Dan Martell - 9 Powerful Insights Learned This Year

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Dan Martell here,

00:00:01.300 serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.620 In this episode, I'm gonna share with you,

00:00:05.780 looking back, my 2019 key lessons learned,

00:00:09.400 a year in review, but through the lens of helping

00:00:12.540 shed some thoughts and some takeaways for myself

00:00:15.600 that might serve you in your life.

00:00:17.320 But be sure to stay at the end where I'm gonna share with you

00:00:19.120 how to get access to an exclusive training

00:00:21.240 called Future Living.

00:00:22.760 It's my commitment to teach you

00:00:24.100 how to speak your future into existence.

00:00:27.240 Let's get into it.

00:00:30.000 So as I sat down and wrote down the whole year, I looked at, just to give you some context,

00:00:46.220 I did over 40 flights this year alone in a 12-month calendar, and I wanted to kind of

00:00:52.920 look at these moments, these tentpole moments, these times throughout the year that I really

00:00:58.780 felt like, wow, that was really interesting and that really

00:01:00.820 gave me perspective and like really moved me.

00:01:02.860 There's a lot of amazing things like birthdays and people I got

00:01:06.380 to meet over the years and events I spoke at and investments

00:01:09.000 that I made and all those things but what I wanted to do is just

00:01:11.360 extract the things that I think would add the most value to you

00:01:15.460 and also that really had an impact to allow me to reflect

00:01:20.440 and get perspective.

00:01:21.440 I got this idea from my buddy Sujin.

00:01:23.580 He does it every year.

00:01:24.580 I think he does a PDF kind of like a year in review for his own

00:01:27.640 personal life and his businesses and I just thought how

00:01:30.040 much fun would it be to shoot this episode so that you had

00:01:33.080 some thoughts and get some context of what I've been up to

00:01:35.480 because I don't actually share everything on the internet

00:01:38.560 contrary to my dad's belief but there are a lot of moments

00:01:43.420 that happened that I think could really add some value to

00:01:46.600 your life so let's get into it.

00:01:48.060 Number one, timber sledding.

00:01:50.300 So in January I had the opportunity to go timber sledding.

00:01:55.640 If you don't know what they are,

00:01:56.840 think of a snowmobile and a dirt bike.

00:01:59.140 If they had a baby, that would be a snow bike, okay?

00:02:01.680 It literally looks like the devil's bike.

00:02:03.540 And we went out, there was five of us,

00:02:05.640 me and my brother, my best friend,

00:02:07.560 my buddy Matt and Brad.

00:02:09.820 And we went out into the back country

00:02:12.080 of British Columbia for three days.

00:02:15.000 Now, it was so intense that on day one,

00:02:18.560 Matt pretty much broke his shoulder, his collarbone.

00:02:23.200 Day two, Nick didn't come back because he injured himself.

00:02:25.800 I almost broke my leg.

00:02:26.940 I mean, this is crazy.

00:02:28.040 I know you're thinking like, why would you do this then?

00:02:30.540 It's a lot of fun, okay?

00:02:32.140 Now, I say that and then on the third day,

00:02:35.380 unfortunately, my buddy Brad was racing.

00:02:38.020 We were in an open field and he was racing across the meadow

00:02:42.280 and didn't see a river in front of him

00:02:44.380 and ended up smashing into the river,

00:02:46.020 stopped in the handlebars of the bike,

00:02:48.600 hit him in the pelvis and we didn't know it at the time

00:02:51.260 but it split his pelvis open, okay?

00:02:54.400 I share that with you because there's a huge lesson learned

00:02:57.440 and this is what it is, is the guide told us day one

00:03:01.900 you do not go in a straight line.

00:03:04.600 Here's why, is because in a straight line

00:03:07.780 you will be carrying way too much momentum

00:03:10.620 and you won't be able to maneuver.

00:03:12.740 The maneuvering comes from zigzagging and angling the bike

00:03:17.280 because if all of a sudden now there's a stump or a tree

00:03:20.020 or a water feature, whatever it is,

00:03:21.620 you can kind of power yourself around it

00:03:24.160 and you've got more to play with

00:03:26.900 and unfortunately that's what happened.

00:03:28.700 It's just like, boom, happened, broke his hip.

00:03:31.260 Luckily, you know, he ended up being okay

00:03:33.200 after operation, rehab and all that stuff.

00:03:35.660 I mean, it's not, it was a serious moment at the time

00:03:39.240 but the lesson learned that I wanna share with you guys

00:03:41.380 is sometimes you wanna go fast, you wanna go straight

00:03:46.040 and what I've discovered in business

00:03:48.940 is we want to essentially go over here

00:03:52.000 and check how things are going.

00:03:53.320 Go over here, check how things are going.

00:03:54.620 And it sounds weird, but that's the way

00:03:55.940 I think about it in my head.

00:03:56.780 It's just this moment of like,

00:03:58.280 okay, things are going great, I wanna plow on,

00:04:00.420 but wait, let me go see how things are going

00:04:02.460 in customer success.

00:04:03.280 Let me go see how things are going in marketing.

00:04:05.320 Because if all you're doing is pushing, pushing,

00:04:07.320 pushing, pushing, you're introducing opportunities

00:04:11.400 for serious pain and that was the lesson

00:04:14.660 and take away from timber sledding in January.

00:04:17.500 Number two, the Disney Cruise.

00:04:19.540 Now, if you ask me personally,

00:04:21.600 I'm not a huge fan of Disney Cruise.

00:04:23.240 This one was special because we had the opportunity

00:04:25.500 to share it with about 18 other families

00:04:28.020 and this was in February.

00:04:30.280 One of the biggest takeaways,

00:04:32.040 which will sound weird probably to some of you guys,

00:04:34.860 I wanna share it anyways, is hot tub sessions

00:04:37.620 with my buddy, Taki.

00:04:39.120 Taki is not only one of my good friends,

00:04:42.060 Taki Moore, he's also my business coach.

00:04:44.100 He's the guy that's taught me how to coach clients

00:04:47.980 in a way that is crazy effective and drives impact

00:04:51.000 and that was a big thing.

00:04:51.800 Just like I encourage many of you guys

00:04:53.920 to invest in yourself, I wanted to hire a coach for myself

00:04:56.380 and that was Taki.

00:04:57.220 So I've known Taki for a couple years now

00:04:58.920 but my favourite part was actually the conversations

00:05:02.820 that we had in the hot tub.

00:05:04.220 And I share that because I think the biggest lesson learned

00:05:07.420 is that you wanna create the space to connect with people.

00:05:11.520 even though I didn't want to be on the cruise

00:05:14.080 because it's not my style,

00:05:15.460 and some of my friends are hardcore Disney cruise

00:05:17.140 and I love them for it.

00:05:18.240 I'm more of a like rent a house in a city in some place,

00:05:22.280 like an Airbnb with a bunch of friends

00:05:23.880 and have everybody stay in the same place.

00:05:26.360 Regardless, the lesson learned for me was

00:05:29.300 take the time to connect with people

00:05:31.920 in an intimate fashion.

00:05:34.220 Just for example, for my Christmas family Christmas party,

00:05:38.140 I bring everybody to a spa, like a water spa,

00:05:41.840 like a Nordic spa.

00:05:44.520 So maybe I do love hot tubs.

00:05:46.340 If you didn't know that about me,

00:05:47.820 me and my buddy Mark, we have this thing called

00:05:49.420 the Hot Tub Titans.

00:05:50.680 I don't know why, I just feel like if I go in the hot tub

00:05:53.280 every day, then I didn't actually work that day,

00:05:55.020 even though I work very hard.

00:05:57.700 So you might see a pattern there, but I just,

00:05:59.900 I remember that the conversations with Taki in February

00:06:03.040 had incredible impact for the rest of the year

00:06:05.240 in my business and my life, and I just thought

00:06:07.040 that that was just something I wanted to share with you guys

00:06:08.840 and make sure that you take that time

00:06:10.580 to connect with people.

00:06:11.920 Even though it might feel weird because you're half naked,

00:06:14.680 it's in those moments sometimes when we're exposed

00:06:16.760 that real, honest conversations can occur

00:06:19.320 and that's what happened in my life.

00:06:21.160 Number three, Hustle 2.0.

00:06:23.760 In March, my buddy Jason coordinated with this woman

00:06:28.160 called Kat Hoke who put together an event at a prison,

00:06:33.800 at a jail, just north of LA.

00:06:36.860 and it is a max penitentiary.

00:06:40.360 People, the inmates there are doing for many of them,

00:06:43.460 you know, 10, 15 life in prison

00:06:46.440 and we get to go spend a day with them

00:06:48.680 and they're running through an entrepreneurial program

00:06:50.700 called Hustle 2.0

00:06:52.640 and the biggest takeaway,

00:06:54.220 even though it was an incredibly emotional day for me,

00:06:58.740 if you guys don't know my background and my history

00:07:01.260 as a teenager, I ended up in prison myself

00:07:03.780 So there was a lot of really interesting emotions that came

00:07:07.860 up and so it was really good.

00:07:10.080 I wanted to go through that but one of the exercises that we did

00:07:13.460 in the afternoon after we got to spend a lot of time as a

00:07:16.260 business plan competition pitch and connect and interact with

00:07:19.160 all the inmates was this exercise called Walk the Line.

00:07:23.600 Okay, so I'm gonna walk you through exactly how it works

00:07:26.400 real quick and then I'll tell you my biggest lesson learned

00:07:28.400 that I think that hopefully you can resonate with.

00:07:30.780 And so the way it works is you have inmates on one side

00:07:34.320 and you have the visitors on the other side,

00:07:36.220 predominantly entrepreneurs,

00:07:37.180 pretty much everybody's an entrepreneur.

00:07:38.960 So you have two lines and what she does is she says,

00:07:42.500 if you've ever done this or if this ever happened to you,

00:07:46.000 I want you to walk to the line.

00:07:47.100 So there's two lines and then there's lines in the centre

00:07:49.340 and everybody walks to it.

00:07:50.740 And it starts off as like, have you ever swore?

00:07:54.100 Everybody walks to the line.

00:07:56.300 And throughout the questioning,

00:07:58.000 things just continue to escalate.

00:08:00.080 And what happens is people, you know,

00:08:03.380 Kat would ask like, have you ever

00:08:05.080 drinking and drove drunk?

00:08:07.380 Boom, and it's a private exercise.

00:08:10.280 And there's a bunch of questions.

00:08:11.180 Have you ever lost a child?

00:08:12.480 Is there anybody in your family

00:08:13.880 that has a substance abuse problem?

00:08:15.980 Have you ever been physically attacked, et cetera, et cetera?

00:08:18.380 So the whole exercise is really there to show

00:08:22.980 the participants and the inmates is that

00:08:25.080 we're not that different from each other.

00:08:27.580 The people on this side of the line and the other side,

00:08:30.080 we're actually way more alike than we realize.

00:08:35.080 And it was in those, and I remember there was one guy,

00:08:37.320 he runs like a huge private equity firm, like huge.

00:08:40.820 And some of the questions, everybody had to be super honest

00:08:43.160 and it was 100% off the record,

00:08:45.460 but it was just this incredible experience

00:08:48.060 of people coming together.

00:08:50.500 And I connected with the person in front of me.

00:08:52.240 She really encouraged us to keep eye contact

00:08:54.080 and not pass judgment, obviously.

00:08:56.680 And it was one of the most transformational experiences

00:09:00.580 and the biggest lesson that I wanna share with you guys

00:09:02.920 is just that we are way more similar to people

00:09:05.560 that we think are different than us

00:09:07.960 than we actually believe.

00:09:10.700 And that process, that experience,

00:09:13.440 that day really shaped my life.

00:09:16.160 Number four, Dirt Fish.

00:09:17.760 So Dirt Fish is a rally car school outside of Seattle

00:09:23.180 and in April I had the opportunity with,

00:09:25.940 again with my friend Jason Gaynard, Mastermind Talk.

00:09:28.840 He organized this trip and it was three days of rally school.

00:09:31.720 Now I had been there two times prior, I believe,

00:09:35.320 or maybe at least once.

00:09:37.520 I can't remember because obviously I do a lot of stuff.

00:09:39.820 But the experience was amazing for me this time

00:09:43.320 because it was the advanced level class.

00:09:45.160 It was a lot of guys that had been there multiple times

00:09:47.260 so that we didn't have to spend a day

00:09:48.560 trying to get reconnected with the car.

00:09:50.400 We went right into it, advanced maneuvers, et cetera.

00:09:54.000 And the lesson learned, I actually did two videos

00:09:57.380 on my YouTube channel if you wanna check them out

00:09:59.100 on Dirtfish, if you search it, you'll find it.

00:10:01.940 It is, and if you're interested in rally car racing,

00:10:04.340 go do their program.

00:10:06.180 One of the biggest lessons learned,

00:10:08.040 because people don't realize that to go fast,

00:10:10.820 you have to go slow.

00:10:11.960 It's like smooth is fast, okay?

00:10:14.680 And one of the sayings that they were teaching us

00:10:17.200 in the car that I use to this day in my business,

00:10:20.060 in my life is in like a lamb, out like a lion, okay?

00:10:25.700 Here's what that means, when you're coming into a turn,

00:10:28.060 okay, some of these turns are very technical.

00:10:30.680 You have to come in smooth, you gotta come in composed,

00:10:33.600 you have to find your line, you have to hit the apex,

00:10:36.440 but then the cool part is once the car is set up,

00:10:39.420 you hammer on that throttle and you get the F out of there.

00:10:42.720 Like it is smooth and then there's this moment where

00:10:46.580 you know the cars, the wheels catch,

00:10:49.060 everything locks into place and you get to just,

00:10:51.560 and I think of like business as the same thing,

00:10:53.600 is a lot of times we want to go fast

00:10:56.060 but we really got to just like stop,

00:10:57.900 especially like end of the year.

00:11:00.000 Take the time to reflect on what you did all year

00:11:04.240 and ask yourself, you know, are we in a good spot?

00:11:06.820 It's kind of like, come in like a lamb.

00:11:08.780 Come in, come in, compose, research it, review it.

00:11:11.440 Like, how did we do?

00:11:13.160 How did the numbers look?

00:11:14.860 And then if everything's good then you smash on that throttle

00:11:17.920 and you kick it into gear into January,

00:11:19.520 into the rest of the year and that,

00:11:21.020 and then maybe quarterly there's a cadence of redoing that

00:11:23.760 but I just think that that whole idea of getting set up,

00:11:27.360 of smooth as fast, of coming in like a lamb,

00:11:31.440 but then coming out like a lion,

00:11:32.960 I continue to think about this all the time.

00:11:35.540 It was just a really impactful experience

00:11:37.940 that came from rally car racing

00:11:39.800 that I applied in my life and in my business.

00:11:41.980 Number five, my SAS Academy intensive in Toronto.

00:11:45.580 So if you don't know this,

00:11:46.620 I have the privilege of coaching, you know,

00:11:48.920 100 plus incredible software founders.

00:11:51.760 SAS stands for Software as a Service.

00:11:54.200 And I run three events a year.

00:11:55.600 They're called my intensives.

00:11:56.700 They're two days.

00:11:57.540 They are jam-packed of learning the most advanced marketing,

00:12:03.240 sales, product development, pricing strategies in the world.

00:12:07.540 I have, you know, I coach the top guys in the space and we

00:12:10.940 extract and we redesign and I deliver these trainings.

00:12:13.540 Anyway, at this specific event, even though I've done probably

00:12:16.520 nine of them at this point, I finally asked my wife

00:12:20.500 if it was okay if the kids came, my two boys, Max and Noah.

00:12:24.100 And at the beginning of this event, I invited them on stage

00:12:29.460 and I was worried because I was like,

00:12:30.900 maybe they're gonna be shy, they won't wanna come up.

00:12:32.340 And they came up and my wife came up with them

00:12:35.080 and it was just like this really beautiful moment for me

00:12:39.040 because growing up, I really didn't know what my dad did.

00:12:42.680 I know he worked at this big multinational,

00:12:45.240 I know he did stuff around electrical engines

00:12:47.700 and I kind of knew what he did

00:12:49.620 but I never really got to see it.

00:12:52.040 And in that moment, I had the opportunity

00:12:54.180 to not only show my kids what I do

00:12:56.560 but I had the chance to involve them.

00:13:00.760 And one of the things that is like this mindset

00:13:05.360 and belief and the mantra in my head is show don't tell.

00:13:07.920 I really believe as a parent my job is not

00:13:10.600 to tell my kids what to do, to eat healthy,

00:13:13.740 to stay active, to do their homework,

00:13:16.580 to, you know, we do hard things, et cetera.

00:13:19.380 More than anything, it's why we do CrossFit,

00:13:21.340 it's why we bring our kids there, they see us,

00:13:23.020 I do competitions, et cetera.

00:13:24.620 It's for them to see the things that we're telling them.

00:13:28.680 So the biggest lesson that just recently,

00:13:31.920 this year I got to show on my business side, for me,

00:13:36.060 was the concept of show, don't tell.

00:13:39.000 So I don't know if that resonates with you,

00:13:40.540 but if you feel like all you're doing is preaching

00:13:44.380 to your kids and you don't take the opportunity

00:13:46.340 to kind of reflect and say like,

00:13:47.940 why do I need to tell them that?

00:13:49.420 Is there a way for me to show them that?

00:13:51.020 And maybe through example, they might be inspired.

00:13:54.220 I think that was like the coolest thing for me

00:13:56.580 and for my clients to be able to see the business.

00:14:00.760 I tell you guys every time, it's like,

00:14:02.620 live a bigger life in a business.

00:14:03.860 I had an opportunity to merge both of them in one

00:14:06.760 and that happened in May and it was just

00:14:08.960 a really special moment.

00:14:10.100 We caught it on video maybe.

00:14:13.040 You know, if you watch the YouTube video, I'll put it on.

00:14:15.900 But it was really cool and stood out for me this year.

00:14:19.540 Number six, the jet.

00:14:21.740 So in June, after I finished my live event,

00:14:25.840 I took an Uber to my friend's house

00:14:28.460 to jump on his private jet and go on a trip.

00:14:31.480 Now, I know how douchey this sounds

00:14:34.520 and the rest of this story is probably gonna sound like that

00:14:38.400 because many of you like the concept of flying private

00:14:42.400 is like not even in your realm of possibility, right?

00:14:46.540 I just want you to know that for 15 years,

00:14:51.200 it was always something, I don't know why,

00:14:53.340 but I always had like, you know, big vision

00:14:55.700 and I knew that it was gonna be part of my life.

00:14:57.800 I just didn't know how.

00:14:59.840 And this year was so funny

00:15:03.700 because I got this email from my buddy

00:15:05.560 and he's just like, hey, we're all going to Ireland

00:15:07.160 for this golf trip, I just got a jet,

00:15:09.060 do you guys want to take it?

00:15:10.160 And my reply was like, reply all to the group.

00:15:13.660 There was like six people on the email thread.

00:15:15.240 I was like, yes, we will be taking your jet

00:15:18.800 and if anybody else disagrees,

00:15:20.280 we will have to physically resolve this issue

00:15:23.800 because like obviously we want to take

00:15:25.280 the frickin' jet to Ireland.

00:15:26.840 Here's what happened is not only did we end up

00:15:30.620 going golfing in Ireland, we had a blast.

00:15:34.860 Like, when I say a blast, it was like we were on a road trip in a van, but the van could fly, okay?

00:15:42.100 So we would stop in, like, Goose Bay, get some snacks, jump on the jet.

00:15:47.080 We stopped in Greenland.

00:15:48.220 We went on icebergs.

00:15:49.980 We then went to Iceland.

00:15:51.700 We stopped.

00:15:52.460 We got some stuff.

00:15:53.980 We got back on the plane, landed in Ireland, did the whole golf trip.

00:15:56.820 On the way back, we stopped in Iceland for two nights, you know, really got to experience the city, rented helicopters.

00:16:02.240 I mean, it was, on the way back, instead of going back home,

00:16:06.080 I decided we're gonna go to Boston.

00:16:07.980 Our buddy Adam has a hookup at the Red Sox Stadium.

00:16:14.480 I mean, it was 10 days of ridiculousness

00:16:18.620 and I don't share any of that to brag.

00:16:21.360 I just want to share a few lessons.

00:16:24.000 One, growing up the way I did, there was no realm of belief

00:16:29.400 that I ever thought that someday that would be my life

00:16:31.600 and the whole time, I'm not, I don't wanna underplay it,

00:16:34.800 I was pinching myself like, wow, is this really happening?

00:16:37.240 Like this is, it was so serene, it was so,

00:16:41.980 just the places we went was so beautiful.

00:16:43.980 It's just like, is this real?

00:16:45.040 I mean, if you've ever seen Iceland,

00:16:46.380 it doesn't even look like planet Earth, okay?

00:16:49.820 And this is the takeaway, and you hear it all the time,

00:16:53.420 and I wanna make sure that you truly understand

00:16:55.560 the value of this.

00:16:56.460 If you're still not looking to upgrade,

00:16:58.700 I call it friendventory.

00:16:59.800 if you haven't up-leveled your group of friends

00:17:02.440 for people that are motivated, support you,

00:17:04.800 driven, creative, et cetera,

00:17:07.800 I will say the people I was on that trip with

00:17:11.280 are literally some of the funnest,

00:17:14.820 most driven, incredibly giving, generous people

00:17:19.480 and I just think that like that's the lesson

00:17:23.920 is you are the five people you spend the most time with

00:17:27.000 and you really wanna look around

00:17:28.560 And it's not about, well, do I think I'm better

00:17:31.000 than this person?

00:17:31.840 It's not about that.

00:17:32.920 It's about where do you wanna go?

00:17:35.200 When you get there, how much good can you do with that?

00:17:38.500 And are the people around you gonna support you

00:17:41.340 or are they holding you back?

00:17:43.080 And it's that simple.

00:17:44.320 And I just think like that,

00:17:46.320 the jet was more of a metaphor for me than the experience.

00:17:49.560 It wasn't about the plane.

00:17:51.080 It was about the people I got to spend time with,

00:17:53.520 the places we could go in that amount of time

00:17:56.020 because we had our freedom

00:17:58.040 because everybody on the plane were people that were driven

00:18:02.480 and wanna build and create more value in the world

00:18:04.900 than anybody else and it was just such a beautiful experience

00:18:08.040 that I hope and I know that if you really want it someday

00:18:10.820 and you won't know how.

00:18:11.600 I didn't know, when I started this year,

00:18:13.460 I did not know that that was part of my year.

00:18:16.520 That came up but I kinda always knew

00:18:20.040 that somehow it was gonna happen,

00:18:21.320 it's gonna continue happening

00:18:22.400 because we're already planning for next year

00:18:24.240 but I just think it's all about the people

00:18:27.420 you surround yourself with.

00:18:28.420 So if you haven't done a friendventory yet,

00:18:30.280 you can Google that and my name.

00:18:31.920 You'll see my whole process for doing it

00:18:33.260 because I wanna make sure that I give you something actionable

00:18:35.020 but that was the biggest takeaway from the jet this year

00:18:38.460 is you are the average of the five people

00:18:39.900 you spend the most time with.

00:18:41.360 Number seven, back to back.

00:18:43.140 So July this year was probably like,

00:18:46.300 I pride myself on packing in as much as I can

00:18:50.100 into my calendar, like literally wake up in the morning.

00:18:52.780 There's not one 15 minute window that isn't allocated

00:18:56.340 And even though some of it's like hot tub, you know,

00:18:59.440 thinking time, like there's a lot of like family time,

00:19:02.720 you know, recharge, but when I'm working,

00:19:04.840 I'm working, when I'm not, I'm not.

00:19:06.520 Anyway, July was a month off.

00:19:09.120 I said, I'm gonna take the month off

00:19:11.280 and we're gonna try to squeeze as much stuff as we can.

00:19:13.800 Well, I may have gone way too far, okay?

00:19:16.660 We started with like three days in Kelowna

00:19:19.300 visiting my buddy Brad, who hurt himself

00:19:21.540 at the timber bike, story number one.

00:19:24.000 Then we went to Galliano to my buddy's house.

00:19:26.640 He bought this crazy house and there were like,

00:19:28.340 I think it were four or five couples.

00:19:31.340 Yeah, four couples in the house staying together

00:19:33.700 with all the kids and we did that for I think four days.

00:19:36.940 Then we flew back, went to a family reunion in Nova Scotia,

00:19:41.360 then came back from that and I think we did,

00:19:45.120 oh, I did a road trip in my new McLaren to Bar Harbor

00:19:48.000 so we like drove there with my wife

00:19:49.420 and had a blast there for a week.

00:19:51.400 The kids went to Canada.

00:19:52.660 There was a 30-day window where it was, even when we came home,

00:19:57.300 it was probably 12 hours.

00:19:58.800 Like, come home, do the laundry, repack,

00:20:01.800 go to the next excursion.

00:20:03.480 Here was the lesson I learned.

00:20:05.000 As cool as that looked on a piece of paper

00:20:07.940 when I was designing it, in practicality,

00:20:11.220 here's what happens.

00:20:12.140 And I loved every moment of it but I also realized that when

00:20:16.680 you do too many things at once, it bleeds together.

00:20:20.260 And when I look at July, I kind of like,

00:20:22.860 because thinking about it, I had to break it apart

00:20:25.300 and be like, oh yeah, we did all this stuff.

00:20:27.300 One, just so you know, my wife is a homebody. 1.00

00:20:29.860 She likes routine, she likes simplicity.

00:20:32.800 There was nothing routine or simple about July.

00:20:35.100 She did have a lot of fun, I'm sure she would say that,

00:20:37.300 but what happens is it all bleeds together

00:20:39.180 and it doesn't allow you to truly enjoy the moments.

00:20:44.620 It's almost like a fine wine needs time to breathe.

00:20:48.720 And it's through that process, you know,

00:20:51.120 that you can really appreciate it.

00:20:52.720 So here's the lesson learned that hopefully you can take

00:20:55.660 is if you're like me and you're packing things together

00:20:57.260 is what I'm doing into next year's planning

00:20:59.960 is really thinking about how do I create space

00:21:02.100 between these incredible moments

00:21:04.760 so that not only when I'm there,

00:21:06.900 I'm not thinking about the next thing

00:21:08.180 because it's coming up,

00:21:09.000 but I'm able to really appreciate it.

00:21:12.480 And in my mind, it stands out as a separate event.

00:21:16.220 And I think that that's the biggest lesson I had

00:21:18.480 is that I'm starting to find a rhythm and a routine

00:21:21.180 not only for myself but for my family

00:21:23.780 that works really nice where we can try to get

00:21:26.960 as much as we can and maybe we just do

00:21:28.820 more heightened experiences and I've also realized

00:21:31.860 that a big thing for me is physical activity

00:21:33.800 while I'm on vacation or doing anything.

00:21:36.560 I just love that part of the travel and the trip

00:21:39.660 but creating space is the biggest lesson I learned

00:21:43.240 from that month of July, that crazy month

00:21:45.480 of like five, six things back to back

00:21:48.480 so that you can create the space

00:21:49.520 to really appreciate those moments.

00:21:51.620 Number eight, three, sprint triathlons.

00:21:54.820 So, long story short, okay, I run enough.

00:22:00.100 Like, I'm a 5K runner all the time.

00:22:01.900 Anybody that knows me, even if you join my team,

00:22:03.960 we're gonna go do a 5K, it's just part of the process.

00:22:06.500 And I've been doing it for a while.

00:22:07.540 For some of you guys, that would be a stretch,

00:22:09.140 but for many of you guys, you're like me

00:22:10.780 and you're just a runner, so that's what you do.

00:22:13.000 And one run, oh no, what happened was is maybe,

00:22:17.100 I think, two months prior to the month of August,

00:22:21.640 we were on our bikes.

00:22:22.740 I bought a new road bike.

00:22:24.020 I'm not a road biker.

00:22:24.940 I had a thing against spandex.

00:22:26.220 I've overcome that issue with spandex.

00:22:29.420 And we were biking and I think we did like 20K or 30K

00:22:33.620 and then when we came back we said,

00:22:34.720 well, why don't we do a run?

00:22:35.720 So we went and did a 5K run.

00:22:36.960 At the end of it we're like, hey, if we just threw in a swim,

00:22:39.060 then we would have did a triathlon.

00:22:40.600 There's these things called sprint triathlons.

00:22:42.860 The funny part is, I didn't know how to swim.

00:22:46.100 And my buddy Nick and Jared that support us,

00:22:49.000 there was a bunch of us eventually, they all did it.

00:22:51.440 He didn't really know how to swim.

00:22:52.700 I think I ended up thinking I didn't know how to swim.

00:22:54.440 I swam better a little at the beginning.

00:22:56.140 Nick, I apologize, but you know the deal.

00:22:58.680 Because he did like two last of the pool and he was dead

00:23:00.480 and I was like, dude, you're gonna drown when we do this.

00:23:03.180 Anyways, we ended up spending, it wasn't even two months,

00:23:05.780 it was like six weeks of practice and training to get ready

00:23:09.420 but we signed up for a sprint triathlon

00:23:11.780 And what's crazy is not only did I learn how to swim using

00:23:15.960 YouTube, I was on vacation for the month of July

00:23:19.360 as I just mentioned and anywhere there was water,

00:23:22.560 I would like go try to swim and try to stay active

00:23:26.360 in all these things and in August,

00:23:29.260 the beginning of August, we ended up doing

00:23:31.140 the sprint triathlon and because my tire blew up

00:23:35.940 and I didn't know how to change a tire,

00:23:37.040 long story short, I now know how to change my tire.

00:23:38.980 Sounds crazy, I know.

00:23:40.900 I ended up signing up for another one and then we went on

00:23:42.600 vacation and there was another sprint triathlon.

00:23:45.300 So fast forward by the end of August,

00:23:48.000 going from never doing a sprint triathlon,

00:23:50.140 believing that I would never do one.

00:23:51.680 I'm not a triathlon guy.

00:23:53.040 I'm a big dude.

00:23:54.040 I have like an XO whatever body type.

00:23:58.680 You know, I couldn't swim.

00:24:00.120 It was never even in the realm of possibility for me.

00:24:03.060 From that to learning how to swim to doing three triathlons

00:24:06.220 and kept getting faster, faster and better to now to the point

00:24:09.760 where I really love it and I'm definitely

00:24:11.700 gonna be doing a half Ironman.

00:24:15.420 It's just this incredible reminder yet again

00:24:19.740 that we have to be careful about the stories

00:24:21.760 we tell ourselves.

00:24:23.960 So like maybe you're listening to this

00:24:26.080 and you're like, man, what story am I telling myself

00:24:28.720 about like I'm not a this, I'm not an athlete,

00:24:31.240 I'm not a CrossFitter, I'm not a runner,

00:24:33.080 I'm not a weightlifter, I'm not a whatever.

00:24:36.580 And you gotta be careful because I told myself

00:24:38.860 these stories and I'll tell you,

00:24:40.360 I had the most fun training with my friends,

00:24:43.600 competing with my friends and it's now part,

00:24:46.400 like we'll always do the sprint triathlons,

00:24:48.400 you know, just finding time in my schedule

00:24:49.740 to do something longer for the training component

00:24:51.880 is the key but it's now part of who I am and my identity

00:24:55.280 and I now know how to swim.

00:24:56.840 If I was on a boat, which I go often,

00:24:58.980 and the boat tipped over and I had to swim

00:25:01.180 two kilometers to the shore,

00:25:02.580 in the past I probably would have been in trouble.

00:25:04.320 Now I realize how to keep my body posture,

00:25:07.380 Keep my heart rate down and just, you grind it out.

00:25:09.920 It's just a time, it's not an effort.

00:25:11.920 When you learn how to swim, you realize

00:25:13.220 that it's not supposed to be hard.

00:25:15.860 And I just think that that's such a beautiful lesson

00:25:17.860 of just like asking ourselves what are the stories

00:25:21.000 we're telling ourselves that are just not true

00:25:24.300 and then making a commitment to overcome them.

00:25:28.160 I think it's really cool and I learned that this August.

00:25:31.840 Number nine, the month of physical activity.

00:25:34.580 So here's what happened.

00:25:36.140 In September, my brother, my younger brother,

00:25:39.340 I have a younger brother, Mo, wanted to,

00:25:41.140 he wanted a physical challenge to kind of kickstart

00:25:43.980 his health journey so he decided to sign up for Tough Mudder.

00:25:48.480 Me and my brother, Pierre, we were like,

00:25:50.080 okay, cool, we'll join it, we'll do it with you.

00:25:52.460 It was in Toronto or something so it was not like,

00:25:54.620 it was a flight and I don't think he trained as much as he

00:25:59.160 probably knew he needed to and when we showed up for it,

00:26:02.140 both my brother, Pierre, and I had done it,

00:26:03.840 Mo had not been training and we start this race.

00:26:06.640 I mean, it is I think 20 kilometers or something

00:26:09.140 with like 16 obstacles or something like that.

00:26:12.420 Now, I had just come off of three sprint triathlons

00:26:15.060 so I was in good, you know, cardio and physical shape.

00:26:17.480 So here's what I discovered is we're helping Mo

00:26:23.200 and just encouraging because that's the one thing

00:26:24.960 about Tough Martyr is they really make it about a community.

00:26:27.300 It's not about an individual running a race.

00:26:28.800 It's about a group running the race

00:26:29.940 so they start people in cohorts.

00:26:32.640 And in the same month, I'll come back to that,

00:26:34.340 in the same month, my wife and I and our best friends,

00:26:38.180 Nick and Jess, decided to hike this mountain

00:26:40.240 called Mount Katahdin in Maine.

00:26:42.080 And it is, like, people don't realize,

00:26:44.580 the route that we did, and I mean any route,

00:26:47.420 honestly, getting up there, it is a serious climb.

00:26:50.400 Like, you know, steep, bouldering,

00:26:53.320 like real physical activity.

00:26:54.960 My wife is deathly scared of heights, okay?

00:26:57.940 And I thought, well, there's no heights

00:27:00.160 because you're like on a mountain, it should be fine.

00:27:02.340 she was open to trying, it proved a little challenging.

00:27:06.280 That's all I'll leave it at.

00:27:08.820 But here's what I discovered and it's something I learned

00:27:12.020 from CJ, one of the CrossFit coach at Invictus in San Diego

00:27:15.920 and he said something once to me a while ago.

00:27:18.520 He said that when we're not feeling it

00:27:21.560 and we encourage other people,

00:27:24.000 that encouragement comes back to us.

00:27:26.500 So here's what happened is in my brother's struggle

00:27:30.260 for the Tough Mudder and my wife's challenge

00:27:32.500 hiking Mount Katahdin in the encouragement of them.

00:27:36.640 And for my brother, it was literally me,

00:27:39.060 us throwing him over walls and holding him

00:27:43.040 and giving him words of wisdom

00:27:44.500 and telling him to think about his kids.

00:27:45.640 I mean, we were right full on about motivation.

00:27:49.620 I mean, it's 20 kilometers and two kilometers in, 0.87

00:27:52.680 I was worried he was gonna have a friggin' heart attack.

00:27:55.680 He finished and it was amazing.

00:27:57.280 and he did every obstacle with some help.

00:28:00.420 And then my wife did it as well. 0.99

00:28:01.580 She made it to the top, she hit the summit,

00:28:03.620 she wanted to turn around so many times,

00:28:05.560 but physically it wouldn't have been a safe move

00:28:07.560 to turn around, I mean it was pretty steep.

00:28:09.560 And I just remember that,

00:28:11.300 and I don't know if you've ever experienced this,

00:28:12.620 but encouraging other people,

00:28:15.960 giving other people motivation,

00:28:18.100 it's funny, cause like, let's say you're running

00:28:20.000 and the person next to you is struggling

00:28:21.540 and you're struggling too,

00:28:23.240 if you just say, let's go, we got this, okay?

00:28:26.880 Sometimes I wonder, who am I saying that for?

00:28:29.080 Am I saying it for the person next to me

00:28:30.320 or am I saying it for myself?

00:28:32.420 And that was like the biggest lesson I took away

00:28:34.780 from those two physical activities

00:28:36.480 the month of September that I think continues to shape me

00:28:39.020 and reminds me of CJ's recommendation,

00:28:41.560 which is when we're feeling like we don't got anything,

00:28:45.700 let's give it to somebody else

00:28:47.060 and indirectly we give it to ourselves

00:28:48.700 and it's just such a cool thing

00:28:50.280 that we have the power to do anytime we're feeling that way.

00:28:52.780 Hopefully there's somebody around to encourage

00:28:54.240 so that you can get that.

00:28:55.400 But that was the lesson, is that pushing other people

00:28:59.440 many times push us to do better,

00:29:02.200 and it's as simple as making that decision,

00:29:03.880 vocalizing it, and supporting the people around you.

00:29:06.840 Alright, so quick recap, 2019 key moments.

00:29:09.740 No straight lines on the timber sleds.

00:29:11.640 Hot tubbing with Taki, good conversation. 0.98

00:29:14.920 Walking the line in prison.

00:29:17.180 In like a lamb, out like a lion at Dirt Fish.

00:29:20.320 Model, so show don't tell at my intensive.

00:29:24.660 The five people that you spend the most time with,

00:29:26.800 that's the jet.

00:29:28.300 Create the space, don't pack it all in.

00:29:31.160 Stories we tell ourselves, the three sprint tries

00:29:34.660 of not knowing how to swim.

00:29:36.200 And then carrying others drive you.

00:29:39.980 Motivating other people will motivate you more than anything.

00:29:43.720 As I mentioned at the beginning of this video,

00:29:44.940 I wanna share an incredible resource called Future Living.

00:29:47.280 But before that, I want to tell you about my buddy Brad's

00:29:51.260 life motto.

00:29:52.620 He shared this with me, even though, yes,

00:29:54.360 we've done a lot of these crazy experiences together.

00:29:57.360 He has this belief that he shares often is that life is

00:30:00.400 about increasing the frequency and intensity

00:30:04.660 of magical moments and that if you're like,

00:30:08.460 why are you so driven to do so much stuff to end?

00:30:10.600 I think of Brad.

00:30:11.680 Life is about increasing the frequency more often

00:30:15.100 and the intensity higher of these magical moments

00:30:19.580 and these are just some examples of my year in review

00:30:22.440 of incredible things I had the blessed opportunity

00:30:25.340 to partake in, but my future living training,

00:30:28.540 it's something I created because I wanted to teach my clients

00:30:31.340 how to breathe their future and their vision into existence

00:30:36.660 by getting the right mental mindset,

00:30:38.320 so you can click the link to get access to that.

00:30:40.420 It's something I taught a while ago at one of my workshops,

00:30:43.200 so be sure to check it out if you want a simple process

00:30:46.660 to speak your future into existence,

00:30:49.760 and if you like this video,

00:30:50.860 Be sure to click that like button.

00:30:52.160 Subscribe if you're not.

00:30:53.160 I don't know what's going on.

00:30:54.540 I'd love to have you part of the community and as per usual,

00:30:58.000 I want to challenge you to live even more a bigger life

00:31:01.740 and a bigger business and I'll see you next Monday.

00:31:05.000 This isn't everything I did.

00:31:06.000 This is just like the highlights.

00:31:07.880 When I looked through the list, I was like holy.

Dan Martell - December 30, 2019

9 Powerful Insights Learned This Year

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