“Who are the people that when we’re around them we feel more alive? Who are the people that make us feel more energized, more fulfilled, and more confident? These are the people we must gravitate towards for progression. But you see, the truth is that there are also toxic people in our lives working against our progression. Imagine you’re on a train, and in your compartment is your family and your close friends. Suddenly you look to your right and you find that a handful of toxic people, people who are draining your motivation and your drive, have somehow found themselves in your compartment. What can you do now? There is only one thing you can do, and that is to politely let them off at the next station. I believe the people in our lives who are negative, competitive, jealous, et cetera, can really drain our energy and our confidence.”
— Arianna Huffington, interview with Dean Graziosi
So who exactly is the villain within? Well, the villain within can disguise itself as many different things. But no matter what form it takes, we all have it somewhere inside. To most of us, it’s that self-doubt, that inner voice saying, “You can’t do this” or “What makes you think you deserve that?” And in so many cases it holds you back from taking the proper actions to move your life in a better direction. It’s that inner resistance that in the past talked you out of pursuing the things that made your heart smile and helped you reach that next level of life.
I call it a villain because it’s sneaky and up to no good. It hides in the back of your mind, and you don’t even realize it exists. And the worst part about this inner villain is that, in most cases, external factors in your life that seemed innocuous created this villain. We’ll address these factors soon. You may not realize it, but this villain has created a glass ceiling—an artificial limit on what you can achieve and who you can be. And what’s even worse, once that villain is inside you, it is anchored down by multiple internal factors that prevent its escape. You may sometimes find yourself wondering why you’re working faster, your life is going by quicker, and you’re ultimately working harder than ever before, but you haven’t found that next level of life. And the simple explanation is: You have a villain working against you and you don’t even know it. The good news: We’re going to expose it once and for all.
WHICH WOLF ARE YOU FEEDING?
I once heard a fable about a Navajo woman who told her grandson a story about how we all have two wolves that live inside us, constantly battling one another. It starts with the grandmother sitting her grandson down and explaining to him that, “One of the wolves is jealous, has envy in his soul, is malicious, and has a scarcity mind-set. To that wolf, everything in the world is wrong and unpleasant. He believes that people are mostly bad, things are no good, and the world is a cold place. As you can imagine, nothing good ever happens for that wolf because it is a negative, pessimistic animal, always seeing things as glass-half-empty.” Then the woman says to her grandson, “But you also have a different, powerful wolf that lives inside you. This wolf has empathy, love, compassion, and positivity, and knows it can accomplish anything it puts its heart and soul into. This wolf sees the bright side of everything and constantly sees things glass-half-full. And grandson, this wolf, the powerful wolf, can take you to so many amazing places.”
Then the grandson looks at his grandmother and says, “Well, which wolf wins the battle, Grandma?”
She replies, “The one you feed, grandson. The one you feed.”
I love this story because it is applicable to all our lives. We all have the bad wolf, or the villain, as I call it, living inside us, but we also have this hero just waiting to be released. Here, I’ll help you learn how to expose the villain hiding inside you, discover how it got there, and proceed to destroy it. Because in so many cases, once it’s gone, you can’t even begin to imagine how much more you will be able to accomplish in your professional and personal life.
THE VILLAIN IS A PARASITE
A few years back, a man went to a third-world country in South America to volunteer for a worthy cause, helping those in need. After his emotional journey, he arrived back in the States filled with gratitude and ready to kick his own life into high gear. But shortly after the trip he started feeling sluggish and a bit weak and sick. He was in his 50s, and he simply assumed the cause was aging, and it was something he just needed to start accepting. Over the next few weeks he stopped doing certain activities that he loved. He stopped playing with his recreational basketball team and being active in the community, and he started to try to process the new thoughts of an aging man.
What he didn’t realize is that when he was in the jungles of South America helping out families in need, he was infected with a dangerous parasite. And from that moment on, this parasite had been living inside him, feeding off him. Every minute of every day it was robbing him of nutrients, sapping his energy, and diminishing his quality of life. He simply had no idea something was living inside him, holding him back from his full potential. However, he eventually went to the doctor, found out about the parasite, got the right medicine, and the parasite was gone for good. This man appreciated life once again. In fact, he appreciated it even more so after this experience. With a new perspective on life, he felt like he could accomplish anything!
Why do I tell you this story? Because the villain that I spoke of earlier in the chapter is, with all intents and purposes, a parasite that is living inside you. No, it’s not robbing you of your nutrients or feeding off your body, but it’s taking away from the quality of life you deserve! It’s decreasing your confidence, your joy, your inspiration, and ultimately, your passion for life. So I’m going to show you how it was created and how to destroy it, plain and simple! This chapter will be like going to the doctor and getting medication to destroy the self-doubt and the pessimistic voice that has made you miss opportunities.
If we don’t flush this villain from your system immediately, it will continue to do damage. And even worse, it will continue to erode your confidence. And we all know that reduced confidence hampers your ability to move in a better direction. When was the last time you made a great move, made a sale, had a great date, got a promotion, or started something new when your confidence was in the toilet? Probably never. Think about your best days, best sales, and best dates; they happened when your confidence was high and all things seemed possible! By identifying the toxicity living inside you, then flushing it, you will restore your confidence. And this is just the start.
As I explain to you how this villain was created and sustained, I’m also going to give you strategies that will show you how to kill it off, piece by piece. So let’s start identifying it right now and allow you to discover its origins.
THE VILLAIN GROWS OUT OF YOUR PAST
Let’s start with one of the external factors that feed this success-robbing parasite: watching, listening to, and reading the news. Think about it: We’ve grown up as a generation that gets nothing but negative news pounded into our minds. Every second of every day our brains are bombarded with the news of wars, scarcity, economic crisis, disasters, terrorist attacks, murders, sicknesses, and suffering.
Did you know that in the 1950s Time magazine covers were about 90 percent positive in tone and content? Then, through the years, Time magazine realized that the more negative their stories, the more copies they would sell. In fact, they realized that negative superlatives worked 30 percent better at snaring readers’ attention than positive ones. And not just that, but the average click-through rate on headlines with negative superlatives is a staggering 63 percent higher than that of their positive counterparts. This emphasis on the negative isn’t just an editorial decision. The negative content reflects the increasing number of anxiety-producing global events, such as the rise of terrorism, ecological disasters, and many other crises and calamities. All this contributes to our perception that things are getting worse.
Now is Time magazine the only one who has gone through this transformation and is delivering negative news? Of course not. Time magazine has to make a profit, as does every other news outlet in the world. If they decide to focus only on the positive, they won’t generate the readership and revenue they require. And the media has developed a disaster reflex—whether it’s a devastating hurricane or an urban riot, they provide saturation coverage, creating the impression that the end of the world is near. As a cynical television news producer once said, “If it bleeds, it leads.”
As a result, the majority of the daily data we digest is completely negative. It’s difficult to focus on positive thoughts and that next level of success when at every turn we are receiving information about a world that seems doomed. The news can affect you in such a negative way that, even if you are someone who has an “I’m going to be the thermostat of life” mentality, you can soon become the thermometer. The negativity is overpowering the positive-thinking part of our brains. According to research done by UCLA, the average human being has around 70,000 thoughts per day. And out of those thoughts 80 percent of them are negative, with the majority of those thoughts carrying over to the next day. Based on everything I’ve read and observed, digesting negative news is a leading cause of this frightening statistic.
And I understand that throughout history there have always been wars, economic hurdles, and natural disasters. But never before has all this information been so readily available. We get it from our apps, our phones, our social media accounts, and TV at an alarming rate. And it affects you, whether you like it or not. That’s the thing about our subconscious: it takes in what it wants.
So what happens is that this barrage of negativity is strengthening your inner villain. It encourages thoughts like, “Why would you want to start your own business when the economy is just going to crash? Why do you think you deserve love when famous movie stars keep getting divorced? Why do you think you can get in shape when the world is more obese now than ever before?” When you consciously or subconsciously absorb even a portion of the negative news out there, it slowly chips away at your confidence and reinforces that you’re staying exactly where you are, rather than motivating you to get where you want to go.
To kill off this aspect of the villain, do the following: Go on a 30-day news diet. I recommend a total separation, in which you don’t watch the news, can’t read about it, and can’t ask your friends about it. Instead, use that time and energy to search within yourself, spend time bonding with the people you love, or work on the things we’re discussing in this book to empower you. Spend that time working on the things that can allow you to gain confidence, instead of something that strips it away. I don’t know how much time you’ll recover with this news diet, but take the time you usually spend on the news and spend it on you instead. And remember, it’s not just the time you lose by watching or reading the news, but it’s the damaging aftereffects that cause the most harm. So commit to yourself right now to take a 30-day news challenge and write down a list of things you will be doing instead. Will you meditate, cook yourself some healthy meals, and hit the gym? Create the business plan for your new idea or expand your current one? Will you read the rest of this book without delay? Will you hang out with your kids, your spouse, or your parents? Whatever it is, my guess is that a sabbatical from the news, while engaging in alternate activities, will function like a cognitive “cleanse.” It will allow you to escape the drag of negativity and move forward in a positive direction.
WORK ON STRENGTHS, NOT WEAKNESSES
Your inner villain also thrives when you focus your time and effort on things at which you’re not good. No doubt, throughout your life you were taught to work on your weaknesses, to try to improve your skills and abilities in areas where you did not thrive.
Hands down, that may be the biggest lie we’ve ever been told. At the end of the day, all this does is rob you of your confidence. This belief may sound crazy when you first read it, since from a young age onward, you’ve probably been told, “You’re not good at calculus, so go do more calculus. You’re not good at history, go study more history.” By focusing on your weaknesses, though, you end up feeling inferior subconsciously. Just as troubling, this focus encourages you to ignore your exceptional capabilities and strengths.
So though you may not agree with me yet, I hope you’ll soon say, “The heck with my weaknesses. I’m going to get amazing at what I’m already good at!”
This misconception about improving weaknesses is practiced by many people, including educators, parents, managers, and other authority figures. It’s a well-intentioned but misplaced idea that almost held me back from going after the life that I always dreamed of. I was in serious danger of living a complacent life I loathed.
According to society’s rules, I wasn’t supposed to become a success. I barely got out of high school, I was in special education until 10th grade, I had no money, I didn’t have a mentor, I didn’t know anybody rich, and I sure as heck wasn’t wise enough to read books on success like you are today. And one of the things that almost sentenced me to a life of self-doubt and mediocrity was being told to work on my weaknesses.
About 10 years ago I wrote my first book, entitled Totally Fulfilled. When I first decided to write it, the only reason I did so was because I wanted to share my passion for helping others. As you may have figured out, I write books exactly the way I talk. A lot of times they’re not perfect as far as grammar and structure, and I tend to digress, but they deliver the message and lessons I want to share fast and compellingly. I’ve learned that I have the ability to deliver simple yet effective strategies, sparking people to action so they can transform or even transcend their circumstances. But no, I definitely am not an English major.
As I sat down to write my first book, all these thoughts about my lack of writing skills started to fill my mind. I began to think things like, “You barely graduated high school, there is no way you can really write a book.” Or I would tell myself, “Your ADD won’t allow you to focus that long; it’s impossible.” But what made me move forward was my conviction that I had a message to deliver to the world. So I wrote my first book. Not without some difficulties and episodes of self-doubt, but I got through it. When I was done, I knew it would need an editor to go through it and clean up some of the mess that I was sure I had created through my lack of formal grammar and writing skills. So I found someone I was told was one of the best editors in the country, and I took a plane to meet her. We had a nice meeting, and I explained my desires and my passions and the fact that I knew the manuscript needed some cleaning up. I left her with this task, and I couldn’t have been more excited to get the manuscript back and get it published. However, two days later I got a call from her, and I remember to this day what she said: “Dean, this isn’t a book. This is a two-hundred-page conversation. You don’t need an editor; you need a complete rewrite.”
I was devastated. I remember hanging up the phone and allowing disempowering thoughts from the past to flow back into my mind like some sort of dam had just broken. And the reason they came back so fast was because like many of you reading this, I had been taught to work on my weaknesses for most of my life. My subconscious tried to make me believe I was incompetent for thinking I could ignore my weaknesses. I immediately started thinking back to criticisms my teachers directed at me in school, and I reflected on them in such a negative way that I started saying to myself, “I should have better grammar, better spelling, understand how to punctuate, and do all the other things that good writers do! Who are you, Dean, to think you could write a book?” My negative, defeatist thoughts ran away with my mind, and my confidence was temporarily destroyed; my momentum disappeared. The villain grew stronger and stronger as I spent about 24 hours beating myself up for not taking the time to work on my weaknesses before I wrote the book.
Luckily for me, about 48 hours later my thoughts shifted, and I remember thinking, “Stop it! Look at the stories you’re telling yourself! Are you kidding me? I may not be a trained writer, but I have a powerful message, and I need to share it with the world. I know my message can change people’s lives. Who cares that I’m not perfect at grammar and my book sounds like a two-hundred-page conversation?” I called the editor back the next day and said, “I respect your opinion, but I don’t need your services anymore. You’re fired.” Okay, I’m not sure if I said the words, “You’re fired,” but I like to remember it that way.
I soon found someone else to edit the book, and I sat them down and said, “Do me a favor: just make this readable, but leave my words as intact as you can. Don’t rewrite my personality or my message—just edit the spelling and grammar. I don’t want to try to sound like someone else because this book is me. This is who I am. People can take me or leave me, but I’m going to be me.”
It was the first book I ever published and it became a New York Times bestseller in weeks. I’m truly honored and blessed to be able to write that, but at the end of the day, who cares about the New York Times bestseller status? Let’s be honest. What I’m proudest of is that the message in that book changed many people’s lives. What could be a better victory than that?
But what if I hadn’t written it? What if, after my first editor called my book embarrassing, I said to myself, “Man, I have no business being an author! I should’ve worked on my weaknesses, but I didn’t.” My life as I know it today would be completely different! You surely would not be reading my sixth book! There are so many “what ifs” that pop into my head, but luckily I’ll never know how many of them would have come to pass because I didn’t give in to working on my weaknesses. I let myself focus on the lives I was going to change with my message.
What opportunities have you passed up through the years because you questioned yourself based solely on flaws you think you have or others told you that you have? As you think about that question, also think about this truth: Working on your strengths will help you overcome anything that you consider a weakness.
EVERYONE IS GOOD AT SOMETHING
A dear friend of mine, Ned Hallowell, is one of America’s leading doctors and an expert on the topic of ADD. Ned is someone you may have seen on Dr. Phil or on The Oprah Winfrey Show numerous times. Oprah, in fact, calls him the world’s number one ADD doctor. He’s Harvard trained and a Harvard professor as well. One day I was having lunch with Ned, and because I grew up assuming I had a form of ADD, I asked, “Ned, what exactly is ADD?” He described it in simple terms, translating his vast store of knowledge into language I could understand.
He said, “What people don’t realize is that ADD is a blessing. Having it is like having a Ferrari engine, but unfortunately, you have bicycle brakes. You have all this gas and the fastest engine, but you just don’t know how to slow down. I just teach kids and adults how to control the brakes. And when I do, they go faster than anybody else.”
I then asked, “How do you have so much success curing kids, curing adults, and in many cases, taking them off medication?”
He said, “Let me give you an example. When a kid has ADD, and he is sitting in class trying to read a book, and his foot is tapping on the ground and his focus is drifting, the truth is he probably really doesn’t want to read that book. To anyone with ADD, trying to read a book of little to no interest is harder than it is for other kids. And most times the teacher who wants what’s best for the student thinks to herself, ‘Johnny is going to sit in that chair and not get up until that book is finished. I’m going to teach him how to sit still and read like the rest of the kids.’ And when the teacher makes him sit in that chair to the point where he can’t handle it anymore, Johnny finally gets up and runs around the classroom or walks into the hall or just gets up and does anything but read that book. Now, not only does he have ADD, he also has ADHD. It’s unfortunately a self-fulfilling diagnosis.
“What I do is I go and find out what Johnny is good at. Whether it’s art, baseball, math, science, or whatever it is. Everyone is good at something, if not multiple things, so we dig for it and find it. We get his teachers, friends, and his parents involved, and together we help Johnny take what he’s good at and help him become great at it. When he becomes great at that one thing, his confidence goes through the roof, and it trickles down to all areas of his life. All of a sudden you fast-forward a couple of months and Johnny is in that same classroom reading the book because he wants to.”
Can you relate to this in any way? Have you been holding on to a weakness? Have you been letting it somehow define you, diminish your true value, or make you feel inferior? If so, can you see how it fuels this inner success-robbing villain? And can you see why it has to stop today?
I went through school struggling like the hypothetical kid in Dr. Hallowell’s example. No one in my early years of school saw all the things I could do well and the talents I had. They only saw what I couldn’t do and what I was bad at. I was shy and insecure, and truly felt stupid regularly because of it. Yet what they didn’t realize at the time, and I’m not sure I did either, was that I possessed an amazing capacity for visual and audible learning. I could watch somebody drive a bulldozer for 15 minutes and jump on and drive it like a pro. I could watch people on stage and be able to emulate them with ease. Through these two senses, I was able to absorb knowledge and skills that took other people years to acquire. I was able to start things fast and get them accomplished fast, but I was told to work on my weaknesses so many times growing up that it almost crippled my learning ability and career.
Many adults inadvertently strip kids of their confidence and their abilities because of this insistence on addressing weaknesses. The truth is that when we’re taught to work on the things we suck at, it makes us struggle constantly and it diminishes our belief in ourselves.
There is only one way for us to say, “heck no,” to working on our weaknesses and to make sure this doesn’t cripple our success like it does for millions of people around the world. And that’s to do the complete opposite of what most people suggest when it comes to weaknesses and instead say, “Forget about it!”
GET AMAZING AT WHAT YOU’RE ALREADY GOOD AT
You’re good at something. Heck, I bet you are good, if not great, at a lot of things. Take a moment right now, stop reading, and write down a list of what you do well. (You can find this “Get Amazing” form at www.thebetterlife.com under the “Book Resources” tab.) Are you good at communicating? Are you good at selling? Are you good at just being honest? Are you good at being a friend? Are you good at being a listener? Are you good at organization and structure? Are you good at developing systems or programming computers? Because here’s what I know: You possess gifts, your unique abilities. There’s no real explanation as to why you’re good at some things—you just are. And your success depends on making it a habit to focus on improving what you’re already good at to the point of greatness.
Because when we are told to work on the things that we naturally don’t do well, we focus on this little 10 percent bucket of things we suck at and ignore the other 90 percent. And out of that 90 percent there is undoubtedly something at which you excel. Remember the story of the two wolves? About how the wolf that you feed is the wolf that wins? If you put energy and effort into the things you stink at, it’s inevitable you’ll lose your confidence and your momentum toward success. If you put energy and focus into the things that you’re good at and become great at them, you can eventually pay for someone else to do the things you are not good at. This one strategy will help improve more than just your bank account. It will improve every area of your life.
So create your “good at” list and then, next to each entry, write down how you can improve those skills and enhance those abilities to become great at them. As you do this exercise, don’t even think about your weaknesses. You’re soon going to realize that if you can spend all of your focus, energy, time, and effort on the things you’re good at, you can overcome all the other things at which you’re not so talented. Becoming exceptionally good at one key skill is far more valuable than struggling for years and years to become average at the things that you find difficult. If you want financial success, if you want to build real wealth, make it a habit to focus on the things you do well.
To cement this thought process and success habit into your life, here’s a story I think you’ll appreciate. A few years back I was doing a small round-table mastermind, and there was a great guy in the group named Tom. I taught Tom real estate investing skills to help him diversify his portfolio and create long-term wealth. He was in his 60s, recently retired, and at the time of this session, he had done four real estate deals. From memory, Tom told me he had averaged roughly $15,000 profit on each deal, which is absolutely great! Tom was one of a dozen people at the table, and I remember going around the room and asking each person, “What’s holding you back from that next level? What’s the biggest obstacle in your way of going faster and doing more?” And then I asked these questions of Tom.
He answered, “Dean, I have to tell you, I’m so unorganized and sloppy, you have no idea. I can clean my car, and a week later it’s a disaster. My home office has invoices and papers and clutter all over the place. I’m just so sloppy! Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m not doing another real estate deal until I go to OfficeMax and get a filing cabinet and a filing system. I’m going to label everything, and I’m going to create a system to be organized.”
When he finished, I asked, “Are you done, Tom?”
He said, “Yep, that’s it.”
Then I responded with this: “Let me just be frank with you, Tom. It’s too late—you’re going to be sloppy and disorganized ’til the day you die, and who cares?” He was shocked that I had dismissed his admitted weakness. He sat in motionless silence. I think the others may have thought I was being rude. But after a few moments passed so slowly they seemed like hours, I watched a thousand pounds and 60 years fall from Tom’s shoulders. For a second I thought he was going to break down and cry. I said, “Tom, not that long ago you had never done real estate in your life. You had a completely different job, and now you’ve done four deals. You’re amazing at finding a deal other people can’t, getting it rehabbed, and getting it sold for a profit. Go spend all your time getting even better at that. Who cares that you’re not that organized? What if you did one extra deal a year and then paid somebody part-time to organize for you? You’d never have to worry about being disorganized ever again.”
Tom remained silent, the hamster wheel spinning in his head. I think he most likely was reminiscing about a teacher, a parent, or maybe a spouse saying, “You’re sloppy. You better learn to get organized!” He had all those years of bad advice sitting there, and then I watched them just melt away as he shifted his focus from weakness to strength.
And you can do exactly the same thing. What weaknesses are holding you back? What have people told you that you need to work on? What false beliefs do you have about yourself because of a so-called weakness? For the next level of success in your life, answer these questions, make going from good to great your success habit, and plunge a dagger through the inner villain’s heart (not a fatal blow, perhaps, but one that does the villain some serious damage).
THE COST OF BAD ADVICE
So what is the costliest advice in the entire world? Yes, of course: bad advice. Let me ask you this: Have you ever had an invention, a thought, an idea, or a creation that you thought could change the world and make you money? Then you told a family member, or a friend, or even a loved one, and they gave you every reason why they thought it wouldn’t work.
Maybe they said things along the lines of, “Inventions take money and you don’t have enough. It’s probably been thought of already. You’ll have to get a patent and you don’t have time for that. Oh, you want to get it on TV? Well, it’s too much money to be on TV; it will never work.” And maybe their advice swayed you enough to make you ignore your idea. Then, some years later, you see your original concept changing the world and making someone else wealthy. Well, what robbed you of that experience? What robbed your life of that invention or opportunity being yours and those experiences being yours? Nothing more than bad advice. You see, we so often get advice from our single friends telling us what to do about our relationships. We get pounded with advice from our broke friends on how we should make money. This is truly why bad advice is the most costly advice in the world—because we are learning from the wrong people. Would you learn how to sing opera from Jimmy Hendrix or how to throw a football from LeBron James? Of course not, because they are not the right people to listen to in those specific instances!
At the end of the day, bad advice feeds that inner villain and just as troubling, encourages us to “play it safe.” By safe I mean it stops us from taking the actions and calculated risks that can help us evolve to the level of life we desire. And this dream-stealing advice comes at us nonstop. What’s even worse is that friends and family wrap it with a bow of love.
It’s Mom and Dad thinking they’re protecting you from failing. It’s your spouse afraid that change may negatively impact your relationship. It’s a coworker who thinks you might get ahead of him, or a boss who’s afraid of your power. It’s a friend who was burned by a relationship so badly that she wants to protect you from that same pain. It’s a relative who experienced bankruptcy and wants to save you from starting your own business and falling as hard as he did. In some cases, people may sabotage you maliciously, but most people genuinely feel they are protecting you or saving you when, in fact, they are feeding the villain, creating doubt, lowering your confidence, and keeping you at status quo.
So we must make it a habit to be consciously aware of the bad advice that is flowing at us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and create a filter that doesn’t allow it to get in. When someone is spewing their bad advice to us, we can force a smile, but we need to shove that advice into our inner trash can immediately. I have no doubt that bad advice has created pain in your life or cost you dearly, as it has me. So don’t worry—you are not alone. But it’s time to stop that negative flow and become bulletproof to it in the future!
Here’s a cautionary tale about bad advice, albeit one that is also humorous. A handful of years ago, during a book tour, I found myself having a conversation with a group of students about why they had not yet reached the level of success they desired.
As each person shared his or her thoughts, I started to spot the similarities in their stories. It wasn’t lack of knowledge, experience, or money that was holding them back. Rather, each and every one of them had a basket of bad advice delivered by someone, and it had robbed them of the courage to take action. They’d heard it from husbands and wives, parents and coworkers, and it had killed their momentum.
So after I left this group of people, I jumped on a plane and flew back to my office in Phoenix, Arizona. As soon as I landed I called my team and said, “Guys, go ahead and set up the studio. I want to film an infomercial for my new book, and I don’t want to wait because I’m fired up right now.”
I have to admit, I was aggravated that all these people were robbing my students of their next level of freedom with often well-intentioned but destructive suggestions. So I got to my studio, threw on a sports jacket and a tie (still wearing my gym shorts and sneakers, which were hidden by the desk I sat behind), and we started filming. From there, I proceeded to do my first ever direct-to-camera infomercial, which means no host, no announcers, no fancy graphics, just me talking to the camera for half an hour and offering my book to viewers a few times throughout the show.
But I did the show with pure passion, no notes, and no script. I wanted nothing more than to serve and help people. And what was on my mind? The bad advice that was robbing my students of their confidence, happiness, and ability to go to that next level. So as I was recording the show, I found myself saying something I hadn’t planned to say, but it just emerged in the moment! I looked at the camera and said, “I really want you all to listen. You can’t ever take advice from people who have failed at what you want to accomplish. You may think you can learn from their mistakes, but in most cases you simply can’t! They only know how to do it wrong, and they’ll put the wrong spin on any advice they give you. For example, my parents have been married nine times between them. I love them dearly, and they’re both in amazing relationships right now, but as I was growing up, marriage wasn’t something either one of them was great at. If I want advice on relationships and marriage, I’m going to find a couple who’s been married for 30 or 50 years—who has intimacy, passion, and love for each other. Not from someone who’s been in and out of relationships their whole life.” And I meant what I said because it was the truth. And I want to stress again, I love my parents dearly, and I’m not trying to make light of the many hard times they must have experienced, but the truth is that taking advice from them about marriage would be like asking Bernie Madoff for a lesson on ethics.
But here’s the kicker! After I filmed the show, I completely forgot my spur of the moment reference to my parents. The show ended up being the most successful infomercial I’d ever filmed, and it aired on national TV day after day after day for over a year. And about three months after it aired, my mom called me. I picked up the phone, and all she said was, “Really?”
I said, “What’s up, Mom?”
“Really?” she said again. “You had to tell the whole country that your mom was married five times? Most of our family doesn’t even know that!” She made the remark with a chuckle in her voice—she saw the humor in the situation, fortunately.
And of course I apologized and then explained to her that I had been in the moment and not reading a script. But during our phone conversation, we discussed the bad advice she had gotten in her life and how costly it was to her. And even better, two days later I bought my mom a new car as an apology.
Take the time to filter all the advice that comes your way and see if the person sharing it is qualified. If you want advice on how to play tennis, get advice from someone who is a pro, or who knows how to train pros, not from your great-aunt Edna who has never played but watches tennis matches on television religiously.
At www.thebetterlife.com, under the “Book Resources” tab, you can get your bad advice cheat sheet. On it you can write down all the bad advice that you’ve gotten over the years, the ill-conceived warnings and instructions, and the ones that have cost you the most. Write down what they cost you. When you see these formal descriptions of bad advice you’ve received, you’ll understand that you no longer can allow someone’s unqualified advice to steer the direction of your life. Create this new habit of ignoring bad advice and getting good advice from qualified people. Diminish your internal villain and gain a new level of confidence.
DOING WHAT THEY DO
As children we’re taught to stand in line and do what everybody else does. We’re taught to get good grades, follow the crowds, do what’s popular at the time, go to high school, get into a college, then find a job, start a 401(k), save our money, and hopefully retire with enough to get us to death without running out. We’re taught to paint inside the lines because when we step outside the lines, everybody looks at us funny.
Given this conventional path, let me ask you a question: In high school or college did you have a passion or a dream of what you wanted your life to look like? If you’re like most people, you graduated and threw your cap in the air and thought the world was going to be yours.
Here is the craziest part about this scenario: In so many cases, if you followed your passions and they didn’t align with friends’, society’s, or your parents’ vision for you, then people would put their arm around you and say, “Hey, isn’t it time to grow up? Isn’t it time to get responsible?” We’ve somehow created this world where we think being responsible is doing what everybody else does, and we force ourselves into something that makes everybody else happy but doesn’t feed our soul.
Parents and friends don’t mean to hurt you; they think they are protecting you. No doubt, they have a lot of influence and can cause you to do what’s conventional or expected. When you give up on your dream and settle for less, these influential individuals will express their pride in your grown-up attitude.
Really? I’m forsaking my dreams and becoming an unhappy conformist and you’re happy for me! As crazy as it sounds, it happens every day, and maybe it has happened to you. I don’t mean this disrespectfully in any way. But so many of you took a job years ago as just a “temporary” thing. And now you’re just coasting through life stuck in your routine. And if that were satisfactory, you wouldn’t be seeking more. That’s okay, though, because no matter what your story was, you’re reading this book right now. You’re here at this moment for a reason, and hopefully, this sparks something in you regardless of your situation. You know what you like and what you don’t like. You know what makes you light up and what dims your light. So it’s time to stop following the crowd and follow your own heart.
When you follow the same path everybody else is on, you get where everybody else has been. I’m giving you permission to forget all the guidelines, forget all the rules that other people have put on you, and forget what society has told you is right or wrong. Be yourself and do what makes you happy. I’m not telling you to go out tomorrow and quit whatever it is that you do. What I am saying is, start realizing your true worth and know that you can evolve in the direction you choose.
What made America great were forward-thinking, visionary entrepreneurs that didn’t conform. They thought outside the box. And what’s going to keep this country or any country thriving is people just like you, willing to follow their hearts, tap into their full potential, and make a difference. You have the courage to find your own way. Successful people live by a different set of rules and success habits and they don’t conform or accept mediocrity.
So what changes would you make today, if you didn’t care what anybody else thought? If you actually listened to your heart, your dreams, and your desires, what direction would your feet be heading? Think through what makes your heart smile and write it down. To make a change in any area of your life, you must start with a first step. Saying it out loud or writing it down can be that step, right here, right now. Confidence builds and doubt dies when your heart is aligned with your actions.
Because starting to change is difficult, here’s an exercise designed to provide you with some momentum. Draw a vertical line down the center of a piece of paper. On the left side write, “Things I am no longer willing to accept in my life.” On the right side, write, “Things that are now musts in my life.” Let the answers to those two questions flow from your heart, from your soul—don’t try to answer based on how you think you should respond. Dig deep and answer with complete honesty. When done, circle the top two or three items on each side. In most cases, you’ll notice the contrast. You’ll be struck by the gap between what is unacceptable and what is necessary. To bridge the gap, you’ll be motivated to change—motivated from your heart as well as your brain.
AN OUTER REFLECTION OF THE INNER YOU
There are literally thousands of external inputs that we are exposed to every single day that impact us. Whether they feed the inner villain or empower us, they come at us nonstop. From a teacher’s instructions to a parent’s advice to a news report, the barrage of messages is constant and unrelenting. It doesn’t matter where your inner villain derives its energy, the impact can last a lifetime; you lose so much confidence that you stay right where you are, or life gets even worse. So pay attention to the external factors you need to protect yourself from, or adjust the way you receive them, because eventually they start running you. I’m talking about not just the decisions you make, but also the ways you walk, talk, and sit. Let me explain through a story how the inputs from the outside world can affect us physically.
Imagine you’re at a café with outdoor seating and across the courtyard there are two people sitting at different tables. One is an unsmiling man with poor posture. The server comes by, and says, “Can I help you with anything?” He mumbles in a barely audible voice, “No, thanks.”
What kind of person would you assume he is? How do you think he does at work? Is he the boss or a low-level employee? What kind of father do you think that person is? What kind of lover? How much passion for life does he have? How much joy? Does he like his job? Does he make a lot of money, or is he struggling to get by? Just based on that quick snapshot description I gave you, you’d probably conclude that the guy slumped over at the café is struggling in life. His posture, gestures, and appearance are giving off the vibe of complacency at best and depression at worst.
So, let’s look at the other person sitting a few tables away. This guy is sitting up straight, and he’s smiling. When the server approaches, carrying his lunch, this guy says, “Oh, that looks good, thank you.” He notices the waitress’s name tag and says, “Thank you, Jessica.” What would you assume about this guy? Think about his enthusiasm on display. I’m not talking cheesy salesman-type charm, but secure and confident friendliness. More than that, he seems comfortable in his own skin. How do you think he does at work? Is he the boss or a low-level employee? What kind of father do you think that person is? How much passion for life does he have? How much joy? Does he like what he does for a living? Does he make a lot of money, or is he struggling to get by?
I’m sure you sense the difference between these two men. That’s because your subconscious is much more powerful than your conscious mind, and it’s constantly working in the background. Your subconscious is like a hard drive into which you feed data throughout your life. When you have a gut feeling, that is your subconscious speaking to you. In the case of these two men at the café, your gut is saying, “I can identify these two men in half a second. I’ve been pulling in this data for years about people, and that first guy is probably depressed, or lazy, or beat down, and he’s probably not getting much done in his life. The other guy, however, is most likely a go-getter, full of high energy—enthusiastic and a winner.” This isn’t “judging a book by its cover.” This is just listening to your subconscious.
So given your intuitive, subconscious judgment, how important do you think your outer appearance is to your success and happiness? Extremely! Did the inner villain get to the first man so badly that it’s now showing from the inside out, or has the outside appearance reflected back to him so much that it’s actually feeding his self-doubt? It’s a chicken-or-egg question; it really doesn’t matter. What matters is the effect, and that effect is bad. Is that person you see with his shoulders down, a frown on his face, and his eyes staring at his shoes the person who’s looking back at you in the mirror? If so, you’ve got a villain inside trying to convince you that you’re not worthy. You’ve turned that villain’s accusation into a self-fulfilling prophecy by the way you carry yourself.
Spend the next few days observing yourself and other people. Pay attention to how you carry yourself and how others carry themselves. You will see all postures and styles, but your subconscious will clue you in to what you like and what repels you.
The point of this exercise isn’t to be someone you’re not. You may observe someone with swagger—who’s strutting around like the king of the roost—but that may be so far from who you are, it would be silly to try to be that type. What I am talking about is taking the time to check how you’re presenting yourself to the world. Check your physicality numerous times during the day and try to smile, stand, talk, and gesture in a manner that represents the best you.
If God walked into the room you were sitting in right now and said, “Pull up a chair and tell me something going on in your life,” how would you sit? Would your shoulders be straight? Would your eyes be half shut or wide open? Would you be attentively listening or just waiting to talk? Create a role model in your mind (God is good, but anyone will do) and pretend they are always watching. Not only will these physical traits become a habit, they will create a by-product so much bigger than you think.
What do you think a smile is worth? Did you know there have been numerous studies done about the power of a smile? This absolutely blew my mind! Some day when you have time, try Googling “effects of a smile.” I recently learned that when you smile, your brain says, “I thought we were stressed, but maybe we’re not, because we’re smiling.” Stress literally goes down immediately when you show the pearly whites. Your subconscious is so powerful that it’s able to tell your brain, “Hey, everybody, we’re smiling! We must be happy!”
The science and the studies prove that if you smile more, you’ll live longer, and it will actually lower your blood pressure. You’ll make more and better friends, and it will actually improve your marriage. A doctor took a collection of high school photos and studied the people with the biggest smiles in the yearbooks compared to the people who took yearbook pictures with a serious look on their face. They then studied them 30 years later because they wanted to find out who was happier, who made more money, who had better relationships, and who lived longer. The people who smiled in the yearbook blew away by far the people who didn’t smile in every category! Insane, right?
If a simple smile can do all that, what would life be like if you also stood up straight, held your head high and your shoulders back, and talked with energy and enthusiasm? What if you were a positive presence for the people you like to be around? Even if you’re just faking it at first, soon you will become that person that people want to hang out with because you radiate positivity. When you become that person with a better outer appearance, you attract similar people into your life and you repel the people who could bring you down. Yes, this is a success habit that can allow you to attract abundance into your life, but it will also lift you up when you see yourself in a picture or the mirror. Don’t take this success habit lightly. Don’t let the outside factors we have discussed feed the villain and affect you physically. You are a bright light; don’t let anything dim it.
CHOOSE YOUR WORDS
Have you ever thought about what people say to you or what you say to them? Have you ever considered how these utterances affect people’s lives? Words can feed the inner villain or they can starve it. In this section I want to make you aware of their impact in a variety of ways. Without knowing it, we start attaching certain emotions to certain words in ways that alter our daily lives as the years pass by.
We know that if someone calls us stupid, lazy, ugly, fat, or hopeless, it can really hurt. But what’s even worse is when we attach an emotion to each and every one of those words. As humans, we feel sadness, loneliness, anger, and many other emotions based on the words we hear. And let’s face it, those emotion-packed words can stay with us for years. But do they have to? Remember the childhood saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”? Yeah we’ve all heard it, but it can be hard to live by. As I write this, my kids are seven and nine. The number one thing I try to teach them is that other people’s words and actions can’t affect you unless you let them. I’ve said this a lot throughout the book, but it’s a question I’d have you ask yourself during every chapter and every day: Do you want to be a thermostat or thermometer? Do you want to suffer from hurtful words and allow them to create negative physical changes (tears, stress-induced illness, etc.), or do you want to decide to live in a more beautiful state where you don’t care what other people say or do, because you create your own joy and passion?
You can absolutely choose to disempower the words that cause negative emotions. The words said a month ago, a year ago, or maybe 20 years ago—if they still bother you, then you are the one responsible for providing them with the power to hurt. You can take away the capacity of words to hurt you. Why not do so now?
Keep the concept of the inner villain in mind to motivate yourself. The more we allow those negative, emotion-laden words to hurt us, the more we give strength to the inner villain. As a result, our confidence goes down, self-doubt increases, and we start having a negative perception of the world. We can easily go from an abundance mind-set to a scarcity mindset in an instant.
If you get sucked into a scarcity mind-set, it doesn’t mean that you’re a horribly negative person. But it does mean your state of mind was compromised. And when you’re in a bad state, it’s hard to be your best self.
Try this Tony Robbins exercise to take the power away from words that may have a strong negative effect on you. To get his audience to see the association people give a group of letters stringed together, Tony will say “bum” and tell the audience that is what his British friends say; that for them it’s the same as when we say “butt.” He pauses, then asks, “What if I said ass? Does that make anyone feel different or offend anyone?” He will also do that same word evolution with other private parts like penis or vagina. You can use your imagination to see the direction he takes those words. When he gets to the more colorful word that describes the same body part, you see people in the audience cringe or smile widely. Tony asks, “What’s the difference? All the words I said mean exactly the same thing. You just associated a different meaning to them.”
He is so right, and the audience immediately gets it. Tony uses what some people may think of as foul language, but I love this example because it conveys how people give certain words power they don’t deserve. It’s only the negative context that gives words their power. You gave them the power they possess, and you can take that power away.
Try writing some words that have tremendous power in your life. For instance: “sloppy work” or “I’m disappointed” or “do it again.” It can be any word or group of words. Your assignment is to think about why these words have so much power in your life, and then recognize that you’ve given them the power to create crippling anxiety and other negative emotions. Recognize that they are just words and that they’re no more powerful than you allow them to be.
Now let’s switch from the negative effect of words spoken to us to the power of the words we use daily. Think about what happens when you say to someone, “I’m so stressed and overwhelmed.” Once you start using these words it triggers the spoken emotions. Even if you weren’t stressed, now you are, because you are telling your subconscious that you are. Everyone has a trigger word or 10 or 20!
Think about when you get a phone call that doesn’t go well, and afterward you say, “I’m pissed!” What happens after that? You walk around pissed off! You say, “I can’t handle this,” and pretty soon you’ve locked in those emotions and you’re stuck with them all day. Each of us has different words that are strong triggers that lock in negative emotions in our life. What are yours? Right now is a perfect time to stop reading and write down what trigger words you sometimes say that put you in a negative state. (You can find an easy “Trigger Words” cheat sheet at www.thebetterlife.com under “Book Resources.”) I know for me, when I say to myself, “I’m overwhelmed!” it starts to intensify the feeling. I’ve learned to change those words and their meanings in time, and I’ll share my easy-to-implement technique.
Before I share it, though, consider the subtle ways in which our bodies reflect our words. I have a friend who, when asked how he is doing, his shoulders slump immediately and he always says, “I’m doing okay.” His body mirrors his words—he looks okay but certainly not good or great. I have another friend who always says, “I’m so damn busy,” but he says it even on weekends when he isn’t busy at all, and immediately I can see him tense up. Contrast their physical reactions to Joel Weldon. Joel is someone I met in recent years, and every time I see him and ask how he is doing, he always says, “Fantastic!” Joel is in his mid-70s, and I watch him perk up every time he says, “Fantastic!” It makes him look vital, engaged, and intensely alive! His eyes light up, and he looks 25 again! He programmed himself to feel good when he says those words, and consciously or not, he is becoming fantastic as soon as he says it. “Fantastic” is Joel’s trigger word, and while trigger words are a good thing, having the right trigger words is a must!
So write your trigger words. And as you write them, describe the emotions each word brings out in you. If your trigger word is “stressed,” it could cause all sorts of different feelings besides a sense of being overwhelmed; you might also experience fear, loneliness, self-pity, and so on.
Here is the cool part about bringing those words out in the open. You can flip them. Earlier we talked about our appearance—shoulders back, big smile, and eyebrows up. Doing those things alone can make a big difference in your life. Your days will be better with just those minor physical adjustments. But what if you also took all those negative trigger words out of your vocabulary? What if, instead of saying, “I’m overwhelmed,” you say, “I’m busy because I’m blessed with opportunities.” Make it a success habit to catch yourself and the negative word or statements before you say them. Take a moment and use a new word that doesn’t spark those negative feelings. And if you slip like we all do, then just readjust and restate. For instance, if you find yourself saying, “I’m overwhelmed today,” you can stop yourself and say, “Wait! Nope, let me rephrase that: I’m blessed with opportunity, and I’m learning a ton.” Replace the negative triggers with positive words that won’t strengthen that inner villain, but rather engage and enlarge your inner hero!
WHO’S IN YOUR INNER CIRCLE?
Who are the people who surround you? Who do you spend the most time with? Who is in your inner circle? You probably know where this is going, but go there with me. We all know how impactful the people closest to us are. Some rob us of confidence while others empower us, right? And you may think, I know I have negative friends, but I don’t let it bother me. I’d have to disagree there. Every industry mogul, life transformer, and world-changer I’ve ever met has said pretty much the same thing about their inner circles: “With whom you surround yourself is who you become.”
If you have three negative friends and three positive friends, your outlook will end up somewhere in the middle. If all your friends are coasting through life and barely scraping by financially, then it’s going to be hard for you to break out of your financial rut on your own. If you have a spouse who is negative every single day while you’re trying to be positive, you will both land somewhere in the middle. Now, I’m not saying go get a divorce. Please don’t take that the wrong way. Maybe you could read this book to your partner or share its lessons with the people closest to you. Keep reading for another way to deal with this situation.
You see, there are two types of people in this world and in your life. There are battery chargers, and there are battery drainers. I got this concept from my good friend, Joe Polish. We were having lunch one day, and he said to me, “Just so you know, Dean, if you’re around somebody and within a few minutes you just start to feel amazing and you’re not sure why, it’s because that person is a battery charger. The more time you spend with that person, the more energy you have, the more you think you can accomplish in life, and more and more you start to pick up on their positive success habits. In contrast, you can be around someone else for a few minutes and feel drained. That person is a battery drainer that is sucking away your positive energy! And soon enough you’re picking up their bad habits and negative attitudes and adding them to your own life.”
Before talking with Joe, I had my own definition of the people I should surround myself with, but Joe’s labels of charger and drainer were perfect, and I adopted them.
When it comes to strangers and first encounters, create the habit of identifying quickly if they’re chargers or drainers. For example, ask someone, “How’s your day going?” You’ll be able to tell a lot from their response. If they say, “It’s great, fantastic, or good,” that is a quick sign they are a battery charger who you want to strike up a conversation with and get to know. Pay attention to how they act, the habits they have, and even their work ethic. On the other hand, if a person responds, “Having another rough day, man. I can’t wait for this week to be over,” you may want to just nod and walk the other way. Your energy is too valuable to have it drained away by someone else.
Keep that in mind when someone asks you the same question: “Hey, Dean, how are you doing?” Why not make it a habit like Joel did, and learn to say, “Fantastic!” or “Never been better,” or something close to that? It’s truly a subtle but powerful success habit.
This law of human nature is very simple: If you want financial success, you must surround yourself with financially successful people. If you want to be an entrepreneur and start your own company, socialize with other entrepreneurs and other people who have started their own companies. Want to be in better shape? You get the idea.
How do you develop your inner circle? You must make it a habit to expand your social circle and deliberately include successful, career-oriented people and business owners. Maybe you are saying, “I don’t have any successful friends.” That is the case more often than not, so start one step at a time. Read a lot of books about success or listen to podcasts and audiobooks while you work out. Go where successful people are likely to be, like meet-up groups and masterminds. You can start with the success habits 30-day challenge at www.thebetterlife.com.
I mentioned this earlier: you don’t have to push negative people out of your life. They will, however, in many cases, drop by the wayside as you evolve. Because once you start changing your physical demeanor and you start changing the words that come out of your mouth, those people may be inspired to follow your example; or they may self-select and drop out of your social circle all on their own.
And yes, I know that in certain cases you have someone very close to you that is negative, and you can’t push him away or you don’t want him to fade away. Unfortunately, you can’t teach someone to be positive or point out their negativity—you can’t just talk people out of their bad habits. Instead, you need to model the way you hope they will begin to act. You can brighten the room so much that they can’t dim your glow and instead, they are motivated to get brighter with you. You have the strength to change the select few people that you want to take with you on this journey to becoming your best self. Be a light in their lives and even the most negative people can change for the better.
As simple as some of the preceding success habits may seem, their impact is undeniable. Success isn’t luck, and it isn’t magic; it’s a series of habits that those who have thwarted their inner villain know to be true. The fact is, they work.
And remember, as is true with anything new and significant, there’s a lot to remember and integrate into your life. With that being said, remember what I shared earlier: It’s not about adding more things to your already busy life, but replacing things slowly and subtly. What you’re doing is taking out the negative habits—like watching negative news reports—and replacing them with habits that serve you better and help propel you forward with no extra time needed. You just have to switch out a few bad habits with these new empowering success habits. Same amount of time, totally different results.
Speaking of time, I am grateful that you are spending this time with me. I know how busy life can get and that you have a lot of choices. And for you to come this far, I know that you are someone who is serious about wanting more and not just someone who wants overnight riches by luck or a shortcut. If you can find the time to read this, you can find the time to start incorporating these success habits into your life. If this book helps light the fuse to rocket your life to that next level, then I’m doing my job. No one is holding your hand or making you read this. You have the desire and interest to know what the next level of life is for you, and your actions will carry you there. I urge you to finish the entire book. You deserve all the advantages you can get your hands on, and I have many more great ones on the way.
Next, we are going to get to the critical success habit of understanding your “story.” Now that you understand the villain within and what gives it power—your physical appearance, the words you use, or the people you surround yourself with—you can put all those negative thoughts and habits into a bucket and shake them up. What comes out is the story you tell yourself. Your story is your internal narrative, and it can be the heaviest anchor in your life, holding you back from experiencing the joy of using your full potential—or it can drive you to achieve massive success, wealth, and abundance.