The Dangerous Weapon You Use Against Yourself | Ed Mylett

25:31I got to a new promotion or I have started a business. There's something new. And then that extra can, I think anxiety can hit. Are you experiencing any of that? And what are you dealing with it? What's the solution? Like this is such an incredible story and like a brag on who you are and your heart. But after the, the book surpassed everything. And I, for months after it came out, really struggled. It was very overwhelming for me. And I, if you can't tell, I'm a fixer. Yeah. And I don't like to live in a state of any kind of suffering. So for months, I'm, I'm struggling and I can't get past it.

26:07And I read every book and I'm listening to the pot, I'm trying to everything and I can't. And it was something you said on your podcast one day that really resonated with me. And it was like, it was the answer to prayer. after months of searching. You said something like with professional athletes that you had coached, that there comes a time in their lives and careers where the success surpasses the vision that they had for themselves. And they will unintentionally start to self-sabotage because they're so uncomfortable with where they are. And that was me. And I was like, holy crap. And it was as simple as you were like, dream a bigger vision.

26:47You need a bigger vision. so that was such a gift but navigating this has been has been a lot yeah and it does feel like holy smokes this is a lot of responsibility and i do now i have worked my butt off to get here yes but i also believe god gave me this platform and so that is a massive responsibility and i want to do that well yes um so yeah it's a lot to it's a lot to navigate and i want to acknowledge that you're the right person and you were chosen to do this and you are special like your whole existence has prepared you for this moment like I really believe that about you and one of the other things I've told you is that I also want to help you like I I I also think the other thing when you step into that new space is to dream that bigger vision and also to seek out and surround yourself with people who are going to support you and believe in you and push you and hold you accountable and don't be afraid to ask for their help people like me people like you at the right time.

27:48We want to be there for you. I want to help you create this change because you're pioneering, you're trailblazing. Like in, in, in five years and in 10 years, there are going to be other, there are not going to be another you, but they're going to be other women in this space, creating a movement, making a difference, but you're really doing it right now. Right. And I'm so, I'm so proud of you. And people today are seeing why, like you're just a reservoir of realness, but also like real depth, real information, this content, you don't hear other places. And so that was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Milet show on Apple and Spotify.

28:24Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I have to tell you something. Today is a topic I've wanted to discuss on the show since it started. And I've been looking for an expert. I've been looking for the right person to deliver this information. Today's topic is happiness and well-being. Longevity of your life as well, because they're correlated. And there is a study that is called the study of adult development, which is the single most fascinating study of my lifetime. I can't even believe this study exists. I literally can't. It's fascinating what they've been able to do here.

29:00And the man who was the current director of that study is my guest here today. He's also among many of his accomplishments. He's the professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. So he must know a little bit about what he's talking about, right? And we're going to talk today about the all-time amazing study, 85 years long, by the way, guys, almost, on happiness with real evidence. This stuff is not going to be opinion. This is evidentiary information. So Robert Waldinger, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Thank you. I'm really glad to be here. You have to start out and take your time, please, by explaining the study, first of all, because it's mind-blowing what the four directors, I think there's been four directors of the study, if I'm correct, what has been able to happen in tracking these people, who they are, how it started.

29:44Let's elaborate on that first. Sure. So the study started in 1938 and it is the longest study of the same people across time that's ever been done. 724 original people then brought in spouses, brought in children. So now we have two generations, over 2000 people who've been studied year after year for their whole lives. And that's what's so unusual. Most research gets done in snapshots, just taking a snapshot today of something. And so what's rare is that the study has continued. Usually studies close down because too many people drop out. Do you want me to tell you a little bit about what's in the study?

30:32Yeah, the first thing I think is first, because it's two very different groups of people that you studied, these men. I think it's important to know the backgrounds of the people that were studied so that the information is applicable to the people listening or watching. Absolutely. So, started out with one very privileged group and one very underprivileged group. The privileged group was a group of Harvard College sophomores, 19 year old guys who their deans thought were fine, upstanding young men. And they want it was a study of sort of normal development from adolescence into young adulthood.

31:06So, you know, of course, if you want to study normal development, you study all white guys from Harvard. Like, you know, we're possibly having to explain to NIH why they should still fund us. And then the other study was started at Harvard Law School, and it was a study of juvenile delinquency, but it was a study of how some children from Boston's poorest and most troubled families, how those kids were able to stay on good developmental paths and not get into trouble. And so it was a study of thriving, but a study of children who were born with so many strikes against them. Yeah. The fascinating part is some of those neighborhoods are where I was born.

31:51And so what's what drew. Yeah, that. Yeah. Right. So that's what drew me to this study is because I'm at a stage of my life now where I do interact with people that have come from privileged backgrounds in their life. And obviously, I have some privilege based on, you know, my ethnicity, etc. But to interact with different people, and I've always had this fascination to people from these wealthy backgrounds or privileged backgrounds end up being happier than people from a not so privileged background or a neighborhood like where I grew up. And the data is... Do you want the spoiler or no? Yeah, let's do the spoiler first.

32:25And then we're going to talk about what actually leads to real happiness, everybody, today. But spoiler alert is what? I'm really open to knowing myself. Okay. The spoiler is that the well-to-do privileged people were not on average happier than the inner city underprivileged group. No different. Well, no different though. So the underprivileged group wasn't necessarily happier than the privileged group either though, correct? That's correct. That's correct. And there was variation. We had some really happy people in both groups, some really unhappy people in both groups and everything in between.

32:59Okay, so one last thing I want everybody to understand, then we're going to get to the data. Because listen, ultimately, the game of life, I had a situation happen. I'll share this with you. Several years ago, I've had the good fortune of building wealth in my life. And I was building this very beautiful mansion, the first one I ever built. And it was a very stressful day. And I was in a bad mood. And I was angry. And I walked into what was the kitchen of this home that was being built for me. Really angry with the contractor and life. And, you know, you just all about me in the moment. And as I walked in, the gentlemen that were working on my kitchen, the Finnish carpenters were all people from Mexico, men from Mexico.

33:39And they had their mariachi music playing and they were dancing and singing and doing work that they were excellent at doing and loving their craft and being good at it and enjoying the company and the other relationships of the other men that were working with them. And I remember watching them thinking they're not making any money. They're sending most of this money back home to their family just to survive. Frankly, probably most of them aren't even in our country legally at the time. And I remember thinking to myself, if the game of life is happiness, they're winning and I'm losing. And it was a really watershed moment for me in my life that I think this work really points to as well.

34:19And so that's why your work matters so much to me. One last thing I want to have them understand, too, is the nature of the study, everybody. I'll let you elaborate, but this is not just about sending somebody a survey and they answer it back. Some of the intimacy of even the connections that you have with these people in their homes even. So elaborate on that so they know the depth of the study. Oh, yeah. So when they came into the study, you know, all boys and young men, workers went to their homes, interviewed their parents, wrote notes about what was being served for dinner, what the disciplinary style was, all those things.

34:54And then elaborate medical exams of the young men, psychological exams. And then as they went through their lives, we began to bring online different methods of studying well-being. So audiotaping them, videotaping them, talking to their partners about their biggest fears. We drew blood for DNA, which I think is so cool because in 1938, DNA wasn't even imagined. And here we were studying it, putting people in the MRI scanner and scanning their brains while we showed them different pictures. We brought them into our laboratory and deliberately stressed them out and then saw how they recovered from stress.

35:40So all of this as different angles on the same big question about what makes people thrive as they go through life. How do you measure happiness? That was the last thing I wanted to understand. How do you know if they're happy? Well, we asked people. That's one way. But, you know, we had people who said they were happy but didn't look happy. So we asked other people, do you think your partner's happy? Do you think your dad's happy? You know, so we asked that. We also videotaped them, like, having an argument with their partners and then watched, like, how angry did they get? Was their affection still there?

36:17so we we did all kinds of things as a way to get at happiness from different angles it's amazing you guys i told you all so here we go now we're going to get into it now we've laid the groundwork so what's it turn out let's just let's it's not a complete spoiler alert because there's so many layers to this but what makes one happy is it the pursuit of a goal is it wealth achievement religion? What are the things that you found make somebody happy? Yeah. Well, we found that it wasn't those things. So it wasn't wealth. It was not achievement. It wasn't fame. And we had people who had all those things in our study.

36:58Some other people, we had John F. Kennedy. We had Ben Bradley, longtime editor of the Washington Post. And I can only tell you those names because they talked about it themselves. ourselves otherwise we protect everybody's privacy but wealth fame achievement didn't do it religion didn't do it now what that means is it didn't mean that they made you unhappy it meant that wealth fame high achievement religion are simply different from well-being different from happiness okay now that said what that means is we have famous people who were happy famous people who were unhappy all the way down the line right um now that said what we also know is that having your basic material needs met is crucial to your happiness so interesting like when they do studies of this um they've studied well how much does your happiness go up as you make more money.

37:59And what they find is that your happiness does go up until you reach about$75 ,000 a year annual household income. This is a few years ago in the US. But basically to have your basic needs met. And then after that, as you make more and more money, up to 75 million, a billion, your happiness doesn't go up much, a little bit, not really very much. Interesting. And that's important. I like the distinction you made. What is important, too, is that happiness is an emotion. So as your wealth goes up, you may potentially be able to contribute more, give more or things of that nature, protect people. So it's not that there aren't positive emotions correlated with achievement or wealth, but happiness turns out not to be one of them.

38:49Well, you know, and let me qualify that a little bit, Ed, because it's important. So getting a badge of achievement. So the ultimate achievement, what, the Nobel Prize, doesn't make you happier or less happy. But doing work that's meaningful to you, that does make you happy. That is a source of fulfillment. Okay. So it's not the badge itself, but doing the work. So let's say, you know, you're bringing a lot of ideas to a lot of people. And I expect that means something to you. I expect you care about that. You're right. and we think of that as a source of well-being a source of happiness well i think it's correlated to where you're going though i i think contribution involves something in life which is other human beings and so the nature of your work is so profound because if people can really understand this they can link it back to the contributions and achievements of their life because they involve where you believe real wealth comes from after this study which is where i want you to really elaborate on this because i think everyone needs to hear this this is it guys like this is a moment in many of your lives where it's going to confirm what you intuitively, probably what you already probably think, but maybe needs confirmation and maybe needs more intention, a little bit more focus.

40:09I think sometimes I'm going to be more intentional about getting more money, or I'm going to be more intentional about getting a bigger house or getting this promotion. And when I get there, then I'm going to be happier than I am now. And we put our intentions there, potentially most of our lives and many of the people in the study missing the very thing that would have brought them the emotion everyone on earth wants more of they you don't want the jet you want the jet because you think it'll make you happier you don't want to be fit and super ripped and attractive you think it'll make you happier and so what we're really seeking that conversation behind everything in my opinion is we want to be happier and and so what is that thing you you go ahead and elaborate?

40:52Well, that thing is our relationships with other people. What we found studying these thousands of lives is that the people who had the warmest connections with other people and who made that a priority in their lives, they were happiest as they went through their lives, but also they stayed healthiest and they lived longer. Interesting. And that's the thing, actually, We didn't believe that when we started to find it. In the 1980s, our data began to show this, and we thought, oh, this might be a fluke. This might not be real. And then other studies began to find the same thing. Because the question was, I mean, it stands to reason, I'll be happier if I have happy relationships.

41:36But how could good relationships make it less likely that you get coronary artery disease or type two diabetes or arthritis? Like how could that be? So now we've been spending the last 10 years in our lab and many other labs have been studying this, trying to understand how do relationships actually get into your body and shape your physiology. And so that's what we're studying. Is it the amount of relationships you have or the quality of the ones that you maintain in your life? It's not the amount. So there's no set number. Like one of the things we know is that we're all like, some of us are introverts, shy.

42:19Some of us are extroverts. No, nothing wrong with being shy. And we know that, that introverts want fewer people in their lives that being with a lot of people is exhausting for introverts. And that's perfectly healthy and normal. So there's no set number of friends or connections you should have. What we do believe is that everybody needs at least one or two relationships that where they feel like this person will be there for me if I really need them. That at one point we asked our original participants, we said, who could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared. List everybody.

43:03And most of our folks could list, you know, several people, but some of them could not list anyone. And some of those people were married and they couldn't list anyone. No way. Wow. Yeah. So we think that everybody, whether you're shy or a party animal, you need at least one or two people who are your go-to safety net people. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on with the show. There's something unique about you, Ed, that no one else, and I'm not saying this because you're here.

43:39I don't think I've said this to anyone on the show. There's something unique about you that I don't think I've ever experienced around anyone else. There's an essence. There's a presence. There's a power, a command, an authority, a humble confidence. There's like this essence about you. Thank you. And I'm really curious. what do you think made you you? What were the elements growing up that made you all the things you are now? Was it the, you know, pre-13, kind of everything that happened with your parents? Was it stuff more from school? Was it a relationship that really kind of flipped these things on for you?

44:17What were the elements early on that made you this commanding, kind presence today? Well, thank you for that. I, uh, thank you. That's nice to hear. I, um, cause by the way, I love people that have that combo. Like I love people, a lot of self-confidence, a lot of humility. Cause people, a lot of humility that have no self-confidence, you're kind of dragging them through life as a friend. Someone with all their self-confidence, no humility, they're going to burn out. They're going to make a mistake. They're not curious. They don't grow. I think that, I think even the reason I'm in the personal development space, why do I believe so much that people can change?

44:47I watched my dad do it. And then in my case, I had to learn these things, man, to be like a base. line functioning person. So my default personality is insecure. Even today? Even today. Come on. Very much. Really? Very much. How is that default? You wake up and you say, I'm a nobody or what? I lack this. I'm fooling everybody. Really? They really knew, you know, pretty, some imposter syndrome mixed with just like tremendous. I was bullied as a kid. My dad was an alcoholic. I I wasn't a real big guy. The only thing I wasn't good in school, the only thing I was good at was sports. A lot like with you, you were a great athlete.

45:29So my default is tons of insecurity. So that's probably never going to go away, the humility part. So the part that I've worked on really hard is the self-confidence part. And so I've got all this stuff in the book on those tips and what have I done to build it? Because I had to get there just to get to baseline. And then I'm like, this stuff works. What if I refined it and made it my own and started to build these other strategies and stuff. So the confidence part is the thing I'm always going to have to work on. Even today, even with all the success and the massive show and the big businesses and all the homes and everything that people see, what else do you need, though, to feel more confident?

46:05I don't need other things. It's an internal game. I don't need other stuff. In other words, the stuff is really fleeting and temporary. So I don't need another, you know, I bought an island lately. You know that, right? When I bought this island, They didn't make me more confident. It just was something that I've always wanted to be able to do. But it's not stuff. What needs to happen for me is that I'm most confident when I'm living in my intention, which is to serve, which is to help other people. When I'm not doing that, Wayne Dyer, when I met him really, really young, told me, you're going to change the world, Ed Milet.

46:38And I'm sure he said this to a lot of people, but he complimented me. I met him on a beach. We watched the sun come up together. In Maui. Yeah, I was running on the beach. That's where he lived. Yeah, I was running on the beach. What was he like? I never met him. Incredible. So we became a dear friend of mine. But I'm running. You know, you get up before the sun comes up. I'm running on this. I'd won this incentive trip. And there's this bald dude running towards me with this hairy back. I'll never forget this sweaty, hairy back. And it was so long ago because I had a Sony Walkman on. Wow. And he had one.

47:06And he ran by me. I go, that was Wayne Dyer. And I said, Dr. Dyer, you changed my life. And he had this deep voice like mine. And he pulls it up and he goes, well, I doubt that. Wow. And he goes, I bet you changed your life. But he goes, how did I help you? And then he walked towards me and I get emotional. Like God's been so good to me. We sat on this beach together and watched the sun come up for about an hour and a half. And about an hour into it, he goes, you're going to change the world. And I'm sure he said this to a lot of people. And he's like, you're very talented. You're brilliant. You're a good communicator.

47:39And he goes, and that's not the reason why. And he was writing a book at that time called The Power of Intention. That's a great book. Great book. Incredible book. And he goes, you really intend to help people. And he goes, all these things with your father and your upbringing and all that, Ed, he goes, that's all made you. And he goes, you have such a heart to want to help people. And he goes, would you do me a favor if we never meet again? And we ended up meeting many times. I said, yeah. And he said, never link your confidence to your ability. Because I know you struggle with your confidence.

48:07If it's predicated on your abilities or your achievements, you're always going to be chasing it. he goes but if you'd link your confidence to your intentions man do you have beautiful intentions and that is something i knew about me i know i have a good heart and i've never forgotten that so when i do a podcast or a speech i just connect to my intent you know and it's it's been the one thing that's brought me confidence because if you said hey and you'd be confident because you're great or you got a house or you have a plane i go yeah but yeah but but if you go you got to be confident because you have beautiful intentions to help you but i go i'm about to list you might You might be right.

48:42And that's where my confidence comes from. So as an athlete, I gained confidence from results, from actually getting the result of becoming better. I was not good. I was not good. And then I put in the effort and all the mistakes or the failures of the feedback, what I like to call it, gave me the lessons and taught me how to get better to accomplish the result that I was looking for. Achieve the goal, win the game, or just improve my abilities. So what I'm hearing you say is also link confidence to intention. Some people say link it to the effort, right? Like the effort that you show up, that you just keep showing up.

49:18And others talk about the results. Should we be thinking about it? I call it the holy trilogy in the book of self-confidence. What is this? But the confidence trilogy is faith, have confidence. So if you're a person of faith, no matter what you believe in, it's amazing to me how people that believe in energy, quantum energy, or they believe in they're a Christian like me, and I believe in both, by the way, but whatever their faith is, that they have it on Sunday, they have it at Bible study, or they have it when they get together with their friends or when they meditate, but somehow when they walk into a business meeting, they're alone.

49:49So why are you alone then, but you're not alone these other times? So I'm never alone. So that's number one. Number two is my intention. And third is my associations change my confidence. But here's the biggie. If you don't have self-confidence, here's what you have. You have a really bad reputation with yourself. Yes. You have built a habit of not keeping the promises you make to yourself. We've all heard this before, but there's a level. I have a chapter in the book called One More Standard. Here's how I built what I would call almost superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. Think about that.

50:18Superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. And it's exactly what you just said. It's an effort play. If you don't have self-confidence, you've never kept the promises you make to yourself. Check that box. If you have self-confidence, you've started to keep the promises you make to yourself. So if you want to have superhuman self-confidence, you keep the promises you make to yourself and one more. So if I'm going to get up and I'm going to work out and I'm going to do 10 reps in the gym, I do one more. If I'm going to do 45 minutes on the treadmill, I do one more. If I'm going to make 10 contacts in a day, I do that and one more.

50:48If I'm going to tell my daughter I love her every day, I'm going to do that and one more. And so that higher standard, because in life we don't get our goals, we get our standards long term. And so if your standard is one more, what starts to happen is you go, I'm willing to do things other people aren't willing to do. And I combine that, that I have great faith, great associations, and I intend to help people. This is a formula to build wonderful self-confidence and never lack humility when you have it. So when did you learn this one more mindset? Was this from your dad early on or was this? From my dad.

51:20So we talked about this a little bit earlier, but my dad had these couple of theories he would always say to me. And so one was when he got sober, he gave it one more try. He was going to stay sober one day at a time. And then my dad, there's no dreaming in my house. There's no like, my jet, you know, I've been blessing like multiple airplanes, right, in my life. My jet was in almost walking distance of my dad's house. He's never been on any of them. Wow. And I would say to my dad, I would say, hey, let's go play golf in Maui. Let's go. There's these great golf courses in the ocean. And my dad would say, well, why would I go all the way to Maui to play golf with my favorite person, my son, when we can play here in Chino?

51:54It's not about there. I want to be with my son. So my family had none of that stuff. But my dad knew I was a dreamer. And my dad would always say, you know, I was one decision away from changing my life the whole time. One choice. And he'd say, Eddie, you're not as far away from these dreams as you think you are. And I'd say, really, Dad? And he'd go, no, you're actually a lot closer than you think. But because you think it's so far away, you behave in accordance with that belief system. And it always keeps it that far away from you. So how do we bring our dreams closer to us? The first thing is, that's a great question.

52:28The first thing is you need to believe and know that you're one decision, one relationship, one meeting, one book, one thought, one something away from a completely different life. And when you know that, then you begin to look for them. And so in the second chapter of the book, I have a thing in the book called the matrix. And your matrix is your reticular activating system in your brain. It's the filter for your entire life. Okay. And this filter reveals to you the world that's in front of you. Again, an example of it is, I like what Musk is doing. So I just bought a Tesla. I drove it here today.

52:58I got a Tesla too. You do? Model X or what do you got there? I got a Plaid. Okay, wow. I got a Plaid. It's a good one. Nice. And so I bought this Plaid. And all of a sudden, man, everywhere I go, there's Teslas. You see them everywhere. Oh, yeah. I'm like, whoa. I see them everywhere. The other one. Three lanes over, other side. Freaking Tesla. This is crazy. They were always there. Why didn't I see them before? Because they weren't part of my RAS. So the key thing I teach you in the book, how to slow down time and create the matrix Teslas of your life, those relationships, those meetings, those thoughts, those encounters.

53:27You can very easily do this, but there's a process of repeated visualization you do that's not complicated. It's chapter two of the book, and it will shift you. The other component too, I have a chapter in the book called Become an Impossibility Thinker and a Possibility Achiever. Here's how most people's frame works. They don't have an RAS program. They're not intentional, so they keep getting. If the things most important to you are your worries, fears, anxieties, problems, bills, You will continue to have people, places, and things revealed to you that confirm it. And if you operate out of your memory and your history, if this is your pattern, your framework, you will continue to find those things.

54:00You need to learn to operate out of your imagination and your dreams. This is a different framework for life. Imagination is different than dreaming. Imagination causes you to create dreams and thoughts that never happen. When you imagine something, you create a space. Once you have a thought, this is powerful. When you have a thought, you create a space that did not exist in the world before you had that thought. And that space now exists. And the way your brain works and your life works and the universe works is it tries to furnish that space, whether it's a negative or a positive thought. It starts to hear things it wouldn't hear.

54:32That's why, like, when you're in a crowded room and they say, Lewis, you can hear Lewis auditorily over all the noise. Why? It's in your RAS. It's why you see the Tesla. Okay? So the key thing is being able to operate out of this imagination. Why is imagination so important? When you were a child, three, four, five years old, you were probably happier than you are right now. Why? Two reasons. A, you were closer to God. You had just been with God more recently. And two, you operated out of your imagination. You didn't operate out of a history and a memory because you didn't have one. And slowly over time, by the time you were 10, 11, 12 years old, loving people installed their limiting thoughts and beliefs, their software into you.

55:10Because most things in life are caught, not taught. You catch them. Wow. And so now you're starting to operate of history and memory, and you repeat it, and your RAS begins to see the things that reinforce that history and memory. And so you basically have the same life over and over again with a different cast of characters in a different environment, but the same emotions. You have the same emotional home. My dad used to say to me, every call, bro, until the day he died and I'm 50 years old, blah, blah, blah, whatever we're talking about, last thing he would always say to me, be careful. Be careful.

55:52What the heck? And I go, risk. Don't take that business decision. Don't start a podcast. Don't get on that stage and speak. Don't do this. Don't do that. You say that to an already unconfident, insecure person. He meant it lovingly. By the time I'm 50 worth hundreds of millions of dollars, be careful. He didn't even know he was saying it to me, but what was he doing? He was installing, God bless him, his limiting beliefs into me as a little boy. So a lot of these things that you believe, you were defenseless when you started to believe them. They were installed in you by loving people who were around you.

56:22And even though your life may look differently, your emotional home, the four, five, six emotions you experience pretty regularly, might be very familiar from your parents, one or two of them, right? And so you need to look at your emotional home. What's your most powerful emotion and the emotion that you wish you could let go of? Love is the most powerful emotion in the world. We will all do everything for love. If there were more love in the world, the way we treat one another, the way we express our thoughts, you know, you'll do anything for love, right? So love is by far my most powerful emotion.

56:53It's like, I love you. And like when I just saw you, we didn't just, like people, we didn't just hug for like one second. And you do this better than I do. I hold people, I make it uncomfortable because I just want to hug and love on people. But it's not uncomfortable, bro. Because the reason you're so successful is you truly do love people. And you come from that place. And I know we're bigger dudes and like, that's a beautiful expression of a man. A real man is capable of real love. That's the sign of real strength. So that's the most powerful one. And then for me, I know the emotion that I wish I didn't have.

57:25It's chaos. Really? How often do you experience chaos? Less because I'm aware of it. But I'm going to tell you all the time until about five years ago, even when we first met. Why? I used to even say this. Man, I operate great under chaos. Man, you should see me operate under chaos. Most people can't handle chaos. I'm calm under pressure. Well, the reason for that was I grew up in an alcoholic home. So I'm very familiar with chaos. us. It became a very familiar emotion. And what we do is we gravitate towards the familiar emotions in our life, even if they're not ones that serve us. And I don't think there's negative or positive emotions.

57:58I say this in the book. There just are. Fear isn't negative. Fear in abundance is negative. But some fear, being afraid to do this podcast, to some extent causes us to prepare. So a dose of it, it was given to us in the caveman days, so T-Rex didn't eat us, right? So some fear is good. Some anxiety is okay. Some frustration, some anger is appropriate. It's to the dosage level. And we get these four or five of them. For me, some chaos is okay. It's fun. It's exciting. It's exhilarating, right? But getting it every day, every week, every month, all the time. And so how do you get rid of it? Well, one way you get rid of it is just be awareness.

58:34When you have an awareness of a thought, it loses its impact and power over you. It almost becomes like this, I'll do it. I'm like, I'm doing it again, aren't I? I'm doing the chaos. Everything's great right now. All the houses are paid off. My kids are happy. Married to a great woman. Got great friends. I'm doing the chaos thing again, aren't I? You dummy. You're doing it again. And it kind of loses its power over you. So I have a chapter in the book called One More Emotion and how to take an inventory of the emotions you have. And so, yeah, man, mine's definitely love. And the one I don't want is chaos.

59:03Because chaos causes me to act out of anger and frustration. It can depress me. And your intentions are not going to be as, I guess. It's pure. It's a gateway emotion. Chaos is my gateway emotion to the ones I don't want. Chaos gives me stress. Chaos gives me anger. Chaos gives me frustration. Chaos gives me fear. So it's a gateway emotion. What is the result when you create from that space of chaos? It's funny. I have found the ability to externally create something pretty productive. Right. But stay with me on this. But the process in getting there is destructive. The process in getting there is not beautiful.

59:38And I used to think, and a lot of successful people. It's like forcing your way to get the results. Almost through force. Yeah. And I still do it sometimes. I'm thinking of a situation this week where I did it. And I used to think, well, that's a superpower, though, because I've created all these external. Look what I made. Look what I did. And I'm doing it because of that. The truth is I did it in spite of it. You did. And there's a lot of things in our lives that we have linked to our formula, our recipe of success that we hold on to, that you've done in spite of those things, not because of those things.

1:00:08So you're 51 now? 52, 51? When you were 40, on a scale of one to 10 of the self-confident happiness joy scale, 10 being like you loved yourself fully, you were peaceful, you had an abundant mindset, you had inner peace, joy. One being you hated yourself, you were miserable, you were in chaos 24-7. Where were you on that scale at 40? Okay. The real answer is probably a three of happiness. Uh-huh. And but if you met me, I could convince you that it was probably an eight. That you were super happy and you had to get it. Yeah, probably a three. And since your father passing, where are you now? Probably a nine.

1:00:50Really? Yeah. And I no longer feel the need to convince you. Uh-huh. Because I've learned that this has already existed within me. I didn't have to go get it. I just had to allow myself to experience it. and it took me a long time to treat myself in such a way that I allowed myself to feel these things that have always been there. I had them when I was a little baby boy. I just lost them along the way in these patterns and programs that were installed in me and my experiences. I've got to share something with you, brother, that just dawned on me. I wrote this whole book and two weeks ago, this is just for me and you, but everybody can hear it.

1:01:25Sure. And I've always tried to disqualify myself. I've always you're not this why is that it always shocks people even people that know me really well they're like not you I have that but there's no way you have it right yeah you're too confident too talented too and I don't know that I'm too talented but I think I can fake it pretty well and I disqualify myself because you know the truth is that maybe for a while everything that I got that was loved when I was a child only came when I achieved something So I started to conflate early on in my life, recognition and significance with love. In other words, my dad would love me if I hit the home run.

1:02:04My dad would love me if I get straight A's. And so then when I would feel these things. But something really amazing, and also like, I'm really big at holding myself, I love to beat myself up with mistakes I've made. I did this, I did that. I should have done this, I didn't do that. And I've always thought these mistakes, these weaknesses of mine, disqualify me from being happy or helping people. And this amazing breakthrough. The one decision that changed my family forever is my dad's decision to get sober. And it changed my family forever. I'm talking to you because my dad made that decision.

1:02:38And I've always been so proud of my dad for that. But this is just two weeks ago, 3.15 in the morning. I wake up, I'm crying. And I wake Christiana up. I go, babe, someone helped a dad. And she went, what, honey? I said, someone helped a dad. She goes, what do you mean? I said, babe, I never thought about this. And my dad's darkest, worst moment of his life in some coffee shop or some room somewhere, some precious soul helped my dad. Reached out to him, talked to him. Talked to him and got him sober. Wow. And I said, babe, that's not the powerful part. And I have no idea who this person is, but I wonder if they know the difference they made in Max and Bella's, my children's lives, or your life, or the millions of people I've helped.

1:03:20That one decision they made. And she goes, oh my gosh. I said, I never thought about this beautiful human being. Always gave the credit to my dad, but some stranger helped him. And I said, babe, this is the bananas part. Do you know what qualified them to help my dad? Their messed up life. They were an alcoholic. They were a drug addict. Little did that person know the things they were the most ashamed of, the biggest mistakes of their lives when they were using drugs and drinking and stealing. That was qualifying them to change my dad's life. and all of us, we run around carrying these bags of, I'm not qualified because I made this mistake.

1:03:56I had this bankruptcy. This relationship didn't work. I did this thing you don't know about. I'm so ashamed of. And that's why you're qualified. That's the thing that qualifies you. Yeah. The humanness in you. You are the only human being with your combination of gifts that you were given, whatever they are, and your experience. And real human beings help real human beings by being vulnerable and transparent saying, I know where you are. I've messed up worse. Right. I've made greater mistakes. I felt more. I know that depression. I know that anxiety. I know that shame. I know what that feels like.

1:04:29That beautiful soul who was a drug addict and alcoholic, they didn't know all those mistakes they're making were leading them out of their heart. And they finally got to a point where their intention was to help my father. In the lowest moment of his life, they changed my dad's life and their changed mind. And maybe me and you were changing a few today because of that person's mess. It's crazy. Is that crazy? That's amazing. I know. I know. Love them and thank them. That's amazing, man. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify.

1:05:04Links are in the show notes. Now onto our next guest. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I have a man here who's become such a dear friend of mine and a trusted advisor. I've only had one other person on the show three times. So you are now breaking a record, brother. You are a ratings machine. But more importantly, you bring such value every time you're here. And when we're done talking every single time we've done this, I go, oh my gosh, this is going to get millions of downloads because it made me better. And every time I'm with you, I feel better. I smile more. I feel better about myself.

1:05:37And I learn things about how to win, how to succeed, how to persevere. So Dean Graciosi, welcome back to the show, my brother. It's so good to be here. And I have to tell you, you're the best. You're the most gracious host ever. And to this day, still, our two podcasts. Yep. Every day. I send you some of them. Every day, I'm like, best podcast ever, best podcast. And I've been on a lot. And it's because you're so gracious, because you care so much. And the reason people are following you and listening, and I know I'm speaking for the people listening, is because they know you care. Thank you. They know that you have me here for a third time, not for any other reason, except you think it will bring more value.

1:06:13And I hope I hope I don't let everybody down. You got a lot of options. You're here with us. It'll bring more value to them. And that's why I love your success. I love how your book is crushing it. Thank you. The world needs more. Ed, there's a lot of talk and personal about breaking patterns. I talk about all the time. You do. Tony does. There's also a lot of power in leveraging them. And this idea, there's two things that are going to move. Every human being. Dean's told you it's either to avoid pain moving from pain or to gain pleasure absolutely and Usually most human beings I think in general pain avoidance is the stronger of the mechanism But it works for both people you need to know which one moves you so you've already said yours is pain avoidance Yep, right.

1:06:51So is mine. The truth is I've become a pretty big dreamer visionary guy, but I wasn't Yeah, it took me a long time to get there long time to get there And the fact is I only really got really good at that after certain dreams were achieved But why I had to figure out which one moves me more? Okay? Avoiding pain moves me more even to this day Why it's more familiar to me. Yeah, I grew up in pain. So go take a look at the video of your life Did you grow up in a really beautiful environment with lots of love and dreams and bliss and all this great stuff? Maybe your mover is more bling dreams and bliss if you grew up in some pain chaos angst fear anxiety stress That's probably your pattern and instead of trying to spend all your life breaking that pattern There's part parts of it.

1:07:32You need to break your beat your behavior from it But the mechanism itself for change for me is pain and pain avoidance I'm familiar with lots of pain and so to this day Why do I prepare for speeches or podcasts or things so bad is it because I want the pleasure of a great podcast? Yeah, that's there. You don't want to screw up. I don't want to screw up. Yeah, I don't want to make a mistake I don't want it not to be good. Why do I work so hard is to make difference in the world Okay, so you I don't think anybody listening would know the kind of work you put in it seriously I don't think they know that you start at 3 30 gonna do four podcasts that you're gonna jump you're gonna go take a suit You're gonna go do an event tonight.

1:08:06You're gonna get up in the morning fly someplace I don't think anybody realize it Are you doing that because you want to sell more books? Are you doing it because you don't want to sell just one I'm doing it cuz I don't want to just sell one right now Now you've evolved because you know every time a book gets in someone hand you get to change their lives I do right so just nail it. I was just gonna say the other part of it is impact right so you know the impact Yep, but you're not saying but I know for a fact you're getting up tomorrow morning Subconsciously yes not saying I'm getting up tomorrow because I don't want to say you're getting up subconsciously because you don't want to fail I don't pain hurts.

1:08:33It's a major and everybody told us we weren't gonna make it and our parents probably thought we weren't gonna Make it and all that kind of stuff. It's a major driver And by the way my impact stay with me on this cuz I know you're this way too cuz you grew up in pain The impact I make still comes from pain meaning this I know so many people are in pain and because I connect with their pain their lack of belief in themselves They're feeling invisible. They're hurting right now. They want to be happier that Connection of pain is still the impact I want to make so a lot of it is connected somehow to in my life And it is for you too It's like one is avoiding the pain of failing or not being successful or not ending up in heaven Which is that picture of who I'm capable of becoming?

1:09:11Like do I really want to just get to heaven or is it the pain of not becoming that man? It's both but also even the impact part where I go I want to make an impact in people's lives is because I connect with pain I connect with the discount and you want to get it out of them. I want to get out of them Yeah, so that's a major driver for me is pain and I know my map and I know my pattern and that's why so many athletes by the way when their careers over They have a very difficult time one their identity was tied to their athleticism But also there's no pain to avoid anymore now. They're getting pat on the back.

1:09:38You were great. I loved your games There's no pain to avoid. There's nothing to fill so I gotta think you're that way, too I am and and the only reason I share that is because I hope You don't use pain to be successful for the rest of your life but you can use it as that launching pad. Yeah, it's a leverage. And you can use it as a launching pad to start the business, to show up for the challenge, to play full out, to do something uncomfortable, right? The term I've been using since COVID is we all need to take more uncomfortable action. Did it surprise you that I said, I don't want to just sell one book or did you think that's what I was going to say?

1:10:07I knew that's what you were going to say. Okay. Yeah, because it's me, right? I play like I'm 10 points down. Tony and I are doing this challenge, right? We're going to put a million people in it. That's the goal. Last year we put 900 ,000 in, right? Crazy, crazy. And it changed a million people's lives. right this year i i attacked this ed as if two people are going to show up because i know if you show up i know the end result i saw hundreds of thousands of comments a day of like oh my god i didn't know it was going to be like this oh my god i love you tony i love you dean i love you thank you thank you and you know that driver just like the comment i see the comments coming in for your book you want to sell another 200 000 copies in the next two weeks so you can help people I will play like i'm 10 points down through this entire challenge.

1:10:50I will rehearse I've already watched the last two years that we did this. I watched what tony did I watched what I did. He's doing the same thing. We're prepping if people are going to show up Even we want to deliver something that's transformational But i'm going to look through the lens of not wanting to fail still because that's how That's this the i'm avoiding the pain of it not working at the level of the impact that I want to make Yep. Right. And I know we went down a couple different rabbit holes, but I just want to give people permission today heading into a recession, heading into a shifting world.

1:11:21Again, I hope it doesn't, but it looks like an economic winter is here. I'm going to tell you, use whatever leverage you can use to move. Just move in a direction. Investigate. Look where the puck is going. Look for something different. Explore. Question every story that comes into your head. Know your enemy. That story that's already screwed you over and cost you too much. You know that. How do you shift that story? How do you barricade it? How do you not let it in? How do you talk to someone like whatever you got to do? I just believe this is an crucial time I do too in people's lives. I think that what you do the next There's this analogy in anti-aging David Sinclair dr.

1:11:58David's Claire's been on my show a few times He goes hey if you can get to like 75 in this day and age You're probably gonna live to 100 if you can get to 70 Wow and in the world today I really believe that if you can get this next two years nailed yeah you've got 20 year type multipliers of wealth bliss and happiness in your life if you can get the but if you don't these next two years i think the difficulty of getting there is magnified by a huge factor i think right now is a chance to get way ahead that same analogy to get to 75 gets you to 100 i think if you can get these next two years just momentum you have to make millions of dollars but you just get momentum you get in your groove you get moving but if you stay stagnant another couple years you don't get something going the longer you do that it's harder to get that sucker going again and I feel like it'll be much harder those people that get moving now they get by the way it might evolve you may start marketing one thing right now and it evolves into something else over time but you've got to get in motion right now do you agree with that oh true story I heard somebody say it's a strategic byproduct how many times in life have we had a goal and when we have the nerve to go after the goal we find something that's a strategic byproduct the goal that's way bigger, way bigger.

1:13:07You never thought you'd have one of the top podcasts in the world, one of the top books in the world. It's a strategic by-product of you going all in on your businesses, wanting to impact others. Great point. That's a great point. So know that whether it's God, the universe, rewards you for just having the nerd to go after it. And usually your goal, you're something so much bigger or something different that actually aligns with you. There's a couple of things I think as we're at this point in the podcast, I want to say this is a couple of things. If you're going to protect yourself build a moat Build a moat on your emotions and and what i'd say is the news is going to get worse That's a fact conversations with your negative friends is going to get worse.

1:13:46That's a fact I would say if you really want to stop dabbling, you know, it's somebody who said they want to lose weight But when no one's watching They're eating the wrong food or someone says they want to start the business But when no one's watching they're binging out on netflix, you know, if you're that person and i'm not knocking you If that's who you are enjoy it live it, but don't say you want it Don't talk out of two sides of your mouth Like either go all in burn the boats and do it or just accept the life that you have like I hate to be real But you can't lose weight and not work out and eat bad like it just doesn't where you can't make more money Have Ed's life or someone else's life that you see you can't have that without putting the work in So if you're gonna put the work in you have to have the mindset to be committed and dedicated to it, right?

1:14:25We have to be disciplined What robs discipline is lack of confidence insecurity uncertainty whatever word you want to use so here's what i'm going to share what are the things that make you uncertain or lack of confidence i would build a moat around those things if there's certain people in your life that are going to make you feel insecure believe me it's going to feel worse during a recession and tough time spend less time with them or find a way to be a mirror or be a teflon if watching the news whether it's cnn or msnbc or fox whatever one you want to watch if when you watch the news you get frustrated you get scared you get uncertain You get pissed off.

1:14:59Stop watching the news. You need that energy for you. So what I'd say is I would figure out the things that rob your confidence and rob your certainty. And this is going to sound like, oh, Dean's really smart. Is do less of those. Like, especially over this next year. You want to take a challenge? Go on a 30-day news diet. Don't talk about it. Don't watch the news. Don't talk. And spend 100 % of that energy on you 2.0. Take the next 30 days and do not surf the internet. All of you are getting sucked into. Let me just see what Ed Milet did and an hour later like oh my god. I just burned an hour online, right?

1:15:32I would say just find the things Avoid the things that rob your confidence Don't talk to the negative people that are hurting you don't focus on your weaknesses Identify who your villain is who that inner that inner story that's already cost you too much and protect yourself against it Investigate to where the puck is going you do those things in this time You're ahead of 95 % of the world and they're simple. That's not I didn't give you a business plan I gave you just the foundation of of what can make you thrive in this shifting time when I hear you say all those things I think about energy I think about do things that preserve and increase your energy and don't deplete them so if there's people around you that rob your energy you got to reduce it if there's things you're doing that take your energy whether it's worry fear surfing the internet watching news those other things energy you know and we all talk about I don't know who's first at it or whatever but energy is influence we've talked about this a lot Tony talks about it a lot you do I do and energy is also the most important commodity you can possibly have in your life.

1:16:30And you're going to watch a bunch of people, whether you call it words, thoughts, et cetera, you're going to watch a lot of people starting now through the next two or three years of their lives. You're going to watch their energy change. You're going to watch their vibrational frequency shrink. You're going to watch them shrink. And that's incumbent upon you to feed your energy right now. That's podcast, that's books, that's events. That's a challenge like what you're doing right now with Tony. You got to feed your energy. Highest energy wins. Highest energy will win. And amen to that. And I'm going to tell you, everyone's energy is going to evolve and change.

1:17:01It is difficult when everyone's thriving. Why? Everyone's energy is pretty damn good. High energy will stand out now. Positive energy, optimistic energy, movement energy, momentum energy is going to stand out more than ever. And you're going to see energy change in your investments, in your mindset, in your businesses, all over the place. So I want one shift at the end because it's for me. And I told you when we were getting ready to do this, I said, I want to ask you, this seems uncorrelated, but it's not. It's totally correlated because it comes from a pain point from you. And it comes from a place of a sanctuary that can preserve and increase energy, which is personal relationships.

1:17:43And so particularly your marriage to Lisa. So you've been honest on my show before. And by the way, this is completely correlated to everything we said. Because you said on the show before in the past, hey, man, first time around, probably didn't have that thing wired the right way. At some point, I knew I wasn't probably with the right person for me. Wonderful person, but not right person for me. I wasn't a world-class husband. Yep. True story. You've said this before. And you are a world-class husband to Lisa. It's also a true story. It is. When I think of you, and by the way, you're easily one of the most brilliant business minds I've ever met.

1:18:16You are probably the best marketing mind I know. And you're a very diverse man between your understanding of real estate, human dynamics, interpersonal relationships, energy, influence. I mean, all the different business markets that you're in. You're a very unique man. And, you know, I hold you in the highest regard. You're one of the few people on the earth that I call for counsel in certain areas. So, obviously. Same to you, brother. Thank you. And of all that, I don't admire you anywhere nearly as much for those things as I do for the kind of husband and father that you are. And I think one of the, I think you show me the quality of your relationships.

1:18:53I think Tony was the first to say that I'll show you the quality of your life. You have such a massive high quality of life. And I believe that's because of your relationship with Lisa and your children. why is it so good in other words what's been the key from you going to be in not very good husband the first time around to like if i think of the list of the best husbands i know that have the best real intimate loving real real not perfect relationships with people i don't know that you don't occur first on my list you know maybe there's two or three people that all come up at the same time but you come up on that list what's been the key for that and how important is it to your outward success in business.

1:19:32Because there's a correlation from when you met her to millions and millions more dollars in your bank account too. It is. And I have to thank you for saying that. And you're so kind, Ed. It's why your podcast does so great to you. You truly serve from your heart. And thank you for the kind words. My wife's going to listen to this podcast and smile from ear to ear. It's true, Lisa. She loves you, brother. I love her too. She's binging on your podcast right now. Good, good. I'll tell you, first thing I'll share, just like a business, is if you have the nerve to recognize that the reason your business might not have worked or your marriage might not have worked or your relationship might have worked, if you have the self-awareness and the nerve to look in the mirror and say, it was probably you, even if it wasn't all you, but if you have the nerve to say that, and I remember going through divorce and freaking out because, and I won't go deep on this because I think I shared it on previous one, but I was freaking out for my kids because I was a child of divorce and I didn't want them to feel, you know, you get it, right?

1:20:25Yep, totally. So I was freaking out about that. And then I remember thinking to myself, I wrote down a list of what was unacceptable in a new relationship. What could not be and what could be. And on my could list, Ed, was I need someone that loves a crazy entrepreneur, that's into health, that's into personal growth. Someone who will love my children as if they're their own. That's a task for a step parent, right? And I wrote down this long list of all the things that were a must. And something hit me in that list and I'm like, damn, I have nerve to ask for that. Right. And in a moment I recognized that for me to attract that, I had to become a better man.

1:21:10It had nothing to do with finding the perfect woman. I had to be the better man to attract that type of woman. And I worked on me. I got a love coach. I unlocked the, you know, holding back the full extent of love and all the things we could share. but here's what I would say when it comes to relationships um just this you know advice only from a guy that knows he messed up in the past but I am in the greatest relationship in my life is imagine never keeping the couple of things that came out of what I realized imagine never keeping score in a relationship imagine having the nerve and the confidence to just go I'm going to be the best version of me and I hope I get it back and not say you know I've been I've been doing and I watch relationships unravel when someone says, the husband says, I work my tail off.

1:21:57I provide for her. She doesn't have to worry about anything. She doesn't have to pay the bills. She has someone to clean her house. She does all this. And I come home and she's, you know, no dinner. Keeping score, right? You're keeping score. And when you start keeping score, as soon as you start keeping score and it's not even, how do you go to bed that night and be intimate? How do you have passionate connection if you're keeping score and thinking, I'm doing more than her or I'm taking care of the house. He has no idea what it's like to juggle two kids and take care of all this stuff. And he's out flying around having fun, do it.

1:22:30You know, he's working, but at least he gets to be out. I'm stuck in the house, man. There's the intimacy's gone. Right. And then once the intimacy's gone, then people start thinking, man, someone else would love the way I work. Someone else, the way I take care of things. Right. So one is not keeping score. Here's the toughest one. That's big. Here's the toughest one. Imagine, I know this is going to sound crazy. And some of you can be like, yeah, whatever dreamer. Imagine feeling love when you give it rather than when you receive it. I fell in love with making my wife feel loved. I love for that woman to look at me and she like, there's five people in the room and she looks over and I'm staring at her.

1:23:07Like she's like, I just saw her for the first time and she catches me and I watch her flay. We've been together five and a half years. I could stare at my wife when she doesn't realize it. If she catches me, her cheeks will get red. Like she gets nervous even to the, And she's like, like, what are you looking at? What are you looking at? And she'll come over. She's like, you, right? I find, it took me years. I found a way to feel love when I make her feel loved. So I don't need her to love me back. But the, but here's the thing, right? Because I don't keep score. My wife tries to outdo me because I give, I feel love when I give her love.

1:23:39She tries to give me more love. Right. And I know maybe that takes the right partner. And you might be thinking to yourself, yeah, Dean, you found the right partner. I would say I have an amazing woman. but I also know that I did all the opposite crap in the, in the previous one. And, and this is, I'm going to steal this from Tony. One of the best advice I ever heard was imagine if you treated the end of relationship, like the beginning, would there actually be an end? You remember in the beginning of a relationship, you're like, everything's bliss and you're all in and you're listening, eye contact, and you wouldn't dare look at your phone at dinner.

1:24:11And now you're three years in and at dinner, she wants to tell you about what happened with the kids then. and you're like, yeah, let me just, what was that? Hold on, babe, let me just look at my phone one second. Would you have ever done that in the first week of your relationship or on a first date? And that just, that hit me. And people a lot of times will ask me, it's like, I don't know where my relationship is. I'm like, what if for the next 90 days, you just went all in and pretended like you guys just met and you were dating again. To the end of 90 days, you might have a completely different situation.

1:24:37That's so good. Yeah. That's so good. You're so good. I don't know. Is that fed your business life, having that part of it? Not even a question. Like the funny part is so many people say to me, what happened to you like four years ago, man, you just got more dynamic. You're more confident on stage. It was definitely that because the last thing I'll say is on this is I had more, I've had more success than I could have ever dreamed possible. A good zillion times more than what my dreams were. I have two, I'm now three and a fourth on the way, but I had two amazing children that were just humble and sweet and kind.

1:25:12it. And my business is thriving and good friends, but I didn't have love in my life and I didn't have connection. And I wasn't a good husband, right? Because I wasn't happy. And I probably, when you're incongruent, when not all things in your life are lined up, I never could have understood the power of that while I was in it. I just said, no, I should be happy. No, my relationship isn't great, but we co-parent good and we got great kids and the business is good and we got the great house. I just wasn't in alignment. I was kind of living a lie. And when I finally shed that and now I get to be the man like and I know you know me but man imagine the wish that if anybody put a hidden camera on you for a week and then your wife your friends and the world could watch and go wow same guy on camera same guy on a podcast same guy when no one was watching that congruency has taken the restrictions off my business has doubled my life has doubled my happiness has doubled I've attracted dear people in my life like you and other people because I I think that I just get to be me at all times.

1:26:14Beautiful, brother. Gosh, it's so good. I got one last question for you. And I want you to answer this in all sincerity. I know you always do, but this is a biggie. Is it all it's cracked up to be? Let me tell you what I mean by it. You know, having a loving relationship, becoming a wealthy man, you know, making the contribution you make is a tremendous amount of work. And there's going to be a season in one's life where it's not all those things. and you're going to be working and working and working. And there's this part when you're doing it, you're like, is it even really worth it? Is it even really worth it?

1:26:49Because I think oftentimes we've all met that one rich person who's also miserable, which there's a lot of them. They get a lot of money and you're like, I don't even want to be like them. You know, I was a server, I was a busboy at the whole enchilada in Diamond Bar when I was in high school and college. And it seemed like a lot of the guys with money that came in were the bigger jerks. Yeah. And it started to make me think, I don't even know if that's worth it. You know? And the reason that it seemed like those, because the real rich guys didn't act like rich guys. So when they'd come in, I didn't know it was that guy.

1:27:21But I went through a phase of my life that I think because you're on the other side, it's easy to forget. But I think there's a lot of people that are considering coming to this challenge, considering changing their life. They're considering it. And then there is a part of them where they're like, I don't know if it's worth it. So I'm being, I want you to answer this honestly. Is it or is it different than you thought it would be getting to this other side? You're on the other side You don't feel like you are but you are you're very wealthy. You got a beautiful family You know you make a difference the world you got rich friendships your life's not perfect every night you know the day-to-day of life can be really difficult for all of us, but Was it worth it and what's it feel like to get to the other side sell us the dream or the nightmare of it?

1:28:01Yeah Beyond worth it, but questioning it I've questioned it on and off since the beginning and there are only moments of questioning it when and then you get clarity and realize the other side so here's what i'd say is if someone's listening to you ed what you've done and i want to say this publicly what you've done so elegantly to help the world see is that your visibility your notoriety you your podcast being the top podcast your book people get to see someone who's been wealthy or is wealthy and also an amazing human being. Thank you. And success without fulfillment, success without joy, success without balance is probably the brokest you could be.

1:28:45So here's what I'd say. Where I'm fortunate is I started working on me at the same time I was working on making money. And I think that is the gift I would love to share with all of you. I believe all of you, every single one of you has the opportunity to make unlimited amount of money. I know that sounds, it's easy for you to say now, Dean, but believe me, if Ed can make it, Dean can make it, we all have this amazing opportunity. But I'd say work on you as much as you work on marketing, as much as you work on sales. Because when you find that harmonious balance, and you know, we both, you probably too, I've been off, I've had more money than emotional intelligence.

1:29:26Me too. And right? And that's not a cool thing. And there's some people have great emotional intelligence, but they can't make any choices in their life. They want to do more. They want to donate more. They want to travel more they want to retire their husband so they he has to stop working this crappy job So they have the emotional intelligence, but they don't have the money to give them the freedom that harmonious balance of two I mean, it's the greatest gift you could give anyone. It's why it's why we're doing a free challenge It's why Tony listen, you don't have to work. Tony doesn't have to work.

1:29:50I'm blessed I know it sounds like hey, we're a bunch of rich people It's not that like I'm working harder now than I've ever worked in my life And I have more now than I've ever had in my life because I want other people to see that you can have this rich balance where you can have a I mean I just got here I don't want to get a spoiler alert but I just I just got to meet your kids for the first time yeah right I met your wife a bunch of times I got to see your kids and and watching that you get to bring this family that you shifted this generation you have two humble children thank you it it will you will always question it problems will never go away one thing I want to say you will just get better at handling bigger problems you want to make more handle bigger problems right so you will handle problems more you will get you will turn into someone who wants the bigger problems because you know there's a bigger paycheck on the other side of bigger.

1:30:36You solve a bigger problem, you get paid more, right? So problems won't go away. I'll tell you that. You'll just handle them more. Like you said in your book and like Jim Rohn said, for things to get better, you got to get better, right? So you'll get better at doing those things. You will have times where you question it. But every day in my life, I wake up and I'm so effing grateful that I get the freedom to do what I want to do to coach Little League, to drive my kids to school, to do what I want when I want to do it. And that's, that's the ultimate freedom. And I would die for it, Ed. That's a great answer.

1:31:08I'm so proud of you.

1:31:29Thank you.