The Only Skill You Need to Make Money in 2026
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Summary
In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with my good friend and business partner, Lewis, to talk about how important it is to have good relationships. We talk about what it takes to be a good friend, what it means to have a good relationship, and why it's so important to have them in your life.
Transcript
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If you want to make more money this year, there's one skill that if you master will easily make you
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more money than mastering sales, marketing, or AI ever could. And I've been able to master this
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skill over 30 years in business by going from broke 24-year-old to now building $100 million
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a year AI Venture Studio and getting opportunities daily that I never thought were possible.
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The skill is building relationships and it can make you a ton of money. But there's four reasons
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why you need to master this skill that if you understand will almost guarantee your success.
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Starting with reason number one, steel sharpens steel.
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What I think people don't invest enough in is in relationships. I flew 3,000 miles to go meet
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somebody I care deeply about for 28 minutes. Even seeing Louis, like he's a very old friend. I've
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know lewis for 12 years you know he just had his twins and he's somebody i adore and like look if
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he wants to do the pot i'd love to and but i just want to see lewis you know rob's the same thing
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it's like last time i saw rob we were supposed to hang out for an hour and talk about his new
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software company and four hours later we forgot to go to dinner and you know talk like two college
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friends that hadn't seen each other in a while right and and now i'm excited to do that again
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so i think the best relationships are the ones where you feel like you've got a lot to learn
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And I have so many stories that it's hard for me
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Someone that we really like consuming their content
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And we've talked about mentorship and helping people out.
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the offer creation, the personal brand space content,
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I wouldn't be teaching people if it wasn't for Taki.
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As a software guy, I've always built software companies.
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And I think a lot of people, they never get those friends.
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Like I didn't know any of that stuff, the IP stuff.
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And then Taki, two years ago, he hired me to coach him.
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It's hilarious, but you need to understand our relationship.
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I mentioned him in my book, like steel sharpens steel.
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The relationships you have shape who you become,
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and actually double down on is the personal brand.
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like 10 years ago, we're walking around Toronto
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and we can't go a block without him getting stopped.
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The last time I saw Louis was two years ago in 2024.
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Dude, I was just bragging you up about the greatness.
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I remember that, I remember where I was driving
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Cause I remember thinking, that's a big boy, bro.
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Like, it's like, how do you choose the people you end up being friends with?
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And I'm like, I like people that bring different perspectives.
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And like, I was talking about like, you know, the personal brand stuff.
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Like, I've always been pro photos in New York City with that guy.
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and then lewis launches his blog and it's like all right bro are you a pro model what are we doing
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here man it's like lifestyle shots you don't have skills you have to think you know when you don't
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have real talent right like you yeah man i'm slow to like as you i mean you you showed me for like
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six seven years and i was like yeah but now you're doing it i'm doing it man i have the coolest new
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best friend his name is john maxwell leadership goat wrote so many incredible books that guy from
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ohio by the way people come into your life to show you what's possible i know you do that for
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everybody that follows that is that is what you're here to do and you do it so well and and and it's
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always funny people like is lewis the real deal the realest of deals please get into him get to
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know lewis and and john's one of those you know when they say don't meet your heroes yeah unless
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his name is john maxwell oh my gosh what a great human so i'm hanging out with them this is not
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long ago maybe four years ago and we're talking and i'm just blown away at him at his event he's
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You know, he goes, oh, it's, whew, I didn't know I'd do any of this.
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And then he tells me something that just shifted everything.
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He says, I have goals that are God-sized goals.
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And they're so big, they're beyond my ability to know how to do them.
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And they're so big that it's the ceiling of his floor.
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oh I was under indexing I was thinking small I didn't have god-sized goals
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oh was that like a turning point for you yeah conversation it was a core moment that I realized
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that happened to get me to the point where I can have this conversation
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He didn't do that by being the smartest person in the world.
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That's literally the premise of this entire show.
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compounds across everything you're already building i always thought you were a little
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taller for some reason shut up bro you're like you're telling me i'm shrinking now i am six
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three no i'm not i am i'm six four no grab a grab a measure i'm six four yeah yeah but more than an
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i think it's your shoulders i think i'm like i have a handball is that it yeah my shoulders
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You think there's actual cost to not investing in relationships?
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Yeah, the wrong people will take you out faster than any other decision in your life.
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Being with the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time can get you thrown in jail.
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In a business context, the person that's always getting sued, guess what?
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given enough time you'll be on the receiving end of that the people around you set the invisible
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ceiling on what feels normal so if everyone in your circle thinks 200 000 is crushing it guess
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what 200 000 feels like enough most people aren't surrounded by bad people they're surrounded by
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limited people think about that i can't think of a better example of that than when we were in
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dallas at the book meetup in this awesome warehouse filled with literally millions of dollars of
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supercars with a bunch of ceos and high performers who didn't feel limited at that event there was a
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12 year old boy who came up to me at the very end to ask this cool question and i know for a fact
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that being in that circle is going to make him money not cost him you young man you're last what
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do you got your name joseph uh if you were 12 years old starting from zero uh what would you
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focus on for the next 12 months to be able to build an icon what are you doing here man i was
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not how old are you i love that you're here i appreciate that 12 years old who is in a room
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like this at 12 put your hand up yeah i was in the opposite of a room like this at 12. so the
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question he asked is if you're 12 years old and you want to be successful what would you focus
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on for the next 12 months the fact that he asked that question is the reason why he's going to win
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it's like asking a parent that read a book on being a good parent is it because of the book or
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the fact that you wanted to read the book see what i'm saying the fact that you asked the question
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is all i need to know i'm buying his stock so the good news is you already made it pressure's off
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If you're trying to optimize it, get around other people like the people in this room, okay?
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There's a reason why everybody drove to come here instead of going, doing something with their friends
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or watching a sports game or going to a bar or just deciding to lay down and scroll.
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So the people in this room are self-selecting, being driven, motivated, having vision, want to be better.
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every adult in this room wonders why they sat on their hands instead of going all in on it because
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trust me they will most people their mind is baked at 27 so if you're above 27 you have to work harder
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he's 12 he's perfect the malleable so dude get in there be the guy they all turn to for advice
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and you're gonna crush life. Does that make sense? Cool. Three, two, one.
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Reason number four, it's not who you know, it's who knows you.
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Networking used to be cold emails, awkward events, picking brains. The truth is that feels like work.
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It's exhausting. It's slow. You waste a lot of time and it doesn't scale.
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networking now is simple make content add value and relationships and opportunities come to you
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the supercar warehouse that's tactical fleet in dallas texas and the reason we were there is
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because the owner reached out so we're flying into dallas for a speaking thing this guy on
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instagram messaged me he's like hey man see you're coming to dallas need a drive and i look at his
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profile it's supercar dealership and i'm like uh i'm i think i'm good but what do you got he's like
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I said, I like a Rolls Royce with a Mandarin orange
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I don't know if you're asking, I've got some thoughts.
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Every DM from someone who wants to work with you,
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that's your platform doing the networking while you sleep.
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Did the effort to post a video that's being seen
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by 14 million people, is it any different than 140?
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No, you put it out, you didn't chase the next relationship.
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That's how I ended up with a DM from Rob Dyrdek.
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At the end of every year, I always look at my goals
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that I would love to create that would help the goals.
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There's several names, but Rob Dyrdek was on there, okay?
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I don't know Rob, obviously I had a few mutual friends,
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I'm in my office one day, and I get a text message.
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he's the founder of Street League Skateboarding,
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like Fantasy Factory, Ridiculousness, or Wild Grinders.
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On top of being a 20-some time world record holder,
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where he's building an app called existence.io.
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you mentioned Buy Back Your Time and I'm a time guy.
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love to chat i shot a video right away i just like went i have a skateboard behind my desk
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and i was like hey rob i appreciate you reaching out i used to skate like there's my deck i've
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never met somebody that lives in vision and refuses to come down to earth it is crazy because
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like that's how the tables turn i've known about rob for two decades and then one day the tables
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turned because of the content and he reached out to me so now when i'm in la we always get together
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but ultimately share the progress from where we were before,
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I'm grateful that you would come all the way out there.
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And that's what it feels like when you get it right.
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you walk away thinking, we need to do that again.
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That's what happens when the right people find you.
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They get the connection and they don't invest in it.
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that you can use to get through all six phases of business.
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so here's the strategy invest in your relationship with time yes but put some money behind it buy the
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plane ticket show up for the event host the dinner invite the people put yourself out there actively
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intentionally you got to put people on your goals list because the relationships that will change
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your life don't maintain themselves you have to choose them over and over again reinvest show up
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be there nobody has shown me what that looks like better than john maxwell yeah he's my spirit animal
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yeah he's the guy i look up to and i say if my life looks a fraction like that person's life i
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won yeah that's cool yeah what is it like speaking on stage just like this right now for john
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it's wild it's wild it's it's actually it was hard for me not to get emotional just like
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So I went to the event and then after we had the opportunity to catch up.
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And having John in my life has inspired me more than anything.
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And when I was leaving and he offered to be helpful anyway, he's just like, hey, Dan,
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I used to keep relationships almost transactional, right?
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I curated, I showed up, I didn't disclose too much.
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But when I started showing up, fully showing up as me,
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and then organizing my own trips, hosting my own dinner,
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flying across the country, just to be in the same room
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as somebody to celebrate them, because I admire them.
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The quality of relationships and the opportunities
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came from showing up that way completely changed having john as somebody that i can message and
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text and ask for life advice it feels like i'm wearing a cape it gives me a superpower because
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i can be more bold i can take risks because i got him as a buddy yeah two and a half years the next
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book is coming out in january it's been wild it was the fall off to buy back your time on your
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title i can't tell you what it is but when i see it i know it the book's written so it's the
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the packaging so like i don't know i just i consider books the most um craft thing i do
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a book is a picture it's just a picture it's just it's and it done right it's a piece of art
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but it's a picture and it goes i mean that's the picture that's what but it stays with people
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and what's amiss is the subtitle almost always is more important than the title yeah it's the
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subtitle that draws them in yeah you know i think it was our first conversation i asked you about
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the 21 irrefutable laws and what number book he said it was number 13 oh yeah it was way that was
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like whoa okay right right right really it has to be stored up before it shows up and what happens
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is oh that's good some people want to show up and they got nothing stored up and when it
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shows up without it being down without it being stored up everybody says it's not any good it's
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flat because you could tell you could there's no lived experience and so it has to have time
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some things you just can't plan for you can't engineer them you can't time them they only
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happen because you take a chance and you invest in a person genuinely consistently with no specific
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outcome in mind and then one day that relationship might hand you something you could have never
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prepared for? For me, that was a simple question.
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yeah you just let me know what you need we're partners we kick around together i'm serious
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i'm so proud of what you're doing you know how like every young man wants nothing more than to
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hear their dad say they're proud of them yeah that was like times 100 for me having john offer and
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wanting to do that that was like i mean i there wasn't a moment i was ever writing a sentence in
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that book that i didn't think i hope if john ever reads this i hope he doesn't but if he does that
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he's like okay this isn't shitty because like he's the guy the fact that he's willing to do that just
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means the world but i want to tell you something book writing stay right with it because man those
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are markers those are markers in your life and i probably the more that you put those markers down
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it starts to compound in a different way it really does that's cool and then you're just
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doing good i wish your first book was a lot better than my first book john is my spirit animal he's
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written 92 books he is the goat he has more energy than most 18 year olds he's sharp he's kind
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he's he's he's giving of himself to a fault some same sometimes and and i know i can be
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again it's everybody's different but i always thought like before i ever met john i gave him
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the power of my opinion. The people that are going to win are the ones that understand that
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their relationships, who knows them, how they're talked about, their personal brand. Being out
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there is the highest form of leverage. So if you're down to do this, type people in the comments.
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Make sure that people is the number one investment you make this year outside of AI.
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and again if you want a workbook to scale your business just message me scale youtube on
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instagram at damartell and i'll send it over and if you want to learn the systems you need to scale
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your business that go along with the workbook click the video and i'll see you on the other side