Dan Martell - Serial Entrepreneur | $100M CEO Explains How to Create Real Success

I just hurt my whole life, you're a bad kid, you're a bad kid. The kids can't play with me, and it caused me to turn to drugs and alcohol. All the stuff you told me you want to achieve, you literally said, I will not allow myself to be happy until I do these things. Once you get close to that, you're going to make a new list. Dan Martell from Prison Walls to Borgrooms. Dan Martell's story is one of raw resilience. He turned a troubled youth into an empire, building, scaling, and exiting multiple SaaS companies before becoming one of the most sought-after coaches for high-performing founders. It doesn't matter how many zeros are involved. If you assign yourself worth to this external thing, you can't win, dude. Being a millionaire is being the person that knows how to create a million dollars worth of value. I'm glad that I got my money when I got it, because if I got it sooner, I probably would have lost it. The creation step I'm at, thinking of the problem I want to solve in the world, and designing the company gets involved in the business, and I refine the business as a product itself, and that's where I play. Author of Buy Back Your Time, Dan teaches leaders how to grow their businesses without sacrificing their health, family, or sanity. He doesn't just build systems, he builds a lifestyle, and his mission is clear. Help you win back your time and your life. Most people think they are their thoughts, and they're not. You are not your thoughts. You didn't even choose your thoughts. If people truly understand what I'm saying, the hardest relationship to build, the most important relationship to build. You with you, I with you. So you teach entrepreneurs about buying back their time. Usually that's in a business context, but I want to understand a personal revelation about time's value. What was that first personal revelation? I think it has to do with my kids. You know what's funny is that I got two boys. They're 11 months apart, Irish twins. That's what's called. It was wild. Didn't know. When you talked about moving and the pod and all this stuff, like in a two-year period, my wife and I moved from San Francisco to Canada. That's where I grew up. Built the home, then decided to spec our new dream home, build that. She started a company, I started a company. She got pregnant. Again, you got to understand. Then in a two-year window, it's fine. I went to see my doctor because I had a pain on my back a little bit. And he goes, what's going on? You stressed out? I said, no. He goes, hmm. Leaves comes back, gives me this little package of pills. And so what's that? And he shows me on, he pulled up his iPad searches, and he shows me. He goes, this is what it would look like if you didn't come see me. And it was shingles. And he goes, tell me what's going on in your life. And I said, nothing much. Just started a new company moving back to Canada. Oh, my wife, Renee's pregnant. He's just laughing. He goes, dude, out of the top three biggest stressors in life, it's moving, changing jobs or having kids. And you're doing all three. And I was like, oh, he goes, yeah, man, this is your body is telling you to slow down. So I say that because what my first child brought into my life was not a sense of productivity on time, was a sense of joy in that time. There's a difference, man. You know what I mean? I don't exactly what you mean. But I'm curious how you let yourself get so desensitized to stress and anxiety and not balancing time properly because that happens a lot. And usually it takes this major life wake up moment before you realize that you've been running without really being conscious of how fast you're running for such a period of time. For you, it was shingles in a kit. That was sort of the wake up moment. But how did it get to that point? I think because of the way I grew up and how chaotic that was, I actually thought I was winning when my body was saying chill out. But you know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. Dude, I, I was, I was, you know, this is my that at that time would have been my third tech company sold the first two multi-millionaire beautiful new wife like like my dad loves her. Like he literally every time he meets her, he literally looks her in the eyes almost like Grazerface and says, thank you. Don't give up on him. If you guys don't say together, you're, we're keeping you. No, I'm just kidding. He does say that. It hurts my feelings a little bit. But and I think there was just this sense of what's normal. It's kind of the, the whole like, how do you know, boil in a frog. I was in it. I didn't know it was abnormal. I thought I was winning because what I'd experienced before was so crazy that this felt normal. And I didn't have a way. Honestly, and I hate, I'm not a fan of this word, but I didn't have a self-care routine. I didn't have a decompression strategy. I didn't, I didn't even know how it could be. Like I didn't know there was a way to produce without that level of pressure. So I think that all entrepreneurs have these hyper addictive personalities and they still get just a bit, right? Just a bit. Putting it lightly and they can get addicted to it. And I do want you to tell this audience who, the people that don't know your origin story, what happened because that tees up exactly what I'm talking about. But this hyper addictive personality, I think that most entrepreneurs are one bad habit away from falling into alcoholism and drugs because the same type of personality that goes all in or nothing on anything is what allows you or most people to be successful at building. It's the same adaptation. And it's very scary because most people think that, well, I'm addicted to something that society looks at as positive. But obviously not always the case. No, you bring up a good point and I'll come back to my story. I remember somebody said to me once Peter was his name. I got to remember his last name. But anyways, he said he goes, the difference between you, Mr. Productive, wealthy entrepreneur, type a driver, Dan, and the homeless person on the side of the street is paper thin. The difference said the only difference is you have figured out a positive adaptation to the response of trauma. And that person hasn't. And his name's Crumpeter Crone. He's I think they call him like the brain architect. He just, it's fascinating because he says this to me. And then he didn't know my background. He didn't know that as a teenager, I struggled with addiction. I ended up in juvenile detention twice. I almost took my life in high speed chase. It took somebody, you know, when I was when I was way in jail, essentially, it was an adult prison with a juvenile section. It took a guard to pull me aside. It's got to name Brian to share with me what he saw in me. Like at this age, I'm 16, 17. And I honestly don't even feel like I deserve to breathe the air and breathe it. Like self worth is not even a word. I didn't even have I literally thought I'll probably always get in trouble. This is my life. I should just accept it. And maybe I maybe I should move on. So Brian, sis me down and just tells me I didn't belong there. And that was the beginning of the shift. That was like as part of that. Because of everything I went through, I just thought that's who I was. I thought I was a bad kid. Like literally I just heard my whole life. You're a bad kid. You're a bad kid. I mean, neighbors can't play with like the kids can't play with me. I got to go hide in the woods. They got to pretend they're going to their neighbors. Like just my whole life is it was that was the belief. And it caused me to turn to drugs and alcohol. So the addiction was there. Luckily, Brian spoke belief and helped me. He planted a seed like it was the beginning of a journey. It took me another probably decade to get successful. But but also how do you define success? And then the thing is is that success was built off of dark energy of not enoughness that was present. So then it was like that's hard. Like this, that's the thing is you can achieve but to what cost? Like my body was telling me you're stressed out and I'm like life is great. It's like why and again, it's a response to the meaning I was giving it at the time. And I think that's an interesting thought for people to question. Why are you like why are you acting like this? You know, like I remember one time this crazy story, my friend, you know, he's watching my content and he calls me up and he goes, dude, you said something that cracked me open. So what's that? He goes he said for the last five years I've been struggling in my business. And what happened was this five years ago and he had young kids like newborns, maybe two year old and a one year older, six month old. He goes my business went through a dark time and I didn't have I didn't know what to do, but I knew I had to work. And you said something they said all the stuff that you want to achieve, you're nobody's asking you for this because what he did at that time five years prior is he asked his wife for permission. He said, I'm going to I got to go deal with this problem at work. And I don't know how long it's going to take me but it's going to require me to be gone before the kids wake up and back after they go to bed. And he shares with me for three years. He didn't see his kids. For three years, he told himself, this is what I got to do. And it kind of like there's a wild thing to me to hear, but at the same time I totally understood what he didn't know any better. And what I what he heard me say that cracked him open was when I explained to him when my I was in a relationship she left me and I'm sitting there trying to explain to her why I'm the way I am to create the future that I'm trying to create for us. And she looks at me and she says, I didn't ask you for any of this. And he realizes his wife and his kids never asked him for any of it. How do we fall into these flywheels of success? And I'm not thinking internally like for me. And this is a thought while you think about that, I'll just sort of tell you how I feel about this. So I'm super cognizant of this as well. I'm super aware of it because I have the luxury of interviewing super high performing people. And you see them come out on the other side of success. And it's not always what you aspire for. You people with 100 million, 500 million, true billionaires and four x, y's and no relationship with their kids. Not a hard and fast rule obviously, but it happens. So I'm no more close to that. One day, you know, if the podcast goes well. But in the meantime, does well. I do well financially, but there's a season of my life that I'm committing to right now where I'm putting in an excess amount of work for certain returns that I want to have. But I do know, and you asked me before we filmed, am I, do I have kids yet? And I don't. And I'm so aware of the fact that when I do have kids, I don't want to be operating and running at the pace that I'm running at right now. But I'm aware of it. So when we have kids, I have to, I have to be very specific about how much energy and effort I put towards certain things. I don't think that many people have the luxury of seeing so many success. How society would define a successful individual on the other side of a big financial win, seeing them broken internally with the relationship, spiritually, mentally, physically, whatever. So I don't know how to teach this over to somebody outside of just sort of like trying to repeat it again and again and again. But if you have ideas, I think that'd be very helpful. So how do you not fall into this trap of putting more of yourself and more of yourself and more of yourself and having no end to that season? It's awesome. It's an awesome question. And it's, and it's one of those champagne problems, right? Like everybody's like, I'll take it. Yeah. Sign me up. Billion dollars. Let's see what happens. You know, put me on the other side. The truth is when I work with people, I don't do a lot of private coaching, but when I do nine figure guys, very successful people, the first meeting, and I know what I'm doing. I'm pulling them into my world. I'm getting them excited about the future. I'm trying to like, so we get really clear. I have a very specific visioning process. And, and they walk away with a list and a vision. The next call, it's my favorite call because I then introduce them to this concept where they just created a list of rules that need to be true for them to feel enough. That's all those things are all the stuff you told me you want to achieve. You literally said, I will not allow myself to be happy. Feel fulfilled. Feel enough. Whatever word insert here, whatever thing you're trying to fill until I do these things, which we both know, once you get close to that and you hire the next coach, you're going to make a new list. I always go back to like Tony Robbins. He has, he tells this story. I think that his business mastery program of a billionaire, Russian billionaire worth $37 billion. Okay. Envy of everybody in the country, well known, well liked, well respected, and public company. And something happens in his stock goes down to 27 billion. What does he do? Lays down on the train track and gets run over. Is a real story, real story, search it, Google, billion Russian billionaire killed by a train. Why? Because it's, it doesn't matter how many zeros are involved. If you assign yourself worth to this external thing, you'll, you can't win, dude. Like ever, ever. It's the craziest thing and I get it because I went through it and I felt it. And I play with it even, but again, I can, now I just have the privilege of awareness. I see myself like you say, well, how do I, I know you know you're what, like that's the cool part about you. You know. So that's the, here's what I will let everybody know, especially if you're, you're high achiever and you're listening to this. There's probably a part of you that knows what your thing is. You have an edge, you have a, you have an approach. You're different. Everybody knows it. You know it. There's something about the way you look at the world that makes you you that you're, if you're succeeding. And the fear is that if you lose that, that your edge goes away. My invitation for you to consider, because this is what's true with the people I work with. You think the reason you're successful is because of that edge. I'm telling you, you're successful in spite of that edge. And if you actually work through it, you have 10 times more available to you. But that's a scary prop, is it? You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, dude, you're even, I see you've got your, you're gone. But, but, but no, this, I got this because of that. And I actually think it's in spite of that. What I've discovered again, tactics. How do you manage that idea? So an example, maybe you are great at selling and you jump on calls all the time. And that's how you build your business. So how do you remove that out of your formula? Yeah, I mean, most people's edge they'll call it selling. They'll call it their, their copy skills. They'll call it their, their leadership on the CEO on the vision maker. They'll call it their, their heart, their kindness, whatever it is, right? Their directness. Here's, here's what I would encourage people to consider who you are today is not who you need to become to achieve what you want. Because if you were, you'd have it. Period full stop. You don't have people. I hope people get, my life isn't a byproduct of a decision I made today. My life is a byproduct of a decision I made six months ago, a year ago, four years ago. The reason I made those decisions is because an identity that I believed I could become and I knew I needed to become that version of me to bring those things into my life. Because if you were actually giving that, you know this, man, it's a Jim, Jim Roni's talk about this back in the day said, you should hope you don't be given a million dollars because if you're not a millionaire yet, you'll lose it all. People think having a million bucks makes you a millionaire. My definition of a millionaire is not a person that has a million dollars in bank account because any one of the people listening right now, I can wire you the money. Like I've been thinking about doing this because I think it'd be a great video obviously. But you don't even have to do it because you look at lottery winners. We just watched it happen with the pandemic. Yeah. Everybody got the money. It ended up back in the same pocket. Period full stop. So that's the thing I want people to understand. It's not the, it's who you need to become to achieve and and that's why I went for me. I'd like have people get crystal clear on their vision and then make that silly list. And I love this because here's the thing. I teach them how to be crazy, whole, grateful enough at any moment right now from that place. Now we create. That's the beautiful part from this place. I'm not saying you don't create because a lot of people say I should just hang out on the beach and come by and home. I'm like, no, you were created to create your creator. It's a human experience. It's why you want a new new earphone and you're inspired by people who have nice things and you don't live on the street. You know, I mean like just accept it. This is not a capitalism, materialism thing. This is just human experience. But it's why we create. And I want to create from a place of abundance, of pure creation, of pure giving, of pure enoughness, of pure like. And guess what? Those people. That's your Steve Jobs. That's your Walt Disney's. That's your Elon, like what's driving Elon? He don't need to do anything. No, he's just he's just living in this place of I just want to build not from a place of and not an offness. Like there's not enough. No, like I almost I don't know what the numbers in and honestly, I think it's different for everybody because you have that 37 billion, you know, Russian. Kill themself lays down on a train track. I think it's it's and that's why it's so powerful. The person who needs nothing is the most dangerous person in the world. Like you can't control. Literally, the person who needs nothing from anybody is dangerous to everybody else that competes against them. And the same token if that person wakes up and they start building and creating what because they don't need anything, there's no emotional response to not initially achieving because to them, there's no need to achieve. Again, they're they're just like, I'm in flow. I'm in the process. I'm creating. This is this is bone. This is crazy awesome. You know what I mean? And that's where I just got into and it's my favorite thing to introduce people to. What is the most important difference or distinction and how you build now outside of mindset? What is the thing that you did is it? Is it you build SOPs and that's how you structure your organization. You bring more balance. You focus on shutting off at a certain time. Like there's all these different ideas. It's a great question. I'm just scanning my brain, trying to pattern match what I do before what I do now. Number one thing is I focus on building the organization as a product. I don't get involved in the product. So what happens is most people when they start a business, it's the thing they sell. They honestly, they do the thing they sell. Like they're they have a help people get fit. They're the trainer. And then if you're lucky, you know, and I got to plug my book because it is one of the buybacker time is the process for getting out of the doing to the managing owning kind of face, right? If you're a trainer now, all of a sudden you own a gym and you have trainers. The creation step I'm at is thinking of the problem I want to solve in the world and then designing the company that attracts the talent that gets involved in the business. And I refine the business as a product itself. And that's where I play. When you talk to like people that have sold and exited their companies, most of them when they're doing their next thing, the first question they ask is who's going to run this? When Richard Branson decides to get into cruises, right? You got into virgin cruises. His first question, he didn't like go try to, he didn't start talking to ship makers and buying ships. He said, who's the num, this is literally, I talked to him about this. He said, who's the number two at the number one company? And he goes and hires the COO at carnival and ask them, do you want to be the CEO at virgin cruises? He said, wow, yes. And now all of a sudden, he's got an organization. He gets involved at the brand level. Right? He shows up for the PR stunts. He's looking at it through that lens. That's the biggest difference. I always say, when you start from zero, you start bottom up. If you're blessed to have success, next time you do it, you start top down. And that is 100% the difference. And why is that beautiful? It's an easier energy. It's not a grind. It's not in the business. It's not even on the business. It's of the business. It's like, I'm designing the thing that everybody else plays. And it's like I'm, I'm like starting a new sport and I'm deciding how the sport works. And I try this and all that didn't work. The Indians are too long or the bat. I need to make it like, you know, literally, oh, well, you attract, I mean, I don't want to sound cliche, but you build the culture that attracts that vision. It's a hundred percent vision. Yeah. If you think about it, two things have to be true. You have to solve a big problem. Do you know why Elon is so wealthy? So the biggest problem. The biggest. Yeah. The biggest problems. Stuff that's wild. Like I have in my office because I just, it's so wild to me as I've been watching Elon at zip two. I'm a software guy. So back in the zip two days to the X, X is first company. Yeah, zip two sold that. Then he did X and then merged with PayPal really. And then over the years, and I was in Silicon Valley. So every once in a while, you'd show up at a party or you'd show up at a dinner or whatever. So he's around. And then he does the Tesla and solar city and then the SpaceX. And you just watch this person attack problems. They're not even problems. Like humans didn't know they have a problem. Not being able to go be multi planetary. He made up a problem because he's and and what happens is if you actually think about it, is it as IQ? Is it his work ethic? Is like, think about what makes him successful? Is it as level of risk? You know, he's famous for saying I had 160 million after I sold PayPal. I put 100 here 50. You know what I mean? Most people wouldn't do that. Most people wouldn't look down at their personal net worth or cash position and say half here, half there. All, you know what I mean? Like all in what's that? No. Okay. But guess what? That's not it. Because risk. So if you look at it, the thing that makes him different is that he thinks bigger. Dude, it's so great. If you think about this, most people think their neighborhood. They think they're street. How big do I think compared to my neighbor? If you're successful, a little bit successful, you think you're city. Are you not thinking you're street? No, you're not. You're a city. But even then that's limited. Super limited. Hopefully you get exposed to some mentors, some people that say, hey, how about your state? Let's go nationwide. Elon doesn't even think the little blue dot that he lives on. He goes galaxy. That's wild. Net suite is a success story partner. Now, what does the future hole for business? If you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 answers, bull market, bear market, rates will rise, rates will fall. Honestly, I just wish somebody would invent a crystal ball. 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What I mean by that is that influence is good to help you think bigger. But in terms of even people that mentor you, you need multiple different types of mentors as well. So you need people that are just beyond you, like a couple of years. People that are even at the same level as you. I think people even teaching for me is my favorite form of mentorship because when I teach something, then I understand all the gaps in my knowledge. So you need this like this whole array, but I think that people more often than not lack that really big thinking. So they can fill all the other gaps. It's just proof by their container. I always say you can tell somebody psychological context how they think about themselves based on their container. What's the exercise you do to even understand if you want to play that big? Because not everybody wants to play that. They do. They don't want to admit it. If you're a human, you have a heartbeat. You know your amount for more. Like I will fight. I will die on that. It's just true. If you're hearing my voice right now and you're listening to this podcast, you know you're here to do something way bigger than what you're doing right now. Now making that decision is scary because it's probably going to mean some really tough conversations with people you love in your life and obviously who you are today is not who you're going to have to become to achieve that thing and all that is scary. Change is scary. I get that. But if today was your last day, like it was your last breath, I guarantee most people, most people, 99.7% population would have massive regrets for not starting or creating or doing that thing. So it's like, do they want to play at that level? My philosophy is this. You were created to expand. I mean, it's just the fact that you're human, create. What you can accomplish, that's actually not your choice. I don't believe it is my choice. I don't know what I can do. I just know the expansion is available to me and there's a part of me that wants to do it and I can do it and it can be effortless. See, that's the part. The story you tell yourself that makes it seem it sounds hard and it's going crazy. That's the X factor because most people think, sure, I can do whatever I want. I think, listen, especially listeners of this podcast are very aspirational and they do have big dreams to compare to probably 99% of the population. But the issue is, well, if I build something that is, if I'm a nine figure entrepreneur, I've built multiple companies. If I built anything meaningful, that means sacrifices and all the other areas of my life. But I know, and I want to talk about eventually how you've built a beautiful relationship. You have a great relationship with your kids. I'm Sam Bobby. I've seen your health journey, dude. So you have it all. I don't have it all. I just have a direction that I'm on that demonstrates that there's a different way and I'm going to be the first one to say I'm still trying to figure it all out. But I can just tell you year over year, there's obviously expansion. I mean, right now, like I'm playing at the billion plus level over the next three years. It's all modeled out. It's inevitable. It's like one of those things where when you design it. And it's in it's not like, why do you want to be that? Like I don't need to. And if it doesn't happen, I will, I will lose zero sleep at night. I just got, I just literally just got back from five days in the woods by myself, no devices in a van with me and my thoughts. And I thought I was going to go crazy before I did it. I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't know if you've ever done that Scott. That's wow. Think about it. Not talking to another human background that do the, they go into a cave. This thought. Yeah, that was a black okay. Yeah. Yeah. So like to me as an extrovert, I love people. I love talking, obviously like I was like, I don't want to do that by the third day. I fell in love with nature and myself. That was a cool thing. I really, really, you know what I mean? Like I love myself. I didn't know what that meant. And then I experienced it. And it occurred to me because I had so much fun. Day four, day five, dude, I was supposed to be home at nine. I didn't get back to noon. I was driving around just they call it, you know, windshield therapy. It was just beautiful. And what I discovered for me and I want to invite people to understand it's available to everybody is that when you realize like it's kind of so the whole space and I don't want to get into like his time real, but if you take every human off of earth, trees and birds don't think in time, it's a man-made construct. And if you believe that you're more than just your body, which we are, then as I'm driving around, I'm just laughing at how much I make meaning of stuff that is an illusion of importance. That's everybody though. I know. And it's so cool once you realize it because then from that place, you can actually go create massively because in one sense, it doesn't matter. In the other sense, it does. And it does, it's kind of crazy, man. That's kind of where I got. So that's why like when you say what's difference about the way I used to build versus now, it's I truly look at the exercise of creation of the thing without any need. So I think it was Ramda said, involved not attached. I think that's the best way for me to explain it. Beautiful line. Involved not attached. We create. It works out. Cool. It doesn't. Also cool. The other parts of your life that are not business. So how do you make sure that those don't fall off? I mean, I have a rhythm of existence that involves all that. That's just the way I think about it. I'm a big fan of momentum. And I think when you're in momentum, you should say a momentum, right? Most people don't realize this. So I have my own jet. So I have a plane. And every, I remember the first time I was like with my pilot and buddy's like, hey, you're flying here. You should pick me up. I'm like, all right. It's my plane. Land it. And the pilot explains to me that it costs the same amount of money to land and take off in jet fuel. Then to just get there. I was like, whoa, he goes, yeah, dude, he goes all the effort is taking off. Like if you think about the amount of fuel to burn to get even Elon talks about. He's like, oh, getting into whatever atmosphere is easy. He's like getting out into outer space 10 times harder, 100 times harder. Same thing with the plane. So momentum for me is so precious that when I'm in it right here, right now, I'm with you. Nothing about anything else. Don't care about anything else. We're doing this in flow. That I've just continued to ask myself, what is it about my life that allows me to have a rhythm of existence that allows me to stay in this? So on the personal side, it's the sweat every day. It's the workout. Okay. So like my whole philosophy is exhaust the body to tame the mind. I don't work out for the aesthetics. I don't look out for the physical part of it. It's a bonus. I work out for the cognitive side. I call it my ability to pull vocabulary. Dude, if I don't work out, I can see that I'm not able to pull the words I need when I need them and guess what I am a communicator. Everything I dream about the creation is through the words. If you think about how fascinating that is, nothing is built without words being said. And most people never ask themselves, am I good at words? Do I talk too much? Do I have a good economy of words when I communicate? Is it felt? Am I clear? You can feel days when you're off. Dude. I mean, I do the same thing for a living. You can't find the words. You're like in a story and you're like, you know the, I know the person named Peter Krunk couldn't boom. So you just feel like these micro moments. When you, for example, on the fitness side, take that into existence and I'll send you put that like for me, it's sweat every day. It's not the if the day ends with D.A.Y. It's a day. I work out. So I have a lot of these things so that there are rhythms that and look, I don't need perfection either is again, involved not attached. If I miss a day, zero, I don't beat myself up in like, oh my god, I'm so stupid. I'm bored. Like, but like date nights with my wife, when you do off sites, all of it. We do quarterly off sites. We do couple retreats. Every year, we do a personal development event as a as a famed like as a couple. We I do stuff with my kids. Right. We call them board meetings because it's like surfboard, wake surfboard. Like it's their board meetings are fun. And it's essentially a yes day with one on one. So I've got max. My wife's got Noah the next weekend. We swap. And people like, oh my god, is that the only time you do one on ones with people? No, you ding dong. That's not what I said. I said that it's their yes day. It's not every day my child gets a choose to go spend whatever they want an arcade. Like, and again, it's not even designed for that. It's designed so that the end of it. This is my favorite part of my board meetings with my kids. The end of the hang we go for a meal. And it's at that meal that I ask all the questions, the concerns. Hey, when they were little, I would literally ask them, hey, man, I'm just curious. Is any of your friends, dads ever do anything to make you feel uncomfortable? No, what do you mean by that? I don't know. Anybody ever touch you? You know what I mean? Like I have a good relationship. You have that candor with them. Since they were five, six, seven, and now they're 11, 12. So it's not abnormal. It's not like I come out of the left field with it. It's literally just this beautiful moment that I cherish. Man, my son Noah got me so good. The last one, two of them ago, we were doing like, I always ask, hey, I want to be a better dad for you. And I know you'll never tell me how to be better, but I would love for you. Just give me something, you know, because you're the best. I'm like, I'm not, I can't be the best. You gave me some. I forget what it was. Then you want, he's like, I want you to play video games with that. So I don't play video games. I'm like, all right, I'll learn how to play roadblocks, whatever it is. And then he says to me, it's really cool. He goes, well, what can I do? He's 11. I said, well, since you're asking, you know, sometimes you, you're really cuddly with Mama, his mom. And when I try to like just cuddle with you, sit next to you on the couch and with my book and stuff, you kind of elbow me and you push, you know what I mean? He's like, like a guy. And I said, I just, I would just love for you to hang out with me and cuddle me. Like I'm, I mean, it sounds, he's like, okay. So for the next 90 days, we do it every three months. He, he did it. I watched him. That's so cute. I love him. But check this out. The next one, we're sitting now, we're talking. And I said, can I tell you something Noah? And he goes, what's that? I said, I noticed that you tried. And I said, I, I've really loved, I love that you did that. And he starts crying. And I'm like, do I, you crying? You guys, you're crying? I don't know what you're going to do. I'm just like, dude, I look, I can't believe the relationship I have with this kid. Like, you know, I'm so beautiful. Like I hope someday you have, I do too. I know what you, you would want as a person and you hope. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I read that book or I did that thing or I went to that seminar. It's, so there's a bunch of stuff I do to maintain that rhythm of existence. And it's, and it's, it's, it's an iterative process. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters when you die are your relationships. Are there people around you that love you? I think people who cited that. Dude, I heard, do you know who's Sal for Silas? Andy for Silas? Okay. So Andy's first form, his brother, Sal is his, I think he's the CEO now first form who was the president for a while. Or he was like the division of set like he came in and worked his way up. Anyways, anyways, he runs the company essentially and he was speaking on an event we were both speaking at. And I watched his talk because I'd never seen him speak. He doesn't speak a lot. And he was talking about relationships. And he was talking about the value of it. And and this is more in the context of people around you. Okay, family, yes. But even teams. Because he, he refers to his direct reports, the guys, I mean, there are like probably 800 million a year business now. I visited their facility, their warehouse. I mean, it is, the culture is palatable. It is on another level. If you're a business person, study first form, follow, Sal, go to his, they have the, I don't actually speaking at this, the St. Louis summit with Ben Newman, go learn. Because he said something, he goes, you know, people always ask me about the guys, he calls them the young, the young guys or whatever he has a name for them. And he goes, these are my guys. We build together, we win together, we lose together. These are the ones. These are the guys I chose. There's eight of them. Now they're seven left. These are the ones I'm going to build with. There are people to work for them. Yep. There is direct reports. His lieutenants is his team. Okay. And they're like 10 years younger than him. And he goes, somebody asks him about like, how does he think about his team to culture? Like, because it's just, it's crazy. The, the stuff they'll do for him. He says, who do you think's going to carry the casket? He goes, if something happens to me, who's going to carry the casket? And when I thought of that, I was like, I know those people in my life. I don't think I've ever told them how much they mean to me. And that one sentence changed my whole frame. Because I think most people in business and I'll be honest with you 15 years ago, I didn't think that way. I didn't value things to that level. I was way too performance focused. Now I'm like, hey, if I got to be better so that I can support you guys to be around because of the character you have, the, the trust that I have with you, because I know not only would you carry the casket, you're going to take care of Renee and my boys. Let's go. This is bigger than this. You are a ultra high performing individual. You've hit all these financial milestones that most people would say you've killed it. Now you've built all these really strong relationships in your life with your wife, your kids, your co-workers, the people that work for you, your friends, your dad, what do you think was the hardest relationship to build and what would be the lesson that you took from that? Well, I mean, the hardest relationship. It's the one with yourself. Like I, I'm going to, I'm going to introduce this and I'm going to break people's brains when I say it, but you got to hear it. When you talk to yourself, there's the voice and there's the person that hears it. And you have never shut the fuck up. If you think about that, Scott, never wants in the history of you being aware and awake. Have you ever shut the fuck up? It's fascinating to think. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. It doesn't stop. It never stops. And it's fascinating because for many people, the way they talk to themselves, if somebody verbally said what they're saying to themselves out loud, they would punch the person in the face. The shit you say to yourself, you say to yourself, you would elbow them in the temple. If somebody said that to my wife, you're dead. You know what I'm saying? I know exactly what you're saying. So when you say what relationship has been the hardest, it's not business. I mean, it's literally understanding the difference. There's the eye and the self and there's the the oneness of the soul and who I am in the limitlessness of that. And then there's the ego that wants to tell me how everything's not going to work out and all that stuff. And the more I've done the work and studied that and created the separation and and could kind of like watch it. Once you, I remember telling literally a CEO that runs one of my companies, we're doing an offsite and he asked me, how do you deal with so much and I tell him I was like, well, I just I get really aware of like where this negative self-talk comes from. And he's like, what do you mean, negative self-talk? So well, if you ever considered there's like, and as soon as I shared that with him, it's like, and then he's watching himself do it. He's literally like, oh, he's like, oh, there I go again. Where'd that come from? And I go, that's the thing, man, is like most people think they are their thoughts and they're not. I'm not my thoughts. That's going to like, what are you talking about? You're not your thoughts. You didn't even choose your thoughts. When you're driving down the street and you think to call somebody, where'd that come from? Random. So like, if people truly understand what I'm saying, hardest relationship to build, most important relationship to build. You with you, I with self. I just want to take a second and thank Cornbread Ham for supporting today's episode. Now, Cornbread Ham CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit. 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That's cornbread hampt.com slash success code success for 30% off your first order of these amazing dummies. The HubSpot podcast network is a success story partner. Now, if you like success story, you're going to love other podcasts in the HubSpot podcast network. One of my personal favorites is iDigress hosted by my boy Troy Sandage. Each show is under 30 minutes. iDigress helps eliminate complexity, complications, and confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies to achieve true, scalable, and sustainable success. If you're an entrepreneur building anything, you need to listen to iDigress. This is one of the most useful business podcasts. Trust me, go do yourself a favor and listen to iDigress wherever you get your podcasts. It's interesting because the more of a high performing attitude you have, probably the worst self-talk. The worst you talk to yourself because you always are not good enough and you always have an achieved what you want to achieve and you don't even realize that you're moving your own goalposts because if you actually looked at what you've achieved over the past five years, that five year ago version of you would be thrilled, but you're never happy with it. We spoke about this at the beginning. I don't disagree with it. I think you have to separate high performance because I actually, as I studied the best in the world, this is my favorite thing to do is just like model. I'm like, I'm dumb. You succeeded. What did you do? Let me see if that works for me. If you study even a Steve Jobs, he definitely was that person. Then he leaves. Any experiences next and he comes back and he's shared this with everybody. I needed to go through next to become the person to build Apple. He's like said this. I think what happens is that high performance negative self-talk gets you an Apple in the next. It doesn't get you version two of Apple, the iPhone Apple. Again, you see all these people and you know, I'm talking about like the fucking Kelly yourself and do it and go all in and get a lot of them on social now, which is so not my toxic the word. I think it's it's and they'll argue with me. That's what's required. Again, you think it's your edge. I think you're successful in spite of because my gut tells me your creativity and ability to execute without the emotional shrapnel that you keep fucking squirting out your mouth would actually get you more because you wouldn't have to resolve all the crap that you create under the guise of what I need them to know. I mean serious. It's like no, you can actually create and be and execute without any of that. There's no need. And that's why I don't subscribe to it. I just personally like I get it. I understand it. I've used it. I've done full distance. I have to go to some dark places in my head to get my feet to keep moving forward because every part of my being wants to fucking lay down. I get that. But guess what? It's not required. You can learn to do it without it. And I think some of the top performing people like a Branson, like a Disney and like a jobs like a whoever. I think they they found that they got there. I don't know if somebody taught them this. Like I don't think the CEO of SpaceX gives enough credit for her ability to probably create a framework to work with Elon. Like I actually think she's the secret weapon. I'm sure she is 100% and it's probably not easy to work with Elon. No, and she's smart enough to explain to him. Probably again, I'm making all this stuff. I don't know. I've never asked him. I would love to someday because that's that to me is what unlocks true potential when you can create without creating emotional shrapnel because of all the extra minecraft, all the negative self-topped to propel you forward, all the not enoughness, all of the the anger, man, just like I remember again, I'm going back to me. I'm like going back to the 24 year old version of me going, God darn it. I was mad at everybody. God darn it. I created from a place of just proving everybody wrong. I was working 100 hour weeks just to grind to because I needed to deserve it. If I don't work, I don't deserve success. Like all the weird shit I used to tell myself. It's like a friend of mine. He's like, you know, I don't feel like I deserve it. He is dad's wealthy and he has an opportunity to run this company because I don't feel like I deserve it. I didn't earn it. What would need to be true for you to feel like you deserved it? Let's talk about that. Because that's an interesting question. What if nothing needs to be true? Will you allow yourself to just accept? Interesting idea. I heard you speaking about this on Ed Mylet's podcast. You're talking about opportunities presenting themselves and not taking advantage of it or not doing the work ahead of time so that you can receive, can receive it. But is it a matter of not doing the work ahead of time or is it a matter of you are self-sabotaging that opportunity because you don't feel like you're worth it? So is it accolades and resume or is it actually just your own mind? I think there's two. I mean, the the interesting part of anything one of my business partners met. He says it all the time. He thinks both things can be true because I like that idea. Oh yeah, he goes and he goes, I'm like, why did that person do that? It's because of this. He goes, or it can be because of this. And he goes, and the truth is, both can be true at the same time. And I'm like, that's a good way to look at it. So I think if somebody doesn't do the work because it's skill, there is skills developed. I'm not saying that you could wake up to it. If I handed you, like I said, if you're not a millionaire, being a millionaire is being the person that knows how to create a million dollars worth of value. So if I give you a million dollars and you don't know how to control, I'm glad that I got my money when I got it because if I got it sooner, I probably would have lost it. So I think there's a part where you have to develop skills. That's why I think any challenge in your life is literally designed to get you ready to receive what you've been asking for. And if people understood that that's how it worked and it's always worked that way and you've never ever gotten better without dealing with challenges, you would literally, you would look at challenges through the lens of gratitude. Like you, you would, you would be like, ooh, cool. And that's where I live. I'm like, ooh, worthy. Like I don't want little problems, dude. Scott, if you got little problems, you know what you got? A little life. It's actually that simple. Show me the size of your problems. I can tell you the size of your life. So I've always leaned in, tried to lean in to the challenges knowing that this will get me ready to receive the thing I've been asking for. And if I don't, I won't receive it. And if I got it, that's where you ask like, or do you self-sabotage? Or I get it and I'm not prepared and I fumble, right? Now the self-sabotage is a real thing. Like most people, oh, man, I had one of my clients, Mark, he's an architect. And in like, when he came to see me, he was doing like a million and change a year. And I was like, dude, you're way too like known. You like, you should be way bigger. And he's like, really? And I was like, millions, nothing, dude. Let's go to five next year. Like let's, like, let's aim for, I've never done, I've been in this business 17 years. You know, I think a million is good. No, no, millions sucks. Five is what you want. You got, I can see it. You got it all there. You just literally just holding back. He does five, but by the Ferrari's love in life and pump form, all I say to him is, don't give it back. Well, I'm not giving it back. Why would I give it back? I said, don't give it back. Because that's the, why are you saying that? Who am I giving it back to? Mark, I'm telling you, 90% of people, they grow that fast. Don't feel like they deserve it. You might not even realize it. And I don't want to ask about your financial situation. I don't want to ask about your business. I'm just letting you know most people that grow that don't feel like they deserve will quickly sabotage themselves. So manufacture a situation, the cause of the fail, it's not their fault. And I've seen it happen over and over again. What happened to Mark? Two and a half million the next year. I can only tell them where the water is. If they don't want to drink the water, I can shine a light on the problem. They don't want to analyze like literally it was a mindset. He had a two and a half million dollar identity. And his thermostat was cool. And I mean, it's just, I remember 12 months later, I was like, because I wasn't around much and I asked them and he said, you were right. Now in the crazy party, he's like, well, at least it's not a million. I'm like, dude, that's the problem. Yeah, that's the exact problem. When you don't think you deserve something, you don't fight for it. It's that simple. You either think you're worth it and you ask for it and you fight for it. And if it drops below it, you show up or you make up reasons, you drag your feet, you know, and it's literally just a personal decision about how you view the world. I think that I've always been so torn on this because I find internet thought leadership has always broken down into two camps. It's the inspiration and the motivation and the mindset. And then there's the people that are very tactical. And to build anything meaningful, you need both. And you cannot be deficient in one or the other. You will not achieve success. And I think that all these ideas, we could have spoken about very tactical how to build a business, you know, how to lower your cat, increase your LTV, whatever you want to do all day long. All day long. But this conversation, if people can really lean in and understand what you're saying, this is going to change your life more than any. How to increase your roas on your Facebook ads, etc. Anything like that. And that's why like the whole like being first, it's so important. Here's the challenge of Scott and you teach people this and like, you have to have the space to do it. Like it's, I understand. It's easy for me to sit here and go, wow, man, you do the board means with the kids and you do the seminars with your wife and you do a weekly meeting with your wife and you a couple of retreats and you have your, all these people, like, where do I find time? I'm drowning right now. Most people don't know how to let go. That's like a big psychological thing is actually feeling like you deserve it. Let it go. I mean, most people that read my book and they go, okay, I hired an executive assistant. I'm like, how much time do you think that person by, oh, no, five hours a week? I'm like, then you didn't do it right. You didn't know all the stuff you had to let go. Like I have, I got a document. It is 42 pages. And honestly, anybody wants it. They can have a copy. Just find me on Instagram, follow me. That's my only thing I ask. Dan Martell, 12s and Martell. It messaged me EA Scott. If you don't mention, if you don't mention Scott, I'm not sending this. This is only for gentlemen's agreement. Yeah. And I'll send you a direct link to the Google doc. I think my assistant and cleaned it up with my credit cards and all that stuff. But like, it's legit. A document that just talks about, like because to me, I want to challenge people, I'll give away that, but not this. This is okay, but not that, you know, and here's the test. Okay, men, it's a lot easier to deal with. I asked my dad earlier and he laughed because I had no problem with that. Here's the test. You're going on vacation. You're traveling. Somebody else packs your bag. You literally wake up, grab the carry on and go to the airport. Could you do that? What emotion would come up if you had to do that? How crazy anxiety prone would you know, I mean, that to me is the 10 out of 10 and everything else falls underneath. And on top of that, you're actually going on vacation and your businesses and go to shit either. Yeah, all of it. And I think most people just need the list to kind of audit themselves. So I'll give everybody that if they want it. That please. Yeah, that's great. We've gone through a lot. If you wanted to, obviously, your socials, website, all of that, where do you want to send people? Yeah, damartel.com is the best place. 12s of Martel YouTube. We're almost out of millions bananas. We like in the last 80 months popped off. Yeah, we did 124 million views last month across our chain. Congratulations. Yeah, well, 18 months, well, 10 years in the making, 18 months of deciding to go pro and an incredible team like Sam was here. It's just super cool. If you had to leave, I used to ask, what would you tell your 20 year old self? And that was like a fun little question. And you can answer that one. But I actually changed that question because I thought it'd be a little bit more relevant and a little bit more impactful. So you can only leave one lesson with your kids out of everything you've learned in your entire life. What would that lesson be and why? I mean, I think about this often. And I think it evolves and changes. The thing I've been sharing with them recently, literally yesterday, is you will only receive what you desire for others. I was telling Max the other day, he's a little cap cut editor, he does video stuff. And like I've never told him to do it. I just like, he just loves to do it. Just like, just gets, and he wants to get better. And I said, well, who else are you helping? Why would help other people? I'm doing my own stuff. Max, you will only receive what you desire for others. You want to be better. You want your channel to grow. Trust me. You start helping other people grow their channels. Your channel will grow. I just got to trust. Have some face brother like this little dude. Like, that's what that's been my truth. The moment I stop being so selfish. Because that's really what it was. That dark energy early days, selfish, selfish, selfish, take, take, take, me, me, me. Look at me. Ba, ba, ba, dude. And I shifted it to how many people can I make rich? How many millionaires can I create? How many, how many people can I serve? How, what's the potential of impact? If I, how do, how many people can I help get a bicep vein? Like do I'm 100% fitter because I decided to help other people get fit. Wealth, head mindset. Like, and I just think it's such a beautiful, energetic place to live where you just say, I wake up every day and ask myself a question. How do I create more value for everybody in my world than anybody else in their world? I want to be the person in their world that creates the most value for them. And I just think that if I do that and show up every day and I teach my kids this, everything else takes care of itself.