If you were in a room with Dean Graziosi, you’d probably have an invisible souvenir from your experience: a little voice inside your head that interrupted your thoughts every time they told you that you weren’t worthy/smart/talented/brave enough to go after what you wanted in life.
The voice might even sound like Dean, as his confidence is catchy. That’s because he battled—and defeated—his inner critics, working tirelessly to get to a place of self-awareness and service, impacting millions of people with his hard-earned lessons. When you understand how he became one of the top educators in the world without money or guidance, you gain hope that you can do the same.
And if you met his wife, Lisa, on your way out the door, you’d probably turn around and grab a table so you could chat longer. That’s because her rise to acclaim in the beauty industry involves resilience, tenacity and living as though she was already at the top of her game, even though when she started, she was far from it. Her warm energy and faith in herself rub off on you, so you can’t help but believe in yourself, too.
It’s easy to imagine, then, when Dean and Lisa found themselves in the same room for the first time—at a dinner party hosted by friends—the connection was as instant as the alignment. Two strangers who watched their families struggle with a lack of financial resources committed their lives to figuring out how to change that reality. Two strangers who learned to manifest what they wanted without anyone teaching them how. Two strangers who were tireless entrepreneurs and knew what it meant to put it all on the line for their dreams.
Two strangers who also made lists of what they wanted in a partner and, when they shared them, discovered they had described each other with shocking accuracy.
Lisa envisioned an Italian man with New York energy, a passion for personal growth and the ability to build a home. Dean hoped for someone who loved his two children from a prior marriage as her own, was committed to growth and could thrive alongside a driven and passionate entrepreneur.
Remarkably, Lisa was as committed to family as she was personal development, was an established entrepreneur who had designed hair for New York Fashion Week, was voted the top hair stylist in Arizona and was one of the top hair extension experts in the country.
Dean, who fixed cars and built houses in New York during the early days of his career, was as well-versed in personal development as he was in being a New York Times bestselling author, as his book, Be a Real Estate Millionaire, sold a million copies.
Long before their paths crossed, they architected successful careers rooted in purpose and grit. Today, eight years in, raising their blended family of four, they help others see that the life they want is within their reach by sharing the personal tools for success that shaped their journey.
Manifesting Success
One of those tools often gets mixed reactions from a crowd. Manifestation is a word that, if you know, you know. And if you’re skeptical, you might wait for the other shoe to drop.
Until you hear Dean’s story.
“I dreamt big as a little kid,” he says. “I remember feeling, at 10 years old, ‘I’m gonna get rich.’ But it wasn’t for the reasons other people wanted to get rich.”
He just wanted his mom to stop working three jobs.
His parents’ split when he was 3 left his mom struggling to make ends meet—cleaning houses, cutting hair at a salon and painting houses.
“She’d work all three of those jobs and come home at 9 o’clock at night, tired, and my sister and I would make her dinner, and we’d try to help,” he remembers. “And watching her do that, I think… at 5, 7, 10 years old, I just wanted to retire my mom.”
The desire to see his mom happy and free from stress was the spark that drove him to take the path he did with such ferocity. When he was 15, he started cutting firewood. That led to fixing up and selling cars, which led to co-owning a collision center, which led to buying a rundown apartment building for no money down when he was 19.
He’d work on cars during the day, go home to shower and eat, then would go fix up his property, learning how to do plumbing, electrical work and cabinetry. After he owned 30 apartment buildings, he took to building houses—a skill desired by the wife he had no idea he would one day have.
“That all started with this drive to kind of run away from something that was painful—watching my mom not have financial choices, not being able to be there for us,” he says. “At 26, I retired my mom, and I’ve given her a paycheck every week. She’s 80.”
The Infomercial That Started It All
At 56, Dean has seen a lot since retiring his mom three decades ago. He admits that throughout his entrepreneurial journey, his inner critic would often chime in with self-doubt, telling him he wasn’t educated enough, but he never stopped thinking big, no matter how unattainable his vision seemed to others.
Most people can’t say they built a real estate empire in their 20s, but Dean can not only say it, he can say he taught others to do it themselves.
And as an author and entrepreneur, he can also say he set the wheels in motion for a friendship that would change his life.
“At 27 years old, I watched Tony Robbins on an infomercial,” he says, “and I bought everything that he had…. I felt like he was speaking to me…. I wrote down, ‘Someday, I want to thank him.’ Now he’s my dearest friend in the world.”
That introduction to the self-education industry inspired him to create his first infomercial and set of products, which led to other infomercials, several NYT bestselling books—such as Millionaire Success Habits—and the honor of being one of the top success educators in the world.
Mastering Friendship and Business With Mastermind
A year after Robbins’ program lit a fire inside him—which was more than two decades ago—Dean wrote him a letter that said, “You shifted my life. Someday, we’re going to do business together, and I can’t wait to meet you.”
Fast forward to 2018 and the two are on a golf course—a twice yearly tradition since their friendship began 13 years ago—talking about what they’d do if they went into business together.
“[We thought], Why don’t we just teach people what we’ve been doing for more than seven decades combined?” Dean recalls. “And that’s where Mastermind was born.”
As co-founders of mastermind.com, he and Robbins teach people to turn their life experience, skills and passion into a product, business or personal brand by providing them with the guidance and tools needed to enter into the self-education industry. Since launching in 2018, they’ve touched the lives of more than 7 million people in over 100 countries, sharing their wisdom alongside inspiring voices like Jay Shetty, Trent Shelton, Marie Forleo and Matthew McConaughey. Through video courses and live events with guests—and some of the highest registration numbers in internet history—the two are living examples of manifestation in real time.
Family Business Is the Best Business
Even with millions of eyes on his work and more than a dozen profitable businesses under his belt, nothing compares to the success Dean has found with his wife, Lisa.
“Lisa taught me a whole new level of what’s possible,” he says, adding that after he met her, his business went to a whole other level and his life grew exponentially.
“She understood my drive so much, and instead of resisting, she leaned forward, and… it made me want to find the time to not put business first,” he says, adding that Lisa has made him want to “go out and solve more, do more, impact more, donate more…. I feel invincible.”
Supporting Dean was easy for Lisa because she shared his drive—as well as the confidence that whatever she wanted was possible.
“I’ve always been really good about manifesting,” she says, adding that, in her business, “the type of client I want in my chair, the connections, the events I go to—I’ve manifested all of that.”
It was the desire to support her parents that drove her to build a successful career as a hair stylist and business owner. Just like Dean, she asked herself, What’s the fast track of me making more to help my family?
“My mom and dad are both entrepreneurs, and… we lived a very [lower] middle class life our entire life,” she says. “My parents are immigrants, and they’re just really hard working…. We had very little, but we had a house…. We had clothes; we had food.”
The work ethic they modeled served as the tool she used to rise through the ranks of her career, eventually becoming Arizona’s top hair stylist.
Although she dreamed of going to college, she knew her parents couldn’t afford it, so during high school, she attended cosmetology school and worked at a salon after graduation.
The salon owner only hired stylists with a big client list. And even though Lisa had no clients—and no money to rent her chair—she assured her new boss she had everything that was needed. She pretended she was older, dressed the part and made a glowing impression—all while working three jobs and calling potential clients, pretending to be her own assistant.
“I had different names,” she admits. “I had two cell phones. [One was my salon phone and one was my ‘assistant’]…. I knew that I was good, but I had to prove myself because I didn’t have clientele…. So, once they came in my chair, they… knew that I was good.”
Her strategy worked. Soon, she was styling music videos, doing hair at New York Fashion Week and building a client list across the country—all before she was 21.
“I just was driven,” she says.
Her drive came at a price, however.
“I started getting alopecia areata when I was about 19 or 20 years old,” she shares, adding that she likely developed the condition because of stress and anxiety from her workload. “You lose hair in chunks in your head. And I had it so bad…. I was out of my mind going to every doctor.”
She searched for a salon with the cheapest hair extensions she could find and was dismayed by the selection.
“They were these big, gum-type things,” she says. “It was the worst thing ever…. It was so bad, I wore my hair up for a good year because I had so many bald patches and little clips everywhere to hide it. And I said, ‘That’s it. I need to learn.’… And I was one of the first people in my town doing extensions.”
She practiced on friends and tried as many brands as she could before launching her own hair extension brand online.
When she and Dean met, she shared her vision of owning a salon where people could get affordable, high-quality extensions. That vision became a reality in 2019, when she opened Extension Bar in Scottsdale, Arizona.
“Extension Bar was this dream of hers,” Dean says, adding that they built the first one in a building he owns, where his offices and production studio are located. “We have a door that connects us…. And this crazy entrepreneurial woman here launched that. It’s doing great.”
Though she had plans to grow Extension Bar, a desire to be a full-time mom and wife took precedence.
“What’s really cool about entrepreneurship is that your passions could change,” Lisa shares. “I love being a hairstylist…. I love that…. I know how to immediately change someone’s look and make them feel so good about themselves. And the connections with my clients, I love that. But I also love being a mom and a wife…. Right now, I am so good where I’m at.”
Finding the Blueprint in Your Life
Most people would love to feel good with where they’re at in life, but they often get stuck during the construction phase. If you look at success as a house, the most important element besides the building materials would be the design. You need a blueprint before you can begin.
“If you asked a million people if they were meant for more,” Dean says, “I think all 1 million would say, ‘Yes, I’m meant to do more, to be more, to maybe just love more or achieve more.’ But how many of them actually live into that more?”
His mother often comes to mind when he asks that question. Her drive, compassion and strong work ethic were all pivotal components to his own success story. He calls her a “badass without a blueprint” who has always given so selflessly to others.
“She was a hard worker,” he says, “but hard work alone is not enough.”
Realizing you don’t have to figure it all out on your own is key, he says, and it’s something he wishes his mom understood. If he could have all those years ago, he would have shared some of the principles guiding the success he and Lisa have experienced: modeling what works, pushing past fear and taking action no matter the discomfort.
“She was led by fear and imposter syndrome and let the fact that she didn’t have a lot of money or resources hold her back when it could have been her fuel,” Dean shares, adding that if she found someone who already achieved what she wanted and modeled them, “and found a purpose bigger than her fear, she could have taken the uncomfortable action needed to slay the dragons holding her back.”
Lisa and Dean didn’t have the blueprint when they started their entrepreneurial journeys, so they created one from scratch, changing their lives because of it. Today, they have dedicated themselves to helping others construct their own beautiful designs.
They believe that, with small mindset shifts, people will realize they are enough, know enough and can achieve fulfillment. They offer the plan and the path to get there.
“These are lessons I wish my mom had,” Dean says, “but they’re lessons I want everyone to have.”
Photo by Nick Onken. To read the print issue in its entirety, buy it right here.
