Leave Nothing To Chance

 

Achieving your dream takes more than just faith. You need to be in love with your dream, take massive action and give it your 100% commitment in order to manifest the things that will bring you to it. Starting in the industry in 1993, network marketing great, Joe Garcia strives to live by those words every day. He is a big believer that he (and you) can manifest anything you want in your life if you just commit to your dream enough to not let yourself be overcome by doubt. Joining John Solleder on the show, Joe tells us why commitment is the one among the 15 principles that stood out the most to him. He also shares how his adherence to that principle has brought him to where he is today. Listen in and be inspired by the success of a real, living legend.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Why Joe Garcia!

It is my privilege to introduce a living legend in the network marketing industry, a leader that is still leading after many years. Joe Garcia started in the industry in 1993, and is still leading. It’s been over 60 countries that he’s spoken in around the world. He’s mentored people that become successful in some cases, and in many cases, have found a way to make that extra money that they need to take care of their families. Joe, welcome to the show. Congratulations on an awesome career.

Thank you, John. I once heard that you have to be at least 60 to be called a legend. I’m nowhere near that yet.

Unfortunately, I am but you’ll get there. A little bit about your career, I know you started in 1993. I know you’ve been a top earner in your company now for many years. In those many years, what would you say is the greatest impact that you have had on people has been?

I always have been the leader that led by example in my life. In 1995, one of my mentors back then, Tom Hopkins, who was in my upline at the time, he called me up, “I love to come to your city. I see you’re exploding the business. I want to take your business next level. I want to do one of my famous bootcamps. All you have to do is fill the room.” I worked for 90 days, we set the event 90 days from that moment. I worked for 90 days that filled that room. We had over 2,000 people show up to that event. I’m in the back of the room and I’m thinking, “I’m going to be a millionaire overnight because of this event.”

I was impressed with the amount of people that showed up. He was impressed. He did an incredible job on the sales techniques. Tom was famous back then for his sale strategies. These were strategies that I used, all the basics of sales, all the closing, the puppy dog approach. After the event, I’m counting the dollars. I could see myself reach my dreams in network marketing. About three weeks later, the volume doesn’t go on as much as I expected. I give Tom a call and said, “Tom, you’re fantastic. You did all what you needed to do. Your tips and your training were top 1%. I’m using it, it’s working for me but nothing’s happening. Can you tell me why? Did I do something wrong?” He responded, “We planted some incredible seeds. You’re going to start seeing the results probably 90 days later.”

John, 90 days later, it didn’t happen. It was a defining moment in my life, and I realized that all those people that came to that event were primarily part-time people working in the business. They had everything in their hands to succeed, but what happened is when they went home, their self-image did not change. Their self-esteem did not change. All their habits that they were doing prior to that event did not change. That’s when I realized that instead of focusing on teaching people the basics, it’s about focusing on personal growth. I realized if you teach people how to grow their mind, they’ll figure out the rest. That’s when I started to pour my training, my philosophies into personal development, and I did it over and over again. I started seeing people grow into leaders because of my message, because of what I did personally to grow. On a scale of 1 to 10, when I got started, I was a minus-10.

Teach people how to grow their mind. They'll figure out the rest. Click To Tweet

That summer, I had a friend of mine who had been in the industry for a long time, and I looked up to him. We were on this cruise in Lake Ontario and he turned to me and said, “Joe, in all my years of network marketing, I’ve never seen anyone grow as much as you’ve grown.” I thought to myself, “I must have been horrible because I’m nowhere near where I want to be at.” That event was a great teaching principle for me and what I needed to focus to build a giant team. To answer your question, that message has paid for millions of times over around the world. Even with people that have left the business, I’m sure many of them have come back like, “Joe, you changed my life.” That event in 1999 changed my life. Even though I’m not working in the business, this is what it’s done for me.

You’ve changed a lot of lives. I’ve met a lot of your distributors around the world in my travels. You’ve done a great job inspiring people forward, so compliments again. I have my own little Tom Hopkins thing I’ll share with you. It was 1984, he was speaking in New Jersey, and I went to see him. I was shy, believe it or not, not now, it changed. Tom was coming into the men’s room. I’m six 6’3”, Tom’s maybe 5’5”. He’s coming out and I’m like, “Tom Hopkins. I’m here to hear this guy talk.” I started talking to him. He took his business card, and I’ll never forget this joke because Tom’s a great guy, as you know him a lot better than I do. He wrote on the back of his business card, “Do what you fear most.” I had told him I was afraid to talk to people. He said, “Do what you fear most.” He wrote it down and I stuck it in my wallet. I probably had that thing in here for twenty years. I’ve misplaced it now unfortunately. Tom is a great mentor. Let’s talk about self-development though a little bit, Joe. I know you’ve been featured in many publications, including my latest work, Leave Nothing to Chance. When you read Leave Nothing to Chance, you’re one of the stars of the book, your story is in there. Of the fifteen principles, which one grabbed you? Elaborate if you would on why that particular one grabbed you?

We all have read books that were brilliant, but most of the time the authors have taken it from things that they’ve read or things that they’ve studied before. With your book, it was all about experience. You can tell that you’re well read, but you’ve gone through those experiences, which creates even more of an impact. That’s one of the great things about longevity in our business is that you can share experiences. That’s something that you’ve read in the book, and not something that you went to a seminar and learned about. It was through your work and working with people. One of the principles which is the most important principle outside of your dream is commitment, it’s the chapter on commitment.

I look back another defining moment of my life, June 23rd, I was invited to a meeting, I’m sitting in the back of the room. I knew within a couple of minutes that that was the vehicle to my dreams because I already had my dream clear before that meeting. It led me to that meeting. When I went home that day, I looked myself in the mirror and I promised myself I would never think about quitting. I had already made a determination that I needed to be all in to make it work. I realized that because of my pride to that in my sports life because I had a scholarship in soccer. I played high-level hockey and soccer. I realized in order for me to succeed, I needed to be all in, and I was all in.

I took that philosophy into business. It’s important because when I was in front of that mirror, I knew the only power I had as a human being was my word. If you break your word to yourself, you lose your power. John, do you remember with our parents or with my dad, when they would lend money to people? In that generation, they didn’t have to sign a contract or any agreement that, “You need to pay me back with this much interest.” It was just your word. People would follow through with their word. What has happened unfortunately over time, people use their word lightly. That’s the only power that you have as a human being is your word. Your commitment is your word to yourself.

For the longest time, my greatest fear was dying before I had accomplished everything that I wanted to accomplish. I could visualize that, and it was a huge fear of mine. I could be at the gates of heaven and say, “Please send me back. I’ve not completed my work here. I’ve got some more goals to achieve.” That was my greatest fear. That still drives me is to do what I need to do. Commitment, you nailed it 100% on there through your experience. Unfortunately, too many people don’t make that commitment that they’re not going to quit or don’t even think about quitting. That was the other thing that I did, is I never allowed myself to think about quitting.

Let’s go back, Joe. You as a young guy, whether it was in your sports career, maybe it was in your academics or maybe it was when you got in network marketing in ‘93, somewhere along the line, somebody put a book in your hand that’s had an impact on your life. What was the book?

It was Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins, that was the first book. That meeting on June 23rd, it was a super Saturday where we had all kinds of trainers up in the front of the room, and speaker after speaker, talked about personal development. Instead of listening to Madonna and Michael Jackson in your car, turn your car into a university on wheels. That was the first time I ever heard of that. My brother was going through some challenges and depression at that time. He was listening to get him outside of that depression and what he was going through. He was listening to Anthony Robbins. I picked up Anthony Robbins’ book, Unlimited Power. That was my first book I read on personal development.

In the ‘90s, I must have read maybe 1,500 books. You should have seen my library. I would go to the library to get audio cassettes and tape them because a lot of them are from Og Mandino, and it was difficult to get. I’d get my hands on any Tip of the Week Club and Tip of the Month Club. By 1998, everything started to sound the same to me. I was reading, going through the motions. I thought to myself, “This is wrong. How do I get myself to the next face?” That’s when I said, “Joe, why don’t you focus on a few books that resonate with you and study it? Study the material.” I went down to 5 or 6 books that I read over and over again, and then I would bring an Og Mandino book in, and if it resonated with me, I would read it 15, 20, 30, 40 times. My personal development went through the roof after that. In 2001, I got a series of You Were Born Rich tapes by Bob Proctor. Bob lives in the Toronto area like I do. I never heard of him before. Can you imagine that? It was like those tapes were meant for me. I listened to those tapes every morning for an hour while working out for two years straight. I could do that Born Rich seminar with my eyes closed. My income went up tenfold at that time because of my studying of the material.

This is a hard question when you’ve read 1500, at least, and you’ve probably read more than that I’m sure through the years. If I was a 16, 17-year-old kid sitting in your office right now and I said, “Joe, what are the three I have to read?” What are they?

Number one book that I promote through my organization when they get started is The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles because it’s an easy book to read, plus it introduces people to the laws of the universe, which are important. You don’t understand the laws. It’s difficult to navigate the world, your world. That book is definitely number one. I’ve seen it become a game-changer for people around the world. I’ve read that book now, I finished it again. As a Man Thinketh too by James Allen is another one, and an obscure book called Consciously Creating Circumstances is another one of my go-to books. Anything written by novel is powerful, also deep. It’s tough to get into a lot of this stuff because of the language. Manifesting, John, is a passion of mine.

One of the things you’re going to start to notice about me, you will ask one question, then I’ll go into so many other tangents. Early on, I started realizing I was manifesting a lot of great things into my life without having the skillsets yet. I couldn’t share with people what I was doing, so I would be contacting ten people and getting all these great results without the skillsets yet. Another person doing the same thing, talking to the same people, wouldn’t get my results. I didn’t know what I was doing properly, it came down to my attitude and the way I looked at life, and also because I fell in love with my dream. Anything to do with manifesting, I studied it millions of times, the systems out there, the thought process before something like The Secret came out that expose people to the Law of Attraction. Anything to do with manifesting, that’s been a passion of mine. It’s teaching people how to manifest things into their life. Working smarter rather than harder.

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What’s amazing about that is when you mentioned Wattles. I had a conversation with some people that I’m in another book. It was amazing to me how many networkers did not know that Wattles preceded Napoleon Hill with Think and Grow Rich. Many of the concepts and ideas came from Wattles. It’s funny because the first time I heard of Wattles was from Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, who ironically his daughter, Tracey Jones, I interviewed, she now runs Tremendous Books Company. Listening to you is like self-development and how it should be taught in school. Without those basics, you’re never going to get anywhere. Let’s go another place. If I walk in your home there in Oakville, Ontario, what are you reading right now? What’s on your coffee table?

I’m reading a book called Manifestation Key by Adrian Cooper. He’s not a well-known author. He’s out of the UK. He’s an outside-of-the-box thinker. He has a Science degree. I’ve read that book multiple times, it’s only 70 pages. I’m reading it again. The previous two books I read were Born Rich by Bob Proctor and The Science of Getting Rich.

I’m a big fan of Bob Proctor for many years, he’s great guy. Joe, let’s go in another direction. You’ve started many people who become successful in your company and in our industry. What’s your advice, whether you want to give it from a standpoint of short-term, first couple of days, first 48 hours or first month or first quarter? I’m a new distributor. I just signed up today. I’m sitting in your office there in Canada and you say, “John, here’s what you need to do in this time span to get your business started.”

I’m going to answer that question with a story. Once I graduated from college, I wanted to be an NHL hockey player, but that wasn’t going to happen, so I got a job as a Zamboni driver up in North in Toronto making $550. It’s an incredible job, I loved it because I was around the rink and driving the Zamboni and being around professional hockey players. I merged into my second job ever, and that was my last job. I got good at managing because I was committed all in. I got a job as a fitness manager of a major club in Toronto. It had a bar and restaurant, pool, patio, Squash Club, Racquetball Club, a fitness area and everything else. In Christmas of ‘92, the owners of the company said, “Joe, you’ve done such an incredible job. We’re not able to sell our club for millions of dollars of profit.” I was newly married at the time. That was the first time I enjoyed freedom in my life because I could play Squash during the day while I was working.

I was expecting some renumeration, some profit sharing, and the owners, I never heard from them again. I realized at that moment that I was building someone else’s dream instead of mine. I promised myself I would never work for someone else again. You imagine going to your wife and said, “I’m never going to work again.” Her mother laughed at me. She was living with us. God bless her soul, she motivated me that day because she was concerned that her daughter married a dead beat, he’s not going to want to work.

A couple of months later, the biggest defining moment of my life is, I don’t know what compelled me, I came home and started to write down what I wanted my life to look like ten years from that moment. The top three things on the list were, number one, I wanted to work from home because I wanted to be that dad to be with my kids. My parents were immigrant parents, worked two jobs, they also have a cleaning business, so they were always working. I started working at seven helping them clean offices. That affected me as a father growing up when I became a father.

 

Second thing on my list was I knew the key to freedom was being a business owner, because in the Squash Club, the guys that were playing Squash during the day all own businesses. That was a clue to me, “Find a business you can do that can play Squash during the day when everyone else is working.” The third thing was a dream home. I knew that if I was going to work from home, I’ll fell in love with a dream home, places I wanted to visit and everything else. Thank God, my conscious level at that moment was I saw this on the list and I said, “I can’t focus on all this stuff. I want all these things. What is the one thing that I can focus on that can fall in love with, that if I get that, all the other things on my list would come?” That was the dream home. I focused on this dream home. I cut out pictures. I fell in love with it. My purpose in life was to get this dream home.

A couple of months later, my local library gentleman walks up to me and introduces me to network marketing. He did such a poor job in following up. He didn’t think I was going to be a great distributor. He sat down with me at a Howard Johnson’s. About a month later, he called me up. We sat down and it was the worst one-on-one presentation. He didn’t touch any of my hot points. He did a three-way call a month later again. He did everything that you’re not supposed to. I ended up meeting with his sponsor, Tony Channin. Tony pulled out his commission check for his fifth month, and my eyes opened up. It was only $3,500. I thought that was impressive five minutes into a business. That Saturday, I was invited to a meeting. Sitting in the back of the room, I knew within a couple of minutes, it’s like that born again Christian moment, God was speaking to you from head to toe. I’ve never looked back from there.

To answer your questions, I have fallen in love with my dream. I manifested that guy in the library in the middle of the day, that wasn’t a coincidence. I made it happen. Because I fell in love with my dream, I’m in that meeting, my internal guidance system, my holy spirit, whatever your faith is, was speaking to me head to toe. It was my guidance. I was at that moment so clear that this was my vehicle to my dream. That’s why I went home and made that 100% commitment that I would never quit because I knew well in my life at that moment and the amount of work that I needed to work on myself to get the results, I needed to make that commitment. It’s like Napoleon, the Great General, one of the reasons why he won many battles is because he burned the ships after his troops landed on an island or a place because they knew they had nowhere else to go. They fought. That was a commitment built in. To think about you have to fight or you’re dead. That’s what I looked at in terms of my career. I hope that answers the question.

Let me tag on one other part of that question. Because of the pandemic that’s unfortunately existed now, I see in my business, and I’m sure you do in yours and I’m sure our colleagues in every company in the industry are seeing the same thing. If I had to categorize it, I would say two groups of people. There are guys in my age group, late 50s, early 60s, that perhaps they had owned a business, perhaps they had been successful with somebody else’s business, or perhaps the business that they had, whether they owned it or somebody else did, it’s not going to come back. One thing that’s happened is people realize they can do what are you doing right now using technology. A lot of things aren’t going to come back. That group of people, there’s a lot of them looking at our industry for the first time. The second group is that young group, that 25-year-old, they’ve got all these skills, they can work on an iPhone, they can launch a space shuttle with their iPhone, but they have no clue how they’re ever going to make a living and get off their parents’ couch. If we took those two groups of people, what is Joe Garcia’s number one bit of advice why they should at least take a serious look at any company in our industry?

Answer this question. What is it that you want more of in life? What is it that you want less of in life? That speaks to their heart. One of the challenges in our industry, a lot of people get involved through their brother-in-law and sister, through a family member, they come in with one little toe and they’re trying things out. Maybe they get some great results with a product that wakes them up. When someone wants to develop a business, I know we have to go back to the basics and get to that dream. If there’s not a dream, they’re not clear on that, it’s easy to quit. There’s nothing anchoring because the investment in the businesses doesn’t anchor them in. I’ve spent a lot of time over the year. It doesn’t matter what age group there is, it’s getting down to what they want, getting down to that basic. Unfortunately, and you know this, John, probably over 90% of the world, you can ask that question and most people don’t know. Especially if you’re in your 50s now and you have all this experience, we’ve been programmed not to dream because we’re afraid of failing.

If your dreams are not greater than your fears, you’re never going to act. In any business, there’s an attrition because people don’t know what they want, which is the basis to everything in life. If I look back several years, I could see clearly how I was guided. My first company I went into network marketing went bankrupt three years in. I was close to qualifying to the top. I thought I lost my dream, but I remembered that when you have a dream, when those things happen, you have to have the faith that is leading you to that next step. That’s what happened. That had to happen for me to be where I am now.

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We can all go through our expenses in our life and see those defining moments and how that was guided. For example, I always tell people, “If you’re in love with your dream, you are going to be guided 100% of the time. You’ve got to listen to that guidance.” In 1997, I come back from a meeting, it was a tough week that week. There were lots of people quitting, the company that I had joined were going through some financial challenges. The president was kicked out, there was a lot of turmoil. That was a decision that I made. The company went bankrupt in ‘96. I looked at a lot of companies, I joined this other company and these things started to happen after a year.

I’ve turned on the TV. It’s midnight, Larry King is on. He’s interviewing this author for a book. She just finished a book. She’s a psychic, Sylvia Browne. Something inside of me, John, told me, “Joe, you’ve got to buy that book.” Unlike most times previous, I didn’t. A year later, my daughter was having swimming lessons in that rec center, and there was a library there. As I go into that library, the first book that I see right there is her book. I remembered the feeling. When I read that book, I knew why I was told to read that book. It was incredible. I can give you thousands of these types of experiences over the years, because I was so focused on my dream. It led me to these things.

I’ll share with you one last story in ‘98. That year, the company is going through these financial challenges. They got all the leaders on to a conference call, they just hired a new vice president. In ‘98, all these leaders are all six-figure income earners. After about fifteen minutes, I thought, “Am I on another company’s call?” I couldn’t believe the negativity from all these people from the backwards and everything else. Thirty-five minutes in, I had to say something. I later on hung up and I go, “Are these people seeing what I’m seeing?” All these people, because of their attitude, because they lost sight of their dream, they were looking at all the negatives and why things are not moving forward. All I was focused on is, “What do I need to do today and tomorrow to get to that next level?” All those people, several years later, only one of them is still in the industry. These were people who were making six figures, five-figure monthly incomes. That was a lot of money back then. Now, all of them are out of the industry all because, compared to myself, they lost sight of their dream and they focused on the wrong things.

That’s such an amazing story. It does happen. People forget why they got into the industry. Instead, they want to look at all these other things instead of their vision.

In your book, do you have a chapter on challenges? I think it’s the second chapter. You talk clearly about how you see things and how clearly, it’s all about attitude. When you’re in your dream and you’re focused on it, you’re love with it. For example, when you fell in love with your wife, John, you didn’t have to remind yourself, “I better spend the next ten minutes to think about her.” She was always playing in the movie in your mind. Your dream needs to be that way, and when it does, your attitude changes. You start seeing things clearly and differently than everybody else, no matter what challenge comes along.

The thing that I get talking to you is an amazing leadership energy. All leaders are readers. We’ve talked about that a little bit, 1,500 books, that says it all right there. If you and I were talking to each other and somebody told me about you and they said, “The guy has read 1,500 books.” I could stop right there and say, “He’s got to be one of those successful people not only in his company, but in his industry, because all leaders are readers.” You illustrated that so well. What’s your thoughts on that comment?

 

There were some comments that we say in the industry that I don’t agree with anymore. I don’t take it for granted. For example, John, in the ‘90s you hear all the time, “You’ve got to pay the price for success.” To me, that was a huge negative. I didn’t want my kids to pay the price. I didn’t want to be that dad when they’re 25 and said, “I wish I spent more time with them. I wish I took them to more vacations.” I didn’t want my kids to pay the price for my dream. I thought to myself, “How can I do this?” That’s how I got into manifesting. I wanted to know how to manifest things faster, better, quicker without working 80 hours a week or 90 hours a week building your dream. Like yourself in the ‘90s and the 2000s, we were going to meetings. I love going to meetings.

You talked about balancing your book. I schedule time for my kids as they were growing up. I never allowed them to pay the price for my dream. Leaders are readers. The goal for us as leaders is we need to help raise the consciousness of people in our team so they can do the rest, they can figure out the rest. In today’s world, you and I can go onto the internet, go into YouTube, look at a tutorial and learn how to become an engineer and build buildings. Information is available to us. It’s not the how, because the how is easily explained all over the world now in any topic. It’s always on the why. That’s the difference maker. Your comment on leaders are readers, I’ve known some great leaders that don’t like to read, but they listen to podcasts. They’re always listening to something or watching movies that impact them.

I do like to read personally, but I become a podcast junkie. I have a gym about four minutes from my front door here. Even with the snow in Dallas, I’ve been there all week. I’m always listening to a podcast in different things, some are on religion, business or people unrelated. You’re right, there’s always a way to get that information. Joe, I know you’ve written a book. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

I’ve spent a lot of time perfecting my manifestation system and going over what I do daily because your consistent habits over a period of time creates the results. It’s another fallacy in the industry, John. Massive action will produce incredible results. Here’s the thing nobody talks about, you’ve got to follow up that massive action. If you go all out for 90 days and you burn yourself out and you’re not doing the simple things after that, you’re wasting a lot of 90-day work. I’d much rather have someone who is consistent. Two people or three people or even one a day showing the product and the business. Over a period of time, those consistent habits with the right mindset will manifest great things.

I started putting together a five-step system that people have used through my team and other network marketers around the world that got results. It’s a simple five-step system. It’s a book you can read in fifteen minutes. You put it by your bedside so you can read it over and over again, and follow the system and you’re going to produce the results. I’ve given that away for free. I don’t even ask people for their email address or to increase my database, just go to my website and download it. It’s in 3 languages now, and because of the demand, I’m putting in another 10 languages. It’s a book I’ve had some huge feedback on.

Feel free to give that that link if you would.

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It’s WhyJoeGarcia.com, you can download the book there, Best Year Ever.

We have a mutual friend that loves that expression too, David “Avocado” Wolfe, do you know him?

Yes.

He uses that same expression all the time. I borrow that expression too. I love that because it’s so positive. Who couldn’t get a positive charge out of that title? Thank you for sharing that. Joe, last question here. You have been all over the world. I follow you on Facebook, and over the years, I see you’re everywhere. How many countries have you been in and worked in? Besides beautiful Canada, what would be your favorite place in the world?

I’ve been probably over 60 countries now, which has been a blessing. One of the things I realized early on, John, the greatest personal development program, or the greatest investment that you can make into yourself and your family is traveling. I always encourage my leaders to travel because it grows them more than anything else. I’ve seen through my journey, where you’re going to these foreign countries, eating, simulating the cultures. When you’re working a business, it’s different than traveling for vacation. You’ve got to get into the mindset of the people and bonding with them and gaining their trust, all these little skillsets that you would never get that from a book.

The travels have grown me considerably. I’ve got thousands of travel stories. I got one in Dallas. I was on a US tour, I had been in six cities in a week. I’m staying at the Omni Hotel in Dallas, which is a hotel I frequent over those years. You know how when you’re going to hotel, every hotel looks the same to you eventually. I get back to the hotel around 2:00 in the morning and I forget what room I’m in. I’m in the elevator, I’m convincing myself, “What floor am I in?” I convinced myself I’m in room 305. I get out of the elevator, I’m praying to God, “I don’t want to go down back downstairs. I’m exhausted.” My key works and I go, “Fantastic.” I take all my clothes off, go into the washroom. I didn’t have time to have a shower. I’m exhausted.

I hear the shower on. I thought, “Did I take a shower earlier today?” I didn’t even remember using the hotel shower. As I was opening the door, there was a woman there naked. She screamed and I screamed. My first reaction, I’ve got to run, I’ve got to leave. I’m trying to explain to her, while she’s screaming, that I’m not a rapist, what happened, and I screwed up. I’m thinking, “How in the world did I get into this room?” I put on my clothes and she’s calling 911. All I hear on her is, “Help. I’m being raped. Someone’s broken into my room, sexual assault.” That’s what I’m hearing. I decided I got to run. I thought if I run, I’m going to be, because I frequent this hotel all the time. I told her I’m going to wait outside the room, and she’s still screaming. I felt so sorry for her.

About five minutes later, I hear massive amount of footsteps up the stairs. They come up through the stairs and some through the elevator, these police officers and they see me. They immediately pull up their guns and they tell me to get down on the ground ASAP. I’m trying to explain to them what happened. They get me up, I’m in handcuffs and I’m telling them, “All you have to do is call the manager. I’m here all the time. This was a big mistake.” The manager comes along and he’s telling me, “Joe, this is impossible. You cannot get into any rooms with the keys.” I said, “This is what happened.” I pass him on the keys, and for a split second I’m thinking I could see myself in the Dallas Morning News, “Top marketer is in jail for sexual assault.” There goes my career. How am I going to explain that?

I’m praying that the key works, and it did. What happened is when I checked in, they gave me the master key and I could open up any door. The police officers apologized. I said, “Don’t worry about it. Take care of the woman. She needs some help.” What happened is the police officer said, “You’re lucky, you’re in Texas. If you went to any other room, they probably would have had a gun.” What happens, John, when I get into a room, I’m looking under the bed, I’m looking at every square footage. That’s one of the funny stories I’ve had.

I could imagine. You’ve got a lot of exotic places. What’s the most exotic country you’ve been to?

I’ve done events in places like Sharm El-Sheikh, which is an island off the coast of Egypt. That was cool. The Canary Islands, Tenerife, I did an incentive trip over there, that was cool. That’s off the coast of Africa, on the West Coast. I love Italy, I’ve been there numerous times. Throughout Europe, I’ve been to almost every country in Europe. Russia, I got incredible stories East to West. Russia is such a huge country, it’s got twelve different time zones. I’ve done meetings in the middle of the winter in places like Siberia, way up there in the North. They have more people living in the North in the Arctic than anywhere in the world. Have you been over to Asia?

Yes, many times.

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It’s different culturally from country to country, which is cool. You have a massive team in Latin America. I started building down there several years ago. I love the food in places like Peru. I did a tour several years ago in Peru in five cities, which was so culturally different in all these cities. It was fantastic. It’s the same with Mexico. I don’t have a favorite because I know some someone’s going to read this.

It’s been great. You’ve had such a tremendous life experience on top of business experience. Joe, in closing, last thought to the readers, what’s the simplest thing that you could tell them as a takeaway from our interview that they can do to build their self-development, business and most importantly, build their lives?

I’m going to end with a story which will answer that question 100%. Let’s say you read this blog. You read from the incredible John Solleder and myself, and this speaks to you. You want to fall in love with your dream. Tonight, you will go to bed, you’ll tell your subconscious, “God, lead me to greatness,” whatever your beliefs are. Plant the seed of success. During the middle of the night, you get God talking to you in what you think is a dream. God speaks to you and says, “Tony, I hear you. I hear your dreams. I want to help you. All you have to do is travel outside of town. I’m going to give you directions to this farm. Inside this farm, there’s a barn. All you have to do is get into that barn and all your dreams will come true.”

You wake up in the morning and wondering, “Did I dream this or did God really talk to me?” You have a split-second decision, “God spoke to me.” You get in your car, you have the directions to this farm. You travel up to that farm. The barn is about a half a mile from where you parked your car. You get out of your car. You’re so excited and you run faster than you ever could run, and you get to this barn. You slow down and you can’t see any doors, any windows. You go around to the back, no doors and windows. There’s no way that you can get into this barn. You’re starting to doubt that God spoke to you, but you’re still determined to get into the barn.

You see a ladder and you climb the ladder. You get to the top of the roof, no chimney, no way to get in. As you come down the ladder, you’re so discouraged and upset at yourself that you believe that God spoke to you. As your head is down, you’re walking towards a car and you’ve given up on your dream and immediately fall into a pit. You’re pissed off that you’ve fallen into this pit. Before you know it, this pit, you realize it’s quicksand. You’re pissed. The quicksand is at your chest. It’s getting close to your throat and your neck. You realize at that moment that you could die. Fear comes into you. You don’t want to die. You’re too young, you’ve got so much to accomplish. You look above and there’s a tree there. You thought to yourself, “Was that tree there all along?”

You take off your jacket, you hook it up against the branch and you pull yourself out of this quicksand. You’re determined to get back into that barn. You’re running back and you stop. You can’t believe what you’re seeing, the door is there and it’s wide open. You walk into that barn so excited because your dreams are going to come through. You’re going to win the lottery of your dreams. The place is empty. There’s a big post in the middle of the barn and there’s a mirror there and written on the mirror says, “Tony, I’ve been hearing you all these years, but you don’t realize you’re made by God and you can accomplish anything you put your mind to and falling in love with. I believe in you.” That was the message.

 

Let me go over this story and the metaphor is in the story. God is always speaking to you when you are in love with your dream. He didn’t stop speaking after the disciples of Jesus Christ. If you’re a Christian or any other religion, he didn’t stop speaking to these teachers. He has continued to speak all these years. When you’re in love with your dream, you’re going to get these messages all the time. Don’t doubt it. What happens, our human self, you get to that barn, and because you doubted so much, you could never see the door. It was always there, but you never saw the door. You went back all dejected and fell into the quicksand. The metaphor of the quicksand is that when you don’t have a dream, you’re living your life by default. You have all these things happening to you because you’re living your life by default. A lot of these things can be bad things, what you think you have no control over, but you do. As soon as you made a decision that you didn’t want to die, you found a way to get out of that pit. It was there all along because that decision, that commitment was there all along. When you went back to that barn, the door was always there. You can now see it because you made that 100% commitment.

When you got to the middle of the barn, everyone’s looking for stuff outside of us to make us successful, John. The right success system, the right tool to become the top distributor, the right people, these things are outside of us. We’re looking for these tools to be that number one earner in our company, or top ten in our company or a million-dollar earner, a six-figure earner, but we don’t realize all the powers within us. When you have a dream and you focus on that part and build yourself up, you will figure it out. It will happen. Thanks very much for your time, John. I enjoyed it.

This has been phenomenal. The name of the show is Leave Nothing to Chance, based on the book, Leave Nothing to Chance. We interview great people like Joe Garcia. It’s an awesome interview, Joe. I learned a lot. I’ve been doing this for several years. Thank you again for joining us.

I recommend it. It’s a shiny diamond. Listen to guys like John, and please pick up the book and share it with your teams because those experiences that he shares are priceless.

Thank you, Joe.

Important Links:

• Leave Nothing to Chance
• Unlimited Power
• You Were Born Rich
• The Science of Getting Rich
• As a Man Thinketh
• Consciously Creating Circumstances
• The Secret
• Think and Grow Rich
• WhyJoeGarcia.com
• Best Year Ever

About Joe Garcia

Joe started his Network Marketing career in 1993, his Global Organization has entered into more than 60 countries and over 2 billion in accumulated sales. His travels has taken him to more than 60+ countries around the world training hundreds of thousands of people.

He has a passion in helping people increase their conscious level and help them believe God really does not make junk!