The School of Greatness - The Real Reason You Keep Stopping Before You Succeed | Dean Graziosi

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Dean Graziosi, New York Times bestselling author and business partner of Tony Robbins, reveals the one thing he believes most people get backwards: confidence does not come first, courage does, and until you get in the game, you will never feel ready. So many people are paralyzed right now by the speed of change, whether that is AI, the economy, or shifting opportunity, and Dean lays out exactly why that paralysis is costing them more than any risk ever would. He breaks down how to find what truly drives you, build an unstoppable inner operating system, and stop tying your self-worth to your bank account. You will also hear how Dean thinks about raising driven kids in an age of abundance, what Tony Robbins taught him about effective versus efficient leadership, and how to use AI not as a tech trend but as a tool to buy back your time. This conversation will challenge how you define readiness and push you to take the one courageous step you have been putting off. AI Advantage Summit Dean’s books: Millionaire Success Habits The Underdog Advantage 30 Days to Real Estate Cash Profit From Real Estate Right Now! Be a Real Estate Millionaire: Secret Strategies To Lifetime Wealth In this episode you will: Discover why courage is the precursor to confidence and how to start building your courage muscle this week Learn how to create a compelling future even when the world feels uncertain and the odds feel stacked against you Understand how to stop letting your self-worth get tangled up with your net worth and finally break that cycle Gain a practical framework for using AI to buy back your time without needing to become a tech expert Identify what truly drives you, whether it is the carrot or the stick, and use that knowledge to push through your hardest moments For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1912 For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone] Follow The Daily Motivation for essential highlights from The School of Greatness More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Lewis Howes Solo [Become DANGEROUSLY CONFIDENT] Jaspreet Singh Chris Camillo Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

About a year ago, Tony calls me and said, this AI thing, it's going to crush people. I mean, would you do business with anybody who didn't have the internet right now? No. Will you hire anybody that doesn't know AI? Probably not. We'd never had something move so exponential. Like, we've come in, it was the printing press, and then electricity and all the, you know, the internet came and FedEx and fax machines and the evolution.

But all of them kind of had this sweep. And the way it's moving now, we're not used to it. And it's disturbing. He is a multiple New York Times bestselling author. And he spent decades teaching people how to find opportunity in the middle of chaos. We have the inspiring Dean Graziosi back in the house. If I see who I could have been, the lives I could have impacted,

the things I could have done, the relationships I could have built, and I missed it, I always think to myself, the only wish I would have is to go back. And then I say, Dean, wish granted, you're here. Wow. That's freaking go. In the next few years, it just seems so uncertain for people. How do you create a compelling future with so much uncertainty?

Really great question. We're talking about uncertainty right before this, because with AI and all the uncertainties of the economy, that are happening right now and how they're going to continue to happen over the next few years. I have a question that I think speaks to me and you at the same time. You've got two different sets of kids. Yeah. 17 and 19 and then 3 and 5.

Yeah. What is the advice you gave your 17 and 19 year olds when they were younger about money and that their future versus your kids who are 3 and 5 now about money and the uncertainties and the changes of their future, what were the different advices that you have? Oh, what a great question. You know what I love doing. You never disappoint. You never disappoint.

And it's so true. And so we'll get back to it later. But I just want to share with everybody that the speed in which change is happening, it's uncertain for everybody. It's the human condition. Because a lot of people are pretending, everything's fine. But in the back of your head, we've never had something move so exponential. Like we've come in.

It was the printing press and then electricity and all the, you know, the internet came and FedEx and fax machines and the evolution. But all of them kind of had this sweep. And the way it's shaking, the way it's moving now, just we're not used to it. And it's disturbing. And we should talk about that uncertainty later. But I love, because there's a way around that. There is a way around it to feel in control in a time when the world is out of control.

But the question, I'm probably putting it off because I want to give a great answer to this. What was the advice you gave your kids, you know, one of your daughters is here now? Yeah. And she's 19. What was the advice you gave her, you know, maybe 10 years ago about, you know, your future and money and creation versus your kids now? Yeah. Great, great question.

Here's what you're so good at. You're so good at pattern recognition. You interview so many incredible people and you take bits and pieces. And I love chat with you because you'll have a little piece of Arthur Brooks, a little piece of this, a little piece of that. And then you string them together, right? So if we switch like, how do we separate it? Maybe it's like the art of life and the science of life.

I'm just using, because we can visualize the difference. The science is, should I be an engineer? Should I be an IT programmer? Should I write code? Maybe code will go away because now an AI agent can build a code. Let's talk about the science in a second. But that's always changing, right? Haven't jobs been disrupted since the beginning of time?

I mean, think about when farmers filled the land. In the 1800s, a farmer would take about 40 hours to plant an acre, and you figure if they had hundreds of acres, they had hundreds of people trying to do that. Think about when it changed and a tractor came out. A tractor could do the same acre in 30 minutes. They used to take 40 hours. If you're farm workers, probably most of them, their jobs are gone.

Uncertainty. That uncertainty has been happening. So let's take that as the science is always going to be changing. I'm still going to teach my youngest ones, my five and three-year-old, the same as I taught them. You need to find something that you can go deep on, something that you roll your sleeves up, something that you don't dabble. You need to see where the world is going on the science side. You don't want to start a taxi cab company. When Uber came out, you don't want to probably become a programmer right now or anything that could be moved through AI because that's going to disappear.

But there is other ways that you can get out in front of that. But without the foundational pieces that you've learned, that you've interviewed, that you've extracted from so many people, none of it works. So I'll give you two examples. My daughter, I knew she wasn't going to go to college. But I gave her the option. I said, there's two things you can do. You can go to college, experience it. Or you can find something you love and model proven practices.

Go mentor under somebody for two years. Extract all their knowledge on how they were successful, how they overcome obstacles, how they embrace change, how they reduce overwhelm. How do they focus on one big solution? All those are common threads. The matter if we have AI, the economy goes up, goes down, high interest rates, low interest rates, inflation or not, you still need those foundational pieces. So probably nothing will change on the foundation of success. What I'll do is help them decide where is the science going. Where is the future going?

So we can see where the puck is and get out in front of it. What's the greatest skill someone can learn today then that's different than 10, 20 years ago to set, them up, selves up for financial success in the future. Communication. I truly believe it's foundational. It's communication. No matter what AI or what technology or software or inflation. But if you think of where AI is going, right? If you think of where, I mean, I don't need to go down this rabbit hole, huge, but all the things that AI is doing, programmers and coders been doing for a long time, but they would sit in a room and code forever. We didn't know that language. You and I couldn't go in and figure out how to build

an app that, you know, that you used on your team to keep everybody there on time and what they should eat and what they should drink. Like, let's just say you wanted to do that. And if you wanted a cool app to keep everybody on your team organized, five years ago, four years ago, you'd pay 10 programmers, it'd be hundreds of dollars every hour per programmer, take you months, you'd adjust it and tweak it. Today, if you know how to communicate and give good context, you could go talk to an agent on, you know, a clawed agent, communicate with the English language, of what you want the outcome to be. And it can make it.

And because of good communication, it'll build the same thing in 20 minutes, maybe a half hour, maybe take you a half a day, because you know how to communicate. So I think communication skills, people to people is still one of the most important things in the world, communication, influence, persuasion,

and now context and communication with AI that's going to help us go faster. So learning communication skills, but it seems like it's hard for kids to learn that when they're glued to their phone constantly. Yeah, that's an absolute fact. But I think it's, you're asking if we're going to, if we're going to help this next generation, we have to get them to look up from the phone and find a way to bribe them.

Yeah. As a parent, I bribe my kids. I bribe them to read books. I bribe them not to be on the phone as long. And then, you know, that's a fun part of saying bribing them. But just like all of us, we all just, even my kids, they need a compelling future. One thing I've helped my kids always do is create a compelling future that they're fighting for. And if they spend five hours a day on their phone,

they're never going to reach that compelling future. Right? And, you know, I don't expect my kids to have the drive I have. I don't expect your kids. I know what you went through as a kid and where you grew up. I didn't grow up too far from where you did, you know, similar type area, similar type town. You know, I went to school without lunch money.

I got made fun of because my mom's car was so beat up and used to break down on the way to school and kids would pass on the bus and like, you know, I have that still inside. that broke kids still lives inside of me. And I still fight. I know your work ethic, you know mine. I still work like I'm broke because I still feel sometimes like that.

You can't inherit that, but you have to find other ways to motivate a next generation. Your kids won't be motivated because they didn't have lunch money. They're never going to have them. They're never going to know a life without that. But they could be motivated

not to live into their full potential. They could see people who've coasted their whole lives and they don't find happiness and joy. And I don't care if my daughter, My son wants to be the best teacher an entire school. I will support them. They don't have to be crazy entrepreneurs, but they need a compelling future. If not, you just drift.

So when kids grow up living in abundance, how do they learn to fight like they're broke? I think for me, what I've used, a couple of analogies. One is always, my kids are always in sports. And I've always taught them you don't win sports when everybody's watching. You know this better than anybody. You do it when no one's watching. It's when you're throwing 100 pitches out back when it's hot and nobody's there, right? So that I was able to do that through.

I'll give an example. My son played baseball from five years old till ninth grade. He got into the high school, the hardest high school to get in. I give him credit. He got in all on his own. And they've been the state champion baseball team forever. My son like me didn't reach puberty in ninth grade. You saw him in the Navy Series.

He's four foot 11, 90 pounds, tries out for the team, and he might have made it, but he got done with practice one day. He goes, Dad, I'm not even five foot. These kids are six foot. And so many baseball players live in Phoenix, so that half the team was stack with baseball players' sons, right? Pro baseball players.

Yeah, I mean, you're, you're, Andre Ethier. He used to be the center fielder of the Dodgers for 18 years. His son's the pitcher throwing 88 miles an hour in ninth grade. And, you know, anyway, so he gets though in practice. He goes, dad, I'm not going to be able to compete on this. I'm like, cool, but what are you going to do? Whatever you decide, I got your back. He's like, I think I'm going to take tennis.

And what I told him was, if you're just going to dabble with tennis, you've got to remember, you've been playing baseball since five, somebody's been playing tennis since they're five. You're going to get your butt kicked when you go out there. You're going to have to deal with getting, and he did, and he got cut the first year he tried out. But that kid practiced five days a week, four to five days a week forever when no one was watching. In Phoenix in the summer, when it's 110 degrees out. But I give him credit. because I just, I try to instill that they know they don't have to struggle like I did,

but they have to struggle somewhere. So long story short, I'm just proud of him. He made the team. He's the captain of the tennis team now in 11th grade. He's seven and oh now. He's seven games. He hasn't lost seven of the tennis matches. But when people see him, I get so many parents, this last thing I'll say,

he'll say to me, God, your son is so athletic. You picked it up like that. I'm like, no, I watch this kid sweat four or five days a week for three years. years not to be not to be the one that's like oh here comes brodie right and i think ways like that we have to we have to find ways you're going to have to find ways to stretch them to push them to challenge them because it's just different than having it in your face so it's creating that adversity for them consistently not just giving them everything making it easy but creating that adversity for them but how does someone develop a compelling future if they're always stuck in uncertainty and if it seems

so scary the future that's coming in the next few years, when interest rates are rising so fast, when wars are happening, AI is just confusing to learn even the basics? How am I going to get to learn the advanced stuff? If I can't even learn the basics, in the next few years, it just seems so uncertain for people. How do you create a compelling future with so much uncertainty?

So here's a question. When you were sleeping on your sister's couch, right? I'm sure you had two visions of the earth, of the world. One was, I'm guessing, you can tell me, was there a time where you would stack, I'm going to be here forever, this is never going to work out.

It's embarrassing that on my sister's couch, the world's moving faster than me, I don't have a full education. Isn't it easy to stack all the things that could go wrong? And wouldn't you say you felt that there wasn't, in moments, there was no compelling future for you,

especially back then, maybe the internet was booming and you didn't get in, You didn't invest in the internet. You didn't even know how to... Was there that version of you? Sure. Was there ever a moment it had to be

or else you wouldn't be sitting here? But there's also moments that you're like, I don't care about any of that. I'm gonna focus on, I don't quit on stuff. I'm stubborn. When I decide... And you are stubborn. It's what I love about you, right?

Look what you do with your team. You're stubborn, right? So there's another part who goes, I'm just not quitting. I don't care if they don't hear me now. They'll hear me someday. Like, we have both of those people live inside of us. And there is evidence of both if we look at. When you, when you have a

head it, you could go online and you could find and say, hey, no big deal, you're probably dehydrated, drink some water, or it's probably a brain tumor. You find what you're looking for. Okay? The earth, the world has always, but we think these are the worst times. Go back in history. Would you want to live 200 years ago? No. Right now, if you go, hey, 200 years ago, there was no worse for five minutes. Would you want to go back? No. So I know this isn't easy, but it is, here's the thing that I think we this is one part of it you're talking about a compelling future the first

thing is you have to realize you could stack all the things that go wrong to where your psyche's like why should I do anything like AI is going to take my job interest rates are going to go up inflation is going to why should I do anything and right alongside of it you could also stack all that could go right wow what if I could use

this innovation what if I could use AI to not have to raise money to not have to hire employees what if I could finally unlock the creativity it's been living inside of me. What if humans actually put guardrails up and it doesn't go wrong? What if the war stop? What if there is peace? Because whatever you focus on is what you're going to feel. When you're on your sister's couch, the day you focused on, this is my life, this is going to be, you felt like crap, true? Yes. And then there was crazy days your sister was like, why is he in a good mood? He's got nothing

going on because there was days you're like, this is only temporary. I'm not going to be here long. So I would just say at 57 now that I look at things, the negative side still comes up every day. It's not like, or every week, it's not like it just goes away and dies. You can just acknowledge it and say, I'm not going to stack the bad today. I'm going to stack that I'm blessed to be here.

I can live another day. I can fight another fight. Listen, last thing I'll say about this. I remember Wayne Dyer when he got diagnosed with leukemia. He was live on stage and I got the recording. Maybe Brendan or a friend gave me the recording. And he said, he was looking in the mirror when he first got diagnosed

and he said, man, why do I have leukemia? Because I drank when I was young and didn't take care of my body. And he said, he went weeks just like, why do I have this? And he just felt horrible. He said, there's one day. If you know anything about Wayne Dyer, just one day he looked in the mirror and goes,

well, why am I thinking that? He goes, I'm going to be the crazy guy who beats leukemia. And he started telling himself all these things like, look at me, I'm going to be stronger with leukemia. I'm going to prove to everybody that they could live a leukemia. And in the moment, his mind shifted. Now he passed away, not from leukemia. I think he had a heart attack.

But he was saying that he'd been living now for four months with leukemia. He's happier than he'd ever been in his life. The leukemia diagnosis didn't change. His perception did. And I know this sounds like, duh, and it's harder to do. But is it that hard? If we could truly say, I could stack all the crap, why can't I stack the good? And that's the start of a compelling future.

There's more things to it. But I think that's with the news and the speed of which it's coming to us, if you're stacking the bad, you can't handle it all. Right now you can't handle it all. Seems so hard. And I think the moments that started switching for me is when I would just stack little wins showing that something else was possible.

And it wasn't even like I was making money. It was more like, oh, I engaged with someone and they replied to me. It was like, oh, I got to say hello to a stranger and they wanted to make a moment. They thought my story was great. Yeah, something else. It was just like, oh, moments of possibilities

created this stacking of something compelling towards the future for me. It was like, okay, I'm learning. a new skill. I overcame a fear. I didn't doubt myself as much today. It was just like stacking the positive. I know this sounds silly, but it's like dumb and dumber. We're the chances you date me, one in a million. So you're saying, I got a chance. Exactly. Yeah, it's true. I mean, it sounds crazy, but you saw that. Like, I'm on the couch. I have no money, but this guy was interested in my conversation today. I'm going to take that. Because we all have to start someplace. Yes.

I mean, it might sound easier like, ah, Lewis and Dean, you're successful now, but all of us had the self-doubt. All of us questions. At one point. No. We're both broke at one point. Yeah, broken and broke. It's it. And there's something you talked about before in the previous episode we did. We talked about until you were in your 40s, I think, that you felt like a hand was around your throat until you were able to feel financially free. I think you mentioned this before.

I think a lot of people feel this. They feel like they don't have enough money. They're in debt. Or maybe they have a little bit of money, but it's not enough for the future. And they feel like they're choking or they don't have enough breathing room. But sometimes people start making a little bit more. money and they they get breathing room and they they create some financial freedom but they stop pushing hard why do you think that is once people start to make a little bit of money why do you think

they all of a sudden stop pushing as hard when they feel more financially safe a really great question you know if these sound like just worn out analogies i'm sorry but i still live these all the time in my I think we have to figure out our own, like our own operating system. There's certain things that drive you that may not drive me and vice versa, right? Some people are motivated by the stick. Some people are motivated by the carrot. Some have a bolt. What drives you right now?

I probably would love to say that it's just carrot. But the stick drives me more than anything. What does that mean for people? The stick is like the whip or the carrot. like dangling the carrot. So, for example, so I'm going to go back and remind me, I want to tell you something about my dad. But let's talk about that compelling future for a second, right? What drives you?

It is purpose. It is the thing that you are so great at. It is the reason why you want to get there. So let's picture you have a toolbox and you start getting momentum. Your throat's not being choked, right? I use that analogy because I realize as a child, my mom and dad's entire conversations were around money. It's like, we can't make it to the kids baseball games

because we've got to put overtime. We can't go on vacation because of that. We can't do this thing. I was in private school for two years until one day the teachers, my grandmother paid it for two years. And then she said, now it's your turn to my parents to pay for.

And they didn't. In the middle of school, they pulled us out and told us your parents didn't pay. We got a victim. Right. So I watched my parents without them realizing that everything revolved around money. And what I always said was it's like they didn't realize they were being choked.

They didn't realize how heavy it felt. And I use the analogy like, we don't think about the oxygen in this room. But if somebody choked you, that's all you would think about. When money is choked, you don't realize every decision you make is through that lens. And now people are saying, like, duh, but how do I get it? But I think once you recognize that, then maybe that starts driving you to create a future that can pull you out of it. And nothing happens overnight. It takes time.

It takes time to get in debt. It takes time to get out of debt. It takes time to get wealthy. But let me just share this, let's say this compelling future, right? I use a silly, like I was thinking of a toolbox. That's why it took me a minute. Is I'll reach in that toolbox for whatever I need to keep me moving forward. So it's not just a compelling future.

It's not just if things go wrong, whatever it takes to move you. Sometimes I'm motivated by what could be. Other times I'm motivated not to go backwards. So for example, in this toolbox, sometimes I might look at getting to the end of the of my life, and I don't know who I heard this from, but get to the end of my life and have my creator play me a video of the man I could have been. And I feel it, though. I don't just say it. It's not just something I'm doing. Like I literally feel of saying, yeah, you were inspiration to your kids. They move forward. They saw their dad, struggled, failed, got back up

and kept going. And maybe I'm like, no, and I played small. Like, I'll visualize that. And I visualize things like if I see who I could have been, the lives I could have impacted, the things I could have done, the relationships I could have built, and I missed it, I always think to myself, the only wish I would have is to go back. And then I say, Dean, wish granted, you're here. Let's freaking go. That's cool. Right?

But there's other times that that might not even be enough. Now, I got to tell you, my dad was married five times. And it's okay for me to share this. He was physically abused and sexually abused as a child. Old school Italian guy never got help, but he fought with everybody's whole life. He just had built in anger. Right? So 10 brothers and sisters When he didn't talk to any of them

He didn't talk to his mother or a father when they passed away My sister hasn't talked to him in 22 years His only other sibling His ex-wives don't talk to him He never real I have empathy for this man And now he's 90 and he's my dearest friend I see him all time but he never fixed that But the fact of the matter is

I watch my dad work hard, struggle Try to be a good dad Try to figure it out This is going to sound horrible But you know what's in my toolbox when I really won't move, I'll say, if you don't do this, you're gonna end up like your father. Oh, man.

Some people might say that's abuse. I don't keep it. It's like nitrous oxide in the car. I hit the button, I get going fast, I'm parking that. I can go back to a compelling future. But it's not easy. You need this toolbox full of things that drive you.

So I don't want to be complacent. I don't want to get to my end of the life and feel like I coasted. I personally, and I think all of it, what keeps us alive is we feel alive when we grow. It doesn't mean millions, and billions of dollars, just a better version today than I was yesterday. When you do that, you feel alive.

Nobody like, I don't care what anybody says. No one wants to coast, right? No one wants to say, hey, you're making $80,000 a year. I'll give you $100,000 a year for the rest of your life. And all you have to do is sit and watch this field every day and you make $100,000 a year. I think so many people would jump on that. And then a year and be like, I'm out.

I'd rather make $40,000 on my own terms. Right, right. Right. story. The story of the fish, like the guy who's like catching fish every single day and then the businessman comes and he's like, oh, I never heard it. I don't know the whole story. I think you've heard the story. I think you've heard the story. It's like the guy of the fisherman in the village and there's like a tourist that goes there and he meets the fisherman who he's like catching a fish. He seems super happy and he's like fishing on his little boat. Oh yeah, got it. And then he's like, oh, why don't you expand and get multiple boats and make

more money and then you can get investors and then sell one day. And he's like, Well, then what? He's like, well, then you could have all this empire and the fishing empire. Then what? And then when you retire, you could come back and you could fish every single day and hang out with your wife and kids and play music and have a siesta and enjoy your life. I'm sure you've heard that story before. Yeah. So what do you think about that story versus the need to be driven?

So I think growing. Because there are people like that who are. I might be misunderstood. I don't care if my kids are driven. when it comes to finances and building businesses like I was. I'm partners with Tony Robbins, for gosh sakes. We're driven on impact. How many lives?

I mean, every week we talk. How many lives did we touch this week? How many people's lives have changed? Like, it is obsessive sometimes, right? But that fits me. Like, I don't care if my kids ever care about building a business or being the fisherman that doubles and triples in three boats. I want my kids to do whatever makes them happy.

If they're happy on the boat, being out there every day, catching 10 fish and coming in, I'd be the happiest day out alive as long as they were growing. Because here, I'm just, just again, especially being partners with Tony and being in this industry for 30 years, the saddest people I see are the ones that set their life just in, in auto, you know, just like on cruise control. And they think that this was good. And they get to the end and they're back saying, I need to feel alive. I didn't do enough. I had more to give. Right. What did Dale Carnegie say, the greatest plight of the human race is knowing you have more potential and not utilize it. So the potential doesn't have to be building businesses, but you got to stretch yourself.

You got to learn. You got to grow. I know you. And maybe it's a bad example. I have never seen a learner like you in my life. When you came to our mastermind, it was a four or five months ago, I watched you take notes like you knew half the stuff. You were taking notes like you didn't know any of it.

Didn't you feel alive after that weekend? Of course. Yeah, that's great. then how do i mean why you know a lot of wealthy people and why do you think it's so hard for even some of the most successful people to separate their self-worth from their net worth or their bank account really great question because it it all's merged together we try to say that that there's a life and business separation like there is no such thing and it all intertwines together and we live in a time where significance is like you know especially with everything that's

online and you get to see and everybody seems like they have the perfect life and they're making more money and it was easier for them significance is like it's it's just prominent right and i think it's i would love to say there's an easy way to switch that but there really is there's an easier way is you know the old saying count your blessings I know that sounds crazy, but I find myself falling into that trap still to this day. What's the trap you fall into the most? That when you, when I surround myself with people are doing better than me, I think I'm doing good. Then I get in a room and I'm like, I'm broke.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, and it's still in there. And that insecure, broke kid from seventh grade without lunch money goes, see, because you're not that smart, you can't get where they are. It's still in there. And then I have to say, I look around and go, okay. Okay, look where I've been. So here's a couple of things. Number one, when you feel that way,

the immediate thing you should do is look in your rear view mirror because we forget where we came from. We're looking to the horizon. We're trying to trace the horizon and you can never get, I don't care how fast you run or a sunset, chasing a sunset,

you're never going to get there. But we're always chasing the ideal version of us and sometimes that gets, you can't get there. So you've got to turn around and go, look where I was a year ago, six years ago, 16 years ago. That's number one.

Number two, I said count your blessings. I said that for a reason, is when I feel that way, I'll immediately say, maybe I could have been a little more successful. But I have an amazing relationship with all four of my kids. I love my wife more than anything. I have an amazing relationship with her.

My 19-year-old daughter's with me traveling right now, right? I think my team, just like you and your partner, Matt, and team here, you have such an amazing team. They all love each other. I've been to places where the team can't stand each other. Partners fighting. I get alone and somebody I say, how's your wife? And they complain about the, like, and then I start thinking how blessed I am with the balance

I have. And as soon as I put my brain in that mode of looking in the rear view of, look how far I've come, look what's in front of me. Hey, then all of a sudden the third one is, I'm like so good for them that they can set the bar of what's possible. And my nervous system calms down and all of a sudden I'm back and it's gone. But I'm telling you, the reason I'm sharing that, because you see, say it and I'd love to be the person that doesn't affect me anymore. I'd be lying to you. I'd be lying to

you. And I guess in some ways in order for us to keep growing, we can't just be with people that are not doing as much or more than us, you know, in some ways. We need to be surrounding ourselves with people that inspire us. Absolutely. Who've created something. And the one thing I'll add to it and you're so good at this and, you know, we work hard on this is it's not just someone who's had more success. The best thing you could do is find people with the same values as you that you have and has more success. Because you and I have both met very successful people that I would never want their life. No. I wouldn't switch with me with them in a million years. Neither would you. They might be killing it here, but no connection to family. Killing it here, their kids,

they haven't seen them in months. Yeah. Killing, right? Or unhealthy or something. Yeah. So I think we have to, we have to, we definitely need to surround ourselves with people who inspire. just make sure they have the same values that you do. That's it. I mean, I'm going back to kind of where we're at right now in the world. Again, I just see the wars. I see the chaos. I see the divisiveness.

I see AI changing so much. How do we stay calm under all this uncertainty and chaos that's here? And it seems like even more is going to be coming. Yeah. I think that's one of the best questions in today's world. And I've been obsessing. And how are the best world leaders that you're saying? surrounding yourself with, stay calm, knowing that they have a lot of wealth and influence

or power right now, but they might have to lay off a thousand people because of AHA. They might have to make some tough decisions or the stock market might crash or something half their wealth might go away. How are they thinking right now? Well, I've never been into time. I've been fortunate, especially again being partners with Tony and the people I blessed to surround myself with, I've never seen a time where nobody really has the answer. That's, I think that's the space we're in. No one has the answer. No, no one has the answer. I mean, they all might think they do, but no one really does. And just in, in so many times in changing history, you can go, what do they say, model proven practices. You know, when I wanted to know more about AI, I interviewed

50 AI experts just so I could find the pattern. You've done it your whole life. I mean, it's what your career is. And I'd find the same. I'm like, oh, that's one pattern. Oh, that's one. This one actually makes you more human. This one actually just buys your time back. Simplification, right? You find these things.

So in my life, whenever I'm like, how do I go to another level? How do I shift the changing economy? The real estate market's down. There's new technology. There's always somebody that's like, oh, I've been there. Let me just tell you. Because real estate, let's just take real estate, for example. It's been the same since the beginning of time.

Like, what's much different of buying a house or flipping house today than 100 years ago? 50 years ago. No, sure. Not much, hardly anything. Right? Where we're going is uncharted territory. We've never had anything that's smarter than us, faster than us, quicker than us. So I don't think anyone has that answer. So if you can't find the answer for your certainty, then you got to get the inside strong, right? You have to find inside of you that you become, you know, again, another silly analogy, but you become the thermostat to adjust your emotions, not the thermometer. The thermometer goes up and down with whatever changes. You can go up and down with all the new news about AI, the war's going on, the inflation that's coming, the stock market issues, you follow that roller coaster, you're in for a ride. You're on the adult crazy rollercoaster that drops you off, spins you around, flips you around. And I think,

I don't think there's been a better time in history to have to work on the inside so you can handle this. The thing's less predictable. They're just, they are. I mean, do you ever see, whether you like Elon Musk or not, do you ever see when they interview him and talk about three years from now? He goes, he knocks it out. He says, when people ask him about five years from now, you know what he does? He pauses and he goes, I'd rather not talk about that.

I've seen him do it in two or three interviews. Or he diverts it or goes, that's a whole other story. Let's stick in one of them. He said, I can be really optimistic around the next three to four. And it's not because he's pessimistic. He can't see it.

I don't think anyone can. I mean, right now, the way AI is growing, AI is actually, the reason it's going faster than they thought because it's teaching itself and it's building itself. Crazy. Right? I think where the problem comes

when let's just take AI for example when people want to learn AI they might go on YouTube might find somebody you start watching videos and it's like oh my God do I need to get a Mac Mini and a claw bottom what's a claw bot and do I do I do I do a agent do I just use AI is it like go ah right I think people are starting off on like step five and it's the same for anything so AI any change in your life I think any change has to start with a compelling reason like a purpose Why do I want this in the first place? And then once you have a reason like, oh, what if I could use AI to just save me five hours a week?

Just get rid of the stuff I don't want to do. Could it automate that? That's my purpose. Because I want that time to coach Little League from my son. He's six years old. I want to coach Little League. So now you've got a purpose, right? That calms the nervous system.

The next thing is you've got to overcome the fear. Because if your brain's thinking it's going to end the world, robots someday, craziness, start World War III. If you do that, you don't move forward. you got to find a way to say, hey, humanity's going to find a way through this. And I'm just going to say, AI is going to help cure cancer, solve jobs that nobody wants, and we're going to find a way to all flourish. Like you said, with Wayne Dyer, got the leukemia.

I might as well focus on the solution. So the first is, right, the first is you've got to have a reason why you're doing it. The second thing is you've got to overcome the fear. Then the third thing, you've got to embrace change. And got to say, hey, if I stay here, probably not going to work out for it. Right. I'm on the side of the mountain. If I just stay here, I can't hang in the side of the mountain forever, so I got to probably go up, right?

So it's one of those things like the farmer using the tractor. I mean, would you do business with anybody who didn't have the internet right now? No. In a year from now, will you do anybody, will you hire anybody that doesn't know AI? Probably not. You won't. So then you got to say, I got to embrace this change. And then after change, you've got to cut through the clarity.

You got to cut through the clutter, meaning there's a million apps, a million things. Pick one and go deep. I'm just going to learn chat cheap et. and learn how to get five hours a week back with this one thing. Then you start the education, right? If you miss those first steps, then you're jumping right into the overwhelm. You have a little fear. You're afraid to change.

You're stuck. The clutter. You're stuck. So with any process, that is kind of also Tony Robbins 101. Yeah. What are the, I know you're teaching a lot of this right now with AI, but what are the three most powerful ways your time, accelerate growth, or help you build? financial wealth. So I can only say this not because I'm an AI expert, but I am a good

modeler, right? So are you. Yes. Right? So I interviewed enough people to get a pattern. And one of the biggest patterns, it's one of the things that Tony and I teach, is get your AI to know you deeply. Most people are using it as one-offs. You want it to help you write a marketing email. You wanted to do something for that attorney would typically do. And people are kind of using it as a one-off like Google. It'll give you a good answer. But the more context it has, the deeper it knows you. So what does that mean? You could literally go on your phone, say you have a chat GPT account,

and just talk to it for 20 minutes and tell it your ideas, your goals, your constraints, your worries, where you hope the company's going to go, how much you love your wife, how many kids you have. And people say, yeah, you're telling it a lot, aren't you? I'm like, well, if you have social media, they already know. The world already knows, right? but the deeper it knows you and then you start telling what your daily tasks are

your weekly tasks your weekly goals the things that usually hold you back think about if think about if you hired matt matt as an a player love that guy right say you just hired matt today and matt's smart strong and Matt walks in it's the first day you're hiring that's that's AI Matt's AI and you say Matt I'd love you to get me four new guests that are going to help solve the big problem of XYZ and I'd really love for you to get it in the next two weeks, thanks,

and he walked out. He'd be like, what does he want? Female gas, women, like men, gas? Does he want them all at one time? Does he want them over three months? And what is the problem? He really wants. He might figure it out and come back

and be pretty good because Matt's smart. But what if you spent an hour with Matt and say, let me tell you where I started. Let me tell you what I believe. Let me tell you how much I care about people. Let me tell you why I call the School of Greatness. And he got all that context. And you said, the reason I want these four guests

is because I want one to solve this. I want the other one to solve this. I want two to be men, two to be women, one to be a couple. Then he goes out and comes back and you get the answer. You're like, brightest guy in the world. Most people aren't doing that yet with AI.

Teach it. Tell it what you need. Tell it what you want. Let it get to know you. It will be a completely different answer. That's number one. I can give you a second one. Yeah.

A second one. You know, in business, they call it an SOP. You know what that is, right? A standing operating procedure. it just means the process. Like if you documented how you made peanut butter and jelly, right? Get the peanut bread, get the jelly, put one on, put that, right? Just a process.

Some people call it a playbook, right? In AI terms, they call it a workflow. It's all the same thing. So I would take, once you get AI to know you a little more, first off, the next question, I'll just go back. The next question you can ask after it gets to know you is tell it everything you have going on that week and then say, how can you help me with what's on my plate

to save five hours this week. It'll give you the answer. That's interesting. It'll give you the answer. And then you can say, if I didn't give you all the information you need about me to save that five hours, ask me the questions I need to answer

to get me that five hours. You'll save that five hours. And time is the most precious thing, right? So once you do that, you're like, because this is why I say it can make you more human. If you get five hours back, you can actually do the stuff that makes you more human, right? So that's number one.

So now that you've got this thing knowing you and helping you and you'll start shifting your mind, you'll start trusting it a little more. I just watched it happen. and we've trained about 600,000 people so far, so I can watch it happen. The next thing is pick one thing that you do and document all the steps, right?

Whether that's getting up in the morning to go to your workout, if you want it for personal, or the way you raise your children, or a procedure at work. Like this is how I book an appointment, it's how I get someone on the phone, then once I call them, this is what I say, this is how I follow up,

this is what I send them as an email, and just document one. One, standing operating procedure, one playbook, one workflow, and then load that into the same AI and say, where in this workflow can you help me go faster? And it'll blow your mind. It'll say, hey, I could do this thing. I could send out the daily reminder email on my own. I could do this thing. I could do that thing.

And it just gives you a different, it's like having a really smart personal assistant that's there to work for you 24, hour, seven days a week. So I think if you look at that, it's a less scary approach than what it seems like. Everybody's sharing out there. And both you and Tony have been kind of researching and interviewing the top AI experts in the world. What would you say is the single most surprising thing that you feel you learned that everyone watching or listening needs to know?

So because we bought and partnered with a guy that we thought out of those 50 interviews, we found somebody we really liked, we thought he was the most pragmatic guy on explaining complicated stuff. His name is Igor. I flew to Jersey. Germany ended up having lunchroom over there.

We brought his company, and he's our head of AI education. So we get the unfair advantage of having somebody on the bleeding edge. The guy, yeah, yeah. Here's what I'll tell you. The more you learn about AI, the more you feel behind. Yeah. Kind of like life.

Yeah. It's like, the smarter you get, the dumber you are. You're like, gosh, I know nothing. Isn't that so true? I know nothing. You're like, I'm an idiot. Right? I have, he set up a personal, him and the team set up a personal agent that works for me.

And I just text with it. All day. 24-7, just. It's like an AI assistant? Yeah, it's an AI assistant, but it's my own personal agent. Is it through chat GPT? Cloud, is this? No, it's through a mix of three.

It knows everything. It has my DNA. It knows the goals, my company, my life. And I'll show you when we're done. But I literally, I can use my voice memo. I can be like, I named him Marco. I'm like, Marco, do the research on this. Write this document.

Do me a fair when you're done, text Bianca, my assistant, and let her know that I'll be five minutes late to the next appointment and book reservations for me and my, daughter downtown in LA because we're here overnight because we're going to be with Lewis. And like, great, Dean, I got that, anything else you need for me. Wow. That's cool.

Now, that's not where the world is right now. That's probably 1%. And I would not be there if I didn't have a partner that helps set that up. Yeah, that's cool. But it's a cool thing to know it's coming. Again, scary and cool. But like anything in life, here's what I say, when the internet before it came out, everybody was freaked out about what was going to happen, right?

And even if you're freaked out, could you literally say you could live life right now without the internet. Could you, could you, I mean, could you, like, my daughter, when we're driving here. I mean, like, could you live a normal life without it right now? Like, we're driving here. I said, tricky. I said, kid, we're coming to Lewis's and we just plug it in. I said, 20 years ago, you know, look at a map. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's tougher. It's tougher. Right. So it's tougher. What I'm saying is we're not going to be able to function at the pace of which things are going without utilizing. You don't have to be an AI expert. You don't have to have an agent tomorrow, But you've got to be using it to leverage your time.

And some people don't want to hear that, but it's just, it's just here. What do you think, it's 2026 right now? What do you think by 2020, or excuse me, what do you think by 2030 will be at with AI? I think all of us will have for sure an agent that just helps us. When they say an agent, it's really just a, it's a digital employee. A bot that you're just talking to. Yeah. And a friend of mine, Leor, talks about bits and atoms. And over the next two or three years, everything that's a bit, meaning online, AI is going to be all up. You go faster no matter what it is. Attorneys are going to have a tough time. Engineers are going to have a tough time, right? Because the AI will write your contract in 13 seconds. Because it just absorbs all the best attorneys. So anything that's a bit mean transferred online, Over the next three years, everybody's gonna get comfortable

with having that as your partner. That's probably the easiest way to say it. And then probably if, I just listen, I did all these interviews. But within five years, it's gonna turn into atoms. And that same relationship you build is gonna be downloaded into a robot that can help you at home, clean your house, do your lawn. You know, if you listen to Elon, it's three years away.

If you listen to most, they say it's five, but it's coming. But it's coming. And it's gotta know everything about you. They'll know everything about you. And then I'll hopefully support and serve you to live a better life. Hopefully. Yeah. You just got to hope.

I'm just going to focus on it is. Man. I mean, you have been extremely successful in different industries over the years. I think it was like cars, sales, right? And they're really used cars. I think you're into back in your 20s. Then real estate for decades. You mastered that.

And you continue to evolve in different industries. What did the real estate? estate industry, when you were at the peak, I mean, infomercial, daily, you know, just building a massive portfolio of properties, teaching others how to do the same all around the country in the world, what did you learn from that industry that you've really applied now to this level of success that you have in your current business model? Yeah, great question. Well, on the real estate itself side, the reason I was able to teach it so well, because I bought and sold over a thousand houses, right? So I wasn't just teaching. I was living it, experience it. So

every time I'd learn something, it would go sideways or go good, I'd get to share it, right? You learned all those pieces. So I learned, I mean, in that industry, I learned how to run a business effectively. I learned operations. I learned processes and systems. They stick with you for life. Operations and systems, no matter what business you're in, they're all the same, right? You still got to operate the same way. You could take Matt and put him in any industry. You kill it. Crush it. Right? Because he's got, so you learn that. But what I learned the most is, in the real estate education, I feel blessed that we taught

so many hundreds of thousands of people around the world is I did learn what I shared with you earlier is most people out there, our brand ended up being, if you remember, it was the biggest real estate brand in the world for a decade, right? We taught more people than anyone,

and I always would watch people, not rip it off, and you're smart, but they would jump to just real estate education and would freak people out. And I love, so this is one, there's a takeaway that I would, wasn't expecting the share, but sometimes we have to sell people what they want and deliver them what they need. So people wanted, I only taught people that were first-time investors to get in

their first house because that's what I was so good at. I was broke. I got in my first 20 houses with creative financing and, you know, a lot of that pace more. He listened to my, yeah, he listened to him with his dad to my tapes when he was in the car when he was 14, right? And he's doing fantastic. When I say that, sell them what they want and give them what they need. Everybody needed to learn how to do their first real estate deal. So they could have some passive income or do a fix and flip, right? I wasn't teach people to do 100 deals. I was teaching them to do this one.

But they wanted to learn how to make millions. They wanted millions, but they needed to learn how to do one deal. Well, even if they wanted to do one deal or be really, they wanted to make a lot of money, whatever that was, in most cases, I still had to work on their mindset because it was still a change. They were still afraid. What if the property was wrong? And I lost all my money. How do I overcome that fear?

There's a million, do I buy fix and flip? Do I buy and hold? Do I wholesale? No, let's have one path. So what I learned was for real estate that we do in our company mastermind and we do with our other companies, what we're doing now with the AI advantage is, yeah, you need to learn this thing. But you might need to learn this thing, but you might want this thing, but I know you need to get in the right mindset. I need you overcome fear. I need you to embrace change. I need you to see one path, not 200. And then if I can get you in that spot, then you then you're open enough to learn what I have to teach you. And that's really our secret sauce. And everybody skips the first four and like, I have better education. Then why isn't anybody getting success? Right. Because you're not in their head.

You're not helping them overcome the stuff that's stuck, made them stick. Gosh, it's so interesting because when I asked you, like what's the one skill that everyone needs to learn to really be successful in the future financially? You say communication. And I think I would also add courage to that. You know, because it's like, it's learning to,

because you could have all the skills. Yeah, that's a great, great. You can know how to communicate. You can have the doctorate degree. You can have the AI degree, but you still have to, like, put yourself out there. You still have to talk to someone and speak in front of them. You still have to drop that video online to say, hey, this is my perspective, and I'm putting myself out in the world. Such a good point.

And it's like the courage. It's funny because I was just speaking about, you know, to a bunch of entrepreneurs a couple weeks ago at a mastermind. And it was about AI the whole weekend. And I was speaking for a half a day. and I said, I know this is about AI, but it's not about AI. It's about courage. God, it's so true. It is because you have to have, and you were talking about the first thing is getting inside their mind and their hearts to overcome the fears, right?

And you can learn all the education around real estate or around AI or whatever. Not anything, yeah. But it's like you are teaching mindset principles and it's really like the emotional ability to put yourself out there and fail because it's going to happen at some point. You're going to buy a bad deal. You're going to make some stupid comment that people are to judge you for. You're going to not look good in some way.

And it's having the courage to do it first and then continue to do it after you make yourself look like a fool over and over again. It's so funny because you nailed it on that one. And what I was sharing about that toolbox, your courage comes from that toolbox. Whether it's, I don't want to be like my dad or I don't want to get to the end of my life

and miss it. That future pacing can give you courage in the moment. It's it. And really you're right because listen, we both know people that move forward that weren't qualified and they figured it out a lot of way. And they jumped out of the plane. They grew wings on the way down. And someone else is sitting in the plane overreading, checking the wings, reading the instructions, finally, finally the plane lands and you missed your opportunity to jump. They're 10 degrees. They're overqualified and they're still broke. And they lack that one tool. It's like that one. I mean, they probably know how to communicate perfectly in front of an audience. If it's like perfectly manicured, but it's like when it's messy. I'll tell you one more piece about courage.

So I teach courage as such a big foundational piece, and I'm glad you brought that up. But I always say people think confidence comes first. It doesn't. The precursor to confidence is courage. Because you don't get confident until you're in the game. Like let's just say with the sport that you're doing so well, handball and killing it,

you don't get the confidence to play until you're in the game, true? Do you get beat up? You need to get results and you get some experience. You try something. It doesn't work. You don't get it in your mind just thinking about it. No, right. You could be in the stands watching, but you have to be courageous enough to get out on the field.

Yes. Even when you play bad at first. And then eventually you learn the pieces. And where does courage come from? When you go, oh, I know the bad roads. I know the good roads. I have the confidence to move forward. But the precursor is courage.

It is. And just to give context on that, I mean, I've been pursuing this dream of going to the Olympics for it's been 18 years now. That's amazing. When I first saw, that's why I said you're stubborn. Yeah, when I first saw it in 2008, I first became aware of this sport, handball. And it's been 18 years now. I've been like, okay, I became aware of this idea, handball in the Olympics that I can potentially go there if I get good enough. I've been on and off the team for, I don't know, 15 years now. And I've been on a continual journey of trying to get better towards 2028. So it's been 18 years. Wow.

And there is a, I have a vision of myself on the court at the Olympics, wearing USA across my chest, in a jersey, playing and scoring a goal for Team USA. I have that vision. It repeats in my mind. I see it throughout all my day. And I also know it's not guaranteed. It doesn't, just because I see it doesn't mean it's 100% guaranteed. Doesn't mean it will happen no matter of life. But if you don't try, it's 100% guaranteed you won't.

And I'll regret it for it. You absolutely will. But the fear, the sneaky fear comes up, and I can understand a lot of people's fears because I'm investing so much into it. Time, energy, money, promotion. I'm talking about it all the time. All these things. And what happens if I fail?

Like, what are people going to think about me if it doesn't work out? What happens about all the time lost? Like, all these things could creep in my mind as well. That's the man in the arena. It is. but I just say, well, I have to have faith and trust that if this is on my heart, and this keeps speaking to me to do it today, and it keeps seeing this through for the next couple of years,

whatever happens is going to happen is kind of out of my control. But I don't want to live with the regret when I'm an old man. I was just going to say, I mean, not to oversimplify it, but the end of your life, even if this didn't work. Because you imagine if you didn't try. I would beat myself up. That would be so heavy for you. I think you get to the end of your life and you go,

I put 20 years in it. It didn't work, but damn, did I try. Exactly. And I met people, I did the thing, and you're gonna have amazing stories. Imagine telling your grandchildren, you know, I thought about being the Olympics for 20 years. What'd you do about it, Grandpa?

Nothing. No, you know, listen, I was older. It's not the safe, you know, it's not the biggest sport. Everyone's half my age. Yeah, everybody's younger. You know, everybody's younger. You know, I can't live like that. And now having kids, like,

I feel it even more of like, man, I can't speak to them in the future about I didn't go for it. But you should. Right, you should. Even when everything's against you. But isn't that where most things happen when everything's against you? Like, you know, when you feel like the underdog, when you feel like it's the wrong things?

Like, isn't the greatest story in the world, the underdog story? You watch C-Biscuit or Rudy or Rocky. Why do you feel that way? Because it's the underdog story. And we're all underdogs. Exactly. And when you have the chance to go, I'm an underdog, probably got a small percentage of it's going to happen, but I'm going for it anyway.

Yeah. I think that just, I think that we all need that in our own way, in our own size, whatever matches your life. Why do you think so many people lack the courage to put themselves out there to actually go for it? Because probably only 10% of the world actually goes for exactly what they want all the way through to the end. And the rest, maybe they go a little bit, but then they fall back in the comfort zone.

Like, why is it so hard for people to be courageous to actually try the new thing? go for their dreams. I don't know if I have an answer for why, but I'd love to present a little solution that it is a muscle that if you pick something, maybe this week, you pick something that scares you that you've been putting off.

The thing you should have said yes to a long time ago or the thing you should have said no to a long time ago and just do it this week. Yeah. Because what you do is when you're pat, when you get through it, you're like, oh, that wasn't that bad. It's the anticipation of it.

It's the anticipation. It's like, you know, you're in a relationship when you're young and you know you've got to end it and you're thinking about for six months every day your stomach's churning and then you're bringing up and the other person's like I was thinking the same thing but we can be friends and you're like I just killed myself. Her five years or something. Yeah, a decade, right? So I think what helps move you in the right direction is pick something that you've been putting off this week and just freaking do it. Tony says this and I love giving them credit where credits do, but Tony always says,

courage is not moving forward in the absence of fear. Courage is moving forward even though you're scared. And when you hear that, it's like, I know it's scary to have this conversation, say yes to say no, but I'm having it. And then you get done, you're like, well, that, what else can I do? So I would just say, start getting some, start flexing your courage muscle. Where's the area of your life you've lacked courage the most lately? Oh, I'm pretty damn courageous. Only because I built the muscle over years. I have to say, so again, just being transparent. Tony Robbins is my partner, my dearest friend in the world. We talked about. We told you. talk almost every night. About a year ago, Tony calls me and said, this AI thing, it's going to,

it's going to crush people. He just knows the human condition so much. You just had a great interview with him not that long ago. I loved it. It was so good. He cares deeply, more than most people would ever think, right? You think it's just part of his jam. He doesn't have to work a day in his life. He's, he's obsessed with it. So he calls me, he goes, this AI thing's going to cripple people. It's too fast to change. It's coming too quick. The mind's not going to be able to help it. People are going to fall apart. We got to do something about it. I said, And I know I've been thinking the same thing. So then like three months later, he calls me late at night.

He says, can you talk? I'm like, of course. I'll be right. I call him back. We got to do it now. I can hear him like hitting the time. We got to do it now. We have to launch an education platform for people around A.

And we got to do it in the next 90 days. People are losing their mind. And he said, and there's a lot of people are going to be Charlton's out there and say how to get rich with AI. How to learn it overnight for doing nothing. He goes, they're going to screw people up, make them more of one. We've got to do this. So we talked. And it was like 90 days before we set the time in November.

We did our first AI event. We had like 700,000 people come. And I have to say, I was like, fear hit me. I was like, what if I let Tony down? What if I let people? I'm not the AI expert. I'm 57. I've been education, self-education for all these years, for 30 years.

Tony, 47. We know we have this philosophy of getting their minds first, overcoming the fear, get a purpose, overcome change, overcome change, and get it. And that's when I'm like, all right, the only way I can do this, I got to find 50 experts I can interview and I got to do it in rapid speed. I was just interviewing, interview and I was getting smarter at every interview. But I have to tell you, you asked me when I was scared. I was scared at first.

I'm like, what if I let tone down? Like, he put so much faith in what I do. He's like, you got this. No one can do this better than you. I'm like, you know, you know. But that muscle, I didn't want to let him down. I didn't want to let people down. And I want to be ahead.

I don't want to be the person that's fallen behind. So those three things drove me. I created it. So here's the best part of it. The reason we teach is what we do. I created a compelling future. We're going to create the AI education, not even education,

just helping people save time with AI. We didn't even call it AI education. We call it, here's how you save time using AI in a simple way, right? We're going to create the number one place in the world. We're going to embrace change. We're going to hold people through it so they don't get freaked out.

We're going to help them simplify, not a hundred things, just one thing. So I started going through these things, and then all of a sudden when I got to the end, I'm like, I could do this, right? But I had to do it. Believe me, I got off the call of them that night. We were like, yes, let's do it.

We're doing it. Oh, my God, can I really do it? Right? The imposter comes back. The broke kid comes back. They still live in there. You just got to beat him up a little. Wow.

Speaking of Tony, you know, I just had him on the show recently. It was awesome experience, like you said. I think it was the fifth time I've interviewed him as well. And each time I try to learn something new from him and try to get him off of his normal stories that I was here from other people. And I'm like, all right, I've got to get something out of him, I should say. And you spend, you know, every day or every week you're talking to him

and you've been with partners with him for almost a decade now, I think. And you studied his work for 20 years, I think, before then. But you've really built a personal relationship and a business relationship. What would you say are the three most powerful things Tony Robbins has taught you as a human being that maybe most people don't see? One is his desire to give back.

he gives back more than anybody knows. Like when he talks about the billion meal challenge and now a hundred billion meal challenge and all this, it sounds unrealistic, but it's what drives him every day. Like he'll just call me out of the blue and talk for a half hour on how he got the king of this country to put up $5 million to provide this many meals.

And it's like, it's a part of his DNA and it's become his purpose and his existence. And because here's what he's a master at. We all need that compelling future. He doesn't have to work a day in his life. He's impacted more lives than anyone in history, right? I mean, he's the goat of goats in his industry. He's the Michael Jordan of that space.

So he's checked off all those boxes. If he just said, hey, I got plenty of money. I got the house of my dreams, the wife of my dream. And his wife, Sage, have the most amazing relationship. Anybody you've ever seen. It's not BS. It's amazing. So he's got all those.

So what did he do? He had to find a new compelling future. I need to feed a billion. people in 10 years. I did it. Oh, I got to fill the 100 billion people. He's flying all over the world. He's doing everything in Kendi. So he's got this drive. So therefore he wants his businesses and everything to do good so he can give away and solve, take away pain from people. So he is, so that's one is you've got to create a compelling future so big. I know we talked about it a little bit today. It's got to be so big that it overcomes imposter syndrome. It

overcomes fear. It overcomes that I'm not enough. I don't know enough. It's got to be so strong that no matter what, you just move forward anyway. That's Tony Robbins at his core. It's so big. You're not getting in his way. That's a fact. Okay, that's one. Number two, he always talks about the, not always, he gave me this advice that as leaders, we have to be both effective and efficient. And that was it hit me at a time where I was managing two different companies, hundreds of employees, and I was being really efficient because I knew how to fix different departments because I've been in this for 30 years. And he's like, you're going in and you're being efficient. You're getting it all done. But you're not building deep relationships with the leaders. So therefore you're not being effective. And I need to hear. Because I was moving and shaking. You were still doing it all. What's that? You were doing it all as opposed to empowering others to do. Or just showing you how to do it. I know this department. I've built this department. Do it this way. You're just doing it. You. You're doing it. You. You're doing it. You. You're just showing. You. You you good, cool, and go on to the next without like, hey, how you doing, Lewis? What's going on in your life? Right? So that when he said that I know it sounds like, oh, he just said effective and efficient, but I knew exactly what he's talking about. It's like, you're the most efficient

man I ever know. You need to be more effective. Which is build more deeper relationship. It's what's meant for you. Exactly. I mean, leadership, the older I get, the leader, what leadership is really is, it's, imagine being the best kindergarten teacher in the world. You wouldn't teach all the kid's the same. The shy kid you realize has troubles at home as parents go through divorce. You're going to treat him different than the outgoing extrovert who's standing up on tables. And the kid with ADD and the one that's trying to be normal and the one that's just moved here and doesn't know anybody as a teacher, you get to know all those. It's like, hey, Sally, go sit with Lisa. You two are the same. Hey, I, like, you know that. That's what makes a great leader.

Yeah. Is when you know the people that underneath you, you know, what makes them tick, what they deal with, what are their constraints. That's probably the, biggest secret of leadership that I found at this phase of my life, having thousands of employees. Yeah, effective and efficient. What's the third thing Tony's style you think? I think the biggest byproduct for him, the biggest hands down the thing that changed my life the most is we had a talk when I went through a divorce and I was so worried about my kids and I'm like, I am not getting back in another relationship. I'm just going to, I'm going to be friends with my ex. I'm going to be a super dad. I'm going to go deep on my business. And he's like, BS. Get

on a plane, get down here. And so we were talking about relationships. And the biggest byproduct, he had me write down everything that I wanted in a relationship. This is common and everything I wouldn't accept in a relationship. But I know he knew what he was doing because I wrote all this down. How to do it in front of him? I'm writing a list down. And I remember looking at it and saying, wow, I'm pretty full of myself, that I want that in a woman. And here's the part that I got. And I think he knew I was going to find this end result. I've never shared this. because this one changed. That's why I'm married to my wife.

Lisa, you know her dearly. You know that we have true love. Like, I got done reading that and I went, damn, if I'm going to attract that kind of woman, who do I need to become? Yeah, I need to be the same thing. And then I look through this list. I'm like, wait, I'm messing up on this one.

And I'm not doing this one. And I want this and I'm not that man. And I started working on me. I'm like, how do I attract? And like, like, God saw me doing it. Like three months later, I'm working. I'm like, I got to be this. I got to do that.

I got to shift this the way I do. I put work. first without realizing it work is everything to me my business everything my relationships were second and I meet my wife Lisa right in the midst of going through that and you know we're eight years in now is what it's been eight years was yeah I remember you sending me photos of you guys going out like in the first few months yeah and you're like setting stuff and I knew it it's so funny I just that we're on our first date I'm like I didn't think I was gonna date I'm marrying this wow I knew it on the

first date so it's eight years since you guys started dating or yeah Yeah. And what's the three biggest lessons your wife, Lisa, has taught you? Oh, that's really great question. That she's taught me. She is... Whether about life or fatherhood or husband or... Yeah, so I would say that her love is so deep. If something is off, I have a tendency as a man to keep it inside and I'll be a little off. And she's like, What's wrong? Like, nothing, I'm good.

Yeah, yeah. She will not let that happen. She'll let me share it. And even if I say something that she doesn't like, in 15 minutes, if we talk it through, even if I said something like, well, I don't like, you know, something that like somebody else would hold the grudge, she's over it in 15 minutes, just done.

And she's like, hey, babe, do you want me get you a glass? You want to go do the thing? And I'm like, we're done with that? She's like, yeah, we got it out. That's good. Like, she's just fantastic thing. Number two is my parents were married and divorced nine times between the two of them.

I never lived with a parent. Like, it just was always in, out, in, out, in out, 20 moves. Family is her life. Like, there is no, I feel blessed that, like, I'm gonna be married to her

for the rest of my life, not a question, but there's not even a question in her mind. Like, I chose you, I'm with you for the rest of your life. Wow. And if we have troubles,

we fix troubles, we don't run. We're not soft. Would you run from a business that wasn't doing good? No, you save a business that wasn't going good. If something goes wrong in this house, we fix it because we're not going anywhere.

Her conviction is so strong. And then the third thing I would say is she is so transparent and such an open book that it's given me the greatest gift ever that I am the same person. There's never a time, I say this all, but I got this from her. If she hired a private investigator to follow me around and film me for a week and she watched every bit of the footage, she'd love me more. Wow. Because she is so transparent and she still looks at me with such loving eyes that I never want to ruin that.

So there's nothing I do. Even my eyes don't wander. Like there's no DM that I would even look at. Like I've just made it. So if she's watching, she's like, that's why I love this man. Because she's so transparent, it made it in me. What's the thing you love about her the most? I love the mother that she is.

I love how much she loves me. I love how much she loves my older kids. She's a good woman. I punched above my weight class on this one. That's great, that's great. And what do you feel like is missing most in humanity right now with all of the, and to give context, I feel like there's so much that's shifted in the last 10 years where this focus around being disconnected to our phones or to online things versus connected.

to people obsessed about making more money, but maybe not really making impact. It's like we have focuses in different places where we think it might be the right thing, but there's something that seems like there's still missing for lots of people, not everyone. What do you think is the biggest thing missing for people to feel more fulfilled and happy in their lives?

I hate to fall back on something that might sound so simple, but we've had such a good life for so long, even though we think things are tough. Would you rather, would you want to be? alive at any other time in history. No. Would you want to live anywhere else? We're blessed. I know you have people from all over the world, but we're pretty blessed here in America. Yeah. Safe, right? We don't realize that we take it for granted. When you hear someone say have an immigrant mindset, they come from a place of oppression. They come here to America and they're like,

the happiest people you know, somebody have become wealthy within the first generation, because they see nothing but opportunity. We've been here too long. We take it for granted. So what is the thing missing gratitude? Gratitude. You know, when, when we fought the Revolutionary War, right, and you figure how many people died to give us freedom, that lasted for a while of what people fought for. World War I, World War II, what we fought for for the freedoms, getting through the depression, all those things give this layer of gratitude. Then there's a wave of immigrants that, you know, I'm Italian. My grandparents came here in the early 1900s, late 1800s. My grandfather told the story of coming here with nothing in his pocket, didn't speak the language, had $5 in his pocket, had nothing. And he's like, I landed in the greatest place in the world. By time he died, he owned two restaurants, took care. Like, and what happens when you have too many years of too much social media, too much comparison, not have to struggle for food, not have to struggle for, I mean, I know some people still do.

I'm not being disrespectful for that. But I think if we could find a way all of us, especially politics divide people so much, if we all just found a way to be grateful for the space we're in. Again, it sounds like, duh. But it really is. Gratitude is the most powerful thing on Earth. But when someone's feeling broke or they literally don't have any money or they're struggling month, month, pay their bills, should they be thinking more about the number of money,

how much money they want to make and focus on money first? Or should they be thinking about the value they want to create in the world, the impact, the difference they want to make? I think they should focus on them equally. So many people focus too much on money. Other people focus on just impact. I think the byproduct of impact is money. So how can you make an impact?

The other thing we also have to remember is we all overestimate what we can do in a year or two and underestimate what we can do in five. That's a fact. And then when you don't see anything happen in three months, you're like, this isn't for me, this is stupid. And then the last thing I'll say is on that is, if you're listening, would you live the hard way for a year so you could live easier for a decade after? So what if you just acknowledge the next year is going to be hard? But I'm going to make choices that I've never made.

I'm going to be more courageous than I've ever been. I'm going to unlock that creativity. I'm not going to listen to my mom because I know she loves me but she's trying to protect me. I'm going to do this. Like, what if you were courageous, bold, made moves, and the next year was hard?

Yeah. But 12 months now was a little less hard. And 24 months was amazing. 36 months now you were living into who you're meant to be. So, you know, none of us, you didn't get here. It looks like you've been here forever.

But the journey, if someone watched the journey and the doubt, like the doubts and no money and all the stuff. Sure. Then you see the end. It looks easy, right? We all got to go through the crap. Yes.

And so many of you are already going through it and you've been through enough and I'm sorry. But you never know how... Agmendino is book, The World's Greatest Salesman. When he talks about, I will persist until I succeed. That's one of the ten scrolls

in the world's greatest salesman. And he talks about that you never know how many corners you have to go around until your success is on the other side. And how I translated that is you might have to go through 10 failures, 10 question yourself,

living on your sister's couch. And then the 11th thing, you found enough success to go forward. Yeah. And then go forward. Some people might be 30 times. Some people might be three. Some people are blessed.

Some people have to, like, but if you just keep moving eventually around one of those corners, is there another level? And if you knew that it was going to take you a hundred attempts or phone calls or face-to-face meetings in order for you to generate that success,

the result, or financial abundance you wanted, you wouldn't get discouraged after 10, you'd be like, I'm one closer to 100. That's such a good point. It's a great way to look at it. I'm developing the skills. I'm getting the feedback. I'm getting the resources.

I'm getting the failures out of the way. Yeah, and the faster I do this, the faster I'll get to 100 or whatever. Even if it's a thousand, whatever it is, like you still have to get through there to get to that number, whatever that rep is for you, to unlock the next level. If someone watching or listening right now

is at zero, And they're trying to get to 100K or $1 million, let's say. And you mentioned earlier, you've got to be thinking about both the money and the impact or the value you're going to bring. How would you coach someone if they're watching this and say, Dean, okay, I'm struggling right now. I'm kind of at zero or maybe got a few thousand bucks, but I'm really trying to get to $100K. And ultimately, I'd like to get to a million. I don't know how long it's going to take, but what would that, is it think about a business where I could think about a million dollars first and how much I need to set. that thing is it think about where I can add the most value and contribute the most to make a difference

blending the two like how would you coach that I know it's probably longer than a no answer but so and this might think about some of the A players you know in your life right and like I feel like turn in their head like there's option A learn AI and become an AI teacher yeah this one here go into you know brick and mortar or more blue blue collar businesses that are going to stick, you know, no matter what happens with AI. And there's a behind door number three is something else. Picture if you know the A players, like your partner Matt and others in your life. If you gave any one of those three, would they be successful?

Yeah. A players. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I think the foundation is make yourself an A player. Like if you've tried a lot of things in your life and you quit, it's okay. We've all been there.

Yeah. But maybe you give up on the, you know, if you want to use a sport. You give up on the five-yard line every time because you just need to push a little bit further. For me, I would create an unstoppable, successful mindset by modeling people, read the right books, watch the podcast, so many great ones you've done, and build your DNA. Like, this is who I'm becoming. I failed in the past. I'm going to keep failing, but this time I'm not going to quit.

I'm going to do this on a daily basis. I'm going to work on this. I'm going to focus on my compelling future. I'm going to write out my compelling future every day. And then start investigating where the world is going. You can go on AI right now and say, what would be bulletproof businesses that I should start?

Once I'm an A player, what would you suggest I go in? And look three or four of them and see the ones that lighted you up and then go down the rabbit hole and say, what if I did this? And where would I start? And all of a sudden, we had that ability

that we didn't have access to that information before. That's what I would say. Yeah, so instead of thinking of which direction am I taking, start building the skills, the value and the value. Let me ask you, through the history of time. Have we gone through depressions?

Yes. Have we gone through wars? Yes. Has the world changed completely when the industrial revolution came? Yes. But were there still people crushing it? Yeah, of course. What do you think their common thread was?

I mean, courage, confidence. Yeah, yeah. All of something we talked about that. Right? And you hate this. That sounds boring. Yeah, yeah. But it's a fact.

It's a fact. And I think they weren't afraid to step into uncertainty. Yes. That was the big thing. They saw opportunity. Oh, there's this change happening. You know, there's electricity now. There's the internet.

There's TV. There's radio. Like, there's things. this thing that we don't understand, it's happening. And we could take a risk and jump into it and maybe fail, or we could be the leaders in this space. Yeah, absolutely. And move forward.

And that's why you got into AI really a year ago and started teaching people this. And you think you had, what, six or 700,000 people jump on... Yeah, 630,000. It was actually 630,000. It was actually 630,000 people jump into this summit you did last year. And you've got another one coming up here, April 23rd to the 25th called the AI Advantage Summit.

It's free. It's virtual. People can go check it out. It's only three hours a day. and where can they go to start learning how to master AI for their personal and professional lives? And, yeah, why should they take advantage of this? I think, listen, if you're already an AI expert, you're already doing vibe coding and you're chasing every tool. This is not the event for you.

That's about 18% of America, about 6% of the world. You're already past it. Yeah. You're an expert. You're an expert. And that's awesome. You can come hang out with us. But this is for the average business owner,

solopreneur, entrepreneur, someone that wants to be bulletproof in their career to learn how to, what we teach is how to go deeper on AI to build it so it knows you, and then how to utilize it to buyback time. The biggest thing we shared was there's never been a mechanism

to give you more time and then how to leverage that time. So by the time you're done, I mean, it was one of the most fun events we've ever had. And we got great speakers. And you might come a little overwhelmed, confused, you'll leave with AI confidence.

AI fluency. And you'll be jamming that. By night two, they'll be home going, I'm not that afraid anymore. It was fun to watch it. Where can they go sign up right now? AIS Summit 222.com. It is free.

It's going to be fun as heck. And this is probably the only time we'll do it this year. We did it last year. We're doing it again now. And we got some amazing guests. And when I say amazing guests, you're not going to get the high tech AI people. After 50 interviews,

Tony and I grabbed the ones that they're most practical. Like when they speak, yeah, relatable. They speak and you go, oh, well, I could do that. Because believe me, some of the interviews I did, halfway through, I'm like, I have no idea what this guy's saying. Exactly. He's way smart.

I am dumb. He is smart. And I would say, could you boil it down for him? When he boiled it down, I still couldn't get it, right? So we took the people that take complicated things and make you go, oh, I get that. So it'll be a blast. Yeah, it's exciting. So AIS Summit 222.com.

It's coming April 23rd through 25th. It's free. It's only three hours a day. You get some practical. tools to help you and kind of master what you need right now. It's not going to overcomplicate things. It's more about buying back time. That's really what we focused the whole three days on. That's it. That's exciting. Anything else? What else is on your harder mind that you want to lead people with today? You know, I just think, as Tony said when he called me a year ago,

we've never experienced the rate of change that we're experiencing right now in politics, in world matters in technology in you don't know if you're going to wake up tomorrow when crypto's gone or the market's crushed like it's it's a time just recognize that realize you're human and realize that if you focus on all those it's going to find if you focus on where all that could go and you stack them it's hard for the human body that your mind your psyche to even handle it so when you find yourself going down that road just just have that second voice go hey we got to stop here I need to focus on what's good in my life. What could be possible?

What could go right? And you just combat it. Like the two voices I said when you're on your sister's couch. Not easy, but absolutely worth it. And in times like these, you can't control the outside world. If your happiness is related to if the market's up

or AI gets easier, you're screwed. Excuse my language, you're screwed. So we have to work on the inner game. And I think a lot of the stuff we shared today was great. And whoever else speaks to your soul, work on the inner game, get strong, and know that you can see a land of opportunity or a land of the loss. It's your decision. That's true. That's true.

Make sure you guys check out the event AI summit 222.com. Also, your social media has been crushing lately. Congrats on that. So Dean Graciosi everywhere online. Make sure to check out. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey. So much fun. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel

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