Brad Miller 0:13
Today, we are just privileged to have someone who is able to give us some direction and some focus in our life to help us to overcome it, eradicate the limitations of our life and to move forward in such a way to improve our lives. His His name is Doug from Iran. And he's the author of personal power mastery. And among other things, he says, if you are breathing, you are perfect candidate for improvement. And I love that and I love to have our guests with us today, Doug Romero and welcome to pathway to promise.

Doug Vermeeran 0:46
Thanks for having me Brad, I'm excited to be here.

Brad Miller 0:49
Awesome. Well, you have this new book out here, and you're author of several books, and you've been involved with self improvement and helping folks to improve their life for some time and overcome bad habits, limitations and beliefs. There's lots of things you're working on. But let's hear a little bit about your story about how you came to this place in your life, maybe some things that you had to overcome in order to be a person to be contributor to people to the lives of other people.

Doug Vermeeran 1:16
Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, what's interesting is I really actually didn't have any experiences growing up with personal development. Sure, my family attended church and things of this nature. But I really didn't know much about, you know, this idea of, if you believe it, you can achieve it, or the goal setting or any of this stuff. In fact, my father worked very hard and construction. My mother babysat kids in the home. And their idea of working smarter was actually working harder, was their idea. And so I was kind of raised with this idea that I would probably, you know, do what I could at school, and then get a job. And that's the way my life would play out the end. And so, you know, what, really kind of where things begin to shift for me is I was a student with significant debt. I had, you know, I still remember going into a supermarket and having, you know, a loaf of bread, a thing of milk, a couple of things of instant noodles, and having it declined for $4 and 22 cents. So I was really in in trouble. That's when I decided over the summer to take a job. Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy. And of course, I was embarrassed. I didn't want to admit anybody, you know that I was failing. And I was far away from home. So you know, it was really tough. So I took a summer job actually doing door to door sales in California. In fact, I was selling pest control, which nobody, first of all likes to have door to door sales people. But now can you imagine someone knocking on your door and telling you you've got bugs? So I was totally not successful? And I was really, I guess, how should we say, sliding down the downward slope? Very quickly, I was depressed, I was frustrated. And I really felt like, you know, I was failing and everything I was trying to do. I have to be honest here that we've been moments I was contemplating, you know, taking my own life, and I just didn't know what Welcome to do. So about that time, I had a mentor friend of ours, someone that our family knew give me a book, actually gave me two books. The first book was how to win friends and influence people. And the second was thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And both of those books were like I said, my first brush with personal development, and they really changed my life. But the one that really did was thinking Grow Rich, and Funny enough, probably not for the reasons that you think the the real reason why I changed my life is I actually became jealous of Napoleon Hill. And what I mean by that is, if you remember to write the book, he had interviewed 400 of the world's top achievers, people like, you know, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Rockefellers, the Wrigley's, so I kind of became jealous that he got to meet those people. And, you know, the other thing that kind of came to my mind was, well, if this is the information that made it into the book, what's the stuff that did? What's the stuff that's still on the cutting room floor, so to speak, what were the lessons that, you know, didn't really, you know, find their way in here. So, at that young age of about 19, I decided I wanted to do what Napoleon Hill did. And so I started to go out and, and try and interview successful people wherever I could find them. And in the end, over the space of about 10 years, over that period, I interviewed more than 400 of the world's top achievers, which includes, in fact, every one from some of the top heads of companies like FedEx, to Nike, to Reebok to KFC to Disney, to American Airlines to you name it. But I think probably the biggest shift happened to me very early in that 10 year experience, in my first six months is that 19 year old, I just had some massive shifts, especially when it came to my understanding, and my appreciation of finances. And I was able to do $1.6 million in my first six months as a 19 year old, which if you do the math quick, that's about $9,000 a day, I'd never seen that kind of money. I don't think my parents had ever seen that kind of money. It just was a total, let's call it culture shock for me to now be in that sort of new circumstance. And so, you know, this is kind of where this book you're talking about really comes apart in this book, for the first time, share some of the strategies that learned from these 400 top achievers. And it's not just about the money, I think money is a reflection of kind of some things that need to happen before we get to that. But it really is, how should we say if you be it, you can do it. And then you can have it, it's really a beginning a foundation of how do you become the right person. So all the other good things that you want in life can flow from there.

Brad Miller 5:27
Yeah, that is awesome story there. And also, a couple of things that would be reflect with you about is that you when you were interviewing all these folks, were wherever Napoleon Hill did that in his era of the 1930s or 40s. And so things change and the era that you're talking about. So there's a whole new set of people who knew with all different their new sets of ideas and things to reflect on. And but the other thing that you did there, Doug, is you did something that I'm really a huge advocate of is you took bold action, you were you had a bias for action. So share with a little bit about how important that was to take the action or maybe some of the struggles, you had to take bold action, some guidance for folks who have a fear of taking bold action.

Doug Vermeeran 6:11
Yeah, well, first of all, I want to totally like, thank you for pointing out first of all, that it was a different study than had ever been done with Napoleon Hill. Like one of the things first of all that was a dramatic to me is Napoleon Hill, only really studied business leaders, he didn't really get into celebrities, athletes, they were now companies that were building fortunes on the internet and network marketing. And so the success had kind of changed in terms of definition, right. So I appreciate you acknowledging that. And that were really some amazing things that we learned that I believe validated Napoleon Hill, but supplemented things that most people just were not aware of given in terms of brain science and psychology at the time, I'm sure that in the work that you do you, you recognize how even in the last decade, you know, what we understand about psychology and the human mind has changed dramatically. We just didn't know it in the 1930s. So yeah, so I appreciate that. Or they

Brad Miller 6:59
give it gave us some different trumpet terminology. You know, he uses some, he'll uses some terminology there. I can't think of it over there the kind of reflection of his time, and we need to put them in our current context, to help people understand it now.

Doug Vermeeran 7:13
Yeah, in fact, I think success is easier now than ever before, just because of many of the lessons that we have. But your idea long action, I really, I really think that action is how should we call it the hinge, right? You've got these thoughts, you want to be successful, you've got these plans, these goals, these dreams, but the the idea of taking action is really the hinge that brings it from your mind into reality. And I think that one of the big misunderstandings, and this is something we talk about in the book, is I don't use the term massive action. Because I think quite frankly, you know, I've been to a Starbucks, maybe some of you and you see lots of people that are there, they're busy as heck, they're meeting with people, they're, you know, running from one meeting to another, and they're on the internet, they're doing these things, but they're not really making progress. They're just kind of spinning their wheels. So I think the idea of deliberate action has been more important than just taking action. In fact, what I like to do with my students is kind of take these sayings that have been around for a long time, and kind of rewrite them, you know, these fortune cookie ideas. So you've got this idea that says the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single footstep. We've heard that before, right, that's taking action in that single footstep. But the way that I would rewrite that is more accurately the journey to where you want to go begins with a single footstep in the right direction, you know,

Brad Miller 8:26
where you go matters, doesn't it?

Doug Vermeeran 8:29
Where Yeah, and certainly direction is more important than velocity, right? Like, if we're going to hurry somewhere where we don't know where we're going, it really serves no purpose. And so one of the things that I tell my students right off the bat, is that a goal that is specific and clear, becomes attainable and near. And then when we have that clear and specific destination of where we're heading, and we feel good about it, because feeling good about the destination is also part of achieving our goals. Right? You know, I love what Stephen Covey says, most people climb the ladder of success, only to see that as leaning against the wrong wall. So we've got to have that clarity of purpose. But we've also got to have it in line with our values and the things that are most important. And when it is serving both of those things, well, my definition of happiness is a little bit different than others, my definition of happiness is actually to make the choices and experience the consequences that give us the most satisfaction and peace. And I think that most people in life, unfortunately, are pursuing a lot of paths that have immediate gratification involved. And immediate gratification never ever creates a lasting happiness. And so you know that this idea of back to action is the importance of taking that deliberate action to build you the life that you want to get you the dreams that you want. And we find that it's not always easy to take deliberate action, because sometimes it means that we do things that we don't want to do. In fact, here's something funny one of my favorite interviews that I did, but his name is john Russo. And he was actually the writer of the original Night of the Living Dead, you know, like the zombie movie. You're the screenwriter of that. And so I was chatting with one day about, you know, writing a screenplay. And the thing that was kind of interesting is he's written, you know, hundreds of movies, long, short novels, he's written all kinds of stories. And so when I said, What's the hardest part about writing a script, I expected him to say, well, coming up with unique characters coming up with, you know, cool plot twist, or new settings or something crazy like that. But you know, what he said was the hardest part about writing says is simply sitting down to write is that because it's so much else going on? It's simply sitting down to write

Brad Miller 10:26
the discipline of writing, you've written several books, and, and I'm working on a book now, and there is a certain, a certain something to be said about actually, the physical action of hitting a keyboard or talking to that record, or whatever you do, there's certain to be said about the discipline of actually doing it. So

Doug Vermeeran 10:40
yeah, and I think this relates really well, to what what you just said also about action. I think sometimes, most people, I think the reason why they, you know, maybe procrastinate, and they avoid getting to work, it's because they don't have high enough value behind the action that's required of them, or they don't see the purpose to it. In the end, I believe it's too bad people couldn't see the video that you and I are on right now. But when a person has something that they value, highly motivation to get them to do it as low, when they have something that they value low? Well, it requires high motivation to get them to do it. And the problem is, is that most people don't see in their life, you know, the value behind certain activities that will ensure their success, again, they seek immediate gratification, because it immediately produces a result for them, and it immediately gets them feeling fun. But it doesn't create the long term lasting effect, that they're really, really wanting. And when you describe

Brad Miller 11:31
the way you've described that about the, you know, when you have the low motivation, and the the low value and higher motivation takes it takes a lot more energy to do that. Whereas if you have the higher motive, high values, and high motivation, is more energy enhancing. So that's, that has to do with how we react to things. If we're draining our energy all the time, they're much more likely to not do it. And to be web or quality, depressing, or other things like that. I love your value, I love the value give on this, having to leverage our emotions, leverage our motivations, our values, I'd like for you to say a word about that, Doug, in terms of how other factors in our lives can be influenced and how we leverage these emotions. I'm thinking of things like valuable relationships, you know, whether it's personal or otherwise, or even mentorship, or perhaps loving relationships with family, or perhaps your spiritual development. Can you say a word about how we can leverage these various motivations to help us to?

Doug Vermeeran 12:33
Yeah, well, certainly leverage is a massive principle that influences our success. In fact, you've heard it said that we are the combination of the five people we spend the most time with, right? Like, if, if you How do we say one of my friends? Is it this way says if you hang out with four losers, you become the fifth? And I think that's kind of true.

Brad Miller 12:51
Yeah, I guess you're right, you're right. And,

Doug Vermeeran 12:53
and if I look at my own path to success, really, I mean, I was, as we say, rising the temperature of those around me, you know, my parents kind of created a certain environment, those my community created a certain environment. And in the group I was doing, like I was I was with, I was doing pretty good, like I was, you know, I was blending in, right, like, I wasn't above or below. But as soon as I started leveling up those influences in my life, all of a sudden, that earlier standard was not acceptable, right. And I believe that we all live to the standards that we dictate where our life if something, you know, if it, how should we say like, if you look at a mother, and I apologize, I'm trying to solidify this and make it really easy, if you look at a mother, she's always willing to do more for others than she has for herself. She's always willing to do more for her children than she is for herself. And sometimes even to the detriment In fact, if we look at, during the Second World War, there were mothers who starve to death just to be able to feed their children in concentration camps, right. And so, yeah, a terrible thing. But that happens in all aspects of our life. You know, not only do we become like the people that we surround ourselves with, but we rise ourselves to those influences, too. If the people that we surround ourselves with find it permissible to, you know, cut, we're taking little easy when we're there to underperform to, you know, really kind of lay back and just let things happen. That's how we're going to eventually behave. So it's important that we level up our friends. Now, it's interesting that you mentioned loving relationships as well. Because again, the closer the relationships are to us, the more of an influence they have on us. And so we may think that, you know, we'd leave what we what we do at home stays at home, and what we do at work stays at work. But the truth of the matter is, is as as human beings, we don't have the ability to completely segregate that. So who we are follows us actually, everywhere we go. And I'd like to add that it's not even, you know, just the relationships that we have, physically, it's also relationships in the virtual world. In fact, there was a really interesting report that I just recently read that talked about the effects of such things as pornography on the human spirit and human mind, social media on the human mind, and the things that we take in are indeed influences. And they are a form of a relationship. So even if we are not like physically, you know, meeting someone, but we're doing it online social media, or we're, you know, spending time with social media, those are indeed relationships, and they affect exactly how we will behave, and how we will look at ourselves and so forth. And we've seen that, you know, for years with television, you know, this study has been around with TV people that'll veg out in front of a reality show, are, are just not as successful as those that shut off the TV and, and spend time with real people or read a book,

Brad Miller 15:43
as you mentioned, is also these physio, and I don't know a lot about this, but I know enough to be dangerous, I guess, in that there are these physiological things that happen, you know, our neurons fire in...