Buy Back Your Time with Dan Martell

Dan Martell. It is so good to see you, brother.

I'll say, man. Honored to be here. Appreciate you. And I'm gonna call the shot, man. I want this to be one of the best podcasts and movies you've ever done. You know, it's a high bar, had incredible guests, but I'm gonna give you 110%.

I'm in. I'm totally in. You know, it's interesting. We have a very unique relationship in that we've probably spent less than an hour together in the last 10 years. Felt like we have this natural love and affinity for each other. Would you say that? Am I making that up or is that true?

No, no. 100%. Can you imagine? Like, ah, really?

I didn't see our relationship that way at all.

But yeah, yeah, it's. No, and it's cool. I mean, this is the power of social media. As much as people want to, you know, sometimes poo poo it, I think it's a beautiful thing if done right. Right. And I, you know, I think, like, I've just always shared how grateful I am and the work you've done and how it's impacted my life and, you know, just the way you do life in general. So it's. It's cool that you feel that way.

Yeah, man. Well, you and. You and Renee are just two beautiful people, and I think that just radiates. And so, you know, like you said, even social media, right. You just. You see it, you feel it, you feel the authenticity. And you can tell. I feel like if somebody, like, if they're trying, if they're, you know, playing a game of, like, look how much better I am than you and look how cool my life is, even though it's not. Or, you know, like, you can kind of feel, I feel like that authenticity across social media, you know?

Yeah.

So first and foremost, I guess we already had a first and a foremost, but the next thing I want to say is congratulations on your new book, Buy Back youk Time, hitting number two on Wall Street Journal bestseller list.

Yeah, I appreciate it, man. As you know, number one, it's got a behemoth in that spot with atomic habits. It's a tough one to unseat. So I think that he, personally, I.

Think he has, like, a wealthy uncle, and he's just buying, like, I don't get in copies of his book a month. Like, how could you? I don't know what he's doing.

Naturally. Selling 25, 30,000 a week is beautiful. And I know Jamie, actually, as soon as soon as I. I got number two, I chirped at him.

Totally. So I saw you. I saw you guys go back and forth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, hey, dude, you better start promoting your book more. I'm coming for you as a joke. But, yeah, it's a freaking honor, man. It's crazy. I. I, like, there was no expectation. There was zero. I was just, you know, I decided to write a book to serve some people that I really cared about, and somehow it's resonating in the world, and it's just.

Yeah, man. As you know, it's just you write something, you work on something for years, and you hope. You hope people like it. And, yeah, number two, Wall Street Journal is kind of. It doesn't make sense. I grew up in a small town in eastern Canada, and my brother called me the morning. He goes, dude, I didn't even think I would ever know somebody that wrote a book, let alone a bestseller. And I'm like, I know. Isn't this crazy? He's like, I don't even get it.

It's weird how it's surreal because you're like, especially this is your first book, right? Like, your first book, and your first book goes big. Well. And I'll tell you, here's the thing. Like, I'm holding your book in my hands right now. For anybody watching this on YouTube, listening to the podcast, the book is, buy back your time, get unstuck, reclaim your freedom, and build your empire. And this morning, I was, you know, I'm reading it. I'm. I'm literally.

I'm.

You know, I'm less than halfway through is exactly what I need right now. Exactly what I need. I just launched a team. I've always been a real solopreneur. It's been like, me and my assistant, and then everyone that's worked with me or for me has been like, an independent contractor that I'd bring on to do it. You know, hey, I'll hire you for a month to do this, or three months to do this, right? And going into this year, I finally was like, I need to, like, to take the miracle morning to the next level. I need help. You know, this. I need help. I. I'm. I. I can't do it by myself anymore, right? And. And so I, you know, I've got all these people that I've worked with for years. I'm like, hey, I want to bring you on full time. I want to bring you on full time. Like, we need to build a team. I'm gonna. I'm gonna get a loan, invest some money. Like, I'm gonna. We're going. I'm all in. And so this book is the perfect time. And here's what I want to do today. This morning, it hit me as I'm reading. I'm like, wait a minute. How rare is it that you're reading a book that's changing your life and that you get to talk to the author of the book while you're reading their book? Right? Like, that doesn't happen. You know, you don't go to the store, buy a book, and you're like, oh, my God, this famous author. I could just talk to him. So this morning, I'm like, I think I'm gonna selfishly use this time to just ask Dan, basically get coaching from you. Like, I don't know what it would cost to bring in for a day of coaching or consulting. It'd be a small fortune. I know that.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm just gonna selfishly ask you what I want to know, and I think that'll serve the audience in the end, so. And.

And it's fun for me, you know, how. Because, like, look, the book's there, and I'm not trying to sell books, but if. If it resonates, you know, go get it. But I'm more interested in, like, the implementation side, so, you know, we can get into the nuance and. And really kind of look at the full picture and serve you. And I'm sure everybody else listening, especially your audience, would love to hear that perspective as well.

Let's do this first. Before we get into my questions. You're very open about the challenges that you faced in your upbringing. In fact, you opened the book with that. It really grabs attention, right? Police chase, pulling gun. I mean, it was. It was wild. Can you dive into how you ended up in jail and kind of that story and, you know, going from there to. To being as successful as you've been?

Yeah. I'll share the short version, because obviously, I want to. I want to spend more time coaching and serving you. But, yeah, I grew up in, like, an environment that was very much probably the best way to think about if you've ever watched Sons of Anarchy, you know, like, motorcycle gang. Like, I just. I just grew up. I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11. I had a serious anger issue. Um, my mom was an alcoholic. My dad was in sales, traveling a lot, and just had a lot of time on my hands. And we grew up kind of outside of the main city, and.

You know, I got introduced to drugs when I was 13 and just kind of went spiraled out of control and just, you know, quickly. It's kind of funny because my, I've always been entrepreneurial. I just didn't do anything legal for a really long time. And yeah, just, you know, learning things and seeing things that, you know, teenagers really shouldn't be exposed to, just, just through the, the circle of people I was spending time with and ended up in trouble with the law and ended up in jail the first time. I was 15, got out. I was going to change my life. I lasted less than 24 hours. And about a year later, I got in some big trouble and I was on the run from the police. And I had stolen a car and had a handgun sitting next to me in a backpack because I told myself if the police stopped me, I was going to just pull the gun and let them do their job. And I took a routine exit off the highway to get some gas and there was a roadblock and I decided to gun it. Just stepped on the gas and took off and trying to get away and ended up in this neighborhood. I was quite a bit ahead. I mean, I'm drunk and high at this point, so I don't, from what I can remember, right. But I saw an open garage door and I was, I was thinking, you know, hide out in that garage. You know, maybe I've watched too many car chase movies. But.

As I pulled in, I ended up smashing in the side of the house. I was going way too fast and like airbag goes off and just chaos. Smashed my head against the steering wheel because I wasn't wearing a seat belt. And when I came through OR two, I. I went for the gun and I started pulling on it and I could hear the police kind of pull up and as I was pulling on it got stuck between the side of the seat and the bag it was in. I just kept yanking and yanking. Before I knew it, the door opened up and the police just grabbed me. I woke up sober the next morning in a jail cell wondering what the heck my life was gonna look like. And I ended up doing six months in adult prison due to severity of my crimes. I.

Had a guard in prison that I talk about in the book that spoke into me beliefs that I didn't have in myself. And I eventually got released to a rehab center called Portage where I did about 11 months of therapy, like full on. Understanding my feelings, my story, the meaning. I had associated with a bunch of trauma, rebuilding relationship with my parents, the trust with my brothers and sisters. I'm the second oldest of four. And it was at the end of this 11 month intense program that I was helping Rick the maintenance guy clean out one of the cabins because it was built in an old church camp. And in one of the rooms there's this old computer and a yellow book on Java programming sitting next to it. So I never touched a computer my whole life. I just opened this book expecting kind of like weird codes and X and decimal numbers and zeros and ones. And it actually read like English. And I just followed chapter one and within 20 minutes I got the computer to say, hello world. And I thought, huh, maybe I'm a genius. Like I literally thought that, like that's how dumb I was. I was like, oh, I've never touched a computer. And I made this thing print out hello world. Like maybe there's something here. And right or wrong, it didn't matter. It literally became my obsession. I mean it really filled the hole I think that addiction had left.

And this was at what age I.

Was 17 and this is 1997. So I get, I get out. And shortly, very quickly, I discovered this small thing called the Internet and couldn't pick better timing. And since then there's been a ton of ups and downs, but I've been blessed to have built five software companies. I've exited three. I became a multimillionaire at 28. I continued that trajectory investing in 50 plus software companies. I now run the largest CEO coaching program for software CEOs in the world. We have over a thousand active clients. I also have High Speed Ventures, which is my investment vehicle. And I talk about the things I've learned on that journey, specifically around how to build a business that you don't grow to hate. Because I've been there, I've done that. I caused a lot of what I call emotional shrapnel in my life. And today I'm just blessed to live a completely different life that I, you know, for those that follow me on social media, ask me all the time how I do it and now I have an answer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. And it shows in the book in terms of what you, you know, it's kind of like miracle morning in terms of like I applied this, it changed my life. Let me tell you how it works, right? You know, and same thing, you applied it, you taught it to countless entrepreneurs. It changed their world. I really related to Stuart story in the book. In, you know, 2020, I actually went through something real similar that Stuart where I had launched A team. I didn't know what I was doing. I was overextended. I was on three years of chemo and I hit my pain. Pain line. The pain line, as you call it. Right. Yeah, I was, I ended up like, I was extraordinarily anxious and ended up being diagnosed with PTSD and had to do kind of similar to what you talked about. Like you, I didn't have your coaching at the time. I should have called you if I would have even thought about it. I wasn't thinking straight at the time, but. But I ended up just having to like, let. I did one of the. I forgot what you call them, but I basically had to let everybody go. I just fired everybody. I'm like, I'm a mess. I can't function right. And I wished I had. As I'm reading this. Oh my God, I wish I had your advice because, like, what you told Stuart, what he implemented, I could have implemented. Which just goes to show that if you implement what is in the book, right, it's, it's transformative. I want to read this from the book and I feel like. And then I want to like kind of unpack it because this to me is one way of talking about what the promise of the book. All right, so you said the little known secret to reaching the next stage of your business is spending your time on only the tasks that A, you excel at, B, you truly enjoy, and C, add the highest value, usually in the form of revenue, to your business. Likely two to three tasks fit that description. Every other task you're handling is slowing your growth and sucking the life from you. And you should clear it from your calendar. And then here it is. Yes, someone else should be handling about 95% of your current work so you can get back to what matters.

In your words. How would you explain what this book and the concepts that you teach are designed to do for an entrepreneur?

It's very simple, is I actually believe and have proven through thousands of clients I've coached that you can build an empire. Now, my words, an empire is a life of unlimited creation you never have to retire from. So it's not how big it is, how many employees you have. It's literally to the level of creation you want to create. There's no constraint. So I believe that you can do that and also live an incredibly high quality of life if you're willing to totally change your perspective on how you think of business in your relationship with money and your self worth and your value, it's mathematically proven, like you can't build a million dollar company off $10 tasks, right? And what happens is a lot of entrepreneurs start down this journey of being a business owner or solopreneur and they just, they just think, well, I'm supposed to do everything. I'm supposed to do the things that nobody else wants to do. I'm not, I'm not fancy, I'm not worthy. I don't want people to judge me if I have somebody support me. And all these, there's just like all these. And that's why I wrote the chapter on the time assassins, because there's a lot of just bad behavior that is self inflicted. And I tried to do the best job I could in the whole book. Just try to beat down these, these mindset beliefs that just aren't serving anybody that's trying to do it. So it's, it's kind of funny for. Well, it's not funny. It's, it's unfortunate that a lot of founders hit the pain line and it is 100% avoidable, right? I mean they have a business, they've got revenue, many of them have contractors, teams, etc. They're just not sequencing the process properly. And that's, that's what I try to do my best to simplify and unlock in the book so that people can literally build that business that they don't grow to hate.

Well, and I think there's two parts to it. I think that, right, it's, it's first, it's the mindset, it's the paradigm. And that's like, that's just, just in the opening pages, the first couple chapters, I was, that was shifting my paradigm. I'm like, oh yes, this is how I need to think about my business, right? But if you're not aware of that, like I mentioned back in 2020 when I went through something similar to Stuart, I wasn't aware of that Stuart had you to shift the way he thought about it, which shifted the approach he took. And then the methods that you teach in the book, right. He was able to apply those like some of the excuses. You know, I'm reading this and I'm going, excuses. All entrepreneurs tell themselves, I don't have time, you know, I don't have time to train somebody or manage somebody. Like thank God I got over that one when I hired an assistant eight years ago. Because even that I was like, I don't know how to teach her what to do and I don't know how to train her and I don't even know what to teach her. And I don't even, you know. Right. I don't have the time for that. I can barely keep my head above water, you know, thank God. Took one step back to take that quantum leap forward. Another excuse. I can't afford the help. Right. That. That's always been an issue for me. Right. And that's probably what's held me back. And this year, I'm finally, like, I'm going to get a loan and I'm going to invest in what I believe is possible for my business. Right. Period. You know, either you believe in what's possible. Right. Or you're. Or you're stuck in the past going, well, we've never done it before, so I don't really know.

Right.

Part of being entrepreneurs, taking that risk. Another excuse. No one's as good at the work as I am. God, that's been a hard one to let go of.

Yeah, well, in the book I talk about it, you know, the first belief you have to get to is 80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome.

Say it again. Say it again.

80% done by somebody else is one hundred percent freaking awesome. I like it, like, every hour that somebody supports me to do something that I would otherwise have to do, Even if it's 80% of what I could have done. I am so grateful for that time back because it means I get to go work on something that lights me up, that is creative or spend time. I just got back from three days of heli scan. I'm really grateful for the people in my life that support me so that I can go spend time with other folks that I. I love. I mean, I've been doing this trip for nine years. And was that.

Was Brad Weimert with you on that trip?

Same one? Yeah. Yeah, Brad. Brad's been on it probably five years. Yeah. There's Chandler Bolt on it.

Oh, Chandler's on it. How fun, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's a pretty nutty trip. And so, yeah. So, like, again, it's. It's. I'm not saying buy back your time to go work 60, 70, 100 hours a week. I'm saying buy back your time to be smarter, about how you reinvest and allocate that time so that it actually creates a life. That's incredible.

Yeah. What you just talked about. 80% done by somebody else, a hundred percent awesome. Here's what I've found. It goes back to the old adage of fear, right? That the way to overcome fear is do the thing you're afraid of. And then once you do it and you realize, oh, it's not as bad as I feared. Right. Or the unknown that I thought could be worse than. I don't even know what it would be. Because what happens is whoever does the thing in place of you, right? As long as you give it to a person that's capable, they do it pretty dang well and possibly better than you, maybe different, right?

I use that quote just to, like, kind of like, it's almost like the gateway drug of it. But the truth is, like, you know, Sandy on my team, who does my bookkeeping, she does it 300 times better than me. She loves to do it, and it's an incredible relationship because she would never do what I do. Right. She doesn't even have a Facebook account, let alone would want to talk to a group of people on a zoom session. Right? So I think that that's what's beautiful, is that once you. And look, just start small. Like a lot of clients I coach, you know, even when we talk about this concept, the buyback principle, into their personal life, you know, they're like, having somebody clean their home. Some people, that's the thing. They're like, how do you have somebody in your space and this and that. I was like, look, just try it once. Like, literally just, you know, it's like, well, I couldn't have somebody manage my emails as an assistant. It's like, just ask somebody to do something for you. Run an errand. Like, it. Just. Just play with it a little bit. And I think to your point, how, you know, the fear that they thought they would have is like, oh, that was a bit outsized compared to what actually happened.

Yeah, yeah. The pro by far outweighs your perceived con, right? When you're like, oh, my God, I didn't. It. It got done and I didn't have to do it.

Right? Mind blown. I mean, you're like, what else could I do? You know? And so. And actually, let's. You tell me, is the. Is the first step for somebody the buyback loop? Is that it? The audit, the. You know, starting there?

Yeah. So the buyback principle states, we don't hire people to grow our business. We hire people to buy back our time. And that's the big idea. People are like, why is this book different than every other time management, productivity, blah, blah, blah, book out there? It's that, right? And then how do we do that? Is the buyback loop.

Say it again for people, just so they really get it cemented.

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

Okay, now and now elaborate on that.

Yeah. The number one pain or the number one reason companies fail is not market, is not other things. Literally the CEO deciding, I don't want to do this anymore, this sucks and it's not what I signed up for, so I'm going to go do something different. But guess what? They bring them with them. Yeah, they're the problem. Like, like it doesn't matter what business you're in, you are still you and you'll do the same thing in this other business. So the buyback loop is a three step process. And you know, I do it probably every four months. When I hit the pain line, when I feel like my calendar is starting to get full of things that I, that don't light me up, that is taking more than the hours I wanted to allocate for the different projects. That's where I go to the buyback. Right. And it's audit, transfer and fail. I want that to be a mantra for people. Just audit, transfer, fill the audit is very important. It's a time and energy audit. It's not just time and productivity, it's literally energy. Right. So what I do with my clients is I get them to do a two week log every 15 minutes, writing down what they worked on. And then we come back and we highlight in green things that lit you up, things that you enjoy doing, and in red things that took your energy or you didn't enjoy doing. And then we put a dollar sign, one to four dollar signs next to each task. And we say, you know, if it was a low cost and it's relative to the individual's buyback rate. So it's not a, it's kind of like the cost of a restaurant. It's variable, so there's no number. People are like, well, is this a ten dollar task? 100? It's like it doesn't matter. Wherever you're at, is this a low cost for you to pay somebody else to do it or is it a high cost, like a four dollar sign, which would be like hiring a C level director to take over like half your business, like a coo. And then what happens is if you do that audit, you can literally grab all of the $1 sign tasks in red, put them in a bucket and do not spend any money on labor. Other than that, no contractors, no employees until you go, all right, I've got a bucket of stuff that needs to be done by Somebody else, what would that hire look like? Let me get that person in my world. Then it's transfer. How do I take that stuff and give it to them in a very clear and clean way so that you feel still in control and they feel empowered, which I teach in the book. And then Phil, which is the big one is once you've got this newfound time, what do you do with it? Okay. Because this is probably the area that stops people from progressing is they buy back time and then they literally just do more like not interesting stuff or they go on vacation or they watch Netflix or they scroll TikTok for six hours or they, or they go and throw hand grenades in their business. Like that's another one. Right. So for me, Phil is all about skills, beliefs and character traits at a high level. Right. And I, in the book, I break it down into tactical stuff. But we need to invest in skills so that we have knowledge to progress the business. So a lot of people just don't like. And I talk about the replacement ladder in the book, which is a sequence of hiring. If you don't know how to do that thing, you have to learn the thing. Beauty is we live in a world where you can buy a book where somebody like yourself spent 20 years learning this information and you distill it into a book. And it doesn't matter if it's marketing or sales or operations or systems or playbooks. Go learn the skill. But also invest in the beliefs, because the beliefs is your blueprint on the world. Your beliefs on how the world should look. And if you have like we just talked about fear, I can't afford it. And how do I train them? And I'm scared. And so you have these beliefs that aren't serving you and you will always, you know, we got to grow through things and the. And we need to become the person who can deal with more complexity. Like bit, I hate to tell this to people because I, I know that they wish that they could all live the four hour work week and everything would be fine. The truth is, is the only thing that changes if you actually want to create something meaningful in the world is, is you become better.

Yeah.

The world doesn't get easier.

No.

Right. Like Hal, it sounds like you're about to go into a kind of a growth chapter in your personal, like in the business and stuff. It's just going to require you to become more, which is awesome. That's what I love. Like entrepreneurship became the personal development program. I needed to stay sober and grow and build this life right it was a forcing function. Anytime I hit a ceiling, I was like, okay, what am I missing, Dan? Like, you can do this. It's going to take some effort. But. So that's why, to me, as you buy back your time, to fill it with things that develop you and then the character traits. The way I think about it, it's like. It's the lot. Like, so habits. Right. Like, you know, big fan of your book Savers. Like, the whole methodology. I did it for, like, a long time, and I just. I keep tweaking and playing with it for me and my lifestyle. And, you know, it's funny because the other day somebody asked me about my habits, and I had had a hard time thinking about them because they've now just become who I am.

Yeah.

So habits become identity once they've been ingrained. So character traits for me are skills and beliefs that now become just who you are. Right. And at first it feels like effort, but over time, you're building this ladder of success. Right? You got skills, beliefs, and then the rungs of the ladder are the. Are the character traits that eventually it's just, oh, that's. That's who Hal is or Dan is. Right. They're just somebody that leads this way or shows up this way or communicates this way. But that's not how I used to do it.

Yeah.

People, literally. I just got back from my trip. My buddy Mike and Hollis were like, dude, you're different. And I was like, yeah. And that's the point. Like, and next year, guess what, I hope you say, whoa, not bad. Just. Just. They called it full spectrum. Right. So you're just, you know, like, I know you still got this, but you also got this, and it's. And I'm like, I appreciate that. That's probably the ultimate compliment.

Yeah, yeah. No, I relate to that in terms of, like, right now being out of my comfort zone. And if you're listening to this and you're, you know, and you're. You feel like you're playing smaller, like, you're not going to that next level because it's. It's scary, right. For. For anybody, no matter what level you get to, the next level is always scary. Right. And for me, what I try to do is I try to take a step back and look at the whole situation. And you mentioned the growth component. I went, I'm nervous. I'm a little scared to adopt this CEO role, even though that's been technically my title on my tax form or whatever, but I've never actually embodied that I'm nervous. But then what I realize is I'm 43 years old. How it would be tragic. It would be a huge missed opportunity if I lived the rest of my life as a solopreneur and I never. And maybe, maybe I grow this team and build a bit, and it lasts for a few. I don't know. I don't know what the future holds, right? But I'm like, I actually would. And I started to get excited. The fear started to excite me. I'm like, dude, I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna grow. I'm gonna become a version of me that I don't even know because I've never had to think about decisions that involved people's livelihood and coordinating a team and, you know, scaling revenue to support payroll. Like, these are all. And I'm. I'm reading new books. I'm having new conversations. Like, it's exciting. It went from being scary, and then once I shifted that paradigm, that perspective to like, dude, wait, this is a huge growth opportunity for me. Who am I going to be on the other side of this? Wow, that's exciting. That's more exciting than it is scary. And I'm just sharing that, Dan, for anybody listening, that's in the fear phase, right? That they're like, I don't know. I don't know about that next level in anything. It could be totally just a personal. In terms of your health, right? Or it could be completely related. We're talking about what your book's about right now, where someone is an entrepreneur or they want to be an entrepreneur. Which, by the way, I wanted to mention that as I was reading this, I go, man, I wish I would have read this before I became an entrepreneur. So that I would like. And I probably would have read it, and I would have underlined a bunch of it like, I am now. But I would have, like, not been ready fully. But it would have planted the seeds of like, oh, this is the way I want to build my business. And then I would have kept the book as a resource. And then, you know, each year gone back and gone. Like, okay, how does it apply now? And a year later, how does it apply now? Like, that's how good this is. I'm like, this is so relevant. It's so, so helpful.

So I can't wait till you read chapter 13, Achieve Bigger, Dream Bigger. Because you'll. The 10x vision map will crystallize that feeling and give you that.

Structure. There's a very unique structure because again, the Word Empire scares people so much, but really replace it with massive impact, Replace it with massive influence, massive service, contribution. Like whatever.

Word is legacy, right?

Yeah, legacy. Like, this is the. Some of the biggest compliments I've gotten are from folks that are incredibly successful that kind of, kind of set up base camp. They kind of just said, I'm good.

That's where I was. Yeah.

But they knew inside. They're like, how can I be good if I know that I've got more to give and I'm not showing up that way? It feels kind of off. Right. And. And I'm getting these messages from people like, I was good because I was scared because I assumed if I wanted to go to the next levels or it was going to require sacrifice with my family, sacrificing my business sacrifice. And it doesn't. It's not that it doesn't require you to, yes, face a fear and get outside your comfort zone, but it doesn't require a lot of other stuff. Like, my buddy Mike messaged me on Facebook. He left me this voice message. It was my favorite things, one of the top things so far from the book because I really care a lot about him. And he just said, like, hey, man, I was scared and you've shown me a different way. And now I'm excited about the people I know I'm going to be able to serve and not sacrifice the success habits, the fundamentals, the business fundamentals, or the commitments I've made to others. I'm like, go, bro. Like, that's what I'm about. I'm just about expression. I want people to express their art, their creativity. Especially like you said, like when you started. It's hard. Yeah. Here was the hardest thing for me to do in this book. Write a book that's relevant to an artist that has zero employees, that just wants to do more art.

Yeah.

And to a 100 million nine figure CEO.

Yeah.

And it was like I edited the book like crazy to make sure I could address both because it's a principle that scales. And like you said, you just keep coming back. I do it every four months, man. I'm like, I'm trying to. I'm trying to grow. Like.

Yeah. That resonates with me as an author because, like, I'm writing, I'm updating the Miracle Morning right now we're doing a new updated edition and going through the whole thing. And even the original book, when I wrote it. Right. It's like I'm thinking, how do I write this for someone that was. That's at rock. Was it? Or is it rock bottom? Broke, in debt, overweight, like I was when I came up with the miracle morning to turn my life around. But I've also heard tons of CEOs say that, like, this has changed them and now they're better. And you know, so how do I write it for the person at rock bottom and the, you know, person that's succeeding at the highest level, that wants that edge to go to the next level? So it's such an interesting dichotomy, right, between like applying to both. But, but what I find is at the center of both of those examples is a human being. Right. And that's it. And you appeal when you, when you're, you're speaking to a human being and no matter how successful you are, you have the same fears and are different, but you have doubts and fears and insecurities. All of it.

Yeah, they're just, they're just different levels, but it's the same feeling.

Yeah. The philosopher notorious Big Big said mo money, mo problems. Right. It's like you still got problems. You just, they're just bigger and, and.

They'Re actually, they got zeros. Different amounts of zeros.

Different zeros. That's right. That's right. So is there, in terms of the stuff that you teach and the methods that you teach, what do you use on a daily basis? Right. So I know like every four months you're using the buyback loop, right? But what are some of the methods that you teach in the book that you use in your own life and, or business on a day to day, week to week, like basis?

Yeah, everything in the book, I, I still do today. So the, the perfect week outline. I mean, that's, that's cool. Core to the, the framework. The way I work with my executive assistant hasn't like the framework that I teach in the book is still time and tested. True. Amazing. Like, I'm thinking about kind of what I shared folder structure and the meeting rhythm. It's the same like I'm like, is there something we've added or tweaked? No, I mean, I can, I can share nuances because like again, I had to introduce a new concept and relatively like 101 level stuff. But there's 301. Right. Like for example, when I delegate, when I ask my assistant to schedule a meeting, we have, we have priority 1, 2, 3 and 4. I don't talk about that in the book, but you might appreciate it how. Because you have an assistant.

Yeah.

One means cancel A meeting. Make this happen. Right. Two is within the next week. Find a spot. Three is within the next six weeks. No rush, whatever. And four, put it on a list. And if something happens and you can't fill it, reach out to the person and say, we got 15 minutes if you want Dan now. If not, it might be next quarter. So just even like thinking about how to communicate in a more kind of systematic way with your team then, stuff like that. But I use the preloaded year, which I teach in the book. I literally had it open with my friends yesterday at the lodge. Like, we're trying to plan some trips.

Yeah, I literally text vision map I look at every day. I mean, it's. It's really a blueprint to my life. And. And it's. All these habits are now just part of who I am. And I think that's why, you know, even the house manager, Betty, like, I have friends staying at the house that were on the skeeter with me, and they're. They're just fascinated by it. Like, you know, my buddy Roddy just texted me. He's like, can I leave my snowboard here until next year? And I go talk to Betty.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't run that.

I don't have a problem with it. But Betty knows where all the storage is, so if you're gonna leave it here, she needs to know because she's gonna. You're gonna coordinate with her next year when. When you need it back. You're not gonna text me because. Yeah, I'm not the guy in charge of that stuff. And this is my own home. And it's okay to have somebody support you in that level. So I can be here with Hal or I can be spending time with my kids. And that's just the way I do it.

Yeah. How many kids you have?

Two? Nine. Yeah. Irish twins, nine and 10 years old. They're 11 months apart, though, so it was kind of nice.

Wait, how does that. Oh, got it. Okay. That's Irish. I never heard the phrase before Irish twins, but I just Irish two and two together and figured out what it meant.

Right on, man. Well, hey, dude, I'm going to. I'm going to keep pinging you with questions about the book as I'm reading it. As a friend, I'm going to ask you. I'm going to ask you for questions I might bring you back on, but anything else to share with anybody that you know that that is. Hasn't read the book, like, you're, you know, big takeaway Anything. Any last parting piece of advice?

Yeah. I mean, because I want people that are like. And it doesn't matter if you have a team of like 25 people or you're 18. Know, like my. I'll tell you the story of my wife because she gave me permission to share it. How Renee lives with me. Right. She sees this, she experiences it. And when the book finally showed up in my house, you know, the publisher sent us like our first. Whatever.

I lost it for a bit because Renee decided to start reading it. I never asked her to read it. I didn't expect her to read it. I don't know. Like, I don't. I don't expect anybody to read it. They don't feel called to read it.

Yeah.

But I watched her for 10 days, every night sit there and just process. And I was just sitting there quietly. I took photos. She would kill me if I posted them because it's like nighttime laying next to me on the couch, you know, But I took photos because a part of me was, like, really excited that she was finally going to understand the thing that she saw or we could have even talked about. But she's going to understand the method behind it. And so this was probably two months ago. She's tripled her business. She hired an assistant. She hired another person to help her with her fulfillment. She hired somebody to help her with her marketing. She literally followed the replacement ladder. And by the way, she's like, now has more time to compete in her CrossFit stuff she's doing and, you know, have friends over and like, I'm. I would have wrote the book for her.

Hell, yeah. That must be so gratifying, man.

It's super rewarding. So I share that because I know there's people listening that are, you know, and just like my wife. Okay. Somebody that sees this firsthand, had fears around. Well, what if I hire them and then I can't keep them busy? That's a. That's a real fear. Right. Like, what if I hire somebody on the team, but I don't even feel like I'm consistent enough. Like, there's so many levels to the beliefs.

Yeah.

Or.

You know, it's. I don't trust myself. Right. Why do people not invest in coaching and seminars? It's like, well, I don't trust me to do anything with follow through.

Yeah.

That's real.

Yeah.

Which I actually think if you have an executive assistant, it's a forcing function to show up and they'll keep you like, I. The way I do it is my executive assistant, owns my projects. And when we got on call, she's like, where are you at with this?

I'm the same way.

We'll always do more for other people than we'll do for ourselves. I mean, this has been proven with people with dogs versus humans and prescriptions and compliance and completion and stuff. So I just really hope if the message resonates that you decide to do something, I honestly, you don't have to read the book. You can just decide. I'm going to. You know, somebody messaged me this morning. They're like, yesterday we hired a babysitter for four hours to watch our kids so my husband and I could go get some work done. And it was a dramatic change in the quality of the work I did because I knew I was paying for those four hours and I wanted to get my money's worth. And I was like, exactly that. Do that. Keep going. Build your empire. Keep allowing yourself to play with this idea. Because it's a mathematic like I call it a first principle. Because if you are doing anything that you could have paid somebody your buyback rate or less, you're actually working against your potential. There's no other way to look at it once you understand it.

Yeah.

And that paradigm shift, hopefully people will take that with them for the rest of their lives. So that's that. That would be my, my parting message.

Awesome, man. Well, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like I said, impactful. For me, the timing is perfect, man. So thank you for finally writing the book that that's been inside you for all these years.

It's an honor to be on here, Hal. I appreciate the kind words.

Where's the best place for people to get a hold of you and. Or get the book?

Yeah. So buybackyourtime.com is either where they want to go to before or after you get on all websites highly recommend you go to the bookstore. I want to send a message to all the retailers. So if you are inclined to drive and go get it in person. Which is actually the opposite of buy back your time. But sometimes we do things because we enjoy it. I love going to bookstores. Personally. I like to see smell of bookstore. Go and get your copy at the retailer near you. But it's on all platforms Audible. I read it myself with bonus chapters. But buybackyourtime.com actually has a free workbook. It'll help you work through some of the calculations and the processes and whatnot. And then I'M on all platforms @Dan Martell 2 elder Martell and my favorite one's Instagram. Behind the scenes. I post a lot of my behind like the stories of just how I do all this and I try to share as many tips as I can.

Yeah, that's Dan Martell with two T's or two two L's. Sorry. M A R T E L L.

Brother. Well, it's an honor to connect or grateful to connect with you again and everybody listening. Goal achievers, members of the Miracle Morning community, I love you. I appreciate you. The book is buy back your time. Check it out@buybackyourtime.com and I think you will be grateful that you did. And last question, Dan, could you have your assistant drive to the bookstore and pick up the book? Would that be.

That is the way to do it. Yes. Go get an assistant. Or if you have one, ask them to go get you a copy.

Awesome. Awesome, brother. All right, man. Love you, dude. Talk to you soon.

Cheers.