for. Yeah. Right? Because someone might say, well, look, I'm in a very micro niche. And I know firsthand experience, one of my private coaching clients, her name is Maria Mountain. She is, get ready for this. She is a coach, not just to hockey players, to hockey goalies.

So take a micro niche. and go micro-aware, right? And she makes $200,000 a year teaching hockey goalies how to time collapse and become better goalies so that they can go into university and, of course, join the NHL. That's amazing.

Yeah, and so, like, if you're in a micro-nitian, you're thinking you're having this kind of doubt saying, well, maybe this isn't for me because I'm not in the make-money space, I'm not in the big fitness space. So we've been investigating people who were doing this, right? Because Tony and I, we collected like 100 different people

because we wanted to see, and we're going to share this when we do this training. And we have people that are crushing it in such a micro niche. It's like there's one guy who's teaching young barbers how to do a fade and the lines that are popular. And he's filled every other weekend doing a workshop teaching like so specific. It's not how to be a hairstylist. It's how to do fades and lines and be a cool barber.

Right? We got a girl crushing it who's teaching people how to be a wedding photographer. She was a pretty good wedding photographer and now her business on how to be a wedding photographer. is completely exploded. Like there's another woman who was in a bad relationship and the one thing she hated is her man didn't have the confidence to fix her relationship.

Now she's teaching men how to be more confident because women find that attractive. Like, yes, there's the Bajroses and the Deans and Tony's, Tony's got his platinum group. I have my high level masterminds and 25 grand a year, 100 grand a year. Tony and I are starting a 250 grand year mastermind. Oh, love it. So we have those, but there's also people just crushing on weekends, making an impact, helping people go faster and getting paid for exponentially, right?

You could be a, I mean, think of in your space, right? There's somebody who's a trainer and they get paid X amount of money per session. That's a time and effort community. It's great. The world needs it. I love my trainers. I die without them. But then if they're good enough, if they have the ability, if they have the knowledge to extract

it, and all of a sudden every month they're putting 100 people in a room or 100 people via Zoom online and they're training the masses, they could charge a lot less. and it multiplies their revenue. And for Tony and I, that just means impact. That just means we're making self-education a new norm. Makes absolute sense. And I want to see you guys put big universities out of business, man,

because unless someone's going to be a doctor, attorney, accountant, engineer, there's really no reason to go to that university and get a four-year deficit and go into debt. Yeah. And then come out and realize you still have to learn from someone else who's done it. Yeah. And I love what you said about the moral obligation. You do have a moral obligation.

If you've got the knowledge and wisdom that's going to help someone time collapse, why take that hard drive and throw it away when you die? Share it with others and monetize it. And the link to go to is bedroslink.com. Yeah, register. We'd love to see you there a lot. Make sure you ask us some questions. Dean, before you leave here, I do have to ask you.

If you were to meet someone one time, and let's say this person is going to go on to become an entrepreneur, but you only get one chance with this guy. You have about two or three minutes with him. And he says, Dean, what are the top two or three things I need to know to make it in life and business and success and happiness? What is the advice you're going to give this young man? One is that I wish I knew earlier on that your thoughts lie to you. Right?

Tell me about that. Meaning, like, I remember thinking, I want that, but I don't have a college here. I want that, but my parents don't support me. All of that is a shit-ass story that your inner self-doubt is telling you. And I know that's easier. You've heard it a million times, but think about that this time. What's standing between you right now and your next level is the story you tell yourself. If you say you can, you're going for it.

If you say, I don't think I should, you're hesitating, and he who hesitates loses, right? So I would just say, every time your thoughts tell you a story, go Google and find someone who's done it, right? You said, yeah, John Paul DeGio here. You want to talk about a billionaire who didn't even get out of high school, who, when his son was a couple months old, the wife left, took the money, he was homeless, living in a car. He's telling people, I'm going to start a, you know, he's selling encyclopedias door to door telling people he's going to start a hairline. And I mean, oh, yeah, that's cute, John Paul, right, one of the top richest men, 100 richest men in the world. Paul Mitchell. Paul Mitchell, Patron Tequila, right? Richard Branson,

Branson, same story. Tony Robbins, same story, my story, your story. Like, when you think you can't find someone who can and shift that story. I wish someone would have given me that at a younger age. And secondly, is love what you do so much that you feel ethically obligated to get people's credit cards. I love what I do so much that I will, people say, God, your ads are all over YouTube, all over Facebook, all over and so I'm like, thank God. I can't change their life on my book if I don't get it in their hands. Amen. So I'm going to do whatever it takes to get your credit card to get my book. Whatever it takes to show up with Tony and we're going to crush it and give you an outlet, like, I'll do whatever it takes.

So love what you do so much that you get great at persuasion, get great at marketing. Don't get stuck in the grind. Don't get stuck on what color logo you're going to have or what color sign you're going to put outside. All that means nothing. Is it Drucker's Law? The two things needed in a business are innovation and marketing, all the rest is an expense. Obsess on innovation and marketing. Amen.

Before we leave, I got one more question for you, which is this energy, this enthusiasm, this passion that you show up with. I imagine someone who had been abused, who had gone through trauma, who had felt shy, introverted. Wouldn't show up like that. How did you muster up this energy, passion, enthusiasm? Great. Last thing is set a course on where you want to go. The whole world knows what they don't want. We run away from pain.

We run away from the potholes. We just avoid, like we're on a car driving through avoiding potholes, but we're never looking at our destination. Know where the hell you want to go and sell yourself on that dream every day. The number one sales job you have to do is on you. Sell yourself every day. I know where I'm going. I know the love of my life. I know what I want for my kids.

I know the impact I want to make on the world. I know your heart and what you do for these people. I want to light it up. I want to bring it. If I was here like, yeah, I've gone through a lot of tough stuff in my life. Like, who the hell would listen? They'd be gone by now. So this enthusiasm comes from an authentic place.

Find it and you'll light everybody up around you. You are the servant leader, Dean Graciosi. Where can our friends learn more about you and find you? You can find me on Instagram. Instagram. You're blowing it up on Instagram. Yeah, let's just go there because I do a video every single day. I read as many DMs as I can because it keeps me in touch and I know what people need.

Amazing. Ladies and gentlemen, that's Mr. Dean Graciosi, my friend, my hero, my mentor. And if you enjoyed this episode like I know you have, please leave a comment, give us five stars, and of course, share it with your friends. Take care. Hey, thanks so much for being here for today's Empire Podcast Show. We would love for you to do a quick little favor for us. just go to iTunes and give us a five-star rating, leave a comment, share it with your friends. And if you're interested in growing your business faster, go to bedroskoolion.com

forward slash empire, fill out the application to see if you're a good fit for our Empire Mastermind Group.