Dan Martell - Don't Listen to Your Parents if You Want to Be Successful

00:00:00.000 If you're the type of person that does a little bit of adventure, like you decide to go travel

00:00:04.200 some country by yourself, you'll notice that it just allows you to see the world in a different

00:00:09.200 light. Hey everybody, Dan here. Today I want to talk about the biggest decision I ever made in

00:00:26.800 my life. The one thing that I did at a young age that I think had the biggest impact long-term,

00:00:34.200 one of those exponential decisions, and that is my decision to move out west as a 20-year-old.

00:00:40.220 And I'll share with you the funny story because I was living in my hometown of Moncton, New

00:00:46.120 Brunswick, Canada, a small town on the east coast of New Brunswick up in Canada. And there was always

00:00:52.080 this desire to do more, to see more. And I just never felt like I was going to accomplish this

00:00:58.640 living in that town, even though like I've now come to realize there's multi-billion dollar

00:01:03.200 companies that have been built out of my little province in Canada. For whatever reason,

00:01:08.160 I always had a desire to move. And I ended up working at this one company. The only job I've

00:01:14.480 ever had, True Job, J-O-B, was working for this company, which at the time they were considered

00:01:20.720 the best company to work for. They're called OAO Technologies. And I was making $60,000 a year as a

00:01:27.360 20-year-old, which was a ton of money back then. I'm not that old, but it was a lot of money. It

00:01:32.240 was my first job. And literally, my dad thought like, wow, my son went from getting in trouble

00:01:39.360 with the law, drug addict, rehab, to teaching himself to code, getting a job, making 60 grand

00:01:46.080 a year and working at one of the top companies in town. And after nine months, I remember I decided

00:01:53.520 I got to get going. I got to move. And I quit my job. And I called my dad and I said, hey, dad,

00:01:59.040 I just got to let you know that I quit my job. And the phone just went silent.

00:02:06.560 And he just says, it's probably the worst decision you've ever made. Now, you got to remember,

00:02:13.200 like i came from getting in trouble going to jail all these things and i'm thinking really dad like

00:02:18.640 this is the thing out of all the stuff i've ever done growing up you're telling me you know lighting

00:02:23.360 off fireworks inside of the house all that you're saying this is the worst decision i ever made i

00:02:28.080 was like okay dad's just upset i'm still going i'm gonna make the move and it was scary because like

00:02:34.000 i really wanted my family support i really wanted people to support me and and even in spite of all

00:02:39.280 that quitting my job almost getting fired the next day that's for another day um i decided to pack up

00:02:45.280 my 1987 volkswagen jetta with all my belongings literally i i didn't have a whole lot so i packed

00:02:51.840 up my car and i left and what happened for me is there was a bunch of opportunities okay i was

00:02:56.800 moving out west i didn't even know what city i was going to land in but i had a bunch of different

00:03:00.560 job offers some in calgary some in vancouver but i just wanted to go to the big city i wanted to

00:03:05.440 move i wanted to be in the mountains and along the way you know i left new brunswick september 7 2001

00:03:13.120 and along the way september 11th happened and all of a sudden all the opportunities i'd ever had

00:03:19.440 just dried up and when i look back at that journey the struggles i went through i closed my line of

00:03:28.400 credit back home so that i was being financially prudent i'd saved you know five thousand dollars

00:03:34.800 none of that lasted very long and it was it was tough i literally was running out of money month

00:03:40.480 over month over month all the opportunities were gone there was no contract work there

00:03:45.440 was no employment opportunities there was nothing and there was one of the biggest blessings that

00:03:52.160 came out of the time that followed that that allowed me to capitalize and fund my company

00:03:58.800 spheric technologies. None of that would have happened if I didn't go through that process.

00:04:05.760 And I want to share with you the lessons that I learned that allowed that time of my life to be

00:04:12.160 one of the biggest blessings. The first one is the belief that the world rewards courageous decisions.

00:04:18.080 I truly believe that. I look at my life moving out west to all these things that have happened,

00:04:25.120 walking away from an earn-out when I was building my company, Flowtown, we exited that company,

00:04:28.880 and I eventually still got the earn-out. All these crazy things that I wanted to go build

00:04:32.960 this other company, Clarity, all happened because I was willing to make a courageous decision in

00:04:39.600 other people's minds. Even the fact when I moved out west, the first job I ended up getting was

00:04:44.880 company working as a contractor at Syncrude. Two things from that job that most people don't realize

00:04:50.800 is one, they weren't hiring full-time, so I had to become a contractor. So I started my

00:04:55.040 first nine, what was it? 987739 Alberta Limited. I forget what the corporate number was, but that

00:05:01.760 was the first company incorporation, even though I had Maritime Vacation and MB Host prior to that,

00:05:08.320 I never incorporated those businesses, right? I just like started them with my brother. I never,

00:05:13.440 you know, but this one 969735 Alberta Limited, right? Started. I don't like that. That made it

00:05:20.400 official. I had gotten an accountant. I started a business and I learned enterprise portals. I

00:05:25.840 learned plum tree software. I learned the technology, even though I had been taught it

00:05:30.480 prior. I got two years of experience working with some incredible people deploying at one of the top

00:05:35.360 oil companies in the world. And that experience laid the foundation for the business that became

00:05:42.080 Sphere Technologies, you know, three years later. And I would have never learned those things if I

00:05:47.520 didn't take that decision to try to find the courage to go against what my dad believed in

00:05:54.320 and everybody else and my friends to move out there with no expectations, no understanding

00:05:59.440 what my life was going to look like. And it was such an important lesson that's continued to play

00:06:03.760 out in my life. The other one is ask for help. I see every day people struggle in their lives,

00:06:10.160 and many of them, 95%, forget to ask for help. And I learned a lesson as a 20-year-old when I

00:06:16.400 moved out west when i ran out of money and i couldn't afford to pay rent anymore and i needed

00:06:21.280 a place to live i would reached out my buddy dan hansen let me sleep on his couch for weeks he let

00:06:26.000 me sleep on his couch i felt so embarrassed i had a great job i had money saved up i thought i was

00:06:32.400 making all the right financial decisions and here i was at a point where if i didn't have a place to

00:06:38.640 sleep you know and it kind of one of those things where you like hey man i'm in town can i stay at

00:06:42.560 your place yeah no problem i think he knew like i think he knew it was more than just a thursday

00:06:47.680 night place to sleep friday night it's the weekend now let's hang out he never kicked me out on monday

00:06:53.520 it turned into a few weeks like i'll never forget how generous he was to allow me the space to try

00:07:01.040 to like find opportunities and and that i think that's a big reason why today i've i've always

00:07:06.480 opened up my doors for everybody it's just part of who we are as a family it's what i do because

00:07:10.800 I always remember like I was that person back in the day and I just needed somebody to give me a

00:07:15.600 chance to give me more time to see if any of these crazy ideas would work out and and I just think

00:07:21.760 like the idea of asking for help a lot of people are scared too they're worried that the person's

00:07:27.120 going to say no they're worried that you know they're going to come off as a as a mooch or 0.98

00:07:31.920 you're going to come off as somebody that's taking advantage of the situation and what I've discovered

00:07:36.320 is that if you're a good person people want to help you I know that's true for me I mean a lot

00:07:40.480 of incredible people and i want to go out of my way to help them because i know that in their if

00:07:46.080 the roles were reversed they would do the same and those are the kind of people you want to support

00:07:49.600 so make sure you ask for help if you're struggling right now you're going through a tough time

00:07:53.840 and and you haven't leaned into some of your friends because you don't want to be a burden of

00:07:58.000 them or be troublesome i'm telling you you got to ask for help and then the last thing is that

00:08:04.320 adventure is rewarded here's what i mean by that it's one of our core values as a family okay

00:08:09.600 okay? Our core values, there's five of them, but one of them is adventure. And what I've realized

00:08:14.360 is that the more adventure I go on, the more adventure shows up. It's rewarded. It's almost

00:08:20.100 like an investment that compounds, right? And if you're the type of person that does a little bit

00:08:24.960 of adventure, like you decide to go travel some country by yourself, you'll notice that it just

00:08:30.580 allows you to see the world in a different light. And when I think of like moving out West and

00:08:35.780 building that knowledge then i went to australia and i spent almost a year by myself in australia

00:08:41.860 and then i decided to start a company and that was a crazy adventure and i built that and and

00:08:47.620 had an incredible outcome third time it took me three tries to finally be successful in business

00:08:52.660 and i exited that company and it transformed my life but then i moved to san francisco and i think

00:08:59.300 of like even the idea of like going from canada you know that canada to out west same country

00:09:05.860 pretty straightforward you know it sounds like a little thing today but like even moving from

00:09:11.700 new brunswick to san francisco i didn't know a soul i didn't have a friend i wasn't going anywhere

00:09:17.220 i i luckily had some money but it was it was lonely it was tough it was scary but again a

00:09:22.340 venture is rewarded and and i can and like to me when i look again my line this through line of my

00:09:28.260 life it continued to the point where like even in the last year deciding to take the family and

00:09:35.140 move our whole lives to the other part of the world right and just that decision to go on

00:09:41.460 adventure and see all of the incredible things that have come into my life from the businesses

00:09:46.740 i've started to the businesses i've invested in to the people i've met literally one of my good

00:09:52.980 buddies nico new friend in the last year asked me the other day he said who's who's one of the most

00:09:58.660 impactful people you met in the last year because he sees the group of people i've built in this

00:10:02.820 this new city in kelowna bc and i thought of it and like he's on that list nico's on that list

00:10:09.620 and there's a handful of others betty who who takes care of our house is on that list she's 0.99

00:10:14.980 an incredible soul and like literally i'm like reflecting back the people that had the biggest

00:10:19.940 impact on my life in the last 12 months people i didn't know 12 months prior and to me i just feel

00:10:25.300 like they've been part of my life forever but the only reason they showed up in my life is because

00:10:30.260 i was called to adventure and adventure is rewarded so anytime you know somebody asked me

00:10:36.100 to do something that feels a little kind of like outside of the norm i always have to give myself

00:10:39.540 a second kind of glance to my answer and ask like am i being adventurous it's again why it's one of

00:10:45.300 our core values as a family so i just want to share those because the philosophy i have around

00:10:52.580 making courageous decisions and asking for help and and that adventure is reward is the idea of

00:10:57.700 not listening to your parents and that might sound crazy maybe your parent i apologize if

00:11:01.700 this comes off the wrong way but the truth is is your love for your child will never give them the

00:11:09.700 freedom to make the decision that they probably should make because you don't want to see them

00:11:16.020 hurt. You don't want to see them stumble. You don't want to see them make a bad decision.

00:11:20.820 But what I believe in is we got to allow our children to take risk in a safe environment.

00:11:29.060 And what I've discovered for myself and for my kids is there's so many times where they're

00:11:35.220 behaving risky in a safe way that it's easy for me to want to stop it but i know i gotta let them

00:11:43.540 do it and if you have one of your kids come to you and and ask you if they should make a decision

00:11:52.180 that sounds on the surface kind of crazy for you because you didn't do it but i want you to ask

00:11:58.740 yourself like if the roles were reversed would i have wish i've done that in my life is that an

00:12:04.820 area of potential regret you know i know my family's from this town but like would wish

00:12:11.140 would i have wished that i at least tried or gone to explore more or whatever it is and make sure

00:12:16.980 that you give that guidance to your child because the truth is the reason i say don't listen to your

00:12:21.620 parents is because your parents don't want to see you hurt so you have to find mentors people have

00:12:25.140 done things in life to give you a completely different perspective because if you don't then

00:12:30.580 don't be surprised in 25 years if you wake up and you're living the same life your parents lived

00:12:34.660 because all the big decisions on where you should live what school you should go to etc were based

00:12:39.300 on their filter and they're giving you the advice that got them their outcomes and that's

00:12:45.060 that's the big idea not listening to your parents even though i love my dad and i love my mom and

00:12:49.700 And my dad is my hero and my mom is my best friend.

00:12:53.700 I also realized that one of the biggest moves I ever did in life

00:12:57.300 was not listening to them and following the call to adventure.

00:13:01.220 So I want to share that with you.

00:13:02.340 It's a big, important part of my life and the story and some big lessons

00:13:05.540 I've taken away from that.

00:13:06.380 I hope it might serve you in making those courageous decisions

00:13:10.700 because the world will reward you for it.

00:13:13.260 So I hope this finds you incredibly well.

00:13:15.940 And as per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger life

00:13:18.420 and a bigger business.

00:13:20.100 Both of those in parallel.

00:13:21.940 I'll see you next Monday.

Dan Martell - May 09, 2022

Don't Listen to Your Parents if You Want to Be Successful

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