Dan Martell - Make Your Environment Your Superpower

00:00:00.080 oftentimes people see these successful folks and they go oh yeah but his dad's wealthy or he grew

00:00:05.760 up in this city so he knows these people and they don't realize that there were millions of people

00:00:10.080 that grew up in that city there were thousands of people that had billionaire rich fathers that

00:00:15.120 didn't do anything like a lot of this is a hundred percent creative

00:00:32.320 what's up everybody today i've got a really fun topic which is the argument that you become the

00:00:38.080 average of the five people you spend the most time with you've probably heard this before but i'm

00:00:41.440 I'm gonna double click on this at a level

00:00:43.040 you've never, definitely never heard of before

00:00:45.620 because I believe you become your community

00:00:48.360 and proximity is power, okay?

00:00:50.760 And if you've ever come from a place

00:00:53.280 where you like are working, maybe this is you today

00:00:55.560 and you've just been like heads down

00:00:57.360 and you don't have any friends

00:00:59.300 that understand what you're going through,

00:01:00.640 you feel like a lone wolf, you're working 16 hours a day

00:01:03.440 and you just feel like you're yourself

00:01:06.340 and nobody gets you and the people that see you,

00:01:09.260 they tell you why do you work so much

00:01:10.840 and they don't get it and it's losing its appeal.

00:01:13.700 Like that's the other part is you're doing this

00:01:15.320 and it feels frustrating, okay?

00:01:18.020 I wanna show you how to get to a place

00:01:20.540 where the work and your community energize you.

00:01:25.260 You thrive in that.

00:01:26.680 It is the fuel that pushes you to think even bigger

00:01:29.780 and it feels almost effortless.

00:01:32.080 Like once you discover this, it feels like a cheat mode.

00:01:35.200 And just for those that are maybe new to my stuff,

00:01:37.260 I, you know, have the privilege, okay,

00:01:41.080 and it is the privilege of working

00:01:42.620 with the best entrepreneurs in the world.

00:01:44.920 As a business coach, as business partners,

00:01:48.640 you know, I'm a co-investor in a company called Pila.

00:01:51.360 I sit on the board of that company.

00:01:52.820 If you search it, Jay-Z was an investor in that company.

00:01:55.260 I invested at the same time as him and his partners.

00:01:58.820 And I've co-invested with literally

00:02:01.000 all the top angel investors in San Francisco.

00:02:04.500 Again, I don't wanna say any of this to brag.

00:02:06.260 I just wanna share this to give you context

00:02:08.000 for the personal network I have,

00:02:10.300 where I'm able to text the books on my bookshelf.

00:02:14.960 A lot of them are personal friends of mine,

00:02:16.680 where I've been working on my new book

00:02:18.440 and I've been texting them, asking them for advice,

00:02:20.220 getting on calls, understanding stuff, reviewing things.

00:02:23.700 When I go on vacation, I do this trip every year.

00:02:26.480 There's 48 entrepreneurs that come on it.

00:02:28.140 It's a ski trip, been doing it for eight years.

00:02:31.040 I mean, there's people that come on that trip

00:02:33.640 that are on TV, on shows like Shark Tank

00:02:36.220 and Canada Dragon's Den, et cetera, et cetera.

00:02:39.460 And I just, again, I feel weird saying this as a Canadian

00:02:41.960 because it's weird to brag,

00:02:43.700 but I wanna really give you a sense

00:02:45.700 of the opportunity ahead of you

00:02:48.840 if you double click on this and you invest in this, okay?

00:02:51.860 I learned a long time ago,

00:02:52.800 the first book I ever read was called

00:02:54.100 Love is a Killer App by a guy named Tim Sanders.

00:02:56.420 And he argued your network is your net worth.

00:02:58.900 And I underappreciated what he truly meant at that time.

00:03:02.820 I was 23 when I read that book.

00:03:04.920 And it is everything for me, you know?

00:03:07.260 And I went through a couple failed startups

00:03:10.200 until finally in my third company, late night, okay?

00:03:13.880 I'm looking at my numbers, I'm looking at my bank account

00:03:16.260 and I didn't have enough money to make payroll.

00:03:18.880 And out of desperation, I cold email the former premier

00:03:23.000 of the province I'm from in Canada.

00:03:24.920 It's like our governor, this guy named Frank McKenna.

00:03:28.480 And this is around Christmas time.

00:03:29.760 It was like probably the 27th of December

00:03:31.160 because it was after Christmas,

00:03:32.520 my birthday just happened on the 26th,

00:03:34.560 New Year's was coming up

00:03:35.640 and it was just like this super heavy time in my life.

00:03:39.080 And Frank replied and he gave me three names of people

00:03:44.000 that he thought could help me out, right?

00:03:45.720 That had been in software from the province

00:03:48.160 that he respected and those people became my mentors.

00:03:52.420 And it was hard, it was uncomfortable.

00:03:54.180 I don't know if you've ever had somebody

00:03:56.100 respond to a cold email that you wanted to meet

00:03:58.540 and they say yes and then you gotta go meet with them.

00:04:00.200 You're like, I remember I was like so nervous.

00:04:02.380 I was worried that maybe they would think 1.00

00:04:04.960 everything I'm doing was stupid 0.99

00:04:06.160 or maybe they would give me three minutes 1.00

00:04:08.380 and then tell me they're busy

00:04:09.380 or maybe they wouldn't even show up for the meeting.

00:04:11.180 I mean, every possible scenario

00:04:14.340 I went through in my head, right?

00:04:16.820 And you know, but even at that point,

00:04:19.440 I had read another book called

00:04:20.700 Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, right?

00:04:24.540 And you know, Keith made this argument

00:04:27.060 about like just showing up and being curious

00:04:29.160 and figuring out how to build relationships

00:04:31.500 and asking questions has really become one of my superpowers.

00:04:35.280 Like leaning in and being curious in other people

00:04:38.620 is what anybody would love.

00:04:41.740 And literally the three people

00:04:43.420 that Frank McKenna introduced me to became my mentors

00:04:46.240 and were the reason I got out of that tough point

00:04:48.680 and eventually sold the company two years later.

00:04:51.200 And I wanna share the lessons learned

00:04:53.700 around the average of the five people

00:04:56.040 that you haven't heard from other people, right?

00:04:57.840 So number one is you gotta push past the filter.

00:05:00.180 If you're reaching out to people

00:05:02.180 that are the top of their game in their industry,

00:05:07.080 you need to understand

00:05:08.160 that everybody's reaching out to that person.

00:05:10.280 Everybody's asking for their time.

00:05:12.120 Offering to buy them coffee is not gonna get it done, right?

00:05:15.700 And I remember one of the guys,

00:05:17.240 this gentleman named Steve Palmer,

00:05:19.120 he was the COO of the top software company

00:05:22.240 in our city at the time.

00:05:24.800 And I used Jerry's name,

00:05:27.220 or sorry, not Jerry's name, Frank's name.

00:05:29.400 And I reached out to him and I said like,

00:05:31.400 you know, Frank gave me your name, here's who I am.

00:05:33.900 And this is just good advice.

00:05:35.260 If you're ever reaching out to a potential mentor,

00:05:37.180 be open about your situation.

00:05:38.880 The amount of time that people like try to play a big game,

00:05:41.480 it's so weird to me.

00:05:42.560 It's like, you're asking me for advice,

00:05:43.880 but you're telling me how everything's great.

00:05:46.100 Like if you just come off and say,

00:05:48.120 oh, everything's great, all is awesome,

00:05:49.960 but I just wanna meet with you, that doesn't make sense.

00:05:52.240 So I reached out to Steve and I just said,

00:05:53.840 here's my situation.

00:05:54.900 I, you know, we did 1.6 million in revenue.

00:05:58.100 We're about to run out of cash.

00:06:00.060 My team size, I just gave him all the data at the time.

00:06:03.320 And he offered to meet with me.

00:06:05.640 And he said, I'll meet you at 7 a.m.

00:06:07.820 on Mountain Road in my hometown

00:06:09.400 at a place called Tim Hortons.

00:06:10.880 All the Canadians know Tim Hortons.

00:06:12.440 Maybe the Americans do too.

00:06:13.920 But I met with him, suit and tie, right?

00:06:17.300 I'm 26 at the time.

00:06:19.780 And he shows up, you know, kind of sweater Sunday morning.

00:06:23.040 And we have our meeting.

00:06:23.900 and we talked for an hour,

00:06:24.980 and I just asked him all these questions.

00:06:26.300 He asked me a bunch of questions,

00:06:27.740 and it was at the end that I asked him,

00:06:29.860 I said, Steve, obviously I appreciate your time,

00:06:32.260 but I'm just curious, like,

00:06:34.060 why would you wanna meet with me

00:06:35.600 on a Sunday morning at 7 a.m.?

00:06:37.280 Like, don't you have a family?

00:06:38.480 Aren't you busy with other things?

00:06:40.140 Like, couldn't we have done this during the week?

00:06:41.580 And he goes, we could have,

00:06:43.000 but I wanted to see how serious you were.

00:06:45.140 And I use this all the time for people,

00:06:47.780 and oftentimes they say, hey,

00:06:49.640 is it okay if we meet on Wednesday?

00:06:51.000 And I just politely reply and say,

00:06:52.340 unfortunately I'm not available.

00:06:54.400 And he says it's a test, it's a filter that he uses

00:06:57.600 and I love that, okay?

00:06:59.300 I've used that, I continue to use that.

00:07:01.520 My version is a Tuesday morning hike that we do in town

00:07:05.780 because a lot of people are like,

00:07:06.680 oh, I don't wanna do the hike.

00:07:07.640 You gotta push past the filter.

00:07:09.620 If you wanna build a network of people

00:07:12.360 that are on a different level,

00:07:14.960 that are thinking on a different level,

00:07:16.340 that are gonna inspire you,

00:07:17.820 that are creating things that you aspire to,

00:07:21.760 Like they will create a filter for anybody

00:07:25.000 that's not serious.

00:07:26.120 They wanna operate at that level

00:07:27.440 and you gotta push past it.

00:07:28.860 The second thing is the philosophy

00:07:31.240 that the community is created.

00:07:34.640 You know, I think oftentimes people see

00:07:36.720 these successful folks and they go,

00:07:38.480 oh yeah, but his dad's wealthy

00:07:40.300 or yeah, but this person's that

00:07:42.380 or this person knows this person

00:07:44.840 or like, yeah, but he grew up in this city

00:07:46.460 so he knows these people.

00:07:48.260 And they don't realize that there were millions of people

00:07:50.740 that grew up in that city.

00:07:52.040 There were, you know, thousands of people

00:07:54.740 that had billionaire rich fathers that didn't do anything.

00:07:57.960 Like a lot of this is 100% created.

00:08:02.160 Your community, the people, the peer group,

00:08:04.800 that's a decision you gotta make for yourself

00:08:07.320 if you wanna lean into it and create it.

00:08:09.500 You know, and like every time,

00:08:11.120 I remember when I moved back to New Brunswick

00:08:13.180 from San Francisco, you know, we started to have kids.

00:08:16.240 Renee was pregnant. 0.93

00:08:17.920 We moved back and after a year,

00:08:19.740 I woke up realizing I didn't know anybody else

00:08:21.780 in that town, right?

00:08:23.100 Like I knew my brother, he was an entrepreneur,

00:08:25.300 my best friend Nick was an entrepreneur,

00:08:26.300 but I didn't know any other entrepreneurs in the whole town.

00:08:29.920 And I spent two weeks creating a dinner

00:08:34.100 where I hosted all these people and it was scary.

00:08:37.060 I was cold calling people, they were hanging up with me.

00:08:38.920 Who are you Dan Martel, do you build houses?

00:08:40.780 No, that's my brother Pierre.

00:08:42.220 They were like, what do you want?

00:08:43.420 And I would like talk to them for 15 minutes

00:08:45.220 and I had to talk to probably 200 people to find 75

00:08:49.080 that were willing to take a chance on an unknown person

00:08:52.020 to join them for a dinner, you know, a month into the future.

00:08:56.400 And it was a lot of work and I got it done,

00:08:59.320 but I will tell you this,

00:09:00.360 those 75 people became my community.

00:09:03.840 They became my friends.

00:09:05.540 They became the people I went on vacation with.

00:09:07.140 They became the people I did play dates with.

00:09:08.960 They became the people that I would call

00:09:10.540 when I was having a hard time.

00:09:11.960 They become, some of them became my clients.

00:09:13.800 A lot of them did, right?

00:09:15.320 Because they got to know me and they trusted me

00:09:16.940 and they wanted to work with me.

00:09:17.780 So like, to me, you know, and my buddy, Jason Gaynard

00:09:22.140 has this great podcast, it's called Community Made.

00:09:25.560 And he shares this philosophy of like, you know,

00:09:28.600 we are the byproducts of our community,

00:09:30.820 but if you think you can just sit back

00:09:33.320 and just sit back and let it happen, it's not gonna work.

00:09:35.660 When I moved to Kelowna, moved the whole family here, okay?

00:09:39.260 I didn't know, I knew a handful of people,

00:09:41.780 but I decided to do the same thing

00:09:43.540 that I teach all my clients

00:09:44.580 that I'm recommending all you guys do now,

00:09:45.900 is I reached out into the community.

00:09:47.420 I made a list of all the people

00:09:48.620 that sat on the nonprofit boards.

00:09:50.220 I made a list of the people who won the top three awards

00:09:53.200 and all the different business categories

00:09:54.660 for the last 15 years.

00:09:56.140 I made a list of, you know, I called friends of mine.

00:09:58.400 I said, who are the top three people

00:09:59.920 that you think are just the most fascinating

00:10:01.980 and motivated and driven people in the city?

00:10:03.800 And I made those lists and I reached out

00:10:06.120 and I invited them on a hike.

00:10:07.620 I invited them to a founder's dinner.

00:10:09.400 I invited them to an event.

00:10:10.620 I invited them to meet up.

00:10:12.680 Like I built the community that I get to enjoy.

00:10:16.080 I didn't sit back passively hoping through luck

00:10:19.560 and circumstance, I'm gonna just meet somebody

00:10:21.980 that's gonna support me in moving my dreams forward, right?

00:10:25.100 And I really believe that community is created.

00:10:28.220 Number three is the idea that you gotta give to get, you know?

00:10:32.500 So some of you guys are like,

00:10:33.440 why would this person wanna meet with me?

00:10:35.060 Like, I'm just gonna sit there and like, 1.00

00:10:37.740 waste their time and suck their knowledge. 0.99

00:10:39.820 And it's such a, it's an interesting mindset. 0.99

00:10:42.520 I totally get it because I literally meet people

00:10:44.740 all the time, they're like,

00:10:45.460 why would this person respond to me?

00:10:46.920 Why, like, it doesn't make sense to me.

00:10:48.900 And the truth is, is you gotta contribute.

00:10:51.360 You gotta give.

00:10:52.340 You know, life supports those that support life.

00:10:54.640 Contribution and growth.

00:10:56.060 The more you grow, the more you got to give.

00:10:57.900 So a lot of people think, well,

00:10:59.040 I don't have a whole lot to add value to this person.

00:11:00.780 And I say, well, how much are you growing?

00:11:02.780 You know, have you ever thought of like,

00:11:04.240 what might be their challenges?

00:11:05.840 Do you know anybody that can help them on that?

00:11:07.760 Do you, could you read a book on this?

00:11:09.440 That's what Tim Sanders taught me in the book,

00:11:11.640 Love is a Killer App.

00:11:12.680 He said, like, you need to read books for your customers.

00:11:15.980 You should read books for your mentors

00:11:17.780 and then summarize it and teach them.

00:11:20.480 Ask them, what are your top challenges right now

00:11:22.160 that you're dealing with?

00:11:23.620 And then try to figure out

00:11:24.900 how you can solve that for them, right?

00:11:26.980 And, you know, just like even recently,

00:11:29.780 I'm working on this whole like part of my life

00:11:32.560 that's around publishing and I'm working on my book

00:11:36.040 and it's coming out,

00:11:37.140 but I definitely will be a prolific author.

00:11:39.940 I do wanna take a lot of the things

00:11:41.860 that I've shared on my YouTube channels

00:11:43.340 that I've worked with hundreds of my coaching clients

00:11:45.380 and I wanna crystallize it in a way

00:11:46.920 that people can read and understand

00:11:49.360 because books have had an incredible impact on my life.

00:11:52.680 And there's a mastermind with a guy named Jeff Walker

00:11:54.960 that I wanted to be part of,

00:11:56.980 that I heard is it's an exclusive community

00:11:59.300 that the only way to get in

00:12:01.960 is you gotta wait until somebody leaves.

00:12:03.440 There's only 50 people

00:12:04.400 and it's application and interview

00:12:06.500 and there's no sales job at all.

00:12:08.360 It's literally, you know, it's invite only.

00:12:12.800 And what was funny is when I finally got on a call

00:12:15.360 with Jeff, who is the kindest person in the world,

00:12:17.680 and I had known of him for a long time,

00:12:20.240 he said to me right off the bat,

00:12:21.960 I talked to this person, this person, this person.

00:12:23.780 They back channeled.

00:12:25.080 And in today's world, if you don't realize

00:12:27.260 that people will back channel,

00:12:28.580 they will find out where you work,

00:12:29.660 they will go look at who worked there,

00:12:30.940 and they'll see if they have mutual friends.

00:12:32.240 They will open up your Facebook,

00:12:33.500 they will look at mutual connections.

00:12:34.780 They will go on LinkedIn, they'll do the same thing.

00:12:36.580 How do I know this?

00:12:37.320 Because I do the same thing.

00:12:38.360 And luckily, because years and years of meeting people,

00:12:42.980 adding value, meeting people, supporting them,

00:12:45.280 contributing, giving willingly, not holding back,

00:12:49.080 being somebody that just contributes, right?

00:12:52.160 The more I grow, the more I got to give.

00:12:54.840 So I kept focusing on growing, had more to give.

00:12:58.480 That when I got on that call, Jeff's like, yeah,

00:13:00.680 I talked to these three people

00:13:02.080 and they all said the same thing.

00:13:03.860 Sounds like you might be a fit for this program. 0.88

00:13:05.960 I still had to interview, still had to wait.

00:13:08.140 Luckily I got in, okay?

00:13:09.700 And it's a real honor.

00:13:12.140 I share that because you gotta give to get,

00:13:14.900 and if you don't realize that it is a karma thing,

00:13:16.780 that if you can just sit back

00:13:17.840 and just extract from everybody all the time,

00:13:19.740 eventually the well is gonna end up dry.

00:13:22.960 So I wanna leave you with this idea,

00:13:25.220 and Tony Robbins says this all the time,

00:13:27.040 is proximity is power.

00:13:29.460 Proximity is power.

00:13:31.000 Being around other folks that are a few years ahead of you,

00:13:35.500 10 years ahead of you that inspire you.

00:13:39.380 It is one of the most potent drugs that I can think of.

00:13:42.460 Like I literally, I get inspired all the time

00:13:45.780 by people that are thinking on certain aspects

00:13:48.600 at a different level, okay?

00:13:50.020 Get around people who inspire you.

00:13:51.940 Get around people who will not accept your excuses.

00:13:55.240 Get around people that will, you know,

00:13:57.380 when you call them and tell them

00:13:58.720 that you just accomplished something big,

00:14:00.940 that they cheer you on, they motivate you.

00:14:02.900 There's no like judgment.

00:14:05.140 There's no tearing you down.

00:14:06.560 There's no scarcity mindset showing up.

00:14:10.060 They are literally gonna be your biggest fans.

00:14:11.940 Those are the people that will transform your life.

00:14:15.220 And the cool part is it only takes one.

00:14:18.300 If you're blessed to have two, that's incredible.

00:14:20.480 My mom said to me, she goes,

00:14:22.060 you know, if you can count on one hand your best friends,

00:14:24.800 you've had an incredibly great life.

00:14:28.480 And I gotta be honest with you.

00:14:29.520 If you talk to my wife, you talk to anybody who knows me,

00:14:31.760 I have dozens of people I consider best friends.

00:14:35.920 These are people that I trust.

00:14:37.580 I share the most intimate parts of my life with.

00:14:41.160 I hope I add a lot of value to their lives

00:14:44.440 and I know they add a tremendous amount of value to my life.

00:14:47.740 Okay, and it's something that I think

00:14:49.960 is one of the most important.

00:14:52.360 It just makes the journey funner.

00:14:54.840 So get around five people that inspire you, that push you.

00:14:58.700 That requires you moving cities, move cities.

00:15:01.220 You know, there's a quote that says,

00:15:02.640 if you're the smartest person on the street,

00:15:03.760 find a new street.

00:15:04.460 If it requires you to move a new street,

00:15:06.780 move to a new street.

00:15:08.480 Do that for yourself.

00:15:09.880 Push the boundaries.

00:15:10.840 People are watching and they want to see you succeed,

00:15:13.380 but you got to put yourself in a position

00:15:15.100 and in a place where that'll be easier

00:15:17.840 and just more fun.

00:15:19.680 Have an amazing day.

Dan Martell - June 27, 2022

Make Your Environment Your Superpower

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript