Ep # 129 – Dean Graziosi – Author – Millionaire Success Habits

Ep # 129 – Dean Graziosi – author – Millionaire Success Habits

• If want to become good at something, teach it.
• Throw away what doesn’t serve you, and grab the one or two things that you can immediately implement in your life.
• Knowledge + Action helps you succeed.
• All Successful people have the same success habits.
• A tiny shift in your habits can cause a massive change in your life.
• How to protect your confidence.
• Hacks involving your cell phone to help you have an incredible day.
• Why the start of your day sets the stage for the rest of your day.
• When you make a to-do list, one word that changes it completely.
• Clarity is power.
• What do you want out of life?
• Learn a hack on how to find clarity.
• How binary thinking is one of the fastest ways to success.
• Why it’s important to find out what you’re good at and what to do with that.
• What is our past?
• Why people will buy from you, will sell to you, will learn from you only if they feel understood.
• Enter the mind of your prospect and finished their conversations.
• Book recommendation: Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Graziosi www.deangraziosi.com
• Connect with me on Facebook at Rod Khleif.
• Text Rod to 41411 or visit RodKhleif.com for a FREE copy of my book, “How to Create Lifetime Cash Flow Through Multifamily Properties.”

Ep # 129 – Dean Graziosi – author – Millionaire Success Habits
Welcome. This is the Lifetime CashFlow Through Real Estate Investing podcast. This is where you’ll learn strategies to help you achieve lifetime financial freedom through real estate investment. Your host, Rod Khleif, has owned over 2,000 homes and apartments. And he brings experts in all aspects of real estate investment and management on to the show. Now, here’s your host, Rod Khleif.

Rod:   Hey guys, you’re gonna love this interview with Dean Graziosi. He is an absolute rock star, and adds a ton of value. This podcast interview is unique in that we broadcasted it live on Facebook on Friday. You’ll hear me reference a drone that we give away. And I’ll tell you, we plan to do a lot more of these episodes, live on Facebook, ‘cause it’s just such a blast.

If you’re not connected with me on Facebook, please like my page, that way, you’ll know when we’re gonna go live again. I love communicating with you guys on social media, and I’m very, very active on Facebook. And we’ve also got another great live interview coming up this Thursday. So connect with me and you’d be able to watch it live, several days before it hits this podcast. I hope you’d enjoy this interview with Dean, as much as I did. Let’s get to it.

Rod:   Hey guys, welcome, to the Lifetime CashFlow Through Real Estate Investing Podcast. Today is a very exciting episode. We have an incredible guest with us, and we’re going on Facebook, live for the first time. So this is really, really cool.

We have Dean Graziosi, and Dean is… I mean if you don’t know who he is, I don’t know where you live. But he’s an absolute expert in the real estate space. He’s a speaker; he’s an entrepreneur, multiple New York Times Bestselling Author, in fact, he’s been best selling in Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Amazon. And I think he’s been on TV, literally everyday, for the last 15 years.

Now, I know of Dean because he speaks at Tony Robbins, on his stages at his Wealth Mastery, and you guys know how I feel about Tony Robbins. But, literally, I could go on and on about Dean’s bio, but let me have a couple of other guys say it better than I can.

So here’s Larry King. “Dean has a unique ability to take what others make complicated, and boil it down to a recipe for success you can follow.” And then, my greatest mentor, Tony Robbins says, “What I love about Dean is that he’s genius at what he does, and as corny as it sounds, he truly does care about the people he helps.”

I have to agree with that cause right before we started recording, I asked Dean how I could add value to him. And his comment to me was, “Let’s just make it about you and add value to the listeners today. “ So Dean, welcome to the show, my friend.

Dean: Yeah, it’s good to be here. Thanks for the invite, man.

Rod:   Absolutely. So those few people that are watching, that don’t know who you are, tell us a little more about Dean.

Dean: Alright, first of, congrats on the success in this podcast, you’re doing an amazing job. When we take our expertise, and we wanna share it with other people, we have to figure out what we do on another level, right? You wanna get good at something, teach it. ‘Cause you never want to teach something the wrong way. So I commend you for taking the time, putting the effort and energy to do this, man. Great job.

Rod:   Well, thanks buddy.  We just hit 1.3 million downloads, and it’s just astounding to me.

Dean: Oh… That means you’re delivering value. That’s what we said today. Today, for everybody who is listening or watching right now, it’s our job today to deliver value. I mean, think about it this way, there’s a lot of podcasts, there’s a lot of noise, there’s so many options on Facebook, on podcast. When you listen to something like this, if you’re here with us right now, what I say is listen intently. Like don’t be checking your social media. Don’t be looking around. Listen to every word. And here’s the thing, throw away what doesn’t serve you and grab the one or two things that you can immediately implement in your life.

That’s the best way, because we have so much knowledge coming at us but so much knowledge coming at us that if we don’t do that one thing, that action, to actually put it in play, we just keeps absorbing. I’d love for you to train your mind and say, “That was good but not great. That was good but not great. Oh wow, that one needs to be a part of my life.” Write it down and do something today to start it.

So I’ll just go quick about me and then let’s get to everybody listening and watching. My parents were married nine times. I moved a lot as a kid. By the time I was 19, I moved 20 times. In and out of schools, I had dyslexia, so I wasn’t the best student. I always felt insecure. Wore hand me downs. Not poor me at all. It happened, it was designed for me perfectly, so no regrets.

Rod:   I love that. Love that.

Dean:             But, I was very insecure. Specially, I didn’t go to college. I didn’t have money, and in my little town that I grew up in upstate New York, the only people in town that I’d seen to have money were people in real estate. And then, I remember somebody saying you could do real estate with no money down. I was in my teens still and I was just naïve enough to believe it could be true, that, I thank God for being naïve. I wish we could all stay naïve forever.

I just knocked on a million doors. I begged, borrowed and, anything I could do, when I finally gotten my first deal before I was 20, and that went pretty good. Then another deal, then another deal, and luckily, by mid 20s, I was a millionaire in real estate. That just sounds like an easy plan.

No, I had suffered. I had sleepless nights, I’d work may ass off. A lot of nights, I didn’t sleep at all. I thought I was gonna lose it all. Friends and family telling me I’m nuts. “Stop being a dreamer. Get real.” And I broke through those barriers. I didn’t know I was creating success habits and breaking barriers then, but I was. I was building the strength. I was building the grit it took to continue.

Later on, in my late 20s, early 30s, I wanted to share that evolution, that journey I had and I started creating courses on teaching people how to invest in real estate and they turned out to be… The people, they click the way I wrote, the way I talked. Listen, the messages that you are hearing today, some of the things that you’ll learn from either one of us, or anyone; sometimes, it could be the same message, it’s the way it’s delivered that either sticks to your ribs or it doesn’t. You can hear something 20 times and it doesn’t click, and then somebody tells you and boom, it’s part of your life forever.

So my goal is, today, when I share is, I’m not gonna say every thing I say is unique and brand new, but I hope that I’ve created a way that you can just say, “I get it this time and I’ll do it.” So, in that evolution…

Rod:   I love that.

Dean:             In that evolution of teaching, in 2016, I wrote my first book called Totally Fulfilled. It wasn’t even on real estate. I wanted to get into people’s heads, so they knew that if they could overcome the crap between here, then they could latch on to my stuff, your stuff, anybody’s stuff and actually achieve it because if knowledge made us rich, we’d have an epidemic of rich librarians around the world. And knowledge doesn’t do crap for us.

Knowledge plus action does. Really early on, I got lucky, and I obsessed on the knowledge, the tactical skills, what I obsessed on the ability to take action and get between here. I wrote Totally Fulfilled, I was a nervous wreck. I barely read any books in I my whole life. I wrote that book, and it hit the New York Times Bestsellers List in 10 days.

Rod:   Wow.

Dean: It put me in… People called me an author. I was like an author. I was in special reading. But I’m not really a writer I am someone who delivers a message through a book. And I went on to write a bunch of books, and the rest of them were on real estate, up until my recent book. So I had Totally Fulfilled, and five real estate books, and now I have a new book.

Rod:   Yeah. Now, I wanna dig in to your most recent one. Guys, it’s called Millionaire Success Habits. You can actually get it for free at Deansfreebook.com. So definitely, you’re crazy not to get that.

Anyway, I wanna talk about Dean’s book in great detail, because I read it and it is fantastic. Guys, you’ve heard me talk about it on the show. And I got this from Tony Robbins, 80% of your success, in anything is your psychology, and only 20% is the real estate, the mechanical stuff or…

Dean: Mm-hmm.

Rod:   Business and Dean’s book is all about the psychology. About taking action, about not having the fear, and dealing with the things that we deal with, but before we get into that, I do wanna mention one thing. We’re giving away, a cool drone today. In fact, I’ve got it back here behind my desk. Let me get it without unplugging.

Dean: Oh dude, they’re awesome.

Rod:   So somebody gets this today. All you have to do to register is like this post and then comment, and put the word ‘drone’ in. Okay, so make sure you do that, number one. And then secondly, if you think other people would get value from this, make sure you share this because we’re gonna have some great messaging today about taking action, about success, about Dean’s book.

So anyway, to Dean…

Dean: Alright.

Rod:   Why’d you write the book, number one, and then let’s dig in to some of the awesome stuff that’s in there because I really enjoyed reading it.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, no, I’m excited. And what I hope to do today, I think this would be best. Everybody watching here, or listening, wants to make more money, or you wouldn’t be spending the time.

Rod:   Right.

Dean: You’d be doing something else. None of us wanna gain knowledge, none of us wanna go to live events, or listen to podcasts. We wanna extract the wisdom that gives us the fast track, right?

Rod:   Right.

Dean: We’re looking for recipes. We’re looking for the quickest way to the end results. So I commend you. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my own education. So I commend everybody for being here. So what I’m gonna do, today, before we’re done is I wanna talk about scaling your business or just start it. If you haven’t got any, you haven’t made your first deal yet, you’re gonna wanna listen to every word. If you’re doing deals, you wanna go faster and learn how to scale, you’re gonna wanna do that.

No matter where you are in your life right now, in your business, I think I’ve been there. I was that kid that was broke with my dad. I lived in a bathroom with my dad, for a whole year, as a kid. Had hand me downs, had to go to school without lunch money. Didn’t have money for college, any of that stuff.

And I started businesses mostly real estate was the foundation. I’d gone making 50 grand a year to a hundred, and to a hundred million. My company, a couple of years ago, broke two hundred million in sales.

Rod:   Wow.

Dean: With my brands and my companies, I don’t say that to brag, I say that it doesn’t matter where you are, I’m not any smarter than you… It doesn’t matter where you are I started where you are because I’d been at every level, from zero to doing that.

So when I share today, I want you to know, this isn’t just something… I don’t wanna share like, “Hey, I’m up on the hill, this is amazing come join me.” I know what it’s like to be in the ditch. I know what it’s like to be overwhelmed. I know what it’s like to go in the next level of a company and you’re not just investing anymore, you’re trying to run an investing business. I know that transition. I know what it’s like to get a CFO and trying to hire… like every possible place. But what I wanna share with you today, fundamentally fits in, no matter where you are.

That’s why I wrote Millionaire Success Habits. If you wanna start a business, or you wanna scale a business, you need this. And why I wrote this book? It’s crazy. I had this… Now, this is me just being transparent. Everybody asked me, “What does it feel like to be successful? When did you know you were successful?” You don’t really know. You’re just in the ditch digging your butt off and you’re just making progress. But I think the coolest thing was there was a part when everybody was accessible.

Like Tony Robbins affected my life 15 years ago. I got these courses, I got the ultimate edge, devoured every bit of it. It took my life to another level. I wrote Tony a letter 15 years ago. It probably went in the pile of a 100,000 thousand other ones. But then three years ago, I wanted to meet him. We’ve made a call. In two days, we’re having lunch together. Now, we talk twice a week. Richards Branson was somebody I admired. I ended up on Richard Branson’s island, for a week, with him.

That was the coolest part of that when there’s when there’s no body out of reach. But the cool part of how it relates to this book is, because I had dinner with Michael Jordan, I know Joel Olsteen… I get to meet all these people who have achieved a lot. And really, all of them have the same success habits. The same ones you’ve used to be successful; the ones that I’ve used to overcome the obstacles, to break through to make it happen.

Doesn’t matter if you attach it through real estate, which I suggest you do. That ‘s why you’re here. That’s what changed my life. Or you attach it to love, you attach it to your weight, your health, your life, your happiness, or another business you’re in. These habits, they’re fundamentally the foundation for every bit of success. And that’s why I was obsessed to write the book.

Now, let’s…

Rod:   Love it. Love it.

Dean: Let’s get to some takeaways that people can use.

Rod:   So I know you talk about, “Don’t let go of the wheel.” And I love that analogy. Do you mind taking a minute and explaining that; about the ruts and all that?

Dean: Yeah, I use simple analogies.

Rod:   Right.

Dean: Because it really helps to kinda clarify. So many times in life, we don’t realize is we let go of the wheel of life. We’ve built ruts. I don’t mean ruts that your life is terrible, just that you do the same thing everyday it’s like an analogy I used is, think of a farmer who gets up every single day; and I’ll relate this back to why it makes sense.

A farmer gets up every single day. Drives up a tractor a mile out into the field to feed the cows. Get’s out, put the feed on, puts it in gear. Eventually, if he does that every day, it builds ruts, and he can get it in, and put the tractor in gear, and let go of the wheel, and the tractor will go right where it belongs.

And sometimes, in life, we do that. We do that with our emotions, we do that with our thought processes. We do it with the amount of money we can make. We put all these limits because we stay in these ruts.

Rod:   We get comfortable.

Dean: We get comfortable. And what most people think, to go to that next level, it’s gotta be like a new year’s resolution. They have to change everything in their life. Here’s what I use that analogy for, just think of that farmer got up, and one morning, instead of letting go of the wheel, he just took the wheel and turned it a quarter of an inch. Just a quarter of an inch, and then held it there. By the time he got a mile out in the field, he wouldn’t even be able to see where he used to go everyday. That’s how we have to look at our life.

It was Bill Gates who said, “We overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in five.” So we can make tiny little shifts; these habits that I talk about. If we can make those little shifts today, if you’re not gonna be rich tomorrow, you’re not gonna have 50 unit complex tomorrow. But tomorrow, you might start your progress. Three days later, you might get a couple of leads, 10 days later you might be looking at places, 40 days later you’re at the closing table, 80 days later you’re in the process of looking at another one.

It’s these tiny shifts. So when I use that analogy of ruts, we don’t even realize that we’re following this hypnotic rhythm that’s keeping us right where we are. And if we can just bump out habits that don’t work and replace them with new ones we can make those tiny shifts.

Rod:   And it doesn’t take major shifts.

Dean: No.

Rod:   You take a tiny shift, you take it out a few years and it becomes a massive change in your life. Love that one. Love that one… Alright, talk about the Villain Within.

Dean: Yeah, yeah. So the Villain Within, one of the greatest things we have to do is we have to protect our confidence. I’m in Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan owns Strategic Coach. I’ve been in it for almost 10 years. I pay him 25 grand a year. It gives me clarity. It gives me vision. I love going there. I go three times a year. What Dan says is, “You pay me to protect your confidence. To teach you how to protect your confidence.”

‘Cause think about this, when have you ever made good money when your confidence is low? When have you ever got the girl when your confidence is low? Got the guy? Made the decision? Closed a business deal? When your confidence is low, you play scared. You play with scared money. You don’t say yes to that deal. You don’t get creative on how to close the big complex. You don’t, you don’t, you just don’t. You just sit on the sidelines going, “I wanna get in the game, I tried… No, no, I’ll wait. I’ll wait.” And how long are you gonna wait? How long did the last five years… How fast did the last five years go by?

So when I say, protect your confidence, do it as if you are protecting your life. Because when your confidence is off, just a couple percent, everything is off. You don’t make the decisions. So I’m gonna give you a couple of takeaways right now that have made a massive impact on my life.  To start off a day the right way, there’s a million different ways. Tony has his Hour of Power, 15 minutes is what…

Rod:   Oh, yeah.

Dean: I’ve kinda hacked that down in my own life, on how I do it. So I’m gonna give you guys my little…

Rod:   Love to hear it.

[00:15:00]

Dean: I’m gonna give you guys my morning secret that has changed the way I set my day up. How we set our day up, at least to me, how I set my day up in the first hour when my eyes opened determines how I handle the day. Whether I play the day with defense or offense. How many days are you sitting waiting for emails to answer problems, waiting for the staff to come in to answer the problems, waiting for the shit to hit the fan so you can fix it; that’s your defensive days.

How about the other days when you clean that shit up in moments, and you’re out there getting the next deal, going to the next level, learning new. That’s the difference of a confidence day or a day with no confidence.

Rod:   You’re in the zone. Right.

Dean: I just read a book on it. Our job is, the more we can get in the zone, the more we can be in flow, in flow or in the zone, you get more done in an hour than people get done in a week.

Rod:   Yep… Awesome.

Dean: So protect that. So here’s my little hacks. First thing, try this formula next week. Everybody listening, everybody watching, this week go to bed at night, put your phone on airplane mode and leave it on airplane mode. Here’s the deal…

Rod:   I like that.

Dean: How many of you, right now, are rolling over in the morning, grabbing your phone and looking to see if your social media post got hits, looking to see if someone text you, someone emailed you. And some days, it’s really great news, but most of the time, there’s something that could get your brain thinking and screw your entire day. You just programmed you brain to be in defense and you don’t get shit done, excuse my language, when you play defense.

Rod:   The exact same thing happened to me yesterday.

Dean: Of course, it did.

Rod:   I looked at my email and I had some negative news and it set me off for like three or four hours. I was an ass when I came to work and it…

Dean: Right.

Rod:   Love it. Love it.

Dean: So here’s my plan. You want it?

Rod:   Hmm.

Dean: Put your phone on airplane mode when you go to bed. When you wake up, when your eyes open, the first thing, try to do… And I don’t, listen, I don’t do this perfectly, I’d love to say I do. I do it as much as I can, and when I do it everyday, it works everyday.

As soon as you open your eyes… I know there’s the practice gratitude everybody knows that’s a way to peace and joy but it’s hard sometimes. So what I’ve done is lower the bar of gratitude. You’re listening right now, you’ve accomplished so much that when we think of gratitude, we want the big things. The day my children were born, the day my son started this, and my daughter, my husband, my wife, the new business. You’re looking at the gratitude at 30,000 feet. Lower it.

Listen, 150,000 people died today, 150,000 people will die tomorrow, and the next day. Google it, you’re not one of them. Lower the bar. I’m telling you there’s some mornings I open my eyes…

Rod:   Love it.

Dean: And I will say, “Oh my god, these sheets feel amazing today… Oh my god, my bed is so comfortable. Look at this room I get to wake up in. I live in America. I’m breathing. I have kids.” Just because you wanted to… Let me just ask you, with you, when you looked at that email, you can either open up and find a blessing or think of a blessing, or you can open up and have a curse because you’re open up your email and there’s one negative thing.

So at night, I’ll go through this kind of quick, at night, airplane mode. Do not turn it off airplane mode when you wake up. As soon as you open up, lower the bar of gratitude. If you want, lower it so far and go, “I woke up again.” That could be enough.

Rod:   Yeah. “Hey, I’m above ground.”

Dean: Right.

Rod:   Yeah.

Dean: So, first is that little bit of gratitude. Then the second thing is I feed my body. So what I do for me, I do a full glass I squeeze a whole lemon in it. I put a scoop of green powder. I put some MCT oil in it. I got a couple of other stuff I put in there, and I down that. It’s like I feel like I’m nourishing my body immediately. Kill the acidity, feel better about myself, and then I go move.

I don’t know about anybody listening, how your day is, but I… If I try to exercise in the afternoon, it’s impossible. I love what I do. I love getting in the groove. I love being in the flow. I love working, so if I’m working and it’s five o’clock, or wanna go see my kids, I’m not gonna fit in exercise in the afternoon.

So if you want exercise a part of your life, get up a damn an hour early. Just me, I get up at 4:50 every morning.

Rod:   Holy cow. Wow.

Dean: Not bragging, but everyday, 4:50 everyday of my life. And I’m not bragging but it made me do this. I get up and do a quick little gratitude. I get up and drink my drink. I get up and do an hour of exercise, and I can be back. I happen to have younger kids. I get to come back and wake my kids up, when they get up at 6:30. I get to cook them breakfast.

When I think of this, put the phone on airplane mode, when I wake up and wanna be in offense, I do gratitude, I feed my body, I go move. I come back I do my morning routine. And then here’s the last part of it. This one word changed my life. If you got nothing else out of today, remember this, when you make a to-do list, instead of… Just add one word, ‘what you get-to-do’.

I used to think of, like Tuesdays, I do conference calls and I hate conference calls. I really don’t but instead of me saying, “Uh, it’s Tuesday, I gotta do conference calls. That word, ‘I got-to-do’, I have to do conference calls. Dude, if I didn’t do those conference calls, I wouldn’t get to inspire people around the world. I wouldn’t get to write books. I wouldn’t get to live the life I do. All that I get to do.

Dude, I worked in a collision shop, in an auto sales, a kid who didn’t… Barely graduated from high school, had dyslexia with no money. I make more in a day than my parents would make in a year. And who the hell am I to say that I have to do? I get to do all of this shit every day, and when I think of it through ‘get-to-do eyes’…

Listen, if I do that morning, that I just told you, perfectly, which I am not saying I do everyday. But I do it really often and in every year, I do it more and more. If I do that, and then I turn my phone on, nothing can come at me. I don’t care if you tell me, “Your office was just bombed and it’s disintegrated.” I’d be like, “You know what? It’s time; I’m getting a new office anyway. That kinda sucked.”

Rod:   [laughter]

Dean: Compared to waking up and being in that ‘oh shit, oh-o-oh mood’. So that’s just one way to protect your confidence because we do have an inner resistance but I believe we have an inner villain. From the negative news, and teachers telling us to work on our weaknesses, all these years of things building up to have self-doubt, we go, “Uh, life’s good enough,” or, “The economy is not that great,” or, “Real estate is for other people,” or “You need money to do”… All that is just shitty stories that we were told, and that lives inside of us that I call Inner Villain. You know what kills the Inner Villain? Confidence. Confidence tells the Inner Villain to shut up.

Rod:   Love it. Love it. Love it. You know what builds confidence? Taking action. Love it. So the next one on my list here to ask you about is The Power of Your Story.

Dean: That sometimes, what stands between you… I don’t know where you are right now, everybody listening and watching. I would bet to say you know, all change starts with being honest about yourself. You wouldn’t be here, listening to us, if there was something… If everything was perfect in your life, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be some place else.

So you want another level of income, freedom, choices, life, abundance, whatever the word or the terminology is you want more. So we all know we want more but I want you to think about this, in a lot of cases, what’s standing between you and what you want? So if you know where you are… That’s why I digress, that’s what I wanted…

Rod:   Okay.

Dean: Uh-huh. You know where you are, and we’ll talk about this in a minute, about getting clarity. I wanna go through that with you.

Rod:   Sure.

Dean: And you know where you wanna go…

Rod:   You’ve gotta get them.

Dean: The life you have compared to what you want, there’s a gap. And a lot of times, between that gap is just the stories that you tell yourself on why you’re not getting it.

Rod:   I love it.

Dean: I could own more multifamily real estate, if I had the money, if the economy wasn’t so… The economy is so good.

Rod:   If I was older.

Dean: Right.

Rod:   Or if I knew more people, if I… If, if, if.

Dean: Right. Yet all the wealthy people are buying up multi-family homes. What do get, a 2% cap rate? It’s not worth it. “In my area, it’s moving so fast.“ “I live in the hottest area,” or, “I live in a small area. Nobody’s buying.” “I live in a big city, it’s too expensive”… “My parents said this isn’t a good time, the current president.” It doesn’t matter what it is, there’s a story between you and where you want to go. And can I tell you what successful people have, other than you?

Rod:   Yeah?

Dean: It’s not their money. It’s not their pedigree. It’s not where they went to college. They just have a different story than you. That’s it. I’m not trying to oversimplify it but when you ask wealthy people, they don’t give you the shitty stories that hold them back. They’ve invented a new story. Even when it’s not working, they will still tell themselves a story that it’s gonna.

Rod:   That’s right.

Dean: And if you can find that story and just identify the crappy story that your parents may have given you, even though they love you, a teacher may have given you…

Your parents went bankrupt. A friend went bankrupt, trying to do real estate ‘cause he did it the wrong way, and they instilled this story. Like they downloaded it in your hard drive and you’re playing off of their version. You have to identify and delete it, and replace it with an empowering story. Go Google successful people of whatever you wanna do. They’ve all faced the same crap you have but they had a different story.

That kinda leads me into, if you don’t mind me… If you wanna…

Rod:   No go ahead.

Dean: I can…

Rod:   No, keep it going. Keep it rolling, you’re in the flow. Keep it rolling.

Dean: Yeah. I can sometimes go a little too much.

Rod:   [laughter] Yeah, no. I just did a little segment, a little driving force clip on the limiting beliefs. It’s right along the same lines. Story holds you back. Story held me back. I tell a story about my personal experience and a big emotional event for me that doesn’t seem that much when you look back on it. But in your little juvenile mind, it’s this huge impact. You create a story that slows you down. Love it. Now, please continue.

Dean: Yeah. Here’s another one that most people miss. When someone tells me that they’re overwhelmed, or they wished they could have a time management course, they need more time. They’d like the stress and the complexity to go away. I don’t think they need a time management course. What they need is more clarity, and knowing what to say no to. You see…

Rod:   Clarity is power.

Dean: Clarity is power because here’s the thing, again, with successful people, they all know where they’re going. But what most people don’t… And challenge me on this. Take me up on this, see if I’m full of shit. See if I know what I’m talking about. Ask 10 people, everybody listening and watching this week, ask five or 10 people randomly. Just say, “I was watching, I was listening to this podcast, I wanna ask you friend, what don’t you want out of life?” And let them just go. They will tell you, they will ramble, “I don’t want this job. I don’t want this. I don’t want my wife to bust my chops anymore.”

Rod:   You may not be able to get away from them [chuckles].

Dean: No, they will vomit what they don’t want. And here’s what you do, while they’re vomiting all the things they don’t want when they get on a roll, stop them. Interrupt, like abruptly go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop for a second. Okay, I get it. I see what you don’t want. So do me a favor. Tell me what you do want out of life.”

Rod:   And watch them struggle.

Dean: I’ve been doing this for years. Watch nine out of 10. I’ve been doing this for thousands of people. Watch nine out of 10 people go, “… That’s a good question.” Or, “I gotta think about that one.” So if you think about it, you know what we’re all doing? We’re all running on treadmills. And then when you think you’re going faster, all you’re doing is putting the treadmill up to nine, but you’re not going any place. Or you’re in a Ferrari with no GPS ‘cause you really don’t know where you wanna go.

How can you not be overwhelmed? You’re saying yes to crap that doesn’t serve you. You’re packing stuff on your life that doesn’t take you to the next level. I want to tell you this story. It’s really cool.

Rod:   But don’t go away from clarity though ‘cause if that tie…

Dean: Oh no, I’m not.

Rod:   Alright.

Dean: This is all about…

Rod:   Yeah, bring that home ‘cause that’s awesome.

Dean: No, this story kind of brings home clarity.

Rod:   Perfect.

Dean: And I’m gonna tell you how to find it. I’m gonna tell you a hack on how to find clarity.

Rod:   Perfect.

Dean: So a buddy of mine, him and a bunch of dads, take about 15 youths; 18 to 20 years old boys. I think it was their church group. They take them off to Colorado. They’re gonna go whitewater rafting. I guess it rained for two weeks prior and I guess rapids are between a zero and a five. These rapids were fives. All the dads are nervous like, “Oh, we got all these kids”. This older guide comes out; he goes, “Get the kids in the boat.”

The dads were all nervous, he goes, “Don’t worry dads.” So the guide gets in the boat and he says, “Boys, you see this finger? This is the positive point.” He goes, “We’re gonna be just fine today if you listen to me. Whenever I point, whatever direction I’d point, only thing I want you to do is paddle your guts out in the direction that I’d point, and you’d be fine in this entire trip because I will never point to the down tree, I’ll never point to the big rock that could flip us over, or the big wave ‘cause if I do, you’ll focus on it and we’ll go towards it and we’ll flip over. This is the positive point, that’s where you go.”

When he told me that story, I’m like, “That’s life.” So many of us are walking around pointing at what we don’t want. “I don’t want that deal to fall through.” “I don’t wanna be broke anymore.” “I don’t want… I don’t want…” That’s all we do. We keep running in to it. So to get clarity means you know the direction you’re going. You know where to put your GPS. You get off the treadmill and you get on a ladder and you walk in life.

So here’s how you find clarity. This is my hack over the last 20 years of doing this; I’ve learned something from Dan Sullivan, from Tony Robbins, all these incredible mentors. This is my easiest way to find clarity. Let’s pretend we’re doing a one-year anniversary of this podcast.

Rod:   Awesome.

Dean: Or on Facebook, we’re doing one year. We’re here. Everybody listening right now, it was the best year of your life.

If it were, let’s just say finances, but you could do this you’re your emotions, your health, your life, your love…

Rod:   Relationship.

Dean: Relations. But let’s just say we’re doing it with you finances, and your career. It is the best year of your life. You just sit for a moment and picture, we’re back here and you’re like, “Yeah, I’m killing it.”

Rod:   So you’re in the future, a year.

Dean: You’re in the future, a year. Right.

Rod:   Okay.

Dean: And you’re in the future and you’re just killing it. It’s the best year of your life. You’re making the money you want. You’re getting up where you want. You’re exercising the way you want. When you look in the mirror you see nothing but oozing confidence. When you walk in the room, people are like, “What happened to him? What happened to her? They get a hair cut?” No, it’s because your just oozing confidence because you feel so good.

I say this is a year looking backwards; you’re looking back at the best year of your life. Because sometimes, sometimes, setting goals looking forward is hard. We’re all really busy. If you guys ever saw the Road Runner, remember the Tasmanian Devil?

Rod:   Sure.

Dean: He’d spin so fast that there’d be a cloud around him. Most of us have a cloud around us. So when you go to set goals, you can’t really think, so step out of that cloud. It’s a year from now. It’s that year that you just feel alive. You can’t wait to be back on here. Jump on the comments go, “Dudes, I am kicking ass.”

So as you’re in that zone, as you’re feeling the best. You’re looking back at the best year of you’re life, start writing down what that looks like. How much money you are making?

Rod:   Love it.

Dean: What do you look like? What do you feel like? What are you doing on a daily basis? How many properties do you own? Do you have a property management company? Whatever it is that your goals are, just write them down, as if it was the best year for your life, and that’s your vision. Then you know where to point your boat. Then you know where to point your Ferrari. You know which direction to go.

And here’s the big key to that. This is where life changes. When you have a vision, and you have a crystal clear clarity on where you wanna go, you finally start saying no to the crap you shouldn’t be doing. Remember this. Write this down if you can. Wherever you’re listening, or listen to this again, remember this…

Rod:   So know where you wanna go, have clarity.

Dean: Yeah, right. Here’s the thing, remember this, yes, can get you out of Egypt. No, will take you to the Promised Land. Just think about that. Yes, gets you out of Egypt. No takes you to the Promised Land. As entrepreneurs, as people who are listening right now who want more out of life, you said yes, more than everybody else. You said yes to working over time. You said yes to working weekends you said yes to risking your money, time, effort and energy. You say yes more than most people.

When most people say no, and play small, and keep their job, and are miserable their whole entire life, you’ve said yes. There’s time to transition, get crystal clear vision, and start saying no to all the crap that doesn’t serve your bigger future.

Rod:   Love it.

Dean: When you do that, time opens up, space opens up, complexities go away…

[00:30:00]

Dean: Because when someone says, “Hey, let’s do this deal”, and go, “Does that fit my vision?” No. “Sorry, that doesn’t fit, I have to say no.” “Hey, can you guys do this?” “Six months ago, I would have said yes but it doesn’t fit my vision, I’m gonna have to say no.” And it’s easy to say no because you know exactly… Does it serve your bigger future or does it detract from your bigger future? Yes or no.

Binary thinking. Binary thinking was one of the biggest, the fastest ways to success. Is it taking me towards my vision or is it not taking me to my vision? Is it yes, or is it no?

Rod:   Love it. Love it. By the way, I want to interject something. Those of you watching, we are giving away a drone at the end of this. They, actually, probably within 24 hours ‘cause we’re gonna have to look at the comments but if you’re interested in getting this, put drone in the comments and like this post, okay? Because we’re gonna give one away and it’s awesome.

That was incredible. I love that future pace maybe write down your ideals, a day, a year from now. So you’ve got a vision of what that ideal day looks like and you train your reticular activation system, that thing in your brain that filters through all the stuff and point you to what’s important. You’ve done that and I love that. That’s a whole lot different than just writing goals down.

Dean: Yeah.

Rod:   When you’ve actually future paced yourself. Love that. Alright, so next thing on my list is Awakening Your Inner Hero.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rod:   I love that chapter. So please talk about that a little bit.

Dean: Yeah, so I think, as what we talked about is you spend so much time working on, well, avoiding what we don’t want.

Rod:   Right.

Dean: That kinda taps our confidence. We have outside influences like negative news. That’s all we get pounded with. We’re taught to work on our weaknesses, which is the biggest lie in the history of the world but I’m gonna give you permission…

Rod:   Yeah, by the way, let me interject something guys, and Tony says this, and it’s, “Stand guard at the door to your mind. You don’t need to watch the news. You don’t need to get the newspaper and see all that negative crap that’s going on. Stand guard and pay attention to what’s going on to you into you head because it’s going to impact you.

So anyway, please continue.

Dean: Yeah, No, no, listen. Every time I’m on stage, I ask challenge everybody to go on a one-week news diet.

Rod:   Yeah.

Dean: Just take one week, don’t watch the news, don’t read the paper and take that extra time to invest in you, invest to where you wanna go, invest in your mindset, in your life.

Rod:   Love it.

Dean: So, I’m just gonna take 30 seconds to answer that question correctly. I wanna talk about working on your weaknesses. In school, we were always the grades that weren’t.  If we weren’t doing good in English, it’s like, “Work on this, work on this, work on this.” And where everything that we are good at was kinda being avoided. I think we were graded by an outdated scorecard.

I would bet to say in high school, that my teachers, and my fellow students would probably have voted me the least likely to succeed ‘cause I couldn’t get good grades. But no one was seeing my brilliance. No one was seeing that I could watch somebody do something once and I could adapt it just like that. ‘Cause I’m a visual learner, I’m not an auto-… I listen to books, I can’t read a book, I can’t. If I read a book, I can’t comprehend it.

I started listening to books 10 years ago. I burned through a book a week.

Rod:   No kidding.

Dean: Right, and I can remember each word. But that’s not over taught. And I wanna give you permission right now, if you’re listening or watching, there’s something you think you suck at. There’s something that you hold and said, “Man, if I was… I could be more successful.” If I was more organized, I could be more successful. If I was a better reader, I could be more successful. If I was good with numbers, and spreadsheets, I could be more successful. If I wasn’t afraid to sell or talk to people or communicate in public, I could be more successful.

And you can screw that. That’s a lie.

Rod:   Love it.

Dean: It’s an absolute lie. I still can’t read good. If I try to type a letter, my computer can’t ever figure out the words. I have a limited vocabulary. I can’t articulate well. There’s so many things I’m not good at. But what I found is, that’s not the secret to life. The things you suck at, let them be thing that you suck at. Find out what you’re good at and get great at it.

I am great at communicating. I’m great at wanting to teach. I’m great at wanting to inspire. I’m not patting myself on the back. I’ve just worked on these skills because this is what I was born with. And I pay someone to edit my books. I pay someone to do technology. I hate bookkeeping. I pay someone to do my bookkeeping.

Yes, I am not saying, “Now, I have the money”. But I got there because working on my skill got me the money to pay it. If I would have still been trying to be a better reader or if I would’ve try to be a better writer or… I can’t do anything the same everyday. It’s not the way my brain works. I can’t even drive to work the same way everyday. If I did, I’d be bored. I’ve learned to accept that but that’s who I am. But I’m a badass at what I do. So just go be a badass at what you do.

Rod:   And everybody listening is a badass at something. So focus on your strengths. Because remember, where focus goes, energy flows. And so many people, like you were talking about, when you go up to somebody and ask them what they don’t want and they’ve got a litany of things they don’t want, and that’s… Where do you think their focus is? On what they don’t want, it’s a mindset shift of focusing on what you do want in your strengths. Love it. Absolutely love it.

Dean: Yes. I’m gonna keep… I still didn’t answer your question, but I’m gonna.

Rod:   It’s alright.

Dean: So your question was, “How do you awaken the Inner Hero?”

Rod:   The Inner Hero, yeah.

Dean: Right. So there’s a couple of things, right, and we’re kinda evolving to that. To build the confidence, get rid of the things you don’t… Don’t work on your weaknesses, biggest lie. Watch the news, those types of things. And another important one is, and I know you guys know this. Again, a lot of things I’m saying today, aren’t like, “Oh Dean, no one’s ever told me that.

Rod:   Right.

Dean: But make it a part of you life, to suffer less.

Rod:   Love that.

Dean: And I mean that in a way of, we hold on to our past. Our past is nothing more than research and development. Take from your past that which serves us and let the best rest go away. Think of your past as this, you live in a house. It’s a thousand square foot house, and there’s shelves on every wall. On every wall are little things of your past and the house catches on fire. And you have a small suitcase. You have three minutes. Grab from your past, that which serves you and let the rest of it burn down in the house.

Rod:   Oh, love that.

Dean: If you’re looking backwards at the things you did wrong, the regrets that you have, the mistakes you made, the missed opportunities, you were robbing your future self this very second.

Dale Carnegie said it best. Dale Carnegie said, “Live in airtight compartments.” That means live today. Because here’s the thing, if you’re stressed most of the times, if your worried, if your suffering. Like, “I can’t believe I missed that deal. I cant believe I didn’t do that part. I cant believe I trusted that guy, trusted that girl. You’re living in yesterday.

You only have a certain amount of energy in here. Enthusiasm. Excitement. You wanna burn most of it up from yesterday? It’s like having a car where you’re using gas from yesterday’s… Yesterday’s gone. You can’t burn gas, you need now and your future, you’re worried about tomorrow… What’s the economy gonna do? What’s the president gonna do? Where’s the real estate market gonna go? If you’re so worried about tomorrow then all you’re gonna do is be crippled in today.

Live in airtight compartments, meaning your tomorrow, if you get of the past, if you just use it as research and development, that means your today can be so powerful that it’s gonna alter your future. You don’t even know how your exponentially gonna grow, because if you live in this moment you’re changing the future every second. So the silly the silly movie you’re playing in your head of what the future’s gonna be like, it’s all shit. It’s all garbage because you’re gonna change that today.

One thing you heard today, one thing you hear by being on this incredible podcast, every single week, one thing is gonna shift your future, not a million. So how can you predict the future, you don’t know where you’re going? So make today amazing.

One of the ways I found to do that as fast as possible is to have solution based thinking be a part of you. Not something you’ve been told. Not something you do once in a while. It’s a part of who you are.

Rod:   Please explain that.

Dean: So I have an eight and a 10 year which is the loves of my life. I coach softball. I coach little league. I go to every dance recital. It’s just the greatest gift ever given to me.

Rod:   Greatest joy that a human can experience, for sure.

Dean: It’s unbelievable. I don’t like anything even remotely close as that. So I’ll have my daughter come home from school, for example. She’ll say, “Dad, my girlfriend today, she said this something mean and she sat at a different table.” I didn’t know girl drama started at 10, by the way.

Rod:   [laughter]

Dean: Someone should have told me. I was thinking 13. So my daughter will come home and I could see she’s sad and I just practiced solution based thinking with them and I say, “Bri, I’m really sorry that happened to you today. It probably made you feel bad, didn’t it”. I’ll say, “Hey Bri, why don’t we write down three things, right now, that can fix that.” She’s like, “Oh dad, yeah.” Like let’s just take two minutes, what are three things. “Well maybe she had a bad day, and I can just ask her if she needs help. Maybe I should write her a card, or maybe I should just ignore it.” I’m like, “Which one of those”, or write down five things, “Which one of those would help you, right this minute?” She’s like, “I think I wanna write her a card.” And in a second, she feels better. The sadness is gone because the solution was created.

What we do, that old analogy, don’t cry over spilt milk; we all do. The milk spills and we say, “Hey, who spilled that? Why did it spill? What’s it gonna do to the carpet? Is it gonna smell? Who did that? Why?” we spend so much energy that way. What I’ve trained my brain to do, and the most successful people I know do the same thing. It’s when the milk spills, immediately, you know what you do? Get a new glass of milk and a towel, and move the freak on.

Rod:   Love it.

Dean: There’s only enough energy for tomorrow if you forget about yesterday. You can’t un-spill the milk. I do that with my kids all the time. They’ll get up and strike out in a championship game, and they’re both amazing players. They go like, “I can’t believe… I can’t believe…” And I’m like, “You can’t un-strike out. What’s the solution?” And she’d be like, “Dad, would you stop,” and then she’ll go, “I can turn my back foot the next time. I think I was a little slow with my foot.” I say, “That’s great, what else?” “I can make sure I do this.” “Okay. Then you know what? Only thing you can do is go rock it the next time you’re up. ‘Cause we can’t undo that strike out.”

But how many of us are trying to undo the strike out, killing our confidence, building the inner villain and not building our inner hero. So solution focused thinking is huge, and it stops you from suffering. We all suffer when we think about the things that we could have, should have and could have fixed. It’s too late. It’s gone. Move on.

Rod:   Love it. Love it. Love it. Okay, what do you mean when you talk about One Shining Goal?

Dean: One Shining Goal. There’s a lot of different meanings for that and I write about it differently throughout the book. But one thing is, again, when you look in and pretend it’s a year from now, and it’s the greatest year of your life, and you write down what that is. But there’s always that one goal, that one thing that’s just driving you. And the reason I want and encourage everybody…

Rod:   More than other goals.

Dean: More than other, right.

Rod:   Okay. Alright.

Dean: And I’m gonna lead right into something and exercise that I think will anchor in everything on what we talked about today.

Rod:   Awesome.

Dean: Because when you have that one big shining goal and it’s freedom, it’s retiring my parents because I watched them struggle. It’s letting my husband not work anymore. It’s me and my husband, or me and my wife taking off and taking a year to just be with our family. Like the one big goal, what happens along the journey from where you are, to where you wanna go. That big goal is, you’ll have bigger strategic byproducts than you can imagine once you’re in the game.

The reason why I wanna anchor this big goal is, listen, you decided to be in the real estate space, right?

Rod:   Yep.

You got a lot of information with being with Tony. You and I speak the same language. We know the same thinking.

Rod:   Right. We actually have a lot of the same parallels.

Dean: Right.

Rod:   Believe it or not.

Dean: So you are in this game, but along the journey, did you ever think toy have a podcast as successful as this?

Rod:   Never in a million years.

Dean: Okay.

Rod:   In fact, never even planned it to be this successful.

Dean: Okay, but what was that? That’s a strategic byproduct of your evolution towards your goal.

Rod:   Love it. Yep.

Dean: So you had a big goal. Maybe your goal is to own a thousand units, maybe you already own a thousand units. I don’t even know, I’m just throwing out a number.

Rod. Right. No, no, I see what you’re saying.

Dean: Right. So my goal is to own a thousand units. But along that journey, you’re learning so much value, people start asking you, “Maybe I’ll write this quick book just to help people.” And along this journey, you go, “Let me create this course, so people can do what I did.” Then along that journey you’re like, “God, people keep asking me.” This new technology let me try this podcasting, a million plus people later.

So when you’re in the game, the reason I say big shining goal, you have no idea how much bigger than that goal it’s gonna be. That goal will mean nothing to you. In two years from now, whatever goal you had five years ago, it’ll be a joke. You’ll be a hundred miles past it.

But people are afraid to set that goal, and get in the game. But once you’re in it’s like you could stand on the sidelines and never win the game. But you can get put in the game for one play, and they drop the football, and you run it in for the scoring touchdown, but you could never get the winning touchdown. But you can’t get to the touchdown unless you get in the game. So my thing is, get that big goal. Like get you to move and you have no idea, all the benefits that will come from it, outside of that.

Rod:   The byproducts.

Dean: The byproducts.

Rod:   The strategic byproducts. Love it.

Dean: Yeah.

Rod:   Love it. Love it. Love it. I know you talk about attraction and persuasion, and influence. Can you speak to that a little bit.

Dean: Mm-hmm. So nothing happens without a sale. People don’t like talking about sales… Half of the people right now, ‘cause I’ve been in a million audiences. Half the people right now, listening, thinks selling is kinda bad or don’t really want to do it, or “I feel bad about selling”. You have to change that thinking because nothing happens without a sale.

Think about this: was Mother Teresa a sales woman?

Rod:   She was one of the best actually. Yeah.

Dean: Okay. Was Martin Luther King a salesman?

Rod:   Yep.

Dean: Right. Was JFK a salesperson? Some of the best leaders in the entire world know how to persuade and sell to push people towards something better. When you’re in this space, if you’re afraid to persuade, you’re afraid to sell, persuasion is the oxygen for your growth; marketing, attraction, that is the lifeline, that is the gas to the car.

Rod:   Growth in everything. Not just in business, life, relationship, everything, your ability to influence.

Dean: Exactly. I’m gonna give you two little things here. That will make you not ever have to be like a cheesy salesperson pushing your agenda. If you got a pen, write this down, if not, listen to this again ‘cause these are some of the best. These two sentences I’m gonna share with you have literally allowed me to transform what I do ‘cause I don’t wanna be a hardcore salesperson of seem like a pitchman. I wanna be the provider of value to people but I gotta get them engaged. If I don’t get your credit card, I don’t get to help you. If you create a course and you don’t get people’s credit card, you can’t give them all that information. So you gotta be good at persuasion.

So remember this, everybody, people will buy from you, will sell to you, will learn from you, if they feel understood not when they understand you. Think about that. A cheesy, pushy salesman wants you to understand him.

Be a car salesman, “Hey, I’ve been in this business for 13 years. I know cars better than anybody. This baby would fit you perfectly. It gets good gas mileage, it does this, does this.” He’s no idea what’s going on in your life, doesn’t know if you are a single guy that wants a sports car. You got five kids and you need an SUV, right?

Rod:   Right.

Dean: Sales people who want you to know them will do, “Eh…” Salesperson who comes out and knows how to let you feel understood are the ones that go a long way without selling. So people will buy from you, sell to you, learn from you, if they feel understood not when they understand you. So how do you do that is enter the mind of your prospect and finish their conversations.

Rod:   Hmm, love it.

[00:45:00]

Dean: Enter the mind of your prospect. The prospect could be somebody who’s gonna sell you a house, someone who’s gonna buy a house, someone who’s gonna sell you a multi-unit. A prospect could be someone that’s gonna lend you the money. When someone’s gonna lend you the money, don’t just go and vomit on them on all the things you could do, and how much you have. Sit there and find out what are their fears. What are their goals what do they wanna do with their money? What would make them feel protected? How could they be in the business? What kind of interest are they getting on their current money?

Let them feel understood and after they are understood say, “You know what? I think I may have a great solution for you. Here’s an option we have, we’re getting in a 7% ROI on our money, we’re doing it with multi-family houses. The market rises about 3.2% every year. And from everything you’ve shared with me, I think this fits your model absolutely perfect. I wanna know if there are any other questions you have for me that I can help?” Because you’re understanding what they want rather than just go there and vomiting what you think they want to hear.

Rod:   Yep. Yeah. I love it. Love it. When you do that through questions. The bottom line is you do that through questions. I’ve got a couple more, and I really, I’m just getting so much since you’re adding so much value today. I just wanna go a little further.

So you talk about the Power of Happiness.

Dean: Yep.

Rod:   Talk about that a little more.

Dean: Yeah. I would bet to say in my 20s, maybe even early 30s, I would have said once I reach the level of success I desire, I can allow my happiness to go to another level. I’ll be happier then. And I think that’s a perception that’s simply just a mind… That’s just your mind playing tricks on you. You have the opportunity to be happy at any moment. How many times have you been sad in a second something happened and you are happy?

We have happiness living in us at every single moment of everyday. It’s if we choose to let it out. So what we have done though, in so many instances, and I’ll say we and also I’ll say me in general, is we’ve attached, “If this happens I get to be happy.” If this deal happens, if this closes, if my wife thinks this way, if my husband does this, if I get the girl, if I take the vacation, if we close on the house then I can feel happy.

What I’ve learned through the years is happiness doesn’t follow success. Success will follow happiness much, much faster. Because you have the choice to be happy right this minute. I don’t care, you’re listening right now or you’re watching. You might be going through something in life. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through, you have a choice to be happy, right this second.

And I, again, I used to think I had to suffer more on my way up. Fighting to get up the ladder. Fighting for more. I had to be serious. What I realized is I’m 10 times more productive, I’m 10 times a better dad, I’m 10 times a better leader, or I’m10 times better a human being when I can look back and find happiness.

I’ll give you a little hack for finding happiness. Just don’t look forward, turn around and look backwards. Just think of all the things that you’ve accomplished. You’ve accomplished so much more than you can believe. Every single person listening right now has got the girl, got the guy, became the parent, did something nice for somebody, got the job you wanted, enjoyed yourself, laughed, loved, had passion and intimate, all these things but we look back sometimes or we look forward to I should have been further along. I should be making more money. I should have my own business. I should be 10 pounds lighter. I should have come from a better relationship. My wife and I should be intimate more.

Yeah, you put yourself in a funk by looking at your ideal self, the perfect you. But it’s like chasing the horizon. You’re chasing the sunset. You’re never gonna find it. You’re never gonna find the perfect you so stop comparing yourself to that. Or in today’s world, you look on Facebook and there’s a gazillion people who look like they’re rich and they’re perfect, and you compare yourself to them and you put yourself in a funk. You have that choice or you can look backwards and look at all the badass stuff you’ve done in your life.

Remind yourself. In fact, remind yourself why you’re cool. In my book, I have this exercise, these 10 Things That Make You Cool. I’d say write it down today. It’s hard to write down about yourself. But look backwards. What did you accomplish? What did you overcome? What did you do in college? What did you do after college? Or no college? You’ve done so many great things. Remind yourself of it and find happiness even in the toughest times. Because you’re still gonna go through stress, you’ll still wanna make more money, you still gonna wanna evolve. Why not do it a little bit happier?

Rod:   Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Last question I wanna ask you, and then I wanna salute you for something. You’ve got some quick hacks to success in the book. I have got them listed here, but I really…

Dean: Name a couple.

Rod:   Stashing cash, investing in yourself, spoiling yourself randomly drawing energy from frequent smiles. Just great stuff, bouncing back fast, thinking solution instead of problem, asking happy people how come they’re happy, and taking the time to understand people, rather than like seven habits of highly effective people. Take it, seek first to understand versus be understood. Don’t judge. Love that.

Dean: Yeah, that was a big one. So I’ll ramble, I’ll riff on a couple.

Rod:   Okay.

Dean: That smile thing, it’s funny ‘cause I personally did the research on smiling. You could Google this, guys. It’s pretty amazing. People always ask me, “Why are you smiling so much?” It’s because they did one study where they took kids who graduated high school, and the only determining difference is they took kids 30 years later, who smiled in their yearbook picture, compared to kids who didn’t.

Rod:   Wow.

Dean: And the same people took rookie cards from baseball players, and the rookie cards of the rookies who didn’t smile, compared to the ones with the big smile, it was so dramatically different. You don’t know anything else about their lives, other than smile or no smile.

Rod:   Wow.

Dean: The rookies who smiled were significantly better at baseball, they were better in their personal lives, and they retired with more money. The kids who graduated with a smile, ended up having less divorce, more money in general, more happiness, more joy; simply a smile. If you read the psychological reports behind it, the studies behind it, it literally says those who smile, the percentage of their happiness is so much higher ‘cause your brain doesn’t know the difference. When you smile, it triggers your whole body to say, “Oh, I guess we’re not stressed, everything’s okay. We’re doing good here.”

Rod:   Love it. Love it.

Dean: We’re doing good here. Something as simple as smile… I’ll just jump ship here to something completely different. As you guys evolve in your business, and I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by so many successful people, just that one hack was stash cash. So many people I know who, even friends of mine right now, that have Rolls Royces and 20,000 square foot houses, and the jets are two months away if things went sideways, they’d be done.

I just learned that when I talk about building confidence, as you evolve… I’d scrape money off the top like you’re paying an old IRS bill and stash cash. Not just to have the money, it gives you a level of confidence to make smart decisions. I know my friends that are very successful some of them have to compromise their decisions because they need the money to keep going. When you have cash stashed it gives you another level of confidence to say no to the people you shouldn’t be doing business with, say no to the deals that don’t work, say no to the deals that compromise who you are and your core values. So as you evolve, stash cash, have that security blanket, and when it’s time to say no, you’ll be able to say no a lot quicker.

Rod:   Yeah, you’re not operating from fear. And just to digress from one second. You were talking, you know so many people, achieve, achieve, achieve to be happy. And like Tony Robbins like to say, why not just happily achieve; tie it right in.

Dean: That’s great. Yeah. I never heard of that but that’s great.

Rod:   Right. It ties right in to the smiling. So you and I have so many parallels. It’s crazy. I didn’t go to college. I did my first real estate deal in my 20s. But what I wanna talk about is you also have two incredible charities, and I just wanna give you a ‘thatta boy’, just to salute you for this.

Dean is the co-founder of the Centurion Mastermind Group. They’ve raised a million dollars for Richard Branson’s charity, Virgin Unite. You’ve also founded Operation Free Home. That you provide people a home to live in for free, to help them get back on their feet. I just wanna salute you publicly for that. I mean charities are a big part of my life and I just…

Dean: Rod, thank you…Yeah.

Rod:   It’s so awesome to see that.

Dean: One thing I’m doing with Tony right now, his big thing, his Feed America.

Rod:   Oh, that’s right, your book. Oh yeah.

Dean: So Tony is matching my money. So every time I give a book away… If you go to deansfreebook.com, I give the book away, just cover the shipping and handling, but every book that we give, and we’re heading towards a million people right now, a million meals. Every book I give away, we feed 22 people, for every book. So book goes out the door, we feed 22 people and the only reason I could do that is ‘cause Tony matches me dollar per dollar.

Rod:   I love it.

Dean: So he wants to feed a 100,000,000 people this year, so I figured I’d jump in and see if I can help.

Rod:   Yeah, I formed a foundation17 years ago and we have fed 50,000 children now for the holidays.

Dean: Oh, that’s awesome.

Rod:   I got it all from Tony.

Dean: That’s amazing.

Rod:   I got it all from Tony as well. Let me interject one thing, guys, if you’re interested in real estate at all, check out Dean’s book. I wanna mention one other thing about Dean before we go. Dean does these, like I say, we’ve got so many parallels. I do this weekly clip on the podcast about the psychology of success ‘cause like we’ve said, it’s 80% of this. And you have these Weekly Wisdoms that you’ve been doing for how long?

Dean: Almost nine years.

Rod:   Nine years and then, I’ve been watching them. They’re fantastic. I highly recommend you guys go check them out. They’re at weeklywisdom.com, correct?

Dean: Yes.

Rod:   Yeah, and get his book. Dean, what a joy this has been. You are a rock star.

Dean: Oh, thanks, Rod.

Rod:   It’s been so cool to have you download like this.

Dean: Yeah, it’s good spending some time with you, man. I hope that we served.

Rod:   Likewise.

Dean: And again, what I told everybody when we started, take what serves you, from what we’ve shared today, and throw the rest away.

Rod:   Yeah.

Dean: I rather you throw most of it away, and put some of this in play, this very minute.

Rod:   You do one thing from what Dean’s talked about. Just one thing, and it’ll change your life. Like he said, a small shift, you make one tiny shift, you take it out 10 years, it’s a different life. Thanks buddy, really enjoyed it.

Dean: Alright. Thanks Rod. Appreciate it.

Rod:   Alright.

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