Dan Martell - The #1 Skill You Need to Succeed in Business

00:00:00.000 A lot of people, they stop themselves from creating value

00:00:03.660 or offering value to other people

00:00:05.060 because they think that it's like,

00:00:06.500 I don't know anything, I'm not good at anything.

00:00:21.180 So today I wanna talk about a mindset belief that I have,

00:00:26.940 which is hustle to help.

00:00:28.960 I think when I look back at all of the incredible things

00:00:33.060 from, you know, raising venture capital from Mark Cuban

00:00:37.040 to spending a week with Richard Branson

00:00:39.040 to growing my social media followers over a million people

00:00:42.480 to, you know, being involved in 40 plus companies,

00:00:47.420 four of them being billion dollar companies,

00:00:49.040 all of those incredible, you know,

00:00:51.900 even the fact that I know probably north of 50 different

00:00:55.820 New York Times bestselling authors,

00:00:57.680 I still remember when I read my first book ever.

00:01:00.720 All of those things was on the back of relationships and conversations.

00:01:06.460 And one of them that transformed my life was how I met my wife Renee.

00:01:14.000 And I get asked this all the time.

00:01:15.220 People want to know, like, how did you meet your wife?

00:01:16.840 How did you guys meet?

00:01:18.300 And I'll tell you the story because it fits right into this.

00:01:21.660 And I know for some of you guys, you're like, well, I don't know how to create value for

00:01:25.620 other people so why would they take my call and like I get nervous when I talk to other people

00:01:30.500 and I was I came from those same places okay like I used to write code and I'd sit behind my desk

00:01:36.820 and I didn't want to talk to anybody and then I realized if I wanted to be successful in business

00:01:40.540 I needed to learn how to ask questions how to be curious how to have a little bit of energy

00:01:46.520 so no matter where you're starting today I'm going to encourage you to push forward because

00:01:51.060 it's possible for you and it could just like me you know transform the person that you meet that

00:01:57.620 literally will shape your life you know back in um this would have been when i was maybe 27 28 i was

00:02:05.220 at an event on the east coast of canada i think it was it called think something it was like this

00:02:11.380 interactive digital marketing event in halifax nova scotia and one of the speakers there was

00:02:17.220 was a guy named Michael McDermott,

00:02:18.560 the founder and CEO of FreshBooks.

00:02:21.460 And I had known of Mike.

00:02:23.340 I mean, he was a very well-known

00:02:25.080 Canadian software entrepreneur.

00:02:27.340 This was back in the days of like Basecamp

00:02:29.820 and 37 Signals and Ruby on Rails and all this stuff.

00:02:33.360 And like, he was speaking, so I was excited.

00:02:36.280 And what happened was, is after he got off stage,

00:02:40.560 we were transitioning the whole group of people,

00:02:42.900 it was maybe 150 people there, to the lunch setup

00:02:45.640 to where everybody was having our boxed lunch,

00:02:50.300 sit down and eat.

00:02:51.340 And I just happened to be walking on the path with Mike.

00:02:56.540 And as we were walking, I made some small chat.

00:02:58.740 Hey, I really appreciate your talk.

00:03:00.140 I like this aspect.

00:03:01.320 He's like, oh, what do you do?

00:03:02.200 And I told him, and I just happened to ask him,

00:03:04.860 I said, is there anything that you guys

00:03:07.880 are facing some challenges?

00:03:09.500 And he mentioned something about building

00:03:11.280 kind of a marketplace for payments and invoices.

00:03:14.620 So trying to keep all the transactions on the platform.

00:03:18.700 And I said, well, I actually know somebody, my buddy Stu.

00:03:22.020 He's done this before.

00:03:23.260 He used to work in finance and I can make an introduction.

00:03:26.220 He said, I'd love that.

00:03:27.080 And that's how I got Mike's email.

00:03:28.860 So I went out of my way to offer some help to Mike

00:03:31.420 and he got my email.

00:03:32.800 And then he actually saw that I was speaking

00:03:34.580 later that afternoon.

00:03:35.420 He must have seen me speak.

00:03:36.840 Because what happened was is four months later,

00:03:38.560 I get an email from Mike asking me if I want to speak

00:03:41.860 at an event that he was helping produce

00:03:43.920 called Mesh Marketing in Toronto.

00:03:46.340 Which, no, so this must have been 2009 timeframe,

00:03:52.680 because it was after Spheric.

00:03:54.640 So I met him then, maybe it was after Spheric,

00:03:57.460 but I was living in San Francisco,

00:03:59.020 and I flew up to Toronto.

00:04:01.180 And when they announced the speakers,

00:04:03.380 I had a bunch of people reach out and say like,

00:04:05.380 hey, you know, I noticed you're speaking in Toronto.

00:04:07.560 And one of those people was this young lady, okay, 0.92

00:04:11.280 on Twitter and asked me, when you're in town,

00:04:14.320 would you be willing to sit down with me?

00:04:15.560 I'm doing interviews with some of the speakers

00:04:18.120 for my blog.

00:04:19.180 And I was like, of course.

00:04:20.240 Now I click, click, click.

00:04:21.580 I look at her profile.

00:04:22.500 I'm like, wow, she's really beautiful.

00:04:24.640 And you know, don't think anything of it,

00:04:26.540 but I'm in Toronto now and I'm on my way

00:04:29.240 to the Mars Center.

00:04:30.400 If you've ever been to the Mars Center,

00:04:31.460 there's like these escalators that go down.

00:04:34.120 And I like stopped at a Starbucks on the way.

00:04:37.600 I wasn't too into the health and fitness

00:04:39.780 and high performance back then.

00:04:40.860 I was eating a muffin.

00:04:41.700 I had muffin crumbs all over my t-shirt.

00:04:44.100 I was wearing a float.

00:04:45.180 So I was building Floatown because I had a Floatown

00:04:46.720 t-shirt on and I was coming down the escalators

00:04:49.060 and I could see this beautiful woman

00:04:53.240 that I was supposed to meet at the bottom of the escalator.

00:04:54.900 And I got down there and I went over and I was like,

00:04:58.600 hey Renee, I'm Dan, you know?

00:05:01.220 And she kind of brushed me off.

00:05:03.500 I'm not gonna lie.

00:05:04.340 If you ever hear my wife tell the story, she brushed me off.

00:05:06.880 And I thought it's because like, you know,

00:05:09.340 She really didn't want to interest me.

00:05:10.840 I thought maybe I had something in my teeth or whatever,

00:05:12.880 but what happened was, and she'll tell you this,

00:05:15.680 not me talking to this, I made her nervous.

00:05:17.800 She thought I was a good looking dude.

00:05:19.380 Made me feel good.

00:05:20.520 She told me this literally years later

00:05:22.380 and denied that we actually met on Twitter

00:05:24.020 and that she reached out to me first,

00:05:25.400 which are all things that are provable, luckily.

00:05:28.580 I'm just kidding, but I share that story

00:05:31.420 because I still remember, I think it was like 2012,

00:05:35.060 our first son was born.

00:05:37.080 And when I think back at all the things that align

00:05:43.440 for me to be in a place to help Mike McDermott,

00:05:47.160 to get invited to speak at an event, to meet Renee,

00:05:50.220 to eventually see my first son born,

00:05:53.540 and then 11 months later, Noah, my other son,

00:05:56.300 it was just crazy to think that all of that happened

00:05:59.520 because I went out of my way to help somebody.

00:06:03.260 And I think, you know, when I look back

00:06:05.620 on all the cool things that have happened to me in my life

00:06:09.400 that on the surface look like frickin' miracles,

00:06:13.060 they were based on relationships.

00:06:14.780 I wanna share kind of like three beliefs and mindset hacks

00:06:18.400 that I think will really help you unlock this, okay?

00:06:20.760 Because I think it could transform your life.

00:06:23.080 The first one is to make the offer.

00:06:25.460 Get used to saying things like, how can I help?

00:06:31.600 What are you working on?

00:06:33.200 Is that something that you'd love to talk to somebody

00:06:35.460 in this industry that has experience on that?

00:06:37.360 I remember the way I met Mark Cuban

00:06:40.580 was because there was a guy named Alex Bard

00:06:43.980 who built a company called Assistly.

00:06:45.940 I'm living in San Francisco, 2009, 2010, same timeframe.

00:06:50.200 And we had just happened to meet at a coffee shop.

00:06:54.860 Somebody introduced us, hey, I'm Alex,

00:06:56.700 I'm working on Assistly.

00:06:57.540 I'd heard of Assistly, it was a support software.

00:06:59.820 And I think a lot of people in the tech space

00:07:02.920 for using the product.

00:07:04.420 And I just asked him like,

00:07:05.860 hey, what are some of the struggles you're dealing with?

00:07:07.700 And he's like, oh, onboarding activation.

00:07:09.460 And I just finished doing a bunch of research

00:07:11.400 for our software, Flowtown.

00:07:12.700 And I gave a talk on lean product development

00:07:15.340 and how to do activation and all this stuff.

00:07:17.760 And I just made an offer.

00:07:19.500 I said, hey, if you ever want me to come over to your office,

00:07:21.680 sit down with your team and share what I've learned,

00:07:23.240 I'd love to do that for you.

00:07:24.140 And he's like, wow, really?

00:07:25.180 And I'm like, yeah.

00:07:26.180 And he took me up on the offer.

00:07:28.120 And I went down, I met his co-founders

00:07:29.940 and I shared everything.

00:07:31.140 I hadn't, you know, like, that is just who I became.

00:07:36.680 It's not where I started, but it's who I became.

00:07:38.580 And it's because I helped Alex.

00:07:40.620 Years later, I'm building Clarity,

00:07:43.300 and we launch our fundraising on AngelList,

00:07:47.700 and Mark Cuban sees it,

00:07:49.300 sees that we're mutual connections,

00:07:51.480 and then I actually, I'm not sure if I didn't raise money

00:07:54.760 from Alex, I should have,

00:07:56.640 but, you know, Mark reached out to Alex and said,

00:07:59.060 hey, this Dan guy in Clarity, is he the real deal?

00:08:01.280 And Alex said yes.

00:08:02.440 And then Alex told me that he had talked to Mark.

00:08:04.980 And all of a sudden, Mark signed up for the product.

00:08:07.020 And that's how we ended up connecting

00:08:10.000 and getting him involved in the business.

00:08:11.720 And I just, like every crazy thing

00:08:15.040 that's ever happened in my life

00:08:16.080 happened because of somebody that I connected with,

00:08:19.660 I went out of my way to create value for.

00:08:21.980 And I think that leads me to my second thing

00:08:24.400 that I wanna share with you, which is the who, not how.

00:08:27.760 A lot of people, they stop themselves from creating value or offering value to other people

00:08:32.860 because they think that it's like, I don't know anything.

00:08:35.360 I'm not good at anything.

00:08:36.880 And I have seen some of my best friends, not necessarily talented at any specific skill,

00:08:43.360 but just because they're just such kind human beings and people enjoy being around them,

00:08:47.760 that they've created this network.

00:08:49.900 And what I've discovered when I was living down in San Francisco for almost five years

00:08:53.000 was that the currency was in your relationships.

00:08:56.220 Being able to help people was not,

00:08:59.300 can I solve the problem?

00:09:00.540 It's, do I know the person who would be perfect

00:09:03.060 to solve this for you?

00:09:04.680 So as you go out through life

00:09:06.480 and you interact with people on planes,

00:09:09.300 at conferences, at a dinner, at a house party, right?

00:09:13.920 I want you to go out of your way

00:09:15.500 to try to be curious about other people

00:09:17.580 so that you can build these relationships

00:09:19.800 and kind of create a mental note

00:09:21.700 of what are they challenged with

00:09:22.960 so that if you ever run into somebody

00:09:24.280 that seems to be the solution holder for that problem,

00:09:27.900 you can make that introduction

00:09:29.180 because that is what the world is built on.

00:09:33.440 It's the who, not how.

00:09:34.860 And oftentimes people, you know,

00:09:36.900 and I learned this, I was lucky.

00:09:38.460 Oftentimes people hold themselves back from doing this

00:09:40.780 because they don't feel like they're talented.

00:09:42.300 It has nothing to do with talent.

00:09:44.020 Tim Sanders wrote a great book.

00:09:46.780 It was the first book I ever read

00:09:47.820 called Love is a Killer App.

00:09:48.940 And in that book, there was three premises.

00:09:51.200 And one of those was your network is your net worth

00:09:53.560 and you wanna consume knowledge and experience.

00:09:57.320 And this is the big idea that he taught me at 23 years old

00:10:00.440 was not even for yourself, but for your customers.

00:10:05.400 Wow.

00:10:06.380 And think about it this way.

00:10:07.300 If you don't have customers, you're not a business owner,

00:10:09.340 what if you read and listened to things for your market,

00:10:13.720 for the people you wanna spend time with,

00:10:16.040 for the next level of relationships?

00:10:18.060 When people say you're the average of the five people

00:10:19.700 you spend time with, and you're going,

00:10:21.300 well, these are the people I wanna become,

00:10:22.820 and my friends right now today,

00:10:24.620 I'm not, they're not supporting that,

00:10:27.880 but I don't have anything to offer those people.

00:10:29.740 What if you started consuming videos, books,

00:10:34.300 trainings for those people?

00:10:36.560 Because that could be your value add, right?

00:10:39.100 Getting to know the people that created these books

00:10:40.880 and trainings and courses and events

00:10:42.680 and then being able to introduce them to those people.

00:10:45.400 That is the big idea of the who, not how.

00:10:47.720 And then finally, it's the follow-up, okay?

00:10:50.400 You know, in business,

00:10:51.240 they say fortunes are made in the follow up. When you build relationship with people,

00:10:56.280 it's not that one interaction. It's not the first time you meet them on a plane that's

00:10:59.660 going to change the game. I met the CEO of Pepsi on a plane flying from Toronto to Kelowna. Okay.

00:11:07.460 And like, that was a crazy coincidence. But did I just like leave it out there? No, I asked them,

00:11:14.560 what are your some of your challenges? What's going on? And they said around social marketing,

00:11:18.380 I said, I know some people in the space.

00:11:20.380 Let me know.

00:11:21.280 I don't wanna like send people blindly.

00:11:23.140 So I'll follow up with an email.

00:11:24.260 You can introduce me to somebody on your team

00:11:26.180 and I'll help out.

00:11:27.100 And I made those connections,

00:11:28.880 not for them, but for their team members.

00:11:30.800 But then what I did is I followed up back with them

00:11:33.100 to let them know that I helped them out

00:11:34.420 because maybe that person was never gonna tell them.

00:11:37.140 But really just make myself available

00:11:39.320 as a trusted resource.

00:11:40.800 And guess what?

00:11:41.600 In the future, I was working with one of my companies

00:11:43.740 and they needed a connection to Pepsi.

00:11:45.300 How crazy is that, that I was able to make that introduction?

00:11:49.740 I'm in tech, but because I look at every conversation

00:11:53.900 as an opportunity to build a relationship

00:11:55.760 and be curious about other people,

00:11:57.860 then I have more context.

00:11:59.740 And so it doesn't matter if it's sending a text message,

00:12:03.000 you know, after you meet somebody,

00:12:04.380 you get their phone number, it's like,

00:12:05.360 hey, give me your phone number and we'll keep in touch.

00:12:07.160 I'll make that introduction.

00:12:08.400 It could be, you know, sending introductions.

00:12:10.920 That's a great way of following up, you know,

00:12:12.820 and not just like introductions at the point to help them,

00:12:16.240 but in the future, thinking about them

00:12:18.900 and then doing a double blind intro and saying,

00:12:21.240 hey, are you cool if I introduce you to this person?

00:12:23.260 You know, they have this really cool technology.

00:12:25.000 Like this happens to me every week

00:12:26.480 and that's why I share it.

00:12:27.460 These are, this is literally how I live my life

00:12:29.980 that has allowed me to kind of hustle through the world

00:12:33.500 by helping other people and create incredible value.

00:12:37.300 And it's just because you become the connector

00:12:39.280 and it costs you nothing and it requires zero skill

00:12:42.060 other than being curious and putting yourself out there.

00:12:46.840 But like, you'll go to an event, meet some people, right?

00:12:50.180 Try to meet 15 new people.

00:12:51.880 Be genuinely curious about them

00:12:53.540 and try to figure out what are some of their challenges.

00:12:55.580 And what I've discovered is while I'm at an event

00:12:57.700 trying to do this, I'll like talk to this guy

00:12:59.860 and realize he needs to meet this person.

00:13:01.800 I go, do you know Mark?

00:13:03.060 He's like, no, who's Mark?

00:13:04.260 Mark's at this company.

00:13:05.420 And he was just telling me about this thing.

00:13:07.160 You need to meet Mark.

00:13:08.060 Come on, let's go. 0.98

00:13:08.680 I'll go meet Mark.

00:13:09.300 I do this all the time.

00:13:10.760 Anybody who knows me has seen me do this in real time.

00:13:13.700 And it is super fun.

00:13:15.300 So that is the big idea.

00:13:17.460 If you go out of your way to help other people,

00:13:20.540 I believe that it could be the most impactful thing

00:13:23.600 to ever happen to your life.

00:13:25.480 And it was true for me, meeting Renee

00:13:27.440 and having two beautiful boys

00:13:28.640 and creating an incredible life together.

00:13:30.640 But it all comes back to a quote

00:13:32.480 that I wanna leave you with

00:13:33.320 that I learned when I was in rehab at 17.

00:13:35.920 If you don't know my story, you can Google.

00:13:37.680 I've shared it online, plenty of places.

00:13:39.520 but you know we had this philosophy you know and it went something like you can only keep what you

00:13:45.600 give away if you want more relationships you want more um positivity if you want more um power like

00:13:57.520 supportive influential people in your life then give it the more you give the more you get the

00:14:04.240 more you get to keep that is the message i hope this video finds it incredibly well

00:14:08.320 And we'll be talking soon.

00:14:10.000 Cheers.

00:14:10.580 Peace.

Dan Martell - February 14, 2022

The #1 Skill You Need to Succeed in Business

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