PTP:051. Doug Vermeeren, “Personal Power Mastery”

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 different ways, and all this type of thing, in such a way that we do, as you say veggie out, and for the TV, or we get zoned into our cell phones, I’ll give you one quick example. My wife works in the downtown of a big city of Indianapolis for a law firm, she takes a walk just about every day in the middle of the day. And she has had about four occasions in the last several months, where people are on their cell phone, or riding a scooter have either hitter or almost hitter, you know, by just not paying attention. So they’re zoned out that way. So just use it as an example of how people can be can be zoned up, what you’re talking about, though, is how we make these choices to not do that, that we add choices to be engaged in our mental health in our in our inner thoughts. And you talk about this in your book, The Power of thoughts, the power of choice, the power of belief, say a word about all those things, and how that inner life then has an impact on the application of how we react to others in our success in life.

Doug Vermeeran 16:54
Sure, well, my favorite one that you just spoke about, I think is the foundation of all things. And that’s the power of choice. choices, really the beginning of everything. In fact, one of my favorite interviews that I did in, you know, compiling the book, actually, this was long after I’d done the success interviews, this was, you know, someone who was maybe not considered in, you know, worldly measurement to be the most successful person in the world. But I thought it was fascinating this interview, let me maybe give you this context, what I was looking to do is I was looking to understand how human beings can decide to change quickly to change their mindset to change their, their perspective and their paradigm on things. And so I looked at all the different occupations and individuals that I could see that were involved in making changes quickly. Inevitably, I ran into the idea that someone who works on a suicide hotline is definitely somebody who helps people change quickly, they receive telephone calls, as you can imagine, people that want to take their life, they’re in the greatest state of despair. They’re in the greatest state of discouragement. And in some cases, these people even have a gun in their hand while they’re calling. So that person who, you know, facilitates that kind of a change. There’s some pressure there. So I wanted to find out what that was all about. So I called and met with a lady who actually trains the suicide hotline operators. And there was something very fascinating that I learned that I again, I had no expectation, I didn’t know what was going to be taught, as I asked her, okay, so how do you train these people? Like, what are some of the key lessons? Well, she said, one of the first things that we teach them is that you cannot say to the person who calls don’t kill yourself. And I was like, What? Like, that’s the first thing that I would say I would somebody calls in there wanting to take their life, I’d say don’t do it. But she said, No, you can’t do that. You can’t do that. And I said, Well, why help me understand, like, to me, that just doesn’t make any sense. And she says, well, because by saying that, you’re taking away their choice, their ability to choose. And as this lady explained, she said, you know, basically, that’s why these people feel in that state of depression and discouragement and despair anyways, as they feel like they don’t have a choice, this is the only choice, I have to take my life. There’s no other way out of this situation. So she said, what we do is we help them see what other choices are available, and including that one. And we help them see consequence. And she shared and I talked about this in the book that as they begin to see that they’ve got choices coming back into their life, the more choices they have, the more power they recognize that they have. And so this is one of the things I think is interesting is that if a person is in despair, and they now recognize that they’ve got four choices, instead of one their power has multiplied if they recognize they’ve got 10 choices, instead of one, their power has multiplied. And so over the years, as we’ve taught this to our students, and we work with people around the globe, like I’ve seen people, you know, kind of like you and I talked about earlier that have massive debt that have divorce that’s either looming, or it’s just happened or someone that died, or maybe even a terminal illness, or people that are facing foreclosure or bankruptcy, or the loss of a business or a lawsuit or any other kind of thing that would make a person feel hopeless or in despair, the exercise that we’ve done is we’ve gone through with them to help them see what other choices are available. And I’m not saying they’ve even got to take any one of those choices, they don’t have to pursue that path. But just the fact that they know that it’s there gives them power back. And the funny thing is, is that the more they get skilled at recognizing choices, the more they decide they they’re able to determine that in any circumstance, there’s a way out. And then they begin to get more creative to find that way out. And it is amazing things have happened, we’ve seen some incredible things happen.

Brad Miller 20:26
That goes back to some of our conversation about clarity and about direction about focus. If you have no direction, if you have no clarity, if you have no focus, then things become very black and white, you know, they are just what you gave their got it or you don’t. And we see others who seem like they got it all together, and we don’t. And so we see that’s when suicide becomes an option other than other extreme examples. So you’re talking about the inner life here and the choices that we make, and the things that we do to help influence our process of being successful. But let’s talk for a minute, Doug, about that which goes beyond the afterlife. I’m thinking about any connection that we might have to a source, a spiritual force greater than ourselves, we can call it God, we can call it something else. But is what role if any, do you believe that a connection to a power greater than ourselves plays in helping us make this transformation what you call personal power mastery?

Doug Vermeeran 21:25
Well, I think that that transformation is essential, and I have no challenge calling him God. I guess one of the interesting things that I also found is I did this research. Now again, this was over the period of a decade. So we’ve had a lot of time to think about this and distill it into kind of a Formula One of the one of the things that I have done over the years, and it might you I’ve even done it since like beyond the success interviews, even with our own students, I’ve really had the ability to ask people, what is it that you want, in terms of not just a goal, but really, what are your highest values? And what is it that you’re really seeking in life? And what is it that before you and I found that it really actually fits into five categories. And the first category will call that self connection to self. And that’s where a person is seeking out to have greater self worth, self confidence, self fulfillment, and so forth. And that’s really a foundational power as well. If you think about even the title of the book, personal power mastery, until you take it all personally, you really can’t affect anything outside of yourself, right? Like it all begins internally. In fact, I’d even say this spark to spirituality is even preceded by yourself, you can’t love God until you love yourself, you can’t love your neighbor until you love yourself. And we hear that in the Bible, of course, love thy neighbor as thyself. Well, it starts with you. And so that’s the first principle and there are many, you know, goals that people set that can definitely fall very clearly into that. The second one is spirituality. And I believe that once you’re good with yourself, and you believe that you’re a value, then you can start seeing that you have a loving Heavenly Father, and to you universe, it’s there to support you. And that you will now operate in an ethical and moral way towards others, and what you know, you will do so in other words, and I don’t know how many of your audience are actually biblical, or biblically inclined, but one of my favorite scriptures is where James talks about what is sin, He says, sin is to know what is right and not do it. Basically,

Brad Miller 23:22
again, the bias towards action again, but based on what you know,

Doug Vermeeran 23:27
so so that’s kind of what that area of spirituality covers. And a lot of people do set that as a goal to improve their spirituality, which I think is an important outcome that we need to build. The next kind of house was a spokes on the wheel that I consider is health, our health and a lot of people set goals when it comes to the health category. The most obvious ones are obviously you know, improve your physical fitness, eat better quit smoking, these kinds of things. But we also have had a lot of people, like I said, through our programs that have experienced a terminal illness or can cancer, other things. And health is a massive one. But here’s the deal is, I believe self and spirituality proceed it because you cannot have a proper health, or balanced health until you are good with yourself and good with your Creator. And then beyond that, once your health is in shape, the next kind of spokes on the wheel would be relationships. And that doesn’t just mean your relationships with a spouse or significant other or your children. That can also mean all the relationships that you encounter, in your business, in your community and in your life. And the interesting thing is, is when most people are setting goals, they go right to this last one that I’m about to mention. But what they don’t realize is that everything prior to this last one needs to be in order for you to get the last one. And that’s abundance. Okay, so abundance is, you know, not only money, but it can be wealth of time, wealth of opportunity, and so many other things that, you know, make us feel as though there’s not scarcity. Well, here’s the deal is all abundance comes through how we handle our relationships with other people, you want to have one money that requires a transaction that you must undertake with someone else. So you must be providing a high level of value. And also do it for enough people that you can be compensated for it. So if we look at that we’ll starting with self, to spirituality, to help to relationships and abundance, if you try and do a shortcut any way across. So if you go from self, to straight across to money, you’ll fail, you’ll have challenges that will be there. If you try and go straight across from self to just gain, you know, relationships right away, you’re going to have a hard problem. In fact, we’ve all also seen this like it among our students, we fix this as a problem where, you know, a couple has tried to be someone they’re not to gain the love and affection from someone that they admire. Well, then five years into the marriage, they recognize that they weren’t really authentic to who they were, and it falls apart. So it’s so important that all those husband say spokes on the wheel, receive attention, and are important to you that you develop yourself along the way. And again, I guess I need to share this is a caveat, we don’t want people to think that they’ve got to be perfect, right? Because that none of us are none of us are ever going to be perfect. But if we strive with a very clear vision of what we would like to be, it’s not so much that we fake it till we make it, it’s that we are assembling the pieces of who we’re going to be. And we are intentionally becoming who we want to be. And I don’t like that idea of fake it till you make it, it doesn’t work anyways. Where it works is when we have sincerely committed to who we’re going to be. And we begin to take those deliberate actions that our brain actually believes we are on the course and on the path. When we try and tell herself or something we’re not we’re ultimately going to fail. When we invest our efforts and our time to become that person. Our brain believes we are on the way and it’s okay for us to act that way. So it’s just it’s really important. And I believe, kind of back to your question, that that whole spiritual underlying is a massive level of importance, we can’t believe one thing and live another and expect this to feel fulfilled at the end.

Brad Miller 26:58
Yeah. And fulfillment, I believe is where it’s because I believe that there’s just a massive issue with a sense of lack of fulfillment, people who are just empty are lost and seeking direction and fulfillment. And you mentioned two things there. Well, first of all, when you talk about self and spirit, relationship, and health and abundance, they are all integrated. And that’s where this is what we’re talking about integration and how you to use the spokes of the wheel analogy. You know, if you have any spoke missing, your wheel just simply is not as strong or key, a flat flat tire will have equity to the wheel. That’s right, the integrity is gone, you’re going to have weakened, something’s going to go wrong. Somewhere, you have to have at least the integration here. But here’s where I want to go with you right now, Doug, you mentioned two things a second ago, you invent you said intention. And you also said investment. This has this, this goes to like to say a word about some what are some practical disciplines or actions that we can take to help do this integration to help do this things that you’ve mentioned, you know, you mentioned about these five, the five values here. But you also talk about power of deliberate activity and a pump, the power of measurement of these type of things, say a word about the disciplines that we need in order to have this personal power mastery that you talk about?

Doug Vermeeran 28:10
Well, I think, what’s, what’s the best way to approach this question? Because we’ve also got patterns that we do. And I think in our life, some of our patterns are, by default, you know, we call them ritual tendencies, from a psycho psychology point of view. But the patterns that we really engage in are the ones that really affect our lives. So in other words, they’re going to be occasional big events that we take action with, that will be important. But the truth of the matter is, is most people don’t really how should they do those big actions enough to make a difference, we fall into the patterns of our life. And so we need to recognize that those patterns are really ultimately what dictate our performance. And it’s important that we, we take notice of those patterns, and that we spend some effort, like you said, with measurement, and recognizing where these patterns are getting us now, one principle that I think is probably very powerful to teach, that I think would be useful for your listeners to understand is something we teach called the continuum of willingness. Now, let me maybe explain it this way. So imagine a line that goes, you know, forever in one direction, at the at the close end of us, it’s the beginning. And I’m going to call it the negative part of the continuum of willingness. at this end, we’ve all met people who you ask them to do something, and they do it grudgingly and they hold back and they kind of fight you and they need, you know, sometimes even threats to get started, they need, you know, if you don’t do this, you’re going to get fired, or you know, or to a child, you don’t do this, you’re going to get your timeout or whatever it could be. So at this at this negative end of the continuum of willingness, are people who resist any kind of activity that they know that they need to take the crazy thing with this is at this negative end of the willingness continuum. That’s where all the scarcity is there’s fear there, there’s doubt there’s challenge, there’s less money that’s made, there’s less opportunity, there’s less freedom, these are the people that are victims that always feel like they’re having to, how should we say repair rather than prevent, they’re always in, you know, a mode where they’re basically escaping by the skin of their teeth situation, or maybe they’re not, and they’re winding up either hurt or in jail or in prison. That’s the extreme. Okay, now, not all of us are like that. But if you go up the continuum a little further, there are those that are still you know, they get to work, you ask them to do something and they grumble about it. You ask them to, you know, let’s say husband wife relationship, the wife says, Can you please honey sweep the floor? And he grumbles about it? Or can you please do you know, and and that’s again, near that negative end, there are not many rewards that are at that end. And maybe just even before we get to the other end of the spectrum, let me just say this, the universe is an echo chamber. And if we approach it with hesitation, or with grudging this or with challenge, the universe gives us everything back the same way. So how we approach it is that way,

Brad Miller 30:57
get to the investment piece you talked about earlier, you have jack, you get what you invest,

Doug Vermeeran 31:02
correct. So here on the other end of the continuum, and a very far extreme is where we see our top achievers and those that are now experiencing abundance at high levels, those that are experiencing opportunity, and love and positive relationships and all of these other things. Well, they’re created by someone who is obviously delightfully engaged, more willing. And in fact, there are some interesting things to notice, if we go to that far extreme, there are people that when you give them a job to do, they don’t complain, they get it done. And when it’s returned, for you to, you know, give the report on it, it’s always done. Well, it’s done in a pristine condition, you go into these people’s houses, it’s always clean, everything’s in order, and it looks good. Now, there are steps even beyond that there are people that are even more skilled than just those that willingly and delightfully do what they say they’re going to do. Beyond that, you’ve got people that you’ve heard the saying, go the extra mile. So even when everyone else is quit, these people who’ve done a delightful job and a wonderful job, and everything’s in order, they keep going, and they go beyond what is expected. Well, as you can imagine, then rewards start to really flow. You know, it’s interesting, I had a conversation with someone one time who said, I’d like to get a promotion at work, what’s the quickest way to do it. And I said, start solving problems that you didn’t create, start solving problems that are not yours. Because when you demonstrate the capacity that you can solve other people’s problems, too, well, you can’t, you’ll never stay where you’re at, you’ll always now move to a bigger position either as a manager or a leader,

Brad Miller 32:26
you will you will be noticed when you go beyond,

Doug Vermeeran 32:29
you will be noticed. Now there is a stage even beyond just going the extra mile. And this is one that we often don’t think about. But when I went out and met with the top achievers, this is where these people reside, this is where they were and the biggest rewards are there. Now the crazy thing is, is this isn’t as big of a shift from going the extra mile as you think just a little bit further. And I call this the pre extra mile. What that means is that it’s now these people anticipate needs. So in other words, it’s one thing to be told what to do, and then do more than you’re expecting acted, it’s even a greater thing to anticipate the needs that you’ve never been asked to do. And so let me just give it something cool here, your your audience I, you know, if you’ve got some people out there that are married to have a husband or wife just tried this, today’s an experiment, okay, I promise you, you’ll be delighted. Some of you know that there’s certain things around the house that need to get done. In fact, in my own home, now, we have someone that helps out here. But I know that when I will do something that my wife needs done without asking. So for example, I’ll maybe pull out a mop and I’ll do some mopping around the house or I’ll take care of some laundry that I see that’s ready to get done. And I don’t ask for her permission to do it. I just go ahead and I pre extra mile. In other words, I do it and I anticipate it before it’s there. The rewards are enormous. And this is what I’m saying is that that’s the extreme on the willingness continuum, that the more that we anticipate needs before the Express, the greater the value and the rewards we’re going to experience on the end.

Brad Miller 33:55
That’s what when you do things like yeah, that’s why people sometimes use least in my life, will use it terminology like that scored big points with me, or they’ve done a good one for me, or you’ve done the dummy a solid, those type of phraseology is indicate that you have gone beyond what the expectation is.

Doug Vermeeran 34:13
Absolutely. That’s true. Definitely. So yeah, I’d encourage people to give that a try. I think that’d be great. Yeah,

Brad Miller 34:17
that’s a great exercise there. Well, one of the things that we like to say here on our the teaching that we do, Doug, is that, that everyone has a god given promise, life of peace, prosperity and purpose, that we have promised to us that we just have to find ways and a pathway to find that you’ve given us some good direction and some good insights of how to do that. But I would like to ask you, how do you? What brings you peace?

Doug Vermeeran 34:45
Wow, that’s a great question. You know, like I said, I think it’s making choices where the consequences are in line with my values. And I think probably my biggest values. Funny enough on that wheel, if we were looking at it, my biggest you are probably in the relationship category, I actually am now somewhat new grandfather. So I’ve got two grandbabies. And

Brad Miller 35:07
I’m at the club to got one who’s almost a year old. my granddaughter’s almost a year old. Yes.

Doug Vermeeran 35:12
For me, it’s it’s kind of as I’ve sort of matured, my spiritual maturity, if you will, has let me see that that particular spoke on the wheel is the most valuable spoke. I know, there’s one after that called abundance, but it’s the relationships that are the real important part. For me, those are my values. That’s where my pieces, I guess, you know, we can say that, you know, peace comes from building and structuring your life in such a way where you can choose which wheel you want to spend the time with, that it’s difficult for people who maybe don’t have the abundance where they can’t choose. And that’s maybe the goal. But once you have the we’ll figure it out, you can choose which aspect of the wheel you’d like, how would you define prosperity, I think prosperity, you know, from a physical point of view, like meaning finances, I think one of the things that a lot of people miss out is they say that they want to have financial freedom. And that’s not really the one they want the one they want. Its financial abundance. Freedom is just the ability to, you know, meet your obligations. In fact, most people even get that idea and concept wrong, they think financial freedom is an emotional experience. If you say what is financial freedom look like to you, most people say it’s having time do what I want, when I want to have, you know, the ability to purchase, you know, the things that you want. But that’s not really financial freedom, financial freedom is actually a specific number. So if you think about how much you need every month for your mortgage, and your utilities, and so forth, you’re going to arrive at a specific number. And that’s financial freedom when you met that through passive income, financial abundance is the one you want the one that gives you the ability to kind of really now start living your dreams. Like if I’m just using example, let’s say you wanted that new Ferrari. Well, financial abundance, then is having a definition of how much money that costs to acquire that specific aspect. And so that’s financial prosperity as we see it. But prosperity in general, as a term, what I believe is to have an overflowing of all of those five spokes. So it’s not just the abundance of money, it’s now having in the self category, you’re going to have an overflowing feeling of self confidence and self worth, self fulfillment. in spirituality, you’re going to have an overflowing connection to things of the Spirit, you’re going to be living in harmony with what you believe, and the integrity is there, for your health, your prosperity is going to be that you will have, again, an overflowing connection and feeling about things going well in your health. Now, I’m not saying that you’re gonna have the perfect diet, and that you’re going to run a quarter mile every morning or whatever. But you’re going to feel good about where you’re at with that relationships, you’re going to feel like you’ve got the relationships that you want, you’re going to find that, you know, the relationships that are there are fulfilling, and that you’re adding value and that people feel fulfilled. And then I think the other thing that, you know we look at is, is that idea of abundance financially. I don’t think it needs to be a bazillion dollars in the bank account. I mean, we’ve done pretty well financially. But what I will tell you is, you know, if you think about how much a person spending in the day, there’s very few people now by the way, let’s just do some numbers. So you can get context of this to become a millionaire. It’s $2,739 a day, $114 an hour, $1 10 per minute. Now, let’s put it in perspective. How many people have technically spent $2,739 a day, like yesterday, today, tomorrow, we don’t. And so we don’t always need that million dollars to be satisfied or happy or feel abundant. In fact, there’s very few days in my life where I’ve even spent over $100. And so I think you just need to look at, again, where your satisfaction levels are. And prosperity is I believe, like I said, living and making choices that bring you peace with the consequences that accompany them. And and I know of a lot of people like In fact, it’s funny, I had a guy come to me the other day, he came to one of my seminars, and he said, I want to be a millionaire. And I said well, why? And he said, Why? Because I want to live on a beach. Well, you know what, as we started talking about, there’s a lot of beaches and beachfront property that is not a million dollars, and there’s a lot of like, maybe he can go and sell on braless on the beach. And and it’s not going to be a million dollars to do that. So a lot of times I think people just haven’t taken the time to really consider what it is they want and how it can be a

Brad Miller 39:14
process and integrated process. One more question here. What is your purpose?

Doug Vermeeran 39:18
We talked about this quite a bit. I think purpose purpose is kind of part of a three prong question. See, it’s not just about me. Number one, I think purpose and passion when people say what is your purpose and passion? Okay? passion can be things that you really enjoy about you write things that you love things that gets you fulfilled. But Warren Buffett once said, That’s that what you love about us your hobby that what others love about you can become your business. So I think my true purpose has to include other people than me. So my passion, my purpose, but now how does my purpose serve others. And if my purpose has value, and it can include others, I’ll find that my passion and my fulfillment will also exponentially grow. I think the problem most people why they’re unfulfilled is because their purpose and their passion only include them. And a lot of times because we Well, let’s put it this way, we live on this planet with other people. And we’re going to always be connected to other people in some capacity. And I also believe when we die, we’re also still going to be connected to other people. There’s no escaping it, you’re always be connected to other people. So the minute that you can shift from a selfish perspective to making sure that your passion and purpose can include other people, you’re going to find happiness. And I know for me, again, going back to this idea of being a grandpa, some of my greatest passion. And my entire purpose is in fact to see those little guys happy to see them succeed and to see them safe. And I think that the more that I see them happy and safe, I actually feel much more delighted about my own life. I feel like I’ve accomplished something. And so I think that you know, for my purpose that’s really it. How can I become a contributor in such a way that I’m blessed and others are blessed? And together we see room see that blessing, if you will. It’s been a it’s been an awesome pleasure to have you with us here today on pathway to promise here, Doug, what are you working on? Your book is personal power Master, but what are you working on there? Now? What’s next for you? And if people want to be connected with you, how can they do that? Yeah, well, what’s next is we’re actually working on another movie, I’ve done three of the top 10 personal development movies out there. With many of the top speakers from around the world. We’re doing another one right now on the power of thoughts called how thoughts become things, and that should be coming out probably about next year. But here’s the deal is if people want to stay connected to us, we’ve got a lot of free resources that we share. And the best place is we have several groups on Facebook that provide these. The best one is the personal power mastery group on Facebook, I post, they’re quite regular. And we share a lot of these strategies and ideas, videos and interviews with some of the top achievers. But for those of your audience that might be business owners, we actually have something called the entrepreneur Academy. And within the Academy, we teach people how to build success in business. Often, you know, we teach people even if they’re struggling under debt, with business or in their life, how to get over it. But in that group, I actually again bringing some of the top achievers from around the world. In fact, we just put up a video with Brian Smith, the founder of Ugg boots a couple of days ago. And so both of those are free resources. You can just get on a Facebook and like I said, personal power mastery and it’ll come right up or the entrepreneur Academy and it will also come right up but love to have you there

Brad Miller 42:28
was been a pleasure having you with us today the author of personal power mastery. Doug Vermeeran

Unknown Speaker 44:41
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