Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
You know, Dennis Henson has spent over three decades collecting
something most of us overlook. Words, stories, quotes, poems that inspire,
challenge and push us forward. He's been a leader in
real estate and personal growth.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
But what really stands out is.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
This simple philosophy, The key to success is what you
read every day. His new book, Real Impact Daily Inspiration
isn't a one sit read. Dennis wants you to take
it slow, enjoy it bit by bit, letting the word sink.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
In and shift your mindset.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
He calls reading a love of nature, something powerful but.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Invisible that can truly move the mountains inside of us.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Today, we're going to hear how this daily habit transformed
Dennis's life and how.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It might just do the same for you.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Let's get started, Dennis, Welcome to the Enlightened Life podcast.
And you know, for over thirty years you've collected stories, poems,
and quotes that inspire and empower people to move past
(01:26):
doubt and hesitation. And you understand better than most of the
success is in just about what you do. It's about
what you feed your mind every single day. Your book,
Will Impact Daily Inspiration offers a simple, yet profound truth
that inhabits. The habits that we build shape the lives
we live. So I'm truly glad you're here and you're
(01:49):
going to share some of that insight with us. So
welcome to the show. Thank you so much, but.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Thank you for having me. Scott, my pleasure this.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know you say that meeting alias the low of
nature that moves mountains within us. And how did you
first come to realize the incredible power of this?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I was. I was investing in real estate. I moved
to Texas thirty years ago. I've been investing in real
estate since nineteen seventy, so that's fifty five years I've
been in the business world. I was doing so well
with real estate, but I wanted to do better. I
(02:30):
thought if I could attend real estate investor groups, I
could learn new strategies at fance techniques and different things.
But in the metroplex, I lived in the Dallas Fort
Worth area. I live in Arlington, which is run in
the middle of the metroplex. Most people don't realize how
big the metroplex is, so in order to go to
(02:51):
a real estate group in Dallas, it was an hour
drive and if there was traffic, it maybe two hours.
It's the same way with Fort Worth. Fort Worth's really
close to me, but it's a very long city and
the meetings were in North Fort Worth, so still it
was an hour. Thought well, maybe I should just start
(03:14):
a group in Arlington, and I did, and it was
very successful. People came from Dalles and Fort Worth, in
Houston and San Antonio. We had people from all over
Texas coming to our group. It was a meetup group,
and it grew to become the largest real estate meetup
group in the world and had over members. So I thought, well,
(03:40):
it's good to have these speakers and I get to
pick which speaker I want to hear. But I would
really learn more if I talked. So I started what
I called elite classes, and I would teach a number
of people that had to pay a little bit of
money to come in. And if I wanted to learn
about land Trust, I would schedule an elite class a
(04:01):
couple of months out and then I had two months
to learn about Oh that the teaching, I create slides
and study really hard so I could answer the questions.
And then I realized that after that class, I really
knew a lot about it. It helped me a lot,
and I did very well at that. So when Memory
(04:22):
came up to me and he said, I've seen how
you invest, and i've seen your training, and I'm going
to retire in about three weeks and I want you
to mentor me. He said, I'll pay you, but I
wanted one on one training, Scott. I didn't have time.
I was so with my real estate and teaching those
(04:45):
groups and then having a free meeting. I just told
him no, I wasn't interested, and that wasn't something I
wanted to do. And then he looked at me and
he said, Dennis, you didn't understand what I said. He said,
in about three weeks, I'm retiring and you're going to
mentor me. And I thought, oh my goodness, how am
I going? What am I going to do to get
(05:06):
rid of it? So he said, let's go out to
eat and we'll talk about it. So we went out
and he bought my lunch and he bought me a whataburger.
After lunch, he reached into his pocket at a suit
and when he reached it into his pocket and he
handed me a check book and he said, here, fill
this in and I said, do you mean the amount?
(05:28):
And he said yes, and I thought, now I know
how to get rid of I mean, I'm going to
put a number here. No one in the right mind's
going to pay this, and I handed it back to him.
He took the check out without looking at the number,
signed it, and handed it back to it. So that's
when I started taking students. So I thought, if people
(05:53):
are going to give me this kind of money, I
better really be good at teaching, you know. So I
put the together a training program that I thought was
pretty good, and it turned out to really be great
because my students just were exceptional. They just went out
and started just doing a great job. And I got
a reputation of being such a great teacher that people
(06:16):
started inviting me to come and speak at their groups.
So I spoke all of the United States. I spoke
at Exposed, even in other countries. Well, podcasts were just
coming about, and there was a large podcast in Houston
and they invited me to be a guest, and I
said sure. So we were interviewing just like this, and
(06:38):
the host said, Dennis, your students are just amazing, and
there's all these gurus, but yours seem to just take off.
What's the difference why are your students so super successful?
And I said, well, I haven't changed their habits. If
they can form success habits, they will become successful. Then
(07:03):
he said, well what's the most important success habit? OK
for a second, and I said, have them form the
habit of reading something positive every day that moves them
toward the gold. So after the podcast was over, I thought,
you know that was the right answer. Wouldn't it be
(07:24):
wonderful if someone would come up with some kind of
a tool to help people form the habit so that
it made it easy, Because a new habit is hard
to form, and people are so busy they just don't
have time for something new. Nature doesn't permit vacuum, so
(07:44):
you're everybody's life is full already putting a new habit
in there is something that's difficult. Then it hit me.
It was almost like a light came down and said, Bam, Dennis.
For fifty years, it's in nineteen seventy five. You've been
collecting the best success books, poems, quotes, articles. You have
(08:09):
more than enough things to put together a book so
that people can form this habit regardless of their time.
If they have five minutes, they could read a poem.
If they have an hour, they can read a short story.
If they have three hours, they can read one of
the accompanying books. It's listed in the back. And if
(08:29):
they get home and they're exhausted and they think, oh
I got to read today, they can read it a quote.
It takes two or three seconds. They're going to sleep
thinking about something positive. So this was in twenty eighteen,
and I thought, well, I've got everything I need. In
two months, i'll have a book. So I started working
(08:49):
on the book, compiling and researching, getting permissions, doing all
the things. In the year passed and I was still
working in another year and another year. So in twenty
twenty four, after working every day for six years, then
real impact data, inspiration came out showed up. I used
to dream about holding the book up. I used to think,
(09:13):
one of these days all this I'm going to have
the book to hold in my hand. There you saw it.
That's the culmination of a dream. So I put it
up on Amazon and I started getting ratings. You know,
people reviewed the book. Well, I got like ten or fifteen,
(09:33):
and there were you know, average five stars, twenty five stars,
thirty forty fifty, sixty one hundred. I think I've got
one hundred and fifteen ratings and I still have five stars.
So the comments are so powerful. People say, oh, the
book came just when I needed it. I was I
(09:54):
was struggling, and using this helped me pull myself out
of the funk that I was in. So I'm really
excited about it. And I didn't write it really to
make a million dollars, kind of like Earl Nightingale, you know,
he wrote his first motivational material. I didn't write it
to become wealthy or sell it. There was such a
(10:17):
demand for it. He had a friend that was in
the recording business and he said, well, would you make
a record of this or that I can pass the
records out. I said sure, and they marketed it and
the next thing he knew he had a million seller.
He got a gold record. So that's kind of how
this is. I'm trying to help a million people, you know.
(10:37):
And like then Ziggler said, you know, if you can
help people get what they want, you to get what
you want. So the goal of the book is to
really help people, and I sincerely believe that they use
it as intended it will help them.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Well, yeah, can you share either either a quote or
a story that maybe have had some profound impact on
your say, and you can summarize it because they know
you know, you know to read the book, but just
something that has had a profound impact on your life
that you've included in your book.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
The story of Lincoln is one of my favorites. Now.
People ask me all the time. You know, there's thirty
three stories, and with the sub stories there's about fifty five.
Some of the stories have stories, like the story of
Lincoln's probably fifteen different stories. But there's one story in
the book where Lincoln he was broke. He didn't have
(11:35):
an education, he didn't know what he wanted to do,
and he was just doing whatever he could. The people
loved him. They tried to get him to go into
politics because he was a great debater, but he didn't
have a first grade education, and he couldn't get any
(11:55):
business to work. Every business he tried failed miserably. So
he was a friend had given him a general store
on credit. You take the store and you just pay
me for it on credit, nothing down, and he took
it and it was playing. So a wagon drove up
(12:16):
and this settler was going back east. He says, this
life is not for me. I'm going back east, and
my covered wagon is too full, and you've got a
general store. Would you look in the wagon. Well, Lincoln
only had fifty cents and it was in his pocket,
and he said, no, I'm not interested. But he didn't
(12:37):
tell him he didn't have any money. But he didn't.
That guy was persistent. He said, oh, coming out, looks
at I've got this. I've got this barrel that you
can use for your general store to store stuff. Well,
most of the stuff that Lincoln had in his general
store came in barrels. You know, he didn't really need
a barrel, but he had a kind heart. So he
(12:59):
reached in his and the guy said, I'll give it
to you for four bits, which fifty cents. So he
reached in his pocket, gave him his last penny and
took the old arrows in the back room. You know this.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Story, No I done, I ever heard it. This is good.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So a few months later he found a use for
the barrel and he rolled it out and he realized,
wait a minute, there's something in this. So he took
the top off and dumped it out on the floor
and beneath some trash was a set of law books.
It was the old it was an old English law books. Well,
(13:37):
Lincoln left to read. He left set out and find
his general store under a tree. So he took those
law books. It was an entire bottle. He took them
and he read them, and he just devowed. He loved him.
So he started going to court. He started going and
listening to trials and watching the judge and listening to
the debates. And he looked around the court room and
(14:01):
he smelled the smell and he saw the people debated,
and he thought, I'm home. You know, this is what
I need to be doing. Now realize this was a
guy who was a broke. His story was failing have
enough clothes to wear. He didn't even have a first
(14:24):
grade education. He barely had he barely could use the
English language. He decided, I'm going to pass the bar.
I'm going to become an attorney in Illinois. And once
he decided that, his life totally changed. He passed the bar.
(14:46):
He not only became an attorney, he became one of
the top two attorneys in the state, and his business
partner was number one. He may have been number one
and number two. But they were the two top attorneys
and they made more money than the governor. So he
went from being totally broke, having nothing, no education that
once he decided this is what I want and I'll
(15:09):
do whatever it takes to get it, then his life changed.
And the story after story after story in this book
about people who decided what they want, what they wanted,
and were willing to pay the price to get it,
and now we know their name. Had they not, we
(15:31):
would have never heard of Lincoln ar Schwartzenegger, or Sylvester
Stallone or Mary kay Ash. This just goes on. Fred's stare.
This just goes on and on and on. These people
just refuse to quit once they decided I know what
I want and I'm going to get it. So one
(15:52):
of the things that's great about this book is this
has a picture of Aladdin's lamp on the front. Can
you see the lamp? I can see it, Okay if
you go to real Impact book dot com dot com.
The very first time says the Mystery of the Lamp,
and the lamp represents the story of Aladdin. So a
(16:12):
young man found an old lamp and he found it
if when he was cleaning it. If you rubbed it,
it had magic powers anything you wanted. So you would
rub it and the genie would come out and say, okay, master,
you can have anything. What do you want? You see
(16:33):
Aladdin got nothing until he decided what he wanted, and
that's why there's a lamp on the book. Life is
the same way. Once you disciples really really want and
you're willing to pay the price to get it, you
can have pretty much anything you want. And this proof
is in the book. I've read thousands of motivational stories,
(16:57):
and actually I had hundreds. I had to trim the
book down to the very best ones just so I
could it wouldn't be an encyclopedia.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Right. So you've worked with a lot of students and leaders.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
So what's the most common mindset obstacle you see that
holds people back.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Their most common obstacle is their butts. Yeah, they think, well,
I'd like to do that, but but I don't have
the money. But I don't have the education. But I
don't know the people. But I don't look good, I
can't speak. Well, they come up with all of these
(17:38):
different butts. Well they took from me. I kicked them.
I kicked them in the bike literally yeah, their butts out,
and said, no, you're not going to have any butts
here when you come in. It's an end. You're going
to change your butts to an end, all right. I
don't have the money and I'm going to go see
(17:59):
five banks this week, or I'm going to talk to
private lenders, or I don't have the education and I'm
going to read something every single day. So I changed
their butts to hands and it was amazing what happened.
It's all about mindset I've developed. I'm writing another book
called the Seven Secrets of Success, and the first secret
(18:22):
of success is getting your mind right. And this falls
right in line with that. But getting your mind right,
as Napoleon Hill told us many many years ago, is
you have to have a definite purpose. Then you have
to have a burning desire. Without the burning desire, the
(18:43):
definite purpose is not want to help you much. And
then you have to have a strong faith so that
you believe that no matter what happens, you're still going
to be successful. Even if you fail and lose everything
doesn't matter. Your faith is going to pick you right
back up, just like Edison. You know, Thomas Edison's pretty famous.
(19:03):
He's been dead for almost one hundred years and we
still know what he did, and we still know his
name is recognized by everyone, but most people don't realize.
In his mid sixties he wanted to be an inventor
and he had a large laboratory, and back then all
of the buildings were made of wood. So one of
(19:26):
his experiments went awry and it started the fire, and
everything he had was in that laboratory and everything he
had burned down, all of his experiments, he had nothing left.
And when his wife and daughter arrived at the fire,
he said, oh, honey, look at this beautiful blaze. You'll
(19:46):
never see anything like that again. And the next morning
he got up and started over. And I didn't like
to say with nothing, but it wasn't with nothing. His
friend Handry before luning to fifty thousand dollars, Well, that
was a pretty good starting point. But everything he invented
that we know about today was after that farm. Wow.
(20:12):
So you know, if you if you have a determination,
a burning desire, you know, a definite purpose and belief,
it's kind of hard to stop someone like that.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So but you know in your experience, I mean imposture
syndrome is real, right, I mean, we've all dealt with it,
and how do you you know, how.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Does it change a person's trajectory?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You know, how do you get past that?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
But that's a good One of the quotes in the
books is look over the fence. You know, when you
come to an obstacle, you don't stop. You look past
that and you said the words you know, But this
book is great for that because the easiest way to
get out of imposture sin is to become really, really
(21:02):
good at what you do, or I have a lot
of knowledge. Like when I started the real estate route,
I wanted more not I was not that I was
a good real estate investor, but I wanted to become
a great real estate investor, and I knew knowledge was
the key to get there. So if you want to
get past the impost syndrome, think about, well, why do
(21:24):
I not think I'm capable? Okay, well let's fix that.
And then it's a daily process. So you decide, well,
I want to fix that. That's your definite purpose. Develop
a burning desire so you work on it every single day. Yeah,
and then believe and before long people will be coming
(21:47):
to you asking how do you do this? Or why
do you do this? You know you'll become the expert.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, and you know you're talking about imposter syndrome too.
A word that just popped into my head was worthy.
It's not even I'm not capable. Sometimes you just don't
think they're worthy. Well, me, why would anyone want to
support me? I mean, I know I can do it.
I can do a great job, but why would I
be worthy of this? Why am I worthy of this?
And words have power, they really do so to be
(22:15):
able to change the the you know, the words that
you use and start thinking about, Yeah, you are worthy
and you are capable, so why not why not you?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Yes? Well, if you go back to some of the
most powerful stories in the Bomble, you know Joshua or Moses,
Moses didn't think he was worthy. You know what am
I going to say when I'm supposed to go talk
with his king he'll put me to death and asking
him to let all of his slaves go. I'm afraid
(22:47):
I can't do this. And then Joshua, uh, when God said,
you know you're going to go take over the Promised Land,
You're going to defeat Jericho. Well, this was a fourtified
city of the greatest power in the world at the time,
and you know, they've been wondering in the wilderness for
(23:08):
forty years. They didn't exactly have the tools to go
in and fight this army, and so he hesitated a
long time and he tried to knock God out of
the You know, I don't think I can do this,
but he did it sure, And so you know, you
take courage from stories of people. You know, doesn't matter
(23:28):
if you're religious or not. Those are just great stories
of people who doubted themselves. And there's stories of people
in the in the early centuries, in the nineteenth to twentieth,
the twenty first century. I mean, it doesn't matter where
you look. You can find stories of people who doubted
(23:51):
themselves who became extremely successful, and that everyone knows.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Can you talk a moment about the connection between mindset
and momentum? You know, how do your daily habits affect
the forward motion, so to speak.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
I'm glad you said that this book and the habit
that you form is like putting a rudder on a boat,
because before you can do the magic formula that's described
in the book, the very first thing you have to
do is decide what you want. That's the first thing
(24:29):
with the magic formula, and then you have to move
toward it every day. If you're going to do the
magic formula in the book, once you decide what you want,
the habit will give you a daily reminder. Because people
get up and they think, oh, what am I going
(24:50):
to do today? Well, if you have this habit, you
don't ever have to worry about what you're going to
do today. You're going to move towards your goal, and
it's going to remind you of what your goal is
so and remind you of your definite purpose. Imagine a
ship out in the middle of the ocean and it's
the greatest ship in the world. It's totally all decked out,
(25:12):
has everything, it's worth millions of dollars, but doesn't have
a rudder. So where is it going to go?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
No, So this habit is a rudder. It's a daily reminder, Well,
this is what I want. I want to I want
to a million people to have a copy of my book,
and I wanted to help a million people. And I'm
going to move in that direction every single day, and
the next day you remind yourself over and over, and
it's like the rudder.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Keeping you from moving into a different plan. Sure, so
many people fail because they'll start something and then they'll
see a shiny object over here and they'll forget about this,
and then they'll move over here.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
So having a goal and a plan and moving that
direction is one of the major keys to success.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, but what advice would you have as someone who's
really kind of overwhelmed by all the self help stuff
out there and you know it doesn't really know where
to start besides buying your book, because that might be
the first place to start.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Beyond that, how do they move?
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Well, my book is not like the other self help books.
If you if you buy Thinking Grow Rich or The
Magic of Thinking Big, or any number of others, you
can read those books all the way through and they'll
help you. This book was not meant to be read
(26:41):
all the way through. There's too much in it and
too it's too powerful. It's like it's like taking the
Bible and saying, I want to be I want to
be a good Christian, I'm to read the Bible all
the way through. Well, that wouldn't really help you much.
That's not how the Bible's set out. You're not supposed
to read it all the way through. And this book
is set out the same way. You're only supposed to
(27:03):
read until something powerful hits you that you can contemplate.
Back in the fifth century, a group of monks developed
a way to study the scripture and become closer called
lectio divina. So what they would do is they would
take a scripture and they would read it silently, then
(27:27):
they would imagine themselves being part of it. Then they
would read it out loud. Then for the rest of
the day they would contemplate that scripture or that verse
or that story in the Bible. So I was on
the podcast probably six or seven months ago when I
(27:49):
was telling about this book, and he says that sounds
like ledio divina, And I said, what is that? And
so he told me, and I went back and studied it,
and it's exactly what it is. You're you're not You're
you're going to read and you're going to get inspired.
Well stop. Once you're inspired, you stop, and then you
(28:09):
put yourself in that position and you contemplated, and you say,
how can this be part of my life? How can
the uh the will and determination of Arnold schwartzeneggor or
or Sylvester Stallone or Disney, you know, the Disney stories.
(28:31):
It's the longest story in the book. And I probably
enjoyed writing that more than any of the others because
I learned so much that nobody knows. Everybody knows the name.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Disney, right, but very few people.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Have any idea of the struggles the guy went through.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
He did the bankruptcies, and really he had what do
they say, a dollar in a dream, you know, and
he looked what he built.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, people would steal from me. He wasn't a very
good businessman. His brother was. And had it not been
for his brother, he probably wouldn't know the name Disney.
But uh, he wouldn't. He wouldn't make critical errors and
and give up things that he that he didn't really
have to. But he learned from his errors. It's so interesting.
(29:19):
And he actually spurred an entire industry, uh, from his
very humble beginnings in a business that failed totally. Uh.
The people who worked there went on to to create
Woody Woodpecker and Lumney tunes and all the cartoons that oh, right,
(29:45):
really spurred. Originally the seed was cast and not Saint
Louis but Kansas City, Missouri, of all places, that's where
the cartoons started, and Kansas City interesting with Disney's first
business life of ground.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
So I want you to be an opportunity just to
you know, anything you want to leave the listeners with
today that we haven't talked about.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Okay, Well, I would love to give them all a
full ebook copy to help them for free. Those strings attached.
If I go to really impact book dot com, scroll
down to the bottom where it says podcast attendee, you
click on that, you put your name in email, and
you get an instant download. There's three gifts. There's three gifts.
(30:37):
That's one of them. You get all three gifts. So
it's kind of like rubbing the magic laugh you get
the gift. Well, why am I doing that? You don't
have to buy anything I'm putting. I'm not putting you
on a mailing list. You're just getting a book. But
why Well, first of all, I want you to see
how I write, because I'm writing other books. And if
(30:59):
you've loved this when you probably want to buy one
of the others and you'll read this and you'll think, oh, well,
my nephew is graduating from college. This would be a
great book for him getting started, you know, help him
decide what he wants to do, or a high school graduate,
or maybe you're a grandparent, must give something a legacy
(31:20):
gift to your grandchildren. The deluxe copy of the hard
bound book is literally beautiful. I was being interviewed by
on a podcast by a publisher who actually creates books,
and he held the book up and he said, Dennis,
this may be the nicest book I've ever held in
my hand. I used to throw in a printing Compannissa.
(31:42):
I knew the best paper, I knew the best company
out of designing. So it is a nice book. If
you want to give a legacy gift, it's nice. So
go and get the book. Let it help you share
it with other people. I don't care. And if you
want to know about the other books that I'm writing,
to click on the link that says let me know
(32:02):
when you have new books.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
I hope you. If you want to get in touch
with me for speaking engagement or radio program or another podcast,
it says contact us at the top and it has
my name, my email address, and my phone number.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Fantastic. Thank you so much. You know friends.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Dennis Henson's Joy reminds us that success isn't a matter
of leupper chance. It's a daily ritual, a quiet force
that shapes everything beneath the surface. So if you're struggling
with doubt or stalled momentum, Real Impact daily inspiration could
be the catalyst that shifts your life's course. Find it
(32:45):
at Real impactbook dot com, where inspiration becomes action.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And if you're ready to face.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Your own mysteries to seek answers beyond the ordinary, visit
me at Mediumscott Allen dot com book reading, Explore my work,
or get a copy of my book In the Presence
of Light, a funeral director's journey from Morning to Mediumship.
Your journey will start right there. For those drawn to
the shadows and the unexplained. Watch Dark Deco's Paranormal streaming
(33:14):
now on Amazon Prime Video, and Paraflex, of which I
am a featured medium, be coming out on Apple TV
and two Me very shortly as well. And so thank
you for being with us here on the Enlightened Pipeline Podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And remember sometimes the smallest habit can move the largest mountains.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Have a wonderful day, everyone, and thank you for joining US,