Brian Luebben: Full Playbook on How He Quit His $252K Job and Made $100K in 48 Hours

Summary

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Built in Public Podcast Summary

Episode: Brian Luebben: Full Playbook on How He Quit His $252K Job and Made $100K in 48 Hours
Host: Courtney Johnson
Date: May 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features Brian Luebben, entrepreneur, content creator, and founder of Action Academy, who shares his detailed "playbook" for leaving a high-paying corporate job, building a powerful personal brand, and creating highly leveraged businesses. The conversation dives into quitting corporate life, building a network, developing offers, overcoming limiting beliefs, and the mindset shifts crucial to entrepreneurial success. Courtney calls this "one of the most impactful episodes I have ever recorded," noting she implemented Brian’s strategies immediately.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The True ROI: Investing in People

• Best Return on Capital: Brian opens with the claim that the highest returns aren’t from stocks, real estate, or even business directly, but from investing in people—your team.
  • "The best return on capital...is the people that work for you." (00:00, 13:33)

2. The Entrepreneurial “Unlocking”

• Entrepreneurs Are Unlocked, Not Born: Brian believes that only a small percentage should become founders—the rest are happiest elsewhere.

  • Signs of entrepreneurial potential: leadership, questioning the status quo, "bucking the norm."
  • The “driving with pants in the backseat” story as a metaphor for a corporate midlife epiphany. (05:59, 08:22)

• The Exit Plan: Never recommend “jump and hope;” instead, prepare via:

  • Cash runway: 3-9 months of living expenses.
  • Assets: Rental properties for cash flow.
  • Side hustle validation: e.g., Brian’s podcast—start and validate before quitting. (08:30, 11:16)
  • “You don’t make money from ads unless you’re massive; think affiliate or direct sales.” (11:16)

3. Dealing With Pain and Mistakes

• Entrepreneurship is “an initiation at every level”—more success just means new, different problems.
  • “You don’t have less problems, they just look different.” (04:24)
  • “Expect to pay a 10% cost of whatever life you want to live." (05:11)

4. Building a Personal Brand from Scratch

• Selfish Not to Share: The idea that not building a personal brand prevents others from benefiting from your journey.

  • “The most selfish thing...is not to post and not to share your ideas and perspective because it can help somebody.” (14:41)
  • “If you’re not documenting the before, nobody will care about the after.” (14:41, 18:10)

• Networking by Content (“The Oprah Method”):

  • Interviewing is both a learning tool and a way to create value.
  • "Interview people...instead of spending thousands on consulting fees." (18:56, 18:58)

5. Managing Visibility & Overcoming Fear

• Fear of Visibility at Work:

  • Brian was openly counting down his resignation on his podcast, knowing his corporate colleagues weren’t listening, but cautions to “block your bosses” if needed or position content as inspirational to avoid conflict. (20:20)

• Imposter Syndrome and Social Friction:

  • Friends/family often won't support entrepreneurial moves—they're protecting you from risks they wouldn’t take.
  • Brian’s Minivan Theory: Friends shift seats in your life as you change (front, middle, back row). “Remember when” friends vs. “imagine if” friends. (22:18, 26:42)
  • “Let them [go]. If someone wants to walk out of your life, let them.” — Mel Robbins quote (26:46)

6. The Playbook: From $0 to $100K in 48 Hours

Brian's Four-Step Framework:
(27:06–34:18)

1. Document the Doing: "Do interesting. Document the process." (27:21)
2. Talk to People for Free: 100 free coaching calls to identify pain points ("what are you struggling with?"). (27:26–34:18)
3. Get Your First Dollar: Launch an MVP offer with major discount, collect payment via simple means. ("I made a hundred thousand dollars in 48 hours.") (34:18)
4. Iterate with Feedback: Course became a community because that’s what people valued—Action Academy was born.

• Quote:
  • "If people use this script, they will 10x their sales..." (11:29, 35:49)
  • “Help people for free. Don’t sell them anything. The market tells you what sells.” (27:26–34:18)

7. Offer Creation, Pricing, and Scaling

• Anchor Pricing: Communicate future price first, offer initial group a “screaming deal” (e.g., $1,500 lifetime access vs. $10k a year later).
  • "You have to give them a screaming deal because it's crap in the beginning." (35:49)
• One Offer, One Avatar: Simplicity and customer-aligned language beat complex multi-offer strategies—up to your first $1M revenue. (37:24, 38:16)
• How to Raise Prices: Test; base on close rates (if >60%, 3x price; ~30%, you’re about right). (38:37)

8. Hiring and Building a Team

• Hire When Revenue Supports: Started with VAs at $20-30K/month.
  • "The difference between the people that make the money and the people that dream about making money is the person that actually makes the money is willing to be imperfect and fuck up along the journey." (39:57)
  • AI makes recruiting and scaling easier than ever. (41:22)
  • MVP Matters: “Perfect is the opposite of progress.” (41:32, 42:43)
  • “Minimum viable product—those are three million dollar letters.” (41:34)

9. Mindset: Ditching Corporate Conditioning

• “Unfuck the corporate brain before the corporate brain fucks you” (44:33)

  • Need to break the habit of “I’ll do it myself”; learn to delegate and build leverage.
  • Leverage: Entrepreneurship = hiring for everything, “the only reason it’s better than employment.” (44:33-47:05)

• Work-Life Freedom: Brian spends six months a year traveling. “Rule #1 for Euro Summer: money isn’t real.” (47:05–47:34)

10. The Role of the Founder: Content, Clarity, Connection, Community

• Never Delegate Genius:
  • “Delegate everything besides genius.” Figure out your unique strengths, delegate the rest.
  • “In entrepreneurship...don’t work on weaknesses; go 10x harder on your strengths. Hire and use AI for your weaknesses.” (48:26)
  • Brian’s focus now: Content (creation), Clarity (vision), Connection (networking), and Community (serving customers). (50:19)

11. Building Reach & Maintaining Privacy

• Don’t Get Too Famous: Stay niche-famous, not world-famous.
  • “You want to be known well, not well known.” (53:03)
  • The best opportunities arise from a strong but targeted network.

12. The True Outcome: Surprising Benefits

• The best result of personal brand isn’t just money:
  • “The coolest opportunity that's come from a personal brand hasn't even come yet.”
  • “Connections…are multipliers.” (54:21, 55:36)
  • “You just need to know one person and then they’ll introduce you to the next hundred.” (55:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The most selfish thing that you can do is not to post and not to share your ideas and perspective because it can help somebody.”
  — Brian Luebben (14:41)

• “Document the doing. It’s not theory, it’s actual action.”
  — Brian Luebben (27:21)

• “Perfect is the opposite of progress.”
  — Brian Luebben (41:32)

• “Unfuck the corporate brain before the corporate brain fucks you.”
  — Brian Luebben (44:33)

• “You want to be known well, not well known.”
  — Brian Luebben (53:03)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00-00:19 — Brian on ROI of investing in people
• 03:09-05:50 — The pain and cost of entrepreneurship
• 08:22-11:11 — How Brian prepped to quit his $252K job
• 14:41-18:10 — The “selfishness” of hiding your journey
• 22:18-26:42 — Family/friends, minivan theory, and social drift
• 27:06-34:18 — The full playbook from $0 to $100K in 48 hours
• 35:49-38:37 — Offer pricing, MVP, how to raise prices
• 41:32-42:43 — Minimum Viable Product vs. Perfection
• 44:33-47:05 — Unlearning corporate, building leverage
• 48:26-51:51 — Delegation and focusing on your “genius”
• 53:03 — “Known well” vs. “well known” and personal brand privacy
• 54:21-55:36 — Connections are multipliers

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Actionable Takeaways

• Build your runway: cash, assets, and a validated side hustle before quitting.
• Document everything: real process > polished theory.
• Network by spotlighting others (the Oprah/“content-based networking” method).
• Done is better than perfect: MVP launches > overthinking.
• Let the customer dictate your offer and iterate fast.
• Invest in great people early—the highest ROI.
• Longevity and success require regular self-reinvention, detaching from previous social circles if necessary.
• Stay niche-famous and leverage opportunities by being deeply known in your target space.
• Don’t overcomplicate—one avatar, one offer, scaled with feedback beats shiny new ideas.

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Where to Find Brian

• Instagram & YouTube: @brianluebben
• Podcast: Action Academy Podcast (2-3x/week)
• Website: Action Academy

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Summary prepared for listeners looking for actionable, real-world frameworks to transition from corporate work to building a thriving, impactful personal brand and business.

Transcript

[Brian Lubin]

Best return on capital isn't the stock market. It's not real estate. It's not even business. It's the people that work for you. Difference between a $40,000 a year employee versus a $200,000 a year employee is maybe the $40,000 employee will return you $40,000. A $200,000 employee per year can get you 2 million.

[Courtney Johnson]

If you want to get free advice from people instead of spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in consulting fees, interview people like the Oprah method.

[Brian Lubin]

If people use this script, they will 10x their sales for for years.

[Courtney Johnson]

Welcome to Built in Public. I am your host, Courtney Johnson. I've been a full time content creator and a personal brand strategist for seven years and I really built my career. Sharing the process, not just the outcomes of personal brand Built in Public is about what it actually looks like to build a brand, a business and to build real leverage in the creator economy. We're talking strategy, systems, audience growth, monetization and that uncomfortable middle ground between. I have an idea and this is actually working. I'll be sharing what I'm testing, what's working, what's not, and I'm going to be bringing on people who are building their careers and companies out loud too. If you want honest conversations, practical insight and zero bs, you are in the right place. Let's build in public. Most people say they want freedom. Freedom to travel, freedom to work for themselves, freedom to design their lives. But when it comes time to actually take that leap, that's where it's really scary. Today's guest, Brian Lubin, dove in head first. Brian left his successful corporate career and started building investment, started building his own company and shared the journey of him leaving his job. Today. He owns multiple businesses, he runs a successful podcast in an incredible community called Action Academy, all while traveling the world and intentionally designing his life around experiences. This episode we talk about how Brian built that life for himself. How he intentionally crafted his personal brand to support his lifestyle goals, and how his personal brand opened up more dreams, goals, opportunities and relationships than somebody could ever dream. We also get into the limiting beliefs that keep people stuck. How proximity is so such power in your career and the exact framework Brian uses in his own life and business. Guys, I am not exaggerating when I say this is one of the most impactful episodes I have ever recorded. In fact, I have implemented every single tip that Brian gave me into my business. So if you guys want to know my personal business strategy right now, it's quite literally everything that Brian Told me I literally left this podcast and went back to my team Slack, and I was like, okay, guys, we're implementing a B, C and D thing. It's just so good. I know you guys are going to love it. Hey, Brian, what are you reading?

[Brian Lubin]

Oh, my God. Crazy that you said that. I'm reading this insane book by this local Austin, Texas, author. Career Cheat Codes by Courtney Johnson. What's up, court? How you doing?

[Courtney Johnson]

I'm doing amazing. How are you?

[Brian Lubin]

I am better than I deserve to say, Dave Ramsey. I am blessed. I'm also stressed. We're in the process of scaling the company right now, and so there's a lot of. It feels like you're getting beat up with baseball bats from, like, 20 different angles in 20 different languages. So I've got like, a Spanish baseball bat, a German baseball bat. It's crazy, but it's fun. It's worth it.

[Courtney Johnson]

I feel the same. It's like there's a point where you just gotta surrender to the pain and then love it.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah, well, like, when you look at the math, I think it's like, less than 1% of, like, the human population is actually, like, a millionaire does a million dollars a year, and it's 0.04%, so less than half of a percentage point that does $10 million a year. And so when you view it like that, you're like, oh, okay. Well, it'd be ridiculous for me to assume that this would not be painful, you know, So, I mean, it's a good way to start this out is, you know, you got to figure out what you want and then, most importantly, what you're willing to sacrifice for it.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, it's. It's an initiation. Like, it's an initiation at every level. I had an hum on the podcast who started Solid Core.

[Brian Lubin]

No shit. I'm literally messaging back and forth with her right now for her to be on my podc.

[Courtney Johnson]

So it was.

[Brian Lubin]

She's insane. I'm so excited.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, it was amazing. But one of the things that she said was, you're going to get sued. You're going to lose all your money, you're going to invest a million dollars and you're going to lose it. You're just like, all of these things that happen in business. And she's like, they're all initiations. It's. It's a. It's a milestone. It's like, hell, yeah. Like, I'm so excited that happened because that's the initiation that gets me to the next level.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah. Two frames of reference there that I got from mentors when it comes to, like, the idea of problems. Like, the first is that you think that when you make more money, you have less problems. And. And the difference is you don't have less problems. They just look different. So in the beginning, it's like, I can't afford to pay my rent, or it's difficult for me to go out to dinner and I want to order an appetizer, or my friend or my partner wants to order an appetizer. We can't afford it. And then, so once you solve that problem and have your basic human needs met, then it becomes, oh, well, now I need to manage people because I got to hire people on my team. And then you have interpersonal problems and team problems. And then it comes into, okay, now my face is everywhere. Now we're scaling things, and now people that don't have go for the people that do have. And now people are coming in trying to take you down. Competitors are trying to take you down, networks are trying to take you down. Like social media platforms are trying to take you down. And it's crazy. So the best frame of reference that I've got that has helped me through this process. And for people listening that are trying to make the first hundred thousand, their first million, their first 10 million, it's expect to make. Expect to pay a 10% cost of whatever life you want to live. So if you want to make $100,000 a year, be prepared to pay the price of 10 grand and some kind of wacky mistake, you know, or a cumulative amount of mistakes. If you want to make $1,000,000 a year, be prepared to make 100k of mistakes. And now in my instance, I've made well over $1 million of mistakes. And so it's just the price of admission.

[Courtney Johnson]

When in your life did you decide that you wanted to be in that 1% or that fraction of a percent? Was it like your whole life or is there a moment where you're like, hi, I. I really want that.

[Brian Lubin]

So I have this idea that entrepreneurs aren't born necessarily, but there is. I call it unlocking. So I guess, let me rephrase. Entrepreneurs aren't created, they're unlocked to rephrase that. So what I think is that in my entire business is based around this. I run a business called Action Academy that helps people leave corporate America to become entrepreneurs. So I call it going from employee to entrepreneur. And so my thesis is that, like, 95% of people shouldn't be entrepreneurs. You should actually just work Your job. And there's nothing wrong with that. But for the 5% that should be, there are signs. And those signs are, when you were growing up, you were always the leader. You were always kind of antsy in school. You were kind of pushing it back at the teacher. You're like, wait, like, I want to be first. Like, wait, why does it have to be done this way? Why can't we do it this way? And you were always kind of bucking against the status quo and the norm. And then that's continued. When I was in college, it was the same thing. When I went into corporate, it was the same thing. And so one day, I just had a moment where it was just a combination of all this different stuff happening. And I was selling uniforms. So I was number eight out of 5,079 sales reps, and I was driving to rural Georgia. Anybody that's listening or watching in Georgia, I was going to Cedartown, Georgia. It's, you know, an hour and a half outside of Atlanta. It's just really rural and country. I was selling uniforms, Carhartt pants to this grease shop. And I was going on a lead, and I was just driving with all these size 42, 44, 46 Carhartt pants in my backseat. And I was just, like, making a good a lot of money. I was just like, am I going to spend the rest of my life selling pants? And so, like, the selling pants moment, a lot of people have had in different flavors. Like, am I going to spend the rest of my life in hr? Am I going to spend the rest of my life as an ea? Am I going to spend the rest of my life doing taxes? You know, I want to be the person that people are doing taxes for. Like, what am I doing here? And so we talked to engineers, we talked to sales professionals, we talked to anybody in ops, and we're like, there's so much out there that's unlocked that can be unlocked for you. So it was a cult. It was a combination of all of those moments kind of coming together, and then me finally seeing that there was a path outside, and I was just like, got it. And so that's the unlocking period. And so that's what we try to do with our content, is we're like, hey, like, this is possible for you if you want to work really hard.

[Courtney Johnson]

Did you dip your toe? Like, were you doing a side hustle while you were still selling pants, or was it a full. I quit the next day. I'm gonna figure out what the to do next.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah, so that's actually what I recommend people don't do is, especially when you're made, because, like, look, if you're making 45 grand a year and you just want to say, eff it, I'm out, and like, figure it out. I mean, I don't know about you, but, like, I had bills to pay. Like, I'd, I'd defeat myself. And a lot of people have families to feed. So I recommend that there's a process that you follow before you leave your job. And there was a couple of things that I had in place, a couple of pillars that I recommend. So again, for reference, I was making a quarter million dollars a year. I was making 252,000 in corporate America. And before I left, first thing I'm doing is I'm saving up cash and I'm creating a plan where I'm saving up cash. So cash is king. You want at least three to nine months of Runway. So what you do is you calculate your living expenses. So your rent, your mortgage, your food, your kids food, anything that you need to actually, like, keep the lights on. Like, you guys aren't traveling to freaking Mykonos, but you're able to live, right? And so for me, I was just like, man, 10 grand a month will do it. And for most people, that's their number, right? 10k a month. And so I was like, if I save up $60,000 in cash, then that gives me six months to figure out what the hell I'm doing. So that's number one. Number two is I started buying assets. So when I was still working, I would save on my money, buy a house, save on my money, buy a house. And today in the market, that's significantly more difficult for people to think of and wrap their heads around. I was just buying these rental properties every single year. I'd live in the basement, rent the upstairs out. And so I was living for free, essentially, because I'd have a five bedroom house, I'd be in the basement, the other four bedrooms, and rent it out. And so it's easier than people think. And so I had cash flowing assets, so cash, cash flow. And the last thing was I also had a side hustle. So I started up a podcast, so Action Academy Podcast. And then that became an affiliate company because I was talking to millionaires. And the reason I started my podcast was because I was this kid that had no access to millionaires. Which it's. Number one question everybody asks is, well, I want mentors. Where do I find them? And so I just picked up a $279 podcast, Mike, and I said, I'm just going to go start a podcast that interviews millionaires. And I went to every millionaire I could find at real estate meetups in Atlanta, Georgia, and I would say, hey, are you a millionaire? They're like, well, yes, I am. I'm like, holy shit, man. I have a podcast that only interviews millionaires. That's insane. You should come be on it. And in the beginning, when you're a local, up and down the street guy or girl, like, you don't think to check about how many downloads somebody has or anything. And so that's how I started my network. And so I just interviewed three millionaires a week for four years. I built it.

[Courtney Johnson]

So your podcast, was that the first step into personal brand building for yourself?

[Brian Lubin]

Correct. And so to land the plan on how I made money from the podcast, a lot of people think ads. So it's like this podcast is sponsored by Career Cheat Codes by Courtney Johnson. That's a. That's a shitty way to make money.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

Unless you're Chris Williamson or Stephen Bartlett, you make getting millions of views per episode. So that's called cpm. Cost per mil. So you get paid per thousand impressions. What I did was cpa, cost per, like, acquisition or cost per affiliate. So I was like, I've got millionaires listening to my podcast because millionaires love listening to other millionaires. And I've got these coaches and these masterminds that I'm a part of. I'm just going to talk about them on the show, get 10%. So to land the plane, I had cash flow from my assets. I had cash in my bank account, and I had a side hustle that was validated for three months. So I made like 14,000, 15,000, and then like 13,000, January, February, March of 2022. And all of that combined together was what was able to get me out of my job. And so I'm actually coming up on four years out of corporate America next week.

[Courtney Johnson]

Wow. Congratulations.

[Brian Lubin]

Thank you.

[Courtney Johnson]

That's not that. That's not that long.

[Brian Lubin]

No, it's not that long. And now I've built a really, really cool myself, and for my team, that works for me. So that's actually what I'm most proud of, is I say level one of the game is how do you make a million bucks? Level 2 of the game is how do you keep a million bucks? Like, net a million bucks after taxes and everything? Third level of the game is how do you pay your team a million Bucks, which is where we're at right now. And it's freaking fun because my growth director is traveling to Paris for a date. My ops director's in Zermatt, Switzerland. He just got done skiing, and I was going to Vancouver for a mastermind, so. Cool. And then the fourth level of the game is, how do you give a million bucks away per year?

[Courtney Johnson]

It's beautiful. Yeah. It's so exciting. This is something about being an entrepreneur. I had no idea. But paying people really well and then seeing their lives change and seeing them travel and, you know, get a place that they love and just live a really beautiful life is so rewarding. You're like, oh, my gosh, I contributed to this. They did it. But it's. It's beautiful. Yeah. We went to dinner, and I was. You were talking about what you pay your team, and it's really admirable. And definitely, you're an expander for me of just, like, paying people really well, treating them well, and helping them live their dreams.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah. The best return on capital isn't the stock market. It's not real estate. It's not even business. It's your. The people that work for you.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

It's the best return. So in the beginning, you start with a thousand buck a month VA because you're like, I don't know how to run people. Like, manage people, dude. Like, I don't know how to run a team. And then you start to build the skill, and then you get more and more expensive talent. And then. So the difference between a $40,000 a year employee versus like, a $200,000 a year employee is maybe the $40,000 employee will return you $40,000, you know, from work. And just time is kind of an admin position. A $200,000 employee per year can get you $2 million.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

And so that's what we're experiencing now. And it's fun. You're like, how can I spend so much more money on you too? Because I get to benefit from that too, and it's really fun.

[Courtney Johnson]

So going back to your podcast, you started early on really understanding that having a personal brand and building something with your face, your name, and your message attached to it would be powerful. Were you inspired by someone? Like, how did you know that? How did you know to do that?

[Brian Lubin]

So I was really good at networking privately, so I was getting into these rooms just because I was one of those entrepreneurs that should have been unlocked. Right. And so I just heard this one guy on a podcast, he's actually in Austin, Texas. His name is Dave, and he's worth a hundred million dollars. That was the most money I've ever heard of in my life. And this was back in 2019. I heard him on a podcast, and he's like, you know, I don't care about the money. I care about having my. My. He called it Whole Life Millionaire. Whole life wealth, where you have your relationships, you're a relationship millionaire, you're a health millionaire, you're an adventure millionaire, and you're a money millionaire. And I was like, wow, I need to get in this guy's world. So I cold emailed him, and I was like, hey, man, can you mentor me? And he ended up inviting me to a Mastermind event across the country. I flew out, and so I just started showing up to all these Mastermind events and just getting in the room. And I remember I was golfing with one of the guys because I was so curious. I would just ask questions all the time. And so a piece of advice there is, when you're the low person in the totem pole in a big room, stop trying to be the most interesting and be the most interested. Yeah, everyone has this imposter syndrome, but you can't have imposter syndrome if you're going in with great energy, positive attitude, and you're asking really good questions. Everyone will love you. You'll be everyone's favorite person because they get to talk about them. And so what is a podcast getting somebody to talk about them for an hour? And they're like, man, Courtney's awesome. Like, I freaking love this chick. And so the. The kind of breaking point was I was golfing with one of the guys from the events privately. And I said, you know, man, like, I love talking to people and asking these questions. And he goes, you should start a podcast. And I said, well, Mike, until I have X amount of real estate or Y amount of income or I'm financially free, this is back when I was working a job, said, how can I have a podcast who cares about what I have to say? And he goes, that's the most selfish thing I've ever heard. I was like, selfish? What are you talking about? And he says, you're letting your own fear of judgment rob people of access to information that you have in relationships that you have. So when you reframe it like that, this may be the sentence that changes somebody that's a listener to you or a watcher to you to become an actual person that's taking action because they realize this. This voice in their Head is actually the most selfish thing that you can do is not to post and not to share your ideas and perspective because it can help somebody. And when I changed my frame to that, to, instead of being like, well, how do I do it? But how do we do it? And how do I help others? You know, instead of me, it's we. And how do I just take every single thing that flows to me, flows through me to other people, and I just document my journey while I'm learning? And so that's what I started. So I started up my brand not with hundreds of thousands of followers, not with millions of dollars in the bank account, but when I was a corporate guy trying to leave a job. And every single day, it was four months till I leave my job. What's up, guys? Welcome back to Action Academy podcast. Three months till I leave my corporate job. What's up, guys? I just bought another rental property. You know, here's what I'm learning. That's how I started. And that's what people care about. They don't care about where you're at today. They care about where you started from and following you to where you're at today. That's how you build brand loyalty. And if you're not documenting the before, nobody will care about the after.

[Courtney Johnson]

A few things here. One, I love how you're. Okay. I love the framing around being selfish if you're not building your personal brand. Because if we all think, all of our listeners right now think of something that they've accomplished in the last year. Maybe they finally finished grad school, maybe they wrote a book, maybe they learned how to cook a really good omelet. Any goal that they've accomplished in the last year, they consume content. To get there, most likely they read the blog, they read a book, they watch YouTube videos. And to not share that with others is very selfish. And that's such a beautiful reframe. I also want to call out two more things. One, for the listeners that are thinking, okay, how do I start a podcast or some sort of show or something in this format. The book Content Based Networking. Have you read that book?

[Brian Lubin]

I've heard of it. Haven't read it.

[Courtney Johnson]

Really, really great. It basically is if you want to get free advice from people instead of spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in consulting fees, interview people. So it could be for a substack, it could be for a podcast, it could be for social media, it could be man on the street interviews, right? Like you're shining a spotlight on others. Like the Oprah method. Oprah built her personal brand not necessarily by talking all about herself, but by shining the spotlight on other people and

[Brian Lubin]

saying, school of hard knocks. Yeah, like, shout out to him. He built up his entire brand of that to now he's high status to these people because what is he bringing them is attention. Eyeballs. And so for anybody right now that doesn't have millions of dollars in the bank account, you have to ask the question, like, what value can I bring? And for people that maybe you're not getting Matthew McConaughey on your podcast, maybe you're not getting, you know, Glenn Powell or these crazy entrepreneurs like Gary Keller or someone on your show, but, like, you can get Mike down the street who's going to the local investing meetups, or this person that did something really interesting, like, that's just an up and down the street person. You can say, hey, you want to be on a podcast? Like, oh, my God, I've never been a podcast in my life. That's how I started for the first 400 guests. And it just compounds and compounds. You get a big name, and then the big name turns into, well, I had Dan Martell on my show, and then all of a sudden that unlocks all the other big names. And then you get someone like a Tony Robbins. You're like, I had Tony Robbins on my show, and it unlocks every name.

[Courtney Johnson]

Have you had Tony Robbins on your.

[Brian Lubin]

No, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep. I'm gonna keep dropping Dan Martell until I get Tony.

[Courtney Johnson]

You're gonna be able to do it?

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah.

[Courtney Johnson]

So a big fear that my listeners have is, well, what's my company gonna think? What's my company going to think if I start posting? Are they going to think I'm going to leave, apply for other jobs? And you actually said three months till I quit? Two months. You didn't give a fuck about if your company heard that. Did you feel any fear? How did you reframe that in your own mind?

[Brian Lubin]

Well, it was a running joke on the podcast because I said, nobody in corporate is going to listen to my podcast about investing. So I was correct.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

So I was like, it would have sucked if that did happen. But, yeah, I mean, I would say, number one, doesn't have to be your name. You can have your face and you can make content. You know, I was like, if I could do it, and I'm the ultimate example, I was openly talking about quitting my job. So if I could do that and survive for over a year, anybody else can survive off of anything that they're doing. I mean, who's to stop you, you know? Now maybe if I was posting on LinkedIn. I know you're really big on LinkedIn. I was post on LinkedIn, like, oh, here's all my rental properties I'm doing while I'm employed. Maybe that wouldn't have been the best path for me to do because my vp, that was the one social network that they looked at. But the rest. Yeah, you're fine.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I always tell people to block their bosses or. Or you position it as this. Yeah, I, you know, I'm gonna start posting on LinkedIn this. You're my boss. I'm gonna start posting on LinkedIn because I just feel this pull to, like, inspire young women to get into tech, and I just really want to inspire young women. And then what are you gonna say, like, three months later, like, why are you posting? And I'm like, I thought you were encouraging. I mean, to inspire young women, you. To, like, make them seem like an asshole if they are, like, questioning you, you know?

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah, well, most of the time it's not even going to be an issue, you know, because they're not thinking about you at all.

[Courtney Johnson]

No, exactly. They're probably not seeing your content at all. They're too busy. But if they are, it's just a really common, common fear. Did you have any other fears when growing your personal brand?

[Brian Lubin]

Oh, yeah. Imposter syndrome. You know, especially when I started talking about things that I'm doing because I had this fear that my friends were going to think I was insane. And it's very real fear. And for people, when you first start talking about this stuff, it's like, they won't get it. And the issue is, you think that your friends and family are going to be the ones that support you the loudest when you're going through the, you know, the hero's journey, the entrepreneur's journey, if you will, when you're leaving your job and you're becoming your own business owner and you think that, oh, my God, my best friend, you know, or like, the person that was a groomsman or a bridesmaid at my wedding or my maid of honor, like, they're going to be the ones that are for sure going to be the ones that are the loudest supporter of my business. Nine times out of 10, they're going to be the ones that are asking for a discount or for free or they're going to be like, why are you doing this? And I just need people to like, inject what I'm about to say into their veins or tattoo it on their forehead. Your friends and family aren't trying to actively derail you because they hate you. They are trying to protect you because they are viewing it as a risk that they personally are unwilling to take. And therefore they don't want to see you get hurt. And so that's level one of the game is escaping that gravitational pull. But then you get to level two of the game where it starts working. And now you start to have old friends that are starting to be like, yeah, that's stupid what you're doing, or, why'd you post this, dude, I don't want to see this. And now it's because they're being validated that the risk that they were unwilling to take was worth it and it's paying off for you. And so I have this theory called the minivan theory. And it's the process of how you kind of move friendships throughout your life through different seasons, because the friends that you have in college are not the same friends you have in corporate, are not the same friends you have as a business owner. And so how do you navigate those relationships? And so I say that you have a front, middle and back row of your minivan. So instead of thinking about, like, this small car, we have to kick people in and out of the vehicle. It's this minivan. So front row friends are going to be the ones that are, like, really mission aligned with where you're going today. And they're. They're directly in the front looking ahead with you. And they're controlling the music, they're controlling the vibe. And so these are people that are on the same path as you today. They're like matching you and they're with you and they're 100% bought in. Your middle row friends are people that, like, they've been there, they get it, you want to keep them around. They're kind of listening to their AirPods and they chime in from time to time. You're keeping up with these people once a month, maybe a couple times a month. Like, these aren't people that are directing the. The music, the attitude, or the direction, the gps, right? Your back row friends are the ones that have been there for years, and maybe you check in on them a couple times a year, but they've got no input where you're going. But you want to keep them on your bus, you want to keep them in your van. And so that's. The minivan theory is I can rotate People in my van. And it's just a lot of my front row friends from back in the day are now back row friends. Doesn't mean they're less valuable as humans. It's just I want to hang out with people that are doing big things now. And I call it, you know, Remember when friends versus Imagine if friends. I wanted to imagine if friend today. I don't want to talk about the good old days. So the rear view mirror is like 110 the size of the. The windshield. And that's because you should be spending 90% of your time looking ahead instead of the 10% of the time looking back. But my. My. Remember when friends are. All they're thinking about is that rearview mirror. And so as you're going through the process, it's just in the beginning, you have to kind of push through that fear. And then after time, you build new friends, new relationships that start supporting you. And all of a sudden, you see these strangers supporting your business and these strangers supporting your brand, and you're like, wow, okay, cool. Like, these are interesting people that are thinking, like, I think, and the entire game changes, and then that compounds. So it's like, before, every single person in my phone was a corporate VP or a corporate worker. Now every single person in my phone's an entrepreneur, a multimillionaire. Like, really cool people that I can talk to about anything, and it just changes over time.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah. I feel like that's something that's not talked about enough. Is losing friends or just drifting away from friends. Thousand percent when you gain success or visibility. And that's a beautiful reframe.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah. And Mel Robbins. Let them. If somebody wants to walk out of your life, let them.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

Stop dragging them along because. What's that? An anchor?

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah. Okay, so you were growing your podcast. You're bringing on big guests. You are. Well, small guests. They're growing into bigger guests. When do you turn this podcast into a multichannel, like, personal brand media empire that you have now?

[Brian Lubin]

So core, I did this crazy, wacky thing, and I want people to take notes of right now. Unless you're driving. Don't take notes if you're driving, because we don't want to be legally responsible for your crash. I did this crazy thing called Ready for it, guys? Ready for it, girls.

[Courtney Johnson]

Let's go.

[Brian Lubin]

Doing interesting. I did interesting.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yep.

[Brian Lubin]

And because I did interesting, people wanted to pay attention. So people are trying to make all this fancy stuff and, like, frame it with the hooks, with the titles, with the thumbnails, and you think that you're going to make your brain like that, but your art imitates life. And so you got to make sure to focus on the life part first. And so I quit my corporate job in 2022 to travel the world full time for a year. That is interesting. And so you can't attract these, these crazy level 100 people if you're, if you got level one goals or you're living a level one life. And so I was like, I'm going to go travel the world for a year. And so that's what I did. I quit my job in March and then July, I hopped on a one way flight to Greece. I lived in the Greek islands for a month. I traveled to Europe, I went all around Europe, I lived in Brazil. And so, like, that's what I did. And then I started talking about it and I was just like, hey, I'm living in the Greek islands. You know, this is me in Greece. And I had every bit of 3,000 Instagram followers at this point. I'm just like, I quit my job and like, here I am. And then all my friends and family were like, wonder when he's coming home. Wonder when he's going to be bankrupt. Wonder when it doesn't work out. Versus the strangers online are like, hell yeah, brother, keep going, keep going, dude. I'm like, thank you, user number 47. Like, thank you, thank you, Ahmed, thank you. And then so you have to just go out, roll up your sleeves and do stuff. And so instead of like dreaming, you document. Stop dreaming and start documenting. Like, get out, roll up your sleeves, do the thing, talk about the process. So just to use a real estate analogy, don't talk about theory of going and flipping a house. They taking a ugly house, making it pretty, renovating it. Go buy one and renovate it, document it. Here I am with the paintbrush and freaking, you know, M75 mask or whatever it is. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna figure this out and by the end, you're gonna see the end result and we're gonna go on the journey together. So you document the journey. So I started talking about, hey, you know, this is what's working, this is what's not working, and that's what I built my brand. So I did that first year in 2022, it was like 211, 000 is what I ended up making that year. So a little bit less than corporate, but I had complete freedom and I was able to, you know, go and document it. And so Slowly, what happens? Here's the step by step process to go from $0 in a personal brand to your first $100,000. If people just follow this process, any niche, any level of content, any level of creator, you will make your first hundred thousand. So first you go do the thing that you want to talk about. You have to document the doing. Okay? Super important. It's not theory, it's actual action. So for me, I was a quit corporate, traveling around the world. I'm talking about it and I keep talking about it and I keep adding value for free with no expectation of return. No cta, no offer, no nothing. Just delivering value as much as I can. And then what happens next? Step two, you start getting DMs. Once you have inbound DMs of people saying, hey, how'd you do that? Hey, hey, what's up, man? I just saw your account. How'd you do? How are you doing this? Hey, I'm really interested. Like, what's your story? Like, how did you do this? And all of a sudden you get three DMS, then 10 DMS and then you're getting like 30 DMS a week. And this is not a big account. This is like 7,000, maybe 10,000 followers now. And so one reel now on Instagram, the algorithm is everybody's best friend, because one reel doesn't matter your followers. It matters about the interest. You can get a million views on one reel. Now it's like, tick tock. So back when I was doing it, it was based off of followers, not off of reach. So it's easier today to do this, to build this. So you document what you're doing, you start getting inbound dms. And then what you do is you don't sell them anything. You go help them for free. And so you hop on calls with them. And so I was living in Brazil, I was walking down the beach, and I said, I'm really bored now. In 2022. In August of 2022, I was, I'm really bored now. Now what? And I was like, well, I'm just going to start coaching people for free. And then I'm going to take what they tell me and I'm going to build an offer based off of what the audience and the customer tells me, what other people do. What most people do listening to this is they build an offer for years or months and they spend all this time on it. They're like, I'm going to be a women's coach or I'm going to be a personal trainer. Or I'm going to create a real estate offer. Nobody. You never asked anybody. You have to talk to the market. So I went and I did a hundred calls. I put on my podcast. I've got 15 minute blocks. I'm going to do 100 coaching calls for free. No offer, no pitch, no sell. The only thing is, I'm just going to ask you a bunch of questions about what you need help with, and then we'll figure it out from there. And so every single call, I asked the same questions in the same order. And I took notes. I said, where are you at right now? Where are you trying to get to? What's the gap in between? What are you struggling with? And then I would just help them for free, no expectations. So I get their email, I have their phone number. I did 100 of those. It took a month and a half. All right, so at the end of 100, then what I did after that was I said, okay, So I just talked to 100 people for free with no expectation, and they told me what they wanted. And so the four things that they lacked for my offer in particular was they lacked clarity. They had no idea what Life Post Corporate looked like for them. They lacked confidence because nobody else around them was doing this. And so they don't have confidence. They're doing the right actions, which means they lacked community of other people around them. And then lastly, they liked capital. They got ten grand laying around, not hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy these assets, because we talk about buying businesses of real estate. And so I was like, okay, confidence, clarity, community, capital. All right, so why don't I build, like an online course? Because back in 2022, that was hot. And so I built this course and I emailed these people. So for people listening, like, this was not done yet. It was an idea. And so the next thing I do is the most important thing, which is you. You help people. You document what you're doing, you help people for free, and then you get your first dollar. And so I reached out to these people. 100 emails, and I said, hey, guys, I'm thinking about building a course. You asked if I had anything to offer you. I really don't. Now, this is my idea. I'm going to cover everything that you guys talked about. This, this, this, and this over the hundred calls. And I'm going to launch this at the end of the month. It's August 7th. I'm going to launch it August 31st. 1500 bucks. Sound good? Lifetime access. I had no business, no llc, no bank account, no credit card, no nothing. No payment link, no stripe account. I had my cash app and my Venmo in the email and I made a hundred thousand dollars in 48 hours.

[Courtney Johnson]

Wow. Those are the OG OG members.

[Brian Lubin]

OG members. So those people got access to action academy for $1500 lifetime. And that was in 2022. Okay, so then step four. So again, I'm going to recap this for everyone. Step one, document the doing. Step two, start talking to people for free. Step three, get your first dollar, which you say, hey, this is going to be a 5,000, $10,000 thing later. Right now it's only this. All I need is your help to do it. So that way they know it's not perfect. And then what you do is once you get them in there, then you ask them for feedback. You ask them for feedback over and over again. And then. So that's how I went from having a course for a month to being like, what do you like about this? And they said, the course is cool, but the community is cooler. And they're like, we really are getting a lot of value from the people that are here versus the education and the content. I was like, got it. I'm going to make this a mastermind instead. And then that's when my business was born. January 2023 is where you officially launched the Action Academy Mastermind. And now that is the business that's about to do $10 million a year this year. So again, 2023 to 2026, and my entire marketing department has been this. A 600 iPhone and a $279 podcast microphone. Completely organic, no ads, up to the first $5 million per year. That's how you do it.

[Courtney Johnson]

Why did you decide to do lifetime access? I feel like that's really rare about lifetime access.

[Brian Lubin]

In the beginning or recently?

[Courtney Johnson]

Like both.

[Brian Lubin]

Okay, so in the beginning you need to have something because your. Your shit sucks. In the beginning. I think it's crazy where people are like, I know my worth, I know what my value is. I manifest this shit, I'm deserving of $10,000 and I'm gonna go launch $10,000. Dude, you don't know what you want or what you are until the market tells you. Yeah, so what you do like this, if people use this script, they will 10x their sales for whatever their initial offer is. What you do is. It's called anchoring. So I'm from sales. Right. So anchoring is you tell them what it's about to be and then that gives them context. For what it is today. So I said, this is going to be a $10,000 a year thing. Right now. It's 1500 bucks for life versus if I just told them this is $1500, take it or leave it. There's no context.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

So they view it like a screaming deal. And you have to give them a screaming deal because it's crap in the beginning. And so we had no onboarding process for the first eight months. I didn't have any employees, and I started hiring employees. And now it's $15,000 a year for our thing, and we're bringing in, you know, 30 to 40 new members per month. And so it's fun.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah. Something I think is really interesting, too, obviously, doing lifetime and then starting with one offer. I think a lot a mistake that people make is they have all these different offers testing so many different things. You went in it with a lot of simplicity and clarity, and it probably came from those 100 calls.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah, well, first off, I did the calls. I talked to my customer. So I knew exactly what they wanted. So I was speaking their language. A lot of people don't do this because they're too afraid. And they're too afraid because they're. They have a pitch ready and they're like, I'm afraid the pitch isn't going to work. But if your pitch is free, you can go talk to 100 people. All right, so get your calendar. Fill that calendar up, guys and girls, and just get to work. Ask questions, take notes. And so, yeah, so it's one offer, one avatar, up to your first million dollars per year. Don't do anything else like one offer, one avatar. And we did that up to our first million dollars per year. It took 13 months to build $1 million a year business from that. So it was 2023. So it was January of 20, January 27th of 2024 that we hit our millionth dollar.

[Courtney Johnson]

This is so great because it's so simple. It's literally anybody in any niche, any topic, any area of expertise can replicate that exactly correct. And they don't have to do any strategy on what the perfect offer is. Whatever your customers will literally tell you. And I'm sure after 10 calls, they're saying the exact same thing over and over and over and over.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah. And we start at 1500 bucks. Not 15,000, not 10,000, not 8,000. So for people listening, there's. There's called LTOs. HTOs low T LTOs is low ticket offer. HTOs is high ticket offer. So low Ticket offers anywhere from 27 bucks up to probably like, I would say two grand. So like relatively risk free investment and then anywhere from kind of like that five grand to 15 to 20 grand. That's kind of where you're getting into high ticket. So we just. And then how do you know when to raise your price is another great question that people struggle with. You wing it, you just raise it. No, for real, you want to know how you do it? You pick 20 sales calls. Your next 20 sales calls, instead of it being 1500, hey, it's three grand. And then you see how it reacts. And so my favorite rule of thumb here is, so if your close rate is like 60% plus, you can like triple the price. If your close rate's 40%, you could probably double the price. If your close rate's around 30%, you're priced well. Like 30 to 40%, your price very well. Your kind of sweet spot, Goldilocks zone. And if you're under 30, you just need to get better at sales. So I found that to be true. And also Hormozi recently talked about it and I thought, and he was like, okay, cool. That's exactly what my experience was.

[Courtney Johnson]

At what point did you start hiring?

[Brian Lubin]

Once we were at like 20 to 30 thousand dollars a month is when I started hiring. And then I hired like virtual assistants to begin because I didn't know what I was doing and now I really know what I'm doing. But yeah, in the very beginning you got to like wet your teeth a little bit. You know, you're like, all right, I don't know what you're supposed to do, but I'm going to figure it out. And so that's why mentors are so important. And so I had mentors that were like, okay, well, here's how you build an org chart. Here's how you build roles and responsibilities. Here's how you build all this. And to be honest with AI today, nobody has any excuse like the power of AI that I have today. I'm writing job descriptions and 30, 60, 90 plans, which is the three month employment plan. When people come onto my company in Claude and like, it's genius level. It's perfect. Like, I didn't have that when I started out. I was in Microsoft Word. Like, okay, manually, like, welcome to Action Academy. Your job is executive assistant. Fuck, I spelled executive wrong. You know, like, that's how it was in the beginning. And so that hopefully gives people permission to like, mess up. And that's the, that's the sweet spot. Here is the difference between the people that make the money and the people that dream about making money is the person, the person that actually makes the money is willing to be imperfect and

[Courtney Johnson]

fuck up along the journey and start with the V1. Like so many, so many people, especially a lot of our listeners will comment and be like, well, I just don't have the perfect plan yet or I.

[Brian Lubin]

Oh, perfect is the opposite of progress.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

Your need for perfection is killing your ability for progress, period. And so again, so what did I do with my thing? I released an mvp. Like if somebody would remember those three words. Those are three million dollar letters. Mvp. Minimum viable product. So you don't take this full finished thing because you don't know what the market wants or what your audience wants. You launch the bare bones version of it for a massive discount and you say help me build this. And you ask them, and you don't stop asking them. Like Amazon still asks for their, their people for help. They still ask their customers constantly for feedback. So it's just like that's how you grow and scale the company. And I think I'm pretty qualified to speak on that because that first year we did yeah, 200 and some, some odd thousand, like low 200 thousands. And then 2023 that year we did 797,000. Then the next year we did 2.1 million. Then we just did 5 million in 2025. And now we're, we're geared up for. Yeah, well we're going, the goal this year is 12 so we're, we're going for a million a month.

[Courtney Johnson]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah, but the, the base hits 10.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah. I think people are scared of MVP. I read about this, my book actually because in corporate you have to have the whole perfect complete and you have to have competitor analysis of five people who have done this exactly the same way. Even out that it works like there is no risk taking, there is no wiggle room for changing or adapting. It is, that is literally why I left corporate. I was so pissed that they made me. Especially in social media. They would make me make an entire strategy before we had any data. Just by looking at competitor data I'm like, it's not gonna work anyway. Like that pisses me off.

[Brian Lubin]

Look at every corporate TikTok, 90% of them don't work because they have to go through so many layers of approval. Then you have the, the one Gen Z, like intern that is able to come out and actually like create and see what happens. Like that you have guardrails you know, But I mean, it's just like, look, at the end of the day, it's like you just gotta roll up your sleeves. And the. The difference between corporate and entrepreneurship is massive. So think of corporate like a cruise ship where it takes, like, 2 degrees. You have to turn a lot of steering wheels to get some movement, like entrepreneurship, like a speedboat. So, like, you're like, oh, that didn't work. Zoom, zoom, zoom for years. And then eventually, once you're getting up to maybe $20 million a year, then, yeah, you're starting to get into more. Today for me, it's a lot more process systems. Like, we're kind of bringing, like, the parts of corporate back in that work, while you're also trying to keep the parts that you hate about corporate out. And so it's an art for sure.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah. What other fears or shifts do you make with your clients when they're going from corporate to entrepreneur? Because that's just one of the many little tweaks you got to make in your head to unfuck the corporate brain.

[Brian Lubin]

Oh, yeah. You have to unfuck the corporate brain before the corporate brain fucks you. The number one way is, fuck it, I'll do it myself. Yeah, that's a real bad way of thinking about things. So for me, when I first two years at a corporate, I was like, no one's better than me. I'm going to do it myself. Because that's what I was trained for in corporate. I was like, if you need something done, it's going to be political, it's going to be paperwork, and it's going to be admin over here. I'm going to get it done better, faster. Like, because I was that entrepreneur in corporate. I was that entrepreneur that needed to be unlocked. And then as soon as I was in my own thing, then I had this infinite amount of time to work on my own stuff. And so what did I do? I spent an infinite amount of time working on my own stuff. So I sacrificed relationships, I sacrificed my health. I got fat as shit, my hair started falling out, stressed out, no weekends, no friends, no fun, because I had this infinite canvas to paint on. So I worked every single day, sun up to sundown, because I was just like, I can. And now I realize I was like, ooh, okay, I can't do that anymore because this isn't yielding the result of entrepreneurship that I got into this for, which is abundant health, abundant relationships, abundant friendships, like a girlfriend, a wife, kids one day. Like, that's what I wanted. And what got me here isn't going to get me there. And so my coach at the time said, you can't hustle and grind your way to a million bucks a year. Take home. You can't. The only reason that entrepreneurship is better than employment is leverage. It's still hard work. The difference is, as an employee, you can't hire more employees to do your job. As an entrepreneur, you can hire all the employees to do all your jobs. And that's the goal. The better that you hire and the better processes that you build, these people compound your business for you while you're not working. And that's where it gets fun, is leverage. So now it's like, I can go like, we went to a Fred Again concert. So we flew out, me and my girlfriend and a couple of people flew out to New York for Fred Again dj, and it was a blast. And I remember that we were in the audience, like, freaking dancing. And it's Saturday night, it's like 11 o' clock at night. And I scroll my stripe account because I got like three apps on my phone. I check email, Stripe, Slack, and so I scroll my stripe account. The most entrepreneurship thing ever. I'm like, huh, we made $60,000 today. That's fucking sick.

[Courtney Johnson]

Love that.

[Brian Lubin]

And then he dropped Beato's horns. I was like, look, bad, passive income exists. And so, I mean, yeah, then I'm. I'm still travel six months out of the year, so I spend my summers in Europe. So we're planning for Euro Summer right now. And so I've done that for the last four years. It's my fifth Euro summer that we're gonna go from end of May to August. I'm in Europe just having fun. Number one rule of Euro Summer is money's not real.

[Courtney Johnson]

Money's not real. That'll be fun. I'm doing Euro Summer too, so we should meet up.

[Brian Lubin]

Let's freaking go.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I'll be super pregnant. Euro Summer, but there we go.

[Brian Lubin]

At least it'll be tan.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I'll be tan.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah, it'll be Mediterranean pregnancy.

[Courtney Johnson]

Exactly.

[Brian Lubin]

The baby will come out. Speaking Italian.

[Courtney Johnson]

No, literally. I actually have to put an emergency plan in place before I go to Europe because I'm going to be in the danger zone.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah. Mvp. Just create. Just create what you think will work.

[Courtney Johnson]

Mvp. Mvp.

[Brian Lubin]

They have hospitals over there.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brian Lubin]

Oh, but you need your baby born in America to be a citizen.

[Courtney Johnson]

Well, not if. If you're born to parents who are citizens outside of America, who are current residents in America, you're an American citizen.

[Brian Lubin]

All right, pregnant woman, you should do Euro Summer. You heard it here first. Like, and subscribe.

[Courtney Johnson]

Actually, I don't know. My partner's Puerto Rican. They have, like, weird laws.

[Brian Lubin]

Maybe you're fucked, maybe not.

[Courtney Johnson]

I don't know. I'll figure it out. What is one thing you'll never delegate?

[Brian Lubin]

One thing I'll never delegate. Okay, so I was about to just say it, but without context, it sounds cocky. I was like, genius is the answer. So delegate everything besides genius. And so that is what you should think of in your company. Everybody, your job. So in the very beginning, you do everything in your company. It's, I do it, then it's, we do it together. Okay? This is how you grow a company that actually is a company. So you're a business owner, not an operator. Now, this is level 10, level 100 of the game for people listening to this that are trying to make their first 50 to $100,000 and leave corporate. But, like, this is the stuff that they need to learn for the future. So I do it. I do it by myself. We do it. I hire people, we do it together. Then it goes to they do it, they do it without me. Better than I could have ever imagined doing it. Okay, so in we do it now, you're doing it alongside people. Your job as a CEO of a company is not to just piss off and do nothing. You need to do what you're only uniquely capable of doing. And it takes time to figure out what you're best at. Because in entrepreneurship, different than corporate. In corporate, you're trained to work on your weaknesses to become well rounded. But in entrepreneurship, fuck that. Go ten times harder on your strengths. Hire and delegate, and use AI for your weaknesses. All right, so that's your unique gift. So for me, it was marketing and sales, and originally, so that's what I was focusing on. And now I have to delegate marketing and sales. So this last year, I've tried to answer the question. I've spent a lot of time thinking, okay, well, what do I do in the business? And I've got a couple Cs that I do personally. So everyone's content. Because I'm the face of the brand. I need to grow the brand, expand the brand. Alex Hermosi spends two calendar days per week doing content.

[Courtney Johnson]

Wow. Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

Two calendar days out of five days. Well, for him it's seven. But two days per week doing content. So I was like, well, if Hormozi's doing that and Dan Martell's doing that, And Cody Sanchez is doing that, and Carlton Dennis is doing that. Perhaps if I want to be where they're at, I should do that, too. So content number two is clarity. So it's my job to set the vision and direction of the company in the vision and direction of who's on the boat and where are they sitting on the boat. Right. The next one is connection. So, like this, where I'm doing podcasts, where I'm meeting really cool, interesting people. Like, I did a podcast with Ben Hardy, who wrote like, who, not how, gap in the gain. Now we're buddies. And, you know, and he's in my life, I'm in his. And I've just built hundreds of relationships like that. So, I mean, those are the main things that I'm doing is, like, content, clarity, and connection. And so then the last one's community, where I'm just loving on my people. So I'm just trying to, like, come and help them the best way that I can. And so that's what we work on. So it takes time to figure that out. And in the beginning, it's just like a whole lot of I'm doing everything. I'm wearing 300 hats. And so if that's not what you want to do, maybe entrepreneurship isn't for you. But in the beginning, that's what I talk about, buying businesses now versus building. Because when I buy a company, I could just buy that already intact. But, like, when you build your every hat, and then eventually you have to take every single one of the 40 other hats off and just wear the one that's your hat. And so that's the process that we're going through right now.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I'm glad we're ending on that, because I think that's really important for our audience to know is a lot of people listening to this have big ambitions, want to lead, want to live their dream, but don't necessarily want to start from scratch. And this would be like a whole other conversation, but they can go, watch your content, read your stuff. But buying a business, also a really, really great avenue for this too. And it's something where you won't necessarily have to be the star of the show if you don't want to be. Right? So that's me.

[Brian Lubin]

I don't even want to be the star of the show today. I really don't. The goal is to get to where people. I don't even want people to really know I exist, to be honest, at the end of the day. So we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah. I interviewed Bill Perkins and I gave him a ride home because he couldn't get an Uber. And he was like, courtney, number one advice I'm going to give to you is like someone growing their personal brand. He's like, don't get too famous. Like, you want to have that good line where. Yeah, niche famous where you don't get stopped in a store and it's like running your life and it's annoying, but you still get the cred from being known in an industry.

[Brian Lubin]

You want to be known? Well, what? You want to be well known? No, flip flop. You want to be known. Well, not well known.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

So it's like you want to be super niche famous to a very specific audience where they know everything about you, but you can still go hang out in the middle of, like, you can go to Target and like, you can go out to a bar or something. Instead of well known, where it's just like, everyone is like, oh, my God. Yeah. So I really don't want to get to that point either. So we will see.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah. I mean, it's very rare. It's very rare to be extremely famous to where it's interrupting your life. Right. Like, Even people with 10 million followers are known to their own niche, not like to the whole world. Yeah, I think it's.

[Brian Lubin]

And it's fun where I get recognized.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, it is fun.

[Brian Lubin]

I get, I get recognized in very specific places. I get recognized in airports.

[Courtney Johnson]

Really?

[Brian Lubin]

Almost any major airport I go to, somebody recognizes me, it's like, oh, quit your job. Travel the world guy. You traveling. I'm like, oh, shit, it's not AI. Yeah, so I get recognized in airports and I get recognized at hotels. So I'll be at a. Out of like a nice hotel and they'll be like, hey, I'm here for like, President's club. I follow you. And like, I hate this job. Like, dude, do I got a community for you? But yeah, those are the two places I get recognized. It's crazy.

[Courtney Johnson]

I've never been recognized at an airport or a hotel. I'm always like, grocery shopping or out to eat.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah.

[Courtney Johnson]

Maybe it's just around Austin. Okay, last question. What is the coolest opportunity that's come from your personal brand?

[Brian Lubin]

I mean, I would say. I would say the connections. The coolest opportunity that's come from a personal brand hasn't even come yet. You know, it's just like the, the people that I've. I get to network with, like, I can send 10 emails to 10 big name people now and I can get at least a 10 response. So it's just like I was, I was working with my new assistant and we're like, okay, cool, well how about we just send 25 emails per week to like influential people. Like, I want to interview Todd Graves. Raising canes. I want to interview Bill Perkins. So if you can intro. Yeah, give me a shout out because me and him are like on the same page. I'm like, brother die was zero. Fuck yeah. Let's. Let's party. I've been to one that went hit his parties, his parties are legendary in Austin. And so guys like that, I'm like, if we interview, if we email 25 of them per week, three of them per week will probably answer. So that's a hundred per month. So that's like 10 plus per month. And so I'm like, if we're just emailing 1200 badass people, then I'll build a hundred plus badass relationships. And like a Bill Perkins, like a Courtney Johnson. Like these relationships, right, is like they're multipliers.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Brian Lubin]

Like, and they open up the door. Like I'm boys with like Dan Martel now and then Sam Gadget, who's his creative director, I gave him a ride back. And so that unlocks a lot of doors. And so you just need to know one person and then they'll introduce you to the next hundred. And so it's all connections at the end of the day.

[Courtney Johnson]

That's a cheat code in my book. I think it's cheat code number 102. Law of large numbers from outreach. Side note, giving Sam a ride home reminded me, do you know Nick Gray?

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah, he has a cocktail party.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, he's a really great cheat.

[Brian Lubin]

He's my favorite dork.

[Courtney Johnson]

He's so. He's.

[Brian Lubin]

I love Nick.

[Courtney Johnson]

He's the king of community.

[Brian Lubin]

He's dorky in the best possible way. You could be dorky. He is just like his own. There is no other Nick Gray besides Nick Gray.

[Courtney Johnson]

I fucking love him. But his cheat code for connection is to give people rides to and from the airport. Like big people. So south by Southwest is coming. He's emailing 100 major people that are coming and speaking and keynoting being like, hey, I'll give you a ride in the airport. Genius. Yeah, genius.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah. And then he does the two. Well, he used to do them a lot. Now he's married and everything. He kind of like laid off. But I used to go to his two hour cocktail parties. He was blessed.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, he's a gem. Okay, so where can everybody find you? Work with you? Join Action Academy.

[Brian Lubin]

Yeah, just Brian Lubin. Search me everywhere. It's L U E B B e n Instagram, YouTube. Going really big push on YouTube now. So we're going to start putting out content there. And Action Academy podcast. So talking to a mic two to five times per week, it's gone down from what it used to be. I used to be a daily show for three and a half years.

[Courtney Johnson]

That's great. I still don't know how you did that.

[Brian Lubin]

Oh, I don't either. I don't either. I've got PTSD from it. So two to two to three episodes per week. Right now we're trying to figure out the new schedule, but yeah, and then I'm about to have you on there as well. So you guys will already like one of the guests on there. Yeah. So check it out. Yeah, that's where I'd say. And besides that, Google me, I'm there.

[Courtney Johnson]

Thank you so much. This is such a great conversation. I learned so much. I know my audience is gonna fucking love this.

[Brian Lubin]

Let's go. Thank you so much for having me.

[Courtney Johnson]

Thank you. I do have an ask for you guys before we go. If this podcast has benefited you in any way, if you have gotten a tip that you've really loved and you implemented it, if it's given you some sort of inspiration, if it's given you some sort of motivation or clarity, my ask is that you leave a five star review. I would appreciate it so much. It helps spread the message, it really helps the show grow and it helps more people get access to this information. My deepest desire is on gatekeeping. Shit. I want to un gatekeep information. So anybody that desires to build a personal brand, to build a business, to create this success in their life and to live their dream, I want them to have all of the information. And I don't hold shit back on the show. Okay, we are not holding shit back. So in order to get this message to more people, in order to get these resources and tips to more people, your reviews go a long way. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.