S2 EP 8 | The 6 Brutal Truths You Must Face to Succeed

In this episode of Building Billions, I’m pulling back the curtain on the six brutal truths about success that most people aren’t willing to face. After building multiple nine-figure companies and coaching thousands of entrepreneurs, I’ve seen exactly what separates those who talk about success from those who actually achieve it. From losing friends who can’t handle your growth to taking massive action despite fear and failure, these lessons will challenge you—but they’ll also change you. If you’re ready to get real about what it takes to build your future, this episode is for you.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Building Billions. I'm Brandon Dawson.
I'm a three time, $100 million plus business builder. And
I'm going to be sharing with you on this episode
the brutal truths about success. If you want to be
successful but you don't know how to get there, it's
because you don't know these brutal truths. As a CEO
of multiple nine figure companies who coaches thousands of successful entrepreneurs,

(00:24):
I've seen firsthand what it really takes to succeed. So
these are the six brutal truths of success that can
massively change your life. Truth number one, you need to
understand that as you become successful, people around you will change.
Let's face it, if all of a sudden you get
excited about changing your life and you start learning and
taking massive action, you start training, you start reading, you

(00:48):
start finding new mentors. You start talking about being enthusiastic
and excited about taking control of your life and doing
something amazing. Think about the people around you and how
uncomfortable they're going to be. Not because they don't actually
believe in you, but because if you do what you
say you're gonna do, the people around you are going
to have to acknowledge and concede that you had something

(01:08):
they didn't have, and that thing is probably courage. You
took action and you created your life. Now they have
to ask themselves the question, why are they not as
courageous or as committed as you? Some people would rather
just hold you back than see you succeed, because that's
how they rationalize and justify not being able to do
the things, or having the commitment or the courage that

(01:30):
you had. So they would rather tell you why it
can't be done, why you're not doing it right, why
you should be settling for what you have and not
being greedy. The truth is, it's okay to let people
go as you're becoming more successful and replacing them with
people who are supporting you or contributing to your success.
If you go from where you're at to unbelievably successful

(01:51):
over the next three, five, ten years, I promise you,
the people you're spending your time around, they will change
because you'll elevate up to those that appreciate and understand
what it takes to get where you're at versus those
that are comfortable, complacent, and would rather claw you back
to their level? That should tell you if you want
to be more successful tomorrow than you are today. You

(02:14):
might need to surround yourself with different people. Number two
is next, and it's that people around you will talk
shit about you. Look, as you become more successful. This
has been my personal experience and I've seen it a
thousand times. As you become more successful, circle of people
around you will start criticizing you. You don't spend enough
time at home. You don't spend enough time with your friends.

(02:36):
You don't have proper work life balance. You should work
less and play more. They'll start using language and criticizing
you because you're trying to bust out of where you're
at and do something amazing. Just know that people will
criticize you for all the things you're doing and changing
in your life to try to become more successful. Let

(02:58):
people criticize you and let it just roll off your shoulders.
Next is number three. You have to be willing to
change your environment. So when I was 18, I had
to move from Corvallis, Oregon, where my family was, to
pour onto Oregon. I wanted to figure out how to
feed myself and clean my own clothes and make my
own bed and do my own things, and that's part

(03:19):
of growing up. But it gave me the courage when
I realized I can do these things to leave Portland,
Oregon and move to Atlanta, Georgia and become an outside
sales rep at 19 years old, traveling 11 states I
had never visited. Didn't know anybody in those states, and
I succeeded in that process. Taught me I can be
successful on my own. I didn't need my security blanket.

(03:42):
If you can't change your environment and leave your security,
you probably won't change your life. Number four is next.
You have to be okay with looking dumb. When I
first started selling, I didn't have a clue what I
was doing, and I just kept doing it and doing
it and doing it. And to be honest with you,
I sucked at the beginning. I was so uncomfortable. I
would go home and record myself doing my sales pitch

(04:04):
and watch it over and over and over, because I
was so insecure that I sounded like I didn't know
what I was talking about, and I was presenting it
in a way where I wasn't being clear and I
wasn't communicating correctly. Now, through the process of doing that,
I got better and better and better and better. And
you know what I did? I broke the cycle of failure.
And then all of a sudden somebody said yes. And

(04:27):
when they said yes, I started focusing on what I
was doing right, and I practiced more of what I
was doing that was right. And here's the thing I
learned the more you try, the more you do, the
more you experiment, the more you assess what does and
doesn't work. Context and contrast. The more successful you get.

(04:47):
It is by nature the process of becoming successful. And
if you're unwilling to fail, you can't fail. Forward and
be bigger, better, and more successful in the future because
you're keeping yourself exactly where you're at today. And the
only way to do this is actually through trial and error.
I remember the first time that I got on the

(05:08):
phone to create a sale as an inside sales rep.
It was laughable. I didn't know how to say hello.
I didn't know how to ask any questions. I didn't
know how to present the product offering. I didn't know
how to close the deal. Nothing. And I kept doing
it and doing it and doing it. And the more
I relaxed with the rejection I was getting. Eventually I
would just laugh when someone would get on the phone

(05:30):
and say, hey, it's Brandon Dawson. I know you're probably
gonna tell me no, but I wanted to call and
update you on the opportunity for a special offer we had,
and people would say, okay, what is it? Next thing
you know, I'm just talking to people and they're saying, yes.
And once I got out of my own head and
I realized that it's okay to look stupid, sound dumb
until I figured out how not to look stupid and

(05:52):
not to sound dumb. And I got people to say yes.
It always happens through trial and error, and that's the
only way to perfect a process, is to do it
over and over and over until it succeeds. And that
means you have to take massive action until you're successful.
Not a little bit of action until you give up.

(06:12):
You have to take massive action until you're successful. And
the more you pay attention to the little things that
you change up along the way that make you more successful?
The more mass of action you'll take, because your confidence
will start screaming that you can do it. And you
can do it bigger, better, and faster than anyone else
you know. Massive action. If you're going to make ten

(06:34):
phone calls to try to sell something, make 100 phone calls,
make 1000 phone calls, make 10,000 phone calls. The sooner
I make 10,000 phone calls by taking massive action and
failing forward, the sooner I can learn how to ask
and say the right things in order to get the
right results. So take massive action, which is the total

(06:55):
accumulation of everything you do, compressed into a smaller period
of time, so that over a long period of time,
you can get better results by learning from your failures.
Truth number five is that the people around you will
disappoint you. I remember at 26 years old when I
started my first company, all my golf buddies were uncomfortable

(07:15):
with the new people I was hanging around with because
all I was talking about with them was all the
successful people that I was learning from. And I went
from being the same old Brandon playing golf with my buddies.
To the Brandon, talking about all these amazing people I've
met and the successes that they've had and how I
want to copy them and emulate them and learn from them.

(07:35):
Trust me when I tell you this, your current circle
of influence is not going to be overly excited about
all the great things you're doing and who you're doing
it with. They feel they're being left behind. If you're
going to concern yourself and worry yourself and be frustrated
with what other people are thinking and saying about you.

(07:56):
You're allowing them to pull you off target. And here's
the reality to not worrying or even spending any energy
on thinking about what other people are saying or thinking
about you. And it's easier to think negatively of you
and pull you off target than it is to watch
you become successful and have to self-assess. Why didn't they

(08:19):
have your courage? Why didn't they have your vision? Why
didn't they have your abilities to go out and succeed
so it's easier for them to talk shit about you.
You need to be okay with being uncomfortable. You need
to be okay with you. The beautiful thing about life
is you get to choose why you're uncomfortable. You can

(08:40):
be uncomfortable because you're either not doing something, or you
can be uncomfortable failing forward until you do it. When
people try to transform, they become uncomfortable. Why? Because the
continued process of incrementally improving over a long period of
time means you have to get better at doing something
than you were when you last did it. Well, that

(09:03):
means you're failing on your way to success. If you're improving,
if you're getting better, if you're accomplishing and overcoming things
that you never have been able to do before, it's
because you're improving incrementally over a long period of time.
Changing your process. Getting results. And guess what? One day

(09:24):
you'll become super wealthy and you'll hit your targets because
you'll learn the process of success is setting big targets,
putting activity behind it, learning from what works and from
what doesn't work, retooling, readjusting, being uncomfortable, trying. And then
eventually it sticks. It works. It clicks. And when it does,

(09:46):
that's how you become super wealthy and you hit your targets.
And don't forget the people around you probably don't have
the courage. You have to do what you did to
hit your goals. I mean, let's face it, if you're
going to be uncomfortable, you might as well be uncomfortable
pursuing your goals and establishing your success and having to

(10:08):
go through all the failures to get there, because either way,
you're going to be uncomfortable either what you're not doing
or what you are doing, so you might as well
be uncomfortable doing what you want to do to get
to where you want to be. The truth is, if
you want to be successful, nobody else is going to
do it for you. So just choose to be uncomfortable,
take massive action, and start making progress towards stated goals

(10:30):
and objectives. And even if you fail, you're going to
feel better that you at least tried.