Breaking Barriers to Achieve Financial Freedom with Dame DC Doria Cordova Ph.D (Hon.)

0:00Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Cutting-edge conversations on business and personal success, as well as how to level up. Here's your host, number one business coach in the world, Brad Shoghers. You know, I was 20 years old. I attended the Money in You program. Little did I know, here I am 30-something years later, and the impact that that program would have on me. Dame DC Cordova, Doria Cordova, was the principal behind the Money in You program. Me, Rob Kiyosaki, Tony Robbins, amazing people have gone through this program and built amazing businesses and amazing educators around the planet.

0:43DC's perspective on success is just going to give you a whole different realm of how success happens. She's changed the world by being the ripple effect, by being the one behind a lot of people. And I want you to learn her strategies today. Dive on in with me, Dame DC Cordova, right here with you on the Big Success Podcast. So, Doria, tell me, what is your definition of success? Well, success is the impact that you have in the world. Success is when people come up to you and just say, hey, you completely changed my life. And not me, but so much by my programs and the work that I do. Because, you know, it's a collaboration.

1:27And success is when you begin to really see, you know, your impact on the world. Like with us, it has been transforming educational systems. And success also is when you feel you wake up in the morning and you are excited and you're like, yes, I'm ready to go like I am this morning. Yeah. So let's go backwards a little ways. Was that always your definition or did your definition change over your lifetime? time? Oh, when I was very young in my 20s, success was, you know, how much money I had, how I respected was always part of it because I'm Latina, Chile. So respect and being honorable and, and being respected by your peers.

2:13That was much more driving me in my 20s. And of course, financial, being able to afford anything. And that actually stayed. I think all of those are part of the mix. Yeah, yeah. And what shifted you mostly to this definition? Was there an event? Was there a change or was it a gradual shift? Oh, no. It was an enlightenment experience that I had on Maui, excuse me, in Kauai in 1976. And then shortly thereafter, I met Buckminster Fuller, you know, who was talking about sufficiency in 1977 when, you know, there was no such conversation. and then attending the first business school for entrepreneurs, the work that I inherited.

2:58So it was a process, but it was relatively quick within a couple of years. Yeah. So when you think about success, where in your life did you choose success? Was it as a child? Was it as a young woman? Where did you choose that I'm going to be successful at whatever I do? It was in my DNA. My mother tells me that she held me in her arms when I was first born and said, you are going to be successful. It was like, look how successful she is. And I actually had to clear that up a little bit because I wanted to be the most beautiful. and mama used to say mama used to say she may not be the most beautiful little girl in the neighborhood but she's certainly the most intelligent and so and it was oh in my family failure is not an option in my family so I had to kind of allow that later in my life yeah yeah you know when you think about uh where success comes from in life and you've obviously educated a lot of people in that way.

4:10What is, like today, what's your thoughts on how success happens or your formula or your methodology for people to be successful? Failure. You know, the more that you make mistakes, you know, as we know, Buckminster Fuller taught us, you know, that in life, you know, it's like the biggest mistakes that humans make, he used to say, was to make yourself wrong or to make others wrong for making mistakes. So mistakes is part of the mix. And the faster, the more that we accept failure and mistakes, the better that you're going to get at. It's just part of the mix. And that is probably one of the toughest things to do.

4:55Well, how do you emotionally, because you've taught this again, But how do people emotionally get to learn from a mistake rather than believe they are the mistake or fall into the mistake type thing? What's that shift? Well, first, you have to allow. You have to allow for those feelings to happen. When we first make that mistake and we beat ourselves up, go ahead and do it for just a little bit. You know, the more that you work on self-mastery, the shorter and shorter that it will get. So in the old days, you would do it for years and months and then weeks and then days. And now you maybe do it for an hour or a few minutes.

5:37Because once you really get in, okay, this is part of the game. This is part of it. But you have to allow for that to come in. Otherwise, you become what we call emotionally constipated. Because those feelings are ready to come out because you didn't allow it. So now you allow for that to occur. And then, of course, you do that reset. You kind of like reformat it and you just kind of go, okay, this is going to, I love what Mark Victor Hansen's, you know, another great money and your graduate. He says, this is going to make a great book someday. You know, I love that quote of his, because when you're in the middle of a learning experience, you go, this is going to be a great book someday.

6:16Or what a great story to tell. Because successful people love to tell stories about when they failed. It's kind of like your medals, you know, that you have. Truly successful people have no shame and understand that failure is part of it. And so you begin to reframe it and you do it at the speed of grace as much as you can. But the more that you work on yourself, the more coaching that you have, the more the more work that you do on yourself, the more that it will become acceptable. And that is that that's probably the greatest tip that I can give to anyone to just allow yourself and then learn from it and make it part of your story.

7:04You mentioned something there, speed of grace. Tell me more about that, because that's I've never heard that term before. Oh, my beautiful friend who's now an angel taught me that. And she used to say moving at the speed of grace. And it was kind of strange that she died so young. only 52 and um and one of the things that um like grace think of it you know when i was knighted i couldn't believe it i'm actually a dame of grace i was like whoa i really that was my first idol that i got in there and uh so grace is like that place that beingness within you that understands mistakes, that understands life, that understands failure, loss, being part of it.

7:50And then you begin to transform into like, okay, there's going to be a reason this occurred. And so when you, the faster that you move into the speed of grace, the faster that you will now begin to to understand life and understand all the things that come at you personally that are happening in the world otherwise you'll lose your mind you will this is when we become intoxicated with alcohol with drugs with overwork with because we can't handle life so moving pretending at first that you're moving at the speed of grace allows you to begin to integrate it and to and then after the wild, you become that.

8:41Yeah. One of the things that I think I've heard you speak on before that moved me was the distinction between a mistake and failure and how you help people define that to be able to move on. Give me more on that, please. Well, again, you know, we're students of Buckminster Fuller. And now, you know, we're all human experiments. And once you apply a principle into your life, you have earned the right to now speak about it from your experience. So it is learning, learning experiences as opposed to mistakes. Once you transform that and you go, wow, this is, I'm having a really big learning day, a big learning experience.

9:26I am, you know, I'm about to lose my mind with this learning experience that I'm having right now and you just kind of like then you all of a sudden your brain kind of shifts see the job brad for all of us humans because we're all equal is for us to manage the hungry dog the constant voice that i don't know about you but mine it can be so loud that voice it just kind of like picks up speed the worse them the worse the learning experience the more like oh and so the process is to just breathe. You take three deep breaths and just, and you kind of like reset yourself. Physically, you can reset yourself.

10:10And it becomes a learning experience. I know when we were in Hawaii together a couple of years back, one of the things I meditated on afterwards was something you said about patterns. Because I know for me, I've had learning experiences and sometimes, I don't know why, I just do them again. And then I seem to do that same learning experience again. And you were discussing the whole thing about patterns and changing that. Can you give our listeners a bit more on that? Because I think your perspective is amazing on that stuff. Well, you know, I learned again from masters. And when I was very young, I was in the legal system.

10:52And I became, I was a very successful court reporter, but very unhappy. then my enlightenment experience and the incidents I told you about earlier got me to a new place. And what ended up happening when I was an official court reporter and I was going to grow up to be an attorney, no problem with money, no problem. You know, you earn a living, you provide a service, no problem. When I had, when I decided to commit my life to the betterment of humanity through entrepreneurial education, all of these weird thoughts came up. Deservability. Remember that word, deservability. And so all of a sudden it was like, who in the heck do you think you are?

11:39You're going to change the world. You're going to solve world hunger. You're going to be a model. You know, it was like part of me was like, oh. And so what I had to do, I had to do this clearing. And I want to make sure that we give everyone the gift of on Fridays with Doria under resources. There's these magical exercises and you did them in creating well way back in the day. Way back. Yeah. Way back. And those are when you begin to really look at your family patterns, when you begin to see what was said to you and your environment, your family, school, religious institutions, When you started working, your bosses, the people, your teams, then you begin to set these patterns around all the different areas of your life.

12:32And of course, the one that is probably the most insidious is around money because there's no neutrality on planet Earth. Very few people have neutrality around money. So then what happens is that they really show up in three major areas. And, you know, it has to do with money. It has to do with sex and it has to do in many ways in relationships. And so believe it or not, you know, those are the things that run so many human beings because and I'm going to say something funny. An Australian says this to me, one of my best friends. You probably remember Daniel, my sweetie from the 80s. Yes. One of my best friends.

13:14He always says, D, we're just monkeys. We just came off the trees. You know, intuitively, we are still very, we're being driven. There is a part of our brain that still lives in survival. And so the patterns kick in. But the biggest one, if I may support your audience, is because you've handled it, and thank God I've handled it, is deservability. What is the level of wealth? What is the level of money that you're going to break that family, you know, ceiling, that glass ceiling that your family gave you and the environment gave you and work on creating new patterns of success, of financial success, of family success, of making an impact in the world.

14:07So it's almost our job on a daily basis, self-mastery of working on breaking those patterns and creating new ones. Constantly recreate yourself. Yeah. You're on the Big Success Podcast, Dame DC Cordova. We're going to be back in a minute. We're going to talk about creating a movement and how she's been amazing at that level of success. Serious income success for you will come through Brad Sugar's scalability event, massive business growth and understanding how you turn your business into a commercial, profitable enterprise that works for you so that you don't have to. Visit bradsugars.com to attend this program as a standalone or as part of Brad Sugars' Entrepreneurial University.

14:50You're back. Big success podcast. Dame DC Cordova. Now, DC, when we first met, I joined what I would say is a movement. You built an amazing team over the years. Tell me more about how you bring people together like that and create that. Well, as you can see, actually behind me, you see the fruit bowl. OK, and in our Money and You program, it comes from a thing called the Berkeley Business School, which ended up being the Accelerated Business School for Entrepreneurs. We have a very strong purpose. My purpose is to uplift humanity's consciousness through socially responsible business. By the way, the socially responsible part didn't come up until about 15 or 20 years ago.

15:43And I've been doing this for 44 years. So when you have this, when you have a purpose that is that strong, and then you have a mission or two or three. So one of my missions is to, you know, transform educational systems around the world and eradicate poverty and hunger. Now, if I may speak about you for one minute, you are, if I may say, a processional effect. You are a beautiful ripple effect of our work because within the environment of the entrepreneurial programs that we created, that Marshall Thurber, Bobby DePorter created, and I inherited this work and continue with building organizations.

16:26You came into a system, you learned these tools, you learned these patterns, you learned about self-mastery, and then you discover within yourself these gifts that you had. And then you went on and created, you know, action, you know, international action coaching. And you created this whole thing that we can't take credit for. What we can't take credit is for creating an environment. So our job in creating a movement is creating an environment where people discover within themselves that which is their inherent gifts, their God-given gifts, if I may say. So that's what occurs. And then you have to have very clear rules of the game, policies, and all this is not in money and you.

17:17and you then you also have to follow a thing called the business success model and you know and if people go to moneyandyou.com they will find the little book that i wrote many years ago on it it's a gift to everyone and in what basically to create a movement you learn from experts you learn from masters you create a niche and that's for the marketers you have to have a niche what makes are different than others. You leverage that niche. How do you leverage that niche? You do it through systems. You do it through an aligned team. And then naturally, you know, the kind of like the forces, may the force be with you.

18:01The forces inspire with you to create synergy. But It's a model. It's a business model. It's a tool. It's a system. And then, of course, you create results. And in life, you can, Marsha Martin, one of my great friends and teachers, taught me long ago, and she learned this from Werner Earhart, the creator of AST and Landmark Education. She says she used to always say in life, you either have results, reasons why you didn't create what you wanted to create or you have the results that speak for themselves. So there has been, you know, a lot of the graduates, including, you know, Tony Robbins, who is actually was right down the hill from here where we are on Maui.

18:55Tony Robbins, who many of us know about. Robert Kiyosaki, my business partner for nine years, and he was my partner. I chose him. And we, you know, we were the platform that the first book, Rich Dad, came from. Yeah. Also, he went on, he discovered these aspects of himself that he was able to kind of translate in a way that people really took it in. So the movement becomes that you create the environment, whatever, whether you have a product, a service or a program, now platforms. And then because remember, in the old days, only religious organizations, politicians had platforms. Now, anyone can have a platform.

19:40You have a platform. I have a platform. And so now that creates, you churn out. That's a very good word. Churn out social entrepreneurs and people that will then change the world. And thank you, Brad and all your team. Thank you, Bruce Campbell, another major money in you graduate who makes everybody do money in you because they learn the basics there. And then you can then, as humans, we need to be molded. Because if we don't mold ourselves, we don't create a team, we don't create a mastermind, an organization to be able to work to support us, then the world molds you in a way that may not be intentional.

20:31It may not be in the way that you want it to be. So when you mold yourself in an environment where you get to choose how you want to be, then you begin to create a movement of movements. A movement of movements. So it's the ultimate leverage. You, my friend, are, and please take this in the nicest, most loving way, you are my leverage. You're much younger than me. I'm going to live to be 130. you're going to live to be 180 okay so you and all the people that you inspire are my leverage for my origin my purpose my missions and then you begin to change the world yeah i i i still love it on every every uh webinar i ever do i have two original mentors on there i put a photo of me and you and a photo of me and Paul Dunn.

21:30So I 100 % am happy to say I am your leverage. With that being said, you say it quite, it just rolls off your tongue, social entrepreneurship. You've been doing it since before it was trendy, cool, whatever the terminology is. What led you to want to shift humanity rather than just make a dollar? What led you to that? And then how can other people shift themselves to see it as more than, see business as more than just making money? Personally, it was the level of loss that I had. I have quite a background, very young, losing my beloved, miscaraging babies, losing friends, tough time. you know, Vietnam War, drugs coming online, just, just, it was the seventies were tough.

22:29And so that the pain and, and not be, not having the tools to manage that. And instead you did other things, you know, and, and when I had the enlightenment experience, it allowed for me to begin to like, okay, I really need to shift. And because I was in the legal system, I was surrounded by cases with attorneys and there were a lot of civil cases that I watched. And then I began to see, and also I was a court reporter in family law. Oh my God, I could only do that for three months. I used to go home and cry all day long on every night. It was so horrific. And so what happened was that I began to see the world.

23:19Then Buckminster Fuller came along and he spoke about that scarcity. The Malthusian theory of economics was no longer a reality on planet Earth in the early 70s. And all governments and financial institutions are based on that. So all of a son, he was giving us a new model, a new model of education, a new model of financial gain, a new model of creating businesses. And Marshall Thurber and Bobby DePorter tested that in the real estate company in the 70s in San Francisco by transforming all of those beautiful Victorians. Now that you are worth$20 million, they were being turned down. And so now you begin to use, combine human potential movement principles with solid business principles.

24:16With the, how do you really run a business? That has never changed. You know, you create a good product or service, you make it enough so that you can have some profit. But then there's many religious institutions that also teach about tithing. So it's not like a new idea. But what it was, it was we began being experiments and then people began to apply these principles. And we began to prove and to create a whole alternative educational system. That's what we have done. That's what you have done. That's what I have done. That's what, you know, the Tony Robbins and, you know, Robert Kiyosakis and Sharon Lecter and even more, Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's did Money in You in 1979.

25:06He created a movement. Paul Mitchell, he did Money in You in 1980. He passed away in 1989, but he created also movements. So now you're showing people that you can create wealth and do good. And that's what social enterprise is. And you begin to, as you age and you begin to move more into your legacy, you now begin to shift your energy. And we all are going to age. And it goes by really quick, you guys. I remember when Brad had no gray hair, but he looks great. But I remember we had no gray hair. Doesn't it go fast, Brad? It goes fast, right? Especially when you have, like I have so many kids, it's like I feel like it goes faster every day.

25:52So now you have all of a sudden when the workplace becomes a place of transformation, of personal fulfillment, where you begin to transform yourself and you transform the workplace. And Edwards Deming, one of our major influences of Money and You and the Business School, when Edwards Deming teaches us that systems are key to creating a workplace of joy, you know, and he's the number one productivity genius still on the planet. So when the masters prove scientifically that the workplace is key in creating peace on the planet, now you move fast forward 40, 50 years later from when the human potential movement came into the planet and we have become the proof.

26:46We are, we're it. And that's why we have to support each other. We love your platforms. We support each other so that the bigger movement hits the wider world. You're on the Big Success Podcast. We're going to be back in a minute. And I'm going to ask Doria about scaling up the difference between good and amazing. Dame Doria Cordova is the CEO owner of Accelerated Business Schools Money & You, the organization that brought to the world entrepreneurial experiential transformational training programs with over 200 ,000 graduates from over 85 countries. To learn more about Dame Doria Cordova, please visit dccordova.com.

27:29Big success. DC, scale. You've taught so many people and some of them have gone on to do like billionaire status. some of them have just gone on to do normal and neither one is better than the other but there's a difference in the thinking what do you notice is the difference in the thinking between those who go to that billionaire status and do amazing things around the world well number one for sure is drive you know there's a great new book uh with arnold schwarzenegger you know where he's just talking go to work you know i you know i was watching him be in the interview and I go, oh my God, you know, I was raised by a German raised grandmother.

28:16And I have that in me. It's like, you're going to do something. Okay. So that is the typical drive. But I mentioned that before it has to do with deservability, but also it has, you know, one of my best books ever is good to great. You know how much we love that book, Jim Collins, you know, the big, audacious, hairy goal, right? You have to be outrageous. At 27 years old, I said, I'm part of the Hunger Project. I am, if I do it all by myself, I'm going to eradicate hunger on the planet. Now, just so you know, sometimes it doesn't look like you have reached that big goal, but precessionally, the 90 degree effect, the ripple effects, the physics of the ripple effects recession, you will see that we have transformed the world tremendously.

29:12So you have to make this a huge hairy goal. So my beloved, just finished reading the latest Elon Musk book. And it's very interesting because there's so many feelings that we all have about Elon Musk. But what was so interesting is that, well, number one, in Australia, they have a beautiful word, which it sounds weird in America, but not in Australia, which is a freak. A freak is actually something unusual. It's actually a compliment. If somebody calls you a freak, it's like, man, you are like different. You're like nobody else. So then there is the freak factor when you have these people that are so outrageous.

29:54And so they go on a list of, I think there's 3 ,000 plus billionaires on the planet alone. Now, when you look at the rest of the world, this is kind of funny. It's a funny topic because it's great for you to say that you want to be a billionaire, but just take a look and see how many billionaires there really is in the world out of 8 billion people. So how about if we make it a little bit more palatable and set an audacious goal, number one first, financial independence. What does that mean to you? And we're talking, now we move into the Chinese world. There's a word I love. We've been doing programs for the Chinese for decades now, 24 years.

30:36And so net net, everybody say net net. Okay. So what is the net net that after the US government or your government has been paid off, the excess have been paid off, everything is paid off. It's yours. Net net. What is that? Yeah. Is that a hundred million? Is that 25 million? Is that a billion? Net net. So now you have a figure that you work towards your net net in your pocket, free of everything. You don't have to share that with anyone, not even your spouse. If you don't want the spouse has their hundred million, you have your hundred million. So now you get very, very clear on that. And then it's like, what is the impact that you want to make?

31:24What is that one thing you have got to pick a world problem? The most successful people that I know, and I know many billionaires, have chosen a problem to solve. They are creating an economic engine around that. For some of you, it's creating an economic engine around your life purpose. And they created an economic engine using the business success model that I spoke about earlier. And then now that money machine creates tremendous wealth. But what happens with most people, gosh, it's so hard for me to watch, is that they want to be right. Like their beliefs, what they were trained, like if they do the opposite of what their beautiful middle class mother or father or brother or sister is doing.