How To Excel By Elimination with Perry Marshall

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Welcome back to bacon wrap business. Got another exciting episizzle for you. Other podcasts, as you know, have episodes, but here we have epicizzles because they're hot and they are actionable and you're absolutely going to love them. And I am super thrilled to have a guest today that I have been a fan of, a customer of, and aware of ever since I got involved in digital marketing back in, gosh, I think it was 2007 or 2008 when I came across his book, the Perry Marshall's ultimate guide to AdWords. I think that's the right title. And ever since then.

I've followed Perry Marshall very closely. And I love the way that he approaches business both tactically and strategically and mentally. And he's one of the unique thought leaders out there who I think people have a lot to learn from. And I could sit here and talk about what I like about you for hours, Perry, but I'd rather just introduce you to the audience. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. I'm honored to be here. And people are going to get a lot out of this. This is a very meaty discussion we're about to have.

Absolutely. Well, my only, the only thing I'm sad about is that we're not going to be on for like, this isn't going to be a Joe Rogan three hour, you know, talk fest because I could definitely talk to you for that long about all the various topics. You know, I, people who've been in the business for a while probably do know you as, you know, the AdWords guy. For the longest time, you probably, you know, that's like a brand couldn't shake. And not necessarily that you'd want to, but I know that. And I was never a big AdWords guy. I've had businesses where we did AdWords and I've consulted clients who've done it. And I always just hire somebody to go do it because I've never personally gone deep into that area. But it wasn't really until I started reading some of your other material, 8020 sales and marketing. That book was really a game changer for I know a lot of people. It was one of the most highlighted books I've ever had. And I refer back to it, you know, quite often. And then a few years later, I. I discovered the Rosetta Stone seminar that you did, and that was just phenomenal, by the way. I still, I told several people that was one of the best sales letters I'd ever read. I loved it. There was several parts in it that just really hit me in between the eyes. And I was a big fan of that. And then I took your 30 day reboot challenge, which is going to be very similar to one of the big topics we're talking about today, which, because you've got a brand new book out, Detox, Declutter and Dominate.

Is there a subtitle to that?

How to Excel by Elimination?

That's right. And I'm really looking forward to reading that.

And I think that that topic, by the way, right now is so absolutely critical for people to hear. I know myself. I mean, most of us have been, for the most part, locked up for the past nine or 10 months, and there's nothing to do but distract ourselves with a myriad of world events and technology, et cetera. So let's talk about. Let's go straight into the book because I want to. I want to hear about what inspired you to write this and.

What are.

Some of the big.

Problems you see that this book helps solve.

We have an epidemic of distractions and diverted energy in the world. I think every human being, and frankly, every creature on earth, has this energy to spend, right? Like, nobody wants. Nobody wants to lay in bed all day, right? It's like, what are you going to do? Right? And if you're an entrepreneur, then obviously there's plenty of really challenging things that you got to sink your teeth into. But there's an entire attention economy that thrives on, you know, grabbing you by the throat and dragging you away from whatever you're doing into something else. And, you know, that helps Google and that helps Facebook and that helps the advertisers. And nobody understands this better than a guy that wrote the book on how these advertiser platforms work, right? But when you're an entrepreneur, you have to stay focused. And like in our Facebook book, we just came out with a brand new edition of Ultimate Guide to Facebook Ads. And the first chapter of the book says the first thing you need to do is delete your Facebook app off your phone, like the consumer app. Why? Because you're a chef in the kitchen. You're not a guy shoving food in his mouth at the Red Lobster buffet. Okay. And you're creating the information, you're not consuming it. And you have to protect your brain. And literally, I mean, that's kind of ironic, right? First chapter of a Facebook book is delete the Facebook app. But that's exactly it.

So when you roll out of bed in the morning, you've got probably somewhere between two and a half to four hours to do your very best quality.

Work, sometimes even good work, because the rest of it, usually after that, is just kind of crap for me.

Right.

I want to interject right there because you just hit something, a nail on the head. And this was, this was a really flashing light realization that I had a few years back. I want to say it was two or three, maybe three years ago where I had. I was talking to a guy about buying his business and I was like, I think I can do this. And I started to look at it like it was, it's a small web based business and I knew what to do to get it to go. And I remember thinking, well, oh, four hour workweek. I guarantee if I worked four hours a week on that, I mean, I've got another business or two over here. But I was like, can I spare four hours a week to get that to go? I could totally do it. And I was like, I have the time. I have four hours a week. And that's probably all it would take. So I bought the business and I got into it and then I realized that I was using my spare four hours a week to work on it. And I was like, these are crappy hours for me. Like, I can spend four hours a week, but I don't have four hours of quality bandwidth to actually devote to it. And I sat there thinking, oh crap, what did I do? So then I partnered up with Joe Fear and Matt Wolfe, and they came in and we were all partners. And then we all had the same realization going, oh, crap. Yeah, we got time, but we don't have energy. I mean, there's a bit and there's a big difference. I think a lot of people forget that. For, for me, it hit me between the eyes and I have to go, yeah, I've probably got about three or four hours a day realistically to do anything creative and good.

So. That's right, that's right. So days of the week are not equal. Times of the day are not equal. The minutes of your day and how you spend them are not equal. And you need to design your day to maximize.

The productive capacity you have in your mind. Because if you're the Kind of customer that I hope you are. Whoever's listening, you think for a living. You don't click mouse buttons for a living. You don't type on keyboards for a living. You don't, like, punch a clock for a living. You think.

You apply your ingenuity to solve unique problems, and that's why you get paid and you're only going to do your best work in those windows. And so this is all about optimizing that window.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, that also brings up one of the things I'd love for you. I'd love for you to kind of address this. So in the book 80 20, you really talked about that a lot too. Like, what are those 20% of activities that you can do the real. Like the strategic thinking. Like, forget most of the other stuff and just think about that. So the 8020 rule is true. But then there's also that saying which also is true, is the devil's in the details. So I found myself oftentimes running up against a. Or hitting. Hitting blocks, trying to operate in my 20%, my zone of genius, et cetera, and then realizing that other stuff's falling apart. And one little thing causes a chain reaction of other things to kind of fall apart. And then I find myself back down in the weeds just trying to figure this stuff out again and feeling frustrated. So I would love to hear any insights you have on that between trying to balance the. Those two, I guess axioms of.

There are.

There are always like 1%.

Of what you do has to be 100% right. Like 80% right won't do it right. Like you have some famous song by Lady Gaga or the Rolling Stones. That song had to be 100% right because 98% right just wouldn't do. And I think the most important thing you do is you figure out what is the very, very short list of things in my life that I obsess over to perfection. And then what is the 90% of everything else that only needs to be three, four right or half right or even 25% right? Yeah, there's. There's a lot of things in. Like for me, deciding what car to drive if I'm 25% right about which car that I pick, as long as it's not breaking down, it's transportation, it's.

Going to get good.

Right.

You know, and that actually makes me think of another similarly titled book or booklet that Dan Sullivan did. I think it was called the 80% rule, and it wasn't even about 80 20. I don't know if you already read that or not, but he was like, a lot of times 80% is definitely good enough for that stuff. Like, let the other, the other 20%, you can come back to it, you can fix it, but as an entrepreneur, get it 80% done, move on to the other big stuff. So I guess that probably is the answer, is just really getting clear on what needs to be just right and then what is good enough.

Yes. And, and see, for almost everybody, there's only about three things you sell that need to be perfect because you make 80 or 90% of your income from those three things. Right, good point. You can go.

Churn out more products and do all these other things. Right. But like, I remember once Frank Kern read 80:20 sales and marketing, he's like, I'll be darned. I got this one product that's like, I made 95% of my money on it. Why am I off doing all these other things?

I stopped selling it.

Sell this thing and do it even better next time.

And see, that is what you spend your. So 8 to 11, let's say probably your most productive hours. What are you going to spend your 8 to 11 time on? Now, I don't do emails before 11:30. I mean, I might pull one email out of my email box because it's really important and work on it, but I am not, not, not.

You go search for it because you know you need that for something. But you're not just saying, oh, what do these people need from me.

Yeah, there's an editor I'm working with today and I spent most of the morning editing something that I'm working on that's very, very important. It's. And it's one of those things that has to be 100% right because 99% won't do. Okay. And so that's what I was doing before 11 o' clock this morning. And I think what most people do, I know this, most people, they don't just do this in the morning. They do it like literally when they roll out of bed, they like wake up, they reach over, they pull a device and in front of their face and they start reading emails or, you know, or going through social media. And you have now made the biggest mistake of your day because you started your day by reacting to stuff instead of starting the day by proactively deciding, this is what I need to do, this is why it's important. This is the stuff that is not nearly so important. Here it is. And then go and it's very rare.

To start off the day with an email full of nothing but good news. And people who want to give you.

Things start off with crisis and panic and oh no, clients canceling or you know, like all these.

And it shoots all your plans, the crap. You know, one of the. I've caught myself many times, like, because I, I'm at least very good at being self aware and I've noticed that when I get really deep into like email and stuff first thing in the morning because I'll e flow through this and I'll catch myself doing it. I was like, you know what? I'm really looking for something to react to because I may not have really good clarity on what to do proactively. And kind of like we're all kind of sometimes sitting there going, man, this is kind of a well formed idea, but it's not really well enough and I'm not ready to go full force on it. If I go look in my email or Facebook, it gives me something to react to.

Right.

And that, that actually feels okay.

Good.

I feel like I'm being productive because I'm reacting to something and I look back on, I didn't get anything done except helping other people with their problems.

That's the best, that's the best way to be. It's 6:15 at night, you're exhausted and you're like, what did I even do today? Oh yeah, you have that empty, frustrating, vacuous, like I don't even know where the day went. I don't know what I did. I suppose I could go find out, but I would just waste more time.

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly right.

And that is the worst feeling. And so the reason you're checking your email box is because you don't know what to do next. The reason you're checking Twitter, the reason you're on Instagram, is you don't know what to do next. When you have a plan.

Then it's a lot easier to stick to the plan. And you said it's like, well, you know, I get this project but I'm not quite ready to commit to it. Like, well, you know, maybe you shouldn't do anything until you decide what you're going to commit to.

Yeah.

And that's exactly the point.

I love that. And that's so.

The entire book, it really is about, I mean, because it's about removing the things from your life, the obstacles and the hurdles that are slowing you down. Right. And it's a lot of times as entrepreneurs, there is a lot of stuff that we have to do. We're responsible for a lot of moving parts. Even if we're not the ones doing it. It kind of, if it's our business, it falls on our shoulder. And that can get really overwhelming. And I know that my single biggest stress in life, it's not, oh, do I have enough money for the bills? Do I have this? It's, I got too many things vying for my attention. And I know it's always my fault because I've let that happen.

And when I have gone through stages, actually this year was a good phase. During COVID I lost 75% of my business. It ended up bouncing back, and I was okay cause it was like client based business. But when it was gone, I had this amazing feeling of relief, like I wasn't the one who forced it all. I was like, wow, I actually have time to think today, and I have time to kind of reassess. Luckily, I'm not living in a survival mode where I'm paycheck to paycheck, but I just remember thinking, wow, it felt like I just blew the snorkel out. Like, it was like, I'm snorkeling and water's getting in there and I'm choking. And it was emptied. And I was like, okay, what do I really want to work on now? And how can I be intentional about it? So is that a big theme of the. Of the book is being intentional and removing a lot of the obstacles?

So I'll tell you a story. A few years ago, it was a cold, snowy February day. I was on the phone, and I looked through the French doors of my office, and the president of my company, who lives 500 miles away, was on the other side. Unannounced, shows up in my house. I'm like, what is Brian doing here? This doesn't seem like it's good.

Okay. So I get up, get done with my phone call. Brian, what's up, Barry? We need to talk.

Okay. Looks kind of undertaker ish.

Our expenses are too high, our overhead is too high. We have too many people on board. We got to cut some stuff.

And we spent the next eight hours arm wrestling, like from the middle of the afternoon until fairly late at night. Okay. We bounced around between a couple of different restaurants and my house and a bar. We're talking, talking, talking. And by the end of. By the end of the day, I had basically arm wrestled him into. No, we don't need to cut Brian. You don't understand how awesome I am. You don't understand how great these Ideas are, you know, like. And so, like, okay, so I made a couple concessions, but not too many. And the next three months sucked. And now we had a real problem.

This was right before COVID started.

No, this is like four years ago.

Okay, gotcha, Gotcha.

Okay. But we were having a slow year for reasons I still couldn't tell you why, whatever happens. But everything was off. And so Brian shows up in February, and I don't listen to him. Now it's. Maybe now we have a real problem. Okay, so I finally agreed with him in May. Right. Well, so if you waited three months too long to make some cuts, then guess what? When you lay those people off, do you stop paying them immediately?

No, they have severance packages and, you.

Know, get the production, but you got the payment to make. Yeah, right.

So I know, I got. I. We cut our staff about 40%. So I don't have these people anymore, but I still have to pay for the people. So this was a pretty miserable six months. Okay, well, so by the time I finally got in, like, really got myself committed to straightening this thing out, I was thinking about subtracting all the time. Now, if it's true.

That 80% of what you do comes from what you get. Comes from 20% of what you do, then you should be able to cut what you do by a lot and only cut the productivity a little. Right? Like, I should be able to make 75% as much money with like half the staff and effort. So how do we. And that's a true. It's all. It's like a law of physics that it's true, but you have to figure out how to make it true. And so I start. So we start subtracting, subtracting, subtracting, subtracting, cutting, trimming, laying people off, getting rid of vendors, getting rid of customers, getting rid of product lines. Okay, like. And it is so much harder to subtract.

Oh, yeah.

Add and multiply.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. But I'm doing this. And we finally righted the ship and it was like, man, this thing is so easier to run now that I got rid of all this unnecessary stuff. And you know, look, just because you're a best selling author or whatever other accolades you have, or just because you're one of the most expensive business consultants. Look, if you have too much staff and you have too much overhead, you're going to be in the red. It doesn't matter. Right? And like, I had to let go of all these things. Like, well. Oh, you know, but I really was hoping that Someday we would do. Yeah, but you're not going to do it now and you're not going to do it anytime soon. So Nixon.

Yeah, Right.

And so at the end of this process, after I felt the wave of relief, like, I remember when the ship righted itself and I took my family on vacation and everything was fine.

It was like, wow, I just learned something. Like, really, this was a big deal. Like, multiply by subtracting, Excel by eliminating. And I suddenly understood it's not what you add, it's what you subtract. It's not what you do, it's actually what you don't do that defines you. And so that's why I wrote Detox, declutter, dominate.

I love that. It's one of those like. Like they say we write the book we need to read. Because you obviously were in that situation where you just had too much, you know, falling. And you're not just a business. I mean, you've got the big cancer, you know, prize and initiative. And that's a topic for a whole nother story. But I can imagine just how crazy things got and that you needed to detox and declutter.

I felt like a hypocrite. Like, physician, heal thyself. Right? Like, you shouldn't be having these problems. But I am. Right? So what is it that I didn't learn yet that I need to know? So the response to this, because we've done some different versions.

Of this, we did a program called 30 Day Reboot, which you went through.

Loved it.

And 30 Day Reboot was 30 days of subtract, subtract, subtract, subtract. Just over and over. And by the time people got to the end of that thing, they were like, oh, my word, I can't believe how lighter my load is. I can't believe how. Actually, I shouldn't talk. Why don't you talk? How did it affect you?

Absolutely. Yeah. And I mentioned offline, like, one of my favorite. The favorite rule. There was a lot of little rules of do this, do that. But I'll tell you my two favorite rules. One was mine and then one was like, you smart mofo. But one was the social media diet of saying it's not just, I mean, not stop social media for 30 days, it's stop consuming social media.

Period. Except for about 30 minutes after, like 6:00pm so you're giving yourself a little taste. And I just remember saying, okay, I can do that. Like, if I need to make ads, I can do that. If I need to Actually post content. I can post content, but I'm not just mindlessly scrolling and consuming. And I just remember I was like, you know, 6 o' clock those first few days, 6 o' clock would come and I'm like, sweet. I get to go see what my friends are doing and I get to check on this stuff and I get my little dopamine hit. And then after three or four days, I was like, looking forward to those few moments of getting online and looking at Facebook or Instagram. And then I kept on realizing I didn't miss anything all day. Like, literally nothing happened all day that I missed. I'm like, I feel so much better about this. By the way. The other thing that I thought was brilliant, like, it was very useful to do. I loved it, but I was like, it was also a brilliant move for you. Is one of the first things is your mass unsubscribe day. Like, go unsubscribe from all the newsletters that you don't really get any value from, or et cetera. Obviously, don't unsubscribe from yours. I was like, this is brilliant. He's making us unsubscribe from all his competitors.

I know that's not why you did it, but it was still genius, as you know.

Look, when you massively, remorselessly unsubscribe from everything. Mm. It's like taking ten pounds out of your backpack, man. You don't realize how much stuff. Just having the stuff in the email box, it's like, it's just more distractions, it's more noise. You're not gonna read it, so why is it there?

Yeah. And then the other parts you really talk about, which I'm sure you probably talk about it in the book, which I'm looking forward to reading, still is talk about that concept of Renaissance time and barnacle time and just Renaissance. Really understanding what your Renaissance time is. And it's not necessary. It's doing things you love and it's doing things that fulfill you. And that kind of like that creative spark. And, you know, sometimes it's just self care, just making sure that you're. When you are on, you're on. So I remember having like a list on my board printed out where it was like, these are the things you are allowed to do during Renaissance times. These are not the things you know. And I tried to. I really actually found that I have a. I have a lack of. I don't have many hobbies. It made me really going, what shit? What would I do in Renaissance Time, like, I don't know, it actually was very eye opening.

But I loved it. Like after 30 days, I will say, like, you know, we met, I mentioned offline that the hard part about challenges for me, and I've done this in fitness challenges and things like that, is at the end of it, if I'm not prepared to keep it going, sometimes I feel like I ran through the finish line and it's like, all right, give me a beer, a pizza. So getting back to it. But I know the one thing that I've gone back to many, many times is, yeah, like avoiding emails and reactivity right away. I love, I love the. Read like a pre Gutenberg book.

You know, that read the classics, etc. That was a really big takeaway for me because I discovered some really amazing things that I probably wouldn't have, you know, discovered had I not done that. One of the things I. What's that?

Well, that is the social media and anti. Antidote. So the. Look, the problem with social media is you're blitzkrieged with things that expire in about five minutes. Look, everybody, I had sushi for lunch today. Or like, you know, whatever, you know, whatever Trump just said or like all of these things. Whereas if you read something written before Gutenberg every day, what are you really reading? You are reading stuff that survived the burning of Rome and the sacking of Alexandria and it had to be good.

To make it right.

And it got hit in clay pots and caves and. And, you know, survived the tumults of civilization. So. And it got. It all got copied by hand. There was no Twitter. Right. So if it, if it survived all of that, then if it was good 3,000 years ago, it was good 1,000 years ago, it's good now, it'll probably be good a thousand years from now, which is the opposite of 98% of what's on Twitter. And see, this is very important. Here's why in business you are trying to build things that last. I don't know anybody that just wants to build little sandcastles and the tide comes in and washes them away. Right? You don't do that unless it's the only way to not starve to death right now. Right. That's the lowest form of existence. Right.

It's also my biggest regret on things looking back is that, man, I spent a lot of time building sandcastles as opposed to anything substantial. And I'll look back on and I did a lot. I remember doing a lot of work like 5, 10 years ago, et cetera and besides the experience, I don't always. I mean, and some cash in the bank, but I don't necessarily have anything lasting from then. Granted, I sold a couple businesses, but. But I look back thinking, yeah, I don't have anything lasting and substantial to show for it. And it's funny that you say that because that was like one of those little subconscious regrets, but you kind of brought it up going, yeah, you're absolutely right.

Well, if you are reading things that last 3,000 years, you're a lot more likely to build things that last like 30 years instead of three months, which.

Is forever in these economy.

And I am completely serious about this.

Show me a person who's just constantly on social media, and I will show you a person who's doing things that come undone on an hourly basis. Right?

Absolutely. You mentioned something about Trump and social media, et cetera. One of the best things to come out of this. We're just. You can't even say we're out of the election cycle. We kind of still mired in it. But, you know, with all the hate and vitriol, I just went on a mass unfollow. Not even on friend, just mass unfollow thing. It's like you, you got. If I saw more than two or more than one election post that was not intelligent unfollow. I don't care if you're a close friend. And I unfollowed probably about 150 friends over the course of two days. And then I look back at my Facebook feed and I go, this is really boring. Sweet. This is exactly like, I like it boring. Because I'm less likely to go to it now because I'm not going to get triggered by something, et cetera. So, yeah, like, unfollow all your friends if you can.

Well, you can't imagine what happens when you take all of that energy away, because people have this notion that they're supposed to keep up with all this stuff, that some they're uninformed. Like, you're not uninformed. You're just not pouring garbage in your head. There isn't any reason to know most of this stuff, and I don't seek it out. And you know what I found? I found if I need to know it, somebody will always call me and tell me about it.

If it's that big, you'll hear about it. Yeah, you'll walk by a newspaper stand.

And it'll be.

I don't believe I have ever been completely blindsided by any piece of news that I just really should have known. I'm not sure it's ever happened. And like, I am. I do not watch cnn. I do not watch the news. I'm hardly ever on Facebook. Hardly. It's just people arguing with each other. And so when you focus that energy, especially that quality three hours a day, not only are you not feeding out of the trough, ok, but you're not just reacting to people. And that quality three hours a day is doing something productive. You'd be amazed at what happens now. Here we are in the middle of a pandemic, and what I've seen is the pandemic has completely separated the men from the boys.

Oh, yeah.

So I have seen so many people, they're drinking more, they're watching more tv, they're not exercising, they're not seeing their friends, they're depressed, et cetera, et cetera, yada, yada, yada, yada. Okay? And you know what else I've seen? I've seen tons of people, they're out on their bike, they're out running, they're exercising, they're keeping up with a few of their friends, they are working on their businesses. They. When, like the very best clients I have, when the pandemic hit, they immediately did layoffs, and then they hired the people back when they figured out they could. They. I had a client, he had a. He had a whole bunch of salespeople working all over the place, and he. He had this whole mess of. Some are on this contract and some are on that contract. It was this big, giant, inconsistent mess. And he's like, all right, everybody, boom. We are straightening all this stuff out and everybody's on the same plan from now on. And like. And it was the perfect excuse to just execute a bunch of stuff that he was afraid to do. He got rid of. He laid off his own sister. Maybe he hired her back. I don't know. I know he hired a bunch of people back.

Well, like they say, never let a crisis go to waste. Right? And have you read the book Shock Doctrine by any chance or heard of it? So Shock Doctrine was made by or was written. I can't remember her name really. You probably love the book, but it really talks about.

She talks a lot about Milton Friedman and his. His impact on 20th century capitalism with really a shock doctrine understanding that if you ever really want to make massive changes in culture, civilization, et cetera, it oftentimes requires a shock. Sometimes that's just responding to shocks, sometimes that's actually creating them and instigating the shocks. Whether it's a third world coup or whether it's something like this. And I mean, I think some of us remember, like, I think it was Rahm Emanuel who quoted after, like, I forget what it was. But, you know, never let a crisis go to waste. And, you know, 9 11, whenever bad things happen, that's when you can do. You can reset things either for the good, for the better, and sometimes for the worse. It depends on which side you're on. But it is one of those things where I looked at it like, all right, this is a shock to the system you have now. Now, it's not a question of should I recalibrate what I'm doing? It's I got to do it anyway, as may. I may as well do it intentionally. Right. So it sounds like that's.

Yeah. And so what you're going to see coming out of the pandemic, which we could talk about here.

Is that some people are going to be way ahead and a bunch of people are going to be way behind and you're going to see a transfer of wealth from the more people to the fewer people.

Well, that's a good segue. Let's talk about that. Because we're at the end of 2020, and I think a lot of us are hoping that 2021 is going to be like, oh, thank God, 2020 is behind us. And then the other idea is maybe one of these days we'll look back on the good old days of 2020. Like, man, I wish it was easy like that. And for some people it will be like that. So it depends. So let's talk about what are the distinctions that'll make you either thrive or survive in the what's coming.

We're in lockdown number two, and we're going to have to deal with that. But I really think we are going to be permanently coming out of COVID by next spring. Yeah. And I'm not saying the disease won't still exist, but it'll get managed and we'll move on. Okay. So there's going to be a bunch of wreckage and a bunch of aftermath.

That we got to clean up. I'm rather doubtful that there's going to be another bailout coming. I think people are going to have to deal. Okay. And this is very important. We are not headed into a big, giant recession.

The sign that you're heading into a giant recession depression.

Is that real estate prices crater and you can't get credit. Well, we're in the opposite situation right now. We're not in that part of the real estate cycle. And I got this from Akhil Patel, who. That's a whole long story. But we're in an economic cycle that's probably going to continue going up until probably 20, 25 or something like that. Then there'll be a crash. Okay. But meanwhile, so here we are right now and we're in this dip. I would liken the dip that we're in. It's kind of like the dot com crash. Okay. And maybe it's worse. But you know, the dot com crash was pretty bad.

Oh yeah. I was a financial advisor during it. I had started my financial advisor career like the end of 1998 and for the first two years, you know, it was actually a pain because I was like this 25 year old snot nosed kid trying to get managed money and everybody was like, I don't need an advisor. I just throw a dart at a wall and everything goes up. And then everything went to crap. And now nobody, everybody was a deer in headlights. So it was a tumultuous time. I remember the dot com boom and bust. Very, very Right.

So, so that's kind of like where we're at now and what a. Well, so everything we've talked about today applies is you chop everything that's not necessary.

And, and then, you know, then it'll come back faster. You chop slow. Oh, you want to cut off your leg one inch at a time. Great. Right.

And you use the time that you have. Like one thing that I know that people will regret is like, man, I was sitting around the house for a year and there's all this stuff I didn't do. Yeah, I know, because you were watching Trump and Biden fight with each other or you were listening to everybody fight about Trump and Biden or what? Like not all of us were doing that. No. Okay. Some of us were fixing our businesses. And I mean, man, I'm working on all kinds of exciting things. I don't have time for that. Look, when you're working on really interesting stuff, who has time for all that nonsense?

And realistically, I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine just the other day. I was like, I think the vast majority of people, not everybody, but the vast majority of us, the current administration, whomever it is.

Doesn'T really impact your day to day life that much. Maybe you pay a little higher taxes, maybe you don't may, maybe some of your social rights are more protected than others and this, that and the other. But realistically, the impact on your day to day Life, if it is that dependent on the present, and I'm not talking about your emotional, the emotional impact, then something's really wrong if you're that dependent upon which government administration is in place. And when I realized that, I was like, I got things to do.

There are not very many industries that are dramatically affected. Like, most people are not selling guns.

Okay.

Guns would change a lot from one administration to another. Okay. But most, like, mostly it's. It's only your Facebook feed and your news and if you don't listen to it. So I think we've beaten that horse enough. Let's talk about a couple. A couple of other things.

Yeah.

So you talked about hobbies. I know a lot of, like, really high performance people, and they're workaholics. And it's almost like they don't have hobbies. Like, well, you need, like, you need to get some. Because here's what I know about entrepreneurs. You need to work hard and you need to play hard. If you're a hard driving, type a adventurous entrepreneur with all kinds of, you know, fires to put out and adventures and slaying dragons and everything.

You'Re not going to enjoy a quiet afternoon of playing Scrabble.

Yeah.

Okay.

Maybe you go skiing or maybe you go to Iceland or, you know, maybe you go on a cruise or, or maybe you bungee jump or hike the Grand Canyon or something. But people who work hard need to play hard. But here's the point. The things that you do outside of work need to drag your attention. They need to be so engaging that they drag your attention away from your work so that you stop thinking about work.

That's true.

So that, you know, your subconscious mind, whatever mystical forces, however the creative process works, that they actually can go to work on working on those problems. Because you can't solve problems just by focusing on them.

Now, it's oftentimes we have those epiphanies that hit us, like, wait a minute.

I wasn't even thinking about it. Because our subconscious is so much more powerful. It reminds me of a book I read.

Called Bored and brilliant How Spacing out can unlock your most productive and creative self. Which is. I love that title too. But it's like, force yourself into a little bit of boredom or. Or don't be afraid of boredom. At least, like, don't be afraid. Let yourself be bored. Let your mind wander. Let that happen. Because that's where, like in the shower or, you know, out on a walk.

Pushing your kid on a swing. I mean, I get most of my.

Great Insights either when I'm recreating and I'm kind of lost, or I'm at a concert or I'm at a play or listening to music or watching a really great movie, all of a sudden like these little insights will just start popping up or right out of the shower or right after I woke up in the morning. When you're a creative person, and every entrepreneur is a creative person by definition, when you're a creative person.

How you capture and manage your creativity is one of the most important factors in how successful you ever can be. And so this is super, super important. So that's why step seven of Detox, declutter, dominate is, is it is enjoy the freedom to create and reinvent every single day.

Yeah.

And I had to give myself permission. I realized one night it was like 1:30 in the morning and I was working on this project, building some stereo equipment and I had this big epiphany about how, how to do social media advertising that I call Maze 2.0. It said, oh yeah, I'm familiar with it.

Yeah.

And I was like, I had a realization. I had two realizations. First one was the one I mentioned. The second one was, dude, you have to give yourself permission to do these late night projects that you get lost in because that's when the creative juices start happening. I find that when I am under a lot of pressure to produce, I have to do the most counterintuitive thing, which you can imagine, which is actually disengage from the work and go do something fun deliberately and then come back.

In order to get that. It's almost like that's what ignites the spark plugs that gets it to work. Exact same thing. Especially if it's anything creative. Like if I ever have to write any kind of sales copy or have to really think strategically on something, like I gotta shake it off and go. I usually go to the gym. Like my biggest ideas and insights will come when I'm at the gym. And it's good and bad. Like I know when I go to the gym, like it's almost now it's programmed like I'm going to go there, I'm going to get an idea. I also think it's my subconscious because it usually happens when I'm on the treadmill or when I'm doing some cardio, which I hate doing. And I think the ideas come to my head and then it immediately I hear this voice going, you got to quit this cardio right now and go home and work on it. My damn Subconscious is trying to get me off this treadmill and what's happened. I can't tell you how many times I've gone home and I'm like, I'm rushing home and I'm going to get to work and I sit down and. And it's gone. Or at least the fire of it's gone. I was like, my damn self is just got me. It tricked me out of the gym with a good idea.

Hilarious.

Well, but now what I do real quick, now what do I do is my favorite tool for capturing this stuff. You ever used Otter the app?

Oh yeah, right.

My favorite app. Because I can sit there and I can just open it up and just start rambling to myself the ideas. And because it translates it or transcribes it real quickly, I can just kind of go quickly through and get the big idea out of it. That saved so many workouts.

Everybody needs a system for capturing your inspirations.

And your brainstorms when they come.

And if you can get that cycle going, it starts to self perpetuate and then it's easy to not get sucked into social media.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the other things I did recently, this was inspired. Do you remember Shawn Stevenson?

Yes, I do.

So Sean was a really good friend of mine and years ago he actually gave some speeches about this. But he also showed me he had this.

In his journal. He had a sheet called when life works. And he looked at it both personal and business. He goes, these are the activities that when I'm doing these things, I just reverse engineered it. When I'm getting a good night's sleep, when I'm making love to my wife, when I'm, you know, when I take a shower in the morning, self care, right? When I do these things, life tends to work. And he had him separated into business, like, oh, I'm sorry, personal. And then in business it might have been, you know, when I email my list when I just like, it's just at least the basics. And I went through and I recreated that a little while back into like a spreadsheet and I just have a list. It's maybe like 15 things and literally the top of the one is take a shower. Because I found myself like, I wake up, I'll just start working and you know, I may be in a row with crazy hair and I'm in a bad mood or whatever and I'm like, well, you know, I didn't actually set the tone. So now I've got a list of about 15 things and all I do is I mark them in a spreadsheet like did I do it? Yes or no. And then at the end of the day I rate it. Mood and productivity, like A through F on each one. Like I had a great, I was in a great mood and I was highly productive when I. Or I was in a bad mood and I didn't get anything done. Because then you can kind of look and say, well, I did two of my self care things. Like that was it. No wonder I was in a bad mood and I wasn't productive. I didn't do these things that I said I would do. Like Renaissance Time would be one of them, like journaling, reading, et cetera. And since I've been, since I restarted doing this about a month ago and tracking it, it's really interesting to kind of look back and go, yeah, there's a high correlation between taking care of the foundational things that are the most important and mood and productivity. So that's one of the little tools that I've borrowed from somebody else.

That's great. That's a huge level of self awareness.

Thanks. Yeah. And it all comes from trying to solve a problem that I got for myself is bad moods and low productivity. I was like, I can't have this. This is no fun.

Yes, brilliant.

So you talked about seven different aspects in the book. Like seven, were they.

How do you frame that?

I'll just go through them. So.

I spent a couple of years asking myself if I was to reduce business to seven things, what are the things? And the criteria was a, they have to be just as valid. Whether you're making $10,000 a year or $10 million a year, they have to be just as valid in 2070 as 2020.

Okay.

And so these, this is what I concluded. One, use Renaissance Time to gain discernment and clarity. That's the 20 plus minutes that you spend in the morning, not on social media, not an email with a notebook, some inspirational reading, meditation, journaling, prayer, getting yourself centered. Okay? Number two, make your business 2x more profitable with 8020 focus. Number three, earn $1,000 an hour, at least an hour a day with 8020 time. Most people, if you earn $1,000 an hour for one hour a day, your life's going to be good. Okay? Number four, create an irresistible product that's a joy to use by simplifying. Step five, carve out a niche where you're the undisputed number one via the Star principle. Which means, number one, in a growing market, that should be your focus. Number six, build an Impenetrable moat around your business. And number seven, enjoy freedom to create and reinvent every single day.

Love those.

All of the other stuff falls under those seven things. All the marketing stuff, advertising stuff, copywriting, bookkeeping, accounting, whatever. It all falls under those other things. And if. If you're focused on the. Just. I have to wrap up. If you're focused on just seven things.

Then.

You'Re not. You're not being drugged all over the world. And.

And those are seven really important overarching things that you know to follow. I mean, I. I think those serve as, like, a good lighthouse to say this is.

And we've done it in 36 pages, and it's highly illustrated. So this is a short.

That book is only 36 pages.

36 pages.

Oh, fantastic.

It's. You've never really read a book like this. It's highly illustrated. It has graphs and charts. It's like, These are the seven things for the next 50 years. They'll take you from $10,000 a year to $10,000,000 a year.

I absolutely love it. So it sounds like you have to wrap up here and go. So, Perry, I want to thank you so much for the time. There's so many topics. I would love to get into it with you. You're a very dynamic entrepreneur who's working on everything from business and helping people reset their minds to helping to find.

Potential cures to cancer and unlock the mysteries of life with your book and Project Evolution 2.0, which I recommend to everybody.

I really look forward to reading this and re engaging in some of those activities that I had lost track of since the reboot challenge. But.

Last question. Are there any kind of nuts you're trying to crack right now? Any big.

Challenges?

Just looking for a cure for cancer, but that's a whole nother I figured.

Yep. Well, I enjoy all the material you send in the mail and the updates on that, and I wish you the best. If people want to buy the book.

Website, nine bucks Amazon pages. It'll change your life.

Amazon.com fantastic. And everybody else can check out perrymarshall.com to see the other suite of offerings that. That Perry offers. I highly recommend his Renaissance Club and the newsletters. Those are, by the way, some of my favorite newsletters you love, like the insights and how you go really kind of deep as opposed to, like, shallow on that. So for everybody, if you like this, go get the book. Check out perrymarshall.com and if you have any questions for me, if there's, you know, if you're stuck with a business challenge or just can't figure it out. You want a second opinion? Feel free to email me to ask bradakenwrappedbusiness.com make sure you subscribe to the show, leave a review and I will see everybody else on the next episizzle. And thank you Perry.

Thank you Brad.

That was.