In Search Of Excellence - Dean Graziosi: What I Learned from Going from Poverty to Extreme Wealth | E163

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Dean Graziosi shares his incredible rags-to-riches journey from growing up with an abusive and violent dad, being evicted from a trailer park, sleeping on floors, moving 19 times before turning 20 years old, not going to college, working in a collision shop, starting to invest in real estate in his early 20s, creating an infomercial business despite having no experience, watching a Tony Robbins video on TV and then becoming his best friend years later, earning enough money to retire in his 20’s, and owning 14 different companies – as well as becoming a world-class entrepreneur, real estate investor, self-education leader, and one of the most successful motivational speakers in the world.  In this inspiring episode, Dean discusses the power of mentorship, work ethic, and taking bold risks — from borrowing money to buy rundown apartments to turning a small income into millions. He reveals lessons learned from his parents, the importance of confidence, gratitude, and building strong relationships, including his partnership with Tony Robbins. Dean also discusses why self-education beats traditional college, how to achieve financial freedom, and what it really takes to succeed in life and business. Don’t miss this powerful conversation packed with actionable insights for entrepreneurs, dreamers, and anyone in search of excellence.Coaching and Staying Connected:1-on-1 Coaching | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | LinkedIn

I had a purpose bigger than everybody else. I wanted to borrow money and buy a new tow truck, gray booth and a frame machine. I started buying rundown apartments, borrowing money from the bank. Everything I was doing was counterintuitive to him. It was wrong. We're gonna go broke. Said words like, you're gonna go broke.

We don't make money like that. That's for other people. We come from the wrong side of the tracks. We're blue collar. I just knew he was wrong. Is college necessary to our success? My daughter's graduating high school in 10 days. Where's she going to school?

Not, she's not. She's not? No. So much of our success today, I know that's true of me, I know that's true of you, that there's people in our lives that we see and make relationships with that can really impact our future. Twin brothers, one of them's extremely successful.

The other one, in and out of jail, in and out of drugs. They interview the two of them, and the one in and out of jail, they said, what happened? They said, my father was an alcoholic and used to abuses. What else could have happened? And when they went to the successful brother, hey, how did this happen to you? He said, my father abused me.

I was an alcoholic. What else could have happened? Both of them had the same situation. One of them was like, I can't do anything because, and one of them was I must because. When I didn't have to worry about money anymore, the only person left in the mirror was that kid that was a little damaged from being young,

and I had to work on me. Enthusiasm, not cockiness, not arrogance. Enthusiasm can outweigh intelligence and experience. Welcome to In Search of Excellence. I'm so excited to have Dean Grazialsi on my show. I've been wanting to have him on my show for years and years. Tony Robbins, we did a great interview and he referred me to Dean and dream come true for me, inspirational, motivational in my own career. Dean is a serial entrepreneur, real estate guru,

started 14 companies, and is one of the most influential, motivational speakers in the world. Thanks for being here, I'm so grateful. Oh, good to be here, good to be here. Thank you. So I always start my podcast with our family, because they shape our future.

You in particular had a crazy upbringing. Let's talk about your mom, Gloria, your parents divorced when you were three. And I wanna talk about the Chevrolet Impala 1972 and what happened on that day and how watching that influenced your future. Oh my God, you gave me goosebumps. I haven't thought about that in a long time.

I don't know where you found that. I probably have said it once. You did your homework for sure. So yeah, it was a red Chevrolet 1972 Impala. Maybe a 71, something like that. Um, the back window, I remember the back window was knocked out of it at an early age, and we had a piece of plastic on it.

And you know the thing is, when you don't have money, right? My parents split when I was three. I lived in a trailer park with my mom for a while, and she worked three jobs to make nothing. $90 a week, I think, at one point. That was the number. I mean, I know 90 is more in today's world, this is many years ago, but she was making about 90 bucks a week,

working three jobs, coming home really late at night, you know, and we could talk about how that inspired me, probably to be an entrepreneur, because I hated, she's the most empathetic, she's still with an entrepreneur because I hated she's the most empathetic. She's still with us. Thank God she's the most empathetic, compassionate human I've ever met in my life. My mom never complained. Didn't come home late and go, God, your dad left. He doesn't say never knew a word. Didn't when you're young, you just don't know.

I just knew my mom had to work really hard. And I know she didn't have a lot of money to show for it. And she had and I think my grandfather bought it for the Chevy Impala. And somebody broke into it, I think, if I remember correctly, and she didn't have the money to replace the glass. And I remember her taking me to school and I begged her to drop me off. I don't know if I said this in that, what you heard, but I begged her to drop me off around the corner from school so kids wouldn't make fun of me. And again, it wasn't like, poor me, I'm broke. I just didn't wanna deal with kids going,

oh my God, look at that crappy, you know, that car and the window knocked out, why don't somebody fix it? But if you look at those things, I think we all have something. If you're listening to a podcast like this, we all have something we either wanna run away from or run to.

I mean, isn't that the inspiration for all entrepreneurship? A lot of times we're running away from craziness, we're running away from, you know, repeating the history of what our parents did, even if we love them. I love my parents dearly, but I didn't want to live another life like them.

But I think at this phase of my life, and I want to go in any direction you want, the how to be successful is less important than the why to be successful. So if I think back now at 56 years old, and it was many, many years ago, but I don't know if I was five, seven, 10, but I remember watching my mom work hard.

Her hands always hurt. I always remember my mom's hands hurt because she cut hair and she cleaned houses and she painted houses. So she would go to houses and any house that was gonna get remodeled, she had a guy that was a contractor would hire, she'd just go in and paint. But she'd always come home and go in like this

with her hands, because they hurt. And I remember just thinking, I need to take care of her. Like, my dad was gone, I was the man of the house. I don't know if I was, like I said, four, seven, twelve, but I was like, I'm the man, this is my responsibility. I'm letting my mom work herself to death for nothing. She's working this hard for us to live in a trailer park, and when we couldn't afford that, we moved in with Grandma. letting my mom work herself to death for nothing. She's working this hard for us to live in a trailer park,

and when we couldn't afford that, we moved in with Grandma. And I don't have any regrets for that. I have none, because it shaped a man who was like, no matter what it takes, I didn't look up statistics and say, well, if I go in business for myself, 50% of all businesses fail year one, 80% fail over a 10-year period. This is not the thing to do, I should just...

No, it wasn't even that. The why was so big. fail year one, 80% fail over a 10-year period. This is not the thing to do. I should just f... No, it wasn't even that. The why was so big. My mom needs to stop working three jobs to come home at nine o'clock at night with her hands hurting. I'm gonna do whatever it takes. So, when I look back now, I had dyslexia. I wasn't the smartest kid in school.

I didn't go to college. I didn't come from money. I probably, if someone in the yearbook would vote the most likely to succeed, I guarantee would have been at the bottom of that list. But I think I had a purpose bigger than everybody else. And I think that's a really great, a great starting point. We have a lot of similarities in our background.

I'm 56 as well. My parents divorced, I was two and a half. And I remember my mom, she worked two jobs to support my brother and me. And I remember her old Cutlass Supreme, Oldsmobile. Oh my God, she worked two jobs to support my brother and me. And I remember her old Cutlass Supreme, Oldsmobile. There's no such thing as an old... And it broke down on the freeway. And I remember my mom saying they're crying,

you know, sort of helpless. There were no cell phones back then, obviously. It had a profound effect on my life, just watching the engine and... Look at this, goosebumps again. The smoke coming out of the engine. And I remember us having to walk off a ramp on the freeway to a gas station to have the car towed.

And it was just hard. She worked two jobs as well as a legal secretary and had a boss harassing her and couldn't leave the job, but it had a major influence on my life as well. Let's talk about your dad, Paul, and I want to go to a situation. Uh, you moved in with him when you were 13 years old, and I want to talk to you about the bus incident

and your lip bleeding, and we'll talk about his being sexually and physically abused when he was a kid, one of 12 siblings. Walk us through his, your history with him, and then that moment, as I did my research, I thought, wow, that's a big one. I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I wanna know

if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google lift and Seagate. And I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey. And at this stage in my life, I want to give back.

I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success.

So that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video.

Yeah, it's that one I share a lot. So I'm not sure we found it, but I appreciate you. I have no problem sharing any of that stuff, because what is our whole goal here? If you're listening or watching right now, it's not to brag on what we've accomplished. It's not to show you, look how awesome we are. It's to show you what's possible

no matter where you come from. And you don't have to come from a hard background to want more, right? It's just, it's hopefully just to show you no matter what you've experienced in your life, that you have the opportunity to turn it into gasoline, into fuel rather than an anchor. And I think that's why it's so great what you do,

and it's so great that you've put yourself out there with all the success you have. You don't need to be doing this, but I know you're doing it because you want to serve others. You want other people to see the opportunities that live in front of them and not listen to the media, not listen to the negativity, not listen to the wrong voices, the wrong people. So that's why you're here.

So when we share these stories, it's not like, look, I went through hard times and now I'm great. It's more like, wow, if we found a different way to approach certain things, maybe you can too. So I love what you do and I think it's amazing. So for me, so I do have to pre-frame that my dad was the youngest of 12, and he was really physically abused.

His dad used to beat him all the time until his mom finally left when he was about nine years old. And then he became the adult. He raised rabbits and chickens and tried to help support his family. Um, he told me his story once, and I don't think I've ever shared this publicly,

but I can't even imagine it. But when he was about nine years old, his mom was pregnant again for one last child. So my dad was the youngest of 12. She must've, my grandmother must've got pregnant later on. And my grandfather, this is the story my dad told me, my grandmother was blind in one eye. I knew her my whole life was blind in one eye.

It was kind of yellow and hazy. And one day he told me my grandmother was blind in one eye. I knew her my whole life was blind in one eye. It was kind of yellow and hazy. And one day he told me, he said, my grandfather didn't want another baby, and punched her in the face while she had glasses on. And then when she was on the ground, he kicked her in the face and kicked her in the stomach. She had a miscarriage in front of him. And I can't even imagine, like,

no matter what I've gone through in my life, nothing can compare to what my father must have gone through. With that said, my dad missed that next year of school because he was so nervous. He said he used to, this is what he told me exactly. He said, I used to break the tips of the pencils from shaking so much, so they sent me home for a year.

Right? So think of the, like, now that I'm 57, you know, we're around the same age, 56, 57 years old, like, the trauma, this poor kid, like I have kids now, I can't even imagine my kids going through. I could cry for that little kid, right? But he was an old school Italian guy, never got help. So instead of trying to heal that child in him, he, um, he just was angry his whole life.

Very confrontational. He'd fight with everybody. Like, I mean, he would physically fight with everyone. He went through five marriages. His brothers and sisters didn't talk to him. When his mom died, she wasn't talking to him. My sister is four years older than me. She hasn't talked to him in 25 years. And it's only because he, I think...

I got to see it. I got to see... Like, what he went through that he really was just this child that no one said, hey, we love you, you're gonna be okay. Right? So, I found empathy and compassion for him. But when I was... So, I'm gonna tell that story. When I was 13 years old, there's a lot of stuff, but when I was 12 or 13 years old,

my mom was getting married to her high school sweetheart, a guy that she dated in high school. Long story short, she's getting married, and it triggered my dad. And he was mad. And, and, uh, long story short, he came to our house with a bat, and he knocked some windows out of the cars,

and was trying to get in the house. We called the police. My mom and stepdad got scared, and we went into hiding. Now, my dad knows the story, and I've said it, and he's okay with me sharing it, because he's in a completely different space now. He's still with me. He's heading towards, you know, 90 years old, hiding.

As in? Like, we went from campground to campground in a motorhome, hiding from him, because we were afraid if he found us, that he would hurt us. Because that's how violent he was when he came to our house. Something really snapped in him.

So we were on the road for like two weeks, living in campgrounds, in a little motorhome with a tent outside. And it wasn't, this is not like, it was scary, but it was like kind of fun. I was fishing in the pond down the street. So it wasn't all bad. But about three weeks in, like it just got bad.

And finally, me and my sister, we walked about two miles into town. This is so long ago. We're the same age, because we could say it. With a quarter, it was a pay phone, and I called my dad. And I called him and said, uh, he answered the phone, he goes, where the hell are you because we could say it. With a quarter, it was a pay phone, and I called my dad. And I called him and said, uh, he answered the phone, he goes, where the hell are you? Tell me right now.

And I said, and this is again, probably protecting my mom since I was little, I just said to him, and I hope I'm not going too detailed on this story. I said to him, um, hey, how will you leave mom alone? Like, how will you leave her alone? He said, move in with me. He said, move in with me. He said, move in with me, I'll never bug her again. I need your, I need my influence on you, your, whatever.

So I said, yes. So my sister was with me, and my sister's like, you're crazy, why would you do that? I'm like, you can't tell Mom. You can't tell Mom. So we walked all the way back. I said, Mom, I wanna move in with Dad. And she was completely freaked out. Um, but I did, and he kept his promise. He never bugged her again. He never bothered again. I moved in with dad." And she was completely freaked out. Um, but I did, and he kept his promise.

He never bugged her again. He never bothered again. I moved in with him when I was 12 or 13. And so you could take that story, so here's the part that I wanted to share today that I hope... I'm gonna tell two more parts of this. This might get a little long, but if it serves one of you listening today, I wanna share this. I moved in with him. And it was...

amazing... and the craziest experience of my life. I moved in with him. And it was... amazing. And the craziest experience of my life. He was two different people. He was the dad that let me drive, taught me how to drive standard shift at 12, 13 years old. Let me drive to high school, ninth grade. I was 14 or 13. I parked next to my teacher.

They're like, I know you're in my ninth grade class. Like, this is a guy that let me drive to school. I worked with him. He made me like a partner in his business while I was... It wasn't... He only made 30, 40 grand a year in a collision shop, but he made me a partner in a business, gave me all this responsibility, turned me into a man. I got up at five o'clock every morning to go to work

because there was no exception. He was cool with me going out when I was older and partying, but you had to be... It worked. So he taught me all these things, but simultaneously, he still was that crazy guy. And at, you know, one point, I remember throwing up blood and went to a doctor's, I had a bleeding ulcer at 14 because I think I was so stressed about what this guy would do.

With all that said, I look back now, it's the greatest gift of my life. I wouldn't be here with you having this conversation if it wasn't for him because there was a point where I realized that I could read his emotions and I could tell when he was in that, like his name's Paul, like crazy Paul. And I could tell when he was in that, like, crazy, his name's Paul, like, crazy Paul. And through love and compassion and feeling that energy, I could get him back to the awesome

dad that would take me camping and take me fishing and take me hunting and let me drive the car. And he saved up for a year and a half to buy me a motorcycle when I was 16 years old that, like he had nothing. And he bought me a brand new motorcycle at 16 years old, Like, all these things, and I found a way to feel it. And what I tell everybody, I could... The truth is, that happened for me, not to me. That if I look back, I have to blame him for the man I am,

because I truly believe, right, next week, Tony and I are doing an event, we'll have 800,000 people, live, right, that register from all around the world in a virtual event. Or even if I walk into a room of 50,000 people, I feel maybe a trot, maybe I'm messing, you know, a line in my tongue, but, but I feel I can read that whole room. I can feel what they need. I can feel the emotions going on with the crazy, you know, what's going on with politics, what's going on with inflation or tariffs or the fear. I feel like I can

feel that and I can deliver something and meet people where they are. So I believe God, the universe, whatever your beliefs are, gave me that gift of that dad so I could tap into another level of me so I could feel human emotions. So when I look back now, why would I change any of it? And it's become a fuel. Like for my sister, it's a little bit of an anchor. My sister's successful, but it's still this thing where for me, it's like, no, God gave me that gift of Paul Graziosi, my dad, so I could be the man I am today. I'm a different father because of him. I'm a different husband because of him.

I'm a different friend because of him. I've, my companies are, you know, a couple billion dollars in revenue since I started because of him. And people say, well, you can't change your past. Well, kinda, because I'm grateful for the man that God gave me rather than resent it. So I know that was a long story,

but hopefully it helps one person. I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I wanna know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google lift and Seagate.

And I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey. And at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs

who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions, and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video.

Our parents shape our futures, so do our grandmothers. And again, here's where we have similarity. My nan and Judy foster care, moved from home to home. Back in the day, Paul, as you probably know, families would have foster kids because they got paid. So my grandmother, she slept in a closet, she was the maid, she swept floors, terrible life, dropped out of school at 16 years old. My God, our stories couldn't be any closer.

Crazy. And she married my grandfather when she was 16, lied about her age, and when my parents split she married my grandfather when she was 16, lied, um, about her age. And when my parents split, my grandmother took care of us because my mom was working, and I lived with my mom full-time. I saw my dad two times a week, talk to us. And she was such an inspiration to me. I mean, she was my hero.

She passed away two years ago at 104 years old. Oh, my gosh. I'm so glad you had her all those years. Yeah, and she was just sharp till 102 years old. Then she got sick and it wasn't quite the same. Um, but she always inspired me by telling me things that you can do whatever you want, et cetera, et cetera. It's like so many... We couldn't have more of a similar path. So, tell us about Carmella, your grandmother,

and what she did for you. And I think she told you two things that inspired your life for the rest of your life. Yeah, two things. She'd tell me every day, I was beautiful, and then I could do anything I ever wanted to. And she also used to say, um, if I would come home and say, I failed the test gram,

right, because I struggled in school a little bit, she'd like, okay, um, can you retake it? And I'd say, no, I can't. She's like, great, it's gone, it's over, it's yesterday. So what can we do, how can we work together to get a better grade on the next one and we can average it out? Like it was always that kind of philosophy

and not, it sounds like a model in your story, but my grandmother was seven, her mom died, had an issue with her heart that they didn't know how to fix it back then. And when she was in eighth grade, her father was a volunteer fireman. They got a new fire truck, they took her for a ride, they flipped it over, it landed on him and killed him.

So by eighth grade, her mom and dad were dead. And back then, instead of foster care, because she had five siblings, she was the oldest of five, she quit eighth grade and raised all five kids. Like you can't even imagine that in today's world. And my grandfather, who came from Italy, had left enough money, literally some of it, in the basement from he started, he...

from a janitor to a waiter, to owning his own Italian restaurant, Tony's, uh, Tony's Pasta House. Uh, left her enough money to go about five years of raising these kids and a home. So she raised these kids, and by the time she was 17, she married my grandfather, she got pregnant from my mom. And then when we were three and my parents split,

we moved into Grandma's house. So most of my child, when I talk about the stability of my childhood with my mom, you know, my mom and dad divorced, my dad being a little off, and my mom at one point got married and moved to another state. Um, my grandmother was the anchor. She was there. She was the... My favorite human being in the world.

When things were off, it was her heart I wanted to run to, it was her words I would listen to, and I don't know where I'd be if I didn't have that woman. Always, like, she was the type... There was one time, I'll tell a story I've never told anybody, there was one time, um... My dad, I was living with my dad, I was 16 or 17 years old.

Something happened when my mom triggered him and he screamed at me, it was the first time ever, he swung at me and it wasn't fun. Did he hit you actually? He swung at me and missed. And I was like, I gotta get outta here. So I walked outta the house and I walked about four miles into town.

I called my grandmother, and I said, Graham, can you come get me? She goes, of course, she come gets me. And talk about, I could get emotional thinking about how intuitive this woman was. She picks me up, she knew what happened, she knew my dad, right, she knew the history. She could see I was flustered.

She got in the car, and she'd say, so what do you want for dinner? Right? Like instead of saying, what's going on and tell me, cause probably didn't want to, and just start this amazing conversation. And she already knew that this was all happening for me without as a woman with an eighth grade graduation. And she'd say, you know, God only gives us the things that shape who we're becoming. Like the, she would just, now that I'm older,

I could cry thinking about all those seeds planted made the man that I am. We got to her house. We got to her house, and my grandfather had died about five years earlier. So we get to the house, she's making me something, and she's like, you know, it's been a little lonely in this house. You used to live with me, now you're with your dad.

She's like, not to upset your dad, but... And I could rea... And I wanted to move in with her, right? She goes, I could really use some company. And I moved in with her. And I remember I lived with her for a couple of years until I got my own place, I think it's 17, I got my own apartment. But, like, that's the kind of influence this woman was.

And the older I get, I look back, like, she was an angel from heaven. That, you know, in the midst of chaos, she was just this voice. And, uh, yeah, thanks for letting me think about it today. You're welcome. And talking about watching our family members, my grandmother sold things at 16 years old. She worked in a department store,

sold hairbrushes, men's clothes. And she worked until she was 93 years old in a clothing store, and she was the highest salesperson... Oh, my God, I love it. ...wherever she went. store, and she was the highest salesperson. Oh my God, I love it. Wherever she went. I mean, she was incredible. Similar to you, I also moved in with my dad my senior year of high school

when I graduated before college. My parents split two and a half years old, and my mom was getting remarried. And I thought, gosh, I really, for the second time, because, or for the third time, because she remarried a man she didn't really love to give us a better life. You know, to all the parents out there

where you think you're doing your kids a favor sometimes by taking them out of poverty. And we weren't poor by then, but it was also a situation where we could have a much better life. It's really a mistake, because we suffered mentally. In fact, I'll tell you this, we came home.

My mom told me she wasn't happy. And she said at one point, do you mind if we leave? And we said, gosh, my brother and I, he's 18 months senior to me. And we said, no, that'd be great. We came from high school one day and she had packed everything in garbage bags and we did, and we got out of there in one hour. We came from high school one day and she'd pack everything in garbage bags, and we did, and we got out of there in one hour.

We threw everything into 10 garbage bags. She drove a small place, but that was great. But I saw my grandmother working her whole life, and my dad, who was a lawyer when I moved in with him as well, hard worker. I mean, I got a lot of good things from my dad, and work ethic was number one. And he was a solo lawyer by then, and told me the story that he would leave

and he'd get to work at 4 a.m., and I thought, okay, then I heard it my whole life, I heard it my whole life. And then that summer, of course, I'm going to college, I'm in a bar one night, I have a fake ID with a colored pencil, today the kids get this group purchase, they go from somewhere, I think they're all,

man, China, the barcodes work, except in Vegas. It's the one place that they don't work. And I remember I was out late and I had some fun, and I walked in at 3.45 in the morning, and I'm thinking I'm gonna sneak into the front door of his house. Oh, the door opened for me. He was sitting there waiting.

And I said, and he just looked at me, Dean, and he didn't even say anything. He just looked and he went... And then he left. And I thought, okay, he does go to work. He does get there by four in the morning. And it was crazy. I learned from him in the same way

that you learned from your dad. However, watching him work in the morning, and it was crazy. I learned from him in the same way that you learned from your dad. However, watching him work in the collision shop for you was very, very different. So tell us what you learned from his work ethic and then how that shaped your future. And then as part of that, what is your view on work ethic and how much that contributes to our success?

Yeah, love that. One last thing, I'll cap with my grandmother. When I was 17 years old, my grandfather had died years earlier, left her some money, but she wasn't great with it. She didn't know how to manage it and all the money was gone. And she had a, her house that she lived in

was my grandfather's family's house that was there for four generations. It was a house built in the 1780s in upstate New York. And his, my grandmother's... My grandfather's grandfather had it, father had it. My grandfather had it. My mom was born in that house, and I lived in that house, right? So it's five or six generations.

At 17, my grandmother couldn't afford it anymore. And I was trying, I was hustling, trying to make money to help her, and she lost it. She had to sell it. And then about eight years ago, a friend of mine called me and said, hey, I just saw a for sale sign go up on your grandmother's house.

I bought it that day. So I bought my childhood home. So I still got that place that was my sanctuary, so we got it and it's- What did you pay for it? I was like 380,000 bucks or something like that. But I bought it that day and it's a beautiful place, and we just go back every once in a while to visit it.

So pretty cool, full circle story. PETER FLEMINGER Full circle story. PETER FLEMINGER What my dad taught me is, I'd go out with friends too, especially in your 20s. We're the same age, that was a different era, different going out. And where'd you, you grew up in California? PETER FLEMINGER Michigan.

PETER FLEMINGER Oh, gotcha. So, East Coast, which is crazy, is nightclubs close at 4 a.m. I'm so glad I don't, I haven't been to a bar in many, many years, but I wish they all closed. I think here in Phoenix, they close at 1 o'clock in the morning, right? Why would they stay out until 4? But we used to stay out till 4, and my dad never cared about me staying out late. But there was no chance to ever be late.

So if I got... If we went out till 4, and went to the diner after and got home at five, it was shower and go straight to work. Right? And at first I used to always, even Saturdays, he would like, cause so at one point we owned a collision center together. By the time I was 18, I didn't live with them, but we owned Dean and it was Dean collision center by the time I was 18 or 19 years old.

And we were open on Saturdays, open at 8 AM. It could never miss a day. And if I did the guilt that he would throw on me. And I used to find it heavy back then. And a lot of my friends would think, um, you're crazy. Because not only did I work in the collision shop, I was always working on the man I was hoping to become. I always had these big aspirational dreams,

these entrepreneurial dreams to, you know, do what I'm doing now and all those things. But I have to say, looking back, the structure, the commitment of getting up early and getting a day's work in, it really shaped who I am. I still, I wake up at four every day now. It used to be five, now it's four, four-fifteen. And I am so blessed because I feel like I get more done

by eight o'clock in the morning than most people do all day long. And then there's something that kind of tied it all together with, um, when I read the book, Aguendino's book, The World's Greatest Salesman, I reference that book a lot, I really enjoy it. But there was something, he has these ten scrolls about being a great salesman, really it's about

being a great human. But one of them is, um, when it's like old school therapy, he said, instead of letting your emotions dictate your actions, let your actions dictate your emotions. And man, I think I've lived that way, right? Of course we have our past, you have stuff you could dig up from your past that could be an anchor, could hold you back. Or it's like, if you're in the move,

if you're moving forward, you're figuring out what you love. When people say, find your passion, find your why, you can't find it until you roll up your sleeves. You don't know if you like it till you fail a couple times, get back up and try. Like, it's in the midst of hustle and working that you find your passions. They don't just clobber you overhead and go,

oh God, I wanna do that for the rest of my life. It seems beautiful. You don't know until you get in it, roll up your sleeves, get kicked in the teeth 10 times, and you're still going at it. You're like, oh my God, I wanna do that for the rest of my life. It seems beautiful. You don't know until you get in it, roll up your sleeves, get kicked in the teeth 10 times, and you're still going at it. You're like, oh, my God, I love this. So I think what he started with, I had to be there no matter what, has resulted in the discipline of taking action first,

and my emotions get to follow it. And I think it saved me a lot of heartache. I think it saved me a lot of, man, if my dad was more like this, if my family had money, if I lived in a better spot, I didn't have time for that, because I was moving. And that motion, that action, that accomplishment, shifted who I was, shifted my thoughts, and made me realize, hey, even with dyslexia,

even without money, even with a crazy family, even from a small town, I can do pretty cool stuff. I believe work ethic is the most important ingredient in our success in whatever we do. You learned something at 15 watching your dad that has a different view. So what did you see? And tell us your view then, and do you still believe it today?

Great question, because some things are contradicting. Because work ethic... combined with a place of growth and opportunity and modeling proven practices and learning from people and being in an industry that can grow. Work ethic, modeling proven practices, and persisting to succeed in an industry that's growing is a recipe for success.

Wouldn't you agree? Right? But what I also saw with my dad, my dad had incredible work ethic. But he was like in the wrong boat, rowing in the wrong direction. So he had work ethic in a collision shop, where it wasn't state of the art, where he was kind of rude to his customers

because he just had a chip on his shoulder. He'd scare most of them away. And then when things wouldn't go good, he would underprice everybody else, so he'd barely make anything on the deal. So, he had an insane work ethic. But he was like, in the wrong boat, rowing against the current. Does that make sense? Yes.

So, I picked, thank God, I picked up on the work ethic. But there was a time, and this is really important to hear, there was a time I realized... that really important to hear, there was a time I realized that my dad, though how hard, worked hard as any man I've ever seen in my life, was never going to get ahead in his life. Like it hit me at one point, like if I do what he does, I'm going to get what he gets. And that was the second round of our conflict. By 19, 20 years old, I didn't want to be his partner anymore. I didn't want to work with him in a collision shop.

We got in fights. We didn't talk for a year and a half. Because I wanted to borrow money and buy a new tow truck and buy state-of-the-art spray booth and a frame machine. I started buying run-down apartments, borrowing money from the bank. He would never borrow money from the bank. So everything I was doing was counterintuitive to him. It was wrong. You're gonna go broke. I mean him. It was wrong, you're gonna go broke.

I mean, he said words like, you're gonna go broke, you think you're a big shot. This is not, we don't make money like that. That's for other people. We come from the wrong side of the tracks. We're blue collar. We gotta work. He had all these shitty beliefs.

And honestly, I have to thank God. Like, yes, I had some other mentors that I could look to that were successful, but I just knew he was wrong. I just knew he was wrong. I just knew he was wrong. And I thought if I take his work ethic, but I put it in the right area, I could grow it. And it took us not talking for a year. We didn't, about 18 months.

And by then, I owned most of everything. And I let, he left, just one day, walked out of the collision shop. I sent him a check every week while he was gone. But I didn't see him for 18 months. And I let, he left just one day, walked out of the collision shop. I sent him a check every week while he was gone. But I didn't see him for 18 months. In 18 months, I bought two new tow trucks. I landed Enterprise Rent-A-Car as a client

and Hertz Rent-A-Car as a client. I quadrupled our business in those 18 months. I bought three apartment houses and I was building a house. By the time he came back, and when he came back, I got one of those conversations that most people don't get when he said, I'm wrong, obviously what you've done. He said, I thought you were gonna go broke

in three weeks when I walked out. And he said, I come back and he's like, I never wanna be your partner again, I'll work for you. And my dad worked for me for like five years until I got into this industry and left it, sold everything. There's a lot there that I want to go back to. Yeah, sorry.

But no, it's great. When I was growing up in Detroit, I looked around and I felt, okay, I always want to be a millionaire. And when you ask me why, it's sort of like, it's a milestone of success. And I thought you could do anything you want in life with a million dollars. And again, at that age, you know, 10 years old,

you're not thinking about is that pre-tax after tax? I mean, it's just like a million dollars. I remember I'd go in my bedroom and had this piggy bank with pennies, and I said, okay, one day I had $30, $50, I was like, God, this is gonna take me a long time to get there, but I'd look around the neighborhood and I'd see all these wealthy people, right?

They had the Mercedes, they had the big houses, they lived in Bloomfield Hills, and it motivated me. I said, I wanna be like those people, and it had an influence on my life. Tell us about the three guys in your neighborhood who did something different where you have said you saw something in their eyes that was different from most people.

So true, when I said I didn't have mentors, but I had people that were guidance, and it was Joey Noto, Dominic Afuso, and Mark Miller. And Mark Miller was probably 40 years older than me. The other guys were probably 30, 35 years older than me. And you come from a little town, a town of six, seven thousand people, right? There's not a... There wasn't a lot of money in our town.

Right? Is this Marlboro, New York? Yep, Marlboro, New York. Yep, still living in Marlboro, New York. But as a young... I remember Joey Nodo owned so much real estate, and drove the only Mercedes in our town, right? And, uh, and Dominic Afuso subdividing property. And when I got the chance to talk to them, there was one del in our town, right? And, uh, and Dominic Afuso, subdividing property. And when I got the chance to talk to them,

there was one deli in town, Frank's Deli, my buddy Frank Criccio owns it. If you're ever in Marlboro, New York, it's still there, amazing Italian deli. But everybody went to the Italian deli. When I would start going there, and I had Dean Collision Center, these guys saw, they must have saw my hustle.

And a lot of them had negative emotions about my dad. My dad was kind of the crazy guy in town, right? You could love him or hate him. It's the same story I had. He'd be your best friend, but could snap on you and fist fight you, right? So, the cool part is they allowed me in, and I started building a friendship with these guys. And when I was buying real estate, they would,

or trying to buy real estate, you know, they would guide me. But besides the guidance and telling me what to do is I saw that they were a little happier than what I saw in my dad. I saw that they were a little now and these are words I can use in today's world. I don't know if I felt it then, but a little more optimistic. They seem to talk about their wives in a different way than my dad talked about his multiple wives. They seem to just, like, it was almost like... I want to be happier. There is an opportunity. I knew these guys didn't come from anything. And Mark Miller was a famous artist.

He was one of the famous illustrative artists in the world. And he bought the only winery in our town. And I happened to go there one day because I wanted to buy the property next door. And we sparked up this friendship. And him and I used to go there one day because I wanted to buy the property next door, and we sparked up this friendship. And him and I used to go every Sunday. And these three guys, without them realizing it, they would never know that I even am talking about them

like this right now. I think Joey Nodo's the only one still alive. But they gave me a glimpse of what was possible. And just not to take your words, but I always wanted to be a millionaire. As a little kid to take care of my mom. It's probably the same reason. I didn't know what that meant, pre-tax post, that, all that. And just not to take your words, but I always wanted to be a millionaire. As a little kid, to take care of my mom. It's probably the same reason.

I didn't know what that meant, pre-tax post, that, all that. But I wanted to be wealthy so I could take care of the people I love. And these guys were a glimpse of what it could look like. And it was that, that, and I look back now, it was like those three guys, my grandmother, and running away from the pain of what my childhood looked like. It was those three ingredients that pushed me to never stop.

And to this day, it still lives in me. I still work like I'm broke. You had an uncle who lived in Connecticut who was doing well. Yeah, you're good. You're good. And the uncle gave you advice that he said, screw that, that's not what I'm going to do. And not listening to his advice

also helped make you where you are. So tell us about what happened then, and should we listen to our parents who really do have the best intentions for their kids to talk to us about, you should do this, you should do that? Gosh, you're good. I don't even know where you found all this stuff. I'm so, it's great to have this conversation.

So my uncle Larry, and I could say he's no longer with us, when I was young, I had these aspirations of being a millionaire, to take care of my mom. And I was sitting at my grandmother's table. He was my great uncle. He was my, uh, my grandmother's sister's husband. And very academic based. And I'm not knocking college in any way, but this, it wasn't the path I chose, right?

So, I don't know how old I was, 13, 14, whenever it was. And he asked me what I was gonna do with my life, and I told him I was gonna be wealthy, I was gonna take care of my mom, I was gonna start my own business. I remember him laughing. And he's like, yeah, great dreams, but you need to get real.

What college are you gonna go to? And I remember saying, I'm not smart enough for college. There's no way I'm getting in college. I can barely get through whatever grade. It was in eighth, ninth grade, whatever it was. And he said, well then, you can expect to have the same life of all your cousins, right? And I still to this day can remember how, like,

how much disdain I had for him immediately because he wouldn't look into the vision I had, right? And he might have been looking at it logically or statistically and thought he was helping me. He actually did help me, because I remember saying, I never talked to him again. He'd come to family, I mean't been to look at that prick, excuse my language, I wouldn't look at him,

I wouldn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to talk to him. Because the way he made me feel. Because the way he made me feel. And I, I, I, I guess at this phase of my life, I gotta thank Uncle Larry for being another, because you can use negativity as your fuel or your anchor. And it was just another reason to say, watch me do it.

A big topic that you've talked about in the past, and that is all the rage today is college. Yeah. And whether we need college, you can talk about self-education, you're big on it, you're huge. Your daughter at one point had a chance to go to school for six years, and you said, I big on it, you're huge. Your daughter at one point had a chance

to go to school for six years, and he said, I'm not sure if you need this. I think it was to be an architect, if I'm not mistaken. Something like that, yeah. Something like that. At one point, my son, who has the gene, wants to start a business, he was flipping shoes and Supreme clothing, and he said,

hey, Dad, I'm not going to college. And I said, really? Where are you gonna live? He said, I'll live with you or mom. I said, it's not gonna happen with her, it's not gonna happen with me. Back in the olden days, there was no college. People learned from a shoe cobbler,

how to make shoes, et cetera, et cetera. And today, college education is less important. We talk about the income potential is largely the same in this world of tech. Nobody cares. I'm in the tech business. You know, you have, you know, you're partially in the tech business as well. We never look at a resume. Do you have specialized knowledge in the area which we need?

They can program. They cannot program, whatever the case may be. And the average student today, 59% of college graduates have student debt. And the average student debt is $38,383 per year for all of these. And it takes... The loans are 10 years, but it takes approximately 20 years to pay off the loans. So... One more statistic is 76% of the kids who get diploma don't use their major.

Neither did I. Psychology major. For me, it was a broad education. But is college necessary to our success? And where do you weigh the benefits of leaving home, becoming an adult, making new friends, and making connections for the future? Yeah, really great question. This is straight right in my life right now.

My daughter's graduating high school in 10 days. From right now. Yeah. My oldest is graduating high school. Where's she going to school? Not... she's not. She's not? No. It's over. Done. We made the decision two weeks ago. She's been going back and forth.

She was gonna go to Arizona State University. Going back and forth and I... Listen, the fact of the matter is, I know for a fact she should not go to college. My son, Brody, who's 16, he... It's his path. He's had straight A's on his own since he was in fifth grade. He loves engineering. He loves considering being a doctor.

He's gotta go to school, right? That's... My daughter is more like me. And... And here's what I wanna say. This is a touchy subject for some people. But schools, in my opinion, have been growing in a linear fashion, where the world is growing exponentially. And school, though needed for some pieces, and people

might say it's great experience, it's good to have them grow up, there's all kinds of ways that you can create and manufacture that experience. So what I've told my kids and say we're little is when you're older, you can go to college. And if you work hard, get good grades, I'll help support you get you through college. And if you work hard, get good grades, I'll help support you, get you through it. You don't have to get debt. I feel blessed I can say that. But if you go and goof off and get bad grades,

it's all on you. You take the debt, you pay it, get a second job. And both my kids have jobs right now. My 16, 18 year old, my daughter works at Dutch Bros. She's hustling. Love that. So I told both of them, you can take the college route or you could take the mentor route.

And what that looks like is we will create a two-year plan together. So I'm gonna give you my daughter's exact plan right now. She loves interior design. And it's the thing that's been itching at her for a while. So right now we just crafted in the last three weeks a two-year plan that doesn't feel like, oh, I'm just gonna figure out interior design.

She is researching interior designers right now that she feels are some of the top in the state that fit her style. And I said, find somebody who, when you talk to them, they know who Tony Robbins is or Dale Carnegie or Earl Nightingale. They're into personal development. They're into mentorship.

They understand the value of teaching and giving back. So I want you to find someone and I want you to go be the best employee they've ever had. You show up beforehand, you get there before you're supposed to, you stay later, you get things done, and your job's to not only be great at what you do for them, but in those two years to watch all of it. Interior design is not just what couch you pick out. You have to create marketing strategies,

you have to make sales, you have out. You have to create marketing strategies, you have to make sales, you have to upsell, you have like all these things. And we listed out all the things it takes. I said, you obsess on that, but then we'll create it to your plan. So right now, next week when she graduates, she's immediately going into a six month

how to interior design class. We found some great teachers. So she's going in a six month class. She's gonna take some CAD drawing classes independently and simultaneously she's gonna be interviewing with interior designers and see if she could get to work with one of them for a couple of years to go all in.

And I said, and I, you think you like it now, but I said, you won't know if you like it until you roll up your sleeves and really get in it and show up on time and do all those pieces. So that, to me... she could take two years and learn what probably the boss should be working with took ten years to learn. She can condense a decade into a year or two.

And I don't think there's any faster path. I mean, school is filled with a lot of general knowledge. We live in a world where specialized knowledge, like, go deep on the thing you want. Why learn the things that you don't have to? And I know that might be controversial to some. My son, he's gonna take that path, and I'm gonna support him and love him,

and he's gonna kick butt doing it. But, um, yeah, I'm, I'm... I don't think school is for most, and I think it's a waste of money for a lot of people. And with that said, um, yeah, I'm, I'm, uh, I don't think school is for most, and I think it's a waste of money for a lot of people. And with that said, some people say, well, they grow up there. My daughter's still going to go and do her own thing. She's still got to get out on her own. She still has to go to work. It's just going to be in a different format.

One of the things that I talk about and that I coach about is you kind of know what's happening in the world that surrounds you. And one of them is you need to know something about maybe philosophers, American history, world history. And you know what's so funny? In our two-year plan... Yeah. ...I have a book every quarter that she has to read. On different subjects. On different subjects as a part of the journey.

She has different classes, and then even after a year in this two-year plan, she can go pick, like, Milan or some place to go study abroad for a month on her topic, right, on design. And I would split the costs with her. Like, I have all these things laid out so it doesn't just feel like, oh, I'm gonna go mentor somebody.

Like, I wanted to create a two-year plan so when her friends are like, oh, I'm in college having fun and learning, what are you doing? I want her to be able to say, well, I'm on my third month of X, Y, and Z. I'm three months away from doing this. I'm two months away from getting this piece.

I want her to feel that because I also don't want her to have like envy of her friends, you know, partying in school. And the cool part is, my daughter doesn't drink. So she doesn't really look forward to missing out on the parties. We're going to talk a little later in the show about the importance of making a plan, but you are the 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of people

who are going to make a plan like that, or someone who doesn't make a plan like that, or someone who doesn't have a parent like you, who won't have the knowledge, education, to know subjects that are very important in terms of just our career. You don't want to be the only one in the room who doesn't know something that 99% of people did,

because maybe they went to college or they had some... Yeah, it's a really good point. And you know what's really cool though, is in an era of AI, if you're listening right now and you're thinking, wow, I wonder if that would be an approach for my kids, you could literally go to AI. Remember, AI is only as good as the questions you ask it. But if you went to chat and had a real depth conversation, said my daughter is considering going to college for XYZ.

If she decided not to go to college and still wanted to be in that profession, if I was gonna create a two-year plan that could diversify her knowledge, gain the skills that she's needed to excel in that, like, go through all of it and say, could you help me craft a two-year plan? It will help you lay out a plan

that is structured in a way that could feel like it's a college course, but it's on their own thing. It's more of a mentorship. So it definitely can help you start off on second or third base. My worry about AI is that students will take the shortcuts as opposed to learning in the classroom how to do certain things, either by hand... So true. We're all gonna get lazy.

And it's gonna be a different kind of brain function, different way to process, different way to think. It's a good concern. Old school, I think, is better because you can use both. AI can be there for the future, but everyone is going to... I mean, can you picture what's happening to our young kids? You have a two-year-old, I've got a five-year-old, eight-year-old, I mean... AI, I can see how AI can make you lazy.

There's some things I used to work on when I journal and figure out, and now I go to AI and it gives me the answer and I just polish it and I'm done in 10 minutes. Same, same exactly. And sometimes I need the process, the thinking process through it, because that's where the experience comes in.

So much of our success today, I know it's true of me, I know it's true of you, that there's people in our lives that we see and make relationships with that can really impact our future. They like something about you, they see you. Tell us about your dad having a breakdown. You said he was partly bipolar, and the Sunday dinners you had with Mary Lepresti

and how that got going. I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly a hundred,

including Google list and Seagate. And I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey. And at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to

achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So that's you have got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together.

All right, now let's get back to the video. There was a time so if God you went back into the I don't remember I barely remember talking about these sources great to I hope this is serving you well if you're listening or watching today. So... This is a great story, by the way. We had this collision shop before we owned it. Now, I'm young, maybe 18. This is still when I'm partners with my dad before the separation time, before it became

all mine and my dad came back. So we were renting, we were renting a collision shop from the LaPrestis. Joe and Mary LaPresti. I grew up in a town of all Italians. His property was foreclosed on at that point and then she owned it after that? Right. So we were in this fixture collision shop on the only highway in our town. My dad keeps fighting with the landlords.

So when the rent, when the lease was up, she threw us out. So we got no place to go. She throws us out of this collision shop. And we move in, we had this piece of property, a couple apartments on it, and it had an old barn in it. And I still have pictures of it, I'll show it to you when we're done here today. But in this old barn, I put a wood stove,

I brought my tools in it. And now I'm 19 years old, 20 years old, all my friends went to college. I'm not. I brought my tools in it. And now I'm 19 years old, 20 years old, all my friends went to college. I'm not. I'm working this collision center. And this is parts I haven't thought about in years. And I'm working on one car at a time in this 100-year-old barn,

just big enough to fit one car in with my toolbox. And if I painted, it had no exhaust fan. So I'm working on one car at a time just to survive, just to pay the bills, just so I can eat. And my dad went into a major depression. And he'd come every day and just, like, sit on the water bucket and be like, we're gonna lose everything. I don't know why you're wasting your time.

This is stupid. I'm like, Dad, this is hard enough for me to get through. Let me just try. So long story short, he freaks himself out so much that the bank starts to foreclose on his house. And we got thrown out of our collision shop. And he freaks out so much that he checks himself in to a psychiatric ward. And then they wouldn't let him out.

And when they wouldn't let him out, he started screaming more and throwing people around. They definitely wouldn't let him out. So now I'm like, jeez, like, I literally haven't talked about it. And I hope this serves you. I tell this story, and then I'll get on to Mary Lepresti. Um, long story short, I get all my friends together, we move all the stuff out of his house, we put it in storage, and I rented his house.

And I found somebody who put three months rent in advance, I paid up his back mortgage, so he wouldn't lose the house. So now it's rented, and the rent is gonna cover the mortgage. I'm good there. I'm working on one car at a time, and I go down to see Mary LaPresti. And, um, who's my landlord. And I started building to see Maryla Presti, and, um, who's my landlord. And I started building a relationship with her.

And I started having Sunday dinners, where she eventually, later on, she sold me the house she lived in. It was one of the greatest deals of my life. It really gave me such a lift. I made hundreds of thousands of dollars on the house she gave me with no money down. But the first thing she did for me is she realized the man I was was separate from the man my dad was.

And by going to dinner with her and listening to her, and her to get to know my heart and what I stood for... You know, so many people think sales is what you say and what you do immediately. At this phase of my life, I know for a fact, sales is about listening. It's about understanding what people want, what they need, and truly doing everything in your power

to serve them. I could tell what security she wanted. I could tell she didn't want the grief of dealing with my dad. I could tell, tell, tell, and I made her promises. And she let me move back in that collision shop and sold it to me. And sold it to me with no money down. And then she ended up selling me her house

a few years later for no money down. It was two of the biggest things that impacted my life. And it was because I listened to this woman, I truly cared. I didn't go down there to try to convince her. I went there to build a real relationship with her. So, long story short, that all of those ingredients, I forget about that, it's hard to even put them in a timeline. Uh, but all of it just...

If you've been through stuff in your life, remember, it can be the thing that holds you back, or the thing that makes you successful. You know, I've said this before, but you ever hear that story? It's obviously a made up story, but it's a good one. Twin brothers, one of them is extremely successful, great family started his own business, doing well. The other one in and out of jail, in and out of drugs. And they find that they interview the two of them and the one in and out of jail doing drugs, not successful at all, they said, what happened?

He said, my father was an alcoholic and used to abuse us. What else could have happened? And when they went to the successful brother with his own business and a family, he said, hey, how did this happen to you? He said, my father abused me and was an alcoholic. What else could have happened? Right? Both of them had the same situation.

One of them was like, I can't do anything because, and one of them was, I must because. And we, not to make what you've gone through lighter, but we all can choose to do that at any time we want. We could say, wow. What if all of it up to this moment today? Right? We talked about a lot of stuff I haven't talked about in years, years from, you know, from my grandmother

to my dad's craziness to the story of walking and calling my dad to bleeding ulcer to all those things, to moving out of his house, to himself checking himself in and all these things. What if you find someday that all of that was designed for you? You know, I got that gift from Tony Robbins 27 years ago when I bought his chorus.

I remember him saying, what if life happened for you, not to you? That may have fundamentally shifted my life more than any other one thing. I mean, really think about that. Right? What if it happened for me? How many times in life has things happened when maybe you went through the fires in California,

and you didn't lose your house, but you... You look at it and go, why could that happen? But maybe you moved, and when you moved, you were in a different place, and the neighbor that was there, you met him and he had the cure for a thing that someone in your family was dealing with. Like, if you piece all these things together, you go, wow, this really is a big puzzle.

And it's happening for me. How do I benefit from this? How do I use it as ammunition rather than the thing that holds you back? There's a part of that story that I think is really important for people to hear. Number one, this woman hated your dad. She had foreclosed on your, uh, collision shop. How did you... did you call her and say,

-"Hey, Mary, can we have dinner on a Sunday night?" Yeah. And uncomfortable. And it was really uncomfortable. 99.99% of people would never do that. They'd say it's not possible. And I think that story is really, really important. So tell people how important it is, even when it looks like there's nothing good

that's gonna come out of this. And again, this woman hated your dad. What made you think that you could even make a possible breakthrough there with her? I didn't think about this... at the time. So please, no. I was too young to say, oh, hey, my biggest accomplishments on the other side of the thing I'm most uncomfortable with.

Like, that's easy to say when you're 56 years old, looking back. Not easy when you're 19, 20 years old, just trying to figure out life. But desperation causes you to do whatever it takes. Like, I was in a place where, working out of this little garage, trying to pay the bills, the money was running out. I had to do something. I knew how to run a collision shop. I was good at what I did.

That building was set up for us. And I knew she was actually a good woman. Like, everybody talked about her as a sweet old couple that were a little tight with their money. Like, that... so who shouldn't be, right? They were probably living actually a good woman. Like, everybody talked about her as a sweet old couple that were a little tight with their money. Like, that... So who shouldn't be, right? They were probably living on a fixed income. Um, so I heard she was a good woman. I knew that I had the pattern recognition

that my dad turned off a lot of people. It was like, the common thread of all these fights was my dad. The common thread of my dad with four divorces was my dad. The common thread of 12 brothers and sisters not talking to one of the family members was my dad. So, though I love my dad, I realized he was the problem. So, I just found, probably then I realized, like, I don't know where my life's gonna be,

but if I could get back in that place, and what do I have to do? I have to take uncomfortable action. And it was uncomfortable. And I remember to this day, I have not, I swear to you, I've not thought about it once since then. As you were talking to me, I'm like, did I call her? Like, we didn't have cell phones back then. I literally knocked on her door. I knocked on her door. I knocked on her door. And when she came to the door, I could see her face of like, oh, okay, what's this? And we started a conversation and she invited me back to a Sunday dinner.

If you're Italian, Italian culture every Sunday, especially where I lived, everyone would get together and eat pasta on Sundays. Some of the best pasta I ever had in my life. And I went there more than one Sunday and just got to know it, and they got to know me. But uncomfortable? 10 out of 10.

Like not a, oh, no big deal, I just knocked on the door. I probably was, my hands were probably shaking when I knocked on that door. But what other opportunity, what, I didn't feel like I had a lot of options. You don't ask, you don't get. Without a doubt. And in today's world, in this phase of my life,

I know that when I feel that way, I must move forward. Because my, another version of me is on the other side of that. But I didn't know it then, I was just crafting, I was move forward. Because another version of me is on the other side of that. But I didn't know it then, I was just crafting, I was just crafting the man I am today. Let's talk more about knocking on doors. The Hertz account, so here you are, you're 20 years old,

tons of collision shops, right, competing on price. How did you get that account? Because you Forex the business immediately, here you are, young, brash, no fear. So walk us through because there's a lot of people out there who are 20 years old and say, how am I going to land Hertz account? Actually, the first one was the enterprise. No, no, it was great. It's because so I started

thinking I'm in this little town, I'm trying flyers and nothing's moving the needle. Now that I look back, there was no direct response marketing, no internet marketing. I was just hoping more people would come in and get referrals. And I created this little referral thing. I'm just trying to increase the business. And then one day, um, I heard somebody say, um... Oh, I... Somebody said I rented a car and I wrecked it.

Like, oh, it was so annoying. And they came back. And I'm like, wow, I didn't even think about that. There's rental cars. Somebody's rent, who's fixing them? So I started making phone calls before the internet to go Google it. So I start just calling, just, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Hertz Rent-A-Car. I'm like, who fixes your car?

And I found out some of them like, like maybe Avis has their own collision center. Right? So they do their own, they can't. But I found out that Enterprise Rent-A-Car shifted out to shops that were close. And literally, I got in the car, I put the best clothes on I had at the time, and I got in the car and went to an Enterprise Rent-a-Car

office in Newburgh, New York. And I walked in and just started talking. Uncomfortable again, I didn't go to college. I wasn't worldly. Some of the things you said you should know, I didn't. There was times I had a... My... And here's one thing I'll share with you. Enthusiasm, not cockiness, not arrogance.

Enthusiasm can outweigh intelligence and experience. I think I got in the door because of my enthusiasm. I got in the door because of the way I approached it. You could, they probably saw I was a nervous wreck. The guy was probably laughing at this kid coming through the door. But whatever I said to him, I said, give me a shot. I think I can do it cheaper, faster, and more efficient.

I said, you're used to dealing with these big guys. We're smaller, we can go quicker. We can dedicate and focus our time on you. So long story short, I got the account. They said, okay, we'll give you a couple cars from this branch. And I was like out of my mind. They said, do you have a tow truck? I said, yes, I didn't. So I figured out a way I bought a flatbed within two weeks. And they started calling say, hey, there's one on the on ramp one here, one here, we started picking up, we started doing it. Within

six months, we had four within a year, we had 100 mile radius, every enterprise rent a car that got wrecked in 100 mile radius came to us. And we four times the business. I went from my dad never made more than $37,000 in a year, because that's what he told me. That was his record year. We made 250 grand in a year. And this is, you know, almost 40 years ago, it's 35 years ago. and we were killing it. We were knocking it out of the park, and then I ended up getting hurt trying to car. And it was the foundation,

ended up getting three more tow trucks, and we bought a spray booth, we bought a... We turned it into a state-of-the-art collision shop. It's pretty cool. You never know who you're gonna meet in your business, right? You got all these people coming in, you got all these customers. You're at the collision shop,

and you're flipping real estate on the side. Yep. And some guy walks in one day and he likes you. And there's a vineyard for sale. What happened then and what's the lesson on that story? So the greatest lesson on that is how you do... We've all heard how you do one thing is how you do everything. And... I think it's one of the greatest lessons you could ever have

because I meet so many people that go, oh, I hate this thing I'm doing. They start to disdain the job they have, disdain the company they may have built, and go, when I start this new thing, I'll be happy. And they're saving that energy, that commitment, that going all in for the next thing, and sacrificing it here.

And I believe that you gotta to pay your success tax. And you don't know how you're going to pay it. So this story is... And maybe this can give you a little energy to finish out the career you have right now, even if you want to end it, finish it out strong. So, I didn't like doing collision repair. Just to be completely honest, it gave me a headache every day.

So I ended up being the only guy that painted. So I'd have five or six guys that were working for us, but I ended up being the painter. And even though we had a half kind of decent mask, man, the paint fumes would go in your head. I'd have a headache almost every night. Your hands are always dirty, I'm always scrubbing. I didn't want to look like a guy that...

So I always scrubbed my nails, always had headaches. So I didn't love it, but I did it to the best of my ability. So, when customers would come in, I would go out with a smile, and probably be in the polar opposite of my dad, he was a little grumpy to people. I'd go out with a smile, I'd treat him with respect, I'd make sure the car looked great when they came, I'd say, let's look it over, make sure he loves it.

So, long story short, I fixed this guy's car. And, uh, he said to me, so, you love this? Dean Collision Center, congratulations. Jude, you love this?'s car. And, uh, he said to me, so you love this Dean Collision Center, congratulations, you love this. I said, nah, I don't love it, but while I'm doing it, I'm gonna do it to the best of my ability. And he said, well, you could've shocked me. So what are you really looking to do?

I said, real estate. I got, you know, I had a couple houses at the time. I said, I'm, he goes, tell me a deal you're looking at. I said, all right, right now there's a, there's a vineyard from Mark Miller, one of my friends, the older friends, was gonna sell me his vineyard for 180,000 bucks. I had credit cards and money. I could come up with 90 grand.

So I could get credit card advances, borrow, come up with 90. I didn't have the rest of the money. So I'm telling the story, I said, but I'm gonna figure it out, and Mark will give me a deal, and what are you gonna do with the property? I'm gonna subdivide it and put houses on it. I already did the property next door.

Comes back the next day and says, here's your 90,000 bucks. He said, make me whatever partner you think is fair. He said, I can feel your energy. And made that deal happen, and he made a lot of money from it. And it never would have happened if I was like, oh, here's your car.

Because if I acted the way I felt about collision work, I was like, oh, I gotta paint this, I gotta talk to the customer, I gotta deal. None of that interaction would have happened. None of that, and that deal was my most profitable deal ever in my life up until that point. That propelled me into a whole new category. There was almost a million dollars made on that deal.

I gave him a big chunk of it, I took that money, bought more land, bought more property, flipped more property. It was absolutely the turning point in my life, and it never would have happened if I would have not been all in on the thing I was doing. But here's the thing to realize, go all in on the thing you're doing,

knowing it's just a stepping stone until you get to the thing you're supposed to be doing. There are 58 million millionaires in the world, 22 million of those in the United States, 2.2% of the population here. Is being a millionaire all that it's cracked up to be? Yes. Why? I think one of the things that holds us back

more than anything or hurts us more than anything is not having choices. And lack of money definitely diminishes the amount of choices you have in your life. That's a fact. And when people ask me the biggest byproduct of being rich... It's not the plane, the houses, it's not that...

It's something I didn't expect. We didn't have money. We had lack our whole life. I watched my mom struggle, my dad struggle, right? And when you don't have money, when you don't have choices, you don't realize, I didn't realize until I didn't have that worry. You don't realize how much it restricts your life. I'd like to do this, but I wish my mom could come to my baseball game, but she's got to work.

I wish my grandmother could keep her house, but she can't because she can't pay the taxes on it. You don't realize you look back and you think of all these decisions that are made because of lack of resources. And the thing that I didn't expect is when I got money out of the way, I couldn't use this as an excuse anymore. Plain and simple, when I didn't have to worry about money anymore, the only person left in the mirror was that kid that was a little damaged from being young, and I had to work

on me. I had the time to become a better version of me. I had the time to get into an exercise routine. I had time to start eating right. I had time to realize the first marriage I had probably ended version of me. I had the time to get into an exercise routine. I had time to start eating right. I had time to realize the first marriage I had probably ended because of the things I brought from my childhood, it was probably mine, and I had to become a better man.

I learned that I could model what my dad did as a parent. I could become a better parent that changes the legacy of kids after me. If money was still an issue and I was still hustling like my parents did, I wouldn't have time to change the legacy. I wouldn't have time to change the bloodline from this point forward. So the biggest byproduct for me of being successful is that I got to be a better human being, a better dad, a better husband, a better friend, a better leader. And that's worth fighting for. Why is it that 70% of millionaires with over a million dollars in investable assets don't feel wealthy?

It's a good question. I would say they don't feel wealthy because probably they weren't chasing money in the first place. They were chasing freedom. They were chasing control. They were chasing, um, independence, right? To be in charge of the calendar and what goes on it. So I would bet to say, as going past being a millionaire, I don't know the day I became a millionaire. I don't know the day that happened.

I do. Do you really? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know the day it happened. It just happened. Right? Somebody said to me, how much real estate do you own? And I remember being on a piece of paper, I'm like, oh, this is all the real estate I own.

And this is how much debt I have. I'm like, oh my God, it's like 1.1 million bucks. Pretty cool. Like, but it didn't, but I just put the paper down and much debt I have. I'm like, oh my God, it's like 1.1 million bucks. Pretty cool. But I just put the paper down and went back to work. What's the day you became a millionaire? Our company went public on October 29, 1999. Akamai Technologies, a year after we incorporated. I went to my broker's office that day to watch the stock.

And I remember the stock closed at a $14.4 billion valuation that day. And my wife, Laura at the time, at the end of the day we had a lot of money and she said, oh my God, we gotta give some of it back. And I said, are you crazy? We're not giving you any of it back. But that was the day and it was more than a million dollars.

And for me, I had wanted to buy a Porsche since I was a kid and I'd go into the Porsche dealership once a year. I'd go, I'd sit in the car and I said, okay and for me, I had wanted to buy a Porsche since I was a kid, and I'd go into the Porsche dealership once a year, I'd go, I'd sit in the car, I said, okay, one day, one day, and it took a year for me to buy the Porsche. It was $107,000. The first time I went into another Porsche dealer, and they make you build a car,

and back then the tech market was going crazy, and each Porsche dealer would get two per month, right? So you go in there, you build the car you want. And I remember I was in white t-shirts, shorts, flip flops, didn't look like I had money. And I remember you spend one hour 90 minutes with the sales guy building the car. And I remember the sales guys going over,

talking to clearly the manager in the corner. And they're talking for five minutes or looking back at me, my wife. And I said, what was it about? He in the corner, and they were talking for five minutes, they were looking back at me, my wife, and I said, what was it about? He said, oh nothing. I said, what was it about? He said, the manager wanted to make sure you could pay for the car.

And the reason for that is because I wanted what I was wanting, and maybe if I didn't take the car, someone else may not take it. So of course, I walked out of the store, I said basically, F you, and I went to the dealership in Beverly Hills. And they happen to have a very similar car that I wanted. So I bought it.

$107,000. Still have it today. I came home and washed it, by the way. And I dropped a bucket on the back of a car when the round part of the plastic bucket still has a quarter size dent in it. But I was able to buy my dream house at 32 years old. We opened that house today. Never going to sell it.

But then I never really felt that I had made it until we bought a house in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. This was a vacation house, and I had always said, too, I'm never gonna have a second home. It's a pain in the butt, upkeep, and it is, by the way. It's a ton of work. I have three of them, so I get it. Okay. And, you know, thankfully, we have the money

to go on vacations where we want to go. But I remember sitting up there in my house, and we have a beautiful view of the lake, and it's a gorgeous house, and for the first time, I thought, I made it. But it wasn't up until that point where I felt like I hadn't, for whatever reason. And one of these things that's hard to explain.

I don't know if I still feel like I made it. And that's a great question. You have. I'm here to tell you you made it, Dee. No, I feel like when you say that, I do, I'm beyond blessed. And I, of course, I feel like I made it. But at this phase, I feel like I made it because I'm madly in love with my wife. And I know the mistakes I made in my past,

and I'll never make those again. Right. I know that I have a true connection with all four of my children. Like, I put them as priority. I know that I have an incredible team that I care about. I know that I get to impact lives for a living. I know I get to be partners with Tony Robbins,

and we try to outdo what we can do for each other. I love that man. Like, he's my dearest friend in the world. He's made more of an impact on me than any other person alive. And I can't do enough for him, and he can't do enough for me. Like...

The money, of course, helps. Maybe I could have never got there, like I explained earlier, without that. But I feel like I made it now because I feel purpose, I feel passion, I feel like I'm contributing to my children. My wife lights up in our relationship. So I guess if you're listening,

you might be thinking, well, good for you, I'm not there yet. But when would be a great start to, a great day to start working on the man or the woman you're meant to be, rather than sometimes we don't realize who we're settling to be? I don't think any of us ever say, hey, I'm settling.

You just slowly, Napoleon Hill used to say, you go into a hypnotic rhythm without realizing. And that hypnotic rhythm could be just your coasting. You don't even know that you're just letting the tide kind of bring you in and out. And maybe a podcast like this is the time to say, you know, listen to all these crazy stories this guy went through, but maybe it's not about me. Maybe it's about you saying, maybe there's no more drifting.

But, you know, what if this moment, this day, you said no? Or this moment, this day, you said yes to you? Or you took that uncomfortable action, you took the leap, or you started shifting your mindset, or you stopped listening to the naysayer that lives inside of you,

or the one that lives in your home? I mean, I think there's always a moment in time... that we could say, I want that. I want more freedom. I want to be in control. And I don't think there's ever a time that it's too late to do that. There's a clock on my desk that Brad Kewilson, Brad started Groupon, I think four public companies,

one of my oldest friends, and he sent this to me, and it says, now, now, now. It's a black clock. So, at 12 o'clock, it says now, 3 o'clock now, 6 o'clock now, 9 o'clock now, it just sits there. Do it now, I think, is one of the most important ingredients of our success. If you're thinking about it... I agree, because how many times do people wait, like, you know what, I'm gonna wait till this job wears out.

I'm gonna wait till there's a different president. I'm gonna wait until my kids get out of school. I'm gonna wait till there's a little more money in my 401K. You know, we can wait or you could just go. Like, you know, not to beat up an old analogy, but when's the best time to plant a tree, right? Five years ago. When's the second best time? Today. Like, today. Or it's in five years,

and now you look back and wish you planted it today. My big break was working for Eli Broad, who was a member of the Forest 400. I wrote 300 letters, cold letters. There was no for Eli Broad, who was a member of the Forbes 400. I wrote 300 letters, cold letters. There was no Google back then. There was LexisNexis. I was working on a law firm. I was miserable. I had three jobs in eight months

coming out of school, fired, fired. And I said, I'm done. And I got this amazing job. And I remember my dad coming to town, because I think at the time it was worth $5 billion, whatever Forbes reported. I mean, give or take, right? And I was so proud, my dad's coming to town, let's go by the office, I'll show him the office. So I go in there, Eli's door is open.

So I'm thinking the cleaning crew is in there. And there's Eli, hunched over in a suit and tie on a Saturday night, 730, surrounded by one foot stacks of paper. And as far as I know, we had nothing going on. I mean, I was on the Corp Dev team. You know, we weren't looking at buying companies. I mean, we were looking at buying companies,

but nothing was on the table right then and there. And I remember getting in the car with my dad, shaking his head. and he said, I get it. A lot of people I've told that story to, and we know a lot of wealthy people, you're wealthy, I'm wealthy. But a question that I get asked,

and a lot of people get asked, is what continues to motivate people once they've reached their million dollar goal? Ten million, fifty, hundred million, a billion dollars. How do people stay motivated? You just always have to find a compelling future. Always, right? If you think of what is the first thing that motivated you and I probably taking care of our moms, right?

Or doing something, right? That might be the first thing, but at 24, I retired my mom. So if I would have left that there, it means I would have been dead, you know, stopped trying to grow at 24. You just... just like I think of it as like a lighthouse. Like you always need your lighthouse. And once you reach the lighthouse, you got to walk it out 20 feet in front of you and have a new compelling future that you're fighting for. And some people don't want to. It's like the fact of the matter is, if you're a lifestyle

entrepreneur, there's a certain amount of income or if you sold your company and you got enough, you're like, I'm done. I'm going to golf three days a week. I'm going to chill. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there are accomplishment based entrepreneurs. There are entrepreneurs that want to just keep making more impact. And I would say what motivates me at this phase of my life is different than a decade ago, two decades ago, three decades ago, probably different than five years ago.

Where I'm at right now, the thing that drove me for years is I always wanted to be in control of my decisions. I wanted my kids to have choices, and I never wanted to go backwards. Those three things drove me for decades. Like, no one's gonna tell me what to do, especially when you moved a lot. I moved a lot as a kid, you probably did too.

You moved 19 times before you were 20 years old? Yeah, I did. It's crazy. And so I was always driven by, I want one house that I own, no one can tell me to leave. I want to dress the way I want. I want to raise my kids the way I want. All those things.

And they still motivate me, but being Tony's partner, I mean, like I said, we're doing a big old event with 800,000 people from around the world. He is so driven, so am I, but he accelerates it. He exponentially grows it in me is we have a lot more people's lives to impact before we're gone. Right? We were blessed to be able to achieve this success.

He was able to achieve this success. Right? And we have all these capabilities and skills that we learned along the way that someone doesn't know yet and and we talk almost every night and It's always about how many more people can we impact how many more people can we serve? And if I got 50 years on this earth, I'm lucky if I got 40 I'm lucky right in 40 years. How many more lives can we touch and it's not just the thing you say It's a thing we live we breathe

That I wake up every day as like, I got a lot more lives to impact. Right? I have a team that I want to empower. I want to have more breakthroughs. So you just replace the compelling future with something else. I mean, it's working for me. I'm working as hard now as I did in my 20s, 30s, or 40s.

And love it. I have no... no vision of slowing down. None. Let's talk about... ingredients of success. And one thing that I think most people don't think about is return on investment of our time. Tell us about the rehab of the mansion and flipping it into the big yard when your dad running away, denting your car because you're Mr. Big Shot.

Yeah, so funny. And so this is just a great lesson on ROI, and return on investment and time. So it was a great lesson for my father. He didn't know he was giving me a lesson. So I did one of the first apartment houses I bought was an old mansion that was run down. I say a mansion, it was a mansion in probably 1900.

Then it was run down. Really horrific. So I got it for almost no money down. And I turned it into nine apartments. And I'd fix one apartment and I'd live in it while I was fixing it. I'd get it done, I'd rent it, and I'd move into the next one, it was almost done. The next one, the next one, the next one,

I got all nine done. It was cash flowing, it was amazing. And it had a big old yard. And every Saturday I would spend the whole day mowing the yard, weed whacking and all that stuff. So finally I hired someone to do it. And my dad, and this is just a great lesson, because we can think about this in all areas,

when people say you don't have time, is I hired somebody for 50 bucks to come mow my lawn. And my dad came in one Saturday while the guy was mowing, and he lost it. He's like, you are actually paying somebody to mow it. Like, he looked at it through a lens of laziness. He's like, if you could do something yourself, why would you pay someone?

And I said, I'm paying him 50 bucks, but I'm leaving to go down to my collision shop. I'm either gonna fix a car or I'm gonna sell a car. I could make a couple thousand dollars today instead of mowing my lawn for three or four hours for 50 bucks. And he just couldn't get that concept. He was so mad, true story, he was so mad that he left. It was gravel in the driveway he left.

He punched it so much, the wheels spun, and the rocks spread all over the side of my truck at the time. I had ten dents on my truck. But it was such a great lesson. It was part of that journey of, if I model what my dad does, I'm gonna get what my dad has. He thought, pay cash for everything, if you can do it yourself,

why would you hire somebody else? I learned the power of leverage. If I could pay somebody 50 bucks to give me four hours back, I could go make a couple grand in that four hours. So my return on investment 50 bucks made me two grand. Where else could I do that? And I still live by that today. I don't, I don't take out my garbage.

I don't, there's a lot of things I don't do, not because I'm lazy, because in that time I could write another three chapters in my book. I could have a podcast with you. I could plan for the live event I'm doing with Tony. All those things could be done in a time and I can support and pay someone to do other things that gives me a return on investment. Another thing that happens in our lives sometimes,

we see somebody, we read a book, and it changes our lives. Unlimited Power, Tony's book, I read when I was a freshman in college and it changed my life. I said, oh my gosh, think of the things with the power of mind that we can do that we never thought we could do. Story in there about, here's this 23 or 25 year old kid who can basically, Brigado, I can improve

the best marksman, markmanship in the Navy or armed forces and it was the greatest breakthrough in marksmanship and our armed forces in 50 years. And he did it. I remember reading that and said, oh my gosh. Then I went to a function at Peter Goober's house. I was invited to his house 10, 12 years later. Everyone's doing jumping jacks.

Everyone's in suits doing jumping jacks. So I'm looking around, wow, and I remember walking out of his house thinking I could lift Peter Goober's $40 million mansion on my pinky finger when I walked out of there. And they gave us each a 10 disc set, whatever it was, on one of his classes. You had a similar experience not reading a book,

but you saw it in infomercials. So tell us how old you were, how much you paid for it, and what made your bell ring. I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I wanna know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach another level of success in your life.

Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including GoogleList and Seagate, and I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than 15 billion dollars. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate

about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer two simple questions, and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out

so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. Yeah, so I was 27 or 28 years old. And Tony's infomercials were on all the time then. Yep. Maybe it was Tom Selleck or somebody back in the day. Magnum P.I. Magnum P.I. guy, right?

And I just remember that I hadn't read a book cover to cover in my life up until that point. Never. Never read a book in high school. Like, not saying a non-personal development book, just zero books. Never read one book in high school. Like, not saying a non-personal development book, just zero books. Never read one from cover to cover. Didn't even know that personal development, the knowledge industry was even a thing. But I watched Tony on this infomercial,

and I'm like, dude is talking to me. Like, I felt like he was looking at my journal, right? And just gave me some insight to make me feel like I wasn't crazy. By 28, I was probably a millionaire by then, owning a million dollars in real estate. I had the collision shop. I had apartments. I was building houses. I wasn't broke and desperate. But I did have a feeling that I was meant for more. Like, so even though I was doing better than any of my family did, I just, I had this nagging feeling. And if you're watching right now, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Like there's another thing for you. There's another level for

you. And Tony just seemed like a guy that could help me do it. I remember I bought it and I digested everything. Back when Sony Walkman is with the orange earbuds and it was cassettes, not even a DVD, it was a cassette plopping in. And I would just take a walk in every morning and I just devoured, it was personal power. And those things like life happens for me, not to me,

that you can change your state, you can change your story, new story, new life. All these things that we talk about now that are just common thread, it was revolutionary for me. Talking about his father-in-law who got cancer, and you find out that the people who live the longest with cancer are people who find purpose in their life. It's not just the medication. Like, purpose is so powerful. You're wise. So, all these things started landing,

and I felt invincible. Um... And I was beyond grateful. I remember journaling. I was 27, 28 years ago, journaling, saying someday I'm gonna thank him, you know? Um... But the second thing it did for me, is it made me realize, wow, I bought information from Tony.

I think I paid 300 bucks back then. Plus I bought Power Talk, remember Power Talk, with all the different interviews? John Wooden and all the great interviews. Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer. I bought that too. So I probably spent $500. And family members are like, my dad's like, you spent $500 to listen to something? Yeah, I could talk to you for free.

Like, you know, it was, in fact, I'll tell you a really quick story. I was so blown away by it. I bought five or six more, and I sent them to my brother-in-law, my sister, my mom. I sent them to my five closest people in my life. I said, you have to listen to this and change your life. None of them did. Right? Um, but anyway, it shifted me not only to think differently, but secondly, I decided to go into this industry.

And I created a course on how people could make money with cars, and then I created a course on how people could make money with cars. And then I created a course on how people could make money in real estate and coaching. We ended up, you know, becoming the largest real estate education company in the world. And, you know, over a billion dollars in revenue of helping people learn how to get into their first real estate deal. And then I ended up being partners with Tony.

We decided about eight years ago, we were on a golf course together. We both golf like twice a year, so it's not, it wasn't pretty golf, but it's a great time for us to be together. And after all these years of, you know, that all happened, we finally met, we became friends, we were on a golf course, and we said, if we were gonna start a business,

what would we do? And this industry has impacted our lives so much. Him was Jim Rohn. When Tony was 17, he went to a Jim Rohn event. You went to a Tony event, you know, you bought his book. I went to a Tony Robbins event. If we didn't find personal development, if we didn't find self-education, we didn't know.

Where would our lives be? So eight years ago, we decided to create a company called Mastermind. We co-own it, where we teach people how to be in our industry. How to take their life experience and package it, become a consultant, create a course, a workshop, a mastermind, build a community,

do a podcast, write a book, just to take your life experience and realize how valuable it is to somebody else who's starting off where you left off, right? Just what you're doing with this podcast, you give people an unfair advantage. So we launched that company, Mastermind, seven years ago, and it's become a movement, it's become a mission, it's been fun, and that's the event we're doing here on May 15th,

just to pull back the curtain and show people that your life experience may be the most valuable asset you own. I don't get nervous for my shows. I mean, I remember I did at the beginning, and I remember the big one with Mike Tyson. I flew down a bulk of a tone, and he walks in, and I'm behind him, and we're walking to the studio because I met him in the lobby of this building

and he's walking in front of me like a bull and I said, oh shit, there's Sony Robbins. And then someone on my team basically said to me, you should chug a beer before a show and just so you hoose it up a little bit. And I don't even want to go back and watch some of my shows from way back then. So I actually did that.

I was coming out traveling and I'm not gonna say who it was, but I remember... It took a while to drive out. There's not a lot out there. And I was in a rental car, thinking, -"Okay, I need a beer." So I found a Circle K, I think, gas station, and they didn't have the beer that I wanted, but I went into my car and I chugged a beer. I'm thinking, you know, I'm not an alcoholic,

but I do like beer. And I went in there thinking, okay, well, it loosened me up a little bit, but it and I'm thinking, I'm not an alcoholic, but I do like beer. And I went in there thinking, okay, well, it loosened me up a little bit, but it was just more thinking, okay. When you started your business and you shot the first one in your front yard. We have too many similarities here. You had cotton mouth and you did a couple shots of tequila.

Just one. What was going on there? What was going on there? So Tony inspires me. I know I skipped a lot of the, all the invisible stuff, all the failures, all the self-doubt, thinking, who the hell am I? I'm not Tony Robbins. Why should I even be in this industry? You don't have a college degree.

You're not worth hundreds of millions. All those things. So, believe me, all those existed. Especially in the invisible. But I shot an infomercial because there was no internet. It was either direct mail or an infomercial if you wanted to get your product in people's hands. So, I create my first course called Motor Millions, how people could make money with cars,

just the way I did. I had to flip a car a month, right? Even if you're not a dealer, by matching buyers and sellers. So I create this concept. It's how I got started in a lot of ways. And I know this intimately. Like it's my life.

Hire a crew. Now different, you figure this is 20... Today, it's probably 27, 28 years ago. So, right now, we have great cameras. They're this big and great team to do this. Best studio I've ever seen by a factor of 100. Best, most professional team I've ever seen. I've done almost 200 shows.

I've never seen anything like this. Well, we appreciate it. You can't be successful without a great team, and this is incredible. Oh, I know it. I appreciate it every day. Well, so back then, we filmed. I built a nice house by then. I built the nicest house in my little town. So we're gonna film it. They bring this big dolly, they bring cameras, this big boom.

They're setting this whole thing up, and I'm like, oh, and I think I know what I'm gonna say, right? They set everything up, they get the camera, I go step in front of the camera, I'm remembering, I'm not using a teleprompter, I'm remembering everything I'm gonna say, and as soon as they clap the board and say, go, or action, or whatever they said, I immediately went cotton mouth to where, do you ever have your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth

and there's like little balls of white cotton on your tongue? I can't get through, I can't even say, hi, this is Dean, this is Dean Grazzi, oh, give me a minute, and I am unraveling. Like, and now there's 10 people in my house, the cameras are set up, the light is there, they're trying to catch the light, you know, sometimes the sun will go down and they got to shift things

I'm like, hey guys, I need a break So I remember I go I go into the bathroom I look in the mirror like you're gonna blow this like and back then I borrowed some money on my credit cards to do Cuz you had to spend a couple hundred grand for an infomercial and all the stuff I'm like you got to snap out of this So I went and did a shot of tequila. There was tequila in the house from like a New Year's party. I pour a shot of tequila and I did it.

And all it did is make me a little lightheaded because I hadn't eaten and still I could not do it. You know, I like literally, I tried over and over and over again, finally like three hours later, I'm like, scrap it, come back tomorrow. And I just beat myself up all night. And when I stopped beating myself up,

I just got into a space and said, hey, people are either gonna like you for who you are, or they're not. And what really saved me is it wasn't about me. Like, the reason I was in my head is like, am I gonna be good? Am I, I'm not, my sister had just told me weeks prior, you're gonna waste all your money, you're not Tony Robbins.

So in my head, I'm like, you're not Tony Robbins. He's 6'7", you're 5'7". Like, he's dynamic, you're not. I got a money. You're not Tony Robbins. So in my head, I'm like, you're not Tony Robbins. He's six, seven, you're five, seven. Like he's dynamic. You're not. I got a high voice. He's got a deep voice. Like I'm in my head thinking of who I should be. And that next day I just went back and said, Hey, they're going to like me or not. And I'm not here to impress them. I'm here to show them that I can help them. And when I made it about them, I wasn't perfect on camera. I could show you a video clip. You'll laugh your tail off. But it was enough for me to go, hey, I'm just showing up to show people I can help them,

and if they accept me, great, I can do it. And that came in, and that infomercial ended up being our first one. It launched and did pretty well to get me out of the gate. I met with probably a thousand people starting companies, wanting to start companies. One of the things they have to have is domain expertise. They gotta know something about the business

that they're starting. You need nothing about the infomercial business. Nothing. What's your advice? Should people start a business where they have no idea what they're doing and know really nothing about the business? If I was gonna give advice that the number one thing is

just don't start on figuring out how to do it. Figure out who already has. So, for me, I think yes. I think you could absolutely jump into a business that you don't know anything about. But before you spend a lot of money, before you go down that road, find somebody who's already in that business,

who's already had success, and see how you can model them. Do they have coaching? Can you just model? Can you listen to their podcast? Can you listen, read the book that they read? Like, there are people that have already done what you want to do in the industry you're thinking, so do the research. It's the same thing I'm pushing my daughter to do.

But on the other side too, is don't get caught in, don't get caught up on waiting for every I to be done and every T to be crossed. Sometimes you gotta jump out of the plane and grow wings on the way down. When I started my show four years ago, I said the one guest I wanted was Tony Robbins. He changed my life and then it happened.

Yeah, about five, six. Three months ago. Yeah, I remember it happened. Whatever, and I was like, this is a dream. And by the way, people said to me, was it better or worse than you thought? Because sometimes you meet your heroes and it's not as good and I tell everyone

it's ten times better just to be able to say with them, thank you. You... call Tony and said, hey, I want to meet you, or you went up to him, and how did you develop a relationship? Mutual friend just set us up to have a quick 15-minute meeting before, in person. And so where were you, and you flew to go see him?

And then you say, hey, Tony, And then he was doing an event in Chicago. I'm Dean, uh, want to work with you. I mean, how did you develop such a close friendship? So here's... Because he knows everybody. Here's what I did. I decided that I didn't want to do business with him because I figured everybody who met him wanted to do business with him.

So I said, I just want to go there and thank him because at the time my company was doing, you know, 150 million a year, I was in a great place. I flew there on my plane. You know, I just want to go there and thank him, because at the time, my company was doing, you know, 150 million a year, I was in a great place. I flew there on my plane. You know, I didn't... So I didn't go there thinking, I need something from him. I went there with the thought of, I need to thank him for being selfless, because I wouldn't be the man I am without him.

And that's a true story. And I'm not... My ego doesn't get in the way to say that. So we had a quick meeting, and he said he was like, he's like, he jokes about it. He's like, get in the way to say that. So we had a quick meeting, and he said, he was like, he's like, he jokes about it. He's like, I was the infomercial guy. But by the time I met him, I was the new infomercial guy. I had the number one infomercial in the world

at that time, he used to be. And he's like, as you were coming there, I was thinking to myself, oh, I'm meeting the infomercial guy. And like, and then he was like, whoa, I used to be one. So he's like, I gotta put my judgment down. And we just hit it off. We were supposed to meet for 15 minutes. We met about an hour. And he's like I gotta put my judgment down and we just hit it off We were supposed to meet for 15 minutes We met about an hour and he's like this can't conversation has to continue. Why don't you come to my house?

When can you come I looked it up like I can come there next week So we had a two-hour meeting at his house and we ended up spending 12 hours together We sat I just remember we said we sat out on the edge of his patio Sage his amazing wife brought us 11 o'clock snack then a two o'clock snack Then she brought us dinner at 5 then she brought us a late-night snack and we sat out there until us 11 o'clock snack, then a two o'clock snack, then she brought us dinner at five, then she brought us a late night snack, and we sat out there until probably 11 o'clock at night, and just talked about life, just talked about things.

And I think because I had no agenda other than being grateful, and didn't talk about wanting to do a business, didn't talk about how we could do something together, and we started forming a friendship. We started our friendship built, and we still do it to this day. I could show you my phone from his, from two o'clock.

He goes to bed at four a.m. I get up at four. So before he goes to bed every night, he leaves me a voice memo. And when I wake up, I leave him one. So we joked that we got the world covered 24 hours a day. You know, as a joke. But we built a relationship through these voice memos of just going back and forth, then we jump on the phone,

you know, once every other week, and we just, we hit it off, and we were friends for probably about four or five years before we decided to start a business together, and I think it was built because neither one of us needed each other. We wanted to do something that really created a legacy and impact, and we just, we created it for the right reasons.

And I'd still do anything for the guy. Before I met him at his house, which is a dream come true, by the way. way should go down the slide. Oh, yeah went down And we post that so you walk into his house and they take you through it looks like the garage There's a metal crate like those ones in New York that you step on on the sidewalk You know those metal things and it opens up. I said alright go down So you go down this slide a real toxic slide and you end up in his basement in the studio. And that's, I mean, incredible.

It's a bowling alley, it's everything down there, it's amazing. Before that, he has a summer home in Coeur d'Alene where we do, same neighborhood, and he's never there. And so last summer, he'll pop in for one day, two days. So we're at dinner, and my wife says to me, Tony Robbins is behind you. five tables, I said no way. And again, I don't wanna be that guy,

I mean there's a lot of celebrities where we have our place, a lot of, you know the Kardashians are there, Bieber's there. And I said, oh my God, Tom wanted me to meet him my whole life, I'm going to wait to get up, I'm not gonna turn around, and by the time I did get up for food and I turned around, he was gone, I said, I cannot believe...

I missed it. I cannot believe I missed my window. Story, the lesson there is, man, don't wait. But, you know, he's probably... I get it. He was with his family and, you know, he don't want to be bothered, right? But my son went up to him.

There's, you've influenced lives of tens of millions of people. There's someone out there right now who wants to be Dean Graziosi's best friend. How's that going to happen? Yeah, I don't know. You know, here's the part I would say. When Tony and I first got together and we first started doing something,

I was so grateful for the impact he had made in my life. I wanted to do stuff for him. So I dug into his business, I was so grateful for the impact he had made in my life. I wanted to do stuff for him. So I dug into his business, I went to his events, and there's certain core competencies we all have, and one of them is a follow-up sequence, meaning you come to one of my events, I want to make sure not only you get something great from the event, that I send you enough stuff

to keep you in that state, to make sure you actually make the changes you committed yourself to, right? And when I went to Tony's event, it was the greatest thing. Unleashed Power then was so freaking phenomenal. But afterwards, I wasn't getting any follow-up, and I wanted that feeling, like I'm like, I wanna feel that way again, right? So I created a complete follow-up sequence.

I recorded audios, I did videos, I recorded videos in my voice, like it was for Tony. Just repeat this. I wrote all the emails, I created this whole document, sent it to his team. They lost their mind. They implemented it. It was a huge impact. And Tony was like, Oh my God, Dean, thank you. What can I do?

I remember he sent me a picture of his black card. He said, charge me whatever you want, because that's going to impact so many lives. So I wrote back. I'm like, I just hit you up for a million. Ha ha. You know, that was it. But I didn't do that because I was trying to bribe him. I was doing that because just like you, he changed my life. And I just wanted to give back. And I was expecting nothing. I didn't do that because I was trying to bribe him. I was doing that because just like you, he changed my life. And I just wanted to give back.

And I was expecting nothing. I didn't want anything. And then after I did it, I didn't charge him with it. I didn't ask him for business. I didn't ask him to send an email for me or promote my book. I just did it. And I think that built a relationship. And I think the people that I end up building a relationship now, it's because of the reciprocal. Like, instead of just asking, you know,

I get so many messages, hey, DM, I'm following you forever. Can you lend me a hundred grand? We can start this business. If you invest a million bucks, we'll make a hundred million. Like, start with giving before you receive. I have a coaching program, and I'm doing more one-on-one coaching.

So, for all the people out there who want some coaching, send me a DM at Randall Kaplan. And over the years, I'll go through people, I don't know what they want to do. I'll have them rank with things that they want the most. And it's always money. They equate money with success. So how do you define success? And is it different in your 30s, 40s or 50s?

Yeah, for sure it's different. Success without fulfillment is probably the biggest failure of them all. You've probably heard Tony say that because it's so true. So when you don't have money, you think the money solves everything. And sometimes you put off joy until the money comes. You put off peace until the money comes. You put off getting in shape until the money comes. You get off contributing to people who need it

until the money comes. The best advice I could give you is, what if you could get the money faster by contributing first, by getting in shape first, by being a better human first, by finding joy first? And I probably put a lot of that off in my 20s. Just gotta go, gotta go, gotta get out of this, gotta get out of this.

If I look back now, it doesn't... It doesn't deter your success. I think you can only multiply and grow it. So, I think success is whatever you define, but really think through what it means. Like, what does money really mean to you? Does, for me, money meant making, being in control of my calendar.

Making sure my kids were okay. Making sure my mom was okay, right? Making sure I can contribute in a way. And I found an emotion behind the money. I think if you find an emotion behind the money. I think if you find an emotion behind the money, you're way more likely to achieve it. For me, success means having a great family like you.

You have four kids, I have five kids. Two just graduated college, one's a junior in college, I have an eight-year-old, soon to be a five-year-old in two weeks. And when I look back at all the things I'm most proud of, it's being a great dad. Now, obviously, I've made mistakes as a dad, we all have as parents, but I always tried my best. I do my best, I spend time with my kids.

I'm very fortunate, as you are, we can be home for dinner on a nightly basis, and no matter where I am, I wanna make sure I'm home if I'm not traveling on a podcast or something for work, but it's the greatest joy of my life. The second thing most important to me is being able to give back to people. And something that I really want to tell people is you don't have to give money.

You don't need to make money to give back. Your time is often more valuable than contributing money. Again, sometimes if you can make money and giving money is more important than your time. So let's go into the Richard Branston story. I think you're in Necker Island and you guys took a little sale around Necker. What advice did he give you on that front? I was only on Necker Island

because I raised a bunch of money for Virgin Unite, his charity arm. So it wasn't that him and I were best friends and you know, it was just, but I had an opportunity. So I raised a bunch of money, got invited to Necker Island. He happened to be there. I told you I'm a four or five o'clock in the morning guy. No one else was.

So every time I got up two mornings in a row, I bumped into him while he's either running or taking a walk around the island. Third morning, he's like, hey, you're up early, you want to sail with me tomorrow? I'm like, heck yeah, what time? So whatever it was, 5 a.m. Um, I met him down at the dock and we sailed around the island.

I told him I knew how to sail, I didn't. I'm like, yeah, tell me what to do. I have no clue. Um, but I asked him then, I was starting to, when that, I was starting to make more money than I ever had before, and a little bit was like, guilt, am I doing enough to help others as I'm making this? Like, your ex said, should we give it back? Right? It's like, what more can I do?

Um, and I remember him, it was a great lesson. He said, um, if you were gifted with the ability to make the money you have starting with nothing, then I think that's your calling. He goes, go make as much as you possibly can and then give as much away as possible. Impact the lives you want. He said, thank God, this is what he's, I'm paraphrasing, this is many years ago. But he said, thank God there's people that go and work at homeless shelters, or work at a soup kitchen. He goes, thank God for those human beings. They're there scooping

face to face. He's like, they're doing that. He said, but if you have the ability to make money, maybe your calling is that you can walk in that same soup kitchen and hand them a hundred thousand dollar check to help fund the food for a month or two. He said, so we all have our calling. So if you have the gift of making money, go make as much as you possibly can. Give it all away if you want. And it just, it shifted. And I've always contributed on a bigger level.

And I think the more I contribute, the more it comes back to me. The most important ingredient in my success is something called extreme preparation. It's my brand, and that means if someone prepares one hour for a meeting, I may go 10. I just did a TEDx speech on Friday in Tampa. It's my brand, and that means if someone prepares one hour for a meeting, I may go 10. I just did a TEDx speech on Friday in Tampa. It's extreme preparation, how to win your dream job

through extreme preparation. It's gonna come out in June. I hope everybody watches it. How important has extreme preparation been to your success over your career? Probably not as deep as yours. I probably don't prepare at the level you do. I'm a gunslinger. I prepare in my own ways.

Like, so for example, again, I keep talking about this event, I hope all of you join us. We're doing it on May 15th, 16th, and 17th. It's gonna be an amazing three days. Tony, myself, Matthew McConaughey's coming, Jay Shetty, all that. But there's gonna be seven, 800,000 people from around the world registering. I'm prepping like crazy for that event.

I'll talk about prepping and then spontaneity. So the two things that have served me is prepping and spontaneity. So I'm preparing for that. So I could be more spontaneous. So I'll do a three day event without slides without without teleprompter because I'm rehearsing three days That I want to deliver massive value I want to piece show people they are enough they know enough that now is the perfect time for entrepreneurship Now is the time they should live into their full potential and everybody should your coach now

Everybody should be a coach. Everybody should be a consultant Everybody should write a book create a course and we show people how to do that over those three days. And I will prepare like crazy so I can feel spontaneous when I'm live and everything we do is live. Secondly, though, there are certain things that I've learned that I don't want to prepare for. Like, I would... I don't prepare deeply before I get interviewed on a podcast, because I don't want to memorize my answers.

Right. Because if I memorize my answers, they don't come from my heart, and I might not say something. So there's certain things in my life that I purposely don't prepare for, and I put myself in the fire, because I get to be, for me, that's the best version of me. And there's other things I prepare a lot for, so the moment that I'm on stage,

or I'm live, whatever that means for you, I can seem like I'm spontaneous. It can seem like it's second nature, but really, I put the preparation in. You use the term twice now, prepping like crazy. What does crazy mean? Is it 10 hours? Is it 20 hours?

For a three-day event, I bet you I'll have 30 hours in, maybe 40 hours of prepping. Let's talk about confidence because confidence is very important. You've talked about it a lot. Um, you want to wake up every day feeling confident, and you said that if you're 5% off, you're not going to have a great day.

So how important is confidence to our success? I think it's everything. Confidence and courage. Courage is like the precursor to confidence. Courage is moving forward even though you're scared. Confidence comes when you're already kind of taking those steps. But think about it. Have... If you're listening right now, have you ever made a good decision when your confidence is down? Right?

Your confidence was down a little bit, like, should I bug Tony now? Should I not? Right? Not that it was your confidence, but it was like... And you missed it, right? But that... It was my confidence. Yeah. Right. Right. So, we've all missed the date, missed the saying hi, missed the business. The train've all missed missed the date missed the saying hi missed the business The train went down the tracks and we missed it

So I just say if as an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur if you want to just do something on another level Well, that's your career and getting promotions or raises or being entrepreneur doing your own thing Then one of the number one things we have to do is protect our confidence. If we don't protect it, you play small. You let the outside world control you. You become the thermometer of life or the thermostat. You know, the thermometer, right? The thermometer goes up and down with the outside world. If your confidence is low, you ride that roller coaster. Good news, you're up.

Bad news, you're down. And mostly it's bad news. If you become the thermostat, you adjust the temperature. And if you can keep your confidence at a higher level, you are in control, your hands are on the wheel of your ship, of your life, of your future. So a couple of things that I'd say is, one, borrow confidence from the past,

because you were scared to death to do something in the past, at some point you did it and it turned out well. Remind yourself of that. Number two, do less of the things that take your confidence away. I don't think the news has ever built anybody's confidence. I don't think talking to your friend that tells you you're crazy has ever helped your confidence.

I don't think working on your weaknesses has ever helped your confidence. So say those three things rob your confidence and do less of those or none of them. Stop watching the news. Avoid the friends that make you feel bad. Stop working on your weaknesses. Listen to podcasts, listen to books,

all the things that you can do that build your confidence. I know it sounds overly simple, but confidence only comes from what you give yourself. Right? So feed yourself the things that build you up and not tear you down. Because that state of mind will make, allow you to make decisions that innovate your future, that create a bigger future rather than keeping you stuck.

We're both remarried to the greatest women in the world. And we both had great, uh... uh, honeymoons in our lives. Honeymoon, Lake Como, you're riding around the lake with your amazing new wife. Tell the story about Leonardo da Vinci and the importance of collaboration. Yes.

And I'm not saying it's true. Maybe we just had a wacky boat captain who has given us this tour around the island. But he showed us this house that was built up on the cliff. And you could see this kind of chute or this thing. And he said that Leonardo da Vinci used to come there to escape the craziness. And he used to get very threatened by people,

his competitors. So he would invite his competitors... Again, I'm not saying this is true, I'm telling you about the boat captain. He said he would invite his competitors, he would wine and dine them, make sure they were liquored up a little bit, had the wine, ate great, and then he would invite them on a tour.

And he said he'd walk them down this hall, and they'd stand on this grate, and he'd pull the chute, the grate open, drop them down like 50 or 100 feet onto the rocks, and they would kill his competition, they'd wash out into the Lake Cuomo. Again, could be all made up, but he wasn't kidding when he told us. The point of the story is, collaboration is...

Yeah, deadly? No, I'm just kidding. Critical to us, I guess. No, I know, I know, collaboration is critical. Um, the truth of the matter is, in school, we're even taught. You know, if you looked at your friend who was good at math and you were good at English, and you cheated off them, and you che... they cheated off and you both got good grades,

that is cheating. You get expelled, you get suspended. In life, isn't that the way we all grow? You find people that you're... What you're good at, share it. What you're not so good at, find someone you could collaborate with, and that's what a mastermind at, share it. What you're not so good at, find someone you could collaborate with, and that's what a mastermind is, right? The coming together of brains that make a third brain

that's even smarter. Obviously, Leonardo da Vinci didn't understand the power of collaboration. I've heard so many pitches throughout the years, and I'm creating a company, and we've got this product, this product, this product, they're all separate. And what I tell them is you got to focus on one. So you had the collision shop, the real estate business,

infomercial business, and you were able to be successful at all three. But what's your advice to the probability of success of people who are trying to do too much at the same time? Should they focus on just one thing? Yeah. So what you just said, though, is I did all of those. And now I have this company, Mastermind, with Tony. I did multiple things through the years. But I only do one at a time.

So I didn't have a collision shop, the real estate, you know, infomercial, like, I, when I went into the self-education space, the knowledge industry, I only taught people how to make money in cars. And then I evolved that and only taught people how to make money in real estate. And now we only teach people how to live and share their knowledge with the world, right?

So, different things, but I took the experience from the previous one and used it to accelerate in the next one. There are haters all over the world, and the more successful you are, I feel like, the more people hate, criticize. Tell us about the loud minority, what it is, and how that's helped make you successful.

Yeah, you know, I probably would have looked at it differently a decade ago. I used to hate when people would say, oh, you got lucky or, you know, you get comments, must be nice. And all I'd ever want to say is, man, you have no idea where I came from. I told you a lot of my story today. You had no idea what I had to do to get here.

And I earned every dollar I have, and I couldn't have done it without my team. Like, I always wanted to explain myself. And now I kind of have more empathy and compassion for people who think that way than I ever have. Because if they keep that mindset, they're screwed. If they think you got lucky, your business, you just hit the right time, you got lucky, your dean, you know, you got lucky, he's partners with Tony, Tony Robbins, so now they got lucky. If someone thinks that, then you're

waiting for your luck, and you'll never find it. You have to make your own luck. So I think at this phase of my life, when people feel that or see that, I don't get mad. I really would rather say, great, you can think that all you want, but follow me a little bit, or follow someone else that can spark to realize that those feelings are actually the feelings, those words are the words that are gonna keep you stuck where you are.

Because if you think someone else got there because they were lucky or greedy or cheated or they're a scam or whatever you think, then really you're just looking in the mirror and say, I can't do it because of those same reasons. So I would just say if those emotions ever come across you, just find somebody with a similar story to you and realize that nothing happens without, you know, the sacrifice.

Every guest I've had on the show has had significant challenges in their life and we all have to get through it. We come out the side better. My divorce was one of the worst times of my life. Depressed, hard to get out of the house sometimes. I'm thinking to myself, Dean, who's gonna date me after this? Your divorce, one of the toughest times of your life.

Tell us about the woman who helped you. Annie Lala, I think is her name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And being on Xanax and how you got out of that. And what's your advice? Those ten promises, very critical. And that's something that everybody should hear. Just no one expects to go through a divorce. I did. My family, my parents went through a lot of them. So, I kind of thought I was...

repeating history with my own kids. So, it put me in a space I'd never been in. I never had anxiety attacks before. I was afraid to get on a plane. I was afraid to with my own kids. So it put me in a space I'd never been in. I never had anxiety attacks before. I was afraid to get on a plane. I was afraid to get in an elevator. I was like... I thought I was emotionally unraveling in my 40s. And I don't even take aspirin,

but I was popping a Xanax a week just so I could sleep. I was drinking a glass of wine every night just to calm down. And I think as you go through this, just so I could sleep. I was drinking a glass of wine every night just to calm down. Um... And I think, as you go through this, it's just, some people feel that about business. I never felt those emotions going through business, even when they failed, but this is about your kids, right? Am I gonna mess my kids up? Is this the right decision?

So, a couple of things, and this is the best advice I could give. Find somebody who's already been through it, or there's an expert in what you're trying to achieve, model-pro. So I interviewed, I went and talked to a bunch of people that had gone through a divorce and found peace and happiness on the other side. I went through a study course, it's a child centered divorce and how to be friends with your ex. I hired this amazing coach, Annie Lala, that is a love coach. And she made me look through a different lens. And when it all, when I took in all this different advice, I had my partner Tony Robbins helping me, and Dr. Daniel Amon, I was blessed to have,

I took all these things and I boiled it down to, what is the thing that could help solve that? And my realization, I know I'm paraphrasing this, there's a lot to share in that, but is if I could replace all emotions I had during the divorce with compassion, I could get through it in a different way. And then if I replaced emotions with compassion, I could get through it in a different way. And then if I replaced emotions with compassion,

I could actually become friends with my ex. I made her 10 promises that I would always stick to. And I've kept them to this day. We've been divorced, I don't know, heading on a decade. Um, she's still a dear friend in my life. We co-parent in an amazing way. Um... And what I realized is, for me,

is if I could replace every emotion with compassion, I could truly listen, I could truly be a friend to my ex, and if I was truly friends with my ex, then she wouldn't be deceitful, she wouldn't say negative things to my kids. If I needed to see him because I missed him, she would allow it. If I was traveling, she would adjust, and all of those things came true.

So, um, believe me, I went through the deepest part of hell in my life going through a divorce, and on the other side, I became the man that attracted the woman I'm married to now, who's truly the love of my life. And I... I say that not flippantly. Like, I know I had to become a different man to create that kind of love.

Right? It wasn't just that I found magic, I did. But I had to become the man that attracted that type of woman. So I looked into what made me fail in the last relationship, where I could communicate better, where I could take the guard off my heart, how to be a different person, how to contribute more, how to feel love when I gave love, not just when I received it.

All these things I did, and I try to practice it every day. And knock on wood, so far, it's been a pretty amazing ride. Another similarity, my wife, Madison, we've been together 11 years, just our 10-year anniversary, and it's been best thing, she's been the best thing in my life, love of my life. We're getting towards the end of our show right now, and I wanna talk about your morning routine,

because when I was reading this, I started to do a lot of the things that you said, so tell us about the three things you do in the morning. One, don't look at your cell phone. Russian roulette, you call that. I think that's the greatest term ever. When you look at your phone in the morning, you have no idea what you're gonna get. You could get an email or a text that's everything's great,

or you could get the thing that went wrong. And if you look at your phone and it's Russian roulette and it's not a great one, it puts you in a state. And to me, that means I'm in defense mode, not offense. I want to attack each day offensively, creatively, innovatively. And if I put myself in the wrong state, that doesn't happen. I kind of play catch-up. So four things I do.

One, don't check your phone immediately. Two, is I think of one thing I'm grateful for. Now, that sounds easy. But I don't think it's... it's not the big things. It could be literally that you just woke up, that it's a nice day, that you slept well, whatever it is. Just one thing that puts you in a state of gratitude. Third thing is think of one thing

that you accomplished the day before that you're proud of, and then think of one thing you want to accomplish that day. I do that every day. I just like, don't look at my phone. I'm, um, some days I just say, it's raining, beautiful. The pillow was comfortable. My accomplishment of the day before could be, I made it to my son's jujitsu practice, and we did a good movie, looked up and I was there,

and I saw the smile on his face. That's a win. You know, what do I want to accomplish today? I want to have a great podcast interview. I want to live into my fullest self. I want to serve people. And that just puts me in a space. interview. I want to live into my fullest self. I want to serve people. And that just puts me in a space. And when I do that, then from there, I go,

I drink a green drink that I've been drinking forever, and I go move, I go exercise. I go take a walk, I go for a run, I hit the gym, run on the treadmill, I move. So if I follow that plan in the morning, it sets me up for an amazing day. Compared to, look at my phone, a little off, little stressed, go to the gym, sit on the edge of the bench,

look at my phone, don't do it. It's just two completely different days. I always conclude my show with something called fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Sure. Biggest lesson I've learned in my life is? Probably Tony's.

What's come to my mind is life happens for us, not to us. And if you believe it, life changes. My number one professional goal is... To just keep growing as a human every single year. The one thing everybody should say to themselves when they wake up in the morning is... We woke up. The one thing people should say to themselves

when they go to sleep at night is... Yeah, thanks for another day. My biggest regret is... Probably not finding personal development until later in my life. My biggest fear is... Going broke. The one thing that keeps. My biggest fear is... Going broke. The one thing that keeps me up at night is...

Not much anymore. The most prideful moment of my career has been... Probably partnering with Tony Robbins. The craziest thing that's happened in my career is... That I used to own a collision shop, tow trucks, bulldozers, paint cars, and now I'm in the self-education industry. The funniest thing that's ever happened in my career is? Probably one time when we were first

starting when we were doing live trainings before anybody was doing live trainings. And the internet kicked out. Mike's been with me for 20 years. You see over here, he's laughing. And Mike said, the internet's out. And I was like, damn it, how could this happen? And I looked over.

He goes, no, it's actually still on. So yeah, everybody laughed. I... Yeah. That was maybe not so funny for me. The best advice I've ever received is... Decide who you want to become. Not just what you want to achieve. What kind of man or woman do you want to become? The worst advice you've ever received is... Money buys happiness.

If you could pick one trait that would make somebody successful, it would be... Model-proven practices. The most important quality of a successful leader is... Always willing to grow. Ten years from now, I'm going to be doing... Exactly what I'm doing right now. Thirty years from now, I'm going to be doing... Exactly what I'm doing right now.

The biggest problem in the United States today is... The loud minority. The biggest problem in the world today is... Loud minority. The one thing I've dreamed about doing for a long time is... Meditation. If you could go back in time and give your 21-year-old self one piece of advice, it would be...

Make your goals way bigger than you give yourself permission to do. If you could be one person in the world, who would it be? I'd like to just go back and spend a day with my grandmother. If you were President Trump today, the next thing you would do would be... Probably do as much as possible to unite this fractured country. If you were on your deathbed and knew you were going to die in the next minute, and you were surrounded by your wife and kids,

what's the last thing you would tell them? Just to not have any boundaries and live into who they are meant to be. The one question that you wish I had asked you but didn't is... You asked a lot of them. I think we covered them all. Are there any questions you want to ask me before we finish? No, I think we're good. This is an amazing interview. I'm grateful for interviewing you, get to know you.

This has been a tremendous amount of fun. Thank you. True honor. My pleasure. This was awesome. Thank you so much.