[Greatest Hits] Episode #16: Orchestrating Success - Marketing Expert Dhaval Patel's Powerful Ent...

Welcome to this edition of the million dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

Welcome everybody. To kick things off, I'm going to try it over to Vignesh Kumar. And Vignesh works with Neil Patel, which many of y' all will probably know from many successful activities. He's all over the Internet, Internet marketing, many companies, a lot of investing, a lot of lot of companies, a lot of activities out there. And his right hand man is right with his big niche, Kumar and so big Nash, we've got a special guest, I think.

Yeah.

So let's introduce Double. Double Patel has been working with Neil for over, well over a decade, I.

Would say at least.

And he's known Neil since Neil was a toddler and has worked with Neil on many marketing campaigns and client campaigns and just, you know, has been with him through thick and thin, has been working with him on almost everything that Neil has been doing. Every single major project that Neal has done over the last decade or so, Double has been there and right now he's actually in the process of launching his own agency and working with his clients. So, Larry, that's kind of where double.

That now, Vignesh, just so people will know the size and the scale of these companies and these projects, what are some of the things they've worked on just as far as the, to give people a concept because the idea of they need to give them a little framework of where this information is coming from and who, you know, they work with.

I think though, you can kind of talk to some of that, you know.

Yeah.

Okay. Dalvo, we're glad to have you with us and curious, I guess you've worked with a lot of big companies in the past. You've had a lot of successes along the way.

Yeah, so I've been working with Neil for quite some time. As Vignesh mentioned. I've known since we were toddlers. Things were a lot different back then, but we worked on a ton of large projects from software to entertainment to all the way in Bollywood in India. So safe to say a lot of people reach out to Neil. I'm involved in all these projects and yeah, that's kind of a starting point for everything.

What are companies that people. What are companies and maybe projects that people would be familiar with.

Yeah. So we actually worked with a Bollywood actor named Hrithik Roshan many years ago to launch an e book for him and help him out with a fitness campaign he has going flash forward four years, and he's one of the biggest fitness influencers in India right now. And that's a burgeoning market. I thought that was a really cool campaign. We worked on. We work on a lot of SaaS and CRM companies as well in the pharmaceutical space from just general email marketing. So lots of projects. Yeah.

Okay. And so what are the. I'm trying to get with companies that people would recognize, like the Googles, the Amazons, or any of these kind of bigger companies that.

Yeah.

That people would recognize.

Yeah. I mean, really early on, Neil was working with aol, was working with Turner. I think at some point we were working with Airbnb. It all gets lost in. In the work because there's so many projects that we're working at. At times it's hard for me to just like list them off. But I thought Airbnb was a pretty cool one as well.

Yeah. And Turner. Turner Broadcasting.

Yes.

All their AOL Hydra, monsters of companies and everything they have.

Yeah. So I think a lot of these big names came on early because Neil was a trendsetter. He was one of the first names in SEO before everybody knew what it was. So he was able to really carve out his market. Fortunately, he took me along for the ride. I dropped out of law school, had no idea what Neil was doing. I stepped into the fray and now, lo and behold, I'm here many years later, involved in some really cool projects, get to do a lot of cool things with Neil, meet great people, and. Yeah, it's great.

Well, when you talk about big projects and people that do cool things, one of the great things that a privilege of my life is the chance of choosing who I spend time with and who I talk with on the phone. And it's the people that. It's not just making money, but the people with the million dollar mindset, million dollar approach, or even billion dollar approach. These are people that are movers and shakers and they operate their life according to success patterns. And I just did a video interview in Atlanta yesterday for video series with. For Art Williams, the Art Williams Best Channel. And they were asking me, you know, was I surprised by the success I had early on? And, you know, I said I was grateful for it. I wasn't really surprised for it because I copied successful patterns and I copied success strategies that people that I admired and looked up to were using. And so I pretty much expected them to be successful. And if they weren't, I went in and asked more questions and made adjustments until they were successful. And then I refined it to the. Where we wound up having more success than most of the time, than the people we got the ideas from. But success is something that you can orchestrate in your life, you can make happen. And you see this play out. You've seen this play out in companies and strategies and individuals. And it's fun to work with people that are highly motivated, that are on the attack making things happen in life, as opposed to the vast majority of people who feel like the world is overpowering. And, you know, why even try? There's too many. It's too complex. Too many things are against them. And so the purpose of us, you know, talking and letting people listen in is to pass on to them that you don't have to be a victim in life. You know, you can. There is a world, an ocean of people out there that are on the attack making things happen. They're not doing it because they necessarily need to buy groceries. They're doing it because they want to make things happen. They want to have adventure in their life. They want to have accomplishment in their life. And it's fun to win, and it's fun to do things that. That are successful. And you've had a lot of that fun. And so speak a little bit about that, because I people, I like to pass on techniques and ideas that people can use to put into their life to start causing more success to happen to them.

Yeah, that's actually funny because I was thinking about this exact topic and theme the other day. So I went the traditional path that most people do to see success. I went to, you know, high school, I went to college, hit a rut in 2008 where I had a political science degree, but there were no jobs. I wasn't qualified in a very specific field. So, you know, the obvious trajectory, I.

Thought was to go to law school.

Where I found even less opportunity. And, you know, a conversation I had early on with a friend, it was so cliche at the time, and I thought it was just not sage advice. It's something I've heard over and over, One of those platitudes about surrounding yourself with success and, you know, the five closest people to your, you know, the aggregate of their income is going to ultimately be your income. And I was like, I just brushed that off. I didn't really think about it. But, you know, I started working with people who are more successful, started seeing that the people around me were becoming those five that, you know, that friend early on told me would lead me to success. I don't think it was so much that handouts or that, you know, the five people you hang out with, they're going to bring you up because they're going to give you money. I think it's because you realize that your habits change fundamentally. So I started getting up earlier. I started going out less and partying less. I started focusing on what I was passionate about. And it became a snowball, like an avalanche of success because my habits were aligned with my passions and I was around people who could give me sage advice and. And those five friends eventually turned into hundreds to an audience now that I can reach with thousands. And it just perpetuated that mentality, success for me. And I think ultimately just having the routine and the regimen that I have is how I kind of go about my day, as opposed to being scatterbrained and not really having a focus. So what I found is really important is recalibrating my regimen every few years as well. Over the summer, I had a creative rut, and I just don't know what was happening. I decided to really hone in, understand what was going on and figure out some patterns that could help me recalibrate and become the person that can move forward and have momentum.

Yeah, and this is something that I think we all have to work on all the time because it's easy. You know, it's like the second law of thermodynamics. You know, the universe is getting more disorganized all the time, not more organized. And that plays out in life to where your house is getting messier, not more organized, your yard is getting more weeds, your car is getting dirtier all by itself, it's not getting cleaner. And so your life, if you want a disciplined life, you want an organized life, you want a positive approach, you want positive relationships, you know, you have to continue to work on those and refine them. But it's. The breakthrough happens when you learn that you can control, that you could. You know, like, the quality of life is to a large degree related to the quality of decisions you make, and especially the quality of decisions about who and what you're going to be spending your time about, because that's where you're thinking your thoughts going to be from. And that's where you know your new thoughts are going to come from. You know, the things you see and you hear people talk about and think about. And so it's a breakthrough when you realize that you can make. You can control those, you can steer that car, you know, you can, you can send your life in the direction, more towards the direction that you want. And when, when did you. What was the breakthrough for you in realizing that you could make those changes, would you say?

I think seeing my first taste of success made me realize that the potential for more and certain patterns as I was realizing if I kept honing in on those and iterating and working towards those, would allow me to continue on the path and learn more things and connect with similarly minded people. I think an early conversation I had with. So Neil has a business partner named Mike and he actually has the same Microsoft mindset than Neil does. It's crazy, they're so parallel on the same level. But he was once talking about how he had a friend who was super successful by every definition of the term money, influence. But he was just miserable. And the conversation got to the point where is he happy with what he's doing? Does he see growth? And then ultimately we decided and we came together and we talked about this and we said that people are happier when they're growing and they're seeing growth in their life. It's not all about money. It's about the passion you have for something. Are you seeing upward mobility in terms of learning more things, having a larger network? So I think more so than just the money and the influence and the people you surround yourself with. It's an inner working of. Are you seeing growth and happiness in your life? Are you seeing momentum? So when the momentum kind of slows down, that's when I get back to introspection and figuring out what really works. And maybe I need to change a thing or two to keep that momentum going.

Well, everything in life goes stale after a while. You know, the shiny, the shiny thing becomes not so shiny to you. You know, the thing that fascinated you. Once you get it and you get familiar with it, use all. It's not quite so fascinating. And then that's why growth, you know, you break through to a new income level or success level, a title and, or a circle of friends, and all of a sudden it's not quite so fascinating and motivating as it was in the beginning. And that's why growth is the key to staying fresh and excited and inspired. Because it's just like getting fresh groceries, you know, our fresh. It's a new morning, it's a new day, there's new possibilities. And without that, anything can go stale. But having this approach to life is consistency, which, you know, in my book, you know, I identify as like a being In a cycle of winning where you're always looking forward to the next thing. Because have you noticed, I just want to get this point in and see what you would say about it before I move into that one, and that is that I've got a friend of mine who says general consistency wins every time. You know, in an approach to life, he's. Somebody goes all over the country speaking and doing seminars about 40 weekends a year. But he said he. He sees all kind of high performers in all different walks of life. And he said one recurring theme is that anybody can have a great idea or great success, but the people consistently successful have a consistent approach to life. Like general consistency in your health habits, your relationships, your work, your approach, your attitudes. And a lot of that has to do with what concepts and ideas you buy into. But when I. When I put the phrase out there, general consistency wins every time, what. What would that suggest to you? Or would that mean anything to you? Duo.

Yeah, I think it comes down to regiments and habits and general consistency. I'm in my 30s, but my friends all joke around that I'm, you know, I act a lot older. I wake up in the morning, I. I always walk to get my coffee. I have to run two miles a day. I have to do a number of things. I have to meditate 20 minutes a day. If I don't do those things, I don't feel like I'm the best me. I don't feel well optimized. I don't feel like my frame. My brain is fresh. So, you know, even when I'm traveling, I try to incorporate those things, but I keep digging my roots into the ground, and I just have these really solid habits, and they allow me to just focus on tasks at hand, get through them, compartmentalize my life, and, you know, make time for family, friends. But I think it does come down to consistency and actions as well. How you treat others. Do you. Do you have a consistent logic with what you're doing? Are you managing people the right way? Is there consistency with that? Think all those things kind of come into play. And that's. That's a great and resonant point that I found.

Yeah. And the thing is, you build that for yourself by finding out what works and how you like to live your life and what gives you the most satisfaction. And I know there's a book by somebody who was one of these brigadier generals, you know, the chief of staff of the government and, you know, person that's had every kind of success you could have in the world. So he wrote a book about his experiences and how to be successful. And his first, he starts off, he says, when you get up in the morning, make your bed, you know.

You.

Know, just like be organized. And you know, I know with me, if I go to bed and I don't have, I've got a routine I go through, you know, with putting things in order and you know, flossing the teeth, brushing the teeth, this, that, the other, no matter how tired I am, if I don't go through that routine, you know, it's like I ended the day in control of my life and I got myself set up to for a good night's sleep and to start the next day with a bang. You know, at least I put the odds in my favor. But you, once you start to let these little, little threads and consistency fall apart, your. Your whole life starts to unravel in that, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think over the summer I experienced something of the sort. I was traveling a lot. I wasn't focusing so much on meditation and working on specific things that would optimize my life. And I slowly came to recognize that, you know, all those habits that I was focusing on and where my performance was at its highest were kind of unraveling. I was still running two hours a day, but I wasn't meditating and I was sleeping at odd hours and I had to really recalibrate. So I absolutely agree with that. And I think, you know, people pay thousands for self, self help or success gurus when it all just comes down to writing a list down. So what I did over the summer was at a certain point, it sounds almost ocd, but I wrote down a list of what I need to do every day. And it was down to like eating lunch, to grabbing coffee. These are the things I need to do. And this is my habit that I've compartmentalized and internalized, that I've forgotten. So I had to kind of readjust and it really helped me out. And now I don't have to write that list every day because I'm back on the routine.

Yeah, that's the thing about lists and writing things down. You, pretty soon it becomes automatic. You program yourself to think that way. And I remember that a story about Andrew Carnegie, the steel giant in the early 50s or late 40s, where he was trying to create productivity. And he said he'd give $25,000 to anybody, which was, that was a lot of money. And you know, the late 40s and they said, I give $25,000 to anybody who can give me a great idea to increase productivity for me and my staff. And they had all these great ideas come in. But the guy who wanted came in with the idea of every day, start off and write down on a piece of paper the top five things you want to get done that day. That was his idea and he got the 25,000. And so it's these simple things.

You.

Know, I know make all the difference. In fact, I remember as my sons were growing up, my youngest son would, you know, he want to talk about the day. How did it go? And I was, when I was telling him about the day, the success, you know, it was a great day. I'd always tell him it was a great day because we got this done, this done, this done, this done. And it was over time, I realized that's how I evaluated whether or not it was a good day. And that is what got done. Because if you get up in the morning, what are you going to do with the day? And if the day's over and you don't get the things done that are on your mind that are important to get done, you're just, you know, you're just running in circles. And so if you're going to make forward progress in your life, you get things done. And Dalvo, I've always said that life is a series of projects and deadlines. And so it's just like a to do list is something to check off by a certain timeframe. And so this, to keep yourself on schedule like that, that's how you move through life. And before I get into opportunities and how you keep yourself motivated to keep growing, let's talk about that. Dalvo. And, and the point is, you know, you started talking about one project that you did in the beginning, and if you can be is any kind of specifics you can give us, is great. But it's my experience that once you complete one project and you get through the finish line, all if you keep your attention up, all kind of new projects will appear and opportunities will appear that never would be available to you if you didn't get the first one done. And I'm curious if you have found that to be true. And we could hear about some of, some of that, how that's played out for you.

Yeah, absolutely. So early on I, I had this issue where I would take too many clients on and I would be overwhelmed and overstressed and I really couldn't focus on providing the best value to all of them. That's not to say I didn't provide Amazing value in my head. I just felt I couldn't provide the best value. So I really focused on creating a boutique agency when I started. And what that basically meant was if I think I can knock it out of the park for you and I could give you all the time in the world and that I could prove a concept and this concept will knock your socks off and you will share it with other people, then people will hear about me. I think that really resonated when I worked with that one project I was talking about in India with the E book that we created. It works so well, in fact, that I am based in the us his internal team took that whole project basically. I wouldn't say stole, but kind of took what they wanted out of it and created a whole ecosystem where people all across India started creating ebooks on special projects, whether it be meditation, fashion. They hijacked their idea. I didn't really so much mind that I wasn't getting in on the cut or making money on these projects. But I saw that the idea resonated and I saw a proof of concept that really worked in a really green new area, India, with marketing. So I really piggybacked on that and doubled down on that. And as you see now, everything in the United States is all about content. Writers are getting paid left and right. There's so much opportunity out there for writers and content creators because there's proof of concepts that worked early on that people really want to get education online. The traditional ways of doing things are kind of dated. So that was a really enriching and I felt like we were trendsetters there. So it really provided a lot of value.

What are some of the projects and successes you had that you're most proud of?

So I would say that project definitely we worked on a project very early on with this company called chefworks. They had no digital strategy in place. They were the number one chef apparel apron distributor in the world. They had a website and they had nothing beyond that. We created a whole ecosystem for content marketing. Word of mouth, specific graphics. We started interviewing chefs that use their apparel. We created a whole social media strategy. I thought that was one of the shining moments because I saw what we created for them and a whole industry adapt to what they were doing. Whereas traditional wholesale marketing, very little focus on customers or B2B little focus, very little focus on successes of their own. And the whole industry kind of warped over the last few years. I feel like they really got to ride that wave of content marketing and then seeing ultimately the whole industry change and follow them, they were able to still float in an economy that could have tanked them.

What kind of growth did they see from that?

So I think traffic wise, they saw a 10x return in the first year and a half just because they had very little traffic to their site, because they were not investing at all in content marketing or SEO or paid advertising. None of that. That was easy layup because they already had a huge email list. But one thing that really resonated and we learned from that project was people just don't want to be sold to. They need free stuff, they want free ebooks, they want free content, they want to know why they're buying something before they jump in. So that was really eye opening experience. Like I said, seeing the whole industry kind of adapt to that and now you are inundated with content everywhere you go was a really cool experience to see.

And how about the profitability for that now? Were they making their profit from their website, from their sale of clothes, from books? How did their profits go up?

Yeah, their profits went up concurrently with their traffic increase. So it was really interesting to see that one to one correlation that the more traffic they got to their site that was qualified, the higher their conversions went up. We were able to tweak conversion rate. We were able to see millions of dollars in additional profit yearly. They were able to minimize a lot of their staff because they weren't out there selling products by flying to different countries or flying to regions. They were able to do it online and they were able to do it in a very concise and very profitable way as opposed to their traditional methods of old commerce, if that's a term, E commerce kind of versioned under our content marketing strategy.

And so what you're talking about is you took a company, got them 10 times the traffic, which turned into 10 times the profit. And because you were able to restructure how the sales were making were being made, they were able to cut back on their expenses. So it was kind of a win win, I guess.

Yeah, absolutely. And we learned a lot from that process too. I say we because I had a team, I still have a team. So we were able to really understand what was going on. I was able to tap into greatest resource marketing mind that I knew my friend Neil. And yeah, we learned a lot from that experience. Such a large company. Well.

One thing that, that I hope people would pick up in this is that as you go through successful projects in life, you develop, you make new contacts, you develop new experiences, you develop new tools, but you learn things that you can use the rest of your life in all other areas, all other projects pretty much that come up. And because you've, you've said that several times here that you know, you got involved in a project, you did certain things, and you learned things that you didn't know before that you were able to use going forward. And that's how you really develop winning systems. Don't you think? It's. Am I saying that right?

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Not.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think I grew as an individual. I used to just go through conversations without really listening to people. I would hear facts, I would hear emotion. One thing I really learned was that when someone was speaking from emotion, say their sales are down or production's down, or a factory shut down, or hey, if we don't kill it this quarter, this company will no longer be around. I wasn't listening, really. I would speak, I would chime in. One thing I really learned was that I needed to sit back and just listen to those concerns and internalize them and understand the times. Where it was time for me to speak was when someone was talking about fact or asking my opinion. So it really allowed me to become a better listener, become a better communicator. That in turn really helped me out tremendously in terms of business.

Well, you know, Stephen Schwartzman with Blackstone says the same thing that he thought one of the things that differentiated him or gave him an incredible advantage, especially getting started, was he was a better listener. And he listened to exactly what people were saying and tried to. That gave him exact, precise information about what was holding them up from making progress, making a sale, buying something, making a change, developing a new product, going into a new industry. And by listening to them, and he was able to spend his mental energy on thinking of solutions while they were talking. And it sounds like you're, you're tapping into the same type of idea Right here.

Yeah, absolutely. And on top of that, I think, I think just understanding who I was as a person, really getting into meditation. So I get I could hit any situation with a calm mind, relaxed, regardless of the emotion being thrown at me. Because let's be honest, in business, even, even if you're a billionaire, you're always beholden to people. There's always people that are going to be angry at you and there's always going to be people who are happy with your work. So being able to have that calmness of mind in any situation, if someone's coming at me angrily, sad, happy, to just be even keel, I could better help them either amplify their happiness or help them out, or their anger or their despair. There's a lot of mental tricks that I use. I think meditation was very useful. So much so that I created a blog about meditation and how it affects the workplace.

Yeah. Where can people find your blog? Yeah.

So it's called Zenful Spirit. Luckily, I'm a marketer and involved with SEO, so I was able to really understand how to reach the most people with this blog. We have a large Facebook community. I don't sell anything on there. I think it's just a resource for people to learn. I do have an email list, but I think ultimately the salesmanship there kind of fizzled out the thought of it because I really just want to help people. So every, every week we have a blog post. I try to focus on things that affect entrepreneurs or people in the workplace and how to become more mindful and approach things in a very honest way. With yourself.

Yeah, I like to come back to that in a minute. But let's talk about the things you learned from the big success with the chef clothing line and 10 times increase in one year. How did you those lessons transpose into. I assume they transferred into other industries as well. Do you have a, a particular example of that after you went from that, you got ideas and you use those same ideas in another industry?

Yeah, absolutely. I think what was most, I guess, revelatory for me was understanding that there are internal teams that play at these large companies with employees, like people who go into the office daily and have certain ways of doing things. And to really succeed as an agency or someone who's coming in as an outsider, you really have to work with these people because they have a lot of say. They deal with the CEO, they deal with the owners directly. You can't just steamroll your way in with your ideas. You have to get buy in. You have to empower their own team to learn these things. You can't kind of hijack and hide these things. Obviously there's proprietary stuff you don't always share. But I learned like a playground trick that it's best to be able to play with everybody, even the person who's grumpy or the person who's not really buying into your idea. You really have to sell your idea to them and show them the results because oftentimes they're going to be coming at you from a very emotional standpoint. As in you're trying to take my job. That's what they're thinking. But my approach, or our approach was I'm not trying to take your job. I'm trying to help your company grow so you can make X amount more so that you can be incorporated into a new process so the company doesn't fizzle and you don't all lose your job. So I think getting buy in from individuals that work day to day at these businesses was very important and led to a lot of our success because people vouched for us and they loved working with us. And I think that's something that so often agencies and companies don't understand when they're working with these internal teams. It's like politics. You have to have everybody happy and you have to have the results flow in and everybody take credit for them.

And these principles seem to work with no matter how big the company is. Have you found that to be true? Because obviously you're working with bigger and bigger companies. Give us an example of that.

Yeah, so, I mean, early on I worked with the music school. They had a staff about five stepping into the fray and just getting to work with their team. One person just did not like us. They didn't like working with us. There was no rhyme or reason. They just felt like we were a threat to them. And you know, at the time it was a small contract, but you know, in my mind it was huge because I was just starting off and that same person, even as we saw our success, we tried everything to keep them happy and make them feel like they were part of the success we were providing to the owner of the company. Nothing seemed to work until one day we taught them a little of what we knew, showed them the processes, made them part of our process and said, hey, we'd love if we could get your feedback on. I think it was on a content marketing project where, where we were interviewing students for video series. And that really resonated with them because they were able to show the owner that this was an idea that they piggybacked on, obviously, but that they really thrived at. So whether it's a company of five people or 500, you need to try to keep all the people happy and understand that you're providing a service to them. You're making them and their company thrive and grow.

Vignesh, what should we be asking Duval about right now that maybe would shed some light on the magnitude of his impact out there in the world in terms of projects or companies or accomplishments? What should we be asking Duval?

Honestly, one thing that might be interesting is, like, your journey, you know, over time.

What do you. What can you tell us about that devil?

Yeah, so I think. I think this resonates with most people when they hear about. So I grew up with Neil. We both came from immigrant families. I think his. He came here, was two years old from London. I came when I was five months old from. We actually lived in the same apartment complex. Our grandparents were going for a walk. His grandparents. My grandparents met up each other and said, oh, there's another Indian family in the community. Long story short, we became friends, and we went to all the same high schools, same colleges. But I think one thing that really resonated with us is that we had really wealthy relatives in the United States who really didn't help us out very much. They flew us over from their respective countries. But then it was kind of like, hey, you're on your own. And I think that bootstrappiness and that just being left out in the cold, per se, relatively speaking, really ingrained in us a strong work ethic. Maybe not the traditional one where you go to college and get your PhD, but scrappiness and understanding of people and situations and really working for your dime. Neil and I have been entrepreneur all our lives. You know, we used to sell, like, CDs back in high school, and we tried things out. We never really took things too seriously in terms of failure and success. We've seen a lot of failures. I myself, you know, dropped out of law school. I had no idea how successful Neil was. He's always been pretty humble guy. He offered me my first opportunity. I moved up to Seattle for a job. I had no idea what he was up to. You know, finally figured out, oh, wow, this guy's a pretty big deal. And I've known him forever, but he never handed me anything. And I think that was what was most important and what we saw to be most important. You can't really be handed things. You have to earn them. You could get Your foot in the door. But the fact that we had to learn things along the way, that we really were scrappy, we continue to be scrappy, I think really helped us out. But I think for people listening out there, I think just when you see failure or you experience failure, it could be really demoralizing. It can make you feel like the world's against you. But I think if you use that motivation and you use that emotion, that really raw emotion to motivate you to do better, you're going to see results. Whether it be money, whether it be a new idea, whether it just. Maybe you want to travel the world, maybe you want to go surfing every day because you saw something happen. But it can motivate you in positive ways that can make you happier. I think the currency of the day is contentment as opposed to money at times. Right. Money can only go so far. But if you're doing something that provides positive results and you're seeing growth, as I said, that's the ultimate goal.

And as you moved up through the ranks, how well was Neil doing when you started with him?

I'm definitely not as well as he is doing now, but it's just fun seeing he's seen me grow from who I was when I was negative 50,000 in my bank account because of law school. And then coming to where I am now, where I'm doing pretty well, I'm able to provide for myself, my family, help friends out. So seeing him, he's always been a pretty humble guy, so you can't really see from the outside how well he's doing. You could just understand that he has an agency now that has hundreds of employees. He has tons of SaaS, companies that he's involved with. He's an angel investor. It's a snowball effect. And even with me, I started off one or two clients, and now I'm working on some pretty cool stuff. I get to work with Neil every day. I get to meet some great people. I wouldn't have imagined all this stuff, but, you know, that failure early on with law school and just the 2008 crisis when there were no jobs, I think it really propelled me to understand opportunity. And, you know, you grab the opportunity when it's there because you never know when it's going to come again, no matter what project or job is.

Right. Well, talk about some of the cool people that you get to work with now that you. You find it's hard to believe. There you are, used to be a law student and now you're getting to Work with this level of person.

It's funny, this big trend towards influencers now. And I live in la, I've always lived in la. I'm a local kid, so, you know, I could kind of separate the truth from the reality, per se, but there's a lot of influencers out there now, and they have huge followings on Instagram, they have huge followings on social media, and they're making tons of money. I never would have thought early on that I would be running in the same circles or going to the same places as them or even helping them out with campaigns.

You're talking about people with millions of followers, right?

Yep, millions of followers. And sometimes, often quite often equates to millions of dollars because of the promotion deals they get and everything that comes along with that. So it's really interesting. I talk to a lot of young people now because I provide a lot of mentorship because they want to get into the industry. They want to be youtubers, they want to be Instagramers, they want to be famous and all that. And you tell them that you know some of these people or that you work with them, and they're like, oh, wow, how is it? I'm just like, they're just everyday people. But on top of that, obviously, hanging out with Neil, I meet a lot of interesting people from a lot of walks of life, a lot of people who you don't even know are successful. They're just so humble, like founders of companies. My time in Seattle, I got to meet some really neat people. I think one time we were with the Starbucks founder, Howard Schultz, and I just walked into a meeting with Neil. I was like, whoa, where are we going? And he's having coffee with him. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. So cool. And interesting things like that. But, you know, hanging out with Neil always get to kind of piggyback on some of those opportunities as well.

It's kind of like living in Aspen. You can have a. The guy sitting next to you is in a T shirt or a flannel shirt and jeans and having coffee or reading the paper, and he's a billionaire, you know, and. Or there's. There's a table with several billionaires right there. You know, you wouldn't. You wouldn't notice them from anybody else.

Yeah, I've been able to make some pretty good friendships. One guy, one friend. Now he's a really close friend of mine in particular. He. His name is Matt Pipenberg, and he. He used to be a hedge fund manager. He still is a hedge fund manager, but he's ran through some really big circles and he used to produce in Hollywood. He's actually such a close friend now that when I go on trips, he sometimes shows up. And he's 15 years my elder. He's had a lot more experience. He knows everybody who's anybody. But, you know, at the end of the day, people are people and it's just really fun to see that, you know, you could be friends with these people and they're normal and they're, they have a lot to learn from anybody. So, you know, that's really humbling experience to be part of.

Well, that's, that's a myth that people have and that is a super successful people are cutthroat. They're all narcissists. They're all fragile, mercurial, ready to explode. And you know, of course some of them are. But by and large, to be successful, you've got to get. You've got to have teams of people and you've got to deal with people. And if you're not, if you don't know how to play with other children in the playground, you're probably not going to be popular enough to be successful in the playground. And most of these people that are successful know how to get along with other people and are pretty pleasant to be around. It. That's what I found. Have you found the same thing?

Yeah, it all hearkens back to a quote. You know, I don't know the origin of it, but it, you know, if you help enough other people get what they want, you could get what you want. Whether that's money, whether that's contentment, whether that's being part of a cool circle of people who support you emotionally and spiritually. And that was what was most eye opening, you know, hanging out with some of these new people. New people, as in like, you know, this different stage in my life where I'm surrounded by really interesting people who do all kinds of cool things. It's just the humility is always important and it's is like the playground rules. Like if you're a mean person in your 40s, even though you're, you're making tons of money, people don't want to hang out with you. You could buy people hang out with you, but no one's gonna hang out with you of their own will.

And they're not gonna, when they, when they have a new great deal, they're not gonna come looking for you to do it with them. You know, and the. Well, this has been great. I'm looking forward to maybe us doing this again sometime soon. And I think we've covered a lot of information people would be interested in because the point of the podcast is to take the mystery out of what it is to be super successful in whatever area of life you're in, that you don't have to become some kind of weird person and you just have to approach life logically, positively, in a consistent way and step by step, you know, putting together a life that a lifetime of activity that will give you the results you want. And on your blog, is there one subject or one theme? One or two, three, four themes that come up consistently that people seem to respond to more than others on your blog?

Yeah, I think it ultimately comes down to, you know, it's more of a phrase than a theme. It's, you know, it's not a big deal. Like whatever is happening today is not a big deal. Tomorrow's a new day. You know, you failed. Great. Oh, you succeeded great. Tomorrow's a new day. There's always opportunity out there and to just not sweat the small things. And I think a lot of times that's what gets in the way of people's success is they act as their own enemies and they self sabotage because they don't realize that small little failures are not the end of the world.

Big Nash, as you, I'm going to give you both a chance to come in. Give me a final word of what you feel like for you was the highlight of what we've talked about today. And I'm going to look forward to us being able to do this again down the road.

Okay, you should go first, my friend.

Yeah, I think the highlight was just, I think we talked very little about money in this conversation. And you know, a lot of times people think that success means money. I think we're talking about bigger things. What's your impact on society? How have you impacted others? Have your ideas thrived? What kind of ecosystem are you able to create? Right? And then all those things piggyback and then money is always going to tail and fall back and it's, you know, another corny platitude or cheesy thing that my dad used to say is like don't chase the money. When you do all the right things, it's gonna follow you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to a large extent that is true. But you can't, you know, when you got to be talk about this real quick though, because I got too far off of track off track with that novel early in my career because I was, I was too much on the track that I'm just gonna do a lot of good things for a lot of people and then surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and eventually money will rain out of the sky. But that's, that's when you have that general la di da approach. You're not specific enough, you don't work hard enough, you're not zeroing in, you don't demand yourself, you're not disciplined enough. And what breakthrough for me was when I realized, when I was confronted with the fact that I was not money motivated enough. And you know, I was in business, people were following me in business. And you know, at some point I had to teach, I had to teach him how to make money. And if I wasn't money motivated myself, it was just, it was just too nebulous a concept. And so speak to. If I say you've got to be money motivated, what does that mean to you?

Yeah, I think that that's actually really good for me to have heard because that's something I was thinking about the other day. I learned early on I used to get taken advantage of by family members, by not my immediate family, but like, you know, cousins and people that I was relate to somehow or just friends getting free advice from me. And I realized that was my intellectual property, that was my worth. That's something I've learned. I can't just go spewing out free marketing advice to people for hours on end unless there is a goal because I also have to thrive. And these are my ideas and I need to be compensated justly for these. For the, for the same reason that if I'm compensated for these ideas and I do really great, then I could come up with even more ideas and create an even larger ecosystem. So I got taken advantage of a lot early on in my career because I was just such a nice guy about it and just understanding my self worth and understanding that like, hey, I know a lot and have a lot to share with people and if I'm making money, then I could create an even bigger ecosystem where people can thrive and I could teach others. So I think that that's where money really motivates me and that's where it's important because you can create these systems and these kind of conversations. Now that we're having that we're successful, we can make our own time to have interviews in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, not be working nine to five.

Yeah, yeah. And you know after you make the money, you can always give it away. You know, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, you know, they're giving away, you know, 30 and 40 and $50 billion because they've got $100 billion, you know, and so the thing is, you can't give it away if you don't make it. And so if you're in business, the whole thing idea of business is you go out there and you provide a good, you know, some kind of goods or services that are worth people paying for. And if they're not paying, you're kidding yourself. And so there's no reason to be apologetic about making money or to apologize for it in any way. You know, you don't want to take a gouge, people, but, you know, you want to make a fair profit on your time and you want to expect to make money, you know, and so this has been fun. Thank you so much for your time. I know you've the main thing you. You've helped a lot of people today. So thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

All right, talk to you guys later. Goodbye.

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