Dan Martell - June 15, 2015


5 Reasons Racing In The Mexican Desert Is Like Running a Business


Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

198.5131

Word count

1,433

Sentence count

43

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Dan Martell shares some business lessons he learned driving 85 miles an hour in $130k machines across the Mexican desert. The Baja 1000 is a 3-day adventure through the Baja mountains and desert.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.360 Hey everybody, Dan Martell here, and today I want to share with you guys some business
00:00:03.940 lessons that I learned driving 85 miles an hour in $130,000 machines across the Mexican
00:00:09.820 desert.
00:00:14.980 And you're probably thinking, what business ideas do you get when you do this?
00:00:19.140 Let me share with you guys my strategy.
00:00:21.040 As I go through life, I'm always looking for different inspiration or ideas to apply to
00:00:25.000 business.
00:00:25.460 You know, there's a famous story about Henry Ford where he was visiting a Chicago meat
00:00:29.320 plant and he saw the way they were producing or cutting all these different meats and he applied
00:00:34.540 that to building cars you know and I've always done this and recently on a trip with my brother
00:00:39.600 and my best friends you know going on this wide open Baja it's called the Baja 1000 in Mexico
00:00:44.880 driving these crazy machines for three days I started seeing some really interesting things
00:00:49.640 they were doing with the group that applies to business you know the first thing I want to share
00:00:52.900 with you guys is have a lead you know the first day on this trip we met this guy named Hector
00:00:58.320 And Hector's only job, his responsibility,
00:01:01.060 is to go first to ensure that there's no obstacles
00:01:04.060 or boulders or sharp turns with a cliff
00:01:07.100 and radio those back to us so that we can avoid them.
00:01:10.600 And if you think about business,
00:01:12.100 having an advisor or mentor, even your peer group,
00:01:15.080 people that can give you advice that have been there before
00:01:17.420 to kind of give you critical feedback
00:01:19.920 so that you don't make a huge mistake
00:01:22.040 and take your business out.
00:01:23.660 You know, he didn't drive our car
00:01:25.020 and advisors don't run your business.
00:01:27.480 but they're there to give you that input
00:01:29.280 so you can avoid those critical challenges and mistakes
00:01:32.160 that essentially can take you out.
00:01:33.860 So that was the first one.
00:01:34.740 The second is to have a co-pilot, right?
00:01:37.080 Everybody, I think maybe when we registered for this trip,
00:01:39.160 we thought we'd have our own vehicles,
00:01:40.760 and what we realized quickly is you need a co-pilot.
00:01:43.860 You need somebody that's looking at the terrain,
00:01:46.080 that's listening for the car in front of you,
00:01:47.820 that's radioing back the challenges on the terrain,
00:01:50.720 and then making sure that you're slowing down
00:01:53.180 or that you're aware of the situation.
00:01:55.180 So in business, you have co-founders,
00:01:57.280 And a lot of people talk about the value of co-founders, but the big thing for me is have somebody that's going to pull you up when you're feeling down.
00:02:04.300 It sounds like such a subtle thing, but as you go through business, you go through these entrepreneurial swings from exclamation mark to question mark,
00:02:11.200 from I'm going to take over the world to what am I doing with my life.
00:02:14.700 And having somebody that's there for you to help guide you through these moments is critical.
00:02:19.420 And I saw that when we were driving through this terrain,
00:02:21.820 having, for me, my brother as a co-pilot,
00:02:24.220 ensuring that I was slowing down at the right turn
00:02:26.920 so that we didn't go off the side of a cliff was invaluable.
00:02:30.420 The third lesson that I saw was keep it simple.
00:02:33.920 You know, right off the beginning,
00:02:35.420 we looked around at all the different cars
00:02:36.720 and we noticed they were all built the same.
00:02:38.420 And when we asked Rob, the owner,
00:02:39.920 why they didn't use different parts
00:02:41.920 or all the cars are the same, he says,
00:02:43.920 because we need to keep it simple
00:02:45.220 so that when we're out there in the middle of the desert
00:02:46.920 and something happens, we know we have the part.
00:02:49.980 So every car has the trail car,
00:02:52.320 or every group has a trail car that has all the parts
00:02:54.820 so that if we, much like we did,
00:02:57.280 smash the front end of our car
00:02:58.760 and we have to change the whole steering column,
00:03:01.680 they have the parts with you.
00:03:02.980 And if you think about business,
00:03:04.460 a lot of entrepreneurs try to complicate
00:03:06.420 the way they build their businesses.
00:03:07.840 They have so many different facets and functions
00:03:09.740 or they offer so many products and services
00:03:11.620 that the real thing that's challenging to do
00:03:14.940 but that is just super impactful is keeping it simple,
00:03:18.640 is not having a bunch of options,
00:03:20.440 but actually having a few,
00:03:22.080 so that when you run into issues,
00:03:23.680 you know exactly what's wrong.
00:03:25.460 And I learned this out on the Baja in Mexico.
00:03:27.680 It was really interesting to see how quick
00:03:29.820 they turned around the whole front end of a car,
00:03:31.820 and 25 minutes they fixed it when we're back on the road.
00:03:34.620 You know, the fourth thing I wanna share with you guys
00:03:36.260 is to build a team.
00:03:37.820 When we started off, I figured,
00:03:39.040 well, we're gonna have a lead,
00:03:40.040 somebody's gonna guide us through these trails,
00:03:42.000 but I quickly realized that it takes a whole team
00:03:44.840 even to direct a small group like we were.
00:03:48.540 We had the lead car, we had the trail car,
00:03:50.520 and then we had a whole support crew
00:03:51.980 that would meet us on the highway
00:03:53.560 and at different points ensure that we had water
00:03:55.480 and food and gas, and if there was any parts
00:03:58.140 that we had broken, they gave us new parts.
00:04:00.080 Or even in our situation, if you had a car
00:04:02.280 that was just no longer functioning properly,
00:04:04.480 they had an extra car on the back of the trailer
00:04:06.480 that they gave us.
00:04:07.620 You know, and in business, I think that that is the same,
00:04:10.020 where you wanna make sure that you build a team of people
00:04:13.620 that can help you in areas that you're weak, right?
00:04:15.860 Where you might be really strong at marketing
00:04:17.760 but not so good on the financial side.
00:04:19.540 Having somebody you can turn to
00:04:20.900 either on your team part-time or as an advisor
00:04:23.620 on a financial part is critical.
00:04:25.560 You know, and a lot of entrepreneurs think
00:04:27.340 they have to make all the decisions themselves
00:04:29.380 and that's just not the case.
00:04:30.740 You know, you can do a lot yourself
00:04:32.860 but it's helped so much to have people you can turn to
00:04:35.380 to really grow your business faster.
00:04:37.540 You know, and the fifth thing I wanna leave you guys,
00:04:39.360 the biggest lesson I learned is to scare yourself.
00:04:42.100 Now, a lot of people that are adverse to extreme sports
00:04:44.660 or, you know, they fear for their personal health,
00:04:47.800 I totally get this, that you're hesitant when I say this,
00:04:50.520 but, you know, in business context,
00:04:53.420 the big thing I want to challenge you guys
00:04:54.940 is every day try to do something that scares you, right?
00:04:58.560 That might be saying yes to a presentation request,
00:05:00.820 that might be cold calling some customers,
00:05:02.780 that might be firing an employee 0.86
00:05:04.320 that's been with you for a while,
00:05:06.220 but you know that they're not going to grow in that role
00:05:08.400 and they could probably do really well somewhere else
00:05:10.040 and you've kept them along too long, right?
00:05:12.800 So in what we were doing,
00:05:14.520 we were pushing the machines as far as they can,
00:05:16.960 but we realized that we had to have faith in the machines,
00:05:19.860 that our thoughts and abilities for what we could do
00:05:23.040 was actually a lot higher,
00:05:24.600 and when we challenged ourselves to go there,
00:05:26.840 the machines reacted and we kept on the road,
00:05:29.060 and it just gave us more confidence
00:05:30.580 and allowed us to drive better, you know?
00:05:32.640 And I think that that's the same thing in businesses.
00:05:34.620 If you push yourself outside of your comfort zone,
00:05:37.300 you'll start redefining your comfort zone
00:05:39.740 and having a lot more fun.
00:05:41.280 And at the end of the day, it's all about the journey.
00:05:43.740 It's not about the destination.
00:05:45.220 Even though we got to do some really cool stuff,
00:05:47.620 the real magic in our trip and in business
00:05:49.880 is really the terrain and the views
00:05:51.680 and the people that you meet.
00:05:53.120 So I wanted to share with you guys
00:05:54.300 those five business lessons I learned
00:05:56.220 driving 85 miles an hour crazy across the Baja 1000 Trail.
00:06:00.820 I'm even gonna leave you guys a clip right now
00:06:02.420 for you guys to watch.
00:06:03.260 I wanna ask you to leave a comment below
00:06:05.120 with some of the lessons that you've learned
00:06:07.200 about business and other aspects of your life,
00:06:09.120 like maybe sports or other industries.
00:06:11.280 Leave those answers below in the comments
00:06:13.280 and I will see you next Monday.
00:06:14.880 Here's the video.
00:06:39.120 What is that thing?
00:07:09.120 Why is it blinking?
00:07:11.120 I don't know.
00:07:12.120 Are you taking a picture?