Dan Martell - My Journey to Millions (How to Overcome Challenges)

00:00:00.120 The pressure produces the diamonds, not through dollars,

00:00:04.680 but through who you get to become.

00:00:20.640 What's up everybody, Dan here.

00:00:22.200 Today I wanna talk about this mindset,

00:00:25.080 this philosophy called no pressure, no diamonds.

00:00:27.760 I got it from my buddy, Jason Gaynard.

00:00:29.960 It's one of the philosophies that for me

00:00:33.040 really represents the entrepreneurial journey.

00:00:35.260 So if you're struggling right now

00:00:37.300 and you feel like giving up and it's been really tough,

00:00:39.600 maybe you've gotten COVID,

00:00:40.960 maybe you're struggling with a breakup,

00:00:42.500 maybe you just feel like you're not getting

00:00:44.600 to where you want to be right now.

00:00:46.400 And it's just like,

00:00:47.240 feels like you're kind of fighting a headwind.

00:00:49.680 I wanna share with you kind of my thoughts

00:00:52.820 on making it work.

00:00:54.380 Cause you know, even though I've been super blessed

00:00:56.720 and lucky to build and exited the last three companies

00:00:59.120 that I've started, I've invested in 40 plus companies

00:01:03.180 or now 50 companies as an angel investor

00:01:06.400 and run literally like two multi-million dollar companies

00:01:11.280 today as CEO through High Speed and SaaS Academy.

00:01:16.540 There's these kind of benefits of going through the struggle

00:01:21.380 that I think a lot of people miss.

00:01:22.660 So it's really easy to like take that depression,

00:01:25.560 Take that feeling of wandering and not making progress

00:01:30.880 and use that to reframe the story

00:01:35.400 that you're telling yourself.

00:01:36.940 And the first one is learning to learn.

00:01:39.200 One of the things that I think is the most beautiful aspect

00:01:43.300 about the challenge of building a company

00:01:46.360 or really just being successful in life

00:01:48.540 is learning to learn.

00:01:50.220 Most people stop learning once they go to high school.

00:01:53.560 And for me, that was like where I didn't learn at all.

00:01:56.660 I literally was like an F student, an E and an F,

00:02:00.400 I mean, got worst grades ever.

00:02:03.660 And what I discovered afterwards,

00:02:05.640 even though I started when I was 17,

00:02:07.160 it wasn't until I was 21 or 23

00:02:09.980 that I read my first business book.

00:02:12.300 The thing that continues today is the idea of reading,

00:02:16.680 not only for myself, but for my market, for my community,

00:02:19.480 for my customers, for my family, for everybody.

00:02:22.000 I mean, I've read over 1,200 business books to this point

00:02:26.120 by following a simple process,

00:02:27.760 which is 10 pages every day, every day for years, right?

00:02:33.240 Ever since I started my company Spheric Technologies

00:02:35.560 when I was 24, that was when I like understood

00:02:39.040 that if I wanna learn how to do anything,

00:02:40.580 I'm gonna have to read the books.

00:02:43.180 And the books are, it's the practice, right?

00:02:45.840 It's Bruce Lee's comment of like,

00:02:47.180 I fear not the person that's got a thousand kicks.

00:02:49.580 If you're the person that's practiced one kick a thousand times or 10,000 times,

00:02:54.180 to me, that's what the learning habit does for us, right?

00:02:58.040 It's the learning to learn.

00:03:00.300 So that's number one.

00:03:01.460 So like building a business, if all you did was use it as a learning tool,

00:03:07.800 then to me, that is like the ultimate like gift, right?

00:03:12.300 That most people don't realize.

00:03:13.420 The other strategy and kind of mindset is to play nice with others.

00:03:17.520 Like in business to be successful,

00:03:21.220 like it took me really learning this,

00:03:23.240 my first two companies that you can't build a business

00:03:26.220 without other people.

00:03:27.500 And I have friends that I love,

00:03:29.720 but it seems like every time they get into business,

00:03:31.920 they get in a lawsuit.

00:03:33.300 Every time they start a new partnership,

00:03:36.040 they get in a fight.

00:03:37.560 Every time they start a new business with a co-founder,

00:03:40.960 eight months later, they fall out of, you know, the business.

00:03:43.880 Like didn't work out with this person or whatever.

00:03:45.560 And you know, this is not something I think that's natural,

00:03:49.060 especially when money's involved, you know,

00:03:51.140 like I know I went through this with my brother,

00:03:53.940 you know, building a company together

00:03:55.760 and like there's real dollars and stuff at play.

00:03:59.260 And then at some point you have to figure out like,

00:04:02.160 how are we gonna move forward?

00:04:03.980 You know, like when it's tens of millions of dollars

00:04:06.160 that you're talking about,

00:04:07.760 it's harder to walk away from that.

00:04:10.060 And you know, when I think of like the journey

00:04:12.280 with Flowtown, which to me was when I was 28, 29,

00:04:18.800 and trying to understand how to play nice

00:04:20.960 with my co-founder, Ethan,

00:04:22.800 because I technically started the business with him

00:04:25.960 for him to be the CEO, right?

00:04:28.880 I wanted him to run the business.

00:04:30.660 I wanted to be able to have the freedom.

00:04:33.660 I had just sold my company, Spheric.

00:04:35.440 I had a lot of money,

00:04:36.800 and I didn't want to jump into something and be the CEO,

00:04:40.560 but I had to learn how to do that.

00:04:42.060 How do I become the person

00:04:43.440 that that person wants to be in business with

00:04:45.040 and how do I show up and add value on a daily basis

00:04:48.280 in a way that is interesting and attractive to them

00:04:51.000 for us to continue building the company?

00:04:52.800 Same thing with clarity.

00:04:53.840 Like it's easy for people to see successful folks

00:04:57.720 in business but not realize that one of the habits,

00:05:01.720 beliefs, traits, skills that you need to develop

00:05:04.900 is to collaborate with other people.

00:05:06.260 Some people are so angry and frustrated with the world

00:05:10.540 and cynical and narcissist and all these things.

00:05:13.920 They don't realize that that is the thing

00:05:15.520 stopping them from building the business.

00:05:18.960 So yes, no pressure, no diamonds,

00:05:20.980 but it shouldn't be harder than it has to be, okay?

00:05:23.940 So playing nice with others is a big idea.

00:05:25.700 And then finally, the other thing

00:05:28.200 that you need to be successful in business

00:05:29.740 is to have a high income skill, okay?

00:05:32.920 So, you know, yeah, you could be super smart

00:05:36.180 at the technical side, you could write code,

00:05:38.220 but sales and marketing is really where I focus my time.

00:05:41.820 I learned how to write code initially,

00:05:44.180 and then that allowed me to build software,

00:05:46.800 but I quickly realized once I built the software

00:05:48.820 that if I don't learn the skill,

00:05:50.420 that was building NB Host, or not even NB Host,

00:05:53.100 Maritime Vacation, which is a company I started when I was 17,

00:05:56.400 then I needed to learn how to get people

00:05:58.300 in front of the product.

00:05:59.500 That was the marketing side.

00:06:00.620 That was the high-income skill

00:06:02.220 that you see people talking about all the time.

00:06:05.320 And like, you know, asking myself,

00:06:08.040 if I go down this path, what new skill am I gonna learn?

00:06:11.180 What am I gonna develop?

00:06:12.380 You know, maybe through reading,

00:06:13.460 maybe through going to seminars,

00:06:14.540 maybe through watching YouTube videos,

00:06:15.840 maybe from finding a coach and a mentor

00:06:18.220 to teach me to fast track that.

00:06:20.120 And like every company taught me from learning the code

00:06:24.160 would be, you know, Maritime Vacation,

00:06:26.480 NB Host was a bit of marketing,

00:06:29.080 Spheric was definitely marketing and sales.

00:06:31.880 And then even more recently with SaaS Academy,

00:06:33.960 deciding that I wanted to take everything I'd learned

00:06:36.060 and put it on the internet for all of you guys

00:06:38.180 to learn and study.

00:06:40.140 And the skill that I wanted to learn there

00:06:42.280 was communication.

00:06:43.420 Could I learn to shoot a video in one take,

00:06:47.980 just like this one here,

00:06:50.240 and be able to at any moment hit a stage

00:06:54.200 and share some philosophies and some ideas

00:06:56.220 and some stories without preparation, you know,

00:06:59.520 and to the ability that I could communicate a vision

00:07:02.240 and communicate my passion and communicate a path forward

00:07:06.460 to my team, to my partners, to my market,

00:07:10.600 that skill was something that I knew

00:07:14.100 was gonna produce a lot of value in the world.

00:07:17.840 But I didn't know how to do it.

00:07:19.340 I mean, I used to go to the studio for three months

00:07:21.260 just practicing and practicing and practicing.

00:07:23.980 Like hundreds of hours spent in a studio

00:07:26.420 in front of a camera trying to figure out

00:07:28.980 how do I communicate my story?

00:07:30.440 How do I communicate my message, you know?

00:07:33.900 But doing it because I knew that even if I failed,

00:07:37.800 that I would have built this new skill,

00:07:41.720 this new high-income skill, this new valuable skill

00:07:45.500 that would be transferable to every other business.

00:07:47.960 So sometimes when you're building, don't lose sight

00:07:51.200 that not only, you know, yes, it would be great

00:07:54.800 for the business you're after to be successful,

00:07:57.700 But more importantly, it's even if it wasn't successful,

00:08:01.620 am I learning and am I growing, am I developing, right?

00:08:05.420 Am I reading the right books?

00:08:07.300 Am I playing nice with others

00:08:08.900 and learning how to do that at scale?

00:08:10.760 Am I adding some high income skills

00:08:14.200 or adding some valuable skills

00:08:16.320 that I don't really have that I know can be transferable?

00:08:19.900 And sometimes that is the value.

00:08:22.420 The pressure produces the diamonds not through dollars

00:08:26.920 but through who you get to become,

00:08:30.040 which I think is the really big idea.

00:08:31.980 I want to end this on a metaphor.

00:08:34.240 If you think about going to the gym,

00:08:36.960 like the whole idea of developing your muscles, right?

00:08:40.760 I go to the gym, I know I don't really look at it.

00:08:42.920 I'm not like a bodybuilder, but you know,

00:08:44.700 I train for triathlons and I've done Ironman full distance.

00:08:48.960 And you know, anytime I'm doing a training,

00:08:53.640 I ask myself, did I rip the muscle?

00:08:58.400 Did I go past the point of exertion?

00:09:02.320 Did I get the intended benefit of the design program?

00:09:07.960 I work with a fitness coach, a triathlon coach.

00:09:10.480 I literally have three coaches

00:09:12.440 that just relate to my personal health, right?

00:09:16.200 You know, swim coach, triathlon coach,

00:09:18.880 and then a health coach, an energy coach.

00:09:21.260 And when they design these trainings,

00:09:24.020 they're designing it to go past my capabilities

00:09:27.860 to essentially no different than if you go to the gym,

00:09:29.760 you tear the muscle.

00:09:30.980 And the reason why we wanna tear the muscle 0.99

00:09:33.020 or go past a certain heart rate zone

00:09:35.380 is to develop into a higher capacity.

00:09:39.140 And that to me is the same analogy metaphor

00:09:42.060 that we look at in business,

00:09:43.100 which is our job is to put ourselves in a position

00:09:47.440 to challenge ourselves so that we push past our comfort zone,

00:09:52.940 we go outside the comfort zone,

00:09:54.160 we go past our skillset, our limits,

00:09:56.940 to then discover and become

00:09:59.160 who we might have the ability to become,

00:10:02.660 to become the athlete that can finish

00:10:05.020 a full distance Ironman who can swim four kilometers,

00:10:07.840 who three years prior, I couldn't even swim, right?

00:10:11.900 And all of that came because of this belief

00:10:15.440 that the effort is worth the results,

00:10:17.580 the outcome of who you get to become,

00:10:19.300 and that's the big idea.

00:10:20.460 So I don't know who needs to hear this today,

00:10:22.580 but if you're struggling right now,

00:10:23.880 you're going through a dark time,

00:10:25.400 you've got kind of like this depression settling in,

00:10:29.160 maybe it's anxiety, maybe it's self-doubt,

00:10:31.540 maybe it's imposter syndrome.

00:10:32.840 I don't know what it is for you,

00:10:34.740 but I wanna encourage you to keep going.

00:10:36.940 I want you to think about doing the reps.

00:10:38.900 I want you to think about tearing the muscle,

00:10:41.700 the no pressure, no diamonds,

00:10:43.460 because it's in that space that you get to become

00:10:47.220 the person who can deal with a higher level of challenges

00:10:49.980 to rise and be prepared to receive

00:10:53.300 the thing you've been asking for for the last decade.

00:10:57.580 Whatever you wanna become successful,

00:11:00.840 you might have to go through this challenge

00:11:03.160 so that you can be ready to become the person

00:11:05.320 who can receive that request.

00:11:07.800 And that's the big idea.

00:11:08.860 So hope this finds you incredibly well

00:11:11.400 and have an amazing day.

00:11:13.460 We'll be right back.

Dan Martell - April 11, 2022

My Journey to Millions (How to Overcome Challenges)

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