How Billionaires Get Rich (and how you can too)
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 2 minutes
Words per minute
180.12126
Harmful content
Misogyny
4
sentences flagged
Toxicity
9
sentences flagged
Hate speech
4
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode, I talk about my journey from Juvenile detention to becoming a software developer, and how technology changed my life in the process. I hope this episode gives you a new perspective on how to get ready for the future.
Transcript
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10 years ago, I get an email doing this event with Richard Branson at his home in Verbier,
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Switzerland. Would you like to come? Imposter syndrome through the roof. And I'm trying to
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study Richard because obviously he lives a quality of life that I just can dream of.
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What he taught me was this philosophy of essentially replacing yourself out of the
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doing and really learning to work through other people. And that's when I designed this thing
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called the replacement ladder. My promise to every person in this room, by the end of this time
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together, I will give you a framework, a process, a life philosophy that if you apply it, will change
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the game for you. It'll actually make you feel guilty because you'll be making more money and
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it's not going to be as hard as you thought it would be. Your business will grow and your time
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will expand. You'll be like, I should be working harder. No, that's not how it has to be.
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Before I can get into that, I have to share with you a quick story.
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As a child, I went through tough, tough challenges. I grew up in a home with an alcoholic mother.
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I had a father that wasn't around very much and the second oldest of four.
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And that caused me to make a lot of bad decisions.
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oh okay I guess I'm the only one um but essentially what happened after ending
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up in juvenile detention twice and getting into trouble I got I got since
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well I got released sentence they allowed me to go get some therapy and I
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ended up in this place called portage and portage was a therapeutic community
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for adolescence with a drug addiction, and that was me. Most people do five months of therapy.
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I did 11. I had some real stuff to work on. You see that? Now, this place saved my life.
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It taught me my personal worth. It helped me rebuild the relationship with my brothers and
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my family. It helped me understand basic values. And through that process of rebuilding, honestly,
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my identity, I started to have a vision for the future. And that's what I'm so excited about
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the theme of this event, is getting ready for the future. And here's what happened.
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At the end of this 11-month period, I decided to stay for the summer before going back out
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into my normal world because I wasn't ready yet.
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So I'm helping Rick clean out one of the camps.
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And I walk over, I see the computer, I see the book,
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I open up the book, and I think it's gonna read
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like you can't read, it's computer programming.
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If this, then that, use case, like I'm reading it,
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So I sit down, you know, I'm trying to work really hard,
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light up the computer, and just start following
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Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
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and today it's not impressive, but it didn't matter.
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At that moment, at 17 years old, I thought to myself, this is how delusional I was, maybe
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If you're laughing, it tells me how old you are, just so you know.
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I became obsessed with coding, the internet, all things technology.
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So I get out of rehab and discover this little thing called the internet.
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He goes, Daniel, if you could just find something you're passionate about that isn't illegal,
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Today, my life looks completely different, and it wasn't without a ton of challenges
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and frustration and issues and setbacks, and I will share those with you today.
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I'm not going to sit up here and do success theater.
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I am privileged and blessed, and I have immense gratitude for Cody and David for having me here,
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for all of you guys to be here. I don't take your time lightly whatsoever. I just want to let you
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know that on the back end of showing up, becoming obsessed, deciding to value yourself,
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because when we talk about time, I will let you know that if you don't value your time,
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nobody's going to value your time. And most people don't get what they want. They get what
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they think they deserve, and if you don't feel worthy
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So today I have the privilege of flying around,
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on my plane, coming to speak to folks like yourself,
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trying to instill this belief that you can grow,
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And I know it sounds like a freaking pipe dream,
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and some of you guys are like, don't believe it.
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because I'm going to share some lessons today, okay?
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And the pain line's a point where the more you would grow,
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has anybody in the world ever felt that things are on fire but god darn it my life hurts
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it's kind of like you know that you could but you don't so you act you act to not win instead
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of playing to win you're playing not to lose and you know better that's the worst part is that the
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high performers you guys are in this room you know better you want to you want to play
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and what i've discovered is that no entrepreneur will grow into pain
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that's a writer downer because if you understand this then everything i'm about to teach you makes
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sense i've never met an entrepreneur that will grow into pain it's like me holding a knife to
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your neck and saying step forward anybody play those vr games where you go up the elevator you
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get the headset on and you go up the elevator and there's a plank off the top of the building
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anybody in this room with a vr set okay yeah you know what i'm talking about you literally this is
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what happens you put the headset on you're not moving you're in the same these are the little
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five by five grid to give you and you're in the elevator and the headset's on and you you feel
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like you're going up the elevator 40 40 floors and then the door opens and there's a plank
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and you're supposed to walk off the plank and you get to the edge of the plank and for most people
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unless you're a psychopath when they say jump you don't want to do it like and you know in your head
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it's not real if you watch videos of people sitting there and they're like
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they don't want to jump and you know better so when i tell you entrepreneurs will not grow into
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pain you're not going to want to do it and it usually means that you guys make mistakes what
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What I've seen over the years is most entrepreneurs, when they get to this place, this ceiling
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of complexity, is they decide to want to do one of three things.
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And I know a lot of you guys, best year, last 12 months, best year.
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So you guys are coming into this feeling good about yourself, right?
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but you've probably been there where there's been a point where you like just
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had a tough time and you had to lay off some people and you're like I'm so
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frustrated why is it so hard and you might have the idea I'm just gonna stop
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I'm gonna chill I remember my buddy Matt he had an electrical company and he came
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over to my house one day and he just goes Dan I watch your stuff I hear what
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you're talking about about if you're not growing you're slowly dying I get it
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I said, okay, Matt, let's just run through the scenario.
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I said, your customers today, you all have customers, yes?
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Your customers, do they want less or more from you next year?
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I said, so right off the bat, stalling is going to hurt you because your customers are going to want more from you.
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Number two is the world expanding or contracting, expanding or contracting.
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Whether you like it or not, gross domestic product grows a couple percent a year.
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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,
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even if you don't go down, just sideways, you're slowly dying.
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it now this is where I I got I said Matt who are the two three people but let's
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go to two two names of people on your team that you would feel crushed if they
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left think about it for you I want every person in this room to think to
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themselves who are the two people y'all have they're your rider dies they're
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your their foundation they're your rocket could be your partner and he gave
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me those names. I want you to think about it for yourself. What are those names? I said,
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here's what I've learned, Matt, that those people have hopes and dreams. And if your future isn't
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big enough, if your vision isn't big enough for their hopes and dreams to fit inside of,
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they will leave to find somebody who can do that for them.
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Stalling is not an option. Number two is sabotage. Sabotage is a funny one.
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manufacturing a situation that allows you to fail
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Some of you guys are laughing because you know what I mean.
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Manufacturing a situation that causes you to fail
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And then you wonder why things aren't going good
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Sabotage is getting an email from somebody that says,
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I have an opportunity that could triple your business,
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and instead of replying with enthusiasm, let's talk,
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you drag your feet because you know if you say yes
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and that happens, your calendar's gonna explode.
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And instead of replying right away, you wait on it.
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and you're like, I'm gonna reply, you hit reply,
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ta-da-da-da, yeah, I'd love to talk, let's set it up,
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unfortunately, we already failed that opportunity.
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Had a buddy of mine, Jason, call me the other day.
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Things are tough, a few contracts didn't work out
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way he wanted to lost some money he's like dan i want to sell i said why i said tell me the reasons
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he gives me the reason i said if those reasons weren't true would you want to sell he said well
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no i said well then here's the good news you just discovered your complexity ceiling you just
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discovered your level of ability of dealing with problems before you decide to pull back
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so you can leave you can sell this business and go do the next one but
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here's what you're gonna learn Jason in that next one you're gonna get the
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exact same place you're at now and it's gonna hurt and you're gonna learn the
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same lesson so we either do it now or you do it later but I'm telling you the
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grass isn't always greener you know why sometimes the grass is greener because
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it's fake. I know what those internet people say. Sometimes it's not true. The grass is greener
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where you water it. If you feel your pain line in your life, you just had an incredible year,
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but at the same time, it stretched you, good. I'm going to give you the solution to the problem.
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It's called the buyback principle. And it states, we don't hire to grow our business.
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If you wake up and you add labor to your business
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and it does not buy back time out of your calendar,
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You're building a business, you're growing a business
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How many of you guys would like to learn how to do that?
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say yes. Here's how. It's called the buyback loop. So when we feel the pain, ouch, ceiling,
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self-sabotage, don't, you know, you know when you're in. When you're in the zone, man, those
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emails come in, you're like, boom, let's go. You know what I'm talking about? You're like making
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the calls, no issues. When you're in momentum, you feel it. If you're not there, this is the process.
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And I have to do this, honestly, at my level, three, four times a year.
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When you're growing and expanding, you have to do this.
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First thing is we've got to audit our calendar.
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We have to audit our calendar for time and energy.
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We need to know what things we do that take our energy
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and what it would cost to pay somebody else to do it for us.
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Anytime I work with somebody, I always make them do a two-week audit,
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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
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Every 15 minutes literally for two weeks because I want to get a good sense of your life personal professional
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Once you do that then you go through and you highlight all the stuff you have on there highlight it in red
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Highlight it in yellow if it's like whatever and highlight it in green if it gives you energy
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What color, scream it out, do you think I get from being on this stage?
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Stuff you don't like to do, like for me, financial, planning.
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Some stuff will start off green, and they'll eventually go yellow, and that's okay.
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That's actually something you've got to learn to do.
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Then what you do next to each one of those tasks
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$4 signs if I had to pay somebody to do my job,
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You know how they say how expensive the meal is?
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When you're done this process, you grab all the red stuff with one or two dollar signs,
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And that is the only person you hold yourself accountable to hire next.
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One to two dollar signing costs red or yellow in a bucket.
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I'm a financial planner. I need another financial planner. No, you need somebody to take
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everything off your plate for you to do that 38 hours a week or 45 hours a week or even 20. I
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don't care how much hours a week, but you want to do the thing that lights you up, that makes you
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the most money. Now, I tell you, this sounds like fun. Say yes. You're lying, but I get it.
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The next part is the transfer. Oh, I'm going to go back. The transfer. So once you've got all this
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stuff now you get to give it to somebody else now i know i'm not the only person that's ever sat down
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and thought i read a book and i'm going to create an sop and i'm going to write all the steps and
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processes i do a whole off-site weekend and done to transfer it over and then i hire somebody and
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i tell them where the document is i expect them to read it they don't read it they do work it's
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not done right anybody else experience that okay that's not what i do what i do is i i call it the
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camcorder method once i know who i need to hire next while i'm doing the work i record myself
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in today's beautiful world i do zoom calls by myself screen shared recorded to the cloud
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and while i'm doing the work i'm talking out loud about what i do if i can get three of those
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recordings i put those in a google document when i hire the person guess what their first project is
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to build the standard operating procedure why because then i know they watch the videos
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like once you do this you'll laugh how hard you made it for yourself before i remember my buddy
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mark he's a professional speaker and he's stressed out man he's like i love doing it but i hate all
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the extra work the travel the admin i can't deal with it and i was like dan just follow the process
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He's like, oh, Dan, I don't think you understand how your brain is different than mine.
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You're a systems thinker, and you're different.
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I was like, Mark, give me something you hate doing.
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Five videos, recording invoices, receivables, reconciliation, all the stuff he hates doing.
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Finds a bookkeeper part-time, gives them the video.
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three months later he calls me up I can't even believe it and this is the
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funny part I didn't even tell him the bonus he experienced it he goes my
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bookkeeper just told me she's gotta take some time off she's pregnant what do I
1.00
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do I said you already got it bro you got the SOP you got the training videos the
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next person's so much easier I call it zero to hero how fast can I take
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somebody that's new to my team to be incredibly productive on my team if you
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have this process in place, you'll never feel a prisoner to your team because you'll be able to
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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
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to then train them. Does that make sense? Say yes. You guys get it? Now, this is a philosophy
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that can't be disputed if you want to build a million dollar company you can't do it off ten
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dollar tasks and if you want to build a ten million dollar business it's hundred dollar tasks like
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it gets to a point where there's not enough hours in the week you can't work your way out of this
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problem you have to learn how to let go and your inability to learn to let go has created the
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prison that you live in. So far, so good? Say yes. All right. Next up. One of the most powerful
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frameworks I teach. Simple, and it will change your frame on your team if you understand this,
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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.
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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?
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I was like, oh, what? Let me check my calendar. Clear! And then I'm like so dorky, I reply
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and i'm like yeah no that should work uh yeah let me know i don't want to be like when and where
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how much do you need like it was crazy because it would even cost me like he's like just meet us
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there he's an investor he's going to his home he wants to hang out with some entrepreneurs
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who are doing cool things i thought of you wow i honestly thought this can't be real
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i want you to understand imposter syndrome through the roof like he's not gonna show up
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it wasn't until I was sitting literally on that couch.
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Like, there's, I get, ejection is my only,
1.00
00:23:37.820
Ask lots of questions, that way they don't ask you stories,
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what does he do that's different than other people?
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if you ever talk with Richard, he's kind of a slow,
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And he says, wow, your dad must be really proud of you.
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and I just broke down I didn't know if my dad was proud of me but for him to say
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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
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been talking to anybody and I'm some nobody Canadian entrepreneur somehow I
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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
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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
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defense mechanism when you hear he doesn't do email is because Helen does
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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
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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
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they have breakfast every morning she only brings to his attention the things that she doesn't know
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how to deal with they discuss some options preferences she locks and loads that and then
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for the rest of the day he comes and skis with us or works out or goes and talks at a charity thing
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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
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I was like, oh man, he's got a different way of living.
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and really learning to work through other people.
00:26:49.780
and you might feel like you're doing really well,
00:26:52.700
So I really want to ask you to do an audit at each level
00:27:11.920
The key is you've got to give 100% of your inbox
00:27:16.460
When I say 100%, I, you know everybody brags about inbox zero?
00:27:26.900
I don't have an I don't do email refuse to do it Richard doesn't do email
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some of you guys well I could never do that my clients expect that yet you
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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
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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.
00:30:56.200
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.
00:31:09.300
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.
00:31:31.360
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
00:32:05.160
You need to start being consistent with your marketing.
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.
00:32:52.500
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,
00:33:36.520
Because at sales, having somebody else take the phone call to enroll the person,
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.
00:34:07.500
I didn't know that people wanted to learn from me,
00:34:13.280
I was taking all the calls with my new clients.
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?
00:34:50.040
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.
00:35:29.260
Once I see that transaction go through, I call them,
00:35:34.340
Do I have somebody coming to my house for dinner tomorrow?
00:35:39.320
How did you get somebody that doesn't even talk 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.
00:35:58.960
And from that moment on, my business went because I learned to let go.
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.
00:36:15.100
you will come back to your business to have grown.
00:36:26.720
Somebody would have talked to them like a Michael
00:36:31.440
And then somebody else would have took that purchase
00:36:36.780
and got them ready for you to sit down with your file
00:36:41.740
and that's what I want for every entrepreneur in the world.
00:36:51.320
Flow is this beautiful place where you have somebody
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
00:37:19.660
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.
00:37:36.620
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
0.96
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
0.99
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,
00:40:20.920
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.
00:40:33.520
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
0.74
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
00:42:09.500
a little bit of effort creates automation, process,
00:42:22.680
You guys should be using ChatGPT or similar every day,
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,
00:42:45.780
I can train 10,000 people with the same process.
00:43:00.100
If you have a problem that can be solved with money, you don't have a problem.
00:43:06.100
If you have a problem that can be solved with money, you don't have a problem.
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,
00:43:28.320
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,
00:47:10.300
So imagine I don't tell them how they play the game
00:47:22.540
I'd probably get fired off the team as soon as I stepped on the plate.
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.
00:47:41.920
You are playing a game with your team and you forgot to tell them the rules.
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
00:52:25.840
He's like, well, dude, we've got to hire 13 people in the next 90 days.
00:52:40.620
I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure that's your job.
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.
00:53:08.100
He literally says to me, oh, are you serious about that?
0.80
00:53:17.180
I said, how much time do you need to think about it?
00:53:27.020
Take the rest of the day to plan it out, 1-3-1, come back to me tomorrow morning.
00:53:33.520
Tomorrow at 3 we'll have a meeting, we'll talk about it.
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.
00:54:04.140
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?
00:54:18.340
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.
00:59:05.260
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
00:59:44.000
Now, y'all got a copy, but I wanna leave you with this
00:59:52.000
It's why I went through what I went through as a teenager.
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
01:00:15.760
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
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feel happy when i was at the gym no so it's not about feeling happy happy is moments here's what
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i've learned 28 years of entrepreneurship coming to events like this every year investing myself
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1,600 books. Massive coaching. I coach with the best of the best, okay? I've learned it comes down
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to two things. Number one is wake up every day to strive to become your 10.0 self. What is your
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10.0 self? I have a whole framework, but I want to tell you this. It's the person you needed most
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in your darkest days. It's the person that you would have listened to when you were going through
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it. It's the person that you would admire. It's the best version of you. It's like taking all the
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best moments in your whole life where you're the funniest and strongest and kindest and assertive
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and all the stuff that you, the fittest, like all of it. Take all those moments, put them into
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one day, stack it. That's your 10.0 version. If you're a person of faith, it's the person that
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god created you in his image that's why you're here it's why you desire for more so you wake up
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every day and you aim for the 10.0 self that's half the equation the other half is to be is to
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share yourself with the world whatever you did and learn share it if your world are your kids
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pour into your kids if your world is your community your church or crossfit gym pour into it if it's
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your country go all in I would actually invite you to consider to share it with
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the whole world social media it's been the most magical journey for me and if
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you do those two things I promise you you will live daily in a place of massive