Dan Martell - How Billionaires Get Rich (and how you can too)

00:00:00.000 10 years ago, I get an email doing this event with Richard Branson at his home in Verbier,

00:00:04.840 Switzerland. Would you like to come? Imposter syndrome through the roof. And I'm trying to

00:00:10.720 study Richard because obviously he lives a quality of life that I just can dream of.

00:00:15.900 What he taught me was this philosophy of essentially replacing yourself out of the

00:00:21.300 doing and really learning to work through other people. And that's when I designed this thing

00:00:26.440 called the replacement ladder. My promise to every person in this room, by the end of this time

00:00:34.820 together, I will give you a framework, a process, a life philosophy that if you apply it, will change

00:00:43.040 the game for you. It'll actually make you feel guilty because you'll be making more money and

00:00:49.760 it's not going to be as hard as you thought it would be. Your business will grow and your time

00:00:55.460 will expand. You'll be like, I should be working harder. No, that's not how it has to be.

00:01:03.200 Before I can get into that, I have to share with you a quick story.

00:01:08.980 As a child, I went through tough, tough challenges. I grew up in a home with an alcoholic mother.

00:01:19.120 I had a father that wasn't around very much and the second oldest of four.

00:01:22.480 and I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11,

00:01:25.780 put on medication.

00:01:27.780 My whole life, I thought I was broken.

00:01:32.060 I didn't value myself.

00:01:33.980 I had zero self-esteem.

00:01:35.240 For a long part of it,

00:01:37.200 I didn't even feel like I deserved to breathe

00:01:39.200 the air I was taking.

00:01:41.640 And that caused me to make a lot of bad decisions.

00:01:45.400 I'm just curious.

00:01:46.180 Anybody else in this room get arrested

00:01:48.900 for getting a high-speed chase from the cops?

00:01:50.540 Anybody?

00:01:51.260 Show of hands.

00:01:52.480 oh okay I guess I'm the only one um but essentially what happened after ending

00:02:00.460 up in juvenile detention twice and getting into trouble I got I got since

00:02:06.100 well I got released sentence they allowed me to go get some therapy and I

00:02:12.420 ended up in this place called portage and portage was a therapeutic community

00:02:17.440 for adolescence with a drug addiction, and that was me. Most people do five months of therapy.

00:02:24.740 I did 11. I had some real stuff to work on. You see that? Now, this place saved my life.

00:02:34.760 It taught me my personal worth. It helped me rebuild the relationship with my brothers and

00:02:40.480 my family. It helped me understand basic values. And through that process of rebuilding, honestly,

00:02:47.540 my identity, I started to have a vision for the future. And that's what I'm so excited about

00:02:57.020 the theme of this event, is getting ready for the future. And here's what happened.

00:03:03.900 At the end of this 11-month period, I decided to stay for the summer before going back out

00:03:08.800 into my normal world because I wasn't ready yet.

00:03:10.860 I didn't feel comfortable.

00:03:11.860 And I was helping Rick, the maintenance guy.

00:03:13.520 He'd been there for 20 some years.

00:03:15.580 And he was kind of like a big brother to me.

00:03:17.560 I was helping him clean out the property.

00:03:19.700 This place was built in an old church camp.

00:03:21.920 So there was buildings we never used

00:03:23.700 and I'd never been into.

00:03:24.700 So I'm helping Rick clean out one of the camps.

00:03:27.420 And I open up a door.

00:03:29.060 And sitting in the corner on the table,

00:03:31.120 there's this old 486 computer and a book

00:03:33.900 sitting right next to it, this yellow book

00:03:35.920 on Java programming.

00:03:38.200 Now, I'd never touched a computer in my life.

00:03:40.580 And I walk over, I see the computer, I see the book,

00:03:44.100 I open up the book, and I think it's gonna read

00:03:47.340 like hieroglyphics and ones and zeros,

00:03:49.080 like you can't read, it's computer programming.

00:03:51.100 And it actually reads like English.

00:03:53.320 If this, then that, use case, like I'm reading it,

00:03:57.060 I'm like, oh.

00:03:58.640 So I sit down, you know, I'm trying to work really hard,

00:04:02.540 light up the computer, and just start following

00:04:05.360 the first chapter of the book.

00:04:07.000 Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

00:04:13.000 20 minutes later, I hit enter.

00:04:17.080 And on the screen, it says, hello world.

00:04:23.200 I know, you're thinking this guy's a genius.

00:04:28.380 How?

00:04:30.220 Now I know it wasn't an iPhone app,

00:04:32.560 and today it's not impressive, but it didn't matter.

00:04:34.820 At that moment, at 17 years old, I thought to myself, this is how delusional I was, maybe

00:04:43.980 I'm the Doogie Howser of programming.

00:04:49.280 If you're laughing, it tells me how old you are, just so you know.

00:04:54.660 And what that did is it put me on a journey.

00:04:59.240 I became obsessed.

00:05:01.020 I became obsessed with coding, the internet, all things technology.

00:05:07.280 This is 1997.

00:05:09.300 So I get out of rehab and discover this little thing called the internet.

00:05:17.560 Couldn't have planned a better time.

00:05:19.560 It was the most incredible situation.

00:05:23.380 As I mentioned, my dad used to beg me.

00:05:26.140 He calls me Daniel.

00:05:27.340 I'm French.

00:05:28.160 He goes, Daniel, if you could just find something you're passionate about that isn't illegal,

00:05:33.240 I think you'd do okay with your life.

00:05:35.960 He believed in me.

00:05:37.260 I didn't believe in myself.

00:05:38.200 He saw the potential.

00:05:39.280 I didn't really feel, but I went all in.

00:05:44.640 Today, my life looks completely different, and it wasn't without a ton of challenges

00:05:50.560 and frustration and issues and setbacks, and I will share those with you today.

00:05:55.360 I'm not going to sit up here and do success theater.

00:05:57.600 I am privileged and blessed, and I have immense gratitude for Cody and David for having me here,

00:06:02.640 for all of you guys to be here. I don't take your time lightly whatsoever. I just want to let you

00:06:07.060 know that on the back end of showing up, becoming obsessed, deciding to value yourself,

00:06:15.980 because when we talk about time, I will let you know that if you don't value your time,

00:06:20.880 nobody's going to value your time. And most people don't get what they want. They get what

00:06:26.440 they think they deserve, and if you don't feel worthy

00:06:30.280 of deserving what I'm gonna teach you,

00:06:32.880 you will work really hard to get rid of it

00:06:34.680 if you ever get it.

00:06:36.900 So today I have the privilege of flying around,

00:06:40.180 on my plane, coming to speak to folks like yourself,

00:06:44.400 trying to instill this belief that you can grow,

00:06:47.960 and the more you grow, the easier it gets.

00:06:49.800 And I know it sounds like a freaking pipe dream,

00:06:51.760 and some of you guys are like, don't believe it.

00:06:54.520 Let's look at the math.

00:06:56.740 Most entrepreneurs, okay?

00:06:58.200 Everybody should have something to write down

00:06:59.660 because I'm going to share some lessons today, okay?

00:07:02.720 The writer-downers, I call them.

00:07:05.340 Does that make sense?

00:07:06.340 Say yes.

00:07:07.240 Yes.

00:07:08.160 Say yes.

00:07:09.160 Yes.

00:07:10.100 Let's do this.

00:07:11.320 Most entrepreneurs, when they're growing,

00:07:13.660 they hit what I call the pain line.

00:07:17.240 And the pain line's a point where the more you would grow,

00:07:22.060 the more pain you would feel.

00:07:23.700 has anybody in the world ever felt that things are on fire but god darn it my life hurts

00:07:28.660 it's kind of like you know that you could but you don't so you act you act to not win instead

00:07:38.360 of playing to win you're playing not to lose and you know better that's the worst part is that the

00:07:42.020 high performers you guys are in this room you know better you want to you want to play

00:07:45.080 and what i've discovered is that no entrepreneur will grow into pain

00:07:51.460 that's a writer downer because if you understand this then everything i'm about to teach you makes

00:07:57.180 sense i've never met an entrepreneur that will grow into pain it's like me holding a knife to

00:08:01.780 your neck and saying step forward anybody play those vr games where you go up the elevator you

00:08:08.240 get the headset on and you go up the elevator and there's a plank off the top of the building

00:08:12.800 anybody in this room with a vr set okay yeah you know what i'm talking about you literally this is

00:08:18.160 what happens you put the headset on you're not moving you're in the same these are the little

00:08:22.880 five by five grid to give you and you're in the elevator and the headset's on and you you feel

00:08:28.800 like you're going up the elevator 40 40 floors and then the door opens and there's a plank

00:08:35.520 and you're supposed to walk off the plank and you get to the edge of the plank and for most people

00:08:41.840 unless you're a psychopath when they say jump you don't want to do it like and you know in your head

00:08:50.640 it's not real if you watch videos of people sitting there and they're like

00:08:55.120 they don't want to jump and you know better so when i tell you entrepreneurs will not grow into

00:09:02.460 pain you're not going to want to do it and it usually means that you guys make mistakes what

00:09:08.820 What I've seen over the years is most entrepreneurs, when they get to this place, this ceiling

00:09:12.840 of complexity, is they decide to want to do one of three things.

00:09:16.880 Number one is stall.

00:09:18.500 I'm good.

00:09:19.860 They get stuck in the I'm good mode.

00:09:22.200 You know what?

00:09:23.200 And I know a lot of you guys, best year, last 12 months, best year.

00:09:26.740 If you had a great year, make some noise.

00:09:28.980 Let's hear it.

00:09:29.980 If you had a great year, make some noise.

00:09:33.020 So you guys are coming into this feeling good about yourself, right?

00:09:36.260 but you've probably been there where there's been a point where you like just

00:09:41.240 had a tough time and you had to lay off some people and you're like I'm so

00:09:45.320 frustrated why is it so hard and you might have the idea I'm just gonna stop

00:09:50.720 I'm gonna chill I remember my buddy Matt he had an electrical company and he came

00:09:54.880 over to my house one day and he just goes Dan I watch your stuff I hear what

00:09:58.860 you're talking about about if you're not growing you're slowly dying I get it

00:10:02.000 But what if I just want to be?

00:10:07.500 I said, okay, Matt, let's just run through the scenario.

00:10:12.780 I said, your customers today, you all have customers, yes?

00:10:18.360 Do you all have customers?

00:10:19.580 Say yes.

00:10:20.880 Your customers, do they want less or more from you next year?

00:10:25.080 Less or more?

00:10:26.800 Perfect.

00:10:27.520 You have vendors you depend on.

00:10:29.060 You don't want worse, you want better.

00:10:30.480 So far, so good?

00:10:32.000 I said, so right off the bat, stalling is going to hurt you because your customers are going to want more from you.

00:10:39.140 Number two is the world expanding or contracting, expanding or contracting.

00:10:45.140 Whether you like it or not, gross domestic product grows a couple percent a year.

00:10:49.540 So the world, if you just stayed still, is going to expand, and then you're going to be on the receiving end of being inferior,

00:10:56.000 even if you don't go down, just sideways, you're slowly dying.

00:10:59.700 That's why.

00:11:00.240 it now this is where I I got I said Matt who are the two three people but let's

00:11:06.220 go to two two names of people on your team that you would feel crushed if they

00:11:11.200 left think about it for you I want every person in this room to think to

00:11:16.620 themselves who are the two people y'all have they're your rider dies they're

00:11:22.040 your their foundation they're your rocket could be your partner and he gave

00:11:26.560 me those names. I want you to think about it for yourself. What are those names? I said,

00:11:32.160 here's what I've learned, Matt, that those people have hopes and dreams. And if your future isn't

00:11:41.140 big enough, if your vision isn't big enough for their hopes and dreams to fit inside of,

00:11:45.760 they will leave to find somebody who can do that for them.

00:11:50.820 Stalling is not an option. Number two is sabotage. Sabotage is a funny one.

00:11:55.720 All right?

00:11:56.220 Let me walk you through.

00:11:57.820 Sabotage is literally, write this down,

00:12:00.680 manufacturing a situation that allows you to fail

00:12:03.300 that's not your fault.

00:12:05.920 Some of you guys are laughing because you know what I mean.

00:12:09.260 Manufacturing a situation that causes you to fail

00:12:12.100 that's not your fault.

00:12:13.440 Anybody ever hire a cousin they knew better

00:12:15.380 they shouldn't have hired?

00:12:17.060 And then you wonder why things aren't going good

00:12:21.320 or you had to let them go?

00:12:23.100 You knew ahead of time.

00:12:24.860 A couple of them, I hear.

00:12:29.300 Sabotage is getting an email from somebody that says,

00:12:33.740 I have an opportunity that could triple your business,

00:12:36.200 and instead of replying with enthusiasm, let's talk,

00:12:39.120 you drag your feet because you know if you say yes

00:12:41.060 and that happens, your calendar's gonna explode.

00:12:43.700 You don't have the capacity.

00:12:45.980 And instead of replying right away, you wait on it.

00:12:48.240 You unread it, read it, star it.

00:12:51.920 Not yet, maybe the weekend.

00:12:53.380 You go to the gym on Saturday morning,

00:12:54.460 you come back, you're feeling pumped,

00:12:55.660 and you're like, I'm gonna reply, you hit reply,

00:12:57.520 ta-da-da-da, yeah, I'd love to talk, let's set it up,

00:12:59.400 and they reply back, hey, sorry, Dan,

00:13:02.340 unfortunately, we already failed that opportunity.

00:13:05.260 Sabotage.

00:13:06.760 Most people will self-sabotage themselves

00:13:08.520 to the level they feel comfortable,

00:13:09.800 they don't even know they're doing it.

00:13:12.240 Number three, they decide to sell.

00:13:16.400 Had a buddy of mine, Jason, call me the other day.

00:13:18.540 He has an events business.

00:13:19.860 Things are tough, a few contracts didn't work out

00:13:21.920 way he wanted to lost some money he's like dan i want to sell i said why i said tell me the reasons

00:13:28.000 he gives me the reason i said if those reasons weren't true would you want to sell he said well

00:13:31.680 no i said well then here's the good news you just discovered your complexity ceiling you just

00:13:38.800 discovered your level of ability of dealing with problems before you decide to pull back

00:13:45.200 so you can leave you can sell this business and go do the next one but

00:13:53.840 here's what you're gonna learn Jason in that next one you're gonna get the

00:13:57.380 exact same place you're at now and it's gonna hurt and you're gonna learn the

00:14:01.820 same lesson so we either do it now or you do it later but I'm telling you the

00:14:05.000 grass isn't always greener you know why sometimes the grass is greener because

00:14:10.160 it's fake. I know what those internet people say. Sometimes it's not true. The grass is greener

00:14:19.300 where you water it. If you feel your pain line in your life, you just had an incredible year,

00:14:23.900 but at the same time, it stretched you, good. I'm going to give you the solution to the problem.

00:14:30.920 It's called the buyback principle. And it states, we don't hire to grow our business.

00:14:37.040 We hire to buy back our time.

00:14:39.880 It's a first principle approach.

00:14:41.660 I think about it like calendar over capacity.

00:14:46.080 If you wake up and you add labor to your business

00:14:50.080 and it does not buy back time out of your calendar,

00:14:54.060 you're creating the prison.

00:14:56.040 You're building a business, you're growing a business

00:14:59.140 that you'll eventually hate.

00:15:02.260 And this is how we stop it.

00:15:03.600 How many of you guys would like to learn how to do that?

00:15:05.200 say yes. Here's how. It's called the buyback loop. So when we feel the pain, ouch, ceiling,

00:15:14.220 self-sabotage, don't, you know, you know when you're in. When you're in the zone, man, those

00:15:19.480 emails come in, you're like, boom, let's go. You know what I'm talking about? You're like making

00:15:23.300 the calls, no issues. When you're in momentum, you feel it. If you're not there, this is the process.

00:15:31.060 And I have to do this, honestly, at my level, three, four times a year.

00:15:34.540 When you're growing and expanding, you have to do this.

00:15:38.820 First thing is we've got to audit our calendar.

00:15:41.200 We have to audit our calendar for time and energy.

00:15:45.160 We need to know what things we do that take our energy

00:15:50.040 and what it would cost to pay somebody else to do it for us.

00:15:54.480 So think of it this way.

00:15:55.720 Anytime I work with somebody, I always make them do a two-week audit,

00:15:59.060 previous two weeks.

00:15:59.940 They don't have one. They set up a timer. It's every 15 minutes. It goes up. They write in their journal what they did

00:16:04.900 Every 15 minutes literally for two weeks because I want to get a good sense of your life personal professional

00:16:11.600 Once you do that then you go through and you highlight all the stuff you have on there highlight it in red

00:16:18.080 If it sucks your energy

00:16:19.280 Highlight it in yellow if it's like whatever and highlight it in green if it gives you energy

00:16:25.540 What color, scream it out, do you think I get from being on this stage?

00:16:29.580 What color?

00:16:31.000 Perfect.

00:16:31.620 You guys get the drill?

00:16:32.760 Pretty simple.

00:16:33.960 High energy, you like to do it, green.

00:16:37.180 Stuff you don't like to do, like for me, financial, planning.

00:16:41.160 Anybody else?

00:16:41.960 Am I the only ones?

00:16:45.700 So, red.

00:16:47.140 And guess what?

00:16:47.740 Some stuff will start off green, and they'll eventually go yellow, and that's okay.

00:16:51.420 That's actually something you've got to learn to do.

00:16:53.240 Then what you do next to each one of those tasks

00:16:55.120 is write down the dollar amount

00:16:56.660 it would pay somebody else to do it for you.

00:16:58.900 And I just use a $1 to $4 sign strategy.

00:17:01.580 It's not complicated.

00:17:02.960 $4 signs if I had to pay somebody to do my job,

00:17:06.880 CEO or whatever.

00:17:08.180 $1 is admin.

00:17:09.700 It's kind of like a restaurant.

00:17:10.660 You know how they say how expensive the meal is?

00:17:12.280 It's like $1 to $4.

00:17:13.560 Just write it down.

00:17:15.660 Just, what is it?

00:17:16.300 $1, $2 signs, $3 signs, $1 signs.

00:17:19.300 Just go through the whole thing.

00:17:20.960 Here's the fun part.

00:17:21.840 When you're done this process, you grab all the red stuff with one or two dollar signs,

00:17:26.560 you put it in a bucket.

00:17:28.180 And that is the only person you hold yourself accountable to hire next.

00:17:33.760 Think about that.

00:17:35.600 One to two dollar signing costs red or yellow in a bucket.

00:17:40.140 You create the job spec.

00:17:41.280 You hire that person.

00:17:44.000 That will change your life.

00:17:45.800 That will stop you.

00:17:47.280 I mean, I see it all the time.

00:17:48.360 People scale.

00:17:48.940 They're like, I'm a logo designer.

00:17:50.280 I need another logo designer.

00:17:51.600 I'm a financial planner. I need another financial planner. No, you need somebody to take

00:17:55.760 everything off your plate for you to do that 38 hours a week or 45 hours a week or even 20. I

00:18:01.800 don't care how much hours a week, but you want to do the thing that lights you up, that makes you

00:18:06.080 the most money. Now, I tell you, this sounds like fun. Say yes. You're lying, but I get it.

00:18:14.140 The next part is the transfer. Oh, I'm going to go back. The transfer. So once you've got all this

00:18:20.520 stuff now you get to give it to somebody else now i know i'm not the only person that's ever sat down

00:18:27.080 and thought i read a book and i'm going to create an sop and i'm going to write all the steps and

00:18:31.080 processes i do a whole off-site weekend and done to transfer it over and then i hire somebody and

00:18:35.800 i tell them where the document is i expect them to read it they don't read it they do work it's

00:18:39.160 not done right anybody else experience that okay that's not what i do what i do is i i call it the

00:18:46.920 camcorder method once i know who i need to hire next while i'm doing the work i record myself

00:18:53.560 in today's beautiful world i do zoom calls by myself screen shared recorded to the cloud

00:19:00.440 and while i'm doing the work i'm talking out loud about what i do if i can get three of those

00:19:05.400 recordings i put those in a google document when i hire the person guess what their first project is

00:19:11.720 to build the standard operating procedure why because then i know they watch the videos

00:19:20.240 like once you do this you'll laugh how hard you made it for yourself before i remember my buddy

00:19:25.920 mark he's a professional speaker and he's stressed out man he's like i love doing it but i hate all

00:19:31.740 the extra work the travel the admin i can't deal with it and i was like dan just follow the process

00:19:36.980 He's like, oh, Dan, I don't think you understand how your brain is different than mine.

00:19:41.840 I'm a creative.

00:19:42.820 You're a systems thinker, and you're different.

00:19:45.960 I was like, Mark, give me something you hate doing.

00:19:48.700 Surprise, surprise, he goes, accounting.

00:19:51.940 So I walk him through the camcorder method.

00:19:54.180 He literally follows the process.

00:19:56.240 Five videos, recording invoices, receivables, reconciliation, all the stuff he hates doing.

00:20:02.060 Finds a bookkeeper part-time, gives them the video.

00:20:04.260 They create the SOP.

00:20:05.340 three months later he calls me up I can't even believe it and this is the

00:20:11.580 funny part I didn't even tell him the bonus he experienced it he goes my

00:20:15.780 bookkeeper just told me she's gotta take some time off she's pregnant what do I

00:20:20.040 do I said you already got it bro you got the SOP you got the training videos the

00:20:24.960 next person's so much easier I call it zero to hero how fast can I take

00:20:29.600 somebody that's new to my team to be incredibly productive on my team if you

00:20:33.840 have this process in place, you'll never feel a prisoner to your team because you'll be able to

00:20:39.500 hire and train people without taking your time. See, most of you will accept an underperformer

00:20:45.640 on your team because it takes less to deal with it than to have a gap and have to go find somebody

00:20:52.080 to then train them. Does that make sense? Say yes. You guys get it? Now, this is a philosophy

00:20:59.660 that can't be disputed if you want to build a million dollar company you can't do it off ten

00:21:04.260 dollar tasks and if you want to build a ten million dollar business it's hundred dollar tasks like

00:21:09.540 it gets to a point where there's not enough hours in the week you can't work your way out of this

00:21:17.520 problem you have to learn how to let go and your inability to learn to let go has created the

00:21:23.620 prison that you live in. So far, so good? Say yes. All right. Next up. One of the most powerful

00:21:31.860 frameworks I teach. Simple, and it will change your frame on your team if you understand this,

00:21:40.380 okay? I had the privilege of spending time with a guy named Richard Branson. Now, you've got to

00:21:45.800 understand, I grew up in the east coast of Canada, small town, 150,000 people, and growing up as an

00:21:53.060 entrepreneur, I'm 45, 17, 28, I don't even know how many, my math is off.

00:22:02.300 Is that 28 years ago? Am I that old?

00:22:08.400 28 years ago, I get into entrepreneurship, and I discover, obviously, Virgin, and I'm

00:22:14.080 reading the biography. So, this is a decade ago, but 10 years ago, I get an email, I'm

00:22:19.340 sitting in my office, and my buddy, his name is Dan, he has this company called Zozi, and

00:22:25.140 he emails me, he goes, hey, Dan, I'm doing this event with Richard Branson at his home

00:22:30.140 in Verbier, Switzerland, in April. Would you like to come?

00:22:37.160 I was like, oh, what? Let me check my calendar. Clear! And then I'm like so dorky, I reply

00:22:44.800 and i'm like yeah no that should work uh yeah let me know i don't want to be like when and where

00:22:50.480 how much do you need like it was crazy because it would even cost me like he's like just meet us

00:22:55.120 there he's an investor he's going to his home he wants to hang out with some entrepreneurs

00:22:58.560 who are doing cool things i thought of you wow i honestly thought this can't be real

00:23:04.800 i want you to understand imposter syndrome through the roof like he's not gonna show up

00:23:11.360 Dan's lying to me.

00:23:12.680 I don't know, I was just like,

00:23:13.940 it wasn't until I was sitting literally on that couch.

00:23:16.100 That's the inside of his place.

00:23:18.120 I'm sitting on that couch

00:23:19.160 and Richard comes out the back corner there.

00:23:21.900 And I was like, oh, this is real.

00:23:25.000 So this is what I think to myself.

00:23:27.300 I can only mess it up from here.

00:23:31.500 You've all thought the same thing.

00:23:32.840 Like, there's, I get, ejection is my only,

00:23:36.080 so okay, shut your mouth, Dan.

00:23:37.820 Ask lots of questions, that way they don't ask you stories,

00:23:39.640 you don't make embarrass yourself.

00:23:40.640 Okay, cool, cool, cool.

00:23:41.800 All right, so I'm there for a week,

00:23:44.600 hanging out with the billionaire

00:23:46.240 that every other billionaire wants to be like.

00:23:48.860 And I'm trying to study Richard,

00:23:51.400 because obviously he lives a quality of life

00:23:53.760 that I just can dream of.

00:23:56.220 And I wanted to understand,

00:23:57.520 what does he do that's different than other people?

00:24:01.260 That was my mission.

00:24:03.060 And I'd just watch him, and I'd watch him,

00:24:05.480 and obviously I'm not a weirdo,

00:24:07.140 and I'd ask him questions from time to time.

00:24:10.020 just sitting there in the corner, like, mm.

00:24:14.180 Man, he got me, I'll tell you a quick story.

00:24:15.900 I was having dinner with him one night,

00:24:18.580 and he sat next to me.

00:24:20.540 And while we're talking, you know,

00:24:22.200 if you ever talk with Richard, he's kind of a slow,

00:24:24.020 you know, he's high energy, just very kind.

00:24:27.240 And he goes, so Dan, what do you do?

00:24:29.460 And I just, I didn't even,

00:24:31.020 I just shared a few things that I've done.

00:24:33.380 And he says, wow, your dad must be really proud of you.

00:24:40.020 and I just broke down I didn't know if my dad was proud of me but for him to say

00:24:48.840 that he didn't see me get teary I kind of pretended like I had to talk to the

00:24:53.820 person on my right but it was a wild here's the guy that literally could have

00:25:01.920 been talking to anybody and I'm some nobody Canadian entrepreneur somehow I

00:25:05.400 found my way in this room and what I saw that changed my life that I want to make

00:25:12.540 sure that you guys understand is that what's different about Richard is he

00:25:17.340 chose every day to protect his energy and to protect his time and how does he

00:25:22.080 do that he has a beautiful person named Helen that literally acts as his his

00:25:29.340 defense mechanism when you hear he doesn't do email is because Helen does

00:25:33.780 the email when you hear that he builds businesses on legal notepads it's because as soon as he draws

00:25:39.860 something hands it over to helen she makes sure she makes it happen and every morning this is

00:25:45.300 the kicker every morning i watched him have breakfast with her and this is the way he lives

00:25:49.620 his life all requests all demand think about this for you some of you guys have executive assistance

00:25:56.500 but you're not really doing it this way all the things come into his life they go through helen

00:26:01.300 they have breakfast every morning she only brings to his attention the things that she doesn't know

00:26:05.800 how to deal with they discuss some options preferences she locks and loads that and then

00:26:10.440 for the rest of the day he comes and skis with us or works out or goes and talks at a charity thing

00:26:16.280 or does a pr stunt but that's how he lives his life i asked him once i said richard why don't

00:26:21.800 you sit on any boards his response they're boring i'm sat on boards he's not wrong he's not wrong

00:26:28.840 I was like, oh man, he's got a different way of living.

00:26:31.200 So what he taught me was this philosophy

00:26:34.520 of essentially replacing yourself

00:26:36.820 out of the doing in the world

00:26:39.080 and really learning to work through other people.

00:26:43.340 And that's when I designed this thing

00:26:45.040 called the replacement ladder.

00:26:47.240 And the way it works,

00:26:48.280 and I think about it for all businesses,

00:26:49.780 and you might feel like you're doing really well,

00:26:51.540 but you might've missed some steps.

00:26:52.700 So I really want to ask you to do an audit at each level

00:26:56.080 to go, are you at a 10 out of 10?

00:26:58.500 because if you're at a level four

00:27:00.480 but you're not doing level one right,

00:27:01.940 it's going to fall down.

00:27:03.400 It's like a house of cards.

00:27:05.340 So level one is you need to hire an admin

00:27:08.440 because you're probably feeling stuck.

00:27:10.180 You might be feeling that pain line.

00:27:11.920 The key is you've got to give 100% of your inbox

00:27:14.960 and your calendar to that person.

00:27:16.460 When I say 100%, I, you know everybody brags about inbox zero?

00:27:21.000 You guys have heard that?

00:27:21.820 Say yes.

00:27:22.820 How about zero inbox?

00:27:26.260 I know.

00:27:26.900 I don't have an I don't do email refuse to do it Richard doesn't do email

00:27:30.620 some of you guys well I could never do that my clients expect that yet you

00:27:33.800 taught them how to treat you you taught them what to expect now again this is a

00:27:40.880 10 out of 10 there's levels to this I remember my brother calls me up one time

00:27:43.660 and he's like dead and that my brother is a high-performing real estate guy he

00:27:48.300 had built a multiple eight-figure business no assistant he's my brother I

00:27:52.660 talked about I've been talking about this stuff for 15 years finally calls me

00:27:56.840 and he goes Dan I think I need to get an assistant I was like yes brother we

00:28:01.120 celebrated yeah pain enough pain he's like yeah enough pain cool give him my

00:28:07.080 playbooks give him my process whatever he needs it's yours hires an assistant

00:28:11.180 off to the races four months later I'm at his house for barbecue and I'm excited

00:28:17.420 I go bro how is this new person like tell me about it tell me about your life

00:28:22.220 and he goes you know he's flipping his bird it's okay oh oh I know he goes what I don't know let

00:28:30.300 me Pierre did you hire somebody and then when you choose once the email comes in you loop them in to

00:28:36.020 do something when you need something done yeah why all right reread review like dude you're not you

00:28:45.020 have to live I said your inbox is their to-do list you're trying to figure out what you should give

00:28:51.860 them, let them figure that out. Here's what most people don't realize about

00:28:55.220 their email. It's a public to-do list of strangers requests on your time. Think

00:29:02.000 about that. If you had an office on Main Street USA, would you allow a rando

00:29:08.680 stranger to not only walk in the office but sit down and get comfortable in your

00:29:14.720 office? Would you allow that? Yes or no? No! But yet you've accepted that with

00:29:21.020 your inbox you need somebody else being first line of defense so that they deal

00:29:25.040 with all of it so that you can be here while I'm on this stage and having the

00:29:29.540 privilege to share some ideas with you my life is doing this while I'm on this

00:29:35.760 stage people are being hired business is getting done wire details are being sent

00:29:39.980 things are getting paid while I'm here because I'm not first line of defense

00:29:46.160 and it is a game changer. That's level one. Level two is delivery. Services, doing the work,

00:29:53.060 essentially, you know, you can still be the person doing the core, but you need help with

00:29:57.400 delivery. And I always think if you're feeling stalled, that's what you're missing, onboarding

00:30:01.220 and support. I want you to get to a place, if you're not there, where you bring on a new client

00:30:07.260 after that sale call is made, boom, you're not involved. You want to get involved when there's

00:30:13.420 strategic conversation about what you're seeing you don't want to be involved in anything else

00:30:17.260 at first that person can be your assistant but if your assistant gets busy and they should

00:30:23.020 i mean it's fine guess what my assistant has an assistant yes you want to build the people so the

00:30:30.300 people build the business right or downer that might you might want to take that one down

00:30:37.500 and delivery is the second level because i'll tell you if you if you go from a conversation

00:30:42.540 Let's say somebody introduces you to a lead, and you take that call real quick, and they say, yeah, I want to do this.

00:30:47.840 And then you hang up and you say, well, you're going to hear from Lisa, and da-da-da-da, and that person can take the onboarding and the support.

00:30:53.380 Beautiful place to get to.

00:30:54.560 That's level two.

00:30:56.200 The reason I've stacked these in this way, the replacement ladder, because it's the least amount of investment for the talent for the highest volume of time back.

00:31:05.460 That's the math.

00:31:06.540 That's why it's a first principles approach.

00:31:08.360 You can't defend it.

00:31:09.300 This is the, you can't argue that an admin is a lot less expensive than somebody who's a specialist to onboard and manage support.

00:31:15.340 Does that make sense? Say yes.

00:31:17.440 Okay.

00:31:18.540 Level three, marketing.

00:31:21.160 This is one of my favorites.

00:31:22.560 I had a friend, Rachel.

00:31:23.980 She had an agency.

00:31:26.240 Here's Rachel's revenue.

00:31:29.260 Does marketing?

00:31:30.280 Makes money.

00:31:31.360 Gets busy, stops marketing, doesn't make money.

00:31:34.760 Doesn't have any money, starts marketing, makes money.

00:31:37.140 does anybody see the problem with the revenue curve okay so she calls me up

00:31:46.200 Dan how do I grow my business I said show me your numbers she shows me our

00:31:53.700 report last five years Rachel you need to start doing marketing I do marketing

00:32:03.280 Okay, sorry, Rachel.

00:32:05.160 You need to start being consistent with your marketing.

00:32:07.920 What do you mean by consistent?

00:32:09.280 I said you need a system for marketing.

00:32:12.300 What does that mean?

00:32:13.260 It means every day there's something happening

00:32:15.100 to create awareness to your business,

00:32:16.840 whether you're there or not, a system.

00:32:19.860 She goes, oh.

00:32:21.600 See, and it can be part-time,

00:32:23.740 but the moment you have somebody else

00:32:25.860 that wakes up every day

00:32:27.120 to make sure that you have traffic

00:32:29.240 to your pages,

00:32:32.580 that capture contact or some mechanism for creating awareness

00:32:36.240 that captures a contact that introduces to a sales conversation.

00:32:39.860 If you have somebody accountable, responsible, that wakes up every day,

00:32:43.200 focuses on campaigns, focuses on traffic, then you will win.

00:32:47.580 Anybody in this room ever experienced this?

00:32:52.500 All of a sudden, your leads go down, and you're trying to figure out what happened,

00:32:56.580 and some person updated your website, changed the style sheets,

00:32:59.940 and all of a sudden the checkout button

00:33:01.400 or the submission button is the same color

00:33:03.080 as the background and the people on the page

00:33:04.540 can't figure out how to submit the page.

00:33:06.800 Am I the only person that's ever had?

00:33:08.120 Yeah, exactly, I see the hands.

00:33:09.420 Like, you need somebody that just focuses

00:33:12.720 on lead generation.

00:33:14.640 Again, we're talking levels.

00:33:16.440 The moment you put this in place,

00:33:18.300 even a part-time agency,

00:33:20.160 you're starting to build momentum.

00:33:22.540 You're buying back your time,

00:33:23.920 you're creating the space for you

00:33:25.040 to do the thing only you can do,

00:33:26.320 and you're starting to love your life again.

00:33:29.200 Awesome.

00:33:29.760 Level four, one of my favorites.

00:33:31.180 I call it the freedom level.

00:33:33.920 Why is it freedom?

00:33:36.520 Because at sales, having somebody else take the phone call to enroll the person,

00:33:40.460 at the sales level, it will change everything.

00:33:43.940 Let me tell you a story.

00:33:45.860 So I started coaching as a professional.

00:33:48.560 I've been an entrepreneur my whole life, built and exited companies,

00:33:50.760 but I felt compelled to want to work with people a little bit more one-on-one.

00:33:55.960 So I start taking calls.

00:33:58.540 and I didn't realize how much pent-up demand

00:34:01.420 from my social media.

00:34:02.680 We have now one of the fastest-growing

00:34:03.980 social media channels.

00:34:04.760 You can check it out online.

00:34:05.920 But back seven years ago,

00:34:07.500 I didn't know that people wanted to learn from me,

00:34:10.880 and my calendar got slammed.

00:34:13.280 I was taking all the calls with my new clients.

00:34:15.840 Why?

00:34:16.160 Because I thought I hired coaches in the past.

00:34:18.500 I talked to the coach.

00:34:19.600 The coach needs to talk.

00:34:20.700 Like, I want to talk to the coach.

00:34:22.260 I'm going to hire the coach.

00:34:23.180 I need to talk to the coach.

00:34:25.780 And my wife sat me down.

00:34:26.940 This is literally my beautiful wife, Renee.

00:34:28.540 She sat me down, and I was, like, doing phone calls after I put the kids to bed

00:34:32.540 because I was on the East Coast and the clients were on the West Coast,

00:34:34.700 and she just looks at me and she goes, what are you doing?

00:34:38.480 You know better.

00:34:40.100 And I go, but Renee, they need to talk to me.

00:34:42.720 She goes, no.

00:34:44.160 You teach this, you've got to do it.

00:34:46.000 And she wasn't wrong.

00:34:47.680 So I hired this guy, Michael.

00:34:50.040 And Michael didn't even have a background in selling coaching.

00:34:53.000 He had a, I think his previous business was selling samurai swords on the Internet.

00:34:58.540 that translates for sure. Anyways, can't make it up. The thing I loved about him is he ran his own Facebook ads. I was like, dude, if you want to run the ads, I'll pay for them, but then you generate your demand, and then you take the calls. Let's see what happens. I hire Michael the first day. I'm not even joking. Credit card, on call, full pay.

00:35:20.580 Okay, so think about your most expensive thing.

00:35:23.080 Imagine you hire a salesperson.

00:35:24.740 First day, they get somebody to buy.

00:35:27.920 I call them up right away.

00:35:29.260 Once I see that transaction go through, I call them,

00:35:30.840 Michael, what did you promise?

00:35:34.340 Do I have somebody coming to my house for dinner tomorrow?

00:35:36.860 Like, what did you sell?

00:35:38.240 What did you agree to?

00:35:39.320 How did you get somebody that doesn't even talk to me

00:35:43.680 to buy me through you?

00:35:45.800 And he goes to me.

00:35:47.000 He goes, actually, Dan, I think it's better because it makes you look like you do what you teach.

00:35:54.860 Oh, huh. All right.

00:35:58.960 And from that moment on, my business went because I learned to let go.

00:36:03.760 See, this level is why it's freedom.

00:36:06.460 Four hires. Count them up. One, two, three, four.

00:36:09.400 If you implement this, you will be able to go on vacation.

00:36:12.920 and while you're away disconnected,

00:36:15.100 you will come back to your business to have grown.

00:36:17.220 Now, you still might need to be involved

00:36:18.540 for the thing that you do that you love to do,

00:36:20.920 but those people will have,

00:36:22.920 that person would have created an opportunity

00:36:24.660 or awareness of people that you exist.

00:36:26.720 Somebody would have talked to them like a Michael

00:36:28.640 about what you do and get them to buy

00:36:30.140 and roll in your thing.

00:36:31.440 And then somebody else would have took that purchase

00:36:33.880 and brought them up to a place

00:36:35.420 and collected all the information

00:36:36.780 and got them ready for you to sit down with your file

00:36:38.800 to do your magic.

00:36:40.660 And that is freedom.

00:36:41.740 and that's what I want for every entrepreneur in the world.

00:36:45.520 Now, the next level is flow.

00:36:48.360 That's where I live my life

00:36:49.420 and I want it for every one of you.

00:36:51.320 Flow is this beautiful place where you have somebody

00:36:54.700 where you can partner with, where they own.

00:36:58.940 This is the key.

00:37:00.260 If you're going in and you say you have a leader in place,

00:37:02.980 you have a director, you have whatever you have

00:37:05.180 and you're the one telling them what to do,

00:37:07.200 you're doing it wrong.

00:37:08.480 I don't tell anybody on my team what to do.

00:37:10.420 They tell me what to do, and we edit.

00:37:12.320 It's called editing, not authoring.

00:37:14.500 I want to write that down.

00:37:15.680 You want to be an editor, not an author.

00:37:19.660 So that leader has to own strategy and outcomes.

00:37:24.980 When I say own, I mean if they're ahead of revenue, they've got to own revenue.

00:37:28.200 If they're ahead of marketing, they've got to own marketing.

00:37:29.880 You've got to literally say, you come to me with the strategy to grow the business.

00:37:33.460 We're going to negotiate, and then you're going to go execute, buddy.

00:37:35.720 You've got to own it.

00:37:36.380 Why?

00:37:36.620 because if people help build the plan they won't fight the plan some of you

00:37:42.520 guys are telling them what the plan is guess what when it doesn't work they

00:37:45.140 blame you I want them to tell me what the plan is so that if it doesn't work

00:37:48.920 for them it's their fault not my fault those five levels will change your life

00:37:54.620 does that make sense say yes this is the one that's gonna hurt okay brace

00:37:59.480 yourself if you don't have an assistant you are one and you're overpaid and you

00:38:07.720 suck at your job just saying there's levels to this I'm hopefully shaking the

00:38:17.360 brain a little bit for what's possible and inspiring you to get to a place

00:38:21.720 where you can truly live in your flow and have people support you if you're

00:38:27.540 still struggling on what you could give your executive assistant i want to give you my internal

00:38:32.180 sop my standard operating procedure for my executive assistant so just find me on instagram

00:38:36.660 and send me the message youtube ea and i will send you a direct link to my google doc it's got my

00:38:42.020 north star principles it's got my whole meeting agenda it's got canned templates it's got preference

00:38:46.820 files it is the master document to have an ea come in use my standard processes to train them

00:38:53.060 and really get them to be effective day one that's number one big idea replacement ladder

00:38:59.060 number one number two it's called transformational leadership this is a completely different way to

00:39:06.100 lead people and i learned it when i moved to silicon valley san francisco okay the the mothership

00:39:14.900 of tech nerds okay the Disneyland of geeks I remember as a Canadian I sold my

00:39:23.240 first tech company living in Canada and then I got on a plane I moved to San

00:39:26.900 Francisco because I want to learn I'm like I'm 28 I want to see what are all

00:39:31.640 these young bucks what do they know about the internet and I want the big

00:39:37.020 question to ask myself is how you guys have probably asked yourself the same

00:39:41.480 question. How does a 25-year-old kid raise $100 million and build and scale a company?

00:39:49.940 Have you guys ever thought that? You guys see these Mark Zuckerberg type? They're all over.

00:39:53.860 I cannot, if you haven't been, you got to go because it is fascinating to watch. You go to

00:39:58.540 a coffee shop and all it is is pitch decks and code. Mac laptops, pitch decks, and code. It's

00:40:05.560 like, and if you talk to somebody and they're like, what do you do? And you don't tell them

00:40:09.640 you've got a billion-dollar, game-changing, world-changing idea,

00:40:12.160 they will stop talking to you and turn around.

00:40:15.600 I almost came home after three weeks.

00:40:17.380 I'm like, I'm way too nice for this city.

00:40:19.060 I cannot deal.

00:40:20.920 They're hurting my feelings every day when I go out to talk to them.

00:40:26.680 Luckily, you know, and I went through challenges at this point.

00:40:30.720 I'm 28.

00:40:31.240 The first successful company, I tried.

00:40:33.520 So 17 I started, failed, did another company at 19, failed.

00:40:37.380 didn't start for another five or some years at 24 hired a business coach this

00:40:43.620 guy named Bob changed my life first year I went from two failed companies didn't

00:40:48.900 know how to build the business first year revenue $980,000 24 years old it

00:40:56.280 what how and I just kept going I only knew one gear and it's worked my butt

00:41:02.160 off and I was scared I was gonna lose everything if I didn't keep doing it and

00:41:05.320 it took a lot from me. So I had a bit of PTSD after I sold that business because I was scared

00:41:11.500 to do another one because I didn't want that same thing to happen again. So when I was in San

00:41:17.280 Francisco, I was trying to study how do these people scale? How do they grow? And I met this

00:41:23.100 incredible man named Naval. Today he's famous. How many of you guys know who Naval Ravikant is?

00:41:27.680 Show of hands. Yeah. And it just tells me the level of nerdy. If you know who Naval is,

00:41:33.200 like you saw him on Joe Rogan, but he's like our guru in Silicon Valley. And I just ran into him

00:41:39.320 one time at this party and I, you know, would reach out to him for advice. He taught me this

00:41:45.080 beautiful framework, okay? I'm not going to put it up on, I just want to say it to you and then

00:41:49.400 we're going to move on to transformational leadership. He shared with me that anything

00:41:52.840 you want to achieve in life, you just need to have leverage. So if you have leverage,

00:41:57.780 little bit of effort, massive results. There's only four ways to get leverage, okay? They're

00:42:01.620 called the four C's, write them down.

00:42:04.440 First one is code, software.

00:42:07.340 If you know how to use code,

00:42:09.500 a little bit of effort creates automation, process,

00:42:12.240 things you never have to do again.

00:42:13.580 I fell in love with code,

00:42:14.680 it's my love language, you could say.

00:42:17.600 AI is an incredible example of code, right?

00:42:21.440 Well, massive leverage.

00:42:22.680 You guys should be using ChatGPT or similar every day,

00:42:26.140 hundreds of times a day.

00:42:27.740 It is like having 10 more people on your team.

00:42:31.260 Second one is content, second form of leverage is content.

00:42:34.360 Think about it, camcorder method, creating a video,

00:42:37.360 it takes me 30 minutes to create a video,

00:42:39.300 a million people could see that video

00:42:40.880 and it takes nothing from me.

00:42:42.720 I create an SOP, content, I give it to a team,

00:42:45.780 I can train 10,000 people with the same process.

00:42:48.680 Leverage, content.

00:42:50.760 Third is capital.

00:42:53.440 As you guys know, money creates leverage.

00:42:56.740 If you have money, just so you know,

00:42:59.060 a lot of people don't realize this,

00:43:00.100 If you have a problem that can be solved with money, you don't have a problem.

00:43:05.040 Say it again.

00:43:06.100 If you have a problem that can be solved with money, you don't have a problem.

00:43:10.120 Capital is a massive form of leverage.

00:43:13.120 And that's why you see these 25-year-olds raise $100 million.

00:43:16.820 The fourth, and the one I fell in love with that I had to study that I really didn't understand,

00:43:21.020 was collaboration.

00:43:22.900 Collaboration.

00:43:23.800 People.

00:43:24.700 Leadership.

00:43:25.680 Communication.

00:43:26.720 The economy of words.

00:43:28.320 what I call polling vocabulary, being able to persuade, tell stories, get people on board,

00:43:35.320 indoctrinate, origin stories. Collaboration is essentially your ability to bring people along

00:43:43.140 for the journey, to support them, to communicate clearly. I sucked at it. I used to wake up every

00:43:50.500 day and hit the plate spinning oh I didn't know somebody asked me when I

00:44:00.100 built my first company and sold it how did you do it I couldn't tell them I

00:44:03.580 don't know I just know I worked my butt off I worked a hundred hours a week it

00:44:08.600 wasn't healthy for my physical health my relationships my family's a little pissed

00:44:12.820 off at me I I don't know and when I learned the four C's of leverage from

00:44:18.700 evolve. Code, content, capital, and collaboration. Then it gave me a framework to go be better.

00:44:25.960 Because if I could master these four master skills, I could accomplish anything. Think about that. If

00:44:31.600 you understand those four and study them and indoctrinate yourself in them and become obsessed

00:44:35.720 with them, anything is possible. Your creativity is your limiter. So I want to teach you about

00:44:42.540 transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is fascinating, okay? This is Dan

00:44:48.360 Martell at 24 years old. This is how I led. I didn't know any better. I didn't know there was

00:44:54.160 another way to do it. I'd hire somebody. I'd tell them what to do. Billy Bob, do this. Billy Bob did

00:45:01.380 that then I check Billy Bob did you do it yep did it cool do this next all right

00:45:11.820 we'll do it next and I did that I called the tell check next doom loop so you guys

00:45:20.520 like what's wrong with this I do this every day here's why at about 12 13 14

00:45:28.740 employees, this is what your life looks like. You wake up in the morning with a whole bunch

00:45:32.640 of projects you want to get done. You open up your inbox. You know you shouldn't, but you do.

00:45:38.060 You start processing your email. Fire. Uh-oh. You start making phone calls. One phone call leads

00:45:42.640 to another phone call. Then you realize you've got to get the team going. And you start doing

00:45:45.840 tell check next, tell check next, tell check next, da-da-da-da-da. All day long. Then you finally

00:45:50.780 at 6 o'clock come home. You do dinner with the family. And then it's 8 o'clock and you should

00:45:53.940 be hanging out with your spouse. But instead you get back to work because you didn't do any of the

00:45:57.560 projects you started with does that sound familiar say yes all right you guys get it there's a

00:46:04.920 different way of doing it a better way to do it how young cats in the valley figured out to scale

00:46:11.260 these companies one of my early i mean my early mentors were the founders of uber and dropbox and

00:46:17.200 uh airbnb like watching them scale level one is you do an outcome instead of telling people what

00:46:25.740 to do, you tell them where we're going. And there's a nuance, and that's a skill. And I would

00:46:30.320 encourage you guys to learn how to do that. If I want somebody to take the mountain, I don't tell

00:46:35.220 them, hey, go to this GPS coordinate and step here. I say, that's the mountain we're taking.

00:46:40.860 This is what we're doing. When you get at the top, it's going to feel like this. And I paint them the

00:46:45.000 picture of the outcome. Sometimes I call it the success criteria. What is the success criteria of

00:46:51.180 plus updating our website, migrating our website,

00:46:53.840 changing our financial system, whatever it is,

00:46:55.800 that's the outcome.

00:46:57.580 You and I are gonna talk about the outcome.

00:47:00.800 Then what I do is I talk about measure.

00:47:04.300 I wanna measure or give them a feedback loop

00:47:08.380 on how they can measure their progress.

00:47:10.300 So imagine I don't tell them how they play the game

00:47:12.680 and they just start playing the game.

00:47:13.740 If somebody asked me to play cricket

00:47:15.660 and didn't give me the rules of the game,

00:47:17.260 do you think I could play cricket well or bad?

00:47:19.540 Good or bad?

00:47:20.540 Bad.

00:47:21.540 Can you imagine?

00:47:22.540 I'd probably get fired off the team as soon as I stepped on the plate.

00:47:26.300 I wouldn't even know where the plate is.

00:47:27.540 Maybe there isn't a plate.

00:47:29.420 I don't know.

00:47:30.420 I know I got a bat and somebody's going to throw a ball somewhere.

00:47:32.420 I'm supposed to hit it and I think I run back and forth until somebody tags me or something.

00:47:36.620 I really don't know.

00:47:38.640 You're doing it to your team.

00:47:41.920 You are playing a game with your team and you forgot to tell them the rules.

00:47:45.160 You do not give them a metric.

00:47:46.520 person, everybody at my companies has a number that they can use a North Star to let them know

00:47:51.220 if they're doing better. That's measure. And that's what you find in Silicon Valley.

00:47:56.420 The third is coach. If somebody is off, then you coach them. So if I tell a team member that is

00:48:03.140 the amount we're going to take, this is how it's going to feel when we get to the top. Every day,

00:48:06.860 I want you to text me how many feet of elevation per day gain you've done. Every day, they text me

00:48:12.760 150 180 210 all right we're making progress 26 oh 26 feet not good we got to dig in I coach see

00:48:23.360 that's the difference most people tell their team what to do I train my team what to do I call it

00:48:30.860 train don't tell so coaching is different coaching is sitting down with the person that didn't make

00:48:37.060 any progress and saying to them, all right, what went off? He's like, I got lost. Okay,

00:48:43.320 why did you get lost? I don't know. If you had to guess. Well, I didn't know which way was up.

00:48:48.680 Why didn't you know which way was up? The trails were all over the place. Okay, if you had to fix

00:48:53.200 the problem, what could you do to fix the problem? Well, I could probably ask people next time when

00:48:59.240 I'm hiking because you ran on some people. Yeah, I ran on some people. Did you ask them which way

00:49:02.440 the way to go? No, I didn't ask them which way to go. Okay, so that's one option. What else do you

00:49:05.600 do well I could probably get a map you don't have a map nope don't have a map

00:49:09.860 buy a map okay what do you want to do and then they tell you and then you coach

00:49:14.060 them on getting better why because if you coach them you invest in them and

00:49:20.060 they get better and what happens when you hire a lot of people really quick at

00:49:23.900 first there's an investment in them and then eventually they invest back into

00:49:28.340 the business check that out one to twelve using transactional leadership

00:49:35.000 You get to a point where your life sucks about 12 to 14 people

00:49:40.000 Transformational leadership the more you grow the more you get back why because you've coached the early people that start coaching the other people

00:49:46.740 See the way you show up as a leader is how your leaders will show up for their teams

00:49:50.620 And if they're not showing up in a way that creates expansion, it's because of the way you've shown up for them

00:49:56.820 So you've created this scenario where they're showing up doing tell check next to their team and they're bottlenecking their team

00:50:03.520 do you guys see that say yes it's a game changer okay here's the deal people don't buy your

00:50:12.280 standards they buy your presence you think they bought you they did not if somebody bought from

00:50:20.040 you they're buying your standards they're buying your process they're buying your methodology

00:50:24.600 they're brought they're buying your values they're buying your culture they're not paying for your

00:50:31.520 presence they need you to hold a standard within your team and that's what they're paying for so

00:50:38.720 many people feel stuck in their leadership style because they think they have to be there you don't

00:50:44.640 you have to create the environment the game that you love to do that they thrive in because you've

00:50:50.960 created a place where they get to grow changes everything those are the first two the third and

00:50:55.920 last the one-three-one rule I learned this from my buddy Brad Pedersen he's

00:51:01.260 actually a mutual friend of Cody's and I it's one of the smartest minds one of my

00:51:05.020 best friends we hang out every week and he's always dropping bombs and knowledge

00:51:09.360 and stuff and he says this to me once he goes you know why they call it a

00:51:12.840 bottleneck said no Brad why is that they go because it's at the top John Maxwell

00:51:19.260 calls it the law of the lid your business will not grow past the level

00:51:24.360 your own growth i wish it wasn't that way trust me unfortunately it is if you want your business

00:51:31.240 to grow you have to grow if you can't grow hire somebody that's willing to do it for you

00:51:37.320 that's an option but if you're the ceo you're the leader you need to grow and the 131 rule helps you

00:51:44.680 develop yourself in a way so that you don't become the bottleneck it is a game changer for actually

00:51:50.600 working with teams one time i had an hr guy named adam he was working for him he was new to the team

00:51:57.960 he had heard we train against the 131 it's kind of culture for us and we just finished quarterly

00:52:03.800 planning which like i'm assuming a lot of you guys have just done and we're sitting there

00:52:09.080 and i could tell adam's stressed you know he's new he's listening he's like hearing all the

00:52:15.160 departments and the hiring and he's just you know he's breathing heavy and i'm watching it happen

00:52:20.600 And at break, he comes up to me.

00:52:23.200 He goes, we've got an issue.

00:52:24.340 I said, what's up, Adam?

00:52:25.840 He's like, well, dude, we've got to hire 13 people in the next 90 days.

00:52:32.320 Yeah.

00:52:35.740 That's an issue.

00:52:37.300 How do we do that?

00:52:39.800 I look at him.

00:52:40.620 I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure that's your job.

00:52:45.740 Well, I mean, I know it's my job.

00:52:47.100 I'm going to do the work.

00:52:47.740 But I mean, I don't know.

00:52:49.100 That's a lot of people.

00:52:50.600 I remember Steve Jobs saying this once.

00:52:52.020 He says, it's easy to hire people and tell them what to do.

00:52:54.840 He said, it's harder to hire people and have them tell you what to do.

00:53:01.220 Game changer.

00:53:02.200 Stop hiring people and tell them what to do.

00:53:04.360 Hire them and have them tell you what to do.

00:53:06.200 I said, Adam, what's your 131?

00:53:08.100 He literally says to me, oh, are you serious about that?

00:53:11.600 I'm fucking dead serious.

00:53:15.280 What's your 131?

00:53:16.140 Well, I haven't thought about it.

00:53:17.180 I said, how much time do you need to think about it?

00:53:19.640 He said, I don't know.

00:53:20.180 He said, yes.

00:53:22.440 I said, tomorrow would you be prepared?

00:53:25.280 He goes, yeah.

00:53:26.180 I said, cool.

00:53:27.020 Take the rest of the day to plan it out, 1-3-1, come back to me tomorrow morning.

00:53:31.220 Like tomorrow at this time.

00:53:32.200 It was like 3 in the afternoon.

00:53:33.520 Tomorrow at 3 we'll have a meeting, we'll talk about it.

00:53:35.220 We'll review your 1-3-1.

00:53:36.180 He goes, cool.

00:53:37.500 10 a.m., text from Adam.

00:53:40.040 I'm good.

00:53:44.320 You are teaching people how to treat you.

00:53:48.220 They will not make a decision.

00:53:49.660 Because guess what? If they make a decision and it doesn't work out, then it's their fault.

00:53:53.600 They come to you with the problem so you can give them the answer so that if it doesn't work out, guess what?

00:53:57.980 It's you, not them. And you don't even realize they do this.

00:54:01.880 So here's the 1-3-1 rule.

00:54:04.140 Follow this. It'll be the most important thing you hear over the next few days.

00:54:07.800 Number one, when somebody comes to you, ask them, what is the one specific challenge?

00:54:13.180 A problem well-defined is half-solved.

00:54:17.160 Einstein said this.

00:54:18.340 most people when you ask them what problem are you trying to solve they

00:54:23.140 actually don't know they just feel in a panic help them what's the one specific

00:54:27.760 challenge let's talk Adam hire 13 people within 90 days got it what are your

00:54:33.920 three viable options see as an entrepreneur CEO what we do without even

00:54:40.020 thinking about it is we evaluate options in real time to make a decision and when

00:54:45.340 we have somebody else make decisions for us, it stresses us out. I have clients, they get anxiety

00:54:51.700 attacks when somebody does stuff for them. They get adrenal fatigue. Literally, they feel like

00:54:56.620 they're hungover. I have clients that have broken out into shingles because of the stress their

00:55:03.460 body is under having somebody else make a decision on their behalf. It is debilitating. Why? Because

00:55:11.300 they're worried they didn't think about the scenarios. So that's why, if anything, three

00:55:16.460 viable options is for you to relax, breathe, and go, okay, you did think about calling this person,

00:55:25.460 okay, and then you did some research on the internet, okay, and then you did, okay, cool,

00:55:29.080 those are all three viable options. Awesome. The third one, so that's the one of the three,

00:55:33.680 the third one is one recommendation. Adam, what is your one recommendation to me to solve this

00:55:39.380 problem would you guys be surprised to hear that 98% of the time their

00:55:44.840 recommendation is the answer yes or no think about that would you be surprised

00:55:50.480 to hear their recommendation is most often the answer yes or no no because

00:55:56.420 they did the work and you know what's funny the people that are the closest to

00:56:01.700 the problem have the most context to solve the problem so you don't even

00:56:05.540 realize that trying to help people solve problems that you're far away from

00:56:08.360 from actually makes it worse because you don't have the context. So what happens with the 131

00:56:14.800 is you push challenges down to the front line and you stop them from coming up. So then all of a

00:56:21.920 sudden the leaders get to free up their time to solve force multiplier problems, game changer

00:56:28.120 problems, leverage problems, not get bogged up in the weeds. I'll give you a little tip. I call it

00:56:34.140 50 to fix it. In my companies, across all the businesses I'm involved in, if you're a frontline

00:56:39.180 worker, an individual contributor, you can spend up to $50 to solve a problem. Never ask for

00:56:43.980 permission as long as you let your leader know after the fact you spend it, expense it, we'll pay

00:56:48.300 it. Just let your leader know. $50, anybody can do that. No questions asked. Do it in real time.

00:56:53.900 I love you. I trust you. Do that. Level up. Team leads, $500. Directors, $5,000. C-level,

00:57:04.140 $50,000. I had a CEO that works for me come to me the other day. He had a massive problem. He was

00:57:09.240 trying to solve it. He wanted approval. It was $37,000. I said, hey, bro, what's the rule?

00:57:17.380 What rule? 50 to fix it. He goes, oh, yeah. I said, I trust you. Do it. Don't slow down.

00:57:26.140 You want to make a lot of money? Stop being involved in decisions you don't have to be

00:57:29.600 involved in. Here's the way to think about it. You want your problems to be bigger. If you have

00:57:37.560 bigger problems, it means you're living a bigger life. Bigger problems, bigger life. Lots of little

00:57:44.100 problems, I can tell you what your life looks like. Small. You don't want $10 problems, $100

00:57:51.380 problems, $1,000. If you're in this room, I pray that you're dealing with $50,000 problems,

00:57:56.900 hundred thousand dollar problems, million dollar problems. That just tells me the size of your

00:58:01.300 life. The only way to do that is to create the space in your calendar to be able to do that.

00:58:05.840 That is the biggest thing for me when I help entrepreneurs unlock their time is I want them

00:58:10.220 to go build their empire. I'm not a four-hour workweek guy. I'm not a get free and go travel

00:58:15.160 the world and hope my team figures it out kind of guy. That's not me. I want to create the space

00:58:20.100 in your calendar to become more. See, most people don't realize your biggest expense is not doing

00:58:26.000 the thing that makes you the most money if you're the leader of your business

00:58:30.320 being in this room is the best thing you can be doing with your time right now

00:58:33.140 being here networking building relationships learning best thing you

00:58:38.600 could do with your time check this out this one will really kind of shift it

00:58:42.800 all for you did you know you've never had a dollar come into your bank account

00:58:46.640 with another without another person involved you've never had money unless

00:58:51.560 Once you stole it, you've never had money, you've never had money come into your bank

00:58:58.020 account without a relationship, a person involved in that transaction.

00:59:02.400 Here's why that's important to understand.

00:59:05.260 Anything that isn't you networking, creating, collaborating, business developing, growing

00:59:11.740 yourself so you can be valuable for everybody else around you, anything that is not that

00:59:16.620 is not what you should be focused on.

00:59:19.840 If you wanna have yet another breakout year,

00:59:22.940 you guys all had a great year,

00:59:24.000 I want you to have another one.

00:59:25.380 I want 2025 to blow your minds.

00:59:27.220 Be like, I can't believe that just happened.

00:59:29.400 You have to learn how to buy back your time.

00:59:32.260 No ifs, ands, or buts.

00:59:33.660 You might think you're good at it.

00:59:34.700 If you're good at it, you're not good at it.

00:59:36.620 You gotta get better.

00:59:37.760 There's another level.

00:59:38.760 Read the book, study my material.

00:59:40.600 Trust me, whole different level.

00:59:44.000 Now, y'all got a copy, but I wanna leave you with this

00:59:46.920 as I land the plane.

00:59:48.000 And it's why I'm here.

00:59:52.000 It's why I went through what I went through as a teenager.

00:59:54.700 It's why I struggle with addiction.

00:59:56.800 It's why incredible human beings came into my life to express their belief in what was

01:00:02.580 possible for me in moments where I had zero belief.

01:00:05.920 It's because I actually think every person on earth is here to feel fulfilled, not be

01:00:14.760 happy.

01:00:15.760 two little boys i'm not talking about hey what's going to make you happy what's going to make you

01:00:20.240 feel fulfilled what's going to make you feel useful after i go to the gym i feel great did i

01:00:26.400 feel happy when i was at the gym no so it's not about feeling happy happy is moments here's what

01:00:33.680 i've learned 28 years of entrepreneurship coming to events like this every year investing myself

01:00:40.480 1,600 books. Massive coaching. I coach with the best of the best, okay? I've learned it comes down

01:00:46.820 to two things. Number one is wake up every day to strive to become your 10.0 self. What is your

01:00:54.600 10.0 self? I have a whole framework, but I want to tell you this. It's the person you needed most

01:00:59.360 in your darkest days. It's the person that you would have listened to when you were going through

01:01:07.040 it. It's the person that you would admire. It's the best version of you. It's like taking all the

01:01:14.700 best moments in your whole life where you're the funniest and strongest and kindest and assertive

01:01:18.900 and all the stuff that you, the fittest, like all of it. Take all those moments, put them into

01:01:24.860 one day, stack it. That's your 10.0 version. If you're a person of faith, it's the person that

01:01:31.300 god created you in his image that's why you're here it's why you desire for more so you wake up

01:01:39.040 every day and you aim for the 10.0 self that's half the equation the other half is to be is to

01:01:45.480 share yourself with the world whatever you did and learn share it if your world are your kids

01:01:53.520 pour into your kids if your world is your community your church or crossfit gym pour into it if it's

01:02:00.660 your country go all in I would actually invite you to consider to share it with

01:02:05.280 the whole world social media it's been the most magical journey for me and if

01:02:10.800 you do those two things I promise you you will live daily in a place of massive

01:02:16.720 fulfillment thanks for having me everybody

Dan Martell - February 28, 2025

How Billionaires Get Rich (and how you can too)

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