Millionaire Investor Explains How to Make $1,000,000 If You’re Broke
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Summary
In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with my good friend, author, speaker, entrepreneur, and best-selling author, Andrew Wunderman. We talk about his new book, Why Doesn t Everybody Do It This Way? and how he and his wife, Anne, built a company from the ground up.
Transcript
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You're starting from scratch at zero. How do you make your first million?
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If I was today going to make my first million bucks, a lot of people would say I'd go build
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my own social media. I wouldn't do that from scratch. If you guys saw the ad revenue on
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YouTube, you'd be like, no, you wouldn't. Yes, I could go start from zero, get my first couple
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thousand dollars and work my way up, or I could leverage. So the best thing that you can do is
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get in proximity. Most people have read like Tim Ferriss's four hour work week. And I feel like
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this is that book now on steroids when you went and wrote this what was the one piece of this
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book that you thought why doesn't anybody do it this way it's not what everybody would want to
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learn it's kind of the chocolate broccoli like people i wrote that book that way because i knew
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it would get people to start the book but the broccoli is actually like towards the back part
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of it and it's transformational leadership so like most people that run companies don't realize that
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they are actually a little insane. Right, Cody? No, not at all. Not over here. We are nutty. And
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I mean, we have to be because we're deciding to do stuff that very few people do, right? Which
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is start companies, buy companies, which is if everybody did it, it wouldn't be abnormal or
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extra. So transformational leadership is a simple concept that when you have people that report to
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you, okay, there's two ways to do it. You can do transactional leadership or transformational.
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Most people, if you've never been taught any different, it sounds super logical
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which is you hire somebody, you tell them what to do,
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Most of us have experienced this in our work capacity.
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The problem with that is that as you hire more people,
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and it usually happens around a dozen folks on your team,
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direct reports, where you'll wake up in the morning
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with all the motivation to get a bunch of stuff done,
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and then you realize this person's working on the wrong thing,
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And then, oh, what about this new person we just hired?
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And you literally spend the whole day doing a tell, check, next loop
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to only find out that after you had dinner and you put the kids to bed
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that none of the projects you touched ever got done.
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So then you work from 7 o'clock to 11 o'clock at night
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And that's where you hit essentially what I call the pain line,
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where anything more that you want to do in your life becomes really painful.
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So you might be sitting with an opportunity, sitting there,
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like I could go do this, but I can't do anything more
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because I'm stuck in this transactional leadership.
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style versus transformational which is number one it's outcome focus so I don't tell anybody on my
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team what to do I tell them what it looks like when it is done at the highest level and my team's
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here you can talk to them this is just how I am and sometimes they'll pull me into that like what
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do you think I should do and I literally act like a six-year-old I go I don't know
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Anne's laughing because I do it a lot but literally it's like I was like what do you
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want to do and they're like but I I'm asking you I know but I don't know of course you know
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pretend like I don't if I wasn't here what would you do well I'd probably hit the internet or I'd
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probably call this person I said that sounds like a great idea so I focus on outcome then I go to
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measure which is what's the what is the numbers that we're going to agree upon means you're making
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progress so if I said we're going to take that mountain I might say well let's measure the daily
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elevation gain per per day right and every day if you text me how many feet of elevation you made
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then as long as you're moving upwards we're good but if all of a sudden you report back a negative
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i'd be like did you fall off a cliff you know or did you take a wrong turn and then they'd be like
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yeah i got lost it's like cool what could you do not to be lost i don't know you tell me i don't
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know what you know what i mean get it outcome so we're going to the mountaintop that's the outcome
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measure every day and they might come back with ideas like I should probably get a map that sounds
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like a great idea where could you get a map I don't know map store maybe somebody else has you
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know been up this mountain okay good good go find that out and then what I do the third part is coach
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right and coach is what's funny for a lot of us to have communities like we do we actually do this
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naturally or maybe you've been a coach like a real like you know athletic coach you use those
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same principle. So I don't tell people what to do. I talk about principles, right? Sorry, guys.
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I talk about the principle that is missing. So if I see somebody do something they shouldn't have
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done, I'll just write it down. And then in our one-on-ones, I'll be like, they'll be like,
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what's on your list? Because that's one of the prompts. And then I go to my list and I say,
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ooh, last Tuesday, I saw you post this in Slack. And I just want to ask you, like, did you feel
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that was clear or a little unclear? Well, it's clearly unclear because 17 people were very
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confused and i caused this whole thread of you know people going left right and all over the
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place okay cool i would agree let me tell you about this principle about clear communication
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that's probably my wife calling me back because i did this to her earlier it is
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and she'll call me again she's in my vip list it always rings through it's a smart happy wife happy
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i know but she i did it to her earlier and she kept hanging out like i'm doing and then i kept
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calling her. So she might, she might do it again. I know. And she was probably recording a podcast
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and she was loving me at the time. That's amazing. So, so then we do, um, the coaching. So it's
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always principle, not activity. So I never attacked the activity. I talked about the principle. So the
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principle is into clear communication. Here's the way I learned this. One time I remember I jumped
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into a meeting, I didn't have context and I said something, I wasn't clear. Next thing I turned
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around and it was a $26,000 mistake. So I've learned in the future, sometimes it's better
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to slow down to measure twice cut once see and then at the end this is the third part of the
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coaching is you ask them based on the story i just shared with you what did you take away from that
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so notice i didn't i didn't tell them anything i i created a methodology for evolving my people
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and my whole philosophy and big thing in the book and that's why it's a productivity book but it's
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also a leadership book is you build the people the people build the business define clear
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communication. I think everybody thinks they're clear and then everyone else does not. Very
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simple. These three words, D-O-D, definition of done. Definition of done, right? You buy a piece
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of real estate, you have a vision for what that looks like to the degree that you can describe
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exactly what that looks like completed, done, like really go there. See, most people, we never taught
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how to do this. What is the definition of done? If I buy an old house and I hire somebody to
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manage renovating it. What does that look like? Well, one, there's a date. There's an experience.
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See, I'm not talking about the colors of the wall. I'm talking about like on this date,
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I will drive into this yard and I will open the door and all my stuff's going to be here. And I'm
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moving into this house with my family and we're going to have a party the day after and everything's
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going to be catered. And like I'm describing the outcome and the experience. And I think that most
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people never ask themselves, like, what is the definition of done? I'm a software guy. So it
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actually comes from agile programming. It's a software concept. And I think every time I'm
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trying to ask somebody to support me in anything, I always go to a definition of done, which is the
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outcome concept. Right. But I think DOD is, is kind of what I would tell people to think about.
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I really, really like it. We use the Braun method. So basically just who, what, when, where, how,
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and why, and we leave the how to them. And I think a lot of the reason that that helps is,
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you know, the other day we were talking about it and we're like, well, if you don't know who this
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is for, then a financial projection sheet that is for you or I, who run a bunch of holding
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companies, is going to look a lot different than financial projection that my admin needs
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And so I think I stole it from journalism because the Braun method is what you use in
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You can't really write a story unless you have who, what, how, when, where, and why.
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And it's really the same thing when you define communication and scope projects.
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The other thing that I really liked from your book
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is you talk about focus versus ADHD a little bit
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of our unique experienced souls, all that stuff.
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I have, I'm zero label for, if, if doctors need it to like describe a person to each other,
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then keep it for yourselves. Like, like anytime anybody's tried to label me or my kids or my
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friends anyway, I'm like, Hey, it's a weird thing. Cause there's nothing wrong with you.
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Right. You have a default. So like a lot of people that have ADD or ADHD, I was diagnosed
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when I was 11 diagnosed, right. Put on Ritalin, told I was special and broken, all this turns
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Turns out they just didn't know where to point me, right?
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Cause I'm the guy that's gonna go out in the woods
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See, we went to this like agricultural farming society
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and everybody do the same thing in the right order.
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is this in regards to the chaos side of things,
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unfortunately when things go good in your business,
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if you have this problem, you will throw hand grenades
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When things are actually starting and you're creating durable revenue and it's predictable
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and it's like, okay, yay, you'll be like, we're changing the website, adding a new product.
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They're going to, and the team's like, what are you doing?
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Because that chaos is actually incredibly normal for us.
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And what we've learned to do, and it's our superpower, is deal with a large amounts of
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and we all have an emotional home that we want to get back to even if it doesn't look positive
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it's still familiar so for me i always think about like is this strategically the right decision or
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am i throwing a massive hand grenade in my business to give me ground cover to then go
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have a problem to solve because that feels good i'm sure nobody in here can relate to any of us
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one thing that i like about you too we talk a lot about power of place
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and how, you know, it really can be beneficial or can be detrimental what you surround your
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work environment with. You're very particular about your work environment. Very intentional.
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Can you talk a little bit about what's on the walls, how you structure things and why? And I
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like also how you do it in a way that it's not that it's expensive or fancy, although you can
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afford that. It's just very intentional. Yeah, I think it's evolved and I continue to evolve it.
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Like we just got a new studio, started a company called Martell Media, very inspired by Cody and
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our friends like at the end of the day it occurred to me that everything that I want to achieve in
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life accelerates on the other side of reach and reputation so we got this new studio space and I
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started building the team and I would say because that's probably the most recent company that I've
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kind of like like kind of built out first off it's the people like I have a zero space for anybody
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that I don't vibe with it doesn't mean that we have to share the same preferences and watch the
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same shows or any of that or even look the same none of that if you don't hold a high standard
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if you don't have a desire to create something magical if you don't want to go on a journey of
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building something that may have never been built before this is not the room for you and i'm not
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upset about it i get mad at myself when they accidentally get in we had one recently this is
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so funny i feel bad for ann was ann's assistant and she resigned and we're like whoa that's weird
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because if you read my book six chapter test first hiring method very structured i mean to get on the
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team is a gauntlet and she resigned and i was like that's weird so i reached out to her and i did a
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clearing conversation with her and she she goes i'll be honest with you dan she was from south
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africa she goes i've never been on a team where somebody swore oh and i'm like oh how did this
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how did this happen like where did we mess up when we were recruiting where you were not aware i
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I thought you didn't, did you watch my content?
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Like, did you think of Googling me or something?
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I think that to the degree that you can be just really honest with yourself,
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and this is the thing, it comes down to you giving yourself permission
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You know, if I asked you, like, what would it look like
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to enjoy going to work, to own a business, to really appreciate it,
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you would say, well, I want to surround myself with these kind of people.
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So I start with the people, that's first and foremost.
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Then I look at like the flow and the structure.
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but when I went to math class, it felt like three hours.
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When I went to art class, it felt like seven minutes.
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when i travel here i've got the team and it's just like we're very intentional about like
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what's dan's energy level going to be at different parts of the day so some people are like how do
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you do so much and keep the energy going it's like oh well i i do this kind of work in the
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morning this kind of work after lunch this kind of work towards the end of the day and i and i
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save these things for these and they're like oh oh that makes sense and i'm like yeah even the
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space of like how the studio is designed and you come in and there's like these literally where we
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put we have a gym in the studio we have like a play area has anybody played the new spider-man
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on a ps5 anybody am i the only one with kids okay good it is like it's like playing a movie
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you're like playing this thing so anyways even the where we put that and then had the studio set up
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in my in my office it's just you know the words we put on the wall everything is you know it says
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prioritize the pump it says sweat every day so like i'm very intentional about the words like if
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you talk with me and i hear you say a word that is disempowering i will invite you to consider a
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different one right how would that conversation go oh you like let's talk about let's say like i go
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well it's just like we didn't have enough time to do it the way that i wanted to do it really
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Cody you decided not to make enough time maybe there we go yeah so playful fun Sam will say that
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that would be cool when that happens it will be cool if there's no yeah so it's just words mean
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things to you words mean things matter set intention at the end of the day we don't get
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what we want we get what we expect think about that you will never get a penny more than you
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expect to earn you think you deserve never i don't care fucking b hags and big hair like
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10 million dollars i don't care do you believe that that's you because the problem is is you'll
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just act differently if you expect it here's how i know like just check this out tomorrow morning
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you go into your bank accounts whatever banks you use i'm canadian so like you know chase or
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whatever it is in the u.s and you log in and the number you thought to see is half do you change
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what drives the right behavior because too often that identity of what we think we're worth is
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actually the issue. It's really good. So you run Ironmans and marathons and I think you were
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skiing this weekend with a bunch of people. Yeah, hello skiing. Yeah, exactly. So obviously you're
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playing a lot while you're working too. Yeah. Talk about how you started to prioritize
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correctly because for a lot of people who are new at this what i hear most often is i don't have time
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for x i feel overwhelmed by why yeah i never hear those words from you why and how do you
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prioritize properly yeah i mean it's easy to look at my life and look at cody and i and go yeah but
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you guys are rich like i'm not an idiot i i was at one point in a room just like this listening
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and the two rich people on stage talk about their fucking life,
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But I think that, you know, there's two parts to your question.
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You can be overwhelmed, and you may be overwhelmed.
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And I don't discredit, and I'm not going to take away
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but if you actually stayed in that feeling and you were willing to explore it a little bit you
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could if you were open to it get to a place where in that same activity you're no longer overwhelmed
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overwhelm this country it's a funny thing because it's all about the meaning that we associate to
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the activity so here's a cool idea i'm gonna really you guys are like who is this guy
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you don't control it it's given to you from wherever call it the universal mind god
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consciousness it's just there but you do control your second thought and the second thought in
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that space between the first one that is a gift and the second one how you respond that's the
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feeling so if you're overwhelmed yes you are do you have to be no you don't and if you just even
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think of the frame alex hermosi taught me this this like thousand expert frame so like whatever's
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overwhelming you imagine you did this thing a thousand times honestly by the hundredth time
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500th time the thousandth it's just you just do it don't even think about it so when people see
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my life today and they go how do you do all that i go oh but this is capacity expanded at the
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extremities and the first time i might have felt overwhelmed but then i got easier and easier and
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now it's just i don't even think about it so that's on the feeling side in regards to the time
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side what I do and I teach in the book preloaded year the perfect week these two frameworks is
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I'm very intentional about reflecting so every like quarter and then you know every year I look
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back at what I did because everything's in my calendar right and it's kind of color-coded but
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not really but we can just evaluate it and I just ask myself simple questions like was that a
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was that the right use of my my quarter right use of my year when I look at the stuff I said yes to
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And then when I look at it, and I look at it over a year,
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I have this one-page template because, and my wife and I do this,
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we each individually look at work-wise and then our family,
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and we just go like, was that too much or too little?
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I used to go on vacation before my events.
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Now, as I say this out loud, all of you probably go, that's dumb.
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why why would you go on vacation the week before you have a major event i don't know if you guys
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have ever run an event uh the seven days prior there's zero on your brain other than did this
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like like so i would go on vacation with the family and they'd be talking to me and it's like
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i'm not there and i'm like checking my phone did you guys remember to get the badges change
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the color you know what i mean so now all we did when we looked at the year i said okay instead
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of doing the vacation here right after oh wow what a change all of a sudden now i deliver for
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my clients and then i go on vacation everybody's cups full and i can disconnect without guilt etc
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so it's just i'm really good at that retro and being intentional about my time and then also
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just evaluating the different aspects of my life that i feel i need to feel like fulfilled i don't
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even believe in the word happiness per se i think it's a moment it fleets but fulfilled have i
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design my life in a way where I've had like all aspects of like my relationship and my my
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friendships and like the ski trip you mentioned I've been doing that for 10 years and it is three
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days it's a magical three days 48 of like some of my favorite entrepreneurial friends in the back
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country going down steep and deep powder we'll probably do it until till we don't we're just
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it's just the best thing so like again every year we just we're very intentional so the way I think
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about it is anytime I have a conversation with somebody, I'm trying to do two things. One,
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I'm genuinely curious about their situation. See, some people that are nervous about talking to
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other people, the problem is, is they think they got to talk. Shut the f*** out. Don't say anything.
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It's so funny. They're like so nervous that they say nothing. When I'm like, you don't have to talk,
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you just have to ask a question. They're like, this literally, this guy came to my house one
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day and he was nervous. And I was like, dude, I can feel your, he's like, well, I've been following
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you for five years and I don't know what to say. I go, you don't have to say anything, just ask me
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a question. He's like, what? Anything. So here's the deal. When you meet somebody new, and you can
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just write them down, have some canned questions. Like, I'm just curious, how did you get into that
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business? How long have you been doing it? What do you like best? Cody, what do you like best about
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running this incredible empire building? And let them talk. And then so what happens is, I look for
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two things. I look for one, something that they're doing that could be helpful to me.
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And two, something that they're, they're, they're going to do or struggling with that is actually
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my genius. So, and I didn't even know I was doing this until somebody asked me about three weeks
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ago, this exact same question. And I was like, Oh, actually I'd probably do this. So here's what
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I do. I ask the questions, but I'm generally curious. Like I do, I do love people. So I'm
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like, how do you do this? You know? Well, how did you solve that problem? Oh, we're doing this.
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Okay, so there's my thing, how do you guys monetize?
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I need to know that, oh we gotta turn that thing on,
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So I got the thing I need, then I try to figure out,
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They literally go, why would this person want to talk to me?
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your thing could be that you listen with a kind heart and that is awesome because I will tell you
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as Cody knows in this world of business sometimes that person ain't a kind person so if you all you
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do is listen with kind heart that is actually valuable and you can offer that so then but let's
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say it's a real thing like you know you're good at marketing or whatever and you're like oh you
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know how are you guys marketing your business and they're like well we're thinking of starting
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Facebook ads and you're like I'm a Facebook ad expert then then I go to the next part which is
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I offer to be helpful and I might say something like well that's cool the thing you're doing with
00:23:39.040
your sales motion there we've been thinking of doing we haven't done it and you know like the
00:23:43.080
Facebook ads or the SaaS stuff like I think I'd probably do I was like you know anytime you need
00:23:47.200
me love to do that but if you want let's schedule a 30 minute call and on that call we can do the
00:23:51.480
first 15 minutes where I help you and I'll show you and this is the kicker again I don't remember
00:23:56.140
I do this but like this is how it's a 10 out of 10 show them everything show them like literally
00:24:02.520
show them here's our p&l here's our dashboard here's my ad sets here's my thing like whatever
00:24:08.160
you can help them show them here's why because if you do that for them guess what happens when
00:24:13.860
it's now your turn to receive the information from them they're going to be like well let me
00:24:18.220
just show you our crm it's so funny when i'm lit people like i could help you and then i get on
00:24:22.940
call and they're like what are you dealing with and i tell them they're like oh you could do this
00:24:25.660
this and this i go no what are you doing show me or they ask for advice from a mentor and then
00:24:32.500
they get on a call with the mentor and they don't even tell them what their business is doing how
00:24:36.560
much profit they have their team size I literally tell friends of mine that want a mentor when they
00:24:40.880
get on that call you have to disclose everything because in that moment you separated yourself from
00:24:46.240
everybody else because you're honest and truthful and they can feel that that I'm just here to like
00:24:51.480
try to win and it doesn't matter I'm not ashamed of where I'm at I'm starting here but I have an
00:24:56.500
aspiration to go more and those 30 minute phone calls I probably and knows we'd probably do two
00:25:00.900
or three a week. And that's just my way as I meet people that I want to be helpful to and learn from
00:25:05.780
that it's really cool. They're short meetings, super valuable, and then we can figure out what's
00:25:10.100
next. It's huge. The other thing that I've found too on the same vein is I really think that
00:25:16.100
there's some sort of magical, there's some sort of magical action you can take when you meet
00:25:21.020
somebody who you might have a slight different power differential with. So let's say, for instance,
00:25:25.540
um you know i met the one of the presidential candidates vivek ramaswamy and he's a presidential
00:25:31.980
candidate plus i think he's worth a couple billion bucks i'm neither of those things yet and so when
00:25:37.220
i met him what's the normal thing that you do you kind of ask some questions you ask if they're
00:25:41.780
curious you know you pretend to be curious or you are curious with the person and then you know you
00:25:46.420
maybe say well if i can ever help you i'd love to that's actually really annoying to somebody who's
00:25:51.200
really successful because i don't know it's not my homework to help you help me in some way
00:25:55.280
annoying what's not annoying is you doing a little bit of research which we did in the moment we
00:26:00.620
didn't even know the guy was going to be there and realized oh this guy's social media is really
00:26:04.140
terrible and because his social media is really terrible I bet in 30 seconds we could tell him a
00:26:09.000
few things to change in fact we'll tell his number two because he doesn't even have time to listen to
00:26:12.240
that and because we told his number two that we said just give me your give me your email or your
00:26:16.320
assistance email so you play it down right because they might not want to give me their contact
00:26:19.980
information give me your assistance email I'm going to send you a social media breakdown of
00:26:23.440
what we would do for years. And oh, by the way, I don't even sell this. This isn't what I do for
00:26:27.260
a living. I just think you're amazing. I want to see you be successful. This is some small way I
00:26:31.200
could potentially help. And if it's not, just throw it in the trash. And of course, we sent
0.90
00:26:34.880
that out. We did this breakdown, sent it to them. And then we became consultants on their social
00:26:40.520
media strategy. Again, not paid. But now if I want to call Vivek, I can. If I want to make a phone
00:26:45.000
call, I can. And so I think anytime there might be some sort of power differential between you
00:26:50.140
and somebody else that you want something from in the future, the best way to fill that gap
00:26:54.360
is meet an unexpected need with your zone of genius. And you have it in some way, shape,
00:26:59.440
or form, but so few people will actually deliver you something that you would find valuable.
00:27:05.000
And that is not that hard to do. In fact, you could probably pay somebody on Upwork to do a
00:27:09.900
social media strategy for somebody that you met that's better than what they're doing. And so it
00:27:13.680
always surprises me. If you want to buy back your time, the best way to buy back your time sometimes
00:27:46.700
If I was today going to make my first million bucks.
00:27:50.960
And let's remove the relationships and the social and all the distribution.
00:27:56.740
I would go and become really valuable to the most valuable person I could find.
00:28:03.260
A lot of people would say I'd go build my own social media.
00:28:07.160
I would go and immediately probably try to glom on to somebody I could find in any sort of industry.
00:28:12.240
And I would deliver that thing I just told you.
00:28:13.640
I'd deliver the most valuable thing that I, because I have inherent knowledge, know, and I'd deliver that to probably 10 people, because nine of them are going to say no, and one of them is going to think that that's really useful.
00:28:24.420
And I'm probably not going to ask for much money, so I'm probably going to like bartend, do something on the side, and say like, pay me whatever you think this is worth, or let me take a cut of whatever you think this is worth, and then I would go and work for somebody else who already has X.
00:29:08.760
Somebody else asked me this question the other day
0.79
00:29:22.440
And so, and also everything's really expensive.
00:29:27.820
is get in proximity to people who already have power
00:29:34.660
You have no idea how freaking awesome that answer is.
00:29:37.780
And honestly, I've asked that question a lot of people and nobody's given me that answer.
00:29:42.300
Yeah, but in hindsight, when I think about it, all the people in my life that are my business partners is because they did what Cody just said.
00:29:48.600
When you can come to somebody and say, hey, I'm going to take nothing.
00:29:57.740
Then they have unlimited leverage because I have whatever amount of capital.
00:30:01.840
it's like how many times would you know you give me a dollar or like you know you trade a dollar
00:30:06.280
for 10 it's like how many times you want to do that trade so that's actually a brilliant idea
00:30:11.080
yeah it's true i mean lloyd basically was hugely valuable in our membership and did it for nothing
00:30:17.560
um and was incredible at it for like three years basically and then finally when we had this new
00:30:23.160
position i was like wait a second i feel like lloyd is the perfect guy for this position and
00:30:26.820
we want to do some deals together and so that's happened sort of again and again and again so i
00:30:31.100
totally agree. Okay, let's open it up to you guys. Who has the first question for Dan? Athena.
00:30:37.620
So you talked about, you know, getting time with people that would be, you know,
00:30:42.220
derive some value from that conversation. But a place I find myself in very often is people
00:30:48.340
asking to pick my brains, right? And also like asking for things that's actually proprietary
00:30:54.800
to my business. So you mentioned opening a Komodo and taking time. I'm curious because I know
00:31:00.880
both of you probably get these pick my brain requests all the time and asking to see how your
00:31:07.720
business runs so how do you how do you respond to those in a way that's still warm-hearted
00:31:13.200
and or you know some of these people potentially could be clients so what's the pivot there
00:31:18.180
yeah i mean there's there's a lot of filters let me i'll give you some tactical stuff
00:31:23.320
so first off i love everybody and if i had all the time and unlimited resources i would spend
00:31:28.960
one-on-one time with each and every one of you. But I can't because I have kids. And anytime I
00:31:33.140
say yes to something, this is a big idea. Every time you say yes to somebody else, you're saying
00:31:38.440
no to your dreams and goals. And every time you say no to something, you're saying yes to what
00:31:43.500
you've already decided you want to go achieve. So understand a no is yes and a yes is a no.
00:31:48.180
So knowing that, what I do, because I do want to make myself available for anybody, and I'm one of
00:31:54.460
a few people that probably do this kind of nutty anybody can fly to where i live and on tuesday
00:31:59.620
morning there is a hike it's called the founder's hike it's at 6 30 in the morning and you're
00:32:04.340
invited and people fly in from all over the freaking world there's a guy from new zeal two
00:32:09.460
guys from new zealand dubai we almost killed a guy from louisiana it's a it's a real hike
00:32:16.680
all right people i live in canada like this guy we had to put his apple watch on his heart rate
00:32:25.500
because i was like if it stays above 165 for too long i'm gonna stop the hike and you'll wait for
00:32:30.500
us on the way down it's not that crazy like it's it's a 45 minute hike but in that time uh there's
00:32:36.980
a bunch of us that do it and and i made that and i'll tell you why i do that is i had a mentor once
00:32:41.480
and I reached out to him and I mean cold email but you know local person knew my name I had a
00:32:47.380
small business and I asked him for time and he said meet me at in Canada you guys know Tim Hortons
00:32:53.120
anybody Canadian all right cool he said meet me at Tim Hortons right it's like the Dunkin Donuts of
00:32:57.600
Canada and uh but it was 7 a.m on Sunday morning and I was like why does this guy want to meet at
00:33:04.280
7 a.m back then i was 23 24 right 7 a.m was early i was like this is weird so anyways i went there
00:33:11.840
suit and tie all dressed for success you know and he shows up in like normal t-shirt and stuff and
00:33:16.700
but this guy was the owner of the number one software company in our town and at the end of
00:33:21.800
it i said uh steve his name is steve palmer i said steve i'm just curious man why did you want
00:33:27.140
to meet at 7 a.m at tim hortons on a sunday morning don't you have like your family and stuff
00:33:35.320
And if you would have barked at that, it would have been a no.
0.97
00:33:38.360
And the fact that you showed up dressed like that, by the way, crazy.
0.55
00:33:48.800
So for 99% of the people that I do not know, that cold email, that want to pick my brain, buy me coffee, buy me a meal, I don't need coffee or meals, you can come to the Founders site.
00:34:02.420
But for everybody else, the way I decide is, A, here's where I want to go.
00:34:08.080
Because, again, every yes to somebody else is no to my kids.
00:34:11.580
If you guys put that in the context of your family members or your health, then you would be a lot more discriminant with your time.
00:34:20.140
See, I just think a lot of people, step one of buying back your time is value your time.
00:34:26.540
And it's probably because of a self-worth thing.
00:34:28.580
So I definitely, I will do 15-minute meetings if it's one-on-one.
00:34:36.540
So I like to, I mean, we did a dinner with eight people.
00:34:38.620
And the cool part about that is oftentimes, you know, I can help them, but really maybe they need to meet somebody else.
00:34:51.740
I've done one almost every night I've been here.
00:34:56.980
I'm okay with saying no and sometimes you'll have you know a false positive or whatever's called
00:35:02.400
false negative where you said no to somebody you shouldn't have and that's a feedback loop and
00:35:06.260
that's okay and I live in abundance and if that hurts their feelings that's on them it's not on
00:35:10.020
me it's really good yeah the only thing I'd add to you know what do you do when somebody's trying
00:35:14.640
to steal your time and you know the the numerous pick your brain requests I use a filter for even
00:35:50.320
negative 12 and so the you know i think if people want you to do the work for them
00:35:57.060
kind of immediate red flag and this is like normalized but you could say you know be a
00:36:01.580
perfect example you'd go hey you want to learn about how to buy businesses go read contrarian
00:36:05.480
go read like these five articles on contrarian thinking's free business buying newsletter
00:36:08.620
come back to me with your specific questions then you know they're a player they're willing
00:36:11.920
to do some of the work first um and if if you feel weird deferring them to something like that
00:36:16.920
I always go, oh man, I hate giving any version of a shortened, non-contextualized response.
00:36:24.580
There's nothing worse than offhand advice that somebody gives you without really understanding
00:36:29.280
your situation. So before I give you any advice, I want you to go do this thing over here because
00:36:34.500
then we at least have context. We have set definitional understanding. And so that's one
00:36:39.160
thing that's been helpful to me. And then I set a lot of rules around how people can get to me.
00:36:44.200
And so you used something before that was like what I would term like strategically incompetent.
00:37:03.320
I got to save your complex like you wouldn't believe.
00:37:06.280
But the second thing that I've found is just being strategically, what do we say?
00:37:23.600
No, I'm like, I do not want to have you whisper in my ear.
0.99
00:37:39.080
What about when this person could be a potential client and maybe they don't understand?
00:37:44.680
I mean, to Cody's point, you know, like I just, I'm always like, my response is always
00:37:50.220
Again, I don't do it, Ann does it or team does it, but it's like, oh, thanks for reaching
00:37:55.600
But before I do that, could you give me a bit more context?
00:37:59.640
Because I mean, again, strategically incompetent, I actually might be the wrong person to chat
00:38:08.540
So that just told you, they, they probably sent that email to 14 people, right?
00:38:12.400
And they were just looking for anybody to go like, yeah, let's meet coffee because they want to sell you insurance.
00:38:17.760
You don't have an outreach issue in this case if they're going to be a client.
00:38:22.440
You have a business that is a service, not a productized service that you can standardize that people actually can fall into.
00:38:28.580
You have both of our least favorite types of businesses.
00:38:30.720
He's the SaaS king because he wants to build, wants, sell continuously.
00:38:34.260
And I bet his advice to you would be something like create a productized service that allows somebody to buy some component.
00:38:52.760
You're pretty big on productized models, services.
00:39:08.960
We have this huge opportunity to do an RFP for them.
00:39:13.820
You either press the button and buy or you don't.
00:39:19.240
and how getting through that enables you to buy back your time?
00:39:36.560
what a crazy frame if I start a new business the first thing I believe is I'm wrong now I'm on a
00:39:43.220
journey to validate that I'm right so my conversations my approach are completely
00:39:48.560
different so when I fail I actually get excited because I'm like that doesn't work let's not do
00:39:54.000
that again perfect how fast can I move through an experiment to get to a place where I learn
00:39:58.660
and that I would say that's actually like when we think of like poor mindset rich mindset
00:40:03.340
that's the difference between the people that are wealthy is that they don't call it failure.
00:40:09.900
Like I can't remember last time I was like, I failed. Nope. I learned. I got to a place of
00:40:15.560
experience. Yeah. I think I have the same take on that. The only thing that I might add there
00:40:20.360
is the other thing that I've noticed really successful people don't do is there's not a lot
00:40:25.360
of blame. Like I've noticed on my team, sometimes somebody will go, Oh, that's my fault. Cause I did
00:40:29.640
X or Y or Z or like, I should take the blame for that. I'm like, why would we ever use that word
00:40:33.020
blame like the only reason that you should blame yourself for something or you should accept quote
00:40:37.400
unquote fault is if you did something on purpose repetitively otherwise it's not that it's oh wow
00:40:43.120
this happened we should have done this what did we learn differently about that I did take that
00:40:47.540
part next time I'd like actually to do this I hate that blame work and I think that like lines
00:40:52.120
up directly with failure and if you start blaming yourself for failures you really get into trouble
00:40:57.400
use the word rich earlier and then now you're using wealthy could you kind of provide some
00:41:01.820
context of the difference of the two? I'm just going to tell you what I think wealthy is. I
00:41:05.160
think wealthy is realizing you've already arrived the place you're trying to get to
00:41:08.060
to become the person that you can be today. I like that. I'll just like leave that little
00:41:15.060
nugget for you to think about what I just said. Okay. Who's got another question? Can you elaborate
00:41:20.160
a little bit on the manage energy, not time? Because some of the books that I read, usually
00:41:25.900
they say eat the frog first. Like, you know, you start with the most complex task when you have
00:41:30.660
the energy and then go down to a smaller task that you can digest later um is that something
00:41:37.860
that is 100 part of it um but it's also more like in the book i have this thing called the buyback
00:41:45.080
loop which is how i have done everything i've ever done in my life it's how i execute and grow and
00:41:50.600
scale and every year my life gets better and better and better bigger but better it just is
00:41:58.040
And if you look at the formula, like, well, of course it would have to, because one of the concepts is doing a two-week time and energy audit.
00:42:05.440
Depending on how big my life is growing this year, I might have to do it three times a year, once a year, twice a year.
00:42:12.040
But part of that is evaluating what things in my calendar give me energy versus take my energy.
00:42:20.400
So what's funny, though, is one of the big ideas that people have to remind themselves is something can start off as a bright green.
00:42:27.040
I love this and immediately turn into a yellow and then a red but you forget to reassess so for
00:42:33.220
example I was a board member on a in a company and at first it was awesome and then it was like
00:42:38.860
oh this is boring well I don't want to be on but I forgot to renegotiate with the people to resign
00:42:44.280
from the board to create the space and it sounds so subtle because it's like it's only a 90 minute
00:42:49.040
call maybe once every six weeks it's still 90 minutes I want my 90 minutes back right or the
00:42:55.180
other day I was doing, I do one-on-ones with my direct reports. I don't have a lot, but I still
00:42:58.940
have them. And I noticed they were 60 minutes in the calendar because they've always been 60 minutes
00:43:03.060
and we're always finishing early. So guess what I did? Shrink them down 45. So now all my one-on-ones
00:43:09.280
are 45 times five. That's, I get back a couple of, so like my whole thing is yes, start the morning.
00:43:15.520
So if you follow, I have a whole video on my morning routine. First thing I do in the morning
00:43:18.980
is work on the thing that needs to get done. The frog for sure. Cause that's where your mind's
00:43:24.020
freshness you're connected you know it's awesome but i also look at the work i do and that's why
00:43:30.540
i buy back your time is really about buying back the time from not doing the stuff to take your
00:43:34.920
energy that costs very little to have somebody else support you on and that's that's the thing
00:43:39.340
and it doesn't there's a whole chapter called the time assassins because it costs zero dollars to
00:43:43.340
buy back your time you just got to stop doing the five time assassins so people think i don't have
00:43:48.060
the money i've got a job i can't buy my time back no you can by not doing the five time assassins
00:43:53.520
what are the five-time assassins that's always good when you wrote are you writing your book
00:43:57.440
right little tip memorize the things you know people are going to ask i knew as soon as i said
00:44:05.500
that someone's going to ask me but it's i have them i know okay please if you don't mind reading
00:44:11.360
okay yeah that that part that part always stresses me out too there's five s's the staller yes okay
00:44:17.580
that yeah do you want to talk about i will i'll do it real quick the staller is the person that
00:44:20.960
takes more time to make a decision to make the decision and the potential downside, which is
00:44:24.300
probably not going to be there. And they just delay it. Just make a decision. That is what
00:44:28.680
Cody does beautifully. I do the top people. They, what information do I need? They know I'm going to
00:44:33.760
make an imperfect, I have imperfect data to make a decision. It's not about making the right
00:44:38.080
decisions, but making a decision and making it right. So don't be a staller. Love it. The speed
00:44:43.000
demon. Speed demon is the opposite. It's a person that's moving fast. I'm like, I got to go and
00:44:47.180
da-da-da, watch this movie, da-da-da-da-da-da, and then all of a sudden they're cleaning up
0.99
00:44:50.880
because of the freaking wake of stupid hiring their cousins because they had a pulse, like just
1.00
00:44:57.500
dumb, moving too fast. Done it, literally. Sorry. The other part that I thought was really good
1.00
00:45:06.420
about the speed demon that you talk about is how to offset your speed demon nature by,
00:45:12.080
I forget what you used in the book, but basically what I took away from it is if I know I'm a speed
00:45:16.120
demon, which I am, that means that I need callers. I basically need a caller around me. So if I know
00:45:20.800
I want to hire fast, that means I need a great recruiter because I'm going to move and they have
00:45:25.260
the experience to move it fast. Yeah. Okay. The supervisor. Yeah. You over manage people. You're
00:45:31.800
a micromanager. This is funny. You hire people and then tell them what to do. Yep. Anybody
00:45:36.680
hire people and have them tell you what to do. Really actually hard to do. Super hard. Really
00:45:42.460
hard to do the saver yeah you literally walk over dollars to save pennies it's hilarious like i had
00:45:50.080
a buddy i talked about in the book he had uh i think it was like a three million a year mastermind
00:45:54.080
and he was hating it he was gonna shut it down but he saw what i was doing and he's like how did
00:45:58.500
you create all the systems i feel like there's a framework i said oh it's my buddy simon he's like
00:46:02.620
this is his genius he's like oh how much is he and i'm like i don't know like i honestly i maybe
00:46:09.220
you got a bro deal. I don't know what it is. Maybe five grand, maybe 10, but you're about to shut
00:46:13.920
down a 3 million mastermind. What do we tell you? He goes, does he have a book?
00:46:19.740
Dude, I don't know if he has a book. I'm going to introduce you to the guy that's going to solve
00:46:23.140
the problem. So you don't shut down your business. It's making you, you know, six,
00:46:27.000
700 grand a year. He's that guy. Oh, painful. And the self-medicator.
00:46:31.900
the vices the vices some people end of the year rolls around and depending honestly if it's a good
00:46:41.640
year they drink to celebrate and if it's a bad year they drink just to to numb it right i used
00:46:47.140
to be that person i quit drinking 12 years ago but i i've always had that issue and it's not even
00:46:52.140
about alcohol or drugs or video games or it's you know you just got to check in with yourself so
00:46:58.880
somebody asked me one time they're like how do I know what I need to stop doing right because it's
00:47:02.300
not what I'm doing that I'm winning it's what I don't do like that's the biggest idea we should
00:47:07.420
all consider when people stop me and they see me drive my fancy car and they go what do you do
00:47:11.380
I'm like it's what I don't do dude right I don't go to the buffet and try to get my money's worth
00:47:18.420
I don't go gambling I don't fucking vape I don't do a ton of stuff that I know you do
00:47:23.480
so figure that out. One other thing that both you and maybe the most successful people that I know
00:47:29.940
overall it's the name of your book but literally where to buy back your time so for instance every
00:47:35.500
time I go and meet with one of my mentors Bill Perkins he says to me uh he asked me if I if I
00:47:41.340
put my own gas in my own car which originally I thought god that's so pretentious I can't even
0.99
00:47:46.280
fill up my own car like what kind of asshole doesn't do that and then he explained to me
0.98
00:47:50.960
what my time is worth in order for me to go fill up my own car every single time and so each time
0.99
00:47:55.920
he'll come up with something new he'll be like did you schedule your own doctor's appointments
00:47:59.640
have you been doing landscaping and the mission is basically just you are basically a representation
00:48:05.020
of the tasks you do every single day and so if the tasks that you ever do every single day are
00:48:10.340
low level what are you you're actually kind of low level um and you you can't level up unless
00:48:15.820
you change your tasks. What odd things do you do? Like the weirder, the better to buy back your
00:48:21.480
time. I'll give you my new test. This is like, cause I have a lot of friends that are like,
00:48:25.460
I have an assistant. I'm like, my, and I've been playing this game of like, she's going to do a
00:48:32.360
video of all the assistants evaluation. Cause she deals with them all. And some of them are like,
00:48:37.600
they're like, do they really, do they talk to each other? It's like, cause she's trying to
00:48:41.380
coordinate stuff and some people are dialed in some people are not so uh what are the weird
00:48:46.340
things that i do to buy back my time here's one this is the test is do you pack your own bags for
00:48:52.020
your travel i know that that'll probably be that'll be like the the final boss in the levels
00:48:59.620
right like i know could you imagine how crazy that would be to just pick up a bag and go straight to
00:49:06.360
the airport and trust that your passport's there if you're going international that everything you
00:49:10.760
need and all your pills and everything it's like do you do that now i don't i don't pack my bags
00:49:14.800
and no and doesn't do it betty does it but she reports that's incredible yeah so i do a lot of
00:49:20.260
stuff so yeah i don't i don't wash my car put gas in my car um the weirder stuff i have this thing
00:49:25.860
about a certain type of gum and these uh toothpicks that i like uh to keep my teeth clean and they are
00:49:30.660
literally they're always in the right places in my car in my office everywhere we have this cool
00:49:36.060
thing like all the repurchasing in every home all the stuff there's like a little spot that we put
00:49:41.320
stuff if it's almost finished and you just put it there it's like a magic little square
00:49:45.260
i know man you guys are gonna love this magic little square guess what happens when you put
00:49:50.860
something back it gets reordered more shows up it is awesome so uh i do a lot of stuff i don't shop
00:49:57.740
right i have a shopper and she just sends me a bunch of stuff i put it on i create two piles i
00:50:02.600
walk away and all of a sudden I get the right stuff. It's kind of awesome. The way I think
00:50:06.180
about it for me, I only do two things. I create in my unique genius or I hug and I hang out with
00:50:12.040
people I love. Think about it. That's literally all I do. That's all I want to do. The part and
00:50:19.400
one of the reasons why I want to hit on this is because the world is crazy. And if you guys,
00:50:24.060
if we were to post this segment on either of our Instagrams, what would happen? Massive shame.
00:50:29.040
you know you rich tats the rich right like that's the world we live in and here's the problem with
00:50:35.660
that this is why we have to have rooms like this because guess how the wealthy get wealthier
00:50:40.460
it's the small things the things that they never share out loud because they would get lambasted
00:50:46.560
for it and so because of that more people stay poor and we don't actually give the hand up to
00:50:52.160
the next generation how did we all i started as an assistant back in high school i had a rich family