Dan Martell - The Power of Believing In Others ｜ Dan Martell @ Archangel Summit

00:00:00.000 in 2012 he was actually named Canada's top angel investor more importantly than all that though

00:00:25.440 He believes that you can only keep what you can give away.

00:00:28.440 Entrepreneur extraordinaire, Mr. Dan Martell.

00:00:40.080 Look at this.

00:00:41.100 Look at this.

00:00:42.340 Can I ask you guys all a big favor?

00:00:43.940 Pull out your smartphone real high.

00:00:45.300 I want to see it.

00:00:46.140 You can't.

00:00:46.480 I can see you.

00:00:47.400 So, like, some of you guys are still staring at me.

00:00:49.940 Pull out your iPhone, your Android.

00:00:51.500 God forbid, a Blackberry.

00:00:54.000 Sorry to hear.

00:00:54.820 Some of you have BlackBerry still.

00:00:56.520 Could you guys take a photo?

00:00:58.020 I'll do this for two reasons.

00:01:00.420 One, I believe in a concept called living out loud.

00:01:02.700 I'm actually going to take a pano.

00:01:04.340 So you guys all take a photo of me doing the pano.

00:01:09.120 So one, live out loud, inspire other people, tell your story.

00:01:13.320 There's a lot of people that should be in this room

00:01:15.000 that don't even know this room exists,

00:01:16.920 and it's your opportunity to inspire them.

00:01:18.400 The second reason I do that is so they get a lot of photos

00:01:20.580 of me on social media.

00:01:21.440 you guys can borrow that trick if you want

00:01:24.820 oh we're gonna have some fun um normally i get asked to speak on stages to help

00:01:32.380 technology companies scale their products raise venture capital or service-based businesses that

00:01:37.860 go from two to ten million this kind of no man's land in business but today i want to actually

00:01:42.560 share something way more interesting and more powerful and it is the power of believing in

00:01:48.480 other people. You know, I really think that it comes down to three core things and the

00:01:57.960 opportunity we all have. One is the moment where we identify these moments to actually

00:02:02.960 extend that belief into somebody else. The other one is the messenger, which I want to

00:02:08.360 share with you guys today. Well, I believe each and every one of you have the gift to

00:02:11.740 be that messenger. And three, the motivation, kind of how to think about those moments and

00:02:17.740 your gift and the message and where it needs to come from to really have it land. You know,

00:02:23.900 in 1896, there was a man named Henry that worked at his idol's factory, Thomas Edison.

00:02:32.260 And one day, Thomas Edison was actually, you know, touring all the factories and Henry pulled him

00:02:37.700 aside and said, I want to show you something. And he showed him this thing called the quadricycle.

00:02:43.080 And Thomas Edison stopped, looked at it and said, keep it up.

00:02:47.740 That man's last name was Ford.

00:02:51.180 There's no successful person that I've ever met in my life

00:02:55.260 that when I asked them,

00:02:57.420 who was that person that believed in you?

00:03:02.480 Who was that person?

00:03:03.940 There we go.

00:03:05.100 You guys know it.

00:03:06.200 We all have it.

00:03:06.900 We all have that individual that looked at us

00:03:09.800 when we didn't even see it in ourselves

00:03:11.220 that really extended that belief that they had in us

00:03:14.840 in that moment.

00:03:16.060 And it's physical.

00:03:16.880 It's one-to-one.

00:03:17.440 It's biological. It's it's human to human. You know my story is no different. You know when I was eight

00:03:23.120 I was diagnosed with ADHD. I thought I had a superpower. A lot of people a lot of people said

00:03:30.080 that I was gonna have challenges. I grew up in a house where my mom was an alcoholic. My dad was

00:03:35.520 in sales on the road five days a week. I was the second oldest of four kids and from the point of

00:03:42.240 being diagnosed I really had issues at home and anger problems and I acted out and I learned

00:03:47.280 later in many years of therapy, that was because in acting out, my mom would call my dad and she

00:03:52.080 knew that he would have to come home if she couldn't handle me. And this kept going on for

00:03:57.040 years and years when I'd take these tantrums, you know, anger tantrums. And after, when I was 11,

00:04:03.360 I went a little too far and my mom called the police and the police showed up and I was in

00:04:08.540 my room in a fit of rage and she asked them to take me away. That she couldn't handle it anymore.

00:04:14.680 and I remember the police escorted me out of the house I got in the back of the cop car and I woke

00:04:19.560 up the next morning in a crisis center for the first time my whole life outside of my home

00:04:24.180 now I got placed in a group home with this guy named Dave and unfortunately for Dave I was his

00:04:30.820 first foster child Dave was a 35 year old man never had any kids and decided one day that he

00:04:36.800 was going to be a foster parent and he got me and we went out for I remember the first night he went

00:04:42.140 out for groceries and he goes, so, you know, what do you eat? I'm 11 years old. I said, oh, that's

00:04:45.740 easy. Pop-Tarts and hot dogs. And he's like looking at me. I go, no, no, no, seriously, call my mom.

00:04:51.140 Chocolate Pop-Tarts and hot dogs. It's all good. So, he fills up, you know, this grocery basket full,

00:04:56.160 you know, $200 worth of Pop-Tarts and hot dogs. Dave was trying to be a, like a brother, like a

00:05:01.240 friend. He wasn't trying, he didn't understand how to be and I took advantage of it. I mean, that was

00:05:07.280 the first night. A couple weeks later, I convinced Dave that it might be a good idea for us to get a

00:05:11.440 slingshot because there's an archery range and we could go bond together by doing the slingshots

00:05:17.740 in the archery range up the street. And three weeks after he got me this slingshot with these

00:05:22.160 steel little pellets, he asked me why all the streetlights were out on the whole street. And

00:05:26.900 I was like, I know that kid. He lives at the top of the street. He was the one that busted all the

00:05:31.100 streetlights. Dave was kind of confused, but he always kind of forgave me. And then another time

00:05:37.820 we were driving this place called Fundy, this campground, and we were going camping for the

00:05:41.180 night. And on the way, I knew there was this store outside the city limits that sold fireworks,

00:05:46.280 specifically Roman candles. And I said, Dave, wouldn't it be cool if tonight, while we had the

00:05:52.160 fire, that we actually lit off some Roman candles? He's like, oh, I don't know. He's like, yeah, yeah,

00:05:56.160 it'd be great. So we stopped, buys a dozen Roman candles. And that night, we light off a couple,

00:06:01.580 but I kind of pretend like I wasn't into it, because I knew that if he didn't use them,

00:06:05.840 he would hide them in the house. So about three months later, he leaves me at home while he's

00:06:10.980 going to run some errands on a Saturday, and I scour the house for these Roman candles.

00:06:16.160 Finally, I find them, and I set up shop in the living room, literally newspaper, and I figure

00:06:22.760 if I cut off like a quarter of them and kind of seal it back up and put them away, he'll never

00:06:27.280 know that I had them. So I'm sitting there with a candle, a pile of newspaper all around me in his

00:06:32.380 living room and a pile of Roman candle pieces, gunpowder all over this living room. Yeah. And

00:06:39.720 I'm proud of myself. Duct tape. Everybody needs duct tape, right? Repackaging up these little

00:06:45.620 knobs of Roman candles. And I turn around and I hit the candle right into the pile of gunpowder

00:06:50.060 and the thing takes off. And it's like 4th of July in his fucking living room with shots going all 0.99

00:06:57.460 over the place, hitting the couch, hitting the bookshelf. And I remember Dave said, there's this 0.99

00:07:02.280 white fire extinguisher in the kitchen if there's ever an issue of fire. So I run into the kitchen,

00:07:06.720 I grab this dinky little fire extinguisher, and I literally come back, spray it. Four seconds later,

00:07:11.620 it's empty. The fireworks didn't stop. And I'm sitting there, which felt like probably, you know,

00:07:17.240 an hour was probably more like 12 minutes. Finally, the smoke kind of died out in the

00:07:21.420 living room and I realize I went too far, a little too far, so I went up to my

00:07:29.880 room, packed my suitcase and I ran away. Three days later the police find me at

00:07:34.800 one of my best friend's house and drives me back to Dave's place and I'm sitting

00:07:38.920 in the back of the car and the window is cracked a little bit and I see the cop go

00:07:42.120 up to Dave and, you know, explain that we have Dan in the backseat and Dave starts

00:07:46.180 getting emotional and just said, I can't take them back. I can't do this. I don't know. I'm just,

00:07:53.320 you're going to have to take them. The second time in my life, I got asked to leave the house

00:07:58.900 that I was living in. You know, so from there, I got put in a group home and I was 12 years old

00:08:05.440 in this group home with guys that were 17, 18 years old that were, you know, criminals that

00:08:10.560 were essentially left in what's called open custody. And I was essentially being raised by

00:08:14.880 people that probably were not teaching me the best life lessons, all right? This room was not

00:08:20.640 represented in that group home. The beliefs and values were not shared. And, you know, I spent a

00:08:28.040 year there, and when I was 13, a little after my birthday, I got released. I rebuilt a little bit

00:08:33.460 of relationship with my parents, and I got brought back to my home. And that year, two things happened.

00:08:39.700 One, my parents got divorced, which I felt for the longest time was my fault. And two, I get

00:08:44.780 introduced to drugs. And at 13, my life spiraled out of control. I got in trouble with the law.

00:08:52.400 By the time I was 15, I ended up in jail for six weeks. Got out, promised I would never do that

00:08:57.040 again. New group of friends that night, first night, back at it. It kept going crazy and crazy.

00:09:02.820 I started dealing. I started spending time with guys that were twice my age. And then finally,

00:09:07.020 my brother calls me and he goes, you can't come home. I said, why? He goes, the cops are waiting

00:09:11.560 for you. They know that you've been dealing, and they're going to arrest you, so you've got to

00:09:16.560 leave. And I stole a car, and I took off from Moncton, New Brunswick. And a day later, I was

00:09:23.940 driving. I actually got lost, which is crazy. I was like, I'm going to go to Quebec. Can't even

00:09:29.040 figure my way out of the province. Didn't have a driver's license. And I'm driving drunken high

00:09:36.480 in this place called Sussex, New Brunswick,

00:09:38.920 and as I come off the highway to get some gas,

00:09:42.020 there's a roadblock.

00:09:44.680 And I pull up, I don't have my driver's license,

00:09:47.040 stolen car, and I go, I don't know what to do.

00:09:49.300 And I realize, before I stole the car,

00:09:51.740 all I knew is I didn't want to go back to jail.

00:09:53.800 And I had a gun and a bag sitting next to the car.

00:09:58.360 So I pull up, and the cop says, license, registration.

00:10:00.780 I said, here's the registration, the insurance.

00:10:02.260 I don't have my license on me.

00:10:03.380 I apologize, it's back at home.

00:10:05.280 He says, no problem, pull over to the side.

00:10:07.460 As soon as he's turned his back, I take off.

00:10:10.100 Cruising down the highway, and all I figure is if I can get to the woods

00:10:12.820 and run into the woods, I can make it, I can get away.

00:10:15.040 And I'm coming around this neighborhood, and all of a sudden,

00:10:16.940 I see this house, and the garage door is open,

00:10:18.880 and I'm coming around the corner way too fast,

00:10:20.940 try to make it into the garage door, smash into the side of the house,

00:10:24.020 and I go to reach for the gun.

00:10:26.300 So I knew I couldn't do it myself.

00:10:27.660 I was going to pull the gun and let the cops do their job.

00:10:30.780 And I'm sitting there, and I'm pulling on the gun, pulling on the bag.

00:10:33.500 It's stuck between the handle.

00:10:34.960 and it doesn't come out.

00:10:38.100 And before I know it, the cops open the door.

00:10:40.200 My feet don't even touch the ground.

00:10:41.520 They throw me in the back of the cop car,

00:10:42.940 and I wake up the next morning sober in a jail cell,

00:10:45.500 realizing that somebody was looking out for me.

00:10:52.760 And I didn't know what I was looking at.

00:10:54.420 I didn't know if I was going to do three, five years in jail.

00:10:56.380 I didn't know what was going to happen.

00:10:57.740 All I said that if somebody helps me get through this moment,

00:11:01.020 I'm committed to giving 100% of my life

00:11:04.700 every day. I will never take it for granted. I didn't know if I believed in a

00:11:07.780 higher power. I didn't know what was going to happen. I just knew that if

00:11:10.480 somebody helped me get through this, that I wouldn't waste a day.

00:11:16.500 I then got sentenced to adult facility for the severity of my crimes. And I'm

00:11:21.240 talking about like real jail, not juvenile detention, cell blocks jail. And I

00:11:27.760 spent, I got sentenced for almost a year and a half and I was there for about

00:11:31.020 three months and I was trying to do my best. I was doing my homework. I was

00:11:33.840 doing everything. And then one day over breakfast, somebody reached for the coffee, said, who took

00:11:38.400 the rest of the fucking coffee? And I said, and I knew I had to admit it because people were going 0.99

00:11:43.160 to call me out. And I said, I did. And Kurt stands up. I don't know if you knew these like teenagers

00:11:46.580 that had like eight packs when you were growing up. That was Kurt. I mean, just a fucking muscle.

00:11:52.120 And next thing I know, we're in a fight and the guards come in and grab us and throw us in the 0.99

00:11:57.240 cell. And I spent three days in solitary confinement. It's probably the worst thing you

00:12:02.300 could ever do to a human being.

00:12:04.220 Strip them down naked, leave their underwears on,

00:12:06.980 no mattress, no nothing, porcelain sink for three days,

00:12:11.600 lights on, 23 and a half hour days, locked up.

00:12:15.060 And I was sitting in this jail cell wondering, 0.99

00:12:16.660 what the fuck am I doing with my life? 0.99

00:12:17.960 Because I was trying to do better. 0.99

00:12:20.280 And one day, this guard, Brian, opens the door.

00:12:23.860 And Brian was one of those guards that was just super cool,

00:12:26.380 like was stern, was there, but you just felt like he cared.

00:12:30.200 And Brian says, come with me.

00:12:31.680 And we're walking down the hallway, and we go past the cell block,

00:12:34.900 and there's this corner guard unit that actually looks over across the two cell blocks.

00:12:39.340 And it's the first time I'd ever seen the inside.

00:12:41.640 I'd been there for three months.

00:12:42.580 I'd never seen the inside of this room where all the guards kind of hung out

00:12:46.100 while they were looking over.

00:12:47.500 And he sits me in the corner, and he looks at me, and he says,

00:12:51.520 what are you doing here?

00:12:54.020 And I said, well, I, you know, stole a car and guns.

00:12:57.220 And he goes, no, no, no.

00:12:59.560 He goes, what are you doing here?

00:13:01.680 and I said well I got in a fight with Kurt and they locked me up and he goes

00:13:05.960 no no no what are you doing I said I don't know and Brian goes you don't

00:13:16.120 belong here I see the way you do your homework I see how you're trying to stay

00:13:21.180 out of trouble and I want you to know Dan if you've never had anybody tell you

00:13:24.740 this, that I believe in you. At 16 years old, that was the first time I ever had an adult look at me

00:13:34.640 in the eyes and tell me that they believed in me and I didn't even see it myself.

00:13:43.400 And he just kept going on about just the potential. And he's like, you got to get out of here, man.

00:13:47.720 You got to get to rehab. This doesn't make sense, Dan. And I committed to Brian that I was going to

00:13:53.440 do everything I could.

00:13:54.280 Two months later, I get released

00:13:55.480 at a place called Portage, New Brunswick.

00:13:58.100 And I spend 11 months in rehab

00:14:01.520 when most programs are six months. 0.99

00:14:02.980 I had a lot of shit to work on, a lot of stuff. 0.91

00:14:08.200 And it was during that 11-month stay 0.98

00:14:10.020 which I look back and say, man,

00:14:11.480 I got 11 months of personal development.

00:14:13.580 I mean, this place was an incredible location.

00:14:15.720 I mean, all the peers, it was self-guided,

00:14:18.680 it was peer-driven.

00:14:20.180 I mean, it was in the middle of the woods on a lake

00:14:22.560 where nobody would ever think of runaway

00:14:24.920 because if you ran away and you're walking down that highway,

00:14:27.080 all the local residents knew,

00:14:28.320 if you were a teenager, let them walk.

00:14:30.800 And I was one of those teenagers,

00:14:32.180 ran down the driveway, started walking.

00:14:33.780 Four hours later, I decided I might wanna turn around.

00:14:38.020 But it was during that stay, 17 years old,

00:14:41.060 that I discovered at Portage,

00:14:42.880 there was this cabin that had a computer,

00:14:46.400 this old 486 computer and this yellowed book

00:14:48.920 on Java programming.

00:14:50.360 And I open this book and I'm reading this code, this computer code, and it's like, it reads like English.

00:14:57.120 And I light up the, I turn on the computer and I get the prompt and I start loading up the java.exe and start reading this book.

00:15:05.260 And I type in the command and all of a sudden it says, hello world. 0.96

00:15:10.340 I was like, fuck, I can program computers. 0.99

00:15:14.380 This is crazy, this book. 1.00

00:15:16.280 You just follow it.

00:15:17.540 You know, my life changed from that moment.

00:15:22.140 I got out of rehab.

00:15:23.140 I rebuilt the relationship with my family, my brothers.

00:15:25.840 I lost a lot of trust with everybody.

00:15:28.340 I changed schools.

00:15:29.440 I ended up graduating with honors.

00:15:31.240 I got introduced to a thing called the internet, kind of a big deal.

00:15:34.140 Maybe you've heard of it.

00:15:36.940 And since that moment, I've been just blessed and fortunate and privileged to have gone

00:15:40.440 on and built five technology companies, hired over 500 people, raised millions in venture

00:15:44.540 capital, invested in 30 crazy cool companies, and today I'm here to tell you that the reason

00:15:50.540 I'm alive is because of Brian.

00:16:05.340 We all have that power, and there's moments where you don't even realize where you're

00:16:11.460 sitting next to somebody and there's something you could say at the right time from the right

00:16:15.100 place, it's going to shift that person for the rest of your life and you don't even know it.

00:16:19.160 Brian had no clue the impact he had on me.

00:16:23.740 You know, I remember I was really struggling in my business and

00:16:27.720 I reached out to a guy called Frank McKenna and Frank was kind enough to introduce me.

00:16:34.640 I mean, this guy was the prime minister of the province and he introduced me to three guys to

00:16:41.080 became my mentors, and those people, the way they talked to me in the language, just changed

00:16:46.080 everything. You know, and I really want to share one last story with everybody, because I think

00:16:51.060 it's going to help this concept land. In 2008, there was a swimmer called Joseph Schooling

00:17:00.280 that met his hero, Michael Phelps, in Singapore, as Michael was on his way to participate in the

00:17:06.680 Olympics in Beijing. And he has a picture of him. You know, Joseph was 13 at the time. Four years

00:17:11.960 later in London, qualifying for the Olympics, Joseph had the privilege of racing in a race with

00:17:19.560 his hero. And during that race, one of the judges called him out because his goggles were not

00:17:25.480 Olympic standards, and he was rushing to try to find a new pair of goggles. And in that confusion,

00:17:30.760 that frustration, he ended up doing really poorly and not making the semifinals. And as he was

00:17:36.600 walking back to the locker room at the end of the heat, Michael Phelps was walking in front of him,

00:17:40.600 he looked back, he saw Joseph, 17-year-old swimmer, and said, what's wrong? And Joseph tells him what

00:17:45.380 happened. He says, dude, you're young. You have all the time in the world. Keep your head up high

00:17:51.500 and keep moving forward. Four years later, Joseph Schooling beats his hero's record in the 100-meter

00:17:59.780 Butterfly on August 13, 2016, becoming the first Singaporean to ever win a gold

00:18:06.500 medal. The first person to swim over and congratulate him was Michael Phelps.

00:18:12.860 Clap that up, man.

00:18:21.420 When it comes from the right place, the motivation, Michael didn't do it for any

00:18:25.580 other reason that he wanted to inspire a whole new generation of athletes and

00:18:29.000 swimmers to go for it. And I just can't think of a better opportunity. There's three things I want

00:18:34.040 you guys to remember. There's moments throughout your day. You are the messenger, the person, and

00:18:40.960 you have to have the motivation to come from a place. Every day we sit next to somebody on a

00:18:45.400 plane. We see somebody on the street. We walk by. We see two kids fighting. And I'm telling you, you

00:18:50.820 have the opportunity to extend that belief in them and their humanity and who they are when it comes

00:18:55.840 from their soul to change their life.

00:18:58.760 And you may never know about it, and it doesn't matter.

00:19:01.700 Thanks for having me.

Dan Martell - December 23, 2016

The Power of Believing In Others ｜ Dan Martell @ Archangel Summit

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