Dan Martell - It took me 45+ years to realize what I’ll tell you in 7 minutes…

00:00:00.000 Your fear of failure is holding you back. You keep stalling on that new business,

00:00:04.860 you still haven't sent in that job application, and you found a million reasons to avoid publishing

00:00:09.360 that video. Whatever it is, you know you have to take action, you know how to take action,

00:00:14.200 but you just don't because you're afraid to fail. And I get it, I've been there. But failing over

00:00:19.320 and over taught me how to reframe my thinking to get to a place where failure doesn't limit me,

00:00:24.360 it fuels me. Because I wouldn't be running a $100 million a year business today if I listened to

00:00:29.000 fear. So I'm going to share with you what I learned so that you can get rid of your fear of

00:00:32.620 failure, starting with the biggest thing people don't realize. You aren't afraid to fail. You're

00:00:37.360 afraid of people seeing you fail. Most people are too busy worrying about their own problems

00:00:42.480 to judge yours. And you're making everything seem like a big deal. And the truth is they're living

00:00:46.680 their own world called me, Inc. It's their movie, their world. They're the main character. And you

00:00:51.640 think they're all paying attention to you. I wish. Trust me, they're not. The people who matter

00:00:57.080 won't judge you and the people who judge you they just don't matter so here's a big reframe become

00:01:02.540 a cheerleader not a critic anytime you see somebody do something you know scared them praise them go

00:01:08.100 out of the way to share their work go out of your way to support their work see the more you become

00:01:12.100 a cheerleader the less critic you have the more you'll be inspired to put your own work out there

00:01:16.580 because there's this positive assumption that those people are going to cheer for you i've got

00:01:20.380 a friend he's a world-class artist he's one of the best and he's afraid to publish his art ask me what

00:01:26.160 his favorite activity is. In the whole wide world, he enjoys doing this one thing, leaving Google

00:01:32.000 reviews of every place he's visited that day. He brags about it and no part of them has connected

00:01:37.680 the fact that leaving those reviews, evaluating other people's businesses, has taught him and

00:01:43.620 caused this fear that sat in his mind like a seed of doubt of him ever publishing his art for the

00:01:49.720 fear of criticism or rejection of people not liking his art because he's been doing that to other

00:01:54.100 people. You fear judgment of the things you judge. Trust me, everybody's dealing with the fear of

00:01:59.980 failure. Everybody's dealing with the fear of being judged. And you just got to worry about

00:02:03.280 yourself. But here's what you might not understand about failure. Winners lose more than losers ever

00:02:09.260 will. When I look back at my story, I realized that I failed two or three times. I'm talking

00:02:14.180 like real failure, not like registered a domain for a business and it didn't work out. I call

00:02:18.540 those projects. We have dozens of those failures. But most millionaires I know, almost all of them

00:02:23.540 had a failed company the first time,

00:02:25.720 the second time it failed, the third time it didn't work.

00:02:28.580 Finally, through that process,

00:02:30.320 they learned how to become successful.

00:02:33.380 Walt Disney, Henry Ford, and many others went bankrupt,

00:02:37.140 full financial bankrupt before finding their big success.

00:02:39.860 That's actually the norm.

00:02:41.480 Even though my first two businesses were complete failures,

00:02:44.420 it taught me to learn.

00:02:46.100 It taught me what to look for.

00:02:47.560 It taught me that I'm able to get up

00:02:49.680 and keep pushing forward when the proof at that point

00:02:52.180 was that I wasn't going to succeed in life.

00:02:54.160 When you do that, you teach yourself that you can do it.

00:02:57.380 See, when I think about life,

00:02:58.420 it's like this metaphor of playing a game.

00:03:00.100 The only time you lose the game

00:03:02.400 is if you decide to stop playing the game.

00:03:04.940 I went almost a decade of eating crap until finally I won.

00:03:09.020 And I will tell you that day,

00:03:10.220 everybody bragged about being my friend.

00:03:11.780 Everybody talked about how smart I was,

00:03:13.440 how resilient I was.

00:03:14.380 Oh my God, you're so inspiring.

00:03:15.940 Not a day before.

00:03:17.360 The moment you win,

00:03:19.140 everybody forgets about all the failure.

00:03:21.040 And that's just the way it is.

00:03:22.420 So if you decide to keep playing the game,

00:03:24.480 then technically you can't lose.

00:03:25.980 Failure is like a muscle.

00:03:27.240 The more you train it, the stronger you get.

00:03:28.960 You can't build a tolerance to failure by avoiding it

00:03:31.800 any more than you can build a muscle by avoiding the gym.

00:03:34.680 Only way you develop that skill is to go through it.

00:03:37.280 It's fun for me because I have all these young people

00:03:39.380 that come to me for advice,

00:03:40.520 ask me like, how do I start?

00:03:41.800 What do I got to do?

00:03:42.720 And I always share the same thing.

00:03:44.540 The faster you can go from idea

00:03:46.340 to trying to sell something to a stranger

00:03:47.920 and they say no,

00:03:49.080 or you put some money into a project

00:03:50.500 and it doesn't work, the faster you get to that place

00:03:53.600 and not succeed and fail, only to get back up,

00:03:57.540 the more exposure therapy it's called that you get,

00:04:00.320 the better you're gonna develop that muscle.

00:04:02.340 Assuming you're wrong from the start

00:04:03.800 is actually a more healthy way to be successful.

00:04:06.460 I mean, it's so wild that in my world today,

00:04:08.760 when I started a new business,

00:04:10.020 I actually assumed from point one

00:04:12.600 that I'm wrong about something.

00:04:14.180 See, most people won't start unless it's perfect,

00:04:15.960 it's guaranteed.

00:04:16.900 That is not how real entrepreneurs build things.

00:04:19.000 real entrepreneurs go, I think there's an opportunity here. I'm not sure how it's going

00:04:22.420 to work, but I'm going to bet on me to go and figure out the right way to do it. But if you're

00:04:26.460 still stuck overthinking everything, you have to understand that worry is a wasted use of your

00:04:32.840 imagination. Too many people spend more time visualizing disaster than dreaming of success.

00:04:38.580 It's like driving a motorcycle or snowboarding. You look where you want to go, not what you're

00:04:43.260 avoiding. My buddy, Mike, first time he came on my ski trip, the guide said, don't look at the

00:04:48.100 trees. He's like, why? Well, if you look at the trees, you're going to hit the tree and you're

00:04:51.360 going to fall in the tree. Well, and then we're gonna have to dig you out. If we get to you fast

00:04:54.380 enough, Mike started freaking out because he doesn't want to die. And he's in the back country

00:04:57.940 and he's looking at these trees and he's looking at trees. Guess what happened? Mike freaking hits

00:05:01.640 a tree, freaks him out. Doesn't know if he wants to keep skin. And we explained to him, bro, just

00:05:06.940 look for the sunlight. Look for the space in between the light. Use your eyes to focus on

00:05:12.120 where there is opportunity to get through the trees. And now almost 10 years later, this guy

00:05:17.020 does not worry about hitting the tree. Instead, he dreams about the big freaking kickers and he

00:05:21.520 gets the grab and he's just, he literally wins photo of the trip every time we go out. So good

00:05:26.040 job, Mike. See, I believe this. Your reality is the byproduct of your most dominant thoughts,

00:05:31.260 actions, and feelings. So when I'm thinking of fear, I have to tell myself fear stands for false

00:05:37.420 evidence appearing real. It might feel real, but it's not factually real. Am I really going to lose

00:05:43.700 everything if I make this decision. No. If you can imagine failure vividly, you can imagine

00:05:49.200 success just as vividly. Think about it. If you have the power of imagination of the worst case

00:05:54.280 scenario, flip it. Design the power of imagination for the best case scenario. My coach, Ed Milet,

00:06:00.500 talks about this and he brings it to another level. He says when you're visualizing and you're

00:06:05.020 truly in that space, pretend that you're like looking at it through a camera and you're going

00:06:09.680 forward and then you're zooming backwards and you're changing from black to white to color.

00:06:15.000 He says, if you're truly in the energy of having received what you want, then you should be able

00:06:19.300 to tell me all the minute details. He said, when you can imagine at that level of specificity,

00:06:25.080 then you will receive. I just love encouraging people to ask the question, instead of what if

00:06:29.360 I fail, ask what if I succeed? At the end of the day, there's going to be a badge called success

00:06:34.460 and there's a name written on that badge.

00:06:37.900 Why not your name?

00:06:39.620 Why not you?

00:06:41.400 Why aren't you the person that goes, does the thing,

00:06:43.880 write the book, show up, create the content,

00:06:46.460 be the success person, be on the cover of the magazine?

00:06:49.060 Why not you?

00:06:50.520 That's my favorite question to ask

00:06:52.140 because if you're watching this right now,

00:06:53.860 it tells me that you want it, you have a desire

00:06:56.000 and I'm telling you, it's available to you.

00:06:58.500 If you wanna learn one simple rule

00:07:00.240 that changed my life forever,

00:07:01.740 click the link and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - July 25, 2025

It took me 45+ years to realize what I’ll tell you in 7 minutes…

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