Why Most Entrepreneurs Are Miserable Running Their Own Companies with Dan Martell

You are a brilliant human who should be thriving and changing the world. You just need a plan.

We don't hire people to grow our business. We hire people to buy back our time.

I know that I ran away from being broke so hard. I didn't work on me.

Become the person you needed most in your darkest days.

Let's start with buy back your time. What are some of the core principles? Somebody's watching right now and said, I want to start. I'm already in it. I see this happening.

I mean, the buyback principle, which is the core process I call the first principle is we don't hire people to grow our business, we hire people to buy back our time. People need to write that down because if you do the first, hire people to grow our business, we'll actually not get the second. But if you do the second, hire people to buy back our time, we get the first. So most entrepreneurs end up experiencing what I call the pain line, right? Where the more they grow, the more pain in their calendar, chaos in their calendar will show up, right? You know this. If you say to this entrepreneur, here's the strategy to triple your business, they drag their feet, right? Because inadvertently they're sabotaging themselves, right? Because they know that more growth equals more pain. And what I've learned a long time ago is entrepreneurs will never grow into pain. It's impossible. It's like me holding a knife to your throat and say, step forward. Yeah, you're just not going to do it. So most people hit the pain line. They either decide to stall, sell, or sabotage. Right. And what I offer people is a completely different approach. It's called the buyback loop. And the buyback loop states that once you feel pain in your calendar— and I do it maybe 2 or 3 times a year— you go 3-step process.

ATF.

Everybody needs to write this down. ATF audit is your time and your energy. What do— when you look at a 2-week audit of your, your calendar and you, you look at what lights you up, what takes your energy, what has a low cost to pay somebody else to do, what has a higher cost. If you took all the stuff that's red, sucks your energy, and low cost to pay somebody else to do, and you put it in a bucket, that is the only next hire you should be making because that is how you build a business you don't grow to hate.

Though I teach that, though it's been my philosophy that got me here, there's still days if I don't practice it, and I bet you feel the same, where I go, how did I let myself get back into this? I always feel like there's this old version of us. It still has like the hook and there's still a reel that every once in a while, if you're not paying attention, it reels you right back. And then, but, but what I love about what you wrote in this book, what I love about what you do is when you have a framework, as soon as you recognize it, oh, you know the path to get back to where you need to be. And I think where most people, They just don't have the— they're on— it's the unknown. It's just overwhelming. Screw it. I'm going to go drive an Uber. I can't handle this. No, you are a brilliant human who should be thriving and changing the world. You just need a plan.

Yeah. I mean, the truth is, is what you're describing is most people grew up in some level of chaos. It's what's familiar. And actually, when they start buying back their time and things get too easy, it freaks them out and they throw huge hand grenades. They like lob the pin in their own life. Yeah. And then they wonder, why do they keep repeating the same challenges over and over again. So to me, it's you start with the time and energy because it's a forcing function to figure out who's the next hire. The second step is T, which is transfer. See, most people don't hire folks because they go, it's easier for me to do it myself. It's going to take me more time to train somebody else. Or what if I train them and they leave? You know, well, what if you don't and they stay? So my whole thing is transfer. Dude, it happens all the time.

So simple and so true. Write that down. Think through what he just said. Yeah.

So, so transfer in my world is this methodology called the camcorder method. So I record everything I do today knowing that someday somebody else is gonna do it. So as I'm doing it, I just record all these little clips, put 'em in a folder. So when I make that hire, I give them, you know, 20, 30 hours of recordings of me talking out loud. And they create what's called the standard operating procedure.

Sometimes there are core competencies. What I've seen over the years, I've been in business since I was 17. I'm 55 next month. I can't believe it goes quick, too quick. But there's some things that you think through time, this is just my core competency. I could hire someone to do that, but they could never do this. And I think that's one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves. There are so many more things I can hand off, which allows you, us, everybody watching to go deeper on that center of the bullseye.

The thing only they can do.

Because there, there is only a few things you do, Dan. That's why your business is so great. But there's so many we thought were ours. Is that true?

Totally. And the letting go is actually a really important skill. And I get it when I talk about this. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, you'll never get a penny more than you think you deserve. You don't get what you want. You don't get what you think. Yes, that is so true. So that's what happens is most people don't believe they deserve to be paid $1,000. That sounds crazy to a lot of entrepreneurs and I get it. You know, so when they think of paying somebody else $30, when they don't even feel like they're worth $20, They can't do it. So that's why the third chapter of my book is Time Assassins. It's literally systematically going through every mindset monster and belief around time and what you're worth. I can't get you to do this stuff if you don't get on. You know how it is. It's a mindset problem.

I've asked at this point millions of people when we do our big events, I always say, hey, if you— if I right now I could cut you a check for a million bucks or you could prepare for a week and you could go back and spend a week with your 20-year-old self, do you want the million? Or the week with yourself? I've never seen somebody say, take a million.

Yeah, there's two stories that come to mind when you share this, 'cause it's brilliant. Like that thought process is what's required. My dad growing up owned some real estate, couple properties, and every Sunday he would spend the whole afternoon mowing these lawns. And growing up, I was like, this makes no sense. Like you own the building, you're not the first person.

Go get another building.

Yeah, it just sounds crazy. And eventually I just said, Dad, why do you do this? And he goes, I like to do it. I said, well, if you like to do it so much, why don't you do the neighbors? He goes, I don't like to do it that much. I go, well, then your definition of like and mine are completely different. So there's that. And then the other thing that people should consider is whatever you're doing, would you allow somebody to pay you to do that for them in their business?

Ooh, they're not going to like this. Not in a million years.

Are you booking your own travel? Some, you know what I mean? Like I ask these questions. Do you book your own travel? Do you do this? You do this? They go, yeah. I go, would you allow yourself to be paid to do that for somebody else's business? Right? No, you wouldn't.

Yeah. And I always think about— it's funny, this is why people said we'd have fun talking, because I tell a story about mowing my own lawn back in the day and my dad getting mad at me.

Yeah.

Because I hired someone else, and he's like, why would you hire someone else when you do it yourself? I'm like, because at the time I had a car business. I said, if I go work the day Saturday, I'll sell 2 cars. Back then I made $1,500 a car. So if I go to the office, I make $3,000. If I stay here, I save $50 by mowing my own lawn. And there was a philosophy I remember. My dad's an amazing man. I love him, but he was broke his whole life. I retired I hired him when I was 27. I've been giving him a check every week since I was 27 years old. Smartest man you've ever met. Graduated top of his class, got almost 100 on his SATs, but still never made more than $35,000 a year. Of that, do it. If you could do it all yourself, why would you hire someone else? And the philosophy I got is I just started attaching an ROI to everything. I could pay somebody $50 to mow my own lawn. If I could make $100, would anybody on this call, would you take a 2 for 1? If you spend a dollar, would you love to get back 2?

How many trades, how many times would you do that?

Unlimited. Unlimited. So if I can even— somebody mows my lawn for $50 and I can go make $100 every day of the week. But if I can pay $50 and go make $3,000, where else can I do that? And last thing I want to share with you, because you just sparked some things, is I don't do anything around my house because I love— I don't change my own light bulbs. I don't take out my garbage. I don't mow my lawn. I don't know if the garage door doesn't work. We call somebody.

He's told me the story of your mom over saying, where do I put the garbage?

Yeah. My mom said, what day does the garbage go out? And I'm like, I don't know. She goes, you've lived here for 5 years. I'm like, it just magically gets out there. And my mom was upset with me until I explained this philosophy. I said, Mom, I'm in the middle of writing a book. My last one sold a million copies. Should I go out and take the garbage out, mow the lawn, change that light bulb, or pay somebody $30 to go do that and write 2 more chapters in my book? And she's like, oh my God, babe, why don't you teach it? Why didn't people teach us in school? I'm like, well, anyway, I'm going to shut up. I want to know more. What's next? And buy back your time. Yeah.

So, so that's the transfer side because I know that if it's hard, people won't do it. So we record ourselves, we give it to somebody else. But the last one is fill. And I think this is where we're going to have a lot of fun is now that you have that time, you say like, would you trade $10 for $50? So that one's the easiest fill where you just do— if you're a logo designer, design more logos. If you write code, if you're an agency, whatever your thing is, do, do more of the thing that gets you paid. But at a certain point when you then buy back that time and you're no longer— if you own a landscaping company doing the landscaping, that's where people actually get like, what do I do with this extra day, 2 days? If you hire an executive assistant, you get 30 hours a week. And that's where I talk about the beliefs, what world views that I have, the money beliefs, the productivity beliefs, the people beliefs that are— they're not supporting me? What are the skill sets that I need to acquire? So where's the gap from where I'm at, where I want to go? What— I got to make a list. You know, we do it with our team. We call them learning and development plans. But like, here's the skill sets. The most important is what are the character traits? You got to ask yourself, somebody that's running a million-dollar company, how do they act? You know, what kind of discipline, what kind of motivation, what kind of communication skills? Like, what are the character traits of that individual? Because You know, John Maxwell talked about this a long time ago, the law of the lid. The business will never grow, you know, to the level of your goals. They'll grow to the level of the leadership.

Yeah.

And it is such that most entrepreneurs don't look in the mirror and say, if I want my business to grow, it's not just another growth hack, another tactic or strategy is I literally have to become better. So that's the third step. And if you don't fill properly, you don't actually get the loop. You don't get the slingshot. You don't finish the complete circle and you get stuck between audit transfer. Pissed off people, they're not working. You just keep going back and forth. So that's why I've been really excited to get this message out.

So many people ask me, when, when you started making more money, like, what changes? And I, I'd love to say, you know, the freedom, all the things that you would expect, in control of your calendar, more responsibility. People say more money, less problems. Like, no, you just get better at handling bigger problems, right? Jim Rohn said for things to get better, You have to get better. Right? It's really simple.

Don't wish the world was easier. Wish you were better.

Right. Exactly. Because the world's not getting easier. In fact, it is off the rails right now. Right? So we have to get better. The greatest gift of getting money out of the way. I believe the greatest gift is not what you think. It's not the second house and the private plane. I hope all that works for you. Or the watch you've been wanting to buy or the gift you want to buy your spouse or retiring your mom or retiring your husband or whatever that is. But I know that I ran away from being broke so hard. My parents weren't in control. They didn't make any money. They divorced and married 9 times between them. We got evicted from our trailer park. Like, I was running so hard away from that that that's all I focused on. Mm-hmm. I didn't work on me. And there was a moment money was out of the way. I'm like, I'm okay. And the only thing left standing was the guy in the the mirror, and it was the scariest time in my life because it's like, I'm not gonna go broke, I can afford the things I wanted, my family's safe, I retired my parents, my kids are going to be okay. Shit, I gotta work on me. And I remember this moment. So the greatest gift was that got it away, and I had to look in the mirror, and the stuff that happened as a childhood— 9 marriages and some crazy stuff, and my dad who went through really violent years, and I had a bleeding ulcer at 12. And some of those things I ran away from— I, I, I was divorced before. Like, I don't think I cherished relationships at the level I should have. It was just a thing. It's because my parents just run away from marriages. They don't work, you run. Like, that's what you do. Like, so you put a shell around your heart, you don't let anybody in. So all these things that I didn't know were there, Dan, when money was out of the way, man, they were loud. And what it did is it allowed me to go time the to work on me. So what you're saying in my, just my version of that is I still work my tail off in my business because I love it, but it gave me the space to be a better man. And I'm a better father because of it. I'm a better ex to my previous wife. We're dear friends. I'm a better husband. I brought a better version of me as a man, as a provider, as a father, as someone in this relationship. I think I'm a way better team member to my team. We have a culture here It's off the charts. I have real depth of friends in my life. And none of that would have happened if I had didn't figure out these ways to buy back my time and go, oh, fuck, there's space, Dan.

Yeah. All the money people think it's going to solve the problems. And then all the problems technically are solved. And you don't— you still feel the same exact lack. Yeah. Just like insecure. I guess it was crazy. And I remember somebody said this once. They go, at the end of the day, when you get the money, the money will just make you more of who you are. And if you don't do the work, that person— that person that it gave you that dark energy, that fuel to drive you— for me, it was like proving my dad wrong, and every person that didn't believe me in high school, and the jail guard that said I was a piece of shit, and all this stuff. Like, and then eventually I was by myself with the money, and I realized I still felt that way.

Yeah.

And that's where I had look and say, okay, it's time to do the work. And that's for me where it shifted to be more about the light energy. And I think dark energy is like diesel, and it'll get you going, but at some point it has to transition to something more aspirational.

Pulling rather than running, because running away, you're being pulled towards something.

It'll absolutely eat you up inside. And I think that's one of the biggest gifts, if you allow it to, is— and there's this great quote that says, become the person you need most in your darkest days.

Oh, I love that.

And when I went through my darkest days, and even today when I think back, when people go like, why do you do all this? I know damn well why I do all this. Yeah, because I ask myself, would that 15-year-old boy listen to the man I become?