Brutal Truths About Money That EVERYONE Needs To Know Before 35 | Dan Martell

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Iced Coffee Hour

Episode: Brutal Truths About Money That EVERYONE Needs To Know Before 35 | Dan Martell

Hosts: Graham Stephan, Jack Selby
Guest: Dan Martell
Date: November 27, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Graham and Jack welcome entrepreneur and bestselling author Dan Martell to discuss unfiltered truths about money, success, self-worth, and the modern realities of wealth building. Dan candidly shares his turbulent past, how hitting rock bottom transformed his life, and the philosophy and habits that fuel his journey from juvenile detention to $100M+ in annual business revenues. Packed with straight talk, practical business advice, and personal reflections, the episode explores the beliefs, behaviors, and environments essential for anyone determined to get rich and reclaim their time in a world being rapidly reshaped by AI.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dan’s Journey: From Rock Bottom to Entrepreneurial Success

• Background & Turning Point:
  • Survived a troubled youth surrounded by crime and substance abuse, in and out of the juvenile system.
  • Rock bottom: high-speed chase at 17 in a stolen car, and a crisis point with a firearm where he nearly ended his life ([00:46]-[05:28]).
    • “I literally look...Nobody’s more surprised about how I live my life today than me. I don’t forget. That was a dark period of my life, man. I didn’t want to live.” — Dan Martell ([01:42])
  • Found empathy through struggle, especially for struggling kids.
  • The realization: “The path to success isn’t complicated, it’s just hard. And I can teach it to anybody in a few steps.” ([00:46])
• Risk Perception:
  • Childhood risks shaped his approach: “People ask me, 'Why are you such a risk taker?' I’m like, oh, this is nothing.” ([09:34])

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2. Mindset as the Foundation for Wealth

• Self-Worth & Money:

  • “Your net worth is a reflection of your self-worth, period, full stop. If you don’t have more money, it’s because you don’t feel you deserve it.” ([23:45])
  • Many hold themselves back because they subconsciously don’t feel they deserve to be wealthy.
  • Most people “oscillate” between financial highs and lows—true growth means turning yesterday’s “high” into today’s baseline.

• Environment Matters:

  • “If you are the wealthiest person you know… it’ll make it almost impossible for you to get ahead.” ([26:08])
  • You need supportive, growth-oriented people around you. Remove negative influences and surround yourself with those who believe in you.

• The Value Trap:

  • You don’t get paid for working hard, but for creating value for others.
    • “It’s not getting paid for how hard you work. It’s the value you create in the world.” ([26:08])

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3. Early Wins & Building Businesses

• First Business Win:
  • Learned to code in rehab; built vacation rental web pages in the ‘90s ([16:02]).
  • Applied creative problem-solving: mail merge, database, form letters—turned it into first real money earned independently.
    • “My dad shows up one day, checks the mail, and there’s like 13 envelopes... that was my first money ever building something.” ([17:48])

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4. Getting ‘Rich’ and The Real Meaning of Wealth

• Defining Rich:
  • “If more money wouldn’t change your day, technically you’re rich.” ([19:54])
• Money Milestones:
  • Realized he was a millionaire at 27, but didn’t feel rich—reflected on trauma and a persistent desire to fill a “void” ([20:12]-[23:33]).
  • “There’s always something I was trying to become to overcome the not enoughness...” ([22:00])

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5. Tactical Money-Making Advice (How to Make $10K/month)

• Dan’s Playbook:
  • Use AI to bridge old business models and new tools:
    • Example: Use ChatGPT to generate scripts and cold-call real estate agents to offer AI-powered marketing solutions—even if you don’t fully know how yet ([29:11]).
    • “The first three to five cold calls are throwaway. Just do them. Get in the energy of playfulness.” ([29:11])
  • Find bottlenecks in local businesses (e.g., missed phone calls), then offer to automate or solve those with AI tools like YourAtlas ([31:28]).
  • “If you can sell one, you can sell ten, you can sell a thousand... it goes back to their beliefs.” ([31:04])

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6. Full Embrace of Artificial Intelligence

• AI is Here, and It’s Magic:
  • AI is already reshaping everything—from sales, admin, and wealth management to creative business processes ([32:07]-[36:26]).
  • “The best AI stuff feels like magic...that magic is available in every part of the business.” ([33:09])
• Practical Uses:
  • AI for bookkeeping, insurance auditing (e.g., finding $2,000 overcharges instantly), strategic planning, content generation, legal docs ([34:46]-[35:47]).
  • Future is for “directors,” not “doers”—those who know how to leverage AI rather than do every task manually ([36:28]).
• Cautions:
  • Reliance on AI must be strategic and paired with human taste and emotional intelligence ([37:15]-[40:08]).
  • “A good director...has domain experience and knows when something comes back that it’s wrong.” ([39:18])

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7. The Philosophy of Goal Setting & Self-Sabotage

• Belief Patterns:
  • Limiting stories learned early (“money is evil,” “you have to go bankrupt to succeed,” etc.)—identify and reject these ([54:50]-[56:48]).
  • “Most people live these kind of quiet lives of desperation...they don’t tell anybody because as soon as they tell people then they’re accountable.” ([56:56])
• Power of Declaring Goals:
  • Dan argues for vocalizing big goals—“If you look at every successful person...they spoke their future into existence.” ([59:55])

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8. Elite Habits & Daily Routines

• Morning Routines (Subtractive, Not Additive):
  • Top performers start early, plan the day, focus on positivity, gratitude, movement, and creative work ([62:27]-[65:43]).
  • “Getting up at 4am every day...for almost five years.” ([62:36])
  • “You can’t be grateful for something and be pissed off—those emotions cancel each other out.” ([64:09])
• Workout as Mental Reset:
  • Moving the body in the morning “is an Etch a Sketch for the mind, a beautiful reset.” ([65:43])

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9. Buying Back Your Time

• Principle:
  • “80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome.” ([69:25])
  • Identify “red” tasks you hate, “green” tasks you love, and outsource everything else to maximize your complexity ceiling and scale ([70:58]-[72:26]).
  • “Nobody’s ever built a million-dollar business doing $10 tasks. It’s impossible.” ([71:43])
• Practical Example:
  • Dan employs a house manager (pays ~$100k/yr): manages all family logistics, paperwork, budget as P&L, and household operations ([75:03]-[76:46]).
  • “I would sell every one of my supercars before I ever got rid of Betty.”

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10. Lessons from Wins, Losses, and Investments

• Biggest Waste:
  • Lost millions investing in a business he didn’t run himself—underestimated leadership as a success factor ([73:46]).
• Best Investment:
  • Intercom (software), but singles out foundational relationships and staff as priceless.
• Biggest Luxury:
  • “This watch. It’s kind of dumb.” ([79:11])
• Favorite Book:
  • “The Bible.”
  • Most-gifted: “Think and Grow Rich” (over 6,000 copies!)
• Greatest Failure:
  • Offered employees $15k to quit—36% took it, led to massive productivity loss ([79:36]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dan Martell on Transformation:
  • “The path to success isn’t complicated, it’s just hard. And I can teach it to anybody in a few steps.” ([00:46])
• On Self-Worth and Money:
  • “Your net worth is a reflection of your self-worth, period, full stop.” ([23:45])
• On Money-Belief Link:
  • “If more money wouldn’t change your day, then technically you’re rich.” ([19:54])
• About AI’s Potential:
  • “The best AI stuff feels like magic...that magic is available in every part of the business.” ([33:09])
• On Outsourcing:
  • “80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome.” ([69:25])
• On Time:
  • "Nobody’s ever built a million-dollar business doing $10 tasks. It’s impossible." ([71:43])
• On Buying Back Time:
  • “I would sell every one of my supercars before I ever got rid of Betty.” ([76:09])

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Important Timestamps

• Dan’s background & rock bottom: [00:46]-[05:28]
• Early money and first business: [16:02]-[18:26]
• Richness & self-worth defined: [19:54]-[23:36]
• Money philosophy (beliefs and environment): [23:36]-[29:04]
• $10K/month actionable strategy: [29:11]-[33:09]
• AI and wealth creation: [32:07]-[41:26]
• Mindset & belief traps: [54:50]-[56:48]
• Goal setting—saying vs. doing: [56:56]-[59:55]
• Morning routines & habits: [62:27]-[65:43]
• Buying back time: [69:09]-[72:26]
• Personal investments: [73:46]-[79:36]
• Rapid fire questions: [79:14]-[80:05]

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In Sum:
Dan Martell’s brutally honest philosophy: Enduring wealth isn’t about tactics first—it’s about beliefs, environment, habits, and leveraging technology to maximize value and reclaim your time. If you want to get rich, own your story, reject limiting beliefs, surround yourself with winners, embrace AI, buy back your time, and focus on being the director—not the doer—of your own life.

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Transcript

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[Dan Martell]

Of where I came from. Things got really crazy. I was hanging out with people from the Hell's Angels, learning stuff I definitely shouldn't have been learning. One day my brother calls me up and says, don't come home, the police are waiting for you. At 17, I was in a high speed chase with the cops, the wheel of a stolen car and then I smashed into the side of the house. And in that moment, everything changed. I know this because I went from broke at 24 to selling my first company for millions at 28. Today I've exited three software companies, generate over 100 million in cash a year and now my only goal is to help others and motivate them to find success the way that I did. The path to success isn't complicated, it's just hard. And I can teach it to anybody in a few steps.

[Graham]

Do you think you could have changed without hitting that rock bottom? No.

[Dan Martell]

Zero.

[Graham]

Why do you think things felt so hopeless to you at that?

[Dan Martell]

Yeah, it's, it's. It's kind of interesting. I was shooting the other day with Cohen. I just there balling just even think.

[Jack]

I mean it's like it's still really tough.

[Graham]

How often do you think about it?

[Dan Martell]

I get emotional thinking about it because I'm just like looking at my life today, it's pretty cool. Like could have went the other way man.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Dan Martell]

So it's. Yeah. I mean every week for sure. Sometimes once a day just cause I, I literally look I. Nobody's more surprised about what I like how I live my life today than me. Like I'm like I don't forget. I don't, I don't forget the other people I met. Like that was a dark period of my life man. I didn't, I didn't want to live. That's. That was kind of the decision I made when I stole the car that if the cops get me, I'm going to pull.

[Jack]

Does it make you more sympathetic to other people that are in that situation, or does it make you think, like, whatever situation you're in, you can make it better?

[Dan Martell]

Definitely more sympathetic. I mean, my superpower is empathy with the kids. Like, I, I, I love adults, but I also think a lot of adults are adults, and you should treat them like adults. But when I meet another kid that's, like, struggling with life, dude, I just get down on one knee and I just, like, my mission's very simple. I just want to help kids, not feel broken. I went my whole teenage years just feeling like I was broken. I was, I was. I mean, frick, since I was 10. It's like, can't play with Dan. I have to hide in the woods to play with my neighborhood friends. Like, it's kind of crazy. So, yeah, man, it, it's something that I think allows me to be sympathetic, but also because of where I came from, man, it's like any, like, when, when you hear people say anything's possible, I, like, I'm like, no, it's, like, legit possible. It might take you a long time. It might take you 17, 25 years. But, man, if you just, like, wake up and just decide to make better decisions, like, that's the start.

[Graham]

How did you get to that point, though, of stealing a car?

[Dan Martell]

Essentially, what happened was I'd been in and out of jail. I've been in, out of the system. I was put into foster care when I was 11, crisis center, group home for a year. I turned 13 in a group home, living with people that were 17, in and out of jail. So I was raised by a bunch of people that didn't have the most positive kind of uplook on life. And, and then what happened was I just, you know, I ended up. I broke into a house, stole a bunch of. And my mom found them, and she told, she called the police. And my brother called me, and he says, don't come home because the cops are looking for you. I was like, well, where do I go? And he's like, I don't know, man, but you can't stay here, like, in the city. And he met me and he gave me all the money he had in his, like, life. Like, emptied his bank account. Like, not bank account. Like, he emptied his piggy bank. And he gave me $63.50. And he said, get out of town. And, like, that was, that was a wild moment. And Then I actually went and lived in the woods for two weeks. Nobody knows this. I've never shared this. And what scared me is I went for a walk. I had a. There was a. Like an old hunting camp my buddy Scott had. And I went for a walk with the. And I was gonna pull the.

[Graham]

Oh, what stopped you at that point?

[Dan Martell]

God, it was, it was like I was sitting in this field with the. Under my chin. And I knew if I just like pushed down, like thumb on the. Just pushed down, it would have stopped. And I was just, I was just in. I was such a dark place, so. And then I just took the. And I like threw it and, you know, freaked out and called my brother to come get me. And that's, that's when I stole the cars. Like, I just had to get out of here. So I like, started trying to, like, let things calm down for a couple weeks, but then it didn't and the cops were still looking for me, so sold a car to drive to Montreal. I'm Canadian.

[Graham]

So why do you think things felt so hopeless to you at that time?

[Dan Martell]

Well, dude, the first time I went away, if you want to, if you want to make somebody feel like less than dirt, pretty much juvenile detention is that. And at 15, I got sentenced for essentially two months because of, you know, shoplifting and getting in fights I, I had. There was a reason I went away. And after that experience, it was so scary. There's no. The guards are there, but they're not really there. And if, and, and so then, then what do you do? You fight back. And then you get put in the hole and then the hole's the worst thing could ever happen to you. I mean, they strip you down your underwear and they don't even tell you how long you're going to be in there for. So after I got out the first time, I remember there's this guard and I was like, you know, nice to know you, like, I'm never going to see you again. I'm not going to be back here. And he says, I'll see you soon. This smug guard, a hole. And I was like, no, you won't. He says, we always do. And I had no idea what he meant. A year later, I'm in a high speed chase. So it's kind of wild that like, even though I didn't want to go back, I couldn't make better decisions to change my life. And I think that's what it was. It was just like it had to get. It had to get hard for me to finally realize, like, I gotta make a change.

[Graham]

Do you think you could have changed without hitting that rock bottom?

[Dan Martell]

No, no way. Zero, zero. Dude, I'm the most hard headed back then, man. I would argue with everybody. You don't understand. Like, dude, I was just that, you know that I'm sure you guys went to high school or to school with that kid, you know what I mean? I had a look in my eyes like I don't have that look anymore. I used to this like, I don't know man, like just troublemaker. I never made good decision. It was, it was almost like there's a black cloud over my whole life. My dad would joke about it. It's like my brothers will go do something. Nobody gets in trouble. Dan goes and does the exact same thing. Dan gets arrested. Like so I wish, I mean I went, I went to rehab the first time when I was 13, 21 day program, dude, I, I went to rehab high as a kite. Like there was no part of me that took anything serious.

[Jack]

What would you say were the predominant emotions going through your brain at that period of time in your life? Like that made you so upset? Was it like pitying yourself? Was it just overall depression? Was it like anxiety?

[Dan Martell]

I mean my parents are still alive, so it's obviously a. It's a tough thing to talk about. And we have a beautiful relationship. Like it's kind of wild. But there was a part of me that was very angry at my dad. My dad again, he had four kids. He was doing the best he could. He just worked a lot. He was never there. And what I ended up learning at a very young age is when I act up at home, my mom has to call my dad and he comes home. It wasn't positive attention, but it was attention. And that's how everything escalated. Man, I had a temperature. Like I would get so upset that I would see red and literally hyperventilate to the point where in my room I would break everything. Like if I asked you to smash everything in this room violently, that's how I would act as a 10, 11 year old. Like the reason why I had to go live in a crisis center is not, not because of, because like my brothers and sisters didn't. I had to because of just like this temperature, this like internal rage that I would see and where that came from, I don't know.

[Jack]

Do you ever still feel that type of.

[Dan Martell]

I don't anymore. There was probably 10 years ago is the last time I felt, I felt it.

[Jack]

You think you're completely rid of that, no, it's there.

[Dan Martell]

I'm who I am because of where I came from. And it took me a long time to figure it out. The business stuff I actually felt was quite easy because like growing up, you know, people are like, oh, are you such a risk taker? I'm like, oh, this is nothing. I used, I broke into somebody's house and stole their, like, you gotta understand that sentence. Like, I knew the person had and I broke in to steal.

[Graham]

How did you determine that? House.

[Dan Martell]

But he told me, this is what I'm telling you about risk. Like the, the business risk stuff I do today is so a joke considering what I like that that's why I like. And what's crazy is all the stuff I'm telling you. I didn't tell anybody for 15 years. So like I would like live this like, life of like, that's who I was. And then I got clean and changed my life and people, you know, Then I finally had success in business, but I knew that part of me. So that's why when people ask me like, you know, where do you find? Why are you such a risk there? I'm like, oh, this is nothing.

[Jack]

So if you could get a good.

[Graham]

Read on people, what do you look for today? Like, how does that apply?

[Dan Martell]

It's wild. It's wild, man. I can tell the language. People use what they believe about life. You could say words and I could tell you about a belief that you didn't even know you had just by the way you explain your situation, language, you use, body posture. I also went to rehab for 11 months. So I spent 11 months every work, every cleanup at rehab. We shared our personal stories. That was the rule. It's like you partner up with somebody else in rehab and then you clean and you tell the story. Either you listen or you tell. So I did 11 months of like hearing people tell me their crazy stories about their life and challenges and then got to see how they were living in this world. So it's like I had 10,000 hours of thin slicing human behavior at 17, 18. And then when I got in business and people are like, how did you know that person was going to screw you over? I'm like, oh, but again, I didn't tell anybody what I went through. So nobody knew. But I, I, I, I mean it's, it's kind of like a superpower that sometimes I wish I didn't have because.

[Graham]

So if you're going to teach somebody how to get those skills, what would they look for?

[Dan Martell]

I mean, let's Say you wanted to get into business as an investor. I invest in a lot of companies. I'm looking in their eyes to see if they believe what they're saying. I actually don't care what they're saying. I care that they believe. If anybody's ever experienced, you know, like angel investing or investing or real estate, I mean, you're essentially making a bet on the person. There's no world where everything works out. So then the bet is the person communicates in a way, with certainty and conviction and also that you can trust they're going to make the right decision when things get tough. So what's interesting is people that avoid the red flags. Red flags don't go down. A lot of people act the same way they've always acted. That's why, like, adults. I'm like, you're an adult. Once you're 27, your brain's kind of baked. So I would just teach people, like, listen to what they say. What do they choose to amplify? If they do say things that feel like a red flag and your gut says something, trust it. The most money I've ever lost was in not listening to my gut, period. Full stop. Like, you know, most people know, hires employees, whatever. And then I would say, listen to the words they use because, you know, hope should maybe, like, these are all, like, people communicate their beliefs in the language they use to describe. And if you can listen to that or even just asking people. I met a guy named Patrick once, and he was so good, he would ask your birthday, he'd ask your relationship with your parents. And I knew what he. But I knew what he was doing. He was doing that. He might have done it on purpose or not, but he was essentially trying to figure out what is your default. Even your. Your. There's science around what age you are. Like, if you have brothers or sisters, what number? Like, are you firstborn, second born? And that creates character traits, right? So I would. I would just ask those questions and just look for it. Like, this is the thing is people will literally tell you who they are without telling you if you just listen for it. And I always go back to, why, why are you sharing this with me? Like, that's the question I ask, right? And what's interesting is from a psychology point of view, when women communicate, they communicate like this. Like, one of the things I find fascinating is when women meet other women, they're immediate to share how hard life is. For the most part, I'm being very. Oh, yeah, they're what they're they're willing. Hard life is. Oh, my God. How's your day? Oh, yeah, yeah, I actually agree. No, no. They say it all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My wife will literally tell the worst thing that happened to her to a person she doesn't know, because when they communicate, they communicate. Now that I've shared this, how close do you feel? We are men. When they communicate, they communicate this way.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Dan Martell]

Now that I've shared that, where do you see me? Is the totem pole of status. So the ones when you ask yourself, okay, well, why would they tell me all this stuff? They're doing this. And if they have to start the conversation from there, why? Because they're trying. They feel. They feel insecure.

[Jack]

So when people overshare, you, literally, you just cut through all social fabric and you're just like, why are you telling me this?

[Dan Martell]

No, I don't say anything, dude. I'm, I'm. I just.

[Jack]

Try to draw your own.

[Dan Martell]

I just pay attention. I don't. I. I can talk a lot. And I've also learned to listen. And people just show you who they are and they won't even know they're doing it just by. And that's the thin slicing that I learned at 17 in rehab that I didn't realize was one of my superpowers in business.

[Jack]

You know what's interesting is your ability. I wonder if they're connected. Your ability to be able to see a person for who they are based off of how they speak. If. If that is related to your ability to appear. Nothing like what you shared at the beginning of this podcast. The struggles that you went through earlier on in life, like, that usually would be indicative of a com. Of a person of completely different character. Who you are today.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Like if you're able to hide that and come off as something else.

[Dan Martell]

I think there was a part of me when I. When I was in rehab, I remember one of the. The staffs, Mark Pence, he would always prod me and he would say, when are you going to start doing your program? And first time he said that, I'm like, well, I've been here for six weeks. I'm doing the program. He goes, when are you going to start doing the program? What do you mean, when am I going to start doing program? It'd be great for you to start doing the program. And he would say this every week. Every time I see him. What he was sharing with me is I had the ability to be a chameleon. I had ability to understand what you wanted to See, I could act that way to get you, you know what I mean? Like, and he saw me do that, which meant I wasn't being honest. I wasn't truly doing the work.

[Graham]

How long did it take you to find success after all that?

[Dan Martell]

A long time.

[Graham]

And what was the first little win you got?

[Dan Martell]

I mean, the first thing. It's kind of funny. So I got into code. I learned how to code in rehab. That was like, you know, that was the weirdest. And also the thing that I'm most grateful for is that I became obsessed with just writing code software. This is, you know, 97. I get out Internet's early days. I'm talking ICQ dial up. You guys are probably way too young. But anyways, I just. I became addicted to writing code. It was my happy place. I didn't like talking to people. I was trying to stay away from my old friends. I was kind of a bit of a hermit, but I would just write code and I would build stuff. And one of the first things I built was for my dad. It was a vacation. Like, essentially, he needed a page for a cottage he owned and he was renting it out. This is again, 97, 98. And I. I told him, he's like, could you build it? I said I could, but it's going to cost 600 bucks. I needed the 600 bucks to. To rent the servers. Okay, this is before Amazon Web Services. So it's company called One in One. 600 bucks gets you a. Like a physical server for a year that you can install and configure stuff. And I wanted to learn this programming language called ColdFusion. So he gives me money and I build this app to manage his cottage, to build a page. Okay, this is early days of the Internet, but I had an idea that, well, my dad has a cottage and then there's like all these other cottages that rent out that I could probably get them to pay me for a page. And that was the first thing I ever built was essentially, my buddy Dave is like, there's a magazine in the city. It's a tourism guide that has all the air, the bed and breakfasts, and the cottages for rent. And he said those people would pay you for that page. Maritime vacation. And I built a Microsoft access database, loaded up all the addresses. I paid my little brother like, to do it. And then I did a mail merge. And then I just did essentially a form letter, but I didn't know what it was. And I just printed off this sales page that said, if you want a webpage, for your bed and breakfast or cottage, you know, send me $30 and fill out this application form and I'll load it up on the website and I'll send you back your link. And if you want the photos back, send me back five bucks. So my dad shows up one day, checks the mail and there's like 13 envelopes. And the first thing he says to me is, what did you do? And we sat down in the kitchen, this little apartment, and we started opening up the envelopes. This is back when people literally put money that was like my first money ever building something I built was building these pages for bed and breakfasts and vacation rentals.

[Jack]

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[Graham]

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[Graham]

Fast Expert has helped over a million people find real estate agents and work with top rated professionals nationwide wide.

[Jack]

Check them out@fast expert.com Ice Coffee Hour and you can see which agents best fit you in your area. Once again, that is fast expert.com iced coffee hour. Or you just click the link down below in the description. Thank you so much to Fast Expert for sponsoring this episode. So if we skip forward a little bit in the story, at what point in your life would you say you finally felt rich?

[Dan Martell]

I think my default right now, I would have said I don't even feel rich. Like I don't like rich. Is an interesting word. Somebody said it best. They said, if more money wouldn't change your day, then technically you're rich. And I would say from that definition, 100%. And it's been a while, but.

[Graham]

I.

[Dan Martell]

Like to think of rich as just like, am I living to the fullest of my potential? And, like, always, not just like the money side, but if I think like the money side. My accountant called me one day. I was 27, 26. And he was like, do you want to hear something cool? I still remember I was driving on this little kind of internal highway in the city called Von Harvey. And, you know, it was a BlackBerry back then. The big blackberries, the keyboard. And he goes, hey, man, want to hear something cool? I'm like, yeah. He goes, you got a million dollars in cash? Like, retained earnings after taxes, all that stuff. Just because I never. When I built that company, I just, like, sold. Didn't mess with it. Didn't. I was so scared to mess it up like this. I went a long time. That's why when you say, how long did it take you to get some success? I went, even that first company that people sent money in the mail failed. And then I did another company with my brother, a hosting company that didn't work out. And then it wasn't until my third company. And even that, for the first year, even though I made money, I didn't really know what I was doing. So when my accountant, Mark, called me up to tell me I had a million dollars in the bank account, my response immediately to him was, is that good? I'm 27 with a million cash in the bank account. And I ask him if that's good. He laughs. He goes, yes, that's very good.

[Jack]

That's a really young age, like.

[Dan Martell]

And I didn't think it was impressive, and I was worried I was gonna lose it the next day.

[Jack]

And that's, like, a while ago, too. So a million back then could be like, two or something.

[Graham]

More than that, probably.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Graham]

I'll be three.

[Dan Martell]

I'm not that old, you guys.

[Graham]

Maybe 10 million.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah, I will attack you. That'll be the thing to sell off.

[Graham]

19, 20.

[Dan Martell]

It's been 10 years, but today's the day, dude.

[Graham]

Like, 20 grand. That's.

[Jack]

That's crazy. I mean, a million dollars at 27?

[Dan Martell]

Yeah. Okay.

[Jack]

And then. So what did you do from there? That was after exiting that first company?

[Dan Martell]

No, that was while I was building the company. I exited the company a year later. Even then, like, I made, like, 8 million bucks or something after Taxes, like I didn't have to work again.

[Jack]

Was that on the exit?

[Dan Martell]

Yeah, yeah. I own the company. And it was like, I think I, I remember the. My accountant tell me is like I could live, I could make like quarter million dollars a year for the rest of my life, you know, 4% or whatever after all the taxes and, and I don't even know, like I didn't even feel rich then. It's like maybe the reason, you know, I, I always look at trauma responses. I'll be honest with you. Like this is just when I see somebody that's on the street and they're homeless and they're addicts and they're begging, I don't see a big difference between that person and me, which sounds wild, but let me tell you why. Their people respond to their, their stories. And unfortunately some people can have a negative response to it and other ones can have positive. So like the person that's a high achiever never, never stops. You know what I mean? They're, they're for the most part, when you start, this is my story. When I started it was to fill a void, right? The nut enoughness. And the only difference between the person that's on the street, addict, et cetera, is they had a negative response to the trauma. The person that's a high achiever and very successful, they struggle with the same stuff that keeps the person on the street. They just have a positive response to it. The overachiever. So like, I think that's why when you say when do you feel like you're rich? I don't think I ever felt that way because there's always something I was trying to become to overcome the not enoughness, if that makes sense.

[Graham]

What are the biggest misconceptions people have about money?

[Dan Martell]

That your bank account's a reflection of your beliefs that one people aren't going to like.

[Jack]

What do you mean by that?

[Dan Martell]

Your net worth is a reflection of your self worth, period, Full stop. If you don't have more money, it's because you don't feel you deserve it. Because if you didn't feel like you deserved it, you would fight for it. And I can prove it. If I took half of your money away tomorrow, you would act different that day. So if you'd act different, it means that there's a level that you feel you deserve. And if it goes away, you then, I mean, we've all been there. So, so then, so I call those the highs. And what happens is most people oscillate. If you're Good. You kind of oscillate up. But most people go up to down, up to down, up to down. And the trick if you want to optimize for making money is to make the old high the new low. So you got to act as if the old high is the, the low that is a hundred percent based on the beliefs you have about what you've created or not. And I think that's, that's a big one where people think that their bank accounts a reflection of maybe their education, their opportunities or their skill set. And it is, but it starts with the do I feel like I deserve for it? And we all know these people that are talented that never ask for anything. And then we know these other people that are not talented ask for stuff they shouldn't even be asking for. And sometimes they get it. And then they get these opportunities and live a life that the other person's going, how did they do that?

[Graham]

So you think people disagree with you on that take?

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Graham]

And why do you think that is?

[Dan Martell]

Oh, because if they agree with it, then it shows them that the way they've lived their life is a lie. Like that truth, if they believe it, takes everything that they, you know, university background, et cetera, and essentially voids it because they've put their self worth into these other things. And I'm saying no, it's, do you feel worthy? Like, do you literally feel like if you want a hundred million, go, go get it? And again they'll be like, oh, if it's a hundred million, then what about my time and what about my family and all the sacrifice? And I'm like, no, those are all things you make up to stop yourself from deciding to go do something. Because I didn't tell you how to give up all your time. You can still strive and desire something and put constraints in place, but it's just to not even desire to do it that's the biggest thing about money.

[Jack]

This is interesting. It's like the meta of how to make a lot of money. It's like the philosophy that one should have. If you do want to earn a lot, we're going to get on to like what that looks like in application and the actual direct things that you can do to make a lot of money. But first I want to lean a little bit more into the, into the philosophy. I'm curious, what are like the primary things that people need to look inwards at to see if they're in a place, philosophically speaking, about making a lot of money.

[Dan Martell]

I'll give you I'll give you really tactical. And again, people don't want to hear this. But first off, if you are the wealthiest person you know and you don't have other people around you that are further along, then it'll make it almost impossible for you to get ahead. Because if you try to, the people around you who don't understand that will ask you questions that get you to second guess yourself. That was the big thing I learned in rehab. How am I supposed to get sober if I stay around the same people that were selling and doing right off the gate? I had to get into a different environment. So I think that's the first question is do when you share something positive with the people in your life, do they cheer for you or do they tear you down? And unfortunately, most people, they don't have those cheerleaders in their court. That's one, two. Everybody thinks that you get paid for doing hard work and that. And unfortunately that's not the case. Because if that was the case in the person putting the roof, I mean, today, this hot outside, imagine somebody putting a roof on a house today. That's hard work. This is not hard work. So it's not getting paid for how hard you work. It's the value create in the world. That's the world we live in. That's capitalism. If people don't like it, go to another country. That's different. But the truth is, is like you just gotta be honest with yourself. Do you create value that other people value? It's not even that you think is valuable. Cause a lot of artists think they're like really good artists. But if they don't learn the skills to create value by telling stories and doing the reps or trying to figure out some really unique ways to create art, then nobody else is gonna. That per. There's no value there. Right. And then the other one I think is just like, what do you believe? You know, when I mentor these kids, I always, I always ask them, you have two people. You have Mr. Grumpy Face, and you got Mr. Happy Face. And you're walking around and there's people out there that want to be helpful. Who do you think those people in the world that want to be helpful are going to help? Grumpy face or Happy Face? Happy face. Okay, then audit your thoughts, audit your questions. Like if somebody says to you there's more opportunity around the world than anybody's ever seen, do you agree with that statement or do you argue against it? Like, that's the victimhood mentality. So a Lot of people that don't agree with me when I share this. All they're trying to do is fight for their stock. Like, it's kind of wild. You know, we talk about, like, human psychology. The amount of fighting people do to fight for their limiting story is wild to me because I don't do that anymore. I hang out with people that are like, trying to be like, oh, that's cool, Graham, you should do this. You know, Jack, what about this? It's like, oh, geez, I don't know. That's. That's big. That's. That's what you want to get around. But most people literally argue with you to fight against you. And I think those are things. Those are things you can just ask yourself, do I see opportunity in the world or do I think everything is scarce? Do I. I mean, there's like a trillion dollars that exchange hands today. Did you get a piece of it? It's there. Somebody got a piece of it. Go get it.

[Graham]

Speaking of that, how would you make $10,000 a month for the average person watching this? And that's their goal right now? Right now.

[Dan Martell]

Easiest way. Yeah, I think I got a video coming out on it because we, we did a little challenge video. Okay. I'm going to give very tactical. First thing I would do is I would load up Chad GPT, ask it to create a real estate offer. And the reason why I do real estate offer, as you know, every real estate agent's web or phone number is on the Internet, like right off the gate. Let's solve the lead gen problem. Okay, So I go on ChatGPT, I create an offer to use AI to automate the marketing for a real estate agent. And then you, you literally just ask the chat, the AI to give you the script to do the phone, the cold calls. Okay. Now as soon as people hearing this, they go, yeah, but nobody's going to answer their phone. No, they do answer their phone. I could literally, I'll pull up the real estate agents right now and start cold calling and they'll answer, now can I sell? That's a different skill. What I do when I'm doing cold calls, first three to five, they're throwaway. You just get them done. Like you almost shouldn't care because it won't matter. You got to get in the energy of the playfulness to try to get the person to stay on the call. And then the whole point is you want to just schedule a call to show them what you've built now. And these people are going to Go. Well, Dan, I've never built AI before. Okay, cool. Well, schedule the meeting, like get the calls done, get the meeting scheduled. And then you got time between when the meeting schedule tomorrow and today to go figure out how to do a demo to get a real estate agent to go, oh, that's cool. And then I would go on the Internet and I'd be like, real estate. I mean, I did this the other day. It was like real estate listing AI TikToks or whatever. And like you can, you can do a lot using these tools that are free tools to impress a real estate agent, to get them to give you a couple hundred bucks a month, or 500 bucks or a thousand bucks. And then it's just a numbers game because if you can sell one, you can sell 10, you can sell a thousand. And to me, that is such a very clear, specific, tactical thing that they could do, any person listening to this could do. Then it goes back to their beliefs.

[Jack]

I think that a lot of opportunity, I'm sure we'd all agree, is in bridging that gap between like the antiquated way that a lot of businesses are run, like the traditional corporate way, even mom and pop shop ops, bridging the gap between that and AI. Because there's just like so many businesses that operate on this older, older strategy. But if you introduce them to like instantaneous answers solutions with AI, there's so much opportunity.

[Dan Martell]

You just show them. Like one of the demos I like to show people is this product called Atlas, your Atlas.com. and it's, it's a legion. Because, like, have you ever tried to like hire somebody in a local business and you're like calling? No, nobody's even answering. This is what's interesting about local businesses is they all complain they don't have enough leads. And yet if we called a hundred local businesses, we might only get 40% that answer the phone. So their phone rang with a potential client and they couldn't even answer. So your atlas is an AI that will literally answer the phone, answer the questions, and schedule a sales call or follow up or demo or whatever, fully automated. And if we called it and you would hear it, it sounds like a person.

[Graham]

I got fooled by that dude.

[Dan Martell]

Because it even does the background noise. It has like the tap, tap, tap. Yeah. And the tonality when I was calling.

[Graham]

It was like, hold on one sec, hold on. All right, give me one second. And then it was like, okay, we have this. It fooled me. And I'm like, wait a second, is.

[Dan Martell]

That real or not?

[Graham]

This isn't real. It's a. It's a person or it's not a person.

[Dan Martell]

I'm. I'm telling you, like, it took me.

[Graham]

20 seconds to figure this out. It's like I. I had no idea.

[Dan Martell]

But even if it was AI, just the fact that it can answer the phone for inbound and schedule a call or answer a question, or get somebody's contact and upload it in your CRM, put them on the email list, like that magic. Because I think AI the best stuff feels like magic. That magic is available in every part of the business. Financials, marketing, sales, operations, ideation strategy. It's just people are still not. They don't know how to use it. You know what I mean? Like, do you guys use AI all the time? What's the use case that you wish people knew more of? Like, what do you do with it that you're like, oh, oh, people gotta start.

[Graham]

We use it to enhance our audio a lot. Like, that's been one of the things. Yeah, I use it with idea creation. If I'm trying to bridge a gap between two subjects, let's say I'm talking about the stock market and I want to find a really easy segue to real estate. I just give my script to ChatGPT and I say, Bridge a gap. Four sentences between these two that make it flow perfectly. And it just gives me five options. And then of the file, I'll be like, that's a great one. I'm going to tweak it, but I'm going to use that frame.

[Dan Martell]

You nailed it.

[Graham]

Taxes, we've been.

[Jack]

Taxes are crazy.

[Dan Martell]

Like I told my wealth manager, I was like, dude, you're not gonna have a job soon. I love you, but it's all going away.

[Graham]

I got a great one. I have six properties, and between those six properties, they're all throughout Los Angeles County. I have two policies on each. One is a landlord's policy, one is an earthquake policy. And I have the amounts that I was charged on my amex card. And I could see at the end of the year how much I'm charged from it. I was charged about $16,000 a year, but I didn't know which charges went to which properties. So I asked my insurance agent, could you tell me exactly how much I paid in 2024 for the insurance broken down by property. He does it. And I realized, wait a second. His only add up to $14,000. Mine add up to $16,000. Where did that $2002 go? I have no idea. And I went back and forth with him over email for six months. He said, I can't find these extra charges and up every little thing. I uploaded all the doc, the whole email thread to chatgpt. And I. And I said, here are my charges. Here are his. Here are all the policy numbers. Find out where the discrepancy is. And within a minute, I found it. I was overcharged for one policy that was never refunded. And it found it. It found it by the. By the thing, and it was broken up into smaller little categories. And that's why we couldn't find it, because it was like a $700 charge, a $4 thing that was charged to this. But it found it. And then I sent him the Chat GPT version. It's like, would you like me to put this in a PDF that I could send to your insurance?

[Dan Martell]

Yeah. So you guys.

[Graham]

Yes, I sent it to him. He looked back. We got it resolved. But this was six months, and it just found it. It was nuts.

[Dan Martell]

It's like the first time I showed my dad, my dad was. He would have been 63 at the time. He was at my event, and I was like, showing him some AI stuff, and he's like, how much is it? I said, dad, it's free. He couldn't believe it. He's like, can I use it to, like, create a lease agreement for a tenant? I'm like, yeah, well, how to do that? I said, it's. Well, I can't explain you the math, dad, but it's AI. He's like, that's better. That agreement put stuff in there that my current lawyer didn't even think of doing.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Dan Martell]

And I said, this is the thing, dad. It's got perfect information of everything that's ever been done. I sit on a board sometimes I get behind. I don't look at the board deck before the call. I get on the call. And while I'm on the call, realizing I haven't reviewed all the minutes and the notes and all that stuff, I just upload it into a custom project in GPT and said, act as an investor. Here's the company. Here's all the details. What are the five questions I should be asking? The CEO waited my turn. I asked the first question. The CEO couldn't believe that I found a gross margin detail on the 37th page of the financial report. And all the other investors were like, how did you know to ask that? I was like, well, I read the information. You know what I mean?

[Graham]

Like, it's good.

[Dan Martell]

It's doing that and it's doing so much more. Like I just, I look at it and I think of like directors versus doers. Like the future is to the directors, the people that know how to use it to get the stuff done. Like GPT5, it's not out yet. The rumor is, is that if you've seen any of the operator stuff, which is like the browser based task execution, it'll log into software and do stuff for you. They're going to integrate that into the chat. Meaning that right now you use it to like research and like hey, I'm going to this country, I want to put together a travel plan. But in five you then say and book it and it will do all the booking, all the doing. And I, I just like. And people are like, but you wrote a book about executive assistants and virtual assistants. I'm like, yeah, all the doing they do today is, is going away.

[Graham]

But do you think that this is a bad thing in the sense that people will never learn how to think for themselves? Because I do find quite a lot of mistakes in ChatGPT. I worry that at some point people are just going to be reliant and say well my source is ChatGPT because it told me so. And like that's the source is because that says it.

[Dan Martell]

We've been there before. So I'm a big fan of like looking at history as kind of a predictor. So like you just think of all the people that are like instant, you know, medical experts because they went on about.com because of some symptoms, you know what I mean? Like so there's, there is a history of us using technology to kind of self serve that could be harmful. But I think we're going to get to a point, let's say just in the medical space where it will be considered malpractice for you not to use AI. Like I don't want a doctor based on how his night went last night with a newborn deciding if he saw something on a scan or not. So the thing is is once you understand that the way AI is built today and it will change next week and next month is just fancy autocomplete. It doesn't do math well. And that's where there's a lot of issues. It does, it does predictive text really well. That's why marketing was one of the first use cases for it. In the future it will fix that predictive analytics part so that it is accurate. And I'm talking like months away. Like there's a company called Precision that Does like business analyst kind of dashboards and I think it's precision Co and they ran into this. But essentially what they're going to do is continue to use like the coding, it's called the tool in software. So they'll use the tool to do the analytical part, but still use the AI to do the strategic part. So you have the dashboard data that's accurate. But telling you what you should do in your business, that's based on strategy, right? Based on who you are, the context, your employees, how big it is, the comp structure, your tax, you know what I mean? Like, and I think that it does really well, but you also gotta. That's the part that is the director versus the doer. Like a good director, I'm going to pay. Because they have domain experience and they know when something comes back that it's wrong. And that's. I think that's where like AI is really good. There's three types of intelligence. There's analytical intelligence, there's creative intelligence, and there's emotional intelligence. And if you think of what AI is world class at, better than most humans, analytical intelligence you'll never be able to outthink. We're talking PhD level doctorate research projects with the new reasoning models. That's today. And then the creative part, writing ads, helping you with your scripts. It can do it, but what it lacks is taste. Right. It lacks experience. It may get there, but today it doesn't have it. But I would say if I'm betting on how do I defend myself against AI, it's the creative part and it's the emotional part. It's the EQ side. Right? I mean, as long as humans are still involved in the processes of getting things done, the emotional intelligence will always be needed.

[Graham]

You know what I think is going to happen? We're going to get our own AI that we're going to grow up with, that's going to know us so intuitively well. And you'll never be able to exit that because it's got all of your info.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Graham]

Built in. And you could start doing this at like 13 years old, working with your chat gbt. Grow up with it. And by the time you're 50, my gosh, it knows you better than me, dude.

[Dan Martell]

It knows it right now. You can actually ask. It prompts. Oh, I do that all the time. Yeah, like what, what, what's my shadow side I don't want to acknowledge. Yeah, that's a crazy question to ask the AI or ask it. What do you know about me? How does it know. And that's Sam Altman, the founder or you know, Chad GPT or OpenAI. He stated like we want to be the AI that does that and then you can use Claude and Gemini and the other ones but we want to be the layer of personalization above. What's interesting if you think about it is how does this apply when you have people at work and they create IP at work and then they go take a new job. That's an interesting question I've been thinking about is like how do you take essentially your work experience with you when a lot of it was filtered through the AI co pilots for your job and you've built these like best practices with the AI at work. But then you take a new job and they're saying, well you can't take it with you because that's. We own that ip. Nobody talks about that. But I think about it a lot.

[Graham]

I think for relationships too. The people are gonna have robots that they could just.

[Dan Martell]

Dude, I heard you know, ChatGPT could.

[Jack]

Have the craziest matchmaker ever.

[Graham]

Think about it in terms of that.

[Jack]

For you have like user profiles and then if it's collecting, which it doesn't collect the day it claims it remains on the platform. But like if you could say who in the world matches my personality perfectly? And then Chad this user over here in like Iowa.

[Dan Martell]

That's why I love it.

[Graham]

Imagine you upload your photo.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Graham]

And you, you, it gives you like a hundred faces and you rank attractiveness of like all these faces. So it knows exactly what you like body type, facial structure, eye color, hair color, everything.

[Jack]

People would pay like $50,000 to find their like partner for life.

[Dan Martell]

Oh, they do that today. It's just they're, they're only the pool. Yeah.

[Graham]

To be like that.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Graham]

Like they pay it.

[Dan Martell]

They don't get that.

[Jack]

And you could draft.

[Dan Martell]

Dude. Imagine they just scanned all of Facebook. Like it's got all the data like I think of like the data sets to train this thing. It already exists.

[Graham]

That's a fantastic idea.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Graham]

To find the one, the one in a billion. That's your best bet.

[Jack]

You could, what you could probably do is just create an app that does that and then you copy all your use memory, upload it to the site and the people just do that and then take pictures of yourself. Like you said, it generates photos of people you say you like. Dude, that right there, billion dollar business.

[Graham]

I'm going to tell you a bit of a matchmaker. I'll tell you a bit of A morbid idea that I had that. I think it's a great idea that someone's going to think of this at some point. You have, let's say a parent or someone who's getting older, they could upload their voice through everything into a cloud or into like ChatGPT and it asks them all these questions about themselves. How would you answer this? What is your thoughts on this? But enough so that it has like a lot of data, Voice, everything.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Graham]

When they pass away, you would be able to call in a phone number or hear this person's voice and talk to them. And it talks as though it's them. And it. But it would.

[Dan Martell]

That is.

[Graham]

I think it would help people.

[Dan Martell]

I don't think it's that morbid.

[Jack]

I don't think.

[Dan Martell]

I mean, people freaking grab their animals and stuff them and put them in their home. And I think. I hope you. I mean, if you guys do that, that's cool, but like, that's kind of fun.

[Jack]

That's.

[Graham]

I'm just saying if someone.

[Jack]

You're waiting to see what you're inside.

[Dan Martell]

Of me, like looking in your eyes, I'm like, did I touch a nerve?

[Graham]

Would help you feel good if someone passes away.

[Dan Martell]

No, that's.

[Graham]

And you could just say, you know, I miss this person. I'm gonna go and talk to them. I know it's not them, but this is what they would say. It just makes me feel better. They're always there.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Graham]

A part of them is. Is that I could talk to.

[Dan Martell]

What's interesting is us. The three of us are already creating that. So whether we want it to exist or not, it already exists for people. Like they're doing this right now, like with the coaching models and stuff, where you can just like create a phone number where people call and they can ask Dan Martell or Graham questions. So I think it's interesting that the more content's created that like, you know, my kids definitely with my YouTube, like they'll be that. That exists. Yeah. Like they could do it now. I don't think it's that morbid. I think it's actually a beautiful, like. Yeah. It kind of brings up this idea that the amount of people that live for their parents approval that aren't even alive fascinates me. In that same breath of life.

[Graham]

There's a black mirror episode like that.

[Dan Martell]

Is there?

[Graham]

Yeah. Yeah. Her husband passes away and she calls this number and they deliver a new husband. It's AI, so it's not.

[Dan Martell]

Sorry.

[Graham]

The husband.

[Dan Martell]

Husband passes away, calls the number Gets a new husband.

[Graham]

A new husband with. With his memory uploaded to that robot, and he acts a bit differently. And she says, oh, you wouldn't actually do this. And it reprograms, okay, from now on, I'm gonna do that. And so, like, over time, it molds more and more like him.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Graham]

It just. It became an unhealthy obsession that she would spend all of her time with.

[Dan Martell]

She overcorrected into, like, yeah.

[Graham]

Kind of.

[Dan Martell]

How about don't, but don't nag me?

[Graham]

Yeah, he would have done that.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah. He is perfect now.

[Graham]

Yeah. Why did I waste that? She couldn't move on because she was so attached to this thing. And then part of the grieving process was, you can't have. You can't rely on that. So maybe it holds people back. But, yeah, I think it would be a unique thing to be able to call someone who's passed away.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah. And talk to them. Talk to them. Yeah.

[Graham]

And for those unaware, we've used our sponsor Notion for years to keep the Iced Coffee Hour running. Everything from guests to sponsors to workflow, it's the glue that holds everything together.

[Jack]

And now with Notion Agent built in, it's gotten way better. And we were honestly so stoked when they asked to sponsor this episode.

[Graham]

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[Jack]

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[Graham]

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[Jack]

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[Graham]

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[Dan Martell]

We'Re going into, the world we live in. Like, I haven't been this excited since the Internet, like legit. This is. This is bigger. You know, there's a great quote that says things that can be electrified will be cognified. So that's an interesting idea. Everything that's. And I don't know if you guys. Some of these robotics companies, the Humanoids, like the Tesla Optimus, but my favorite one's Figure. So Figure has a figure? Yeah, figure two. And it's like sitting there grabbing parcels off the UPS line and sorting and packing it down, and you swear it's not real. Like, it looks fake. And it's getting to the point where, like that in two years, when it's taking care of the dirty, the dumb, and the dangerous jobs, and then all that cost savings gets bubbled up in the economy. I don't know, man. I see a world where we're gonna get to a place where like, food, transportation, and shelter's kind of taken care of through robotics.

[Graham]

Yeah, I saw one. There was a robot doing floors in a house. Yeah. Like, one robot replaces two workers perfectly installing floors.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Graham]

I think the cost of a house should go down dramatically just because you could utilize these robots and these things to build a house in like a third of the Time.

[Dan Martell]

Yep. No fraction of the cost breaks. No complaining 24 hours a day. And I. And that's why like the humanoid form factor is the best one because it's a generalist robot. See there's the. We, we went through this like period of like specialized robots. You see them in like car manufacturing plants. And the argument now is we go humanoid because the world was built for us. So everybody talks about self driving cars, for example. What about when the robots drive the cars and every car becomes self driving? So I just, I think people don't see that curve and you know, the construction. I mean I thought we'd be have 3D printed homes by now. Like I used to watch like the 3D printing kind of the big stuff with the cement and all that.

[Graham]

I think it's more zoning.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah, it is, it is. The, it's even like the, you know, the prefab, you know, like box homes and stuff really haven't taken off either.

[Graham]

But I looked into those. Those are really interesting. But, but bringing in plumbing and everything to them and then you're more than the cost of just building it from scratch.

[Dan Martell]

Y. Yeah. I think the robots though, because they're generalized robotics. Like the one that does the UPS line that morning worked at the BMW factory and it's the same robot that grabbed the stuff and helped build the car that also grabbed packages. That's. And the, the reason the CEO talks about like the home will be the last one to do is because you know, accidentally knocking over a candle and burning a house down or having the robot run out of power and fall down on a baby, like those are serious concerns. So they're going to wait to do the home last and use the manufacturing and like the facilities first and the dangerous stalling, you know, dirty jobs that nobody wants.

[Graham]

Right.

[Dan Martell]

And that's why they've started with those jobs where they're dangerous. People are losing fingers.

[Graham]

Or underwater welding. That seems like an easy one.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah. Robot down there just get some gaskets on those motors and, and put them underwater. And they just. And it's crazy because they can learn with only 60 hours of training data. 60 hours of watching a human do the job. That's today. So it might get down to an hour.

[Graham]

I want to see robots making other robots.

[Dan Martell]

That's.

[Graham]

That would make me happy.

[Dan Martell]

You brought something.

[Jack]

You go into your like basement. You see a robot creating its own thing. You're like, hey, what's up? Hey.

[Graham]

Nothing, nothing.

[Jack]

Don't worry about it.

[Dan Martell]

But that was like somebody asked me, they're like, when did you know AI, like, was going to be something special? It's when I saw AI Write Code, and it was before GPT3.5. It was like, six, five, six years ago when I watched the AI Write Code and realized that it could write code for itself at some point. It was just logical that eventually the robot makes robots and the code writes code. And then you see this right now with the reasoning models. If you use an O3 model and tell it to write the code, you can watch it write code to solve problems for itself. It's kind of wild. Like, if you expand that little window and say, show me what you're doing. It's searching the Internet, and it's trying to figure out whatever you asked it to do. And if it gets stuck, it will write code to get unstuck.

[Graham]

So when does it become a problem? When do they take over the world?

[Dan Martell]

My biggest concern is just the evil. So, like, I grew up and I saw some evil stuff, and those people exist, and I'm just worried that. And I think that's what Elon is trying to do with, like, Grok. And he started OpenAI as a nonprofit to essentially say, hey, if you know these superpowers in the world or these companies, you know, the faang companies have access to this, like, we got to make sure that everybody has access to. That's like his essentially, like, antidote to the problem. That's also why he's doing Neuralink, because he knows that if the AI goes into super intelligence, not just general intelligence, now, we as humans need the ability to. The IO of a human is very slow input output. It's. It's our thumbs and our cortex, but they. The AI airdrop stuff. So if we don't have the ability to have the AI and talk to it, the speed that the computers can talk to each other, then if it gets malicious, we can't protect ourselves. That's just real. Like, it will get there. It's just. I think Elon is one of the few people that are like, hey, we need to make sure Neuralink works. We need to make sure AI is available to everybody and not just controlled by a small group of companies. And then it's like everything in the world with nuclear power or whatever, like, it's. It's really positive. And it's also potentially the worst thing could ever happen to us. But people go, well, isn't that bad? I go, how are you going to stop it? Show me your phone. Like, what are you talking about? I said, what kind of Phone. You got. You got the latest phone? Yeah, I got the latest phone. Cool. I dare you to stop wanting the latest stuff. Exactly. Every human on Earth is born with a DNA that says, I want a better life, which means a nicer home, which means a better phone, which means.

[Graham]

So.

[Dan Martell]

So, you know, I. I don't know who said it, but I think it was on Rogan where he said that humans are the bootstrapper to artificial intelligence. Like, we. We might be the biological bootstrap. The bootstrap is kind of like software thing, so there's like a bootloader in operating systems to kick off this synthetic intelligence. Whether you like it or not is probably. It's gonna come and. I don't know, man. Then we have a conversation of, are we in base reality?

[Jack]

I do think that we're getting a little distracted because a lot of people are gonna be clicking on this video to learn how to make money.

[Dan Martell]

Let's do it.

[Jack]

Because that's what a lot of your content is about. We've been watching it. We really enjoy a lot of these, like, life lessons, personal philosophies, how you can make a lot of money. I'm curious. What is one life lesson that you listened to when you were younger that you wish you didn't?

[Dan Martell]

Wow. That I listened to when I was younger that I wish I didn't. I mean, it's all the. The money stories, man. Money doesn't grow on trees. Like, the what. What other ones? The life lessons, man. I had to deal with everyone like. Like, the money is evil. Like, money's a fork, man. Like, people are like, money's bad. I'm like, well, is a fork bad? It could feed you, nourish you, or it could also somebody. So is it bad? It's a tool. I think that I used to believe. I had a belief for a long time that if I don't go bankrupt, I'm not successful.

[Jack]

What do you mean by that?

[Dan Martell]

I just kept reading stories of people that I admired that went bankrupt. And I thought to myself, well, if I admire them and they're successful, then I guess I have to go do. Go be so successful. I lose it all to build it back up to prove that I'm successful. Like, that's a dumb story. That was the d. That one I probably held to for 10 years. The dumbest of dumbest. And then I remember sitting there and I asked myself a question. What am I pretending not to know? Well, I'm pretending not to know that I can hire people that can fortify my wealth so I don't lose it. So hire the people and then let them be your partners in the financial planning. So it's like that was a weird one. I don't know, the, the, the, the, the people that are rich are evil. You know, growing up in, you know, not a lot of stuff and you know, you'd be on vacation and you see a nice car and you know, my mom would say, oh, that guy's in the mafia or something. Well, I don't want to be in the mafia. Do I have to be in the mafia to drive a car like that? Do I have to be evil if I drive a car like that? Like that's it was, it was just all the beliefs that are just simply not true. And sometimes I wonder, did I believe those things because it allowed me not to play towards what I was trying to create, you know, almost like self sabotaging beliefs or allowed me to live in this like story or you know, what's the opposite?

[Jack]

It's hard to tell yourself that you really want something totally because as soon as you realize that you do, like.

[Dan Martell]

Through and through, then you gotta, then.

[Jack]

If you don't achieve it.

[Dan Martell]

I know, it's like everything's. This is why people don't say their goals publicly. Because if I tell you what my goal is publicly, then you're going to ask me about it next time I see you. So most people live these kind of like quiet lives of desperation for a desire to create a life that's bigger. They don't tell anybody because as soon as they tell people then, then they're accountable. But if words create things and they do, that's how you, everything you've ever gotten in your life is on the backside of a conversation, whether you know it or not. That's how it's always been. Humans buy from humans, people do things with humans. It's conversation, video, content, all that stuff. And the words we use are what create those opportunities.

[Graham]

I always thought it was the opposite. When you say something, people reinforce it and you get the same feelings of satisfaction as of though you actually did it. Like if I tell Jack, that's when you ideate.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah, say more because I'm not.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah. That's when you say like, like I'm gonna go to the gym every day.

[Graham]

And Jack's like, oh man, Graham, that's awesome. Yeah, you're gonna go to gym. And I feel great what I just did. And then I never do it. My, my is, is my whole philosophy is the opposite of that is just. I never say anything.

[Dan Martell]

And quiet. Just yeah, watch this.

[Graham]

Because I. But I'm also superstitious that if I say something then maybe me putting it out there, it's not going to happen. So I'd rather just not say.

[Dan Martell]

I used, I used to actually in high school I used to believe that when there's like contests in class I would just be like, I'm not gonna win, I'm not gonna win, I'm gonna win. And then I won. I created this belief that if I just believe I'm not gonna win, I'm gonna win.

[Graham]

Yeah. And if you think you're gonna do something then it's not gonna happen.

[Dan Martell]

Just. It's not, it's not true. True. Yeah. Statistically it's not true. If you actually ran the numbers and tried both, it probably would, it would work better. And the reason why is because even the idea with ideation, when you talk it out loud and the person says yeah, let's go, you at least had to say it. And I think that's what's interesting. But like the more you tell people what your goals are, if you think about like somebody runs a marathon, better yet vegans or crossfitters, how do you know they're vegans or crossfitters?

[Graham]

Vegan will tell you.

[Dan Martell]

They will tell you as soon as possible. So it's interesting because when I remember the first time I did an Ironman, I just decided I'm gonna do an Ironman. But then I started training and I was talking about it and I was tracking it and I was changing my calendar around it and I was. So then I realized the, the, the, the frequency of the talking about the goal went up by like a thousand. So was it that I did the work or that I talked about it? And I kept talking about it. It was front of mind. So it's like that whole like, you know when people talk about like manifesting. I don't know if it's, it's literally just like based on the brain and the science. It's. You create a heat seeking missile towards an outcome. The more you talk about it, the more people hear about it, the more they say, hey, have you tried this equipment? Have you done this? Have you talked to this person? If you watch this video, you know, have you watched the, you know, friggin dude, James Lawrence who did a hundred Ironmans in a row, right? And you watch this video and then you feel more motivated. So it's like that doesn't even get presented to you if you didn't say something in the first place that essentially allow you to create a goal. Like, that's, that's the thing. I'm fascinated. If you look at every successful person in the world, from Elon to Steve to everything they spoke, their future in existence.

[Jack]

I always wonder, though, if it's even helpful at all to look at the most successful people because they are so far outside of the norm of like the bell curve of personalities and character that it's like, why would you even look to someone that's just not remotely close to you at all? Like, I feel like the. You take the most successful people, you look at their personality, and it's just like all of them, they got like, you know, they have Asperger's or they have something going on.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Jack]

That you're like, okay, well, what do I really want to follow in this person's footsteps when their code, their genetic code is completely different.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah. I think, I think what happens is that there is survivor bias. Right. And especially CEOs, because CEOs are typically like louder and blah, blah, blah. And so people see that. But, but the, the pattern matching, I think is a useful, you know, strategy because. And it's not necessarily like the CEOs or the Oprah's or the, the Richard Branson's, like the people that are well known because there's a lot of people in the private equity space that nobody knows that are billionaires. And if you watch their character traits, there's stuff to learn from them. So like, I don't know, I'm, I'm a fan of. I, I guess my whole life has been a byproduct of pattern matching. It's like, if I'm here and I want to go here and these people are doing this. I first asked myself, who do I need to become? Because to me, it's not the skill I can develop the skill I can learn to code, I can learn AI. But it's like, who am I that's gonna make like, cause self sabotage on the way up? And I think that's what stops people from making their first 10k.

[Jack]

So what habits or practices do you recommend for anybody if they see themselves living like a mediocre or average life that want to turn into something exceptional?

[Dan Martell]

I think it's less about adding and more about subtracting. So it's less about, you know, people ask me, like, what do you do? It's what I don't do. I think, how can you possibly change your life for the better if you talk about the negativity and lack in the world, the scarcity in the world, the, you know, so I think right off the bat, you know, just change, Change the way you run your day. I mean, everybody knows like, a morning routine that starts off with like, water, a workout, reading, something good for the book or from a book, gratitude, journaling. Like, those are very simple habits that, that provide energy for the day, clarity for the day, writing down your intention for the day, those habits. But it's like, you got to stop all the other stuff.

[Jack]

Okay, let's, let's break down. Because you said it's subtractive, not additive.

[Dan Martell]

But then you added a morning additive. So.

[Jack]

Okay, so let's, let's get a little granular here first. Let's talk about the morning routine.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Okay. If you were to break down the absolutely perfect morning routine for everybody watching right now to set them up for success, what would it be?

[Dan Martell]

Brian Johnson's protocol blueprint.

[Jack]

Nine hours, and you finish by noon.

[Dan Martell]

Dude, when I talk to these people like Ben Greenfield, you wake up at 2am it's like, how do you travel the world and still do this? You know what I mean? So, like, I think there's the. If you just. Again, if you ask Chad GPT analyze all the most successful people in the world. Look at their morning routines. What do they all have in common? You will find these, these things. One, they typically get up earlier than most people do. They get up at 4 in the morning. 2, 30 in the morning, 6 in the morning. It's just earlier than most. And the reason why, I think, is because anytime you get out of bed, when you don't want to get out of bed, you start the day off by telling yourself, I'm doing something. I don't want to do that. Just like, I had a client once and he had like 17 alarms. Like, every three minutes he had an alarm and go to bed and he'd set at like six of them. And he just like, snooze and just again, I don't know if I'm triggering any of you. Like, are you guys snoozers? Like, do you hear the snooze button? Like, I couldn't understand why he had all these alarms set. And it's just like he built this habit of like, delaying the start of his day. So I think right off the bat, you know, go to bed on time and get up earlier. That's a great start. Most people would agree. I know that changed my life when I started, even just getting up at six, I get up at four every day and have for almost a, you know, five years. But I just started with six, like 15 years ago. And that was a change, you know, and then I would say make sure you have a plan for the morning. Most people get up and they don't have a plan. I think if you, your plan is to read, you know, feed your mind. I think reading books to give you insight, it's not even, it's not even reading to learn, it's reading to get your mind focused on positivity. Like that's what I read. Like I, I've read 1600 books. I don't need to read another book. Like I, I do it because I want to remind myself what I've already consumed. It's more of a remind, not taught. And then I'm a big fan of writing out like gratitude. I think gratitude is like, it doesn't matter how bad of a day you are. My kids, you know, they're two boys, they fight all the time and anytime they're in a fight and like I break them apart. I just have a conversation about gratitude because it's just the insight. You can't be grateful for something and be pissed off. Like it's those emotions kind of cancel each other out. So I think gratitude journaling, I use a five minute journal. You know, my buddy Alex started this company. It's just really easy. So five minute journal, gratitude. And then I like to move the body, man. I think exhaust the body, tame the mind. Like this morning we were working out, I was explaining this to Cohen on my team. I was like, I think of like Etch a Sketch, you know that the red Etch A Sketch when I work out and it's like the last two reps and you're, you're like feeling the pain and you push. It's kind of like a reset on the mind. It's an Etch a Sketch. So you might, you know, have a lot of self doubt. Doing a bunch of podcasts today. Nervous speaking. Whatever you got going on, right? Big opportunities, gotta present to your boss and to me. The workout in the morning, even if it's 25 minutes, is just this beautiful reset. Not necessarily to get in shape, but just for the mind. And if you had to like distill it into the minimum effective dose, I think that's what you got. And you could probably get it done if you wanted to go real fast in about an hour.

[Jack]

That's interesting. It kind of reminds me, I always think about this. We had Dr. K on the podcast and he always talks about single pointed consciousness, which is the idea. Or one pointed consciousness, which is the idea that your brain is every. Every fiber in your body is all oriented towards one goal. And if you're on those last two reps or whatever and you're hitting maximum atrophy, then you can't think about anything other than those last two reps. And it's like about orienting your life to find those moments because I think that is kind of that brain Etch A Sketch refresh where afterwards you have like a moment of clarity. That's interesting because I usually. I found that I have the best workouts in the afternoon. Like I'm able to push myself the hardest because I'm not tired in the middle.

[Dan Martell]

No calories. Yeah, it's probably that it's 100 food, but.

[Jack]

But the difference is if I were to work out earlier in the day, maybe I'll have more mental clarity throughout.

[Dan Martell]

That's why I work out in the morning. And I used to work in the afternoon because I had kids and I had to stay up late and then not get up early. And I like the reset the afternoon, like a lunchtime workout. I used to do that for a few years. But the value of getting the workout done in the morning, even if I. I usually wake up and I work and then work out at like 8:00'.

[Graham]

Clock.

[Dan Martell]

So I'll even push off because I like to like the morning for me is such a precious time to create connected to my creator. Like that's my morning that I'll do an 8am and it's still the mental reset for the day, 100%. And it's also flow state. When you're in flow, you don't worry about going to the bathroom. You don't have insecurities, you don't have concerns. Like flow state is this single point of something. That's why most people have the best ideas in the shower, driving, or at the gym. Because they're doing a thing that lets their brain kind of go on autopilot. And then they're kind of like this mind thinking about problems and open loops and then they get downloads. Because of that single point of focus, most people drive home and don't remember how they got home. Isn't that interesting? Most people leave their office, drive home, and they don't really consciously remember driving home because they're in a flow state and they don't use that time to improve their life. I would, I would give myself something to think about. Like what problem do I Need to solve.

[Graham]

Today, one of my biggest things. I stopped listening to music in the car. Now it's just podcasts, and I get so much done.

[Dan Martell]

It's. I will tell you this. My wife told me this, and I thought she was a psycho. She goes, when I drive, I don't listen to anything. That's crazy. Do you guys listen? Like, do you have to have something play Sometimes?

[Graham]

I. I just.

[Dan Martell]

You've driven without music or a podcast?

[Jack]

I tested myself before.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Dan Martell]

But it's when she told me that she does this, and it is her happiest part of her day. I thought that was fascinating. Then I asked myself, what am I trying to be distracted from? And then I remember one time I was working with this coach, Stephanie, and she said, go for a walk in the woods. I said, okay. For how long? She goes, you'll know when you're done. And I'm kind of a systems guy. Like, is it our. She goes, you'll know it, like, Mr. Miyagi style. And I went by myself in the woods. Like, when I run, I run trails, but I'm always listening to podcasts, books, music, something, right? Like, I. Like, I make phone calls. I call my friends and just talk while I'm running because I don't want to be, like, out in the woods doing nothing. And I remember going for this walk and just being like, oh, my gosh. There's a totally different level of existence when you can be comfortable in the silence. Like, I got it. I finally got my wife, who I thought was completely crazy, driving in silence. Just how wild that idea is.

[Graham]

At what point do you begin to buy back your time?

[Dan Martell]

I'll tell you why I'm smiling, because I listened to you talk about that period of your life where you were editing, like, three videos a day or something, and I was like, graham, why are you. Like, I literally, before I ever met you.

[Graham]

Because no one could do it like me.

[Dan Martell]

I know, bro, but it's like, it's. And you're not wrong. Here's the way I like to explain it to people. 80% done by somebody else is 100 freaking awesome. And if that's not good enough, be better. Meaning that there is a world where, if you had to sit down, document how you do, could have got done. Okay? And I teach this in my book. It's a 10, 80, 10 principle. 10% upfront ideation, 80% execution from somebody else. The last 10% is integration, where you didn't have to not be involved in the editing. You just need didn't need to be the primary editor. I met a guy that's got, like, I don't know, 10 million on YouTube, and he was doing the full stack, and he's sitting there trying to say, like, you know, I don't have time to go to the gym, and I don't have time for this. And I'm. And I'm just like, you know, I try to shut my mouth if people don't ask, but, like, when I watched you do that, I was. I was. It was kind of fascinating to me because I think the most. The biggest expense in your business is anytime you're doing stuff that isn't making you the most money. And when I heard you say that, I was like, bro, you could have been getting so much time back to go do more real estate deals or other stuff that.

[Graham]

What's. What's funny is I did have Alex, who helped me with my editing. And some of those times I realized, like, I wish I just had edited myself, because sometimes it's. It's good for me to edit, and I just.

[Dan Martell]

You get in flow.

[Graham]

You're in flow 100, and I need that break. Sometimes I would finish, like, planning, filming, send it off to Alex, and I'm like, oh, shit, now I just got to go back to planning. I didn't have that, like, break in between.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah, I mean, the way I look at it is, you know, my background is studying, like, agile and, like, manufacturing. So it's. It's. It's a always workflow. Left, left side, raw materials, right side, finished goods. So when I help anybody think about buying back their time, I go, okay, well, what's the production line of value in your life? What do you do? Right? And then we just map it out. And I go, okay, what part do you feel you don't ever want to do? Let's put that in red. And then what's the stuff you really enjoy doing? Like, editing. Cool. But even in the green stuff. So red is stuff I really hate to do, like invoicing and consolidating bank accounts, all that stuff. Green might be editing, but even in the editing process, what parts do I want to be involved in and which parts I don't? So, like, capturing content, putting it on the drive, clipping it out. Da, da, da. Like, you could have even just paid somebody to do the first 50%. They would have got you half that time back and then reinvest that time in the thing that makes you more money. And, like, that's. That's the nobody's ever built a million dollar business doing $10 tasks. It's impossible. Like, I'm assuming you do have people in your life that support you. House cleaners? Like, like no. Geez Louise. Then you pulled it out.

[Graham]

My wife Macy does a lot of the.

[Dan Martell]

Exactly. Yeah. I just think like if you're trying to optimize for wealth, if somebody wants to make ten grand or, you know, I mean especially people are making 300 grand a year in their business. 300 is like this level where you can spend 1500 bucks a month, a couple grand a month, to get back quite a bit of time in a week. I'm talking like 30 hours back in a week.

[Jack]

Like what? Like laundry, cooking.

[Dan Martell]

Dude, just errands. You know how many people waste time just driving around town running errands? I haven't gone to a retail store or whatever in years. Like, I don't like, I mean, I don't want to. Like it's not a flex, but like, I don't even put gas in my car. I don't. There's a. You can live a life where you only. Like, I hang out with people I love. My family, my friends, my co workers, or I do things that I love to do. Like that's. Those are two things. Anything that's not that, I try to create an allergic reaction to it and on purpose leave it there until I find the solution to get it done. And that's the creative game to try to figure out. How do you build a machine that runs a machine? I don't. If I get involved, then I'll always be involved. But if I like step back to build a machine so it gets done at the level I want it to and documented and train them, I get to buy back my time and with that time I can decide do I want to go increase the quality of my life, spend time with people I love, or do I want to go create a business or make more money. But there's just no way to get out of that. And you'll always hit what I call the complexity ceiling. We all have it. I have it today. You guys have it. You have a ceiling of complexity that you're able to deal with. And anything above that, you feel over your skis and you pull back. So the only way to get that higher is to actually do the work. To figure out what skill do you gotta acquire? What beliefs do I have to adjust so I can learn to let go? Most people just can't let go because it's scary.

[Graham]

What do you think has Been your biggest waste of money.

[Dan Martell]

I mean, I lost a couple million invested in a company that sucked. That what happened. I had to sign a document so I couldn't talk about it. But I can talk about it without the details. I just got, you know, like when you're in business and you like have a little success and you start to feel really good about yourself, so you start doing a bunch of other stuff that you probably shouldn't be doing. That's what happened. I like got to a point in my career where like, after you learn and you like go through some tough times, you kind of feel like you have the Midas touch so you start agreeing to do stuff. So I like bought this guy's company and thought I'm going to turn it from, you know, 2 million to 10 million. And essentially I underestimated the fact that I'm not going to run the company. You got to run the company. There's a reason you sold the company. It's probably because you're not talented enough to run the company. And after about 18 months of it, and it was the massive time suck, and I mean time suck, emotional suck, I just had to like, literally I called my business partner who was part of the deal with me and I was just like, bro, I gotta like call my loss. So that was a tough one. I felt bad because I felt bad for the CEO that of the company, we bought the company and my business partner because like we had to swallow the pill. I would say things that I buy that I feel is a waste of money. I just, it's tough because I don't think I would spend money on things that I think is a waste of money.

[Jack]

What are the best things to spend your money on?

[Dan Martell]

Time. It's literally time.

[Jack]

So like what, what specific things?

[Dan Martell]

Oh, what are my favorite things I spend money on? So I have a, I have a. I would say I'm gonna put it through the filter of my wife Renee. Okay. There are people in my life that she would, she'd get rid of me before she got rid of them. One of them is Betty, our house manager. Betty runs the family for us. Like when I say, when I say she runs a family, she's. It's the house manager role is something I learned from my friend 12 and essentially, and, and people can have this at a part time role, but it's what their job is to be accountable for everything the parents would be accountable for. I'm talking about credit card expiring, passport deals, insurance, all that stuff. Paperwork. I manage I manage my personal finance in zero. So Betty manages all my accounts personal as a P and L for my life in zero. Right now. That's that. I thought that was pretty clever. Like, how many people do you know run their personal home as its own business in a P and L? They don't. But if you do it that way, then you can have other people actually own it. Almost like a GM general manager. So Betty manages all the details, the coordination, the maintenance. So that when my wife and I want to do stuff like buy a home in Cabo, like we just did, we don't. There's no, like, okay, do we have the time for maintenance and like, try to figure this out. Like, Betty owned that. Right. And I think like that to me, because it takes care of the personal stuff so my wife and I don't have to worry about like putting furniture together. Instead we get to play with our kids or go to the gym. Like, dude, I would, I would sell every one of my supercars before I ever got rid of Betty. And the same thing for my assistant Ann. Like, I would sell everything I own before I got rid of those two.

[Graham]

How much is getting a person like that?

[Dan Martell]

I mean, I pay her like close to a hundred grand a year. Yeah, my, my executive assistant more, but she's more of a chief of staff.

[Jack]

And basically you're saying like, hey, we're.

[Dan Martell]

Gonna go on a trip.

[Jack]

And she's like, okay, I'll get everything ready.

[Dan Martell]

Oh, you have no idea. I mean, so we're going, we're taking the kids out of school and we're doing world schooling for leaving in September. 18 countries, 50 or. Yeah, 18 countries, 50 cities. She planned it all with us, like, all of it. Like, found an educator that's going to travel with us, interviewed them, managed it, put the budgets together, figured out all where we're going, booked the first, you know, month worth of hotels, figured out what the kids are going to do with the educator, train the educator. Like they, they. If you allow yourself to let go. Now my wife likes to be involved in certain things that involve the kids, which totally makes sense. So there's a difference between accountability and, and consulted. Okay. So there's thing called the Raci Matrix. Responsible, accountable, consulted, informed. My wife likes to be consulted about my kids education stuff. I personally don't care because I think every kid's homeschooled is whether the parents know it or not. I homeschool my kids. I just don't formally do it, if that makes sense. Yeah, sure. So then you Just work with the person and let go. And just say, hey, here are the things I need you to be accountable for. And if you need to let me know, like, you can let me know or not. And that's okay. And here are the budgets. You're allowed to spend five grand, Betty, without ever asking me. You just have to tell me after you do it. And. And what's crazy is a lot of people don't even know how to work with a house manager. So I've created a whole document that lets people, like, not only figure out how to hire, but what to get them to do. So if people want to just find me on Instagram, Dan Martel at 2L's on Instagram, just message me. House manager, direct message. I'll send them the link directly. No opt in, no nothing.

[Graham]

And what's she gonna do when chat GPT5 takes over? Stop. They could start doing.

[Dan Martell]

I told her this. I told my assistant and her. Her. I think what happens is that the dirt. It's true. I think, like, she gets more efficient because she gets 80% of her time back. And then we talk about, okay, what else could we do? Do I, like, I have enough work for my assistant and. Cause she's more of a chief of staff. She coordinates all the legal, financial kind of coordinations of people. But I think it's just a retraining and a recalibration of like, what they work on. You know, just like, where else can I create value in my life that I'm not doing because I don't have the time? And can they help me with that? That.

[Jack]

What's the best investment you've ever made?

[Dan Martell]

My wife, like, not obviously. I didn't invest in my wife.

[Graham]

She's watching this.

[Dan Martell]

Yeah, just.

[Graham]

Okay.

[Dan Martell]

But really though, Intercom is a software company, so I invested in Intercom, the chat software. They haven't gone public, but that was a big one.

[Jack]

What is the most luxurious thing you've ever spent your money on?

[Dan Martell]

This watch. It's kind of dumb.

[Jack]

What is one daily habit you'll never skip working out? Name one software or tool you cannot live without.

[Dan Martell]

Chat GPT.

[Jack]

What's the best book you've ever read?

[Dan Martell]

The Bible.

[Jack]

What's the book you've gifted the most?

[Dan Martell]

Thinking. Grow rich. I'm at 6,000 copies. Wow.

[Jack]

Who is an entrepreneur?

[Dan Martell]

You follow the closest elon for the first principles. Thinking.

[Jack]

What is your favorite failure or setback you've ever experienced?

[Dan Martell]

The time I offered everybody in my company 15 grand to quit. How many people said yes, unfortunately, 36%. Wow, that was a dumb day.

[Jack]

How, how much, how much did productivity. How much.

[Dan Martell]

Remember Zappos would brag about how they would offer people five grand to quit after training?

[Jack]

How much did productivity slow after those?

[Dan Martell]

36 people? 6 months of just hell. I, I created a world of hell that was self inflicted.

[Graham]

It's funny that that was advice that maybe you should have ignored.

[Dan Martell]

Yep. You know, yeah, I'm a slow learner.

[Graham]

Thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. We'll link to all your information down below in the description and for anyone who wants, by the way, the uncensored version of this because I know there's going to be parts that we had that kind of cut around. Feel free to join the membership. You get to watch this full episode completely uncut. It helps us out too. And Mikey is doing a lot of the work behind it. So a lot of it just goes to Mikey. Thanks Mikey. See you guys.

[Dan Martell]

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited.

[Graham]

50% clear.

[Dan Martell]

That's half price, not half the service.

[Graham]

Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means half day. Yeah.

[Dan Martell]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Jack]

Of $45 for free month plan equivalent.

[Dan Martell]

To $15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow. 135 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com.