Fear Is Your GPS: Dan Daly's Counterintuitive Strategy for Making Bold Career Pivots

When you are willing to just pause and listen to yourself before you make a decision, you realize that all day, every day, you have an opportunity to make a decision that's going to go this way or this way.

Hello, everybody. And what a. What a fun day we're going to have here. Talking with Dan daily, because Dan knows how to make big things happen. And I'm excited to, you know, I hope we get into momentum and compounding because he made. He made something monstrous happen in a short period of time. So, Dan, welcome.

Oh, it's great to be here. I really appreciate you having me, and I've learned tons from you, Larry. So thank you for everything you do.

Well, thank you very much. While we were talking earlier, it was the first time I found out that you knew about me. And so I'm very grateful for that. And now I get to learn from you, Dan. And so if, in case everybody else is wondering and watching about that incredible painting on the back, it's a. It's a Picasso. It's a Picasso scarf straight from Spain. And I'm, you know, I'm gonna go looking for those. If they have them in the air maze shop with all their scarves.

They do, sir. You can find them. And they're a great piece to have, and they're always fun. And it's a conversation piece.

I love that thing. So, anyway, let's have some fun talking about winning dad Comet and making, you know, everybody wants to win, but so few people win something big where they feel, you know, like they really, you know, it's such a great thing to win. And that's why I think kids ought to play sports and get involved in anything competitive in school so they can taste winning and they can learn the lessons. That it tastes, you know, it's energizing to win. You know, you got to work, you got to pay the price. But they need to taste that payoff. You know, they win. They need to, you know, have the pinata. They need to win the prize and taste how good that feels. And they're out there at drugs and everything looking for these artificial thrills. But there's such a real transformative rush of adrenaline from winning that is available to everybody if you just go for it. And then you get it in your mind that I want to feel that way again. And then you get the idea I want to live that way. And so that's what really makes life. That leads to the rewarding and fulfilling life. And you went out there and really, let's just talk about the One thing scaled an automotive startup, which I don't even know what an automotive startup is, from an idea to 600 million, 500 employees and probably more than 600 million in just five years. It's just mind blowing. What is the story behind that happening?

It's a great story. I'll back up a little bit to lay some groundwork for it because I think it's important you talk about winning. I grew up in intramural sports. We didn't have a ton of money growing up where I could join all of these big fancy sports leagues. Um, so a lot of the stuff that we did was kind of like boys and girls club stuff, right? That early days, though, it taught you how to play as a team, think as a team, take direction from people that knew what they were doing and coaching you and mentoring you.

That's an important point.

It's, you know, I, I still go back to it, right? I'm talking about things from when I was 6, 7, 8 years old that still stay with me every day and getting that feeling of, of winning, right? And it, it creates the result and the emotions stay with you. And then you want to win at more things and not just sports, right? As you get older. And I was at kind of a crossroads When I was 17, 18 years old, I came out of high school. I was one of those guys. People were asking me, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? Which is a big question for a lot of people. And I just, I didn't know what I wanted to do, you know? And my dad got me into this janitor's union. So I had a job and benefits. And one day I was working, Larry, and I was on the midnight shift because that's all I could get was the graveyard shift. It's three o' clock in the morning and some guy says to me, oh, you're a lifer now. And I said, gee, what does that mean? He said, well, you're here for the rest of your life. And when I say that, Larry, like, I got goosebumps. Like, I feel like I'm in that moment right now. That's how much it stuck with me. I quit the next day. My dad was furious, of course. He said, great. What are you going to do? I said, I don't know, Pop. I'm not going to do that. Long story short, I got into automotive sales. I was passionate about cars and I love talking to people. I could talk to a tree, right? And a buddy of mine was working at a dealership. He said, why don't you come work for me? You'd be a great car salesman. I said, dude, I'm not a car salesman. I was kind of like insulted by it, you know. And he said, well, you think about it. Long story longer. Twenty years later, I started in automotive and I went from sales to finance manager, sales manager, general sales manager. I was the youngest general manager in the country at 32 years old. And I just loved what I was doing. And about six years ago, the owner of a couple of professional sports teams decided he wanted to get into the automotive dealership world here in California. A mutual friend that was the president of one of the manufacturers put us in touch with each other. We had what was supposed to be a 20 minute conversation. We talked for two hours here in his office in LA. He hired me as the first employee of a new automotive group. Twelve days later, he made me the vice president. And I'll never forget this. He came in, he said, listen, you know, I'm a sports entertainment guy, I'm a real estate guy, I'm not a car guy. You're the car guy. You know, I kind of don't know what to tell you to do. I said, well, you give me the horsepower and we could really blow this thing up. Right, right. Five years later, you know, after acquiring dealership after dealership after dealership, within five years, we grew it from four or five employees to 500 employees and 600 million in annual revenue. I mean, blew it up in five years.

And as you came in, tell me again, growing up, where did you have the fur? Was there any inkling about getting involved in the car business or being attracted to cars? Did you have any early fascination with that side of life?

I did. You know, my dad has a part time job. On the weekends he was driving a tow truck and he used to pop me up in the passenger seat at 7, 8 years old. So I was always around it, you know, and at a young age, I didn't know what that would become, but it was kind of ingrained in me.

Right?

And I remember when I was 11, 12, 13 years old, and my buddies were buying, you know, Sports Illustrated magazines, I was buying books by Richard Branson on how to create a business. I don't know where it came from, Larry. Yeah, it just. I was always interested in how they did it. How did they get there, how did they build it, what are all these numbers on the spreadsheet mean? I was intrigued by it and I've always been fascinated by it. Still am, you know, the zeros and ones of a business and how to grow it and how to build that compounding momentum.

Well, how old were you at this, this stage of your life?

When I was buying those books, I remember like as Yesterday I was 12, 13 years old. Going to magazine. What? Yeah, Richard Branson's, I think it was called Becoming Virgin and it was how he started Virgin Records and how I think his first band that he signed were the Rolling Stones. Like that was his mentality. I'm going to compete with the big guys and I'm going to sign the biggest band in the world. And stuff like that has always stuck with me, you know, shooting for really big goals. That's where the name of the company came from. Aim High. Right. You know, one of our companies is Aim High and it tells you right from the, right from the get go what I'm all about. Right. And then the other one, the real estate portfolio company is global investment partnership. I'm not thinking about California or the western region or the United Global. Right. So think, think big and then start laying those groundwork fundamental items that create momentum that you can compound to keep building up. It's those little things that happen to you when you're early on that you don't even realize, but they just set you on a course.

Yeah. Kind of. They expose you to. Especially if it's a dramatic event or something. Or something like, you know, your father's going to it every, every week or something like that. It just kind of opens up a side of life. It's the whole thing about noticing a yellow car. You know, you never notice yellow cars until someone says, you know, there's a lot of yellow cars out this weekend. And then everything, every car looks yellow. And so the deal is, you know, that kind of happens. And that's another reason to be careful as much as you can about the exposures you give your kids. You know, make sure they're positive, make.

Sure it's positive, make sure it's good, make sure it's forward facing and building momentum for sure.

Yeah. And so the as you get in this idea of, I don't know if I've talked to anybody that early was, you know, I've heard people interested, they start a business, they did this, that and the other. They were very industrious as a kid. But reading books on, you know, starting how you start a business and things like that. What do you think was the fascination with, with that? You know, I don't even, I don't even, I don't even Know, if kids are in bookstores, you know what I'm saying? You know, like.

Yeah, well, like I said, we were at the magazine stand, you know, the old fashioned magazine stand. And, you know, I'd scoot around the back and they'd have a pile of books and I'd grab a book and it was. Or I was buying Fortune magazine or Inc. Magazine, like, you know, I was fascinated with mutual funds. What's a mutual fund? You know, what are stocks? I just, you know, from an early, early age, I just was. Was drawn to it and nobody ever really preached it to me. You know, it didn't come from my parents or from relatives. Nobody was, you know, kind of pointing me in the direction. I didn't have anybody in my family or friend circle that owned a business or knew anything about business. It was, it was just one of those things where I guess, you know, similar. Some people wake up one day and they go, you know, I want to be a chef. You know, I just, I want to learn how to cook amazing meals for other people. And where did that come from? A lot of people, you don't know where it came from.

And so as you're coming up, the idea of, you know, you obviously had this brewing inside of you, and that's probably where the disconnect happened right off the bat early on where, you know, thank goodness that guy said that to you that early in your career. You know what I'm saying? A lot of. I believe, Dan, we're awfully stupid not to think there's not a divine hand directing us as we move through life and causing people around us to say things or something.

No, no, I agree with you. I'm a firm believer. Everything happens for a reason. Right. And it put me on a path. And even at that point, right, my, you know, my dad said, well, what are you going to do now? And I was like, I don't know. I didn't have a plan B. You know, I was burning the boats and. And I just did a pretty good job of figuring it out and, and trusting my instinct, you know, and I'm still getting better and better at that every day. Trusting my instinct, listening to something that's either keeps coming back to me, all right, let me pay more attention to that. Or when I think about something, when I see something, when I learn about something, if I'm not interested, I'll generally turn the page and walk away, like, you know, right away.

You know, that's a skill really, in terms of discovering where you go. Because I remember I did the same thing when, you know, kind of a similar thing when I was around, you know, 16, 17, in the summers, you're. You're working all these, you know, dog jobs for minimum wage, and usually you don't have the coolest, most encouraging person managing you. You know, you got somebody, they're. They're a boss for the first time, and they're bossing you around it, you know, And I was thinking to myself, here I am working like a dog, being treated like crap, being paid nothing. And I said, you know what? I said, I don't know what it is I want to do, but I know it's not this. And I said, I don't know what my path's going to be, but I do know that whatever. And I don't even know what it's going to take to do that, but whatever I'm in, I'm not going to be on the bottom, you know, because, you know, whatever it is, whatever you got to do, go to school, go this, go that, whatever, I'm going to do that out. But those are decisions you make early, early on, and it causes you. Because you can. You know, I used to do this thing where we would. We would have. Build people up through the training center, and they would go out and move out to it because we were trying to open out outlets all over the country. And it was like, you go to a guy, it was time for them to start thinking about getting promoted, moving out, having their own office location. And you go. And they would say. You'd say to them, like, you know, if there's no limitations, where in the country would you like to live? And they're like, wow, you know, oh. And it's like, oh, you know, it's just like, you know, and the slot machines, you know, the casino, you know, the. The dial spinning around the. His. I said, okay, let me help you. Let me help you. Here's a map. Do you want to go to Seattle? Okay, no, no, that's too far. Do you want to go down to Tijuana? You know what I'm saying? To South Seattle? No, that's too far. Do you want to go down to Key West? Do you want to go up to Maine? You know, to Bar Harbor, Maine? Okay. No, no, you don't want to go there. All right, we've got the four corners narrowed down now. Where do you want. Let's start working into the country, you know, within five minutes. They'd always wind up picking their choice, you know, and you'd be the Biggest population center around whether either their wife grew up or they grew up, that's where we come down. But in the beginning it's like, oh, Lord, I just don't have any idea. But when you start getting rid of the obvious nos, you know, it's just like, you know, it's like, you know, are you going to be a writer? Are you going to be a doctor? You got to, you know, be a pilot. You start eliminating those things. You can narrow it down pretty fast, can't you?

Yeah, you sure can. You know, I'm going to say it a little differently. You sure can if you know what to look for and what to listen for. Right. So I would change it a little bit. And I'm a firm believer that, you know, living in a fear mentality, which I was for a long time, keeps you trapped into that thought process of I guess this is all there is for me. I guess I'm going to work next wherever the company's going to send me. And I guess, I guess, I guess right versus the really looking in the mirror and asking yourself, is this where I want to be? Is this what I want to be doing? And are these the people I want to be working with? And if the answer is no to any one of those, you need to find something different to do. And it is not easy, you know, especially different points in life. You know, you could have a mortgage, you could have kids, right? You have mouths to feed, you have people to support. It's not that easy to pivot. But I think I got better and better at listening to those instincts that kept coming up and listening less to the fear based mentality. And what I did one day was I went back and I thought about some of the bad decisions I've made in the past. And I kind of just took a fresh look at them as somebody else, like an outside observer and said to myself, you know, when you were making this decision, did you have a feeling like it probably wasn't a good decision? Well, and everyone, the answer is yes. Like, I knew early on that I shouldn't be doing this or taking this job or going to that city, but I did it anyway. So I just kind of, you know, did a reversal and I said, the next time that happens, I'm just going to do whatever I'm telling myself to do. And I started going in a completely different direction really quickly. Because when you are willing to just pause and listen to yourself before you make a decision, you realize that all day, every day, you have an opportunity to make A decision that's going to go this way or this way. So I really started honing my skills of listening to my instincts, taking my time to make a decision, getting out of the fear based mentality. And man, you talk about a compounding effect, that's a skill set. Then when you pair that with a goal, in my case it was starting a consulting company and starting a real estate investment fund, then it just really compounds even quickly. And people say, well, how's this guy make these decisions so quickly? And it seems to be the right decision. And you know, so and so got lucky, right? Everybody always gets lucky. And yeah, I get lucky every day because I work hard at trying to get lucky.

Well, when you say what were, if you were to look back, let's go ahead and let people, let's kind of finish painting the picture. You did the automotive startup, so I.

Did the automotive startup. Yeah, we blew that up. And the last couple of years that I was in that, I started investing in real estate and not here in the United States. I looked at real estate abroad for a lot of different reasons. Number one, interest rates over there on a 20 year mortgage, 3.2% versus 7.2% here. The barrier to entry was a lot low. So just say whatever your investment seed money is, you could make it go a lot further over there. And I started buying short term rental properties in Portugal because it's one of the most heavily invested touristic regions. So I picked my market, I picked my target audience, which was short term rental people, and I picked my price point and I found accountants in Portugal, attorneys in Portugal, property managers in Portugal, general contractors in Portugal from a laptop here in century city at 3 o' clock in the morning. And the first year I really hit go. We bought four properties the first year over there. They're all five star rated, they're all booked 99% of the time. And now what we're doing is building that momentum and taking instead of individual short term rentals, we're creating a golden Visa hospitality real estate fund. So the fund will own hospitality real estate, think luxury boutique hotels, small scale, that are eligible for the golden visa. So in Portugal, if you invest five years, €500,000 into certain pre approved funds, they give you permanent residence in five years for yourself, your spouse and your kids. So it opens up this whole world of opportunity for people in the United States to invest over the next five years, get a return on their money. And by the way, if you want to retire and go over there now, you have a key to the whole kingdom. So that was our press release that we released about, about three weeks ago on that project. And that project is already blowing up. It's going to be immense. We had thought about it being capped at $15 million fund and it's already capped at 50 million. So we've already raised the roof on that.

And so you just. And I would imagine this spreads word of mouth, right?

It's word of mouth. Yes, is the short answer. Word of mouth kind of changes a little bit. You know, back in our day, we was, you know, we were out on the golf course was word of mouth. That's still valid. But now word of mouth is. Is social media. Right. So word of mouth is still the way to get the message out there. But you're reaching such a bigger target audience.

And what is your role in this? In the. Is it now? Is that Aim. That's not Aim High? Because Aim High is Bore Back with the car dealership.

Right. So Aim High is a consulting firm where we go into automotive dealerships, which is my bread and butter. And we specialize in reclaiming the customers you've lost. Everybody wants more new customers, which are very difficult to get. It's a lot easier to go figure out why you made some of your customers angry and they're not coming back anymore. Fix it and get them to come back and spend more money. So that's a big component of what I do. And then the other side is the Golden Visa Portugal Hospitality Real Estate fund that we just launched.

What's more exciting for you at this stage?

Oh, man, it's like 50, 50. And I hate to say that, you know, it really is because I love teaching some of the old dogs in the car business a new trick, you know, and they're really hip to learning something that they haven't kind of thought of before as the secret sauce that somebody else has done. So it's encouraging and it's great to see customers come back to somebody's business. Some of these businesses have been around generations, so to help them grow their business generations later is really rewarding. And then to do something on the other side, which is a little bit more forward thinking, right. With the real estate fund, that's what's it going to look like in 24 months, 36 months, 48 months. So I've got the immediate impact here with Aim High and then I've got more of a longer term goal plan here for the reward system for the Golden Visa Hospitality Real Estate fund. So I love doing them both.

Well, fortunately, you've raised about 14 things I want to follow up on. But so I can just cherry, I could just cherry pick and cherry pick and know that I'll have a winner. But let's talk, let's go back to the fear thing. You said you were, you know, as I'm looking at you and I'm hearing this story, like when in the world did he have anything to worry about? He gets into the automotive business, he's a hit. Maybe you had some fear before. You were trying to sort through and get into that, but then other options came to you to go in and get into the dealership. So it seems like you were on a, you know, a winning, seems like you've been on a winning track ever since you got to the dealership. But where talk about fears because people will have, you know, I talk to people all the time and they're running hundred million dollar things and they're, they're eat up with fears. In fact, I used, I used to say about our founder, Art Williams, I said, he's the biggest worry ward I've known in my life, except for my grandmother. And you know, because they're thinking, you know, it comes from looking down the road and knowing what can go wrong, you know, and, and knowing, knowing you're the one that's gotta, supposed to be looking down. You're supposed to, you're on the Titanic, but you're, you're the one who's supposed to be spotting the iceberg, you know.

Yeah.

And so, so where, where do you think, where did that come in to you? You know, where you really feel.

That's a great question. I'll tell you. It happens all the time still. Larry. Right. If I'm being honest with myself, I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say I'm not afraid of anything anymore. It started early on in the car business. So I'll give you a real world example. You know, very quickly I was honing my skills to be the number one guy in the store and the number one guy. The only time I ever beat him was when he went away on vacation. And he still tells me that he didn't really lose that month because he was gone for two weeks. So. So I'll give him that. Right. He gets a mulligan on that one. But at a point in time, some of the managers that had trained me how to do what I was doing, which was build relationships and help people make a great decision to buy a car, they left and went to different dealerships or different Brands and a lot of times they said, listen, why don't you come with me? And I would say, geez, I don't know, I got it pretty good here. You know, I'm selling a lot of cars, I'm making good money, why would I ever pack up the tent and leave? And I'll tell you the honest truth, Larry, that's fear based, right? Because if you're really owning it, you could probably do that anywhere. And I realize that now. You can pick up your golf clubs. If you're a good golf club player, golf player, you can pick up your clubs, you can go to any course and you can play pretty well. So that's how I started looking at my skill set as a golfer. I could pick up my clubs, go play anywhere, and I'll do all right. So, you know, I had a really successful career in automotive. Some of the guys that I started with 20 years are at the same desk, in the same store, at the same dealership. Now it doesn't mean that they're living in fear. They just, for them, it just they're happy doing what they're doing. They're, they're comfortable doing what they're doing. There's nothing wrong with it, right? But I could have been sitting at that same desk or I could have accomplished the things that I've accomplished since I shook off the fear and I left and started over. And I am a fan of every five years turning over the soil and doing something, making a left hand turn and doing something different. So the last gig, I was there for six years almost, so it was a little bit more than five. But at about the five year mark, I started getting itchy. I wanted new goals, I wanted to try and climb a new mountain. I wanted to win at something different.

Well, fear is always going to be somehow related to risk, right? The unknown. And if you're, if you're moving up in life, you know, like the guy sitting at the desk, this is somebody that doesn't want risk, doesn't want, you know, doesn't want the fear, doesn't want the risk. But the fear is something for someone like yourself, moving up along the path to the top is something you encounter. It's not something that's every minute of every day. You know what I'm saying? It's like you, when you need the transitions, it's kind of a sign of opportunity in a kind of a perverse way, isn't it?

No, you said it spot on. I couldn't say it any better. Instead of it Being a feeling now that kind of weighs me down, like, you know, it did years and years ago. Now it's an indicator that I'm onto something, and I harness it and figure out, okay, what is it that I'm actually afraid of? Why am I afraid of that, and what am I going to do to counteract it? Because it's opening different doors for me. It's not closing different doors. It's opening different doors. And it's a mindset, right, of not letting it overwhelm you. And instead, like, this is your instinct looking out for what's best for you. Listen to it and use it, you.

Know, in terms of making those decisions. See, I'll see if you agree with this. It seems I've always felt like the only way to get confidence is to have some successes, you know, to kind of prove to your. Because people can say, you're good enough, you know, you got what it takes. But until you actually go out there, put yourself on the line and actually win some ball games, have some successes, you're not going to believe it yourself.

Yeah, I agree with you 1,000%. I mean, the obvious thing that comes to mind is, you know, that you're going to fail. But, you know, you can't be afraid of failing. You have to break some eggs to make an omelette, right? And. And not everybody's prepared to break some eggs to make an omelette. They're happy having their scrambled eggs every day, and they're okay with that. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, my dad was one of those guys, same job every day, 30 years, till he punched out, punch in and punch out. And he lives in a great house. He put my sister and I to good schools, you know, and who. My. My mom still live in the same house. And we had a, you know, a good life growing up. Like, that's just. That's a success for a lot of people. There's nothing wrong with it. You know, I'm kind of, you know, I'm the. I'm the son from Mars where I just want to do something different every five years, try and do something I've never done before and. And do it really well.

Yeah, well, I think we need to recognize, you know, it takes us a while to. It takes us maybe a lifetime to realize not everybody's motivated like us. Thank goodness, you know, and better for the. You know, sometimes you look back and you say, I think Alex Hormozi went back to his hometown recently, and he ran into one of his high school buddies that the guy, you know, had a job and, you know, family and, you know, was doing, had a house and everything's good. And he's going to. Alex, like, you know, you're the man. You got this, you got. Alex said, man, he said, you don't understand it. He said, you aced it. He said, you're the man. But the thing is, with us, if you've got the itch, you just gotta deal with it. Cause otherwise it's just gonna drive you out of your mind. And that's one of the things about retirement you get is boring. You know, you gotta realize it's, you know, you're gonna get bored out of your mind if you've been someone on the move looking for, you know, you like, fresh ideas, fresh experiences, learning new skills, and you're gonna get bored. And so I've gone through cycles in my life where like, okay, I'm sick of it. I don't want to learn a God bless it thing. You know, I've learned enough in my life. I don't want to learn anything. I want to use what I know already because I don't want to waste any time learning. Yeah, that lasts like a minute.

Yeah, I was going to say. And then, you know, about 30 days later, I tell my wife all the time, you know, I describe myself as being purpose driven. And that is not often practical driven. Right. There's a healthy combination you got to find there between being purpose driven and practical driven. And it's like, you know, it's like trying to change the color of my eyes. Like I just, you know, you can't do it. If the itch is there, you got to scratch it, otherwise you're not content. And for me, it's all about being content, finding new goals, being happy that I'm working on achieving them. And then let's, let's take calculated risks and let's see where we land.

Do you get different satisfactions out of these different projects? How would you say, you know what, why, why is it worth it for you to put yourself through these phases? Because you could have stayed at a car dealership thing and go from 600 million to billions and just keep doing the same thing and learning new things and having new adventures, but you pivoted into some other directions. How has that enriched your life? Would you say to, people are wondering about, you know, they'll have the same opportunities and they'll wonder, I could stay on the same track and just get 2, 3, 4, 5 times, you know, 10x bigger, you know, type thing. But after you go 10x bigger, then what then? And so how has it been satisfying to you? Would you say?

Yeah, you know, the feeling. And I'm using the word feeling because it's a feeling when you accomplish something you set out to do, forget about whatever that goal was, right. Losing 10 pounds or making 10 million, they're both goals. How do you feel when you accomplish that goal? That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the feeling. Did I climb 17 flights of stairs today even though I felt like a dog this morning? Yeah, that feels awesome. It's no different than landing a multifamily unit that I've been looking at for six months and going back and forth with. Did you get it? Yeah, I got it. It feels exactly the same. So it just, it's inspiring, right? So I, I keep inspiring myself to do more by focusing on a goal, trying to get there, attaining it and going, oh, that was awesome. Now let's do it again with maybe something a little different. I'll give you a really quick example. You know, back when I was in my mid-30s, I was hanging out at the steakhouse too much and drinking too much beer and eating too much bad food and I was like 50 pounds overweight. And I said, I got to do something here to lose this. Most normal people would say, all right, let me lose ten pounds by Christmas. I went up the next day and I signed up for an Ironman race online. I gave him my fifteen hundred dollar initiation fee and my buddy goes, well, do you have a bike? I said, no. He said, do you know how to learn how to swim? I said no, this true story. And he said, well, what about running? Have you ever run that far? I said no. And for people who don't know, it's 140.6 mile race in one day. So you swim 2.6 miles in the ocean, you bike 112 and then you run a marathon which is 26.2 miles. And so, right. I'm, I'm kind of that like, all right, what's my goal? My short term goal is, is up here, right? I'm not trying to lose £10 by Christmas. I want to do an Ironman in 11 months. And the first one I did was nine months later. So I'm, I'm just, it's kind of the way I think. And then, you know, you tell somebody that story, which I'm proud of it, they'll go, how did you have. I could have never Done that and I pay attention to it and I go, well, if people are kind of saying that, like, wow, that's amazing, you accomplished something great, I could have never done that. Now pick something else. Now pick something else. Now pick something else. These short term rentals that I have in Portugal, we bought three or four of them within 11 months. At 3 o' clock in the morning from my apartment in Los Angeles, when I tell people the story about the accountants and the lawyers and all the fun. How did you do that? Well, because I got up early and I set my alarm clock and I wanted to do it right. You, you. Everybody gets the same amount of time, right? Right. Everybody is allocated the same opportunity and hours per day. There's 24 of them. What you want to do with it, it's not up to me. Like, do whatever you want with it. If you want to chill by the beach and just relax, nothing wrong with that.

Well, it's a perfect example also of what you don't know. There is somebody out there that does know it. You've just got to find them, right?

So let me tell you, without podcasts like yours, right? I mean, this period in time that we're in now, you can learn so much in such a short period of time that the things that I've done in two years would have taken me four years of college, a master's degree, four years of experience in a real estate firm unit. On and on and on and on. Right now you can find something and just immerse yourself in learning about it. And I was patient. The first year I educated myself in getting into real estate. I didn't know what I wanted to get into. Shopping malls, multifamily single family. So I had to learn about all of those to eventually check them off the list until I came to a niche that I like. I like niches because niches keep out the competition, right? You have to work harder, but that's okay. I like working harder.

There's a thing, what you're getting is that it's adrenaline rush of winning, but you're getting it in a different field. It's like, that's a win, dad coming. It's fun to win and it's never fun to lose. No.

Losing sucks, right? Losing sucks. Second place is the first loser. I still have that mentality. I'm not a participation trophy kind of guy, but that's just because that's the way I was raised, right? But it does create this feeling, this emotion that you've accomplished something. Here's you Know, I want to share this, and it's really important. I've got some of these. I got one here, these journals, right? And some of them are personal, some of them are business related. And every night before I go to bed, I make sure I write down my wins for the day, all right? Because, you know, a win may not be a real estate deal you're trying to land because you may never get it. And. Or if you do, it may take nine months to a year, right? So what are the wins? I found a new mentor today. I found a new advisor today. You know, somebody needed hand with the groceries, taking them from the, from the car to the elevator. And I helped her because her son wasn't around to help her. Like, I write down the wins every night because I'm pretty good at beating myself up, right, That I didn't accomplish something monumental. So it's important for me and the way I think to keep myself in the game by telling myself these are wins. They're all wins. They're smaller, but they compound. They add up. So for anybody that's listening, you know, one of the biggest things you can do is every day before you go to bed, you had some win today. There is some win, no matter how bad of a day you might have had.

Show that journal. Let's. Let's see it again.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's.

I mean, this is. Right, so this is about an inch thick and it's. They're all double page, double sided. And this is probably since 2022, my seventh one. So it's my scrapbook, right? It's all my notes, it's all my contacts, it's my thoughts for the day. It's important for me. It keeps me focused and it keeps me feeling rewarded. Every day I win at something.

It's your Picasso sketchbook. You know, he would sketch. The difference between I learned this from Picasso is like Picasso would sketch every day with a pen, but he would also sign every page and put a number, put a date on it. You know, So I mean, in other words, it's as important, you know, whatever this thing was, it was important enough for me to sign my name to it and put a date on it. And sometimes you'll have like 10 in one day, but this is like 1 of 10, you know, 2 of 10. And so what I would say to you is the way I look at those things, it's not like a gratitude journal. I think gratitude journals are great, but gratitude is no different. Noticing what great things happen to you. Audible. You didn't deserve it, didn't this. It's just being grateful for. You're in the position that you're in and you were treated a certain way or this, that and the other. I look at what you have there as a success journal, success stories, and it's things you had to do to move up or move towards a goal. Would that be a good way of saying it?

Yeah, it's a great way of saying it. You. You hit it right on the head. It's, you know, in the morning is my gratitude time. Right. I'm. I'm happy to say I'm thankful for my wife and my support and the house we have and the food we eat. You keep it simple, right, Because. Because life will throw you a curveball and you never know what tomorrow is going to bring. So I'm grateful for what I have every morning. But at the end of the day, man, I, I want to tell myself I crossed a couple of finish lines and here are my wins and I'm proud of them.

It's great to have the, the, the adrenaline from the wind, but it's also you, you don't need to let that dissipate. You know, you can enjoy. It's just like a good meal. You know, you can enjoy that thing. It's up to, like, when you have success, you should enjoy it, you should savor it. You should write it down. It is important. It is progress. Like, I'll even write down if I get an answer to a question. You know, it's like, you know, when I start a new project, it's like, well, what about this? Who's going to do that? How are we going to do that? Would you keep doing this? Is this important? What, what works, you know, what's best practices for this that the others like. But when you start, those answers start coming in. That strengthens you, you know, cause that allow. That allows you to be more proactive moving forward. And so I, you know, as you were saying that, I went back to your earlier analogy. I've got my golf clubs, I've got my golf game. I feel like I could pretty much go out in any golf course and, you know, score pretty well. It's kind of like you've got your tools for handling life, how you look at things, how you sort through things, how you unravel problems. And what you've been doing is taking those tools that you develop and moving it into different arenas to win there. You know, those are your golf clubs. It's like how you go about so that was the picture I got as you were talking.

Yeah, no, you're spot on. I used to, you know, one of the things I used to always talk about in automotive, and there was no pun intended, but it's another tool in your toolbox. Every time you learn something, it's another tool in your toolbox.

Yeah.

And you know, as you go through life, you know, my dad had this collection of tools when I was a little guy, I remember, and I'd see a wrench and I was like, geez, dad, when's this wrench from? He's like, oh, I, I got that when I was 18 years old and I was fixing my first car. And he still got this thing 40 years later, you know, and every once in a while he's got to break that out because he's got an odd shaped nut or whatever and he needs that tool. So it stays with you. It's, it's your golf clubs, it's your toolbox of life and you take it with you and you figure out how you're going to apply it to the, the next, you know, challenge.

Well, I think that's a great way to kind of wrap up this public portion of the interview. Can't wait to get you into the locker room behind closed doors and get into some of the specifics on how you've made some of these things happen with our next level group for the community. But could you do me a favor? I don't get, I don't get a chance to quiz my, you know, audience or kind of, you know, that, that often to get the feedback, but it helps inform me. Like when we started this thing, you were telling me that you had found the podcast and you had listened and you'd gotten some benefit. It's always interesting to me how a person like yourself, highly motivated, locked and loaded, you know, how this is a benefit for you. I know these kind of things benefit me, but I like, you know, I'd like to hear why it's a benefit for you. Any use of your time, you know, to be, to be plugged into it, you know, what you're getting from it.

Basically happy to share it with you. You know, for me, let's say I'm reading a book and we use the book as the analogy to the podcast. Okay. If I'm reading a book, or a better one, if I'm in a seminar, right. And I've paid something to go to a seminar to learn something, I'm not going to learn everything they're laying down, right. It's overwhelming. It's. You're going to forget it. I look for two golden nuggets. I want to learn two things from this seminar that I can take away and apply the other 80%. It's there. I'll find it later when I need it. When I read a book, if I come across something that's a light bulb moment, I put the book down, I'm kind of done reading it for a while, and I figure out how to take what I learned and apply it. Same thing with podcasts like your, your own, right. You might be talking to a guest on something totally unrelated to what I'm doing, but that guest shares something that he learned in his process that says, that's the answer that I was looking for and now I know what to go and do. So I'll dedicate an hour every day to educating myself. There's a difference. I don't say sitting around watching podcasts. I dedicate an hour today to learning something new that I didn't know yesterday. And it could be real estate related, investment related, wealth management related. They all kind of overlap. And every day I'm learning something new and it all, it goes in here. And like I said, you know, it's, it's in the toolbox. Then.

Well, and then when you apply that, you know, you can't apply 40 things out of a seminar, but if you get the main thing and you can go out there and apply that to your situation, the reason it'll pop out to you is because it applies to your situation. You apply it to the situation, then you've got a great method I think is perfect, is you write it in the. Once you get the accomplishment from that, you write it in the book and then that idea is yours. I mean, it becomes, you kind of permitize it, you know, your learning process, like climbing stairs, you know, you're elevating yourself. And you know, when we trained horses, that's the way we trained horses. I did that for 16 years. And so what? Every day you take the young horse out and you take them to one step forward. And once they get to that, they do one thing they haven't done before. Turn around, go right back to the barn.

You know what happens if you open the gate and you just let them run, Larry? They never come back.

They're never going to come back.

It's just a mess.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I'm a fan of baby steps. Right. I call it sleep.

Thank you.

Then you creep and then you leap.

Right.

You know, and a lot of People are gung ho. They come out of the gate, they want to. I want to buy my first property within 90 days. Oh, you're probably going to get sideways on that. Take your time. Learn, ask a lot of questions. I didn't really do any actionable items until I learned enough. Where if I had a question, I knew the answer before I asked it to whoever was kind of the expert on it. And if they gave me the answer I thought I was going to get, I said, okay, I learned a lot. And now I know that was a confidence builder. Okay, now it's inside. Now I have it. Now let's go ahead and go buy something.

Yeah, it's funny that you said that. The Golden Nuggets, because that's what I did, you know, on the way up, you know, it's like, I got to go to a meeting in Orlando. Window a meeting here. This idea that I said, 10 years from now, I want to remember what I got from this meeting, you know, So I would go in the door looking for something that could elevate my business and, like, that would be so memorable that 10 years later I could really. That's where I got that.

That's the secret sauce. You know, not getting overwhelmed by writing down everything that the person's saying, and then you're not listening to what they said. You missed the whole thing, you know, And I asked dealerships that I go in and console with now, you know, those things are. They're a hotbed for just activity. There's a million things going on a million miles an hour. And I'll say, this is really easy. What's your number one pain point?

Yeah, there you go.

I got a million things going on you don't understand. No, no, I understand, but what's number one?

Right.

You haven't prioritized it. That's. That's a problem. You need to know what your number one pain point is. And if you do know your number one pain point, that's all we're focusing on. I'm not going to give you a book of 300 pages at the end of a month for you to go and implement stuff. Everybody puts it in the draw. They throw it in the circular file. It never gets used. Number one. What is your number one problem? That's all we're going to focus on. We're going to fix it.

Well, and the thing is, it's the same thing when people are hopeless. I don't know what to do. I've just tried everything. I don't, you know, I don't know, I'm just lost. It's like, no, you know, your next step. Everybody always, you know, when you've got the gun in your mouth, you're ready to kill yourself. You're ready to, you know, give up on whatever it is you're on. It's like there's one more thing, you know, you should try before you do that, isn't there? There's one more thing in your mind, you know, because it's like our mind always, always leaves us with one thing left to do.

And fear is the only thing keeping you from taking that next step. It's all fear based. You know, going back to the beginning of our conversation, absolutely.

Hey, this has been great. Really got into some good stuff and powerful, you know, this is, you know, you break winning down. It's simple, you know, you can only do so much at any given time. You can only go with what you've got. You can only progress at a certain rate and you can win. And I appreciate you sharing, Dan, all of this stuff and I, you know, again, I say this, we're just going to have to do it again. Darn it. We just did, you know, we just, we just got started. So thanks so much and I will give you a last word for people on the public part of this.

Yeah, I would say this to add on to what you're just saying. Winning is hard and being great at something is hard. It takes a lot of dedication. It takes discipline, it takes work, it takes focus, and it takes being able to go through failure. Right. Tom Brady did not take the easy way. It's a lot of hard work. So if you want to be great at something and everybody has the opportunity to be great at something, be prepared to work really, really, really hard.

Absolutely. And it's hard to be great, but to me, it's harder to be mediocre because you're. At least the people who pay the price of greatness get a chance to experience the euphoria of winning. But the people who don't pay that price are just always miserable. And so when you look into that thing, it's not as hard as you might think it is. So give yourself a chance to be great, folks. Dan, you hit it out of the park. Fantastic, man, Incredible.

I appreciate this time. Thank you for everything, Larry.