Dan Martell - How to Build a Business That Runs on Autopilot

00:00:00.000 The more money you make, the less you should have to work.

00:00:02.920 That's only if you know these 12 laws

00:00:04.620 of running a stress-free business.

00:00:06.160 I know it's possible because I went from 100-hour work weeks

00:00:09.060 and burnout in my 20s to today running a $100 million empire

00:00:12.320 working less than 40 hours a week.

00:00:14.240 And you don't need 160 IQ or spend millions of dollars

00:00:17.280 on consultants to implement these.

00:00:18.800 So without further explaining it,

00:00:20.220 this is how to run a million-dollar business

00:00:22.040 without going crazy.

00:00:23.360 Starting with law number one, you create the rules.

00:00:26.520 When I started my first successful business,

00:00:28.460 I almost went bankrupt in the first three months because I didn't understand a concept called

00:00:32.520 cash flow. And I remember talking to one of my mentors, explained to him what was going on in

00:00:36.060 my business. And he just laughed at me. He goes, why are you doing that? I said, what? He goes,

00:00:39.840 why are customers only paying you like 60 days later? And then the money gets locked up in your

00:00:44.080 bank account because you're a new business. And essentially you don't have the money to pay for

00:00:47.600 your growth, your employees says, why don't you make the customers pay 50% upfront? Well, I didn't

00:00:52.480 know I could. It turns out you get to create the terms of engagement with your customers and your

00:00:57.320 business so that you can build the business the way you want to. The way I like to think about it,

00:01:01.580 it's called the infinite game. Your business, your rules. You need to design the game so that

00:01:06.880 you can play it forever without pain. So for example, I won't ever finance a customer's

00:01:12.040 growth. If you want my product or services, then you pay up front so that I can invest in the

00:01:17.180 business to deliver on my promise. If I don't work well with a client, then I don't work with them.

00:01:22.280 I fire people all the time. Some people accidentally come into my world and I realize

00:01:26.400 quickly, their philosophy on business and mine are completely different. I don't put up with it,

00:01:30.980 not because I'm being rude, not because I'm angry, not because I'm upset, because I think you get to

00:01:35.140 choose who you want to do business with. And that energy for your team, for your bank account can be

00:01:40.280 negative. If you don't want to do custom work for people, you're allowed to say no. Just because you

00:01:45.200 do landscaping, for example, or an HVAC and somebody comes to you with something above and beyond,

00:01:49.420 you can say no. You can refer them to somebody else. You can choose simplicity and scale over

00:01:54.600 complexity and potentially fail. The key is, is that if you have a client and you keep making

00:01:59.040 exceptions, you essentially taught them how to treat you. And the funny part is that the moment

00:02:03.100 you put your foot down, they're going to get upset, but it's your fault because you let it go

00:02:07.000 on and on. Creating your business in a way that you want to do business is rule number one of

00:02:12.200 being successful, running a business that you don't hate to grow. But even once you're making

00:02:15.860 money, distractions might be the thing holding you back. Which brings us to law number two,

00:02:20.300 never open your email. You know, people often say, you know, it's really cool. I got to

00:02:24.380 inbox zero. You know what's cooler than that? Zero inbox. I remember I spent a week with Richard

00:02:28.780 Branson and I watched a guy who runs 400 companies. He has two CEOs that runs the holding company that

00:02:34.660 manages those companies. The guy doesn't do email. He literally strategizes on a legal pad and he

00:02:40.220 built his life where there's no devices, just the notepad so that he can move things forward

00:02:44.620 without having to be involved and distracted. And it sounds crazy for a lot of you because

00:02:48.360 you're stuck to it. You're addicted to it. Your inbox is nothing more than a public to-do list

00:02:52.660 of other people's priorities on your time.

00:02:54.800 The first thing you wanna do is get an executive assistant

00:02:57.380 or a virtual assistant or an admin or an office manager,

00:03:00.460 honestly, whatever you wanna call them,

00:03:02.160 but every entrepreneur should be spending all their time

00:03:04.920 doing the thing that makes the money.

00:03:06.600 Anything else that is administrative in nature,

00:03:08.720 scheduling in nature, running errands,

00:03:10.520 have somebody else support you

00:03:11.780 so that you can make the most money per hour,

00:03:13.780 pay somebody else, you create jobs,

00:03:15.600 and that way get some time back.

00:03:17.080 The key is to have them manage your inbox.

00:03:18.940 So all inbound requests have to get filtered

00:03:21.900 by somebody else, they can bump stuff up to you if you need to so that you're in the right place

00:03:26.320 with the information you need to do the task. You literally have somebody else manage you like

00:03:30.280 you're a five-year-old, putting you in the right place with the details to be able to be the most

00:03:34.000 productive you possibly can. It's so effective. And it's what all the top people that you follow

00:03:38.200 on the internet, all those famous people, all the athletes, et cetera, that's how they run their

00:03:42.480 life. The big idea behind having an assistant is a few things. They don't have any emotional

00:03:46.900 response to an email. I know that I've gotten an email from somebody and it felt overwhelming or

00:03:51.400 felt big and I mark it as unread and maybe I'll look at it tomorrow and deal with it in the

00:03:55.000 morning and then that might turn into two days and three days and eventually you just leave it there

00:03:59.140 so you don't respond quick enough and then the opportunities come and go whereas other things

00:04:03.000 might be happening while you're on vacation or your meetings and they got to get moved forward

00:04:07.120 so if you think about the response time of a request or the ability to move something forward

00:04:12.500 when you're not involved because it's in your inbox and you could be doing something else your

00:04:15.720 assistance pulling revenue forward into your life I think it's two to three months for me

00:04:21.060 Some people it could be more, some people it could be less,

00:04:23.440 but usually for a business,

00:04:25.060 that two or three months pays for that hire

00:04:27.240 right out of the gate.

00:04:28.180 If you want the exact executive assistant playbook

00:04:30.660 that I use to delegate like a billionaire,

00:04:32.900 message me the word EA YouTube on Instagram.

00:04:36.020 That's at Dan Martell to Elza Martell on Instagram

00:04:38.180 and I'll send it right over.

00:04:39.280 But you can't build a business with just one hire,

00:04:41.960 which brings us to law number three,

00:04:43.600 don't hire to grow your business,

00:04:45.100 hire to buy back your time.

00:04:46.220 Most entrepreneurs build their business

00:04:47.880 completely backwards.

00:04:49.240 I have a friend that's a logo designer.

00:04:50.420 He got overwhelmed, too much work.

00:04:52.240 He hired another logo designer.

00:04:53.380 And then he was spending all of his time

00:04:55.000 managing projects and running errands

00:04:57.320 and dealing with all the office administrator

00:04:59.140 instead of designing logos.

00:05:01.060 But the new guy did and he was paying top dollar.

00:05:02.960 And then he's spending all of his time

00:05:04.180 dealing with all this admin stuff

00:05:05.560 that he could have paid anybody else to do.

00:05:07.180 And then all of a sudden he's not making any more profit.

00:05:09.340 Why?

00:05:09.820 Because he didn't have enough business

00:05:10.900 to actually support two people.

00:05:12.700 The right way is to hire somebody

00:05:14.000 to take the low cost activities off your plate

00:05:16.220 so that you can do more of the money-making moves.

00:05:18.540 The big idea around this is that million-dollar companies were not built off $10 tasks.

00:05:23.800 You could be the hardest worker in the room, and if you have to manage every small detail

00:05:28.360 of a company that does a million in revenue, there's not enough hours in the week.

00:05:31.300 Learning to delegate, having other people support you, that's what leaders do.

00:05:35.020 So here's the way you want to think about it.

00:05:36.780 I call it the replacement ladder, and I teach it in chapter five of my book, Buy Back Your

00:05:40.460 Time.

00:05:40.900 It starts on the bottom with admin.

00:05:43.420 You might be feeling stuck, and what you need to do is get out of your inbox or scheduling

00:05:47.580 things in your calendar. Then you move up to level two, which is delivery. This is once you

00:05:51.940 made a sale, somebody else taking over that relationship, that conversation, and really

00:05:55.940 moving it forward in regards to onboarding that customer into your business or supporting them

00:06:00.180 with the questions around billing or scheduling, etc. If you don't, you'll feel stalled. The next

00:06:04.500 level is level three, which is marketing. And this is where you might feel still a little friction in

00:06:08.780 your growth. The reason why is you need somebody to own campaigns and traffic, somebody that cares

00:06:13.320 about how much leads you're generating every day and ensuring you're running new marketing

00:06:17.140 campaigns to get new audiences. Level four is sales. And I call this level freedom for a big

00:06:22.600 reason, because if you do it right, have somebody else take all those sales calls, all those

00:06:26.700 opportunities and do follow up properly. You now have a system at four hires where you can go on

00:06:32.380 vacation. Somebody can have that conversation with that lead and bring them into your business and

00:06:36.020 buy your services and then onboard them into the delivery of the service. Even if you're still

00:06:40.320 involved, all that can happen while you're gone, while you're sleeping, while you're on vacation.

00:06:44.560 That is beautiful and rare for most entrepreneurs.

00:06:48.100 Level five, this is when things get really fun,

00:06:50.280 is leadership.

00:06:51.040 If you have somebody that owns strategy and outcomes,

00:06:54.220 you get to come into work

00:06:55.320 and really create the way you want to as entrepreneurs.

00:06:58.040 Focus on problems, make them better,

00:06:59.680 support your team, become a better leader.

00:07:01.380 That replacement ladder strategy

00:07:03.160 is the least amount of money to get the most time back

00:07:05.960 to get the biggest bang for your buck.

00:07:07.700 But here's what's crazy, is then people go,

00:07:09.980 what if I don't have the money to hire?

00:07:11.480 Which brings us to law number four,

00:07:13.120 which is profit solves all problems.

00:07:15.480 Every entrepreneur does it wrong.

00:07:17.100 They start, they think, I gotta get this inventory,

00:07:19.780 I gotta make this widget, I gotta have this skill,

00:07:22.140 and then I get to sell it.

00:07:23.400 Nope, a business is started

00:07:24.940 when somebody sells something to a stranger.

00:07:26.940 Every one of my software companies I've ever started,

00:07:29.460 I pre-sold the software using screenshots.

00:07:32.460 I had to find the customer, something you'll need to do.

00:07:35.040 I had to know how to sell them,

00:07:36.400 something you're gonna have to learn.

00:07:37.400 And I had to ask them for the money, most people don't.

00:07:39.600 And if you do this, then you actually have the profit,

00:07:42.360 the revenue from the business available to you

00:07:45.180 to actually go build things or recruit talent.

00:07:47.380 This is a massive idea that most people miss.

00:07:50.560 When you can't grow your hours, grow your profit

00:07:53.080 because then you go buy everyone else's hours.

00:07:56.040 See, unfortunately, most entrepreneurs focus

00:07:58.160 on top-line revenue because it's for show.

00:08:00.640 However, profit's for dough.

00:08:02.600 Most people don't make enough profit

00:08:04.180 to be able to solve major problems in their business

00:08:06.560 like lead gen or sales.

00:08:08.340 The truth is, if you have a problem

00:08:10.080 that can be solved with money and you have the money,

00:08:11.840 you really don't have a problem.

00:08:13.380 The way you actually increase profit is one,

00:08:15.700 have the customers buy bigger amounts of things ahead of time

00:08:18.960 before you have to invest any costs.

00:08:21.060 Two, increase your prices

00:08:22.400 because most people are undercharging

00:08:23.760 because they don't value their self-worth.

00:08:25.540 And three, ensure that you focus on the thing

00:08:28.120 that actually makes you the most gross margin

00:08:29.940 and sell more of those things

00:08:31.500 than selling a bunch of things

00:08:32.560 that don't actually make you any profit.

00:08:33.940 Now, here's the crazy part.

00:08:35.260 Almost every entrepreneur is guilty of ignoring this next one,

00:08:38.120 which brings us to law number five, teach, don't tell.

00:08:41.080 When I was 20, I would constantly be running around my office telling people what to do.

00:08:45.960 And honestly, it became exhausting because it was like spinning plates.

00:08:49.740 As soon as I didn't tell somebody what to do, they didn't do anything.

00:08:52.100 And then I got frustrated with them.

00:08:53.320 And then I learned a completely different way.

00:08:55.440 And that is all about developing the people, teaching them principles so they can make

00:08:59.800 decisions and make movement on their own.

00:09:01.800 Here's a principle that'll really help you integrate this.

00:09:04.420 An answer solves today's puzzle.

00:09:06.580 A principle solves tomorrow's.

00:09:08.220 Where most people go wrong

00:09:09.680 because they've never been taught

00:09:10.680 is they do what's called transactional leadership,

00:09:12.700 which they tell the person what to do,

00:09:14.500 they check that it got done,

00:09:15.660 they tell them what to do next.

00:09:16.760 Problem with that is you then become a bottleneck

00:09:18.960 if you don't show up for work

00:09:19.980 because they don't know what to do.

00:09:21.040 A better strategy is do transformational leadership.

00:09:23.880 That's where you show up

00:09:24.620 and you talk about the outcome of their work,

00:09:26.840 their project,

00:09:27.460 you tell them how you're gonna measure

00:09:28.720 their progress or success,

00:09:30.020 and then you coach them

00:09:31.320 if they're not on pace to where you need them to

00:09:33.520 with principles that help them grow.

00:09:35.480 Now, to make that really easy on a weekly basis,

00:09:38.220 you want to be doing leadership training.

00:09:39.760 I know so many entrepreneurs

00:09:40.900 that are frustrated at their team

00:09:42.260 and they got this list of things

00:09:43.700 that their team's not doing.

00:09:44.840 And I go, show me in your calendar

00:09:46.320 where you're teaching them.

00:09:47.500 Where are you teaching them

00:09:48.500 how to be more productive,

00:09:49.540 how to communicate clear,

00:09:50.600 how to manage their inbox better,

00:09:51.880 how to be making better decisions?

00:09:53.720 Because these are all things

00:09:54.700 entrepreneurs had to learn.

00:09:55.880 But unfortunately, they feel like,

00:09:57.540 oh, the person should just know this stuff.

00:09:59.060 Every week, schedule time to develop your team.

00:10:02.340 I think it's one of the most powerful habits

00:10:03.800 to get the most out of your team.

00:10:05.180 But you can't expect your team to hit an outcome

00:10:07.000 if you don't give them a framework to move fast.

00:10:09.520 Which brings us to law number six, 50 to fix it.

00:10:12.380 This sounds crazy, but most people do it completely wrong.

00:10:15.160 When you have somebody that you delegate something,

00:10:16.880 you have to empower them to solve the problem.

00:10:18.880 Recently, I had a team member that kind of bottlenecked

00:10:20.920 because they were sending out a bunch of swag

00:10:22.540 and things to our community.

00:10:23.720 And I empower them by saying,

00:10:25.780 if it costs less than $50 for you to fix the problem,

00:10:28.400 just fix it and just let your leader know after the fact.

00:10:31.080 So they went out, bought a shipping printer

00:10:32.720 and got that bottleneck solved

00:10:34.360 without anybody being involved

00:10:35.800 because nobody needs to give you permission

00:10:37.300 to solve a problem that's less than 50 bucks.

00:10:39.180 And that's the power of 50 to fix it

00:10:41.040 because it pushes the decision down to the person

00:10:43.120 has the most information to solve the problem.

00:10:44.940 See, a bottleneck is called a bottleneck

00:10:46.720 because it's at the top and you're the person at the top.

00:10:49.980 So build the structure.

00:10:51.640 Anyone on my team can spend $50 to fix a problem

00:10:54.520 as long as they tell their boss afterwards

00:10:56.200 so they can understand if there's a system issue,

00:10:57.980 but it empowers people to solve problems.

00:10:59.880 Allow them to do it themselves.

00:11:01.460 Now I elevate this without permission.

00:11:03.740 Managers can spend up to $500.

00:11:05.800 My directors can spend up to $5,000.

00:11:08.220 My executives can spend up to $50,000

00:11:10.760 without anybody's permission.

00:11:12.660 I wanna push decisions down to the team

00:11:14.560 so they keep the momentum going.

00:11:16.740 But leading isn't just about what you say,

00:11:18.580 it's about what you don't say.

00:11:20.040 Which brings us to law number seven,

00:11:21.700 lead like a five-year-old.

00:11:22.880 About a year ago, I was in my studio

00:11:24.280 and we just built some built-ins

00:11:25.740 and my GM, Todd, comes in.

00:11:27.640 He's looking at me, he's looking at these shelves

00:11:29.140 and he's going, hey, what are you putting on the shelves?

00:11:30.960 And I just kind of stare at him.

00:11:31.960 I was like, and he goes, oh, I guess that's my job.

00:11:34.320 I said, ding, ding, ding.

00:11:35.800 I teach the person how to treat me.

00:11:38.460 I teach them where to find the answers.

00:11:40.500 See, the problem is if you keep giving people the answers,

00:11:42.760 they keep coming to you back with the next problem.

00:11:44.620 So here's a fun concept.

00:11:45.880 When you buy back your time, make sure it stays sold.

00:11:48.680 Don't hire somebody and then do their job for them.

00:11:50.880 Hire somebody and let them be empowered

00:11:52.700 to move things forward.

00:11:53.800 I just believe that the problem is

00:11:55.120 most entrepreneurs and managers give the answers

00:11:57.240 all the time because they don't even understand

00:11:59.060 the downside of doing that.

00:12:00.360 This is where the one, three, one comes into play though.

00:12:02.460 Any of my direct reports that comes to me with a challenge,

00:12:04.900 I always ask them to present their one three one one specific problem. What problem are you trying

00:12:09.920 to solve right now? Two, what are the three viable options that you've considered all of them? I want

00:12:15.020 you to explore the option set. And then the third is what's the one recommendation out of those three

00:12:19.560 that you recommend we move forward with 90% of the time, I agree, things move forward. The fun part

00:12:24.660 about this is that every time they come to me with something big, they know they need the one three one

00:12:29.100 most of the time that they actually solve it themselves. So I don't even get presented with

00:12:32.740 them because they actually do the work that I want them to do, which is to try to solve it.

00:12:36.420 And I only get the really meaty stuff that actually requires my unique perspective. Now,

00:12:40.080 there's a massive difference between delegation and abdication of responsibility, which brings

00:12:44.820 us a lot. Number eight, 80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome. Most people think

00:12:50.160 they're art. They have to do all of it. For example, I was recently giving a talk at Tony

00:12:54.700 Robbins Business Mastery and most people would think, oh my gosh, that was a great talk because

00:12:58.340 Dan gave so many examples, very personal, very action-oriented.

00:13:02.240 Man, that was incredible.

00:13:03.440 What they don't know is I worked with my head writer to create that presentation.

00:13:07.240 The way I did that is I used the 1080-10 rule.

00:13:09.780 Now, here's a big idea.

00:13:11.020 You can do anything, but you can't do everything.

00:13:13.620 You need other people to support you.

00:13:15.380 The way you do these type of artistic projects is following this process.

00:13:18.780 Here's how the 1080-10 rule works.

00:13:20.640 First off is the 10% up front.

00:13:22.580 That's the ideation step.

00:13:24.000 This is where you collect all of the information you know,

00:13:26.300 the stories, the topics, whatever it is you're creating,

00:13:29.900 you bring it together and you sit down

00:13:31.600 with the person that's gonna do the project

00:13:33.080 and you give them all of your ideas,

00:13:35.320 all of the stuff you've done, all the research.

00:13:37.420 The next step is 80% of the work,

00:13:39.440 which is all about execution.

00:13:40.920 This is really about having them go out there,

00:13:43.320 do more research, put together first drafts,

00:13:45.700 try to figure out how they're gonna deal with the conflict.

00:13:47.940 Like they obviously have to know how to do the work,

00:13:49.920 but they're doing most of it.

00:13:51.360 Then the last part is 10% integration.

00:13:54.040 And this is where the slides are presented to me

00:13:55.960 with the outline for my talk.

00:13:57.300 And I reviewed to make sure

00:13:58.480 that it had the personal touch,

00:14:00.000 that it had the magic,

00:14:01.140 that it had the soul of what I wanted,

00:14:03.000 but I got to save 80%

00:14:04.540 because somebody else did the execution part

00:14:06.620 and I only had to do the ideation and integration.

00:14:09.320 The best example is Steve Jobs comes in,

00:14:11.460 works with Johnny Ives on the 10% ideation.

00:14:14.180 Johnny Ives goes and builds prototype with his team.

00:14:16.440 That's the execution.

00:14:17.960 And then Steve Jobs takes all of that,

00:14:19.880 refines it and then goes to present it on stage.

00:14:22.420 That is the integration.

00:14:23.440 But the truth is,

00:14:24.300 it can still be hard to step back and get out of the details.

00:14:27.480 Which brings us to law number nine, everything needs a DRI.

00:14:31.320 As I mentioned, Steve Jobs is one of the best leaders of our time,

00:14:34.240 and he had this philosophy called direct responsible individual.

00:14:37.940 His philosophy was that any project in a business needed one person,

00:14:42.080 one name who is accountable for it.

00:14:44.100 That was the DRI.

00:14:45.960 Most businesses suffer because they don't have clear ownership.

00:14:49.060 Unclear ownership is just delayed failure.

00:14:51.540 So the big way I look at it, one person, not 10.

00:14:54.940 If I'm launching a new product, one person.

00:14:57.280 If I have a department, one person.

00:14:59.760 If I'm starting a completely new business,

00:15:01.840 who's the who?

00:15:02.580 I want one person.

00:15:03.840 And what I do is I track down all the metrics

00:15:05.800 for that person, I put their name next to it,

00:15:08.200 and that way they know what part of the performance

00:15:10.600 in the business they own

00:15:12.140 so that they can be accountable for moving it forward.

00:15:15.040 No accountability, no productivity.

00:15:17.240 Which brings us to law number 10, results over effort.

00:15:21.080 Don't confuse motion with movement.

00:15:24.080 A lot of people are busy, no results.

00:15:26.120 I remember there was this marketing person

00:15:27.300 I assigned once to fill a hundred person webinar.

00:15:29.760 That was the goal.

00:15:30.420 And then 13 people showed up and I'm like, what did you do?

00:15:33.560 And they're like, oh, we ran ads, we did email,

00:15:36.080 we did everything.

00:15:37.180 Interesting.

00:15:37.800 So you told me you did full effort with 13% of the results.

00:15:41.280 See, unfortunately, if you're building a business,

00:15:43.620 you have to hold people accountable to the results,

00:15:46.040 not their effort.

00:15:47.040 I don't care if you worked weekends.

00:15:48.320 I don't care if you worked long hours.

00:15:49.540 if you can't produce the result,

00:15:51.480 that's the only thing I can hold you accountable for

00:15:53.500 because I'm not sitting here to do your job.

00:15:55.220 Right from the beginning,

00:15:56.280 I don't hire people with the expectation

00:15:58.260 that I have to check in for them to get a result.

00:16:00.940 I mean, the truth is what doesn't impress me

00:16:02.940 is people being in the office all the time,

00:16:04.920 working crazy hours, trying really hard

00:16:06.800 and then falling short on the results.

00:16:08.640 What does impress me is hitting your numbers.

00:16:11.240 I'm more impressed with a person that works five hours

00:16:13.720 to hit the results that I thought it would take 40

00:16:15.620 and they do it in a fraction of the time.

00:16:17.540 The big idea is to set clear expectations with your team and hold them to it.

00:16:21.640 Your standards are not what you say they are.

00:16:23.800 They're what you accept.

00:16:24.820 And you might say, these are our standards and this is how we work here.

00:16:27.720 But if you accept underperformance, that's what you're communicating to the rest of the team.

00:16:31.260 But as your team grows, you can't monitor everything that happens.

00:16:34.540 Which brings us to law number 11, create culture, not rules.

00:16:37.820 Your employee handbook can't be big enough to deal with all the situations that are going to come up. 0.93

00:16:42.340 It's funny because a friend visited my studio recently and he told me, holy crap.

00:16:45.880 This entire team came up and shook my hand.

00:16:48.340 And I'm like, yep.

00:16:49.120 Did you tell them they had to do that?

00:16:50.540 Nope.

00:16:51.020 Why'd they do that?

00:16:51.900 Culture.

00:16:52.460 Culture is what you expect of people.

00:16:54.560 It's your values.

00:16:55.220 It's how you hire.

00:16:55.920 It's how you show up.

00:16:57.200 Culture is not what you tell people to do.

00:16:59.420 It's what they do when nobody's watching.

00:17:01.360 And for what it's worth, I believe this.

00:17:03.460 With the right culture, you don't need rules.

00:17:05.920 It's crazy when I see people change their business

00:17:08.280 for folks that have left,

00:17:09.680 instead of changing their business

00:17:10.840 for the folks that are staying, that are performing.

00:17:13.380 I believe it all comes down to one thing,

00:17:15.160 your values. And your values represent beliefs. And if you're not clear with them, then you won't

00:17:19.960 be able to hire properly because that's what it should be used for. Or you won't be able to fire

00:17:24.200 properly. The way I think about it is hire for the soul, train for the role. Do they have the skill

00:17:29.060 and the will? If so, they will win. However, the best entrepreneurs know it's not all business

00:17:33.880 strategies. Which brings us to law number 12, work harder on yourself than you do on your business.

00:17:38.620 In my 20s, I used to work crazy hours,

00:17:41.580 shifting things around, working harder, going crazy.

00:17:45.460 And I always felt like I was underwater.

00:17:48.040 I wasn't making ground.

00:17:49.380 Then I shifted it to working on me, Dan Martel,

00:17:52.920 not the business.

00:17:53.940 And it turned out me being better,

00:17:56.140 I was better for my team.

00:17:57.400 And the whole thing shifted all around me.

00:17:59.320 For example, my fitness.

00:18:00.580 I believe that I exhaust the body to tame the mind.

00:18:03.780 If I work on my mind, I have a calm mind,

00:18:06.420 then I can move things forward.

00:18:07.540 One of my favorite quotes is summarized this by a guy named Naval, and he says,

00:18:10.860 a calm mind, a strong body, and a house full of love is earned.

00:18:14.600 If I want to have those things in my life, I got to work on me.

00:18:18.400 They're not things I can buy.

00:18:19.700 They're not people I can delegate to.

00:18:21.680 Those are things that I have to earn.

00:18:23.300 So here's what I do.

00:18:24.460 First off, I always prioritize the pump.

00:18:26.680 The workout, the exhaust the body, tame the mind, it has to be there because it gets me

00:18:31.360 ready for the day.

00:18:32.460 I also read every day.

00:18:33.720 Why?

00:18:33.980 I consider it my opportunity to find like an offering

00:18:36.640 to the world, some passage that really resonates with me

00:18:39.300 and that I can share with people

00:18:40.420 as I meet them throughout the day.

00:18:41.600 And if I don't have the answer, I go external for help.

00:18:44.760 I was telling this to my team the other day.

00:18:45.920 It's like, if you guys aren't good enough,

00:18:47.940 please go find a mentor, find somebody that could advise you,

00:18:51.340 find a course you wanna buy, a seminar you wanna go to.

00:18:53.900 If you think we have the answers in this business,

00:18:56.780 we're all in trouble, including myself.

00:18:58.540 The truth is every Monday I do leadership training

00:19:00.680 and I tell my whole team this right off the bat.

00:19:02.760 You all have to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

00:19:05.560 If you want to learn a 17 business cheat codes, I wish I knew at 17.

00:19:09.000 Click here and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - January 07, 2025

How to Build a Business That Runs on Autopilot

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