The Law of Attraction is Wrong… Here's What Actually Works (Kevin Trudeau)

I made over a million dollars before I was 18 years old. Until you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you're not going to be motivated. The most powerful emotion is not gratitude. It's not positivity. It's disgust. When you get disgusted with your current situation, that's when you'll be motivated to move. Today on the show, I have a new friend, Kevin Trudeau. Kevin is a multi-billion dollar business man. Number one, New York Times best-selling author, marketing genius health expert, former insider and master of energy and spiritual enlightenment. He's been called the greatest success coach in the world and the world's best mentor. And his books have sold an estimated 100 million copies worldwide. I think you might have figured out a thing or two about how to make a little bit of extra money in life. So Kevin, what's up? Hey, yeah, it's all luck. I just kind of fell into it. I didn't do anything. We never worked hard. Of course, right? Yeah. Yeah. Those are the common denominators of the most successful and wealthy people. I think, yeah, just lucked into it. No hard work overnight. Yeah, all those things. Well, I appreciate you taking the time, Kevin. Let's jump into the beginning of the story here, if we can. Tell me the first time that you ever made a dollar that was exciting to you where you were just like, I cannot believe somebody just paid me money to do this. Well, when I was very young, my dad was a welder. My mom was a full-time homemaker. We lived in a very blue-collar community, 1200 square foot house. For four of us, we had one bathroom in the house. And this was normal. All the other houses on the same street with the same size. You had the plumber, the welder, the electrician, the postman. These were normal blue-collar workers. And that's how I grew up. Everybody worked the job. You wanted to get into the union. Ideally, you wanted to work for the government. The joke was, then you didn't have to do anything, and you couldn't be fired. And you had a pension for the rest of your life. You could retire very early. But what I learned very early on was, in order to achieve financial freedom and financial independence, you had to work for yourself. You had to be your own boss. And I went to the library, and I sat in reading books from people that became very successful. They used to be called Horatio Alger Stories. You ever hear a Horatio Alger, Travis? No. No. See, nobody ever heard of this. Horatio Alger was a great author back in the Depression. And he wrote true stories, rags to riches stories. They were inspirational stories. There were stories of people who started off in rags and ended up with riches. Rags to riches, true stories of normal people. And what they did and how they did it to go from rags to riches. They were called Horatio Alger Stories. And they were designed to inspire and motivate people. And when I read all those, it was always the same thing. People went into a business of their own. But before they went into a business of their own, they worked for somebody who was very successful. They learned from someone who was very successful. They were effectively an apprentice. And they had a mentor. They watched success in action and learned. And the other thing that was common was they did more than they were paid to do. The axiom was do more than you're paid. And soon you'll be paid more for what you do. They went the extra mile. These were very common denominators. But they loved what they did. They had enthusiasm. And they also had a big dream. And they believed in themselves. There was all these common denominators. And that motivated me. So I thought, what can I do? What business can I get into? I was walking down the street in the winter time. It was during a blizzard in the '70s. And everybody was struggling because of all the snow. And I was a young guy. But I was stronger than the old lady over here was trying to dig herself out of her house. And I said, that poor woman is going to have a heart attack. So I ran over and I said, let me help you. So I said, do you have an extra shovel? I grabbed the shovel and I started helping her. All I wanted to do was help there. It was a neighbor, old woman. And I helped her. And I actually kind of liked that it was fun in the snow. It was cool. It was kind of exciting. And I helped her. And then she says, let me give you some money. And I said, no, I didn't do this for money. I did this to help you. She goes, absolutely not. And she paid me a bunch of money. And I thought, oh my god. So I started-- and I said, can I borrow your shovel? And I-- and I-- yes. And I said, and I walked up and down the street and knocked on the door. Do you want me to shovel? Yes. And I-- I'm telling you, for the whole weekend, I was a shoveling machine. And I had-- I made more money that weekend than my dad did for the whole week. Wow. And that was the beginning. And I thought entrepreneurship, baby. Work for yourself. Work hard. Offer something that people need. Remember the sales 101 axiom? Find a need and fill it. And that's what I did. Is that that was really the beginning? Is that the richest you've ever felt? And if not, what is the richest you've ever felt? Well, I can tell you that I learned a long time ago to always be mentally broke. So an answer to your question, that was the richest I ever felt, because I had no debt. I had all this money. I didn't know how to spend it. Where to spend it? What to do with it? This was out of control. It was real cash money in your hand. And I started reading books like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success in 16 Lessons, The Art of Money Getting by PT Barnum back in the 1800s. Charles Senniel, The Master Keter Riches. I read all these old books back from the '60s, The Original Psycho Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz in '59, I think it was written, The Original, The Magic of Believing. These were old books. But I also read some interesting books by Og Man Dino and some others, such as The Richest Man and Babylon. And in there talked about saving. It talked about being mentally broke, having a dream, being hungry, having a burning desire for what you want, not resting on your laurels. And so I started learning about the mental mindset that a person needs to become successful. One of the things I did and learned very early on was you have to associate with successful people. You have to be in the physical space of other successful people. You actually pick up their energy and vibration. You watch and observe them. You listen to them. And you find out how they think, what they say, how they speak, and how they act. Because it's different. And I thought, where can I find wealthy people? I know a couple of towns away. I grew up in Lin, Massachusetts, which was a blue collar town. There was marble head and swam skit. That was the rich area. I said, there's a country club there, Tedesco Country Club. I'm going to become a caddy because the only people that are members are rich. So I became a caddy and I started hanging around all these rich guys. And I thought they talk differently than my father and all his friends. They think differently than my father and all his friends. And they walk and talk and they walk and act differently. They have this aura about them. But I also realize there are normal human being just like my dad. It's really the difference is how they think and how they talk, which reflects and how they act and how they see themselves. And that was very critical to me when I saw that. It's like, I can do this too. They can do it. I can do it too. Was there a version of your life that would have played out differently or were you all in entrepreneurship at that point? Like, were you thinking, I'm going to go to college, I'm going to get this degree, and then I'm going to go do this thing and the work for some people or what did you catch the bug already that early on? Well, interestingly enough, I didn't know how to become successful. So I started looking at successful people and I started analyzing. And I started reading books and I started going to some seminars back then when you didn't have YouTube. You had to go to seminars. I go, where can I get some motivation or inspiration? And then it was a multi-level marketing company in the 70s that I heard about called AMway, a buddy of mine in high school became a distributor, and they gave me a book called The Possible Dream by Rich Devoss who was the president of AMway Corporation. And I read it and I thought, I want to hang around these guys. They can teach me how to become successful. Not that I wanted to become successful in the AMway business or multi-level marketing, but I wanted to associate with motivated, positive, inspired people and learn about success because these guys were driving catalax and Rolls Royces. They had private jets when nobody had private jets. They had private jets and they lived in mansions and all this stuff. And I thought, they know something I don't know. So I started learning from them and one of the things that they were very adamant about is you have to have a big dream. But you can't live in a dream world. You have to dream big, but you can't be delusional. You have to dream big though, but then you have to come back to today and say, what is the next logical step on the path toward that dream and go to work? You were very focused about the two aspects of success. Thinking or your attitude, as Ziegler said, it's your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude in life. So they were very big on attitude, but most importantly, you have to then put forth action. You have to do something. So you have to combine those two and that's like taking two chemicals and putting it into a bigger and explodes. If you have the right attitude with action, motivated and inspired action, you're going to get great results. Yeah, you can't just be the dream junkie where you, but people almost, they almost get the dopamine hit of success because they think about it so much, yet they never actually do the action that's required in order to be able to achieve those dreams. So what did that look like for you at first? What was like of the first thing, the first venture that you felt like I'm doing well with this. - Well, interesting, this is before the word manifesting was a big thing and before the word law of attraction was a big thing. You know, we said how to set a goal and attain it. (laughing) That was, that's what we said, right? - Simple terms, yeah, exactly. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had Dennis Wately, the psychology of winning, published by Night and Go Code Incorporation. You had Brian Tracy, Zig Zigler, Ed Forman, you know, these were the gurus, Dito Kobayne, you had all these motivational, Jim, Jim Rohn, there's before, you know, Jim Rohn trained Tony Robbins. So these were, these were the old guys back in the '60s and the '70s. And so one of the things that they taught me, 'cause I didn't know anything, I didn't, you know, I thought, you know, dream big, but they said, no, no. Number one, Jim Rohn said it best. He said, the most powerful emotion is not gratitude, it's not positivity, it's not happiness, it's not joy, it's not bliss, it's disgust. This is Jim Rohn talking. He said, the most powerful emotion that you can tap into is disgust. You have to be in enough pain to get you to move. There's a story about these, there's a story about these two guys sitting on a porch and there's this old haundog laying there. It's an old wooden porch, you know, a bunch of wooden planks and this old haundog sitting there. And every once in a while, the haundog, we just kind of moan and go, a few minutes later, he'd do it again. Oh, never move, just moan. And the guy says, what's wrong with your dog? He goes, oh, he's sleeping on a nail. The guy goes, well, why won't he get up and move? He goes, well, it doesn't hurt him that much. - Yeah, exactly. - And that's what people are like. They don't like their house, they don't like their car, they don't like the fact they're in debt, they don't like the fact that they're unable to buy the things in life they want, pay for their college education or whatever. They don't like that, but it doesn't hurt him that much. It doesn't motivate him that much until you get discussed, until you get some type of pain that'll motivate you, until you get sick and tired or being sick and tired, you're not gonna be motivated. That's why the whole idea of being in gratitude and appreciation all day long and being happy, hey, if you're getting your crappy 15 year old Russ Bucket car and go, I'm so thankful and grateful and appreciate it for this rusty Russ Bucket car. Thank you, God, oh, thank you, universe. Why would the universe give you something different? You have to be in gratitude and appreciation, yes. But that's only one ingredient in the formula. It isn't the entire formula. You have to start with something being disgusted with and then move from that moment of disgust, then you have to say, what exactly do I want? And as Napoleon Hill said, you have to define specifically what you want, define your dream and then get a burning desire for its achievement. It's gonna be something you need and absolutely have to have. It was just an awakening. My income has doubled. I'm getting close to tripling. You can build an amazing, amazing life, although just your wishes are come in. How much more money I'm earning and the woman that I have in my life is just miraculous. Your wishes are your command gave me the recipe to manifest the job that I wanted. It really just gives you the recipe. After I finished it, my life changed. My income doubled. I've been a glass of money. It was like magic. I'm making more money than I've ever had ever. Enlightening. Empowering. Powerful, but simple. Inspiring, activated. After getting your wishes are commended, I went some 5K on my bank account to 8 million in one and a half years. Yeah, you kind of have to ride that line a little bit because it's like you want to be grateful for the things that you have so that you're not constantly driving yourself insane, but also you have to have this healthy disgust for the things that you don't like about what your life looks like to motivate you to go do more work. Because people, human beings in general, and this is just how we're biologically hardwired from tens of thousands of years of existing on this planet is that we are massively more motivated by avoiding pain than we are to seek reward. So you have to know. Absolutely. If you feel like you already have achieved all the reward, then there's nothing that's going to propel you to get out and go shoot for the next thing. Right, now give me a story. I was in Southern California at a place called the Golden Door Spa. It's a world famous spa, very expensive to go to, been around for a long time. It's women only most of the time, six weeks a year, it's men only. And these guys are the Titans of industry. I was there one week, for example, we had the founder of one of the largest hedge funds in the world. A total net worth is in billions and billions and billions of dollars with all the guys that are there. So these are Titans of industry. And when you listen to them about how they think, how they get motivated, how they act all day, it's completely different than when I hang around everybody who's, we'll call them the hippies who are sitting there going, you have to just think about what you want. And the universe will just manifest it for you. That's how it works. No, that's not how it works. Your income is zero over here in this group of 20, 30 people. And the income and the net worth of the guys over here in 500 billion dollars. Why is that? Why is your average income 80,000? And the average income here is 10 million a year, the minimum income. What's the difference? Yes, the rich people have gratitude and appreciation absolutely 100%. But they don't live there all day long. They go through the dance. So what's the disgust? Where is the pain? What is it in your life that you're absolutely not going to tolerate anymore? And from that point, you don't live there either. God, because you're going to get more of it. But you visit that little painful land and use it so that you can clarify exactly what you do want. Then focus on what you want. And then really get obsessed with it. There's a book called Magnificent Obsession, which talks about that. Or as Napoleon Hill says, get a burning desire for achievement. See yourself in possession of it. And as you see yourself in possession of it, feel now as if you actually had it. Then release attachment to the outcome and say, but you know something, if it never happens, that's perfectly OK, because I love my life and I love being me. And now this is the point where you're in gratitude and appreciation. After you go through the dance, you can't live there. You have to visit these places and then go back to work, focus on the next logical step. And you'll do it from a place of joy, because you understand that the journey is the reward. What is it that you figured out that you wanted early on? I looked at my dad and all the people that were in my neighborhood and everybody had a job. And they couldn't go fishing because they had to go to work. And I asked him, why do you have to go to work? Because we have bills to pay. Well, why do you have bills to pay? Because we need a place to live. We need a car and those costs money. So I didn't understand the concept. So early on, I thought financial freedom and financial independence is the ultimate goal. And what that really means is-- and I started researching it-- back in the old days when somebody was a millionaire, they had a million dollars, not in assets. They had a million dollars either in stocks or bonds that paid them 10% interest a year. This was back in the '20s and the '30s. So a millionaire back then had an income of $100,000 a year that they didn't have to do anything for. But let's put it in perspective. Back in the '20s, if you were a millionaire, today that means you were worth $100 million. So let's put it in perspective. Today, imagine you have $100 million in stock or bonds, giving interest or dividends at, let's just say, 8% a year. That's $8 million a year income. And you do not have to work or do anything, anything. That's financial freedom. That's financial independence. That was the goal. So when I looked at that, I thought, that's where I want to be. I want money working for me instead of me working for money. And I want to do things because I love to do it and because they're fun, not because I have to pay the bills. That was the objective. That was the dream, right? That was the dream. And I saw myself living that dream, driving the ferraries and the Rolls Royces and the porches and having the private jets and the mansions all over the world and the Butler and the chefs. And I dreamed that and having a private jewel or come in and make jewelry for you and having all the Rolex watches and having the custom made shoes, you know, alligator shoes custom made for you to your foot, having custom made, that was the dream. Well, you know, it's exciting. Everything I just mentioned, that's what I live. The dream is now a reality. But I feel exactly the same now as when I did, when I was first dreaming about it and didn't have it and that's the trick. You have to feel now as if you would feel and will feel if you actually had it before you get it. Not thinking when I get this, then I'll feel good. If you have that attitude, you're not going to manifest anything. Right. And then if you do go get it, you're going to just be as empty as you were before you had it anyway. You're exactly right. It's not going to be the thing that's going to solve the other, you know, bad parts of that. What was the first vehicle that you decided, like real estate sales, like what was the first vehicle that really felt where you really felt like I think I'm I think I'm on the path here. I think I can achieve this. I started adding a newspaper back in the 70s. And the title was there are seven steps to freedom. How to escape the American rat race. I thought, that's it. Dad, dad read this. This is how to escape the American Rarri's. This guy selling a book. It's called seven steps to freedom. The guy's name was bench whereas. And he was, I didn't, didn't say what it was. But it says that he found the way to escape the American Rarri's. He drove around the country in a, in a, in a, in a motor home with his family. He didn't have to work. He was on boss. He slept to the crack a noon. If he wanted to. He worked. Only because they love to use traveling around. He had tons of money and money was just pouring into his bank accounts as if by magic. And I thought, I want this book. And I got it and I talked about direct mail. This is the precursor to TV infomercials radio advertising TV advertising print advertising and now the internet. It was the beginning of direct response marketing. So I read that and I thought, I'm going to try this. So I got into direct mail. And I made over a million dollars before I was 18 years. So. This was the vehicle. I had a knack for, for copywriting. That's why the Wall Street Journal call me America's marketing guru and the greatest marketing guy in the, of the, of the, the last hundred years, et cetera, et cetera. You know, and people know me for TV infomercials and radio ads and print ads and a whole host of other direct marketing that I've done around the globe. But direct mail was the first one and it was exciting to go and have the actually have the mailman come to your house with a mail bag. And I'm talking a big mail bag, right? The biggest one. And you're, and I have to get recruit some of my friends from school to sit there and open up all the envelopes and there's cash in them and money orders because back then people didn't use credit cards. So imagine you're sitting there opening up all these envelopes and there's $20, $20, $20, $20. My product was sold for 20 bucks. This is back in the 70s. That's like a hundred bucks today. And there's one after the other. We're stacking up the cash and we got money orders. I mean, it was just like you see in the movies where we're taking all the money and withdrawing it in the air going, we're rich, we're rich. You know, it was so great. If somebody's listening right now and they want to work on the skill set of marketing, are there any resources and materials that you would recommend to them in order to get started learning that skill set. Well, you know, the great news is this with YouTube. I mean, anything you want to learn is there. Yeah, you can go to my website, Kevin Trudeau.com and I got my, I got my new book, you know, your wishes, your command. Certainly you can get that at that Amazon. You can go to Kevin Trudeau.com. I got training there. I got the informational secrets. But yeah, you can buy that. And I think it's some of the best stuff out there. If not the best, but you can go on YouTube and you can learn about copywriting and marketing. I can tell you this Travis. And you probably know this better than anybody today because of the internet. It's easier to make money. Then at any time in my life, and I think anytime in history, because when I started, it was hard. You had to, you know, actually do a layout on a on a big on a big pad. And actually do and do the layout for the ad. You actually do all this printing and offset. And then you have to bring it to the printer and print it. You had the place ads that it would take weeks before the ad actually ran. Then you have to, you know, mail it out and pay for all the postage in advance and mail it and wait for the mail to come back. And then it was a big pain in the neck. Now it's all digital online. And you can start with like 50 bucks back then it was, you know, a lot of money to actually put it risk to get into direct mail. Or if you want to run a print ad, it was even worse, you know, $30,000 back in the 70s for a full paid ad. And you have to put up the money at a wait six weeks before it to hit the news. Dan's and you pray that it worked. And if it didn't you lost your money. I love it, man. I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. Kevin, I know you're busy guys. So I don't take that for granted. Kevin Trudeau.com that's TRU D. A. U. Kevin Trudeau.com. Go check out some stuff that Kevin's been putting out. One last thing Travis one last thing is want everybody to know this. I would just say dream big dreams and don't let anyone steal your dreams. Love it. Thank you so much for for the for the final thoughts there. And the book your wish is your command. That Kevin just came out with a piece of copy of that one and thank me later. You can build an amazing amazing life, although just your wishes you're come in. Your wishes your command gave me the recipe to manifest the job that I wanted. My income doubled. I'm a glass of money. It was like magic. Enlightening. Empowering. Powerful. That's simple. Inspiring. Activating. After getting your wishes are command. I went some 5K on my bank account to 8 million in one and a half years.