Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:53
That mindset, that self-talk for you when those things come up for you, that’s kind of what you tell yourself.
Phil Randazzo: 19:01
Yeah. And I think I heard this from James Altucher. It’s like we got to just when these crazy thoughts get in our minds, like, not useful, not useful. And I can tell you, Jeremy, like, I could go from zero to complete dark thoughts very quickly. Like, sometimes it scares me.
Now I have the awareness to understand them. But I could go from, you know, someone touches one of my kids, and not only am I going to make them disappear, but I make them suffer for five years. Like. And I’m like, wait, how did they even come up with that thought?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:38
Pretty dark. Yeah.
Phil Randazzo: 19:41
And maybe I’m the only one. Maybe no one in your audience has dark thoughts, but I.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:46
I highly doubt that. Yeah. Yeah. I actually was just listening to Gino Wickman’s book Shine, and he really goes into his dark past. Actually, it’s way different from Traction.
So I had Gino on the podcast talk about traction and Mark Winters and Gino Wickman, Mark Winters talking about Rocketfuel, but this is a way different book. This is kind of what you’re talking about. And he goes deep into his past and uncovers some of the stuff that, you know, what it was like inside of his head.
Phil Randazzo: 20:26
Gino’s awesome. I’ve gotten to know Gino a little bit, and, you know, he’s changed everything with us and all that. I’m excited to hear about that, because most people don’t get a look behind the curtain. And I have a book coming out. Soon, soon.
I keep making these final changes I just like because I’m worried about, you know what?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:48
By the time people listen to this, maybe it will be out. What can you say what the title is.
Phil Randazzo: 20:53
Yeah, it’s less you, more life. I think it’s now or becoming available because I was never available. And so I’ll get you that. I’ll get you the title. I’ve got a whole bunch of websites that are, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But it’s again, it’s a, it’s a short book. It’s got some great stories of, of myself, people I’ve worked with and it really talks about. The same thing. Like we need to wake up and realize that it’s a blessing just being here, right? And not only blessing to be here, but like, what a gift to be born in this country.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 21:34
Will people be able to check it out on American Dream U. Yeah. It’ll be. Yeah. Okay.
Phil Randazzo: 21:39
It’ll be on American Dream.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 21:41
What’s a favorite story from the book?
Phil Randazzo: 21:43
Oh, gosh. So I added this recent story. I’ll give a story about someone else. And then if you want to give a story about this. So we partnered with Tony Robbins and we had some platinum members.
You know what a platinum member is Tony Robbins. You pay like $150K and you get to hang out with Tony, and you do all of his classes in like 18 months. And it’s like a big deal. And this and this marine walks in. I had nine combat veterans stay at my house, which I probably should have given my wife a little bit more notice before they showed up.
But he’s like, God, I had post-traumatic stress and Tony cured it and all this kind of stuff. And he’s, you know, this big, buff, 40-year-old marine, and I’m like, amazing. And we’re all jumping up and down in my office and having this great thing. And my intuition said, hey, dude, like, does any of this post-traumatic stress still show up when you’re at home, right? He’s an attorney.
And he goes, yeah, yeah. And I go, how is your wife and your four kids with that? Oh my gosh. My wife just she forgets about the kids. She’s so hands-on.
She’s so she’s with me. She pays attention to me, all that kind of stuff. And I said, interesting. I said, tell me about your childhood. And he’s like, sir, I’m not tracking what this has to do with childhood.
This was all Iraq, like all these deployments. And I go talking about he goes, well, I have a twin brother. I go, interesting, I go, what’s he doing now? And he goes, well, he had a botched surgery when he was three and he’s been paralyzed from the neck down. I’m like, oh my gosh, how tragic.
Like, how did you deal with that? Like, what was your thought when you were a little boy running around? Oh, I knew my parents had to do what they had to do. I’m like, that’s not how a little boy talks. Like, how did we came to the conclusion, Jeremy, that his needs didn’t matter.
Right? And so I said, how is that showing up in your life now? And he says, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I said, well, you told me 20 minutes ago, Tony Robbins healed your post-traumatic stress. And I go, and now you have these episodes weekly.
How is this showing up? And he goes, oh my gosh. And I said, well, maybe you should consider when you’re sick, you get attention. From his childhood. And he just literally starts, literally starts tearing up in my living room.
Right. And so I’m looking around like, holy, what’s going on? And these other guys are like, I’m worried I’m going to be he’s going to choke me out and throw me out the back window. But he came to the understanding that he equated unconsciously. It wasn’t his fault that being sick, you get attention, and I’m not saying what he went through was wasn’t traumatic in Iraq and all those type of things.
So these are the type of things that typically from childhood, they just get buried. Right. And then the other awakening I had for those that are in the military is that the first day of boot camp. So he had all these things like my knees don’t matter, my knees don’t matter. He goes and he does all these things.
And the first day of boot camp, what do they tell you? If you don’t get this right, someone’s going to. Someone could die. Someone could get injured, right? Serious business.
So now all of a sudden, their brains equate to not doing something right to being dangerous. So unconsciously, they’re running around. How do I transition to the military? How do I? This is the first time I’ve been married.
I have kids, so all these thoughts unconsciously go through their mind, and that prevents them from doing whatever they want to do. Right. Because they’re afraid they’re not going to do it. Right. So those are a couple stories I have in the book.
And it’s a human issue. It’s not a military issue. Jeremy, you know this. You’ve worked with thousands of patients. Probably it is a human issue.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:16
Really powerful. Yeah. Well, we’ll have to. If you are listening to this, it’s probably out, you know, go to AmericanDreamU.Org.
Check out the book. I’d love to hear Phil, the evolution of American Dream U the stuff that you offered when you first started. Because I know it’s evolved throughout the years and then what it looks like now when you first started the idea. Talk about the services that you were offering at the time and walk me through that.
Phil Randazzo: 25:45
Yeah, yeah. So we started in 2003 randomly. I wanted to have a Pro troops rally, right. We had these 18, 19 year old boys, you know, men and women out there serving. And so I had this pro-troops rally.
I had 4,200 people show up to my office parking lot, which was insane. I knew there was some pent-up. And so the first 12, 13 years of the organization, we helped the wounded in their families. So people are all aware of Wounded Warrior Project right now. When we started working with them in 2005, there was nine, nine dudes filling backpacks, sending them to Germany.
So I ended up creating these wristbands, these camouflage wristbands that said Defending Freedom on them. We ended up sending them about 550,000 to Iraq and Afghanistan. And then any nonprofit Wounded Warrior project, Fisher House, Marine Parents, all of these. I would send them the wristbands for free. They would sell them and keep 100% of the proceeds.
So I was not a veteran. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was making money off the veterans. So I thought, okay, how can I take my resources and six x them, right? So I would pay $0.44 for this wristband. They would sell them for three and keep all the profits.
Right. And so we ended up for Wounded Warrior Project. We were the largest donor up until a long time. We raised like $3.6 million for Wounded Warrior Project, which is a big amount.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:02
Amazing.
Phil Randazzo: 27:04
So and we spend a lot of time at Walter Reed, Bethesda. And then in 2012, we went to Walter Reed and there was three dudes getting treatment. Right. So the big surge was over, you know, back in the mid-2000. It was chaos in those hospitals.
They did an amazing job with the resources they had. I contacted a friend of mine who’s in our main page of the website. He just retired as a four-star general. And I said, Bob, I just, you know, Bob Brown. I said, you know, I just went to Walter Reed.
There was three guys, what can we do to support them? I want to do more. And he says, you know, for some the transition can have some uncertainty. So I contacted Ramit Sethi. I don’t know if you know Ramit.
Yeah. Contacted. Yeah. Gosh, he was a little kid when I met him. He was probably 26, 27 years old, like, you know, the founder of Allegiant Airlines.
Maury Gallagher, Forrest Griffin, the UFC fighter. We had Ben Hugh, the founder of Cheezburger. Com at that time and we went to Fort Lewis, Washington and did an incredible event. And these soldiers in the in the crowd were like, okay, here’s another general officer giving us a PowerPoint briefing. Boring.
Scoring in these. These guys rocked it. Absolutely. And that was our very first event in June of 2013. On the transition side, Rameet shared some stuff and everyone’s like, well, I want to play soldier and shoot weapons and go do this stuff.
And that’s where it started, right? So we started helping the wounded, their families, and then we realized the transition was a game. And who wouldn’t want to learn from a remeet on finances and a Ryan holiday on stoicism and learning and Grant Cardone on real estate and Bryan Kurtz on coffee. Like it was. It was incredible.
What we’ve done. So it evolved into that. And then of course, Covid, we had to cancel a whole bunch of events, unfortunately. And so that’s kind of the history of what is. And I’ve evolved through that process.
And I didn’t start this journey with the idea that I would get to know some of these people that we’re talking about. And I got kind of caught up in it, to be honest with you. Right. And people were calling me going, hey, I want to come speak. And I was like, you’re not that important, right?
Like, I was looking for the big names, and I realized I missed out on some great opportunities to share, you know, with those going through uncertainty and by the way, we’re always going through transition like there’s not one transition in our life. We are constantly transitioning. Right. And the one thing I learned through an Adu speaker, his name is Steve Sisler. I don’t know if you know Steve.
He’s an amazing, amazing he would be amazing for your podcast is how we leave something is how we enter something new. So how we leave the military is how we’re going to enter something new. If we have a relationship that breaks up, how we leave that relationship is how we’re going to enter the new relationship. I talk about this a lot in the book. It’s like I work with guys and they’re fighting with their soon to be ex-wife about their nitpicking this.
And I’m like, dude, you’re going to enter your next relationship with that same attitude. You’ll have that little honeymoon phase, and then you’re going to fall right back in. So that’s really how it evolved. I evolved with it. And it’s been a blessing for me.
And I’ve really toned back my face of the organization and I’m really trying to push it out. And if there are any veterans out there, I’m actively looking for veterans to come join the organization. We have some funding to hire some veterans to take this thing to the next level.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:46
So it started off with the wristbands and then events. But you do have some online things now. Can you talk about what’s available as far as resources go now?
Phil Randazzo: 30:57
Yeah. So we have a guy named Steve Blank who not a lot of people know who Steve Blank is. He was an Air Force veteran. Never, never went to college. But he’s taken six companies public in Silicon Valley.
If you look him up, he’s worth between 2 and 4 billion. He teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford. And so he gave us his content. So we have on our lives. All these are free resources.
You could learn from Steve Plank. Entrepreneurship. Right. You can. Let’s see here.
All those different things you can look at resources become a member, access aid online. We have Charlie Hoehn who was a brilliant, brilliant author speaker, worked for Tim Ferriss for I think almost four years. And he created a class on how to land a six figure job, and he teaches how to create showcases. There you go right there. Ian Altman.
Do you know Ian?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:01
I’ve met him.
Phil Randazzo: 32:02
He’s amazing. And he teaches interviewing and all these type of things. he is. If you just watch that class in Charlie’s class, you’re going to create opportunities that you’ve never seen before. We have some finance classes.
We have just some great content on there. It’s all free to military, to veterans, to military spouses. And I want to give a shout out to military spouses because they go through a lot. Some of them supporting, you know their veteran through this whole process. So yeah, great, great resource out there for everyone to check out.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:44
This is great. And you know Phil this is really intricate. How do you how does this get funded. Like how does it keep going. And you know there’s a lot of moving pieces and resources.
I know your people are, you know, flying to different events and the online stuff. How do you fund and how can people help out? About?
Phil Randazzo: 33:06
Yeah. Well, we definitely accept donations. So the first 15 years of this organization, I solely funded it myself. My wife and I did. We’ve never taken a salary from this.
Nothing. And then Dan Sullivan, who you probably know from strategic coach, I was a strategic coach, and he tapped me on his shoulder one day and said, hey, we would like to name you as the game changer of the year. And that comes with the donation. So they did an event and that was our first ever donation. Jeremy was from Dan Sullivan, very generous, $150,000 donation.
Then we had one of Tony Robbins companies advisors, Excel, make a similar donation. And then we had the founder of Sam Adams, Jim Cook, who spoke for us, and he made a donation like incredible. He spoke with John Ruhlin at that event, which we talked a little bit about John Ruhlin before we got on here, who’s an incredible individual. And then we’ve had some just random people, some civilians that I’ve kind of worked with and coached that have made some nice, generous donations to help support. But yeah, we’re very skinny organization.
If you look at our nine 90s, we post all of our tax returns on the website. It’s skinny. So I have some day jobs that fund it as well cover all the overhead. So yeah any support would be would be great. You know from your audience.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 34:24
What was your business before that you were able to fund this huge endeavor?
Phil Randazzo: 34:31
Yeah. Well I’m still in some of them. So I have a couple of day jobs. So I very fortunate. Moved to Vegas in 1992.
I bought some land, so I’ve done a little bit of office development. I had a medical billing company from 2001 to 2004. I sold that. That’s where I wrote a big check to the foundation. I wanted to kind of direct that.
And then I have a health insurance employee benefits company. I have a little bit of real estate. I have a little coaching program called Clarity Council that I love doing. It’s kind of a community where people can be vulnerable. And so I’m trying to I have too many chess pieces on my board right now.
Jeremy. So have you ever seen The Queen’s Gambit?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 35:19
No.
Phil Randazzo: 35:20
Okay, so it’s this Netflix show, like, like 400 million people saw it. It came out, and she’s this prodigy. And sometimes I feel like I’m playing Chess against her and she’s just toying with me. She’s not beating me in three moves. She’s making me suffer for hours because I have way too many chess pieces on my board, and I have nowhere to move because I got these pawns and I.
So every quarter I have a process through Clarity Council and I we do it. The military is we clear our chess board and we go, okay, if I put this piece on my chessboard, what does it do to my calendar? What does it do to my health? What does it do to my relationships? Right.
It’s like Clay Baer’s bear’s perfect calendar. Who? He’s helped me on this. And I think it’s. I think we’re spending a lot of time on things that are not serving us, that are annoying and frustrating, and it’s kind of Joe Polish’s elf business.
You can correct me if I’m wrong on this. It’s easy, lucrative, and fun. I have a lot of businesses that are not easy, lucrative, and fun, so I need to learn.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:27
How did you get into commercial real estate?
Phil Randazzo: 36:31
Ray moved to Vegas, was paying rent for my one of my day job companies and this land. I met somebody and this land opened up here. I had no money back in the 90s. You could get credit cards, you know, they would give you offers to, like, change your balances, right, for 0%. And I literally got $211,000 of credit.
That was back when the credit agencies didn’t. And I took down this piece of land that I’m still at right now and bought my first piece of land, sold part of it to fund it, put up a building. And that was my first project, and we opened that in 99. And then I’ve had some projects along the way. Some have been good and some haven’t been good.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:13
I’m going to pull this up. Is this the site fill for Clarity Council?
Phil Randazzo: 37:17
Yeah yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:18
Clarity Council come right here. So talk about this for a second. There’s a teen program. There’s a regular program.
Phil Randazzo: 37:25
Yeah. So I started this because you know I talked about, you know, how we always go to these, you know, Jason Goddard’s mastermind talks, and we’re with all these incredible individuals, and he’s got it so beautifully laid out and strategic coach and all these things. Doctor Joe, and then we come back to our local community, and we don’t have that connection and support. And I believe that the cure for addiction could be any addiction. It could be alcohol, it could be drugs, it could be porn, it could be any of those things is community.
And so what I miss when I came back home, I missed that local community. So city council, what we do is we connect four times a year in person, not in an office, typically out in nature and really connect. And we do a community service project. We have meals together like we have that we have that deep connection. And then what I learned on the teen program, I’ve worked with well over a thousand teens.
Jeremy, Jeremy is that all these kids are just trying to be seen, heard and held these teens. And so talking to them through and my kids are all now in their 30s talking to these teens from a relatable standpoint. And I’m not their dad. Right. Like when my dad told me something, I didn’t want to do it, you know, so and really and really understanding where they’re at and what their what the reality is, and I would suggest this to anyone listening to this is, you know, I gained the trust for these teams, usually for a couple days or a three hour workshop.
And at the end of the workshop, I’ll, I’ll hand an index card to them and I’ll say, hey, listen, if you had the courage to tell your parents something, what would you tell them? Write it on this card. Don’t put your name on it. Put it in this box. I’ll read it and that’ll be the end of it.
And, Jeremy, I’m in tears when I read these things. Like. Mom, dad, don’t tell me I’m beautiful. I, you know, football is your sport. Your dream.
Not my dream. I don’t want to go to college. I want to go to beauty school. Like, can you just please listen to me? Right?
Like, there’s. There’s some pain, deep pain in that. And then I. I’ll casually talk to the parents in general about the kids. Don’t the kids just want to be listened to, not told what to do all the time?
And there’s some safety issues. I’m not telling parents not to keep them safe. But so that’s really how Clarity Council came to be is have at a local level had that right. Like you’re in Chicago you got probably got some great connections in Chicago. But you meet people all over the country.
I mean, I looked at all your podcasts. I’m like, wow. Like it’s a it’s an impressive list. And I’m sure you talked to them. But you know, that connection locally I think is really important.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 40:21
Yeah, I mean I like that exercise regardless. I mean, I think I’ll see how my kids take to that. I don’t, you know, maybe I will say maybe don’t I won’t read it. But if they’re okay with it. But I love that exercise of just write something down that you wish we should, you know, you would tell us and you know, you don’t have to share it or you can share it either way.
You know, I love that.
Phil Randazzo: 40:47
And I’ve done that exercise with adults too. And I’ve read them and I’m like reading these things like, oh my gosh, I’m not faithful to you. You should leave me, right? Like, there’s some pretty scary things that we’re that we’re just keeping and we’re holding into us. And it’s like, and you know this from the chiropractic standpoint and you understand the body better than, than most.
It’s like when we’re holding these things in, they can cause disease in our body.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 41:17
Jim Shields comes to mind when you talk about these things. Talk about Jim. I think he’s spoken also.
Phil Randazzo: 41:23
Oh, a number of times.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 41:24
Yeah.
Phil Randazzo: 41:25
Yeah, he has a great process. I’ll get it to you for the show notes of, you know, parents. So, you know, kids come home from their day. It’s like, oh how was your day. Fine.
Like they’re not going to right explain anything more than they have to. And he has these great three questions. I’ll track it down. That’s just beautiful. Where it’s not a yes or no answer.
And Jim is really you know, he has he’s 18 summers. He has really done a phenomenal job. And he’s just a good human. He’s just a really good human.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 41:56
Talk about Missy. I don’t know if you talked about Missy yet.
Phil Randazzo: 41:59
Yeah. So during Covid, we had to pivot online. And so we were doing these three-week cohorts every month. And we talked about three areas, right. Relationships, wellness and finances.
Right. And all of those categories you can pretty much put anything in there. And this girl Missy, just kept showing up month after month, but she never had her camera on. And I finally like the third month. I’m like, hey, Missy, you know, we’d love to see you, right?
Unless there’s something that, you know, we couldn’t. She put her camera on. She literally was in Afghanistan for 11 months, had a nine-year-old came back during Covid. Her transition was a handshake with gloves on and a mask and a flag and said, thank you for your service after 22 years. And she had no community and no connection.
And she was very suicidal. And she’s written public testimonials on this. She ended up coming to, I think, seven in a row. I ended up she ended up being in a volunteer, and she literally sent me a text message one day, Jeremy. And she goes, I just want to let you know that yesterday was the first day I didn’t think about ending my life after all these years.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I called her and she goes, I literally forgot yesterday. And it wasn’t because of us. It was because she had some community. She had some connection. She heard from others that she wasn’t alone.
Right. And that she could create anything she wanted. Like, I love I love what you guys are doing about helping people with podcasts because some people are like, oh, I just need to get a mic. And like, there’s so many other things around that. And I believe that whoever you believe in God, Buddha, Muhammad doesn’t matter, Earth.
God wants you to share your gifts. Even if nobody hears it, nobody reads it. So a podcast is a beautiful way just to put it out there, just to get it out there and you never know who you’re going to see. I remember we showed up to a Fort Benning event. We were told 800 people, the theater was packed.
We had 100 show up. And for me, I have what’s called the I triangle. I have a big fear of failing. I have a big fear of being mischaracterized, and I have a big fear of not being liked. And those were all running unconsciously.
So when I walk into this room and I have Grant Cardone and Philip McKiernan and all these, you know, Clay Baer and no one’s in the audience, I’m like, oh my gosh. And what I didn’t realize at that moment was when I it was I thought it was a reflection on me, is that I didn’t see who was there. I was seeing who wasn’t there. And I think in life we do that all the time. And everyone has to remember whether you’re helping a company market, a great product or share, doesn’t matter what it is.
It’s not just that individual. When that individual hears something, realizes that it could be a cure. If they integrate, then they go home and they have a ten foot radius at home. Jeremy. And they can be that light at home.
Then they go to their office, then they’re that light. Then they go to their church or their community, and they’re that light all of a sudden. Now it’s not just that one person. It’s generational.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 45:30
It’s a ripple effect.
Phil Randazzo: 45:31
It’s a huge ripple effect. And so that was a big right because it was my ego, you know, and I got guys like, you know Grant Cardone. Grant Cardone when I bought him a ticket on Delta. Now he’s got some whatever, $65 million plane. And he’s like, hey, dude, I thought there was gonna be 800 people.
I’m like, that’s what I was told, right? Like, and he was just he wanted to reach more people. Right. We all want to reach more people. So I don’t know if I answered your question, but Missy is such a beautiful human.
And. Yeah, it’s been a gift.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 46:07
Does it impact, I mean, the community and just being in that community and the learning that helping that one person really ripples across many people. You know, you mentioned podcasting. You did a great podcast with Joe De Sena. Talk about maybe his influence a little bit and what you learned from Joe.
Phil Randazzo: 46:27
Yeah, yeah. Joe De Sena is the founder of Spartan Race. He came and spoke a couple of different times. He asked me to be on his podcast, which included a workout. And when you workout with Joe, there ain’t no tapping out.
And so that was a little brutal. I think I’m still sore from that podcast from a handful of years ago. You know, he is just someone who made a ton of money in the finance world. And I was like, you know what? I’m going to start this movement.
He was one of the first to start this movement with these obstacle races and everything. And he is just a great example of somebody who is like, you know what? I’m just going to go for it. And we can always go back. And even Tim Ferriss, when he spoke, he talks about you can always get back to where you were.
And he did a Ted talk on it, and he talked about it at the military base. We can always come back to where we were, but the regret of not doing it in waiting, because we had this fear that no one’s going to like it or people are going to think differently of us. Right. And their friends are going to say, what are you doing? That?
And their parents are going to be like, well, that’s not safe, right? You might not make any money. So we still have these. We’re talking about conversations ahead. We still have these conversations in our head that we could fail.
And how is that going to reflect on us? Listen, no one cares. Another big revelation I had, Jeremy, was I thought people were talking about me, right? I felt like I was so important and I had this realization is that no one gives a crap about me. Like, you’re not going to be thinking about me tomorrow.
You’re going to be like, oh my gosh, I got another. Like, I got this thing and I got my family and you know, my digestion’s off. I didn’t, you know, I have a good bowel movement this morning. Like you’re going to be talking, thinking about everything else but me.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 48:13
I surprisingly think of my bowel movements more than, more than typical. So yeah, I get that.
Phil Randazzo: 48:18
Yeah. Like we all have these. We’re concerned about one of our kids. We’re concerned about our grandkids. We’re concerned about what’s happening in the global thing. It’s like, you know, we have countries all war and like all these different things. And it’s like we all have our own stuff we’re worried about. And when I came to, the realization is that I’m not that important, and my identity was based on what people thought of me.
It was. It was like such a relief. I literally think I lost a whole bunch of weight and, like, it was just a relief to not have to perform all the time. Because when you’re performing all the time, Jeremy, it’s exhausting.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 48:55
So for people watching the video, talk about what’s over your right shoulder there in the picture.
Phil Randazzo: 49:02
Yeah. So I started my organization in 2003, and in 2004, an NFL football player named Pat Tillman left the NFL. He was in Phoenix, flew to Denver to join the military so no one would knew him. And his brother Kevin joined the military became Army Rangers. He served one tour in Iraq.
A combat tour was in Fort Lewis, Seattle. His coach, who was his who was his Cardinals coach, was up there and said, hey, Pat, you served honorably. We can get you an honorable discharge. Come play with me at the Seahawks Hawks and you can leave. He’s like, I made a three year commitment to the Rangers and I’m going to stick with that.
That plus, six weeks later, he was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that story or not. And when I heard that, I literally flew up to the to San Jose to be at his memorial service, and it blew me away. My foundation was about a year old, a little over a year old. How someone gives up a wife to go serve the country for three years.
An NFL career million. He was a he was offered 1.2 million a year. He says, I’ll receive that right at some point in the future. Didn’t watch TV as a kid. Was wicked smart.
Graduated in three and a half years. And so he’s been kind of an idol. Not an idol, but a role model for me because he didn’t tell anybody what he was doing. He just did it. And everyone’s like, Pat, you did whatever it was.
And so he is someone that I still think about daily.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 50:46
Yeah. Actually, in your podcast, Joe Disanto, he talks about that where he didn’t let his kids get a medal at the end of one of the Spartan races. He’s like, no, you showing up and doing it’s good enough. You don’t need that.
Phil Randazzo: 51:00
So he’s a little hard. He’s.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 51:01
Hard. He’s hardcore. Exactly.
!no name provided!: 51:04
He’s hardcore. I can imagine his little kids like I just.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 51:10
First of all, I have one last question. I just want to thank you for sharing the stories and the journey and the lessons you’ve learned. It’s been really valuable. My last question and I want to encourage people to check out American Dream U. That’s the letter U that will be linked in the in the notes as well.
My last question is just you’ve heard you’ve had some amazing speakers. I know you’ve been in a lot of different mastermind groups. I’m curious, some of your favorite resources, whether it’s your favorite books, podcasts, whatever it is, I’d love to hear some of your favorite. I mean some, a lot of the speakers you have are authors like Charlie Hoehn, Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferriss. What are some of your favorite books that you’ve enjoyed throughout the years?
Phil Randazzo: 52:00
Yeah, so Charlie Hones Play it Away. Book is amazing, right? He cured a lot of his anxiety through playing. One of my all-time favorite books, Jeremy, is a book called Awareness by Anthony de Mello. Have you heard of that book?
No. Oh it is. He was a he was a priest for 19 years. Left the left the Catholic Church from India. He is.
I got introduced to him in 1992. Tim Ferriss talks about that as one of his top five books. So when I met Tim and had a nice dinner with Tim, I asked him about that book and he’s like, that’s his go-to. I’ve listened to that book no less than probably 50 times. It’s an easy short read.
Highly, highly recommend it. You know, Ryan’s Obstacle is The Way is, is obviously a classic. And Ryan is one of the most well-read, intelligent young guys I’ve ever met. Like, I met Ryan when he was in his probably late, late 20s.
You know, Greg Mcewen’s book Essentialism has been has been a big one for me as well. Just phenomenal. You know, I’ve learned from I’ve learned from all of them. Right. Jordan Harbinger is just wicked smart in such a genuine human being.
Just amazing. So, you know, again, I have so many different books. You know, Doctor Joe’s book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, Doctor Joe Dispenza. Another guy named Doctor Bruce Lipton, who I got to spend some time with. He has a book called The Honeymoon Effect.
That is another phenomenal book that some people may not be totally aware of.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 53:43
You’ve got a couple books out. I think I’ve heard that him before. Bruce Lipton.
Phil Randazzo: 53:49
Yeah. Biology of Belief was his first one that put him on the map. The whole epigenetics. You know, my suggestion when it comes to book, Jeremy, is find something that you connect with and don’t pick up the next audio book or the next book, including mine, until you’ve really integrated what you’ve learned from that book. Does that make sense?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 54:12
100% yeah. You have some great authors on here. Keith Ferrazzi books I enjoyed as well. Never Eat Alone. That’s a fantastic one.
Dorie Clark has a bunch of books as well. Yeah, a number of authors here.
Phil Randazzo: 54:26
Yeah, there’s they’re all so good. And I hate to pick out one or 1 or 2. but they’re just, you know, Joey Coleman has got a great business book. They’re just they’re all just really amazing individuals. And I’ve just been really, really lucky to neck with these people.
And we need to update this because we have a lot of people that were missing on here. But yeah, that’s probably my biggest thing, Jeremy was I was jumping from one thing to another and just enjoying it and never learning and never integrating what it was. And so a big part of my book in our programs is you got to integrate what you’ve learned, and it all comes to be awareness. Because last thing I’ll, I’ll close with, unless you have any questions, is we’re attached to things, we’re attached to people. We’re attached to outcomes.
Right. We’re when we hit a target. Right. And then we’re just so excited we hit this thing. Like I look back at my journals from the 90s and the 2000, like once I make 8000 a month and only have to work 40 hours a week and pay off my Subaru, I’ll be so happy.
And then I have another goal. I keep moving the targets. And what happened was I kept pushing my happiness out to the future, and I realized I’m never in my future. Alan Watts talks a lot, a lot about that. He’s one of my other amazing teachers who’s been gone for a bit.
And so just make that decision, right. We all have circumstances we have to deal with, but we have them.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 56:03
And Dan Sullivan talks about in The Gap and The Gain. I think several of his books talk about that that concept as well.
Phil Randazzo: 56:09
Yeah. And Doctor Joe talks about a different gap. It’s like the way we feel is down here, you know, not worthy, not needed a burden. And then we have to act a certain way in front of other people to make ourselves look better. And in between that is a whole bunch of things we do for pleasure.
We go out and buy something. We take a trip, we go to a mastermind. We do all this kind of stuff to try to make us feel better, and we just keep falling back to the way we. We feel it’s our default.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 56:39
Yeah. Phil. Thank you. Thanks for sharing these lessons. Amazing stories.
I know I took a lot of notes here, probably like ten pages here. So hopefully, you know, just take if people are listening, just take one thing that you can go, like Phil said and integrate and people can check out American Dream U and we’ll see everyone next time. Phil, thanks so much.
Phil Randazzo: 57:06
Hey appreciate you Jeremy.
