Robert Raymond Riopel — Living An Empowered Life, Create The Life Of Your Dreams

And once again, it is what's involved, you know, I love chatting to interesting people, fascinating people. And I try and find some of the most interesting and fascinating people for you. And one such person is coming to me all the way from the United States. The gentleman is Robert Raymond Riopo. Hello to you.

Hey, David, nice to be chatting with you. And I won't take it personally that you consider I'm from the 51st state of Canada. So I'm not quite in the US. Are you in Canada? It's not a wonder you're so nice then, because I was going to say, you're way nicer than a lot of Americans sometimes, but don't worry, we won't say that loud and ony. So you're in Canada. So it's early in the morning there, I'm assuming around about 5am, as we're doing this chat. And what is the weather like there? Because from an outsider's perspective, I just think Canada and I think cold, colder, coldest. Well, and it all comes down to perspective if you think about it. So we are entering into our spring here, so which is nice. And we're right now we are actually in the above zero, we're actually at plus two right now. And it's going to be a beautiful day. We're going to get up to about 17 degrees as our high. So, you know, not too shabby for this time of year. Wow. And we're in autumn getting into our winter and we complaining because, you know, our minimum temperatures go down to about 10 degrees. And, you know, during the day, it's up to 22, 23, and that's horrific for us. Well, I hope, you know, I'm feeling your pain right now, David, I'm feeling your pain. I hope you can handle it. Anyway, that's before we sort of dive into a couple of the topics that I want to chat to you about, because you do some amazing things and you've you've interacted with some incredible people. Tell me a little bit about Robert Riopul. Where did you start off in life and how did you get to to be on the stages that you are today? Yeah. Well, I'd like to say it was I was designed that way. But I'll tell you, it's been a journey. And that's what I've absolutely loved. I am the youngest of four here in Alberta and Canada and raised in a family where I was taught that when you grow up and you start working, which you do at a young age, is you just find a job that's secure, that's going to pay you the most possible. And even if you hate that job, you do it. That's how you take care of your family. And so that's what I did. And I started working very, very young age. I've always been an entrepreneur. And here I am. I'm a newlywed. I'm 21. And all of a sudden, I'm being laid off from my third job. And I'm going, OK, something's wrong here. I'm working hard. I'm staying loyal to the companies I'm working for. I started getting a complex, David. I'm like, is it every big company that hires me? All of a sudden they shut down or go out of business. Is it me?

Is it something I did? And here in Alberta, we have a lot of oil. And so in 1989, when I'm being laid off from this third job, all of a sudden it's like, what am I going to do? There's no real work. I'm looking for a real job. Can't find anything. So I decided to do something until I find that job. And I start delivering pizzas for Domino's Pizza. And because of my work ethic, I end up going from a driver to becoming a manager. My wife becomes my assistant. We start getting into that rhythm of working hard, open to close seven days a week, because we both know how to work hard. And a year and a half in, all of a sudden we kind of-- I go into fear mode again, because my franchisee goes, oh, I'm done with Domino's Pizza. I'm selling my two stores. And my mind went, oh man, here we go again. Not only am I going to lose my job this time though, my wife is as well. Our income is going to be gone. And my solution was, well, then we need to talk to the other franchisees, find out who is in need of managers. Because we knew that when stores were sold, the new owners came in and they let go of the managers first, because they had their own team. And so that was my kind of theory. Here's what we're going to do.

And my wife's kind of looking at me after I get all this off my chest and I'm frustrated and like, how is this happening to us? And she looks at me. She goes, I have a question for you. And I'm like, what? She goes, well, why are we going to do that? Why don't we just buy this store? We're franchisees or we're qualified to be franchisees. I looked at her like she was insane. And I'm like, because we don't have any money. That's why we don't buy the store. Because it's amazing how money kind of plays into that. But I'll tell you, my wife, also the youngest of her family, but she's young as a five, raised by a single mother. Her mother raised her kids that you find a way. And so we started learning, how do you buy a business if you don't have money? Fast forward five months later, making a lot of mistakes and doing a lot of learning. And all of a sudden, we weren't able to buy the store that we had and we were managing. We ended up buying both the stores he had for sale. And we did it with no money of our own. And we became franchisees. And we started doing okay, David, but one of the things we realized, and I'm sure it's the same in South Africa, there's a big difference between knowing how to run a store and knowing how to run a business. And I'll tell you, we struggled for the first couple of years figuring it out because here we are only 23. And we're like, oh, we're successful. And our whole philosophy was if there's money in the bank, we must be doing okay. I'm going to tell all you listeners, that's not how you do business. And a couple of years in, we had the government comes knocking on the door going, hello, you've got a business. There's something called financials that you're supposed to be filing. We got caught up in our account when we finally hired one, and they got everything caught up. They looked at us and they're like, how did you make it work? How did you survive?

There's no way you should have, but our tenacity wouldn't let us quit. And so we started doing better. We now knew how to make it. And we started making money and David, I'm going to shock you. And I hope your audience is okay with this because when something happened to us, I don't think it's ever happened to anybody else. As we started getting successful, we started spending more money than we were earning. And I know that's shocking. I know you've never heard of that ever happening before, right? Frankly, I'm flabbergasted because none of us in South Africa do anything.

Here we are eight years into being franchisees, and now we're over $150,000 in personal debt and going down quickly. And that's when we were introduced to personal development. And we ended up going to a three day training that when we walked out of that training, we had learned not only why we're in debt, but more importantly, we actually learned to take responsibility for our debt. I was good at blaming other people. It was because of them, we lost its investment. Or because of that, it didn't work. And when we learned to take ownership and then some specific skills that if we didn't want to be in debt, what we could do to change that, also in our life turned around really quickly. And next thing you know, we go from being over $150,000 in personal debt to actually being retired, completely financially free, nine months later at the age of 32. And, um, that is an amazing, amazing story. But, you know, there's this part of me that goes, Oh, okay, this sounds like a Cinderella story, and it sounds too good to be true. Um, there's a lot of things and a lot of times that you hear things like that. And it's like, but then why can't we do it? Why aren't I doing it? I mean, I come from also a very, a very conservative background. Um, and, and, you know, you were supposed to, to grow up, uh, get a job, work your entire life, uh, at that job, um, you know, get married, have the wife and the 2.4 children and the white picket fence. And when I didn't want to do any of those things, and I said, I wanted to be a radio presenter, my family were horrified.

They were absolutely horrified. And my dad, I remember my dad saying to me, how are you going to look after your family? Um, and, and yeah, you know, and I've also had somewhat of an entrepreneurial bent over, over the term. And I've done a lot of things, but this elusive, this elusive dream of success is a problem for me. And, um, I haven't, I haven't found it in certain ways. I think I'm very, very successful, but in other ways, I think we could do with a bit of an upgrade here. So I tell you what, Robert, cause you went on to author a book as well, um, which I like. And I want to talk a little bit about that and talk about what we've just discussed now, whether, you know, cause I know there's people listening going, yeah, it's okay for you. You know, you've told us that you've made it and you financially independent, yada, yada, yada, but it doesn't help us. So when we come back, can we chat a bit more about that? Yeah, I'm here to be of service and assist people because you've hit it right on David, that it isn't all just like, oh, there's ups and downs and love to help people with that. Fantastic stuff. This is what's involved. My special guest, Robert Raymond Riopo. Uh, we'll be having more from him when we come back. This is what's involved.

So good to have you along with us. And we're back with my special guest, Robert Raymond Riopo. Um, Robert, so you said I hit the nail on the head and, and, you know, I think I may well be guilty of, of, of being one of those people, but you get, uh, certain people who become professional seminar goers, you know, and, and you're always looking for that answer that what is going to, to help me, how do I get out of this? How do I break the cycle? Uh, is, is, is that a thing? Oh, absolutely. And, you know, whether you want to call it a seminar junkies, whether you want to call it whatever it is and people go, well, what's the secret? And, and I'll tell you, since we're on, you know, what's involved, let's tell you what's the secret. The secret is, is there is no secret. You have to put the work in. And that's one of the things that I've noticed around the world, the biggest difference between people who have success and people that don't is successful. People take actions and, but then one of the paralyzing reasons, a lot of people don't, David is because they go, but I'm already working hard and I just, I can't take any more time. And, and you know, what I would love to do is actually tell people and, and give them the hard truth of how my wife and I were able to go from that $150,000 in debt to retirement financial freedom in nine months. And I'll tell you that it's, it takes work, but the beautiful part is, and this has just been my experience from traveling around the world. Now, personally, having taught over half a million students in live trainings all over the world is that the truth is you're going to work hard anyway. And you already are, but most people are working hard, staying broke. And it's a lot of it's because they don't know what they don't know.

So you're already working hard. Let's make some adjustments so that that working hard allows you to create the financial freedom or the happiness that you really want. So if you want to go down that journey, let's do that. I think that would be a fantastic place to start and to go down, because I'm sitting here now and I'm thinking about a conversation that my fiance and I had the other day, because part of this whole business is we were a digital agency and we do online learning, et cetera, et cetera. And we're sitting and saying, you know what? The business is making money. We're working harder than we've ever worked in our lives in ridiculous hours. And yet at the end of the day, there's still no money. Where is this thing where you get to be a successful entrepreneur and you can take time off and have weekends and things like that? I know I'm not the only one. So let's dive a bit into that. Yeah, absolutely. So at the time when we ended up going to this training, like I said, we were working seven days a week open to close, which means we were putting in the 70, 80 or 90 or more hours per week just trying to earn that living. And that's why we were getting frustrated. That's why we weren't enjoying doing Domino's pizza anymore. But then it was like, what do we do? And like your family, what you described, both my wife and I, when we declared, hey, we're going to become Domino's pizza franchisees, our families went crazy. You can't do that. What if you don't succeed? How are you going to support each other? And it was just like, whoa, stop. And so first thing I'm going to tell your audience, you have to have the courage to follow your own path because it's not that people don't want you to succeed. Most of the time, especially family and friends, they don't want you to do something out of love or caring for you because they're afraid of you getting hurt. And that's their fear being projected on you. And so you have to have the courage to be on your own journey.

And one of the things that my wife and I learned is that one of the reasons we were in debt is we had, you know, when we started making money, that same keeping up with the Joneses, we thought we had to have all the toys. So we had like two vehicles because isn't that what successful people do? We had a boat because one of our sources was in the lake community. So of course you have a boat. Now the stupid thing was our busy season for that store was boating season. So our boat sat in the driveway looking pretty, but barely got used because we're always in the store being busy. But hey, we had a boat. And so the first hard decision that we decided to make is we took a really tough look at our life and asked ourselves, what is it that we don't need right now? Sure. We may want it. We may really enjoy having it. But what don't we need that if we were to simplify our life, it would allow us to bring our expenses down. And we took that hard look and we started getting rid of things that were expenses that we just didn't need in the moment. So we sold the boat. We sold one of the vehicles because we're always working together. We didn't need two vehicles. And we started to dramatically reduce our different expenses because we had learned that when passive income, it doesn't mean make meaning you're wealthy.

Passive income or financial freedom is when passive income, which is money working instead of you, you have more of it coming in than you have expenses going out. And the moment those two pass each other, all of a sudden you're now financially free. So in the nine months, when I share my story, people go, how did you go from deep in debt to actually being wealthy in nine months? And I'm going to be right up front. We didn't. We became financially free, which meant because we reduced our expenses so much that we had never learned about passive income before. So when we did it ended up finding two passive incomes that because we reduced our expenses, those passive incomes very quickly started paying for our lifestyle. And so now we are technically financially free, even though we weren't rich. But here's where the magic happened, David, and I hope your audience can handle this because I, you know, in my book, I talk about my three R's of my name, Robert Raymond, real pal. They also stand for keeping it real, keeping it relevant and keeping it repeatable. So I will always tell people the good, the bad, the ugly about what it takes to be successful and live that dream life. And so here we were, we now, we still had debt, but we had enough passive income coming in to pay for all of the expenses that we had, which we dramatically reduced. But the magic, which is something we had not expected. The moment we became financially free, we went from working 80 or more hours a week just earning the living. Now, all of a sudden, we had all those hours freed up because we didn't have to work anymore. And here's my question to you, David, if I magically said, Hey, David, you know, I'm aerodynamic, I'm bald, like a genie.

And if I'm that genie, and I say to you, here's an extra 40 hours a week to do with whatever you choose. Do you think you can do something with that time that would give you a great life? Oh, yeah, heck yeah. Right. So all said, magically, we now had 50, 60, 70, 80 or more hours a week freed up because we didn't have to work anymore. And so we decided to take 10 hours, 10 hours a week of that freed up time, not extra time over and above everything else we're doing. But this was time that was freed up. And we decided to focus on creating wealth. And the moment we had that, you know, less stress, because we weren't having to worry about earning a living, and we're able to focus on creating wealth, the wealth creation came so much easier. So my message to your audience is this, go for financial freedom first, get the freedom of your time. And then once you've got that time freedom, now focus on creating wealth. And watch how much easier it is, how less stress there is, and the more you're gonna enjoy the journey. And I hope that makes sense. It does indeed make sense. And I want to draw a parallelly and I'm sure, in fact, I did read somewhere that you've worked with him as a T half ecker.

Yes. Yep, he I was actually that's the training that's changed our life. Okay. And so this is great, because I've attended in South Africa was here as well, I attended one of his trainings. And we were incredibly fired up at the time. And there was a bunch of people I know that attended it as well. And we walked out there and life was going to change life was going to be brilliant. He had just given us all the tools we needed. And six months into it, nothing had really changed. So this is the part that I get to because my theory is like, we all have the same brains, in the sense of how it's put together. Well, generally, anyway. But why do some people seem to be able to like yourself, you went there, you got the mentorship, you got the knowledge, and you did something with it? Why do some people do that? And other people fall back into fear or overwhelm? Yeah, and overwhelms the big one is what really comes in. And what I've discovered in, you know, now the last 20 years of really working on myself, first of all, it comes down to the biggest differences, you've got to be willing to be honest with yourself, who you are, and what works and what's not what doesn't work. And so one of the things about me as an example, I am a world class procrastinator world class, if it was a, if procrastination was an Olympic sport, then I would be a gold medalist at it, no problem.

And for years, I you would have competition for me, let's just be honest. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. Competition. And for me, it was for years, I battled it, like, no, you're not, come on, you got to get rid of procrastination. And I fought it. And it wasn't until I realized, wow, you know, it's actually part of who I am. So how can I work with it, instead of resisting it? And, you know, I love the saying that an environment is stronger than willpower. So knowing that I was a procrastinator, that's where my wife and I said, you know, in this energy, in this space, our life does so much better. So as we started growing ourselves, we started volunteering and being in as many seminar rooms as we could, because we knew the moment we were out, like you're just saying, all of a sudden, six months later, not much has changed. So as we started moving forward, we're like, okay, how do we create the reality that we are in these kind of seminar rooms with this kind of energy as much as possible? And when my wife and I created our financial freedom for the first time, we actually became full on volunteers at every event that T. Harvecker put on. And in fact, as at this time, get this, he was only in Canada. He was in the province of Alberta, where we live, and the province of British Columbia. He's Canadian like myself.

That's where he started. And so we were actually volunteering at up to 38 events of his a year at our own expense, because we knew the more we're in that energy, the more we'd keep moving forward. So for your audience, my question is, is how can you create the reality of being around the energy and the environment that supports you, instead of having to struggle with one that does not support you? So for us, that was a solution. And you know, you mentioned that it's 5am here where I am right now. And you're surprised that I'm willing to get up at this hour. Here's why. My quote that I came up with is, I design my day in such a way that procrastination cannot play. So because I haven't had to work for money for a lot of years, it's easy to sleep in. And I will. So I purposely put interviews, coaching calls, trainings for early in the morning, because it's my reason to get up. Because once I've committed, then there's no problem getting up. And once my day started, I'm on the go. Because I've learned that's what works for me. Does that make sense, David? It absolutely does. And on that note, we're going to come back and chat more about this, because there is definitely an element of mind and mindset in this whole thing. And I'd like to touch on that, because you mentioned you create that energetic reality for yourself. So we'll dive back into that when we come back. My special guest, Robert Raymond Riopo. And what a-- he's led a fantastic life, I've got to tell you. And also, author of a best-selling book called Success, Left a Clue. We're going to find out about those clues when we come back. This is what's involved. And we're back with my special guest, Robert Raymond Riopo. As I said, he's an international trainer. Over half a million students around the world, and also this fantastic book, Success, Left a Clue. So Robert, let's go back to where we were just before the break. In terms of mindset and reality creation, because that's the other side of the coin, and something that's been very, very-- it's been top of mind. A lot of people have been talking about it in the days of the secret, when the secret was revealed in the movie, et cetera, et cetera.

And all you've got to do is visualize your perfect outcome, and it'll happen. And I, for one, think maybe I got it wrong, because I meditate every day of my life on my perfect outcome. And the universe,

I think the universe just sits back and goes, "You poor, poor person. You have no idea, do you?" Because I also firmly believe we all dance on the edge of chaos, and none of us really knows what's going on. Let's talk then about my four phases of life that I love to share with people, because that's exactly what really-- either people flow with it, or it ends up causing a lot of struggle in their life. And when you understand that we're going in a perpetual cycle anyway, and if you learn how to embrace it and utilize it, you can actually move towards the life that you truly want with less struggle, with less effort. So if you're willing to go down that road, we can go down that road right now. Oh, I'm right there next to you, ready to get off to the highway of success. Okay, perfect. Well, because I love to keep things simple. David, for me, I tell people I got one brain cell left, I'm doing everything I can to take care of it. So simple works for me. And I love using acronyms. So I want-- if people are listening, just think of the acronym of the word "open," and even write it down. And when we talk about the word "open," each of the letters can stand for one of the phases that people are constantly going through. Now, the "O" is one you were just talking about with meditation. "O" stands for the observation phase. And in the observation phase, this is where you're not a human being, you're not a human doing, you're actually human creating. This is where you're visualizing. What is it I would truly love to have in my life? And this could be all areas. This could be your mental, your emotional, your spiritual, your physical, and your financial. So this is the time when you're in the observation phase. This is where you do vision boards. You don't have to-- you're not trying to figure out how am I going to do it. It's just the question is, what would I like? And then this is why vision boards come in so powerfully. It's getting in front of you. Visual is memorable, whether you're cutting it out of a magazine and putting it on a board, doing it digitally, where you're creating a vision board online, whatever it is. This is the time where you take time to just sit and be with yourself and say, what would I really, really like in my life? Now, the P, this stands for the pamper phase. And this is one of the things I've realized and learned, David, that most people, especially entrepreneurs, why do they sabotage? Why do they end up crashing? Why do they not end up having the life they want? It's because they forget to do this phase, or they don't think they need to, or that they deserve to. See, in the pamper phase, this is where you take care of you.

You go to that saying, you cannot give what you do not have. So how can you truly take care of others if you're not taking care of yourself? And two words I want people to keep in mind in this phase is creativity and selfishness. Because in this phase, this is where you've got to be creative in how you can pamper yourself. You know, when you enter the pamper phase, this is where you either go on a vacation or book a vacation, or maybe you take 20 minutes and you read a book, or I take my phone out. I use an app called Calm. I love the sound of rain. So I'll take 20 minutes to half an hour. I'll put my earbuds in and I'll listen. I'll just sit back, close my eyes, and listen to the sound of rain for 20-30 minutes. And it clarifies my mind, it quietens my mind, and rejuvenates me. This is a time to get a manicure, a pedicure, or a massage. This is the time to really take care of you. So here's a practical step that I do in my life. I live by the calendar on my phone. And so when my wife and I are doing our calendars up, the first thing we do before we put anything else on the calendar is we actually put in pamper pieces. Things to take care of ourselves. Time together, time for ourselves, time for family.

And think about when you're talking money. Wealth rule number one is pay yourself first. So if that's true for money, why wouldn't you do that with your time as well? And that's the mistake most people make is they don't do that. So we want you to pay yourself first. So we put our pamper pieces on the calendar first so that we know we're taking care of ourselves. That's where the selfishness comes in because a lot of people go, "Well, I don't deserve this or I don't have time." Trust me when I say, if you do this, it doesn't have to be huge times, but give yourself some little ways of pampering yourself. Watch how that keeps you rejuvenated. The creativity, and I'll use an example from my life. People are asking me, "Robert, you travel around the world. You're on flights that are like 12, 14, 16 hours long. Why would you do that?" Well, one, I love going to other countries. South Africa is one that I was just about to get to before we started not doing the trainings there for a little bit. And so I know I'm going to be coming to back to South Africa soon. And I can't wait for that because I love to travel, meet new cultures, new people. So that's one reason. But the main reason I love the longer trips is when I sit on that plane and I get in my seat, that's my time.

I don't do business. I don't connect to Wi-Fi. I watch movies because I love watching movies. I read, I eat good food, I drink great wine. Why? Because I know the moment I step off the plane for the next three to five days, I'm on stage for up to 12 hours a day giving, giving, giving. And so if I don't take care of me, how am I going to take care of my students? So those are the first two phases so far. Any questions on that, David? Right. So I think you hit the nail on the head there, Robert, because when you talk about the pampering thing, we had it in our business the other day, we were busy chatting about this, and you know, we go, you need to take time off. We're burning out here. And then you're like, oh no, but I can't. But what about this? And you get so scared of taking your foot off the gas.

That it totally clouds this need for that special time, that time, as you say, the pampering time. Yeah. And I'll tell you, I learned it the hard way. I don't want ever anybody to think that I've had the perfect life and everything's just fallen apart. I'm no different from anybody else, David. I'm absolutely no different. And even when I started living my passion, now in 2001 is when my wife and I first found personal development and it changed their life. And all of a sudden I found out that, hey, if this can work for us, if I could even help one person do what my wife and I have done, create financial freedom and make it all worthwhile. And all of a sudden I started on the path of wanting to be a trainer. And so the next thing you know, I become TR Becker's very first protege, the first person he ever had teach any of his trainings other than himself. And I started living my passion and next thing you know, I started doing in the first four and a half years of training. I did over 200 trainings around North America and launching into Asia because I was living my passion. But I forgot the pamper piece and I started overliving that passion. In fact, I was actually only at home on average two days a month and I got burnt out. And because I wasn't also taking care of myself properly, I ended up herniating a disc and having to go through two back surgeries. So in 2008, I ended up having to take a year off, but that year turned into three and a half years because all of a sudden I was so burnt out and having to go through back surgeries that it totally changed and turned my life back around. And at three and a half years, I went from overliving my passion to not living it at all. And next thing you know, all those negative non-supportive habits started coming back in because remember environment is stronger than willpower. And it took a very traumatic event to make me realize I had to start training again because that is my gift. And so pampering, that's why when I came out of retirement, I went, you know what? I'm not going to put my body through that again. So how do I have a little more balance in my life? And people think that balance is like everything's perfect.

It's not. Balance is making adjustments as things go out of balance. And so one of the first things I just said is when I come out of retirement, I'm only going to do 20 trainings a year maximum, no matter where in the world I do them so that I still take six months a year off. Because David, I like my time off, plain and simple. And so I've learned this doing it the hard way. And that's why the pamper is so important to me today. And like I said, a little bit of selfishness, little bit of creativity and watch what that will do for your life. Fantastic. Okay. So now let's move along to the rest of the letters. Yeah, the E this stands for the energy phase. And you know, this is where it's like get her done. And this is where when you're in the energy phase, it's about writing those emails, doing those, doing those meetings that you have to do, getting what needs to be done, done. And this is another reason why that pamper phase is so important. Because when I'm in an energy phase, I can put in an 18 hour day. Now at the end of the day, am I tired? Absolutely. But am I burnt out? No, because I know I'm taking care of myself. And one of the biggest things I hear from people of why they're not successful, though, is they go, but Robert, I'm so busy, I have a family, I have my job or my business, you don't understand. And what I've come to learn from the research is this David is that people are really, really good at being busy. But they're not so good at being productive. And again, there's a world of differences between the two. And so what I teach people is the second thing that goes on my calendar, after the pamper pieces is what I call focused time. And this is the time where, you know, think about this, I could sit there and go because I'm writing my new book right now, I can go, Oh, I'm going to go into the office and write my book. Eight hours later, I can come out and go, man, was I busy? But it doesn't seem like I did a lot of my book. What was I doing? Oh, I checked social media, I was doing emails, I got distracted here. I don't know if you can relate to that at all, David. But that's what happened to my life.

And so when I do, oh, go ahead. To interrupt you, you're talking to somebody who's spent their life with, well, up until recently, undiagnosed ADD, I used to find any rabbit hole to go down. I was saying this, right? I'll suddenly find myself on YouTube watching the mating habits of the lesser spotted genital or something. And I'm like, how did I get here? So I understand this part. Exactly. Yeah. So what I discovered is that when I do these focus times, I'll only ever make them 30 minutes to an hour, because there's a lot of research on how long a person can truly stay focused. But I've learned from me, and this is what you've got to learn for yourself. For me, an hour of focus time is the most I can really stay focused on something without getting distracted. And so I'll actually put on my calendar, let's say 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock, write book. Now, in that one hour I come in and there's no other distraction. My whole focus is I start writing my book. And I've learned that one hour of me being focused is the equivalent to about six hours of me being just busy. And so now when I put focus times into my calendar, and I was mentioning I have one of my students, she's from South Africa, her life was the same thing. And she's now implemented throughout her day, five days a week only, she's actually puts in three focus times on her calendar, and has dramatically changed her life, because she's now getting so much more done.

And she's gone from her husband going, Oh, you just bought another one of those trainings that you're gonna do nothing with to now he's one of her greatest cheerleaders, because he's like, wow, look at what you're accomplishing. This is amazing. And so his whole energy has changed because her energy changed. So use the focus times and watch what you can accomplish. So that's the third step of the four phases. Are you ready for the last one? Indeed. All right. Now this one, we had to be a little creative, though, David, I'll tell you, because the N is not the first letter of the word. But I wanted the acronym of open. So I had to get creative. So I use the second letter of this word. And it stands for unclutter. And the unclutter phase, another name for it is called chaos. You mentioned chaos earlier. And here's what happens when chaos enters people's lives. What do most people do? They resist it. But if you understand that chaos is natural, chaos is natural. And actually, if you embrace it, because as human beings, we're meant to evolve. And chaos comes into our life to help us get unstuck and evolve. And I'll tell you in a moment why I call it the unclutter phase, because I'll let you know you can actually volunteer for chaos.

As strange as that may sound, you actually if you courageously volunteer for chaos, watch how your life changes. Because when you go into the chaos phase, this is the time to destroy something. When you're here, this is where you destroy something that has not been working in your life. Now that could be something as dramatic as a business or personal relationship that hasn't been working. Or it could be something as simple as destroying a mindset that hasn't been serving you a belief that you know, it's not supporting you, you know, it's not true, but yet you hang on to it. And I love the saying that says proof is a cure of all doubt. So if you want to destroy that belief, prove it wrong so that you can actually get rid of it. The reason I call it the unclutter phase, though, is because the way you courageously volunteer for chaos is, have you ever gone to your refrigerator, David opened it up and went, oh, there's something that needs to be cleaned out of here. It's maybe been in here a little too long. Has that ever happened for you? Yeah, once or twice. Yep. So that's where you go in and you unclutter. Maybe you clean out the refrigerator. I come to my office every couple of weeks. I clean it up. I get rid of the paperwork I don't need. I strain it up. You can go to a closet. What clothes have I not been wearing? Let's take them out now, donate them or sell them or whatever, throw them in the trash.

If they're that, you know, then they're that old. And so you actually unclutter things in your life, which shows to the universe, God, higher power, whatever you want to go by, that you're willing to cooperate. And as a friend of mine says, he says, instead of being willing to live life, courageously allow life to live you. And it does take courage to do this. And so by uncluttering your life in little ways, you're actually cooperating with the universe. And again, this is something never do I want people to believe that I'm any better than anybody else. I'm just, I've got the same, you know, I'm five foot six overweight, 52 year old guy that has no hair. Plain and simple. I'm just me. And that's all I can be, right? And, you know, in that time, I took off, I had said, I'm going to take one year as a break. But because I got into my old habits and excuses, well, I didn't realize I herniated a disc. I'm now going through waiting for back surgery. I can't go back and start training again. And I started coming up with all these reasons why I couldn't. And I was getting these little messages. And David, have you ever had the universe send you messages that if you ignore, they don't go away, they just come back a little more intense. Have you ever had that happen? Sadly, sadly, Robert, my that stubborn that the universe whispers at me. And the only time I actually listen is when I get smacked upside the head by it. So yes, exactly. Yeah. And so you and I are so like in that way, but you have nicer hair.

I'm just going to say that. And so here I am two years into my break, that was supposed to be a one year break. I'm now two years into it. When all of a sudden the universe gave me a message I could not ignore. And I was actually attacked by a dog that had lunged for my throat. Thank goodness, I got my chin and not my throat. But when it ripped through my chin, I realized one inch further, it would have got my jugular and me and my gift would have been gone. And in that moment, instead of going, why the did this happen to me? I went, okay, why did this happen to me? And all of a sudden, a universal saying came to my mind that I taught all over the world, that which is not utilized is eliminated. And I had not been living my gift. And it could have been gone just that easy. And so could I. And in that moment, I made the decision I had to come out of retirement and start training again, because it is a gift I have to give this world. And it still took a year and a half for me to go through my physio and get properly back on my feet now because I said I will never I made the commitment, I'd never put my body through what I did before and cause it to go through, you know, two back surgeries. So it took a year and a half to fully come out of retirement. But when I did, I know today, I will never stop training, I will teach any way I can for the rest of my life. And look, COVID has made it now more digital virtual, so I get to do it from home. So I don't have to travel all the hundreds of thousands of miles a year. But I'm still going to live my gift no matter what. So the unclutter phase takes courage.

Fantastic. Now let's let's just get into this because I want to talk I want to talk about the book and a bit about what you are in fact offering at the moment, because I know you said you're going to be coming out to South Africa in the not too distant future. And I'm going to put my hand up right now and say I'd like to be in the front row when that happens, because I'd love to be able to spend some time and hang out with you. But for those of us who are not that fortunate at the moment, in terms of of your book, where is that available? Are you going to offer us some kind of a special opportunity here? Well, you know, one of the things I absolutely believe is that our time is one of our most precious commodities. And the fact that a you've taken your valuable time to interview me, David, it means so much to me, and I appreciate it. And the fact that your audience has taken their valuable time to listen. You know, that means a lot as well. So as a gift from you and I to your audience, you know, my international bestselling book success left a clue. They can simply just go to my name, Robert real pell.com. And they're actually gonna be able to download the entire digital copy of the book as our gift to them for taking their time. However, I will say it comes with a caveat. And I hope your audience can handle this. Do you think they can, David?

Well, I'm assuming the caveat is going to be they need to sign up and get some more info from you. No, that's actually not what it is at all. The caveat is I know I didn't write the book for to go on the shelf and become shelf help. That doesn't help anybody. You know, in the book, I cover the six life changing habits to achieving your dreams while keeping it real relevant and repeatable. There's those three hours again. And so step number three is you have to take action. Remember, I said earlier, the biggest difference between successful people and not is successful people take action. So knowing people are creatures of habit, I wrote the book as a workbook, meaning there's action steps all the way through. And I'll even say because it's my quirkiness, I'm a goofball. I even will say in the book, hey, did you do the last action? If not, stop reading right now, go back, do the action first, then continue reading, because here's my promise to everybody. If you download the book, you read it and do the action steps. I guarantee you'll take your life to another level. So that's the caveat is you've actually got to do the work that's in it. It's not hard, but people's minds will come up with reasons not to do it. So that's a caveat.

And to give them a little more incentive, because I'm right now in my giving back phase of my life, David, I've been blessed in so many ways that I love to help as many people as I can. When they download the book, they're actually going to be able to book in to have a 20 minute one on one with me, no one else strategy session, where because they're going to fill out a questionnaire in that 20 minutes, I'm going to give them some very practical strategies that they can put into their life to take their life or break through obstacles that have been holding them back. I'm going to give them some great strategies. I don't do any selling on this call. I'm just there to give them 20 minutes of sheer value so that they can take one more step in the direction that they want to go. So that's the best way to stay in touch with me and to really take what I'm teaching and go to another level with it. Robert, I think that is absolutely fantastic and I'm humbled by your generosity. Thank you so much. My challenge to each and every one of you though is get the book, follow the actions, book that 20 minute call. I'd love to hear some feedback. If you'd like to get hold of me, it's david@what'sinvolved.com. Tell me about how it went. Tell me what you think.

Tell me whether you agree or disagree. I'm a big fan of discussion in that aspect. Robert, you said to me you're writing another book, a second book. So I'm putting my hand up there for an interview about that book as well. Aside from that though, and I like to ask my guests this before I let them go because we are running out of time. What is next aside from the book for Robert? Yeah. Well, you know, because two words I live by and this is part of my new book as well and the four phases actually are from my new book is the two powerful words I use in my life all the time are what's next. You know, March 10th, 2020, I was on a flight back from India. I just finished its powerful three day training when all of a sudden the world changed and I went from flying 200,000 miles a year down to zero. And I played the victim for a couple of weeks. My wife and I did just like a lot of people, like what's going to happen? How, you know, cause all of a sudden hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue were gone. All my live events around the world canceled. And so we played the victim for a little bit, but when we started to realize what we're doing ourselves, cause again, we're like everybody else. So I asked, we asked ourselves, what's next? And my wife and I, we were blessed that we live on a beautiful acreage that we bought a few years ago with the intention of eventually building a training center on it. So instead of me having to travel so much around the world, my students would come to me. And so we decided to build it now. And so I'm now sitting in my office and it's a, I'll do it in square feet because I don't know the square meters, even though I am Canadian, but we built a 2,400 square foot training center on the back of our home. And now I'm looking forward to being able to have masterminds and, and students come see me here. I love training trainers. So having them to be able to come be in front of a camera because I've now set up a studio where I've got, you know, video walls, I've got multiple cameras, angles and stuff like that. So I, I'm now doing a lot of trains from my own home office, having a blast doing that. But I'm also going to be in India back in September. I'm coming up in September. I'm going to be down in the US doing some trainings because some live trainings are coming back on and I'll not do 20 now. I'll do only about four or five live trains a year.

The rest will be from home because I like being at home. Yeah. That's, I got to agree with you. I mean, I, I thought as well when, when this, this COVID hit and all of our sort of trainings, et cetera, that we do as well, we're canceled. I thought that's it. I don't know how I'm going to survive. Don't know, don't know. Because I love being able to interact with people and deal with people. And I've become quite used to being at home and doing everything remotely. Although Robert, I think I speak, I speak for all of, all of my listeners now. We would love to have you in this country. And then I'd love to be able to sit on and have a cup of coffee with you. But thank you so much. If you missed out, it's robertreopel.com. That's where to go. I'll put the link in the podcast as well. So you can pick it up there. Robert, all that remains for me to say is thank you so much for taking the time out and having a chat with us. I really do appreciate it. Oh, my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me, David. There we go. Wraps it up. My special guest there. Robert Raymond Reopel. Remember, if you want to get that book, I encourage you to do it. It's Robert Reopel. So it's robert, R-O-B-E-R-T-R-I-O-P-E-L.com. Get the book, make use of it, change your life. Wraps it up for me for this episode of What's Involved.

Teach everyone of you, look after yourselves, take care, and thank you for listening.