Dan Martell - If I Wanted to Go From $0 to $100M, I’d Do This [FULL GUIDE]

00:00:00.000 When I was 17 years old, I was broke and in rehab.

00:00:03.300 By age 27, I became a cash millionaire.

00:00:05.820 And today, I own a group of businesses

00:00:07.640 that generate over $100 million a year.

00:00:10.380 For the last 12 months, I've had a camera crew

00:00:12.620 follow me around everywhere and document everything I know

00:00:15.380 about how to get rich and build a million-dollar business.

00:00:18.000 And today, I'm gonna share with you

00:00:19.540 the nine most important videos I've ever made.

00:00:22.360 These hold all the principles you need to know

00:00:24.740 to build a $100 million business.

00:00:26.420 Number one is my video explaining the rules

00:00:28.620 that made me so rich that I actually questioned the meaning of making money. These rules are what

00:00:33.100 allowed me to go from a broke 22-year-old to a multi-millionaire today. Some of these rules I

00:00:38.380 picked up on my own during my 26-year career as an entrepreneur, and others I learned from some

00:00:43.360 of the highest net worth individuals you probably know. So without any further explanation, these

00:00:49.120 are the 14 rules of money. The first rule is kind of obvious, but it's to spend less than you make.

00:00:54.540 You know, Dave Ramsey likes to say, act your wage.

00:00:58.020 And I love that.

00:00:58.940 Think about it.

00:00:59.460 It's what you make,

00:01:00.100 but you gotta act proportionate to what it is.

00:01:02.400 It's not your salary that makes you rich.

00:01:04.300 It's your spending habits.

00:01:06.060 You know, my dad used to say, it's not what you make,

00:01:08.200 it's what you keep that'll make you rich.

00:01:10.640 When I started off, I was a horrible spender.

00:01:13.540 I remember I was just trying to kind of live life.

00:01:15.840 I never thought I'd ever have money.

00:01:17.360 So when I started making money,

00:01:18.520 it was a bit carpe diem, you know, seize the day, YOLO.

00:01:21.520 remember at 21 i got a check for almost twenty thousand dollars for working a month i was a

00:01:26.340 consultant i was on contract and it all showed up in my bank account and my little brother mo showed

00:01:31.720 up and i said hey man let's go on a ski trip it's right around christmas time when we decided

00:01:35.640 to splurge over a 10 day period that he was visiting i spent thirteen thousand dollars

00:01:42.620 on snowboard gear and paying for drinks for friends and crazy hotel rooms and eating like

00:01:48.680 a king it was one of the most ridiculous weeks ever there was like everything was an option we

00:01:53.320 kept spending the money and at the end of it i talked to my dad he said dan did you put any money

00:01:58.340 aside for taxes and i said nope and that was the day that i got introduced to norm and norm was my

00:02:04.900 accountant and what he said is how about we put you on a salary but what do you need to live and

00:02:09.700 i was like well my expenses are covered let's do 60 000 a year and everything else we'll put in the

00:02:14.500 bank account. And that one decision allowed me to save the seed money I needed to eventually start

00:02:19.780 the company that made me a multimillionaire. So at the start, the most important thing is to live

00:02:24.200 off as little as possible and reinvest in yourself, reinvest in your business, reinvest in your

00:02:29.340 future. So most people would say that you want to put 50% towards needs. You know, you got to live,

00:02:34.180 you got to eat, you got 30% towards wants, right? So that brings to 80% and then 20% towards

00:02:39.720 savings. High level, think about it. So all consuming and living, you want to be at 80%

00:02:44.760 save the rest. Which brings us to the second rule, which is to pay yourself first. This one's tough.

00:02:50.300 Some people feel like all their money's got to go out first. I got to help other people before I

00:02:54.220 ever help myself. Here's what I know. You are actually the most important asset, not a house,

00:02:59.200 a car, a watch, an investment. It is you. I remember back in 2009, I was talking to my

00:03:05.260 business partner, Ethan, and we had a major issue that we had to solve in the business. And I asked

00:03:09.980 him to meet me at the office and he said he couldn't. Now we had just raised a million dollars

00:03:14.260 from some of the top investors in San Francisco. And we're building up the team and we ran into

00:03:18.680 an issue with our product. And I said, why can't you meet? He's like, Hey man, I've got to get some

00:03:22.680 laundry done. Okay. I know it's Sunday, dude, but you can do your laundry on any other day. And he

00:03:26.200 said, yeah, but if I don't do it this, I got a plan. And I'm like, man, on your way to work,

00:03:30.660 there are literally three different laundromats that do wash and fold. Like they'll do it for

00:03:34.780 like 35 bucks. It's like, yeah, man, I'm not really paying myself enough. I'm barely making

00:03:39.460 rent. So here's a situation where we just raised a million dollars to build the business and he

00:03:43.860 can't come work on the business because he's too busy doing laundry. The issue, he wasn't paying

00:03:47.800 himself enough to essentially invest in things that would buy back his time so him and I could

00:03:51.800 actually go jam to solve the problem. See, most people stay broke because they're trading time

00:03:56.740 for money. What I'm going to encourage you to consider is invest time for skills to get paid

00:04:01.020 more then buy more time to reinvest in learning new skills that make you more money see most

00:04:06.300 people spend time to save money i like to spend money to save time once i've got that time then

00:04:13.340 i invest it in acquiring new skills that allows me to become more valuable then i get to make more

00:04:18.620 money to then buy time to invest in more skills that is the equation i remember one time i was

00:04:23.820 talking to one of my coaching clients brad redding he had an incredible company and he was kind of

00:04:27.740 burnt out and he wanted to sell it i said you could and you know the price and people buy it

00:04:31.740 from you today or you take some of the profit you're making instead of reinvesting more software

00:04:37.340 developers and marketing teams and all that stuff just pay yourself more so you can enjoy life a

00:04:42.700 little bit better i said just make a list of things that you would love to do and he put on

00:04:46.140 there i'd like a gym in my house i'd love to be able to hire somebody to take care of the kids

00:04:49.980 we can get date nights so we were only talking a few thousand bucks a month and i said if you

00:04:53.980 could invest in you to give you more time to build the business bigger that dollar amount today is

00:04:59.660 going to turn into millions of dollars in a few years and that's exactly what happened so the way

00:05:04.300 brad bought back his time and his energy is that not only did he have time to work on key things

00:05:10.460 spend time with his wife but he got the energy back by not having to worry about not spending

00:05:15.340 enough time with his family not going on date nights taking care of his health i mean he's

00:05:20.540 literally transformed his body from where he was to where he is today because he made an investment

00:05:24.940 in himself if you pay yourself first you force yourself to find resources to cover other expenses

00:05:30.940 which brings us to number three which is to assign your priorities oprah winfrey once said you can

00:05:36.300 have it all just not all at once i mean it's kind of like you can do anything you just can't do

00:05:41.020 everything when people see me today they go wow dan you do so many things but if you actually

00:05:45.260 look over the last 25 years of my career i've only done one thing and that's software i started off

00:05:51.340 as a programmer then i went to consulting then i built companies and now i deploy capital the

00:05:56.620 four c's coding consulting companies and capital into technology into software essentially i

00:06:03.180 started off and i wrote code and i learned how to build apps and then i ended up starting a company

00:06:07.660 and i sold people the applications that i was building and then i did that three times in a

00:06:12.860 a row. And then I decided, well, now I'm going to start investing in other companies. And I did that

00:06:17.300 and now I buy companies, but they're all in the software space. So I want to teach you a big idea

00:06:22.840 that a lot of people get wrong when they start to try to make their first million dollars, which is

00:06:27.140 don't diversify except for globally or investments. Don't get distracted. Most people end up saying

00:06:34.300 yes to things they should be saying no to and know the things they should be in yes to because

00:06:38.340 they don't know what is their primary aim and focus. And if you do this right, then you become

00:06:43.200 the tip of the spear at what you do. Tip of the spear means best in class. I like to say world

00:06:48.420 class. I think you should be top five in what you do, which sounds crazy. I know if you're an editor

00:06:52.800 or a logo designer or even a singer, you're like, that's just not me. And I'm like, yeah, it is.

00:06:58.660 It just takes a decision. And if you go all in, you say, I'm going to be one of the best programmers.

00:07:02.400 I'm going to be the one best designers. I'm going to be one of the best editors. What you do is you

00:07:06.220 start getting better and better and better. And then you get this thing called the four levels

00:07:10.400 of luck that one of my mentors, Naval Ravikant talks about all the time. First level is just

00:07:15.080 dumb luck, you know, just random moments and opportunities show up in your life. And those

00:07:19.320 are just like dumb luck. The second level is grit luck. This is by doing the work, the luckier you 0.91

00:07:25.060 get, right? People talk about this all the time. The third is skilled luck, meaning that you're

00:07:30.100 getting so skilled at what you do, people know you for that. So they ask you for opportunities

00:07:35.720 that otherwise, it looks lucky to everybody else,

00:07:38.560 but to you, you're like,

00:07:39.380 no, it's just because I'm really skillful at this thing.

00:07:41.580 And then you end up getting to others' luck,

00:07:43.720 which is the tip of the spear,

00:07:44.820 you know, like the Warren Buffets and the Oprahs

00:07:47.040 and the Elon Musk, where they're brought opportunities

00:07:49.560 that is other people's skilled luck,

00:07:52.000 meaning that people get lucky in opportunities

00:07:53.920 and they're like, I like Warren so much,

00:07:55.720 I wanna partner with him to do this deal.

00:07:58.120 That's when things get really crazy.

00:08:00.120 Those are the four levels of luck

00:08:01.420 that most people never understand.

00:08:02.720 The key for this step is you gotta stick

00:08:04.960 to what is your unfair advantage in the market.

00:08:07.520 Invest in something you know, don't get distracted.

00:08:10.300 Some of you are really great at building houses

00:08:12.560 and you're like, I wanna go into software.

00:08:14.520 I would argue you go make a lot of money in houses first. 1.00

00:08:16.500 Or some of you guys are into software

00:08:17.600 and you're like, hey, I should get into real estate.

00:08:19.480 How about you stick to software and get really good at it

00:08:22.100 and trust me, you will find real estate investors

00:08:24.500 that will partner to build out a massive portfolio with you

00:08:27.220 if you go get rich.

00:08:28.840 I understand that it's fun to do new things

00:08:31.200 and there's excitement,

00:08:32.200 but don't make those where you make your money.

00:08:34.100 Call those hobbies and go have fun and explore

00:08:36.720 and don't put the pressure around it having to perform.

00:08:39.680 See, a lot of people get distracted

00:08:40.860 because they take their money they saved up

00:08:42.920 and they go put it on new things

00:08:44.800 and then they're freaking out when the thing's not working out.

00:08:47.200 So they're sacrificing both,

00:08:48.460 their current business and the new business and both suffer.

00:08:52.240 Which brings us to number four,

00:08:53.920 which is to have a ripcord budget.

00:08:56.200 Jim Rohn once said,

00:08:57.380 never begin the day until you finish it on paper.

00:08:59.880 Same in life.

00:09:01.460 You should plan for success

00:09:02.520 and you should plan for worst case so that way you build a plan around both and you never have

00:09:06.680 to think about it and when they're going great or there's an issue you can go back to the plan

00:09:10.600 you could lose it all you could find out they changed some law you could get hit by a bus

00:09:15.560 and my philosophy is that you have to plan for it have a disaster recovery plan i learned this back

00:09:20.840 when we were building data centers with my software company if the power went down in the room you had

00:09:25.960 the backup generators kick in and it took over the challenge is you had to have the checklist

00:09:30.840 already designed so that when it happened you got to stay cool calm and collected nobody was running

00:09:36.120 around freaking out like oh did anybody put the diesel in the generator you tested it every once

00:09:40.440 in a while and you made sure you had the checklist ready to go why is this important because it allows

00:09:44.840 you to move incredibly fast and even harder knowing that if at any point of moving fast

00:09:50.120 in a direction something happens you've already made the decision on how you're going to react

00:09:54.280 There's no wasted brain cycles around fear, concern, challenges, worry.

00:09:59.840 My business coach, Ed Milet, has this great saying.

00:10:01.920 He says, worry is a wasted use of your imagination.

00:10:04.360 I think most times because we haven't built a plan,

00:10:06.420 we're always worrying about what could happen.

00:10:08.160 How about you just decide to do if it does and get back to building your life?

00:10:11.420 So there's two categories you want to look at.

00:10:13.220 There's the business side and the personal side.

00:10:15.420 Most people will say in business, you want to have at least three months of operating expenses.

00:10:20.160 Some will say six months.

00:10:21.240 but honestly, I've never seen a scenario

00:10:23.660 where you need that much.

00:10:24.640 As long as you're fast to respond to issues,

00:10:27.000 then yeah, you might need six months or more.

00:10:28.920 On the personal side, six months of overhead

00:10:31.580 is what you wanna have ready, liquid, in cash

00:10:34.680 so that if anything happens to you, you lose your job,

00:10:36.800 your business goes to zero, the family won't be impacted

00:10:39.400 and there's no scenario I've seen

00:10:40.800 where an individual couldn't rebound within six months

00:10:43.800 if they had the fortitude and the mental focus

00:10:46.260 to just get back in there and find an opportunity.

00:10:48.900 You need to save to weather the storm

00:10:50.400 because on every economic downside that's ever happened,

00:10:53.880 there's this crazy upswing on the back end.

00:10:56.640 It's like a slingshot.

00:10:57.840 So you wanna be ready to go through tough times

00:11:00.580 because you built the plan

00:11:01.460 so that you can come out like a rocket ship.

00:11:03.420 Which brings us to number five, which is give to get.

00:11:06.480 Anne Frank once said,

00:11:07.680 no one ever became poor by giving.

00:11:09.840 I love this so much.

00:11:11.360 Literally, it's like my ethos in life.

00:11:13.440 I wake up every day asking myself,

00:11:14.980 how can I create more value for other people

00:11:16.920 than anybody else in their life?

00:11:18.300 That is just a fun place to get to.

00:11:20.020 where you wake up and you're just giving, giving, giving.

00:11:22.380 So here's a funny story to give you a little bit more color.

00:11:25.180 A couple of years ago,

00:11:25.920 I realized I had been hoarding credit card points.

00:11:29.160 I don't know why, it just became this fun game

00:11:30.980 that I play with myself.

00:11:32.260 I put credit cards in all my companies

00:11:34.240 for all the ads they run and all these other scenarios

00:11:37.040 and I was collecting millions of points per year,

00:11:39.960 but I never used them.

00:11:41.040 I've done this with Starbucks points as well

00:11:43.440 at the coffee shop.

00:11:44.280 I don't know why I just got into this hoarding mentality.

00:11:46.700 And I realized that this hoarding behavior

00:11:48.580 was holding me back.

00:11:49.700 So this year, I woke up, I'm going to tell my assistant,

00:11:52.340 and I said, we are going to spend all of it.

00:11:54.940 I'm going to use all the coffee points.

00:11:57.220 I'm going to use all the travel points.

00:11:58.860 Any points that I've been hoarding is going to get spent,

00:12:02.280 and here's why.

00:12:03.120 I call this money velocity.

00:12:04.900 See, the more you spend, the more opportunities you create.

00:12:07.560 The more you spend, the more you learn.

00:12:09.640 The more you spend, the more you can get in returns

00:12:11.960 because you're making good investments.

00:12:13.460 See, I use the word spend, but don't get it confused.

00:12:15.320 It's about putting money in the market,

00:12:17.480 being part of the economy.

00:12:18.680 the more time and money exchanges hands the more value is created in the world see money is energy

00:12:25.000 and if you hoard it it will find its way away from you if you spend it it creates more energy

00:12:30.440 comes back to you and allows you to do bigger things with it most people think i'm supposed

00:12:34.840 to save but they don't invest i know i did that for a long time i looked at my bank account i just

00:12:39.560 kept saving saving saving saving it was in a savings account but it wasn't doing anything

00:12:44.600 at one point i had millions of dollars my banker was like hey do you want to do anything with this

00:12:47.800 and i'm like leave me alone don't touch it and they're like we could put it in a gic i'm like

00:12:51.560 don't talk to me i don't trust you it's because i didn't know any better then i realized that

00:12:55.480 if i take the money i put it in the market i put it into investments i invest in myself

00:13:00.040 i invest in my team i use it i circulate it it's a resource and the more i use it the more it's

00:13:05.880 going to come back because i'm telling the world that i believe that it's a flow it's an energy

00:13:10.440 it comes out it comes back it's just like the more you give the more you get that's how it works if

00:13:15.160 If you hoard it, it will find its way away from you.

00:13:18.120 If you hoard it, you're essentially telling the world,

00:13:19.980 it's a scarce resource.

00:13:21.540 Don't give me more

00:13:22.500 because all I'm gonna do is put it in a bucket.

00:13:24.240 But if I say, hey,

00:13:24.920 there's an unlimited amount of money out there

00:13:27.000 and I'm gonna put it out, it's gonna come back.

00:13:28.720 Then I'm kind of learning, I'm earning,

00:13:30.880 I'm creating opportunities

00:13:31.960 and getting resources to do bigger things.

00:13:34.580 Which brings us to number six,

00:13:35.940 which is to minimize borrowing.

00:13:37.600 Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad,

00:13:39.880 once said, the only difference between rich person

00:13:42.360 and a poor person is how they use their time in debt.

00:13:45.320 I would actually change the word debt to leverage.

00:13:47.740 When I got my first apartment,

00:13:49.020 I had to buy furniture for the place.

00:13:51.080 So I went down to my local furniture shop.

00:13:52.940 I sat down, I tested a bunch of different couches.

00:13:55.080 I'm kind of a tall dude, so I need like a deep seat.

00:13:57.740 And I finally found the set that I wanted

00:13:59.540 and the sales guy's like, hey, good news,

00:14:01.740 we can offer financing.

00:14:02.840 And I'm like, what does that look like?

00:14:04.480 And he tells me this magical thing

00:14:06.060 where I don't have to make a payment

00:14:07.220 for like four years or something like that.

00:14:09.260 Anyways, I decided to take it

00:14:10.680 because there was no interest, blah, blah, blah.

00:14:12.760 And it just sounded awesome.

00:14:13.880 The problem is, is by the time

00:14:15.280 I had to start making payments,

00:14:16.800 when you actually looked at the fine print

00:14:18.520 and the interest rate kicked in,

00:14:20.180 I ended up paying four times more for the furniture

00:14:23.440 than if I would have just paid for it.

00:14:25.320 And the truth was, is I was borrowing money

00:14:27.400 to buy things that didn't make me money.

00:14:29.660 So this is what I've learned about borrowing money.

00:14:32.000 See, the banks make their money

00:14:33.400 on the majority of the collecting of the debt

00:14:35.620 and paying of interest.

00:14:36.840 What I want you to consider is how do you borrow money

00:14:39.640 to make a return for yourself.

00:14:41.280 It's to increase your earning potential, right?

00:14:43.420 So in the short term,

00:14:44.220 if you make an investment in your business,

00:14:45.760 I want you to monitor the ROI

00:14:47.540 because you're still learning how to do it.

00:14:49.440 You got to take shots on goal.

00:14:51.200 Small bullets, little tiny bullets, take shots.

00:14:53.740 You're like, hey, I'm going to spend some money,

00:14:55.160 see if I get a return.

00:14:56.120 These are ways to learn. 0.97

00:14:57.640 Then if you figure it out, you want to shoot a cannonball.

00:15:00.500 See, most people, when they start off,

00:15:01.940 they like make these big investments in themselves,

00:15:04.160 borrow money to go to a very expensive mastermind

00:15:06.680 or invest in education or go to university.

00:15:09.180 They don't get the return that they thought they would get.

00:15:12.280 Borrow to invest in yourself.

00:15:13.880 Don't borrow to invest in your lifestyle.

00:15:16.300 That's where you're gonna get yourself in trouble.

00:15:17.980 I could have easily bought used furniture.

00:15:20.580 I did not need new stuff.

00:15:22.200 I was trying to show everybody how cool I was.

00:15:25.000 So my rule is if you can't afford it,

00:15:26.640 go make more money to get it.

00:15:28.660 You don't need new, you can buy old.

00:15:31.000 Which brings us to number seven,

00:15:32.660 which is to analyze the risk return ratios.

00:15:35.420 Warren Buffett said,

00:15:36.860 risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.

00:15:39.180 let me tell you about this crazy story there's this investor named bill ackman back in the day

00:15:43.820 he took 27 million dollars and he invested in a cds credit default swap and that investment

00:15:50.540 and i think a 12-month period turned into 2.7 billion dollars let me tell you why this applies

00:15:56.060 to you see he knew there was a chance that that 27 could go down not necessarily to zero real

00:16:01.660 estate investors do this all day long they find a property they get it under contract they borrow

00:16:06.940 money for the deposit they borrow private money to buy the place they then they renovate it they

00:16:12.140 add the value and then they go and they sell it to somebody else and they take the difference

00:16:16.780 i mean they pay off the investors they refinance it with the bank essentially they have no personal

00:16:21.260 guarantee no money out of pocket so the upside is unlimited from a cash on cash return because

00:16:27.020 they have very little of their own money in the deal so we're always looking for deals where we

00:16:31.900 we have asymmetrical risk, low downside, unlimited upside.

00:16:36.260 But let me tell you about the risk quadrant.

00:16:38.080 So on the left side, you have risk

00:16:39.640 and on the bottom, you have returns.

00:16:41.540 Then place your opportunity that you're looking at

00:16:43.480 to make an investment and say,

00:16:44.840 hey, Bitcoin would be a high risk, high return.

00:16:47.380 Index funds would be low risk, low returns.

00:16:49.820 And something that's a low return, high risk,

00:16:52.380 well, that's a trick question

00:16:53.460 is you wouldn't wanna do that one.

00:16:54.900 Buying a business or some real estate

00:16:57.300 and improving the business or the real estate,

00:16:59.900 that's called value add.

00:17:00.920 that deal would look like a low-risk, high-return scenario.

00:17:04.160 Which brings us to number eight,

00:17:05.620 which is to not fear money.

00:17:07.900 Ayn Rand once said,

00:17:09.000 wealth is the product of a man's capacity to think.

00:17:12.580 I love that.

00:17:13.720 See, we all have these money stories, these money beliefs.

00:17:16.400 My buddy Ramit Sethi calls them money scripts.

00:17:18.720 They're blueprints.

00:17:19.480 There's the way we think about money.

00:17:20.940 See, I had a weird one that I used to think

00:17:22.660 that I needed to go bankrupt to be successful.

00:17:25.060 I know, it's crazy.

00:17:26.040 And it pushed money away from me for years

00:17:28.120 because I'd read books on Dave Ramsey

00:17:30.260 who went bankrupt.

00:17:31.180 Walt Disney, bankrupt.

00:17:32.320 Henry Ford, bankrupt.

00:17:33.520 And it made me think, oh my gosh,

00:17:34.980 what if I push really hard and I lose all this money?

00:17:37.140 So it made me question decisions

00:17:38.920 and almost folded my businesses.

00:17:40.780 Some of us have stories around thinking being rich is bad

00:17:43.580 and it's only for the greedy.

00:17:45.120 Well, if you thought that and you're a good person,

00:17:46.920 would you wanna race to be rich

00:17:48.600 or would you slow yourself down?

00:17:50.260 Yes, there's bad and there's greedy people, 0.91

00:17:52.080 but most rich people I know

00:17:53.540 are incredibly generous and good people.

00:17:55.740 The more you judge people and fear money,

00:17:57.580 the more you'll push it away.

00:17:58.760 A lot of people self-sabotage themselves to being rich,

00:18:02.180 and I'll tell you why.

00:18:02.940 Let's say your goal is to be rich.

00:18:04.480 I'm just curious, if we just played a game and said,

00:18:06.540 what are some of the negative beliefs

00:18:07.960 people might have around being rich?

00:18:10.220 Well, they might say, well, rich people don't pay taxes

00:18:12.440 and rich people steal from people

00:18:13.740 and rich people are greedy

00:18:14.740 and rich people are self-centered.

00:18:16.140 And you could just list all these beliefs in order

00:18:18.440 and just ask yourself, have I ever thought that?

00:18:20.440 Because what I've discovered is that

00:18:21.780 if we don't work through all the negative beliefs

00:18:24.560 we have about being rich,

00:18:26.180 then we'll fear money and we'll push it away.

00:18:29.220 So you don't actually have money problems.

00:18:31.220 You have a mindset problem

00:18:32.740 that just happens to be reflected in your bank account.

00:18:35.540 I want you to invite more money into your life

00:18:38.160 by believing you deserve to be rich

00:18:41.160 and that rich people are great people

00:18:43.240 and create from a place of abundance

00:18:45.100 and literally watch your life transform.

00:18:47.500 That is the key.

00:18:48.480 Which brings us to number nine,

00:18:49.980 which is to avoid lifestyle creep.

00:18:52.140 I once had this buddy, I met him at an event

00:18:54.420 and I watched him make a lot of money very quick.

00:18:57.680 And as he was playing this game

00:18:59.220 of trying to keep up with the Joneses,

00:19:01.400 his lifestyle just kept growing.

00:19:03.120 He bought a new car, he upgraded his house,

00:19:06.140 watches, pretty much everything.

00:19:08.740 And eventually everything backfired on him

00:19:11.200 and his business really suffered.

00:19:13.120 And unfortunately he was over leveraged

00:19:15.100 and he didn't have the money to cover all of his payments.

00:19:17.640 So he had to file for bankruptcy.

00:19:20.180 You see, once you start making money,

00:19:22.220 The game is here to try and live off as little as possible

00:19:25.660 for as long as possible.

00:19:27.380 Not to suffocate your ability to reinvest in yourself

00:19:30.400 to make more money, but to just not be wasteful.

00:19:33.440 Instead of buying the new BMW,

00:19:35.740 invest in yourself or another business vehicle

00:19:38.600 that could buy you 10 BMWs in the future.

00:19:41.620 Some people think that compound interest

00:19:43.360 is the most powerful force in the universe,

00:19:45.360 but delayed gratification is even stronger.

00:19:48.100 And that's why this money rule will make you rich 0.96

00:19:51.040 if you're able to delay trying to reap the rewards too soon you should get used to playing this game

00:19:56.880 of spending as little as possible for as long as possible like all the the gucci and the fancy

00:20:03.060 stuff and look i know a lot of people see me today with the jet and the cars and the house and all

00:20:07.140 that stuff but even today i live off about 10 of my income because i'm reinvesting in other things

00:20:13.260 that are going to make me money in the long term and then over time i just i live off of that cash

00:20:19.080 flow. And I think everybody has the opportunity to do that if they learn how to play this money

00:20:23.400 game, which brings us to number 10, which is to build a personal P&L. So I was talking to one of

00:20:28.620 my friends once, and he was telling me how he wanted a simple life. And this guy was wealthy.

00:20:33.140 He didn't want too much stuff, too many things to manage. But here's the secret. And this is what I

00:20:37.300 told him. The wealthiest people aren't managing their own estates. Dude, you can invest in having

00:20:43.140 somebody to help you out. So I explained to him when you have two or three or four homes like I

00:20:48.100 do, then you have somebody manages it. I have a house manager named Betty. She is the CEO of 1.00

00:20:52.960 everything in my personal life. Like any money that comes in, she manages the income. She manages

00:20:58.200 the expenses that go out and she manages the forecast and the budgets for all of those. So

00:21:02.800 if anything gets out of whack, she's the first one to say like, Hey, why is the landscaping for,

00:21:07.600 you know, the property is more expensive than it should be. So I want to teach you this cool idea

00:21:11.900 that most people have never heard when it comes to money, just like in a business, your personal

00:21:16.340 life should have its own profit and loss statement. I know, I know this is some people like, what are

00:21:22.040 you talking about? If you think about it, your life is a business. You have a salary, you have

00:21:25.980 income and you have expenses. And I know most businesses have a CEO, a CFO, a COO to manage

00:21:31.940 all this and financial projections and planning. And most people with money would maybe call this

00:21:36.440 a financial planner or a family office, but I like to think it at a high level. I actually have my

00:21:41.640 personal family affairs in my accounting software i know crazy idea but why wouldn't you it just

00:21:49.380 makes it so much easier to manage i want you to consider if you get really good at managing money

00:21:54.680 you'll be able to make more money most people that are loosey-goosey on their financials they'll

00:22:00.160 never have the rigor and the maturity to be able to grow their personal net worth which brings us

00:22:05.200 to number 11 which is high tides rise all boats when it comes to making money it requires the

00:22:11.460 team and i used to have a belief that if i trained a team that eventually they would leave you know

00:22:16.820 i have my buddy cameron harold incredible author you know people would say to him like what if you

00:22:21.060 hire a bunch of people and you train them and then they leave and he would joke well what if you don't

00:22:24.900 and they stay so what most people do is they hire less competent people because it feels more secure

00:22:30.900 because they are insecure about people leaving them the challenge with that is this b's and c's

00:22:35.860 risk your a's so think about anybody on your team today that might be great if you hire somebody

00:22:40.340 that makes them work harder,

00:22:42.100 they're gonna get frustrated and they'll eventually leave.

00:22:44.860 So if you're trying to rise the tide,

00:22:47.000 if you're trying to increase the average

00:22:48.780 of the people on your team,

00:22:50.240 then you have to invest in your people.

00:22:52.480 I mean, I know when things are good,

00:22:53.800 it's easy to invest in them.

00:22:55.120 The economy's good, I invest in my people.

00:22:56.920 But honestly, even when they're not doing so well,

00:22:59.540 just don't stop.

00:23:00.600 It could be you training them, buying some training,

00:23:03.240 making sure they feel supported.

00:23:05.220 So the best way to keep people

00:23:06.640 is to understand what their dreams and goals are.

00:23:08.860 And my rule is your dreams and goals for your life

00:23:11.620 have to be big enough for everybody else's

00:23:14.140 to fit inside of so that you can raise the tide

00:23:17.400 and it brings them with you

00:23:19.040 and they'll wanna stay with you.

00:23:20.840 You gotta fix that mindset and watch your life transform.

00:23:24.280 Which brings us to number 12,

00:23:25.900 which is money is a tool, not the goal.

00:23:28.540 Henry Ford once said, money is like an arm or a leg.

00:23:31.960 Use it or lose it.

00:23:33.760 You know, I once heard this, that money is a tool.

00:23:36.100 It's like a fork.

00:23:36.820 It can either be used to nourish you

00:23:38.880 or it could be used to take somebody's life,

00:23:41.100 but it is not the goal of life.

00:23:43.500 See, I became a multimillionaire at 28

00:23:45.620 and then drifted for almost two years.

00:23:48.320 I thought I had made it.

00:23:49.620 You know, I sold my company, I kind of retired.

00:23:52.480 And then I realized that financial freedom means nothing

00:23:55.400 because the point of life is not actually about making money.

00:23:59.280 It's about having a richer life.

00:24:01.480 Money is just a tool that can do that.

00:24:03.480 It can also not do that if you stress yourself out.

00:24:06.040 If money is a primary reason that you make any decision,

00:24:09.420 then you'll always make money the master.

00:24:11.880 But if money is just a consideration,

00:24:14.200 then you'll feel free.

00:24:15.400 At the end of the day,

00:24:16.240 it doesn't matter if you have a million dollars

00:24:18.260 or a hundred million dollars.

00:24:19.720 Money is a store of value and needs to be put to work.

00:24:23.140 The work is to buy you time,

00:24:24.900 so you have options about how you wanna spend it

00:24:27.020 to become more valuable, ideally,

00:24:29.540 so you can reinvest it in making more money

00:24:32.080 to buy more time, to feel useful.

00:24:34.360 I mean, at the end of the day, people talk about happiness.

00:24:36.880 I'm not about being happy.

00:24:38.120 I think that's a moment in time.

00:24:39.500 What I wanna feel at the end of the day

00:24:40.880 is I wanna feel useful.

00:24:42.720 I wanna feel like I created something.

00:24:45.100 I wanna feel fulfilled.

00:24:46.440 And when I look back at the days where I felt that way,

00:24:49.480 it's usually spent with people I really admire,

00:24:52.140 creating something really cool that was kind of hard

00:24:54.500 to do things that were gonna impact a lot of other people.

00:24:57.300 Don't make money the primary goal,

00:24:59.380 but a tool to get to your goals.

00:25:01.160 Which brings us to 13, which is your network,

00:25:03.940 is your net worth oprah famously said surround yourself with only people who are going to lift

00:25:10.300 you higher if you think about it you got to look around your peer group and ask yourself are these

00:25:15.520 people that are going to lift me up to achieve higher levels my friend jokingly asked me because

00:25:21.100 i was saying that you know i'm trying to upgrade my network and he said how many of your friends

00:25:25.260 have private jets or gatecoats and at the time i was like none he's like look it's not about the

00:25:30.700 money, but that's usually a good filter because people that are kind of vibing at that level

00:25:35.660 typically have a lot of cool stuff going on in your life. And if you want to get in a room where

00:25:39.720 you're going to feel like an imposter, which is the key, then you got to make sure that those 1.00

00:25:43.960 people are doing really big things. Most people make the mistake. They say you become the average

00:25:48.420 of the five people you spend time with. I would actually, you become the average of the five

00:25:52.600 people that you let influence you. I upgrade my relationships all the time. I look at my goals.

00:25:58.460 I look at where I spend my time and I get asked myself if these people are going to help me and support me with my goals.

00:26:04.720 If I feel like they'll slow me down or they'll always talk down on me or they're just not wanting to create a life at that level.

00:26:12.000 Unfortunately, I have to do a friendventory.

00:26:14.460 I have to evaluate where I'm at and find some new people.

00:26:17.620 I can love people.

00:26:18.880 I can just figure out where I can spend time with other folks that might get me to where I'm going a lot faster.

00:26:24.280 So if you're fast growing, you need to look at who you're spending time with and cut anchors

00:26:29.340 holding you back. Which brings us to number 14, which is define your why. When I started out,

00:26:34.820 I use a lot of dark energy to build my life. I had a lot of people I wanted to prove wrong,

00:26:39.660 like my buddy Mike's mom, who said I couldn't play together, to my dad, who I didn't think at

00:26:45.380 the time he believed in me, to everybody that ever doubted my ability to win. I know I didn't

00:26:51.220 give them a lot to go off of but that was the energy to prove people wrong but then once i

00:26:55.980 achieved success and i became a multi-millionaire this actually needed to shift to light energy and

00:27:01.040 the reason why is that dark energy can work it's just heavy so to go bigger you got to figure out

00:27:05.880 your why because that'll pull you forward not push you forward using dark energy it's more of a light

00:27:11.380 energy pulling you forward my why is huge it's very simple i want to become the person i needed

00:27:16.100 most of my darkest days and I want to teach everything I've learned that worked for me

00:27:20.360 along the way. You know, my friend Coach Bert says, you know, you should go to bed tired,

00:27:24.160 wake up hungry. A lot of people see me get up at four in the morning and go back, back, back,

00:27:28.380 back and do everything with the kids, the family, the workouts, the team meetings, the podcast tours,

00:27:32.940 the media stuff, flying around, all this stuff. What they don't get is my work ethic is a reflection

00:27:38.320 of my gratitude, my gratitude for the opportunity, my creator giving me this chance. I just want to

00:27:44.120 show up and give as much as I can towards my why. So I'm going to ask you, what are you optimizing

00:27:49.420 your life for? Essentially, what are you trying to do? Are you just trying to get rich? That could

00:27:53.400 work. If everything you do is to make more money, you could become really great at that. At some

00:27:57.280 point, you might ask yourself, what's the meaning of it all? Because I know if that I found out that

00:28:01.080 tomorrow at five o'clock was my last day, I'm not rushing to the office. I'm not rushing to go

00:28:06.020 snowboarding. I'm going to grab my family members that I can grab. I'm going to sit down. I'm going

00:28:10.120 to hang with them. I'm going to pour into them. And in the last breath, I got to leave this earth

00:28:14.240 with a smile because I spent the time with the people I wanted to most. So there's opportunities

00:28:19.120 all day to make more money. I get hundreds of investment opportunities every day. I could spend

00:28:23.760 a lot more time looking at them, but I say no to most opportunities, speaking gigs, traveling the

00:28:29.040 world, free vacations, dinner requests, everything. Because the last thing I want to do is get really

00:28:35.340 excited about a new opportunity actually be successful climb this ladder of success only

00:28:40.500 to find out that that ladder that future is leaning against the wrong wall and look across

00:28:45.660 the room and see the ladder on a different wall which is actually where i want to be so we have

00:28:50.760 to begin with the end in mind we have to know what our why is what our purpose is that's really cool

00:28:55.460 having a big why just makes the whole process easier and will make you more money before we

00:29:00.960 move into the second piece of content we've got a goal of hitting 500 000 subscribers so if you

00:29:05.320 haven't already, click subscribe. It takes just a second. Number two is my conversation with Tony

00:29:10.060 Robbins on how he went from broke to billionaire. I had four different fathers. We were always broke.

00:29:14.580 They're all good men and we had no money for food. You could be a really good person and work really

00:29:19.580 hard and have nothing. We're all equal as souls, but we're not equal in the marketplace. We are

00:29:25.420 here with the legend, Tony Robbins. If you had a thousand dollars or a hundred million dollars to

00:29:30.160 invest, the most important decision you're going to make is not whether you're going to invest in

00:29:33.400 apple or buy this piece of real estate it's your philosophy of investing who are the wealthiest

00:29:37.880 people in the world what industry are they in when i ask most people they think tech completely wrong

00:29:41.960 and they think real estate wrong it's i asked ray dalio the most successful hedge fund guy in the

00:29:47.400 history of the world is there one principle that's the most important principle to becoming

00:29:51.720 financially successful he said tony i wrestled that for 12 years and i can tell you what i call

00:29:56.840 the holy grail of investing welcome everybody we are here with the legend tony robbins tony thanks

00:30:03.080 for taking some time today thanks for having me on i'm really excited uh we're going to dive into

00:30:07.320 your book you wrote the the third book in the trilogy the holy grail of investing and it is

00:30:13.480 a banger i spent the last there you go i'll be ready to get you the regular one the real thing

00:30:17.640 before i get into it i've got a question for sure i was at one of your events six years ago i got

00:30:23.320 introduced to your work an incredible event and you said something on stage that it just hit me

00:30:29.400 you see you were talking about your your backstory and all the challenges and you kind of just said

00:30:34.520 i built this mfr like i built tony it just struck me because i was like wow like this is how it

00:30:41.240 works when you think of like the new year how do you decide what areas of your life do you want to

00:30:47.480 kind of go deeper on and expand well i don't believe in just doing new year's resolutions

00:30:51.720 because they don't work obviously when people call it new year's resolution 91 of the people

00:30:55.480 don't follow through that's the statistic i don't know how accurate it is but it's probably pretty

00:30:59.880 accurate and i think it's because they express what they want but they don't really have a path

00:31:05.080 or a plan or a strategy and um and and so it doesn't last and so i think it's really critical

00:31:10.840 that you don't just come up with something you want to do that you have some idea of

00:31:14.600 it's like i always tell people if you want to make progress in anything you got to get on the

00:31:18.040 path well how do you know if you're on the path well whether it's your finances whether it's your

00:31:22.120 business, whether it's your relationship, whether it's your body. The first thing is, do you know

00:31:25.680 exactly what you really want and do you know why you want it with enough reasons, strong enough

00:31:30.800 reasons to get you through? If you're not clear what you want, most people are clear what they

00:31:34.500 don't want. I don't want to live this way. I don't want to be this way. Focus goes where energy

00:31:39.680 flows. Energy is going to flow where you focus. The whole focus is, what do you want with precision

00:31:44.440 and then getting those strong enough reasons. Then the second step for people that I look at

00:31:48.660 is, okay, all right, if this is what I really want,

00:31:51.460 I've got strong enough reasons,

00:31:52.800 what's kept me from that in the past?

00:31:54.980 And you've got to see where the gap is

00:31:56.580 between where you are and where you want to be

00:31:58.100 if you're going to close it.

00:31:58.960 So you've got to be clear.

00:32:00.380 And when I do that,

00:32:01.600 I've found there's really only five things

00:32:03.080 that create that gap.

00:32:03.940 The first one that gets in the way is fear

00:32:05.760 for almost anybody.

00:32:07.140 Fear of failure, fear of success,

00:32:08.580 fear of not looking at some fear.

00:32:10.000 But then the second one might be limiting beliefs.

00:32:12.440 Like, you know, I've tried everything.

00:32:14.380 Well, that's what you say to yourself.

00:32:15.960 That's what I used to say to myself

00:32:17.080 when I couldn't lose weight.

00:32:18.060 I hadn't tried everything, I tried everything, I would have been fit.

00:32:20.300 And I eventually tried lots of things and got fit and stayed fit, right?

00:32:23.700 Or, you know, all the good ones are gone, right?

00:32:26.220 You know, in a relationship.

00:32:27.400 So those beliefs can keep you from making progress.

00:32:30.000 And unless you change those, setting a new goal doesn't mean anything.

00:32:34.160 The third thing that can get in the way is some other emotion like overwhelm or stress

00:32:38.640 or sadness or depression or feeling sorry for yourself

00:32:41.680 or any other emotion that slows the accelerators of your life.

00:32:46.160 And then the fourth thing that can get in the way for people very often is habits.

00:32:49.600 So you say you want to lose 20 pounds, and the first thing you do in the morning is go to Starbucks and have a smoke-a-mocha, whatever.

00:32:55.780 It's not going to happen.

00:32:56.820 You've got the wrong habits, right?

00:32:58.440 It's one thing to have, you know, resolve you want something, but that resolution isn't real if you don't have rituals to back it up.

00:33:05.640 And so you've got to come up with what those habits are.

00:33:08.080 Or the last thing you might be missing is you just might be missing the skill.

00:33:11.680 Like, you know, finance, most people don't know how to get asymmetrical risk-reward.

00:33:16.120 They don't even know what it is.

00:33:17.340 But every billionaire knows, right?

00:33:19.360 That's how they became a billionaire, the ones that started with nothing.

00:33:21.880 They don't take giant, insane risks.

00:33:23.860 They figure out what's the minimum risk or the most amount of upside that I can possibly get.

00:33:28.340 And they do that over and over again, and you're going to eventually win.

00:33:30.820 So if you don't know certain skills in a relationship, certain skills in how to run your business,

00:33:35.080 certain skills in how to make your body go, then you're probably not going to make the progress.

00:33:39.760 And once you know that, then you come up with your massive action plan and you don't wait

00:33:44.140 until it's perfect.

00:33:45.140 You take action and then you go slay your dragons.

00:33:47.640 You do the hard work.

00:33:48.720 You change the belief.

00:33:49.720 You change the pieces.

00:33:50.720 You get some daily practices.

00:33:52.400 You keep measuring and improving and you'll get to where you really want to go and then

00:33:55.800 you'll come up with the next journey.

00:33:57.120 You know, it's like life is a journey.

00:33:58.680 It's like the hero's journey.

00:34:00.000 So I look at it that way.

00:34:01.000 I look at it as saying, I got to get clear what I want now at this level and what the

00:34:05.780 increases are and then what's gotten in the way and then what am I going to do?

00:34:09.680 go get what's in the way out of the way and then let me create some daily practices that virtually

00:34:13.920 guarantee it it's kind of awesome to watch because even six years ago i've seen your approach to your

00:34:19.600 interventions kind of kind of evolve right they're they're a little different they're softer and we've

00:34:25.360 got um so much to dig into i'm just curious why this book like why why choose to i was telling

00:34:32.640 you earlier that it's like you there's a difference between retail investing and professional

00:34:37.600 investing you went into the world where all the rich people you know the people say it's a rich

00:34:42.400 get richer you went to where the people that know how to make money they shared their strategies

00:34:48.560 why this book why now well it's the final it's a trilogy and i didn't expect to write three books

00:34:55.040 i wrote the first book a little 670 page little monster number one new york times bestseller

00:35:00.080 still the best-selling financial book of this century century's only 24 years old but still

00:35:04.400 i'm proud of it because i wrote a book i wanted my billionaire friends could get value out of but

00:35:08.800 so could a person who's just beginning the journey so i really am proud of that book and it's like

00:35:12.480 soup to nuts and i learned so many things by interviewing 50 of the greatest investors in

00:35:17.520 the world at that time that's why i did it i thought i knew a lot i certainly did i worked

00:35:21.600 with paul tudor jones one of the top 10 traders for 24 years hadn't lost money during that time

00:35:26.480 so i learned a lot from him but i want to learn from everybody and i learned four things fundamentally

00:35:31.760 I learned don't lose money is their first focus, which that's not most people's, because they know, you know, if you talk to Warren Buffett, you know, his rule is rule number one, don't lose money.

00:35:41.020 Rule number two, see rule number one. Right. Well, that's ridiculous. Of course, you're going to lose money.

00:35:45.100 But their focus is not to lose money, because if you're only trying to make money, you don't look at the downside.

00:35:50.640 You're going to get hurt. And if you have a stock that drops 50 percent, you don't need 50 percent to get even.

00:35:56.080 You've got to get 100 percent return to get even. Right.

00:35:59.300 So the way they do that is the second principle.

00:36:01.440 No matter whether they're a macro trader or they're a value investor, it didn't matter.

00:36:05.980 They all look at the way to protect themselves as having the right asset allocation.

00:36:10.420 That's one of the reasons I wrote this book.

00:36:12.220 Because asset allocation is big words for some people,

00:36:14.540 but all it means is if you add $1,000 or $100 million to invest,

00:36:19.360 the most important decision you're going to make is not whether you're going to invest in Apple

00:36:22.620 or buy this piece of real estate.

00:36:24.480 It's your philosophy of investing.

00:36:26.800 And you think of it as two buckets primarily.

00:36:29.740 A bucket that's a security bucket where you're going to take some percentage of your money,

00:36:33.200 you're going to sign in advance.

00:36:34.180 It's always that percentage.

00:36:35.960 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 70%, whatever it is, is going to go in a place where it's low risk.

00:36:41.420 And less returns, so it's going to take longer to get there.

00:36:44.860 But because it's low risk, you're going to get there.

00:36:47.140 It's like the turtle versus the hare type race.

00:36:50.100 Then how much are you going to put that's in a risk bucket?

00:36:53.040 Now, on the risk bucket, you have the potential for huge upside,

00:36:56.120 but you also have the potential for big downside.

00:36:58.060 And so what is that? Is that 50-50, 60-40, 70-30, 30-70? And, you know, explain to people how to do that. But what I found out over the years, and now there's plenty of reports to back it up, is that the ultra-wealthy have over 46% on average of their money in private equity, private real estate, and private credit.

00:37:18.660 That is very different than 90% of the population.

00:37:21.140 That's less than 5% of that in there.

00:37:23.240 Most people, they go and they put their money in stocks and bonds in their home

00:37:26.120 and maybe a REIT.

00:37:26.980 Those are the types of things where most people are moving them around.

00:37:29.800 Now, why does that matter?

00:37:30.860 Well, diversification was the fourth principle that we all know.

00:37:34.320 Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

00:37:36.360 But when I interviewed Ray Dalio,

00:37:37.700 the most successful hedge fund guy in the history of the world,

00:37:41.100 he's now managing almost $195 billion, to give you an idea.

00:37:44.420 He manages sovereign funds, pension funds.

00:37:47.480 Brilliant guy.

00:37:48.200 In 2008, when things dropped, what, it was at 34%, if I remember right, he was up 8%, to give you an idea.

00:37:53.640 I mean, just genius. He warned everybody about it.

00:37:56.360 So I asked him when I first met him 12, 13 years ago, and we're just becoming friends,

00:38:01.840 I said, you know, of all the things we've talked about, is there one principle above anything else

00:38:06.060 that's the most important principle to becoming financially successful as an investor?

00:38:10.200 And he said, Tony, I wrestled that for 12 years, and I can tell you what I call the holy grail of investing.

00:38:15.900 That's where the title comes from. It's not from me. It's from him.

00:38:18.200 And I said, what is it?

00:38:20.580 He said, think about it, Tony.

00:38:22.080 Once you know the fundamentals that you know, and asymmetrical risk reward is one of those

00:38:25.500 as well, right?

00:38:26.500 So once you know those principles, you've got a great opportunity.

00:38:30.480 But people want to get to their goals and they want to get there faster and most people

00:38:33.560 are behind.

00:38:34.560 So the only way to get there faster is get higher returns or put more money in, which

00:38:38.700 a lot of people don't have.

00:38:39.700 Or you think higher returns, you've got to take bigger risks.

00:38:42.960 And then you can lose everything and now it defeats itself, plus all the stress involved.

00:38:47.920 said, so I figured out a mathematical principle. This is his principle, holy grail. If you can find

00:38:54.640 eight to 12 uncorrelated investments, now correlated so your audience knows, or uncorrelated,

00:39:01.560 a simple example, stocks and bonds. When the economy is going great, most people put their

00:39:05.260 money in stocks because companies are growing, you get a bigger return. When things are trouble,

00:39:09.480 they're counting on their bonds to balance them out because they're supposedly non-correlated,

00:39:13.360 except when we have these big crashes, they all drop and your broker goes, I don't know,

00:39:17.180 it's not supposed to do that right and what i learned from ray is that happens all the time

00:39:21.580 and he explained why which we won't take the time to do right now but here's what he said

00:39:24.660 if you can find eight to 12 uncorrelated investments you reduce your risk 80 percent

00:39:30.820 tony and increase your upside i'm like are you serious and he showed me how it works in the math

00:39:36.720 it's all detailed so then i went to go to work how do i find eight to 12 things that aren't tied

00:39:41.540 together in some way and the world is tied together so much in the public markets and so

00:39:46.400 then I started looking at private assets and it's like, wait a second, here's a nice statistic for

00:39:50.760 your audience. In the last 35 years, every year, public stock markets have produced a lower return

00:39:58.820 than average, not the best. I interviewed 13 of the very best, the biggest in the world in private

00:40:04.080 equity and private credit. But the average has outstripped every stock market in the world in

00:40:09.420 terms of profits. So I'll give an example. Most people are familiar with the S&P 500 index, top

00:40:13.140 500 companies. Well, but you go through the S&P index and you say, how's it done over the last

00:40:18.260 35 years? It's produced an average return compounded at 9.2%. So that's pretty nice.

00:40:24.160 If you're getting 5%, it takes you 14 years to double your money. You know, 9%, you're doing it

00:40:28.600 in eight years. But average, not great, average private equity did 14.2% at the same time.

00:40:35.360 So you were getting 50% greater returns every year, compounded year after year. So you know

00:40:40.800 what that means. If you put a million dollars away 35 years ago and put it in the S&P 500 and

00:40:45.720 forgot about it without doing anything, it's worth $26 million today. But if you took the

00:40:50.940 same million dollars and put it in private equity, average private equity, it's worth $139 million

00:40:56.400 today, 500% more. So it became a no-brainer to say you can't put everything in private equity.

00:41:03.100 You still need public markets, but maybe we should model the asset allocation of the smartest people

00:41:08.340 on earth so then i went to go work on that and dan you know because you you've done well in your

00:41:13.200 life you know there's only a few players that are the best in the world and and access it's not

00:41:19.720 available to everybody access how do i get access and then there's a second problem which is okay

00:41:23.960 if i'm gonna for me first it was just access like you know i know a lot of people i've got a good

00:41:28.440 brand i've helped a lot of people so i got access to some but it's kind of like trying to get access

00:41:32.660 to the new sp3 you know three ferrari that's four million dollars even if you have the money you

00:41:37.860 can't get it because it's only sold to the guys that already bought before and that's what happens

00:41:42.500 here all the pension funds all the sovereign funds all these people get those spaces so i would get

00:41:48.100 little slivers and one day i was talking to a good friend of mine who was one of paul tudor jones's

00:41:52.420 partners who started his own firm really successful guy i was talking about my frustration that i've

00:41:58.260 gotten a few of these but you know too small to have a real impact he said tony he goes you've

00:42:05.060 been a good friend to me you've helped me in so many ways i'm going to help you i'm going to tell

00:42:08.740 you where i put most of my money i said most of your money he said yeah he goes there's this place

00:42:12.500 in houston i said houston i thought he was gonna say singapore london new york connecticut he goes

00:42:17.940 this group they're they're one of the best in the world and they've found a way where you don't have

00:42:22.580 to get in the fund see when you invest in a fund you're called a limited partner where you're an

00:42:27.460 owner called a general partner right just for your audience's clarifications and he goes you can buy

00:42:32.420 a piece of the general partnership a slice and own the business now these guys these are the masters

00:42:38.500 of the universe financially who are the wealthiest people in the world what industry are they in

00:42:42.260 when i ask most people they think tech completely wrong then they think real estate wrong it's

00:42:47.220 financial services but it's not hedge funds because they go up and down these guys in private equity

00:42:52.740 we have a really unique approach.

00:42:54.740 There used to be 8,000 companies in the stock markets.

00:42:57.700 There's only 3,700 now.

00:42:59.940 And in the S&P 500,

00:43:02.120 five of the companies produce 25% of all 500.

00:43:05.920 It's so concentrated.

00:43:07.860 But most companies,

00:43:09.440 most companies in the world are privately held.

00:43:12.240 And these private equity firms come in

00:43:14.280 and they don't just try to buy at the right time.

00:43:16.880 They buy a company or a piece of it,

00:43:18.920 but then they add value.

00:43:20.420 They change the marketing.

00:43:21.760 They bring in new tech, they bring in a new CEO, and they grow the company, and then they

00:43:26.180 sell it for a multiple to a bigger company, or they take it public.

00:43:29.660 They tie up your money for five years.

00:43:31.580 Why would people do that?

00:43:32.660 Well, because the kinds of returns they get are so much better.

00:43:35.260 People say, I'm happy to have some of my money be tied up for that kind of return.

00:43:38.680 For them, that means they don't have to worry about the markets going up and down.

00:43:42.120 So when it goes down, they can buy.

00:43:43.800 When it goes up, they can sell.

00:43:45.360 That's why they get such unbelievable returns, and they're adding value.

00:43:47.920 They're not just trying to find the right thing at the right price.

00:43:50.760 So I was blown away seeing those results, and I was like, okay, how do I do this?

00:43:55.720 And what I found out is, you know, they get their 2 and 20.

00:43:58.320 For those unfamiliar, when you give them your money, they get 2% per year.

00:44:02.560 That's what they charge on your money, whether they make money or not.

00:44:06.060 And they get 20% of the upside.

00:44:08.660 Well, people are willing to do it because it's not uncommon for a firm to go from a billion to 2 billion in five years.

00:44:14.280 They make $100 million in fees over those five years.

00:44:17.740 They make $200 million, the 20% of the next billion.

00:44:20.340 They make $300 million on a billion-dollar investment.

00:44:22.660 That's why they're there.

00:44:23.280 And most of them, the ones I interviewed, are $35, $50, $100 billion firms.

00:44:28.180 So you get the idea of how they are.

00:44:29.700 And they've all done 20% or more compounded for decades.

00:44:32.440 One guy in the group has done 36% compounded for 26 years.

00:44:38.040 I mean, it's crazy.

00:44:39.700 So then I thought, okay, well, I can help my friends, wealthy friends.

00:44:44.860 But then the reason I wrote the book,

00:44:46.240 final answer to your question,

00:44:47.560 is because I had all these principles of distinction.

00:44:49.500 I own 65 of the biggest companies in the world.

00:44:52.420 I'm getting the two and 20 right beside the owners,

00:44:54.480 and I got their business when there's no inflation,

00:44:56.660 their business with inflation, their future.

00:44:58.260 I got private credit firms.

00:44:59.880 So I was like, I'm out of my mind.

00:45:01.300 And then I saw that Congress finally did something.

00:45:03.960 It always bugged me.

00:45:05.680 I always complained that, look,

00:45:07.220 the richest people in the world get access to the best investments.

00:45:10.220 People who need to grow it don't get access.

00:45:12.280 because the law says you have to be an accredited investor or even higher in some of these firms.

00:45:17.160 And that means you have to have a million dollar net worth already, not counting your house,

00:45:21.260 or $200,000 in annual income, right? So Congress saw what I believe was true. I didn't have

00:45:27.820 nothing to do with it, but they just passed across the Congress. And now the Senate's

00:45:31.160 taken it up. It should get passed hopefully in the next two or three months because it's

00:45:35.080 bipartisan and the first one already passed. And they said, look, you shouldn't have to

00:45:39.240 have a certain amount of money to do this, you should just know what you're doing.

00:45:43.460 Some people build a business or they inherit money. When they get to do it, they're not

00:45:47.740 sophisticated. You take a test, you study and take the test, and then you can have access to

00:45:52.080 these same components. So now the world can have access to this. So that's why I decided to bring

00:45:57.180 this out at this time. But if you can imagine being able to have all that income, like you

00:46:01.880 would get from, let's say, bonds at the same time, like the income's between 8% and 10% on most of

00:46:07.420 firms each year just just on the fees that's guaranteed so when i invest in the firm 80

00:46:12.860 of my investment is already guaranteed just by the income coming back from the guaranteed fees

00:46:17.420 and then i get the upside of the 20 and we had one firm that was doing i think uh i think we

00:46:22.620 started them when they were doing uh 3.8 billion or something like that and now they're at 22.

00:46:29.020 it doesn't take a lot more employees to do that by the way the profitability of that firm is

00:46:33.740 through the roof and by the way if that firm gets sold to a bigger firm i'll get the multiple on

00:46:37.500 that business when it gets sold so it's pretty amazing and so i walk people through all these

00:46:42.620 different avenues so you can do something that's not correlated so you can have 80 less risk and

00:46:48.780 have more upside it's interesting because like going through the book as a business nerd i'm

00:46:53.660 loving each chapter is exposing me to these new investment strategies my my three favorite for

00:46:58.780 people listening is the gp stakes you touched upon the private credit which was obvious in hindsight

00:47:03.980 when she started unpacking that and then sports team ownership which i know you've got to stake

00:47:08.540 in the sacramento kings team liquid on the esports side what investment kind of category did you get

00:47:15.900 most excited about talking to all these incredible um investors that you decided to kind of pursue

00:47:21.580 or which one do you think was most fascinating for you those three are probably my favorite

00:47:25.900 although i've got a huge amount of money invested in the energy sector as well for

00:47:30.220 that's yeah you had two chapters dedicated to energy yeah because i got a project in hydrogen

00:47:34.140 that's unbelievable right now so i'm so excited about that and has unbelievable returns but i

00:47:38.620 would say uh owning these companies where you get to be a partner with the smartest people in the

00:47:43.500 world that's pretty hard to beat but let's take private credit for example in 2021 just a couple

00:47:48.620 years ago you could make no money on bonds before they raised interest rates right so what bonds

00:47:53.500 went crazy were junk bonds. You know, they call them high, you know, high income bonds, right?

00:47:58.540 But they're just junk. They're terrible. And if you remember in 2021, you were going to get one 0.99

00:48:02.780 or two percent somewhere else, but you got 3.9 percent on junk bonds taking huge risks. And of

00:48:07.900 course that industry imploded, right? The market dropped through the floor. When everyone else

00:48:12.540 is taking these giant risks at 3.9 percent, I was getting 9 percent on private credit.

00:48:17.580 Private credit is just since 2008, the banks have tightened up. Most people know about what

00:48:22.620 What happened recently, for example,

00:48:24.460 Silicon Valley and so forth, banks.

00:48:26.740 So what happens is most banks are not loaning

00:48:29.800 to the majority of companies that need it.

00:48:31.840 So they go to these private equity people,

00:48:33.660 they really know how to vet companies,

00:48:35.620 and they loan to the same companies over and over.

00:48:37.680 They provide that capacity.

00:48:39.820 Now, the beautiful thing about private credit is

00:48:42.600 they have a 1% failure rate.

00:48:44.440 No bank on, banks would die for that kind of return.

00:48:47.680 These guys know what they're doing

00:48:48.820 and they stay with the very best people.

00:48:50.500 So incredibly safe, three times the return

00:48:53.780 is if you did junk bonds at that time.

00:48:55.740 But now the interest rates have rised.

00:48:57.840 Now, by the way, I own those firms too,

00:48:59.360 so I have two and 20 on those as well,

00:49:01.020 not just the investment.

00:49:02.520 But what's been amazing is if you bought a mortgage

00:49:05.440 and it was at 3% and it was fixed, you're happy right now.

00:49:08.260 You don't care that interest rates went up

00:49:10.360 because the 7% doesn't affect you.

00:49:12.540 But if you had a floating rate,

00:49:14.580 you might be paying three times as much

00:49:16.300 as you were a few years ago.

00:49:17.820 Well, in business, those are always floating rates.

00:49:19.860 So we loan money to people in these firms, let's say, at 5% and 6% originally,

00:49:23.880 and now the rate has raised.

00:49:25.160 Now they're paying us 12% and 13%.

00:49:27.540 Now, get a sense of what the profitability is on.

00:49:30.420 That's the same loan with the same people with no additional expense,

00:49:35.120 and our profitability is through the roof, and I got the 2 and 20 on that as well.

00:49:38.320 So I love that.

00:49:39.360 But the one that's most fun is sports because I'm a sports guy.

00:49:43.340 I wanted to be a professional baseball player.

00:49:45.960 One of my forefathers was a semi-pro baseball player,

00:49:49.680 But I started late.

00:49:50.700 I wasn't that skilled.

00:49:52.120 And I got clear that that wasn't going to happen by the time I got to high school.

00:49:55.560 So I started looking at a different path.

00:49:57.820 But the bottom line is I was like, someday I really want to be a sports team.

00:50:01.260 It seemed like such a huge thing.

00:50:02.760 Well, you know, about a little less than a decade ago, I finally had enough money and enough resources and some good partnerships.

00:50:09.740 And I invested in the LAFC Football Club.

00:50:12.780 We created the club.

00:50:13.520 We built the stadium with my partner, Peter Gruber, and a group of other partners.

00:50:16.900 And it was fun.

00:50:17.740 I enjoyed it.

00:50:18.280 And then I moved to Florida, so I'm nowhere near there.

00:50:20.640 But I still enjoyed owning a sports team.

00:50:22.840 Well, I wanted to own more.

00:50:23.860 And then, as you said, I bought a few others.

00:50:26.500 But then, in the last three years, there's been a new rule change.

00:50:30.680 And other than the NFL, all the other sports leagues now have a way.

00:50:35.120 Only a few firms can do it because you can't use leverage.

00:50:37.560 There's a bunch of rules around it.

00:50:38.620 But you can buy a piece of more than one sports team.

00:50:42.780 So now I own, not only do I own the Warriors and the Dodgers,

00:50:46.320 but I own the Red Sox and the Sacramento Kings. I own the Pittsburgh Penguins in hockey.

00:50:51.920 It's amazing what you get to have a piece of. And to give you an idea, like Michael Jordan

00:50:56.540 bought his Charlotte team, the NBA team, for $275 million about 12 and a half years ago.

00:51:02.700 A group of people, including us, bought that interest for $3 billion. $3 billion. That's his

00:51:08.940 return on 12 years. Another example is just the average. These investments are no longer just

00:51:15.840 butts in seats. And by the way, it's not correlated to the stock market. That's the power.

00:51:20.760 So inflation hits, they just raise the price of a hot dog and people pay it. But it's no longer

00:51:25.220 just butts in seats. It's also media. So when Peter Gerber and his partners originally bought

00:51:29.960 the Dodgers and they paid $2 billion for them. And everybody thought they overpaid. Everybody

00:51:36.560 thought they overpaid. The most any sports team I'd ever gone for was $800 million baseball team.

00:51:41.140 And people thought they were worth a billion. They were an amazing franchise. But $2 billion?

00:51:45.340 So I went to Peter, because I'm going to be part of this. 1.00

00:51:47.120 I'm like, Peter, I know you're no idiot. 0.98

00:51:49.100 You're the smartest people alive. 0.99

00:51:51.380 How are you doing this?

00:51:52.580 I'm going to pay $2 billion.

00:51:54.220 And he said, Tony, you know me.

00:51:55.420 I'm a movie producer.

00:51:56.480 He said, you've got to have a cliffhanger.

00:51:58.020 He said, I'm going to announce it on Tuesday.

00:52:00.240 Once you're here, come to the house.

00:52:01.300 We'll have a little party together, and we'll laugh.

00:52:03.860 They announced it on Tuesday.

00:52:04.900 He sold the local TV rights for $7 billion and made $5 billion net immediately.

00:52:11.700 And when you own a sports team, you keep your local rights,

00:52:14.420 but you also get an equal share of everybody else around the nation.

00:52:19.060 So whether you're a small team or a big team, you get your percentage of that.

00:52:22.520 And they own real estate.

00:52:24.160 So the average return in the last 10 years across Major League Baseball, the NBA, Major League Soccer, and hockey,

00:52:31.060 if you took those four and merged them, the average return is 18% compounded per year.

00:52:36.500 It's been 11% for the S&P 500, and it's not correlated.

00:52:39.540 So it's an amazing opportunity.

00:52:41.760 It does really well.

00:52:42.540 And you have a legal monopoly.

00:52:44.320 No one else can compete with you in that city, in that sport.

00:52:47.060 You own it.

00:52:48.340 And your customers are literally fanatics.

00:52:53.200 That's where the word fan comes from, fanatics, multi-generational.

00:52:56.700 So it's an amazing business, and it's fun, and it's enjoyable,

00:53:00.100 and people can be involved with it now like they never could before.

00:53:03.500 Yeah, it's a fun one.

00:53:05.000 And it was so cool reading the examples in the book.

00:53:08.440 Tony, obviously you got the chance to meet and interview some of the best.

00:53:12.740 as some of them are my heroes robert f smith from this as a software guy he's the goat right

00:53:17.580 vinod kosla david sacks like i met david sacks 13 years ago and he's just become literally the

00:53:24.960 category king in sass out of all those people what like does anybody stand out or do you feel

00:53:31.860 like they all have their genius like what did you learn talking to these these wizard of the

00:53:36.320 financial world i learned so many things and they're in the book but but i looked also for

00:53:40.700 common patterns because then you see universal principles that work and by the way you know

00:53:45.260 sax is genius original the original paypal mafia is an unbelievable guy and i love him personally

00:53:51.260 but he you know i think robert smith would take offense to he's the owner of sass because robert

00:53:56.860 is the owner of sass robert's got a hundred billion dollar firm and i can't say what his

00:54:01.580 returns are because you got to get the prospectus to do it legally but just he's the highest return

00:54:06.220 of anybody that i interviewed for the longest period of time it's mind-boggling what he has

00:54:10.460 done and he started with absolutely nothing what i found really most interesting was the way they

00:54:16.460 think about business and entrepreneurship when i interviewed the 50 smartest investors in the world

00:54:22.540 traditional investors ray dalio carl icon warren buffett you know paul tudor jones

00:54:27.340 they're all have different ways of doing things but they're trying to buy something at the right

00:54:30.780 price right and the right time what's so cool about private equity is the best people they're

00:54:37.420 not buying just trying to get but they like to get a great price but they're gonna their entire

00:54:41.900 focus is adding value and what i mean by that is when i first met jim rome my original teacher

00:54:47.580 he answered one of the most important questions i had burning in my life and it changed my life

00:54:51.980 i had four different fathers we were always broke the reason i provide a hundred million meals a

00:54:56.540 year i've done a billion meals in the last eight years is because someone provided food for my

00:55:00.580 family when we had nothing when I was 11. I never forgot it. I started with two families, four, and

00:55:04.460 built up. Well, if you look at somebody like what Robert's done, Robert's been in a position where

00:55:10.380 he started with literally nothing and he built up, but he did it based on the principle that I

00:55:14.780 learned from my teacher, Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn, I asked him, I said, how come my fathers, they're all good

00:55:18.940 men and we're always broke. We had no money for food. And he said, Tony, we're all equal as souls,

00:55:25.780 but we're not equal in the marketplace I said what do you mean he said Tony you could be a

00:55:31.620 really good person and work really hard and have nothing he goes I brought up school teachers you

00:55:37.960 know how little they make and how unfair that is compared to this hedge fund guy and he goes Tony

00:55:42.400 well let's start with McDonald's he said I'm not being derogatory but it's not designed to be your

00:55:46.800 long-term job it's an entry job because you don't get paid much because it's easy to learn anyone

00:55:52.920 can do that job so it's not valuable you're paid in proportion to the value you bring to people

00:55:58.840 there's not a lot of value today there's machines now starting to replace these people in fast food

00:56:02.920 places right that that's why they make so little but the guy you're saying is terrible he said

00:56:08.680 your teachers how many of them were truly great i said i had some great teachers how many tell me

00:56:13.800 them and i listed three right he said yes out of your entire education there's three the others

00:56:19.560 would you agree some were good some were mediocre some were terrible I said yeah he goes and they're

00:56:23.600 coaching they're helping 20 or 30 students he goes so they're paid and they're not in a position

00:56:29.320 where if they do well they're paid more because they wanted to guarantee and they got to guarantee

00:56:32.920 them they do a lousy job but if you want to put yourself on the line and be valuable it's a very

00:56:37.000 different game so he said the guy you're making fun of or being derogatory towards most people

00:56:42.880 in those days were getting six percent returns he goes he got a 48 percent return on billions of

00:56:49.100 Those are people's pension funds.

00:56:50.780 That's their future.

00:56:51.660 That's their economics.

00:56:52.740 So he's worth a billion dollars because he added that much more valuable.

00:56:56.560 He said, you need to focus on finding a way to do more for others than anybody else in whatever industry you're in.

00:57:02.820 You'll build a brand and you'll become dominant and you'll have a blast because you're a giver, Tony.

00:57:07.400 You're not a taker.

00:57:08.040 You're going to be proud of what you're doing, not just make a lot of money.

00:57:11.660 And that's why I got these, that's actually 114 companies now total.

00:57:15.700 We're doing $7 billion in revenues, and, I mean, every single company we've built might have that obsession with adding value.

00:57:22.820 And that's what I saw in every one of these people.

00:57:25.740 They didn't just buy the asset or buy it right and then flip it over or cut it up in pieces like private equity used to do 20 years ago.

00:57:32.740 It's much more competitive now.

00:57:34.220 Now it's like, okay, you go to Robert Smith and you've got a SaaS organization.

00:57:38.020 He has built a system where you can take any SaaS company and grow it.

00:57:42.060 He knows how to bring the right CEO in the place, what the marketing piece, who are the right people, how can you advance the technology, how can you cut the cost?

00:57:49.060 So he makes it so valuable, and then he sells it to a bigger company or takes it public.

00:57:53.460 So every single one of them was obsessed with adding value, and that is really, really unique, but they do it in a different way.

00:58:00.740 So that's what Robert Smith does.

00:58:02.100 You know, if you go to Veritas Capital, you know, Ramsey, he was partners with a guy 12 years ago and a guy committed suicide and they had a $2 billion fund.

00:58:15.280 And the fund was, you know, it had a clause in your agreement as a limited partner that if anything happened to the original founder investor, you could take your money back.

00:58:26.640 There were no time limits on anymore.

00:58:28.680 So he literally met with every, around the world, every investor, flew and met with them one-on-one

00:58:33.180 and said, I want you to stay with us and here's what I'm going to do. He built that fund from

00:58:37.260 $2 billion to $42 billion in 11 years. His expertise was, he said, I'm going to go do

00:58:43.140 business with the government. Government buys more technology than anyone on earth and no one else

00:58:48.460 has mastered it. They all avoid it. I'm going to go master it and own them. And again, I can't tell

00:58:54.140 his returns, but I'll just tell you, they're gigantic returns compounded over a decade

00:58:59.000 continuously because he's figured out how to add value in the government system.

00:59:03.000 You know what I mean?

00:59:03.580 If you look at somebody like Khosla that you know, of course, I mean, he took one of his

00:59:07.920 best investments, he took $3 million and turned it into $7 billion, right?

00:59:12.740 And how did he do it?

00:59:13.520 He looks around and says, okay, what's a technology that could change the world that

00:59:18.400 will be a necessity?

00:59:19.460 And he saw Juniper Networks.

00:59:21.720 He said, I think that's where the web is going to have to go.

00:59:24.140 He made these bets, and 7 billion is not like a gross number.

00:59:29.140 That's the net return to investors off that investment.

00:59:32.780 So each one of them has vision.

00:59:35.620 Each one of them is massively committed to added value.

00:59:38.460 Each one of them has a system that they built.

00:59:41.180 They don't do it ad hoc to take any company in the categories they focus on and grow it.

00:59:47.100 Another reason I love doing this is I have these guys and they're all in different industries.

00:59:51.340 They're all, some of them are different countries.

00:59:53.460 You know, you go to somebody like MBK Partners, right?

00:59:58.200 And, you know, he's the, Michael Kim, he's the, what do you call it, the biggest investor,

01:00:03.080 the most successful private equity investor in basically Japan, China, Asia.

01:00:08.820 He's the richest, you know, South Korean in the world.

01:00:11.840 And it's like, how did he do it?

01:00:13.260 Same thing.

01:00:13.940 He figured out what Asian companies need. 0.78

01:00:15.940 He's specialized in that.

01:00:17.240 So I think really knowing your market, really knowing your ideal customer, coming up with products and services that produce raving fans, coming up with an irresistible offer, which is a lot of what they do each time, an offer that is so good that people say, I got to at least try it, and then they over-deliver.

01:00:34.980 They all seem to have that in common, even though they're doing different industries in different ways and have different forms of expertise.

01:00:41.520 it's so great i love the idea because a lot of people they struggle with like should i go all

01:00:46.640 in on my primary business because i they hear diversification but it's like all these people

01:00:51.920 mastered their game systematize it created ways to get the asymmetrical results um i think that's

01:00:59.040 awesome the the question i want to kind of get closer as we wrap up is how has having a child

01:01:04.720 as a 61 year old person change your perspective on life toady i mean when you guys shared that

01:01:10.320 staging yourself it was inspired for me i'm like wow this is really fascinating like

01:01:16.160 how how does that change your perspective on life and how you show up and how you think about your

01:01:20.080 time right because i wrote a book i'll buy back your time how has that impacted where you allocate

01:01:24.880 your time well it's interesting you know before you know i have five kids and five grandkids and

01:01:29.360 my oldest uh daughter is 48 gonna be 49 in about a month and my youngest daughter's coming up on

01:01:36.400 three pretty soon it's two and three quarters so i got quite a quite a spread but um the answer

01:01:41.440 to your question is i didn't want to have both my wife and i uh she couldn't carry because of a 1.00

01:01:47.440 problem with her body so we went through ivf and went through all these processes for years

01:01:53.120 and then our life was on the road she's with me all the time and we don't want to be apart and i

01:01:57.120 was on the road 250 days a year so like i didn't want to bring a kid into that experience just too

01:02:02.240 hard especially at this stage of life so when COVID happened and I found a way I could talk

01:02:07.920 like I'm doing a seminar by the way I should mention for your audience I do a free seminar

01:02:11.280 every year I started with COVID because you know people are trapped in their homes I was doing

01:02:16.240 stadiums and suddenly stadiums said I could put a hundred people in a stadium instead of fifteen

01:02:20.480 thousand I'm like so I built these studios and I started doing these events and I said I want no

01:02:25.280 one to stop by money if they're stuck at home I want to be able to show them how to change their

01:02:28.960 life from their home, and I want to have to travel, obviously, and so we put these events

01:02:33.900 on for three days. There's one coming up January 25th through the 27th, starts at 2 p.m. Eastern,

01:02:38.940 but we have people from 195 countries have come, and we had over a million people last

01:02:43.580 year, and we give you the way it's called Time to Rise. If you go to timetorisesummit.com,

01:02:48.640 timetorisesummit.com, you get tickets, it's free. You can do it from your home or your

01:02:53.460 office, bring your family and your friends, but the reason I bring this up is when I could

01:02:58.040 reach millions of people and go deep and do these giant events now like instead of 10 or 15,000 I

01:03:04.260 got 40,000 people in the event and they're from 195 countries all over the earth at once I was

01:03:09.220 like we could have a kid and we could be home more I still travel but nothing like I did and so we

01:03:14.980 tried one final time and God blessed us and answer your question is it's been the greatest gift of

01:03:19.100 my life because I'm proud of how I've been as a father when I was in my 20s now I married a woman

01:03:23.080 who was 13 years my senior in my first marriage and she had been married twice before and had

01:03:27.440 kids from both their husbands, and I adopted them all. So I was, you know, 24, a 17-year-old,

01:03:33.400 and an 11-year-old, a five-year-old, and then went on the way. So at this stage, it's very

01:03:38.140 different. You know, I've got a lot more to, even more to give. And Sage is such an unbelievable

01:03:42.620 mother, and we have such incredible family. So it's, it's changed things so that now, you know,

01:03:47.600 I have rituals, like I have dinner at 6.30. I've never had dinner a certain time before,

01:03:53.860 But I love it.

01:03:54.680 I love everything about it.

01:03:55.880 My daughter is a learning machine. 0.65

01:03:57.740 You know, at that stage of life, she's learning Chinese and Spanish and English, and she's

01:04:02.440 playing the piano, and she has time just to be a human.

01:04:04.980 And, you know, yesterday flew a kite, which I would never be doing at this stage normally.

01:04:09.640 But I'm going to be 64 in a month.

01:04:11.320 She'll be three soon. 1.00

01:04:12.620 And I told my wife originally, I said, I'm not having a kid past 50.

01:04:15.540 I said, I'm not going to show up at her high school graduation at 70 years old.

01:04:18.920 Now I'm going to be 80 at her high school graduation.

01:04:21.440 But I got to tell you, it's the most beautiful thing in the world.

01:04:24.380 And I, without naming names, I had a very, very famous designer who I had dinner with one time with Steve Wynn at his resort.

01:04:32.880 And we were sitting at dinner and he was 65 and just had two children.

01:04:38.580 And I was dumbfounded.

01:04:39.880 And he went on and on the entire night about how it was the greatest thing in his life.

01:04:44.540 So that was where the seed got planted.

01:04:46.360 And then God made it possible because of COVID.

01:04:48.440 So I don't have to choose between my mission and my child.

01:04:50.460 get to do it all and she gets to attend the seminars and watch on tv we don't show pictures

01:04:55.420 of i don't even say her name because i want her to have a private life no social media

01:04:59.180 um so she can have just her own life outside of that but she gets to attend and sometimes comes

01:05:03.740 back and looks through the curtain sees what's going on but she because we do so much hybrid

01:05:07.980 you know live events and video base she gets to attend most of the events at this stage which is

01:05:12.540 just a blast it's cool tony to see you even at this stage push the boundaries of what's possible

01:05:18.380 and what you think you can do at different ages.

01:05:20.640 It's inspiring in a huge way.

01:05:23.000 Where's the best way?

01:05:23.760 I know the book comes out February 13th.

01:05:25.340 Everybody should go to Amazon, pre-order.

01:05:27.880 I believe there's actually a free audio chapter.

01:05:30.720 Can you talk more about where they can get that?

01:05:31.800 They go to the HolyGrailOfInvesting.com.

01:05:37.340 HolyGrailOfInvesting.com.

01:05:38.120 If they go there, they can pre-order the book

01:05:40.380 for Amazon or whoever they want.

01:05:41.640 But there's also the first chapter on audio

01:05:43.940 is there for free and you can listen to it if you'd like

01:05:45.720 because the book comes out in two weeks.

01:05:47.520 so you can pre-order it,

01:05:48.440 but you'll get a jump on it right away.

01:05:49.680 You can do it today if you wanted to.

01:05:51.540 Awesome.

01:05:52.020 Everybody go get a copy of the book,

01:05:53.860 The Holy Grail of Investing.

01:05:55.400 Tony, you've had an incredible impact on my life

01:05:58.200 from the events to the books.

01:06:00.820 My brother and I remember that when the first one came out,

01:06:02.580 we devoured it, then the second one.

01:06:04.460 And I'm excited to share this one with him

01:06:06.940 when it comes out.

01:06:07.540 February 13th, everybody go grab a copy.

01:06:09.880 Tony, again, it's an honor.

01:06:11.320 Appreciate the time.

01:06:12.200 I want to thank you.

01:06:13.720 I want all your audience to know

01:06:14.740 that I do this five-day bootcamp

01:06:17.260 that I do for business is help them grow their business,

01:06:19.160 you know, 30 to 180%, depending on the type of business.

01:06:22.880 And you came in and did the piece on AI

01:06:24.760 and just was a home run.

01:06:26.040 So I can't tell people enough about how great you were there.

01:06:28.640 Thank you so much.

01:06:29.640 It was my honor.

01:06:30.640 It was appreciated.

01:06:31.620 Awesome, Tony.

01:06:32.100 Have an amazing rest of the day.

01:06:33.700 Number three is my keynote on the only four skills

01:06:36.600 you need to build a billion dollar company.

01:06:38.200 I moved to San Francisco because I wanted to understand

01:06:41.440 how these 20-year-olds built billion dollar companies.

01:06:44.480 And I meet a guy named Naval Ravikant.

01:06:46.220 So I remember I was talking to him once about leverage.

01:06:48.480 The best entrepreneurs have the biggest output for unit of time.

01:06:53.520 Time multiplied by leverage equals output.

01:06:57.260 And this is what I learned.

01:06:58.220 Deval taught me this.

01:06:59.320 There's only four master skills to creating leverage.

01:07:03.440 Once I understood this, I understood I only had four things to go become world-class at.

01:07:07.620 And I could have anything I want in my life.

01:07:11.100 Most entrepreneurs, when they're growing their business,

01:07:14.740 it doesn't matter if it's their first 100k or 300k or million they get to a place where growing

01:07:19.380 is painful and in that spot they usually do one of three things they either stall okay they say

01:07:25.360 to themselves this year i made more money last year than this year i'd rather slow down right

01:07:30.060 and um and and just not grow the problem with that is that the market's growing right gross

01:07:37.240 domestic product grows your customers will demand more from you this year than last year and the

01:07:43.920 The worst part is your top people, if you don't create a future that's big enough for them,

01:07:50.420 then they will go find somebody else can do that.

01:07:53.020 Does that make sense?

01:07:53.540 Your dreams, write this down.

01:07:54.740 Your dreams have to be bigger than everybody else on your team's dreams and goals.

01:08:00.280 Write it down.

01:08:01.640 So that's stall.

01:08:03.400 Number two, sabotage.

01:08:05.520 This one's fascinating.

01:08:07.020 Some of you guys don't even know you're doing this.

01:08:09.180 I have a friend of mine, Tracy.

01:08:10.680 business was going through some challenges six months of hell we've all been there it's tough

01:08:18.580 and in that storm Tracy tells herself I need to give myself a break and she decides to take a

01:08:27.420 four-week sabbatical do you think a company that's struggling the CEO of the company should

01:08:35.020 take a four-week sabbatical yes or yes no perfect you guys are on the same page it's great but she

01:08:40.360 didn't realize she was sabotaging her success. She had opportunity to keep growing because when we're

01:08:44.660 going through the worst, just so you know this, when we go through the worst, we're actually

01:08:49.280 developing our skills to get to the next level. Huge. Okay, so understand when you're challenged,

01:08:56.140 you should say, thank you. We're the opponent. This is going to shape me to become the person

01:09:01.340 I need to become to get to the next level. Instead, Tracy went on a sabbatical. She missed the

01:09:06.320 opportunity to grow. The third is sell. My buddy Jason called me one day and he's like, hey man,

01:09:11.020 I think I'm going to sell my company. He has an agency, two million in revenue, been doing it for

01:09:15.420 about seven or eight years, and it just became really tough. And I said, Jason, write down all

01:09:21.720 the stuff that you don't like about your business today. He made me a list. And I said, if those

01:09:25.300 things weren't true, would you sell the business? He's like, no. I said, well, let me invite you to

01:09:30.400 consider a different perspective. I know you want to go do something else. You think the grass is

01:09:34.680 greener. Here's what I know. You've just hit your new complexity ceiling. We all

01:09:39.240 have them. Write down complexity ceiling. Complexity ceiling. Anytime it gets hard

01:09:44.220 I want you to look at that term. I said it doesn't matter if you solve it now or

01:09:48.540 you leave and start something else. You will hit the same level of complexity

01:09:52.440 where you decide I don't want to grow anymore. It's your pain line. So what I

01:09:57.600 want to share with you today are three strategies to overcome that pain line.

01:10:01.980 So the first principle that I want to share with you, and it's a universal principle,

01:10:07.180 the buyback principle. We don't hire people to grow our business. We hire people to buy back

01:10:12.100 our time. It's a calendar over a capacity strategy. See, most entrepreneurs, when they're growing,

01:10:20.420 they go, well, now I need to hire another logo designer. I need to hire another real estate

01:10:23.660 agent. I need to hire another, you know, electrician. And I would say, no, you start

01:10:29.640 with your calendar first, because here's the deal. If you do the second, you get the first,

01:10:35.100 but if you do the first, you definitely don't get the second. Most entrepreneurs get to about 1.2

01:10:40.580 million, about 12 employees, where their life starts to get really painful. That pain line

01:10:45.820 is screaming at them every day because they violated this rule. This is the framework. Draw

01:10:53.060 this loop, okay, it's a loop. You need to go through these three steps to move forward. So every time I

01:11:00.640 hit a pain line, okay, today I own dozens of companies and my calendar completely shifts two or three times

01:11:08.000 a year. So I'm going to teach you the exact same thoughts of how I look at my calendar every time I

01:11:12.960 hit my pain line. First step is we got to audit. We got to audit our calendar for time and energy. It's not

01:11:19.300 enough to just look at what we're doing that we can pay somebody else to do it's what are we doing

01:11:23.940 that sucks our energy what i call green or red stuff if we can replace that with green we will

01:11:30.260 transform our lives then transfer is the ability to give what we're doing today the work to somebody

01:11:37.820 else but check this out without taking any extra time using the camcorder method and then the third

01:11:44.400 the problem with fill is most people get to the first and second step, and then they decide to

01:11:49.560 do a four-hour work week. I ain't here to do a four-hour work week, okay? I'm here to teach you

01:11:55.020 guys all how to create an empire, and that word might scare some of you, but let me share with

01:11:59.120 you my definition of empire. You'll want to write this down. A life of unlimited creation you never

01:12:04.480 have to retire from. A life of unlimited creation you never have to retire from. That is an empire.

01:12:11.480 if we fill properly that newfound time then we continue upward if we don't know what to focus

01:12:19.880 on when we find that extra time then we will just repeat that cycle and some of you guys have been

01:12:25.120 in that spot you grow you go down you grow you go down maybe not you maybe the people out there

01:12:30.120 maybe somebody you know out there right up down up down the oscillate if you follow the buy back

01:12:39.240 you'll continue to grow and that's what we're here for today. Million dollar companies were not

01:12:44.000 built off $10 tasks. Write it down. This is math 101. There's not enough hours in the week for you

01:12:51.240 to grow if you're doing $10 tasks and we have a lot of mindset monsters and beliefs that just

01:12:55.800 won't support us to actually scale. The first key strategy I want to teach you about is the

01:13:00.760 replacement ladder. So I want to ask everybody to write down if you are starting from scratch today

01:13:07.480 and you had the ability to hire your first employee who would they be write

01:13:11.680 down the answer who would you hire first I want everybody write it down who

01:13:16.480 would you hire first all right we're gonna start over here I want to hear

01:13:25.520 some answers what you guys got sales anybody else what do we got copywriting

01:13:32.800 cool sheet metal roofing so somebody can do sheet metal roofing perfect anybody else

01:13:38.360 VA anybody else cold collars assistant anybody secretary recruiter I love those

01:13:50.860 here's here's the fun part is uh I can tell the maturity of your business acumen by the hire

01:14:02.800 Yeah, they're versatile.

01:14:04.180 And it's because I've been doing this for 25 years.

01:14:07.600 There is a strategy that I learned from this guy, Richard Branson.

01:14:11.940 Okay?

01:14:12.320 Now, here's the cool thing about Richard.

01:14:13.820 Richard's the billionaire every billionaire wants to be like.

01:14:17.260 And it's just true.

01:14:18.860 Whatever you think he is, how he is, is exactly who he is.

01:14:22.400 In 2016 or 15, I got a cold email from my buddy out of the blue.

01:14:29.000 Hey, Dan, I'm getting together with Richard Branson in Verbier, Switzerland.

01:14:34.280 Do you want to join?

01:14:36.200 Hmm, let me look at my schedule.

01:14:38.260 Yeah, clear.

01:14:39.260 Of course I want to join.

01:14:40.780 Like, I grew up reading his books.

01:14:44.580 It was so funny because I got the email in May,

01:14:47.220 and I thought it was an April Fool's joke, but I'm like, it's May.

01:14:49.560 It's not April.

01:14:51.060 And honestly, it wasn't until I was in Switzerland at his house,

01:14:56.360 aka lodge 16 bedrooms 20 staff massive in that living room sitting in that couch

01:15:05.320 and richard comes out from the back and actually comes in and says hi to everybody blah blah blah

01:15:10.120 that i actually believed he was showing up well you guys gotta understand you want to talk about

01:15:13.400 imposter syndrome oh it was so strong in that group of people was tim ferris the the founder

01:15:21.320 of Square. You guys know Brian Johnson, the blueprint guy right now? He's doing all those

01:15:26.080 like weird life hacking stuff. He was there. He just sold Braintree for 600 million. And there's

01:15:31.340 this Canadian kid that I got invited because some guy that I invited to a dinner liked what I was

01:15:36.420 building at the time and said, do you want to join? And I was just like, Dan, just don't say

01:15:41.780 anything stupid. You can only go downhill from here. You made it in the house. Don't get kicked 1.00

01:15:49.620 So I just shut up and paid attention. And I'll be honest with you, all I was looking for, I wanted to understand how does a guy, some of you may not realize this, Richard Branson has 400 companies in the Virgin Group of Businesses. That Virgin Group of Businesses, that holdco, has two CEOs.

01:16:06.620 notes. I wanted to understand how he thought about scale and leverage. And I just watched.

01:16:14.820 I watched how he interacted with his staff. I watched how he managed his time. And this

01:16:19.280 is what I saw that I didn't expect. At the time, I had a virtual assistant. I had assistants

01:16:23.480 over the years, right? We've all had them. What was different was watching Richard.

01:16:29.380 Essentially, anything that came into his life went through his assistant, Helen. And every

01:16:35.740 morning for breakfast, they would sit there for 60 to 90 minutes, depending on what was on Helen's

01:16:39.880 list. She would review only the things that she didn't know how to deal with. She didn't know how

01:16:44.380 to route. She thought Richard would want to know about. And they just had breakfast. They talked.

01:16:49.820 And then the rest of the day, he came skiing with us. That's how he ran 400 companies. Do you guys

01:16:55.920 want to learn the other stuff that I learned from Richard? Yes or yes? Perfect. This is the

01:17:00.160 replacement ladder. We start at the bottom. We work our way up. Why? Let me tell you two different

01:17:05.340 things. One, it's the lowest cost to pay somebody to do the work for the biggest

01:17:12.300 time purchase back in your life, if you do it right. So that's why there's the

01:17:16.920 outcomes. So level one, you might be feeling stuck in your business, it's

01:17:20.400 because you don't have somebody to support you on your account and you're

01:17:22.680 in your admin work, but the key is to do like Richard did and give your

01:17:27.960 inbox and calendar to your assistant. Some of you guys are getting a little, you

01:17:33.000 guys, does that make you nervous a little bit? Anybody? No, you guys are all good just giving

01:17:38.320 up your inbox and your calendar to somebody else and letting them figure it out and hopefully you

01:17:41.540 show up at the right meeting at the right time. Does that make you nervous? Anybody? Trust me,

01:17:46.360 my assistant laughs all the time. She's like, Dan, I could tell you to show up at the edge of a cliff

01:17:50.080 and write in the description, jump, and you would do it. I go, well, don't do that, but

01:17:55.000 I mean I trust you and it's because I realized that if I can give up the

01:18:01.780 the inbound your inbox is nothing more than a public to-do list of other

01:18:05.860 people's goals on your time write that down your inbox your email is nothing

01:18:11.320 more than a public to-do list of other people strangers requests on your time

01:18:17.200 and you allow yourself to be addicted to that so step one is admin number two is

01:18:24.100 your customer success, your fulfillment. This is where you have somebody that helps you, but the

01:18:28.360 key is you got to give away your support and onboarding. So when I enroll somebody in any of

01:18:33.500 my companies, okay, now I have CEOs that run them, but when I was doing it, the first hire after admin

01:18:38.720 would be somebody to help me take the deal that I just closed and move it forward. In real estate

01:18:43.920 it's a transaction coordinator, right? Like you need somebody that'll work with the customer and

01:18:49.320 do all the stuff. You can still be the specialist, but give that to somebody else. Level three is

01:18:53.440 marketing right now you want to start building and designing a playbook to

01:18:58.440 generate leads okay because if you don't do this I'll tell you what happens

01:19:02.200 sales is for because you as a CEO will always be able to sell better than

01:19:05.880 anybody else you hire and you know it you know it some of you guys are world

01:19:09.820 class sales people 70 80% win rate nobody's gonna ever be able to sell like

01:19:15.560 that and I'm challenged if you hire too quick and you don't have the systems

01:19:19.120 underneath what happens in six months is you either fire them because they're

01:19:22.980 not performing because they don't have enough reps and they don't have enough deals, or they quit

01:19:26.760 because they're not making any money. Anybody resonate with that? Anybody? Yeah, exactly. It's

01:19:31.340 literally the six-month mark, depending how much they like you. Four months, they like you six

01:19:36.140 months. And the highest level is the ELT. Write this down. Executive Leadership Team. Some of you

01:19:44.680 guys call them leaders and managers. Here's my rule. Do they come with playbooks? Do they come

01:19:51.260 with process. If you hire people or, you know, promote people up that has no experience, then

01:19:58.200 you're just creating more work for yourself. So when I say at that level, everybody else, the first

01:20:03.300 hire in marketing, and those are all people you can hire, train, etc. Because you're going to give

01:20:06.860 them a playbook. But when you start hiring leadership, they should come into the company

01:20:12.220 with knowledge. Okay, that's the replacement ladder. And if you follow these five steps,

01:20:18.600 Some of my clients that I coach, they'll get there in 45 days.

01:20:22.000 They see this, they go, got it, and they execute.

01:20:24.960 Admin, free up their time, sell, make revenue.

01:20:27.600 Next hire, success.

01:20:28.960 Business is starting to grow.

01:20:30.580 They hire somebody to support the success, buy back that time out of their calendar,

01:20:33.560 reinvest that now into marketing.

01:20:35.300 They build a marketing strategy.

01:20:36.600 They hire somebody to execute the strategy, generates leads every day consistently.

01:20:40.240 Then they hire, they do the sales.

01:20:41.880 Then they hire a salesperson.

01:20:43.060 That person comes in, goes through the scripts that they've built or the calls that they've

01:20:46.580 already done, they've recorded, give it to the salesperson. Now they're coaching the team. So

01:20:51.980 you can do this in 45 days or some people are a bit slower and they'll take years, right? Because

01:20:59.160 they try to skip levels. You know what happens if you go straight to the top? How many people have

01:21:02.880 you heard say, I need to hire a COO? You don't even have an executive admin. That's the silliest

01:21:12.040 thing in the world. If you can't even work with your admin, you are not going to work with the

01:21:16.480 COO. You need to start at the bottom and build the capacity and to know how to

01:21:20.140 move up. Here's my philosophy. If you don't have an assistant, you are one. I

01:21:27.160 know it stings, right? I'm gonna take the dagger and just a little

01:21:32.500 bit more. The other parts of this is you're overpaid and you kind of suck. 1.00

01:21:40.160 Okay? A great executive admin, they're worth their weight in gold. Okay? So if 0.99

01:21:47.800 you don't have one, you are the person and you're overpaid. You're not very good at

01:21:52.320 your job. So what do we do with that? I want to talk about leadership and I'll

01:21:58.240 tell you why. I know CEOs and entrepreneurs are crazy. You guys agree? Yes or yes? 0.95

01:22:05.440 We're nuts. Think about it. The reason why we're in business in the first place is 0.95

01:22:09.640 because we're able to deal with the level of risk that most people would puke on themselves and

01:22:13.180 pass out. Like, you do understand this. So just admit to it, and then try to develop the leadership

01:22:20.380 skills that protects your team from you. Some of you guys expect your team to show up like you,

01:22:24.780 and that's just silly. They aren't you, and if they were, guess what? They'd be building their own

01:22:29.800 company. So what happens is the way we lead our teams have to shift, okay? So I moved to San

01:22:38.740 Francisco in 2008. This was after selling my first company. I became a multimillionaire at 27.

01:22:44.720 And it crushed me. Like I worked easily 100 hours a week for four years. First two companies

01:22:52.360 failed. When I got out of rehab, tried my first company, failed after two years, did another one,

01:22:59.580 was 21, failed after that. It wasn't until I was 24 that I gave it another shot. And my dad would

01:23:05.140 begged me even though I grew up and had a very colorful childhood he would just

01:23:08.380 beg me to get a normal job it's like dad I can't do it I'd rather you know as

01:23:13.460 long as I'm not in prison and I didn't relapse like you should be really proud

01:23:16.360 of like I'm doing something I know I'm not making any money but I think I'll

01:23:20.240 figure it out and it was until I was you know almost in my early 30s that I

01:23:24.140 figured it out so I moved to San Francisco because I wanted to understand

01:23:30.700 how these 20 year olds built billion dollar companies. Does that ever make you

01:23:35.680 wonder? These tech entrepreneurs, you read about them on the news, like how do

01:23:38.980 they do this? How do they convince these old white guys to give them hundreds of 0.96

01:23:42.580 millions of dollars to build these tech platforms to, you know, and they're like

01:23:46.420 barely old enough to drive? Like it fascinated me. Just real talk, right? I

01:23:53.380 grew up in the east coast of Canada, so that world was foreign to me. Even though

01:23:56.440 I was in software and I built a big company, that world was fascinating as

01:24:00.400 as an outsider and I get there and in the first few days I get invited to a party and I meet a

01:24:06.880 guy named Naval Ravikant. This is 2008. Naval today has been on Joe Rogan. He's an incredible

01:24:14.880 just philosopher honestly but I met him earlier on and he kind of became a mentor of mine. I call

01:24:21.040 him one he would never say that but I share that because I remember I was talking to him once about

01:24:25.600 leverage. So you got to understand in business, the best entrepreneurs have the biggest output

01:24:33.360 for unit of time. So if you think of the question, okay, write this down, okay,

01:24:41.600 time multiplied by leverage equals output. And output could be money, resources, etc.

01:24:49.840 But time multiplied by leverage equals output.

01:24:53.680 So I want to ask you guys all a question.

01:24:56.060 What are ways that we can create leverage?

01:24:58.100 Write it down.

01:24:59.160 If I say, what are the tools to creating leverage?

01:25:01.740 Write it down.

01:25:02.500 I want you guys to answer that.

01:25:03.480 Just one idea.

01:25:04.740 The number one tool for creating leverage is...

01:25:07.680 Write down the answer.

01:25:08.800 I want to hear from everybody.

01:25:16.120 All right.

01:25:16.680 Let's hear from over here.

01:25:17.620 What do you guys got?

01:25:19.840 Raising money. 80-20. I like that. Anybody else? Social media. AI. Delegation. Yep.

01:25:29.700 Leverage. People. I like that. Anybody else? Automation. What else? What? I can't hear you.

01:25:39.340 Systems. Ooh. I love systems. Do you know what systems stands for? Save yourself time, energy,

01:25:45.360 and money. Write that down. Systems equals save yourself time, energy, and money. Here's a fun

01:25:53.220 fact. Everybody's answer was relatively correct. And this is what I learned. Duval taught me this.

01:26:00.720 There's only four, I call them master skills, to creating leverage. Okay? Write these down. The

01:26:07.980 four system, the four master skills are, number one, capital. If I have money, I have incredible

01:26:14.280 leverage okay takes money to make money it really doesn't but it takes resourcefulness all of you

01:26:20.800 guys in this room have to be more resourceful okay what do you guys need to be more resourceful

01:26:25.880 doesn't take money but money creates opportunity okay so capital is one number two is code some

01:26:33.760 of you guys said automation and ai that fits in that bucket code software three is content

01:26:40.320 Somebody's talked about, I think, podcasts and social media, content.

01:26:44.500 I can create a system, an SOP, and it takes me an hour to create.

01:26:49.440 And if I have 100 employees, that one system can train 100 people without extra effort from me.

01:26:54.860 Does that make sense? Yes or yes?

01:26:57.120 The fourth is collaboration. It's people.

01:27:01.240 Okay, so the four C's, write them down.

01:27:04.420 Once I understood this, I understood I only had four things to go become world class at.

01:27:08.820 and I could have anything I want in my life. Code, capital, content,

01:27:14.460 collaboration. So specifically I want to talk to you about how to lead people the

01:27:20.940 collaboration side. Most entrepreneurs go on the left side, transactional

01:27:26.460 leadership. They tell people what to do, they check that they got it done, and then

01:27:30.880 they they tell them what to do next. That sounds pretty straightforward, yes or yes?

01:27:34.980 Yeah. I did that for 15 years. 15 years of starting companies at 17 until I finally made some money at 28.

01:27:44.900 I mean, not 15, but a lot of time. I just thought that's how you did it.

01:27:49.920 The problem with that is around 10 to 12 direct reports, you wake up in the morning with all the piss and vinegar in the world.

01:27:57.820 I'm going to dominate the day. I've got my list of projects and we're going to have a productive day.

01:28:02.420 Anybody ever wake up that way?

01:28:04.000 You're like, I'm going to kill it today. 0.92

01:28:05.360 Yes, okay. 0.93

01:28:06.360 Then the first thing you do is you check your email, 0.99

01:28:08.220 and there's fire, fire, fire, fire, crap. 0.74

01:28:10.480 Then you think, oh, I wonder if Bob, Jane, Mary is working on that right thing. 0.95

01:28:13.900 So you start calling people on your team.

01:28:15.720 You tell, hey, are you doing this?

01:28:17.120 Are you doing that?

01:28:17.760 Did you think of this?

01:28:18.500 And then there's like fires and issues and all that stuff.

01:28:21.840 And it's not until 7 o'clock at night that you finally sit down to start doing the work.

01:28:29.680 Anybody relate with that?

01:28:32.420 Yeah, that's how it works.

01:28:34.100 If you have a half dozen people that work for you, anybody,

01:28:36.760 and you tell them what to do, you check what they got done,

01:28:38.180 you tell them what to do next, this will become your reality.

01:28:41.120 That's why I call it the pain line.

01:28:43.520 The opposite of that is transformational leadership.

01:28:46.480 Okay, so I'm going to explain it to you,

01:28:48.160 but I want you to think of an example in your life

01:28:50.200 that's tough for you right now

01:28:51.760 and apply this principle to that situation, that person.

01:28:55.400 So the first thing, when I hire somebody,

01:28:57.300 let's say my assistant, okay,

01:28:59.280 the first day, I talk to her about a few principles,

01:29:02.160 but the first one is, you are the CEO of my inbox and calendar. Who is the CEO of my inbox and

01:29:08.480 calendar? You are. My assistant, exactly. And I don't mean to be a ding-dong, but I will actually

01:29:14.380 ask her to repeat it back. Who is the CEO? I'm the CEO. Who is the CEO? I'm the CEO. You're the CEO.

01:29:20.680 Yay, yay. What does that mean? And I ask them to describe to me what does it mean to be the CEO of

01:29:25.940 my inbox and calendar. Is it my responsibility to put stuff in my calendar or yours? Mine. Yay,

01:29:31.120 we're with you know like it sounds foolish but I'm trying to make a little entertaining for all

01:29:36.120 of you guys keep you awake and focused but I'm not it's not that far off when I hire people I

01:29:42.840 look them in the eyes and I said I hired you to create this outcome I don't tell them what to do

01:29:48.500 I hired you to create this outcome and then I describe the outcome so I got to tell them what

01:29:55.420 does the 10 out of 10 look like my calendar has everything in there it's structured in the

01:29:59.940 description is this, everybody's confirmed, like, this is what a 10 out of 10, like, my travel

01:30:05.620 schedule is figured out, all my flights are booked, international six weeks, domestic two weeks,

01:30:09.980 whatever it is, right? And I get really clear at describing the mountaintop. That's the way I think

01:30:17.020 about it. Some of us hire people, and we don't think about telling them what it's going to look

01:30:21.280 like at the mountaintop, right? We just say, hey, can you start climbing this mountain? They're like,

01:30:25.940 okay, where's the path? You're like, I don't know, it's over there in the corner. And they go over

01:30:30.360 this way. They call you the next morning. I couldn't find that path yesterday. I'm like, what are you

01:30:34.040 doing? No, you say, that's the mountaintop. See right there? That's the mountaintop. You figure

01:30:38.200 how to get there. What resources would you need? So then we measure. Okay. So then I explained to

01:30:44.800 the person I hired, I gave them the outcome. I said, here's how we're going to measure your

01:30:47.900 progress. Every person in all my companies have a number. My social media person has a number. My

01:30:54.080 CFO has a number, my COO's have a number, my CEO's have a number. They have one

01:30:57.140 number. How many numbers? One number. Now, do they use other numbers to understand

01:31:01.760 if they're making good decisions? Yes, but there's one number that we've all

01:31:05.840 agreed on. If you're in the automotive space, the number is called the

01:31:10.160 absorption rate. I'm a software guy and I know this stuff because I

01:31:13.880 love nerding out on business. Absorption rate, it's the number that

01:31:17.780 tells you the ratio of the service department and parts covering the

01:31:21.980 overhead of the the car dealership and that number tells you how efficient it

01:31:27.540 is okay so there's different aspects into it if I'm in the hotel space it's

01:31:32.360 the the average night of room you know booking right that tells me how efficient

01:31:39.060 the hotel is so once I tell my assistant the way I'm gonna measure them okay

01:31:44.960 which is response time that's the number how quick do you respond to people okay

01:31:49.820 and it's a simple tool. You put in your email and they respond. Then when I have

01:31:53.600 issues, somebody asked me this today, what do you do when you have issues with

01:31:55.940 people on your team? Anybody else run into that issues with people on your

01:31:59.120 team? They're humans. They're supposed to have issues. Some of you guys expect

01:32:02.820 people to be robots. Like I just, can we, okay, some entrepreneurs, our expectations

01:32:08.000 for their people are up here. Can we just pull it down a little bit? Can we all

01:32:12.500 realize that they have lives that don't revolve around us? And that's okay and

01:32:18.740 awesome? Can we show up with a little bit more empathy? 100%. So what happens is

01:32:25.620 anytime I see something that isn't great, I write it down, okay? On my

01:32:30.560 phone, all my direct reports, I have a Google Doc, okay? And it says at agenda,

01:32:35.540 it's got all their names, and I just write down a bullet. Once a week for most

01:32:40.280 of my direct reports, every two weeks at minimum, I sit down with them. Guess

01:32:44.480 was the first agenda item in that meeting. Guess. Review my list. Literally the other

01:32:54.020 person's meeting or one-on-ones is review Dan's list. So I pull up my phone because

01:32:59.120 I forget what I wrote in there and I pull it out. Literally every meeting I

01:33:02.840 have a daily meeting with my assistant Ann. Guess what? She's like, hey Dan what's

01:33:06.240 on your list? And I open it up because I forget. I like to just write stuff down.

01:33:10.600 Let me pull it up here. Discuss podcasts when traveling to optimized flights.

01:33:16.520 Example, Charleston podcast. That's the first item on the thing. I just wrote it

01:33:20.920 down. Now here's the kicker though. Coach. The way you coach somebody isn't to tell

01:33:28.540 them what they did wrong and tell them how to do it right, which is what most of

01:33:33.340 us do. The way I coach is number one, I ask myself what is the principle that

01:33:38.640 is violating? What expectation do I have and what is that principle? Most often times with leaders,

01:33:45.960 why I want to teach you to become a transformational leader is I want to teach you the process of

01:33:51.440 creating other leaders, okay? And the way we create other leaders is by coaching them up,

01:33:59.960 but most of us have never trained other people or know what a coach does. I'm going to give you

01:34:04.360 the three steps. First step, write this down, we go to principle. What is the

01:34:08.860 principle they violate? Okay, so in that situation for Ann, one of the one of the

01:34:14.920 there's five core SOP, my SOP is what you say it's called North Stars.

01:34:20.500 Actually you guys just want the Google Doc that I work with for my assistant,

01:34:25.460 would that be helpful? All right here's the deal, just because you guys are

01:34:28.600 friends of Carlos, follow me on Instagram Dan Martell, two L's of Martell, write it

01:34:33.280 at Dan Martell or you can pull out your phone do it now and then message me

01:34:37.480 freedom EA and that'll tell me to give you that document okay because I'm not

01:34:42.460 giving to anybody else and if you're watching the recording it's not for you

01:34:45.160 just for you guys in this room cool yes yes awesome in there you'll see I have

01:34:50.180 North Star principles Dan Martell is my name in case you guys are the North Star

01:34:55.180 principle one of them is that the calendar is a work of art in complete

01:34:59.500 and always optimizing for revenue.

01:35:02.060 That's my calendar, okay?

01:35:04.240 And that is one of the things that was kind of violated.

01:35:07.520 She may not have known, I've got to coach her up. 0.90

01:35:08.960 So the first thing I say,

01:35:09.780 the thing I want to talk about

01:35:11.220 is the fact that my calendar wasn't at 100%.

01:35:13.200 The second part to that is a story.

01:35:16.900 That's why I always write down examples, okay?

01:35:19.360 Give them a story of when you learn that principle.

01:35:24.900 Okay, so if you, let's take something simple.

01:35:27.080 People have to show up on time.

01:35:28.420 Does that bug anybody else when people show up late for meetings?

01:35:31.940 Perfect. Okay. Principle. If you're on time, you're late. Does that make sense? That's my principle.

01:35:38.100 You may not even know you have these unexpressed expectations, so we got to document them.

01:35:41.740 We got to codify them. If you're on time, you're late. So if you're late, you're super late.

01:35:45.740 That's the principle. I learned this the hard way. I had a client. I was supposed to meet them.

01:35:50.260 I didn't show up on time. And as soon as I showed up, they said, you missed the deal. I'm going with your vendor.

01:35:55.180 Nobody's late for meetings ever again. And I embarrassed myself.

01:35:58.420 you tell your personal story. Okay, you can do a two-minute story, you can do a ten-minute story.

01:36:04.640 So depending on the executive, I might tell a ten-minute story, really make it land. And at

01:36:09.100 the end, this is the third part. So first part is principle, second part is story, third part is

01:36:14.140 takeaway. I'll ask them, what did you take away from that story? What did you learn? And they'll

01:36:21.400 say to me in that example, if I'm not three minutes early, I'm late. That's awesome. Then

01:36:27.240 commitment. Will you make a commitment that in the future you'll always be on time? Yes.

01:36:31.100 If I did that with somebody, what's the probability that you think they're going to be late in the

01:36:35.040 future? Low. Because they understand that it comes from my heart and that I learned this the hard

01:36:40.120 way and I don't want to have you learn this. Right now it's low stakes. We just started working

01:36:43.380 together. I need you to know. Most people don't follow this process for coaching, okay? So this

01:36:49.080 is the transformational leadership. We start with the outcome. Where are we going? Then we go to

01:36:54.080 measure? What is the one number? And then we coach them whenever we see them violate anything and we

01:36:59.360 teach them our thoughts and our stories, our experience. Anybody that's had a great leader in

01:37:04.800 their life, a great boss? Anybody have a great boss? I had this guy Darcy who's just awesome. Exactly.

01:37:09.320 They probably did this to you and you didn't even realize they were doing this. That's what made

01:37:13.000 them great. Here's my big belief. Delegate the outcome, not the task. Write it down. Delegate

01:37:19.840 the outcome, not the task. Stop telling people what to do. Start telling people where we're going

01:37:25.960 and let them figure out how to get there and coach them along the process. And that's how we build

01:37:31.040 people. That's how we coach up. The third and final hot principle is the 131 rule. This will

01:37:37.940 absolutely transform your life. Anybody that has a team of people and you're frustrated that your

01:37:43.020 phone is always blowing up and they're always calling you and they're always emailing you and

01:37:45.540 they don't seem to know how to figure anything out. I'm going to solve this for the rest of your life.

01:37:48.760 do you want to learn how to do that yes or yes awesome here's how it works you know why they

01:37:53.600 call it a bottleneck because it's at the top so you think the problem's your person on your team

01:38:01.600 i'm telling you it's the person you're looking at when you look in the mirror so you've taught

01:38:06.940 people this and i'm going to teach you how to unteach them this okay so a few years ago i the

01:38:14.880 one-three-one rule and I'll tell you how it works is culture in all my companies

01:38:18.960 like you won't meet anybody at any area of the business that doesn't understand

01:38:22.440 what it is because we use it as language and I remember I had this director of

01:38:26.520 HR this recruiter on the team and he messaged me he's like hey we got a

01:38:30.960 problem I was like what's going on dude he goes we need to hire 12 people in the

01:38:36.360 next 30 days I go yeah he goes well I don't know how to do that

01:38:41.880 Wow. Well, what do you think I should do? Oh, I don't know. Well, I've never done it. I said, Adam, I mean, I hired you the director of HR. I hired you to do that job. I don't know how to do that job.

01:39:01.360 Out of both of us, who do you think should learn how to do that job? And he's like, well, I mean, do you have any ideas? I said, what's your 131? And he goes, oh, man, I don't know. I don't have time for this.

01:39:11.000 And I said, I don't know how to help you, okay?

01:39:14.840 Write this down.

01:39:16.500 If you want to be rich, be lazy. 0.98

01:39:18.900 If you want to be wealthy, be incompetent, okay? 0.98

01:39:25.620 If you want to be rich, be lazy. 0.99

01:39:26.960 If you want to be wealthy, be incompetent. 0.96

01:39:29.400 I said, Adam, I didn't hire you to tell you how to do your job.

01:39:34.480 I hired you to tell me what to do.

01:39:37.980 Does that make sense?

01:39:38.900 Steve Jobs said this.

01:39:39.780 He said, it's easy to hire other people, tell them what to do.

01:39:43.160 It's hard to hire people and have them tell you what to do.

01:39:46.560 So I said, what's your 1-3-1?

01:39:48.120 He said, I don't know.

01:39:48.900 I said, how long will it take to figure out?

01:39:50.720 He goes, give me a day.

01:39:52.820 He said, how about the same time tomorrow we meet up and we review?

01:39:55.860 He goes, that sounds great.

01:39:57.640 It was like 4 o'clock that day.

01:39:59.280 Next morning, 10 a.m., he texts me.

01:40:01.340 I'm good.

01:40:04.240 Duh.

01:40:04.840 Like, and I'll share with you why.

01:40:07.080 Here's how the framework works.

01:40:08.200 one specific challenge when somebody comes to you with problems okay and I love you women but 1.00

01:40:15.360 you're the worst you guys I love okay I love you most of my team are executive are women 1.00

01:40:19.360 but you guys come to me with a hurricane of stuff it's like a tornado I love it it's creative and 0.97

01:40:26.320 then but I'm like what are we talking about and they're like this is wrong and this is wrong I'm

01:40:29.920 like one thing at a time so one specific problem what are your three viable options that you've

01:40:37.180 consider. I want to hear them. Tell me how you research them. And then give me your one specific

01:40:42.400 recommendation. If you teach everybody in your team the one through one rules, I'll tell you

01:40:49.120 what will happen. One, you'll start having your front line people solve problems that never make

01:40:55.200 it up to your attention. Okay? You will teach people, this is another big idea, that we teach

01:41:01.640 people how to treat us. Okay? We teach people how to treat us. So if we teach people every time they

01:41:06.920 have a problem they come to us guess what they're gonna do when they have a

01:41:08.660 problem come to us that's why it's a bottleneck is at the top if you taught

01:41:12.560 them how to do this this is how we fix it so 98% of the time somebody comes to

01:41:20.060 me as a 131 their recommendation is what we should do and over time they build

01:41:24.980 their confidence and I push down all the big decision-making to the front line

01:41:29.000 okay and I've got time gonna give you guys you guys want to know the ultimate

01:41:32.720 hack. This is like the, I don't share this often. Frontline workers, I give them a $50 budget to

01:41:39.900 fix any problem they see and all they have to do is tell me about it after. It's called 50 to fix

01:41:44.660 it. So anybody in my company at the front line, they can solve any problem they see if it's less

01:41:50.120 than $50 without getting anybody permission. The only rule is they have to tell their leader within

01:41:55.640 the next seven days. Okay, so they can spend their credit card, expense it, it's always approved.

01:42:00.180 they get to tell their leader next seven days so they can coach against it. Leaders, managers,

01:42:06.160 it's $500. Directors, it's $5,000. And for my executive leadership team, my CEOs, my CRO,

01:42:14.720 my CEOs, it's $50,000. What did I just do? I just created a framework to push decisions and issue

01:42:21.760 problem solving down to the front line so we can move faster. I'm all about leverage, all about

01:42:26.880 speed, all about growth. Most of you guys are walking over dollars to save pennies. It's

01:42:32.500 hilarious. Let your people solve the problem and then coach them up. That's how we unlock the

01:42:37.740 one-three-one rule in a more tactical level. So here's my philosophy. This is how we scale

01:42:44.900 companies. It doesn't matter if you're a company of one or two. We build the people, the people

01:42:49.580 build the business. We build the person, the person builds the business. We build a team,

01:42:53.280 the team builds a business. When you shift your lens on your role in the company as a people

01:42:58.960 builder, it will unlock massive growth. Okay, this is how I do it. So with that, this is my book,

01:43:07.820 Buy Back Your Time. Best-selling book, continues to sell more copies every week. Here's the movement

01:43:12.440 I'm trying to create. I want to rid the world of companies failing because the CEO builds a business

01:43:17.260 they grow to hate. Does that make sense? I think most businesses get built to a place where the

01:43:24.360 entrepreneur grows to hate it, and then they want to do something else. I want to get rid of that

01:43:27.980 as being the reason the companies fail. And I want to end with this big idea. For every person in the

01:43:34.260 world, for humanity, for entrepreneurs, for sure, but everybody, I think we're all here to not only

01:43:39.740 buy back our time to grow our business, and we do that through the strategies I taught you with the

01:43:43.740 buyback loop and the 131 and the transformational leadership. That's all awesome. That will create

01:43:48.960 resources and wealth for you. Fun. I think we're here to do two things. One, become the person we

01:43:58.060 needed most in our darkest days. Become the person you needed most in your darkest days.

01:44:05.160 Every day. You wake up and try to create that person that would have had the opportunity to

01:44:12.020 speak to that kid. For me to have the character and the resourcefulness to talk to the 15 year

01:44:18.020 old version of Dan. And then while you're doing that every day, this is the second part, is share

01:44:25.700 that person with the world. Give that person to the world. And your world may be your kids, your

01:44:30.880 world may be your community, your church, your CrossFit gym. I don't care. It may be social media

01:44:36.140 and I think that would be the best place. Because I think that if you wake up every day to become

01:44:41.360 that person and share that person, but you will create a life of fulfillment that you can't even

01:44:45.500 imagine to feel. So with that, everybody, thanks for having me. You guys are awesome.

01:44:53.300 Number four is my video on going from zero to a million in 12 months. I became a cash

01:45:00.200 millionaire at 27 years old, but if I had to do it again and go from broke to millionaire business

01:45:05.360 owner in the next 12 months, this is exactly what I do. If at any point during this video,

01:45:09.900 you think, I can't do this, you might not be cut out to become a millionaire, and that's okay. But

01:45:14.540 if you're part of the select few who are willing to do the work, then this video is for you. So

01:45:19.720 your first month of your millionaire journey is going to be all about learning a high-income

01:45:24.540 skill. So these are the five most in-demand high-income skills today. First one is coding,

01:45:29.860 software, you're hearing it all the time, SaaS, you know, SaaSpreneur. The second one is content

01:45:34.080 creation, you know, everything around video editing, graphic design, essentially helping

01:45:37.960 people get their stories, their message out to the world. The third is copywriting, learning how to

01:45:43.060 craft words in a structure that gets somebody to take action is a very high paying skill. The fourth

01:45:49.760 is project management, understanding how to take an idea all the way across to execution and

01:45:55.540 implementation is very valuable. The fifth is sales, even chat sales. Most people don't realize

01:46:01.160 that nothing happens until somebody sells something to another person. And there are companies with

01:46:06.360 products and inventory that they would pay top dollar to have somebody else help sell and

01:46:10.820 communicate to the market and it can pay handsomely. So I learned my first high income skill of all

01:46:16.000 places in rehab. I got lucky, honestly. I ended up getting in trouble with the law as a teenager,

01:46:20.260 got released into a rehab center that literally saved my life. And I spent 11 months not only

01:46:25.020 getting sober, but trying to build the trust I'd lost with my parents and really just build myself

01:46:29.500 back up to being a normal person. At the end of that program, I was helping the maintenance guy

01:46:33.920 to clean out one of these cabins. And in one of the rooms was this old computer and a book on

01:46:38.580 Java programming sitting next to it. I became obsessed with writing code. Through that process,

01:46:43.480 I learned that that is actually a very high paying, highly valuable skill. And it was the

01:46:49.320 first of several that allowed me to build the career and the entrepreneurial journey that I've

01:46:54.520 been on. When you start, you have to spend all your time learning the new skill, the high income

01:46:59.960 skill. Even if you have a job, you might be working nine to five, start learning between

01:47:04.140 five to nine. The whole point is to increase the value you bring to the marketplace. It doesn't

01:47:09.260 matter how much you think people should pay you. It's the kind of value that you bring. So if you're

01:47:14.220 doing something that is low paying, like restocking shelves, like don't be upset if you're not making

01:47:19.760 the big bucks. The whole point is to figure out how can you increase the value you provide to the

01:47:26.360 market. If you figure out what the market wants, what it finds valuable, and you learn that skill,

01:47:31.240 you will be rewarded accordingly. Which brings us to month two, which is learn, don't earn.

01:47:36.720 I believe that you have to be obsessed with your high income skill. For me, it was writing code.

01:47:41.720 I would do everything from build apps for my friends to share photos online, to build an

01:47:46.800 application for people to download and create burnt CDs of all their top MP3s. Yes, I'm dating

01:47:51.780 myself to build websites for my dad so that he could share his cottage. I just used the skill

01:47:57.580 as often as possible. It was just something I offered for free so that I could learn. It wasn't

01:48:02.920 about making money. So if I was starting over again, knowing what I know today, here's exactly

01:48:07.100 how I would do it. The first thing is I would get somebody a result as fast as possible. Whatever

01:48:11.360 skill you want to develop, find somebody that's got the problem that you can provide a solution

01:48:15.280 and get them a result as fast as possible. Do the work ahead of time. Every day I get people

01:48:19.480 message to me, hey, I could edit your videos or hey, I could sell for you or hey, I can write

01:48:23.920 code for one of your businesses. And I'm like, just do it. Show me you can do the thing ahead

01:48:28.520 of time. Don't ask me to pay you to show me you can do it. It's the folks that show up and just

01:48:32.960 do it that are going to get the opportunity. Then once you actually get them a result, ask them for

01:48:37.500 the testimonial. That's how we start to build your portfolio. Once you have two or three or four of

01:48:42.540 these, then I can ask for one or two referrals from those people to recommend my work to somebody

01:48:47.640 else that they might know that they appreciate or trust. And then I would continue to learn and

01:48:51.860 collect feedback on how I can become better. If I do that right, then I'm going to increase my

01:48:56.940 pace of learning, not necessarily earning, but it's going to create a flywheel to catapult me

01:49:01.520 forward, which brings us to month three, which is to get your first client. So the first thing that

01:49:06.020 ever got paid for that wasn't a family member that gave me money to help solve a problem was

01:49:10.900 literally these Burt CDs that would have all the person's favorite MP3 songs on. I built this app

01:49:15.920 where they could create their playlist

01:49:17.160 and then request that CD be burnt

01:49:19.300 so they could have it and put it in their cars.

01:49:21.100 Again, you may not be aware,

01:49:22.280 but there used to be physical devices

01:49:23.580 that people put songs on to play in their car.

01:49:26.460 I did the first one for free to give them a test

01:49:28.920 to say, hey, here's how it works, and then they loved it.

01:49:31.260 And then after that, then I would charge them

01:49:33.380 for ongoing CDs if they wanted to build a new playlist,

01:49:36.540 they wanted to create something

01:49:37.720 for their girlfriend or their boyfriend.

01:49:39.320 And that, to me, is one of the best ways

01:49:41.700 to get your first client,

01:49:43.020 is demonstrate the value ahead of time

01:49:45.780 And then once they're in, then ask them to pay you for follow on work.

01:49:49.580 Ask them to pay you to do more.

01:49:52.260 When you charge for your work, the whole relationship changes.

01:49:55.340 I mean, their expectations are higher, which isn't a bad thing.

01:49:57.700 You actually get paid so you can invest in yourself and buy tools to make yourself even better.

01:50:02.280 The other thing you'll learn real quick is that if people don't pay, they don't pay attention.

01:50:06.040 Meaning that if what you do as a service requires them to give you feedback,

01:50:09.440 if they're not paying, don't be upset if their emails don't get responded very quickly.

01:50:13.400 the more they pay the more they pay attention so you'll be able to do better and better work the

01:50:18.700 more you can charge somebody because the client will want the result even more which brings us

01:50:22.760 to month four which is to build your marketing pipeline which are the four p's of demand

01:50:27.280 generation don't be the world's best kept secret your goal is to get as many people as possible

01:50:33.360 to know about you what you do and how you can help them see back in the day it used to be about

01:50:38.000 going and speaking at events or getting covered in the local newspaper maybe getting covered by

01:50:42.440 the local blog today you want to get your reach out there to the world go on podcasts do collaborations

01:50:48.320 with other influencers go and create webinars or joint webinars so that you can take advantage of

01:50:53.300 other people's audiences top of funnel is more important than anything else you can't sell to

01:50:58.640 an empty room so ask yourself who's got your perfect fit customers when you think about the

01:51:02.920 person that you know you create the most value for as fast as possible that is most likely to

01:51:07.580 easily pay that is the person that you want to talk to who's got a room full of those people

01:51:13.080 that have a need to solve the problem that you can solve for them reach out to them go on their

01:51:18.260 podcast ask to contribute a blog post article do a joint webinar if you do those things you will

01:51:23.740 build the top of funnel so there's only four p's to create demand in the market the first p is

01:51:29.100 publishing think social media content we want to use education-based marketing to inform our

01:51:35.080 customers, how they can solve the problems themselves. But if we do a good job showing

01:51:38.740 them how to do that, they're going to go, well, this person's clearly an expert. SEO, blog posts,

01:51:43.440 those are all in the publishing realm. The second P is paid. Facebook. I love paid because it's fast.

01:51:50.180 Paid allows you to literally create a target audience on these platforms to get an ad placed

01:51:55.260 in front of them so that people respond that are perfect fit for your product. The third P is

01:52:00.140 partners. These are people that have an audience, a built-in room where you can get in front of.

01:52:05.080 Sometimes they're called affiliates,

01:52:06.700 sometimes they're called strategic partners,

01:52:08.100 sometimes they're called value-added resellers.

01:52:10.720 The end of the day, they're people that you partner with

01:52:13.160 to get in front of their audience.

01:52:14.720 The fourth is PR.

01:52:15.880 This is public relations.

01:52:17.340 This is getting interviewed on a podcast.

01:52:19.500 Anytime that somebody reaches out to you

01:52:21.560 and they have a platform,

01:52:22.460 they interview you around your story,

01:52:24.360 how you help people, what makes you different,

01:52:26.980 that is PR.

01:52:28.280 Those four P's are the top funnel of creating awareness 0.98

01:52:31.200 so that everybody knows about what you do

01:52:33.220 and how you do it and who you do it for.

01:52:35.080 So they can refer a lot of people to you, which brings us to month five, which is to hire an

01:52:40.200 assistant and the ATF framework to make it work. See, back in the day when I started my first

01:52:45.680 company, I used to spend all my time doing all the work, even to the point that every Sunday I

01:52:51.520 would go into my office just to sort the physical mail that would come into the PO box. And I would

01:52:56.460 spend hours just looking at every envelope and letter and sorting them between things that had

01:53:01.440 to go to my lawyer, things that have to go to my accountant, things that got to get processed later.

01:53:04.700 And I realized that I was spending all this time

01:53:07.380 doing something that any other person could do.

01:53:10.120 And I found a woman named Lisa

01:53:11.600 and I just taught her in person how to process my mail.

01:53:15.740 And all of a sudden I had hours back on a Sunday.

01:53:18.400 So instead of processing mail, I was doing lead generation.

01:53:21.300 I was doing follow-up on my sales funnel.

01:53:23.560 I was preparing for the week.

01:53:24.840 I was reviewing applications and references

01:53:27.800 and job postings.

01:53:29.220 Like I was doing things

01:53:30.040 that were actually growing my business.

01:53:31.680 So if you spend all of your time doing things

01:53:34.160 that somebody else could do

01:53:35.260 instead of working on the thing

01:53:36.380 that makes you the most money,

01:53:37.480 you're essentially working against yourself.

01:53:39.220 This is the first hire

01:53:40.220 and what I call the replacement ladder.

01:53:42.400 See, most entrepreneurs end up building a business

01:53:44.960 they grow to hate.

01:53:45.900 So we use the ATF framework,

01:53:47.860 which stands for audit, transfer, and fill

01:53:50.220 to make sure that we look at our calendar

01:53:52.300 for where we're spending our time,

01:53:53.940 take the things that cost very little

01:53:55.840 that we hate doing,

01:53:57.100 for me, anything financial

01:53:58.720 or not very fun process oriented.

01:54:01.240 And then T is transfer,

01:54:02.440 or transferring that to somebody else

01:54:04.160 that literally plays at the thing you work at

01:54:06.640 that you could pay little money.

01:54:08.100 And then you take that newfound time and you fill,

01:54:10.640 that's the F, learning new skills, character traits,

01:54:13.920 belief systems, or just doing more of the work

01:54:16.740 that you're getting paid to do.

01:54:18.240 If you can follow the ATF framework

01:54:20.660 and get your assistant to take over

01:54:22.300 most of the stuff in your calendar

01:54:23.960 that isn't working with clients directly,

01:54:25.860 you will end up making more money as fast as possible.

01:54:29.400 If you want my internal playbook

01:54:31.160 for how I work with my assistant

01:54:32.700 and see the 47 pages of my SOP standard operating procedure.

01:54:37.260 Just find me on Instagram at Dan Martell,

01:54:39.200 2Ls Martell, and message me YouTube EA

01:54:41.720 for executive assistant.

01:54:42.900 And I will send you my direct link to my Google Doc,

01:54:45.740 no gated, you don't have to give me your email

01:54:47.500 or your cell phone number.

01:54:48.560 And it walks you through exactly how I work

01:54:50.680 with my executive assistants

01:54:51.860 to buy back literally 40 plus hours a week.

01:54:55.240 Which brings us to month six, and we're halfway there,

01:54:58.400 which is to master sales.

01:55:00.080 See, in the early days of building my first company that finally made money called Spheric Technologies, I realized that I wasn't very good at selling, world-class at writing code, really good at hiring other engineers.

01:55:10.000 But when it came to talking to normal people and trying to get them to buy from me, I used to get nervous.

01:55:15.320 I didn't know what to say.

01:55:16.440 They would ask for things.

01:55:17.580 I would just say yes, and I would get dragged along on this long sales process of people that were never intending to buy in the first place.

01:55:25.080 But learning the mastery of sales became my new passion.

01:55:29.520 So learning how to code was my first high-income skill,

01:55:32.260 but then realizing that if I really wanted to grow,

01:55:34.820 I had to get really good at communicating in sales,

01:55:38.000 that's when I started investing

01:55:39.300 and learning that new skillset.

01:55:41.600 I learned a long time ago that a business is started,

01:55:44.180 it's birthed only when money exchanges hands.

01:55:47.620 So if you think about it,

01:55:48.560 nothing really happens unless somebody sells something.

01:55:50.900 And I think about it less about selling,

01:55:52.500 trying to get somebody to make a decision

01:55:53.620 they don't wanna make, 0.97

01:55:54.380 and more about enrolling them into my world,

01:55:56.780 my service, my product.

01:55:58.120 I wanna teach you a powerful framework

01:56:00.340 called the buying pocket.

01:56:01.920 See, what I've learned over the years

01:56:02.920 is sometimes you're talking to somebody

01:56:04.340 and they just don't even believe it's possible.

01:56:06.880 You know, they have no confidence in their ability,

01:56:09.800 the opportunity, they're just on this side of the spectrum

01:56:12.820 and they're wondering like, can I even do this?

01:56:15.160 I've heard people do it and I don't know if I can do it.

01:56:17.480 The other side is, you know, people that are overconfident

01:56:20.720 where they think that they don't need your help,

01:56:23.160 that they, you know, they're listening to what you got to say

01:56:24.960 but they're like, yeah, these are all things I know

01:56:26.580 and I can do it myself.

01:56:27.360 The challenge is most salespeople are never taught the questions to reframe the situation

01:56:32.520 to get a person to buy.

01:56:33.880 So for example, if somebody's underconfident, I might say, well, how much revenue would

01:56:37.580 you need to be making to feel really proud of yourself?

01:56:39.780 And they say, well, honestly, maybe 10K a month.

01:56:41.960 And you're like, oh, yeah, for sure.

01:56:43.360 I mean, we have 700 clients that do 10K a month learning our strategies.

01:56:47.800 And then somebody else that might be really confident, you might ask them, well, how much

01:56:51.200 are you currently making now?

01:56:52.200 And they're like, oh, I'm making 100,000 a year.

01:56:54.100 And you might say, oh, wow, that's it.

01:56:55.780 Depending on the conversation, you have to bring the buyer into the pocket where they're able to make a decision because they're not underconfident.

01:57:03.500 They're not overconfident in their abilities.

01:57:05.560 They're right in the perfect pocket, which brings us to month seven, which is to hire somebody to help you deliver your product or service to your customer.

01:57:13.080 A lot of people get busy doing the thing that they sold.

01:57:16.100 So the more they sell, the more they got to do.

01:57:18.520 And if they have the opportunity to double, maybe triple the business over the next few months, it means their calendar is going to get double or triple more.

01:57:24.760 And then when they have these opportunities, instead of pushing on the gas, they push on the brake because they don't want to end up creating all this emotional shrapnel around them from their team, their family or their friends that never see them anymore.

01:57:36.520 So I want to teach you how to hire somebody to offload that work and support you in delivering for the customer.

01:57:43.320 So this is the second hire in my framework, the replacement ladder.

01:57:46.380 Essentially everything from customer support to customer success, to support tickets, to product support, setting up a customer intake.

01:57:55.480 After the sales conversation happens and you get a credit card, the person shows up and you have them deal with every aspect of the customer experience.

01:58:04.600 You might still be involved in doing the work, but you have this person help you in delivering that value.

01:58:10.500 So you're not the one trying to coordinate in your calendar.

01:58:12.720 they are. They're the ones pulling the reports together so that when you have your weekly

01:58:16.360 meeting with your customers, you can show them how you're doing. Having somebody else that's

01:58:20.180 responsible for everything that's involved in delivering your product or service so that you

01:58:23.820 can buy back that time is huge leverage that you can then reinvest in either doing more work to

01:58:28.980 make more money or increasing your skills so that you become more valuable. Which brings us to month

01:58:34.280 eight, which is to hire somebody to help you with marketing. One time I had this friend named Rachel

01:58:38.780 and she had a marketing agency 0.91

01:58:40.060 and she would do everything she had to to get customers.

01:58:43.320 She'd get busy marketing, posting on social media,

01:58:45.360 asking for referrals.

01:58:46.380 Then she would get all these clients.

01:58:47.700 She would get busy.

01:58:48.580 She'd probably do the work for three or four or five months 1.00

01:58:50.700 and then she wouldn't do any marketing. 0.95

01:58:52.740 All the revenue would go away.

01:58:54.160 And one day she came to me and she said,

01:58:55.280 what do I do to grow my business?

01:58:56.660 And I go, well, you have to be consistent in marketing.

01:58:58.960 If you're inconsistent,

01:59:00.180 then you're always trying to fill up your calendar

01:59:02.360 instead of adding to it.

01:59:04.420 So that's why it's the third line in the replacement ladder

01:59:06.840 is to have somebody that wakes up every day

01:59:08.760 dedicated to generating leads for your business.

01:59:12.100 So you wanna have somebody else that looks at the campaigns,

01:59:15.260 that looks at the traffic sources,

01:59:17.040 that looks at the conversions

01:59:18.740 to make sure that you're getting new leads every single day.

01:59:23.080 Now, you might still be involved in the marketing,

01:59:24.900 meaning that they're gonna ask you to post on social media

01:59:27.220 or shoot videos that they post on your YouTube

01:59:29.220 or maybe even write the newsletter

01:59:31.020 that you're sending out to all of your prospects,

01:59:32.840 but they're responsible for ensuring

01:59:34.940 that whole machine continues to happen every day, every week,

01:59:38.520 so that on a monthly basis,

01:59:39.780 you're consistent in your ability to generate leads.

01:59:43.160 Which brings us to month nine,

01:59:44.780 which is to join a coaching program.

01:59:46.840 Now, I know for a lot of people, they're like,

01:59:48.340 oh, another coach, I can't believe you're talking about this.

01:59:50.740 Here's the deal.

01:59:51.500 The fastest way for you to get to a destination

01:59:54.380 is to ask somebody that's been there before.

01:59:57.140 And I put this off for years.

01:59:59.800 I remember, I was 23 years old, two failed companies,

02:00:02.620 until finally, out of desperation,

02:00:05.300 I read a book and realize I need to hire a coach

02:00:08.360 that teaches me the frameworks

02:00:10.080 that I just read in this book.

02:00:11.520 So I hired my first coach named Bob

02:00:13.460 and he was not cheap, 1500 bucks a month

02:00:16.320 for two phone calls, American dollars.

02:00:19.100 I'm Canadian, that's like real money.

02:00:21.540 But in the next year, I went from barely making payroll,

02:00:24.860 not knowing what I was doing

02:00:26.080 to making almost a million in my first year

02:00:28.640 as an entrepreneur.

02:00:29.720 So my whole philosophy is if you want to

02:00:32.440 learn the fastest and grow the fastest then get into a coaching program with somebody for your

02:00:37.640 specific high income skill that's going to allow you to grow as fast as possible there are people

02:00:42.980 out there that are already making a million dollars a month in the thing you're doing

02:00:46.620 if you pay to be in their community learn their frameworks or process their strategies

02:00:51.240 you'll be able to shortcut your success and literally compress decades into days go search

02:00:57.760 on YouTube the specific problems you're having in your business and add your industry as a term to

02:01:04.060 that search and those videos are typically from people that have other ways they can help. It

02:01:09.200 might be one-on-one private coaching, it might be semi-private with small group coaching, it might be

02:01:14.080 a big group coaching, it might even be an online course but at the end of the day having somebody

02:01:19.080 who's been there that gives you the blueprints and the steps to get there faster, this is the

02:01:24.100 fastest way for you to go from broke to millionaire business owner, which brings us to month 10,

02:01:29.020 which is to hire sales. I have had to learn the skill of selling early in my career and move on

02:01:35.160 to hiring other salespeople. But the funniest person I ever hired is this guy named Michael.

02:01:39.480 When I started coaching other people, I wanted somebody else to help me buy back my time because

02:01:43.660 my wife was like, yo, why are you on phone calls all the time? The referrals were crazy. And I was

02:01:48.700 like, well, I'm, you know, try to talk to the people. They want to work with me. So I figured

02:01:52.120 It's a good opportunity for me to see if there's a fit, but she's like, shouldn't you take your own 0.98

02:01:56.060 advice? And I'm like, okay. So I went and I hired a guy. His name was Michael and he came in and I

02:02:02.240 didn't know how to sell coaching. I just said, Hey man, you should talk to these people. I've

02:02:05.800 got a calendar full of people that want to work with me. Just listen to my previous calls and

02:02:09.760 sell. But the truth is, is I didn't have high hopes. I mean, this person was selling swords

02:02:14.600 on the internet. He would never sold coaching before. And all he did was listen to my calls.

02:02:19.120 And within the first day, he had somebody pull out this credit card and buy on the call

02:02:22.960 in 30 minutes.

02:02:23.820 And I freaked out.

02:02:24.780 I was like, dude, what did you say?

02:02:26.580 Is this person expecting to come to my house for dinner tonight or that I've got to, you

02:02:30.140 know, spend the next six weeks with them?

02:02:31.680 How did you get the person to purchase in 30 minutes?

02:02:34.240 He said, I just followed your process.

02:02:36.100 And I was like, what process?

02:02:37.020 He's like, I listened to your calls.

02:02:38.180 I mapped out exactly kind of what I was seeing you doing.

02:02:40.600 And I just walked them through it.

02:02:41.800 And here's the crazy part.

02:02:42.980 Most people don't understand this as entrepreneurs is that when you actually have somebody else

02:02:47.020 selling for you it makes you look better as the owner because the person buying goes oh well if

02:02:52.520 they have a system for this you probably have a system for delivering the thing i need which means

02:02:56.140 i have a higher likely of a guaranteed outcome then if i'm talking to the ceo of the business

02:03:00.680 it's also going to be doing the work like when do they have time to actually take care of the

02:03:04.760 projects that they're going to be doing for me this is the fourth hire in the replacement ladder

02:03:08.540 is sales and i want you to train this person to enroll people into your product or service and

02:03:14.480 the best way to do that is to record yourself doing the calls, doing the sales, even the emails,

02:03:20.620 the follow-up, like document all of it. And then when you hire the person, give them those leads

02:03:25.620 and say, just follow this process. The key is, is they need to own a hundred percent of the initial

02:03:30.720 conversations and a hundred percent of the follow-ups. If you have somebody else taking

02:03:34.340 the calls, the sales opportunities, the leads, the referrals that come into you, even if it's

02:03:38.260 a best friend, it's like, Hey, I've got this opportunity. Why don't you talk to my friend,

02:03:41.160 john you say yeah no problem i'll connect him with mike mike does all the initial calls with

02:03:45.480 our new clients he's been with me for a while he's incredible he'd love to talk with your friend that

02:03:50.140 way you're not the bottleneck and here's a crazy cool part about this if you look at the replacement

02:03:55.100 ladder now with only four hires okay somebody to help you on the administrative stuff to the

02:04:00.800 you know delivery of the thing you sell to the marketing of what you're selling to the sales

02:04:05.580 of what you're selling, you can now go on vacation.

02:04:09.020 You could be sleeping and your business will still make money.

02:04:12.300 It might not continue to function without you

02:04:14.040 because you're still involved in the doing of the work,

02:04:16.520 but while you're on vacation,

02:04:17.940 somebody else is making sure your name's

02:04:19.620 getting out there in the market,

02:04:20.820 they're having the conversation

02:04:22.040 with those people interested,

02:04:23.500 and then they're onboarding those customers

02:04:25.440 into your product or service while you are away,

02:04:28.620 which is the holy grail of entrepreneurship

02:04:31.080 and getting to a million dollars that nobody talks about

02:04:33.740 that is very simple if you focus on those four hires.

02:04:36.620 Which brings us to month 11, which is the hire leadership.

02:04:39.620 This is where you wanna start hiring people

02:04:41.820 to actually run the operations of the business.

02:04:44.820 You still might be involved in writing the copy

02:04:46.980 or doing sales for different businesses,

02:04:49.140 but you wanna hire somebody

02:04:50.560 that can look at the overall system

02:04:52.380 and continue to run things as fast as possible.

02:04:55.520 So for example, when I started my new media company,

02:04:57.680 Martell Media, one of the first hires I made

02:05:00.280 was a guy named Todd.

02:05:01.540 And Todd came in as my general manager.

02:05:03.260 And as we started to put the pieces in place

02:05:06.000 and things had to get done, it got routed to Todd.

02:05:08.820 Now, Todd is somebody who's done this for decades

02:05:11.520 and he knows how the playbooks work.

02:05:13.960 So it was really easy for me to just give it to them.

02:05:16.120 And a lot of you have some of those people in your life,

02:05:18.120 but you're scared to let go.

02:05:20.120 The reality is if you don't learn to let go,

02:05:22.340 then you'll always be a prisoner to your business.

02:05:24.800 And if you wanna get to a million as fast as possible,

02:05:27.020 you need to learn how to work through people

02:05:29.400 to get projects completed where you're not involved.

02:05:32.500 They focus on hiring and training and retaining your top talent so that you get to focus on

02:05:38.060 what's next.

02:05:38.820 You get to focus on your creative juices and trying to like figure out how do I get in

02:05:43.260 front of more people?

02:05:44.240 How do we scale our sales process?

02:05:45.960 How do we make sure that the delivery of what we do is so world class that every one of

02:05:50.300 our customers is referring other people to our business?

02:05:53.200 That is how you build the replacement ladder so that you can get to a million in the first

02:05:58.220 year, which brings us to month 12, which is to build your personal brand.

02:06:01.900 Every one of your dreams, your goals, your vision for your life gets easier, will come to life on the back end of people knowing who you are and how you can help them.

02:06:12.280 I've been online creating content for 15 years.

02:06:14.960 I have millions of followers across different platforms, but I started with zero.

02:06:19.140 And it doesn't matter where you're at today, you're going to have to start at the exact same place I did.

02:06:23.260 What benefit you have is you have folks like me and many others literally unpacking the blueprint for you to follow to build your audience as fast as humanly possible.

02:06:33.360 And the key is, is you want to focus on channels where you would love to express yourself through.

02:06:38.300 So if you are more of a video person, create video.

02:06:40.960 If you like to write, go blog.

02:06:43.060 If you want to teach, maybe it's joint webinars with other people's audiences so you can build your personal brand.

02:06:48.320 And then what you do is you capture all of that

02:06:50.740 and you just slice it up and repurpose it

02:06:52.940 in all these different channels.

02:06:54.760 I know for me, when I was building out SaaS Academy,

02:06:57.500 the ad costs cut in half

02:06:59.400 when we started doubling down on our video production.

02:07:02.340 The more people that could search

02:07:04.000 and get results in advance

02:07:05.420 because we created educational-based content,

02:07:07.720 that helped us prove

02:07:09.420 that we were a trusted advisor in our market.

02:07:11.980 And the same thing works for you.

02:07:13.260 Education-based marketing is the best way

02:07:15.640 for you to build your personal brand

02:07:16.940 it also helped a lot of people. My philosophy is this, if you do it right, your marketing will help

02:07:21.740 more people than your product or service ever will. And your personal brand allows you to

02:07:25.800 demonstrate who you are, your personality, as well as your skillset and your expertise.

02:07:30.480 So people can trust you before they ever buy from you. So it even makes the engagement of

02:07:35.480 working with them way easier. See, most people mess this up because they try to do all platforms

02:07:40.620 at once. Just pick one. If it's Instagram, if it's LinkedIn, if it's Twitter, just do something

02:07:46.760 and be consistent because consistency compounds and what matters more is that you show up every

02:07:52.360 day adding value to the market than anybody else in their world to demonstrate that you're the kind

02:07:57.560 of person that can be trusted with their project or to help them solve that problem number five is

02:08:03.080 my video on the best businesses you can start in 2024 warren buffett says great businesses have

02:08:09.080 high gross margin so what is gross margin essentially if i sell a product for five dollars

02:08:14.360 what it cost me $1 to make, then my gross margin is $4 or 80%. See, the best businesses are ones

02:08:21.820 where you have the highest margin and then also sell for the highest dollar amount. What you don't

02:08:26.960 want to be is like a restaurant where the gross margins are only 45%. You want to be on the upper

02:08:31.520 end of 70, 80, even 90% gross margin. And to do this, you need to understand all the industries.

02:08:37.460 And that's why I've spent a lot of time analyzing all the best industries and evaluating all the

02:08:42.600 gross margins from lowest to highest that you can start today with very little experience to make

02:08:47.720 this year the best year of your life. The first business is a product business. Typically these

02:08:52.860 companies have 50 or 60% gross margin. Now I've been involved in some incredible product companies

02:08:58.040 like Pila that does a biodegradable phone case or Laundry Sauce which is a modern day detergent

02:09:03.560 company or Lomi that does a food composting device and I mean these are literally some of

02:09:10.060 the best companies out there. But I've seen people lose their shirt building product companies

02:09:14.220 because they don't understand how to get distribution, how to get sales, how to build

02:09:18.220 a product efficiently. And essentially they take all their savings, put it into a product, don't

02:09:23.140 get any revenue. So if you want to make a product business work great, these are the three things

02:09:28.420 that you need to do right. Number one is you have to pre-sell. See most product companies use

02:09:33.680 Kickstarter or Indiegogo or other crowdfunding platforms so that they can validate demand for

02:09:39.240 the product without losing money. Now, I know you've probably been burned by investing some

02:09:43.240 of these crowdfunding campaigns, but the best ones know how to do them, promote them, market them,

02:09:48.860 get the money, and then use that to actually build the product. The second thing is you have to do

02:09:53.480 direct to consumer. And the reason why is you got to skip the retailers, because if you go through

02:09:59.200 a wholesaler to a retailer, by the time you actually get paid and there's the big cash flow

02:10:03.840 issues. It's very hard to make a product business work. That's why Amazon has been a big category

02:10:09.480 for a lot of people that are getting into the product space. And the third thing is you have

02:10:13.260 to invest in the brand. This means making sure that you use premium products, meaning that you

02:10:18.980 care about word of mouth, that you focus on reviews, that you look for opportunities to get

02:10:23.480 press to drive traffic to the business, because that's what's going to create the flywheel to

02:10:28.440 make a product business work. The second business is an agency or sometimes a service business.

02:10:33.660 the margins are between 60 and 70 percent now i've learned over the years that the easiest companies

02:10:40.220 are ones where you take a skill they already have maybe as an employee and then offer that skill to

02:10:45.900 other businesses and get paid to either do for those businesses what you currently do or teach

02:10:50.860 them how to do it for themselves now i've seen a lot of people launch different types of agencies

02:10:55.340 social media marketing agencies etc and the ones that actually scale and make money not just have

02:11:00.620 a low paying full-time sometimes double full-time job they focus on these four things number one is

02:11:07.180 they focus on a strong pain in the market if you think about it you could start an ai company today

02:11:12.940 where you go and you analyze businesses and all the inefficiencies and then introduce them the ai

02:11:18.460 tools to solve those problems and you would make a ton of money because businesses will pay for

02:11:24.300 anybody that can show them how to save them or make them money using ai is a modern day way of

02:11:29.900 of them getting leverage.

02:11:31.280 And you can even negotiate where you get paid more

02:11:33.440 based on how much money or time you save them.

02:11:36.260 Number two is productized services.

02:11:38.740 See, if you sell just work for time,

02:11:41.520 then you're always gonna get paid for your hour.

02:11:43.480 What you wanna do is get paid for an outcome.

02:11:45.920 And to do that, you gotta focus on one thing.

02:11:48.120 If you're a designer, focus on logo designs.

02:11:50.660 If you're a programmer, focus on the onboarding experience.

02:11:53.660 If you're a salesperson, focus on the discovery call.

02:11:57.540 Teach people how to do one specific thing

02:12:00.300 so that you can productize it.

02:12:01.760 And as you grow, you can buy back your time

02:12:03.920 by having somebody else support different aspects

02:12:06.240 of that productized service.

02:12:08.180 Number three is focus on reoccurring revenue.

02:12:10.380 See, too often when we start,

02:12:11.440 we just wanna like get paid to do the thing.

02:12:13.720 Problem is that every month you gotta get paid

02:12:15.800 to do the thing over and over and over again.

02:12:18.600 So you start at zero at the beginning of every month.

02:12:20.980 What you wanna do is sell a service,

02:12:23.020 an ongoing reoccurring revenue service

02:12:25.600 for whatever that work is.

02:12:26.680 so that you come in, you evaluate it, you support them,

02:12:29.480 you keep doing more work,

02:12:30.800 and that way you can sign them up for three months,

02:12:32.520 six months, 12 months of service,

02:12:34.440 and you start building the revenue base.

02:12:36.600 Number four is you wanna scale with systems.

02:12:39.380 The whole philosophy is build a business

02:12:41.300 you don't grow to hate.

02:12:42.180 The way we do that is by replacing yourself using a system,

02:12:45.520 a checklist for how you deliver on that agency work,

02:12:49.000 and then that way you can hire people

02:12:50.500 to get them to do the work following your process

02:12:53.140 that guarantees the results for the customer.

02:12:55.560 The third business is coaching

02:12:57.240 and the margins are between 70 and 80%.

02:12:59.840 Now this is also consulting or information,

02:13:02.960 online training courses, that kind of business.

02:13:05.360 And I know this one incredibly well.

02:13:07.140 I run one of the largest coaching organization

02:13:09.280 for software CEOs.

02:13:10.600 I've been involved in creating multiple courses

02:13:13.080 and trainings and seminars and all this stuff

02:13:15.340 for some of the largest coaches that you know of online.

02:13:18.620 And even for me, I hesitated launching this.

02:13:21.500 I mean, I even built a whole technology company

02:13:23.460 clarity.fm because i was too scared to call myself a coach and i put it off i mean this platform we

02:13:29.220 built i did over 1300 clarity calls over a two-year period and never gave myself permission

02:13:34.580 to call myself a coach and i want to tell you it's been one of the most rewarding things

02:13:39.540 deciding to go all in on being a coach and really working with some of the best ceos

02:13:44.580 out there and i want to encourage you to consider it but if you're gonna do it these are the three

02:13:48.500 things that you have to do right or you're gonna eventually end up hating being a coach

02:13:53.060 number one is to learn to sell your expertise i mean this one is a fascinating one because i know

02:13:57.860 people that are world-class in what they do they're literally the fittest person i know or

02:14:02.660 they're incredible networkers or they're so talented in their art but they would never

02:14:08.100 feel comfortable getting paid to teach somebody else to do the thing they've done which is crazy

02:14:12.740 i mean at the end of the day you've become great at the thing you're doing and people have noticed

02:14:17.780 i want to encourage you to allow other people to pay you for that advice because in doing so

02:14:22.980 you're actually helping them oftentimes the transformation happens at the transaction

02:14:27.860 so them investing in themselves by hiring you to teach them how to become world-class at what you

02:14:32.820 do is actually where a lot of the value is created number two is strategy see most people think that

02:14:39.220 i know this information so i can't give it away i'm gonna tell you something controversial i want

02:14:44.500 you to give all of it away okay it's called education based marketing see i believe that

02:14:49.780 information wants to be free. And then you get paid for the support of the implementation. So

02:14:55.360 you want to teach everything you know around the topic for free on social media, at seminars,

02:15:02.080 get on stages, speak, share it all the best stuff. And by doing so, you're going to build an audience

02:15:08.280 of people that want to learn more from you, and they will pay you for the implementation.

02:15:12.920 Number three is build a community. See, I had a coach once and she was incredible. Her name was

02:15:18.020 Marcy. I learned so many things. She had brought a company public and just an incredibly valuable

02:15:23.280 coach. The challenge was, is that I knew she was working with other incredible entrepreneurs and

02:15:28.020 I never got to meet them. Never once did she organize a dinner or a meetup or anything so

02:15:33.420 that I could also get value from meeting the clients she worked with. I'm telling you, if

02:15:37.560 you are a coach, having a community where other people from that same coach can connect and meet

02:15:44.120 each other. That's where a lot of value as a coach will come from to help you with keeping people in

02:15:49.360 your world and also allowing you to send their support as you grow the business. The fourth

02:15:54.260 business is software and the gross margins are between 80 and 90%. If you think about it, having

02:16:00.900 a new customer use your software costs nothing. Literally, it's like server data storage on some

02:16:06.760 computer. Now, I learned this personally back in the 2000s when I started writing code and building

02:16:11.920 software and over the years i just found it so amazing that i can build some software once

02:16:17.440 and the more it grows the less it costs me and as long as the servers don't change that code will

02:16:22.880 run the way it has forever now i have a lot of friends that want to get into software but what

02:16:27.440 they miss is these key points to make the software work because if you don't have people using it and

02:16:33.040 loving it the way you need to then it's not going to create the margins because customers are going

02:16:36.720 to come and they're going to go number one is a sticky product you want to build a tool that

02:16:41.920 solves a problem in a business

02:16:43.440 where they have to use it every day.

02:16:46.140 Think about things that are painkillers, not vitamins.

02:16:48.580 You wanna create something that's a must have problem solve,

02:16:51.620 not a nice to have like a vitamin.

02:16:53.600 Think dating sites where it's just like a one and done

02:16:56.680 or taxes where they do it once a year. 0.64

02:16:58.660 Those are not tools that are gonna have daily usage

02:17:01.900 like a Dropbox or a Slack.

02:17:03.620 So you wanna look for problems that are sticky

02:17:06.540 in regards to the product solving those problems

02:17:08.720 and keeping them around.

02:17:10.040 Number two is boring industry.

02:17:12.160 See, most people build software for marketing or sales

02:17:15.080 because it's what they know,

02:17:15.860 but the problem is the customers are gonna be swapping

02:17:17.760 off of your product to your competitors

02:17:19.820 every three to six months.

02:17:21.540 You wanna be in boring industries like local services,

02:17:24.540 lawn care, body shop software,

02:17:27.080 government is definitely a fit.

02:17:29.080 You wanna find customers that aren't always looking

02:17:32.080 for the latest whiz bang,

02:17:33.660 but you can solve a core problem

02:17:35.600 in their business using software.

02:17:37.860 Number three is first time user experience.

02:17:39.880 also pronounced fatui the key is is you want to look at your software as like the level one of

02:17:45.560 a video game you know when you start playing a video game they don't just like drop you in and

02:17:49.140 say start fighting or start racing like they walk you through the process and they actually teach

02:17:53.600 you you're not playing the game but you're kind of playing the game that is the same concept you

02:17:57.900 want to do with your software so you don't overwhelm people and get them to what's called

02:18:01.900 activation or receiving core value most people try to add too much to the product especially when

02:18:07.860 and people just sign up and it confuses the customer.

02:18:10.980 So you wanna focus on that first time user experience

02:18:13.460 to make sure they activate

02:18:14.700 and receive the value promise on your homepage.

02:18:17.300 Number four is focus on retention.

02:18:20.020 See, too often people wanna focus on the chocolate,

02:18:22.740 which is marketing and sales

02:18:23.920 and getting more customers and leads

02:18:25.300 and just trying to get as many people into the thing.

02:18:27.640 But the real broccoli of software is retention

02:18:30.620 and keeping people from churning out,

02:18:33.060 figuring out of the people that leave,

02:18:34.720 why did they leave, try to keep them back

02:18:36.540 because the more you can keep the customers that you've got,

02:18:39.100 the higher the lifetime value will be

02:18:41.040 of your customers over time,

02:18:42.460 which will massively increase your gross margin

02:18:45.320 and what makes software so powerful.

02:18:47.240 Those are the best businesses you can start in 2024.

02:18:50.360 Number six is my conversation

02:18:51.720 with millionaire investor Cody Sanchez

02:18:53.820 on how to make a million dollars if you're broke.

02:18:56.320 Starting from scratch at zero,

02:18:58.560 how do you make your first million?

02:19:00.060 If I was today going to make my first million bucks,

02:19:03.500 a lot of people would say I'd go build my own social media.

02:19:05.440 wouldn't do that from scratch. If you guys saw the ad revenue on YouTube you'd be like no you

02:19:09.860 wouldn't. Yes I could go start from zero get my first couple thousand dollars and work my way up

02:19:14.820 or I could leverage. So the best thing that you can do is get in proximity. Most people have read

02:19:20.760 like Tim Ferriss's four-hour work week and I feel like this is that book now on steroids. When you

02:19:25.340 went and wrote this what was the one piece of this book that you thought why doesn't anybody do it

02:19:30.580 this way? It's not what everybody would want to learn. It's kind of the chocolate broccoli like

02:19:34.680 Like people, I wrote that book that way

02:19:36.800 because I knew it would get people to start the book.

02:19:38.620 But the broccoli is actually like towards the back part of it

02:19:41.680 and it's transformational leadership.

02:19:43.860 So like most people that run companies 0.58

02:19:46.620 don't realize that they are actually a little insane.

02:19:51.320 Right, Cody?

02:19:52.360 No, not at all. Not over here.

02:19:53.700 We are nutty. 0.65

02:19:54.860 And I mean, we have to be 0.83

02:19:55.740 because we're deciding to do stuff

02:19:57.020 that very few people do, right?

02:19:58.440 Which is start companies, buy companies,

02:20:00.020 which is if everybody did it,

02:20:01.640 it wouldn't be abnormal or extra.

02:20:03.360 So, transformational leadership is a simple concept that when you have people that report to you, okay, there's two ways to do it.

02:20:10.460 You can do transactional leadership or transformational.

02:20:12.780 Most people, if you've never been taught any different, it sounds super logical that you do transactional leadership,

02:20:18.420 which is you hire somebody, you tell them what to do, you check that they got done, and you tell them what to do next.

02:20:24.060 Most of us have experienced this in our work capacity.

02:20:26.500 This is how we've always done it, and it sounds super normal.

02:20:29.660 The problem with that is that as you hire more people, and it usually happens around a dozen folks on your team, direct reports, where you'll wake up in the morning with all the motivation to get a bunch of stuff done, and then you check your inbox, and then you realize this person's working on the wrong thing, and then, oh, what about this new person we just hired? Are they being trained?

02:20:47.620 And you literally spend the whole day doing a tell, check, next loop to only find out that after you had dinner and you put the kids to bed, that none of the projects you touched ever got done.

02:20:57.680 So then you work from 7 o'clock to 11 o'clock at night trying to actually get your own work done.

02:21:02.040 And that's where you hit essentially what I call the pain line, where anything more that you want to do in your life becomes really painful.

02:21:09.160 So you might be sitting with an opportunity, sitting there like, I could go do this, but I can't do anything more because I'm stuck in this transactional leadership style.

02:21:15.540 versus transformational, which is number one, it's outcome focus. So I don't tell anybody on

02:21:22.740 my team what to do. I tell them what it looks like when it is done at the highest level.

02:21:27.820 And my team's here. You can talk to them. This is just how I am. And sometimes they'll pull me

02:21:31.580 into that. Like, what do you think I should do? And I literally act like a six-year-old.

02:21:37.260 I go, I don't know. Anne's laughing because I do it a lot. But literally it's like,

02:21:43.260 I was like what do you want to do and they're like but I I'm asking you I know but I don't know

02:21:49.120 of course you know pretend like I don't if I wasn't here what would you do well I'd probably

02:21:55.400 hit the internet or I'd probably call this person I said that sounds like a great idea

02:21:58.820 so I focus on outcome then I go to measure which is what's the what is the numbers that we're

02:22:06.580 going to agree upon means you're making progress so if I said we're going to take that mountain

02:22:10.560 i might say well let's measure the daily elevation gain per per day right and every day if you text

02:22:16.420 me how many feet of elevation you made then as long as you're moving upwards we're good but if

02:22:21.180 all of a sudden you report back a negative i'd be like did you fall off a cliff you know or did you

02:22:26.260 take a wrong turn and then they'd be like yeah i got lost it's like cool what could you do not to

02:22:31.320 be lost i don't know you tell me i don't know what you know i mean get it outcome so we're going to

02:22:36.920 the mountaintop that's the outcome measure every day and they might come back with ideas like I

02:22:42.040 should probably get a map that sounds like a great idea where could you get a map I don't know map

02:22:45.720 store maybe somebody else has you know been up this mountain okay good good go find that out

02:22:49.960 and then what I do the third part is coach right and coach is what's funny for a lot of us to have

02:22:55.720 communities like we do we actually do this naturally or maybe you've been a coach like a

02:22:59.780 real like you know athletic coach you use those same principles so I don't tell people what to do

02:23:04.800 I talk about principles, right?

02:23:06.960 Sorry guys.

02:23:08.020 I talk about the principle that is missing.

02:23:10.720 So if I see somebody do something they shouldn't have done,

02:23:12.900 I'll just write it down.

02:23:14.020 And then in our one-on-ones, I'll be like,

02:23:16.920 they'll be like, what's on your list?

02:23:18.140 Because that's one of the prompts.

02:23:19.180 And then I go to my list and I say,

02:23:20.360 ooh, last Tuesday I saw you post this in Slack.

02:23:24.080 And I just wanna ask you like,

02:23:25.200 did you feel that was clear or a little unclear?

02:23:27.060 Well, it was clearly unclear

02:23:28.040 because 17 people were very confused

02:23:29.900 and I caused this whole thread of, you know,

02:23:32.660 people going left, right, and all over the place.

02:23:34.760 Okay, cool.

02:23:35.320 I would agree.

02:23:36.340 Let me tell you about this principle, about clear communication.

02:23:39.740 That's probably my wife calling me back because I did this to her earlier. 1.00

02:23:42.480 It is.

02:23:44.300 And she'll call me again.

02:23:46.440 She's in my VIP list. 0.52

02:23:47.740 It always rings through.

02:23:48.960 It's a smart happy wife, happy life. 1.00

02:23:50.360 I know, but I did it to her earlier, and she kept hanging out like I'm doing, 0.97

02:23:54.460 and then I kept calling her.

02:23:56.280 So she might do it again.

02:23:58.560 I know.

02:23:59.220 And she was probably recording a podcast, and she was loving me at the time.

02:24:01.960 That's amazing.

02:24:03.440 So then we do the coaching.

02:24:07.040 So it's always principle, not activity.

02:24:09.520 So I never attack the activity.

02:24:10.840 I talk about the principle.

02:24:11.960 So the principle is clear communication.

02:24:13.840 Here's the way I learned this.

02:24:15.000 One time, I remember I jumped into a meeting.

02:24:16.900 I didn't have context, and I said something.

02:24:18.520 I wasn't clear.

02:24:19.200 Next thing, I turned around, and it was a $26,000 mistake.

02:24:22.200 So I've learned in the future, sometimes it's better to slow down and measure twice, cut once.

02:24:27.300 See, and then at the end, this is the third part of the coaching, is you ask them,

02:24:30.180 Based on the story I just shared with you, what did you take away from that?

02:24:33.980 So notice I didn't tell them anything.

02:24:36.580 I created a methodology for evolving my people.

02:24:40.540 And my whole philosophy and big thing in the book, and that's why it's a productivity book, but it's also a leadership book, is you build the people, the people build the business.

02:24:48.940 Define clear communication.

02:24:50.740 Because I think everybody thinks they're clear, and then everyone else does not.

02:24:54.700 Very simple.

02:24:55.560 These three words, D-O-D, definition of done.

02:24:59.980 Definition of a done, right?

02:25:01.660 You buy a piece of real estate.

02:25:03.580 You have a vision for what that looks like

02:25:05.120 to the degree that you can describe

02:25:07.240 exactly what that looks like completed, done.

02:25:10.100 Like really go there.

02:25:11.300 See, most people, we never taught how to do this.

02:25:13.280 What is the definition of done?

02:25:14.260 If I buy an old house and I hire somebody

02:25:15.980 to manage renovating it, what does that look like?

02:25:19.540 Well, one, there's a date.

02:25:21.320 There's an experience.

02:25:22.040 See, I'm not talking about the colors of the wall.

02:25:24.740 I'm talking about like on this date,

02:25:26.640 I will drive into this yard and I will open the door and all my stuff's going to be here and I'm

02:25:32.580 moving into this house with my family and we're going to have a party the day after and everything's

02:25:36.580 going to be catered and like I'm describing the outcome and the experience and I think that most

02:25:41.460 people never ask themselves like what is the definition of done I'm a software guy so it

02:25:45.320 actually comes from agile programming it's a software concept and I think every time I'm

02:25:51.980 trying to ask somebody to support me in anything I always go to definition of done which is the

02:25:55.500 outcome concept, right? But I think DOD is kind of what I would tell people to think about.

02:26:00.560 I really, really like it. We use the Braun method. So basically just who, what, when,

02:26:04.320 where, how, and why, and we leave the how to them. And I think a lot of the reason that that helps

02:26:08.580 is, you know, the other day we were talking about it and we're like, well, if you don't know who

02:26:12.880 this is for, then a financial projections sheet that is for you or I who run a bunch of holding

02:26:19.140 companies is going to look a lot different than financial projection that, you know, my admin

02:26:24.240 needs to see a budget for an event those are two very different things and so um i think i stole

02:26:31.180 it from journalism because the brawn method is what you use in journalism you can't really write

02:26:34.640 a story unless you have who what how when where and why and it's really the same thing when you

02:26:38.140 define communication and scope projects so i really i liked that from your book um the other

02:26:42.600 thing that i really liked from your book is you talk about uh focus versus adhd a little bit in

02:26:48.880 your content and in your book can you talk a little bit about like do we really have this

02:26:53.600 adhd epidemic or is a lot of this just our focus you're gonna get me in trouble

02:26:59.000 i i so a few things i think i i have a problem with labels of anybody for anything i think we're

02:27:07.780 all beautiful expressions of our unique experienced souls all that stuff i have i'm zero label for

02:27:13.580 if if doctors need it to like describe a person to each other then keep it for yourselves like

02:27:20.420 like anytime anybody's tried to label me or my kids or my friends anyway I'm like hey it's a

02:27:27.660 weird thing because there's nothing wrong with you right you have a default so like a lot of people

02:27:31.500 that have ADD or ADHD I was diagnosed when I was 11 diagnosed right put on Ritalin told I was special

02:27:38.000 and broken all this turns out they just didn't know where to point me right if this was 300 years

02:27:44.900 ago we'd call me an evolutionary hunter that's what i am like i'm the i if this was 300 years

02:27:52.100 ago you'd want one of me in your tribe because i'm the guy that's going to go out in the woods

02:27:56.400 and i'm going to bring back the food and then you guys can all eat see we went to this like

02:28:00.280 agricultural farming society where now we all have to sit in these chairs and learn and study

02:28:05.380 and show up and everybody do the same thing in the right order or you or you're an issue so anyways

02:28:11.940 um i think it regards is this in regards to the chaos side of things of just like how you show up

02:28:17.760 at your work so what happens is because a lot of us i can only speak from my experience

02:28:22.540 because i grew up in like chaos and adhd and just like that's where i thrive unfortunately when

02:28:30.400 things go good in your business if you have this problem you will throw hand grenades and create

02:28:36.380 problems in your business when things are actually starting you're creating durable revenue and it's

02:28:41.920 predictable and it's like okay yay you'll be like we're changing the website adding a new product

02:28:47.340 i just hired i bought a new company there's 14 other people there they're gonna and the team's

02:28:52.320 like what are you doing why because that chaos is actually incredibly normal for us and what

02:28:58.340 we've learned to do and it's our superpower is deal with a large amounts of uncertainty and

02:29:03.040 still move forward so when things are certain it feels awkward and we all have an emotional home

02:29:08.700 that we want to get back to even if it doesn't look positive it's still familiar so for me i

02:29:15.360 always think about like is this strategically the right decision or am i throwing a massive

02:29:20.720 hand grenade in my business to give me ground cover to then go have a problem to solve because

02:29:25.540 that feels good. I'm sure nobody in here can relate to any of this. One thing that I like

02:29:32.740 about you two, we talk a lot about power of place and how, you know, it really can be beneficial or

02:29:38.340 can be detrimental what you surround your work environment with. You're very particular about

02:29:42.660 your work environment. Very intentional. Can you talk a little bit about what's on the walls,

02:29:46.200 how you structure things and why? And I like also how you do it in a way that's, it's not that it's

02:29:50.880 expensive or fancy, although you can afford that. It's just very intentional. Yeah, I think it's

02:29:56.780 evolved and I continue to evolve it. Like we just got a new studio, started a company called Martel

02:30:02.440 Media, very inspired by Cody and our friends. Like at the end of the day, it occurred to me

02:30:07.820 that everything that I want to achieve in life accelerates on the other side of reach and

02:30:12.840 reputation. So we got this new studio space and I started building a team. And I would say,

02:30:18.100 because that's probably the most recent company that I've kind of like like kind of built out

02:30:22.160 first off it's the people like I have a zero space for anybody that I don't vibe with it doesn't mean

02:30:31.120 that we have to share the same preferences and watch the same shows or any of that or even look

02:30:35.760 the same none of that if you don't hold a high standard if you don't have a desire to create

02:30:40.020 something magical if you don't want to go on a journey of building something that may have never

02:30:43.340 been built before. This is not the room for you. And I'm not upset about it. I get mad at myself

02:30:48.520 when they accidentally get in. We had one recently. This is so funny. I feel bad for Ann. It was Ann's

02:30:53.000 assistant. And she resigned. And we're like, whoa, that's weird. Because if you read my book,

02:30:58.180 six chapter, Test First Hiring Method, very structured. I mean, to get on the team is a

02:31:02.400 gauntlet. And she resigned. And I was like, that's weird. So I reached out to her and I did a clearing

02:31:06.940 conversation with her. And she goes, I'll be honest with you, Dan. She was from South Africa.

02:31:12.600 she goes I've never been on a team where somebody swore oh and I'm like oh how

02:31:24.000 did this how did this happen like where did we mess up when we were recruiting

02:31:28.380 where you were not aware I thought you didn't would you watch my content like

02:31:31.860 did you you think of googling me or something I think that to the degree

02:31:36.060 that you can be just really honest with yourself and this is the thing it comes

02:31:39.440 down to you giving yourself permission to deciding what is a 10 out of 10 and not coming

02:31:46.300 down to a six or a seven. Cause that's what happens. You know, if I asked you like, what

02:31:50.400 would it look like to have, to enjoy going to work, to own a business, to really appreciate

02:31:54.960 it? You would say, well, I want to surround myself with these kinds of people. So it's

02:31:57.940 always people first. So I start with the people that's first and foremost. Then I look at like

02:32:02.480 the, the, the flow in the structure. So I don't believe we manage time. I believe we

02:32:06.900 manage energy that's a big concept in my book okay because I don't know about you but when I

02:32:11.800 went to math class it felt like three hours when I went to art class it felt like seven minutes

02:32:15.920 see what I'm saying so we manage the energy that we experience in that space that time

02:32:22.740 so everything I do and it's very intentional in regards to just even transition points

02:32:27.540 when I travel here I've got the team and it's just like we're very intentional about like

02:32:31.340 what's Dan's energy level going to be at different parts of the day so some people are like how do

02:32:36.500 you do so much and keep the energy going it's like oh well i i do this kind of work in the morning

02:32:41.020 this kind of work after lunch this kind of work towards the end of the day and i and i save these

02:32:44.820 things for these and they're like oh oh that makes sense and i'm like yeah even the space of like

02:32:50.820 how the studio is designed and you come in and there's like these literally where we put we have

02:32:56.140 a gym in the studio we have like a play area has anybody played the new spider-man on a ps5

02:33:01.780 anybody am i the only one with kids okay good

02:33:04.700 it is like it's like playing a movie you're like playing this thing so anyways even the where we

02:33:14.280 put that and then had the studio set up in my in my office it's just you know the words we put on

02:33:20.340 the wall everything is you know it says prioritize the pump it says sweat every day so like i'm very

02:33:26.040 intentional about the words like if you talk with me and i hear you say a word that is disempowering

02:33:32.680 i will invite you to consider a different one right where would that conversation go

02:33:36.720 oh you like let's talk about let's say like i go well it's just like we didn't have enough time to

02:33:42.800 do it the way that i wanted to do it really cody you decided not to make enough time maybe there

02:33:50.040 we go yeah so playful fun um sam will say that that would be cool when that happens it will be

02:33:56.880 cool if there's no yeah so it's just words mean things to you words mean things matter set intention

02:34:04.440 at the end of the day we don't get what we want we get what we expect think about that you will 0.99

02:34:10.480 never get a penny more than you expect to earn you think you deserve never i don't care fucking 0.99

02:34:17.000 and BHAGs and big hair, like, man, $10 million. 1.00

02:34:20.160 I don't care.

02:34:20.720 Do you believe that that's you?

02:34:22.700 Because the problem is you'll just act differently.

02:34:25.420 If you expect it.

02:34:26.160 Here's how I know.

02:34:26.940 Like, just check this out.

02:34:28.520 Tomorrow morning, you go into your bank accounts,

02:34:30.640 whatever banks you use.

02:34:31.500 I'm Canadian.

02:34:32.060 So, like, you know, Chase or whatever it is in the U.S.

02:34:34.740 And you log in.

02:34:36.400 And the number you thought to see is half.

02:34:39.760 Do you change the rest of your day?

02:34:41.560 Do you, the energy you bring to the rest of your day, yes?

02:34:44.480 why don't you act like that today think about that why don't you act like that today when you

02:34:53.360 stand on the scale and you look down and it's like no that's cool no no are you really in the

02:34:57.940 best like are you where you want to be what would that number should be act as if you put on 20

02:35:02.860 pounds act as if the bank account dropped 50 because like i think that that expectation is

02:35:09.220 actually what drives the right behavior because too often that identity of what we think we're

02:35:14.660 worth is actually the issue. It's really good. So you run Ironmans and marathons and I think you

02:35:23.340 were skiing this weekend with a bunch of people. Yeah, hello skiing. Yeah, exactly. So obviously

02:35:29.800 you're playing a lot while you're working too. Yeah. Talk about how you started to prioritize

02:35:37.360 correctly because for a lot of people who are new at this what i hear most often is i don't have time

02:35:43.020 for x i feel overwhelmed by why yeah i never hear those words from you why and how do you

02:35:50.080 prioritize properly yeah i mean it's easy to look at my life and look at cody and i and go yeah but

02:35:55.160 you guys are rich like i'm not an idiot i i was at one point in a room just like this listening 0.99

02:36:00.780 to two rich people on stage talk about their fucking you're like shut up like i'm very 1.00

02:36:07.340 self-aware. But I think that, you know, there's two parts to your question. The one is when I do 0.99

02:36:15.440 this, I feel overwhelmed. I totally agree. And it's your experience. The cool part is you decide.

02:36:22.380 So guess what? You can be overwhelmed and you may be overwhelmed. And I don't discredit it. I'm not

02:36:28.060 going to take away that that's exactly how you feel. But if you actually stayed in that feeling

02:36:32.920 and you were willing to explore it a little bit,

02:36:35.080 you could, if you were open to it,

02:36:37.040 get to a place where in that same activity

02:36:39.240 you're no longer overwhelmed.

02:36:41.720 Overwhelmed is a funny thing

02:36:43.460 because it's all about the meaning

02:36:44.880 that we associate to the activity.

02:36:47.760 So here's a cool idea.

02:36:49.580 I'm going to really, you guys are like,

02:36:51.000 who is this guy?

02:36:52.480 You don't control your first thought.

02:36:56.120 You don't control it.

02:36:57.600 It's given to you from wherever.

02:36:59.600 Call it the universal mind, God, consciousness.

02:37:01.620 it's just there but you do control your second thought and the second thought in that space

02:37:07.780 between the first one that is a gift and the second one how you respond that's the feeling

02:37:11.660 so if you're overwhelmed yes you are do you have to be no you don't and if you just even think of

02:37:17.540 the frame alex hermosi taught me this this like thousand expert frame so like whatever's

02:37:22.340 overwhelming you imagine you did this thing a thousand times honestly by the hundredth time

02:37:27.960 500th time the thousandth it's just you just do it don't even think about it so when people see

02:37:32.660 my life today and they go how do you do all that i go oh but this is capacity expanded at the

02:37:38.240 extremities and the first time i might have felt overwhelmed but then i got easier and easier and

02:37:43.200 now it's just i don't even think about it so that's on the feeling side in regards to the time

02:37:48.160 side what i do and i teach in the book preloaded year the perfect week these two frameworks is

02:37:54.240 I'm very intentional about reflecting so every like quarter and then you know every year I look

02:38:02.300 back at what I did because everything's in my calendar right and it's kind of color-coded but

02:38:06.060 not really but we can just evaluate it and I just ask myself simple questions like was that a

02:38:10.480 was that the right use of my my quarter right use of my year when I look at the stuff I said yes to

02:38:16.320 was that like Charleston for me that was a hell yeah that was a great time so yes maybe I do that

02:38:22.380 again? Or the ski trip? Do I want to do that again? And then when I look at it and I look at

02:38:27.280 it over a year, I have this one page template because, and my wife and I do this, we each

02:38:32.380 individually look at like what work wise and then our family. And we just go like, was that too much

02:38:36.600 or too little? Okay. I'll give you a simple example. I used to go on vacation before my events.

02:38:42.380 Now, as I say this out loud, all of you probably go, that's dumb. Why, why would you go on vacation 0.97

02:38:48.860 the week before you have a major event.

02:38:52.160 I don't know if you guys have ever run an event.

02:38:55.220 The seven days prior, there's zero on your brain

02:38:57.900 other than did this, like, da-da-da-da-da-da.

02:39:00.540 So I would go on vacation with the family,

02:39:02.660 and they'd be talking to me, and it's like, I'm not there.

02:39:05.740 And I'm, like, checking my phone.

02:39:07.180 Did you guys remember to get the badges,

02:39:08.940 change the color, you know what I mean?

02:39:10.640 So now all we did, when we looked at the year,

02:39:13.660 I said, oh, okay, instead of doing the vacation here,

02:39:16.180 whoop, right after.

02:39:17.560 Oh, wow, what a change.

02:39:19.560 All of a sudden now I deliver for my clients

02:39:22.060 and then I go on vacation, everybody's cup's full

02:39:25.100 and I can disconnect without guilt, et cetera.

02:39:27.900 So it's just, I'm really good at that retro

02:39:30.320 and being intentional about my time.

02:39:33.340 And then also just evaluating the different aspects

02:39:35.780 of my life that I feel I need to feel like fulfilled.

02:39:39.340 I don't even believe in the word happiness per se.

02:39:41.060 I think it's a moment and it fleets, but fulfilled.

02:39:42.960 Have I designed my life in a way

02:39:44.420 where I've had like all aspects of like my relationship and my, my friendships and like

02:39:49.480 the, the ski trip you mentioned, I've been doing that for 10 years and it is three days. It's a

02:39:53.760 magical three days, 48 of like some of my favorite entrepreneurial friends in the back country

02:39:58.900 going down steep and deep powder. We'll probably do it until, till we don't, we're just, it's just

02:40:05.160 the best thing. So like, again, every year we just, we're very intentional. So the way I think about

02:40:10.060 it is anytime I have a conversation with somebody, I'm trying to do two things. One, I'm genuinely

02:40:15.220 curious about their situation. See, some people that are nervous about talking to other people,

02:40:19.940 the problem is, is they think they got to talk. Shut the f*** out. Don't say anything. It's so 0.99

02:40:27.780 funny. They're like so nervous that they say nothing. When I'm like, you don't have to talk,

02:40:31.880 you just have to ask a question. They're like, this literally, this guy came to my house one

02:40:35.420 day and he was nervous. And I was like, dude, I can feel your, he's like, well, I've been following

02:40:39.080 you for five years and I don't know what to say. I go, you don't have to say anything. Just ask me

02:40:42.700 a question. He's like, what? Anything. So here's the deal. When you meet somebody new, and you can

02:40:49.540 just write them down, have some canned questions. Like, I'm just curious, how did you get into that

02:40:53.040 business? How long have you been doing it? What do you like best? Cody, what do you like best

02:40:56.240 about running this, this incredible empire building? And let them talk. And then, so what happens is

02:41:03.020 I look for two things. I look for one, something that they're doing that could be helpful to me

02:41:08.100 and two something that they're they're they're gonna do or struggling with that is actually my

02:41:14.060 genius so and and i didn't even know i was doing this until somebody asked me about three weeks

02:41:18.980 ago this exact same question and i was like oh actually i'd probably do this so here's what i

02:41:24.000 do i ask the questions but i'm generally curious like i do i do love people so i'm like how do

02:41:28.980 you do this you know well how did you solve that problem oh we're doing this like the media stuff

02:41:33.160 to YouTube, like, do you guys monetize that? Did it? Oh, geez, we don't do that. Okay, so there's

02:41:38.300 my thing. How do you guys monetize? I need to know that. Oh, we got to turn that thing on. I don't

02:41:41.460 know how to do that. Okay, so I got the thing I need. Then I try to figure out, okay, what are

02:41:46.060 they building into the future? See, most people discount their value. They literally go, why would

02:41:52.940 this person want to talk to me? I have nothing to add to their life. That is the silliest thing ever.

02:41:58.480 Every person has something. 0.91

02:42:00.520 It could, and guess what?

02:42:01.600 Your thing could be that you listen with a kind heart.

02:42:06.400 And that is awesome.

02:42:07.800 Because I will tell you, as Cody knows,

02:42:09.420 in this world of business,

02:42:10.300 sometimes that person ain't a kind person.

02:42:12.740 So if all you do is listen with a kind heart,

02:42:14.380 that is actually valuable, and you can offer that.

02:42:16.900 So then, but let's say it's a real thing,

02:42:18.680 like, you know, you're good at marketing or whatever,

02:42:21.440 and you're like, oh, you know,

02:42:22.600 how are you guys marketing your business?

02:42:23.820 And they're like, well, we're thinking of starting Facebook ads.

02:42:25.580 And you're like, oh, I'm a Facebook ad expert.

02:42:27.380 Then I go to the next part,

02:42:28.880 which is I offer to be helpful.

02:42:30.960 And I might say something like,

02:42:33.040 well, that's cool.

02:42:34.140 The thing you're doing with your sales motion there,

02:42:36.340 we've been thinking of doing, we haven't done it.

02:42:38.280 And you know, like the Facebook ads or the SaaS stuff,

02:42:40.740 I think I'd probably do.

02:42:41.740 I was like, you know, anytime you need me,

02:42:43.440 love to do that.

02:42:43.960 But if you want, let's schedule a 30 minute call.

02:42:46.240 And on that call, we can do the first 15 minutes

02:42:48.320 where I help you and I'll show you.

02:42:50.200 And this is the kicker.

02:42:51.460 Again, I don't remember I do this,

02:42:52.500 but like, this is how it's a 10 out of 10.

02:42:54.920 Show them everything.

02:42:56.880 show them, like literally show them, here's our P&L, here's our dashboard, here's my ad sets,

02:43:02.960 here's my thing, like whatever you can help them, show them, here's why. Because if you do that for

02:43:08.540 them, guess what happens when it's now your turn to receive the information from them? They're

02:43:13.120 going to be like, well, let me just show you our CRM. It's so funny when people are like, I could

02:43:17.920 help you. And then I get on call and they're like, what are you dealing with? And I tell them, they're

02:43:20.740 like, oh, you could do this, this and this. I go, no, what are you doing? Show me. Or they ask for

02:43:26.360 advice from a mentor and then they get on a call with the mentor and they don't even tell them

02:43:31.100 what their business is doing, how much profit they have, their team size. I literally tell friends

02:43:35.460 of mine that want a mentor, when they get on that call, you have to disclose everything because in

02:43:40.660 that moment, you separated yourself from everybody else because you're honest and truthful and they

02:43:44.700 can feel that, that I'm just here to like try to win and it doesn't matter. I'm not ashamed of where

02:43:50.380 I'm at. I'm starting here, but I have an aspiration to go more. And those 30-minute phone calls, I

02:43:55.240 probably, Ann knows, we'd probably do two or three a week. And that's just my way as I meet people

02:43:59.560 that I want to be helpful to and learn from that it's really cool. They're short meetings, super

02:44:04.640 valuable, and then we can figure out what's next. It's huge. The other thing that I've found too on

02:44:08.980 the same vein is I really think that there's some sort of magical, there's some sort of magical

02:44:15.320 action you can take when you meet somebody who you might have a slight different power differential

02:44:19.340 with. So let's say, for instance, I met one of the presidential candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy.

02:44:26.840 And he's a presidential candidate. Plus, I think he's worth a couple billion bucks. I'm neither of

02:44:31.400 those things yet. And so when I met him, what's the normal thing that you do? You kind of ask

02:44:36.360 them questions. You ask if they're curious. You pretend to be curious or you are curious with the

02:44:40.740 person. And then you maybe say, well, if I can ever help you, I'd love to. That's actually really

02:44:45.920 annoying to somebody who's really successful because I don't know it's not my homework to

02:44:49.500 help you help me in some way annoying what's not annoying is you doing a little bit of research

02:44:55.280 which we did in the moment we didn't even know the guy was going to be there and realized oh

02:44:58.660 this guy's social media is really terrible and because his social media is really terrible I

02:45:03.460 bet in 30 seconds we could tell him a few things to change in fact we'll tell his number two because

02:45:07.080 he doesn't even have time to listen to that and because we told his number two that we said just

02:45:10.420 give me your give me your email or your assistant's email so you play it down right because they might

02:45:14.900 not want to give me their contact information. Give me your assistant's email. I'm going to send

02:45:18.300 you a social media breakdown of what we would do for years. And oh, by the way, I don't even sell

02:45:21.680 this. This isn't what I do for a living. I just think you're amazing. I want to see you be

02:45:25.720 successful. This is some small way I could potentially help. And if it's not, just throw

02:45:28.840 it in the trash. And of course, we sent that out. We did this breakdown, sent it to them. And then

02:45:34.060 we became consultants on their social media strategy. Again, not paid. But now if I want

02:45:38.620 to call Vivek, I can. If I want to make a phone call, I can. And so I think anytime there might

02:45:43.940 be some sort of power differential between you and somebody else that you want something from

02:45:48.180 in the future, the best way to fill that gap is meet an unexpected need with your zone of genius.

02:45:54.180 And you have it in some way, shape, or form, but so few people will actually deliver you something

02:45:59.300 that you would find valuable. And that is not that hard to do. In fact, you could probably pay

02:46:04.080 somebody on Upwork to do a social media strategy for somebody that you met that's better than what

02:46:08.380 they're doing. And so it always surprises me. If you want to buy back your time, the best way to

02:46:12.520 back to your time sometimes is to give your time up front to the right people doing the right things

02:46:16.520 and so i really like how you do that okay i want to open it up um but before that is there anything

02:46:21.720 else you want to end with i want to ask i want to ask you a question oh so cody here is my question

02:46:27.480 you're starting from scratch at zero how do you make your first million

02:46:35.640 here's the problem you have a recency bias and a confirmation bias right so what i did

02:46:40.360 it did in the past. Would I do it again? If I was today going to make my first million bucks

02:46:46.680 and let's remove the relationships and the social and all the distribution. Yeah. I would go and

02:46:54.000 become really valuable to the most valuable person I could find. I wouldn't, a lot of people would

02:46:59.740 say I'd go build my own social media. I wouldn't do that from scratch. Actually, I would go and

02:47:03.600 immediately probably try to glom on to somebody I could find in any sort of industry. And I would

02:47:08.500 deliver that thing I just told you. I'd deliver the most valuable thing that I, because I have

02:47:12.320 inherent knowledge, know. And I'd deliver that to probably 10 people because nine of them are

02:47:17.260 going to say no. And one of them is going to think that that's really useful. And I'm probably not

02:47:21.280 going to ask for much money. So I'm probably going to like bartend, do something on the side and say

02:47:25.360 like, pay me whatever you think this is worth. Or let me take a cut of whatever you think this is

02:47:28.880 worth. And then I would go and work for somebody else who already has X. Because there's a weird

02:47:33.780 thing about money which is when somebody has money already and you can accelerate their money

02:47:38.660 you can make money faster if i had to go start from zero dollars again yes i could go start from

02:47:44.120 zero get my first couple thousand dollars and work my way up or i could leverage dan's money

02:47:48.920 much more intelligently and as long as i took zero dollars from him and said i only want upside

02:47:54.280 only pay me if this wins and succeeds and it's just net you know to you and then some net to me

02:48:00.780 on top um that's what i would do and i also think it's ridiculous somebody else asked me this

02:48:05.860 question the other day and their answer was like i would go become a youtube star like

02:48:09.440 you know i don't know and if you guys saw the ad revenue on youtube you'd be like no you wouldn't

02:48:18.040 and so and also everything's really expensive these cameras are like 70 80 000 so the best

02:48:23.220 thing that you can do is get in proximity to people who already have power and figure out

02:48:26.380 a way to become more valuable to them than anybody else it is such a great answer you have no idea

02:48:31.720 how freaking awesome that answer is because and and honestly i've asked that question a lot of

02:48:35.740 people and nobody's given me that answer interesting yeah but in hindsight when i think about it all

02:48:40.180 the people in my life that are my business partners is because they did what cody just said

02:48:43.880 when you can come to somebody and say hey i'm gonna take nothing i'll do all this work i'm

02:48:49.300 gonna bet on me and i just i'll take 10 of the upside then they have unlimited leverage because

02:48:56.040 I have whatever amount of capital. It's like, how many times would, you know, you give me a dollar

02:49:00.540 or like, you know, you trade a dollar for 10. It's like, how many times you want to do that trade? So

02:49:05.580 that's actually a brilliant idea. Yeah, it's true. I mean, Lloyd basically was hugely valuable in our

02:49:10.940 membership and did it for nothing and was incredible at it for like three years, basically.

02:49:17.400 And then finally, when we had this new position, I was like, wait a second, I feel like Lloyd is

02:49:20.880 the perfect guy for this position and we want to do some deals together. And so that's happened

02:49:24.940 sort of again and again and again.

02:49:26.780 So I totally agree.

02:49:27.720 Okay, let's open it up to you guys.

02:49:29.500 Who has the first question for Dan?

02:49:30.960 Athena.

02:49:33.580 So you talked about, you know,

02:49:35.660 getting time with people that would be,

02:49:37.680 you know, derive some value from that conversation.

02:49:41.200 But a place I find myself in very often

02:49:43.740 is people asking to pick my brains, right?

02:49:46.860 And also, like, asking for things

02:49:49.680 that's actually proprietary to my business.

02:49:52.140 So you mentioned opening a Komodo

02:49:54.420 and taking time i'm curious because i know both of you probably get these pick my brain requests

02:49:59.900 all the time and asking to see how your business runs so how do you how do you respond to those in

02:50:07.280 a way that's still warm-hearted and or you know some of these people potentially could be clients

02:50:12.700 so what's the pivot there yeah i mean there's there's a lot of filters let me i'll give you

02:50:17.940 some tactical stuff so first off i love everybody and if i had all the time and unlimited resources

02:50:24.180 is I would spend one-on-one time with each and every one of you.

02:50:27.140 But I can't, because I have kids.

02:50:28.640 And any time I say yes to something, this is a big idea.

02:50:31.540 Every time you say yes to somebody else,

02:50:33.940 you're saying no to your dreams and goals.

02:50:36.120 And every time you say no to something,

02:50:38.260 you're saying yes to what you've already decided you want to go achieve.

02:50:41.600 So understand, a no is a yes, and a yes is a no.

02:50:44.140 So knowing that, what I do,

02:50:45.760 because I do want to make myself available for anybody,

02:50:49.580 and I'm one of the few people that probably do this, kind of nutty,

02:50:52.060 anybody can fly to where I live and on Tuesday morning there is a hike it's called the founder's

02:50:57.960 hike it's at 6 30 in the morning and you're invited and people fly in from all over the

02:51:03.820 freaking world there's a guy from New Zealand two guys from New Zealand Dubai we almost killed a guy 1.00

02:51:08.500 from Louisiana it's a it's a real hike all right people I live in Canada like this guy we had to

02:51:19.220 put his Apple watch on his heart rate because I was like if it stays above 165 for too long

02:51:24.420 I'm gonna stop the hike and you'll wait for us on the way down it's not that crazy like it's

02:51:29.200 a 45 minute hike but in that time there's a bunch of us that do it and and I made that and I'll tell

02:51:35.820 you why I do that is I had a mentor once and I reached out to him and I mean cold email but you

02:51:41.800 know local person knew my name I had a small business and I asked him for time and he said

02:51:46.260 meet me at in canada you guys know tim hortons anybody canadian all right cool he said meet me

02:51:51.320 at tim hortons right it's like the dunkin donuts of canada and uh but it was 7 a.m on sunday morning

02:51:57.820 and i was like why does this guy want to meet at 7 a.m back then i was 23 24 right 7 a.m was early

02:52:05.420 i was like this is weird so anyways i went there suit and tie all dressed for success you know and

02:52:10.240 he shows up in like normal t-shirt and stuff and but this guy was the owner of the number one

02:52:14.840 software company in our town and at the end of it i said uh steve his name is steve palmer i said

02:52:21.220 steve i'm just curious man why did you want to meet at 7 a.m at tim hortons on a sunday morning

02:52:26.940 don't you have like your family and stuff you go it's a filter and if you would have barked at that 0.73

02:52:32.680 it would have been a no and the fact that you showed up dressed like that by the way crazy

02:52:37.480 I was like okay well I don't know you know it shows me you're serious so that's how I do it

02:52:44.760 so for 99% of the people that I do not know that cold email that want to pick my brain buy me coffee

02:52:51.060 buy me meal I don't need coffee or meals you can come to the founder site and literally Ann has an

02:52:56.300 auto reply for everybody else the way I decide is a here's where I want to go because again every

02:53:04.860 yes to somebody else is no to my kids if you guys put that in the context your family members or

02:53:10.080 your health then you would be a lot more um discriminant with your time see i just think

02:53:16.600 a lot of people step one of bond back your time is value your time some of you do not value your

02:53:22.020 time and it's probably because of a self-worth thing so i definitely um i will do 15 minute

02:53:28.680 meetings if it's one-on-one i like doing uh dinners so i like to i mean we did a dinner with

02:53:34.080 eight people. And the cool part about that is, is oftentimes, you know, I can help them, but really

02:53:38.940 maybe they need to meet somebody else. There's eight people there. I can deepen relationship

02:53:43.100 with other folks. So it's a really high leverage activity. So I do those all the time. I've got

02:53:47.140 one tonight. I've done one almost every night I've been here. And then I'm just really good at saying

02:53:52.680 no. I'm okay with saying no. And sometimes you'll have, you know, a false positive or whatever's

02:53:58.180 called false negative, where you said no to somebody you shouldn't have, and that's a feedback

02:54:01.780 loop and that's okay and I live in abundance and if that hurts their feelings that's on them it's

02:54:05.680 not on me it's really good yeah the only thing I'd add to you know what do you do when somebody's

02:54:10.480 trying to steal your time and you know the the numerous pick your brain requests um I use a

02:54:15.660 filter for even responding to emails um because it's just the amount of stuff that comes at you

02:54:22.060 and I always ask them to do they're asking me for work I ask them for work first so good so

02:54:26.500 immediate response would be something like hey uh you know what I think is helpful to most

02:54:30.820 everybody, because all the questions are the same thing. How do you buy a business? How do you run

02:54:33.760 a business like you do? How do you become successful? Whatever the case may be. And I

02:54:37.520 always give them a book. So I just say and think, hey, this is a link to a book that I think is

02:54:41.480 really useful to you. Go ahead and read this. And if you have any questions afterwards, let me know.

02:54:44.640 Do you know how many people follow up with me on that? Negative 12. And so the, you know,

02:54:50.200 I think if people want you to do the work for them, kind of immediate red flag. And this is

02:54:55.380 like normalized, but you could say, you know, it'd be a perfect example. You'd go, hey, you want to

02:54:59.280 learn about how to buy businesses, go read these five articles on Contrarian Thinking's free

02:55:03.800 business buying newsletter. Come back to me with your specific questions. Then you know they're a

02:55:07.260 player. They're willing to do some of the work first. And if you feel weird deferring them to

02:55:12.280 something like that, I always go, oh man, I hate giving any version of a shortened,

02:55:18.560 non-contextualized response. There's nothing worse than offhand advice that somebody gives

02:55:24.080 you without really understanding your situation. So before I give you any advice, I want you to

02:55:29.080 go do this thing over here because then we at least have context we have set definitional

02:55:32.660 understanding and so um that's one thing that's been helpful to me and then uh i set a lot of

02:55:38.380 rules around how people can get to me and so you used something before that was like what i would

02:55:43.500 term like strategically uh incompetent oh yeah strategically you know like that's good you know

02:55:49.480 like oh i don't know how would i do that i don't know how would you do that which is i need to do 0.98

02:55:54.820 that more you're really good at that yeah really good at playing stupid i should i gotta save your 0.87

02:56:00.620 complex like you wouldn't believe but the the the second thing that i've found is just being 0.98

02:56:05.720 strategically um what do we say we say we're easy to find hard to reach i'm easy to find i'm all over

02:56:11.880 the internet anybody can find me i'm impossible to reach i never respond to text messages i barely

02:56:16.340 do emails i have rules around voice notes i don't fucking do them no i'm like i do not want to have 0.98

02:56:22.080 whisper in my ear like it's so creepy a stranger right hey i'm just uh i saw your video like no 0.87

02:56:29.920 no yeah no it's out i want that apple you are creepy what about when this person could be a

02:56:37.040 potential client maybe they don't understand ask them what they're looking for i mean to cody's

02:56:41.560 point you know like like i just i'm always like my response is always positive exciting again i

02:56:46.440 don't do it and does it or team does it but it's like oh thanks for reaching out super appreciate

02:56:50.200 I would love to meet up, but before I do that, could you give me a bit more context?

02:56:53.980 What specifically do you need?

02:56:55.600 Because I'm, again, strategically incompetent.

02:56:57.900 I actually might be the wrong person to chat with.

02:57:00.380 And then you put homework on them.

02:57:01.940 Again, half of those people will never reply.

02:57:04.680 So that just told you, they probably sent that email to 14 people, right?

02:57:08.380 And they were just looking for anybody to go like, yeah, let's meet coffee because they

02:57:10.840 want to sell you insurance.

02:57:12.300 But you know what you actually have there?

02:57:13.720 You don't have an outreach issue in this case.

02:57:15.720 If they're going to be a client, you have a business model issue.

02:57:17.860 You have a business that is a service, not a productized service that you can standardize, that people actually can fall into.

02:57:24.540 You have both of our least favorite types of businesses.

02:57:26.800 He's the SaaS king because he wants to build, wants, sell continuously.

02:57:30.400 And I bet his advice to you would be something like create a productized service that allows somebody to buy some component as opposed to RFP for their time, which is what you're doing when they're like, can we talk first?

02:57:42.040 You're having to apply for an RFP.

02:57:44.080 And that's not the type of business model you actually want to run long term.

02:57:48.700 You're pretty big on productized models, services.

02:57:52.200 Yeah, I don't do custom job shop, anything.

02:57:55.540 It's hard.

02:57:56.660 I mean, it's so funny, though,

02:57:58.480 because it's the easiest business to start,

02:58:00.120 and it's where everybody goes to immediately.

02:58:02.200 Even, you know, like my husband,

02:58:03.580 we have a couple businesses,

02:58:04.640 and he'll be like,

02:58:04.960 we have this huge opportunity to do an RFP for them.

02:58:07.300 I'm like, nope.

02:58:08.660 Shut it down.

02:58:09.160 No.

02:58:09.780 You either press the button and buy, or you don't.

02:58:11.620 Okay, let's do another question here.

02:58:12.940 Yes, Robert.

02:58:13.720 Can you talk about the value of failure

02:58:15.160 and how getting through that

02:58:16.520 enables you to buy back your time yeah i mean john maxwell wrote a great book sometimes you win

02:58:23.620 sometimes you learn and that's just the way i think about it so i just start with the premise

02:58:28.880 anytime i start any company this might be a little weird for you guys i just assume i'm wrong

02:58:32.540 what a crazy frame if i start a new business the first thing i believe is i am wrong now i'm on a

02:58:39.200 journey to validate that i'm right so my conversations my approach are completely

02:58:44.520 different so when I fail I actually get excited because I'm like that doesn't work let's not do

02:58:49.960 that again perfect how fast can I move through an experiment to get to a place where I learn

02:58:54.640 and that I would say that's actually like when we think of like poor mindset rich mindset

02:58:59.320 that's the difference between the people that are wealthy is that they don't call it failure

02:59:05.200 like I can't remember last time I was like I failed nope I learned I got to a place of experience

02:59:12.780 Yeah, I think I have the same take on that.

02:59:14.700 The only thing that I might add there is the other thing that I've noticed really successful people don't do is there's not a lot of blame.

02:59:22.180 Like I've noticed on my team sometimes somebody will go, oh, that's my fault because I did X or Y or Z or like I should take the blame for that.

02:59:27.740 I'm like, why would we ever use that word blame?

02:59:29.620 Like the only reason that you should blame yourself for something or you should accept quote unquote fault is if you did something on purpose repetitively.

02:59:37.320 Otherwise, it's not that.

02:59:38.460 It's, oh, wow, this happened.

02:59:40.120 Hmm, we should have done this.

02:59:41.120 What did we learn differently about that?

02:59:42.620 I did take that part.

02:59:43.800 Next time, I'd like actually to do this.

02:59:45.460 I hate that blame work.

02:59:46.600 And I think that lines up directly with failure.

02:59:49.860 And if you start blaming yourself for failures,

02:59:52.360 you really get into trouble.

02:59:53.320 You used the word rich earlier,

02:59:54.860 and then now you're using wealthy.

02:59:56.300 Could you kind of provide some context

02:59:58.160 on the difference of the two?

02:59:59.440 I'm just going to tell you what I think wealthy is.

03:00:01.040 I think wealthy is realizing

03:00:02.120 you've already arrived at the place

03:00:03.160 you're trying to get to,

03:00:04.500 to become the person that you can be today.

03:00:08.820 I like that.

03:00:09.660 I'll just, like, leave that little nugget for you to think about what I just said.

03:00:13.500 Okay, who's got another question?

03:00:15.300 Can you elaborate a little bit on the manage energy, not time?

03:00:19.260 Because some of the books that I read, usually they say eat the frog first.

03:00:23.440 Like, you know, you start with the most complex task when you have the energy

03:00:27.220 and then go down to a smaller task that you can digest later.

03:00:32.380 Is that something that you subscribe?

03:00:34.680 It is 100% part of it.

03:00:37.320 But it's also more like in the book,

03:00:39.720 I have this thing called the buyback loop,

03:00:41.460 which is how I have done everything

03:00:43.800 I've ever done in my life.

03:00:44.900 It's how I execute and grow and scale.

03:00:47.280 And every year my life gets better

03:00:49.340 and better and better.

03:00:51.000 Bigger, but better.

03:00:53.280 It just is.

03:00:54.120 And if you look at the formula,

03:00:55.500 like, well, of course it would have to,

03:00:56.900 because one of the concepts

03:00:58.260 is doing a two-week time and energy audit.

03:01:01.400 Depending on how big my life is growing this year,

03:01:04.900 I might have to do it three times a year,

03:01:06.220 once a year, twice a year. But part of that is evaluating what things in my calendar give me

03:01:13.120 energy versus take my energy. Does that make sense? So what's funny though is one of the big

03:01:19.080 ideas that people have to remind themselves is something can start off as a bright green,

03:01:23.120 I love this, and immediately turn into a yellow and then a red, but you forget to reassess. So

03:01:29.020 for example, I was a board member in a company and at first it was awesome. And then it was like,

03:01:34.840 oh, this is boring. Well, I don't want to be, but I forgot to renegotiate with the people to resign

03:01:40.240 from the board to create the space. And it sounds so subtle because it's like, it's only a 90 minute

03:01:45.000 call, maybe once every six weeks. It's still 90 minutes. I want my 90 minutes back, right? Or the

03:01:51.140 other day I was doing, I do one-on-ones with my direct reports. I don't have a lot, but I still

03:01:54.900 have them. And I noticed they were 60 minutes in the calendar because they've always been 60 minutes

03:01:59.000 and we're always finishing early.

03:02:01.060 So guess what I did?

03:02:01.880 Shrink them down, 45. 0.99

03:02:03.960 So now all my one-on-ones are 45 times five.

03:02:06.740 That's, I get back a couple.

03:02:07.960 So like my whole thing is, yes, start the morning.

03:02:11.480 So if you follow, I have a whole video

03:02:12.800 on my morning routine.

03:02:13.740 First thing I do in the morning

03:02:14.940 is work on the thing that needs to get done, the frog.

03:02:18.480 For sure, because that's where your mind's the freshest,

03:02:20.400 you're connected, you know, it's awesome.

03:02:22.620 But I also look at the work I do

03:02:25.420 and that's why I buy back your time

03:02:27.320 is really about buying back the time

03:02:29.200 from not doing the stuff

03:02:30.340 to take your energy

03:02:31.160 that costs very little

03:02:32.140 to have somebody else support you on.

03:02:34.260 And that's the thing.

03:02:35.580 And it doesn't,

03:02:36.420 there's a whole chapter

03:02:37.040 called The Time Assassins

03:02:37.920 because it costs $0 to buy back your time.

03:02:40.360 You just got to stop doing

03:02:41.220 The Five Time Assassins.

03:02:43.020 So people think,

03:02:43.740 I don't have the money,

03:02:44.520 I've got a job,

03:02:45.200 I can't buy my time back.

03:02:46.200 No, you can

03:02:46.900 by not doing The Five Time Assassins.

03:02:49.720 What are The Five Time Assassins?

03:02:51.340 That's always good.

03:02:52.140 When you wrote,

03:02:52.740 you write in your book, right?

03:02:54.080 Little tip,

03:02:55.280 memorize the things

03:02:56.360 you know people are going to do.

03:02:57.320 i knew as soon as i said that someone's gonna ask me but it's i have them i know okay please

03:03:06.160 if you don't mind reading my okay yeah that that part that part always stresses me out too

03:03:11.340 there's five s's the staller yes okay that yeah do you want to talk about each one i'll do it real

03:03:15.440 quick the staller is the person that takes more time to make a decision to make the decision and

03:03:19.120 the potential downside which is probably not going to be there and they just delay it just make a

03:03:23.700 decision. That is what Cody does beautifully. I do the top people. They, what information do I

03:03:28.840 need? They know I'm going to make an imperfect, I have imperfect data to make a decision. It's not

03:03:33.360 about making the right decisions, but making a decision and making it right. So don't be a

03:03:37.300 staller. Love it. The speed demon. Speed demon is the opposite. It's a person that's moving fast

03:03:42.220 and like, I got to go and watch this movie and then all of a sudden they're cleaning up because 1.00

03:03:47.500 of the freaking wake of stupid hiring their cousins because they had a pulse like just dumb 0.99

03:03:54.020 moving too fast done it literally sorry um the the other part that i thought was really good 1.00

03:04:02.380 about the speed demon that you talk about is how to offset your speed demon nature by um i forget

03:04:08.660 what you used in the book but but basically what i took away from it is if i know i'm a speed demon

03:04:12.300 which i am that means that i need callers i basically need a caller around me so if i know

03:04:16.760 I want to hire fast. That means I need a great recruiter because I'm going to move and they have

03:04:21.220 the experience to move it fast. Yeah. Okay. The supervisor. Yeah. You over manage people. You're

03:04:27.760 a micromanager. This is funny. You hire people and then tell them what to do. Yep. Anybody

03:04:32.660 hire people and have them tell you what to do. Really actually hard to do. Super hard. Really

03:04:38.420 hard to do. The saver. Yeah. You literally walk over dollars to save pennies. It's hilarious.

03:04:45.660 Like I had a buddy I talked about in the book.

03:04:47.340 He had, I think it was like a 3 million a year mastermind

03:04:50.040 and he was hating it.

03:04:50.900 He wasn't going to shut it down,

03:04:51.800 but he saw what I was doing

03:04:52.800 and he's like, how did you create all the systems?

03:04:55.600 I feel like there's a framework.

03:04:56.820 I said, oh, it's my buddy, Simon.

03:04:58.160 He's like, this is his genius.

03:04:59.980 He's like, oh, how much is he?

03:05:01.640 And I'm like, I don't know.

03:05:03.320 Like, I honestly, I maybe got a bro deal.

03:05:05.780 I don't know what it is.

03:05:06.420 Maybe five grand, maybe 10,

03:05:08.380 but you're about to shut down a 3 million mastermind.

03:05:12.160 What are we talking about?

03:05:12.600 He goes, does he have a book?

03:05:15.100 dude, I don't know if he has a book.

03:05:17.300 I'm going to introduce you to the guy

03:05:18.620 that's going to solve the problem

03:05:19.480 so you don't shut down your business.

03:05:20.900 It's making you, you know,

03:05:22.540 six, 700 grand a year.

03:05:24.640 He's that guy.

03:05:26.060 Oh, painful.

03:05:26.820 And the self-medicator.

03:05:29.340 The vices.

03:05:30.600 The vices.

03:05:31.940 Some people, end of the year rolls around

03:05:34.800 and depending, honestly,

03:05:37.120 if it's a good year, they drink to celebrate

03:05:38.800 and if it's a bad year, they drink to numb it, right?

03:05:42.380 I used to be that person.

03:05:43.840 And I quit drinking 12 years ago.

03:05:45.620 But I've always had that issue.

03:05:47.680 And it's not even about alcohol or drugs or video games.

03:05:52.040 It's you know.

03:05:53.300 You just got to check in with yourself.

03:05:54.760 So somebody asked me one time, they're like, how do I know what I need to stop doing?

03:05:57.900 Because it's not what I'm doing that I'm winning.

03:06:00.260 It's what I don't do.

03:06:02.100 That's the biggest idea we should all consider.

03:06:04.160 When people stop me and they see me drive my fancy car and they go, what do you do?

03:06:07.840 I'm like, it's what I don't do, dude.

03:06:09.760 right I don't go to the buffet and try to get my money's worth I don't go gambling I don't

03:06:16.600 fucking vape I don't do a ton of stuff that I know you do so figure that out one other thing

03:06:22.540 that you both you and maybe the most successful people that I know overall it's the name of your 0.98

03:06:27.700 book but literally where to buy back your time so for instance every time I go and meet with

03:06:32.300 one of my mentors Bill Perkins he says to me uh he asked me if I if I put the my own gas in my

03:06:38.980 own car which originally I thought god that's so pretentious I can't even fill up my own car like 0.96

03:06:43.620 what kind of asshole doesn't do that and then he explained to me uh what my time is worth in order 0.97

03:06:49.120 for me to go fill up my own car every single time and so each time he'll come up with something new 1.00

03:06:52.840 he'll be like did you schedule your own doctor's appointments have you been doing landscaping and

03:06:57.660 the mission is basically just you are basically a representation of the tasks you do every single

03:07:02.960 day and so if the tasks you ever do every single day are low level what are you you're actually

03:07:08.600 kind of low level um and you you can't level up unless you change your tasks what odd things do

03:07:14.520 you do like the weirder the better to buy back your time buy back i'll give you my new test this

03:07:20.140 is like because i have a lot of friends like i have an assistant i'm like

03:07:22.780 my ann and i've been playing this game of like she's going to do a video of all the assistance

03:07:29.980 evaluation because she deals with them all and some of them are like they're like do they really

03:07:34.440 do they talk to each other it's like because she's trying to coordinate stuff and some people

03:07:38.480 are dialed in some people are not so uh what are the weird things that i do to buy back my time

03:07:43.780 here's one this is the test is do you pack your own bags for your travel i know that that'll

03:07:51.260 probably be that'll be like the the final boss in the levels right like i know could you imagine

03:07:57.960 how crazy that would be to just pick up a bag and go straight to the airport and trust that your

03:08:04.080 passport's there if you're going international that everything you need and all your pills and

03:08:07.760 everything it's like do you do that now i don't i don't pack my bags and no and doesn't do it

03:08:12.580 betty does it but she reports that's incredible yeah so i do a lot of stuff so yeah i don't i

03:08:17.340 don't wash my car put gas in my car um the weirder stuff i have this thing about a certain

03:08:22.300 type of gum and these uh toothpicks that i like uh to keep my teeth clean and they are literally

03:08:26.960 they're always in the right places in my car in my office everywhere we have this cool thing like

03:08:32.820 all the repurchasing in every home all the stuff there's like a little spot that we put stuff if

03:08:37.740 it's almost finished and you just put it there it's like a magic little square i know man you

03:08:43.120 guys are gonna love this magic little square guess what happens when you put something about

03:08:47.160 it gets reordered more shows up it is awesome so uh i do a lot of stuff i don't shop right i have

03:08:54.780 a shopper and she just sends me a bunch of stuff i put it on i create two piles i walk away and

03:08:59.160 all of a sudden i get the right stuff it's kind of awesome the way i think about it for me i only

03:09:03.080 to do two things i create in my unique genius or i hug and i hang out with people i love

03:09:08.680 think about it that's literally all i do that's all i want to do the the part and one of the

03:09:15.640 reason why i want to hit on this is because the world is crazy and if you guys if we were to post

03:09:20.660 this segment on either of our instagrams what would happen massive shame yeah you know you rich

03:09:26.400 tats the rich right like that's the world we live in and here's the problem with that this is why

03:09:32.600 we have to have rooms like this because guess how the wealthy get wealthier it's the small things

03:09:38.540 the things that they never share out loud because they would get lambasted for it and so because of

03:09:44.380 that more people stay poor and we don't actually give the hand up to the next generation how did

03:09:49.640 we all i started as an assistant back in high school i had a rich family that i worked for i

03:09:54.780 drove their cars sometimes i ran into things i didn't always tell them about it and i did a bunch

03:09:59.780 of awful work when I was young. And I'm sure somebody could say that woman couldn't have 1.00

03:10:05.380 washed her car. Well, those first 20 bucks let me make my very first investments. And so shame

03:10:10.820 on every single one of us if we think that it's pretentious to allow somebody else to do a lower

03:10:15.280 level task for ourselves. That is how we stay poor. Number seven is my video on the 10 books

03:10:20.420 that will make you rich from the 1800 that I've read. A long time ago, I got myself in trouble,

03:10:25.860 ended up in rehab and somebody wrote a book a book on java programming and i found that book

03:10:31.860 learning how to code became my new addiction filled a hole inside of me and from that one

03:10:37.440 book i went on a journey to acquire knowledge my dad did something really cool he said as long as

03:10:43.220 you finish the book you have an unlimited budget to buy the next book and i've applied that to my

03:10:48.740 life i have an unlimited budget to invest in my knowledge today i read every day i think of it as

03:10:55.220 my way of programming my mind. 10 pages is usually the minimum. And what I'm doing every time, I'm

03:11:00.960 not just reading, I'm studying books because I believe the words we read and the words we tell

03:11:06.900 ourselves, the beliefs we have creates our future. So I've read over 1,800 books and I've had to

03:11:12.760 distill it into these 10 books that will make you rich. The first book is Secrets of a Millionaire

03:11:19.840 mind. So fun fact, this book back in the day, it came with a ticket to go to the event. And the

03:11:26.140 reason why this book was so important to me, it was actually the first seminar where my brother

03:11:30.500 and I invested in a coach, in a trainer, in actual education and ourselves. Now, what makes this book

03:11:38.180 unique is that it really attacks the mindset that keeps us poor. And it's not financially poor,

03:11:44.540 more than a lack of abundance, a lack of joy,

03:11:47.440 a lack of growth, of understanding

03:11:49.660 that if we want to have more, we have to become more.

03:11:53.260 What I learned specifically from this book is,

03:11:55.220 one, is your financial blueprint shapes your financial destiny.

03:11:58.640 And everybody's got them.

03:11:59.700 They probably don't even realize it.

03:12:01.040 And what is the new blueprint you have to acquire?

03:12:03.520 You gotta think rich to become rich.

03:12:06.140 The mindset matters a lot.

03:12:07.960 The other one is that we invest in personal development

03:12:10.040 and financial education

03:12:11.360 so that we know how to receive the money.

03:12:13.800 See, most of us, if we actually got a million dollars

03:12:16.140 and we weren't millionaires, we would quickly lose it.

03:12:18.740 And we have to learn how to act despite of fear.

03:12:22.440 Take bold financial action.

03:12:24.380 See, wealthy people constantly learn and grow.

03:12:27.140 And this book set the foundation for me

03:12:29.860 to learn the rest of them.

03:12:31.740 So without this one,

03:12:32.980 the other books wouldn't really make sense for me.

03:12:36.100 Number two is one of the most popular books

03:12:38.880 in personal development.

03:12:39.880 It's Think and Grow Rich.

03:12:41.540 Now, again, I don't read books, I study books.

03:12:43.780 I've probably read this book about seven times.

03:12:46.300 So why is this book so powerful?

03:12:48.240 Here are a few things that I learned.

03:12:49.420 Number one is that desire is the starting point

03:12:52.440 of all achievement.

03:12:54.040 Most of us don't wanna give ourselves permission

03:12:56.220 to actually want more because we think for some reason

03:12:58.840 that makes us not appreciate what we have,

03:13:01.000 but desire is required to move forward.

03:13:03.920 The other one is faith in your abilities

03:13:05.420 is crucial to success.

03:13:07.200 If you don't have belief in your ability to succeed,

03:13:11.060 you'll never get a penny more than you think you deserve.

03:13:14.300 The concept of auto-suggestion,

03:13:16.700 speaking out loud what you wanna achieve,

03:13:19.000 helped me in a big way to internalize my financial goals.

03:13:22.620 The other thing is specialized knowledge

03:13:23.960 is more valuable than general knowledge.

03:13:25.560 A lot of people major in minor things.

03:13:27.900 They know a lot about stuff

03:13:29.300 that doesn't really move the needle.

03:13:31.500 And what I decided after reading this book

03:13:33.440 is becoming world-class at a topic.

03:13:36.020 For me, it was software, it was startups, it's technology.

03:13:38.740 And finally, persistence in efforts lead to success.

03:13:42.760 You have to be consistent in your effort to be successful

03:13:47.220 and that's how you will think and grow rich.

03:13:50.940 Number three is seven habits of highly effective people.

03:13:55.400 I just absolutely loved it.

03:13:56.560 The things that I learned from this book,

03:13:58.540 just to name a few, is number one,

03:14:00.580 be proactive in your life and choices.

03:14:03.280 See, most people are reactive to the world.

03:14:05.360 You want to be proactive.

03:14:07.400 You wanna play to win, not play, not to lose.

03:14:10.280 Huge idea.

03:14:11.020 The other thing is begin with a clear end goal in mind.

03:14:14.880 It is probably something I say every day.

03:14:17.120 I'm always saying, okay, at the end of the day,

03:14:18.780 what does this look like if it's a 10 out of 10?

03:14:20.540 I first really understood that concept in this book.

03:14:23.140 The other one is put first things first,

03:14:25.060 prioritize important tasks.

03:14:26.480 And it sounds so simple,

03:14:27.940 but too often people don't prioritize

03:14:29.760 the important tasks first.

03:14:31.300 The other one is think win-win

03:14:32.620 for mutually beneficial solutions.

03:14:34.900 Learning to collaborate with other people,

03:14:37.540 customers, partners.

03:14:38.640 If you can figure out how to collaborate

03:14:40.560 in a way where everybody wins,

03:14:41.860 you will make your life a lot easier.

03:14:43.600 Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

03:14:46.300 This one saved me so many times

03:14:48.100 where I was immediately like hotheaded

03:14:50.600 and like, what went wrong?

03:14:51.800 And why is this person doing this?

03:14:53.300 Versus now that I understood this concept,

03:14:55.580 I go into meeting and I go,

03:14:56.600 hey, can you help me understand this, this, and this?

03:14:58.620 That's the concept of understanding

03:15:00.720 before you're understood.

03:15:02.340 And those are just a small handful.

03:15:03.960 If you have not read this, I can't recommend it enough.

03:15:06.480 Number four is Dale Carnegie,

03:15:08.880 How to Win Friends and Influence People.

03:15:11.380 Not only did it sell 30 million copies,

03:15:13.220 but this book has shaped me

03:15:15.040 and how I interact with other people.

03:15:17.540 Number one is to show genuine interest in other people.

03:15:20.120 People don't care what you know

03:15:21.720 until they know that you care.

03:15:23.200 The other big idea is remember

03:15:24.420 and use people's names often.

03:15:26.040 Their favorite word is their name.

03:15:27.660 Just say their name.

03:15:28.620 It actually helps you remember it.

03:15:29.920 It helps them feel seen and appreciated.

03:15:32.660 It's just a simple strategy.

03:15:34.000 The other one is encourage others to talk about themselves.

03:15:36.560 If you want to get a partner,

03:15:38.880 You wanna get an investor, you wanna get a new customer,

03:15:42.120 ask them questions about how they started,

03:15:44.640 what was challenging, how they overcame it.

03:15:47.160 Be genuinely curious in others and trust me,

03:15:49.700 they will lean into what you've got going on.

03:15:52.200 The other big idea is be a good listener

03:15:54.020 and encourage others to talk about their interests.

03:15:56.300 I'm very curious.

03:15:57.180 If you meet with me,

03:15:58.160 I'm gonna ask you way more questions than I talk.

03:16:00.900 And the reason why is I already know what I know.

03:16:03.140 Think about that.

03:16:03.900 I have nothing to learn about me.

03:16:06.360 I already know what I know.

03:16:07.100 So why am I talking when I get together with other folks,

03:16:09.720 especially if they've gotten to a place that inspire me?

03:16:12.280 I'm Mr. Curious, I'm Mr. Asker.

03:16:14.340 And it turns out a lot of the billionaires

03:16:15.780 that I've had the pleasure of meeting,

03:16:17.580 they're the same way.

03:16:18.560 They're always curious and genuinely interested

03:16:20.680 in things that are going on around them.

03:16:22.320 And finally, make other people feel important

03:16:24.800 and do it sincerely.

03:16:26.740 My favorite way to do this

03:16:28.200 is to just find some aspect of their presence,

03:16:31.000 their being, their kindness, and just give them a compliment.

03:16:33.840 Just let people know, hey, I just want you to know

03:16:35.500 oh, that thing you just did, it's really impressive.

03:16:37.920 So what's funny about this is that many people feel

03:16:40.320 that they wanna say something,

03:16:41.680 but they're scared that it's gonna come off wrong.

03:16:43.380 And I'm gonna encourage you to just lean in.

03:16:45.240 If you feel something, you see somebody do something awesome,

03:16:48.300 listen to the words in this book.

03:16:49.900 Make sure other people feel important

03:16:52.140 and do it in a sincere way.

03:16:54.380 And that's how you'll win friends and influence people.

03:16:57.160 Number five is an awesome book on sales.

03:17:01.060 Nothing happens until somebody makes a sale.

03:17:04.160 This book by Neil Rackman is awesome.

03:17:06.620 It taught me so many things about sales.

03:17:08.460 I used to be more of an introverted person.

03:17:10.520 I like software and writing code

03:17:11.900 because I didn't wanna talk to anybody.

03:17:13.120 Turns out that everything in life is sales.

03:17:15.900 So it doesn't matter what you do in your life,

03:17:18.180 you need to learn the concepts in this book.

03:17:20.840 The first one that stands out that I remember

03:17:22.880 is successful selling is about asking the right questions.

03:17:25.680 See, people think salespeople,

03:17:27.020 they just talk a lot and they pressure people.

03:17:29.160 The truth is the best of the best,

03:17:30.980 lean back, ask questions to help guide the decisions of the buyer and make it their idea.

03:17:37.440 That was a big idea. The other one is understand the customer situation. That's actually what

03:17:41.880 SPIN stands for. Situation, problem, implication, and need payoff. If you understand those four

03:17:48.120 things, that's where the opportunity to enroll them, to sell them, to invite them, to consider

03:17:53.760 working with you all come from. The other one is focus on problem solving, not just product

03:17:59.140 feature. See, the features unlock the benefits. They don't care how they get there, the tool,

03:18:04.600 the vehicle, et cetera. They want the benefit that it's going to unlock. So you got to make

03:18:08.340 sure you understand how to speak towards solving their problem, not just the features of your

03:18:12.920 product. And finally, you have to tailor your sales approach to each customer. For every

03:18:18.080 interaction, every customer know that you have to be in there with them. You have to customize your

03:18:23.600 conversation to meet their needs. And if you do that, you're executing on the spin selling

03:18:29.080 process. Number six is for many people, a bit of a controversial book, 48 Laws of Power by Robert

03:18:36.000 Green. Now I'll tell you why this book matters to me is you need to understand how the world is,

03:18:42.400 not how you hope it would be so that you can understand the powers, the forces that may be

03:18:47.360 playing against you in business. So a lot of things I've learned from this book. Number one is

03:18:50.840 Power requires careful strategy and planning.

03:18:54.380 So if you wanna win in this world,

03:18:56.400 you can't be loosey-goosey.

03:18:58.140 You have to have careful strategy and planning.

03:19:00.340 The other one is learn to be subtle

03:19:01.940 and indirect in your influence.

03:19:04.380 See, a lot of people that are too braggadocious,

03:19:06.620 too over their skis and their personality,

03:19:08.860 they actually don't have a lot of influence.

03:19:10.920 They might have a lot of notoriety.

03:19:12.640 A lot of people might know who they are,

03:19:13.840 but they don't actually influence people to take action.

03:19:17.200 The other one is reputation is incredibly important.

03:19:20.020 protect it. My philosophy is reach and reputation to the degree that my reputation is positive and

03:19:26.600 people that interact with me say good things. And then also there's reach for that. That is

03:19:30.820 actually the unlock for any one of your dreams and goals. The other big idea is use absence to

03:19:36.220 increase respect and honor. So sometimes creating space actually allows people to see you through a

03:19:42.820 different lens. For a lot of the entrepreneurs out there, you're too involved in every freaking

03:19:46.900 and meeting and decision.

03:19:48.500 You've got to learn to let go

03:19:49.860 and use space and absence to make that happen.

03:19:52.520 And most importantly,

03:19:53.460 master the art of timing in your actions.

03:19:56.340 What I say is sequencing equals success.

03:19:58.920 So understanding the right sequence,

03:20:01.060 like a recipe, not the ingredients,

03:20:03.120 will allow you to be successful.

03:20:05.360 So you have to master that if you want to build

03:20:07.940 and develop the 48 laws of power.

03:20:10.660 Number seven, Awaken the Giant Within.

03:20:13.960 It is one of the most influential books

03:20:16.380 as it pertains to personal development.

03:20:18.560 I mean, Tony Robbins is the GOAT, undeniable.

03:20:21.720 He's been doing this for 40 years.

03:20:23.440 And I read this book in my mid-20s

03:20:25.500 and it shaped my mind.

03:20:27.780 So many things, taking control

03:20:29.220 of your mental and emotional state,

03:20:30.700 understanding what that means,

03:20:31.920 not having a victim mentality.

03:20:33.700 Number two is decisions shape destiny, not your conditions.

03:20:36.880 You can just find somebody else that's come from worse

03:20:39.120 or the same that has achieved anything.

03:20:40.980 That is just proof that your decisions

03:20:43.000 will shape your future.

03:20:44.260 The other one is set clear, powerful, and compelling goals.

03:20:48.260 Most people are walking generalities.

03:20:50.780 They don't set clear, powerful, and compelling goals,

03:20:54.020 and because of that, they'll never hit anything.

03:20:55.780 The other one is develop and maintain a high level of energy.

03:20:58.880 Your physical energy, your state,

03:21:01.420 is a decision that you get to make.

03:21:03.320 You wanna master that.

03:21:04.660 And finally, master personal and professional relationships.

03:21:08.760 If you wanna take your life to the next level

03:21:10.300 and really unlock your giant within,

03:21:12.300 you're gonna wanna read this book.

03:21:14.600 Number eight is Getting Things Done by David Allen.

03:21:19.200 This one for me is a game changer, and I'll tell you why.

03:21:22.640 It teaches you to organize your task

03:21:24.860 and your thoughts neatly.

03:21:26.160 See, most people are overwhelmed easily

03:21:28.420 because they have a lot of things in their mind

03:21:30.580 that they're trying to keep track of.

03:21:32.060 And the truth is, is your brain

03:21:33.620 was not designed to do that.

03:21:35.340 You wanna take everything in your mind,

03:21:36.860 put it out in front of you so that you can work with it.

03:21:40.220 This book teaches you how to do that.

03:21:42.520 The other thing is you wanna do one thing at a time

03:21:44.960 and focus.

03:21:45.960 See, most people think that we can multitask

03:21:48.100 and the truth is, is we're not good at it at all.

03:21:50.400 So you wanna do one thing and focus on it.

03:21:52.260 The other is make a list and keep track easily.

03:21:55.500 So have a tool for writing things down.

03:21:57.480 Have a list and track where are you at in that list?

03:22:00.140 What do you have to remember?

03:22:01.520 Always have a book nearby.

03:22:03.040 Every night when I go to bed,

03:22:04.240 I have my journal sitting there.

03:22:05.540 If I'm having a hard time sleeping,

03:22:07.140 I'm writing things down.

03:22:08.300 And because of that,

03:22:09.380 I've always had incredible sleep scores on my aura.

03:22:12.860 And finally, you wanna take action steps step by step calmly.

03:22:18.380 If you do that, you will learn how to get things done

03:22:22.620 and move your dreams forward.

03:22:24.500 Number nine is The Lean Startup by my friend, Eric Ries.

03:22:29.460 Now, fun fact, I actually met Eric in San Francisco

03:22:32.660 before he ever published this book,

03:22:34.900 when he was just going around,

03:22:36.280 speaking at different conferences about the concept of a lean startup, and then he eventually

03:22:39.920 signed a deal to write it. Let me tell you this. This book changed the game for all startups in

03:22:45.240 Silicon Valley and all businesses in the world because it showed entrepreneurs a completely

03:22:49.460 different way to build companies. The big ideas in this book, I mean, there's so many, but the

03:22:53.560 first one is startups must adapt and adjust quickly to succeed. It's all about pivots. We need to be

03:22:58.680 able to make decisions and pivot quickly. The other area is validate business ideas through customer

03:23:03.140 feedback. No business plan survives first contact with the customer. So you need to talk to your

03:23:09.320 customers. The whole structure of the book is built around the build, measure, learn loop,

03:23:13.620 and it's crucial for building your business. We always want to build something, measure it with

03:23:18.320 the customers, look at the analytics, and then learn, and then feed that back into the next

03:23:23.100 iteration. The other key area is focus on minimum viable product for early testing. You don't want

03:23:28.740 to overbuild. Too often people overbuild their business. They build so many features into their

03:23:33.740 software just to launch. And that is a recipe for waste. And the other final idea that I think is

03:23:40.100 so important that I've read in so many other books, but it really is crystallized in this one

03:23:44.480 is continuous innovation is the key to long-term success. So if you want to learn how to build a

03:23:50.980 business and take shots on goals and learn and move quickly, then get the lean startup.

03:23:56.520 Number 10 is such an important book for me and it's called The Innovator's Dilemma. As a software entrepreneur, as somebody that innovates, that creates technology, this really became the blueprint for building businesses. There was so many incredible lessons and Clayton Christensen is not only a great author and mind, but he was also just an incredible person.

03:24:18.260 I mean, his other books are also really great reads

03:24:20.960 and just the way he lived his life in general.

03:24:22.980 He left a meaningful impact just outside of creating innovation

03:24:26.760 or teaching people how to think about innovation.

03:24:28.740 But the big ideas that are going to help you is one,

03:24:31.280 that companies can fail despite good management

03:24:33.760 if they ignore disruptive technologies.

03:24:36.180 I mean, think of Blockbuster, BlackBerry, Kodak.

03:24:39.860 All these companies essentially had market position, number one,

03:24:43.520 and got disrupted because of technology.

03:24:45.760 and disruptive technology often initially underperformed,

03:24:49.180 but eventually improves rapidly,

03:24:51.520 meaning that it looks like a toy.

03:24:53.700 Most people dismiss it.

03:24:55.020 They think it's a fringe idea or it's too big

03:24:58.360 or nobody would ever do that.

03:24:59.700 When you think of ghetto blasters 1.00

03:25:01.080 and then the Walkman and then the iPod, right?

03:25:04.520 Like all these areas of innovation took something

03:25:07.440 that most people would be like,

03:25:08.400 nobody's gonna wanna walk around with a bunch of music.

03:25:10.800 And then as the form factor got better,

03:25:12.820 the innovation showed up, it disrupted whole industries.

03:25:15.760 The other concept is that companies should invest

03:25:18.140 in emerging technologies,

03:25:19.520 even if they don't meet current customer needs.

03:25:21.960 And the reason why is you just wanna be close to it.

03:25:24.140 So for me, AI, crypto, whatever it is, Web3,

03:25:28.620 you wanna be close to the innovation and the technology

03:25:31.980 so that you can figure out where that might show up

03:25:34.400 in your product roadmap, in your innovation,

03:25:36.020 so you don't get disrupted yourself.

03:25:38.080 And finally, one of the biggest ideas

03:25:40.220 is that organizational structures and their values

03:25:42.940 can impede recognizing and responding to disruptive change.

03:25:46.240 Some big companies just rest on their laurels.

03:25:48.720 They just keep cashing the checks.

03:25:50.220 They don't innovate.

03:25:51.360 And then the newcomer,

03:25:52.580 they come in with this new innovation.

03:25:54.800 Just think about ChatGPT and Google.

03:25:57.540 It came out of nowhere.

03:25:58.860 And all of a sudden,

03:26:00.000 Google's trying to respond to massive innovation

03:26:03.140 in a space that they probably got flat-footed on.

03:26:06.160 You don't want that to be the case.

03:26:07.600 This book will give you the framework

03:26:10.320 to make sure that you're always innovating.

03:26:13.520 Number eight is a video on what I'd do

03:26:15.360 if I started investing this year.

03:26:17.400 Ray Dalio, the famous investor, once said,

03:26:19.820 the person who lives by the crystal ball

03:26:21.460 will eat shattered glass.

03:26:22.980 It means that the people who lose their money

03:26:24.940 are the ones that are looking inside the crystal ball,

03:26:28.020 always trying to predict the future,

03:26:30.460 making investments on trend speculations or emotions.

03:26:33.420 That's why I wanna share with you

03:26:34.460 the best investments you can make today

03:26:36.520 to actually get ROI so you don't eat shattered glass.

03:26:39.840 The first vehicle is index funds.

03:26:42.340 At 26 years old, one of my mentors told me to take half of what I'd made at the time and I've earned and put it into a stability bucket, essentially an investment where I wouldn't lose my money.

03:26:53.360 So what I did is I dollar cost average myself into the index funds.

03:26:58.000 Why? Because it didn't take any thinking.

03:27:00.140 You know, a long time ago, I was reading books on investing and I came across like John Bogle's book on index funds and many others.

03:27:06.180 And the whole idea is that if you can get a low cost fee structure,

03:27:09.980 then you dollar cost average yourself into it.

03:27:12.700 It doesn't sound very sexy or a lot of fun.

03:27:14.520 I'll get to those in a second.

03:27:15.680 But it's definitely the way for you not to lose your money

03:27:19.140 by being emotional all the time, right?

03:27:21.400 I see a lot of people invest in stuff where it's too liquid.

03:27:23.960 It's too easy to come in and out of.

03:27:26.000 But if you're trying to play for the long game and say,

03:27:29.160 this is the money I never want to lose.

03:27:30.600 I'm building my wealth fund.

03:27:31.900 It's going to compound.

03:27:33.480 Then I can't think of a better investment than index funds.

03:27:36.020 Even Warren Buffett said it.

03:27:37.280 He said, you know, if I pass away today

03:27:39.040 and my family had to take over the money,

03:27:40.660 let's get out of active management.

03:27:42.240 Let's just take all that money, put it into an index fund,

03:27:44.560 and then my family can live off of the dividends every year.

03:27:47.520 This investment is for people that are unwilling to learn,

03:27:50.220 where they don't want to think,

03:27:51.100 they've got their main business,

03:27:52.140 they got their main job,

03:27:53.380 and they just want to invest in things.

03:27:54.880 They don't want to be emotional about it.

03:27:56.100 There's nothing better than low-cost fee index funds.

03:27:59.480 You don't want to do mutual funds.

03:28:00.960 I mean, if you look at a long game over a 25-year period,

03:28:03.740 you might lose 40 to 50 percent of the value of your investment as a bucket just because you're

03:28:09.180 paying other people's fees and that compounds over time index funds have some of the lowest fees

03:28:14.140 because you're not paying for active management whereas in a mutual fund you're paying somebody

03:28:18.380 to manage it and they got all these little hidden fees they say oh no we're low fees no you're not

03:28:23.100 if you look at the actually fine print they can raise their fees lower like over the time that

03:28:28.460 that you deploy money into their fund.

03:28:31.100 And if you move it around, it's not the right way to do it.

03:28:33.820 I like Vanguard index funds.

03:28:35.280 You can choose whichever ones, but you wanna find stuff,

03:28:37.720 have a decent portfolio and just set it and forget it.

03:28:41.000 The second vehicle is real estate.

03:28:43.080 I bought my first deal when I was 21.

03:28:44.860 It was a duplex.

03:28:45.800 I think I paid something like $121,000 for it.

03:28:49.880 I had my 5% down and I got into real estate game.

03:28:52.820 Since then, I've done a ton of deals.

03:28:55.240 And the reason I like it is because it allows you

03:28:57.780 to build wealth in a bunch of different ways.

03:29:00.180 Recently, I had one of my top sales guys,

03:29:01.780 this kid named Wendell come in

03:29:03.780 and he wanted to invest in real estate.

03:29:05.740 So I gave him some advice

03:29:07.300 and he turned all of his extra cash into investments

03:29:10.460 in multi-units with his partner

03:29:12.940 and ended up building a really sizable portfolio.

03:29:15.720 My brother did the same thing.

03:29:16.960 Him and I started Martell Homes

03:29:19.340 to help him get into real estate,

03:29:21.120 to move away from being a mechanic.

03:29:22.800 And he ended up building one of the largest

03:29:24.620 home building companies in Eastern Canada.

03:29:26.780 My buddy, Matt, who I was hiking with this morning,

03:29:29.200 we've been looking at deals with him

03:29:30.680 and he's one of these built 6,000 doors

03:29:33.360 in the city that I live in

03:29:34.880 because real estate's one of those investments

03:29:36.800 that has some very unique properties to it, pun intended.

03:29:40.460 Real estate is an investment

03:29:41.740 where you can drive around and touch it.

03:29:43.360 It's not a fun and you own real estate that has purpose,

03:29:46.520 not your primary home.

03:29:47.680 That is not an investment in real estate.

03:29:49.660 See, real estate has this thing

03:29:50.700 that a lot of people do called the BRRR method, right?

03:29:52.520 Which is buy, rehab, rent, refinance, and repeat method.

03:29:56.540 It has tax advantages for a lot of places.

03:29:58.960 It's an asset that produces cashflow.

03:30:01.360 So it pays off the investment.

03:30:03.020 It hedges against inflation

03:30:04.700 and it appreciates as it pays itself down.

03:30:08.640 How cool is that?

03:30:09.880 Those alone, the inflation part right now

03:30:11.860 where we have some of the highest inflations

03:30:13.140 we've ever experienced is a beautiful reason

03:30:15.680 to consider real estate as an investment vehicle.

03:30:18.220 The third vehicle is collectibles.

03:30:20.720 This is probably one of my favorite ones

03:30:22.740 because if you do it right,

03:30:24.080 the things that you enjoy to purchase

03:30:25.880 can become the vehicle for investment for example my buddy mike brown he teaches this framework at

03:30:31.240 his unbreakable wealth seminars where you can look at cars and watches and art and wine and

03:30:37.240 all these different collectibles you know whatever your thing is you can be into comic books and you

03:30:41.880 could either put your money into index funds or rsps or whatever or you could actually put them

03:30:47.640 into the collectible that you are passionate about that you love that you you know think about this

03:30:53.560 what if you could invest in the thing that you spend hours on youtube studying so like i love

03:30:58.520 cars okay i think super cars are beautiful beautiful works of art and i'm putting together

03:31:03.480 a collection i mean i'm inspired by a guy like steve hamilton who has a hamilton car collection

03:31:08.040 or you know manny koshpin or even one of my mentors andy frisella i mean here's these people

03:31:13.880 that have these multi-deca million dollar car collections but if you look under the hood

03:31:19.400 they're actually investments they're not buying cars that are going to go down and depreciate

03:31:24.280 they know that purchasing these rare editions of these collectibles is actually not only going to

03:31:28.920 hold the money but it's going to go up over time now it does require you to put the time and energy

03:31:33.400 to study it but you don't make money when you sell you make money when you buy you have to be patient

03:31:39.560 you have to look for unique opportunities so you have to have access to inventory in deals

03:31:45.000 to make this work but it could be one of the funnest things you could do with your money what

03:31:49.560 you don't do is go buy a brand new car or brand new watch off the lot you need to do the work you

03:31:55.800 need to find somebody ideally a mentor that's already made money doing this and ask them how

03:32:01.000 they've done it what are the auctions they go to what are the unlisted websites who are the brokers

03:32:06.280 who are the other people that have private collections that might be looking to liquidate

03:32:09.720 some of those assets you want to get somebody who's already doing it that doesn't have more

03:32:14.840 time or the ability to invest more and you could be the person that gets some of their release valve

03:32:20.520 of collectibles that you could buy and start building up your collection so the money could

03:32:24.840 either be in the bank and an investment or it could be in a beautiful object that you get to

03:32:29.560 look at and enjoy on a daily basis it's up to you the fourth vehicle is intellectual property it's

03:32:35.160 It's taking everything in your mind

03:32:36.620 and putting it into a format that people can purchase, right?

03:32:40.060 Like a book, a media company, licensing models,

03:32:43.500 coaching other people, consulting.

03:32:45.720 Those frameworks become incredibly valuable

03:32:47.840 if you learn how to put them together

03:32:49.600 in a way that other people can purchase.

03:32:51.480 There are now a ton of YouTubers

03:32:53.960 from Justin Welsh, Ali Abdaal, Dan Ko,

03:32:57.540 all these people that are making millions of dollars online

03:33:00.800 by learning, getting really great at something,

03:33:03.580 creating a course intellectual property, and then using the media side to get distribution so that

03:33:08.700 they can sell people that want to learn that on their product. It is a huge opportunity to get

03:33:13.520 leverage. And the coolest part about the whole process is that the better you get at it, the

03:33:17.340 better you get in life. Most people don't package their intellectual property in a way that other

03:33:23.260 people can buy or consume. I know a lot of people that know a lot about stuff. I got a buddy, he

03:33:28.040 knows more about more than anybody else I know, but he's never put it down in a way that somebody

03:33:32.180 could purchase to learn from so he's just the most interesting man in the room but never makes

03:33:37.380 any money from that because he hasn't translated that into intellectual property the fifth vehicle

03:33:42.820 is in yourself the reality of it is the best investment you could ever make is in your skill

03:33:48.180 sets and becoming more valuable to the market you know i bought my first book when i was 23 and that

03:33:54.100 was kind of late then i went to my first seminar and i invested 38 000 in an expert over a three

03:34:01.620 year period to teach me everything he had learned about building businesses at this point in my life

03:34:07.060 i've invested probably 1.5 million plus in myself in my coaching in my skill sets in my ability to

03:34:14.660 shoot videos just like this i've paid consultants 30 000 for one hour of their time because they've

03:34:21.300 spent their whole life learning something that they could teach me and that investment in myself

03:34:26.500 and knowledge I can translate into different businesses

03:34:29.460 that I own so that I can grow faster.

03:34:31.960 So the best way to invest in yourself

03:34:33.380 is first off, invest in your energy.

03:34:35.540 Get around other people that are gonna keep you positive,

03:34:38.360 not worrying about things

03:34:39.680 and focusing on the possibility of the future.

03:34:41.960 Then try to figure out where you wanna get better at

03:34:44.020 in your life and go buy some books.

03:34:46.060 Study the top three to five books

03:34:47.840 in any category of information you wanna learn.

03:34:50.240 Like if you wanna become great at sales,

03:34:52.120 go get to top three or five books in sales.

03:34:53.840 If you wanna be good at marketing,

03:34:54.720 top three to five books in marketing then try to invest in if you got a little bit more money go to

03:34:59.760 the events go get around people that are also passionate about that thing see most people get

03:35:05.360 it wrong when they just like learn stuff just for someday maybe i call it just in case learning

03:35:10.080 versus just in time see you want to study the thing that's going to have the biggest impact

03:35:14.560 on your life today people that go learn and then just put it to the side i call that shelf help

03:35:20.000 right they're trying to learn the latest craze but they don't even have a vehicle to translate

03:35:24.240 the know-how into anything that's going to make the money, right? Focus on what's true, not new,

03:35:29.060 the fundamentals, the foundation, not the whiz bang wizardry of the current world, but like

03:35:34.280 these core principles about being a better person, working on your health and really understanding

03:35:39.500 business fundamentals. Investing yourself allows you to bring you with you and every opportunity

03:35:44.940 for the rest of your life. Those are the best investments you can make today. And finally,

03:35:49.220 number nine is the only video you need to get rich this year. You have two people, poor person a

03:35:54.640 million dollars, wealthy person a million dollars. Poor people get money and they start calculating

03:35:58.800 the new furniture they could buy, the trips they can go on, the new car they could lease. They

03:36:02.920 essentially spent the million dollars before it's even finished the wire transfer. The wealthy

03:36:07.320 person doesn't rush to do anything with the money and starts considering based on their allocation

03:36:12.480 and their portfolio, where can I get the best return that makes the most sense for the long

03:36:16.400 term poor people use money to consume wealthy people use money to create more money why do you

03:36:22.320 think most people are broke i think most people are broke for a few reasons the first one is is

03:36:35.060 that they don't they're they don't they don't realize that they're responsible 100 for their

03:36:43.660 life like a hundred percent they're accountable like there's nobody coming to save you there's

03:36:48.200 nobody that's going to do it for you there's no moment where somebody passes away and leaves you

03:36:52.040 a bunch of money there's no lottery tickets there's no going to the casino and winning

03:36:56.080 there's literally you saying if i don't make this better it will not get better

03:37:01.860 that needs to happen second part is they're broke because they don't realize that the world

03:37:06.940 will compensate you based on the value you bring to the world.

03:37:11.500 So if you're upset with what you're making income-wise

03:37:15.320 or you feel like people are taking advantage of you,

03:37:17.800 you have to ask yourself,

03:37:18.700 what could you do to become more valuable?

03:37:21.980 What are the skills you have to acquire?

03:37:23.440 How do you add those skills?

03:37:27.260 Like that, to me, those two things,

03:37:29.080 if you can be 100% accountable for your situation

03:37:31.540 and develop yourself to become more valuable for other people,

03:37:35.520 and then i would say the third thing is to know your worth because i don't think even if you had

03:37:41.380 those first two if you didn't believe you deserved more you'll never get a penny more than you think

03:37:47.020 you're worth so if you don't feel your worth more even if you're more valuable even if you're 100

03:37:51.780 accountable but you don't ask for it it will never show up in your life that's why i think people are

03:37:58.280 broke is because they're not willing to be accountable for their situation they're not

03:38:01.920 willing to invest in themselves to acquire new skills are more valuable and they're not

03:38:05.420 willing to ask for what they think they deserve because they don't think they deserve a lot

03:38:08.480 and no other person is going to going to teach you how to deserve more you have to decide

03:38:13.980 that you are worth it tell me something about rich people that 99 of people don't know

03:38:23.240 that rich people are harder on themselves than anybody else will ever be on them

03:38:33.040 I think most rich people are so misunderstood

03:38:36.000 because people think they have the easy life.

03:38:39.360 And what I've discovered is the people that have wealth

03:38:42.060 are wealthy because they were willing to do the work.

03:38:44.180 In many ways, I think their work ethic

03:38:46.480 is a reflection of their gratitude.

03:38:48.800 It's my experience.

03:38:49.600 I think rich people honor the fact

03:38:53.040 that they've been given an opportunity and a blessing.

03:38:55.180 I'm not talking multi-generational wealth.

03:38:57.460 I'm not talking about people that are trustworthy.

03:38:59.180 I'm talking to people that have created their situation.

03:39:02.120 And it doesn't mean that they own a business.

03:39:03.760 It could be somebody that's an executive at a company

03:39:05.520 that gets paid a lot of money to do what they do. 0.52

03:39:09.660 What you will quickly learn if you spend time with them

03:39:12.080 is they are more hard on themselves,

03:39:14.140 more critical of their performance,

03:39:15.720 more driven to do better

03:39:19.180 than anything any person could say to them.

03:39:23.260 And for some of them, it's not a life you would wanna live.

03:39:26.400 And I think that's misunderstood.

03:39:28.300 A lot of people say, well, I wanna be rich.

03:39:29.760 it's like i don't know if you want to have all that comes with being rich because it isn't easy

03:39:35.680 it only becomes easy if you learn how to deal with those emotions the feelings that come with

03:39:40.320 being rich and realize that to the degree that you can deal with bigger problems

03:39:45.520 you will actually live a more fulfilling life

03:39:51.280 you went from rehab to being a multi-millionaire what what changed

03:39:59.760 what changed rehab to multi-millionaire

03:40:16.360 kind of everything like everything had to change my whole world view when i when i

03:40:25.180 go back 25 years coming out of this place portage that literally saved my life

03:40:32.080 after spending 11 months there trying to learn about myself and what made me tick

03:40:37.140 there was so much that had to change i would think i would say the thing that is universal

03:40:49.340 though for me for sure is that i believed i could do it but that belief came from other people

03:40:56.480 so i didn't believe i could do it other people believed that i could do more but i accepted the

03:41:06.160 belief and like that's a different thing because there's been situations where people have talked

03:41:10.300 about kind of what they think they see me do and i'm like oh i wasn't ready to believe it

03:41:13.980 but the one thing for sure is because I had shown up and got sober and then got out and started in

03:41:21.480 business. And even though I failed for seven years of trying back to back failures, people still

03:41:28.760 believed because of what I went through and where I was at, even in the failures that I had potential

03:41:34.880 that they saw the passion I brought to anything I did. They believed that there was eventually

03:41:40.040 going to be some kind of success. I don't think any of us could have predicted what it became,

03:41:43.800 but that was probably the big thing that shifted for me

03:41:47.600 was just the belief that I could be one of those people

03:41:51.080 because I grew up my whole life

03:41:53.160 not believing that I was even worth breathing the air

03:41:55.080 I was taking up

03:41:55.720 well if you do believe in a creator

03:42:10.580 that's a great place to start

03:42:12.080 that's just the truth man

03:42:20.720 I've just got so much gratitude

03:42:27.920 when I look at like what I went through

03:42:32.020 and what life I get to live today

03:42:33.660 and just like there's no other way

03:42:36.680 any of this happened without him

03:42:39.460 and that's why i think i wake up every day to just try to be better is just i want to honor

03:42:49.080 the fact that i was given a chance like there's no world statistically where i'm alive

03:42:56.000 let alone thriving let alone having resources that i get to choose to do what i want to do

03:43:03.800 what i want to do with whoever i want to do and be wherever like i mean it's just it's just an

03:43:07.980 honor and when i think how close it came to that not being the case it just gets me emotional i'm

03:43:15.100 just i think that if you don't have anybody that can believe in you know that he believes in you

03:43:26.540 that your creator believes in you if you follow my content i believe in you i don't even need to

03:43:32.060 know you because i know who you were created by and i believe in you like i legit see you doing

03:43:39.020 something incredible with your life i think it's why you're watching this video sometimes people

03:43:44.380 want to see a sign they're like show me a sign and the sign's right there the sign could be this

03:43:51.900 conversation it literally is not it doesn't have to be a big grand gesture it can be a moment with

03:43:57.740 a person a video an audio something you hear or see or you read and you're like oh i've been asking

03:44:04.620 for this and it's right there i think i've had hundreds of those show up in my life

03:44:11.180 sometimes i wasn't paying attention sometimes i was

03:44:14.540 sometimes i played it down sometimes i played it up but

03:44:18.380 but there's opportunities every day

03:44:24.160 to see the absolute blessing that is called life

03:44:29.600 and we get to live in it.

03:44:33.260 And whether we want to do something with it or not,

03:44:35.840 time's going to pass.

03:44:37.120 Today's going to pass.

03:44:37.940 This minute, like literally every day,

03:44:40.400 seconds are going to pass

03:44:41.360 and I can either choose to actively engage in my life

03:44:46.180 and create something from it.

03:44:47.980 The fact that I have consciousness and I have the ability to have judgment and make decisions, you know, I'm alive.

03:44:57.440 Those are all, those are all real things.

03:44:59.360 I can be grateful in this moment for the air I breathe, like crazy grateful.

03:45:04.560 Because in three minutes, if you didn't have any air to breathe, you would wish you did.

03:45:09.140 So, I don't know.

03:45:11.620 I think sometimes we need more than we think we need to actually decide to just change things.

03:45:21.080 I don't need any person to validate my ideas.

03:45:26.100 I just got to realize that, like, hey, if I don't do it, nobody else is going to do it,

03:45:29.740 and I don't need anybody to believe in me because what if they can't see my greatness because they're too close?

03:45:35.840 What if the fact that they're my family or my friends and they've known me for a long time

03:45:39.920 and they don't see what's changed inside.

03:45:43.000 That's the hard part is the fitness journey.

03:45:45.720 People see that physically, they see it.

03:45:47.720 It's easy to correlate.

03:45:48.900 Oh, you used to be this, now you're that.

03:45:50.700 But when you're on a journey of personal development

03:45:52.760 and growth and mindset growth,

03:45:54.320 they don't see it right away.

03:45:56.300 And it's easy to feel like they don't understand.

03:46:00.720 It's not their fault

03:46:01.840 because they don't understand what you see inside.

03:46:04.540 They don't hear the words you say to yourself,

03:46:06.800 but you've seen this whole new pattern emerge

03:46:10.060 and you got to be willing to be misunderstood

03:46:12.960 by the people closest to you

03:46:14.820 because they're too close to see the greatness

03:46:17.300 that's brewed inside

03:46:18.580 and you just have to be okay being misunderstood

03:46:20.660 for long periods of time.

03:46:22.280 And over time, if you show up and you do the work

03:46:24.580 and you just, you swing, it'll connect

03:46:27.940 and then they'll all go like,

03:46:29.780 oh yeah, overnight success.

03:46:32.600 Not really.

03:46:34.260 If anything, not impressive.

03:46:35.660 if anything 25 years in the making

03:46:38.440 how can i overcome the fear of starting

03:46:44.900 for me the way i always overcome the fear of starting anything is realize one the people that

03:46:58.340 i care about their opinion are more worried about their own life than my life right everybody's

03:47:05.280 living in this movie called me movie or me ink and they're like worrying about what everybody

03:47:10.520 else thinks of them and we think they're thinking about us but they're not so first off judgment

03:47:15.940 from other people about what i do with my life i usually park those things because i realized that

03:47:21.780 their beliefs in my decisions are 100 a reflection of their own limitations judgment reality of their

03:47:29.560 life they've lived not on my reflection of my life and decisions so that's one two

03:47:35.000 most people's worst case is actually other people's dream scenario think about that

03:47:42.640 most people's worst case scenario of having to live with their parents again having to lose

03:47:48.520 everything and sell it or whatever it is based on where they live in the world the worst case for

03:47:53.420 them is some other person in the world's dream outcome some other person in the world that woke

03:48:00.220 up today that doesn't have any food a place to sleep anybody that cares about them your worst

03:48:05.700 case scenario would be their dream life put that into perspective so like starting or trying is

03:48:12.540 kind of silly if you take that into consideration and then the other thing is tomorrow is definitely

03:48:19.240 not guaranteed but i don't even look at it that way i think about in five-year increments

03:48:24.340 like if i only had five years to live five years to breathe five years to expand and grow and

03:48:30.060 create and spend time with people what would i want to do over those next five years

03:48:35.320 people should get really familiar with the concept that their life is very impermanent

03:48:41.120 it is it's here and gone five years is enough time to do something meaningful

03:48:46.940 without being wasteful, right?

03:48:49.060 Like, I don't think people should pretend like,

03:48:50.700 oh, I got a week to live and go stay on a beach.

03:48:52.540 No, five years is like, hey, I want to leave an impact.

03:48:56.380 I want to serve, I want to create,

03:48:59.040 I want to help other people.

03:49:00.260 How could I do that?

03:49:02.620 And I just think that getting comfortable

03:49:04.560 with the fact that you're going to die

03:49:06.000 is a beautiful way to prioritize decisions.

03:49:10.180 And if you have any inclination,

03:49:12.600 here's the crazy part.

03:49:13.600 I don't believe God puts ideas on your heart

03:49:15.120 that he doesn't think you can pull off.

03:49:16.940 you wouldn't even have the idea to start a business

03:49:20.760 if it wasn't possible.

03:49:23.300 And there's never been a situation,

03:49:25.360 and I know this to be true for all people,

03:49:26.980 where you've been put in a tough situation

03:49:28.860 that you didn't make it through.

03:49:30.240 I'm not saying you got the outcome you wanted,

03:49:32.460 but it's very rare for somebody to be pushed into a corner

03:49:36.080 that rose up that didn't get through that tough situation

03:49:39.860 some way, somehow.

03:49:41.660 And I think we just forget that if you just decide,

03:49:45.640 the reason it was on your heart

03:49:46.660 is because it's meant for you to go create that outcome that business go after your dreams that

03:49:53.300 you will be given the strength to accomplish that and it's why for you specifically you've had this

03:49:58.580 thought you probably have a dream that i've never even considered nothing i'd ever want to desire

03:50:05.220 or get or anything you have a unique vision of your life that i've never had that's only yours

03:50:10.500 and the reason why is because it's meant for you

03:50:16.660 i'm setting goals and dreams but i'm not achieving any of them what should i do

03:50:26.260 measure and get feedback if you're setting goals and dreams okay and you're not achieving them

03:50:33.100 two things that are missing measuring progress where are you at now where do you want to be

03:50:40.240 what should you be making progress towards what's the number most people don't break things down

03:50:45.640 into actions right so if i know i want to be a millionaire by the time i'm 30 it seems to be

03:50:52.040 everybody's or make 100k a month now it seems like that's a new number then where are you at

03:50:58.080 if you're 22 you want to be a millionaire at 30 that's eight years break it down now it's not it's

03:51:02.700 not linear it usually kind of goes exponentially but you should be on pace then you measure it

03:51:06.960 every quarter and every month so now we have a measurement timeline but then we got to back it

03:51:11.440 up by like what kind of activities or decisions would create the scenario for that to be true

03:51:15.380 obviously if you want to start a business or you want to get into a structure in your current

03:51:19.260 company where you can get paid based on performance those are all things that could

03:51:22.140 you know you could save your way to that you can invest your way to that definitely invest

03:51:25.780 over save but then you have a measurement now what will happen is along the way at some point

03:51:32.800 you will plateau here's what i know to be true 100 of the time is there will be issues there

03:51:37.940 will be problems or i like to call them puzzles you will face adversity and the way to overcome

03:51:44.380 that is to get feedback is to find people that have built the million a year business or more

03:51:49.780 and ask them for feedback to analyze your strategy and those people typically will come in look at it

03:51:55.560 and within seconds go oh change this tweak that start this stop that and all of a sudden the

03:52:01.660 momentum builds back up there's no person i know that if they're honest with themselves

03:52:07.540 measured their progress along the way and if at any point they felt like they hit a wall

03:52:12.400 went and seeked advice or feedback from people that have been there before

03:52:16.020 and took that feedback and change and tweak their strategy i don't know anybody who hasn't

03:52:21.060 been successful but a lot of people just lie to themselves along that journey and they'll say oh

03:52:26.240 it's not for me or it's harder it's not working it's not working because you don't want it to

03:52:29.760 work because you're not giving feedback you're not seeking out why this is uncomfortable yeah i know

03:52:34.360 that's the work that has to be done anything that's easy that's like that's immediately you

03:52:39.320 know that's not the right thing it's supposed to be hard you're supposed to deal with adversity

03:52:45.020 that will make you better steel sharpen steel and through that journey is how you actually

03:52:51.260 become successful

03:52:52.920 what's the number one trait in successful people that that you've observed through the years

03:52:59.940 number one trait

03:53:03.220 man that's a great question number one character trait the number one like if i had to like there's

03:53:14.200 a lot of stuff you know determined grit resilient but i would say is they have the the ability

03:53:25.300 to drive like and and it's not like some people can have spurts of it successful people are driven

03:53:35.180 they're driving they're they're in the driver's seat of their dreams they're that the people on

03:53:43.620 their team feel the energy of forward motion and even if they have a flat tire they fix the tire

03:53:51.420 and they're back to being driven successful people literally feel different when you talk to them

03:53:57.680 they're they're not looking at their feet they're looking at the the skyline like there's a different

03:54:03.360 energy of even their language their focus what they work on but the word that always comes to

03:54:09.940 mind if i think of like my mentors my coaches the people i work with my friends that are incredibly

03:54:14.800 successful driven individuals it doesn't matter are they outgoing introverted you know creatives

03:54:22.960 engineers left brain right brain doesn't matter what's true amongst all them is they are driven

03:54:28.880 you can feel that energy to forward motion and creation

03:54:38.400 what makes someone successful in your opinion

03:54:44.800 financially successful

03:54:54.880 see this is the thing is words matter and meaning matters right so like for me success is not

03:55:02.120 wealth success you know if you do things primarily for money or every decision you

03:55:08.940 make is based on money, then I don't actually think that's success. I think success is this

03:55:17.720 concept I got from my coach, which is blissfully dissatisfied. I think success is waking up every

03:55:22.940 day and being so ridiculously grateful. I think success is waking up every day and being so

03:55:29.380 ridiculously grateful that it could bring you to tears. And in the same breath, realize that you

03:55:35.540 were here to create more not out of a place of lack not out of a place of recognition not to fill

03:55:42.820 a void that's inside not the not to create because you don't feel enough know you're enough

03:55:49.220 feel that realize how big of a blessing everything in your life currently is no matter how good or

03:55:56.540 bad it is just absolutely feel the gratitude for the presence and know in that same breath

03:56:03.060 that you're here to do more with your life that to me is success and it's not a number in a bank

03:56:08.660 account how can i find my purpose

03:56:15.480 i think every person's purpose sits right next to the worst thing that ever happened to them

03:56:27.020 and here's why i usually ask people at like what level of income is it 100 grand 500 grand a

03:56:36.240 million dollars 10 million dollars 100 million dollars a year what level of income personally

03:56:39.860 to you do you stop thinking about accumulation and things you could buy and start thinking about

03:56:46.660 giving to other people and that's a fascinating question because some people it's like 100 000

03:56:51.620 they're thinking i'll give 50 away i can live off 50 some people it's it's north of 10 million so

03:56:56.760 there's a big range. But what usually follows that is if you had that surplus, what cause

03:57:04.000 would you want to invest that into? What pain or challenge do you see people face that you

03:57:10.420 would love to help them overcome or make easier for them? And it's usually aligned with the worst

03:57:17.120 thing that's ever happened to them. Growing up in poverty, growing up without a father,

03:57:23.400 growing up and being abused in some way,

03:57:26.560 experiencing medical illness or whatever it is,

03:57:30.680 just some kind of pain you've ever experienced.

03:57:32.880 Maybe it was a loved one.

03:57:34.560 And usually right next to that pain is your purpose.

03:57:40.440 And when you can pair your vision

03:57:44.260 for what you're here to do, the purpose in your life,

03:57:46.720 if you can figure that out

03:57:48.500 and then you pair that up with a way

03:57:50.620 to create a business that supports that it's aligned with that where the business and the

03:57:58.160 purpose are the same thing or directionally serve the same thing that is a winning recipe

03:58:04.120 so i just can't see a world where somebody wakes up and says hey by helping people

03:58:10.380 i get to collect resources aka make money and then take that and support a cause an organization or

03:58:19.460 people that you feel absolutely compelled to serve based on what you experienced in your life that's

03:58:25.020 super unique to you i think if every person woke up with that drive and desire that would change

03:58:30.180 the world it literally would we don't need billionaires to fix problems we need people

03:58:34.780 to go create millionaires and then solve the problems around them in their community

03:58:39.360 it's making a lot of money a bad thing no be everybody should want to be rich

03:58:48.180 every person should have a desire to create resources to do more i have a problem when

03:58:53.960 people say that they really care about helping people and they think that playing small is

03:58:58.680 helping anybody because if you see other people be rich or have more money than you and you think

03:59:04.640 that they're not using it right great go become a millionaire go go grab that resource go create

03:59:11.560 a better mousetrap go build a business go become more to go be rich and then do what you want with

03:59:17.940 the money, you know, and people say, well, it's not about the money. Well, I say, well, go become

03:59:21.800 a millionaire and then decide what you want to do with it. But don't tell me it's not about the

03:59:25.500 money because the money is a reflection of the value created in the world. So I think every

03:59:29.480 person should have a desire to be rich, go get as much money as you possibly can. And then as you're

03:59:36.400 doing it, choose what you do with it. And I think that is just a beautiful way to wake up every day.

03:59:42.820 it's not about you know saying well rich is bad there's nothing wrong with creating resources

03:59:48.940 like every day the more options you have the the bigger the opportunity to live a fulfilled life

03:59:55.520 so if you want to donate to a charity do you want to donate a little or a lot i want to donate a

04:00:00.620 lot cool go get rich if you want to help a cause you want to help a little bit or you help a lot

04:00:04.560 i want to help a lot great go get rich you know you got this person you want to bless you want

04:00:08.600 bless them a little bit. You want to bless them a lot. Great. Go get rich. There's nothing wrong

04:00:13.760 with being rich. The desire for why I think is a problem. What you do once you collect it is a

04:00:19.920 problem. The way you think about yourself or make decisions, once you have money, it could be a

04:00:25.300 problem, but money is a tool. No different than a fork is a tool. It can be used to nourish your

04:00:30.640 body or it can be used to take somebody's life. It's the same thing. You decide what you do with

04:00:35.720 that resource but every person should have a desire to be rich because what you're saying is

04:00:38.720 i deserve i'm worth it i can create value in this world i i i i'm capable of growing my skills

04:00:51.280 growing my beliefs growing my character traits to become the person that i was created to become

04:00:57.380 your 10.0 version your best version if you took all the best moments in your life where you

04:01:03.160 stepped up powerfully and you're creative and you're resourceful and you're kind and you're

04:01:06.320 gracious all those things if you took the best moments of your life put them all together

04:01:09.640 if you actually live like that all 18 hours you're awake or whatever amount of time you're awake

04:01:14.400 can you imagine that person that's that's that's it so when i say rich i just say best version of

04:01:21.460 yourself you should want that what do you think about legacy

04:01:32.220 here's the deal i think purpose is required you can't have perseverance without purpose

04:01:42.460 because if you did some people call that grit i call it a grind if you want to see somebody's

04:01:47.860 soul just get deteriorated have them work on something and not know why and i think that's

04:01:53.740 what happens with a lot of people they they feel fatigued they feel like burnt out and it's like

04:01:57.600 i've never been burnt out doing something i love for a purpose that's way bigger than me

04:02:02.540 what was the question again

04:02:04.760 so the challenge is is that i believe that focusing on other people is a good thing i think

04:02:13.420 using language around legacy can sometimes be another part of the ego playing tricks on you

04:02:20.080 to do things for long term so you don't enjoy the short term so a lot of people make sacrifices for

04:02:26.240 legacy for their family for multi-generational wealth whatever it is they sacrifice in the short

04:02:31.340 term and i find that as a cop-out instead of just saying hey can i be present now can the best thing

04:02:38.620 that i leave the world is me now in this moment for the rest of my life not a sacrifice for this

04:02:46.280 generation that you'll never meet that in three generations will never know your name you cannot

04:02:51.360 tell me your great great grandparents names maybe 0.1 percent of you guys but very few people know

04:02:58.240 their lineage nor does it matter what matters is how did you show up today who did you impact today

04:03:04.480 what kind of conversations you have today what kind of energy did you bring to every interaction

04:03:07.660 with every person you had today that that's legacy but it's not legacy the way most people

04:03:15.680 think about it it's a decision to leave the world a better place i think the best thing you could

04:03:20.820 ever leave the world is your if you have kids is your kids like that's my my gift is not a

04:03:26.940 financial bucket of money my gift is going to be my children it's going to be the relationships

04:03:32.360 the people that came into my life it's the the teams that i've built i think legacy is just

04:03:39.400 used as a cop-out for sacrificing today and not living today i want to encourage people to just

04:03:49.240 like show up fully present in the moment for now try to get it done in this lifetime afterwards

04:03:56.820 it's going to get redistributed to everybody the idea of ownership is hilarious nothing you have

04:04:02.400 you own you think you do it's gone your home not yours you think you own the land you don't

04:04:09.040 think you have that money in that bank account you don't none of it you it's all borrowed it's

04:04:15.060 It's kind of like you're a custodian of it

04:04:17.500 for a short period of time

04:04:19.020 and it all goes back to the economy once you're done.

04:04:22.640 So you might as well just say,

04:04:23.580 how can I use this to be the most present

04:04:26.160 and supportive and giving person now,

04:04:30.040 not worrying about 300 years from now?

04:04:32.720 It turns out though, if you do that,

04:04:34.620 you'll probably leave on a mark.

04:04:36.780 It turns out if you do that,

04:04:38.240 you'll probably leave a mark on the world

04:04:40.000 that will last 300, 500, 1,000 years.

04:04:43.080 That's the funny part.

04:04:43.900 if you actually live that way i think it has the best chance of you living that long the whole idea

04:04:49.420 of like donating money to a hospital to put your name on a new section of the building which in 20

04:04:54.860 years will literally sell your naming rights to the next person's highest bidder that's not legacy

04:05:00.060 legacy is how you show up today you had a tweet go viral um a couple days ago normalize leaving

04:05:09.900 people in whatever reality they have chosen um can you expand on that yeah the tweet that went viral

04:05:18.060 i wrote normalize leaving people in the reality that they've chosen and the reason why is

04:05:26.140 if you come to the understanding that every person is choosing their reality okay they're choosing

04:05:34.220 the world as they want to see it because the world isn't as it is the world is as you are

04:05:39.260 So whatever world that they see, the limitation, the lack, the frustration, the challenges,

04:05:44.440 it's their world.

04:05:47.720 I can't save any person.

04:05:50.000 I can't convince other people to change their beliefs on the world.

04:05:55.400 I can offer them perspectives and what I call POVs, points of views, that might influence

04:06:00.000 them to make a decision to change that, but it's up to them.

04:06:04.360 So I've just gotten to a place where I'm 100% comfortable and okay with somebody not

04:06:08.820 seeing things the way I want to see it or doing things in a way I wouldn't agree with not being

04:06:12.980 upset about it but just letting them go through their world be on their journey and it not affect

04:06:18.300 me because it truly is not my responsibility and I think when I say normalizing is like I would

04:06:23.940 just hope everybody gets to understanding that sooner than later so that they can actually live

04:06:29.240 a life that's way more peaceful because once you realize there's nobody else to fix and it's really

04:06:35.780 just you that i can control that i have agency over and i can move through the world with that

04:06:41.960 understanding i'll just let everybody else kind of figure out their stuff at their own timeline

04:06:45.180 is imposter syndrome a good or bad thing

04:06:51.940 i think imposter syndrome is cool because imposter syndrome tells you where you're at

04:06:57.880 your upper limits of your comfort like my favorite thing is to get in a room where i know that if

04:07:03.100 anybody figured out that i was in it they'd probably kick me out of it okay at the same time

04:07:08.240 the nerves means i care so the fact that you have imposter syndrome is actually a beautiful thing

04:07:13.920 because it tells you that you're honoring the opportunity you've been given the challenge is

04:07:18.760 when you act out of that feeling and you don't take action to be in that room you convince yourself

04:07:26.180 to not go you you know let somebody else take the spot you know whatever it is like you just

04:07:33.880 don't want to not step into it but imposter syndrome is part of the process anytime that

04:07:39.580 you're trying to do something for the first time it's going to require you to show up in a way that

04:07:45.140 from the outside seems confident but you know inside it's kind of like the duck on the top of

04:07:50.220 the water it's just moving around the water really calm and collected and underneath it's got his two

04:07:54.100 feet just moving you know frantically that's like your internal emotions I remember one time I got

04:07:59.940 invited to an event and I had to go for a walk because I was so nervous because every person I

04:08:05.140 looked up to is in that room like all the people people I follow on the internet they were in the

04:08:10.980 room I went to the gym in the morning 13 people that I absolutely adore from Instagram were

04:08:17.080 working out in that room and I'm sitting there going holy moly I hope they like who I am I mean

04:08:22.780 I was legit scared I called my dad I said hey dad I'm like way in over my head my dad's like

04:08:28.640 are you serious like do you remember where you came from did you forget what you've accomplished

04:08:34.320 and I was like yeah but these people are way more accomplished he goes

04:08:38.120 Dan they'd be lucky to have a conversation with you like I know you and it blows my mind what

04:08:45.820 you've done what you're doing where you've come from I don't even understand it and I don't know 0.75

04:08:50.600 anybody that's ever done that i would love to have a conversation with them and i think that's a big

04:08:55.600 idea for people to consider is that inspiration doesn't come from the size of the thing you've

04:09:00.780 accomplished it comes from the place you started and how much you people believe that that was hard

04:09:06.760 for you and in many ways imposter syndrome is just acknowledgement that hey this is really tough but

04:09:12.200 i i showed up anyway in spite of my fear of being discovered not liked rejected kicked out my fear

04:09:20.500 i showed up i could have stayed in my hotel room nobody would have known i didn't show up except

04:09:25.420 for me so i hope you have a dad like i have that every once in a while he knows the exact words to

04:09:33.220 say but i think imposter syndrome is just part of part of the the journey

04:09:39.660 how do wealthy people look at money two things wealthy people look at money as a way to invest

04:09:51.280 to get a return poor people look at money as a way to buy things and literally that is the language

04:09:57.520 you give two people poor person a million dollars wealthy person a million dollars

04:10:01.020 poor people get money and they start calculating the debt they could pay off the the couch they

04:10:07.440 could buy the new furniture they could buy the trips they can go on the new car they could lease

04:10:11.900 etc they essentially spent the million dollars before it's even finished the wire transfer

04:10:16.460 the wealthy person doesn't rush to do anything with the money and starts considering based on

04:10:22.320 their allocation in their portfolio where can i get the best return that makes the most sense for

04:10:26.720 the long term they don't think of acquiring more stuff they think about it working for them poor

04:10:33.100 people use money to consume wealthy people use money to create more money that is the big

04:10:39.400 difference between poor people and wealthy people how do wealthy people look at time

04:10:45.540 i think wealthy people look at time as a resource that they can't get back

04:10:51.920 and they're always looking for ways to spend money to save time not spend time to save money

04:11:00.260 and that's the big difference the end of the day money can be created and generated and based on

04:11:07.720 the creativity and resourceful that you can make more it doesn't matter what economic class you

04:11:14.180 come from rich poor middle class etc you cannot manufacture time so understanding how to spend

04:11:24.280 money to get time is the skill of wealthy people and that's the difference between poor people

04:11:30.780 and wealthy people poor people think well i'll just work harder and then i'll save money and

04:11:35.120 that's how i collect money no you have to become better to create more money so that's how you get

04:11:41.380 money wealthy people are always about how do i buy that time to then use the new time to go do

04:11:47.100 things that are going to make me more money so that i can start building a surplus

04:11:51.160 what are your thoughts on worthiness

04:11:54.680 what are my thoughts on worthiness

04:11:58.600 i have a lot of thoughts

04:12:03.680 i don't know where to start it's kind of like worthiness has different like kind of angles to

04:12:18.360 it there's the part of like am i worth another person's time right like i know i can add value

04:12:28.220 to them but if i don't feel like i can do that clearly i might not be worth their time

04:12:32.820 so there's a worthiness of like do i feel regardless of the situation that interacting

04:12:38.860 with another person could be valuable to them under the right circumstance that is one part

04:12:43.800 worthiness like just in conversations and interactions the other part of worthiness is

04:12:49.640 you know what do i deserve to have you know do i deserve to be rich do i deserve to have a nice car

04:12:55.640 do i deserve to be in a loving relationship if you don't believe that you deserve you won't it

04:13:02.360 you won't receive it right because you'll never fight for that outcome if you believe that you're

04:13:10.520 an evil person you've done some bad things you have a lot of shame then you'll never bring into

04:13:16.840 your life the the the results of being somebody that deserves those things as many ways i've said

04:13:26.680 this so many times you'll never get a penny more than you think you deserve so even like the

04:13:31.000 worthiness of like having money is on the byproduct of believing that what you do is valuable

04:13:40.520 and i think a lot of people discount what they do because they think that everybody else knows

04:13:45.140 how to do it they don't realize it took you four years to learn that or you do it two times faster

04:13:50.540 than anybody else that's closest to you that your result is very abnormal because you know it so well

04:13:57.460 you're so close to it you're just like oh everybody knows this no they don't and if you can consistently

04:14:03.720 get a result for somebody that's worth a lot it's it's worth a fraction of whatever result

04:14:10.440 you can get for them that's what i think of worthiness there's like different dimensions

04:14:15.940 to worthiness worthiness isn't just one component it's a worthiness in a relationship worthiness in

04:14:23.240 all aspects of love and and family and business and and career and then there's a worthiness of

04:14:29.720 just of just attracting wealth into your life you know i have friends that can't receive gifts

04:14:36.600 because they don't feel worthy of those gifts because they feel like i have to earn those

04:14:40.840 things when they don't realize that they we don't earn those things we attract those things by

04:14:45.960 becoming valuable and if somebody wants to bless you you should learn to accept a compliment a gift

04:14:53.880 it all comes down to worthiness what's your definition of greatness

04:15:00.640 my definition of greatness is very simple are the people closest to you better for having you

04:15:09.340 in their life that's that's greatness do people your family your friends your peer groups your

04:15:16.740 co-workers would they say their lives got better the more time they spent with you the more

04:15:25.200 interactions they had with you the more time they got to work with you the more time they

04:15:28.800 had conversations with you do would they all say like man having that person around having you

04:15:34.120 around made my life better that is greatness a great person finds the greatness pulls out the

04:15:40.700 greatness holds expectations of other people's greatness to the highest potential and shows them

04:15:46.240 through their own actions that it's possible that's that's my definition of greatness great

04:15:52.640 people bring greatness into other people's lives what do you hope to teach your kids about life

04:15:59.820 i got a list of things i want to teach my kids about life but there's a handful of stuff first

04:16:07.700 off and they're pretty much all our core values one you don't deserve anything that you didn't

04:16:14.100 go and create no no country no family no situation will ever get you what you think you deserve you

04:16:23.220 don't deserve anything unless you've created an environment or you've created the scenario where

04:16:28.900 you've you've helped other people and you've you've collected a piece of that so there's a

04:16:33.520 i think right off the bat it's like just because it's a certain time of day or a certain day of

04:16:37.920 week you don't deserve anything right off the bat number two you are incredible i do this cool thing

04:16:44.720 where i tell my kids about them i tell them about their greatness i tell them about their giftedness

04:16:48.400 i tell them about the jesus i see inside of them i tell them about their giftedness like you are

04:16:54.160 really good at this you're awesome at this i'm a big fan of teaching them that i'm teaching i love

04:17:00.240 teaching my kids to communicate with other people especially adults when you meet an adult walk up

04:17:06.320 to them look them in the eye introduce yourself say your name clearly with confidence ask them

04:17:11.520 what their name is smile simple will change the game for them in life i teach them about

04:17:20.400 collaboration that if you want to go fast sometimes you go alone but if you want to go far you got to

04:17:25.280 go with people right and just showing them how to collaborate with other people how to play nicely

04:17:32.080 with other people how to partner how to set agreements how to manage expectations how to

04:17:37.360 repair arguments huge area i teach my kids um grit i always celebrate the progress not the outcome

04:17:48.660 i whenever my kid accomplishes in something i say tell me about how much effort you put into that

04:17:54.140 how many times did you want to quit tell me about those moments i'm really proud of what you created

04:18:00.000 but I'm really impressed with the never-ending drive

04:18:03.840 to get to that outcome.

04:18:05.180 Because some kids, this stuff comes easy.

04:18:06.780 Other ones, it comes hard.

04:18:07.960 What I've discovered is people that are willing to do hard

04:18:10.180 for long periods of time typically do really great in life.

04:18:14.580 I teach them about compassion,

04:18:16.600 about caring about the things

04:18:17.880 the people they care about, care about.

04:18:20.280 And if people in your life care about helping the community,

04:18:25.780 helping other kids, helping other families,

04:18:28.560 then caring about those things is is empathy it's compassion and i think you know i always tell them

04:18:35.740 that like that person could be your brother could be your dad could be me could be your cousin just

04:18:42.340 because they're not they could be so if you had a stranger come across your cousin how would you

04:18:48.080 want them to treat that person if somebody you know my son noah one time i we saw a person

04:18:53.740 struggling and i said what if that was max your brother what if your brother you didn't know where

04:18:59.180 he was and he was walking around in a city and a stranger went up to him how would you want that

04:19:03.580 stranger to interact with them that's how you should interact with that person assuming that

04:19:07.500 that is some person's brother son father you don't know what else do i teach them i teach them about

04:19:17.740 physical fitness health is wealth that if you don't have the energy to keep pushing when you

04:19:22.540 you get tired that that's a decision you can make that you have the capacity to turn that around

04:19:27.260 that what you put in your body affects your mind

04:19:30.100 i mean i teach them a lot of stuff i teach the adults

04:19:34.780 i teach them the stuff that i know are going to be forced multipliers to have a

04:19:39.720 a fulfilling life i teach them to acquire knowledge to read that there's it's impossible

04:19:44.540 for you to know what you need to know already it will always be external and you have to bring it

04:19:49.000 internal everything that you want to achieve is going to be on the back end of learning something

04:19:54.360 new and bring it into your life those are the big things i teach my kids

04:20:00.440 how can someone raise kids to not be entitled i think the best way to raise kids and not be

04:20:06.680 entitled is to not do things for them right i'm not saying treat them bad abuse them all that

04:20:12.600 stuff people misunderstand me all the time i'm saying let your kids learn how to do things let

04:20:18.360 Let your kids learn how to tie their shoes,

04:20:20.260 make their own lunches, clean their rooms,

04:20:23.500 do their laundry.

04:20:24.840 My kids do all of those things

04:20:26.560 ever since they were like six, seven, eight years old

04:20:29.000 because I want them to understand

04:20:31.260 that these are things that if you want to have happen,

04:20:33.640 you gotta make them happen for yourself.

04:20:36.380 The other thing is, is I don't buy them everything they want.

04:20:38.580 I get them what they need.

04:20:40.280 I pay for food, I pay for clothes, I pay for the needs

04:20:43.100 and then we split the wants.

04:20:44.800 The wants are 50-50.

04:20:45.940 they got to go make money by working finding opportunities in the house offering me up

04:20:50.900 different chores and projects i don't put them on a salary or an allowance they have to find things

04:20:55.380 to do and i'll pay them and if they can come up with half the money then they can get what they

04:20:59.780 want but i only pay for the things they need and i go 50 50 on the wants the final thing i'll say

04:21:04.500 on this is set the context for your your kids like my kids know when they're 18 they have to leave

04:21:11.540 the house now whether i do that or not doesn't matter but the fact that i've been telling them

04:21:16.820 since they were little kids has gotten them prepared for leaving the affluent environment

04:21:22.420 that they are growing up in okay flying around on jets living in big homes flying around driving

04:21:27.380 around in supercars that is not their reality that's my reality that's their parents reality

04:21:33.300 okay say often i'm rich you're not these people don't work for you i'm here to love you i will do

04:21:39.860 that i don't need to be your best friend i can care about you but i will support you and you

04:21:46.100 creating and achieving value in the world independently yourself that's how i avoid

04:21:52.100 raising entitled children

04:21:55.860 what's the best piece of parenting advice you ever heard the best piece of parenting advice i ever

04:22:01.540 heard i think the best piece of parenting advice i ever heard was celebrate the progress not the

04:22:18.820 destination if a kid's climbing a mountain and they're struggling stop point down to the bottom

04:22:27.140 show them how small the parking lot was look how far you've come point to the mountaintop

04:22:31.620 celebrate the progress once they get to the top talk about moments they wanted to give up

04:22:37.880 celebrate those moments what's the secret to a successful relationship a successful relationship

04:22:46.540 i can only speak from my side of the table like a male's opinion um don't try to fix things

04:22:54.020 like unless you're being asked to fix something just listen but actually listen and want to

04:23:03.680 listen the cool part is you don't have to remember anything for the most part and you don't have to

04:23:08.340 fix anything so just listen intentively and care and have empathy that's like 80 of the challenge

04:23:24.380 How do you know if you found the one?

04:23:29.420 Yeah, I don't know if I believe in the one.

04:23:33.600 I believe in finding a partner that you feel confident

04:23:39.000 that you want to invest your life with.

04:23:43.260 And I think that there's probably a few people

04:23:48.060 that that could have worked out with.

04:23:49.780 But at the end of the day,

04:23:50.960 what matters is that you have a deep connection and appreciation for who they are and their

04:23:57.820 character and and you're committed to that investment like you want to co-create a future

04:24:03.880 with this person and trying to find the one is actually a kind of a crazy idea and finding and

04:24:10.480 investing because like there's no a relationship that starts off perfect and stays perfect it's

04:24:15.380 going to require work but what is going to be true is the desire to put that effort into the

04:24:21.340 relationship to make it work why do you do what you do i do what i do for little dan

04:24:34.900 i do what i do because i know there's kids out there watching what i do making decisions about

04:24:42.180 how they show up in life. And if I can share my story of where I came from, where I'm at today,

04:24:47.280 and all the different challenges that I had and continue to have, that I bring hope to those kids.

04:24:55.860 That's why I do what I do. The success is required to get the attention of the people I really want

04:25:01.640 to serve. Because I'll tell you, I don't know about you. I didn't go to university, but if I

04:25:10.600 did, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't just happen to come up on my professor's Lamborghini in a parking

04:25:15.300 lot. But when I look at my mentors and roll up to their jet or their yacht, that inspires me.

04:25:26.000 And I know when I show up to these kids, to a rehab center, to a crisis center, to a group home

04:25:32.600 or whatever in a supercar, I get their attention and I get to have a conversation with them.

04:25:39.160 that's why I do what I do

Dan Martell - October 01, 2024

If I Wanted to Go From $0 to $100M, I’d Do This [FULL GUIDE]

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