Dan Martell - Everything I Learned From Being Around the Top 0.01%

00:00:00.080 Billionaires follow rules that 99% of people don't even know exists. And I'm not talking about the

00:00:05.580 stuff you've heard from everybody before. Work hard, wake up early, read books. I'm talking

00:00:10.860 about the actual operating system these people run on. I've spent time with Richard Branson,

00:00:16.060 Naval Ravikant, Travis Kalanick, Toby Lutke, Tony Robbins, and dozens of other billionaires,

00:00:21.200 and every single one of them taught me something that completely changed how I build businesses

00:00:25.680 and live my life. So in this video, I'm going to break these down into five buckets and every

00:00:31.560 bucket builds deeper understanding of how they operate, starting with the one they all have in

00:00:37.400 common. Bucket number one, they just play a completely different game. You and I grew up

00:00:43.160 learning one game, go to school, get a job, work hard, save some money, retire at 65. That's the

00:00:50.780 game we were taught. Billionaires aren't playing that game at all. They essentially deleted it and

00:00:56.760 they installed something completely different. That's how Richard Branson is able to run 400

00:01:02.780 companies and was able to ski with us all day long while we hung out at his lodge in Switzerland.

00:01:09.400 But before we can install anything new, you need to take the old programming out. Which brings us

00:01:14.520 to bucket number two, delete your old software. Your mind is like an operating system, okay?

00:01:20.160 think about it like your phone. If you don't start updating it, your phone starts to lag.

00:01:25.160 That's when you need the new software update. Your life works the exact same way. But before

00:01:29.620 you can update it, you need to delete the old one. So to delete your old software,

00:01:34.140 we need to follow these rules. Our first billionaire rule, laws are meant to be broken

00:01:38.720 sometimes. Travis Kalanick, who is the founder of Uber, was one of my first investors in my

00:01:44.120 company Flowtown. And we used to spend time in the jam pad watching him build the first version

00:01:50.680 of Uber. And what we immediately saw Travis face with was all the taxis in the city that were

00:01:57.060 threatening to sue. There's 13,250 taxis in New York today. There were 13,250 taxis in New York

00:02:05.400 60 years ago. Those original taxi guys all got their license for free. And then they lobbied

00:02:10.480 city government to give out no more and they created artificial scarcity every time somebody

00:02:14.640 took a ride it was illegal travis just didn't accept that he had a vision for the future he

00:02:20.200 didn't just break the rules he changed them by 2017 over 36 states passed new laws for ride sharing

00:02:27.400 not because the industry asked nicely because travis made the old rules irrelevant first

00:02:32.960 and my belief is very simple if everybody had to follow the letter of the law then no business

00:02:38.300 would ever be started but obviously consult your lawyer i'm not responsible for what you choose to

00:02:42.700 do but just so you know every day i get one or two tickets on my car for where i park i pay the

00:02:47.660 fine i consider it adding to the economy because i choose every day to have my cars be available

00:02:52.620 for the dozens of kids that come with their cameras to take pictures that's an example of

00:02:57.020 where i break the rule that's what i gotta pay that's what i'm willing to pay next we go to

00:03:01.500 billionaire rule number two think and first principles it's kind of like starting from a

00:03:06.460 a blank slate and saying, I want to go from point A to point B as fast and cheap as possible. How

00:03:11.980 would I do that? And the best example of this is Elon Musk. That guy literally breaks everything

00:03:18.020 down into first principle. I'm talking to quantum level. His whole rule is that if it doesn't break

00:03:22.800 the laws of physics, it should work. See, NASA paid roughly $380 million per launch of their

00:03:28.620 rockets. SpaceX cut that down to 67 million because Elon asks, why not? That is a first

00:03:36.020 principle framework where you break complex problems down to their most basic undeniable

00:03:40.980 truths. So here's how it works. You don't ask, how was this done before? You ask what's actually

00:03:47.300 true about that? And those are totally different questions that will get you totally different

00:03:51.520 answers. They will help you find how the billionaires think about innovation. So that

00:03:56.700 will start to delete the old software in your brain but what do you replace it with bucket number

00:04:01.460 three install the new software this is where things get really interesting i want to bring

00:04:07.580 back the phone example again because once you've cleared that old software and you deleted it now

00:04:12.020 you're able to install new software because the hard drive's open to make it even more effective

00:04:16.260 so let's talk about billionaire rules that help you install your new software which leads us to

00:04:21.640 billionaire rule number three, look for leverage, not labor. Most people think more work equals more

00:04:28.140 money. Billionaires think more leverage equals more money. Leverage means a little bit of input

00:04:34.160 and a lot of output. You know, if you haven't heard Archimedes quote, he says, give me a place

00:04:38.600 to stand with a lever and I can move the world. Meaning that with the long enough stick, if he was

00:04:44.040 sitting in the right place with the right lever and he pulled on it, he could literally create

00:04:48.100 the force to lift the world. For me, I learned this from a billionaire mentor, Naval Ravikant,

00:04:52.960 because he breaks it down into four C's of leverage. There's only four ways that if you

00:04:57.860 study and master them, you can create anything in the world without hammering your calendar.

00:05:02.740 And the first C is code. Those tools are incredible leverage to get a lot of output

00:05:08.400 because you create it once and it lives forever because it doesn't take you doing anything for

00:05:12.860 the computer to continue to run every night and crunch numbers to actually get your result.

00:05:16.440 The second C is content.

00:05:18.640 And if you think of content in two buckets,

00:05:20.380 both the ability to create a checklist or a playbook

00:05:23.180 for how something should get done,

00:05:24.660 or for you to document your content for your ideas

00:05:28.320 to give it out to the world.

00:05:29.820 I believe your genius is better used as content

00:05:32.580 than as labor. 0.59

00:05:33.700 The third C is capital.

00:05:35.100 And I'm sure you've already heard this,

00:05:36.240 which is it takes money to make money.

00:05:38.120 It takes you understanding how to deploy your dollars

00:05:40.600 to work through investing to actually make money.

00:05:43.440 The fourth C is collaboration.

00:05:44.840 And this is my favorite.

00:05:46.440 And that is understanding how to recruit,

00:05:48.980 work with people, partner with people,

00:05:51.060 but essentially unlocking the labor force

00:05:54.500 working through a person

00:05:55.900 that might have access to thousands of people.

00:05:58.060 One person, many customers, that's collaboration.

00:06:01.700 That's why Naval and every one of the billionaires

00:06:04.060 I mentioned have mastered these four Cs

00:06:06.600 to build their empires without increasing their labor.

00:06:10.240 Next is billionaire rule number four.

00:06:12.320 Focus on net worth and net work, not active income.

00:06:16.820 The billionaires that I just mentioned

00:06:18.700 aren't billionaires because they made a billion dollars.

00:06:21.760 They're actually billionaires because they own something

00:06:24.860 and made it worth a billion dollars.

00:06:27.240 Most of them don't have a billion dollars

00:06:29.340 in cash in a bank account.

00:06:31.020 It's the value of the thing they've built,

00:06:33.480 either a business or their value of their stock

00:06:35.980 or their companies, and that's what makes them a billionaire.

00:06:39.480 And to do that, the biggest lever

00:06:41.900 you could ever build is your network.

00:06:43.700 I believe the more hands you shake,

00:06:45.640 the more money you make.

00:06:47.200 You need to be out there talking to people

00:06:48.820 because when I bring people into my business

00:06:51.020 to co-create companies with me, partner with me,

00:06:53.440 invest in my businesses,

00:06:54.780 I don't control the whole thing anymore.

00:06:57.280 See, most people think you need to own the whole thing.

00:06:59.400 That is the biggest mistake

00:07:00.580 people starting off in business make.

00:07:02.600 Elon Musk only owns 19.8% of Tesla

00:07:06.300 and that business makes him a bazillion dollars on paper.

00:07:09.980 So stop asking yourself,

00:07:11.260 how do I make more money and start asking yourself,

00:07:14.120 what do I own that can compound?

00:07:16.520 For example, Martell Ventures, which is my AI venture studio,

00:07:20.200 we own dozens of companies.

00:07:21.900 This is where I took my knowledge and my skill,

00:07:24.300 documented it, partnered with people

00:07:26.120 and have built all of these companies.

00:07:28.120 Literally, we're on pace in only the second year

00:07:30.960 to do almost $250 million in value.

00:07:34.260 And that's why all the billionaires I've ever met,

00:07:36.340 they don't think about how much cash

00:07:37.940 they have in a bank account.

00:07:38.940 They ask themselves, how much do I own, equity, assets,

00:07:42.760 and then who do I know that can solve the biggest problems

00:07:45.260 that I might face?

00:07:46.220 That's valuable.

00:07:47.860 Now that you've got some new software installed,

00:07:50.000 a new understanding of building net worth,

00:07:52.720 not active income, 0.86

00:07:54.160 next we need to make you the laziest person on your team. 0.85

00:07:56.940 Which brings us to bucket number four, just act lazy. 0.85

00:08:01.340 Every time I've met a new billionaire,

00:08:03.820 I will tell you I'm often surprised,

00:08:05.960 Not by how much they work, but how little they work.

00:08:09.640 All the billionaires I know, when I text them, they reply right away.

00:08:12.340 They're the fastest to reply.

00:08:13.600 They're always available.

00:08:14.700 If I say, hey, I'm thinking of doing this thing, they're like, yeah, no problem.

00:08:17.820 Their whole philosophy is, I don't want to be the bottleneck.

00:08:21.500 I don't want to be the person that needs to be there to move something forward.

00:08:24.640 Because if I am, it can't move forward.

00:08:26.700 And what's funny is you watch them, you would call them lazy, but they do it on purpose.

00:08:32.160 So here are two billionaire rules on how to be lazy.

00:08:35.280 Billionaire rule number five, create your filter.

00:08:38.320 And I learned this from Richard Branson,

00:08:40.140 one of the smartest.

00:08:41.300 You see, Richard, when I last saw him,

00:08:42.900 he doesn't carry a phone.

00:08:44.700 What he does have is his assistant, Helen.

00:08:47.480 She is the filter.

00:08:48.780 Nothing gets to Richard unless it's supposed to.

00:08:52.000 Now, to you, if you didn't know, you might think he's lazy.

00:08:55.200 But what you would hear

00:08:56.280 if you could listen to those conversations

00:08:58.040 is that he's using his time for the best resource he can,

00:09:01.920 not operationally, but looking and identifying

00:09:04.560 for those next opportunities when i spent the week with him i saw him do several multi-million

00:09:09.760 dollar deals just through conversations at dinner and watching him work made me realize i had to

00:09:16.000 redesign my whole day and that's when i got an in-person executive assistant to help me deal with

00:09:21.840 all the noise by the way if you want to know exactly how i've set up my life and my executive

00:09:26.880 assistant to handle all of this i'm giving away my ea playbook just dm me youtube ea on instagram

00:09:33.200 and I'll send it right over.

00:09:34.680 This took me years to create perfect

00:09:37.060 and it is my gift to you for free.

00:09:39.260 Which brings us to billionaire rule number six,

00:09:41.660 stop working so hard.

00:09:43.820 See, most entrepreneurs fill every freaking minute with tasks. 0.90

00:09:47.360 They do calls, they do emails, they do meetings. 0.84

00:09:49.680 They feel productive

00:09:50.700 because they're always doing something, they're busy.

00:09:53.240 Do you wanna know what the top people do?

00:09:54.780 Like Jeff Bezos who founded Amazon,

00:09:57.140 he actually brags that most mornings he putters.

00:10:00.460 He doesn't run to work

00:10:01.920 Because he said to himself a long time ago,

00:10:03.840 the truth is I got to ramp up my brain.

00:10:05.800 I got to be ready.

00:10:06.840 And I just got to make two to three

00:10:08.620 really good decisions every day.

00:10:10.300 Not 50, like some of you, not 100, but three.

00:10:14.300 And if he does those three every day with consistency,

00:10:17.920 that creates leverage and compounding.

00:10:21.040 What makes billionaires different than most entrepreneurs

00:10:23.260 is billionaires protect their thinking, not their time.

00:10:27.140 They understand their best work, their best energy

00:10:30.160 is whenever they decide to do it and they guard that.

00:10:33.720 So now that you've got that mindset,

00:10:35.360 the leverage, the systems, all of it is useless

00:10:38.240 if you don't know the reason

00:10:39.560 why all this matters in the first place.

00:10:41.580 Which brings us to bucket number five,

00:10:44.200 fall in love with the game, not the outcome.

00:10:47.240 Recently, I was sitting across the table

00:10:49.100 from a bunch of people

00:10:50.080 and they were worth billions of dollars

00:10:51.600 and not one of them talked about

00:10:53.520 how much money they were making.

00:10:54.660 They all talked about the people they were building.

00:10:57.860 They talked about who they were becoming,

00:11:00.160 They talked about what scared them for years.

00:11:02.700 They talked about what they learned

00:11:03.960 and how they overcame that.

00:11:05.280 The numbers were a by-product, not the primary reason. 0.99

00:11:08.700 They didn't give a shit about their bank account. 0.98

00:11:10.740 They looked at it as a way of being 0.99

00:11:12.040 and that life is a place to do the work,

00:11:14.600 to become more, to help other people achieve more.

00:11:17.280 Which reminds me of a quote I heard,

00:11:19.080 which said, your personal income

00:11:20.720 is tied to your personal development.

00:11:22.680 If you want your bank account to go up,

00:11:24.800 you have to personally develop yourself.

00:11:27.080 If you're not doing anything to make yourself better,

00:11:28.840 don't be surprised if the money doesn't show up.

00:11:31.480 There's two rules that I watch billionaires execute

00:11:34.540 that taught me this.

00:11:36.280 Billionaire rule number seven,

00:11:38.060 never, ever, ever stop growing.

00:11:41.140 I've watched my friend Toby, founder of Shopify,

00:11:43.960 do this every year.

00:11:45.440 Toby has this rule that the company has to grow 40% per year.

00:11:49.560 And if you can't keep up, you become the bottleneck.

00:11:52.460 And he's the first one to say this.

00:11:54.680 If you actually go on GitHub right now,

00:11:57.220 which is like this nerdy software platform,

00:12:00.100 you will see Toby, the CEO of Shopify.

00:12:04.040 He's put more code into his GitHub

00:12:06.720 in the first two months of the year

00:12:08.680 than he did the last year so far.

00:12:10.500 But here's what most people miss.

00:12:12.220 The growth isn't just about the business, it's about you.

00:12:15.160 What skills are you developing?

00:12:16.960 You'll get paid for the value you bring to the world.

00:12:19.580 Not the time, not how hard the time was,

00:12:22.260 not how hard you worked,

00:12:23.320 but how much value you created with that time.

00:12:25.660 so if you think about it every problem could make you sharper every failure could make you tougher

00:12:31.340 every higher fire and hard conversation could be an upgrade for who you are if you look for the

00:12:37.900 lessons so the point of business isn't the outcome of getting to a place of buying a thing or making

00:12:43.900 a lot of money it's who you become in the process finally billionaire rule number eight build a life

00:12:51.340 resume jesse itzler super cool dude i mean if you haven't seen him he's not only a world-class

00:12:57.260 speaker he's a world-class person and he essentially schedules his whole life around

00:13:02.620 the most important parts we were talking last week and this is what he said to me i take every friday

00:13:07.580 off every month i take a whole week off that's not something he decided to get to eventually

00:13:13.260 he's been doing this for a long time if you read any of the books he's written i mean this is how

00:13:17.740 he's operated and he has a thing called the annual misogi essentially a life-defining activity

00:13:24.460 something that's challenging that for many people should be 50 impossible it could be an iron man

00:13:30.460 or hiking a mountain or even writing your first book that way every year has a thing you can go

00:13:36.380 oh 2024 was this 25 was that 26 was this what's my misogi for 27 and the biggest takeaway i've had

00:13:43.900 from spending time with billionaires is they don't just focus on adding zeros to their bank account

00:13:49.500 they prioritize living a life worth remembering so when you think of all these billionaire rules

00:13:54.780 i need you to bring them together and remind yourself of one thing stop trying to win a game

00:14:00.940 someone else designed build your own game that's what the billionaires have done they said i've got

00:14:05.900 my own rules my friend laurie said it the other day she goes when i feel bored i realize i'm being

00:14:10.860 boring and if i'm bored i should probably start doing things that are not boring and if you're

00:14:15.900 feeling that way today take that inspiration start building a life worth remembering so here's what i

00:14:22.300 need you to do is below based on all these rules i need you to write down the one that resonates

00:14:27.340 the most with you drop a comment and tell me which one it is and remember if you want my executive

00:14:32.060 assistant playbook just find me on instagram and dm me the word youtube ea and i'll send it right

00:14:37.420 over now next up if you want to learn how to scale your business in six simple phases click

00:14:42.860 the video and i'll see you on the other side

Dan Martell - March 23, 2026

Everything I Learned From Being Around the Top 0.01%

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