Savoring Life's Journey: A Conversation with Dennis Berry

What does it take to rise from adversity, find balance and savor the journey of life? Join us as we engage in an intimate conversation with Dennis Berry, a man who has risen from the ashes of his struggles like a phoenix. Dennis graciously shares his life journey, from battling alcoholism and near-death experiences, unfulfilling corporate gigs, to ultimately finding his path in creating successful businesses. 

As we delve deeper into Dennis' experiences, we uncover the power of mindfulness; the same mindfulness that set the stage for Steve Jobs' epic product development. Discover how attention to emotions, meditation, and deep breathing can help you stay grounded during chaotic times. Dennis emphasizes the significant impact of surrounding ourselves with successful individuals and how to harness their energy for our personal growth.

As we draw the curtains to this conversation, Dennis takes us along on his reflections about the pursuit of happiness and financial freedom. Listen to his heartening realization that money isn't the key to happiness and how a failed relationship helps him reshape his life approach. Dennis offers profound insights on finding purpose, building a business, and resetting our mindset during overwhelming times. Immerse yourself in this compelling episode and learn from Dennis Berry's life lessons and experiences.

Colorado’s best business coach, Baz Porter, has a new mindset strategy mentoring service to help you unlock new heights of growth, prosperity, happiness, and success. Book your first meeting with the coaching visionary at https://www.ramsbybaz.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Good evening, good morning, good day, wherever you are. Thank you very much for joining me once again here on Rise in the Ashes podcast. I'm your host, baz Porter. This is a podcast of stories triumph to success and adversity, to ever be a success, wherever you are, whatever you're doing For entrepreneurs, business owners and business operators. We're wanting to go to that next level to experience success and financial freedom in their lives. My guest today is none other than the amazing Dennis Berry. He's a business book and he's got a hell of a story behind him, and I've asked him to come on today to share his story, his advice to give you the opportunity to rise from your ashes and thrive in your life. So, without further ado, dennis, please introduce yourself, tell the world who you are and what you do.

Speaker 2: 1:02

My name is Dennis Berry and I'm based out of Colorado, but I live in Mexico right now and I have been in business in some way, shape or form for the last 30 years.

Speaker 2: 1:17

I had two very successful businesses, about over 10 failures, because business happens like that sometimes. Things don't always go as planned, but along the way I've had a fascinating journey. I've been sober for 20 years that was a big part of my story where I almost died thousands of times and I'm lucky to be alive. So I help other people thrive and transform their lives too.

Speaker 1: 1:47

That's interesting because I've had a similar story with alcohol, on a different wavelength, and I think it's fascinating that people who have had a level of success never have a pretty story in the background. There's always adversity, there's always things to overcome and alcohol, believe it or not, is one of the most common ones alcohol, drugs, addiction. Can you share one of the significant down points in your life that you've had to overcome and you've done it successfully? Can you share with the audience what that did and how that transpired and what you learned from it?

Speaker 2: 2:29

Sure, and just before I dive into that, to agree with what you just said, most success stories start from a place of disadvantage, most of them. Very rarely do you hear about people that are just so successful because they started on top. We all started a place of disadvantage and that disadvantage usually gives us the tools because we're forced to find a way through. And then we find that way through and then we use it to grow to wherever we get to. So I love that point and I always try to drive that part home too, because people get so upset because they don't have enough money or enough time or the relationship sucks or they're unhealthy or all these excuses to not get started. And the perfect time to start is right now. No matter what circumstances you have, now is the best time to start.

Speaker 2: 3:25

So, anyway, my story is that I went to college right when I was 18 and I was a skier and I went to ski towns and I was a downhill skier and I did all that stuff for a long time, but I got crazy drugs, alcohol and, of course I'm giving you the 32nd version here and that went on for a long time until I almost died and I was 240 pounds.

Speaker 2: 3:53

I was dying physically and emotionally and spiritually inside I was just completely dead. And I finally lost my job at the end, which sucked because I was really kind of proud of that job and it was sales, because I was a chef during my ski career. But I ended up working for Cisco Food Service and that was my first real adult job in the corporate world and I learned a lot about sales and marketing and distribution and all different types of business stuff. But I lost that job due to alcohol related incident. I was in a really bad car accident and then I went through a treatment facility and then I realized afterwards that getting sober or clean or whatever changing your life.

Speaker 2: 4:47

It's not about not drinking. It's about growing up and being an adult and looking the world in the eye and being honest and living a life of integrity and hard work and dedication to whatever it is you're passionate about. And so I spent a lot of time growing up, which is painful in your 30s and 40s and beyond. I'm 51 years old now, but it took a long time to get where I am. The man you see right now is not who I once was, and there was a painful process to get here and along the way I was an addiction. I did addiction recovery counseling for a long time and I loved that, but it's a really heavy lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 5:32

And along the way I started, you know, I had a catering company, I had a candle making company, I was a personal trainer. I did all these things, but I didn't know how to run a business. So all those businesses I started were failing. So I started selling rare coins and learning about gold and silver and stuff like that to supplement my income and that business took off and over the next couple of years I was selling $3 million a year out of my home and I learned a lot about life and about business and it changed my life forever and from there so many different business directions and brought me to who I am and what I do today.

Speaker 1: 6:18

What was your favorite part of the journey and the recovery going through the addiction or the rehab and the addiction? What was your pinnacle part of that? Your most memorable place where you're going through the recovery?

Speaker 2: 6:37

I'm not sure if I understand the question, but I think it was. For me, it was really about realizing what I told you. I remember when I started I went to a 12-step program and I had the steps, those 12 steps, and I don't go anymore.

Speaker 2: 6:53

It doesn't work in my life anymore. But I remember looking up there one day, and it was about a year into sobriety, and I looked at those steps and I realized that this is just like instructions for how to live, and I never had instructions. So I was always trying to do things myself, except I didn't know how to do them. And so when all these little things started to make sense in life, it was like the matrix when Neo realized that he had all the power to do everything. We all have that power inside of us. So when I started realizing that, life really became magical and life took on a whole new meaning, because I realized that I didn't know how to do life and because of that I was drinking.

Speaker 2: 7:39

Drinking is not the problem, it's what I was using to cope with the problem, which is my thinking, and my thinking was broken, and I think that most of our thinking is broken on some level, which is why one of the things that we learn is humility. It's okay not to know as long as you realize you don't know, and then ask somebody for help. It's like we help businesses. I think you're a business coach too. We help businesses grow because there's a difference between doing your craft, whatever it is you can be a doctor or a lawyer or a electrician, a plumber or a painter, whatever it is you do and then running a business. Those are two separate things, and if you don't know how to run a business, ask for help, and then your business will become successful. If you try to do everything yourself and figure life out all by yourself, we usually end up falling short.

Speaker 1: 8:33

Yeah, and I can. There's two words in there that I love what you said. One is magic and the other one is humility and integrity. That really hit home for me because I remember not having the know-how to run businesses and realizing my own magic in that process. And it's one of the most hardest things to do when you start off as a business owner or business operator is actually ask for help from people that know what the hell they're doing. Because as small entrepreneurs we grow up and we go into this mindset of I've got to do it all myself.

Speaker 1: 9:14

But there comes a point on which you mentioned is you don't, and it's detrimental to your business, health and life If you try and do it yourself. And I love what you've you're creating and have created. It's a network of people through masterminds, through coaching and other avenues of how to do business, but using your own knowledge to build other people's lives. So that's to me that's magic, dennis, because very few people realize that early on in their career and they struggle for so long in this thought process of I must do it myself. What routines did you give or did you create for yourself to amplify who you are and who you wanted to become. Are there any routines in the morning? You did or you learned from the sobriety journey.

Speaker 2: 10:09

Yeah, well, there's a couple of things. One is I have a lot of mentors and coaches in my life. Now I have in every area of my life and that's part of my routine. To answer your question, yes, I have a powerful morning routine that I never mess on right and it's like you set your day up for success. You win the morning, win the day. There's all these cliches we hear all the time and it's because they're true and I'll talk about that in just a second. But I want to say that I have coaches and mentors in every area of my life finance, romance, health, everything. Those are the three big areas of our life. But I always go back because I realized that the reason I got so stuck and broken and failed so many times and all these things is because I was trying to do it myself. I don't know how to do it all by myself, and that's okay, nobody does.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Steve Jobs had teams of, they had board. They didn't just send product out. It wasn't like oh, here's our iPhone, let's send it out. They came up with MVP's. They had all these different products that went to the table and things got failed, rejected, revamped everything before they send a product out and that's how companies operate.

Speaker 2: 11:28

Now they have pre-mortems so they say, oh, this product, here's our product, and I'm sure you know this. But in a post-mortem they do an autopsy, they rip your body open and say what was the cause of that? In a pre-mortem in business now they look at this cover and they examine all the things that can go wrong with it before they send it out. So we didn't waste a massive amount of time and resources on a product that's not going to work. What I do is I surround myself with coaches and sometimes I'm like I have the best idea. This is going to be amazing. It's going to change my life and the lives of everybody around me, and I'll go and talk to my coach and we'll have coffee and he'll be like that is a terrible idea.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Don't do that.

Speaker 2: 12:14

Don't do that. Don't spend three years and $100,000 trying to pull that off. It's not going to work. So that's what I do. I surround myself with success and something I also want to add on what you said earlier. But it's like asking for help is a sign of strength, it's not a sign of weakness. Weakness is being afraid to ask for help because you have your ego trying to do all the work for you and then you fail. That's a weakness.

Speaker 2: 12:44

But to get back to the morning routine, yes, I wake up in the morning, I hydrate, not grab from my phone and look at how broken this world is. Right, there's a couple of things. One, it's not as broken as we think it is. That's all media. And then the other thing is like, if I start my day that way, that's the way my day goes. So if I turn on politics or whatever other crap like that, and then I get emotionally attached to that based on some type of feeling, negative feeling I have towards it, and then I get up, I'm all worked up, I drink a bunch of caffeine, eat some sugar, get in my car, start giving people the finger, like I just set my day up that way. But if I wake up mindfully, if I read something constructive, inspirational, motivational, I do some exercise, I get hydrated and I prepare my day that way. That's the way my day goes. We have a choice every morning how we want our day to go.

Speaker 2: 13:45

And the other thing is like, let's say, you start your day out like that, very mindful, very focused. You get going and then something happens. Now my day sucks, it's all out of whack. You don't have to wait till tomorrow to start your day over. You know, go to the bathroom, get re-centered and go start your day over right now. You don't have to ruin a whole day. One of my favorite things I heard from one of my friends recently because we hear this all the time it's like how are you doing? Oh, I'm having a really bad day. Are you really having a bad day or did you have a bad five minutes that you're making into a really bad day? Just get re-centered and focus, work through it. You don't have to ruin the next 24 hours or week or whatever, or your relationship, because you had a bad five minutes.

Speaker 1: 17:26

Yeah, man, that's very important to realize that. I mean, there's a comment which. Who said it? Now, one of the spiritual gurus, I can't really explain. He's got the long beard and he's from India. So if you have a bad guru, yeah, he said, if you're having a bad day, go back to bed, just go to bed and then go for a sleep or meditation. It works.

Speaker 2: 17:51

It totally works. I have, and you know, meditation. I guess that answers I can add that to early on the answer when you asked what were some of the lights or some of the changes that I did, and it was meditation. We try to force so many solutions in our life and the real solution is stillness and silence. Right, if we can get still. All the answers we're looking for and come into stillness and silence. So when I say, oh, you're having a rough five or 10 minutes, don't ruin your whole day. Go sit down and meditate. Now meditation. You don't have to sit in orange robes and the Himalayas for six months to meditate. You can meditate on the toilet. That's why I'm like go sit on the toilet. Wherever you are, there's a bathroom. I promise.

Speaker 2: 18:38

Go sit on the toilet, pull up YouTube two minute guided meditation with the birds or the bees, the waves crashing, and calm down and then relook at what you're upset about and then go have a nice day.

Speaker 1: 18:53

That's it and that's very it's poignant that because people get engrossed and enveloped with the bad vibration of where they are in that moment and they don't realize they have the power and choice to change it within themselves. But it's disciplining yourself to that and going I now am making a choice to move from this into a better day and people get so absorbed through social media, through finance, politics et cetera, et cetera, because it's someone else's opinion about what's really going on, but then they're failing to make a choice themselves. I love that analogy of go to the bathroom. Go and have 10 minutes or two minutes in the bathroom listening to whatever thing you can find on YouTube, which has a lot of stuff on there now anything you really wanna find out on YouTube. It doesn't mean it's quality stuff, but it's on YouTube.

Speaker 2: 19:52

Yeah, you definitely have to discern what it is you're watching. But also deep breath work. And again, that's another thing that I've studied a lot and I have a course on mindfulness and meditation for free on my website. You can watch it if you want. But deep breath work. Again, don't freak out about this. This isn't like go sit in the caves in the Himalayas for three months. This is like you know. Count to four, take a deep breath and then, when you're full, take another one, take one more deep breath and then breathe out for four times. What we're doing is we're providing our brains need oxygen. Correct A lot of times when we get worked up, when we go into panic mode and we deprive our bodies and brains of oxygen. Taking deep breaths is actually science. It's not, like, you know, an Instagram trend.

Speaker 1: 20:48

No, I don't yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:49

Take deep breaths. You give your brain and your body oxygen and it calms you down, you know, and it helps you discern what's actually happening. Is this really gonna? Am I gonna die right now? No, you're not gonna die right now. So it's okay. Take a deep breath, calm down and then you can make a focused decision.

Speaker 1: 21:07

Yeah, and it's very. That's great advice for people who are in a panic state, especially if you're trying to run a business or start something, because we go into survival mode and mindset of we need to do everything today and if I don't get it complete it's gonna fail. And then you go into that cycle and start panicking. Primal instinct kicks in and all of a sudden, your short breath, you've got cortisol running through your body, you've got all of these other nasty hormones kicking off within your brain telling you you can't do something. But in actual fact, to your point, dennis, stop breathe, open up the lungs, expand the rib cage and just be present and it changes the whole monotonic structure of the body. It is scientifically proven. It's for neuroscience, biology, chemistry and all the rest of the stuff.

Speaker 1: 22:04

20 years ago, you know, 30 years ago, it was woo, woo stuff and it didn't matter. No one wanted to hear it. Now entrepreneurs, business owners who are coming up and upcoming in this industry are realizing this and they aren't gonna be silenced. They aren't gonna be shut up or put in a box or put in a corner to watch dirty dancing with baby. It's about them standing up because they're our future. So I love people like you who are training others and teaching others and the free stuff that you provide. I'm gonna put that in a link in the description if you're interested. So go and use it, because it's that that's gonna change your life.

Speaker 2: 22:48

Yeah, and it goes deeper too, into our health and to our physical health. And then I love that you're aware of this stuff and this is really great stuff to talk about, especially as an entrepreneur. If there's people that tune into these business shows. You know, like, why are you talking about deep breath work? Because you can only reach like a certain level of success just on your skills and talent alone and on your abilities to perform business. You're going to hit a wall if you don't know how to manage your emotions. So we focus a lot in my mastermind group on emotional intelligence, emotional regulation, because it's really about managing your emotions on a daily basis and not letting a little mistake or a five minute bad phone call or you lose the deal ruin your entire life. So there's something called and you might know this the natural stress response or the stress reaction cycle. It's like it used to be. You know cause.

Speaker 2: 23:46

We're animals, so as humans, we're just animals. So if you go back hundreds or whatever thousands of years, I like we were more defensive, right, we had to, like we had to defend our health, our lives, you know, against like a saber-toothed tiger. So a perceived threat comes along like a saber-toothed tiger and we go into panic mode. So our body goes in, does what it does to protect us, and our adrenal glands on our kidneys, they spit out cortisol you said cortisol, and this is one of my favorite topics. I have a blog article I did on this recently and then our bodies go into panic mode to protect us. So we start running. Our adrenal glands spit out the cortisol and adrenaline, which helps protect us. We start running. We could bang our knee into a tree, we could fall down and get bloody, but we don't feel the pain. We keep running because our body's protecting us so we stay safe and don't get eaten by the saber-toothed tiger.

Speaker 2: 24:51

And then, a short time after that, when we hit safety, we return to normal. Our blood pressure comes down, we start breathing normally again, we're not in panic mode. The problem now, in 2023, is we never return to normal, correct? Our bodies are in a constant state of panic and stress. And then you need to drink, or you need Xanax, or you need to go to Chick-fil-A at two o'clock in the afternoon, when you're not hungry, or you're watching porn or eating chocolate, whatever it is, it's all the same behavior. It's avoiding the distractions, the feeling of fear, and so we need to get silent, we need to get into mindful living, and the most successful people I know are centered and grounded and focused, and they don't let situations overwhelm them, and then they respond intelligently to situations rather than react emotionally, and that's the difference between successful people and people who struggle.

Speaker 1: 25:58

And that's key for anybody who listened to this now respond and not react, because the response is a mindfulness thing of calculated thought. And then what do I do as a result of that, rather than the oh my God, this is happening to me. One of the people I was very closely associated with spoke to this subject and about business being 20% of your life. The rest is psychology and the mindfulness around it to grow as a person within alignment with your business, follow your passion, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 26:39

But what most people forget is you're still running a primal program. You're still running that program that was millions of years ago when we're all running around in leathers and with a club and the women were doing the gathering and the hunters were going off to kill, but we're still running that program. That knowledge should set you free, as in. This isn't me. This is the primal side of myself and it's not who I am. It's a result of me being in fear, in panic, in lack, whatever thing you can come up with. When you start switching from lack, fear, et cetera into abundance and realizing you are already that and you are source, you are connected mindfulness and the breathing and using all these skills with the morning routines, your life will fucking change very quick.

Speaker 2: 27:40

Big time too. Radically radical changes, yeah, and your business will change, your relationships will change, your health will change. Everything changes. When you see everything from that point of view, the world's not out to attack you. But when we get so engulfed in this or if you're, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn I can go into that phone and be inside of there and forget that it's just an app. It's so important.

Speaker 2: 28:14

All these things, all these technology things that exist, they're all amazing and wonderful inventions, every single one of them, but they're there to supplement our lives, not to be a substitute for our lives. Correct, and we need to disconnect from that. Go outside. I live on the beach, but wherever you live, go outside. If you live in a city, go to a park and take your shoes off for five minutes and walk around in the grass Like we need to be outside, disconnected from the technology, because, at the end of the day, we're just creatures, we're primal.

Speaker 2: 28:49

We need to be breathing fresh oxygen. We need to go out in the morning and look at the sun without sunglasses. We need to go outside and look and set our circadian rhythm in motion. It used to be. There wasn't all this technology and Netflix to watch at two o'clock in the morning. It's like when the sun went down, you went to bed, and that's how our biological clock is supposed to work when the sun comes up, you wake up. When the sun goes down, you go to bed. So the closer we get to that schedule, the better our brains operate.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Yeah, very much. So one of the questions I'd like to ask is we become who we most surround ourself with? Who were your role models in growing from where you came from and the adversity? Who did you model? Or, if you did model somebody, who was it? And do you surround yourself with these people now, or have you leveled up and gone to that next stage?

Speaker 2: 29:49

Yeah, it's funny to ask that. So years ago my parents got divorced when I was seven years old, and that was in 1979. And back then there wasn't shared custody. There wasn't week on week off, two weeks on, two weeks off. It was. I only got to see my dad every other weekend, four days a month.

Speaker 2: 30:10

And I didn't realize this until 10, 15 years ago was that I didn't have anybody around to teach me how to be a man and whatever that means for anybody. And so because I was with my mom and my sister and they're wonderful, they're my best friends, but they couldn't teach me how to be a man, how to be responsible, intelligent, work hard, take care of women, how to just be a man, take care of my health, be intelligent, like all those things. So what I did was I and this is cool that I did this, and it's cool that I recognize it later on was I latched onto men or different boys or whoever to teach me how to be a man? Yeah, now, logically speaking, that's a really cool awareness that I had. The problem was I latched onto a bunch of idiots along the way, the ones that were drunk and stoned and didn't know how to live life either, and so it was like the blind leading the blind and I. This went on for a long time, all through my twenties. You know, I just chose the wrong people to surround myself with.

Speaker 2: 31:23

So that saying is you are who you surround yourself with, you become. That is 100% true, and so I surround myself with success. If you surround yourself with success, you're going to become. You know, you know, everybody knows this. You surround yourself with five millionaires, you're going to be the next millionaire. If you surround yourself with five stoners playing Xbox, you're going to get really good at Xbox. You know. So you choose who you want, and I and my ex always used to give me crap because all of my friends are at least 10 or 20 years older than me.

Speaker 2: 32:02

Because I enjoy that wisdom, I enjoy being around men that have been through it. They're all successful, some are in relationships, some aren't, but from financially successful. They're healthy. They're 10 or 20 years older than me and I love the wisdom that I get from people that have been there before me. And I still surround myself with those people now Because, again, like I told you earlier, it's like we go have coffee. I'm going to be like hey, guess what I got going on. They're like why are you doing that? And so it forces me to reevaluate my actions and my thoughts too.

Speaker 1: 32:43

I love that. I mean you, you, you do a lot of masterminds. I was always told and this is to me from my experience so far if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. And I've experienced this and I've actually walked out of conferences masterminds because I know where I was at was the wrong place for me. I'm just like thanks very much for your time, I'm done. I'm literally left. I'm in the wrong place.

Speaker 2: 33:13

Yeah, and it's not from an egotistical point of view either. It's not like I'm smarter than these people. That's not what that means. What it means is that we can only grow to the depth of who we surround ourselves with. So if I want to go here, I can't get there. I'm surrounding myself with people that don't know how to get there. That's all it means. It doesn't mean I'm better than you. You suck and you're stupid. It means that I want to get here and you can't help me get there. That's all that that means. So I want to go find people that can help me get there, and we can go hang out and go camping sometime although I don't go camping anymore but we can go, you know, get lunch sometime and talk, but we're not going to hang out too much because I want to get here.

Speaker 1: 33:59

You can't help me get there and it's important to recognize that without the ego and like you've already said, Dennis, is drop the ego from it and be able to step into your own power and say I love you guys, but I really feel as if, where I'm going, you can't provide what I'm looking for. But let's say connected and let's talk, but as a mentor, it's PCcom.

Speaker 2: 34:31

And really a real wisdom is also you don't have to say anything to them either. You just go and carry on with your life.

Speaker 1: 34:38

Some of the things that I like to tell someone, might the people who come to me and the entrepreneurs. You don't have to fire somebody. You could just raise the standard of the business and they'll release themselves. They fall off. Yeah, and that's what. That still applies to life as well. If you raise your standard of your life, people are going to fall away. People are not going to reach out to you, people aren't going to go. Oh, by the way, I want this, and can you come and play Xbox with me? Because you've raised your own unique vibration and, as a result of that, your whole life raises the standard and people cannot. Like attracts like and vibration attracts. Vibration is a scientific improvement again. So if you're raising your vibration, people don't resonate with you.

Speaker 1: 35:29

They have opinions, they're going to get egotistical, they're going to get resentful and all the rest of it. Because of that's where they are the moment you step into that, as an aspiring leader, as a thought leader, as a visionary of your own life, your life changes.

Speaker 2: 35:45

It does. Yeah, and I've you know. I was just right before I was on with the client. We were talking about what it takes to build a successful business. There's a lot of people on social media I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a CEO, I'm all these things like you know what it takes to be a CEO, like a real CEO. So I mean we can call ourselves whatever, but it takes an enormous, enormous amount of effort.

Speaker 2: 36:17

There are no and you'll see I'm shooting this post out in the next day or two but it's like if somebody is saying, oh, buy my program and next week you're making six figures a month, they're lying. Yes, right, don't buy into that stuff. They're praying. I do marketing, you might do marketing too. It's like we pray, we. It's not prey on their emotions, but you have to hit their emotions and you talk about finance, romance and health, and so if you could tell somebody who's hurting and struggling and has $50,000 in credit card debt that next month they can make $100,000, they're going to be interested and they're going to pay for your crap. Yeah, right, but it takes it. It's not going to work. It doesn't work Even there, even that business, what they're doing by doing that, they're running 100,000 a month in paid ads and hoping to make $101,000.

Speaker 2: 37:08

So to make a little bit of profit, and it's a high-risk thing. But the thing is they haven't built a foundational business. So when the paid ads stop, the phone stops. Are you Right so that you need to have a foundational business in place in order to make that kind of money? And I learned the hard way with this. Yeah, and it takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, a lot of failures and mistakes to build a foundational business. It takes a lot of time and it takes surrounding yourself with a team that's going to help get you there. All that stuff adds up to success. It doesn't happen overnight.

Speaker 1: 37:48

No, and if anybody to your point, if anybody tells you what you said, you're going to earn six figures next week. They're delusional and they're going to rip you off. Yeah, totally, and I've been victim to that. I've been down that pathway of oh yeah, the shiny new object syndrome. I was speaking yesterday to a client of mine about the shiny new object syndrome and he was like, oh my God, that's why I have, because he's seen something. Oh yeah, that's a quick fix. But I said, what are you going to learn from it? What's the journey going to consist of In a month's time? They guarantee this. I said they can guarantee what the hell they like? I said I've been, you know, I've gone, I've created that. Yeah, it's going to fit, quick fix. But it doesn't work.

Speaker 2: 38:38

It doesn't work and you also need. One of my favorite speakers and speeches was Steve Jobs. He was really incredible and what he did was it's really magical. And yeah, if you go back and watch the whole story of everything he created, it's incomparable, like there's not a close second. But what he did in this little speech it was an interview we had years ago it says you know, people have it almost recited. I can almost recite it verbatim, but I might mess it up a little bit.

Speaker 2: 39:13

But it's like people say you need to be passionate about what you're doing and it's so true and the reason is is because it's so hard. It's really hard and if you're not passionate about it, any rational person would give up. If you don't love what you're doing, not because you can make six figures next month, because, first of all, you're not that's not going to happen, right but second of all, if you don't love what you do, you're not going to get to the top Because you're going to quit, because what happens is we all start and then there's this mountain that we have to climb and most people there's. When you start, there's euphoria, it's like excitement about what could be and we get so excited about. I'm going to drive a Ferrari and live on a beach and do all these things and blah, blah, blah, and then a month later or a week later or two months or whatever, you hit the first roadblock mistake, failure, adversity, whatever and most people quit. Right. Then Some people make it to the halfway point. They'll get through that, and then maybe one or two more of those and then they quit.

Speaker 2: 40:25

If you're not passionate about what you're doing, it's hard. So normal people are like I can't handle this. I don't know how to manage my stress. I don't have a good morning routine, I don't surround myself with success. I'm going to go get a job, and that's true. Yeah, you get a paycheck and health insurance and all these things that you need to have what we do as real entrepreneurs you don't quit. And those mistakes and failures and adversity, they keep coming. And even after you have the money, they keep coming at a higher level. Yeah, they're more painful. So we're a different breed and everybody likes to throw that word around because it's I mean, it's cool. But if you're a real entrepreneur, solo, like all these these words, it's not for everybody.

Speaker 1: 41:21

I remember and you're right. I remember watching an influencer say you know he was a CEO of this company, that company and the rest of it, and I was watching I'm not Instagram, I'm only on LinkedIn now but I was watching him and I was like, wow, you put a lot to learn, because there's no way anybody can manage, at a proper CEO, entrepreneur level, seven different businesses and sleep and do everything else, unless you have a congruent team around you doing the things for you and cooking your food and doing the everything else. You can't do it. See, and you, if you put people like Elon Musk, he doesn't. He's not a CEO of one company. If you look at Tony Robbins, he's not a CEO of one company. Tony Robbins is a CEO of 108, 112 companies, but he has a team of people an army of people behind him doing things for him and he won't.

Speaker 1: 42:20

Goes in and makes the decisions for future pacing of business. He does the things that a CEO should be doing, not on the set of email.

Speaker 2: 42:31

Well, he's a brand too. Yes, yes, if he has 100 businesses, he has 100 CEO. Yes that do those things like you can't be. No, you can't effectively operate more than one business. No, you can't.

Speaker 1: 42:49

And I try. Yeah, I haven't done that level of business and multiple businesses, but I know because I've watched other people try this and I've gone. I don't. For me, I can only manage myself and a business, not seven different businesses, and be nine places at once and look after myself and keep myself sane. It's just impossible.

Speaker 2: 43:14

Yeah, that same part is really important too. You know, to be happy to be, you know all that stuff I'll tell another story about like before my coin business took off and my catering company and my fitness stuff and my candle making, like all these things I was doing and I didn't know how to run any of them and I had like 50,000 in credit card debt and a mortgage I couldn't afford and my car was breaking and like my life was falling apart and I would go. At that point I was still going to AA and I would go to these meetings and I'd be like oh I need money.

Speaker 2: 43:58

I have credit card debt and all these old timers there, these old wise dudes. They were like money doesn't buy you happiness, correct. And I was like but that's in.

Speaker 2: 44:08

Everybody says that shit and you're always like but that's one I was like to figure out myself you know like, give me a bunch of money and I'll let you know, yeah, so what happened was I started my business and it took off and within a year, literally within a year, I was selling. It was like quarter million a month, like $3 million a year, yeah. And it changed my life. I paid off. I borrowed like 20,000, I paid that. I paid off my set 50,000 in credit card debt. I bought a new car, I bought furniture. I like I had all this stuff and I got. I broke up with my girlfriend and she was really nice. It's just I didn't love her. We were different stages of my life and she got really hurt. But what happened was I bought. I remember I bought this really nice TV because I always wanted to have it, and back then, now it's just like your TV is like it's a flat screen TV, like that, but back then it was like it was a flat screen TV. Now it's just a TV, but that's all you have now. So I had my awesome TV and I bought these really nice, this nice leather furniture set and I had my new car and my new car was sitting outside and I was sitting on my really nice leather furniture and looking at my nice TV all by myself and I realized I wasn't any happier than I was before.

Speaker 2: 45:35

Now, money does not buy you happiness. It buys freedom, which leads to happiness. And so the thing is, this is like the world's an abundant place and we're entitled to that abundance and we should all make as much money as possible because money is good. People, it's our mindset around. Money is all fucked up because we're taught that money's evil. And it says the Bible says money is the root of all evil. That's not what the Bible says. No, the Bible says and I'm not a religious guy it says the love of money is the root of all evil. So if you love money more than your wife or your family or your business or your kids or your health, you're going to lose those things. That's the root of all evil. But money is good. It buys freedom, it buys whatever it is that we need to survive and thrive. So make money, but keep it in its proper place.

Speaker 1: 46:36

Exactly, and I've experienced this on my journey. You know, ego took over fame, fortune, flashy cars, flashy watches. It wasn't so much women or that, because I was married. I am married, I'm happily married to someone that is an amazing person, who is keeps me stable and focused. I need that in my life.

Speaker 1: 47:03

But for a period of time, money took over and I thought that was going to replace everything, it was going to make everything better and I, to that point, had that epiphany of oh shit, no, it's not. And I had to learn the hard way of yeah, this is not going to work for me, let's reshuffle, readjust. And it took a long time for me to shift focus from the finance to the abundance was within and the leadership and changing people's lives, and that's when I pivoted. So I've been through that journey and I know many people have. What is the one single thing that you went through? That was the pinnacle of the shift for you going from the alcohol, the learning curve to you ended up in Mexico. What did you shift from Northern America down to I want to live on a beach. What happened there?

Speaker 2: 48:10

Another great question and this goes to. This speaks to following your passions, kind of like what I was just talking about. You have to love what you're doing and you have to live your life. Now I'm 51, which isn't that old. I like to think I have 50 years left, but it goes fast. It goes really fast.

Speaker 2: 48:37

The thing is this I was a really good skier when I was a kid and I was supposed to be a skier. I was like trained to live in the mountains and to be a skier and to live that lifestyle. I did that for a long time and I have beautiful friendships that I call family. I had some amazing experiences, met some amazing people, did all these awesome things, and I love the mountains. They're beautiful. I understand the peace about being there, but the thing is this I realized that a few years ago I separated and well, let me go back when I was 39 years old.

Speaker 2: 49:22

I lost that business. I was telling you about my really successful coin business and I didn't have a family and I said, all right. So first I had to get over that losing my business, because I lost my multi-million dollar business, which is really hard, so I had to process that and then I said, okay, it's time to have a family, because I didn't have family. And I said, okay, whatever God puts in my life, whatever God is, I would do. And I said, if I got a young girl who wanted to have lots of babies, I would have done that. And I met Amy, who had this nine-year-old boy with autism, and I said, well, I guess that's what's put in my life. So I spent eight and a half years raising this special needs boy and it was just like my purpose. People were like, wow, that must be really hard. That was like that's all I know as a parent. Carson used to keep to himself. He would look on his phone all the time or his devices and, like my niece and nephew, would come over and bouncing off the walls, screaming and fighting with each other and I was like that looks hard, but it's all perspective, right? Yeah, well, what happened was so I spent all these years raising him and then what happened was we split because we were unhappy together.

Speaker 2: 50:41

But what I realized is that I don't ski anymore. We spent, we had a really nice life, a big house, the cars, all that stuff and we spent a lot of time coming to the beach and I realized that for the last 20 years I'm a beach bum. I love scuba diving, I love going to the beach, I love the sun and the warm weather and I realized I hadn't skied in eight years Wow. And I was like what am I doing here? And so after I got over and started dating, I met this girl and she's like let's go to Mexico. And I was like okay.

Speaker 2: 51:18

So we came here to play at Dock Harman and for a month in Airbnb and I started talking to people. I was like wait, I can live like this. And I went home to Colorado and it snowed three feet and I was like that's it. And I sold everything I own I don't have a car for the first time in 35 years. And it was because I realized I was like I was living that life, because I was supposed to.

Speaker 2: 51:47

So I moved here a few years ago and I realized I spent 48 years living the way I thought I was supposed to live yes, of living the way I wanted to live. So this was the best thing I ever did in my life was I moved to the beach because this is what I want. It was the first thing in my life that I did just for me, not for family, for friends, relationships, money. It was because I enjoy being here. Yeah, now everything I do has boundaries on it. I say do I really, am I doing this for me? Do I love this decision I'm making? Is it gonna bring me happiness in a month, in a year or 10 years from now? And that's what brought me here.

Speaker 1: 52:34

What makes you? You just mentioned happiness. Define happiness and what it means for you, and you just had the epiphany of three feet of snow coming from that, not skiing anymore, and then going to scuba diving. What's happiness on a day-to-day basis for you?

Speaker 2: 52:56

It's freedom from having to live the way somebody else thinks I'm supposed to live. It's following my own passions and dreams and making my own footprints. That's happiness. It's inner peace and success. Doing what feeds your heart is happiness. If you're doing that, all the money and everything we're chasing after it starts to follow you around when you start living the way that you want to live because you want to, not because somebody else needs you to or expects you to that's hard Living that way.

Speaker 2: 53:34

That world, that crazy world up there, is designed for really only very few people to succeed at a high level and the rest of the people struggle and wonder why they can't get there. And because they can't get there, then they need Xanax or they need to get drunk or get stoned or when they're not hungry or do. All these other distractions mindless scrolling weekends of Netflix All those are distractions from not getting where you want to be in life or not living the way you want to live. If you're living the way you want to live, you don't need to do those things. Those things are exciting enough that you don't need to distract yourself from that. So that's happiness.

Speaker 2: 54:23

I mean yesterday, today. I'm very busy today, but normally five days a week I go to the beach in the morning and meditate and swim a couple of kilometers and I mean that's happiness For me. I know some people, some of my old ski friends, they hate the beach and that's fine, like I understand, like I can come to the beach, I go down here and just seeing it it calms me down. But then listening to the waves putting my going, swimming, just my toes in the sand, all of that brings me in her peace. I used to get that up in the mountains and I understand that. Like going up in the mountains and there's no sirens, there's none of that stuff that makes us all sick, it's quiet, the fresh air, I understand that too. It's like, whatever your piece is, go do more of that.

Speaker 1: 55:26

I like that and I like to say you can have an understanding of something but you can't experience it until you have experienced it. But then you have an inner standing of it. It becomes a part of who you are, your makeup, your aspiring affirmations to where you wanna get to. Who didn't? I mean, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are role. Like we said earlier, they role model people and they aspire to be somebody because they've seen something on a podcast or on a TV program or they've been to an event. Was there anybody in your entrepreneurial career that you aspired to be or was a particular mentor for you? I know you said earlier you have many mentors now, the same as a lot of us. We have coaches and coaches and coaches, two coaches and coaches, because that's what we wanna be to the best. But is there any particular people or person or company that you aspire to be and they had a significant part in your birth of being an entrepreneur?

Speaker 2: 56:31

Great question. There are so many great ones aren't there. But to go back my whole life, my grandfather started a business in 1957. It was this window manufacturing company and back then you could start a business. America was still growing and he made millions of dollars in the 50s and 60s. You can't start a window manufacturing business anymore Unless you have a billion dollar investment group to compete with, like Anderson Windows or whatever. But back then you could do that and I watched there were like 100 factory workers like he built all that stuff and I was always fascinated by it. So I've always had this itch inside of me to be entrepreneurial.

Speaker 2: 57:20

As far as modern day people, I look like many of us. We look at the YouTube videos or whatever it is the Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is one of my big, yeah, inspirational ones. But on a personal level, there's so many. There really are so many. I love listening to Gary V. I like the straight talk. Yeah, you know what? I just did a master class last week and I gave away so much information, like I was telling everybody about how to build a successful business, how to use LinkedIn as a sales funnel to get people to your website, to where you in that? Did you go to the master class?

Speaker 1: 57:59

Oh no, it wasn't in that.

Speaker 2: 58:00

No, yeah, and it was amazing. And I was on for three hours and you know who else was on for three hours? Everybody, nobody left. It was supposed to be an hour and I was giving out all this stuff and a couple of people said why are you giving all of your best stuff away? And I learned this from Gary V, like I think it was probably about 12 years ago. I remember him saying that somebody asked him why are you giving everybody all your best stuff? And it's because 99% of you are too lazy to do it. You're still not going to implement it.

Speaker 1: 58:37

Yeah, well, remember it.

Speaker 2: 58:40

Yeah, and so I follow people like that and like he'd really hit me there when he said that I was like all right, so I need to find a way to be able to execute all this stuff. And I did that by making a lot of mistakes, but also I had coaches help guide me through the process and I follow. I'm always learning and reading always, because I don't know everything. We're never going to know everything. The problems come when you think you know everything. Yeah, so some of those people I mean the popular ones that you hear about they're really inspirational people. I love looking at calm, successful people. In fact, I have a story about this guy. His name was Phil Wamm and when I worked at Cisco Food Service, he was the VP of sales and what happened was we had this meeting one day and he was always very calm and we had this meeting one day and all of us I was an outside sales, so I would go to restaurants and sell food to people and we had a great training program. I learned so much about sales and business in that job.

Speaker 2: 59:56

But we were all a mess. We all had our laptop bags. We had our Franklin Covey planners that were all full of shit and pulling the sale material and we were carrying our lunch and then our water bottles and like folders full of crap falling apart. We were just a mess and we were all making 50, 60, this is 20 years, over 20 years ago, so 50, 60,000 a year, 70, 80,000, like different parts and going crazy, and all we had to do was manage like 20 restaurants that we were selling food to. And we had this meeting and Phil Wamm was the VP of this $450 million a year company who walks in with a pad like this, this eight inch pad, and a pen.

Speaker 1: 1:00:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:50

He's leading $450 million company. We're selling however much food every week to these 20 restaurants and we're all stressed out and Phil walks in with his little pad and he sits down. He's like hi, everybody, Everybody tuned into everything he said. Everything he said was intentional, it was mindful. He wasn't stressed out about anything because he was able to discern what was actually happening and none of it was gonna kill him. Yeah, so everything that we're talking about a lot of it I learned from him 20 years ago by watching him operate and applying those principles into my life. Like, is this really a big deal? I ask myself that every day, even in my personal relationships, whatever's happening on the street on the news, which I don't ever watch anymore. I don't watch some music either.

Speaker 2: 1:01:42

Yeah like why, yeah, did we get angry? Like why do you wanna get angry If you know you're gonna get angry? Why?

Speaker 1: 1:01:51

do that? Yeah, I actually, and this is something I like to share with people, and I'm not embarrassed of this at all. I actually watched Tom and Jerry or the old cartoons to make me laugh.

Speaker 2: 1:02:04

I love that Movie tunes yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:02:08

It's something that I grew up with, Tom and Jerry, you know, Yo, Sam and Sam the old. A lot of us been banned or stopped because it's implicitly correct or whatever it's been classed as now I don't care about that.

Speaker 1: 1:02:23

It makes me happy. No, so I would go if I went in a funk. I'll do what you said. I'll go and meditate, I'll go and change my state and then I'll watch something funny, something that has nostalgia with it. I live in, but I happen to be in Colorado and belong to a long one. Just down the road, as you probably well know, was more commindi, where they feel more commindi. Yeah, that's nostalgia to me. I grew up with that. I'm an 80s kid, the last of the Gen X and all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:02:55

But that is important to remember. Where you come from and I love what you said about you know you modeled your granddad. That is valuable Because people model these big, successful businesses and people, entrepreneurs and business owners, but they forget what's in their past and that's so. That is so unique and the way you think about you. Know my granddad did this. He built this window company up and then you know you have that experience with a divorce for your parents.

Speaker 1: 1:03:32

But that knowledge you use today people don't do that anymore. People get absorbed by the phone and the app they're watching and all the rest of it. They fail to step out and go. What's important to me, what can I learn from this? What can it teach me? And that's so valuable in business, in entrepreneurial life, but not just growing businesses. It's about having a life for yourself. Leave in that legacy. And legacy doesn't mean you're gonna build up a multi-million dollar business and leave it to somebody. Legacy is a memory for somebody to remember, like your granddad. That's a legacy and if you wanna be remembered for something, be remembered for something inspirational. We've all done shitty things in our lives. We all do things we regret and don't wanna do. We can't go back and change it, but if you take responsibility, you take acceptance learn from it.

Speaker 1: 1:04:35

That's memorable Because they'll remember the good things rather than the bad things, unless you're Adolf Hitler, which is something completely different. But you've gotta remember that you're on a journey and I love your story about adversity and learning from your granddad, and he's inspired you to be who you are today. People model people who are successful, but they look, they don't look, they forget to look a bit closer to home.

Speaker 2: 1:05:12

Yeah, there's so much out there. I mean, look, whatever it is you wanna do, really just do that.

Speaker 2: 1:05:18

Like you know, when people talk about like fitting it, you know, most of our problems come from trying to fit in Right, because we don't. We don't fit in. That's the thing. We're not meant to fit in. You know again, you see all the memes and the cliches that we hear all the time. Why fit in? When you were born to stand out. And that's so true. And the reason is is because when we try to fit in and we're comparing ourselves to others and all that stuff, we're never going to and that causes anxiety, it causes fear and lack and insecurity and all those things. So we turn to outside distractions the all the same ones that we've been talking about, because we feel like we don't fit in and we don't fit in. Yeah, so we have there's ways, as a coach, of finding out what lights you up. Correct Whatever it is that lights you up. Do that, like, find a way to make a living. Doing that.

Speaker 2: 1:06:20

For me, it was helping other people not die. Yeah, because I almost died thousands of times and seriously, I'm gonna send you pictures of me 25 years ago, when I was a mess and I had dark, black and purple circles under my eyes and I was literally dying. You know, I was drinking a half a gallon of whiskey every day smoking two packs of cigarettes, snorting cocaine, like I literally almost died. So my purpose is to help other people not die. Yeah, and I help people change their lives. And then it turned into I was helping people get sober and become healthy and useful again and I was helping them build businesses. Yeah, and then my addiction coaching counseling was such a heavy lifestyle I needed to get out of that so I transitioned to business and that's how I got to where I am today and I loved all of that and what I do is I incorporate all of the wisdom and the psychology of addiction and healing from all that into business, because it's very applicable.

Speaker 2: 1:07:29

When you manage your emotions, which is most of business, then you become more successful, and so I'm passionate about that. That's what I'm passionate about. If you're passionate about basket weaving, there's a way to build a business, especially on LinkedIn or any social media. They all work if you speak the right voice to the right audience. You can sell any product or service if you build the audience. So whatever it is you love to do, you can build a business doing it, it's true, and so I help people do that. Basket weaving running. If you're passionate about running. There's ways to build a business about what you love to do. If you don't, you're gonna quit and you're gonna fail and you're gonna waste a lot of resources and time trying to figure out why that is, and it's because you're not passionate about it.

Speaker 1: 1:08:32

This is why I do what I do here and I love doing these podcasts and delivering a value for people like you, because you have a wealth experience. You're so grounded, you're mindful about everything you do and, to your point earlier, you're also intentional. So nothing isn't done out of whack. It has a meaning, has a purpose, it has a defined result at the end of it. I love the fact that you have gathered up all this experience and, instead of letting it rule your life or run your life, you now use the experience to help others and pay it forward to change other people's lives. Can you I don't know if you have words can you let the people know where you wanna be in three to five years time? Do you have an exit strategy? Do you wanna go? You're looking to not so much retire, but are you looking to step back and let it run itself, or do you have another plan in mind?

Speaker 2: 1:09:39

Yeah, great question. I love that one and the answer is no, like I don't wanna step back, not right now. I mean I don't know what's gonna happen the way that I've structured my life and my business I don't have the kids and responsibilities that some people have, but the way that I've structured my business is that I could do it from anywhere. So next year with my girlfriend she needs to go to Europe for a little while, so we're probably gonna do that and I can do that. But the goal and what you said about retirement is really important is that the goal is never to retire, Thank you. The goal is to not have to work. We need purpose, we need to be, we're purpose-driven people Like we need. When we don't have purpose, we end up turning to distractions to take up our time, but we don't ever wanna retire. I wanna work until I die. I just wanna not have to work. So we wanna create wealth, we wanna create security and a foundation that we can go out and live and do the things that we wanna do.

Speaker 2: 1:10:46

My mother worked for somebody for over like 35 years and she loved that security, the paycheck. She loved the schedule, the nine to five thing, the getting in her car, the putting the clothes on, like the schedule and the structure. I don't like that. It makes me sad, right? So if some people love working in the corporate world, they love that excitement and all that stuff I don't. So whatever it is you love to do is set your life up that way For me. I don't wanna ever stop doing this. I love when they get new clients and I love helping their businesses thrive and I love teaching them about the emotional part of up at all and when the lights start to go on and they start to understand that, I love that. I don't ever wanna stop seeing that ever.

Speaker 1: 1:11:39

And that's a huge takeaway for a lot of people listening to this because they're on their journey. They're trying to go from point A to point B the quickest way possible. I've got a short story to tell you. Actually, when I got married, I was privileged to go up to Orcus Island in Washington state. There was a retreat there where the guy called Rob Worgen he appeared in the documentary Heel and my wife had these tickets she was gifted. I was gifted a ticket from a client of mine. We went up, we started to get married. There was a guy turned up there. You may or may not have heard of him. He was called Jared Butler and he's the actor 300, angel and fallen work.

Speaker 1: 1:12:25

10 minutes before I got married, I was sat having a cup of coffee with him across a bar and he dropped this to me and, bearing in mind I didn't know much about business at the time, it was about four years ago and I was just starting off as an entrepreneur and this whole coaching thing and I was traveling in the world on donations, with nothing. I was helping people for, you know, bits of food, accommodation, et cetera, loved it, freedom was brilliant. And he said to me this enjoy the journey, because what you're on the pinnacle of your career, it is so easy for someone to come in and flick and knock you off. And I didn't realize what he said in that moment until I experienced it and I started to associate with different people wrong people for me at the time and then, a year, just over a year ago, I experienced what happened and I was just I just finished speaking on a stage of 35,000 people in the Excel in London and I was privileged to do it, and I came back. Something happened that reset my whole business and life and I will remember the journey from that moment to rebuilding everything again. I had Gerard Butler in my head going enjoy the journey, enjoy the journey, enjoy the journey.

Speaker 1: 1:13:54

And now I truly know what he meant by that. And that wisdom came from somebody who was worth 30 million plus and his you know, well-famous and does all he does. But you know what he used to do Before he became famous. He wanted to be an attorney and the day before he passed the bar he quit, didn't pass it, phoned up his actor agent who was in Los Angeles, and said I want to be an actor and I'm coming tomorrow. And it wasn't until he did 300, a few years later, that he got to the position he was in. But every time he got a he got a no. He knew it was one close state closer to yes and that's what he taught me. But now I know what he meant by enjoy the journey.

Speaker 1: 1:14:49

And when I listen to people like you who have gone through adversity and learned from it do what you do and I've had, you know, stuff with close encounters with death and all that sort of things, that's commendable and there needs to be more people like you out there telling that story and doing what you do best, living your passion and not wanting to retire, because if everybody retired that did what you do, our future is going to be fucked Because they're not going to know what this knowledge is and they're going to embrace it and they're going to learn from it. So can you do the world of favor, please, dennis, don't ever stop doing what you do, because I think that will be a huge loss in the world. And thank you for being doing what you do and rising from that hash and showing up for the world and showing up today. For me it's been a true privilege. Is there anything you would like to leave the audience with any tips or anything you want to point them to in the future.

Speaker 2: 1:15:58

Well, I love that one is I enjoy the ride, because the ride is what it's all about. When we say Usain Bolt, I love that story. You know Usain Bolt? Yes, yeah, I think he ran for a total of 115 seconds on the Olympic track. 115 seconds and however many gold medals you won yeah, I want to say, was it eight gold medals 115 seconds of actual running on the Olympic track. He trained 20 years for 115 seconds. So I love that story. It's about enjoying the ride. So everything you just said is really good.

Speaker 2: 1:16:45

But the last thing that because I get asked this question on shows all the time it's like what's one piece of advice you can give? And I always say the same thing Don't ever lose your sense of wonder. That was one of my early quotes that I heard when I was starting to grow up as a 31 year old sober guy. That really stuck with me. It's like a lot of our problems come from too much adulting. Yeah, really, we're meant to take all this stuff so seriously. Life isn't supposed to be so serious. It really isn't, and that's what causes a lot of our problems. So it's like ask questions, go out and run and play and get dirty and do whatever it is that you like to do. It's going fast.

Speaker 2: 1:17:40

I remember when I was sitting at 31 years old in the AA room listening to people say they had 20 years of sobriety, and I remember looking at them and I thought two things. One is you're full of shit. I thought. I was like how could anybody have 20 years of sobriety? I couldn't have the 20 days right. So I remember that's the first thing that I thought. The second thing was I said I want to have 20 years of sobriety. I wish I had 20 years of sobriety. But then I realized I was like if I had 20 years of sobriety I'd be 51 years old and I'd be old. But I also would have missed out on that 20 years of experience. That 20 years is what made me who I am today and I love who I am. I became a man who I can actually love.

Speaker 2: 1:18:25

I used to look in the mirror when I was messed up and cry and I would say I'm never doing this again and I would literally cry. I would say who am I? It was like a bad movie. I would look in the mirror and say who am I? I didn't even know and then I would walk to the freezer and start drinking, get the whiskey out of the freezer and start drinking again, and then I would throw up blood Like I was a mess. And I don't do that anymore and it's because those 20 years made me into who I am today. So I wouldn't change any of that. So don't ever lose your sense of wonder. Keep being curious. I still do a lot of meditation and one of the old mindfulness rules is to have a beginner's mindset. In the mind of an expert, there's very few possibilities because you already know everything, but in the beginner's mind, anything is possible. Correct the world is limitless. I say always have a beginner mindset, keep your mind open to anything, because anything is possible as long as you believe that it is.

Speaker 1: 1:19:36

Dennis, thank you very much for your time today. I truly appreciate it and you've given so much value in this. I'm going to put this into two episodes because it's just easy and digestible for people to listen to. So looking out for the episodes. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you for listening. Please share and subscribe to the podcast, and thank you again, dennis, for being here and showing up for the people you show up for and changing their lives.

Speaker 2: 1:20:08

Thank you, Baz. I appreciate it, man. It was really a pleasure meeting you.

Speaker 1: 1:20:11

And you. Let's keep connected and speak to you soon.