The Book That Woke Me Up at 24: Awaken the Giant Within

In this episode of Success Is Not Convenient, Bernie Gallerani opens up about the book that changed everything for him at 24 years old: Tony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within. Growing up on food stamps in Section 8 housing, Bernie shares the exact mindset shifts that took him from broke and directionless to running four companies. Learn why real decisions mean burning the boats, how fear creates hesitation, why your identity is the strongest force in human behavior, and what it truly means to be committed. If you're tired of being stuck, this one is for you.

Transcript

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Hello, everybody. Bernie Gallerani, and bringing you another episode of Success is not convenient. You know what? It's fun. I was talking with somebody, I was doing a podcast after somebody else, and they were talking about the success not convenient, and they said, Boy, is that true? I'm like, Yeah, you know, success is a very interesting uh thing because the reason why most people don't have a high level of it in life and in business is because it is hard and it's not convenient. But I, you know, I was challenged recently with a question about my journey and how I started kind of changing how I uh how I think. And so I was telling this individual, I'll tell you, it started off when I was 24 years old with a book that I read. And it probably, to be true uh honest, uh it might be the only book I read up to that point that I'd actually read the whole book. You know, you're I'm in school, I'm cheating my way through school, trying to figure out life, reading chapters, reading things. I've probably never wrote read a whole book before. But when I was 24 years old, I read a book by Tony Robbins called Awaken the Giant Within. He had just come out with it. He was a young guy. It's his very first book at that time. And that this book changed how I looked at my life, and it answered a lot of questions for me about how I had behaved previously, but it also gave me some clarity, or maybe at that time clarity of who I needed to be in order to move forward from the crazy uh life that I grew up in. Many of you guys know that I grew up in kind of a Section 8 HUD housing complex. So just no money and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, when you're raised in a HUD housing complex and on food stamps and your mom's been married five times, there's there's a lot of instabilities that go on inside of your life. And so when I read this book, it it helped me clear some things up. Um now, since then, I've read hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books regarding how behavioral works, how our behavior works, how our mind works, how our fears work. And so, but I wanted to share with you today some of the things that I thought were really important about what I learned from Awaken the Giant Within with Tony Robbins. And one of the things, and I wrote down just a few things that I would like for you guys just to write and take some notes on that I think have been really impactful for my life. And hopefully they will, some of them can start getting you to ignite just that small little fire within you about how to change things in a better direction. So the first thing I want to share with you this is it says your life uh changes the moment you actually make a true decision. A true decision. Tony teaches that most people never truly decide. They actually what they do is they hope. Try is more of a like a wish. A real decision means that you cut off all other options and commit fully to the task. And coaching people, like which I get a chance to do every day, I've coached hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, start realizing that everything else gets in their way and there's too many other distractions, which is why they can't be fully committed. And so what's what I think Tony says here is they're they they would like to do it and they they try to do it and they wish they could do it, but it making a real decision, you have to cut off all other options, right? Burn the boats, as he said many times. It is in your moments of decisions that your destiny is actually shaped. See, this is the part where success is not convenient. The hardest part for people to really understand is that the the current life that you have that is safe to you right now does not produce success. And you're saying, well, Bernie, what is that what does that mean? I I don't know what that means for you, but TV probably isn't in it all day. When you get home, turning on the news is probably not it. Going to lunch with all of your friends all the time or going shopping or cutting out uh work early is well, I know you like doing, but I like doing that. No, I'm not saying you shouldn't like doing that. I of course I would like doing that, but you're not burning the boats. That's a feel-good thing. It's in those particular moments and those decisions that you have to make that actually shape you. Entrepreneurs stay stuck because they lead themselves emotional escape routes. Growth happens when the bridge is burned behind you. When you cross over that bridge, there's no going back, it's gone. And are you willing to take those kinds of leaps for yourself? The quality of your life is the quality of the emotions that you have. Can you burn that bridge behind you and know you can't go back? Have you ever put yourself in that position where you have no other option but moving forward? See, because your emotional state controls your performance, controls the relationships that you have, the confidence that you have, and the business decisions that you make, all based on that quality of life that you want to have, based on emotions. Tony will emphasize a lot in his book about fear creates hesitation. Write that one down. That is such a good one. That's probably one that you should put a star next to, underline, highlight, um, everything you can. Fear creates hesitation. Fear creates hesitation. Everybody's fearful moving forward with something that they don't know. And so what happens is they start hesitating and questioning and saying, well, that maybe wasn't for me. And the confidence that you have actually creates the action. And gratitude creates full fulfillment. So if you have gratitude about everything that you have, you feel really good inside. Certainty creates momentum. If you feel good and confident in yourself, certain that you're the guy or the girl that can get it uh accomplished, you you start, you can build off of that. And if you don't control emotions, your environment will. If you don't control the emotions that you have, your environment will take over. What do I mean by that? Like, I've always and I said this, I was having a conversation with one of my folks that I was coaching the other day, and we were talking about emotions. And I'm like, they're so overrated. You feel them, they mean something to you, but what do they really mean? How are your emotions connecting yourself uh to growing, pulling back? How do how does how does that work? See, people are controlled by pain and pleasure. I'm actually not controlled by pleasure at all. I'm controlled by pain. For me, it's the lack of lack of not having the things that I want to have, regardless of how painful it is. People say, Well, do you really want to have that nice car, that nice home? Um, yes, but I'm not driven towards the the feeling of that. I'm driven towards the pain of not having it, the disappointment of who I am because I wasn't mature enough. How I look at it is if I can I don't have that, that means I'm not that person. And the question, am I willing to change that person? Am I willing to change me, me being the person, am I willing to change enough to have that and the pain associated with that? So it's not the pleasure of having that, it's the pain of not having it. See, every behavior is tied to avoiding pain or gaining some sort of pleasure. I don't know who you are, but 80% of people run away from pain. That's me. And 20% of you run towards pleasure. And if someone avoids uh prospecting, let's just say, which is like legenerating, or they're really procrastinators, right? Or they they're saying, well, I'm I'm broke, so I'm always gonna stay broke. They tolerate mediocracy. It's because their brain associates more pain with change than with staying the same. So what happens is you're connecting the change as your pain, and you stay away from that because you actually like pleasure. To change permanently, you have to attach massive, massive pain to staying where you are and massive pleasure for growth. You have to have it. It's gotta be like such a burning desire. You have to be so upset with yourself that you can't even tolerate yourself for being who you are. My God, burning pretty hard on yourself. Yeah, sometimes it's hard. That's why success doesn't convene you because most people don't really want to tolerate any sort of discomfort. Identity is the strongest force in the human behavior. Write this one down, highlight it, star it, circle it. Your identity, my identity, who you think you are is the strongest force in any human behavior. And if you're willing to accept it, who you are, great. But if you're not willing to accept it and change is certain for you, and that certainty is growth, and that growth produces a life you always wanted to have, congratulations. It's beautiful on the other side. People act consistently with who they believe they are. They don't act on who they would like to be, they act on who they believe they are. Who are you? What is your purpose or view? If someone says I'm I'm bad with money, then they continue to keep telling themselves they're bad with money. Guess what's going to happen? I'm not a very disciplined person. It's really great. Keep saying that to yourself. It's never going to change, right? By the way, I'm not, I I have somebody that I work with that says, Bernie, I'm not really a leader. Right. But it doesn't mean you can't be a leader. It doesn't mean that being a leader won't fulfill you. You're just so scared to lead people, so you get stuck in comfort. And if you look around to, especially if I'm talking to so many entrepreneurs here, because most of you guys are dynamic. If you look around and it's okay. It's okay if somebody wants to be just okay, right? If you're not a leader, you're not a leader. What they do is they protect their identity. I'm I'm gonna stay safe in this little box because I don't want anybody to threaten me. And what Tony's principles, and I learned in this book, is the fastest way to transform your life is to change the standards and the identities by which you live. So what you had to do is you have to transform you. And you is not easy. Success and easy don't come together, guys. I'm sorry. You you if you want to admire people from a distance and go, well, you know, they're successful and look at them, you could be successful too. They're willing to go through things that you're not willing to go through. And if you want to maybe change your language a little bit, instead of being negative on yourself and I putting an identity on yourself and tying an emotion to it, like, you know, hey, I'm trying to prospect, become more of the person or I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to be a money person, I'm trying to be a leader. Just be a prospector, just be a disciplined leader. Just say I am someone who performs no matter how I feel. Guys, feelings suck. You feel more comfort, develop pain in staying where you are. Aren't you tired of not having what you want? Aren't you tired of that? Aren't you tired of coming to work and hating your job? I just, and I've heard this before, but I just heard uh a video the other day. It says 80, over 80% of everybody who goes to work hates their job. Oh, I feel sad for those people. Why would you go to work if you hate your job? Well, Bernie, I have to. You have to because two things are going on. You're not leading in a manner that gives you a life of abundance. Or number two, maybe you hate your job because you hate who you are in your job. What if you changed who you were? Am I someone who performs no matter how I feel? Are you that person who, regardless of how you feel, you're still performing? Feelings are temporary. Success always leaves clues, guys. And if you look at successful people, you look at not successful people, you're gonna find out successful people are pretty happy, probably most of the time. Doesn't mean they're not passionate driven and anxious and in a hurry, um, because that's how sometimes successful people are. One of Tony's core like philosophies is if someone already has the results you want, model them. I get astonished at times when I see how some of the people I work with are they around really successful people. Some of my folks that I work with are millionaires, making hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And I bring people into this group and I'm like, man, just follow them. And then they won't do anything. Like, oh no, that person's just more talented than me. Then just read, just go above on the notes that you just wrote down. It's like, well, you just keep telling yourself that. You do not need to reinvent any wheel. The successful people are trying to tell you how to be successful. This is why we're doing these podcasts on success is not convenient. We're sharing with you all the stories and the great things that people do to be successful. The question is, are you paying any attention to it? Are you watching the video or are you taking notes? Are you just watching this? Maybe you're entertained, maybe you're not, maybe you're pissed at me right now. I'm not quite sure. But are you taking notes? Find people already operating at the level you want. They'll success leaves clues. Look at their mindset, look at the systems that they developed. How do they communicate with people? How do they show up every single day? How disciplined are they? I I used to have people all the time because I get up very early in the morning. And they'll say, Well, you get up every day at four o'clock in the morning. I'm like, sure, yeah. And they're like, Aren't you tired? I mean, what a stupid question. Yes. Every single day for 20 some odd years, I get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. And in 20 years, I'm not used to it, but I do it every day. Yeah, I'm tired. It's exactly right. It's because I'm also disciplined, and my emotional feeling doesn't have anything to do with my goal to get things accomplished. Be a great leader, hang out with great leaders, be a wealth builder, hang out with wealth-building people. Are your friends wealthy or are they like you? And if you're wealthy, congratulations. If they're if you're not, go find wealthy people. They act differently. Isn't it kind of interesting how you compare the successful people and how they behave, and then look at how you behave and then just say, wow, I couldn't do that. Sure you can. You just don't want to. And then what you want to do is compress time by learning from them. Learning from them. Is it gonna be easy? No, you're gonna put in a lot more time to learn. Yes. This all aligns heavily with the philosophy about stealing ideas from successful people instead of trying to invent everything yourself. I just did a podcast on the entire companies, I have four of them, on the entire companies that I run, and not one of these ideas are mine. I hijacked them. Go back and watch that podcast that I did about stealing ideas. Smart people steal ideas from other people. You know, I was just talking to a company on the phone the other day, and we're building some things, and I sent them some examples of what I wanted to build. And they we got back on the phone with them. I'm like, guys, just look at what I sent you. Hijack it. Just take it and put it and make it. That's all I'm asking you to do. We live in a world where we have copycats all over the place. Copycat it. If you think you got something original, you probably don't. Raise your standards. Always raise your standards. Your standards determine the life more than your goals. Here's what Tony says: your standards determine your life more than your goals. You have a goal, but you got to have a standard. Without standards, you will have nothing to achieve because you won't achieve it. You won't even have it. If you don't develop a standard in your life, goals are what you want, standards are what you're willing to accept. This is what Tony says. Goals are what you want, but your standards are what you accept. What are you accepting? Are you accepting cutting out early? Are you accepting going to lunch for two hours? Do you go into the office late? Do you decide not to work on the weekends when the weekends are necessary? I want you to hear this because I see it all the time. And my people come in my office and they'll coach with me. I'll get them on Zoom calls with a coach and they'll tell me what they want, but their actions never show up. But you're what what but what people do is they tolerate inconsistency. They miss all the lead follow-up opportunities. They avoid hard conversations with people. You show up to work or show up anywhere emotionally weak. Are you strong? Are you confident? Their standards, the high achievers standards really expose what they are, and the low achievers standards expose their truth of who they are. Tony's message here says when your standards rise, your behaviors eventually follow. Raise your standards. Guys, I learned this at 24 years old. My life was a mess. A mess. I can't even tell you. I'm embarrassed to tell you what my life looked like. Guys, I'm I I didn't even own a car myself. I bought a car right before I turned, no, right, actually, probably right after I turned 24. A few months later, I bought this book. By the way, I I talk about how embarrassing it is. I had to have my my girlfriend at the time, slash, assume-to-be wife, co-signed for me to have a car. I was 24 years old. Think about how pathetic that was. I started reading this book, man. I got so empowered. I started realizing how powerful it was as a person. The questions you ask yourself determine what your brain searches for. Your brain, the greatest computer on the planet, your brain, what you look for, you get. It ain't gonna be easy. It's hide, it's like hide and seek. I can't find it, I can't find it. Don't stop. Why does this always happen to me? Why is like the poor thing? I don't want why do I always get the bad stuff? How come I always find bad people to hang out with or bad relationships? Why do I always have jobs that I'm not having? Stop that. Because your brain then signals what it is that you don't want because you're still thinking about what you don't want, and that's what shows up. You might ask me why am I always stuck? I don't know. Ask what goes on inside your brain. Ask more empowering questions for yourself is what can I learn from this? How do I grow from this opportunity? What's great about the challenge that I'm dealing with? Your focus creates your reality all the time. Repetition creates lasting change in your life. And motivation alone does not change people. Conditioning does. Write that one down. Motivation, your your your motivation you have inside, that that doesn't change uh people. Doesn't change you either. Doesn't change me. You can be motivated all day long, but unless you have a change in your conditioning beliefs, then you're gonna fall short every time. What Tony believes in is lasting transformation comes from repetition, repetitious, right? Being repetition, repetition, repetition, emotional intensity, being emotionally driven, constant action. Don't ever give up. Keep getting up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. Keep going to the gym, keep going to the work. I don't feel like it. I got a headache. Who cares? Take an aspirin, go to work. I'm not feeling well. Throw up in the trash can, go to work. Well, Bernie, this is pretty, pretty hard stuff. Yep. It's hard stuff. That's why success is not convenient. And that's why high performers rehearse their scripts all the time. You know how many times I was telling somebody when I was in the real estate business, I would get up at 3 30 in the morning and I'd handwrite my listing presentation several times every day, and I did that for 90 straight days. No, I'm not listening guys, I don't have a superpower. I just was tired of being me. I was tired of being broke. I was tired of all the excuses. That doesn't that doesn't create wealth. I studied people. I had friends that were were were successful. I hung out with them. I role-played. I trained every single day. I trained and trained and trained and immersed ourselves in growth environments, always putting yourself. You need to immerse yourself in things that are growing, not dying. Successful people, they condition success into their nervous system. It's part of your DNA. It's the only thing we know. Every single year, I get closer to closer to exploding with all of the confidence that I have as a person. I wasn't this person 20 years ago, but 20 years ago I was a better version than I was 20 years before that. I want you to say this again. We condition success into our nervous system. Most limits are learned, not real. People often live inside emotional ceilings that they created years earlier. You're living in a prison you created yourself. You can't figure out why you can't get out, but you actually agreed to all the terms you have. And you have this massive fear of rejection and judgment going on. Oh, I don't want to fail. I don't want anybody, I don't want to be embarrassed by failure. Be embarrassed by who you are if you're not growing to the goals you want to have. You're not going to see success, my friends, if you unless you change who you are, right? Unless you become so disappointed in yourself, or you're like, well, someone else will be disappointed in me. Who cares what other people think? See, I think the problem, and this is the the the truth from my experience, so many of us actually care what other people think. I remember when I was coming up, and it was a it was a rough ride coming up. It was a rough ride, right? I mean, it was a rough ride. I had a lot of people who didn't like me, uh, and I didn't care, to be honest with you. I want people to like you, but you're like, listen, I got a mission, man. And if you if you can't come along with me, then you don't understand what I'm doing. Become the person you want to be. Just become that person, no matter how painful it is. Tony will challenge people to realize that many of the limits are stories and they're not actually facts. Your future grows the moment your excuses lose credibility with yourself. I'm gonna say this again. Your future, your future, you, your growth grows the moment your excuses lose their credibility with yourself. Progress equals happiness. If you watch anything about Tony Robbins, he talks about that. Progress is what equals happiness. Progress. I think he says the success has only one word, it's called progress. One of the biggest ideas in this book, humans need growth to fill a life. People become unhappy when they stop progressing emotionally, financially and spiritually, and physically. That's when unhappiness starts setting in. Not because life is terrible, but because they feel stuck. See the chase, the building, the learning, the becoming, that's where fulfillment lives. And one of the most powerful overall messages from this particular book, Tony repeatedly pushes this idea over and over again. Your past does not equal your future unless you continue to live in your past. You got if you keep living there in those emotional connections, your current results are not permanent. Your fears are not final, and your current identity is not fixed. Your future can change fast once your standards and decisions and actions align. You gotta put it all together. I want you guys to think about this. I want you guys to ask this question What am I tolerating that's costing me the future I say I want? What is it costing you? Think about those dreams that's costing you all of that. What identity am I protecting that no longer serves me? Where am I interested instead of being truly committed? Because you can be interested in something but not be committed. You could be interested in a lot of things, but you're not committed. What pain have I attached growth to that keeps me stuck in my current position? And there's a good one, right? If I operated at my highest standard for 12 straight months, like just really went hard for 12 straight months, how different would my life look? That's a good one. Like if you really, really dug down, no matter how difficult an emotional strain you put yourself under, how would your life look different? Guys, I'm gonna leave you this one as we go. I saw an interview with Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf years ago, like 30 years ago. 29, 30 years ago, and I and he was being interviewed, and they were talking about the level of determination that they both had to be, the great tennis players that they were. And Andre Agassi said this, and I love it. He says, you know, it's like bacon and eggs. He says, the chicken is involved, but the pig is fully committed. Are you fully committed? Are you willing to give it all up for everything that you ever dreamed for? Thank you for paying attention. Hit the like button and the subscribe button. We appreciate you for watching all these successes, not convenient, uh podcasts. Hope everyone has a great day.