The Secret to Turning Failure Into Success | Dhar Mann

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How am I ever going to become a millionaire when I don't even have $1,000? I would say it's harder to make that first $1,000 than it is that million. As you start to become more successful, you start to identify the patterns that help make you more successful. And that's because success begets success.

My guest is Dhar Mann, one of the most watched creators on the internet. Now we're going to break down how he makes more than $65 million a year, how to actually conquer your fear of failure, and how to turn probably the worst chapters of your story into the reason you win.

It took me 100 videos to go viral. What if I quit on number 99? I put all my money together that I possibly could through all my friends and family, buried myself deep in debt, put it in one video. That one video would have failed. Consistency matters more than anything.

What advice do you have for somebody today who wants to be successful and win?

You have to do these 3 things. Number 1 is start.

Dhar, you're the number 2 creator in the world according to Forbes. $65 million last year on YouTube and online in earnings. But that doesn't tell your full story. I think the most interesting part is that you also, not that many years ago in 2013, you had lost almost everything. And so I guess my question for you is, for people listening, what is the number 1 piece of advice you have if you're struggling so that they can reach the summit that you have.

You know, if I can go back and tell myself one thing when I was lost and struggling and thought that my life was honestly over, it would be that failure is a chapter of your story. It doesn't mean that it's the entire book. And so in order to get to that learning, I found myself at 30 years old entering a new decade, and that's a milestone birthday. You know, you want to think of your 30s as a time that your life is coming together. Maybe you're in that steady relationship, maybe you bought first home. Maybe you're in a career that's thriving. For me, it was the total opposite. Everything in my life was falling apart. I was going through a really bad breakup. I was 6— I, I was 4 weeks away from getting— I'm sorry, I was 2 weeks away from getting evicted from my apartment. And I was, you know, broke, depressed. I thought that honestly my life was over. And at that time what I started to do was read inspirational stories. I realized that external success starts with internal success. And so I wanted to sharpen my brain and I started listening to stories about successful people out there that had encountered tremendous failure on their way to success. So I read stories about how like Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team, became one of the greatest athletes of all time. J.K. Rowling was denied by dozens of publishers before, you know, writing Harry Potter. And then even Walt Disney, he went bankrupt about 100 different times on his way to starting Disneyland. And what I realized was that failure was not the opposite of success for them. It was actually just a part of their success. It's realizing one more way that didn't work in order to get you to the actual way that worked. And so I would say start thinking about your relationship with failure in a completely different way. If your life has not worked out yet, maybe that's life just redirecting you to a way that is actually working. And the hard part is it's the psychological aspects of failure. For me, as a 30-year-old Indian man, I was looking at it as like, my family is ashamed of me, my culture I'm letting down, I should have my life figured out according to all these standards and expectations of where society is. But if you strip all those things away, right, I'm alive, I'm breathing, I get to wake up again and try again, right? So I would say just that mindset is everything.

What was like the moment that that changed for you? Was there a trigger that you were like, oh, wait a second, I saw this book and I saw this quote and then I made the change?

I would love to think of it as a moment, and sure, there was a lot of breakthroughs, but in reality it's a process. I think everyone wants that— what is that one pill I can take, right? Like, you can't go to the gym, do this one workout out and suddenly you're ripped. So, you know, there's something called a Stockdale Principle where the people that survived the longest in war, or when they were actually prisoners of war, are not the ones that said, oh, I'm gonna be released this Christmas or this Easter or this Thanksgiving. It's the ones that thought that, hey, you know what, as long as it takes, I'm gonna still keep fighting. I'm still going to keep pushing forward. Because if you set your mind to, oh, this Christmas I'm going to have everything figured out, what happens when that Christmas comes and goes and your life isn't figured out, suddenly you get demoralized. So the best thing is, when you're at rock bottom, just accept that you're there, that you're going to be there for as long as it takes for you to get out. Don't put a time frame on it. Don't think that there's some sort of get, you know, rich quick scheme that is going to pull you out of it, because I promise you that's only going to get you into a lot more trouble. Um, so, you know, first is sort of accepting where you are and realizing that it's going to take time. Um, and then, yeah, you know, I like to say that your struggle becomes your greatest superpower. Your greatest struggle becomes your greatest superpower. If I was to dig down deep into your story, I bet there's aspects that troubled you either growing up as a kid or failures that you had that ultimately somehow shaped you into the successful woman that you are today. And so if you look back and you realize, like, gosh, if that breakup never happened, if I never got fired from that job, if I never hit rock bottom and promised myself that I would learn how to save money better or invest money, right, I never would have actually built the business that I am today. So think about really your failures as lessons. And if you think about it from that standpoint, you are so much stronger today. And so really, you're not starting from zero. You're starting from experience, right? You've learned all these things about yourself, um, that are now going to help make you a better individual and more equipped to succeed. And so for me, you know, it was realizing that I— because I failed, I could empathize with other people who were going through hard times in their life. Like, there's this quote by the Dalai Lama where he says the height of your— the depth of your suffering defines the height of your joy. And because I had gone through so much suffering and failure, when someone came to me and said, 'Dar, I'm going through a hard time,' or 'I'm broke,' or 'I'm broken,' or whatever it is, I could relate to that person because I'd been through such hard times in my life. And ultimately, being able to connect with people became the inspiration for my content because I tell inspirational stories about underdogs who go through tough times and they somehow come out on top. Uh, if anyone has ever seen a Dhar Mann story, that's typically how that formula goes. Uh, and the reason I'm able to tell those stories so authentically is because I am that underdog. And had I never been, I would not be able to connect with people the same way possible. So whatever it is that you're going through, in some way or another, it's gonna later help you in life. It's just hard to see in that moment.

Such a good reminder. The Stockdale Paradox is such an interesting one because I remember the first time somebody asked me that question, like, what do you think leads to more success for people who are prisoners of war, which really means people who are struggling? Is it the optimist actually, or is it the pessimist? And I was like, oh, it's the optimist. Of course it is. That's what we all think. Yeah, but it turns out it was actually— they don't use the word pessimist. They say the word like realist. Yeah, realist. Yeah. And so the realist was actually the one that says, no, it's unlikely I'm going to get out of here. Right. But I'm going to be okay with that.

I have this analogy that I use. So I have a podcast called What Happens Next that just came out, and the whole philosophy is based on the Japanese art form kintsugi. So as individuals, we like to think of ourselves often, especially in this world of social media, that we want to show the perfect version of ourselves, and we think that's what's going to make us beautiful, right? Look how glamorous my life is. Look how I've got everything figured out. And Instagram has put that all on steroids. But the Japanese art form kintsugi, the philosophy is you take a clay pot, you drop it, you break it, and then you put gold glitter in order to put it back together. So the whole philosophy is the imperfections are not meant to be hidden, they're actually meant to be more beautiful, because that's what makes something unique. And so if you were to look at all these clay pots that all look somewhat similar, but one was broken and had this gold silver lining, it would just make you stop and think like, wow, there's something special about that. And humans are the same way. If I was to tell you that, hey, you know what, I never failed in life, everything I did always worked out, I found the girl right outside of high school, I bought my dream home, I had kids, we never, you know, had any hardships, you'd be like, that's boring, that's not relatable at all, right? So humans work the same way as broken clay pots that are put together. When you actually look at the pieces that have brought is what makes someone so special and what makes someone so unique.

You actually have this business that is a new age, in many ways, version of a production company. And I think I saw that you have like 80 billion lifetime views of telling inspirational stories. And I was curious, one of the things you mentioned is that you understand this empathy and inspiration, and so you're able to connect with people and tell these stories. It gets millions of views every, every week. What do you think are the repeat readable ways to catch people's attention and keep it in 2026?

Yeah, it's a great question. So first off, I'll just start with, it's easy to look at somebody and say, oh, you have billions of views, or you have millions of dollars, of course you have it all figured out. But one thing I will say is that it is much harder to make $100,000 than it is to make a million dollars. And in that same vein, it's much harder to make $10,000 than it is $100,000, or your first $100 versus your first $1,000. And that's because success begets success. As you start to become more successful, you start to identify the patterns that help make you more successful, and then you build the systems and you have the teams, and then you also have the credibility. When Dhar Mann was starting out, like, in my small studio apartment, I couldn't go to the bank to get $100 from them if I told them what my goal is. But now that we're established business, it's much much easier for us to get access to capital and debt. And so for anyone that is ever discouraged looking at, well, hey, how am I ever going to become a millionaire when I don't even have $1,000? I would say it's harder to make that first thousand than it is that million. So always focus on the milestone that's right in front of you. Uh, but you know, in today's world, to answer your question, I would say more than ever we're looking for relatability, we're looking for emotional connection.. And sure, like, you can have big dopamine spikes by showing spectacle constantly on camera, but storytelling, being able to have the audience actually see themselves in your content, makes for a much more memorable experience. So 75% of our audience says that they feel compelled to take some sort of positive action in their life after watching a Dhar Mann video. That might mean calling their mom, that might mean going for a walk, that might be trying to squash whatever relationship issues that they're having with their spouse. So our content creates real-world action, even if we don't get maybe as many views as somebody else who is a spectacle-based creator. Ours are more meaningful views, and I would say there's a difference there. And one of the things that is important, uh, I think of retention as emotion, right? That really the retention graph of a video is an emotional connection graph as to how invested you are into the actual story. And I like to use this example that if you think about Mission Impossible— have you seen it?

Yep.

Tell me the plot line of the last video you saw. It's hard, right? Because it's all explosions and action, action, action. And sure, a lot of people see it, but you didn't actually have a deep emotional resonance in your heart. But if I ask you about a video that you might not have seen for like 20 years, The Lion King. Have you seen it? When's the last time you saw it?

Yeah, probably 20 years ago.

Do you remember the storyline? Yeah, of course, because you had a connection. You might have seen yourself as Simba, right? As somebody who was trying to figure out this world all on your own or whatever else. And you know the journey that that person went on. So I would say for anyone that's looking to create content, forget about all the vanity metrics, which is like views and this and that. I would focus on creating an emotional connection with your and that one view might be worth more than somebody else's thousand views because that one view actually created some sort of impact in that viewer's life that they're always going to remember you for. And by the way, as I talk to brands and they tell me about who some of their most successful sales affiliates are, it's not the people that get millions of views, right? Because those people are often an inch deep but a mile wide. It's the people that might have a thousand views but have such an engaged audience where they're an inch wide and a mile deep. So I would say don't focus so much on the views and focus on having that emotional connection with your audience, and the rest will come over time.

That's such a good point because sales is really storytelling in any sense of the word. And you're selling somebody's time if you have a piece of content, you know, you're selling yourself if you want to date, you know, and you're selling the product if you want to get a brand deal or if you want to sell, you know, something in your business. So I guess what if you had to turn it into a framework? So let's say you had to say, okay, here's the framework for getting a million views on YouTube. Is there a framework, a system, a calculation?

Sure.

That you use? And if so, what is it?

Well, first, on a philosophical level, I like to use the word acronym HEART. So H is honor your audience. You always have to create content that resonates with your audience first. Once you figure out who that is, and that's fine for you to test a lot of different content formats to see which one actually resonates. E is earn their trust. Once you actually have your audience, don't do things that are gonna make you sell out or seem authentic to that. If I started as a purpose-driven filmmaker and then suddenly started doing things just because it got more views or because a brand deal was paying me to do so, suddenly I've alienated myself from the audience. So you always have to stay true to that. A is architect a system, which which we'll talk more about during this podcast. No content creator is successful simply because they stumbled upon virality. They might have a video or two like that, but anyone who's very successful, they actually have a system. We have a system for testing content before it ever goes live. If you were to come on my podcast, we probably would have done 100 different tests to see what we should actually title the video that you are gonna be in, which we know ahead of time. And then I formulated my questions based on what audiences wanna perceive. Yeah. And you can create these tests actually very inexpensively, which we'll get to soon. But architect a system where you're not just creating content, but you're actually creating a company. And then R is reach hearts. And that's when you go back to emotional connection. If you could move people emotionally, That's what gets them to actually hit the share button. The number one comment that I get in my videos is that— that I love is, 'This video made me cry,' because I know if I move someone, then I'm much more likely to become memorable for them and for them to associate our brand with some sort of positive emotional resonance. And then T is just turn views into impact. As you become more successful, you got to think about how can you make the world a better place than when you started. And so I don't just create views for views. I really care about the impact that we're making. So that's the philosophical framework that can actually not just work for creating content, but for any product that you want to go into. Then there's the more tactical one. In order to succeed as a content creator, you have to think about 4 Ps, and it used to be 3, but I added one. So the 3 Ps used to be 3: packaging, pitch, and post-production. But then as I really thought about what our system is and how it's evolved, I added to the first step is pre-testing. So pre-testing, it goes back to if I was to do a podcast with you, instead of just kind of having you in the room and saying, hey, let's see where this conversation goes, the first thing I'm going to do is who's Codie Sanchez's audience? Okay, well, you know, you described it to me a little bit earlier, but based on my own research, I'm somewhat familiar that you said it's people in their late 20s, early 30s that might be looking for some sort of career pivot. Okay, well, if that's the audience, then I can actually take different packaging concepts, right? I might come up with some different titles for what the podcast can be. Turn Your Life Around in 3 Steps. You know, um, take your life to the next level in your 30s. Um, here's the one thing that you need to know that can take you from failure to success. I might have all these different titles that I think that that person in your audience is interested in. I will design a thumbnail based on that hypothesis and what I know about your audience. I will actually publish these titles, these, these different thumbnails on Facebook. As images, and I will run a paid test. And by the way, it might sound intimidating, but it's actually very simple to do. And you only need about $10 or so to get accurate information on the test. And what I'm looking for is what is the click rate? How many people are actually gonna click that photo? How many people are gonna like it? How many people are gonna comment in it? And especially once I start to build that relationship with my audience where they know that I'm testing different concepts, They'll say, I actually really liked this one more than the other one. So I'll do about 100 different title tests to see what my audience is interested in learning from you and what overlaps with your audience. And I can create— look, I can create tests for my audience, or I can create lookalike audience tests, which means I take who your audience is and Facebook will actually serve my ad to similar audiences to see how they interact. And based on that result, I will then decide what my title for the podcast episode is going to be. So when you come on my show, I'm going to angle everything based on that. Then you go into actual packaging. So if I know my packaging is going to be, here's the one thing that you need to do to go from failure to success in a show that you come on, you know, my podcast to do. What's the first question I'm going to ask you?

That question.

That question. Because people's attention spans are so quick. So whatever, when it, when you figured out your packaging, The next thing you need to do, so you've pre-tested, you've determined your packaging, deliver on that premise right away. And so right at the opening, the audience should be like, oh, I'm here to get whatever I clicked for. Because if I was to start that podcast when someone clicks and says, hey, what is the one thing you need to do to go from failure to success? And I was just like, hey, Codie, tell me about your pregnancy journey, or tell me about how living in Austin is. It's like, wait a second, I clicked under this premise. And so YouTube, or whatever the platform is, what do they care about? They care about returning viewers and new viewers. Your returning viewers are your core audience. That's who— if Codie's name is on it, I'm gonna watch it no matter what. I just— I'm so in love with Codie, I know it's great. So you always want to cater to your returning viewers, but if you're not appealing to new viewers you're not gonna— your content is not gonna be pushed out into the algorithm because YouTube or whoever the platform is going to see that, hey, you know what, as soon as we go outside of Codie's core, we've noticed that a viewer will come, they'll click, they'll listen for the first like 10 seconds, and they immediately click off because the opening did not deliver on whatever that packaging premise was. They're going to stop serving your content in the algorithm. And so as you look at your graphs, you'll wonder Why is my audience not growing? And that's because your content is not keeping them at a high retention level. So pre-test everything to figure out what your best packaging is. When you figure out your packaging, deliver on that premise right away. And then I would say pitch. Pitch is something that I work on quite consistently. Like, you would think that more time is spent in the actual production aspect of a creator. Or more time is spent in, you know, if you're a scripted content creator, like writing out the actual script. No, I would say the pitch. How can you describe this in 30 seconds, right? It's just like the, the elevator pitch that any, any person that's like coming up with that has a startup idea is told to really perfect. The whole concept being, if you're, if you're a creator and you were being— you were in an elevator trying to get a viewer interested in watching your video, if you can't in 30 seconds clearly explain to them why they should watch your video, whatever that pitch is, you've lost their interest. And a lot of people I ask that are creators, they can't even explain it to themselves or their own team. So really figure out what that pitch is to make that content interesting. And then the last piece being post-production. A lot of people think that the magic is in actual production, but it's really in post. We were talking about this right before the show. All the best creators that I know spend about 3 times more amount of effort in post than they actually do in production. And that's because that's—

post really quick.

Yeah, so post is like basically editing your video, right? So again, if you're short form, maybe you don't have to spend as much time on this, but believe it or not, even the short form creators I know could spend like a whole day on editing, and they're just trying to perfect every second. You have to think about every second of your video as you're constantly be, you know, trying to get your viewers' attention, especially if it's shorter form content, especially if you don't have a strong relationship with your audience. And so we analyze every word to make sure, like, hey, could this sentence be cut out? Does it work without this? Should we add music here to make it more interesting? Should we add some sort of graphic to visually capture somebody's interest? Um, how can we, you know, just cut a little bit faster? Or how could we build emotion, build a little bit of suspense? Because we know that something is going to get to this climax moment. Um, so yeah, those are the 4 things I would say really pay attention to. Pre-test as much as you can to help you identify your packaging, uh, and then really refine that pitch so you can explain it in 30 seconds as to what that value proposition is. And then after you actually, you know, make the video, spend a lot of time in post-production editing it to make it as interesting as possible, because ultimately that's what's going to determine the retention of the Interesting.

Now, you know what also is fascinating to me about you is you put out a ton of content. So I would be curious on something. You know, there's that kind of famous saying that quantity always beats quality, that you should just do more. And maybe you don't have the life that you want because you're not doing as much as it takes to get there. What do you believe? Should someone, if they want to achieve greatness, is the answer that you just need to do more, or is it you have to do more better things?

It just depends on what your personal goal is, right? So take the Birkin, right? Hermès, they sell a fraction of the amount of handbags that Chanel does, or Louis Vuitton, or Gucci, but their valuation is just as strong. And Birkins consistently grow up— go up in price every year. And their whole philosophy is is sure, they could mass-produce the Birkin bag if they wanted to, but instead they hire hand tailors that specialize in this craft and take so much time on each handbag that they care more about the quality. And so, right, it just depends on what your goal is. Do you want to be sort of this premier mom-and-pop steakhouse that is really well respected and you have a very comfortable living, or do you want to be Morton Or do you want to be McDonald's, right? They all kind of sell a similar thing, but they have different kind of lifestyles and different kind of prestige associated with them. For me, it really came down to my goal was to make impact. I wanted people to watch my videos and say, wow, that helped me get to a better place in my life, or not give up on my dreams, or help resolve— help me get out of depression or anxiety, right? Like, um, so for me it was really important to reach the masses because it's a mission-driven company. And so when I was starting, I was doing one 3-minute video a week. And I remember we were on a group call, we were a 4-person team at that time, and I said, guys, a day is going to come where we're doing 2 3-minute videos a week. And one of my producers was like, Dar, are you crazy? 2 videos a week? Like, do you care about quantity or do you care about quality? And I was like, I don't see them as trade-offs. Like, I think both are possible. And, uh, he ended up quitting because he thought that that whole idea was crazy. By the— within the next, like, 6 months, I would say, we didn't just go from one 3-minute video to two, we went from one to five. And then that next year, we were creating videos for Facebook. That next year, we went from— we started focusing on YouTube, so we went from one 22-minute video to 5, and then we started a whole division that creates original content for, uh, for Samsung TVs. Then we went into vertical dramas where we're doing 40 films for Fox. And now, you know, we're going into, um, a brand new division where we're gonna be on, you know, some of the traditional platforms that most people watch. And we have a whole short-form department. We have a branded content department. And so really for me, it comes down to 2 Ps. People and processes. Everything is scalable. Anytime I start to get into this limited belief mindset, I just remember, well, Walt Disney was just an individual who actually failed more times than probably anyone listening to this podcast. Literally went bankrupt 100 different times. Had his early version of Mickey Mouse, like the, the rabbit that he invented before Mickey Mouse was stolen from him. Like, his own, like, founding team members went to go work for his competition. Like, he had to borrow money from his brother and his spouse and so many other people. And now he— Disney puts out, you know, some of the most iconic feature films, has theme parks around the world, it has so many different divisions. And that's all because someone didn't have limited belief. So when I start to think of what's possible for us, I just think, well, look at what Disney's doing. Why can't we get there? In order to solve that problem, we either need more people, we need different types of people, or we need better processes. And I always try to start with processes because that's the easier fix. And so once you unlock that limited belief mindset, then really anything is possible. But I would say it all starts with what are your personal goals? Because I, I fall into the trap thinking that everybody has the same ambitions or mindset that I do. And so I would always try to— anyone, anytime I had like someone that I was the manager of, I'd always try to motivate them in a way that got them to their highest potential. But then I realized that not everybody wants that. Some people are comfortable, you know, they want to be able to clock out at 4 PM and they want to be able to have a nice dinner and watch the game and spend time with their house. And honestly, I kind of envy that. Like, that's nice if that's what you're after, then yeah, you don't need scale, right? But if you're like us, yeah, and you're just like, oh my gosh, like, you have one life to live, there's so much potential, look at all these people that are doing these incredible things, why not me? Then yeah, then you got to go for it.

Here's the thing about everything Dar walked us through: vision and grit will only get you to the starting line. But Dar didn't build his brand just by believing in it. Like, you heard him. He was executing relentlessly, and that takes resources. You can have the idea, a plan, the audience. At some point, it's actually growing the thing, and that means putting fuel behind it. Capital, I think, is what lets you do that best. So let me tell you about a new business lending product from SoFi. SoFi small business loans are built for growth. With a quick digital application, you can check your eligibility in minutes, receive a decision quickly, and if approved, get funding in as little as 24 hours. Here's the part I really like: the pricing is super clear and upfront, so you'll see your business terms before you even accept it. No surprises, no penalties for paying your loan off early, and you could choose weekly or monthly repayments on a schedule that fits how your business actually runs. It's built for solopreneurs and small businesses. You can check your eligibility in minutes. If you're looking to get capital, head to sofi.com/codie or click the link in the show notes. Your business moves fast, your financing should too. SoFi small business loans are originated by SoFi Bank N.A., subject to eligibility and approval. Terms and conditions ply. This is a paid SoFi partnership. What do you think is the most unhinged thing you do to create like 300 to 400 pieces of content per month? Was the number I saw. What do you think you're like, God, people would be shocked that we do this?

I would love to say that there's a pill that you can take or some quick fix, right? But the reality is, is if you've ever trained for a race, okay, you're gonna run a marathon. And, um, I don't know what the average time is for somebody to run a marathon. What is that? Um, let's just say a mile. We'll keep this simpler, the math simpler. Uh, let's say that you want to run a 6-minute mile, okay? And the very first time you get on the treadmill, you barely break 15 minutes. You're like, man, that was impossible. 15 minutes? Like, how am I gonna get to 6? There's just no way. But you keep doing that, you keep running 15-minute miles, Right. And then 2 weeks later, something interesting happens. You actually, the part where you were running at the 2-minute mark where you usually will start to hit the speed lower, so you start walking, you weren't as tired at that 2-minute mark. You actually didn't get tired until the 2-minute and 30 mark. So now your 15-minute mile became 13 minutes without even really realizing it. You can't say what that one breakthrough was. All you know is that you've been just running, right, for 2 weeks straight, and he didn't stop. And then 2 weeks later, something interesting happens. At the 2.5-minute mark, you suddenly weren't breathing as heavy. You, you might have felt the impulse to hit the speed down, but you didn't. You almost forgot that you're even at the 2.5-minute mark. You just kept running. And when he looked at the time, it was at 3 minutes. And now you happen to get to a 10-minute mile, right? And then as you kept going, you kept going, eventually got to 9 minutes and 8 minutes and 7 minutes. And then one day Before you know it, you, you were, you didn't even set out to try to break the record that day. This was just another day on the treadmill and you happen to look at the time at the 6-minute mark and you can't believe it. And you see how the distance you ran was 1.0. So what was that magical moment? It's really hard to say. So I would just say if you're to try to create 200 pieces of content a month, don't think of how can I go to 1 to 200? Think of it as how can I go to 1 to 2? And then once you figure that out, it becomes easier to go from 2 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16. And you just start to realize that the teams you build are different. In the beginning, you're hiring a lot of generalists, right? It's more of a family environment. And so, you know, I started off with my wife was the one that was giving me ideas and, uh, my brother-in-law was an actor, right? I was using my studio apartment. I was just using every resource I had. We were shooting on iPhones. I was teaching myself how to edit. You know, I had a few hundred dollars in the bank and everybody was doing everything that was required. So naturally you can only do so much when you're a 4-person team, you're working in a limited space. But as we became successful, I started reinvesting. I hired more people, I got more space, got more equipment. Now all of a sudden we had 2 production teams and then 4 production teams. And the type of people you hire are different. You have a CEO. Could you imagine having a CEO 5 years ago, or however— there's no way. I couldn't imagine having a CEO.

What do you think about if you had to like say it tactically? Like, you started— when did you start, Dhar Mann?

8 years ago.

8 years ago. So year 1, how many employees did you have?

1.

Year 2?

Probably 3.

Year 3?

About like 25 or so.

Oh, so big jump. Year 4?

Year 4 is when we got our studio, so we probably went to about 75.

5.

Yeah, about 125.

6.

6. We started a— we capped out around like 200 or so. And then now we kind of try to stay there.

So really every— so you almost have minimum, like doubling, doubling, doubling. And then once you get to, let's call it 152 or whatever, you kind of try to stay. And at some point it's not just more people.

Well, it gets into more process things, right? Right. Um, and you become more efficient at doing certain things. And so, for instance, our vertical dramas with our deal with Fox, um, that we have a senior producer, a showrunner, um, we have a— that's pretty much it. We have a two-person team, and the rest we hire crews to come in and film that kind of content. Eventually, if that becomes successful enough, we might start to hire within. So that's also an interesting thing, is like, when do you outsource versus when do you build something in internally. And what I would say is, when you know something is such an important part of your business, then don't outsource that thing. Do that internally. Like Hermès, I'm sure they can go say, hey, this factory, build us a bunch of Birkins. But they know that their whole brand exists because of the quality of their bags, and so they're never going to outsource that. They're always going to do that in house. Um, Caruso was a popular real estate developer in Los Angeles, Southern California. If you go to the Grove— have you been to the Grove? Okay, it's one of the malls that are like few malls, I would say, in the country that are really thriving. Anytime you go, it's a magical experience. If you go during Christmas, there's Santa Claus. You go during Easter, there's the Easter Bunny. Do you know who runs that programming? Caruso. When you go in Valet Park park. The person is so nice. They're just like, hey, they're greeting you, they're in a nice uniform. Do you know who runs a valet parking? Caruso. So Caruso's decided that every aspect of the customer experience he wants to control because his brand is family. He wants to be able to deliver on those strong family values and that positive customer experience, and that's the reason that he's So you figure out what is sort of the core product that you're developing and never outsource that thing. If there's things that you're testing, especially as you get more resources, you're interested in, this may be an opportunity or not. Don't spend the time hiring a team because that's going to take you 6 months. Instead, if you can just get another team, like, you know, outsource it, get it fired up and get it going so you can learn as quickly as possible. Possible, see if it's even viable, then you can decide, does it make sense for me to continue outsourcing that because it's not that meaningful, but I want to keep it going? Or is this something that didn't work? So I'm just going to scrap it. Or, oh man, that hit. And now this has so much potential that I'm going to bring it in-house.

You know, it's funny. So, and we model one of our businesses off of this company called Vista Equity. And one of our friends was one of the co-founders of it. And it's a really big private equity company, but based around technology. Technology, and they run everything on what's called the Vista playbook. And so if you come into their world, not unlike Disney, Disney was obsessed with every single segment of this park, right? Vista is sort of the exact same way. You run the playbook the same way every time. Well, what is interesting is that, you know, he taught me, his name is Brian, and then a few of his employees that we've hired over the years taught me that they have something called value engines. And sometimes they call them value engines, sometimes they call them revenue engines. But if I was to ask you right now, what is McKinsey's real business, like what you talked about, the core part of the business of what McKinsey sells, what would you say?

McKinsey the consulting company? Um, expertise. Yeah, that's what comes to mind.

So I, I said their core value engine is probably making their customers more money. Like, if they could drive revenue to their customers, that makes sense. McKinsey would went. I thought so. He's like, absolutely not. I'm like, really? What is it? And he said, McKinsey is a partner factory. They know that if they can take a college kid from college over 8 years and they're high-performing and turn them into a partner, then that partner will over the course of 20 years drive so much revenue to the firm that they just keep creating partners again and again. And so everything else is ancillary actually to their recruiting recruiting, onboarding, training, retention. And I thought that was fascinating because it's not dissimilar to like McDonald's, which people would say it's the cheeseburger, but in a lot of ways it's the real estate. And if they're in the right location, then those golden arches will beckon. And so it's a really great point about, you know, how do you make magic in a business if you're, you know, if Caruso's magic or value creation portion is this family component, knowing that and executing on it.

That's a great point. So Jim Collins, you know, one of my favorite authors, you were asking earlier, He's written many incredible books, but Good to Great is one of those. So he talks about how the greatest businesses, their product is not the thing that they sell, but it is their actual team. And it gives the example— so when Boeing started, do you know Boeing, that makes the greatest aircraft and rockets? And do you know what their original business was? Oh no, selling lawn and so let's say that their business was, I'm gonna sell lawn furniture, and they saw that as their product. When that product failed, if the business is the product, what happens? The business goes away. But instead, if you see the product as your team, right? My, my product is the team of engineers or consultants or creatives that I've hired, and I'm always trying to make that product better. Then regardless of whatever the output is, that can continue to change. The economy can change, the consumer interest can change, whatever it is. But you have this incredible team that is going to keep up with putting out new amazing outputs that is always going to evolve and make you better, then that's how you succeed in the long run.

Yeah, that's a really good point. So where do you think you failed early on in business that if you were standing in front of young Dar, you'd say, please, dear God, don't do this.

Ray Dalio, in his book Principles, he describes failure as you're in this video game and you're collecting gems, right? It's kind of going back to that Popeye spinach example. And every time you collect a gem, it makes you somewhat stronger because again, you've learned one more thing that doesn't work. And so it's natural to say, oh, I really regret that relationship, I really regret that co-founder, should have never partnered with that person, I should have never went into that industry. And I should have never rented that office or storefront or started that product. But in reality, you had to do that, as painful as it is. And I'm sorry, I know that some people might be listening to this to say, Dhar, like, I am backed up in credit card debt because of that decision. How are you going to say don't regret that? Well, the thing is, you can't make excuses to success. You can fail your way to success. Yes, but no excuse will take you to success. And the problem with excuses is if you don't see yourself as the problem, then you will never see yourself as the solution. So whatever bad has happened to you, the faster you can take ownership of it, learn from it, the faster that you're actually going to grow. The best leaders in the world, when something wrong happens, they don't look out the window, they look in the mirror, because that's where all the personal growth happens.

Yeah, it's a good reminder. Yeah, I heard the other day that, um, your excuse is somebody else's reason why. And I was like, God, you need to remember that. Yeah, you know, because half the time it is very easy to get stuck in your own little world and say, here's all the reasons why I can't, as opposed to these are all the reasons why I have to.

I actually got my brother motivated to start going to the gym because he's like, 'Dor, I have 3 kids. I don't have time to go to the gym.' And I'm like, 'They're the reason you need to go to the gym, because you want to be there for all their important milestones later on in life.' So yeah, I love that analogy.

Yeah, actually, there's a— there's— it's interesting because your channel is all about these inspirational stories, and I saw this one. I wonder if it'd make a good— maybe you could tell me if this would make a good story or not.

Let's hear the pitch.

Okay, here's the pitch.

Well, first, what's the packaging?

Oh shit, I don't know. Okay, okay, I'm gonna work on the pitch and totally mess up your 4-piece.

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Is, um, a really jacked dad, basically. And, um, you know, he, he looks good, he's dressed well. And in— and then there's like words on the screen, and the screen's basic And the screen basically says, like, you know, you care too much about what you look like. Like, why are you spending all this time working out? Something to that effect, probably a little pithier. And then it flashes to his daughter who is in a wheelchair and he's like, this is the exact reason why I have the muscles that I do. Because— and then he tells a beautiful story about how he carries her up the stairs every night. And when she first got in the accident, you know, he He wasn't in shape, actually. He couldn't carry her up the stairs. And so he's like, "You know, until my dying day, my gym time is one of the most important things I do because I will always carry that little girl up the stairs." And I remember watching it and being like, "You know, I need to go to the gym," which is sometimes how I feel when I watch your things. So I guess my question there for you would be—

Would I greenlight your story?

Yeah, exactly. How much? Do we sell it to Fox? Like, for that, maybe the question actually is, how do you know with all these stories out there in the world? Yeah, that one is going to be incredible.

Like, I'm obsessed with the story, right? It's amazing. It's got a great pitch. It really does. A muscular dad gets judged for being fit. Turns out that, like, for neglecting his kids because he cares so much about his fitness. Turns out the reason he's fit is to actually care for his children. That in 10 seconds explains the story. But that's not the first step, right? That's actually the third step. The step before that is what is the packaging? Okay, well, a muscular dad, that's interesting, right? What is the title of that? It's going to be very hard to describe the title in a few words. Muscular dad 'judged for his physical appearance' or 'strong dad judged for his muscles.' That doesn't really create immediate intrigue.

Weak men are bad fathers.

And, and it sucks because there's so many times that I'll hear an amazing story idea, but if you can't figure out a way to make it an interesting thumbnail— from anyone that's interested in creating content Yep. A lot of times, you know, you'll have to kill the idea, and somebody will say like, well, what if it's a great story? And I'll say, well, if it's not great packaging, then by default it can't be a great story, right? So that's going to suffer from not having the best packaging. But in terms of story structure, you have an interesting character, right? And this is for anyone that's interested in like storytelling or scripted content, which I know is not for everyone, one, but it could work for podcasting, it could work for all kinds of different content, um, and I guess just packaging for goods as well. You have a muscular middle-aged person, which you don't see too often, and that could be somewhat appealing for a certain level of audience as well. Creates intrigue for some, and it could be appealing, right? Um, and then you've got the relatable, right? He's a dad. You've got the conflict of somebody saying— and I would imagine someone like who's not fit, kind of giving him a hard time. Yeah, I would be in the gym too all the time if I didn't care about my family, right? That's immediate intrigue right there. And then you've got the emotional backstory, right? You've got the part where it's actually like, well, the reason I have to train is because I have to carry my daughter up the stairs, you know, every single night, and I want to be there. Or because I have to— I want to make sure that I'm around for a long time to help support her. So that's the part that's going to make you want to cry. And there's a clear lesson there, which is don't judge a book by its cover, or you really never know what someone is going through, so don't make assumptions. So it has all the necessary elements of an amazing story. Uh, the packaging is where it's going to suffer. And then I would say also, you know, you really have to know who your audience is. So this would pertain more towards a middle-aged audience. Audience. So for us, YouTube— our YouTube audience skews a lot younger, so it probably wouldn't be as relatable for a 10-year-old boy. Um, and then for Facebook, that audience skews older, so I would say this would be a great video for Facebook. And so we have different, you know, types of content for different audiences. So you also want to think about where this could live. But if you want to test your first story, scripted story— and I'm happy to do this in collaboration with you, because like now that we've told our audience, it might be interesting to see it come to life. I would love to do the story with you.

How fun.

And you could be that with us.

But oh God, well now I'm just— I identify as a frog lately. Like last night I was thinking about— I just have my little belly, I put my hands on it, I just lay around. But, um, masterclass and taking an idea right there real time and breaking it down segment-wise, you can see that you've done your 10,000 hours really intensely. One of the things I was curious about here is, um, you are basically greenlighting hundreds and, well, thousands, I guess, of stories a year. How many— what is the ratio? How many ideas do you guys typically have to picking one story?

That's— this is actually a great question. We're right in the thick of this right now where we've actually developed a greenlighting percentage ratio for every step in the process. And so before Before, if I had an amazing story, just like what you said right now, I would just go and develop it right away.

Yeah.

Right. I would say, oh, this is moving forward. And then I'd wait to see what the actual results are. And then if it didn't meet my expectations, I would be disappointed or come up for some reason that didn't work. Yeah. Now it's a little bit more of a method— methodology where we have a certain percentage of ideas that start in packaging, right? Um, so let's say that we have 10 ideas in packaging where that is just a title is what we begin with. If it passes the title stage, then it goes into the actual thumbnail design. So you can do this very cost-effectively. You could do this through AI. So we'll start with the title. Then we just imagine if that title gets approved, then we imagine what it's going to look like visually. If the title isn't approved, then it it dies. So let's say out of 10 ideas, 9 of them, uh, pass the title stage. Then we'll actually visualize it and we'll look at the thumb and say, ah, you know, this isn't interesting enough to warrant someone clicking on it. If it isn't, then it's scrapped. If it is interesting enough, then it goes past the illustration phase into the actual design phase. You want me to break this down sort of more?

So good.

Okay, so once it gets past the illustration, right now we are adding a layer where now we will survey our audience. So every single week we have a new Google Form where our audience can go on and they can actually greenlight the next ideas that we're going to produce. And so every step of this process, we'll ask them, which of these titles do you find interesting? Which of these illustrations do you find interesting? The next step is we will actually take a real design We'll think of casting and then we'll create a real thumbnail and see what that looks like. Sometimes things work in illustration, but they don't work in practicality. And so once we actually see, all right, well, here's what an official final thumbnail would be, then it moves forward to the actual pitch stage. So from there, now we're thinking about, hey, how do we explain this in 30 seconds? Has to be a page or less, and it has to have all the most important parts of the story. Story. We've got a muscular dad, we've got somebody, um, so he's the protagonist. Who's the antagonist? It's somebody who's judgmental. Uh, their backstory is maybe they haven't gotten into the best of shape. They use their children as an excuse. They're kind of unhappy with how their life is now. What is the interesting environment? Maybe someone is leaving a gym while the other person is leaving a restaurant. They happen to cross over, right? Um, and I don't know, maybe this the overweight guy drops something heavy, is struggling to pick something up, uh, up, and then the muscular guy comes in and says, oh, I can carry that for you. And now the not fit guy feels a little bit embarrassed because there has to be some sort of inciting incident. Why is this guy upset? It just can't happen for no reason. The simplest thing is you're gonna have them bump into each other, right? Um, so you have an inciting incident. Now where is the conflict coming from? Now we're hearing this overweight guy shaming the muscular guy for being a bad parent because he's neglecting his kids because he's in the gym. What is the irony in that story? The irony is he's actually fit because he really cares about his children, because he's taking care of his daughter that's in a wheelchair. And then what is the resolution? The resolution is now the overweight person sees that he shouldn't judgmental. They should, you know, think twice before they assume. Uh, so that's the moral lesson that can be shareable. So we know what the pitch is. All of that has to be contained in that one-pager. So this idea would pass the pitch phase. But let's just say, you know, you've got out of 10 titles, 9 move forward to illustration, 8 move forward to actually pitcher. And I would say maybe 5 move forward to the actual pitch. Once the pitch is greenlit, and that could be by the audience, that could be by the showrunner, that could be be based on your own gut instinct. Now you go into the actual scripting, and the scripting is when you develop, you know, a full however long the script is going to be. And by the way, every creator does this, regardless if you're a scripted creator, if you are creating, you know, spectacle-based IRL videos. Even podcasters generally have an outline as to where this interview is going to go. So you— that's what I consider the scripting phase. Out of that, you know, maybe out of the 5, I would say 3 to 4 move forward, um, and then out of those remaining, usually 1 will get scrapped in post-production.

Wow.

After you've done it, even after we've shot everything and then we take a look at it, or we decide it's meant for a different platform, or we have different channels, like some for our highest bar content and then some for lower. But, you know, our content is produce much less expensively than, um, how traditional is. So we have the ability to do that because we never want to alienate the audience experience by delivering something that we don't fully believe in. So I would say out of those 10 ideas, ultimately when you break it all down, you have about one that finally makes it to the YouTube page.

I think it's nice to see, like, what I'm taking away from this is like, one, it does take a lot of quantity in many ways to get to the thing that you want in life, right? Like you have so many reps that by now you are able to manufacture millions. But sometimes I think it's nice to see that and go, oh, it's not just that Dar's a genius, although he is, it's that, you know, Dar has muscle memory of this for over 8 years running this playbook again and again until he gets to speak a language and seem almost fluent in it because, you know, you've done it so long. And so, you know, I think I got numbers for you and I don't know if these are right, so tell me, that on average it might take you 21 days to do from script all the way to even filming something or pre-production for one video or post-production. Script to screen, 21 days, which is actually in many ways it's crazy compared to Hollywood. They might take years, right? But then compared to somebody who's just starting, it's like, okay, that's a lot of work too.

Yeah.

And so you can see sort of the progression of where you've been. I guess maybe a question there is like, Did you ever have one that you put a ton of money, a ton of time into? You put it out, total flop.

Happens all the time. And there's ones that, like, we put the least effort into, thought it would flop, and ends up doing the best, right? But that's why it's such an important numbers game, right? Consistency matters more than anything. Like, imagine it took me 100 videos to go viral, and you know what keeps me up at night sometimes? What if I quit on number 99? You never know how close you are to success unless you keep going. You could be one phone call, one door, one piece of viral content away from your whole life being completely different. So no matter what, the most important thing you can do is not give up on yourself. And so yeah, I would say, you know, as time goes on, all that changes is that you become more methodical and then you become a little bit better at having insight instincts as to what's gonna work or not, right? My 99 videos were a flop, but once I figured out that 100 successful one, my batting average was no longer 1 in 100, right? It might have been like 1 in 5, and then after that it was 1 in 4, 1 in 3. You just get better and better, right? So even you as an entrepreneur, you have multiple businesses. I bet before having multiple businesses, you failed a lot. I'm guessing. I don't even know if this is your story or you not? Is that true?

Oh, of course.

Yeah, you had lots of ideas that never really worked, but now you're a lot smarter, you're a lot more experienced, you have a better team around you, you have systems in place, you get better opportunities vetted to you because you've built a name for yourself, right? So what is your chance? What is your hit rate now? It's a lot— it's a lot higher. And guess what? Banks are also going to loan you. And so even if you fail, they can give you a lifeline for you to keep going, to give you more time to figure it out. So it's consistency that ultimately enables that success. So you can't quit on those first 99 videos, or even, you know, however long it takes. But the key is to make it so fast and inexpensive that it allows you the runway to succeed. So when I started, I had $600 in my bank account. Even if I went and I took every credit card that was available to me, every friends and family loan that was available to me, and said, I really want to make a film and I looked it up online and to make a film it costs about a million bucks, which in reality costs far more than that, right? I put all my money together that I possibly could through all my friends and family, buried myself deep in debt, put it in one video. That one video would've failed. If I took half the money and made two, both of them would've failed. The only reason it worked was because my wife was the creative, my brother-in-law was the actor. I was filming everything on iPhones. My studio apartment was our set. So you have to do things as scrappy as you possibly can, which gave me the runway to fail 99 times until I finally got to that 100th time. We used to have it where the 2 actors that we'd have in our videos would show up and we'd all kind of sit around and on a paper, on a piece of paper, I would write, on a napkin, I would write, "All right, well, wouldn't it be interesting if this happened?" Or, "Here's what happened to me last night while I was leaving the parking lot." and someone judged me because of the broken-down car that I had. Maybe there's an interesting storyline there because, right? Or, hey, I helped someone with jumper cables and then I had positive karma later. What if we did a video on like how karma can travel in some sort of positive chain? We come up with a concept right there, we'd shoot it, and within like 2 hours it would go live. So 21 Days is now— we've gotten to a point where as in the beginning, everyone is again a family environment, right? Your first, the first 5, 10 people you have, they're passionate. They're answering your calls at midnight. They're burning the midnight oil with you. Everyone is doing everything. But as you start to scale, then that's not sustainable. You really have to create work-life balance. You have to provide certain types of benefits. At Dhar Mann Studios now we're releasing like an equity program where where our actors, some of our longtime actors and employees, actually have equity in the company. We have better 401 program rolling out than most traditional studios even do. So now we're really able to invest back in the team to provide them a more stable environment to really grow and build a career on. Kind of going back to McKinsey is like, how do you get people to that partner-level status? Our product is our team. We invest in that team. Um, and so yeah, what works now isn't what worked in the beginning. And so you have to be able to be scrappy, to evolve fast, to put in those reps. And then once you finally get there, then you can build more sustainable systems.

It's so good. What advice do you have for somebody today who wants to be successful and win?

So if you want to be the first millionaire in your family, you have to do these 3 things. Number 1 is start saving money consistently. And it doesn't have to be a lot. You don't have to listen to these online gurus who say you have to start with $10,000 or $25,000 or $100,000. I'm talking about $100 out of your paycheck, $50, $20, whatever it is, just save up consistently. And you'll be shocked as to how that money starts to compound over time. The second thing is instead of asking whenever you receive a little bit money, what can I buy? Ask yourself, what can I invest in? And the third thing I would say is the most important, and that's to cut out 3 time wasters in your life. And we all know what those are because your girlfriend has probably told you, your spouse, or your mother, or that little internal voice inside of your head. Replace those with learning 2 new skills, and you'll be shocked 6 months from now as to how those new skills you've developed have turned into new income streams. So now that you have those 3 steps, if you follow them, you'll be amazed as to where your life can be a year from now.

You're doing $65 million in revenue now. You have, you know, 200 employees, $150,000 or 150,000 square foot studio. But that's not where you started. How did you get started?

I don't think people realize how much better their life could be if they just start doing the things that they're already thinking about doing. I know it's I know it's terrifying, but do you know what the only thing more scary is than doing that thing? Is the thought of looking back at your life 10 years from now, wondering what your life could have been if you just decided to take action. We're also burdened by all the things that we heard growing up, these limited beliefs that were placed on us.

Mm-hmm.

What if you fail? You're thinking too big. What will people think? Think, but none of that actually matters. Just start taking action now and you'll be shocked as to how far your life can come if you just get started today. That's—

I'm— the Nike campaign, Just Do It. I still like it to this day. What do you think is the best piece of advice you've been given when it comes to making money?

Stop trying to look rich before you actually are rich. We spend so much of our time trying to impress people that are not even paying attention. So we spend all of our money on that nice watch or that pair of shoes or that handbag or that designer outfit, which actually takes us further away from our goals. Instead, real wealth is built quietly. And if you focus on taking all the necessary steps versus showing it, you'll actually get to a true place of building wealth. And the ironic part is, when you actually have real success you'll not want to show it because you just become a bigger target in everyone's eyes anyway. So I would say build wealth quietly and put in the hard work in silence.

I like it. Neither of us have fancy watches on today. No, no, I don't have one.

I got my Oura Ring. Yeah, I know.

What do you think has been the biggest sacrifice you've ever had to make in your business?

The biggest sacrifice I've ever had to make in my business was the toll it took on my relationship when I was just starting out. I just thought that because I was trying to improve the life of my wife and my kids, that, that made every decision okay. So I skipped out on the date nights, I skipped out on the dinners, I skipped out on the school plays. And then I came to realize that what is success if I can't even spend time with my own family? And so even though I may not take 100% of the opportunities that I get today, day, even if I can go for 80% of them or 70% but still have a life and show up for my wife and kids, to me that's worthwhile. And I'll tell you a quick story as to what helped me realize that. There was a day I was working in my office and my 5-year-old daughter came in and said, Daddy, play with me. And I said, Daddy's busy working right now. And so my daughter left, she went into the kitchen. I could just tell from the look on her face that she was really disappointed. So that guilt was eating at me. Eventually I get up, I go to the kitchen, I say, sweetheart, you see this big house that we live in? And she says, yeah. I said, well, that's why Daddy has to work so hard, okay? She nodded her head. I could tell she wasn't really happy with that answer. So I go back to my office, I start working again, and a couple minutes later my daughter comes in, knocks on the door, and she goes, Daddy. I said, yeah? She said, I don't want to have a big house anymore.

More.

It's like the thing that I valued, that I thought that I was delivering on as a dad to help make everyone else's lives better or dreams come true, was actually not even the thing that they really wanted. They really just wanted me to be there. That mattered more than anything. So I'd say trying to find that balance between presence and presence.

You're going to make me cry on this one.

So the pregnancy—

yeah, actually, that's very true. I could cry at anything. It's not really you. So let's say somebody here is young and starting out in their business. What do you wish you had known as a 20-year-old business owner that you now know? Like, what did you think was true back then that now you realize that is not true at all?

People's opinions don't matter. We get so hung up on mind, what if I put out this video? What is that person gonna think of me? What if I try and this doesn't work out and I fail? How is my family gonna judge that? People are gonna judge regardless, and the people that are judging are the ones that were too afraid to go after their own dreams in the first place. I promise you that if you just get started, the people that are questioning why you're doing something are the same ones that are going to ask ask you how you did it. And remember, because the people that were with you during your struggle, they're the ones that deserve to be with you during your success.

Do you think that most people quit too early in business?

I think there's two ways to look at that. The obvious answer is yes, but it really depends on your purpose alignment. If you know that this is the one thing that you were meant to do, it keeps you up at night because God has put these big dreams in your head and you know that your life will never feel complete if you are not this thing, then I would say try as long as you possibly can. Like, if your dream is to be a pro athlete and you're 45 years old and you've not made it, then I would say move on, right? But if you still have the ability to achieve that dream and that's the thing that really fills your soul, then no matter what it takes, keep going after that. Thing. But on the converse, even if you are successful at something, even if you are making a lot of money but it no longer aligns with your purpose, then I would say at some point you are going to start to feel really empty and create a void that no amount of money can ever fill. So it might be time to try something else.

Last question: have you ever had a dark night of the soul in business where you thought this isn't going to work out out, I'm not going to cut it and I'm not going to make it.

If so, always listen to your guts. God has put in some sort of ability for us to know whether something is for us or not for us. And every time we turn off that compass that's saying like, I feel it in my skin, I get goosebumps when I talk about it, something's not right about this, but you know what, maybe I'm being irrational and reasonable, I'm just going to move those always end up being terrible decisions. So whether it's some opportunity, whether it's a person, whatever it is, if something doesn't feel right instinctively inside of your gut, listen to that. And you know what, even if it seems like it was a bad decision at first, like, oh my gosh, look at that person is succeeding, a day will come where you'll realize my instinct was right. I'm glad I didn't listen to that.

So true, we've had that. Um, Darman, this was amazing.

Thanks, Codie.

Okay, so new podcast is called What Happens Next. What Happens Next. Darman on all the YouTubes, socials, Instagram. If they had to start with one place with you, where would you tell somebody to go and follow you today or go and watch?

Sanchez podcast. I would say, you know, to learn more about me is definitely my podcast. Podcast. But if you're interested in inspirational stories that truly will help move your life forward in a positive way, there are scripted content on YouTube or Samsung, Facebook, or on all the different platforms. It's a great place to get some inspiration and kind of get you out of a rut.

I love it. Well, I found this podcast so helpful. I'm literally— you know, you'll— you know too, probably from doing these podcasts, there are some that I go back and listen to a lot, and And there's some that are like, okay, that was amazing. It wasn't for me. It was for this person that was listening.

Who are the ones that you felt that you're not going to go back to?

Well, I can't tell that one. I can't because then I'd be a jerk. But this one I'm going to go back to and I'm going to have the team listen to too. I think the parts on failure, the parts on how to build a business tactically, it's kind of rare that you can listen to something where you can walk away with here is a 15-step process, here is a 4-step process, and simultaneously I feel fired fired up. You know, David Goggins is just like, go fucking run! But you're like, how? He's like, shut up, run! You know? And this is a unique mix of both. And so thank you for sharing it.

Yeah, thanks. Oh, such an honor. I really appreciate it. Just me being the creator and thinking about retention— you might want to cut some of that out, as sweet as it is. And, uh, and I'll just share a story that if you want to place earlier in the podcast, feel free. But when I actually met Codie Sanchez, uh, I was a fan of your content first, and we're at the Rosewood Hotel and I think I approached you as probably like some crazy fan coming up to you at like 9 o'clock in the morning or whenever it was. And I was like, hey, we have mutual friends and I'm gonna launch a podcast, this and that. So it's just so cool to see things come full circle, probably a year later or so. And, uh, and what an honor to be on your podcast.

Well, thanks. I can't wait to come see your studio, get on the podcast. Yeah. And if you have questions for Dart, hit me in the YouTube comments and I will actually bring them direct to you next time.

And the muscular dad story. If you want to see that happen—

I do. I don't even know how to script something like that.

Okay, that's why I'm here.

Let's do it. I know, I got to see you do it in 30 seconds. That was insanity.

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