0 (2s):
Lights that spark, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like My First Million. Today, we'll be talking about winning for life, making every day rich in every way to drop these value bombs. I brought Denis Waitley into EOFire studios. Denis has counseled fortune 500 top executives, Apollo astronauts, Super Bowl champions, Olympians, and entrepreneurs. He is the author of the all-time bestselling program on Personal Mastery. The psychology of winning generating over 100 million in revenue. And today Fire Nation, we'll talk about five key Olympic traits. We'll talk about living in the moment, not on the moment using failure as a fertilizer and so much more.

0 (47s):
When we get back from thanking our sponsors. If you have ever thought about making an online course to reach a wider audience and make passive income, then Thinkific is the perfect partner. Try Thinkific for free today at Thinkific.com/EOF. That's T H I N K I F I C.com/EOF. Wondering what to do when you need motivation. Wish you had a go-to guy when it comes to preventing burnouts tune in to Jenna Kutcher's The Goal Digger Podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Listen to The Goal Digger Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

0 (1m 28s):
Denis say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 38s):
Well, I think one of the first things is that you have to be really a servant leader rather than a status seeker. And most people think you have to put yourself out there and sell yourself really hard. And my feeling is, if you give more in value than you receive in payment, you'll always be sought after. So I believe that most people think in quid pro quo, get something for something, but don't do anything unless you're going to get something in return to be successful. Just the opposite is true. You have to give a hundred percent every day, be willing to give, regardless of whether you think you're going to get anything in return or not.

1 (2m 24s):
And most people think you need to really promote hard and get so many likes and so many followers that that will make you successful. But I think being available and giving the value first, before you ask for the payment is the most important thing.

0 (2m 43s):
Give more in value than you receive in payments, man. I mean, he starting this episode off on fire, Fire Nation and just weights we're getting going because Denis has talked to Apollo astronauts, super bowl champions, Olympians, and course you Fire Nation entrepreneurs. And I want to start with the key Olympic traits that you've identified. You have five specifically, let's go into those. I mean, these are a limpian, what are their key?

1 (3m 15s):
I've been trained in watching them. I've learned more from them. They they've learned from me, but I'd have to say that. Number one is belief. They believe in their dream when that's all they have to hang on to. And they believe that they have potential to be better than they now are. And they actually believe that they have something that they can offer. And that belief in themselves, which I'd call intrinsic value or the inner winner, they actually believe that they can come out of where they are and do something great. And that's the first thing because why would you spend 1200 days getting ready for one moment when you might come in 200 than the world or may even fail?

1 (4m 6s):
And why would you go through that year after year is because of belief. That's number one. So I call that the first ring of the five rings. The second one would be your passion. You, you talk about Entrepreneurs On Fire. Every Olympian I've ever worked with has such a passion about this, this belief in themselves, that they won't let anything get in their way and they're they're on fire inside. So I I'd rather be an inner winner than an outer shouter. And, and I'll get to that by number three is they have this laser focus. They are, they're like a laser beam that cuts right through everything.

1 (4m 46s):
And they say, okay, I got a coach. The coach says I have world-class potential. I believe I have world-class potential. I also have a passion for this potential. And I'm going to focus on becoming an expert in this one field. So they get this laser focus on what they're trying to do. And then of course they have the discipline. And I think that's one of the most important things of all is being able to practice because practice makes permanent winning is habit forming. It takes a long time. It's a step-by-step process, but they have this discipline. And then the fifth thing they have is resilience.

1 (5m 29s):
They fail so many times they get hurt, they get disappointed, they just get back up and keep going. So they have the resilience. So in trying times they just keep on going. And I think that resilience along with the discipline are the things that separate them, you know, from the rest of the pack,

0 (5m 50s):
Denis, you have just a way with words. I mean, I'm sitting here spell bound with what you're saying. I can, I can see why you are the author of all time best-selling programs on personal mastery. I mean the psychology of winning, as I mentioned, the intro Fire Nation generated over a hundred million dollars in revenue. And I think you can probably already see why. I mean, two things that I wanted to point out that you talked about was number one, that laser focus and my favorite word is actually focused. I have a sign in my office here. That's hanging up that says focus, follow one course until success, laser focus. And then I want it to bring it to discipline because I love to use that word. I was an officer in the army for eight years.

0 (6m 29s):
Discipline was hammered into me at a very young age into me. Being disciplined is being a disciple to a plan of action. Are you going to be a disciple firing agent to a plan of action? That's going to work for you. And one thing that you believe in deeply, Denis is living in the moment. Not for the moment. Can you expound upon that?

1 (6m 52s):
Well, that's really a big, I'll tell you, John Lee Dumas. That's one of the biggest things because when you get to be my age and you're like John wooden, looking back at all the things you've done and so on all the older people along with me, you know, Jim Roan. So I do all the eulogies at, at Zig Ziglar, Jim Roan, Stephen Covey, Wayne Dyer. So all of my contemporaries for the most part are gone, but I think one of the most important things is every moment of your life is the decision for the rest of your life in action. So it's a momentary thing.

1 (7m 32s):
When you pick up the phone and make the call in that moment, you're making a decision that will impact the rest of the future. So an Olympian doesn't look back because, and they don't look forward. They're in the event in that moment and their lack of child coloring. When a child is coloring in a coloring book and you call the child for dinner, they don't hear you because they're engrossed in the moment in which they're engaged all of their senses, the sense of taste and smell, and touch and hearing and seeing are focused in this one momentary act in which they're engaged.

1 (8m 12s):
The Olympians are lacked that the astronauts are lacked, that the entrepreneurs I know are like that because they realize that this moment in time is the only moment over which we have any control and its history and it's gone. And that's why I say, I think it, I see it. I do it. I own it. I think it, I see it. I do it. I own it. My to-do list when you get older is very short because you start, you get up in the morning and say, what am I going to do to make this day better for everyone around me? And so when you live in the moment, you're engaged in that moment and you're enjoying it. You're being there. You realized that the future has not unfolded the past.

1 (8m 56s):
You can't live there anymore, but if you're living for the moment, that means you're passing through the current moment to try to get somewhere in the future. And I have to tell the John, I spent so many years traveling, going, coming, getting there, being successful, trying to achieve, accomplish, not realizing that I was spending the most precious moments of all in the doing, not in the arriving, not, not in the status. So an Olympian is more engaged in the process than standing on the platform with the gold metal around his or her neck.

1 (9m 38s):
That's for the moment. But it's the enjoying and the being in the moment that's important. So that's why I say being in the moment every day, and don't put it off on layaway until someday when success greets you and you're on the top of the pedestal, you might end up being 70 or 80 years old and not be able to spend all that success or money because there's only about 14 minutes in the limelight. And you know, Andy Warhol said it right? And you know, fame, if you win, it comes and goes in 14 minutes. And so be in the moment every day and stop looking forward to the day in which you've, you're going to arrive because that arrival might come later than you think, and you better enjoy the process

0 (10m 29s):
I'm privileged. And it truly is an honor, Denis, to be speaking with you right now and Fire Nation, I hope you feel the same way that you're getting to listen to these words. That's just come from decades of experience of truth of wisdom. And I love that phrase that you use, which is the joy is in the doing not the arriving because it reminds me so much of a quote that I really do try to live by, which is happiness is the gradual realization of a worthy ideal. It's not the realization of an ideal. It's gradually realizing the act of doing not just anything but a worthy thing, a worthy ideal. And you have a phrase dentists use failure as a fertilizer.

0 (11m 12s):
Can you give one of your favorite examples of this?

1 (11m 15s):
Yeah, I sure can. While I've been fading a lot in my life and the fertilizer that I talk, of course, fertilizer doesn't smell good. And you don't, and you don't want to roll in it. And because I'll give you an example, there's a dog named buckwheat and he rolled in the fertilizer on the lawn and they took him down and shaved him because the fertilizer was in clumps on his, on his fur. And so when they took him to the vet, everyone laughed when he was shaved. Cause he looked like a mutant rat and he had no fur and he went, ran and hid the bed and he wouldn't come out because people were laughing at him.

1 (11m 57s):
And we, and we were saying to him, no, no buckwheat, we're laughing just because you look silly at the moment, but we're not laughing at you because you're, you're, you're ugly or you're not a good person switched to Denis Waitley. And the psychology of winning. I wrote the psychology of winning at the worst time in my life. Now you would think you would write a book about all your successes and you would tell other entrepreneurs how successful you became. The truth is I wrote the book for myself because I wasn't doing well. And I needed to remember that the failures I was enduring were a result of, shall we say target, correction necessary?

1 (12m 45s):
And I need to make some changes. So a loser wrote the psychology of winning when he was trying to internalize better habits for himself and I needed to train myself. So that's why I say, don't roll in your failures. They don't smell good, plant them and try not to repeat them and find role models, mentors, and, and coaches who will help you get a new habit pattern going. But that's why I say failure was my friend for so long.

1 (13m 26s):
I was recently divorced. I had custody of four children. My four children did not want to be with me in Pittsburgh because I happened to be there in the worst winter with the Jonas Salk foundation, trying to sell it. So I had no income, no job had failed in marriage. My children didn't want to be with me. They wanted to go back to California. So I wrote the psychology of winning. Why when you're losing you better get on a winning path and you better find out for yourself what you need to be doing. It's like yelling out the window. I'm mad as heck, and I'm not going to take it anymore. So I would say that when things are not going well, bring your a game to the table.

1 (14m 11s):
And that means that when COVID is outside, you have to have your senses at their top. You have to be ready. When the alarm goes off, you need to step back and say, okay, what am I going to do to make it better? What am I going to do to learn? How am I going to be part of the solution instead of the problem? So failure is a learning experience. It's a detour, not a dead end. It's an event, not a person. And it's a, it's a position that you need to flip and start doing things in a different way because it's not going to happen unless you internalize what needs to be done. Next, next

0 (14m 51s):
Time, you're staring failure in the face. Use it as a fertilizer, use it as a fertilizer. And if you think Denis is even close to being done, dropping value bombs, you've got another thing come and we'll be right back after we thank our sponsors being customer centric means focusing on what matters most building and growing sustainable customer relationships, maintaining unique customer needs and personalizing the customer experience. If you can do this right then you're already a step ahead of the competition. And a HubSpot CRM platform is designed to help you do this best build and maintain and personalize your customer's experience into a remarkable one.

0 (15m 32s):
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0 (16m 15s):
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0 (17m 0s):
Try Thinkific for free today at Thinkific.com/EOF. That's T H I N K I F I C.com/EOF that has your back. And you have a lot of things that you believe in rightfully so, but one of your beliefs is that focus always precedes success. What do you mean by this?

1 (17m 22s):
I have never met a successful person who didn't have a magnificent obsession and the obsession. We all have those and they're good and bad, but a magnificent obsession is not to allow any distraction from other people who tell you you can't, it's foolish because when they start telling you that, you know, you're on something that should be the entrepreneur's mantra. If people tell you you're crazy, if people tell you, you can't do it, you, you just brush them aside and focus means you engage all your senses in that end. And I think you have to succeed in one thing locally, before you can risk regionally or globally.

1 (18m 11s):
So you, you succeed in a little way and you succeed to completion and you do that by focusing your main attention on what your top priority is. There's such a thing as majoring in minors and doing things that are tension relieving, instead of goal achieving. And many people say, if I throw a lot of things up against the wall, maybe one of them will stick. No, you need to be like Michael Dell. You need to be like Warren buffet. You need to be like Elon Musk. You need to have such an obsession with what you're doing. That you don't even hear the naysayers.

1 (18m 52s):
You don't even hear the bad news. That's all around you. And that's why the entrepreneurs that I know are so engaged in focus, because that's why I use a laser. A laser takes all the light waves and puts them together in one piercing, one piercing, a beam, and that beam cuts through anything, including a diamond. So it cuts through all the resistance and goes right to the core. And that's why when you, when you focus all your energy in achieving something, even if it's a little thing, just guess what?

1 (19m 33s):
You just been a success, you've succeeded in something and completed something and you can move on to something greater. You can take one or two other things, but I don't know anyone who just says, look, I'll just gamble on a lot of different things and maybe one of them will turn out. No. When you look at an entrepreneur, you see someone who is absolutely magnificent Etsy, magnificently, obsessed

0 (20m 1s):
The phrase, and just that thought process, magnificently obsessed, because it throws such a good positive light on the word obsessed. I mean, a lot of people are like, oh, stop being so obsessed. You're just so obsessive and all these different things. And there just seems to be this negative connotation with it. But do you think any Olympian, as we talked about the five key Olympic trays earlier, wasn't obsessed at becoming an Olympian. Wasn't obsessed at what they did every single day.

1 (20m 28s):
Absolutely not. They were totally obsessed. They had to be because it's not fun. It is not fun to practice in the rain and the heat eight to 10 hours every day of your life for 1200 days, just for the privilege of trying out. I mean that doesn't make you an Olympian because you practice for 1200 days. It just means that you may be able to compete with other people who are just as good they're world-class in what they're doing. So you have to be obsessed in order to get through that. And you have to brush off any type of distraction of any kind. So when I see people who have this magnificent obsession, I say, there's someone who's likely to be successful because they will not.

1 (21m 16s):
They will not allow anyone to distract them from what they're trying to do,

0 (21m 21s):
Fire Nation. Do you think anybody that you look up to that you're impressed by this had massive success in their life. Wasn't magnificently obsessed with that thing until they got there. Of course they are. So look at that as a positive and listen at the end of the day, Denis, so many people want financial independence. They want freedom, and I'm going to steal one of your phrases here. How can we slam dunk financial independence?

1 (21m 48s):
No, we really can. If, if we're willing to have discipline, it's, it's so easy. It's too bad. Well, it's simple, but it's not easy because we want to live up to our income. And I'm a good example of that. I made a lot of money, but I spent it all because I wanted to let people know that I was doing well. So I had the Mercedes and the cars and the beautiful home and the horses, the orange grow. I had a Hollywood setting, but I was not putting the money away and having the money grow. The slam dunk is this. You don't have to risk in order to become financially independent.

1 (22m 30s):
If you'll just use 20 years of leverage, if you're 30 years old, by the time you're 50, you can have all the money that you need. If you will just take a little bit at a time, because if time is working for you, you can compound that. And I'll, and I'll explain how so you, you buy an instrument, a financial instrument, let's say that guarantees you 7%, six to 7%. And it's some kind of insured instrument. It could be a kind of guaranteed outcome.

1 (23m 11s):
And, and everyone says to me, you gotta be kidding. I mean, aren't we going to go with the apple car? I mean, aren't we good? Aren't we gonna invest in something like Amazon, that's going to give us a thousand times. And I said, well, no, you can do that. But what you want to do is you want to put away a certain amount every month. You want to have a disability income policy so that you're likely to become disabled or injured or sick rather than die. So here's what I, I got some life insurance to protect my family. I got some disability insurance to protect in case I couldn't work because of a sickness or an injury.

1 (23m 55s):
I forgot to get long-term care. Now I realized that the older people like my parents, I had to pay 10,000 a month for my mother for five years in order to take care of her in her later years. And had I had, I had some foresight, I would have encouraged her and maybe even helped her get a long-term care policy. But let's say that you take care of your life insurance, your disability, you're in pretty good shape. What you need to do is buy some kind of annuity guarantee. And then if you have good credit, you can borrow from the bank. Well now just listen carefully.

1 (24m 37s):
You can borrow from the bank enough money to make that 10 times more of a payoff in 20 years, by simply paying the bank back on the money you borrowed at three or 4% interest and get a guaranteed six to 7% at the other end, which means that no matter how much I borrowed from the bank to pay my annuity in the future, I was able to leverage that with good credit and time. And from age 50 to 70, I did that and bought a guaranteed annuity that now will pay me $35,000 a month without touching the principle of that annuity, which means that I will never have to touch the principal in my lifetime.

1 (25m 33s):
So I'll be able to give it away to charity. And that's not like Warren buffet or bill gates or the others, but, you know, three or 4 billion, 5 million being able to put it into causes that I really believe in. So the way to slam dunk is to pay your future. First minimum attempt percent of your take-home pay and make sure that you get it leveraged by putting it into guaranteed a guaranteed instrument, rather than just the open market, your risk with play money, but the real money that you have, you don't want to put at risk. So as long as you can get 7% return on an over 20 year period, and you can leverage that with getting more than you might need, you will end up being financially independent at the age of 50.

1 (26m 23s):
If you start when you're 30 and just do it in a disciplined step-by-step way, it's the same thing as being an Olympian by the inch. It's a cinch, but trying to do it in the two minute drill all in one long touchdown pass with a, a stock that's going to skyrocket that's risky because you end up losing more. So seek a guaranteed type of investment user leverage, use, leverage, and use your ability to pay the bank back for money that you borrow to make that instrument worth a lot more over a 20 year period,

0 (27m 1s):
Pay yourself first Fire Nation. And I love that you got real detailed on that because the time is now and what I really want to get into right now, Denis is just the key takeaway of everything that we talked about here. I mean, we went through five key Olympic traits. We talked about living in the moment we talked about using failure as a fertilizer about how focus always precedes success. And of course, financial independence and freedom. We talked about a lot of important things that I, what within all of that, do you want to really make sure Fire Nation gets and understands from our conversation?

1 (27m 39s):
I really would like, you know, looking back at my age at life itself, I would say that if you can believe that you have something to offer life, if your why is to be a servant leader rather than a status seeker, if making money to you is fun, that's fine. But also look at money as transportation and a library card and money is just enables you to learn and to give and to do more. I would say that believing you're as good as the best, but no better than the rest. And that's a cliche.

1 (28m 21s):
I'm as good as anyone who's ever been born in my mind, but I'm no better than anyone who's ever been born. Which means I treat everyone that I meet with the same respect that I expect them to treat me. However, I need to prove my value. I have to earn respect. So what I believe in most of all is intrinsic value that I'm valuable in my own clay. I don't have to prove my value. All I need to do is share my value every day and plant shade trees under which I myself may never sit.

1 (29m 1s):
So I am trying to make my life mean something by giving more in value than I receive in payment. And by making one life breathe easier. And I do that by saying, I'll make you glad you talk to me today. I don't know what you want, but I'm going to listen to you. I'm going to include you. I'm going to be open to you. And I'm going to try to include your belief system in mine, even though mine may be different. And what I'm hoping you'll say to me is I like me best when I'm with you. When I'm with you, Denis, you allow me to be all I can be. You inspire me.

1 (29m 42s):
You engage me. You listen to me. You're there for me. You help me. And I want to thank you for making my life better for having met you. That is the bottom line for me in life. Especially as I approached the two minute drill and overtime in my life. I'm not even the fourth quarter. I'm, I'm like Warren buffet. I've passed the fourth quarter and I'm in overtime. And now, instead of looking back, I'm still living in the moment. And boy, if you're my age, you really live in the moment. You don't buy green bananas and you don't have a long to-do list. I mean, you're, you know, my, my to-do list is daily and I have to do that daily in order to know that I've done something with this day, which might be the last one that I've been given.

1 (30m 32s):
And that's why it's so important, I think, to, to make your why big enough, so that you're trying to make a difference. And that for having lived, you spent your time making the world a better place for the future.

0 (30m 49s):
Well, Denis, I can only hope to one day be at a place where I'm saying no more green bananas, because then I'll know that I'm living in the moment and I'm eating those bananas ripe, same thing with avocados, by the way, eating those things right now, Denis, how can my audience Fire Nation? How can they connect with you? Do you want them to connect with you on social media? Follow you, engage with you any call to action that you might have for my listeners. And then we'll say goodbye.

1 (31m 20s):
Well, you know, the only thing they might do is they might check out my new psychology of winning on Amazon, you know, has been 43 years for me to write the sequel. It's taken me half a lifetime. It would be like Rocky to being for Sylvester Stallone 43 years after Rocky one. But the new psychology winning is a newest book and you can check it out on, on Amazon. I think the audio version may be, may be more engaging than the written version because I'm known for talking more than for writing, but that's about the only commercial that I'd like to give. I really don't like to tout things. I, I, I just hope people will take a listen, take a look and see what they think.

0 (32m 6s):
Well, Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with a little hat tip to Jim Roan there. And you've been hanging out with DW and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com type. Denis. That's a one N. D E N I S. And the search bar has shown us page will pop up and everything that we talked about here today will be linked up in Denis. I just want to say personally, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your wisdom, your value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. You

1 (32m 39s):
John Lee Dumas has been a real privilege and honor for me to be Entrepreneurs On Fire because just by being with you, makes me on fire on the inside all the best.

0 (32m 50s):
Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by dentists and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 77 roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success. The Common Path to Uncommon Success personally endorsed by Seth Goden and Gary V. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need Fire Nation to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy and I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side.

0 (33m 35s):
If you have ever thought about making an online course to reach a wider audience and make passive income, then Thinkific is the perfect partner. Try Thinkific for free today at Thinkific.com/EOF. That's T H I N K I F I C.com/EOF. Wondering what to do when you need motivation, wish you had a go-to guy when it comes to preventing burnouts tune in to Jenna Kutcher's The Goal Digger Podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Listen to The Goal Digger Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.