Jason interviews his early mentor Dr. Denis Waitley on “The Psychology of Winning.” Listen in at: https://speakingofwealth.com/category/podcast/. At age 17, Jason discovered Waitley and it was a life altering event leading to his early and sustained success. Waitley is one of America’s most respected authors, keynote lecturers and productivity consultants on high performance human achievement. He has inspired, informed, challenged, and entertained audiences for over 25 years from the board rooms of multi-national corporations to the locker rooms of world-class athletes and in the meeting rooms of thousands of conventioneers throughout the world. Recently, he was voted business speaker of the year by the Sales and Marketing Executives’ Association and by Toastmasters’ International and inducted into the International Speakers’ Hall of Fame.
With over 10 million audio programs sold in 14 languages, Denis Waitley is one of the most listened-to voices on personal and career success. He is the author of 15 non-fiction books, including several international best sellers, “Seeds of Greatness,” “Being the Best,” “The Winner’s Edge,” “The Joy of Working,” and “Empires of the Mind.” His audio album, “The Psychology of Winning,” is the all-time best selling program on self-mastery.
Denis Waitley has studied and counseled winners in every field from Apollo astronauts to Superbowl champions, from sales achievers to government leaders and youth groups. During the 1980′s, he served as Chairman of Psychology on the U. S. Olympic Committee’s Sports Medicine Council, responsible for performance enhancement of all U. S. Olympic athletes.
Dr. Waitley is a founding director of the National Council on Self-Esteem and the President’s Council on Vocational Education, and recently received the “Youth Flame Award” from the National Council on Youth Leadership for his outstanding contribution to high school youth leadership. As president of the International Society for Advanced Education, inspired by Dr. Jonas Salk, he counseled returning POWs from Viet Nam and conducted simulation and stress management seminars for Apollo astronauts. A graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and former Navy pilot, he holds a doctorate degree in human behavior. Upcoming shows will feature: Asset Protection Attorney Mark Kholer, Marketing Guru Ted Nicholas, Federal Reserve Commentator Andre Eggeletion, Video Marketer Mike Koenigs, Internet Money Machine Yanik Silver, Organizational Expert David Allen and many other thought leaders.
Introduction: Speakers, publishers, consultants, coaches and info marketers unite the Speaking of Wealth show is your roadmap to success and significance. Learn the latest tools, technologies and tactics to get more bookings, sell more products and attract more clients. If you are looking to increase your direct response sales, create a big time personal brand and become the go-to-guru. The Speaking of Wealth show is for you. Here is your host Jason Hartman.
Jason Hartman: Got a special treat for you today for sure. One of my all time favorite mentors and teachers on the subject of success is on the show with me today. And that is Dr. Denis Waitley. He has been around for many, many years written many bestselling books, and has got just an incredible resume. His principles really, really impacted my life in a very positive way at the rippled age of 17 years old when I discovered him, and he — and I would say that Denis Waitley, Zig Ziglar, late Jim Rohn and of course Earl Nightingale, These are among the really big time teachers on success. They are really big time motivational speakers and gurus, so I think you will really enjoy the show today. It was really an honor to interview Dr. Waitley. Let's go to the interview with Dr. Denis Waitley and here it is.
Introduction What's great about the show is you will find on jasonhartman.com is that if you want to learn about investing in and managing income properties for college students there is a show for that. If you want to learn how to get noticed online, and in social media there is a show for that. If you want to know how to save on life's largest expense, there is a show for that. And if you would like to know about America's crime of the century there is even a show for that. Yeah there is a show for just about anything only from jasonhartman.com or type in Jason Hartman in the iTune store.
Jason Hartman: It is my great pleasure and when I say great I am not embellishing that comment to have Dr. Denis Waitley on the show with us today. He is one of America's most respected authors, keynote lecturers, and productive consultants in the field of high performance human achievement. Denis has a tremendous background. He is the author of numerous books which I have read many of them, and I would tell you when I was 17 years old I discovered Dr. Waitley in Walden Books in Cerritos Mall, and if there is one thing that has changed my life, and one person that has changed my life.
It is Dr. Waitley. I picked up a copy of an audio book when audio books were just become popular called The Psychology of Winning 10 Qualities of a Total Winner, and I listened to that approximately 150 times in the next 30 days. I had a long commute and Denis really impacted my life he helped me discovered Earl Nightingale and Jim Rohn, and many of other motivational and inspirational greats that our culture has produced and it is such a pleasure to have Dr. Denis Waitley with us here today. Denis welcome.
Denis: Welcome thank you Jason it's great to be with you.
Jason Hartman: It's great to talk to you. Thank you for coming on, and sharing some of your background and your wisdom with us. As we were talking a little before and started recording Denis you were talking about how you were doing a lot of work in the Middle East and then China, and kind of the cultural shift that's happening between around the world really. Do you want to elaborate on that?
Denis: Sure I would be happy to. You know I guess when you get older, well first of all when you get older you are very welcome in China because they still [revere 0:04:00] old people. So I go where the demand is and the young Chinese by the thousands come out to hear me a lecture throughout China, and there is 5000 teenagers who come and that's the wakeup call here in the United States because it wouldn't be possible for me to get 10 teenagers in the United States to listen to an older man talk about success principles because they are really not that interested when they are young in this country to become successful.
They are more interested in the end result which is happiness, party, having fun, getting the result of it, and that's one of the concerns that I have is that as I travel throughout China and even the Middle East, but especially China I see a young motivated population interested in all the principles then how to become successful so hungry for information that they become great students of success, and I know we are more innovative, and more creative and have been much more self empowered in the past, but I am beginning to worry that the empires of the past, the great Roman Empire, and even the Chinese Empire so the Chinese had many, many empires over the 5000 year period.
The Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, and the American Empire seem to mature and in maturity move toward entitlement of success rather than the empowerment of their youth to earn success, and so I am beginning to believe that unless we do a mid course term that we won't be able to two pit or a three pit and get back up to the top because of this great desire on the part of developing nations to have a seat at the banquet table, and their hunger is more important than our position, and therefore I think we really need to reinvent ourselves as we enter 2010.
I think we need to get the eye of the tiger back. I think we need to consider ourselves in the playoffs and that we are up against China probably owns the 21st century, and as of been traveling through the Middle East that the United Arab Emirates have to invest in all of our real estate, and Jason just one other thing, the Chinese and the Middle East countries are investing their money in the America's in buying as much of our real property as they can, and if we are not careful they will be the owners of the property that we will rent from them. And we will find ourselves in a service academy unable to earn the kind of living that we need to keep our standard of living, and we will turn to the government, and hope that they can care for us since we will not be able to outperform or out compete the developing nations that's kind of my sermon on the mouth.
Jason Hartman: Well, Denis I believe it was you. And I am so familiar with your material and have enjoyed it so much throughout my adult life. I believe it was you who said, “luxury is the law to apathy” and I think that has happened in America, hasn't it?
Denis: Well, it really has, and no society has ever survived its own success. I think the longest societies is or about 500 years and we are a little pass 300. We are achieving our 300 year. Now it seems to be this cycle of history repeating itself unless we would learn from it. And so far we haven't learned that when you become comfortable, you become apathetic and when you become apathetic you failed to teach the younger generation, and I am not trying to talk as an old guy that's saying the young generation is going to pot and blah, blah, blah.
I am really more concerned about being an optimist and figuring out what we need to do in order to get that wining spirit back which we seem to have lost because we are really saying why don’t they do something when the truth is when you look in the mirror, the way is us. It isn't somebody else its going to do it for us, so there is no question about that that I really believe that when you rest on your laurels, you lose the super bowl ring.
Jason Hartman: Very good point and I couldn't agree more. I think people have depended on government way too much, and the current administration is trying to foster more government dependency rather than independence and entrepreneurial spirit, and when people started looking to entitlements they become weaker, they become disempowered, and frankly and I will just say it they become losers instead of winners, and that's what your work has been about creating winners whether it would be the double win, one of your great books being the most empires of the mind, the psychology of wining the seeds of greatness all of this other fantastic work, and I want you to talk about that Denis, but one thing
I will say that does give me hope is that America still really holds the cards globally on innovation so far seemingly at least to me and additionally America always when it gets itself into a pinch things tend to shift really quickly in this country where people become empowered fast, and we saw a little bit of this after 9/11, and history has shown us that America really can change much more quickly than other countries can.
Its much — it’s a very nimble country in a very nimble economy at least it has been in the past, and it has a brand and a doctrine, and a set of founding principles where people just deeply believe in certain things in this country, and of course the global audience is listening to us now, so I don’t want to make this a completely America centric discussion, but does that give you any hope, any of those things.
Denis: Well, really does and I think you are right on target. On the one hand, the Chinese are graduating are nearly a million in hi-tech and we are only graduating 60,000 from our universities in hi-tech, so between India and China obviously the electronic innovation of the future is probably going to shift to the Far East.
However, we have always been a composite conglomerate of every race, every religion and we are a tapestry of all the immigrants who have ever been hungry and who have ever wanted success, and I think that still is the underwriting ability of America to be this melting pot of people who just don’t want to be fettered, and don’t want to be chained, and if we can rise from this idea of being entitled to success.
In our mother country Great Britain, and most of my relatives came and are living in England, they got into a situation where the afternoon tea, and the vacations and the unions, and having your six weeks vacation and all of those things that we are kind of a guaranteed floor, so if you guarantee the floor to stand on, remember for every floor there is a ceiling, and it also puts the ceiling over your head when you demand that the floor be given to you. So, I think we just have to wake up and say, wait a minute; this is not like us to stand there, and wait for the government to do something for us.
This is where our ingenuity and entrepreneurship needs to flourish, and I do know that it's flourishing in those developing nations because they just don’t have any ability for the government to take care of them. And I will say just one thing about China, and everyone talks about the oppressive Chinese situation. Well, with the number of billion people that they have in fact that they have that many more people than we do.
You have to have a crowd control because they can afford there are 23 million teenagers turning 13 every year in China, and if you had 23 million 13 years olds milling on street corners, or shall we say hanging out or doing drugs for example, or partying too much you would have riots, and you would have the situation of that would be totally uncontrollable. So there is no question. They have an oppressive central government to keep the crowd control, but make no mistake that the young people in China are hungry, motivated, and really excited about the future, and they may bring this creative idea of being self motivated the very thing that has made America great this idea of me the individual.
If those developing nations get the idea that I can do anything myself, and not to have fit into this regiment, then we are up for a very formidable competition, and all I can say is that its very important right now for each of us to step out of our comfort zone, and do more in 2010 than we thought we needed to do because we thought things were going so well that America is going to just automatically stay on top.
Jason Hartman: Very good points, I couldn't agree more again. Let's talk a little bit about your work and your principles of success if we can, and I don’t know that we have time for all of them, but share whatever it is you would like to share may be you could start with the psychology of winning, and talk about the way it's organized. I found that particularly interesting when I discovered it many years ago, and how you have a sort of a philosophy or a mindset that translates into an action habit. Tell us about that.
Denis: Well, I think first of all its very important to know that winning and losing are habit forming, and they — we learn by observation, imitation and repetition, and almost everything we are going to become is based upon the exposure that we have. And so growing up as a boy I realized that coming from a negative environment which I did that I needed to find role models and mentors that have proven track records of success, so my very first premise was that you need to be careful of how you choose to learn from, and if you are in a negative environment, its very important to read and study and learn and listen to the biographies of people who have overcome enormous handicaps to become successful.
In other words, you have to study winners in order not to be a loser. In my mind, when I wrote the psychology of winning, I was losing, so I wrote the psychology of winning to remind myself of everything I was not doing that I needed to do that people overtime were doing it. and I learned that during these tough times that everyone went through that they didn’t recognize that they were becoming winners because you have to go through the baptism of fire many times to become a winner, so I began to develop these principles, and they were all self — they had self in front of them.
There was self-esteem, there was self awareness was the first one. You have to be aware that you have potential and the way to be aware that you have potential is to discover the natural talents that you have, discover what you do when you play after school, what you love to do. In other words, if you look at your passion the things that you love to do during your free time you will discover your passion, and most people work for money and yet their passion many times is in their free time or their avocation.
What if you could take your passion to work? What if you were like a scientist or a musician or golf or someone who love what he or she did? And also did it as a living well if you can't do that because you are already employed, and may be your passion is your hobby or your family its still important to find out what you are good at, find out what your strengths and weaknesses are, of course play to your strength and therefore to become much more aware of where you are in life because only knowing where you are can you have a GPS satellite system to take you where you want to go which would be your goal.
The second thing in terms of awareness would be this idea of internalized value, and I think its probably we could spend the whole time talking about the authentic meaning of inner value or self esteem that's been the most over franchised over exaggerated term. Many people think that self esteem is being do a back flip in the end zone after a touchdown or after every play that you make as alignment or a defensive or offensive back to straight your stuff on the football field.
You know that's the arena, and the arena is a showman carnival kind of thing, and that's not self esteem. Most people with self esteem rarely flaunted since you have the real thing you don’t have to flaunt allowed imitation so self esteem is a deep down feeling of your own word regardless of your current level of performance. In other words, self esteem has two parts.
First I see potential in me. if you can have a coach or a mentor or a role model or a friend, or a parent who sees world class potential in you, and convinces you that you have it then you become motivated to test your potential by going out and learning and you are motivated to learn because you are hungry to seek your potential and then the second part of self esteem is not only the feeling that you have potential, but it is the experience of having little teeny successes where things work out well in the local area, and suddenly when you get results even at a very small way.
It's called self efficacy and it gives you the fuel to have more risk, take more chances, and have higher expectations, and you get in the groove like making three point shots or making free throws. The more you will make them, the more in the zone you get, the more success you have the hungrier you get, and its like priming the pumps so I think its extremely important to feel here as good as the best, but not any better than the rest that all the value you were ever given was given to you when you are conceived, you will never get another ounce of value or talent.
All you would be able to do is cut and polish and shape the gemstone that you were given that your conception and bringing that value externally from inside out. And if you can feel the inner value of the inner winner, it will motivate you to test your potential against world class standards, and that's the only reason we have world class standard is so that you can test yourself against the best. That's why we have Olympians not necessarily to win the gold, but to test yourself against the fast field of champion.
Jason Hartman: Denis, I am going to ask you something and this may sound extremely politically incorrect, but since you wrote about the self image and self esteem back in the 70s, a whole generation called Gen Y and partially Gen X has grown up around being cuddled, being chauffeured being told that they were the best being not really tested or graded in life, and it almost seems like the self esteem movement as you mentioned has been over franchise its been over instituted, and this sounds really weird. I don’t how to say it better, but it almost seems like people have too much self esteem, and I know it’s a cheap imitation. It's not the real thing. I understand that distinction, but it sort of feeds into that sense of entitlement almost.
Denis: Well, I think again you are right on the money, and I don’t think there is anything more important than what you just said, and I will tell you why. I have been working all over the world with people who are working with addiction ADD, kids with drug substance, alcohol all kinds of problems all over the world, and most of that has resulted from being cuddled, and not given the opportunity to test their wings in another words they are not learning to fail in a safe environment, and to learn to be responsible for the outcomes in their lives, and therefore self esteem has been shoved down the throats of everyone without the twins that go with them, self determination and self discipline.
Jason Hartman: Very good way to put it.
Denis: Without self discipline or self determination, self esteem is a mockery. It is an inflated ego out of Hollywood, and it reminds you very much of the Hollywood mentality where you've got this empty souls who were beautiful people, who were interested in style, but no substance, and so we have the culture that is stylistic and skin deep, and that's an oxymoron.
Skin deep is only as deep as the tattoo or only as deep as what's on the skin, and what's on the skin has become the symbol of material self esteem in America how you look, how you dress, what you wear, and you feel you are being different, but you are really wearing the uniform of your culture, so you are not being different at all.
You are kind of sameness which is stylistic rather than substantive. What is young people were known for what they thought, what they did, what they accomplished, how they contributed, and what if they are their worth was more tied up in the contribution that they made to make society better rather than what they accomplished in the terms of points that they were putting on the board compared to some Hollywood standard of celebrities and when you ask young people they will tell you that the celebrities are the most important influencers in their lives rather than if you will philosophers or other mentors, but again I don’t want to sound jaded or cynical because I am really not.
There is a tremendous ability of young people to be very, very smart, and interested in culture and society and a greener, a greener nation, but I think we are missing self determination and self discipline. Those are the missing links in our culture and China believe it or not has self discipline more than any other country, so if we could take the innovative creativity of America, and the self discipline of China, and then the self determination that we had may be in the greatest generation or the self determination that immigrants when they first arrived in this country this would be the kind of future we would want the self determination of an immigrant, the self discipline of a gyminst, and the self creativity of a video game player.
Jason Hartman: Right so good analogy there yeah, very good. Let me take a brief pause. We will be back in just a minute.
Introduction: Now it's your opportunity to get the financial freedom report. The financial freedom report provides financial self defense in uncertain times, and it's your source for innovative forward thinking investment property strategies and advice. Get your newsletter subscription today. You get a digital download and even more the price only $197, go to jasonhartman.com to get yours today.
Jason Hartman: Okay so I think that's a very good distinction that you make about the self esteem issue. It's obviously important, but it's been over franchise, so I am glad you put that to rest for people because I think they get very confused by that whole thing. Do you want to talk for a moment just about the subconscious mind, and how we program our subconscious mind, and how its like the robot we use that analogy of you have an actual poem I believe its called the robot that what's about me with me.
Denis: That's right. And you know that's when star before Star Wars came out and I called the little robot RUME2 instead of our 2D2.
Jason Hartman: Right.
Denis: And you know those I have a little robot. It goes around with me, and I tell her what I am thinking. I tell her what I see. I tell my little robot all my hopes and fears. This is that remembers everything that hears at first my little robot, followed my command, but after years of training it's gotten out of hand. It doesn’t care what's right or wrong or what is false or true. No matter what I try now it tells me what to do.
Jason Hartman: Wow.
Denis: And that is that we are creations of habit. And habits are submarines. They run silent and deep, and we don’t know it, but we've been habitually living for so long that you don’t break habits you replace them, and they are also subconscious habit knit patterns that go from cobwebs in the cables to either shackle or strengthen our lives, so everything we do is habitual.
We get up, we get dress, we take a shower the same way we wash under the same arm, and I have been proving that even today in seminars throughout the world I have the Chinese students stand up and I have them take their coats off and put them over the chair, and then I ask them to put their quote sign with the other arm in first, and they cannot do that without struggling, and worrying, and they are so used to putting one arm in their coat first, or one leg in their trouser first.
They cannot do the opposite of what they have learned, so we don’t do what we know. We do what we've learned even though we know better, so that's the puzzle is why do we do, what we do when we know what we know. We know we shouldn’t smoke. We know we shouldn't overeat. We know we shouldn't gain weight. We know we should save money, but we've learned to spend. We've learned to indulge. We learned to watch on television the things that we know are not good, but they excite us, and it becomes subconscious which means that its software, and the software program drives to hardware, and it doesn’t take 21 days. That's a maximum I also think from plastic surgery.
Jason Hartman: Psycho-Cybernetics yeah.
Denis: Yeah and it takes a lot longer. It usually for an astronaut it takes 36 months. For an Olympian I would say 48 months, and it takes that long to make doing something like brushing your teeth or driving your car automatic. In order for something to be automatic you have to be doing it over and over and over again. And pretty soon after a while you forget what you are doing. You don’t forget how to ride a bike.
You don’t forget how to ski and you — it becomes you and that's why it's so important. First of all to watch the inputs, the exposure you become that too which you are most exposed. Earl Nightingale said the best which we took from the scriptures we become what we think about most of the time, and therefore I am very interested in monitoring my televising inputs, my internet inputs what I browse, what I visit, what I read, what I listen to, the lyrics to the songs, the commercials that I hear because they all go in, and after a while are subconsciously integrated and becomes silent submarines that really do control the way we live, and that's why its very, very important to watch the language that you use on yourself to use the dialog that is a positive explanatory style to talk about what you are going to do, what-what you are doing rather than what you don’t want to do because its impossible to concentrate on the reverse of an idea.
One of the things I learn when working for the Apollo program with the Olympic athletes it is impossible to come away from a thought, and therefore you cannot reverse a thought. It's like a song that you say I wish I could stop listening to this song. I don’t want to hear this song. Well, the more you remind yourself of what you don’t want, the more embedded it becomes in your subconscious and you are actually reinforcing failures or mistakes when you are constantly bringing them up and talking about them especially to a children. The more children are reminded of what they are doing wrong, the more they will continue to do that same behavior even though it's what they don’t want to do, and its — what you don’t want them to do.
Jason Hartman: You know Denis that's particularly it's like you say I believe I remember you give an example don’t think of a tall glass of orange juice, don’t think of an elephant. You [kind of 0:29:56] help but think of it because the mind cannot move away from an idea. It always move towards, and I think that's especially important now, and may be you just want to talk about that for a moment about the way the state of the economy, and how people like to say it, and I say it I catch myself doing it all the time things are tough out there.
These are challenging times we are living in. How does one program themselves properly without being Pollyanna without being an idiot, I mean you have to be aware of your circumstances, and they would say well, you got to be a realist of outside of that ledger. And then there is the other side that would say program your mind for success for winning, for achieving, for moving up, for moving ahead, how do you reconcile that?
Denis: Those are very good questions that, and it fits into everything that you have said before which is self esteem makes you believe that there is a better future, and self discipline makes you realize, and self determine make you realize that you must put in the effort. So you must put in the effort to get out the result, and therefore what I do is I say okay. This is the time of my life, and time is the only equal opportunity employer.
We each have a 168 hrs a week on a chessboard, but we don’t move time. We move decisions and priorities and actions in time. There is no such thing as a future decision, only a current decision that impacts our future, so life should be lived in the present by making actions and decisions that positively impact our future. So what you say is that losers engage in pleasurable activities with no result in mind.
Winners engage in any activity difficult or challenging or happy that will give them a pleasurable long term result which means that we really have to ratchet ourselves forward by stair stepping our way to the top. And so what I do to say that this is the best time to have been alive in history which it is. We worry more about the generative disease than about infectious disease so we can die more from natural causes that could be prevented then we can die from things that will attack us from the outside, so life is much more inside out than outside in, so this really is the best time to be alive.
And we have the entire library of the world at our touch tone finger stepped in our downloaded handheld device. And so if you have the entire world library in the palm of your hand there is really no excuse for saying wow, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go, I don’t know how to find it. In your mind you say see can you shall find so whatever you are looking for there is somebody who is done it before or who is doing it now. And that’s why I always hang around with people or better speakers, better fathers, better writers, better golfers, better bowlers because you never learn from people who are not doing well.
You learn from people who were not doing well, but are now doing well or who have solved your problem or who had the same goals you have. And that’s why pity parties, group griping and grudge collecting have no place whatsoever, and that’s how you can justify. Yes, these are challenging times but there are times, and they are the best times to be alive.
And I can always point that a point in history that was a 1000 times worst than what we are going through right now. No question about it, that you know smallpox, diphtheria, we couldn’t go, swimming in the summer because of polio. I have been living in California my whole life, and all during the 40s and 50s we could not go to the movie theater. You couldn’t go see Avatar; you couldn’t go see Sherlock Holmes in the summer in the movie because you get polio if you go to the drinking fountain.
So I've looked back into the past, and say this present time, and the future that I'm going into is the best ever regardless of what's happening. And that’s why you need to be looking at this is the good all days are here now. And these are the days that we live. It may sound Pollyanna a little strange, but I look at that. I wake up everyday and say I can do no problem. Let's go, thank you, safe again because just waking up is a good day for me, so I always count my bag.
You know B is for Blessings. I can see, I can feel, I can run, I can walk, I got a family, I am loved, I got blessings, I have got accomplishments because A) I have done some things so when things are not going well, you count your blessings, you look at your past achievements and say hey, I have got something to hang on. And then you take the G in the bag, your goals, and the goals that you have are the previews of coming attractions that stimulate you and excite you to want to achieve more then you are doing now, and that gives you the motivation to face tomorrow.
And so those are simple things, but for me you know expectation equals motivation. You are not motivated by anything you don't expect to be able to achieve. So your expectations need to be just out of reach, but not out of sight, and your goals need to be ratcheted in so that you can hit them, and get the feeling that you have achieved, and then hit another one. And you either bring them in so that you don't have to throw a two minute real touchdown in the last two minutes in order to feel that you have achieved. You need to make some first stance along the way in life.
Jason Hartman: Right, just out of reach but not out of sight. I have always remembered, you are saying that many, many years ago when I first heard it. And that’s exactly how goals need to be, and in your poem Somebody Aisle which is just wonderful. You talk about that. You about how there is an island fantasy as Somebody Aisle we will never see, and I won't say the whole thing although I do have it pretty much memorized. And you talk about just out of reach but not out of sight, and about having realistic goals that you can actually see but you got to work to reach them, have to sole discipline, but they are not so out of sight that they are just something that will never be achieved.
Denis: You are right and again Jason it's amazing to me. You and I are on the same wave link, and that wave link is take an Olympian for example. The Olympian tries to slightly improve from the last, and when I talk to young people they say yeah but champions you know blah, blah, blah and I say you know why the [pool ball 0:36:56] is set at the Olympic Games so that every competitor can go over the first time that's because they keep raising the bar a little at a time to give people the ability to go over and get the feeling of achievement, and goal should be the same way.
You should set them so that they are achievable, and they are not way out there and some day out because then people put their potential on leeway. They are waiting for some moment in the future that will never come and Someday Aisle is a fantasy island. It just never comes and I know so many people were living their lives on Someday Aisle because they are not breaking down this big dream they have in the small bike size pieces that they can just tackle one day and a project at a time.
Jason Hartman: That's what we say to people that come to my company who want to invest in real estate. So many of them come and they fill their head with the get rich quick scheme mentality, and its like look just sacrifice a little today, get yourself your first rental property, and then get another one in six months or a year, and build it up slowly, just this small incremental steps.
When you look back in three years, five years, seven years its like, it just changed your whole life. It just magnified everything dramatically, and provided a person with so many choices that they wouldn't have otherwise had. I couldn't agree more that that is so important to constantly be moving forward with these incremental goals rather than waiting for your ship to come in. I mean that's just rare. It happens so rarely to people that it's not even worth considering I don’t think.
Denis: And I talk to a thousand people every six months who want to write a book, and I would say okay, you want to write a book. What's the title? I would say well, I don’t have a title yet. I just have a concept, and I said okay, how long a book is it? And they say hmm, pretty long, and I say well, when do you want to get it done? They said soon, and they give big, they give vague ideas, and the truth is a book publisher at least the ones I have worked with say Denis, about a 180 pages, how many pages can you write a day, and I go ooh, don't pin me down.
I mean, and they say well, we need about 10 good pages a day for you to get it about six months, and we need to publish a year in advance, so you need to tell us that you can give us a finished manuscript which will probably be about 12 chapters, which will probably be about 20 or 30 pages, and it’s a nice chapter headings, and I say wow you are really serious about this.
And they said aren't you? We thought you wanted to write a book based upon some subjects and chapters and pages and things that you can do, and every book that I have written all 16 have been written at night when I would have been watching television. And here is the pay off of our conversation Jason. It is that if you can live in primetime rather than watch in primetime why would anyone spend their lives watching other people making money in the professions that they love been a spectator watching other people win at life.
When we could use a little bit of football here, little news here, a little comedy here, a little music here, but the primetime of our life, the free time that we have is the only time we have to work on ourselves because the rest of the time were either learning or yearning where learning how to do a skill or earning for our families, but the free time, primetime should be used on goal achieving rather than tension relieving activities, and I believe if I had to had any success is because I have been doing things that are goal achieving instead of tension relieving during primetime.
Jason Hartman: Denis that's a wonderful advice, and I remember you saying when I was 17 years old, and I was listening to your tapes that it’s the super bowl everyday we cannot be spectators. This is it. This is life. This is the life we are given, and it's really up to us to make something of it, and you have to help so many people around the world do that. you have sold over 10 million audio programs translated into 14 languages, by the way I just want to give our listeners your website which is Waitley.com, and really encourage everybody listening to read Denis's books, get the audio programs just look at the products he has. It's been a phenomenal, phenomenal inspiration in my life these materials are great.
And you know may be you want to comment on this in closing Dennis, but I have noticed that over the years, the sort of content that is out there in terms of the professional speakers, the authors, there are few greats, and I would put you in one of the greats along with Zig Ziglar, along with Augman Dino, along with Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, and Brian Tracy is on a more technical side. I think your — the first ones I mentioned were there. There were little more the motivators I would say, and the content really this seems like this type of content that is the foundational content for ones life is much less prevalent now, and it all seems a lot more technical nowadays than it does philosophical. Do you want to wrap up with that?
Denis: I would love to Jason, and I really want to thank you for having me on the program. I think that people don’t read as much as they used to. They are using their time in sound bytes and video bytes and in small gapes and small sips and taste and therefore writing and reading and learning has changed a lot in this world of the entertainment and web-based, and there is also this feeling of immediate gratification, and I have noticed that a lot more speakers and authors are very caught up in selling their stuff from the platform believing that everyone in the audience should take home a package of CDs or books in order for that author to be really doing his or her job.
My feeling is you are a teacher, or a salesperson and a teacher is someone who only wants to teach, and then certainly sells his or her stuff, but I think there should be somebody else selling your stuff rather than the author or philosopher himself or herself that's my personal feeling. And I also feel that we've lost a little bit of the fundamentals of success through the ages, and those principles never change. They stay the same.
They are rock solid from the scriptures in all the great religions I am through. And we are not getting enough of that stuff because we have 10 million experts, and its so difficult with infomercials and the internet to find the real stuff from the imitations that are there, but I will have to say its all there, and thanks to the internet. It's available to everyone to download, and I would encourage everyone to study biographies of people through the centuries who have become successful because there is no problem that anyone has that someone else hasn’t already had and overcome, and I am sorry that I can't stay on longer, but I want to thank you for giving me so much time, and I hope I have to reinforce one idea that will help your listeners. You have a great show and a great message Jason, and I really appreciate you a great deal.
Jason Hartman: Well, Denis thank you very much for joining us today, and I will just close with couple of lines from one of my favorite poems of your entitled Winning is Giving because you have definitely done this, and that is Winning is Giving your best self away and wining is serving with grace everyday and Denis you have really impacted my life, and the lives of so many others. We appreciate it. Keep up the good work and thank you for joining us today.
Denis: I will. I will look forward to seeing you this year we will get together and have a cup of tea or cup of coffee.
Jason Hartman: Sounds good to me. Happy New Year, Denis.
Denis: Thanks Jason.
Jason Hartman: Bye.
Denis: Happy New Year.
Introduction: Now you can get Jason's Creating Wealth in today's economy home study course. All the knowledge and education revealed in a nine hour day of the Creating wealth boot camp created in a home study course for you to dive into at your convenience. For more details go to jasonhartman.com. Copyright the Hartman Media Company. For publication rights and interviews please email media@jasonhartman.com. This show offers very general information. Opinions of guests are their own. Nothing contained herein should be considered personalized, personal, financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Every investor strategy and goals are unique. You should consult with a licensed real estate broker or agent or other licensed investment tax, and or legal advisor before relying on any information contained herein. Information is not guaranteed. Please call 714-820-4200 and visit www.jasonhartman.com for additional disclaimers, disclosures and questions. (Top image: Flickr | easylocum)
The Speaking of Wealth Team
Transcribed by Renee