The Exchanges

Q Fascinating. So you ask questions to figure it out. What about, you have a lot of businesses now, and can you tell immediately if somebody is somebody you should partner with or not?

A No, I can't tell immediately. I can get seduced because people put on their best behavior. They're going on a date, right? So I, I look at it this way. If I'm going to evaluate somebody, I have three questions. Same with what you would have in your business or on a date. Can they do the job? If I'm interviewing them in one of my companies, by the time it gets to me, of course they can do the job or I wouldn't be interviewing them, right? Or if you were dating, Can they do the job? If you've been dating them six months, yeah, they can do it. The more important question is, can they do that job well long term? Right? Will they keep doing a great job? Because everyone does a great job in the beginning, right? And what determines that is, are their goals in alignment with the job? Right? So I used to, I remember years ago, we had a woman that worked for us for five years as our personal assistant, and we were traveling the world, and we were pretty, 24 seven, and you become part of our family, right? And we love her, and still do, she's still a close member of our family. She fell in love with another of our employees and had a child, and so she needs to stay put, so we had to replace her, and so we went to the LA, because we were living in California at the time, Southern California, went to the LA Personal Assistance Association. We went through five hires in five months, and non…

AI assessment note: “No, I can't tell immediately. I can get seduced because people put on their best behavior.”

Q Um, I want to hear about it, and I also want to hear about how you prepare for these shows that you do, because I hear you obsessively prepare even to this day for the shows you put on. Is that true?

A That's true. I just, I believe in overloading my brain because I never know what's going to happen, like, because I don't just do a rote talk, right? I've, I, I sometimes I'll prepare everything, and then I go out into the audience, and I feel different things. I see people, I see where they are, and I have to adjust. Also, could you imagine, this will be my, this is my, my 49th year I'm about to begin. So I would be bored out of my brain if I was just doing the exact same thing. I know there's certain things that work and what to do, but I have to be able to adapt to feel alive and do art. And art is something that's different every time. It's not the same. And it's also what challenges me. So I feed my brain everything I can, and then I trust when I step on the stage what'll be necessary is there.

AI assessment note: “That's true. I just, I believe in overloading my brain”

Q Have you always been like that? Or how did you learn to push people the way they needed to?

A No, I was a, I was more of a pleaser, uh, growing up. Um, you know, everyone has a dominant force in their life. My mom was the dominant force and she was, uh, and I had four different fathers, so she was the dominant force, as you might guess. She was quite a force of nature, got rid of them one after another. And, um, and I learned to please her or I was, you know, there was quite Physical with her. And I was five one in high school. And then even when I grew 10 inches in a year, I learned to bend my hair down. She grabbed my hair and smacked me against the wall. She was a beautiful woman. I don't want to give you the wrong impression. She was as loving as you could be, but she abused, you know, alcohol and prescription drugs. And when you put those two together, you become a different personality. So I had to work out in my head, how do you deal with someone who, whose love you crave the most, who's trying to harm you, but you know, loves you. You know? And so, rather than go with the whole victim bullshit, I just, there's not any part of me that's ever been a victim. It's like, okay, she's wired with pain, and I gotta figure out how to, basically, I became a practical psychologist because of her. I had to figure out how to manage her states, her emotions, so I could protect my younger brothers five years younger, the younger sister seven years younger, and I got really good…

AI assessment note: “No, I was a, I was more of a pleaser, uh, growing up.”

Q How do you feed it? Like, what does that look like?

A Well, for example, my date with Destiny, I have people fill out about a twenty-page interview report. There's 5000 of them. And I read them for a week. Not everybody does it, by the way. You know, some of you wait till the last minute so I, you know, or don't turn it at all. It's only your destiny. Don't worry about it, right? But what it gives me is the patterns in the room. I may not remember every name, every story, but I remember what the patterns are. And then when somebody stands up, even if it wasn't that person, I know if I can work with this person and help them transform, I could be affecting 50 or a hundred people simultaneously, right? That I consciously know about. That's how I load my brain. I also brainstorm out different examples or tools. I'm always coming up with something new in terms of insight or strategy. And then, um, But the event you're talking about is a really unique event. I started it because of COVID, because I was used to doing stadiums, right? And in twenty-twenty, um, the governor of California's team calls me up. I know him well. Not a big fan.

AI assessment note: “I have people fill out about a twenty-page interview report... That's how I load my brain.”

Q And how did I sell myself on what I wanted instead of what was in front of me?

A Most of my most important skills came from Some early mistakes with people, one of which I had two partners, and I brought them on board and made a deal with them that was ridiculously good for them, but it was based still on some results, and, um, they absolutely stole seven or 58,000 dollars, 250 of the seven or 58,000 dollars, put me in debt, seven 58,000, my company was doing a million. So not billions, a million, right? So it was like all the money I knew, and I'd been on the road 225 days, and everybody told me I have to go bankrupt. And I, I wanted to kill this guy. He fled to Mexico. And I realized, well, I'm chasing him in Mexico. My business is going to go under. So I went to Fiji and I was like, I was so angry at him, but I said, no, who I'm most angry with is me. Cause how did I not see this? Right? I don't care how good he presented. Was it about human behavior? I don't fully understand. And I was second day in Fiji in this sweaty little hut. And, uh, and I went to sleep with that thought. Just burning thought. I woke up the next morning and I wrote literally for six straight hours and filled up three journals, all these distinctions I made. I created my Day With Destiny program because I did it to me. That's my favorite program. It's the only seminar I've been through because I did it for me. Changed everything. Rewired me so that, you know, sometimes you have val…

AI assessment note: “I learned how to align my values so that”

Q And that that is not actually a touchy-feely thing, But you've also hinted that in some ways there's something that comes before mindset. And why is the order of that so important?

A This actually came because for, oh gosh, this is going to be my 49th year. I've traveled the earth at a really unique time. I've been in every single major country in the world, clients in every country in the world. So, 193 countries give you an idea. And so, after a while, you recognize patterns. And one of the patterns that I began to recognize is what creates a breakthrough. Because I'm interested not in just managing something or making it better. I want to scale something. I want to see it grow. So, or a breakthrough in your personal life. Same thing. Somebody's going along and they try to change, don't follow through, try to change, don't follow through, beat themselves up. Like, what is the difference between the person who beat themselves up and the time when she finally, he or she finally broke through? And what I found is there's actually three elements to it. And the reason most people fail to have a breakthrough, I experience, is that they go after them in the wrong sequence. It's kind of like, If you know the right numbers to a vault and you put them in the wrong order, you don't get the treasure, right? Same thing with your phone number. You don't reach the person. So I'll give you the three S's to a breakthrough. The first one is not the most valuable one. It's the first one people go for. It's strategy. Now for you and I, strategy seems like the most natural th…

AI assessment note: “If you know the right numbers to a vault and you put them in the wrong order”