Navigate the Storms of Life & Success with Dean Graziosi

25:48Like, no way in hell. It's never going to happen. How do you satisfy so many people? And I'm like, listen, you guys, that means no one else can do it besides us. Let's, let's just do whatever it takes. And if we go all the way and it doesn't happen, then I'm going to love the lessons we learned along this journey. And I know it takes years to get up to that, you know, to, to, to do an event like that, but it was one of the toughest events on the planet and the most rewarding in my life and tough in the meaning of just every ad that we did, every, every, every visual that we did, how to be approved by five different people, how to work.

26:25And I would not change one bit of it. And I've, I've created new friends. McConaughey became a friend and we did the largest event in the history of the world. We had two and a half million people on day one live, like insane what we did. And we put his course in the hands of tens of thousands of people. They all loved it. They thank them to this day. They, people find them on the street and thank them. In fact, the last thing I'll say, I said to McConaughey, what'd you think of the whole experience? And he said, well, I thought you were crazy at first. I thought I'd never do something like this.

26:53I said, well, what do you think now? He said, uh, I realize it's the greatest experience of my life because my whole life I play. He said, my whole life I've played a character that was written by somebody else, directed by somebody else, edited by somebody else. He said, I got to play me. So when people come up, they don't go, I love the character. They say, thank you.

27:17that goes to my point from earlier brother which is that you get to play you see you're most fulfilled when you're expressing the real you and even someone like matthew mcconaughey who's had all these external accolades says it's the best experience of his life because he got to express him and that's when we're fulfilled i really believe probably the most un under pursued underspoken about part of fulfillment in life right now in the personal development industry is the level of fulfillment one feels when they're the fullest expression or the truest expression of themselves and serving people.

27:53And if you're looking for a pathway to have a little bit more juice in your life, peace, happiness, fulfillment, I believe that's the place to look. Am I expressing myself, my love, my gift, my knowledge, my information, my feelings, to the people around me, to the broader world in a way that fulfills me. And if you're not, if you're holding these things in, which is what most people do, they hold their feelings, they hold their thoughts, they hold what they believe in, they hold their opinions, they hold their knowledge, I believe you're dying. I believe that's the beginning of a death of our spirit.

28:29And I believe, not to be very faith-based here, but I really believe this, God did not make you for you to repress your greatness, for you to suppress your expression of you. You're not doing what I believe is God's will in your life when you suppress your stance, when you suppress your knowledge, when you cheat another human being out of the gift of you helping them. And I always say this, my life changed because my dad got sober, but my dad got sober because somebody helped him get sober. Another human being said, I can help you. And by the way, what qualified them wasn't they were this magnificent, perfect person.

29:10What qualified them is they at one time were also an alcoholic and a drug addict. And that's what was qualifying them. So ironically, the great pain they went through in their life was the qualifier to help other people. Perhaps that's what you should be looking at right now, my friend. Maybe this pain you've been through somewhere is the pathway for that expression to help other people and to your fulfillment. So having said that, failure is a great teacher as well. I've never asked you this, and we're good friends. Is there a major failure you could share if you were being vulnerable that changed your life, Dean?

29:42Any personal, professional, a failure where you went, yeah, that was one of the hardest times of my life, and thank God for it from the standpoint of growth, change, learning, whatever it might be. well you know ed i could share with you business failures that were the most painful thing that you just think it's over i know you've been there when you just think you screwed up i'm not smart enough why did i try to play this big game you know i'm from a blue collar small town in the east coast my dad worked on cars his father worked on cars my cousins worked on cars and i try to play a bigger game and when it failed the first couple of times i'm like see my dad was right and my cousins were right.

30:22I'm not smart enough for this. I don't have a degree. I don't have money. And that voice is always going to screw with you. And I'll just say, we all know we got two voices inside of us. The one that says you're meant for more, you can do anything, go for it. And the other one says, you're a fool. Why the hell would you try it? And I don't want to overplay something that you already know, but I just want to say, know that we all have two voices. Mine's still in there. And my voice that knowing I'm meant for more just outweighs the other one about 51, 49%. That's it. It's not a hundred. So that's a fact.

30:54So I could tell you about a couple of those failures that were tough, but if I'm going to be really vulnerable, the hardest experience of my entire life was going through a divorce, hands down. Um, and not the divorce itself. My, my ex and I agreed, uh, years prior that our relationship wasn't working and we knew it wasn't, but I be, I came from a, uh, nine divorces. My dad was married five times. My mom four moved a million times by the time I was 20 I moved 20 times different stepbrothers stepsisters I had a I had a step-grandfather named Leo Rizzo the guy took me fishing and hunting bought me a mongoose BMX bike this guy was so awesome taught me how to pheasant hunt one day come home from school our on the front yard it's like no more Leo Rizzo we're getting thrown out of the house so I lose my step-grandpa right I passed him for years I'd almost have tears in my eyes when I passed him because he was like this massive force in my life for six years and then gone overnight.

31:49Right. So I think I held on to all that stuff, Ed, and I didn't realize it. In fact, if you don't mind me being in person, I know we're talking about business and stuff, but, um, I went through such a tough time going through divorce. And when I dug in, I just stuffed all that down, all that pain. And what I did is just work my ass off. Excuse my language. I just worked harder than anybody else. And I said, no one's going to mess with my life. I will be so financially secure. No one's going to throw my stuff out. No one's going to tell me what to do. I'll be in control of my decisions. I'll retire my parents because my mom worked hard.

32:21I'm going to do whatever the freak it takes. So whenever I failed, I had that big why. So I'm building, I'm telling you all this not to brag, just I'm building, I got momentum, life's going good. And now all of a sudden we decide to get a divorce. And I think all those childhood things that I tucked into a box and put a lock on it, somebody asked me what happened I said the lock came off the box and Ed I went through I never told another human being I went through six months of anxiety never had anxiety in my life I was having panic attacks I didn't want to get on a plane I didn't want to get in an elevator I was popping a Xanax once a week just so I'd have one night a week that I could sleep I was so fragmented and I I'm just sharing this for if anybody has ever gone through this with your work or your career or your life or your relationship, it was so unglued that I thought to myself, wow, you made it to 47 years old or 45 years old and all the craziness of your childhood, you're done.

33:16This is it. Like I was, I was at a point where I didn't think I could come back. And I was like, I couldn't, I was just going through the motions and it made me realize my whole life in business. I went after the hard things. If I failed them, like this is what I'm going to learn the grit. I'll get through it. This one was crippling me. I didn't take the same patterns I had in business. I didn't apply it to my personal life. And when I did, I started focusing on what could be the solution. I'm going to share one more quick thing, Ed. My brain does visual things. And maybe this is somebody who might be going through it.

33:49I felt like my ship was in the bay, but it wasn't the bay I was supposed to be in. It was an okay bay. It was calm. There was other ships like mine, but I knew I was supposed to be out in the ocean. But between me and the ocean was a storm. This is the crazy stuff my brain was thinking about. And a million times I put my ship in the storm and it was so brutal that I just turned the ship back. And one day I said, I can't turn back anymore. And, and sailing through that storm, I honestly didn't think I was going to make it. I literally thought I was losing my mind. But in that my brain just kept going, how do I solve this?

34:22How do I, how do I get out of this pain? How do I focus on solutions? How do I take all of this and know my better version is on the other side of that. and I wrote down hundreds of things I could do to stop having anxiety. I did yoga, I did meditation, I went for walks, I did therapy. All these things weren't working but collectively and I'm gonna share one last thing. I thought what's one thing that could solve all of it and it was if I could become friends with my ex then all my fears of my kids not being allowed to come over, all the craziness my parents went through, they still don't like each other and I made a commitment to become friends with my ex.

35:00And the day I made the commitment, my boat was on the other side of the storm. We became dear friends. We went through a divorce. They call it conscious coupling. We're still dear friends. Our kids are thriving. But the only reason I'm sharing that is, you know, Lisa, my wife now, my ex is happier than she's ever been. I am madly in love. We have two more children. We have four total. She is my best friend. She is my, she is my everything. She is my power. She's the one that's, my business has grown. My life has grown. I never would have experienced that if I didn't go after that pain, that failure.

35:34And I thought, I'm just doing, I was feeling stuff like, and maybe this is too personal, Ed, but I was feeling like I'm just my dad. I'm doing exactly what he did. Like all this crazy stuff came in. And the only reason I share that is because if you're going through it, sometimes you gotta put the ship in the storm and you don't find the solution until you're in the thick of it. You don't find the answer. And on the other side is a level, a version of you that you don't recognize. The harder the storm, the more the transformation. So if, you know, so many people get stuck in a relationship or stuck in a career, that's enough.

36:07It pays the bills. The kids can go to college, but you're dying on the inside. I'm going to say freaking stop, like grab the wheel of the ship and turn into the freaking storm because we have to face it. We're either going to face the storm now or at the end your life like my dad who literally cries every time i see him because he never got out of the bay and i just will not allow that to happen in my life and the hardest one was thinking i was going to screw my kids up and that's the reason and now they are freaking thriving so i hope that all made sense brother come on three podcasts four podcasts ago that's my favorite moment we've had right there thank you for that wow really making me think right there i gotta tell you one thing he said in there that was important i want to ask you i'm actually doing a podcast later today on this on decision-making when you're having problems.

36:53And you know, one of my theories in my books is that you're one decision away from changing your life. Having said that though, you said something in there that was really critical. I want you to maybe just elaborate on a little bit more. When I am looking at the challenges of my life, you know, the quality of our life, you and I have both learned this is quality of the questions we ask ourselves a lot of the times. And I don't think people know what question to ask themselves when they're in crisis or they're in a real problem situation. And you asked an important one there, and I'd like you to elaborate on it because I think you do it intuitively now.

37:25But what most people do is they look at all these symptoms that are happening, and they don't go to the disease to solve it. And the powerful question you ask yourself there is, what's the one thing I could do that could change everything? It's called a catalyst decision. If I made this one decision or I took this one action, it's as good as taking 20 other smaller ones. And so do you do that when you're making decisions about putting an event on or solving a problem? Is that, because I think maybe you do it naturally and we think, oh, everybody does that, but most don't. It's that what's the one catalyst decision I can make right now that makes the gains that 20 other decisions wouldn't make?

38:04Such a great question. I have to tell you, I've done this in business so much and I didn't do it in my personal life up until that moment. And it gave me more empathy and more drive to be better at pushing people to uncomfortable action. I know you've watched this with my relationship with Lisa and getting through that. I've transformed, right, to what we did with, you know, our last 11 events have had over a million people. Like we're doing over a million people registered for our last 11 events in a row, right? It pushed me to do bigger, stronger things because more people need insight. More people need, you're not the cure.

38:43I'm not the cure. We just want to be the spark. We just want to show them an alternative way to think, not the magical money machine or the magical happy pill or the magical get skinny bill. No, there's just other ways to address the same thing. What that did by me experiencing that pain is I got to get better. I got to go bigger. I got to persuade people to take action more. It just drove me. But what I want to share is I was doing it intuitively in business, right? I'd say, what are the odds? What can I do? How do I solve this problem? I get to my personal life. I feel like a crippled. I feel crippled.

39:13Like I don't know what the hell to do. and I'll tell you what I did and maybe you could model this if you're listening right now and you're going through something. I wrote down all the things that I was afraid of. Now I know this sounds simple but please humble me here. I wrote down, I had a Sunday meeting with my children since they were three years old. Every Sunday was our Sunday meeting. Talk about life, what their experience, talk about everything at each phase. We went away in the summer for a month together. All the things that I did with my kids, I felt like all of those were going to go away.

39:44So I wrote down, I'm going to miss out on summer vacations. I'm going to miss out on Sunday meetings. What if I'm traveling? You know our travel schedule. What if I travel for a week and I come home and it's not my week? Am I going to go two weeks without seeing my nine-year-old son? And all these things were freaking me out. It was also freaking me out. What if she marries somebody or I marry somebody and it's like my parents didn't talk to each other. What if she talks behind my back and says, my parents hated each other so much they talk crap about each other so much I had to lie to them. So all of those things, I wrote down every one of them and I was on like I want to take a Xanax like I was so stressed and I wrote down what are the things I can do to solve them and I wrote down meditation work focus on solutions all the that we've learned and done every day and none of it was coming through and I was doing yoga and I was meditating and I was doing all the stuff I was interviewing people that went through divorce and and as I'm looking at all the things that stress me out and then all the things that I could potentially do all I kept saying is what is the one thing I know I went through it like the power of one, right?

40:43What is the one thing I could do that solves all of this? And I just kept writing it down. I'm like, if I am real friends, not fake friends, if I am really friends and I got her back, she's never going to take the kids away from me. She's never going to talk bad about me. She's never, she's never, she never, all of it went away. And I didn't just, I didn't just mess around. I wrote her 10 commandments. I said, we're, we're, let me just say, I will never talk behind your back ever to this day. I will never, even if I'm frustrated with something, no one will ever hear me say one bad thing about my ex.

41:17I said, I will never. I promised her ready for this one. I promised her that I would date someone for an entire year before I would bring them into the kid's life. A year later, I meet Lisa, the love of my life. I want to marry her in three months. I said, I made a commitment. I showed it to her. I said, we've got to wait a year. She did not meet my kids for one whole year. She wanted to every day. She's like, can I please me? And I'm like, no, I wrote these commandments. I'm going to stick to it. And I stuck to these things, Ed. And it's like, just like that. So if you're going through something in business and life, take, write down all the things you're stressed about, all the things that you could do to change it.

41:52And then look at the compound effect. What's one thing you can do that shifts everything. And, and you're right. I do that in business all the time. It's the first time I did it in my personal life. It's so good, brother.

42:06Let me ask you this, just a, your overall insights we talked about last time you were on i'm just curious where you stand on it now has nothing to do with what we've covered so far but you did talk about the times we're in the political times we're in what about the economic times we're in you know you're around some of the smartest people in the world through your work with tony and you know i hear mixed things like wow hey unemployment's low the stock market's at an all-time high maybe they're going to cut rates in april maybe this winter isn't as long as we thought i'm just curious you know where you what your gut is, because you don't know, you don't have a crystal ball, but you're one of the smartest people I've ever met.

42:43I'm not going to have you on my show and not ask you sort of what you see, because that helps people make decisions, right? So what do you see short term and long term for the economy? So what I'd say is I can only go by the way I feel, right? I, and this is sad to say, I don't have faith in other people's decisions. I should say I I have less faith in other people's decisions for the well-being of our country than ever before. I don't think people are making decisions for the overall well-being. I think we are stuck in this super left or super right and just winning. I think we are in this phase of winning and it is leaving here in America, probably all over the world.

43:25It is leaving people in the middle unsure. and when there's insecurity, when there's uncertainty, I surely cannot predict an economic shift because who knows, it's been the weirdest thing for the last couple of years, but I don't have faith, Ed, and it doesn't make me freak out. I'm not an extremist. I'm not paranoid. I'm not building a bunker. Not that there's anything wrong with building a bunker. If you want to build one, please do, but I don't have faith and it's actually dry. I don't have faith in the economy. I don't have faith where we're going. I don't think it's going to follow a normal pattern.

44:02And I just, there's been so much shift in the world that I don't think it's following what's happened in the past. And Tony and I have these deep conversations. He feels the same way. And what our, what our plan is, if we can't predict it, then we just got to go strong. We got to go harder and protect our family. If we do better, if we can help the people around us more. If we can help more people be lifted up, then we have the opportunity to just say, let's focus on us. Like more than ever, I'm focusing less on what everybody else is doing and more how I can achieve more impact more and do more because I don't think it's heading in a great direction, but that's just my personal opinion.

44:41No, that's why I want it. I want the you're on for those reasons, brother. And I'm, I'm, I, you know, I want to acknowledge one thing you. I see you a little bit more bold than I've seen you before. And I like it. That tells me you've got a lot of confidence in what you're doing and your plan and where you're taking your family. Speaking of that, two more things. You're around like I am. We've both been blessed to be around what most people would say are some of the most successful people in the world, whether, you know, you said McConaughey earlier, Tony Robbins, or, you know, the various people you guys bring into your events are the people that have achieved unbelievable things as a human on this earth, right?

45:21I've never asked you this on the show before. And actually, no one's ever asked me this, which is surprising. Is there something they have in common, these people who live uncommon lives? Because we know Matthew McConaughey's personality is very different than Tony Robbins, let's say, right? In certain ways, right? So these people who live uncommon lives, what do they have in common? Tough question, but I'd love to hear your answer. Yeah, no, it's a tough question, but it's a great question. And I don't want to oversimplify it, but even having the chance to hang out with McConaughey, right? You see Academy Award winning actor, bestselling author, and all the other things he's done that nobody sees behind the scenes, but even more so, he's an amazing husband, an amazing father.

46:10His wife was, we worked together for seven days straight in the room next door. Um, his wife sat next to him every single day. They worked, we got, we got the work done. So I would say the common thread, even seeing it in Matthew is a, is a, again, you're going to hear this and you know what it is. They all have a big purpose. They all have a big reason. Some people, and you got to be okay with this. Some, some people are running away from the dark, meaning, you know, Richard Branson, I had the blessing of sailing around his island and spending three hours just talking about life with him, right?

46:43You talk to somebody like that or Tony or McConaughey and all these other people, half of them are running away from a really painful childhood, but they still feel the pain. And I think some people go, no, I'm just going to, I'm going to let that go. Sometimes you got to leave the pain there to disturb you. Like just being honest. And maybe, maybe that's old school. Maybe in today's world, someone, a therapist might say, you're crazy, Dean. You got like, I'm still running away from not wanting to be my dad. I still work my ass. I have a big purpose. But sometimes you got, you need the dark side.

47:14I don't want to end up as him. That is my fuel. And plus I have a big purpose moving forward. So one is don't be afraid to use whatever it takes to get the rocket off the ground. If it's pain, use it. If it's, if it's leaving your life the way it is and seeing yourself at 87 years old, like my dad, unfortunately, and crying every day because you miss it. Use it, feel it, live it. And I see that common thread. The other common thread, there's lots of them, but they hustle. You said it earlier today. I mean, McConaughey, when he said, if we're going to do this, I'm doing it right. I said, you want to get together for a day?

47:49He's like, no. I said, all right, cool. You want to just do Zoom? He's like, no. He goes, no. I said, what do you want to do? He goes, I'm going to fly. I'm going to get a place next to you in Phoenix. I'm going to come to your office every day, 12 hours a day. Let's make it amazing. He came here for seven days. We sat in that room for seven days straight and crafted his course every single word. And he's like, Dean, you've been doing this longer than me. He's, he's such a student. That's another one. If I'm going to use McConaughey, so is Tony Robbins. He's like, dude, this is what you do. If we were doing a movie, you should be listening to me, but I'm doing your jam.

48:18What about this word? Should I put this before that? He was a student. He was a hustler, but man, this guy had a purpose behind them so I would say that's the common thread and in most everybody I meet you know what's interesting the thing the third thing you added is the one people don't talk about and what I'm blown away by is the successful people have asked me to coach them I mean really successful people that have run big things how devout they are as students uh they show up literally to meetings with notepads and a pen to write notes down and it isn't it mind-blowing when you meet somebody And you're like, my gosh, yeah, it is.

48:55It's one of the things that's a secret is their desire to learn and their humility mixed with their confidence. They're super confident people, but their humility to say, I want to extract from you what you know or have that I don't know or have. And they take it much more seriously than most people do. It's one of those hidden little things. I feel like I have it. I still read. I still study. I'm watching you today. How do you lay out your points? how you paused a couple times when I asked for reflection like I look at everything whereas I think most people just see the surface they just they don't really study success if I jump in here real quick though and I would bet to say hands down in my life and and I know when yours too is when you develop the pattern of not only how to do things but who has already done it and modeling proven practices.

49:49Again, you've heard it a million times. I'm not trying to tell you something. Let me just be a reminder service for you today. But there is no reason on this planet to figure anything out or start at first base when you can model proven practices and start on third base. That is the fastest way to get from where you are to where you want to be. Yep. Chinese proverb that I keep quoting lately. If you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. That's the world we live in today. That's the world we live in. I love it. All right, everybody. Dean, I love you. Make sure you all register. It's June 13th through 15th.

50:21Register now. Deanandtonylive.com forward slash Ed. I got to think there's not going to be a lot more chances to be an event like the game has changed with you and Tony live for no cost. I doubt that's going to exist much longer. Yeah, this might be. It's fun. And we're having the time of our lives. But our lives have gotten so complex and so busy. This might be the last one. And that's not a scarcity play. It's just a reality. And we're just in a place. Listen, Tony's in a place in his life, just like you are, Ed. We feel blessed to say we don't have to do anything anymore. We could retire and go sit on a beach, and we're working harder than we've ever worked because it's a time when people need us the most.

50:59And this week, we've been in this industry 70-plus years collectively, but we've been helping people unlock their asset that lives in their brain and turn it into a course, a training, a program, turn it into an asset to sell for this is our sixth year. I'm saying if you're going to eventually do your own thing or you already are and you're not including understanding what a knowledge product is, what an information product is, then do whatever it takes to show up at the event. It's Tony and I. We got some amazing guests coming. And over three days, we're going to pull back the curtain and show you how this could be something spectacular in your life.

51:33Thank you, brother. Today was something spectacular in my life and in the lives of millions of people are going to hear this and watch it. So I love you. Thank you for being here today. and God bless you all everybody. Share this episode. Max out your life. This is the Ed Myron Show.