Ralph Zuranski: Do you have the
courage to pursue new ideas?
Craig Perrine: New ideas are really
the source of your greatest opportunities. If you
already know it that is not the same thing but if you
are open to testing new ideas see if they are valid for
you because not all ideas are great but that process of
testing, and saying”Ok, I’ve got this new idea or I have
learned this new strategy.” you are looking at these
things and it works for you or improves your life in
some way then you have added to your life and your mind
set and to who you are.
Craig Perrine: Closed minds are
unfortunately for me like whenever I have been resistant
I have always found that I have been locked in to
patterns or a certain level of success. Your unable to
move because with the new ideas, even if they
technically fail or don’t get you the result that you
wanted, if your not in to trying new things than you
miss out on all the other ones that do work out and
frequently the things that do work out and I know this
is true for me, often come after a series of what most
people call failures.
Craig Perrine: If you can just frame
all that in your mind as a result and not a failure then
that’s really the way to go. I read a book recently by
Randy Gilbert called Success Bound and he talks all
about how you need to essentially succeed your way
through failure and the folks that really struggle the
most with getting what they want are the ones who punish
themselves the most if they don’t succeed right away.
Craig Perrine: I will tell you this
right now is the curse behind that that things need to
be perfect or we need to be perfect, that perfection is
actually a worthy goal when I think it is one of the
cruelest things out there because of how I believe the
universe works, there is light and dark, there is
duality, there is good and bad, there are things we
don’t like about our favorite things.
Craig Perrine: So the idea that
something could be perfect in terms of 100% of what we
want is foolish. It is not even possible, in my mind.
Now that doesn’t mean you can’t create excellent, I am
just saying perfection is where you say “Ok I don’t dare
to try something new because I don’t want to make a
mistake.
Craig Perrine: I want to be perfect;
I don’t want to ever be wrong.” Well, guess what you
will never do anything if that is the way you look at
life. For example riding a bike or if you skip
Shakespeare because you didn’t want to mispronounce
anything, you would miss out on some really great
stories.
Craig Perrine: So, for me new ideas
sometimes, they rock your world, they scare the hell out
of you like “Man, I don’t want to believe that, that
changes everything I believe in.” but I think if you
trust your intuition you just know so you at least need
to take a look at them.
Craig Perrine: Your heroes program
is so valuable because you can get new ideas even if
they challenge you from people who are generally working
for the greater good of people and are heroes. You can
trust those kinds of ideas a little better than from
someone who is out for really only personal gain.
Ralph Zuranski: Were you willing to
experience discomfort in the pursuit of your dream?
Craig Perrine: Yes, I just think you
ought to accept it. Now I want to be real careful with
this answer because a lot of people expect to struggle
to get what they want. I am not saying you have to
struggle or that it has to be hard. You can have what I
call easy miracles, in fact I have a website that is all
about easy miracles and I am so fascinated with that.
Craig Perrine: It is manifesting
what you want and it is a lot easier than you would
believe but I also believe in times in our life we will
be tested and we will have to acquire new skills and new
relationships and new ways of thinking to evolve to a
higher level and that does involve some discomfort
because discomfort is like static, like, you are where
you are and if you want some change or if you want a
different feeling or a different result you may have to,
I believe, do something different and it may challenge
your existing belief system or it may make you feel
insecure or it may make you feel terrified.
Craig Perrine: I have absolutely had
to learn how to just do it anyway and understand that
the discomfort doesn’t always have to be such a big
deal. Like for instance, when you are working out or
when you exercise, if you think back to when you were a
kid, when you were riding your bike or when you are on a
swing technically your muscles get kind of sore even
when you’re playing, right?
Craig Perrine: But you’re playing
and you feel alive. It is when you get into habits
where you stop exercising all together, then it’s
uncomfortable and you start aching. All of that stuff
for me, just by doing something and moving forward with
something you are passionate about, you move through
that stuff. The biggest curse though was to always try
to be comfortable and never face any fear or
discomfort. I swear you will never get anywhere in life
if that is what your priority is.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you believe
your dreams would eventually become reality?
Craig Perrine: Yes and I believe it
is very important to believe because you will doubt them
sometimes and things might seem impossible but if you
believe, you will take different actions then if you
don’t believe. I love to talk about things on a very
practical level but if you believe, and here is the
dirty little secret, if you believe and ultimately that
particular dream never did come true, you are still
better off believing than saying “Ugg, I can’t ever make
anything happen.”
Craig Perrine: The odds are, if the
dream doesn’t happen it is because you have replaced it
with a bigger or better one and trying to avoid any
disappointment or setback, just think of it like a
child, a very young child and maybe there’re dream that
day is to get ice cream or a very big ice cream cone and
that is all they can think about is ice cream, right?
Well, the next day maybe they will go to a birthday
party and maybe they will get cake.
Craig Perrine: Maybe they will get
something in return that satisfies what they wanted just
in a different way than what they expected. So, you
kind of have to be open to that but basically you got to
believe that you can strive and achieve what it is that
you want to create whether that is a beautiful painting
or if you want to be a writer or a mathematician or an
engineer or anything you want to be, a dancer, it
doesn’t matter if you change your mind or if you change
your plan, you have got to believe that it will happen,
and the greatest news I can give you is that stuff
happens that I can only describe as miracles.
Craig Perrine: If you have no idea
of how you are going to achieve what you are going to do
it doesn’t matter, believe anyway and I guarantee you
will be amazed at the things that line up to make it
happen for you. It is just stunning to me as I was
someone who was very cynical and did not really believe
in anything that over the years I have learned just by
witnessing that amazing things can happen for no
apparent logical reason.
Craig Perrine: Whether you believe
in a higher power or you believe in luck, whatever works
for you, just believe because the worst thing in the
world is not believing in anything because you can’t
create or you can’t solve problems. How would the
airplane have been invented if nobody believed? How
would anything that we now take for granted been
invented if nobody believed?
Craig Perrine: People not believing
don’t create anything, they are the ones who sit in line
and wait for everything because the people the people at
the front of the line are the ones doing it. I get real
passionate about the belief thing, and be careful what
you do believe. Be real careful about what you do
believe because if you believe stuff that makes you feel
bad or look bad to yourself, that doesn’t help you
Craig Perrine: If something makes
you feel bad, look for some other way to feel about it
and learn. Ask yourself “Why do I believe that?” Look
at something in your life, let’s say you are
overweight. Why are you overweight? Is it because you
are a bad person? No, you probably just believe stuff
about how you live your life that is creating that
result.
Craig Perrine: Don’t take it
personally, just understand that if you changed your
belief, it would change your behavior and that would
change your result. Be careful about your beliefs
because they do determine where you go.
Ralph Zuranski: So do you think it
is important to surround yourself with people that
believe that you can accomplish your dreams?
Craig Perrine: I think that is the
greatest shortcut I know, especially if they are role
models. The ideal is if they have done it too or if they
have done something similar it’s like a shortcut because
you can tap into their belief or their knowledge and
their experience and have their guidance.
Craig Perrine: So that is all the
stuff you didn’t have to learn the hard way yourself and
by living like that, you can think of it in terms of
leapfrogging or standing on the shoulders of the people
who came before you. It is really how our whole entire
society is structured, we are born not knowing, were a
clean slate. We have very few automatic reflexes, very
few.
Craig Perrine: Everything else is
learned, we are pretty helpless. Since we do not come
with everything the previous generation knew we don’t
have a lot of instincts so we are designed to learn.
What do you want to learn?
Craig Perrine: Do you want to learn
the latest and greatest and best of what’s functional of
what the past generation knew or do you want to learn it
all over again and fight with everything?
Craig Perrine: No, stand on their
shoulders, learn from them, trust that they know
something that you don’t, learn it and then your job is
to do the same thing with the next generation that they
did with you when you get older, and if your young and
you are listening to this if you can just grasp that one
concept that people ahead of you in age have experienced
more than you have.
Craig Perrine: If you can benefit
from their lesson, you can make life easier and you can
give more because you have more effort that you can put
towards that instead of struggle.
Ralph Zuranski: How important do
you think it is to surround yourself with people who are
supportive in what you want to do and who aren’t
threatened by changes that you make?
Craig Perrine: I think that you are
going to have to face a reality in life that some people
that you care about are going to feel threatened if you
make your life better. You may not have anybody around
you right now that supports you in what you want to do
and that may be kind of like the worst case scenario but
on the other hand you need to surround yourself either
through books or the media or listening to tele seminars
like this or by attracting new friends or nurturing
those that you have.
Craig Perrine: I believe there is no
greater way to get on a path of self improvement than to
surround yourself with people who are where you want to
be or at a minimum have the support of where you want to
go. If you are passionate about something, your doing
something that is good for you and doesn’t harm anybody
else and its your dream, well, if somebody is raining on
that and saying “You need to stay where you are” and
“Don’t get too sure of yourself, don’t go for that, just
stay like us.”
Craig Perrine: Well, they don’t have
a right to tell you that and you don’t have a obligation
to listen to it. You can just say “Look, I know in my
heart that what I am doing is right. I am pushing
through some fears and some obstacles and I am going to
make it happen.”
Craig Perrine: You can always find
new friends and your family sometimes is a big
challenge, sometimes its family members that are the
biggest challenge. You just got to know that what your
doing is right because if there are changes in your life
and the people in your life that one time you may have
considered unimaginable and if you at least know that
you are on the right path then it was meant to be that
way.
Ralph Zuranski: says it is really
interesting that you bring that up about surrounding
yourself with good books,etc,etc…
Craig Perrine: If you are going to
watch TV watch the history channel, watch biography,
watch things that inspire, watch movies like “Rudy” or
sports movies. I love sports movies even though I
didn’t play a lot of sports.
Craig Perrine: I played some but I
love sports movies because they just have that lesson
all wrapped up in two hours of going for something, of
doing a lot more than you thought you could and if you
can study the folks that have achieved, especially what
you want to achieve but don’t limit yourself to that.
Craig Perrine: Read all kinds of
human achievement and success stories because whether it
is a health breakthrough or it is financial or it is a
relationship thing, of healing animals or who cares what
it is, all human experience comes down to excellence,
you can create wonderful results and if you learn from
people that have I really encourage you.
Craig Perrine: I teach Maverick
marketing, which is one of my sites, Maverick Marketer,
which is why I am so passionate about it because one of
the things you get when you are trying to market your
business is that you get the opportunity to define
yourself and come up with ideas.
Craig Perrine: The more you feed
your brain and come up with things that work, the more
great ideas you are going to have. You are a phone
connection away from the internet, it is at your public
library or your school or wherever it is, get on the
internet and focus on information.
Craig Perrine: I just found out the
other day they are having a hard time giving away
encyclopedias these days because everyone just gets on
the internet and it is all just there. Go to
“About.com” or go to “Google” and search for whatever
you want and you will find the answers.
Craig Perrine: That is the beauty
that is the liberating thing about our age is that
whatever information you need or whatever is missing
that you don’t know is out there. People that you need
are out there and there are people for centuries that
have come before you that have in essence faced the same
problems that you have and all you need, this is why the
heroes thing is so important, all you need to believe
sometimes is to see someone else did something and
overcame greater odds than you. Ok, because than you
know, it is just a matter of sticking with it.
Ralph Zuranski: How were you able
to overcome your doubts and fears?
Craig Perrine: That is a good
question because you know really that is what holds us
all back is our fears and our doubts. Well, first of
all, I have had a lot of help as far as family and
mentors that have reached out and really helped me and
that has really been an external force that has helped
me which I think that comes from serving others. That
is what has sort of attracted that help.
Craig Perrine: One of the things I
will credit right away is when I was about fifteen I
went to a summer camp that my father encouraged me to go
to. Tony Robbins was there as one of the guest speakers
and it was really all about overcoming obstacles and we
did ropes courses, we did all sorts of things to teach
us and give us a mind set that anything was really
possible.
Craig Perrine: It didn’t instantly
change my life completely, I went through a long period
where I had to internalize what I had learned but over
time I learned that when I really go for something and
am very clear about what I want, perhaps maybe even a
little obsessed about it, I make it happen and that
doesn’t always match up because internally I still have
doubts and fears and sometimes it was a kind of scary
process, to go for goals but the thing is that one of
the great things about life is, if you do what you fear,
you know, the money and success and your health and
other things you are trying to achieve will naturally
follow.
Craig Perrine: A lot of folks want
to do what they love and that is great and overall you
should be striving for what you love but part of getting
what you love and your passion will be moving through
fears, that’s kind of going to be the cutting edge of
your success is how much you can break through your
barriers of what you are afraid of because the neat
thing is on the other side of that you realize that it
is not as bad as you feared it would be.
Craig Perrine: The key thing about
heroes and this is certainly true of the other folks you
have interviewed, these are people who have all had
fears too and doubt and I forget who said this, I would
love to attribute it to somebody but the difference
between a hero and other people is that heroes will be
afraid and they will do it anyway.
Craig Perrine: See I had this belief
when I was younger that people who were stars or
whatever, that they weren’t afraid, that that’s why they
were successful is because they weren’t afraid, and I
wasn’t afraid is when I would have arrived but its not
the case. In fact, you would be surprised, getting to
know people on a personal level that everyone has the
same stuff.
Craig Perrine: So, to answer your
question, the more you learn how were all the same and
we all have fears and hopes and desires, as long as you
see that there are patterns there, you can kind of get
beyond that and get out of your own head and say “Ok,
its not all about me.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you experience
service to others as a source of joy?
Craig Perrine: Well, I learned along
time ago and kind of the hard way, that material things
and experiences and things you do for yourself, they
come and go and they don’t really last. But for me, the
feelings that I get and the memories really that I keep
when I know I have been of service to others as in
friends or customers or family, that is really
priceless.
Craig Perrine: It makes me just feel
a deeper level of satisfaction. Which I guess that is
kind of, in it for me when serving others, but I also
find that I am very passionate in helping others and
when I am involved in a project that is purely just for
personal gain, I don’t have nearly the charge or passion
as I do when I am coaching or helping someone else.
Craig Perrine: One of the neat
things is that you really can help yourself by serving
others if you want to look at it that way because you
make your life about serving others and there is really
nothing that you cant achieve and as what happens as
though I have found in my life is that other people in
the universe in general reciprocates when you are
serving.
Craig Perrine: So, it seems like the
right way to live on many levels, and again, for me I
know that it helps my sense of self esteem and the way I
feel about myself when I help others because on a core
level I think we all know what’s good and when we are
being of value in the world. So, knowing you are living
that way and helping others just makes you feel better
about yourself.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you maintain
your sense of humor in the face of serious problems?
Craig Perrine: For me it’s my whole
way of dealing, I just laugh. I wish I could say I
always laugh from the first instant something bad
happens but I do quickly turn to laughing or joking
around about it. There are some real almost selfish
reasons for doing that. It really helps you because when
you laugh about something you are literally chemically
activating some positive centers in your brain, your
happy chemical.
Craig Perrine: So if you laugh
through things that scare you or make you angry you are
in a great position to achieve what you want. In some
ways humor is kind of all negative, like slap stick
comedies or if you tell a joke about something it is
usually bad or negative about something and then we
laugh.
Craig Perrine: So if you can do that
in your own life what you really are doing is detaching
from the pain or the anger or whatever it is that you
are not happy about, and you’re laughing so you can kind
of step outside of yourself and look so you might as
well have started sooner.
Craig Perrine: And another thing
from a possibilities point of view, if you are able to
laugh about something unfortunate, in a genuine way it
also means that it is not so serious and your mind opens
up to the possibilities of solutions and things you can
do to make it better instead of getting “Oh this is
serious, I really need to panic now.”
Craig Perrine: Now of course don’t
get me wrong it’s not right to laugh at other peoples
misfortune but if you can help them to laugh in a
similar way. If anyone saw that movie Patch Adams, he
was a Doctor and there was this scene where he dresses
up like a clown and he is helping these terminally ill
children to laugh.
Craig Perrine: He didn’t walk in
there in say “Ha ha, you guys are all in the hospital.”
That’s of course not what I mean but he was able to do
things that distracted them from their pain and made
them laugh. So what better way to deal with crappy
stuff that comes up in life than to be able to laugh at
it, that way it doesn’t get you down.
Ralph Zuranski: Who are the HEROES
in your life?
Craig Perrine: There are quite a few
of them in this series you are doing and I have a lot of
good friends and I have already heard their wonderful
interviews. To mention some there is David Garfinkel,
Michael Fortin and Joe Patalli but seriously the list is
really much too long to even list here. I really see a
hero in all my friends because I choose people to be
around me who are creating and building to help make
life better for people.
Craig Perrine: They are often
entrepreneurs or authors or artist or even any sphere of
life. Let say that they are really working at becoming
the best mother or the best father that they can be.
For me that is a hero and I have learned a ton from
folks that one might say that there is nothing
particularly special about them, but there is. I will
say that in my life I have been so blessed with teachers
and parents and friends, particularly friends of my
family that have been great role models and have guided
me through some pretty tough times.
Craig Perrine: I went through some
pretty tough stuff with a divorce in my family and a lot
of chaos and friends and family are really what got me
through all of that and to me; I have absorbed so much
of what has worked for me from my heroes. To me a hero
is someone who teaches about possibility and the
unlimited human potential that we all have, people who
overcome challenges and create real value for others in
the world.
Craig Perrine: For me a hero, it
isn’t really about money or success although I do admire
achievement and excellence so if it is money or sports
great but really it has more to do with their heart and
their intention and the fact that they are trying to do
the best they can in the world.
Craig Perrine: The bottom line there
is that young people are essentially the seeds of the
next generation and we need leaders and heroes and role
models essentially to show them what works and what’s
good and what adds to life.
Craig Perrine: They are forming
their beliefs and if there is one thing I have learned
it is that beliefs really guide because everything you
do in life determines the decisions that you make and
how you feel about what happens in your life. So if you
have heroes and role models that guide you, it is like a
GPS system, you know, guiding you to happiness as oppose
to frustration and pain.
Craig Perrine: There are plenty of
anti heroes out there who want you to follow their
bandwagon, take drugs or listen to this music that is
really self destructive and angry. You know I never
would have said this as a teenager but now I get it now
that a lot of that stuff just gets you pumped full of a
lot of anger and anxiety. It makes you feel like “Oh I
am a victim” or “I don’t have what this guy has” or “I
am this color” or “I am this race” or “Everybody hates
me”.
Craig Perrine: If you focus on that
stuff than gosh that is a bitter harvest when you get on
the other side of it because you realize that by taking
on the flag of being a victim and not following heroes
who are shrugging off anything that gets in their way
and moving forward, you are really resigning yourself to
the limitations that people hand you.
Craig Perrine: In my mind when kids
can have role models which my favorite thing about what
you are doing here is that you are pulling people
together here that you have very generously seen the
excellence in somebody or you have seen the hero in
somebody.
Craig Perrine: Often I think more
clearly than they do and you are pulling this together
with the purpose of adding that to the lives of young
people. Someone ought to interview you, my friend
because this is the information age and you are adding
information out there and an awareness to people that
may not have any idea of what a hero might look like to
them.
Craig Perrine: Or they may have just
gone through something where they doubt that anything is
possible and I can tell you that from some of the paths
I have gone down in life and some of the bumps I have
ran across I have often felt that way myself and I have
learned from people who wouldn’t give up on me and the
people who just set a good example. There really is
nothing more important for kids than role models and
heroes because they are going to be the heroes of the
next generation in which builds our world.
Craig Perrine: I will tell you, I do
think the world is a lot better place then people give
credit for, especially in the media. Our popular
awareness is it is great to complain about things... We
have such abundance and amazing opportunities to do
things like what you are doing.
Craig Perrine: It is simply would
have been a whole lot different thirty years ago or one
hundred years ago and one of the things I find so
damaging in life for someone with this belief system
that really doesn’t work and I have done it and I have
seen it and whenever I see it popping up you have got to
shift your thinking. I don’t know if it is a cultural
thing of where it comes from but it is so easy to look
at what you don’t have or what’s not working and define
your feelings about how happy you are or how successful
you are by what is not working.
Craig Perrine: So if you say “Wow,
there is a war going on” or if you say “there is
pollution here in this spot” or “Gosh I am twenty pounds
overweight.” You can focus on that there is always
something you don’t have or there is always something
that is not working but, my gosh, if you just looked at
what you do have and you could be happy with what you
have you would be instantly happy.
Craig Perrine: Look at what you
have. Do you have a roof over your head? Even if you
don’t you are alive. There is always a way to look at
it, and what’s the harm, of looking at it in a positive
light instead of looking at what all there is to be
angry about?
Ralph Zuranski: Do you think people
have lost the feeling of gratefulness, being grateful
for what they have?
Craig Perrine: I think that we are
indoctrinated from a very early age to look at what we
don’t have and to wish for things we want, like making
up a list of toys you want or look at what the other kid
has. I don’t think we celebrate enough in a way that
seems reasonable and “cool” to the kids.
Craig Perrine: Look at what you
have, you may not have that snazzy red jacket that the
other kid has but you have a jacket and you have the
potential to go get that jacket if you want to do what
it takes to have it.
Craig Perrine: Anything is
possible. Something that I have learned that I did not
even know was possible, say when I was a teenager and I
am thirty-six now that you won’t get anymore if you are
not grateful for what you have.
Craig Perrine: It really just seems
to work that way, that if you are not grateful for the
income or the health or whatever you have, there is a
way in which you complain, you want to match that belief
system like “My life sucks and I am going to make that
true because that is what I believe.”
Craig Perrine: And your going to
look at things in such a way so you can keep being right
and you can say”Look, its not my fault my life sucks.”
So you will keep getting the health results and you will
keep getting the financial results and relationship
results because again, remember the beliefs, I think
that is so key.
Craig Perrine: If you can teach
somebody at a young age anything is possible but yes,
you are responsible for what you get and it may seem
completely unfair and has nothing to do with you, they
kind of do. And it’s not a blame thing it is just, if
you are not responsible and you are not going to take
any action, well, who is going to?
Ralph Zuranski: Who do you think
are the HEROES today that are not getting the
recognition they deserve?
Craig Perrine: That would absolutely
be the case. First of all, a group that is often bashed
is entrepreneurs in Hollywood unfortunately. You will
always see the greedy business man that cause the
environmental toxic spill and that is what business is
about is making profits at the expense of the good guys
in the story.
Craig Perrine: I am not going to
deny that there are people out there doing things with
their money and power that are not for the greatest
good, but there are also tons of folks who are broke who
are running around robbing, stealing and killing people.
Craig Perrine: There are also
wealthy people robbing, stealing and killing people, I
just think that is a people thing. If you’re a person
who does that kind of stuff, how much money you have or
what you do is not really the point but entrepreneurs is
a group of people who in general make their money when
they solve problems and when they help people so I think
that is just a tremendous misunderstanding that if I
could wish something I wish we could be more enlightened
about that.
Craig Perrine: We need more
entrepreneurs and small business people who are the
engine of the economy and employment and in helping
people achieve their dreams. Of course I think a lot of
people recognize that teachers are very important and
are heroes the thing unfortunately is a lot of folks are
not allowed to really blossom in the school teaching
environment but the fact that they are dedicating their
lives one way or another I think is crucial.
Craig Perrine: You name it,
spiritual leaders, I have learned a lot from as I have
become a lot more spiritual in my life and I think
anyone from the creative sphere of life is just
tremendously undervalued in many ways, artist and
writers and so forth often struggle with pursuing their
craft but they add so much to our lives really. I think
anybody who is quietly going about their business and
adding to the world, they are heroes and it often does
go unnoticed. So, the reason to do good is not to
always get a pat on the back.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have one
parting thought?
Craig Perrine: I think the most
important thing we have covered here today is that
anything is possible and you can look to heroes to prove
that to yourself. They are out there and whether you
have never met a nice person in your life and everyone
just seems hateful and mean, there are people out there
who want nothing more than to help you and see you get
your dreams.
Craig Perrine: If you haven’t met,
you just need to meet new people. They can be in books;
they can be in movies but watch what you feed your
brain. Don’t watch anymore horror movies, don’t watch
anymore sad stories, and don’t listen to music about
hating yourself because all that stuff will do is make
you feel that way.
Craig Perrine: I haven’t watched a
horror movie in years. Once I realized that those films
were playing in my imagination I thought this isn’t
entertainment, this is stupid. I don’t want to imagine
people suffering I want to imagine and focus on feeling
and getting what I would love to feel good about I life.
Craig Perrine: So that’s it, feed
your brain on stuff that makes you feel good and helps
you create and help others. Study your heroes because
they are the ones who have done it and that will be your
fastest way to get where you want to go.
