Transcript: Thanks, Allan, and here’s part two of my interview with Damion Lupo.
Damion Lupo: … so the question is, who do you believe you are? Whatever that truth is, is what you’re going to see in front of you.
David Brower: Yeah, that’s what I mean. Getting them to a point where they actually feel authentic and discover who they really are supposed to be and then bring that internal out to that external. All of sudden, you’ve got epiphanies going on, you’ve got smiles going on, you’ve got laughter going on, you’ve got fun going on. I mean it’s a lot of work, but, boy, is it worth it.
Damion Lupo: It is worth it. It kind of reminds me, I’m thinking back 10 years ago when I was surrounding myself with certain people, and I was evolving my inside because I was becoming the same as the people that were around me, and this is really … you’ve probably heard this in different ways, that you become who is around you. Outside of your family, if you just look at those five people that you spend the time with-
David Brower: Exactly.
Damion Lupo: … you’re going to become those people, and I’m not just talking about how much money they make. I’m talking about their level of health, their level of integrity, their everything, their belief systems. The problem I had is that I became those people. I became those five people, and I got what they had. I got the very expensive cars. I got all the money, but I also became them in terms of their integrity because I wasn’t really paying attention to it. If I had been I would’ve run away. And we have to be really careful about who we spend time around, and then ask the question, “Who do we want to be?” and be conscious around it and spend time around those people, those mentors or even our neighbors, even our friends. We have to be honest that if we want something different and everybody around us is making $50,000 a year and they’re bitching and moaning about their lives and they’re not traveling and we want to travel. Guess what? You’re probably going to have their same bitchy-moany life if you keep staying around them.
David Brower: Absolutely right. I remember … just a quick story. I remember before I moved to Colorado I was in California. I’d just gone through a divorce, and my five best friends, we were just inseparable. We got each other. We understood each other. We respected each other, all that kind of stuff. Wonderful, wonderful friends. And when I moved to Colorado and I met the lady who would end up becoming my wife, I told her, I said, “One of the things that appeals to me,” and she’s met all these friends of mine. “The main thing that attracts me to you is what I love best about those five people. That’s who you are.” And, oh, my God, it was just like magic, you know? It’s been like the best gift ever.
Damion Lupo: It’s funny there’s this osmosis that happens, and when you pick right, so many things happen automatically in a way that you could never do if you had the wrong group.
David Brower: Yeah.
Damion Lupo: And so just that one choice and being conscious around that and choosing correctly can literally fundamentally, almost immediately, change everything in your life.
David Brower: No question about it. So real estate is … I mean, you’re traveling a lot. You’re going to conventions. You obviously have real estate going on as well. How do you keep all the balance of all those balls going on?
Damion Lupo: The thing that I do is I really look at the highest leverage points. The problem right now is not a lack of choices. It’s so many choices. It’s so many things we can focus on, and one of the things that really gets hard for people … I was talking to somebody at a conference in Orlando recently, and the question was, “When somebody emails you or you get a message on Twitter or a LinkedIn or one of these million places, these channels, that things come at you, what’s the requirement? Are we supposed to respond to everything whether they have a question, they just want to say, ‘Hi,’ somebody has an opportunity … there’s an unlimited number of opportunities and things and the greatest power you have is the power to say, ‘No.'” It’s either to not respond or it’s to say, ‘No’ to an opportunity, like all these network marketing opportunities, real estate deals. I mean there’s so many places where you can spend your time. The problem is you only have 1440 minutes a day.
David Brower: Right.
Damion Lupo: That’s it, and then you run out of them and you can’t get them back. The way that I deal with that is I figure out my highest leverage points based on the big vision I have for this year and for my life, and if things don’t fall into that vision and they’re not part of those core two or three things, then I say, “No, thank you.” And you have to get really good at that without feeling bad about saying, “No, thank you,” or you’re going to become part of somebody else’s agenda and you’re never really going to have a life by design. It’s going to be by default based on everybody else’s deal.
David Brower: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s it no matter where you are in life, business, personal, everything. Learning to say no, that’s a skill, man, that is a … When I was growing up, I was the ultimate people pleaser, so for me to learn to say no took, it took a long time, but once I got it, I’m going, “Oh, okay. Now it makes sense.”
Damion Lupo: It is a skill, and it’s actually awkward. I think one of the things that happens, especially with a lot of the millennial generation is they’re so used to just communicating via text and via online, that’s what they won’t do. My experience is that they won’t tend to say no. They’ll just not respond to a text or a message, and in their mind they’re kind of avoiding things, but the truth is once you feel empowered with saying, “No, thank you,” it’s unbelievable how you change, how you show up. You stand straighter, you’re more firm, you’re more focused because you’re not ducking and dodging people and you’re not ducking and dodging things that are coming at you. You’re just really present with who you are and what matters, and you have no problem in acknowledging that and being truthful around it.
It’s unfortunate that a lot of people are just using digital media and these devices to not develop that muscle because the truth is if we want to talk about financial freedom, it’s not rental property, it’s not cash in the bank. It’s the confidence muscle. It’s that other ‘C’, not cash, cash flow. It’s confidence and you have to build that muscle by practice. It’s not something you read. It’s not something you listen to. It’s something you do.
David Brower: And you help people do that. I mean obviously you don’t take one-on-one every other day, but when there’s the right person in the right place with the right motivation, they show up and bring everything. You’re called the financial transformation expert for a reason.
Damion Lupo: I do that and I love doing it and it’s a hyper-accelerated process because I will push people. There’s two things that happen. One, the people that I work with get to leverage off of my certainty because I can see things into the future. I can see where they’re going. I can see where they’re at, and you get to leverage off of me. And the other thing is you’re going to be stretched so it’s going to be uncomfortable, and the ultimate result is you’re going to take years and compress those into weeks because we’re going to move through things that you would normally dink around and bounce around with that would take years of your life. So, what I’m doing is giving people years of their life back and giving them more time and more open space to actually live instead of struggling just to get to a point that they may not want to get to anyway.
David Brower: When you speak on all of this, public events, conventions, all that kind of stuff, what kind of audience do you speak at?
Damion Lupo: What’s interesting is there’s this idea that people will … you sell them what they want and then you give them what they need and oftentimes, I’ll be brought into events or environments with people, and I’ll bake in the actual stuff that people need, and I give them what they want. It could be a real estate training. It could be something where there’s a precious metal slanted or a financial literacy teaching purpose or something, and what I help people to understand is the internal process while we’re talking about the external money and all that stuff, so a lot of financial spaces are where I get called in, and then what I’m doing is sharing and giving people the emotional connections so they understand, “Okay. I’ve actually lived through this,” and it helps them to connect with those ideas so that it’s not just a five-step process because everybody has a five-step process.
David Brower: Sure. Sure.
Damion Lupo: The question is having somebody gone through something to where they actually get it at a cellular level and that’s the difference. I can actually bridge that divide.
David Brower: And do you have people that work for you, that are also trainers that can help people or are you the guy?
Damion Lupo: I have a pretty extensive staff of people that help support what I do. That’s one of the things that is unique about this space. I’m not a Tony Robbins trainer. I’m not a Tony Robbins that has the trainers. I’m sure there’s amazing people but I’m the guy that’s going to do the work with people that I work with. It’s just how I’ve set it up, and I will admit there is no leverage in that. The leverage is in all the support people that do great things that I have no idea how to do, and if we acknowledge that we have certain gifts and we’re probably really bad at most of the things and we have other people do those things, we can make a difference in a lot of people’s lives, and so that’s really my focus right now is finding ways to leverage other people’s skills and then doing the work that I do one-on-one for the most part.
David Brower: Wow. What a gift you have, man.
Damion Lupo: It is.
David Brower: That’s powerful stuff. You’ve worked hard at it, but it’s a gift that you’ve realized and you’ve brought it to fruition and now you’re paying it forward in any way that you can.
Damion Lupo: I think that’s really one of the biggest things we can do. It’s the biggest focus for our lives if we’ll allow it is to find those things that we’ve learned and be able to share. I don’t think that we’re supposed to take all our gifts to the grave. I think we’re really supposed to give them all out there, so at the end we go, “Wow. I got nothing left, and that was amazing.”
David Brower: Yeah. That was amazing. Couldn’t agree more. You mentioned earlier people were looking for a mentor in real estate, what have you. I think you made an extremely important point in that you need to understand who that mentor is, get a feeling for them and feel that they’re going to be a good fit before you even pick up the telephone. I’ve never heard of anybody doing it the way you do it where you encourage them to read the book about you to really … it’s the raw Damion Lupo, and they really get a sense of that. I think that’s fricking brilliant, man.
Damion Lupo: I appreciate that. The worst thing that anybody that’s ever doing mentoring work or coaching work can do is allow somebody to hire them that’s the wrong fit because then it’s just a struggle, and I’m not worried about my ability or what I’m going to show up with, and if somebody is hesitating about maybe bringing me on or hiring me or working with me, it has nothing to do with me. It’s a question of whether or not they’re going to do the work, and I want to make sure somebody is really going to do the work. That starts with them figuring out whether this is the right fit because I am like an alien when I work with people. I push them into spaces that are like different galaxies.
They’ll get a sense of that when they read “Reinvented Life” because I’ve gone through this process. I am not the same person I was 15 years ago, and you’re not going to be the same person that you were 15 weeks ago after we work together. That’s really the understanding that somebody has to come in with, that everything is going to change and if they’re not wanting that, then I’m the wrong guy.
David Brower: Absolutely. And the name of the book is?
Damion Lupo: “Reinvented Life.”
David Brower: “Reinvented Life.” And I assume you can get that anywhere where books are sold, as they say.
Damion Lupo: Anywhere books are sold in any format you want. Digital, print, Audible, you choose it. If you’re listening and you like Audible, it’s ready to go.
David Brower: Cool. I’m a big Audible fan. I will download it tomorrow.
Damion Lupo: Awesome.
David Brower: Where are you headed next, man?
Damion Lupo: Next I’m going to the Crypto Event. There’s an event that’s coming up. It’s a big thing that’s happening globally, this big shift in money, the future of money. Everything is really changing and I think one of the things that’s important is for us to be in the middle of whatever’s changing so that we don’t get run over by it, and money is changing and so I’m spending a lot of time and energy learning about it, teaching about it. If you want to learn something, go teach it because you’ll realize how little you know very quickly. So, the more I teach about this-
David Brower: That’s a fact.
Damion Lupo: … it is. And the more I teach-
David Brower: It is, yeah.
Damion Lupo: I go, “Wow. I need to learn more.” I’m investing time, money and energy into these spaces where the global thinkers are showing up and I’m learning from them and so I’ll be doing that and just spending a lot of time teaching and learning. It’s a cycle that any great teacher is a great student, and so that’s my job is to make sure I’m a great student.
David Brower: Wow. Brilliant. What a wonderful philosophy. I’ve purposely have taken this over the limit because I just love talking to you. I love what you represent. I love how you share your life with people and how you encourage them to become the best that they can be if they’re willing to show up and make the commitment and study and work hard and realize that there is another life after boredom, you know?
Damion Lupo: Yeah. I appreciate that. I think that’s really fascinating you say that because in my mind I’m seeing so many people just looking. They’re desperately craving something interesting. They’re craving some type of thing that actually lights them up. And I see people just kind of going through motions, and it kills me to see that. So, if I can disrupt somebody, I tend to be really good at making people a little crazy the first time I talk with them, and then a year or two later they come back and they’ll say, “You really screwed me up, and everything changed after that, and I really started thinking clearly.” And I say, “Great.” But, yeah, “I hated you back then and now, you really did, you helped me see something different that I wouldn’t have seen because I was too comfortable,” and if I could do that for one person, that’s awesome.
David Brower: Ultimate praise. Yeah, I change one life at a time-
Damion Lupo: Yes.
David Brower: … and just keep going.
Damion Lupo: Right.
David Brower: Man, you have so many gifts. Thanks for sharing. I loved talking with you today, and I wish you continued success.
Damion Lupo: Thank you very much, David. It’s been a pleasure, man. Thanks for having me.
David Brower: You bet. Our guest is Damion Lupo, and the book once again is called-
Damion Lupo: “Reinvented Life.”
David Brower: … That’s right. I have to write that down, “Reinvented Life.” All right. Check it out and of course, you can check out Damion, you connect with him as well at totalcontrolfinancial.com. He’s on Twitter @damionlupo. He’s on Facebook at Damion Lupo Official, and you can email him at dlupo@totalcontrolfinancial.com. Damion Lupo, financial transformation expert, and if I may, spiritual transformation expert. Nice job, man. It’s been a pleasure.
Damion Lupo: Thank you very much.
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