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The Futur with Chris Do
Leadership, Delegation, and Eliminating Bottlenecks w/ Dan Martell | Ep 406
01:07:38
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- [00:00]
A
I've had the pleasure of meeting Dan a couple of times. Once I was over dinner and most recently at Ford, and you had said something over dinner, which really kind of struck me. So I want to start the conversation there, and we'll get into the rest of the good stuff, which was, I was reluctant to the personal brand game, to being famous, that kind of thing. And you had said, I called the OG guy, who didn't want to do that either. And you said, convince me.
- [00:22]
B
My name is Dan Martell, and you're listening to the future.
- [00:28]
A
Can you tell that story? I just want to set that up.
- [00:30]
B
Yeah. I mean, I was in Vegas meeting. This is the Hermosis. And I'd known Alex and Layla for a while at that point. And we were at Super Freako, this awesome restaurant we've never been to. There's like, Cirque du Soleil actors flying around and doing cool dances. Anyways, we're sitting there in the middle, like, having a serious conversation in probably the funnest restaurant in Vegas. Caleb's there, Ralston, you know, another, you know, legend. This was like two and a half years ago, and the book came out, and Alex was pretty public about his original opinion, which is, I don't need to do this. I run ads. I'm really good at that. And so to watch him change that perspective, I. I remember I just said, sell me on it. And he just walks me through the math. And the math for him at the time was very simple. He's like, audience versus applications of people that apply to become partners of theirs@acquisite.com. and obviously the numbers are private, but it was just like. It was a level I couldn't understand. Here's what I want to communicate. Cause I actually. I've been talking a lot about this with my friends that are thinking of doing content. I believe if you have 10 million followers, you're sitting on a billion dollars worth of brand equity if you do it right. And I think that I did not understand. I didn't understand that because I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be notable. I like my privacy. But at the same time, I have a desire to have impact. I want to serve people. I feel grateful that other folks like yourself put out content and people wrote books. And so I just feel like it's kind of my responsibility to give back where I've been given so much. And that's when I decided to go pro. And in the last two and a half year, we've added. I think we're almost 6 million followers across all platforms. 1.6 on YouTube, as you know, is one of the hardest ones to make work. And then last month we did 195 million views on our content, which is. I'm the most surprised person out of everybody because that was not the plan. I didn't know if I even had the thing. We talked about this at that same dinner, just like, how do you figure it out? But that conversation with Alex and Laila and Caleb was the clincher. I had a handful of other people at that time sharing their experience. But that's when I realized everything on my vision board, everything I want to create, my goals, sat on the other side of reach and reputation.
- [02:52]
A
It's very important to understand I'm going to try and say it the way that I can and then you fill in the gaps because I don't want to speak out of school or anything. But you said something about size of audience percentage equals number of qualified applicants to a program, whether that's through investment or buying your course or anything like that. You had dropped some outrageous numbers that Alex was talking about in terms of numbers of qualified leads, like per day. Crazy, crazy. Can we say that number or no?
- [03:17]
B
No. Okay, no. And even the conversation, I don't mind sharing the beats because I've seen him share it since then. It's funny because I coach literally some of the. I Coach the top YouTuber in the space of entrepreneurship right now. And yeah, I don't usually share unless I see they share publicly. But it's one of those things if anybody's been in business for a while and you have to pay for attention, run ads, do brand deals, value added resellers, whatever your distribution channel is, and you spend money on that. Most businesses that are at scale not when they start, but like, you know, 5 million plus in revenue, they'll spend 10% of their income on marketing so they know the costs for a lead. And when you start backing into the potential of a personal brand, the ROI is like 10, 10 to 100 times better than that. And again, if you do it right and you allow goodwill to stay in the brand, because you can be a nascar, right? You can. They're being loud and proud. And then it's just like in this segment sponsored by this, and then I'm wearing this T shirt and it's just, you know, it's very obvious you're just trying to monetize, so you don't want to do that. That's the goodwill. So the more you give without Taking that's the equation of goodwill. But if you leave enough goodwill out there and you have a really tasteful way to serve people, it is one of the most defensible and impressive. I think that's why we see a lot of influencers right now doing brand deals and it's driving revenue. And you know, you're seeing a lot of influencers understanding the business side of it, like Mr. Beast and the Paul brothers and frigging everybody. And it's just because it works. And it's working at a level today, more so than a year ago and two years ago, five years ago, where I think the direct response, interruption marketing is not what people want. They want to be entertained and then they want to build trust and then they'd rather have products recommended to them based on people that they trust.
- [05:15]
A
I think we might be at the tipping point of this transition away from old school advertising, paid media, towards earned media to brand deals. And then we're seeing, or just feels like we're seeing more and more influencers, thought leaders transition into a hundred million to billion dollar businesses seeming like overnight, in record amounts of time, like from zero to five years, they're going from nothing you never heard of them, to building something and then some company like Pepsi buying them out for $1.8 billion. It's happening and they're happening to younger and younger people now. And so there's something wonderful here. You had said at dinner, the part that I can share is that for you, brand is a force multiplier. Can you expand on what that means?
- [05:56]
B
Yeah, and again, I didn't understand it. I've been publishing on YouTube for 10 years. I made a commitment when I started. It was the thing that gave me the most anxiety, talking to a camera. And my rule of life growing up has always been what scares me is feedback for the path. If I think to myself, oh, that seems hard. Hard is the choice. I think pain is the perfect teacher. And. And I like to put myself in situations where it's going to be hard because that's when I learn. And I remember this is after I sold, this is my third company I sold. I'm 30, early 30s, I'm in San Diego, living in Encinitas, and my buddy Travis, he's the one, I blame him, he says to me, you should do YouTube. I'm like, bro, 10 years ago, yeah, this is 10 years. I go, why would I do YouTube? I'm not a YouTuber. Like, I've got young family like this. So silly. Because back then it Was kind of very much a kid's platform. And he's like, I'd listen to you. And I was like, really? He's like, yeah bro, you've built these companies. Like I want to know how you did that. And at the time I just thought man, I don't want to do it. So I got to do it. And then having a one and a half year old and a six month old because my boys are 11 months apart, I thought, well worst case, I just create content for them. And that's literally the beginning of my YouTube. That's what it started at. The difference about my journey than I think a lot of people that start and dabble is I've always done thing in decades. I believe that you can literally accomplish anything if you commit to a decade, not a day. Most people dabble in days. I committed to a decade and I said I will publish every week for 10 years before I quit. And I did, man, for eight years. I had 50,000 subs. After eight years, like nothing.
- [07:44]
A
Woo, dude.
- [07:45]
B
Hor. Like it's not, it's zero impressive man. I just.
- [07:49]
A
That's before you met this guy?
- [07:50]
B
No, no, I. I've been working with Sam, my creative director for six years. But it was before I decided to go pro. And that's the difference. That's. That was a conversation with the hermosis, that was a conversation with Patrick. But David, like so many of these YouTubers that I looked up to that and I even call them YouTubers. Such a ding dong. Like I don't feel they're media people. And that was if you say what show shifted in my brain is I went from having a marketing department to a media company. And there's a difference. And that's amateur to pro. And yeah man, 10 years of being consistent. Like I heard that this morning I was flying down here and on one of the pods they said 1% of all podcasts only get to 70 episodes. So when people have 500 or a thousand or you know, Joe Rogan's got almost 3,000, you know what? I'm all caps earned, you know yourself earned. Like don't say luck. This is doing it when we didn't feel like doing it, investing in it, building the team, person quits, hire somebody new. Like you don't get to those kind of numbers over that period of time without having some stuff come up. So yeah man, it's just the commitment to a decade.
- [08:57]
A
So when you started uncomfortably in front of the camera, dude, I. There's real reasons why I've gone.
- [09:03]
B
It was just so bad, man. The first shoot I ever did there was this guy, he was a photographer, but he knew how to hold a camera, like a video camera. And I hired him to do it and we went to his studio, AKA condo. It was a condo building. He bought that he made a studio where his people worked up, but it was a house. It was literally like we shot. The setup was in the. Where the table would go for the kitchen. In the kitchen, white background, like a photography background that kind of went to the floor. And he did what he was supposed to do, which is mic me up, put the camera, set the lights up, and then say, all right, we're recording. And then I'm sitting there going, all right, I guess I'll talk about choosing your passion. Like I. And it was just so horrendous, dude. Like I did, like, what do you do? There was no structure. There was no. There was no story. It was very fact based. It was disconnected. Start, stop. I mean, we shot for two hours and he gave me the footage and I never published anything. Like I was. It was so bad. It was embarrassing.
- [10:00]
A
You still have that footage?
- [10:01]
B
I can't find it. I was trying to find it the other day because I do leave up my old videos after that. Yeah, there was probably a four month period. Have you ever met Jared from Fro Nose Photos? Do you know that guy?
- [10:12]
A
I met him one time.
- [10:13]
B
Dude, he's got the best one. Like I always love to ask anybody created content. Show me your first videos. Yeah, and Jared's first video was way worse than my first day, dude. He sat there at a table with lenses and was mad at himself. And the crazy part of his story is he didn't shoot another video for.
- [10:31]
A
Two years because he was so upset.
- [10:33]
B
I'm so horrible. Yeah, I'm so embarrassed.
- [10:35]
A
Yeah.
- [10:35]
B
And at least it took me four months to get back on the horse. But dude, I watched a guy yesterday, tagged me in it because I've been pushing content in his video. He showed his setup three years prior, he set up his setup and he didn't turn on the lights once or hit the camera. I know where people are at in their heads. So I just honor the journey, man, because it is, you know, I went from. Couldn't even get thoughts together. Now where you. I can't shut up. Like I get like, you know, no problem. Yeah, turn the cameras on. We're talking.
- [11:03]
A
I wish I could tell you it was different for me, but it's literally the same story. And this is me having Been taught, having teaching at art center for 15 years. So I know how to talk to people. So I, I want to just have a moment, a bonding moment for everybody who's watching this video for a second, which is, it's easy to talk to people because there's a human, there's little micro expressions, there's body language. They're like, yes, yes, tell me. And they get excited, you get excited. So you tell your story even with greater passion. When you look into an inanimate object, the one eyed machine, there's no expression, it doesn't change anything. And to speak to it knowing that it's going to be recorded forever for all time for everyone to look at. Because once it's on the Internet, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Somebody will have ripped it. The Wayback machine will have recorded it.
- [11:45]
B
Somebody.
- [11:46]
A
So some part of you exists forever. And knowing that compounds the problem. Talked to my friend who's a psychologist or a therapist. She said when you speak to someone who doesn't emote, it's very dysregulating. So you may have experienced this once in your life, maybe not in your marriage currently, but you know, like, sometimes my wife gets upset at me and she runs hot, I run really cool. Not exactly a great mix because she wants me to respond. She's like, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, I hear you. What she wants me to do is to have an emotional response. And the less I respond, the more she amps up. And my therapist said it's very dysregulating when you speak to someone and they don't give you anything. So this is why people have a natural fear of public speaking. Because we're taught in polite society, you sit, you listen. That's expert. I'm the student. You speak to a room that's dark and they don't say anything to you. And then now in your mind, like, dude, I was dropping bars. That was a good joke. And no one's saying anything. In different cultures, they're even quieter. Have you talked in the south in America?
- [12:46]
B
No, not. Well, Dallas?
- [12:48]
A
Yeah, Dallas. Yeah, like the, the South South.
- [12:50]
B
I feel like there's. Yeah, there's more south.
- [12:53]
A
Yes. I would go south. More south than that. And you'll see, they literally stand up and talk back to you. This is why preachers develop their game the way they do. Because in a certain environment there's a dialogue.
- [13:04]
B
It's not a monologue from the audience.
- [13:06]
A
From the audience. And it first will throw you off.
- [13:08]
B
I would love that.
- [13:08]
A
It's the most generous thing. It's like you're going back and forth. You're like, oh, I said something. They'll just stand up and say, yes, yes.
- [13:14]
B
And you're like, from the back.
- [13:16]
A
You know what I'm saying?
- [13:16]
B
You don't even have to call them.
- [13:18]
A
And it's really awesome.
- [13:19]
B
Yeah.
- [13:20]
A
So that's the problem. And we go through this thing. I'm glad to hear that it took you a little while to recover and took Froknow's photo even longer. And it could just be debilitating, especially if you're introverted, if you're not used to being around people, if this gives you anxiety. So I love the thing that you said. It's just like, you. You cannot think in moments, but you're, like, thinking in decades. Cause otherwise, people dabble in days. Got some alliteration going on there, friend.
- [13:46]
B
Yeah, I've been practicing.
- [13:47]
A
Have you?
- [13:47]
B
Oh, my gosh, dude. I'm a byproduct of doing the work. Everything. Storytelling. Like, even today, the feedback. This morning, as we're flying down, Sam goes, finish your stories.
- [13:58]
A
What do you mean?
- [13:59]
B
Like, finish the story? I have this habit of starting a story to make a point and never delivering the closure. No punchline, no transit. You know what I mean?
- [14:09]
A
Yeah. Why is that, though? Why do you feel like I get.
- [14:12]
B
Excited and I keep moving on. I'll open up three stories. One of my guys on my team, Arturo, I don't know his role is, but he's, like, media producer. He told me about this show called Loki. Do you know this Marvel show, Loki? Okay, sorry. I feel like you're a big fan. All right. Out of respect for Arturo, I downloaded it and watched it on the plane. Because he goes, we need to do a better job of sticking to the timeline. And not because sometimes I don't script my videos. My YouTube videos are just points. But I just talk, right? And he goes, the problem is from a retention point of view, we got to keep coming back and reinforcing and not let these little side worlds do their thing. So I get it now, but I will tell you. Alliteration, storytelling, vocal variety. Dan, you killed me.
- [15:06]
A
Yeah, it's demonstrated now. Yes.
- [15:09]
B
I'm just. I'm just echoing for all of you. So, like, all that stuff were things again. I. When I decide to do something, like, the one thing I know about me, I don't. I don't golf. There's a lot of things I don't do because I know I don't gamble. I don't play video games because I'm so obsess when I decide that I gotta be very selective. So when I decided to do the media thing at the highest level, I hired the coaches. I've watched every Mr. Beast interview where he talks about how he built his media company. I've watched all the top creators to understand kind of how they think of their content creation, brand stories. Like, built my own little personal network of mastermind of people sharing notes. I'm a student of the game that I play.
- [15:54]
A
That's Great. Are you ADD?
- [15:56]
B
Yeah. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11.
- [15:58]
A
See, there we go.
- [15:59]
B
So I got put on Ritalin when I was young. And it's crazy because at the time, man, it, like, messed with me. I thought I was broken. Like, dude, I was.
- [16:08]
A
Were you getting into a lot of trouble before the meds?
- [16:11]
B
Yeah. But, I mean, I think I was just a kid, man. Like, when I look at how my kids are, I got two boys. Like, I wasn't doing anything they're not doing. I just didn't respond the way my parents or the school did legit. My oldest son had some challenges in his school. Okay. We sat down in the school. He said, could you work with us? They said, we can't. That's not how we're structured. Cool.
- [16:31]
A
We.
- [16:31]
B
We took him out, we put him in a different structure. He thrived.
- [16:34]
A
Yeah.
- [16:34]
B
What a crazy idea. So, you know that whole, like, don't ask the duck to be an eagle, man. My son's an eagle. I was like, I think people with ADHD have evolved from back in the day, were evolutionary hunters. When I think about it, we were the person in the tribe that went out into the woods with whatever instrument we had. And we went and we hunted and we brought back the food for everybody else. And then we went into this agricultural society where it's like, follow a process and don't ask questions and calm down and stand in line. And then all of a sudden, we're like, I can't do that. So it impacted my life. I mean, that's why I got in so much trouble as a teenager. And, man, I went from 11, diagnosed ADHD, ended up jail twice, rehab, got out, luckily young, but then still was on medication until I was in my early 30s.
- [17:26]
A
Wow.
- [17:27]
B
And I remember one day I finally called my buddy in Toronto who was a doctor, and I said, I need to get off this. I was on like 30 milligrams, slow release of Adderall. I didn't like the way it made me, I didn't feel me.
- [17:41]
A
Did it numb you?
- [17:42]
B
Yeah, it just made me like a frigging robot. And that wasn't Dan. And that's where a lot of the productivity principles, I had to readjust my nutrition. And ever since I got off, I've never got on. I've never been more productive. But I also had to design my life around who I am and how I am and what I where my superpower is, you know, the zone of genius versus the zone of resentment. I think a lot of people struggle in life because they're resentful for the stuff they have to do, because they've never said, well, is there a way that I could only do the stuff I love to do and find the people that play at the things that I find are horrible work, like spreadsheets and financial stuff, like dude torture. But you give me anything else and I can thrive.
- [18:27]
A
I think there's something about the creative space and entrepreneurship that brings people that are neurodivergent, add, adhd, and I seem to know a lot of them. Everybody's on the spectrum. Maybe I'm on the spectrum too. And I could not understand it before because I'm the kind of guy who's like, give me a task, I'm going to do that to finish, and I'm good to go. I don't get distracted. Whereas my previous partner in the content creation space, he would always say, my ADD is too powerful. And he would develop all kinds of tricks. And he literally put post it notes on the side of his glasses and he put on his headphones. He would. He would turn up like speed metal to like 10. And I could hear it from like over there. Oh, like, is there anything left? Because that's the only way you can concentrate. But the beautiful thing for him is he had to develop tools so that he can stay focused. And those tools are the first products that we would launch and sell. And it's just a framework, a really good framework for people allows him to do this. So one of the things he would do is wake up in the morning, he's like, what are the three things I need to do today so that the rest of the day doesn't matter? And he would not allow himself to do anything. He would look over, he said, oh, no, back to the list, back to the list. And he would then get done. And then he was sometimes on his meds. And I found him to be way more productive on his meds than off, because when he's off, he's all over the space. Here's what I'm finding that my. My recent discoveries. If you take neurodivergent person and you put them into a society or a school system that's built for neurotypical people, they do not do well. They are the troublemakers. They get bad grades and they're just seemingly very disruptive in class. They don't know how to get along with people. But today, especially if you give them the right tools and the right space to play and create, they're working on five different planes above everyone else. So I think AI has been a big help. One of my buddies, his brain is just too fast, but he can literally do five things at the same time, and I can barely keep up with one of them. And so we're just different speeds. And I think it's a pretty interesting time now. So I think part of it is your ADD thing or ADHD is like. Isn't that like the entrepreneurial gene or the disease, you know?
- [20:27]
B
Yeah. I mean, the beautiful part is we also need folks like yourself. That's the cool part. If you actually like. What really changed in my life that allowed me to be productive is I realized that I need partners that can do the other stuff so that we can both be in our zone of genius. But. And again, I'm grateful that I fell in love with software development because that forced me to learn the skills you just talked about. When I was 17 and I got out of rehab and I just fell in love with code I had to learn how to plug in. And it was music edm and it was, well, early. It was Tupac and a bunch of other stuff, but eventually became EDM with no vocals. Pomodoro timer. So I use this Be Focus Pro app on my 25 minutes, 5 minutes off my nutrition. Just like making sure there was no sugar because that would definitely throw things off. Hydration and single focused tasks. I mean, software is almost like meditation when you're writing code because you're in it and you've got all the variables loaded up and you've got all the functions figured out and you're trying to debug stuff and it's this beautiful. It's kind of like taking a shower, working out where everything else is happening, but. But you're like so in the zone. But again, if I had three to four hours of that a day, that would have been a wildly productive day. But my output versus other people in those three or four hours was wildly. It was like 5 or 10x. Everybody else, because I knew how to channel it. And prior to that, man, it was like you said, I got in trouble in school. I got labeled disruptive. I got labeled dude. I almost didn't finish school. This is what's wild to me is I was flunking out of school. And once I figured things out, now I'm on the honors roll. But I had to change the way I work. You know, My favorite thing is, like, I didn't go to university, man. And I build software. Like, I have a PhD. They work for me. Lots of them. Like computer science people. MBA.
- [22:30]
A
17 of them.
- [22:31]
B
I got an MBA, too. Whole floor of MBAs. And it's just. But if you think about it. So there's two parts that I think is fascinating for people that struggle with the ADHD side. When we're young, it causes us to get in trouble, which allows us to learn what it feels like to deal with chaos, which is the foundation of entrepreneurship. Because all entrepreneurship is dealing with higher levels of uncertainty than most people. And we all know these friends that it has to be, dude, guaranteed, everything's perfect. I'm gonna get paid. That's not business. That's not how we start things from scratch. So, like, the getting in trouble when you're younger is almost the training ground for the chaos. That is where we're okay with so much uncertainty. That makes us successful in business. But here's the kicker. If you don't learn how to tame that, then in business, you create chaos. Because when things are going good, it feels wrong. Isn't that crazy?
- [23:31]
A
I know what you're talking about. Because the reason why ultimate didn't work with my previous partner was things were working and he just went in and created chaos.
- [23:38]
B
I call them hand grenades. They throw hand grenades in the business.
- [23:41]
A
Yeah.
- [23:42]
B
Because it doesn't feel normal to them. Because normal is chaos.
- [23:46]
A
Yeah. And some part of me is really sad because I didn't understand at the time, if you could just kept it under control, we'd still be in business together today. And said we're not. Because I just. I couldn't deal with that.
- [23:56]
B
Totally.
- [23:56]
A
I want to get my work done. I don't need the extra chaos. So, yeah, a couple other things here. You're famous for this concept of buying back your time. You gave a talk about it. You wrote a book on it. And this is some things that you. You go and talk about. What are some of the key ideas you want people to know about? This thing about buying back your time.
- [24:14]
B
Most people struggle because they have ambition but they don't have enough time to execute against the thing that they're ambitious about. So they have big goals, big dreams. And when they look at the task list, it's like, where am I going to find time to do it? And the truth is, is you can't build a million dollar company off $10 tasks. You just can't. There's not enough hours in the week. If you want to do something big, you have to be more efficient. Now there's a bunch of things that we can do that cost us nothing to buy back our time being more organized, leveraging some of the apps to not be running around town and being more efficient. But at a certain point, we gotta understand the value of our time. See, most people don't get what they want because they don't feel like they deserve it. And that's a tough one for people to hear. But it comes down to self worth. If I don't feel my hours worth. And you know this with creatives, man, because they're the most talented and the ones that undervalue their work the most, like, it's kind of bananas. They're producing 50 $100,000 brand packages and they're like, would you pay me a thousand for. It's like, no, you're way more talented than that because they're equating their hours, not the value. So one of my early mentors said that to me. He said, if you want to make 500 bucks an hour, you have to treat your hour today like it's worth 500. And that means you can't allow yourself to do things that you could just decide not to do because that's another distraction is just doing more than you think you can. Or like negotiating with people to pay you more so that someday your hour is worth more. So it's kind of interesting that you'll never get a penny more you think you deserve. And you have to start today before it actually ever shows up in your life.
- [25:55]
A
So you have to act as if you are forecasting this future. Here's who I am, here's what I earn, here's what I'm worth. What kind of changes do I need to make today so that that becomes my new reality?
- [26:05]
B
100%. If you think of a million dollars a year, you divide that by 2000, that's $500 if you don't treat your hour. And again, most people are like, I don't do that. Because they say yes to their friend for lunch. They say yes to this other thing. They take Meetings with potential people that they didn't qualify. They're in meetings that go three hours that were scheduled for an hour. Like, if you truly honored the fact that I got to treat my hour like it's 500, then you would just work completely different. And that's what's required before it ever shows up in your life. So that's the buyback rate that I talk. In my book, that is the foundation for everything. I'd say the next part after that that I struggle with a long time is the people side. And, you know, this business would be easy if it wasn't for people. Like, it'd be so easy. And the hardest part is when I'm trying to get my time back. How do I get somebody in my life to help me with that where it doesn't feel like more work? Because most like, I know when I started off, I was. I just think to myself all the time, like, I'll just. It's easier for me to just do it. Like, I know I should hire somebody, but it'll take me more time to find them, to train them, and then they'll probably mess it up. So they're not really adding anything. I'm just going to do it for myself. It's just a failed strategy because you never get ahead. You're always playing this game of, like, you say no to opportunities you should have said yes to because you don't have the capacity. So that's where I teach people the concept of the camcorder method, which I think is, like, so simple, yet it is the most powerful thing I still do today, which is when I'm doing the work, I record myself doing the work so that when I hire the person to do the thing I need them to do, I just give them the videos of me doing the work, talking out loud, and then they create the standard operating procedures to follow. I don't, because I hate that stuff. It's the zone of resentment.
- [27:59]
A
I have to ask you this question. So you're screen recording, and then as you have an idea you're working through the problem, you'll record what you're saying, too, so somebody can else watch it and figure out, what does Dan do? How does Dan make decisions? Do you find that knowing that you're being recorded slows you down when you work? Because that's something I struggle with.
- [28:15]
B
Yeah, it a hundred percent slows me down. The belief that slows me down is that it's not good enough for somebody else to follow. So I want to make it Good. And that's what slows me down. What I do to overcome that is if I at least have five of these recordings, the person watching the five videos of me doing the exact same work across those five, they'll figure it out. They won't love to watch it, but it's the same experience they would have if they sat next to me and they were shadowing me, which is what I was doing before, except now I get my time back. And that was the big idea is like, well, before I'd hire somebody, I'd say, okay, shadow me when I do this stuff and here's my calendar and come to come to my office for these types of things I'm doing, and then eventually I'm going to give it to you. Now, when I hire somebody, they literally spend the first 40 to 80 hours watching videos. And it's not a great experience. But honestly, most of them say, I've never been onboarded with so much like, clarity and I got to watch you work, which I didn't even know that tool you use, text experience. That's so smart. Like, so there's also these other benefits. Sure, it's probably not the funnest thing to watch unstructured training, but that was how I had to get myself through it, to allow myself to do it. Because it is the most efficient way to grow when you're trying to backfill the third part and the most important part, because in my book, it's called the buyback loop. If you don't do the third part, you don't get the loop, which is the growth, and that is fill. Most people buy back their time and then waste their time.
- [29:46]
A
Okay?
- [29:47]
B
So they don't treat like the hours worth a hundred dollars an hour. Now it's worth $500 an hour. And if I got my time back, I guess they're acting like it's worth a thousand an hour. And for me, the fill is three very simple areas of focus. What's the next level skill I gotta go acquire that's required of me? What are the habits I need to go develop to allow me to grow? And what are the beliefs about the way the world is that I believe that might be wrong? Because when I talk to a young person and they have a desire to be rich and I say, well, what are negative beliefs you have about rich people? And they go, well, rich people stole the money. Rich people don't pay taxes. Rich people are egotistical. I'm going, well, so the interesting part is you actually said you Want to be rich. I asked you what a negative beliefs you have about rich people. Those are all things you believe. I didn't tell you what they are. So you knew them. And now you're trying to drive towards a goal with the handbrake fully pulled because you'll never want to become somebody that you're scared you'll be judged the way you judge them. That's a belief. And a lot of us have money beliefs. We have beliefs about delegating. Right. Nobody can do as good as me. We have beliefs around trust, about partnering with people or customers. Or if I want to grow, it means I'm going to have less time, which I would encourage people to consider. So without doing the fill part, which is the third part of the buyback loop, you don't actually get progress because you just stay the same. And we all know those people have been in business for 37 years doing the same thing. The same gang of two people that come and go. Like, there's always just three of them, but the two changed. The guy's still there. It doesn't matter if it's dog walking or painting houses or whatever. And it's because that person stayed stuck.
- [31:28]
A
A couple of things I want to kind of circle back on, which is I have to answer this question a lot because I teach people how to start their own business. I believe in the power of entrepreneurship. Manifesting your own future. Then they say to me, the criticism is, well, what about the people who work for you, Chris? Clearly you need people to work for you. It's true. How do you answer that question when you're like, buy back time. So if I'm a big Dan Martell devotee, and I'm like, yes, I believe in this. And so the people working for you are like, how do I buy back my time? I need to do this the way Dan's doing it. How do we resolve that? How do we.
- [32:03]
B
What's that with our teams? Because essentially, if I'm saying you as a CEO, you gotta buy back your time and then you hire somebody.
- [32:09]
A
Yes.
- [32:09]
B
And then you're like, I love entrepreneurship and I want you to be an entrepreneur, but I really need you to work for me. How do I resolve that conflict?
- [32:16]
A
Yeah. Like Sam. I'm assuming Sam's like, how do I buy back my time?
- [32:21]
B
Yep. It's a beautiful question. And it plagued me for almost a decade. When I started as an entrepreneur, I was scared that if anybody on my team figured it out, I would lose them. So what did that mean? It meant That I controlled everything. Information was mine. I didn't tell anybody about the financials. I didn't allow any one person to have all the information. Didn't want to create a competitor like Scarcity mindset out the yin yang. And that kept me the only person on the team of 30 plus at the time, spinning plates every day I woke up, I was a professional plate spinner. So I had to make sure you were busy and you're busy and that person's busy. And here's what I got to luckily after hiring a business coach and teaching me this because clearly there's a different way because people build massive companies and it's realizing that not everybody wants the responsibility of building a business because that's completely different. Most people would rather predictability in their paycheck and I would say that's 80% of the population. And then there are people that are entrepreneurial but don't necessarily have a need to create the thing and have them drive it. But they want to be entrepreneurial and have opportunities like an entrepreneur would. Those are people like my creative director, Sam. And in those situations, the way you have to set up the game for them to play is, is they need to have variable compensation. So from day one, Sam had base compensation plus a variable that was unlimited based on his production. A lot of people have seen this video, has been seen a billion times. The video of me giving Sam a Porsche GT4. And I didn't know at the time when we recorded, we recorded everything that that would be the thing that people latched onto. I'm so happy people did because especially in the creative space. Cause after we decided to go pro and then I would meet all these people and I'd meet their teams and I'd be like, oh, that's the person that helped create this person. And a lot of times these people were very private about those folks. Cause they're worried that if anybody found out, somebody would steal them. But you had the Gary Vee's with drock, you had examples, but it wasn't known. And as a person that loves to highlight and reward people on my team, that video going viral and having friends of mine going like, yo bro, I give my team Rolexes now you're making me look bad. And I'm like, good. But what they don't see. And I always tell my friends to ask their team to figure out who Sam is, they don't see a guy that's driven when I don't need to like self initiate. Like you gotta create an environment where the person can be entrepreneurial, which means they drive outcomes, they manage a team, they buy back their time. I mean, first hire we got em was an assistant. Of course, it's the first hire in the book. So you have to support the team. And my rule, when you start a company, the first 12 people are the most critical. Because if you do right, those 12 are essentially the ones that build the rest of the business. And if you get it wrong, you gotta replace em. And it's hard. But yeah, I think there is a beautiful place where you can have entrepreneurial driven people on your team that don't necessarily have to be the founders per se. Even that language is kind of confusing for me. Cause Sam's definitely a founder and building the brand, but they also need to learn to buy back their time. Because I can't have Sam doing $10 tasks. He can't be sitting there spending four hours a day in his inbox when he needs to be scouting locations and networking with people to do high leverage stuff. And that's the. What stops most entrepreneurs from doing that is they don't have a vision big enough in their current company for those types of people to have their dreams and goals be accomplishable within that vision that. Cause it scares them. And I know, I've been there where I'm like, that person on my team has a bigger vision for their life and what I'm able to accomplish and I do for me. And I'm scared now because they told me that they're like, hey, why are we doing this, Chris? And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like we just got here and now you're telling me we got to go 10 exit. Like. But those people, if you know how to lead them, they're the drivers. They're the ones that you're like, okay, you go do that. I'll support you. Let me know if you get stuck.
- [36:42]
A
We need to know where our zone of genius is and delegate the rest. And when we have the free time not to piss it away doing stupid things 100%. Unless it's part of your plan. Right. Not to accidentally do that.
- [36:53]
B
Well, a driven person on your team that's making you money, if they see you pissing it away, won't stay. That's the other problem.
- [37:01]
A
Okay, well, we have to get into this. Yeah.
- [37:03]
B
I mean, it's just I know that for me to have world class leaders on my team, I had to level up my leadership. And the last thing I could ever do is say, hey, you need to be here. You gotta be working all these hours and then them see me on Instagram, flying around the world, hanging out on a beach. Like, the math doesn't compute, if that makes sense.
- [37:22]
A
Okay, okay.
- [37:23]
B
I think that's what happens sometimes. It's just, I worked really hard. I don't have to work hard anymore. It's like, cool. Those ambitious people want to be around other ambitious people.
- [37:30]
A
Okay, well, I want to follow up on that. But getting back to Sam or people like Sam. So if he understands the concept, then he needs people to do things. And this could be a skill that's transferred over and over. And this is how companies get really big. Right.
- [37:43]
B
And if you don't, this is what's interesting is leadership is taught through osmosis. So leaders that have a bad approach to leadership, what I call transactional leadership, their team learns it from you. And the reason why they call it a bottleneck is because it's at the top. So indirectly, your way of leading could create the bottleneck in your business because then your leaders act the way you did, which is, hey, oh, let me do a first draft. I'll get back to you once you start that or before you do anything, show it to me. Like, all these really bad bottleneck type behaviors that you do with them, then they do with their team and then nobody. Then everything. The bigger the company gets, the slower it gets. And I get the call. They're like, dan, my team is a hundred people now, and we've never moved so slow. I'm like, I know what your problem is. And it's that.
- [38:30]
A
Okay, Sam, I have a question for you, man. Do you have a hard time keeping up with Dan? You don't? Okay, I'm having a hard time keeping up with you right now because you'll say things and you'll say another thing. You'll say another thing. True to the sacred timeline and the branches. And I want to follow up with the first thing, but I'm on 0.5 and I'm like. And I'm losing my way through the forest here. So hopefully I have to ask you for a favor. Just slow your brain down just a little bit. Throttle it just a little bit for me. What is his very practical outcome that he's responsible for?
- [38:58]
B
Sam's responsible for all media, but what's.
- [39:01]
A
The measurement of his success indirectly?
- [39:03]
B
Follower growth.
- [39:04]
A
Follower growth. You'll deal with revenue.
- [39:06]
B
Yeah, it's the revenue leader that is responsible for that.
- [39:09]
A
What's Your target for 20, 25, end of year? Where are you going to be at.
- [39:12]
B
10 million total across all platforms.
- [39:14]
A
Where are you biggest on?
- [39:15]
B
We're literally almost neck and neck with.
- [39:18]
A
Instagram, YouTube, all around 1 5ish.
- [39:21]
B
1. 6. Yeah.
- [39:22]
A
6. Okay. Yeah. So what's the gap between where you are now?
- [39:25]
B
Well, we essentially have to do. Yeah, we're about five and a half, Sam. Five. Six.
- [39:30]
A
Six.
- [39:30]
B
We're at six. And we got to grow by four in the next six months. So it's pretty. We're on pace. And if you want to hear a fun story. Okay. I know he told me to stick to the sacred timeline, but you tell me if I'm off the timeline.
- [39:44]
A
TVA is coming for you later, but go ahead. Just, please, you do you.
- [39:47]
B
I'm so glad I watched that show this morning. People ask me, well, how did you decide to go from like, 50,000 on YouTube to 16 and then literally 5 million in the last two years? And I always say it's. I went pro, and I know the difference between amateur and pro. Well, last week, even I felt we could do more. So I went to Sam.
- [40:08]
A
Even you, Dan.
- [40:09]
B
I said. I was like, bro, there's more we could do. And I just said. I walked up to him at the office and I said, if I gave you a million cash, put in a bank account, what would you do with it? He's like, I don't know. I said, could you spend it wisely? And he just kind of ripped some ideas off. And I said, here's the deal. You get me comfortable, like an 8, 5 out of 10 comfortable, and I'll wire the money. I call my assistant. I literally signed the documents this morning. So Sam's got a million dollars cash in his bank account, and he put a plan together for us.
- [40:38]
A
In his personal account?
- [40:40]
B
No, it's a separate account. Because he told me he could generate 10 million net new followers with a million dollars. Those are bold words.
- [40:49]
A
Sam with the talent. With the talent.
- [40:52]
B
Yeah. No, no. He can hire people, but he has to.
- [40:55]
A
But you are the talent, though.
- [40:56]
B
Oh, yeah. I'm the only person.
- [40:57]
A
You're gonna build somebody else. Yeah, you're the talent. Yeah.
- [40:59]
B
Just me. Just our channels.
- [41:01]
A
Yeah.
- [41:02]
B
And I joke with people. You know, we went from amateur to pro. Now we went to pro max. So we're pro max.
- [41:09]
A
You're following the Apple nomenclature.
- [41:10]
B
I just thought it was funny because I'm like, what are we now if we're already pro?
- [41:14]
A
So you just turned the lens a little bit to the side?
- [41:15]
B
Yeah, Just, you know, didn't do a whole lot of change. Nothing really changed. Just the wall. We painted a wall in media. Dan. Intelligence.
- [41:25]
A
Okay, see you open a new thread now. I can't follow up with the other thread, but that's cool. This is a cooler thread. I'm just chasing the threads with you here. TVA is going to have a problem.
- [41:33]
B
Yeah, we're in trouble.
- [41:34]
A
So he puts something in front of you without giving anything that you feel uncomfortable saying. What is it that he puts in front of you? You're like, here's a million dollars cash. Go make it happen.
- [41:41]
B
Essentially it was different strategies. So there was consultants, there was initiatives, some projects that he felt would generate the roi. So my philosophy with most of my lead is very simple. If I give you money, all I need to know is what's the initiative? What's the effort on my part? Because you're asking for my time, especially in this case, what's the potential lift and by when, the date and as long as the theory makes sense. And usually there's, you know, it wasn't just Dan, there was other executives involved in his presentation. Then we just greenlight it. Especially if somebody has a track record of winning. And that's what Sam has. Like, I mean that's why I bought him a GT4. It's like Sam knows how to win. If anything, I felt guilty for not enabling him or empowering him with the resources to do more.
- [42:33]
A
See, I'm going to challenge this because you and I have already talked about this, Sam, with a hundred different creators, 100 different results. So it's a combination of the two of you. It's like the producer with the voice. If you're not the voice producer just makes music and it goes somewhere. Sometimes it doesn't. Right. Dan Martel is, has just dropped a million dollars in an account to do this thing. To grow his account by 10 million new net followers. What's that thing that you are approving in theory? What do you think that is?
- [43:00]
B
That's Sam's strategy.
- [43:02]
A
Can we be a little bit more concrete?
- [43:04]
B
Sam has it.
- [43:04]
A
What do you got?
- [43:05]
B
What do you got?
- [43:06]
A
So what I've heard is you're making a big investment in AI tools to be used internally for part of your team to achieve what result?
- [43:14]
B
Everybody's got AI, increased throughput and quality.
- [43:18]
A
Okay, let's break down each one of those words. What do you mean increased throughput?
- [43:21]
B
Well, if you think about media is the ability to publish content, videos and it be good, obviously quality. What we looked at, and I'm sure Sam did this analysis because we, we talk about it across all my companies, which is theory of constraints. Everything is raw materials, finished goods. So raw materials are just ideas. Finished goods is. I hit publish on YouTube in that process. There are people. The reality of it is, is that software can do certain parts of what the people are doing better than they can do it at a higher throughput and in certain circumstances, certain types of outputs at a higher quality. So I know one of the projects I think I can speak to without getting attacked right now, Kassim, is the amount of time the team spends just finding footage. So we're building an AI powered B roll search tool that sits on our NAS 60 terabytes of footage and continuing to grow to integrate it into the editing software we built. We've specked out and we already have pieces of this, but an AI powered pre validation slash story extraction, slash script writing tool, I think a data analytics platform because one of the biggest areas for creation is not data informed, but data contextualized. That's one of Sam's superpowers, by the way. His ability to look for the source of truth, not the. We all know this is creative. Like, I think that was good. He's like, here's the data. Ouch, that hurts. Lots of views, no followers. Is that you want more of that? Well, I really want this. Okay, well then let me go do the thing. And here's the videos that did good. So we have to.
- [45:04]
A
Oh, this is fascinating.
- [45:05]
B
Yeah, yeah. So just building a whole data analytics, I think a full dedicated person slash the infrastructure and software to enable that. He's probably going to invest in some project management software and that kind of thing. Key consultants that are best in class that he wants to bring in just to train up the team and to hire some key people too.
- [45:25]
A
My brother, million bucks doesn't go far.
- [45:26]
B
Once you start thinking about software and people.
- [45:28]
A
Right. My older brother is a software engineer, Stanford guy. He's probably on the spectrum too. Yeah. So whenever I tell him about an app idea, first thing he does, he just searches for it. And almost every idea I've ever given to him, he's like, there, it already exists. Tell me how this is different or better. There are already tools available on the market designed for video professionals. Especially if you think about Disney or something like that. They need some robust stuff to find footage. Why not just use off the shelf? Why develop it?
- [45:54]
B
I think again, Sam's going to lead the project and we've done this in other areas. He'll look at what's off the shelf and if it makes Sense he'll probably just use that plus APIs. It's just connecting everything. It's like going into a car production plant. There's a off the shelf robotics arm from Germany, but it needs to be plugged into the paint section of the body paneling system. So that's kind of how I look at increasing throughput is I definitely don't need to build core technology that exists, but I need to make sure that it goes left to right as fast as possible. Yeah. Cycle time. That's what it's always called. Elon Musk has these five rules. I'm doing it again. I'm so sorry, but yeah, okay.
- [46:36]
A
What is that?
- [46:37]
B
Yeah, he's got these five rules of essentially success. And one of them is just you gotta increase the cycle time. Because in the increase of cycle time you figure out where the bottleneck. Most people don't know they have a bottleneck because they don't have to do it a hundred times a day, they do it once a day. But if they were forced to do it a hundred times a day, they would immediately go like, oh, I gotta find a way to paralyze this process or get this information faster. It's like signing books. Were you at the Ford event?
- [47:02]
A
I saw it, yeah.
- [47:02]
B
Did you see us sign all those books?
- [47:03]
A
We'll call it signing, but yes.
- [47:05]
B
Okay. Yeah.
- [47:05]
A
You made a mark on the page.
- [47:06]
B
I did, yeah. So I do have a lucky. A good signature. That's quick. But even in that simple process of trying to sign 250 bucks, if we didn't have a process where there was somebody like grabbing the book, opening it and this and that, and then stacking.
- [47:19]
A
It, it just you solid line. The whole thing. Yeah, yeah.
- [47:22]
B
And I think that's an interesting thing for businesses to consider if they're trying to scale. Because doing that work ahead of time before you get a bunch of clients is going to give you the capacity and also the confidence to go sell.
- [47:36]
A
I have some predictions for you. I'm going to go on a limb how this is going to work.
- [47:40]
B
Okay.
- [47:41]
A
Because it is opposing a concept that I have and I could be 100% wrong. I'll fall on the sword on this is I make content and this is where maybe as an artist type, creative human, I think about it a little differently. I make videos as an expression of myself and where I'm thinking, I don't want scripts that are produced because I'm not the monkey in front of the camera to read these things back to people. And I'm a Big believer in not better, but different. So when we optimize, we're in the better stage because everything's being refined and it's quality in, quality out kind of thing. But I'm more interested in different in terms of like every so few months or a year and a half, the whole game changes and we have to adjust and so we have to kind of go to where the puck is headed, not where it's at. So at some point I wonder if they are like, well, the data says this, but it doesn't make Dan happy, then you may not want to do it.
- [48:30]
B
That.
- [48:31]
A
Because the team gives me content ideas all the time. Like, that's off brand, guys. I, I don't want to talk about that. That's. That's what I used to talk about, or everybody's talking about is like, I don't have a unique perspective here, so I don't want to contribute to the noise. That's usually my reaction. That's a hundred.
- [48:43]
B
It has to be that way. So in the team, we have these two Venn diagrams, which is the pre validation and then the Dan side. So every week I have a meeting and we only, we try to find the middle ground, which is. It's something I'm passionate about speaking about. That's the Dan side. And it's got the data to support. That's why I said a lot of people say data informed. I said data contextualize. Contextual is. There's still some art and heart behind the choices because that's what makes it. That's what makes a song a song. Right. And that's where if people. It's funny, there's. There's actually a name for this principle. Forget what it's called, but essentially if you make the metric the goal, then it ruins the whole thing.
- [49:26]
A
Yes. And we, we already can see this.
- [49:28]
B
Hogwarts principle or something. It's some weird name. But. Yeah, that's the problem is if you make too much about the number, then people optimize for a number and it loses the essence of what you're trying to do.
- [49:38]
A
My theory on this is numbers create a false sense of security. And we already see this play out in very high stakes. Netflix, as you thought, was like a streaming platform. No. They're also producers of movies and they spend a lot of money. And Netflix makes certain movies based on what the algorithm, the data tells them that they want to make, but they're not making hits. They spent a gazillion dollars on some of these things that are just Hot garbage, right?
- [50:00]
B
Big piles of poop.
- [50:01]
A
Where surprisingly, Apple has been releasing very slowly, some killer content, almost everything they release as a series or movie, almost some exceptions. And they're kind of like the sleeper in this. A tech giant comes in and just releases really high quality films. So I think there's more art to this than there is just pure data. And just like everything, the data is only as good as the person interprets it. I'll speak from personal experience here because my guys would constantly bring up data like, well, Chris, this is selling, this isn't selling. We should do more of this. They're looking historically backwards, not where it's going. They'll constantly say, well, it's like this. But I said, well, if I interpret the data, I will tell you this story. And this is where a statistician get into all kinds of trouble, right? Oh, this person's going to win. Well, you just read the data that way, or young people are moving this way. So I, I would encourage you. Data and then instincts. And your instincts are almost always going to be right, especially if you are a student of the game, as you say you are. And I do spend a lot of time now. It's, it's shocking, surprising to me that this video that gets a billion views is you giving a young man who works for you a very expensive car. Like, duh, bro, come on. Of course, we already know if you look across social media when we do things for other people, it not only makes you happy, but it makes the viewer happy. Like those videos where like, oh, you know, do you like this game? Or can I borrow? Here's a guy, I'm spacing his name right now, he's like, do you have $30? I need to buy some socks. I don't have any money.
- [51:27]
B
Oh, yeah. And at the end, he gives them.
- [51:28]
A
300, he gives them a gazillion dollars, and then those videos predictably always blow up. Simon Squibbs, the same thing. What's your dream? What if I get you money right now to quit this habit and start your dream? And it's a pretty predictable formula. It goes across the board. So I think if you really, really want to get 10 million net new followers, you do something that's built around your core competency and what gives you joy where you actually, or you're a dream maker. Do you know what I mean? If you just did that?
- [51:52]
B
Oh, I know exactly what you mean.
- [51:54]
A
Because if you spent 5, 10,000 bucks, you'd get a hundred thousand dollars back in new followers and Brand deals or whatever you want. So what I would do if I had the money, I'm like, I'm going to hire some people so we can just document more things. Here's what I have also learned. You ever listened to this American Life? Ira Glass?
- [52:09]
B
Yeah. Wow.
- [52:10]
A
Probably the top, like, podcast before Joe Rogan became the monster he is. I'm not sure if it's the number one, but it's gotta be. Top five in America. Is Ira Glass interviewing people and doing his stories? No. His producers have spent six months producing the story, which they spent a lot of money producing. Then they go back and they tell him. And then he records the intro, the interstitials, and all that kind of stuff. And it feels like he's the person that's orchestrating all of this. And it's beautiful because you may never remember any reporter's name, but you'll always remember Ira Glass. And that's how you buy back your time in media. You have these guys go around, document this stuff, produce it, and it's like, so, yeah, tell me what's happening with Johnny. And then you talk about that as it's already edited, and you create this narrative arc. You're the host. So this week, I'm gonna talk to you about this. And the biggest lesson I got from this is this. And here's how we made it happen.
- [52:57]
B
Free consulting. This is.
- [52:58]
A
You can do it.
- [52:59]
B
You know what I love about you, Chris? I want everybody to know this. Well, it happened at dinner. And when I talk with you, you're willing to have a contradictory opinion or challenge an idea. It's rare. And I'm the kind of guy where, like, feedback is my oxygen. And I just. I really appreciate it.
- [53:17]
A
Like, thank you. Yeah.
- [53:19]
B
And if you. Yeah.
- [53:19]
A
I don't know how else to be, by the way. Well, just like you, probably.
- [53:22]
B
I like that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how else to be, but it means a lot because it's like steel, sharpened steel, fighting for the best outcome. These are core principles of ours. And. Yeah, I know.
- [53:31]
A
It's why we have coaches and consultants and people who are experts at different fields who can see into our blind spots and say, I'm good at doing my thing and fill in the gaps. That's still consistent with your buyback or time principle. Right.
- [53:42]
B
That's the whole point.
- [53:43]
A
Yeah. Like a team of eight players, and then you guys go to the next level. Okay. I wanted to ask you this question. It's probably an important business question, but. So when I said, you know, pissing away your time. What does Dan do to relax? That it seems like a total effing waste of time, but it's absolutely necessary for you to operate because it can't be work all the time, can it?
- [54:01]
B
No, I'm big on recharge. I'm big on taking time for myself. It just, in many ways, it feels like people would consider it work. So, like, when I go out with my friends that I happen to work with. Wake surfing. We're wake surfing. There's no part of that that's work. But in between runs, if somebody asks me a question about a project or an idea, that conversation is work. And I always said that when it looks like work but feels like play, you kind of won. So a long time ago, I've learned this is why I call it integrated life. And more harmony than balance is. I only work with people I really enjoy spending time with. And, like, all my business partners are my friends. I sit on boards of companies that they're my mountain bike friends, and I sit on their board. And it's just one thing. You know, when we go on vacation, we think of other couples that we want to do life with. And those other couples are entrepreneurs, for sure. Vendors of ours. So maybe one of them runs Facebook ads for us. But our kids do play days. Like, I just. And I do a lot of, like, running in the woods by myself because I just finished an Ironman two weeks ago, and that part of my life is also a big part of. And I did five days by myself in the woods in a van with no devices, and just sat there and came one with nature by myself, bro. No.
- [55:32]
A
You got survival skills or what?
- [55:33]
B
No, luckily the van was packed by my house manager with everything I needed to survive. It's not that impressive.
- [55:42]
A
Yes. I was in a luxury sprinter, kitted out.
- [55:44]
B
Yeah, it was. It was glamping hilarious. It might have been. It was a rented.
- [55:48]
A
But have you thought about that? Have you thought about, like, survival. Survival training on the.
- [55:51]
B
We're going this summer, and we're doing.
- [55:52]
A
How to live off the.
- [55:53]
B
Yeah, we're doing it this summer.
- [55:54]
A
Who's we?
- [55:55]
B
Me, my wife and my two boys.
- [55:56]
A
Oh, I love that.
- [55:57]
B
Yeah. Yeah. It was just something we came to realize that, like, you know, it's not that I'm a doom miss and the world's going to crap, but it's not a bad idea to know how to, like, hunt and take care of yourself long enough for everybody else to figure their stuff out. So, yeah, we're going in August for Like a three night survival thing.
- [56:13]
A
And yeah. So I think there's challenge that's happened in the kind of living in cities and large dwellings that we've disconnected from our primal selves. Especially for men, it's kind of important that you know how to start a fire, that you can identify some plants and pull something out of that.
- [56:30]
B
Some of the confidence it would build. That's why we did it. I started as a rite of passage with my boys and then escalated quickly into. We should all know this.
- [56:39]
A
Yeah.
- [56:40]
B
And the minimum, I think it was eight people. The guy we hired, he's like, I can do eight people. So we're doing two families. But we'll probably go do some solo stuff because I think the rite of passage with one of my kids in like some mountain traverse would be a really great idea. But what do I do to. To just not work is a lot of stuff, man. I'm a snowboarder, mountain biker, wake surfer, triathlete.
- [57:04]
A
Like that's your happy place.
- [57:07]
B
Yeah.
- [57:07]
A
Okay.
- [57:07]
B
Yeah. Kiteboarding.
- [57:09]
A
But that wasn't always the way, right? Because I think.
- [57:11]
B
No, man. I worked 100 hour weeks.
- [57:13]
A
Yeah.
- [57:13]
B
Non stop.
- [57:14]
A
You have some photos where you're not the man of steel.
- [57:17]
B
No, no. I was Mr. Flabby, Mr. Soft. Yeah, yeah. Just. I mean, I wish I was recording to the level I am today, a long time ago, so people could see the journey. Because I'm just a byproduct of waking up every day and going like, ouch. What do I need to learn? Like, that's it, man. I'm not that. You know, I say that and you're like, dan, you have the X factor or whatever. Okay, well, I learned it, but there was a point when I didn't have it. And everything from the fitness to the relationship I have with my wife, to the way I look at parenting my kids, to the wealth side of life, it's buying back my time. I mean, the reason these things are so important to me is because there's a time in my life where there was so much pain. I needed these tools to get through it. And I think that's what mentorship is, is I'm just going to share with you the blueprint because I wish somebody gave it to me when I started. And if it helps, cool. And if not, that's cool. I'm just telling you what worked for me. There's no. That's the interesting thing about advice is it's not right or wrong. As long as it's truly what you did, it can't be wrong because it just is what it is. It's like, that's my story. That's my journey. If that resonates, cool. But yeah, I had a hard time building. Still figuring out man.
- [58:29]
A
Well, as a recovering graphic designer, someone who. Who's expected to have creativity on tap, I've learned something very important about the creative process. I'd love to share with you probably think the same way, but I tell people boredom is the precursor to truly breakthrough ideas. You have to give yourself time to be bored out of your mind. Because for me, there's this part of your active brain learning all the time, and then there's your archival brain that puts it all together. That's what we usually do in dream state. But to have a waking dream state moment is the magic because the stuff in your dream isn't very. It's hard to have lucid control over these things. But I find that when I'm on vacation, literally unplugged from everything, there's no other entrepreneurs. There's nobody. Just my wife, my just usually, sometimes my wife or kid. And I got nothing to do. And for days I'm doing nothing. And then the mind explodes with ideas.
- [59:17]
B
Do you walk around with a journal or what's your.
- [59:20]
A
I literally travel everywhere with a little book in case there's an idea that pops up.
- [59:23]
B
I think that's what I got to do is allow myself to not feel like I'm being unproductive because I think that's my default North Star optimization routine.
- [59:32]
A
And each of us has the different tolerance. Like it could be two days, it could be seven days. But you have to get to that point. I'm bored out of my mind. And you're going to come back. Sam, get the whole team together. I got a new idea. We're going to launch this thing, and it's going to be better than anything we've ever done in our lives. Because most of the times we're consuming, we're very ever rarely processing. And then the last part is connecting it together, awake. That's the key.
- [59:55]
B
That's cool.
- [59:56]
A
So if you ever get into this thing where, like, what's the next thing I want to talk about? How do we evolve? Dan is the character on camera, my delivery, the. The. The range of tonality. It's in those moments that I think you're going to have that massive breakthrough and everything else will change. This is like those exponential leaps, not incremental improvements. Now. I was just showing the sign. We have 10 minutes. I need to talk to you about something. Okay, before we run out of time here, okay, Number one is, I'm not sure, but I heard that you have SAS Academy, right?
- [60:24]
B
Yeah.
- [60:25]
A
Big, big numbers. And I had heard that at some point you were around Taki more. What did you do with Taki? What. How did that inform what you're doing? Because I heard.
- [60:34]
B
Oh, working with Taki.
- [60:35]
A
Yeah.
- [60:35]
B
Like, Taki's the goat. He's the goat of goats. He actually texted me to tell you you need to join his program. And I agree. Just so you know, he saw us together.
- [60:44]
A
Yes. Always selling, man.
- [60:45]
B
I've got. I got a lot of love for Taki. Yeah.
- [60:49]
A
So you created your SaaS Academy, right?
- [60:51]
B
A thousand percent. As much as I hate when people don't acknowledge their team, I hate when people don't acknowledge their mentors.
- [60:57]
A
A hundred percent.
- [60:58]
B
If I don't meet Taki, I don't build SaaS Academy, period. Full stop. I've shared this publicly. I've told him Taki is the guy that I know every one of the guys name is on his stripe transactions, and he is. I've. I vacationed with him and his family. I've been to both of his homes. Like, he is who he is. I've had him stay at my house. I fucking love the guy. And he gave me permission. And this is the big thing. So I remember I almost. I did a launch, my first thing I ever did online. This is after I sold my third company. I was like, okay, I'm going to create a course, I'm going to do a launch, you know, product launch style, all that stuff. And I. I hate when I say I hated it. I couldn't believe I allowed myself to do it. It was against every moral of business, best practices, you know, just. The whole thing sucked. And I went to an event and the organizer sat me down in front of Taki Moore, and that's when I met Taki. And he goes, what do you do? And I said, well, I did software for 15 years and I launched this course, but I hate it. And he goes, why? And I tell him, he goes, why are you doing it that way? Like, Taki gave me permission to build the business the way I needed to build it for me to love doing it. And he always laughs because he goes, you know those clients you bring on and then you don't see around, but then when you ask them how they're doing, they're crushing it. That was me. I didn't need to be around. But I consumed everything. I'm talking like Every lunch was watching videos and executing and executing and executing. And it got me to a place where I built the business in a way that it's run by a CEO and it continues to do incredibly well. And I haven't been involved in delivering anything or like literally nothing for three and a half years. I started eight years ago.
- [62:39]
A
That's amazing.
- [62:40]
B
I know. I'm like, I don't know many people that have ever done that.
- [62:43]
A
Okay. For people who don't know what SaaS Academy is, what is.
- [62:46]
B
It's the largest coaching organization for software CEOs. Any software you use, the CEOs probably been in my world.
- [62:52]
A
What is the transformation that you helped them with?
- [62:54]
B
The perfect exit is the outcome. So how do you start? By getting product market fit. That's always the first thing with software. Then it's to scale it up with the team. And then the third part is to figure out how are you going to capitalize it, go public or ex it.
- [63:05]
A
Okay. So it sounds to me like you've worked this out to be kind of a science.
- [63:09]
B
It is. It's methodology. We wrote a book about it called Software as a Science. It uses this thing called the growth ceiling, which any subscription business runs into. And Taki gave me the blueprint. I just put the part in there that was SaaS. That makes sense, right? And that's what his genius is. He's like, you decide what you want to teach on stage, but here are the four components of what you should teach on stage. If this is the outcome you want.
- [63:32]
A
Okay. Now, I heard a rumor, maybe it's. The number's not right. You do a million dollars a month?
- [63:36]
B
Yeah.
- [63:37]
A
You saying that like. No, it's more than that.
- [63:38]
B
I mean, that's not that impressive. No.
- [63:41]
A
You heard a lot of people listening to this right now.
- [63:43]
B
I used to say, I use. It's so fun.
- [63:46]
A
A month would be pretty nice.
- [63:47]
B
It's crazy. When I started, I remember when I started eight years ago with Taki, I was trying to find people doing 10 million a year. And it was hard. I couldn't find anybody. I think Brandon Burchard at the time, obviously, Tony's the Goat Robins, but it was hard to find. Now I can name hundreds of them. Doing a million a month. It's kind of wild. Yeah.
- [64:08]
A
Okay. What's one biggest lesson you learned in getting that to a million dollars a month?
- [64:12]
B
Sell one thing to one person and focus one channel.
- [64:16]
A
One thing.
- [64:17]
B
It's called the five ones.
- [64:19]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [64:20]
B
It's just most people try to Be too many things to too many people. Upsells, down, sells. I got three tiers of this program. I mean, geez. The buyer's confused. They say yes because they're just like, hoping that it's going to solve their problem. And the challenge is when you do too many things, you can't deliver a result. And then the person just gets confused. Most this is. You want to know, because I've talked to a ton of friends that do this. They start off with the perfect product. And then as creators, we create. I'm a creator.
- [64:49]
A
Yes, you are.
- [64:49]
B
Create. So they create. And then three years in, the thing that used to be really simple and got people results is confusing. And the person that buys three years in, they think the person who built that, it's better. It's not. It's too much. It's confusing. I don't know where to go next. There's too many things. But the creator's like, I added more. I added more, dude. Every time I sit down with a friend that's running this issue, it's a subtraction process. It's a. That sits here, that goes up here. Don't even talk about that. That's confusing. And that is always. It's always like scaling is a process of simplification. You can't scale chaos, period. Simple scales. And it's just hard for creators to hear that because it's always about adding value and making it better. But as a product thing, in software, we talk about adding a new feature. Always starts with negative value. Cause as soon as you put a link in an interface, you added potential confusion. And I think that's where it's hard for people that, you know, I just asked them one question. When's the last time you took something.
- [65:55]
A
That's a good question.
- [65:56]
B
That's a great question. Most people can't give me an answer because they've never taken anything away.
- [66:00]
A
I feel so called out right now. Like, you're just piercing through my soul.
- [66:05]
B
I feel you asked. I felt you asked for a reason.
- [66:07]
A
But you know what? I have to say this right now. I was struggling with this dilemma. For whatever reason, right now, right here, I. I have an idea. I think I found my solution to my problem. So I appreciate you for just having that conversation. What is the thing that really lights you up right now? One or two things. Do you love public speaking? You want to write your next book? You want to build another software company? Is it giving more people, like your friends, cars? What do you want to do?
- [66:28]
B
It's AI because that's where I spend 98% of my time right now. So Martel Ventures is on the path to build a billion dollar enterprise value in five years, which is wild. We've already launched six companies. It's crazy. And then I'm working on my next book, and it's around leadership, and it's a completely different take on leadership. And if anything, I write things I need for myself. So, like Buybacker Time was a book for the people I love the most in my life. They were asking me, how do you do that thing you do?
- [66:56]
A
Right.
- [66:56]
B
Okay. Well, now this book, this leadership book is a book for all the leaders in my life, and I think it'll serve a lot of people. And I've been working on it for a year and a half, so I got about another year's worth of effort. But it's, you know, as you know, when you're in that creative process, first thing in the morning, editing and research, and it's just my. It's my favorite thing to do. It's my new version of writing software.
- [67:16]
A
I think for some people, writing a book is like healing, and it's like a message back to your younger self. Here's what I've learned. Idiot. Don't do this. Do this instead. Right?
- [67:26]
B
My opening story. One of the dumbest things I ever did, that cost me a third of my team. I saved it for this book.
- [67:33]
A
Dan, it's been a real pleasure. Thanks for doing this. I know you're a busy man. Thanks very much.