The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby - Navigating divorce, AI & What No One Tells You About Age Gap Marriages w/ Dean & Lisa Graziosi

Episode Date: April 12, 2026

Matt and Abby sit down with entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author Dean Graziosi and his wife Lisa to talk about family, ambition, and building a life with intention. Dean shares how the pain of divorce became a turning point that pushed him toward deeper personal growth, while he and Lisa open up about blending families, waiting a year before introducing their relationship to his kids, and the values shaping their homeschooling journey. They also talk about work-life integration vs. balance, and how tools like AI can help create more time for what matters most at home. Chapters: 00:00 - Dean & Lisa 01:04 - Finding balance 03:42 - Love story 09:27 - Our age gap 11:35 - The balance of business and family 16:39 - Moms and Al 20:45 - Context for Al 25:21 - Divorce 28:43 - Crafting a vision 40:20 - Keeping the family bond 46:18 - Work/life integration 57:46 - How rich is Dean Graziosi 01:03:34 - How do most millionaire's make their money? 01:04:11 - What are the 3 C's? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. Sometimes we'll be out. We'll see a couple where there's an older guy. And my wife will go, look at the age difference. I'm like, hey, there's the same difference in us. I felt like when I was going through divorce, I was in the middle of a storm. Every time you get to a certain point, you turn around. With anybody who's going through anything, the best way is to just look the storm in and ride it through.

What's a way that you as a mom are using AI right now? It helped me a lot to know that I was doing the right thing with the homeschool. Matched our family, matched our kids, aligned perfectly. What's up, dudes? And welcome back to the unplanned podcast. Today we are joined by two very special guests, Dean Graziosi and Lisa Graziosi. Thank you so much for being here. It's good to be here. Thank you.

Good to be here. You're a money guy. You're a serial entrepreneur. You've started so many businesses. And Lisa, you've been voted Arizona's top. Hair stylists. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes. There's a lot of stay-at-home moms, working-home moms, and just women in their 20s that listen to this show every week. And so I wanted to maybe just start off and putting you on the spot. But the women listening to this podcast right now, why should they tune in for this conversation we're about to have? I know the juggle this woman has as being, having this fire to serve. When I met her, she had the most successful.

hair business probably in Arizona and then we get married and my life is big and then we have kids and my wife had to take her desires her passions the things that lit up her soul in the past and then convert that to being the mother of our children our children have lots of allergies so she's an allergy mom and cooks all their food every day and I get to watch the balance of an amazing woman who loves being a mom hopefully loves being my wife as much I think she does takes care of me so incredibly well, but also has that burning desire inside to do something that makes her feel significant. And that's a balance I think a lot of people deal with. Are you full-time sit at home with the kids now? I am. So I dabble. I try to get my hands in whatever I can in Dean's business, in the salon

business, and philanthropy things with our family office, all the things. We homeschool as well because our kids homeschool. They do have, each of them have, not to go down that road, but they have 12 anaphylactic allergies each so they can't eat eggs dairy bread we you know my daughter can't eat beef there's it's it's so many things so school's hard because if a cheese it or a cracker they're they're they went to anaphylactic shock so the homeschool the cook and and and please know it there's people have way worse burdens than us so we don't look at it as like poor us our kids we also we actually look at it through the lens of faith and saying god knew we could handle these kids and that's why

we got them and aren't we lucky right And it's not life-threatening, but it's still scary because the thing that we do the most, the thing that provides us nourishment is the thing that could actually kill our kids. Because it's not a slight allergy. Like they're off the charts on all of those. That's terrifying. Just saying the words kill our kids. I'm like, oh my gosh.

Yeah. If you think about it, go into a birthday party. If you don't have kids with allergies, you never think that the pizza, the ice cream, all those things. We'd end up in a hospital with two epipens hoping that everything's okay, right? Yeah. So you have those extra things of fight or flight. Like, I watch my wife take them to a birthday party. and you know you're making sure not one thing drops and she'll find out in advance so i'll give

a little plug to this amazing woman she'll find out what color the cake is and she'll bake a cake or muffins the same color with the same color icing if it's a pizza party she'll make gluten-free dairy-free pizza put it in a pizza box and bring it so they could sit at the table they can feel like you know like everybody else every time 100% of the time they've never ate at a restaurant so we cook breakfast lunch dinner snacks everything at home i mean obviously with exceptions of pantry and stuff that is safe for them. But I mean, our home is their only safe place, real true safe place if we make it that way in the world.

What's your love story? How did you guys meet? Through a mutual friend. We ended up being dinner together, sitting across from each other. And it's one of those things I went through a divorce, and my parents were married nine times between them. My mom five times, my dad, four. So I never knew an example of what love could really be.

I didn't know that until I got married to my wife. I realized later on that I probably had a shell, probably had the belief of, come on, love doesn't really last. Yeah. Right? So went through a divorce, and I thought I would never do that

because I didn't want to do to my kids what I had experienced. I have two older kids. We have four, 19, 17, and we have five and three. Okay. So long story short, as I went through the divorce and I said, I'm going to just be super dad and found a way to go through the anxiety of worrying about my kids

to where I realized, hey, when I have them, I'm going to replace it with depth rather than with them. And when I'm with them, I'm going to be super dad. And when they're not with me, I'm going to go deep on my company stronger than ever. And I found this path that I finally felt good with. And I was like, no relationships for a while, just super dad and super at business. And then I go to dinner and this woman's sitting across from me. But you're at the same place at the same time.

And I had written, this is crazy. But Tony Robbins is my partner and my dearest friend. And I was with him about two weeks prior. And he said, I know you're not thinking about a relationship. but if you are, you should write down on a piece of paper, on the left-hand side, draw a line down the middle, what is absolutely a must in the next relationship. And on the right side, what is absolutely unacceptable.

And something hit me that had never hit me before because I probably had done it in business but not relationship. And I thought, wow, look at what I want in a relationship. Am I the man that actually deserves that? I thought to myself, what kind of man do I have to become to attract a woman that's going to bring all this in my life and not bring that. And it shifted because I think our brains look at, if I could find that perfect person, we'd align and we'd be soulmates,

rather than if I become the person that I want to mirror, that I want this reflection of me and someone else. Then I realized the reason my parents were divorced so much is because they brought the same version of themselves into the next relationship. My dad, who I loved dearly, thought up until the last five years of his life that every one of his marriage, it was their fault.

And five years ago, he had the epiphany and goes, I guess I was the common denominator. So, long story short, I did that with Tony. I realized the man I got to become. I have this list. And like, I don't know if it's a week or five weeks later. I'm at dinner sitting across from her. And I'm like, this is crazy.

But everything that I was thinking, even physically the way she looks, the things she was saying, the first book she ever read was Tony Robbins' book. She read my book. Like, we're doing all these things. And I'm like, maybe there's a different plan for me. And we literally walked outside the restaurant and sat on the curb for two hours and talked and started texting. And we haven't been apart since. What was that experience like for you, meeting Dean?

It was amazing. I actually, correction, I read the book after. So I remember I had that in that first initial. So I thought he was incredible. We were just talking about life and family and businesses and relationships and all this. And we ended up closing the restaurant down. We sat outside of the restaurant on the curb, just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. We couldn't stop the conversation.

I mean, it was going, going, going, going, going. And it felt good to have similar backgrounds as in like we both love personal growth. We both, you know, and at my age, especially back then, it's very hard to find now it's more trendy and cool, but the younger generation into personal growth. I feel like people would be like, personal growth who, wait, what, Tony Robbins? You know, but, but now it's more popular. but my first book, I mean, my favorite, favorite book of all time was Tony's. So you were talking about that.

And yeah. One thing I had to share, we'll fast forward because I know we got a lot to cover. Yeah. And I want to get to some other topics that we could serve your audience with. But just one thing that I think is pretty cool is we're texting back and forth. And we're both being polite and we're texting, we're getting to know each other. And then finally I'm like, I got to ask her out, like officially ask her out, right? And I'm, you know, in my late 40s, like, feel like I'm dating again.

It's like, I can't wait to get her text. and I'm excited. Long story short, we get to a point and I text her one day. I'm like, do you want to go to dinner? And she wrote back as friends with other people. Like with the group that we met with? With the group we met with. And I'm like, so I look at it.

I'm like, I don't know how to read it. Like everything I've done. My business has done well. Now I feel like I'm 18 again. How do I do this? I'm 18 again. I'm looking at the phone. I'm like, is she giving me a hint that she just wants to be friends?

So I just remember, I'm like, I'll always remember this. I pick up my phone. Like I wrote, hell no, I want to go on a date with you. And I hit send and I threw the phone on my bed. I'm like, well, that's it. Like, I'm going to know. And I remember like, pretend I want to sit. And then my phone dinged that I'm like, and she's like, well, hell yes, me too.

And I'm like, all right? And when was this? Because you guys got married in 2019. Yeah, and we were together a couple years before that. Okay. Probably nine years ago, eight and a half years ago. Wow. Okay.

That's like a similar timeline to my wife and I because we, well, we were, we were like babies. We met in high school. So we started dating when we were 17 and 18. Wow. And then I was. I went through that same thing, though, as an 18-year-old, like, being like, what do I say? Well, I felt exactly the same. Right?

Yeah. And I'm like, no, I want to go. Because I made it seem like it was a group date. And I'm like, no, I want to go on a date with you. We're going on a walk at the park. And we're going to go to the movies and get Chick-fil-A, which, like, was a big deal for me as, you know, an 18-year-old. That's not like anything special now. But anyway, so I relate to that.

Yeah. It doesn't change. It doesn't change. Yeah. Wow. If you don't mind me asking, and we can cut this out if it's too much, one of the most, one of the most asked questions on the internet when I was looking up you guys was asking about like if there's an age difference or like what you know how many years apart you guys are 20 years apart

no she always says 20 it's 17 and a half 17 and a half she likes to say 20 i'm like what you're 18 it's 17 and a half it's 17 and a half she jokes all the time i think she tries to make me feel good by saying it's like i like it's like but it's not 20 i made you feel better but you know it's easy for the older person to say, I don't feel the difference, right? But the harmony of her, in my opinion, her intellectual curiosity, her emotional intelligence was far beyond anything I had ever experienced. Like it matched aligned with my soul. And I remember thinking, even when that text, are we going to be friends? I'm like, is she thinking in me as like a mentor or is a friend? And I asked her on our first date. I'm like, just be honest, is it buggy at all? She's like,

I literally can't see it. She goes, I never felt that way forever. I can't see the difference. I don't feel the difference. And I said, me neither. And it just grew into such a, like, such a connection. We built a friendship first. So it's never bugged me. And then long story short, she's like the only thing, it might be a deal breaker. I've never had kids. She was never married before. I never had kids because I want kids. No way. You know, and I'm like, so I had two more babies in my 50s. That's wild. And he would want more right the second. Are you done? Are you, are you the one saying no and he wants more? I feel like I'll never say out loud, no, because as a woman, With our kids with allergies, that's the only reason or else we'd probably have.

Totally. Totally. So you guys think you're done? You think it's... I feel like I think it's a great dynamic now. We talk about it almost daily. Like, oh, another one and oh, how great would it be to have even two more? But the reality is allergies is an invisible disability, really, truly.

I mean, everything revolves around breaking bread. So to think of another child with food allergies and the stress it brings a parent, We're on fight or flight. We are. Now, we're in a good place. We're in a good place. You know, I don't know. We'll see.

And just the reality of you guys juggling entrepreneurship, like massive, massive business that don't think, like, people can't even, I can't even wrap my mind around the numbers that you've done. It's incredible. It's amazing. It's very inspirational. And at the same time, you're a husband. You're a father.

You've got four kids. You're a family man. How do you manage that? How do you have work-life balance as a serial entrepreneur and a very successful business owner? We're all busy at every level. It doesn't matter how many zeros are at the end. We're all busy. We're all trying to do the best we can.

We're all trying to do a little better than we did before. We're trying to be better parents, better friends, better spouses, better at business, all the juggle. And what I realized is you don't save time in big chunks as an adult. There's no big chunks left. you have to get insanely strict on your nose. If you truly understand what you know success means to you, I can tell the way your wife means the world to you, your children mean a world to you,

the impact you make in this podcast means the world to you. You have your family in the house. I can tell you're a family man, right? Mother-in-law, sister-in-law here, everybody here, right? When I know what's important to me, my wife, my children, the impact I get to make, my partner, Tony Robbins, there's things that are really important to me. You have to say no to mostly everything else that doesn't live.

in the area that brings you towards the couple, the man, or the business you want. I say no to everything. Like I get invited to everything. I say no to absolutely everything because what's important to me? I don't want to be 90 years old and look back and said I got wealthy, but I ignored my kids. I can't let that happen. I don't want my wife to think, wow, business is first. But I love being in business.

I was a broke kid. I lived in a trailer park as a kid. I lived in a bathroom with my dad when I was a kid because we didn't have heat in our house. We didn't have lunch money when I went to school. I tell my friends I wasn't hungry. And to be able to go from that with no college degree and be blessed to impact the lives that we've done and build the businesses that we've done,

I love it. I work like I'm broke. I work like I'm broke and I owe somebody money. So I put the time in, but I have no gray areas. I look at everything is, does this serve the man I want to become and the mission I'm on or does it not?

One of the biggest secrets of my life is I say no to everything that doesn't serve me and I get to say yes to the things it do? How do you cut out the gray area? I feel like there's a lot of gray area in my life that I probably need to analyze. Let's talk about some of it. Put you on the spot. We've got two podcasts now. We have our main YouTube channel, our TikTok. We're also launching a new business this year. There's so much to do. I don't even know where to put my focus. I'd write down all the things that you're responsible for. Make a list of everything, podcast, TikTok, all the things that you are

responsible for. Yeah. And then I would think which ones move the needle the most. Okay. And ones do I like the most? Because you might have something that makes the most impact or makes revenue, but you hate it. And every time you go to do it, you're like, oh, I got to film that thing. That'll never last. And you'll end up resenting it. So you're going to look for the ones that make the most impact, serve the most people, help your business grow, and you like them. And they're not all going to feel that way. Here's the hard part. Can I delegate this? Can I automate this? Or should I just eliminate it? Yeah. It's one of those three. The say no. The say no is huge, Right. So it's like as you're going through, it's like, oh, I can ask my sister-in-law. She could

actually do this on a regular basis. Check that's off my plate. You know, if I spend a couple of hours setting up my AI to know me, my constraints, and we could talk about that later, get it to you build a thought partner in AI. Most people are using AI like a fancy Google, write some emails, do some research. With a couple of hours, you can get it to be the smartest partner you've ever had in your entire life. And I guarantee today you could buy five hours back a week every week right now with an hour's worth of work. It comes in tiny chunks. There's no more five-hour blocks you're going to find.

So my wife watches me do this obsessively. I find time everywhere. I find 10 minutes here. I find seven minutes here. And people say, me, how do you get so much done? Tony and I own five businesses together. We're launched an AI education company. We have mastermind.

We have other businesses. I don't miss many tennis. I was at tennis practice with my son this morning. That's amazing. How do you do all those things? It's by automate, delegate, delegate, and eliminate. And when you get strong at the last one of eliminating,

I promise you this exercise for everybody, you can find 10 hours between all of it next week. The next thing is if you buy back the time, then it's the discipline to use that time for the things that you really want in your life. For you, it might be working out. For you, it might be eliminating... Eliminating a couple things going deep on the new product that you're doing.

Say, hey, if you're buying a product, that means you have to put money in inventory. it's an investment, it's going to be scary, there's shipping costs, there's returns, there's all those things that you're going to have to figure out. You need that 10 hours. So the discipline is you can find the time, but you've got to fill it with the things that actually move the needle the most in your life. And when you combine all those life shifts. Well, thank you. Well, I guess, yeah, the question I had for you, which hopefully mom's hearing me ask this question won't hate me for asking it because I know my wife does not like AI. She hates it if she hears me talking to chat BT.

what's a way that you as a mom are using AI right now to move the needle in your life? Okay, so one really quick example that just popped in my head was homeschool. So we homeschool our kids. And with a homeschool, I kept searching for a curriculum. I found Instagram people that do courses on homesquy. I bought them all. And I didn't do anything with it. I couldn't wrap my head around how to get it started.

Is there a homeschool curriculum that you recommend? Because I actually, I'm just asking for a friend, which is actually me. There's a ton. I can share all that. But anyway, so with AI, I was also that mom that was scared. Oh, no, I'm not going to let AI. And what does it know more than me? I mean, obviously he does. But I plugged it everything.

Dean actually kind of coached me through it. He's like, plug everything in. Even how old you are, how old your kids are, what your day in the life looks like, what you want the outcome to be. I'm like, but why? But now I see why? Because with all that information, it knew who I was, what I wanted the end goal to be, what I wanted my kids to learn.

They're in sports. This kid loves this, this kid loves that. In a second, in one day, I had a full curriculum. I had also... That matched our family, matched our kids, it lined perfectly. And I just want to share one thing as you're saying this, is, and this is important for everybody, there's no way you'll survive if you don't use AI.

It's as simple as that. You will not be here if you don't use AI. Fact, bar none, hard stop. It's kind of spooky. Hard stop. Not even a question. That's not up for debate. That's coming.

Think of AI as a human amplifier, not a human replacer. Okay. I don't want AI to replace one of my employees. I want my employees to be twice as productive and feel more proud of themselves to let their innovation come out, let their creativity come out, and stop doing the redundant work they don't need to because there's a machine that can do it. Think about this. In the 1800s, if you were going to plow and plant an acre of corn by hand, it took you 45 hours. Oh, gosh.

Okay. Did you actually look that up? Of course. So think about this. Did AI help you find the answer? Of course. Think about it. Then the tractor came out, the latest technology.

The farmer could do the whole acre in 30 minutes. That's ridiculous. If you decided and said, I don't like tractors, they look weird, they sound weird, I'm not going to do it. Could you be in business competing against your neighbor with a tractor? Absolutely not. He would buy your property in six months and you're broke. Yeah. We are in that phase except it's not a tractor.

Back then it was expensive. AI is almost free. I've never thought of it. it that way. It's almost free. Right? It's faster. It's quicker. It's growing exponentially every day. And it is the greatest time and leverage machine in the history of the world.

How do you deal with hallucinations from AI? Because sometimes it's giving me false information. Like one time we had a guest on our podcast that AI said they were Oprah's favorite artist or something. And I was like you guys were Oprah's favorite artist and they're like, we are actually not Oprah's favorite

because AI lied to me and I just got the information wrong. How do you that happened find that i i know it happens it's very rare especially if you give it more context okay right the deeper you share i mean think if you hired an employee yeah and they were here one day and you're they're the best employee you couldn't wait to hire them and you're like hey do me a favor um finish up the podcast and then do that youtube video and then you went back to business they're like okay i'll do my best but then if you sat down and say let me just tell you how i do youtube videos this is why our videos do good this is why my wife and i have such a connection it's how we look at the camera so that people know

we care. This is how we start with. What do we start with today? What's up, dudes? Why do we do that? Might sound silly, but we started that way and people know that. If you gave it all that context and you said, now I'd love for you to go edit that video. Remember, we care about people first. We're money second. We're this, we're that. This is what makes our video good. Here's five videos that went viral on YouTube. Here's five podcasts that went viral. Now, could you go help make that? What would that employ? I get it. I got the blueprint. So what people do is they say, hey, we do lots of videos. I'd like, give me a headline for what good, you video would be. Yeah. Compared to if you spent a half hour with context, it would give it to you

just like that. Back to moms leveraging AI. What were the inputs you gave it to help you come up with your curriculum for homeschooling your kids? Well, just that what exactly what DeWan is saying, I gave it context of everything. My kids are my son's five and a half years old. He has a big heart. He's super smart with numbers. He loves tennis. He all the little things like that you would think that doesn't, that shouldn't make a difference in your results, but it really does. because it's tailored exactly to my kids, even to like, okay, this many minutes learning, break, this, that, so that way you're just not like, am I doing the right thing? You know, and a lot of us have to, with homeschooling, we have to kind of unwire our brains

because we were taught to do traditional school and traditional hours. So sometimes you feel like, wait, I'm not doing enough or, you know, so it helped me a lot to know and to give me certainty that I was doing the right thing with the homeschool. And one thing to remember that really can help people with AI, because the fear comes in, it just does, is AI is really not thinking. I mean, I know you know this, but all it is is a pattern recognition machine. Yeah. If I said, for example, if I said Mary, what would be the next word you think of? Joseph.

Right. If I said Mary had. A little lamb. Okay. That's AI. AI just has pattern recognition of so many things. when you give it context, it's read everything. It's read every book, everything online,

and it can put them together in a pattern and recognize that all these different inputs about my child, about our family, what our beliefs are, that we're Christian, that we have a truly amazing relationship. We want to, at home, we want to note my son's grade at math, a little behind in reading. All those things allow the pattern recognition machine

to piece all of it together, and it ends up looking like the smartest thing in the world, which it really is only because it's taken and what other smart people have done through experience, recognize the pattern that you need and deliver it to you. Do you implement anything in your personal life to not be talking to robots too much? Like, do you ever put your phone away? No.

Are there any times where you try to be intentional with the human connection side of it, right? The, like, I mean, I just think it's so cool that, you know, all of us are in this room together right now talking, having this conversation. And one day, I'm sure there will be an AI that can have a quote unquote better conversation than we're having now. But like just the joy and the beauty of this human connection is so special.

So I think that's great because you don't want to blend the two. I use AI to go faster so I can have more human contact. So when we go home at dinner, there's no phones around. There's no AI at our dinner's no AI when I tuck my kids in at night when I play basketball, play football or go outside and do gymnastics with my daughter. I use AI when I work so I can get more done in a short period of time so I can go be more human. Think of it as augmentation, amplification, some automation to get rid of the mundane work so you can live into who you're supposed to be even more.

If people actually audit their weeks, moms audit their weeks, there's so many things they're doing that's just monotonous and they do it over and over. And if AI could take that off, then you just get to be more human. So you should just fight to be more human. Use robots to be more human. And if you look at it, just gives a different frame. But I got something to challenge everybody that'll blow your mind. Yeah, go for it. Get a free chat GPT account.

Don't have to cost anything. Yeah. Go to your refrigerator today. Take a picture of refrigerator and say, give me two meals. In one second, it'll give you two perfect meals from the picture of your refrigerator. Do it tonight. It'll freak you out. Even if you have like five ingredients.

Oh, from all the ingredients you have in your fridge. Yeah, you just take a picture. Or take a picture of your pantry. Wait, that's crazy. We have a friend who I'm a fan of Dave Ramsey's money advice, and she like teaches his course and they ran out of, Like money's been tight for them recently. And so she did a series on social media about using whatever was left in their house to like stay on budget and just to make their food.

And so that's kind of crazy that if you're like, oh, there's nothing to eat at home. Take a picture of your refrigerator and AI will show you what you can make with it. In three seconds. I just, I did it in front of her. She's like, no way. And it was both creative recipes. Wow. Like so good.

And it's like five ingredients too. So it wasn't like, we're like, okay, let's just let's just challenge it. Because we like to challenge it and, you know, because we want to find some loopholes where AI is wrong. but we're always impressed with what the results are. I want to circle back a little bit. I'm glad we talked about AI because I personally am very interested in it. I use it every day as well. On the more personal side, I appreciate you opening up about the age difference you guys have

as well as the divorce that you went through because that's real. That's honest. That's your story. Going through a divorce, then you're able to come out on the other side and create a better version of yourself. And so I guess my question for you is how did that divorce make you better? Like, what's something different about yourself now where you just know I'm a better man because of it? No one expects to go through a divorce.

Obviously, it happens to more than half of the people in the world. Yeah. Here's what I got out of it. My prior wife and I, we knew that our relationship was over for a long time. Yeah. But both of us didn't want to do that to the kids. Right? So I don't know if anybody's experienced this, but I woke up every day.

And I think she did too for probably five years thinking about how to end this elegantly. And it occupies your mind. And I don't know if that was the right thing. I'm just being transparent. And then when I went through it, then we started going through the divorce, the best, the biggest byproduct for me is that for the first time of life I had panic attacks, I had anxiety, I didn't want to get in a plane, I didn't want to get in an elevator, there was weird things happening to me.

Yeah. And it was, I was so worried that I was going to replicate with my kids what I felt as a kid going through many divorces. Wow. And so I don't know if this, this, um, This is too long of an answer, but the fact of the matter is it was debilitating. And I've run multiple companies. My companies have done close to $2 billion in a revenue starting with nothing.

I've had hard times in business. I went broke in business. I made bad decisions in business. And I can rebound. I don't find stress. I find patterns. I try to make obstacles into opportunities and all this stuff that you could say. And now going through a divorce is crippling me.

I mean, I was in my mid-40s thinking, oh, my God, I'm never. going to be okay. Like you feel this heaviness, this weight. And what I did is I went back and realized that I hid so many of the things that I felt when I was a kid as a divorce that I just kept them in. Like I felt like I locked him in a box, all the things, you know, my parents divorced and they hated each other. When we got married, I had to put my parents in two different hotels and they've been divorced for 50 years. They still won't talk to each other, right? So all these things, I realized that my divorce opened them up and I had two choices. I could deal with them or not. And it made me deal with them. And it made me look at how to approach life

differently. It made me realize that Tony says this, life happens for you, not to you. And I realized I can repeat patterns. I can let this bug me or I could heal in such a big way. I felt like, this has been a long time since I talked about it and I probably talked about it more elegantly in the past. But I felt like when I was going through divorce that I was in the middle of a storm. And this is the analogy I had. And the storm was, was so bad this year in the storm your ship is going up and down you think it's going to sink and every time you get to a certain point it was so bad in the storm that you turn around and then you got to experience the pain all over again and then you go back and then you got to experience the pain

all over again and i remember just thinking one day the only way through it is through it like i have to face this and i just want to share with anybody who's going through anything that sometimes the best way is to just look the storm in and ride it through and i just remember the moment I came out on the other side. Like there was a day that the anxiety went away. There was the day that I felt like the man I was supposed to be. And I just knew everything was going to be great. In your book, you talk a lot about crafting vision for the future, especially when it comes

to your business. But I'm sure in this case, you were crafting a vision for co-parenting. So that was a really good point. Yeah. Let me just tell you something. What I did wrong in my business, I always have a vision where it's going to go. I have a vision for this event we're doing. There's going to be 600,000 people.

I can visualize it. I feel it. in my personal life, and I think this is a really great analogy for everybody, it was so upsetting that the only vision I had was, my kids are going to fall out a level of me. I won't have Sunday dinners with them every single Sunday. We had a meeting every Tuesday. I only be able to meet with them every Tuesday.

My brain was only picking up on all the things that could go wrong, and it was triggering me into anxiety. That's good. Like in business, if you're anxious in the moment you're in, think of it like there's a roof over your head and there's a sunroof. When you're anxious, if you pop your head out of the sunroof and you look into the future and the future looks bright, you say, I can get through today because tomorrow's better. I'm going to be okay. It's exciting.

It's exciting to look to the good stuff. But when you're stressed and you have anxiety that you can't control, somebody closes the sunroof and you can't see it. All you see is the negativity and you don't pop up to see where you can go. And you're only seeing what can go wrong and your brain freaks you out. That inner voice is telling you, we're not going to be okay. We're not going to make it. So remember, if you're feeling that way, one of the greatest things to do is break the sunroof. roof open and look to the man or the woman you could be and plant that vision, then go back down

and get to work. How did you crack that sum roof open when you were so stressed and anxious and having the panic attacks after the divorce? I came up with a couple of things. One, I stopped letting that voice inside my head tell me all the things that could go wrong and slowly started to think all the things that could go right. I'm going to be super dad. I said it earlier.

I'm going to spend more time with them. I'm going to go deeper. They're going to realize that their mom and me can still be friends and we'll parent the same way and I just had to keep repeating myself. And then one thing that really helped me was the saying, I'm going to replace all emotions with compassion. I'm going to be friends with my ex no matter what. My kids are going to see a peaceful transition.

And I just found three or four things that felt beautiful. And I just kept staring at them over and over again until I finally believed it. My soul believed it. And then all of a sudden the storm stopped. Like literally overnight, it stopped. And from what I've learned from talking to people that have been through divorce, you can't say anything in front of the kids negative about your spouse mean you shouldn't do that in marriage you shouldn't do that in marriage anyway like first of all but especially in a divorce because then

because then your your kid is looking at their mom or their dad you want to hear the fact of it yeah yeah so one of the things that i i did all kinds of research on it was helping me fuel it they call it kids get fragmented so this therapist said or fractured and said that my job is i'm putting kids back together in their 40s because parents kids of divorce have to be so somebody for their dad and somebody for their mom. Goodness. And they become two different people. Goodness.

And she said, my job is putting these 40-year-old divorced kids back together when they're older. And all I can think about is, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no we're going to have alignment. We're going to have, I want the same colored toothbrushes. I want the same parenting style. And to this day, you've never heard me say a bad word about my ex. No matter what, believe it's it. No one will ever hear that, no matter what.

Because my kids deserve that. And those little, those little sacrifices change everything. Yeah. That's good. That's good. What are your thoughts on all that? I love it. I think that that is what is also so attractive about him when I first met him because we talked about this. I mean, we met, we instantly knew that we were going to be together for the rest of our lives. But he said, I have a promise to my babies, to my kids. I can't bring you around for another for a year. For one year. Okay. We knew we wanted to be married six months in and she's like, you know her thing? She told me for six months.

What did you tell me for six months? Hurry. For six months, we'd get done with a date on the way home. She's like, hurry. She meant like, let's get this going. Like, I can't. Like, a little incident. It was like, hurry.

And it's so cute because, of course, I was so nervous. I don't have kids. I've never been married. My parents are still together. So I have not been in a blended family. Yeah. And so, of course, I was nervous to meet them. And finally, when he brought me around and said, you know, I'm,

dating Lisa and all this. They were so excited. And of course, I think I have intrusive thoughts all the time anyway. So I always think like the worst of the worst. And it made me feel good because they're like, Dad, why don't you bring her around sooner? Like, they were kind of like upset at him. Like, what the heck?

Why don't you? So I don't know. I take these as like little wings from God. Like, okay, this is going to work out? Because it's also scary on my side. As hard as it was for half to wait a year, I think simultaneously she respected me because I said I gave my word

that I wouldn't, I wouldn't introduce my kids to somebody unless it was a year. And I waited a year to the day. Oh my goodness, to the day. To the day. For marriage or what? To introduce her to my kids.

Oh, to introduce. So your kids had literally no idea that you guys... I gave her for one solid year without her meeting. They had no idea. No idea. How did you keep that a secret?

Because the weeks, I'd week on, week off with my kids. Well, he knew, he didn't, he had a secret from the kids. Like, the kids knew that dad was dating or going on dates, but they didn't know. They didn't have a person or a picture.

Yes, because I made this promise. So the weeks I had them, we didn't see each other much because I was with them. The weeks that it was off, we were at dinner every night together. And that's just how we did it for a year. And I know it seemed odd, but I think she respected it. And at the end of every date, she was like, hurry up. Come on, hurry up. Oh, my okay.

Yes. And how long, from the divorce to then getting married, how long, what was the timeline there? A couple of years. A couple of years. Yeah, a couple of years. Was that? And how do you talk to your kids? Gosh, we're getting deep now.

I hope this is okay. I'm asking some very deep questions. But how do you talk to your kids about that? Because then they, that's really cool that you did it. Like you waited a year to introduce Lisa to your kids from the first marriage. But how do you talk to your kids about that? Then when it comes time to introduce them and everyone needs to say. For me, it was easy because I did wait a year.

So they said, why'd you wait? She's so great. Right? And I said, because I wanted to make sure she was great. I told them, I said one of the things that I said was I would never be with anybody unless they had the opportunity to love my kids the way they would love their own. And I said, I feel this in her. And I know she wants to be your friends.

She doesn't want to parent you. She doesn't want to be the evil stepmom. She just wants to get to know you. And I said, I took a whole year to see. And I was like, you know, and I told them, I said, me and your mom probably just never had it figured out. We both should have matured earlier. We both should have figured out relationships early, but we didn't.

your mom's super happy. I said, I'm so happy. And I think, I said, this is going to be an example of the kind of love that I want you guys to have someday. And I was just lucky that they respected me enough. And I think, even though they were like, you should have heard it. They also respected that. Yes. I waited a whole year and I got to know her. I wasn't bringing a stranger into the house. And was that, was that stressful? Was that harder than you thought it would be easier than you thought it would be? It was a hardest time in my life. And thank God I can say that, you know, because there's so many worse things in the world. but for our relationship it was hard and a lot of people never see the side of like the new wife

or the stepmom or whatever right it's always looked at it in such a negative connotation but also we have feelings and i'm human and i've never been married and this is my love of my life but yet i have to wait to meet his kids which i'm so excited to me and i'm so excited to get this going and have our family and i have all these ideas of spending time with them and so it was hard it was It was hard kind of, especially when I just, you know, kind of took the back burner a lot of the times, but for a good reason, right? But yeah, it is, it wasn't easy. When you were introduced to the kids, were they around like 10, 11? Yeah, and that, like, preteens or like, 9 and 11.

Okay. And it's two boys? One of each. One of each, one boy, one girl. Yeah. Was that like, then meeting the kids, forming that relationship, like for me, becoming a dad and, and literally just like keeping a newborn alive that, you know, all they do is cry and poop for the first couple months. Like that relationship just formed naturally over time. But I feel like

just to be, when you're kind of just grouped together all at once was it kind of like, oh, I need to go on an adventure with these kids. I need to form a bond. Like how do you approach bonding with your stepchildren when that stage of life comes into play for you? It's so hard. Obviously, I would love to just, so I'm Mexican, Catholic, big family. We're huggers, we touch. I see my dad, I hug him. I'm all over him. My siblings right to this day.

So for, and, you know, different families have different dynamics. I just wanted to hug them and have them on my lap and this and that, but obviously they're preteen, so of course they're like, you know, but they're just kids. And so it's hard also knowing your boundaries. And I always talk about boundaries and how I love boundaries. I think boundaries are so important in everyone's life.

And even though I wanted it so badly femininity, give me a hug and hug me and go do bonding stuff and all that. I have to know my place, like my side of the street. I am just new in their life. I'm coming in. They love their mom. They love their dad. It's new for them. And I do this with everything in my life. I put my son with people's shoes. I feel like that's just the common, the normal thing to have emotional intelligence is putting yourself in someone's shoes and it determines how I want to treat that person because of the way I want to be treated. So, 100%. Same. thing. Like, I love my mom and dad so much. And, you know, they can have their differences. But, like,

I'm so protective of my mom. And my dad, like, if I had a new stepmom in the picture, I would, you know, I would be this way or that way. I don't know. I mean, I'm a good, nice person. Truly am. But I'm also, as a kid, I would have been immature or, or protective of my daddy or of my mommy, you know? And so I think, okay, you know what? It's not because they don't love me if they're not giving me a hug. It's just because it's neat. It's. It's And I just... I can imagine it be hard to like almost overanalyze things too. Yes.

And I tend to do that sometimes. When you want to just like be the best step parent or whatever. I mean, even in my own life, I overanalyze things that I care about. So I could totally see where that would come into play. Yes. Yes, exactly. And especially because I'm at this point in my life where I have such deep love for them, not just in the beginning like, oh, I love them.

Like we're a family, but like I care so much about them and of their future. futures. Sometimes I want to step in and kind of give my own two cents, but then I'm like, okay. Well, let me just share from the outside. She handled it elegantly. She found a way to build trust first, friendship second, and then slowly, not parent, but give them advice as a trusted advisor. Like, I use those words and she never said stepmom. She said, just call me your bonus mom or call me Lisa, whatever you want. Like, you know, you can call me whatever you want. But she did an incredible job if I look back in hindsight of easing her way into their life without being intrusive and without coming and be like, why didn't they come in and hug me? It was never that. It was like,

I see them. I see them. I feel it. She did an incredible job. And now, now we all get along. And then we were together. And we were together and we got married. We moved in together. And then we were together, I don't know, a year or two. And COVID happened. And we were all stuck inside a house. So we got a gift of COVID, right? And we really got to bond. We made sushi at night. We, we We played Nerf wars all together. Like it was this bonding sequence for, you know, six months or a year. Who knows how long COVID lasts. It's hard to imagine nowadays.

I love that. Yeah, wait. Walk me through your family rituals, the weekly things that you do as a family to keep that bond going. Well, I'll tell you what, it was amplified during COVID. At least once a week, we played Nerf War in the entire house. Oh, I love that. We'd run around.

We'd have Nerf bullets stashed in our, you know, in our belly laugh. We would laugh so hard, like belly laugh. We all got into it. Like it was a thing, you know. We would film fake TikTok dance videos but not actually post them. We made sushi once a week. We'd go get the raw fish and cook the rice and we'd mess it up and be sticky all over your fingers. And our sushi would be crooked and silence and look horrible.

But we did it as a family. And those little things that you don't realize is what bonded us the most. It wasn't, it's not the money. It's the experience. It's the laughs. Yeah. Do you think it's possible to simultaneously be the best business owner you can be while also being the best parent you can be.

1,000% they go, actually they go along with each other. Really? Okay, wait. They go along with each other. I love it. Why do I, why do I disagree? Why do I like, tell me why you? Do you think there's a life work balance? There's no such thing. No. It's the biggest, like I think you're going to swing to both sides. It's the biggest fabrication in the world. Are you supposed to have a busy day? Like most people work outside the house, you have an amusing beautiful podcast studio in your home. but do you think you work all day and then you get to the front door and go, shake it off?

All right, just be super dad. No, they are super mom, right? It's not about work-life balance. It's more of work-life integration. Think about if you have, let me just ask you, if you have a really great day, I don't know, what would be a great day? A video goes viral. Someone reaches out, they want to, someone, I know we had olipops. I'd like to drink one right now.

That'd be cool. Like if you're, yeah, can we have olipops? Yes, exactly. Thank you to olipop or sponsoring our podcast. Yeah, exactly. So you have a good day. Somebody reaches out from Oli Pop and says we want to sponsor your podcast or something goes good. When you go home, are you in a better mood with your kids?

Oh, yeah. Okay, day something goes wrong. The video you thought was going to be good went sideways. Somebody let you down. The contract fell through. I got to tell you, have you tried the Shirley Temple, Oli Pop? No, but I just saw that for the first time. This is by far the best.

I'm going to give it to you because it's my favorite flavor. They sent us like 20 cans of it and then I drank all of them within like a couple days. It's so good. It is so, you got to try it. It's so good. Sorry. I'm really good. Yeah.

We got to. They didn't even sponsor this segment, but we got to drink it. Do you guys want this one too? No, we'll share this one. Okay. So work by balance. If work and business is going well, then you're going to be, you're basically saying you're going to be a more joyful and positive version of yourself for your kids.

Okay. So let me ask you. So really think about this. Okay. And this one I think is, this is really worth talking about. if you hate what you do if you're not living into your full potential

if you know that Dale Carnegie said the biggest plight of the human race is knowing you have more potential and not utilizing it bothers me that's like that keeps me up at night okay so if you're not utilizing your potential you're either feel restricted by the career you're in

the boss you have or just you found a pattern that's just not working do you really think you come home and you become the full potential of the father you could be like dissatisfied at work and then you come home and all of a sudden you're fulfilled. I know, me personally, and I've watched so many, when you're, even trying, it has nothing to do with, you might say, oh, Dean, that's great for you because you're successful.

No, when you're trying, when you're pushing, when you're not settling, when you're saying, no, I'm meant for more and I'm living, I am enough, I know enough. This is just a temporary thing. It might not be the thing I love, but I'm going to do it amazing anyway because I know it's just a stepping stone. When you go home and you're that version of you, your kids, your wife, your significant, other gets that version of you compared to where you feel like you're playing small, you're someplace you shouldn't be, you're not the man that can or the woman that your kids look up to in a way like that.

So I think work-life balance isn't true. It's the integration and the more successful you come. As long as your children and your wife are a priority while simultaneously growing, there's no way they don't get a better version of you. Then why did Steve Jobs on his deathbed say he wished he watched his kids grow up more? He didn't balance it. It wasn't a priority. Anything that gets a priority. My wife and children are a priority.

Do I, honestly and truly, do I sacrifice anything at home? No. He is so present with the kids and with me. What Steve Jobs realized, not to interrupt him, I'm sorry. What Steve Jobs realized at the end is he didn't put his family as a priority. It was all about business. Right? I know I could be more successful than I am.

But I feel fulfilled that I'm stretching every day. But I'm fulfilled also by being the man that she knows is always there for, that I'm a good dad. So they're a priority to me. I didn't interrupt you. No, it's okay. And also, just to add to that, you're really good at your time management.

So that's the thing. So, for instance, I think us girls are a little bit more like in the fluff. For instance, what I admire so much about Dean is if he says we have a meeting at this time, let's say one, and then he says, okay, by 2.30, we'll be playing with the kids, this time to the park. I'm like, babe, there's no way.

Like, we're going to sit and talk. And nope, at two, he's done. Like, he's so quick. for me, I go for a meeting. Then you sit and ask about their life. You go have a coffee. Then, you know, so because I also, he's really good at saying no and saying, you know. And so he has great time management.

And I think that's got even better as he has such limited amount of time for all the things he wants to do. He has to be that way. That's really good. Does that, does that keep you up at night, Dean, that like, well, I feel like I know what the answer is. but you probably, if you just ignored your wife and kids, you could be, you know, three times, four times more successful.

But is it, I'm guessing it's probably worth it to you. Okay, so that's a good deal. To know that you can, like, you're clearly successful, but then you also prioritize your wife and your kids. Okay, so then on the other side, as you say that, the fuel my wife gives me, the way she looks at me when I come home, the way this woman loves me,

the way my kids love me, all four of me, even I got a 19 and a 17-1. We have a really tight family because of the work I've done. it empowers me to be stronger and harder at work. I know what you're saying. Like, I never would look at, I said that, and I'm probably not right by saying I could probably be more successful if I focused. I wouldn't because part of my heart would be missing.

Wow. For me especially. So I can go harder and faster knowing that I'm aligned with all my kids. I mean, if you saw the juggle, like this morning at 9 to 9 20, I watched my 5-year-old play. Tonight I'm watching my oldest son play tennis. Like, I fit them all in. And then I still fit in a date night in time with her

And then it allows me to be so strong at work And then I get to bring the things I do at work And be an example to my kids of what's possible Because here's the thing I love putting family first I love putting your wife first But the greatest example besides loving your wife The greatest example you could be for your kids

Is to live into who you're meant to be That is the greatest thing your kids could see That's good You want to be a, you want your son, one of your three, you know, four or five sons that you end up having, right? Or maybe just two. Yeah, that'd be crazy. If I had five sons, I'd be freaking wild. Can you imagine?

What do you want one of them? Just think about this. Wouldn't you want one of them if they were reading your eulogy to be like, my dad was always there for us? He was great to my mom. But even more of that, I know my dad pushed the limits. He lived into who he was meant to be. He took risks. He pushed hard.

He did things other people didn't do. And man, I want to be a better version of me because of what my dad did. Compared to saying, hey, my dad was a great, you know, I feel like my dad, you know, he took, he settled in that job just so he could be there for baseball for us. You know, I know my dad had this potential. I wish you would have went for it. Like, think about that. At the end of your life, your kids want to see you thrive. They want to see you live.

And listen, my 17-year-old, I've never told them to work out a day in his life. But I work out every morning at 5.30, right? Just every day in my life. It's just what I do. Wow. Every single day at 5.30? Every day. What time do you go to bed?

9, 10. I wake up at 4 every day. Goodness. Are you not tired? Never. I love life too much. Six hours of sleep and you're not tired? Six is good.

If I could go two days on six hours. I need at least seven. Everybody's different. If I get less than seven, I'm a baby. But my whole point is, this is a great example. I work out every day, right? I never told my kids to work out, but that's what they see dad doing. A year and a half ago, my son walked in the gym when I was working out.

He said, can I work out with you, dad? He was five foot one, 90 pounds. A year and a half, my son is ripped. He's five foot ten. He's shredded. He's bigger than I am. Outlifts me right now. I never said a word to him.

He just saw me being that version of myself. And that's the same I feel with work. Both my older kids right now are like, I want to do something big, dad. I see what you do? Like, what can I do? My daughter wants to, is working with me. She's working two jobs. She's working with me.

Like, I just think the best version of you is the best thing you can do for your family. As long as you prioritize them over top of it. Don't choose them over it. But there are days, and I'm going to shut up after this, there are days where I have to say to my wife, I thought I was going to make Vita's dance recital. I can't because this is a big project.

And she'll say, we couldn't have this life without you. Go get it. I'll cover you. Right? But that's rare because it's a priority to me. So that's my belief. And I don't believe the whole, you could be in shape or you could have a great relationship or you could make money, but you're never going to get all three.

I think that's a really horrible story we can tell ourselves. I really want my kids to feel like I made the world a better place. That, that, but I also, I don't want that to come at the sacrifice of a relationship with them. Like, I don't want them to be like, wow, that's cool. It's dad, like, built orphanages in, you know, a country and an underdeveloped country. But yeah, you didn't hang out with me. He didn't surf with me. He didn't surf with me.

I didn't skate with me. I know we're going on this. And if this makes the podcast great, if not it just one father to another, I find rituals that are unbreakable. And my wife knows them. I cook my kids breakfast every day of their life, especially my older ones. Because when things get busy and they become teenagers in the morning, it's 40 minutes of me making them breakfast sitting at the table.

I bring it over to them. I got it. I make them their lunches. We talk. before they had driver's license, I'm the one that drove in the school every day because then you got 20 minutes in the car with no phone, just conversant.

So you find these times that are really important and don't let anybody mess with them. Is there a ritual like that? Well, I guess for you, you're with them a lot more because you're full time at home. But what I will say is just to like make it clear. So it's not like sometimes you just leave work

or get home from work. And then all of a sudden you're like, okay, once I walk in the door, it's no phone or whatever. Things happen. Dean works all around the clock. but if he's like I'm going to go outside and play with Luca football

I have 30 minutes before my next call he's there for 30 minutes and his phone might be near but he doesn't make Luca aware of that right he's very present and so or it can be like okay I have an hour I'm going to go take our daughter

Viva on a date and it's just an hour but he comes back and gets back to work so it's not like you know some people overthink it like oh I have to make I'll clear up this whole afternoon for my kids. You know, kids have attention span of 15 minutes when they're, when they're to focus on something, when they're this young, two and three.

I mean, it could just be 15 minutes and that's all they remember. You know what I mean? So it's a lot of people overthink it like, oh, how can I fit in a whole deal with my kid, you know, but everybody has lights. Your kids have a routine and you have a routine. And so, but Dean's good at balancing that. Let's go ahead and end on some fun questions. I went ahead and had our producer pull the internet's most search questions about you guys,

if that's okay. Well, wait a minute. I want to say something. Yes. With the age, I was just quickly doing the math, and I always forget how my husband is. I think he's 30 every day. Okay. Sometimes I feel like I need to catch up to him because I feel like, you know, so tired

or I need more asleep than him. We're like, he works out way more than me. And he's, you know, so I definitely sometimes feel like I'm the older one than him. But he just said he's 57. He just turned 56. What the heck are you talking about? Wait, you're 57? No.

Wait, which one? You just turned 56. You're turning 57 this year. I'm turning 58, baby. You're turning 58. See, I don't even know. I don't even know that. So, I mean, it's okay.

I'm 30 or 57. You forget ages. Like, sometimes I'm like, well, how. Believe me, you don't want to, after 50, you don't remember any of them. I'm like, dude, no, I'm 27 and sometimes like, how old am I again? I forget. Like, I don't know. Yeah, that's, that's awesome.

But is there anything funny? I was, I was talking to my wife about you guys earlier today. She was like, you should ask him if there's like anything funny that happens with with the age difference. And so like I'm curious if there's something like there's like a TV show. You're like, babe, this TV show, oh my gosh. And then she's like, what are you even talking about? Or is there anything funny. I'll say it's funny.

I'll say a funny one is sometimes we'll be out. Okay. This is a good one. And we'll see a couple where there's an older guy and a younger girl. And my wife will go, look at them. Look at the age difference. I'm like, babe, they're the same difference. It's like, no, no, no.

I'm like, yeah. Or like another funny one that's so funny. He'll, you know, he'll talk about when he was 21 and he was like, let's see, I don't know. I'm just meeting up at a nightclub or something in New York City and like the coolest nightclub or whatever. And I'm like, what the heck? You're cheating on me. Like, why weren't you out looking at me? He's like, baby, you weren't born yet.

Like, so that's actually like, oh, okay. He's like, you weren't diapers or, you know, stuff like that. So I moved to Phoenix 23 years ago and, you know, she was just a kid. and she's like when you first moved here why didn't you come find me I'm like you were four that would have been creepers that would have been any other time in life

it would have been weird but no on all like just being real I sometimes do feel like he is a lot younger than me because of his drive and his ambition and his energy he doesn't sleep but he's just like on fire like I need a coffee I need my sleep you know and

So no, yeah, you actually, you're my role model. Speak to the benefits, though, of having an age difference because they're, I'm serious, you guys. Like, Abby and I, I'm six months older than she is. And there are times where legitimately I've wondered, would our relationship be even better if I were, say, five years older than her? Because I think there's just something that comes with time and maturity. Men take a longer time than mature. That's for sure.

Absolutely. My wife wouldn't have got this version of me if we met earlier in life. Like I feel blessed that she gets this version of me. Yeah. And the other thing for me, it keeps me, I want to look good for her. I want to stay in shape for her. I have little kids. I want to be here for them as they get older.

I want to walk my daughter if she gets married at 30. If my daughter gets married at 30, oh my God, you know, I'll be 85 years old. Wow. When she's 30, right? That's great. So I want to be here for her. I'm sure you're going to make it past 100, though. I mean, that's the speed you're going.

I mean, like. Yeah. So I want to be here for her. So it does drive me. Yeah. Like, it does drive me. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's, uh, Clint Eastwood said something cool once that somebody said, you know, he's still directing

movies in his 90s. And he said, uh, someone says, what's your secret? And he said, don't let the old man in. Ah. And I think about that all the time. I think about that all the time. Like I go to work out and I'm like, I'm a little tired today. Maybe I didn't sleep less.

I'm like, no, you're letting the old man in. It doesn't, get your ass. Excuse me. Get your, get to work. You know, get to work. Well, there's, there's, Science to back that up, I've read, I don't know the exact, like, research group that did it, but I've read about how if you have children later in life, you're going to live longer according to science. Because you just have a reason to wake up in the morning.

You have, you have so much more purpose in your life. And so then like now with me, my son was bored. My first child, I think I was 23 or 24. So now I'm like, man, do we just got to keep having kids so I don't die. Like maybe I do like, maybe we got to be like, you know, the 19 kids and counting family from TLC, which we've actually interviewed them on the show. I have a dear friend of mine lives five miles from here, and he has eight. Eight. And four of them are now out of the house, and he's like, it is so quiet.

We should have had nine. Oh, my goodness. But then I guess, like, looking at my parents now, their grandparents, and that seems like a lot of fun. They actually, they've actually straight up told me that being your grandparents more fun in their opinion than being a parent. Just because you, you know, you're not, I guess, bogged down with all the responsibility. So it's like all the fun without the responsibility.

That makes sense. Yeah. Well, okay. well, thank you for let me pick your brain on that. I guess let's look at these internet's most asked questions about you guys. The first one, I think this one's funny, and you can answer this however you want. It says, how rich is Dean Graziosi as well as what the first one says. Yeah, I see that all the time.

You know, I'll just say there's a certain amount of wealth. Here's how I answered. I feel blessed my companies have over the last 30 years. I've done over $2 billion in revenue in my companies. Oh, holy cat. Do you ever just like, just like resonate on that and realize like a billion is a lot? It's a big number, yeah.

And but more than that is, I say that, but I'm truly at a phase of my life. That means that especially the business I'm in, I got to impact a lot of people. Yeah. I've been blessed to impact millions of people. How blessed am I that I wake up every day. And my whole job is to try to help people go faster.

Like, you get to do this. You impact what you and your wife do, allow someone to see a, hopefully you know this this podcast we talked today the whole thing's not going to resonate with everybody but if we said one thing today that sparked somebody maybe forgive their parents or parent a little different or bond with their wife a little differently or say oh my god I could have life work balance by just have life work integration if they did that one thing that we did our job today and this is what we get to do for a living so I would say more than the money is that the um the opportunity that

I get to impact a lot of lives that's really cool that gosh I guess a follow question for that for you is, because I've been like wrestling with this about, you know, what, what's, what's the right number? What's the, I guess like technically, if I, if I ran the numbers right now, we'd have to, you know, sell our house significantly, you know, decrease expenses. But I think technically my wife and I right now could on paper retire. But then I'm like, I don't know what I would do with my time. And your kids wouldn't see the best version of you. Exactly. You got to keep remembering, remind. mind that you you said you get obsessed when you obsessed about a camp a product a campaign or something you want to work on are you like sad as your arms down or you like shoulders back excited ripping well like me being being seriously yeah i mean this like wholeheartedly being here with you guys right now gives me so much joy doing these interviews gives me fired up i just i love so meeting people okay if you didn't do anything for six weeks do you think your kids would see a better version of you or a worse version of you? Oh, worse. Okay. You're living into who you're meant to be

and that's, you have to model that. You have to see that. You have to live into it because your kids walk in and see this version of their dad, loving life, impacting people. So, don't, I'm never going to retire. I will fall over in front of a camera or on stage at a hundred years old. That's an absolute fact. Yeah. There's, and so a couple of things. What I was going to say, though, and I think I know these are long, there's a longer answer. So cut whatever you want. Oh, you're good. But when you get to a certain amount of money, nothing really changes. Yeah, right? 100%.

It doesn't change. I feel blessed that we do extremely well. We have our own plane. We have a couple of houses. But besides that, I wear a T-shirt. I don't drive a fancy car. I got a six-year-old Ford pickup truck that I love. That's awesome.

And I don't buy Lamborghinis and fancy watches. Why don't you, though? Because I don't like them. They don't do anything. And they feel too flashy for me. But what I do do, you said it earlier, is my last five houses, I build the most elaborate gyms you've ever seen in your life. So we just built a new house.

We feel blessed we moved in and I built a monster guest house and the whole guest house is a gym. For that reason that you're saying. Because of proximity because I can just walk out and work out at 530, come back in. And that's keeping you healthy. That's good for your brain. Here's a part. Here's one thing I didn't see coming with wealth that I never would have expected. You think it's the freedom.

It is. It's the ability to help others. We've fed tens of millions of people. We've built schools all over the world. We do things. We help fund Phoenix Children's Hospital. We've done a lot of things that we get to do. We do a lot of, I don't say it publicly, but we do a lot, right?

All these cool things. I retired both of my parents. But the biggest one was, is being from a family of parents that were married nine times, really dysfunctional. We moved 20 times by the time I was 20 years old, always fights and in and out and not have money evicted from our trailer that we lived in, had to move in with grandma. All these things, I realized that the reason I got successful is because I was running away from all the chaos. Yeah. Like I was never in control. of my life. Everybody else was. Money was in control. Crazyness was in control. And I'm like,

I remember a young age, I'm getting rich. So nobody tells me what to do so I can be in control of my own decisions. I could raise my family the way I want. So it was, I'm blessed that that was my childhood because it gave me the drive. Right? But I always was worried about money because I thought if I got enough money, I could be in control of my decisions. And there was a time where I had enough where I didn't have to worry about money anymore. I have to worry about anything. I'm good for life. And at that moment, what happens is you're not running away from anything. And the only person you have to look at in the mirror is you. And that's when I started working on my personal development in a different way because I couldn't say, I'm too busy to work on me. I got to, I got to work. I got to work.

You're okay financially. So now you might have to deal with the things that you went through with your dad. You might have to deal with the divorces. You might have to, and I wasn't expecting that and there was a moment that happened in my life. So the byproduct for me was I got to do some self-exploration and self-work to be a better human. That's really good. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I feel like I'm learning a lot just hearing you share your life experiences and hopefully I can take a thing or two and apply it to my life as, you know, a business owner,

not doing, not doing $2 billion in revenue, but. I'm 30 years older than you. That time is a big thing. Yeah. So you're probably exactly where I is where I was or ahead of where I was at 27th. So time is huge. Imagine what you've done in seven years. What can you do in the next 30?

That's true. So I got 30 years on you. That's crazy to think about. What else you got? Okay, the next one we have is how do most millionaires make their money? Would that be real estate? Isn't that like the majority of millionaires in the United States? I think it is.

I think there's more real estate millionaires than any other thing. But what I'd say is just a real quick answer. It's those that can find a deep enough purpose, a deep enough, deep enough why. break old habits, be disciplined, get routines, like all the things that are in personal development. You're like, yeah, yeah, I heard all that. But it's all those little things that are actually the big things. When you pull the cover back on people that are successful, it's not just the industry they're in. It's the way they approach the industry they're in. Yeah. What are the three Cs? I think this ties into some of your teaching material.

Yeah, could you describe what the three Cs are for someone that doesn't know? Yeah, in times of shift. The country's in a weird place right now. I mean, it's been in and out of weird places the world has since the beginning of time. When people say these are the worst times ever, it's like not even close to the worst times ever, right? But when things are in transition like they are now with AI coming, with polarization of politics, with wars and the things going on in the world, the way to embrace them the most I always thought was the three Cs. First, you got to embrace change. We all think we're good at change. We're not. Change disturbs us. But the most common thing in all of our lives is change. The thing that happens to you more than

anything else has changed. No kids, kids. Wasn't, weren't married, you're married. No podcast, podcast. Hiring family, not, like change is huge. Yeah. So what we have to realize, if we don't change, we stay the same. And if we're not climbing or sliding. So you have to find a way to look in your life in the areas of which you change and it went good. And you have to associate change to those, not change to the bad. So you meeting your wife was a change, but it's a great thing. So if I didn't change from being single, I wouldn't be married to this woman and have my kids. Yeah.

If I didn't, you know, all those things. So if you associate change to good stuff, you'll start shifting it that when change happens, you're like, oh, where do I see the good in this? The second one is courage. Once you embrace change, then you have to be courageous enough to actually make the move. And I think people wait for the third one. I'll jump ahead is confidence. Confidence doesn't come until you have the courage to take the action.

Okay. Right? So courage, the way I get courage is I think about. what if I left it the way it is? Like I think the worst thing you could ever do is get to the end of your life and have your maker play you a video of the man you could have been.

Oh, whoof, that, outch. Right? Hey, you played small, you didn't take action. You had that dream of that product and you never did it. This is who you could have been. All you'd ever want. If your maker played you that video,

what would you say? Send me back. Yeah. Send me back. And what I always tell people is, wish granted, we're here. Be courageous today. You can make a courageous bowl.

just bold move today. So if you embrace change and you have courage as this badge of like it's scary but I'm doing anyway because I want to live into the person I'm meant to be, then once you do that, the byproduct of those two is the confidence. Because you don't gain confidence until you're in it. To your sleeves are rolled up to you're in there working it, failing, getting beat up, getting beat up, learning, failing, succeeding, failing. All of a sudden you realize I can fail and it doesn't hurt. And I learned what not to do over here and then confidence starts to build. And the one thing I'd say to protect your confidence is true and this is going to be like duh but identify the things that rob your confidence and the things that build your confidence yeah in today's world when

you watch the news is it take your confidence or give it to you take it away right talking to negative people that you loved once in your life but they tell you you got enough when it's not dream like is that take it away or give it to you right some people have parents in their life that love them dearly but every time they see them like hey stop but so you've got to identify the things that rob your confidence and do less of them. And then find the things that improve your confidence. You do in podcasts, you being in a mastermind, you watching certain videos, you have a date night with your wife where you just take a walk and talk about all the things you've

done with each other and it builds this. Then you identify and you fuel both of them. I should say you fuel the things that build your confidence and stop doing the things that don't. If you can get those three C's a line, there's not much it can stop you in a part of transition. Honestly you guys, I'm very inspired by you. I'm inspired by your love for each.

other, your success in the business world. It's clear that you're doing a lot of good in the world through feeding America, through all the different charitable organizations you help fund. I didn't realize that you also are part of the Phoenix Children's Hospital as well, helping with that. So I'm just really inspired and motivated to hopefully be a better version of myself for my wife and my kids, but also on the business front too. Go check out AI Advantage Summit. You can also check out Dean on Instagram. I think Lisa is also on Instagram as well. But this has been great. I've nerded out in this podcast.

So if you've made it this far, thank you for sticking around and putting up with me this long. These people are amazing. And I truly feel so honored that we got to do this. So thank you guys. Thank you, Dina Lisa. Thank you, thank you guys. And as always, this is where we say, peace out, dudes. Three, two, one.

Peace out, dudes.