Dan Martell - The 21 Principles of the Top 0.01%

00:00:00.000 I'm gonna share with you the 21 principles of success.

00:00:03.100 These principles are what make

00:00:04.660 the top 0.01% of people successful.

00:00:07.960 Some of these principles are what I've used

00:00:10.000 to make my first million dollars at 27 years old.

00:00:13.080 And others are from what I've observed rubbing shoulders

00:00:15.500 with some of the richest people you know.

00:00:17.740 Now, I do attribute a lot of success in life

00:00:19.960 to luck or grace of God and timing,

00:00:22.280 but there are principles you can implement every day

00:00:24.660 to fast track this luck and attract wealth into your life.

00:00:28.060 So without further explaining it,

00:00:29.440 These are the principles of success.

00:00:31.940 The first principle is to be misunderstood.

00:00:34.360 The other day I was talking to one of my clients

00:00:35.980 and he said, my wife doesn't support my growth.

00:00:39.680 And he got frustrated that every time he'd do something

00:00:42.180 to try to grow, his wife said something.

00:00:44.880 He felt like she didn't support his growth.

00:00:47.560 And my feedback was very simple.

00:00:49.220 The people closest to you are sometimes too close

00:00:51.800 to see your own greatness.

00:00:53.280 And the reason why is because they know you the best

00:00:55.520 and they've seen you try and fail

00:00:57.960 and say you're gonna do something and don't follow through.

00:01:01.000 They're literally the people

00:01:01.960 that have seen you at your worst.

00:01:03.160 And now you're trying to grow and expand

00:01:04.680 and you're upset that they don't support your growth.

00:01:07.700 Jeff Bezos said it best.

00:01:08.960 If you wanna be successful,

00:01:10.020 you have to go long periods of time being misunderstood.

00:01:12.960 And the reason why is because if you know something

00:01:15.400 very few people know,

00:01:16.600 and you're trying to demonstrate progress and success,

00:01:19.520 you'll go a long period of time not being successful,

00:01:22.420 not showing that you know how to do that.

00:01:24.180 And expecting other people to see

00:01:25.680 what you see inside your mind is not gonna work.

00:01:27.960 So here's my big philosophy.

00:01:29.180 This is what I explained to my client.

00:01:30.440 No one needs to change for you to win.

00:01:32.680 Nobody.

00:01:33.320 Sure, it'd be easier.

00:01:34.420 It would feel better.

00:01:35.520 It wouldn't feel so lonely sometimes,

00:01:37.560 but nobody else has to do anything for me to win.

00:01:42.480 That is my philosophy and my invitation to you.

00:01:44.740 So don't expect them to understand.

00:01:46.400 And the other thing is like not being understood.

00:01:48.800 That's weird.

00:01:49.720 Guess what's weird?

00:01:50.800 Rich.

00:01:51.080 People that are weird are actually richer.

00:01:53.440 Why?

00:01:53.880 Because they're doing things that other people would never do.

00:01:56.520 That's why they're weird.

00:01:57.640 They're the people that wear the same clothes every day.

00:01:59.540 They're the people that drive around

00:02:00.800 and do the things they wanna do.

00:02:02.120 They don't mind being clear about what they want.

00:02:04.700 Some people are like, man, you're too much.

00:02:06.560 Man, if I'm too much, go find less.

00:02:08.360 And people don't understand this,

00:02:09.560 but to have a life that other people want,

00:02:11.740 it means you have to be extra ordinary.

00:02:14.460 It means you have to be extra.

00:02:16.980 And being extra will mean you're gonna be misunderstood.

00:02:20.260 So you do you,

00:02:21.260 because it's what you've always loved

00:02:22.760 about every celebrity out there.

00:02:24.520 The people you admire, what you love about them

00:02:26.700 is they are authentically them.

00:02:28.560 This is who they are.

00:02:29.400 This is how they wanna live.

00:02:30.500 And because they've allowed themselves to do that,

00:02:32.520 you admire them.

00:02:34.000 Why don't you take a cue from how they're living

00:02:36.260 and go be that person?

00:02:37.720 Which brings us to our second principle,

00:02:39.540 which is to ask better questions.

00:02:41.360 Anytime I'm coaching a business owner or CEO,

00:02:44.120 I always like to ask this one question.

00:02:46.080 If somebody bought your business tomorrow

00:02:48.300 that knew your industry,

00:02:50.040 what's the first thing they would change?

00:02:51.500 Most people can immediately go to that.

00:02:53.240 They're like, well, they probably do this, this, and this.

00:02:55.460 My follow-up is, why haven't you made that decision yet?

00:02:58.720 See, most people know what they need to change,

00:03:02.000 but they all have these backstories

00:03:03.780 for why they haven't made that decision.

00:03:05.880 So I just like using questions to give people the clarity

00:03:09.360 of where they should focus their time and attention.

00:03:12.160 You know, if you ask a better question,

00:03:13.660 you'll live a better life.

00:03:14.720 So for example, my one-three-one rule,

00:03:16.720 it's a very simple premise.

00:03:17.800 What's the one problem you're dealing with?

00:03:19.260 What are the three options you evaluated?

00:03:20.880 And what's the one recommendation

00:03:22.240 that you have for your life?

00:03:23.500 I can use that framework to have anybody reporting to me

00:03:27.080 make decisions on my behalf

00:03:29.120 and 98% of the time, they're awesome.

00:03:31.620 Another question I love to ask people

00:03:33.200 is what are you pretending not to know?

00:03:35.260 I had a friend the other day

00:03:36.300 and he was building out a sales team

00:03:38.380 and he hired a VA in the Philippines for 1500 bucks a month

00:03:42.320 plus 4% of the sales commission.

00:03:44.640 And this is interesting

00:03:45.540 because this is a person that knows how to grow a business

00:03:47.720 but for some reason he decided

00:03:49.460 I'm gonna go hire somebody in another part of the world 0.90

00:03:51.740 paying them very little and only 4% of the sales.

00:03:54.460 For what?

00:03:55.100 So that you don't get sales?

00:03:57.140 When it didn't work out and he asked me what was going on, 0.96

00:03:59.380 I said, dude, hire a killer. 0.84

00:04:00.960 Go find somebody that actually knows how to sell. 0.99

00:04:02.920 Give them 20% of the sale

00:04:04.420 and get back to building the business.

00:04:06.320 I said, truthfully, what are you pretending not to know?

00:04:09.940 He's like, you're right.

00:04:10.880 I knew better.

00:04:11.860 I know.

00:04:12.880 Stop doing that.

00:04:14.080 A lot of people think if this is true,

00:04:16.140 this is true, this is true, then I'll do the business.

00:04:18.560 Whereas that person,

00:04:19.720 every other time they've had success in their life,

00:04:21.480 know that it doesn't work that way.

00:04:23.840 And I always ask them,

00:04:24.600 what are you pretending not to know?

00:04:26.520 One of my favorite questions I ask myself,

00:04:28.460 it's the primary question every day,

00:04:29.960 dozens of times a day.

00:04:30.860 Anytime I'm frustrated or I'm angry

00:04:33.240 or I'm upset a little bit,

00:04:34.800 I always go back to this question

00:04:36.080 to help give me clarity and focus.

00:04:38.020 How can I appreciate even more

00:04:39.900 God's grace and guidance in this moment?

00:04:42.060 Every time I ask myself that question,

00:04:44.340 I don't know why, but I take a deep breath in,

00:04:46.280 I look around and I get super appreciative.

00:04:49.560 Gratitude fills me up.

00:04:51.100 For the fact that I'm here,

00:04:52.820 I'm shooting this video for you,

00:04:54.560 I'm having a conversation,

00:04:55.680 I get to connect with you guys in the comments,

00:04:57.260 I get to meet people out that have seen my work,

00:04:59.540 I get a chance to reflect on that

00:05:01.220 and understand that it's all part

00:05:03.140 of this beautiful world we live in.

00:05:05.020 The technology that enables this,

00:05:06.640 that's where I go with that question.

00:05:08.520 But think about it, power of questions.

00:05:11.080 See, what questions do is they focus our mind.

00:05:14.600 Questions cut through all the noise

00:05:16.420 and give us clarity of what we need to do next.

00:05:18.720 I love asking my team questions to help guide them

00:05:22.000 because telling them means I always got to tell them.

00:05:24.780 If I ask them a question that gives them clarity

00:05:26.420 and direction, then they can ask themselves

00:05:28.380 the exact same question when I'm not around.

00:05:30.420 So my philosophy is very simple.

00:05:31.960 A problem well-defined is a problem half solved.

00:05:34.340 And if you ask the right question,

00:05:36.160 you'll get to the defined problem.

00:05:38.740 The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers,

00:05:41.120 but it takes a very creative mind to spot winning questions.

00:05:44.500 I think a lot of people don't realize

00:05:46.000 that our lives are dictated by the questions we continue to ask ourselves am i enough am i doing

00:05:51.600 the right thing am i successful enough literally the questions to find their life but they don't

00:05:55.600 actually go and research other questions that could help them come up with better answers and

00:06:01.120 that's why this is such a powerful principle which brings us to the third principle which is

00:06:05.200 to be resourceful in all my companies i have this thing called the 50 to fix it it's kind of cool

00:06:10.640 principle it's 50 to fix it if you're just a frontline worker 500 if you're a leader

00:06:15.360 $5,000 if you're a manager, and $50,000 if you're an executive. But essentially, I've given a

00:06:20.640 budget, I've empowered people to be resourceful to solve problems. Why would I be the only person

00:06:26.960 that can solve problems in an organization? That's really slow. I believe it's not the people that

00:06:31.640 have a title or have a lot of money that are successful. It's the people that are resourceful.

00:06:37.020 They find opportunities to do things. Even when everybody else doesn't believe that there's a

00:06:42.940 path forward they get resourceful think about elon musk okay he said my mission is to colonize mars

00:06:49.340 he believes being a multi-planetary species is a smart move now to actually go to mars it's going

00:06:55.580 to cost a bazillion dollars so where does he find the money starlink see most people don't realize

00:07:01.180 that the telecommunications space on planet earth that market is huge it might be a couple trillion

00:07:07.100 dollars so what does he do he comes up with some innovation to send satellites into space so that

00:07:11.740 he can connect the whole world and eventually skipping over all the telcos isn't that crazy

00:07:16.300 most people don't realize this he's funding his mission to mars through starlink he's essentially

00:07:21.740 going to colonize mars through the money he makes from starlink that is resourceful right when i was

00:07:26.700 building my company flowtown we had to pivot the whole product essentially we found out one day

00:07:32.300 our product only had two months to live because they were changing an api for the way it worked

00:07:35.980 and we were working with third-party data and it became an issue did we fail no i called up my

00:07:40.700 my co-founder, Ethan, I said, hey dude, let's go to the office. Let's try to figure it out.

00:07:44.560 Let's be resourceful. I don't know the answer today. I don't know the path forward. I just

00:07:49.060 know a process for winning and that is deciding there is a path and eventually just execute a

00:07:54.960 plan of discovery and search for a solution till we find it. Once we got it, we go all in. So my

00:08:00.940 question to you is, is in what you're doing, is there any sawdust? Is there opportunity? It could

00:08:06.160 even be like the by-product of what you're doing where there might be some other opportunities

00:08:10.280 right there, some sawdust in your life that you could take advantage to actually move things

00:08:15.320 forward. Can you tap into it? Can you be resourceful? See, most people, unfortunately,

00:08:20.180 they pretend they don't have the resources. They sell themselves on this story of not enough. Like,

00:08:26.740 I would love to do that, but I'm not that person. I'd love to do this, but I don't have that kind

00:08:30.880 of money. Nobody said you needed the money. Have you even asked, is there another way? Have you

00:08:35.020 ever reached out to people and said, hey, I don't have the money today, but is there a different

00:08:39.480 way that i might be able to add value to i could be able to go on that thing or join that community

00:08:44.200 or drive that car you never know like i'm always fascinated by people that just decide hey i know

00:08:49.880 on the surface it doesn't look like this will work for me but i'm so determined to end up in this

00:08:55.480 outcome that i would do anything to make it happen and i just want to call and just find out what

00:08:59.880 would need to be true for me to make that happen that is resourcefulness i remember one guy wanted

00:09:04.280 to coach with me and he couldn't afford it couldn't afford my fees but he reached out and he looked at

00:09:08.200 at my YouTube videos. This was about seven, eight years ago. And he went through all my videos and

00:09:11.920 he sent me a Google doc with all of the tweaks to all the last dozen videos. When I got that Google

00:09:17.840 doc and the depth of attention and energy he put into it, I immediately reached back out, asked him

00:09:23.100 for a cell number, got on a phone with him and found a way to work with the guy. I mean, here's

00:09:28.000 somebody that demonstrated his value ahead of time, even though we didn't need it. And I was

00:09:32.440 just like, so grateful. I was just like, man, I will do that. That is resourceful. Most people

00:09:36.940 think, oh, don't have the money. Job's not there. Can't get it. No, no, no, no, no. Don't be that

00:09:42.200 person. Decide what needs to be true for me to get this opportunity, which brings us to number

00:09:46.100 four, which is give to get. When I was 17, I ended up in rehab. I was hanging around with the wrong

00:09:51.380 people doing stuff I shouldn't have been doing. And I ended up a drug addict. And I went through

00:09:55.500 this 11 month program, this place called Portage, and it literally saved my life. I was not going to

00:10:01.620 continue walking on this earth prior to going to this place. I just didn't have any self-worth and

00:10:05.960 it helped me really understand my value. And the best part is helped me rebuild the relationship

00:10:11.280 that I'd broken with my family. And one of the biggest ideas that I got from being in rehab

00:10:16.120 is this philosophy that if you want to keep your sobriety, you get to help other people stay sober.

00:10:21.600 It's such a simple idea. The more you help other people achieve something, the more you'll have it

00:10:26.300 for yourself. And it's one of kind of the 12 steps, the whole idea of being a mentor to somebody else,

00:10:31.400 being somebody else's sponsor.

00:10:33.360 And I think that philosophy,

00:10:34.920 when I look at all the most successful people in my life,

00:10:37.480 people I look up to, my mentors, my coaches,

00:10:40.120 these are people that have a desire to help other people

00:10:43.460 in a way that very few understand.

00:10:45.400 A long time ago, I realized

00:10:46.900 you receive what you desire for others.

00:10:49.660 Think about that.

00:10:50.340 If you wanna be rich,

00:10:51.480 you should desire other people to get rich.

00:10:53.700 If you wanna be healthy,

00:10:54.500 you should desire other people to get healthy.

00:10:56.320 And you can only keep what you give away.

00:10:58.580 So if you want more love, don't wish.

00:11:00.500 why don't people love me more i'm actually going to tell you go give more love if you're like hey

00:11:05.220 why don't i have more opportunity how much opportunity have you given somebody else lately

00:11:09.780 when's the last time you took a shot on a random person you understand that it's the law of

00:11:13.540 reciprocity in many ways because you don't have this approach that's more giving you're hoarding

00:11:20.180 back opportunity on yourself that bad behavior that bad belief that friction you're creating

00:11:26.500 for other people. It's coming back to you. You don't even see it. See, the law of reciprocity,

00:11:31.580 it allows us to receive in proportion to what we give or do for others. Think about that. If we

00:11:37.280 want more, we have to give more, which makes it really hard for people to understand that don't

00:11:42.240 have a lot because they're like, I have no money. How do I give money to get money? It's not about

00:11:46.220 the money. The scripture makes it clear. We receive the same thing we give, such as mercy,

00:11:50.920 tithing, 10% of our money. I would actually go further. It's not 10% of our money. It's also

00:11:56.080 time, right? It can be money or time. See, I think there's a big opportunity that if you want to show

00:12:01.140 abundance, show up with your time, help other people that are in need. If you want to get in

00:12:05.440 the best shape of your life, why don't you go help two or three other people, your friends, get in

00:12:08.960 the best shape of your life, go to the gym, be kind to other people. Guess what's going to come

00:12:12.500 back? Kindness. It is this beautiful concept. Now you should never do it to get because then it's

00:12:18.800 very transactional. But I think it's just this belief, this principle that if you can get behind,

00:12:23.560 It'll serve you in the biggest ways, which brings us to number five, which is to have extreme

00:12:28.360 ownership. During COVID, I was training for an Ironman. And because of all the things that went

00:12:33.820 on in the world, which makes total sense, our race got canceled. And in that moment, after training

00:12:39.000 a year and a half, I had to make a decision. Do I accept that the race got canceled and I just put

00:12:44.280 off maybe a year or two years? Or do I focus on what I can control, what I call controlling the

00:12:50.100 controllables and really focus on how I responded to that situation. And after reviewing our options

00:12:55.840 and consideration, we decided to race and we kept training. And six months later, we ran our own

00:13:02.080 unofficial Ironman. We called it Corona Man. And that race became the cornerstone of my Ironman

00:13:08.180 career. For the next few years, not only did I do a half, I ended up doing a full. Then I did

00:13:12.700 another couple of halves and I ended up doing an official half and an official full at Mont

00:13:17.500 Tremblant, Ironman. And I look back at this moment where I could have decided to not continue

00:13:23.160 training, not race our own race. And in that moment, I wouldn't have taken extreme ownership

00:13:28.840 for that situation. And what I share with people is that it's not about what happens to you. It's

00:13:34.740 how you respond. See, it sounds crazy, but even if you're walking down the street and a car just

00:13:40.180 happened to jump over the curve and hit you and then run off, obviously let's assume everybody's

00:13:45.980 healthy and safe and all that stuff. What I would ask myself is how did I contribute to this

00:13:51.180 situation? I know this is so hard for people. Some of you guys want to blame everybody else

00:13:56.560 in the world for how your life looks. And I'm telling you, you can do that or you can be 100%

00:14:02.200 accountable for your situation. For example, why was I walking on that sidewalk in that moment?

00:14:06.520 Why didn't I stay home? Why didn't I take a car? Why didn't I take a different path? Like even

00:14:11.320 though i have no control over somebody else hitting me i do have control over how i respond even if

00:14:17.080 it's in a breakup in that moment you can blame them they did this this happened it's not my fault

00:14:22.360 i can't believe they did this to me or you could say how did i contribute to this situation you

00:14:26.920 pick them you might have accepted some red flags you might have allowed them to say or do things

00:14:32.680 that in hindsight you probably should have put your foot down but you didn't and i think what's

00:14:37.160 powerful about that is that you then take control back to the situation you bring power back to you

00:14:43.640 you control the controllables then you hold the power see i don't want anybody else to control

00:14:49.640 my situation i don't want the government to control it i don't want another person to control

00:14:53.160 it i don't want the bank to control it i want to say hey i'm accountable 110 percent for my

00:14:58.600 situation i'm in today one of my biggest philosophies in life is that the world will

00:15:03.400 show me where i'm not free anytime i feel something and i go against that or i get upset you know i

00:15:09.720 just don't feel like that's right or somebody did something wrong i always ask myself like well how

00:15:14.200 did i create that situation i know it's a big one but extreme ownership is probably one of the most

00:15:19.960 powerful ways for you to take control of your life and not give the power to somebody else

00:15:24.040 which brings us to number six which is learn do teach see i have this overarching philosophy

00:15:29.480 in my life which is i believe everyone is here to become the person god made you in his image

00:15:35.480 you know if you have a higher power higher faith you have a future you let's call it the 10.0

00:15:40.680 version of you that you have the potential to become you know who that person is because it's

00:15:44.760 like take all the best moments you've ever shown up in a day most courageous empathetic direct

00:15:50.520 driven and you put them all together what if you could live like that all the time that's part one

00:15:55.080 of this second part of this is that share that process with the world share what's worked with

00:16:00.360 you with the world that's where learn do teach comes from see i think that if you learn something

00:16:05.880 that makes your life better that helps you overcome something in the past then it's your

00:16:10.120 responsibility to share it with other people my philosophy is that if you've made it to the top

00:16:15.080 it's your responsibility to send the elevator back down if you don't share what's worked for you i

00:16:20.600 consider that incredibly selfish think about this if you want more abundance in your life then you

00:16:25.240 should have an abundance mindset don't have an abundance blocker if something's worked for you

00:16:30.040 don't gatekeepers like well what if i share my secret plan your plan ain't that secret you

00:16:35.240 learned it there's probably a hundred thousand other people that know it and if you think that's

00:16:38.920 the thing that's going to stop you from winning because somebody else won that is a scarcity

00:16:43.320 mindset you know but what if i share it and people don't like it you know they say i'm scared of what

00:16:47.960 other people think this is way bigger than you this is an opportunity for you to shine your light

00:16:53.560 to not only help the people that you were once like but even more importantly to have the people

00:16:57.960 that are looking for you to find you so i think a lot of people are being quiet because they don't

00:17:02.280 want the responsibility of shepherding helping coaching guiding somebody else but the truth is

00:17:07.880 is i don't want you to let your insecurities rob you of helping the world a lot of people their

00:17:12.600 world is their kids their community their crossfit gym maybe their city and they're like that's about

00:17:17.640 as far as i'm going i don't want to share with the world you know i was saying this to alan my

00:17:21.640 my coach the other day i was in his gym and i was like hey man why aren't you posting more why aren't

00:17:25.800 you sharing more the guy has the body of a superhero he's 250 pounds lean and he looks the

00:17:31.480 part and i was like you're not even sharing on facebook on instagram you're not sharing anything

00:17:35.400 and he's like ah it's just not my thing and i looked around the gym and there was pictures of

00:17:39.640 all the greats on his wall like literally their physiques their poses on all the walls and i said

00:17:46.520 what if all these people had that same mentality are these people that inspired you yeah they

00:17:51.560 inspire me arnold etc yeah these people inspired me to become who i am what if they never allowed

00:17:56.680 another person to take a picture of them where would you be i could tell in that moment he got

00:18:00.920 it this isn't about him it's his opportunity to help the people that are in his position where

00:18:06.040 he was when he first discovered their physique isn't that cool that we live in a world and that's

00:18:10.200 kind of our purpose all of us i can tell you from personal experience your life will feel full of

00:18:16.520 of fulfillment when you start shifting to learn,

00:18:20.020 do and teach other people.

00:18:21.580 Which brings us to number seven,

00:18:23.100 which is to invest in your priorities.

00:18:25.200 See, there's this incredible book

00:18:26.480 called High Performance Habits by Brendan Burchard.

00:18:28.800 It's the book I recommend to my high performers.

00:18:31.420 And his whole philosophy is helping people

00:18:33.540 obviously understand where they wanna go

00:18:35.060 and what they wanna achieve,

00:18:36.340 but then really understand how to invest

00:18:38.860 in developing the skills, acquiring the resources,

00:18:41.800 the network or whatever you need

00:18:43.500 to accomplish those outcomes.

00:18:45.320 See, a long time ago, I learned if I wanna achieve anything,

00:18:48.140 I could ask myself two questions.

00:18:49.620 Where in my calendar is there time dedicated to that goal?

00:18:52.520 And where in my bank account

00:18:53.860 can I see transactions investing in that goal?

00:18:57.220 See, your calendar and bank account

00:18:58.780 tell me what's important to you.

00:19:01.040 So if you say my family and my health is important,

00:19:03.260 then show me in your bank account

00:19:05.060 and in your calendar where you've invested in it.

00:19:07.200 Show me that you've blocked the time out

00:19:09.320 and you've been deliberate

00:19:10.200 about what you're gonna do with that time.

00:19:12.220 See, money and time is a clear indication

00:19:14.540 of what's important to you because what you invest in grows.

00:19:17.940 A lot of people believe the grass is greenest

00:19:19.780 in the other yard.

00:19:20.740 I believe the grass is greenest

00:19:22.100 where it's watered and fertilized,

00:19:23.540 which brings us to number eight,

00:19:25.280 which is to ask for bigger problems.

00:19:27.980 I know, you're like, what?

00:19:29.380 Why would I want bigger problems?

00:19:30.900 Here's my philosophy.

00:19:32.160 If we want a bigger life, we have to have bigger problems.

00:19:35.940 One time Oprah was getting sued for a billion dollars.

00:19:38.760 The mad cow industry was mad at some things

00:19:40.700 she said about the meat quality or something like that.

00:19:42.820 And somebody asked her like, oh my gosh, Oprah,

00:19:44.540 aren't you upset that you're getting sued for a billion dollars? And her response was actually,

00:19:50.080 I'm grateful to be sued for a billion dollars because it means I'm the kind of person that has

00:19:54.600 a billion dollars. So my question to you is, are you grateful for your problems? Because the bigger

00:20:00.120 the problem, the bigger the life. You don't have $10 million problems in your life if you're still

00:20:05.840 trying to make your first hundred grand. Would you rather be a gardener in a war or a warrior

00:20:10.600 in a garden, right? Would you want to become the person who can deal with bigger issues or always

00:20:16.240 play a small life? The easy path today makes for the hard path tomorrow. See, most people are always

00:20:22.020 looking for easy. They're like, if I had the money, if I won the lottery, I would just go on vacation

00:20:26.540 and I would live on a beach and I'd call it a day. It's actually because of that, that those things

00:20:31.000 will never come to you because you're not preparing to receive. You're saying, I don't want challenges.

00:20:36.100 I don't want hardship. I want things to be easy. The challenge is that anything you want in life,

00:20:40.940 it will challenge you because in the challenges where you develop and grow, it's kind of crazy,

00:20:47.180 but understand this. The reason it's a challenge for you and not for somebody else is because the

00:20:52.880 other person has grown past it. See, some of you guys can't even manage $100,000. I'll tell you,

00:20:58.400 because you can't do that, you ain't going to be given a million. A long time ago, Jim Rohn said,

00:21:01.960 you better hope nobody gives you a million dollars until you become a millionaire because getting a

00:21:05.740 million dollars is not the same as becoming a millionaire. A millionaire knows how to create

00:21:09.920 a million dollars. He also said something I loved. He says, don't wish life was easier. Wish you were

00:21:15.320 better. Don't wish for easy opportunities. Wish for the skill to overcome any opportunity. You

00:21:21.560 should be grateful for bigger problems. You should seek bigger problems because bigger problems

00:21:25.340 equals bigger life. Which brings us to number nine, which is everything is a blessing or a

00:21:30.140 lesson. When I was 18, I started my first company. I worked my butt off. I went all in. I worked

00:21:35.460 hard and even after all of that effort a year and a half of focus and energy and trying to build this

00:21:41.500 and figuring it all out I got my butt kicked somebody else competed against me and took all

00:21:46.960 of my customers why because they decided to build a product for a bigger market and I was trying to

00:21:53.360 build a product for a small market and in that moment I realized that I was playing way too small

00:21:59.300 that was the lesson and now at the time it sucked because I worked my butt off to try to get all

00:22:03.800 these customers and they all went to this bigger company. But I use that for the rest of my life

00:22:08.820 to always play bigger. Why was I only focusing on Canada as a country? Why wouldn't I focus on

00:22:14.260 the US or even better, which is today global? Why should you ever say, well, I can only sell

00:22:19.440 these small group of customers? No, no, no. Think massive. You know, John Maxwell has this incredible

00:22:25.020 book called sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. It's the same concept. Everything you do

00:22:29.960 in life is going to bring you closer to your goals. You'll either win and make some leaps

00:22:35.280 forward or you won't and you'll learn and you'll make some leap forward. Those challenges or

00:22:40.260 setbacks, they're there to guide you to your higher self if you learn. Otherwise, you'll

00:22:46.040 repeat yourself. I have a friend, he's almost 50 years old. His whole life, he's been dealing with

00:22:51.040 the same problems over and over. Every business, 15 businesses now, up and down, up and down,

00:22:55.760 up and down. Why? Because he does not see the lesson in the challenges. And because of that,

00:23:01.860 he'll never find the blessing. So you have to make sure you learn from your mistakes. Do not

00:23:06.500 move on from it until you find that seed of opportunity, as Napoleon Hill said, to then

00:23:11.500 reinvest it and plant it in something that could be even bigger than the thing you just failed at.

00:23:16.100 Brings us to number 10, which is to scare yourself every day. If you follow my stuff for a while,

00:23:21.340 you'll see that not only have I done

00:23:23.440 half full distance Ironmans,

00:23:26.040 I've done project visible abs

00:23:27.860 where I went from 231 pounds

00:23:29.600 down to 197 pounds in 90 days.

00:23:32.540 I've done 12 hour walks.

00:23:34.260 I've done ultra marathons.

00:23:36.480 I've said yes to creating content full time

00:23:40.280 with a whole team of people,

00:23:41.620 follow me around to put out stuff to help other people.

00:23:44.160 Like all these opportunities

00:23:45.960 that at the time I made these decisions scared me.

00:23:48.720 It was in those moments that I realized

00:23:50.360 That's actually what I should be doing.

00:23:51.900 See, I believe you should set goals to grow you.

00:23:54.380 People go, how do you just choose what business to do next?

00:23:57.220 It's kind of simple.

00:23:58.420 Which one is going to develop me the most?

00:24:00.720 One of the big lessons when I did the 12 hour walk

00:24:03.060 is I pondered a very important question.

00:24:05.940 And it's a quote by Joseph Campbell.

00:24:07.640 And it says, the cave you fear to enter most

00:24:10.260 holds the treasure you seek.

00:24:12.380 So I kept asking myself, what is the cave I fear to enter?

00:24:16.320 You know, and having been doing personal development

00:24:18.220 now for 27 years. I feel like I've worked on a lot of stuff, but as I kept asking myself this

00:24:23.400 question, there were conversations with certain people I hadn't had that I knew I had to have,

00:24:28.360 and I wrote their names down. And it's just, it could be as subtle as that conversation. It could

00:24:32.640 be as important as deciding where you're going to live. It could be even more important as deciding

00:24:37.380 to change your career and go start a business. I don't know what it is for you, but there's

00:24:42.340 something that you haven't made a decision around that is scaring you. That is your comfort zone.

00:24:47.980 staying where you're at even if it's not positive the devil you know is a lot less scarier than the

00:24:53.180 devil you don't know so some people just stay in the same place even though it's not positive

00:24:57.500 because they're scared sometimes people don't make decisions because they're worried to have

00:25:00.860 imposter syndrome i actually think it's a good thing if i have imposter syndrome around what

00:25:04.700 i'm about to do it tells them i'm on the right path you know another philosophy is exposure

00:25:09.420 therapy a lot of phobias out there one of the easiest ways to help people get over that is to

00:25:13.980 literally get them in that environment where they just got to allow their central nervous system to

00:25:18.780 regulate and eventually they will get over that phobia another one of my favorite frameworks is

00:25:23.460 the rule of a thousand or the expert frame by my buddy alex hermosi his philosophy is this is that

00:25:28.840 if you're scared to make a decision pretend you've made this decision a thousand times what if you

00:25:33.700 just did this thing a thousand times firing somebody dating somebody raising capital from

00:25:38.880 somebody, how would you feel the thousands and one time? It would feel pretty normal. And that's

00:25:44.220 kind of the whole idea is sometimes you have to do things over and over again until it just becomes

00:25:48.660 the norm so that you can expand your exposure. You can expand what scares you so you can kind

00:25:54.660 of keep pushing at the edges. Because once a mind is expanded, it cannot contract so that you keep

00:26:00.080 growing and pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. Which brings us to number 11, which is to be

00:26:05.160 a river, not a reservoir. See, when I started my last company, SaaS Academy, which is today has

00:26:11.020 become the number one coaching organization for software CEOs. I created this flywheel concept,

00:26:17.200 and I got this from Amazon and the book, Good to Great, which is how do we create value in the

00:26:22.540 market? What are the key movements we want to perfect? And one of them was to give away 100%

00:26:27.780 of everything we knew how to do. No gatekeeping, for free, public, not hidden behind a paywall.

00:26:34.280 we wanted to demonstrate that we knew how to do stuff

00:26:37.820 by just giving it away.

00:26:39.420 And I remember my team pushed back.

00:26:41.200 They were like, how about we do 98%?

00:26:43.840 And I said, no.

00:26:44.780 The whole philosophy is if we give our best stuff away,

00:26:47.420 we attract our best clients that resonate.

00:26:49.320 We help a lot of people, people talk about us,

00:26:51.500 and then that gets us the best clients.

00:26:52.960 The clients get the best results

00:26:53.980 and then track the top talent

00:26:55.420 that helps us create better content

00:26:56.960 that then we give away to the world

00:26:58.380 and the whole flywheel works away.

00:27:00.340 So my whole philosophy is give away your best stuff.

00:27:03.040 Let the information flow through you.

00:27:05.480 My buddy Taki said it best once.

00:27:06.860 He says, information is free, implementation is paid.

00:27:10.400 Give away your best stuff to attract people,

00:27:12.620 then they'll pay you to help implement that.

00:27:15.260 Here's a big idea.

00:27:16.480 If you do it right, your marketing will help more people

00:27:19.020 than your product or service ever will.

00:27:20.940 I think that is a cool concept.

00:27:22.780 Give it all away for free, help people, and trust me,

00:27:25.880 it'll come back 10 times in opportunities for your business.

00:27:29.220 Which brings us to number 12,

00:27:30.520 which is to praise in public and criticize in private trust me this one was the hardest for

00:27:35.560 me to adopt because i'm the kind of person that loves feedback i love people being direct with me

00:27:40.680 no holds bar you can't hurt my feelings just tell me the challenge with that is that other people

00:27:45.560 turns out they don't like that especially in a in a group setting so i was always going around

00:27:50.600 giving public feedback to people giving them cues and opportunities to improve it but in my one-on-ones

00:27:55.800 or other people's one-on-ones i get the feedback that i was hurting people's feelings or i was

00:27:59.640 embarrassing them in big meetings so here's what i tweaked i eventually created this list called

00:28:04.680 ad agenda it's all my direct reports and anytime i saw anything that wasn't being done right i would

00:28:09.320 just write it on the list i did it today with my assistant she actually said at the end of the

00:28:13.080 meeting she goes thank you for not texting me on the weekend 14 things that were broken instead

00:28:17.160 using the agenda list structure and i said no 100 i used to believe that doing that was slow

00:28:22.760 now i've learned is actually faster and it feels way better for somebody so a few things that i

00:28:28.360 believe first off is catch people doing good it's like i was watching my son play soccer this weekend

00:28:33.480 a lot of the people the other parents were screaming at their kid when they weren't doing

00:28:37.800 the right thing pick it up the line why are you throwing it that way i'm just like okay you go

00:28:42.760 play the game and let me criticize and scream at you from the sidelines so what i do instead is

00:28:47.080 when i saw my son do something great i would then tell him nice kick way to run up the field why

00:28:54.520 Because it's accomplishing the same thing,

00:28:56.680 but it's reinforcing the positive behavior.

00:28:59.420 And I just think it's a lot better strategy

00:29:01.340 to praise in public and criticize in private

00:29:04.360 so you don't undermine your team in front of their peers.

00:29:07.360 So if you gotta give them feedback, do it in a one-on-one.

00:29:10.060 If you wanna give them a praise, do it in the group setting.

00:29:12.960 Which brings us to number 13,

00:29:14.440 which is understand the four C's of leverage.

00:29:17.420 So when I was 20, I moved to San Francisco

00:29:19.040 and I met some incredible people,

00:29:20.860 some billionaires and really successful entrepreneurs

00:29:23.540 and investors. But one of the people that really stands out is this guy named Naval Ravikant.

00:29:27.960 A lot of you guys have seen his stuff online. He was on Joe Rogan. He's arguably one of the

00:29:32.260 best angel investors to ever come out of Silicon Valley. He invested in Uber and many other

00:29:36.000 companies. One of the things that I learned from him was this concept of leverage and the 4Cs

00:29:41.520 specifically, because his philosophy is that if you can master these skills, then you can accomplish

00:29:46.920 anything. So I consider these the four master skills of doing more. Because a lot of people

00:29:51.480 say, I would do more if I had more resources. No, you could do more if you understood these

00:29:56.160 four master skills. The first one is content, but content is two parts. Content for me is

00:30:00.980 internal systems and playbooks. Like how do I document the way we do things? And the other one

00:30:07.160 is media. If you have leverage of pieces of content you put out into the world, you can go

00:30:11.540 viral and get hundreds of millions of views on your stuff. So what's cool about content is if I

00:30:16.120 build a playbook, then I can take something that works for one person and replicate it a million

00:30:20.380 times. And if I create a piece of content like a podcast with this video, it could be seen by

00:30:24.500 100 million people and there's no extra cost to the organization. Huge leverage. The second one

00:30:29.520 is capital. It takes money to expand quickly. But if I take a dollar and I can turn it into 10

00:30:34.920 within 30 days, how much money do I have access to in the world? Unlimited. See, most people don't

00:30:39.880 look at their business through that lens. So they're always thinking, well, I need money to

00:30:43.880 make money. No, you need an engine that can produce capital to borrow capital to repay it

00:30:49.280 And to the degree you can do that,

00:30:50.900 you have amazing amounts of leverage.

00:30:53.040 The third C is code.

00:30:54.800 This is the one I fell in love with.

00:30:56.140 This is learning how to code at 17, literally saved my life.

00:30:59.680 It became my new addiction coming out of rehab.

00:31:02.140 Code is building a system that repeats

00:31:04.740 and will always do that thing through automation, through AI.

00:31:08.440 That's all code.

00:31:09.800 And it will allow you to give massive amounts of leverage, right?

00:31:12.460 Just information systems that are written through software

00:31:15.280 so that you can just build automation

00:31:17.600 and workflows into your business.

00:31:19.120 That's the biggest amount of leverage.

00:31:21.040 The fourth one is collaboration.

00:31:22.820 And it's really about having other people

00:31:24.640 support you in your journey.

00:31:26.340 If you wanna go super fast, go alone.

00:31:28.380 But if you wanna go far and build something massive

00:31:31.220 and have leverage, you need to invest in labor dollars

00:31:34.440 and collaboration in people.

00:31:35.900 It's your team.

00:31:36.840 Those four Cs, content, capital, code, and collaboration.

00:31:40.740 If you've mastered those four skills,

00:31:42.480 you have unlimited amount of scale

00:31:44.040 for what you can do ahead of you.

00:31:45.220 Which brings us to number 14,

00:31:46.900 which is to buy back time.

00:31:49.180 This is obviously one of my favorite topics.

00:31:51.140 It's why I wrote a book on it.

00:31:52.540 See, where most people get it wrong

00:31:53.720 is they think that time is infinite.

00:31:56.220 They got all this time, but it's not.

00:31:57.780 Money is infinite.

00:31:58.680 There's unlimited amount of capital

00:32:00.220 for creativity and resourcefulness.

00:32:02.160 Time, we all got the same amount.

00:32:04.140 Everyone has the same 24 hours.

00:32:05.920 It doesn't matter how rich or poor you are,

00:32:07.520 you do not manufacture more time.

00:32:09.440 What most people do is they spend time to save money,

00:32:12.580 but what rich people do is they spend money to save time.

00:32:15.980 If we've got more time back to then reinvest it

00:32:19.140 in our skills to become more valuable to the market,

00:32:22.220 then we will be compensated at a higher level

00:32:24.740 for those increases in skill.

00:32:26.920 It's easy for you to be your cleaner,

00:32:30.000 your laundry person, your grocery delivery person.

00:32:32.580 But if you actually step back and say,

00:32:34.360 how do I buy back more time?

00:32:35.920 Why don't you have somebody else clean your house,

00:32:38.200 do your laundry or deliver your groceries?

00:32:40.320 These are simple apps in today's world.

00:32:42.460 You don't need to be doing everything yourself

00:32:44.500 just because you can do it.

00:32:45.840 See, most people have a hard time

00:32:47.220 giving anything to somebody else

00:32:48.460 because there's fear around it.

00:32:50.420 What if they do it wrong?

00:32:51.520 That's the skill that you need to go develop

00:32:53.880 is how to delegate.

00:32:55.580 Why does everything need to happen yourself?

00:32:57.740 My belief is you wanna figure out what you do

00:32:59.940 that creates the most value in this world

00:33:01.420 that you actually enjoy doing

00:33:02.800 and then delegate everything else to other people

00:33:05.820 so you can get the time back to do the thing

00:33:08.040 that makes you the most money that you actually enjoy.

00:33:10.760 Which brings us to 15, which is the 108010 rule.

00:33:14.040 This is for people that have creative positions and they're like,

00:33:17.160 there's no way somebody else can help me.

00:33:19.400 It requires a very unique mind and I am a artist or a creative and it's hard to get other people to help me.

00:33:25.940 If you didn't know this, all the top, top creative people that you know about have done this at scale.

00:33:32.060 People like Steve Jobs, you know, when he would go into the design studio,

00:33:35.520 he would sit down with Johnny Ives and they would collaborate on that first 10% of a new product idea.

00:33:41.200 and then johnny and his team would go out and spend 80 trying to prototype stuff and then steve

00:33:46.080 would come back a couple weeks later and they'd spend the next 10 of that project's life trying

00:33:50.400 to figure out how to integrate and perfect it and really make it work gary vaynerchuk that's how he

00:33:54.960 does team gary he's got a bunch of people that he collaborates with that then take those ideation

00:34:00.240 phases and creates different ideas and content and then sends it back to him so that he can

00:34:04.400 publish it on all his different social media so i've broken this down into those three parts the

00:34:08.800 The first phase is ideation, the 10% where you sit down

00:34:11.820 and you collaborate on what does this look like

00:34:14.080 when it's done, and here's the different resources

00:34:15.980 and ideas I have around getting it done.

00:34:17.900 The second phase is execution.

00:34:19.740 It's the 80% done by somebody else,

00:34:22.380 having somebody else support you

00:34:23.860 so that you can go and do a bunch more

00:34:25.700 of those other 10% with other creatives,

00:34:27.920 and then when you get that back,

00:34:29.540 you are an editor, not an author.

00:34:31.500 The third phase is integration.

00:34:33.800 Take the final product and give feedback to tweak it

00:34:37.200 so that you can then present it or use it,

00:34:40.140 but you don't have to be the person

00:34:41.900 that does the whole thing.

00:34:43.320 It is way easier to be an editor than an author,

00:34:46.960 and it gives you scale, especially in creative projects.

00:34:50.260 Which brings us to number 16, which is the 10X mindset. 0.99

00:34:53.840 My philosophy, I call it add a zero strategy.

00:34:57.100 Anything in your business that you're working on,

00:34:59.220 maybe it's lead generation, sales, onboarding customers,

00:35:02.900 what would happen if you added a zero

00:35:05.220 to the number of things going on in that department.

00:35:07.980 What would break?

00:35:08.900 In Dan Sullivan's book, 10X is Easier than 2X,

00:35:11.400 he argues is actually easier for you to build a 10X vision

00:35:15.020 and execute against it versus just a 2X, why?

00:35:17.900 A 10X vision requires you to fundamentally shift

00:35:20.660 the way you've been thinking about solving the problem.

00:35:22.780 It allows you to attract talent

00:35:24.600 that wants to work on big, meaningful problems,

00:35:27.500 and those people are usually a lot more fun to work with.

00:35:30.540 And the whole philosophy of just adding a zero to stuff,

00:35:32.780 It just makes your dream and your execution

00:35:35.500 and the energy just more fun.

00:35:37.080 So it is in many ways easier than 2X.

00:35:39.280 Now, to do that, you have to have a BHAG,

00:35:42.120 a big, hairy, audacious goal.

00:35:43.880 You have to have a huge vision.

00:35:45.500 And if you do, then the team can grow within it.

00:35:48.360 What I love about this strategy

00:35:50.220 is that it requires you to change your calendar every year.

00:35:53.720 If you wanna 10X your business in 12 months,

00:35:56.400 80% of your calendar has to be different.

00:35:59.060 So it really forces you to figure out like,

00:36:00.920 who do you hire and give it to?

00:36:02.180 MrBeast talked about this the whole time

00:36:04.000 he was building his YouTube channel.

00:36:05.420 He would hire people and he would just like

00:36:06.760 give people swaths of work that was taking up his time

00:36:09.640 so that he could just focus on the most important

00:36:11.900 and creative projects.

00:36:12.980 See, most people just aim for a little bit more.

00:36:15.520 And what happens is a little bit more

00:36:17.380 gives you linear growth.

00:36:19.180 What you want is exponential growth.

00:36:21.340 You wanna build a business to expand,

00:36:24.120 not a business not to contract.

00:36:26.000 You wanna play to win.

00:36:27.160 You don't wanna play not to lose.

00:36:28.940 and it focuses on quantity of scale, not quality.

00:36:33.420 Some of you guys are perfectionists,

00:36:34.660 which is essentially a closet procrastinator, okay?

00:36:37.640 What are the main things you need to be doing right now

00:36:40.280 to add a zero to your business

00:36:42.740 so that you can then really force yourself

00:36:44.860 to innovate and expand way outside your comfort zone

00:36:47.940 to achieve your dreams?

00:36:48.960 Which brings us to number 17,

00:36:50.500 which are the four levels of luck.

00:36:52.400 I first read about this on Naval's blog back in the day,

00:36:55.660 where he was talking about Warren Buffett.

00:36:58.280 These four levels of luck work this way.

00:36:59.980 You have pure luck, which is people that buy lottery tickets.

00:37:02.960 It literally is random.

00:37:04.240 It's pure luck.

00:37:05.040 You might win a bunch of money, but there's no skill.

00:37:07.780 There's nothing involved, just pure luck.

00:37:09.540 Second level is grit luck.

00:37:10.960 This is where because you're showing up

00:37:12.960 and you're being determined,

00:37:14.460 eventually you take enough shots on goal,

00:37:16.120 one of the shots are gonna go in.

00:37:17.720 That's just grit luck because you show up.

00:37:20.040 The third level of luck that's better luck is skilled luck,

00:37:22.920 where you are so skillful that other people

00:37:26.560 want to partner with you because you are the tip of the spear at what you do. The highest level of

00:37:31.660 luck is prepared luck. This is where preparation, skill level, being in the market and just deciding

00:37:38.380 to be at the top of the game brings you prepared luck. That's Warren Buffett type luck. What does

00:37:43.700 that mean? It means all of a sudden now other people's luck, people that have grit, luck,

00:37:48.020 and skilled luck bring you their luck, their opportunities to you because you're the best

00:37:52.420 at what you do. So Warren Buffett luckily gets access to deals that are never on market. He has

00:37:58.600 people that want to sell to him and only him because he's been doing this forever. He's

00:38:04.040 demonstrated his character. He's got the skills and people want to work with him. So he's getting

00:38:09.680 advantage of their luck in their situation. Just like me, I get access to buy software companies

00:38:14.100 that nobody else will ever see because I've been doing this for almost 30 years. And people want

00:38:18.640 to sell me their company because I have a track record for what I do with those companies, which

00:38:22.320 brings us to number 18, which is to be blissfully dissatisfied. I first heard this from one of my

00:38:27.920 coaches, this guy named Ed Milet. He's one of the most successful people I've ever met. I've spent

00:38:33.220 time with him at his home. I've interviewed him for my YouTube channel. And he's somebody that I

00:38:37.540 speak to regularly about strategy in life. And his philosophy is that just because you want more,

00:38:43.820 it doesn't mean you don't appreciate what you have. A lot of people can't allow themselves

00:38:47.880 the permission to desire anything more in their life because they tell themselves a story that

00:38:53.080 if I want more, that means I don't appreciate or I'm not grateful for what I have. And his whole

00:38:57.140 philosophy is like, no, you have to be blissfully dissatisfied. You have to acknowledge that what

00:39:02.700 you have is absolutely incredible and beautiful and have gratitude for it. And in the same breath,

00:39:08.460 acknowledge that there is more that you can become because that's the truth. God won't give

00:39:13.720 you more if you can't handle what you got. See, God created you as a creator. He wants you to

00:39:18.520 create. You have to have desire because it's required to have a vision on what's possible.

00:39:23.820 Imagine, and I truly believe whatever you desire in life, whatever you want, whatever car you want,

00:39:28.640 house you want, relationship you want, anything, if it's on your heart, it's because he thinks you

00:39:33.540 can have it. The key is to prepare to receive. If you were finding out that in eight, seven months,

00:39:39.080 you were going to have a baby, wouldn't you get ready? Wouldn't you maybe talk to other people

00:39:43.680 that have babies or get the room ready or read a book or buy some clothes. You will get ready to

00:39:48.920 receive. Most people have goals they want to achieve and they don't get ready. They don't

00:39:52.940 prepare because they don't even allow themselves to desire more. You can be both. Both can be true.

00:39:59.400 You can have absolute bliss for everything you have and be dissatisfied for where you're at in

00:40:04.080 life because you know there's more for you to become. Which brings us to number 19, which is

00:40:08.460 to make it about other people. One of my favorite stories to share is the one around Oliver Anthony.

00:40:13.680 maybe you've heard his song before richmond north of richmond it became a number one top billboard

00:40:19.760 charting song came out of nowhere people thought he was an industry plant he was on joe rogan and

00:40:25.600 here's what he said that i absolutely loved on this topic he said the day i gave my life to god

00:40:31.040 and stop making about himself and start making about other people my life changed here's what

00:40:36.400 i believe the moment you dedicate yourself to being successful not for you but to help other

00:40:42.400 people, that's the moment when everything gets activated. It requires energy of doing it for

00:40:48.880 others. The energy of doing it for others is what's going to activate all your dreams.

00:40:53.620 So stop thinking about you. Stop thinking about making yourself rich. Start asking yourself,

00:40:58.120 how can I help other people get rich? Because it's not about you. Think about your customers.

00:41:02.220 Do you read books for your customers? Or do you just read books for yourself? Do you listen to

00:41:06.840 your audience if you're creating content? Or do you just pretend like they're not there and just

00:41:10.420 keep creating for yourself? Do you create from a place of service or do you create from a place of

00:41:15.420 what will I get? See, a lot of you guys are so focused on achievement, you forget that it's

00:41:21.200 about contribution. Nobody's ever became broke by helping other people. Nobody's ever been sad when

00:41:27.460 they're in a position to serve. Yet most people never learn this lesson. They make it about the

00:41:32.740 I, the me, what will I get out of this? I'm always asking myself, how do I create more value for

00:41:37.800 anybody else in the world than anybody else in their world? That's the question. That keeps me

00:41:42.800 focused. That makes it about all of you. That's how you win. You could be one creative project

00:41:48.860 away from absolutely changing your life, your whole life, one, but it's going to have to come

00:41:53.620 from a place of serving other people, which brings us to number 20, which is to think in decades,

00:41:58.020 not days. See, the other day I was on the phone with John Maxwell. He's the GOAT, the greatest

00:42:02.440 of all time when it comes to leadership. I couldn't even believe I was on this phone call

00:42:05.520 And I thought it was going to be a quick call. It turned out to be 45 minutes the whole time.

00:42:09.840 I'm just asking him questions. Like, why do you want to talk to me? And you know, oh my gosh,

00:42:14.500 you've done all these things in your life. I was just crazy impressed. And he says to me,

00:42:18.580 Dan, don't be that impressed. I've been doing this for 53 years. I've been doing one thing

00:42:23.440 for 53 years. I said, well, the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, what book number was that?

00:42:29.620 because that was number 13. I was like, what? I literally right there, I have his platinum edition

00:42:36.600 signed by John Maxwell himself, collection of books. He gave me this as a gift. Crazy.

00:42:42.280 Many people are impressed with others who've had crazy amounts of success, but what they don't see

00:42:47.120 is all the years of trying, all the years of failure, all the times they got pushed down and

00:42:51.760 got back up. I've been doing what I've been doing for 27 years, real meaningful entrepreneurship.

00:42:58.160 And anybody that's going to compare their chapter three to my chapter 27 is silly.

00:43:03.880 Just like trying to compare your first book to John Maxwell's 13th book.

00:43:08.400 What I would encourage you to consider is what could you do for a decade instead of

00:43:13.180 beating yourself up after six months of trying, three years of trying, five years of trying,

00:43:17.560 actually start at the beginning and say, I'm going to do this for a decade.

00:43:21.300 I'm going to commit to this for the next 10 years.

00:43:23.740 Just like when I started my YouTube channel,

00:43:25.780 I said I will publish every week for the rest of my life

00:43:29.700 and I've done it now for almost nine years.

00:43:32.940 Here's the reality.

00:43:34.040 You can tell how successful someone is

00:43:35.940 by how far in the future they are thinking.

00:43:38.200 If you're planning in years or months,

00:43:40.620 you're just not thinking big enough.

00:43:42.420 You want to dedicate a decade to a goal

00:43:45.020 that is, I don't know how I'm gonna achieve it,

00:43:46.980 but I know if I showed up every day for a decade

00:43:49.160 and dedicated myself, that I would win.

00:43:51.480 I would encourage people to give themselves a life sentence

00:43:53.460 because then it's a way of being and who they are,

00:43:57.040 the identity, not something you do.

00:43:59.380 See, a lot of people are like,

00:44:00.340 oh, I don't really want to go to the gym

00:44:01.780 for the rest of my life.

00:44:02.680 Or you just decide you're an athlete

00:44:04.200 or you just decide you're somebody that lifts weights

00:44:06.500 and that's just who you are.

00:44:07.880 And then it's not hard.

00:44:09.160 See, if every time you go to the gym,

00:44:10.320 you have to have a negotiation with yourself 0.99

00:44:11.900 to get off your butt to go to the gym 0.99

00:44:13.340 because it's not something that's easy to you 0.99

00:44:15.080 and you keep telling yourself it's hard,

00:44:16.580 guess what?

00:44:17.120 It will be hard.

00:44:18.280 But if you say, hey,

00:44:19.040 this is just what I've dedicated myself to

00:44:20.580 for the rest of my life.

00:44:21.300 I've got a life sentence.

00:44:22.100 I wanna be in a great shape, I wanna have energy,

00:44:25.140 I wanna have focus, I wanna feel good.

00:44:27.720 And that is my life sentence.

00:44:29.400 So here's the standard, the routine, the habits,

00:44:31.880 the rituals that I'm committed to.

00:44:33.340 And because of that, you will live the rest of your life

00:44:35.420 at a high quality life.

00:44:36.540 But not if you do these short six month sprints,

00:44:39.120 three month things, or whatever it is.

00:44:41.060 No, dedicate a life sentence to achieving.

00:44:43.980 Which brings us to number 21,

00:44:45.860 which is there's no place to get to.

00:44:47.980 I was coaching one of my clients once

00:44:49.640 and she was a very successful entrepreneur

00:44:51.600 doing about six or 7 million.

00:44:53.280 And I asked her, what's the big goal?

00:44:54.840 What are we gonna accomplish together?

00:44:56.580 And she said, 100 million exit within the next three years.

00:44:59.740 I said, cool, easy.

00:45:00.920 I'm just curious why, why that number, why that timeline?

00:45:04.920 And she says to me,

00:45:06.140 so that I can finally tell them all, F you.

00:45:09.360 And I was like, interesting.

00:45:10.820 I said, have you ever Googled

00:45:12.700 what percent of entrepreneurs,

00:45:15.400 women-led businesses founded by women actually 0.62

00:45:17.920 have achieved 7 million in revenue, top line,

00:45:21.360 especially in the last, she did it in five years.

00:45:23.440 She's like, no.

00:45:24.440 Turns out it's 0.02%.

00:45:26.700 I then asked her, what are you waiting for?

00:45:29.200 You've actually already achieved the thing

00:45:30.740 you've been wanting to do.

00:45:31.660 You created this arbitrary rule

00:45:33.740 that unless it's a hundred million dollar exits

00:45:36.400 within the next three years,

00:45:38.160 that you're not allowed to feel good about yourself,

00:45:41.000 to tell them, F you.

00:45:42.960 See, what I learned a long time ago

00:45:44.500 is that if I asked you,

00:45:46.100 what are your dreams and goals in life?

00:45:47.760 And you told me we made a list of those things.

00:45:49.740 essentially what most people do is that list are the rules that need to be met for you to feel

00:45:57.480 happy, for you to feel enough, for you to feel successful. It's actually a trap. It's the biggest

00:46:03.360 trap of success. It's why most people that get to the mountaintop immediately look to the next

00:46:07.880 mountain to climb. And I'm no different. The difference is I've learned a long time ago that

00:46:12.000 my self-worth is not tied to external success. My self-worth is not tied to possessions,

00:46:17.520 is not tied to recognition,

00:46:19.440 it's not tied to anything external.

00:46:22.480 I can decide, you can decide in this moment,

00:46:25.480 just like my client, to feel enough.

00:46:27.680 And when I shared that with her, she broke down.

00:46:29.560 She got emotional because she realized

00:46:32.140 there was no place to get to.

00:46:33.820 See, I want you to design a life that you want to live,

00:46:37.400 not this future place that someday maybe you get to

00:46:41.180 and in that moment, you'll feel successful enough

00:46:43.800 to vacation, to tell people how much you appreciate them.

00:46:47.940 See, if you had to take one principle away

00:46:50.020 from these 21 principles, it would be this one.

00:46:52.800 There's no place to get to.

00:46:54.660 The process is to learn to enjoy the journey,

00:46:57.460 to actually fall in love with the work,

00:46:59.660 to be excited that you get to do what you get to do every day.

00:47:02.860 But there is no place to get to

00:47:04.840 because you attract who you are.

00:47:06.480 And the more you realize that you already are enough,

00:47:09.380 you get to attract more of that into your life.

00:47:11.120 Those are the 21 principles of success.

00:47:13.200 If you want to learn my 15 laws of success, click the link and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - July 19, 2024

The 21 Principles of the Top 0.01%

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript