Dan Martell - March 21, 2022


Why I Shut Down A $1.8M Coaching Business & Started Over


Episode Stats

Length

11 minutes

Words per Minute

193.95325

Word Count

2,179

Sentence Count

113


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 There's things that I know you have moments where your soul lights on fire and just feels so good
00:00:04.960 and you get energized and then you let your life happen to you. You let your mind beat it down.
00:00:10.780 You talk to your family and they shut it down and you talk to your
00:00:14.560 your unsupportive friends and they beat it out of you.
00:00:30.000 what is up everybody dan here today i want to talk about something that's on my heart i need
00:00:34.800 to share it with you and it's the idea of giving up the good to pursue the great if you've ever
00:00:39.200 felt like you were stuck in something that wasn't broken but it isn't awesome and you want to make
00:00:44.160 a big decision you consider a big decision but you're holding back because you're scared of what
00:00:49.040 other people are going to think or losing the momentum you've built or whatever it is i want
00:00:53.600 to share a story with you that might give you some perspective and then also share some principles
00:00:57.760 that have helped me make big decisions.
00:00:59.820 In my life, I've done everything from, you know,
00:01:02.560 sell companies, move cities several times,
00:01:07.660 you know, left relationships that weren't supporting me,
00:01:10.840 et cetera, et cetera.
00:01:12.180 If you've gone through it, I've definitely been there.
00:01:14.700 And I have some philosophies, I think,
00:01:16.660 that might give you some perspective,
00:01:18.660 some points of view to help you make those decisions.
00:01:21.140 But my favorite one that I like to share
00:01:23.560 is when I had a $1.8 million a year coaching practice
00:01:28.720 called the Lead Entrepreneur,
00:01:30.160 and I decided to leave that
00:01:32.920 to go pursue a new thing called SaaS Academy.
00:01:36.180 And the challenge was is here I was,
00:01:38.120 I spent two years, about a year and a half,
00:01:40.440 two years building up this group of incredible entrepreneurs
00:01:44.960 that I had the privileges of working with
00:01:47.180 to help them scale their companies.
00:01:49.980 And the challenge was is that they were all over the place.
00:01:52.740 They weren't just software.
00:01:54.420 They were, you know, everything from manufacturing companies
00:01:57.500 to consumer products to agencies, et cetera.
00:01:59.980 I just love business.
00:02:01.240 So I wanted to really support them and grow them.
00:02:03.520 And I was doing that.
00:02:04.580 I would do, at first I did a six-month cohort.
00:02:07.300 Then I did another six-month cohort.
00:02:09.120 Then I did a year program.
00:02:10.900 And I just realized there was a bunch of stuff
00:02:12.560 that I wasn't in love with, okay?
00:02:16.320 And then I had a conversation,
00:02:17.680 which I'll tell you about in a sec,
00:02:19.120 with somebody that really gave me permission,
00:02:21.840 and I'm hoping this video does this for you,
00:02:23.960 gave me permission to make the decision
00:02:26.880 to go all in on what could be great.
00:02:30.160 A lean entrepreneur was good.
00:02:31.640 And honestly, in a lot of people's eyes, it was great.
00:02:34.220 Most coaches never crack six figures,
00:02:36.820 let alone a million dollars,
00:02:37.900 let alone kind of the growth that we'd created
00:02:39.520 in that short period of time.
00:02:41.140 But for me was asking myself the question of like,
00:02:44.840 fast forward 10 years, is this what I wanna be doing?
00:02:47.960 Is this aligned with my vision for my life?
00:02:50.140 And does this light me up?
00:02:51.980 Does this create the most value for my customers
00:02:53.940 than anybody else in the world?
00:02:55.000 Which is a question I ask myself often.
00:02:57.220 Am I creating more value for my customers
00:02:59.340 than anybody else in the world?
00:03:00.640 If you haven't asked yourself that question, do that.
00:03:02.800 And that's what caused me to come to the realization
00:03:05.660 that I needed to shut down the program.
00:03:08.380 Like literally shut it down and start from scratch
00:03:11.780 to build SaaS Academy, which today,
00:03:14.820 four and a half, five years later,
00:03:16.340 has become the number one largest coaching programs
00:03:19.320 in the world.
00:03:20.440 I have a team of, I think we're at like 45 people,
00:03:23.460 clients all over the world, 1,000 coaching clients.
00:03:27.140 And none of that would have happened
00:03:28.720 if I stayed on the previous path.
00:03:31.080 And I share that because I wanna unpack
00:03:32.980 some of the beliefs that allowed me
00:03:35.600 to get clarity around that decision.
00:03:38.180 Pun intended, because that's one of my previous companies
00:03:40.220 called Clarity.
00:03:41.520 The first belief, it was surround yourself
00:03:44.820 with great people.
00:03:46.160 See, oftentimes, even like this morning,
00:03:48.360 I was, I do a founder's hike every Tuesday and,
00:03:51.940 but I hike all the time.
00:03:53.940 So I was hiking this morning and I was talking
00:03:57.340 to an entrepreneur about confidence.
00:04:00.600 And she was asking like, you know,
00:04:01.980 one time you said something about like confidence
00:04:04.600 is the commitments you make to yourselves that you keep.
00:04:07.580 And when you break them, you don't keep them.
00:04:09.920 And they said, well, how do you hold yourself accountable
00:04:12.220 to keeping the commitments you make to yourself?
00:04:14.880 Like, what is, what's the process for that?
00:04:17.620 And the truth was, as I said, two things.
00:04:19.520 One, I speak my decisions into the future.
00:04:23.560 I make a claim on my shot.
00:04:27.060 I call my shot, okay, to the world.
00:04:28.960 Here's what I'm gonna go do.
00:04:30.460 And then anytime I'm gonna make a deviation from that,
00:04:34.100 I always reach out to people that I admire.
00:04:36.680 This is where like surround yourself
00:04:38.040 with great people comes from.
00:04:39.300 People that have been there and done that.
00:04:41.120 My peer group, my mentors,
00:04:43.340 and I use them as a sanity check and a litmus test of like,
00:04:47.180 hey, am I being distracted by doing this thing
00:04:50.320 or pursuing this idea?
00:04:51.500 Or is this aligned with what I'm trying to do?
00:04:54.540 And having people in your court
00:04:56.760 to allow you to evaluate the current,
00:05:00.660 which is technically the good,
00:05:02.560 to do the great is how you do it.
00:05:04.340 When I was deciding to make that decision,
00:05:06.020 the conversation that shifted it all for me
00:05:07.700 is one of my best friends, Todd Herman.
00:05:10.140 And I was talking to Todd and he said something like,
00:05:12.980 why are you stepping over dollars to pick up nickels?
00:05:16.860 And I said, what do you mean?
00:05:17.780 He goes, you're the only person in the world
00:05:20.600 that I know that is qualified as a reputation
00:05:22.920 to actually teach software entrepreneurs how to scale.
00:05:26.700 You've done it yourself.
00:05:27.640 You've exited your companies.
00:05:28.960 You've invested in a bunch of software companies.
00:05:31.160 You teach this stuff.
00:05:32.900 You've been doing it for a decade.
00:05:34.120 You've been blogging.
00:05:35.180 Why are you teaching general business advice?
00:05:38.360 And I was like, man, you're right.
00:05:41.600 I think it's because I didn't want to say no.
00:05:43.340 I didn't want to focus, right?
00:05:45.220 And what Todd gave me permission to do,
00:05:48.740 because I admire him so much,
00:05:50.940 was he gave me permission to make that tough decision.
00:05:53.680 And it was like, I remember I was pacing in the backyard
00:05:56.100 at my place in San Diego,
00:05:57.780 and I didn't wanna make the decision.
00:05:59.760 I ran in the house and I made the,
00:06:01.520 and I'll talk more about how to do that.
00:06:03.960 But that was a big thing.
00:06:05.140 Surround yourself with people
00:06:06.260 that you feel are great at their thing to get feedback.
00:06:10.320 The number two is aligned with the future.
00:06:11.700 I mentioned this earlier that to me,
00:06:13.840 I'm always trying to make decisions.
00:06:15.200 Here's where I wanna go.
00:06:16.400 This is the future, way over here.
00:06:18.640 And today is a sequencing activity of,
00:06:22.840 is this the right order and at least the right direction
00:06:25.960 of the things I wanna do so that I can achieve the outcome?
00:06:29.960 Because there's nothing worse
00:06:31.980 than leaning the ladder of success against the wrong wall
00:06:35.960 only to climb it to get to the top
00:06:38.080 to find out it's leaning against the wrong wall, okay?
00:06:41.180 I don't doubt you'll be successful.
00:06:43.580 But honestly, when I look back at like the decision
00:06:46.720 to do general business coaching,
00:06:49.100 if I would have just given myself a little bit more time
00:06:52.000 to think further ahead and say, okay, I'm successful.
00:06:55.220 I have a thousand clients.
00:06:57.600 What's gonna light me up inside?
00:06:59.640 Is it gonna light me up inside that I'm answering
00:07:01.440 a bunch of different questions from left fields
00:07:03.240 and from people that I can't help
00:07:04.700 because I have no experience in their industry
00:07:06.380 like HVAC and whatever?
00:07:08.740 Or do I want to be surrounded with innovators
00:07:13.020 and people that are pushing the envelope
00:07:14.860 in regards to the possibilities of how to scale
00:07:17.400 and grow fast, et cetera?
00:07:18.920 And man, that was the unlock for me
00:07:22.200 was the alignment of my future.
00:07:25.480 So that kind of, that would,
00:07:27.620 if I would have took more time to think through
00:07:29.300 what could that look like,
00:07:30.480 I probably would have made that decision
00:07:32.060 on my own a lot sooner.
00:07:33.420 So that's a big one.
00:07:34.120 And then the third is JFDI.
00:07:35.600 If you don't know what it stands for, Google it.
00:07:37.020 it's part of my manifesto actually check this out so it's i have this all over my house this is just
00:07:43.480 my manifesto if you go to danmartell.com forward slash manifesto they're all written out there
00:07:48.280 and the google jfdi is the bottom corner right there google it but essentially is if it speaks
00:07:54.020 to your soul if this just if it speaks to your soul take action go for it do something to move
00:08:02.600 it forward. You know, me and my wife talk about, you know, F yeah decisions. Is this an F yeah
00:08:07.440 decision? If it is, go. When I decided to move to Kelowna, okay, there was no good reason to move
00:08:14.780 from East Coast Canada, 3,000 kilometers or miles away, other side of the world. But
00:08:21.120 I just had to ask myself one question. Is this the right decision? Does this speak to my soul?
00:08:26.940 Is this an F yeah? And I looked at my wife and she said yes. And I said yes. And I said, boom,
00:08:31.540 As soon as I made the decision, I called Richard, my real estate agent.
00:08:34.860 I said, find us a house.
00:08:36.100 Here's what I want.
00:08:36.820 Find us a house.
00:08:37.640 And it took a while.
00:08:38.600 And then I started working through the process.
00:08:40.940 But I wanted to make the commitment.
00:08:42.520 I wanted to JFDI it, even though it took, it wasn't until probably six months later that we finally made the final transition, which is fairly fast.
00:08:49.780 I mean, I'm pretty quick on doing stuff.
00:08:52.300 But I just think, like, there's things that I know you have moments where your soul lights on fire.
00:08:57.960 It just feels so good.
00:08:58.980 And you get energized.
00:08:59.700 and then you let your life happen to you.
00:09:02.600 You let your mind beat it down.
00:09:04.740 You talk to your family and they shut it down
00:09:07.540 and you talk to your unsupportive friends
00:09:10.220 and they beat it out of you, right?
00:09:11.820 Your left brain logic overtakes the emotional drive
00:09:15.900 and desire that you know you could possibly do it
00:09:17.940 and you don't do it.
00:09:19.140 That is, to me, the philosophy of like giving up the good
00:09:23.600 to focus on the great
00:09:24.780 because honestly, the riches are in the niches.
00:09:26.900 Like being able to go deeper,
00:09:28.360 to go say, well, I don't have to be everything to everybody,
00:09:31.680 but I can be the best at this for those types of people.
00:09:35.020 That is the decision you gotta make.
00:09:36.440 A lot of people, if you're watching this,
00:09:38.380 you might be stuck on the fact
00:09:40.120 that you haven't made that decision
00:09:41.580 around who you serve and who you don't serve
00:09:43.060 or the product you serve or even starting the business.
00:09:46.100 But you might have a good job making 150 grand a year,
00:09:49.600 but that's stopping you from becoming the person
00:09:51.580 who could produce 10 million or 100 million a year,
00:09:54.060 which sounds crazy if you're thinking
00:09:56.320 in the next two or three years.
00:09:57.560 but you give yourself enough time horizon,
00:09:59.760 you say 25 years, could I, just for fun,
00:10:03.500 what's the harm, let's imagine,
00:10:05.340 could I in the next 10 years?
00:10:08.920 I don't know, 5 million a year?
00:10:12.080 If you gave yourself 25 years, 15 million, 25 million?
00:10:18.120 You'd be surprised.
00:10:19.540 It would blow your mind what's possible for you
00:10:21.900 if you focus and attack and focus and attack
00:10:24.380 and focus and attack.
00:10:25.160 and that is why oftentimes you may have something that's working that is good but it's not great
00:10:32.120 and we got to turn off the good to give ourselves some space for the great and I just want to leave
00:10:37.260 you with a great quote by Christopher Paolini and he says that without fear there is no courage.
00:10:47.200 Think about that. It's going to require some courage for you to make this decision
00:10:51.960 And I wanna tell you, it's a good thing.
00:10:53.700 It's needed, it's required.
00:10:55.380 If it wasn't there, then it wouldn't make sense.
00:10:58.740 It would be an easy decision we made a long time ago.
00:11:00.640 So if the fear is there,
00:11:01.800 know that it's required to have courage and be courageous.
00:11:05.560 And that's what I hope you take away from this message.
00:11:08.480 So with that, I hope this video finds you incredibly well
00:11:10.640 and we'll be talking soon.
00:11:12.880 Peace.
00:11:13.660 Later, everybody.