The SECRET To Winning Negotiations, Making More Money & Believing in Yourself w/Dan Lok EP 1096

The School of Greatness is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. As Amica says, Empathy is our best policy. That's why they'll go above and beyond to tailor your insurance coverage to best fit your needs. Whether you're on the road, at home, or traveling along life's journey, their friendly.

And knowledgeable representatives will work with you.

To ensure you have the right coverage in place. Amica will provide you with peace of mind. Go to amica.com and get a quote today.

As America's leading business lender, Bank of America is on your corner and in your corner. With $215 billion in business loans and over 3,700 business specialists across the nation, we help businesses thrive so communities prosper. What would you like the power to do? Learn more at bankofamerica.com/localbusiness. Bank of America, official bank of FIFA Club World Cup 2025. Copyright 2025 Bank of America Corporation, all rights reserved.

Father's Day is coming up, and for lots of dads out there, dad doesn't quite cover it. They're groundskeepers, patio whisperers, and rogue leaf vigilantes too. So this year, show dad some love with gifts from the Home Depot. They've got fast free delivery on handy gear that helps dad do his thing. We're talking Ryobi cordless outdoor tools like the Ryobi 40 volt expanded string trimmer. Find the perfect Father's Day gift at the Home Depot. Shop in store and online at homedepot.com, free delivery subject to availability.

This is episode number 1096 with Dan Locke. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former Pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin. Dave Ramsey said, you must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you. And Dale Carnegie said, develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. My guest today is the king of closing himself, Dan Locke. And Dan's content has been viewed over 1 billion times for his expertise on achieving financial confidence. He's both a celebrity influencer, personal brand and venture capitalist. is currently serving as the chairman of Dragon 100, the world's most exclusive advisory board for entrepreneurs who want to create generational wealth in the age of disruption. In this episode, we discuss the key differences between those who make money and those who don't. Why you need to start developing your skill set today. How to develop self-belief and overcome self-doubt. How martial arts has taught Dan the keys to business success. How to close any negotiation in business and life. The most important factors of thriving in and your relationships and so much more. I love to ask people questions that they normally don't get and share things they normally don't share. And that is definitely something we did here today with Dan. He opens up on a lot of things that he normally doesn't talk about on his channel or his site anywhere. If you're inspired and you get value from this, make sure to share this episode with someone that you think would be inspired as well. You can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this right now, or you can use lewishouse.com/1096 and text that to a few friends or post it on your social media. And if this is your first time Dan Locke. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about my guest, Mr. Dan Locke is in the house. The king of closing, my man. Good to see you.

My man, good to be here and I'm excited. Let's unleash some greatness.

Let's do it, baby. I'm curious because you had a number of failures as an entrepreneur, many failed business attempts, which your failures were probably other people's successes. So I want to caveat that for a minute that you probably succeeded even though it was a failure to you. I didn't know how to make money until I turned 25. I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. I thought I'd be finding somewhere to be a part of a team and helping like build a mission with someone else. And I was really a team player as an athlete. I wasn't the quarterback. I wasn't the rah rah leader. I was more like, throw me the ball, let me make a play with the skills that I have. Let me do my thing.

Yeah.

Let me do my thing. I don't want the pressure of being a leader and all that stuff in sports. But out of necessity, I needed to learn how to make money because of a number of instances in my life that occurred. I'm curious for people that have never thought of themselves as an entrepreneur, excuse me, who've never thought they were an entrepreneur, but they really want to be like myself. I didn't think I'd be, but I wanted to make some money. What advice would you give to starting out if they have no skills as an entrepreneur, if they've never made money before, they're not sure if they can even do it, what advice would you give? Should they even try? Or maybe are they not the right fit for that?

This may not be a popular answer. I used to believe that entrepreneurs may not born. But now I think as I'm a little bit older, a little bit more gray hair, a little bit more mature, I think for some of us, we are actually born to be entrepreneurs, that we want to do our own thing. It just until some incidents happen, it didn't ignite that within us, right? I don't think entrepreneurs, you can acquire certain entrepreneurial skills, but I think it's in our DNA. There are certain people they just want to create, they want to innovate, they want to build something. like it's in our personalities and our DNA is in our blood. So I don't think that someone, if they just work harder, that they would become an entrepreneurs. If you look at the kind of the small businesses, you know, that, you know, some say 90, some say 95% of small businesses fail in the first five years. You look at in, in this same, take us example, right, 30 million businesses, only 4% effort exceed $1 million a year in revenue. So 96% of the businesses never get past that 4%, right? Never get past the 1 million revenue. So if you're 1 million in revenue, you're listening to this, you're watching this, you're already the top 4% of entrepreneurs. If you're doing 10 million a year, you're 0.4% of the entrepreneurs, 0.4%. So that's a tiny, tiny percentage. Just like, you know, brother, they think about in athletic world, right? How many athletes could get to a certain level.

Yeah, it's like there's millions in the high school level and then to get to college it's 3% and then it's exactly 3% of 3% to get to professional level. Yeah.

So is it talent maybe? Is it just hard work maybe? But there's so many other factors. But I think they either have it or they don't. The difference is just the skill.

And for me, again, I didn't have it until a number of instances in my life Forced me to become one out of necessity where I was like, I'm broke, you know, I have no money. I gotta figure this out. And it was almost like it, it made me be entrepreneurial out of necessity. Otherwise, I'd have been just as happy like, Hey, someone else has got all the pressure and all the financial headache and the stress of losing it all. Let me just catch the ball and score touchdowns.

Yes.

You know, that's a fun job. You don't have to just score big plays, you know?

And then when I think entrepreneurship, it teaches us something about ourselves, right? Through this journey, we learn about our own weaknesses, we learn about who we are, we have to deal with a lot of like the inner demons, the inner conflicts and a lot of issues, right? Even now, all of us, people look at us and say, oh, you know, Louis has no problem, Dan has no problems, believe me, we have problems.

I did a five hour therapy session this last weekend.

There you go.

Going into some dark stuff that I thought I'd already recovered and healed, but realized, oh, it's still coming up for me in a different area of my personal life.

It manifests, right?

And, it's important for me to always have coaches. I know you're always investing in training and coaches and mentorship and leadership around you to support you. What is the biggest demon that you still face today on the inner world that you have yet to fully overcome? Maybe you started working on it years ago, but it still comes up. that dark shadow or whatever you want to call it still rears its head in situations, whether it be personal life or professional.

Ego. I say that our ego is not our amigo. That when we are, it gets easy to say, hey, we have accomplished a degree of success and we feel like, oh, we know it and we don't want to listen. but it's always having that beginner's mindset, I think ego. But ego is not just, it's not arrogance, it's our blind spots, our own biases, right? Where, well, I always know how closing works, I always know how marketing works, I don't know how leadership works, but there are always new things that are coming down the pipeline, there are new things that we should learn. So I think ego, it's keeping that in check all the time.

And what would you say is your, biggest insecurity still. Even if you've overcome it, it's still a little bit there.

I would say because, I mean, let's look at it in terms of mainstream, right? That with what I do, there aren't many, if you call that influencer space, this is called the influencer space, or however we will define that space, there are not a lot of Asian faces.

Right?

It's just a fact that like you look at I'm kind of the one guy that kind of made it, quote unquote, but that's still there. And I still face that. I mean, I remember in the beginning of building my social media following, I could tell you like, Louis, most of the hate and negative comments, they are more leaning towards racist type comments.

Really?

Yep, yep, yep. Most of them. I think the first big chunk of it.

It was just what, just saying stuff about your race or it wasn't even commenting on the content. It was just Asian, whatever.

Yeah, not the content. Yeah, but like that, that kind of stuff. Yes.

Interesting.

And I still face that. I still face that in some less, but I still face that.

Does that affect you when you see that or you just kind of just brush it off now?

No, no. In the beginning, it affected me a lot. because it was like, oh, I'm creating content, I'm building my followings. And because of, I'm also, as you know, my personality, I'm very direct, right? So, you know, it rubs people the wrong way. It could be, not that I want to be rude, I just, that's me. I just, I'm honest.

You're honest.

Yeah, it's just my personality. I don't, I don't, so because of that, I think today it's less, It's like there's a difference, right? In the beginning, it's like who the hell are you? You know, who are you and this and that? And it's like, and it's like, you're no good. And then when you are good, like when you are good enough that people can't deny that, then it's like, okay, they kind of accept that you're good, but they're still, there's still a little.

Bit of that, like, hey, you know, so they'll try to find, they can't criticize your content, but they'll criticize your whatever. you know, city or yeah, your hair or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interesting.

Rob baby face. I get all that. I mean, I, I, not a laugh at it because some of them are quite creative. They actually quite funny. They are quite funny. I have to say.

It's interesting. I used to defend pretty much every negative comment and.

Oh, wow.

I don't know. Negative review that I would get my first few years. Years ago.

Yes.

I would try to defend and get people to like me who were saying negative things about me. And I remember one of my coaches saw this when I responded to some negative comment online and he called me, he said, you,'re just giving these people your power. He's like, just say thank you for the feedback and move on or say nothing and move on. Because putting energy and attention into the 1% of people that are leaving nasty comments is not supporting your mission.

And so, and the bigger the following, think about if we have, let's say, a million followers, or if 10% hating you, that's like 100,000 people. Like if you think about putting 100,000 people in a stadium, that's a lot of people. That's just a lot of people, right? And we can't control how... And people don't hate us, they hate themselves anyway. Like it's something that we say, something that we do, who we are, it triggers something within them. And the truth is, most haters actually don't know us. Like they don't know you, they don't know me, they don't know us. They came to the conclusions or they make a quick judgment based on a five-second video. Like that's how they do it. And that's all part of it. So it used to bother me, but now it's like, no, I don't even care about that.

Yeah, man. I'm curious about it. I want to talk about money for a while. What do you think are three things that poor people do that the rich people don't do that you notice?

I think first of all, poor people have a negative association with money. I'll give you a perfect example from just last week, this has happened to me literally like in real life. I was driving, me and my wife driving the Bentley to downtown and passed through a not so good neighborhood, kind of like it's called Hastings in Vancouver, kind of like the hood, okay? Because we're going to Chinatown, we stopped in the red light, this one guy that came to my car, spit on my car.

No way.

Yep. On the window.

Right.

And then gave me the finger and then walk away.

So you didn't say anything. You didn't do anything. You didn't.

It was just that. It's just a car. Just a car.

Right.

So you would see a lot of people, they think, oh, they say, I want more money. Hey, Lewis, I want to have more success. I want to offer them more wealth. but deep down, actually they have a negative association with money. Because I always do this exercise with my students. So imagine this. Imagine you're walking down the street, you hear this loud engine sound, right? And then you see a black Lamborghini, just zooms by, right? What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Now, most people would say, oh, he's an a**, like, what a pr*ck. If it's a woman, oh, she's a gold digger. Or if it's this young person, oh, this is probably from, you know, the daddy's money, like all this stuff. Like they can go through this very, very quickly all the negative stuff, right? And then a small percentage would be, oh, that might be an entrepreneur, right? That may be actually a father of three, right? That he's a hard-working entrepreneur. He's been working hard and this is a little treat that he gives for himself and he only drives it, you know, maybe on the weekends. That never comes to mind. It's all the negative. that comes to mind.

Right.

So I would say that negative association with money, consciously or subconsciously, they don't even know it.

Yeah.

When you resent, when you resent someone with money or you resent money, why would money come to you?

Or people with money.

Right.

Why, why would, why would you be surrounded by people who have money? Or why would you attract more wealth into your life if you're resenting it?

Right.

Yeah.

No. So they, so it's like even the, so that's the first thing is poor people have negative. They have association with money. The second one is they don't talk about money.

Gosh, I say this all the time, man. Tell me more.

Yeah.

They avoid conversations. Like, it's like a taboo subject. Oh, why you talk about money all the time? Like, oh, we don't talk about. It's like we don't talk about that at dinner table. You don't have conversation with your kids about money. You don't have conversation with a spouse about money. It somehow is a bad thing, right? It's like this. And I think of think of money. The best way to describe this is think of money as a person in your life. Treat money as a person. So imagine if you think about.

We don't talk about that person.

Yeah, we don't talk about you. And in fact, I don't. I think you're the root of all evil. I think you are greedy. I think you're not that important to me. Do you think this person will stay around? I don't think so.

Right.

They would be like, I don't want to be around, but. you know, or money is not that important. Money doesn't grow on trees. Oh, there are other more important things than money. Like all this stuff, right? Then money is not going to stick around. So if you think of it that way. But on the other hand, if you talk about money, you cherish money, not to be a slave of money. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, hey, you know, I value you. I value money. I save you. I I I invest you. like, you know, intelligently, right? Like, you think of it that way, the money's like, okay, you treat me good, I'm gonna stay around.

Yeah.

Right.

You think of like that as almost like a lover, you know, I love you, right? Oh, yeah, that's good. I'm gonna love you back. Oh, I don't like you, you know, I'm not gonna like your back. So that would be the second one.

Okay. And the third?

The third one is it has to do with value. So poor people want money without delivering more value. versus you and I, we understand the marketplace cares about one thing, it cares about value. It doesn't care about our solving stories, it doesn't care about our victim mentality, it doesn't care about how hard we work, it doesn't even care how much experience we have or how many years we've been in business. The marketplace doesn't care. The marketplace has no emotion. The marketplace only cares about value and what determines our value is our skill sets. So think about this, where if someone who's very motivated, they think positively, but they've got no skill sets to offer to the marketplace. They're not going to make money. On the other hand, you've got someone with, like, let's say someone comes to you, Louis, it's like, okay attitude. But he's saying that, hey, Louis, I can help you with a Facebook ad.

I can.

You can spend a dollar. I can give you five dollars back. If he has a skill set like that, you'll be, okay, I'm gonna give you some money to help me with my ads, right? Right. So it's the skill set I think a lot of people are missing. They don't understand that it's the mindset, which is what you teach combined with your skill set. Then you've got something that works. So I would say those are the main key.

Those are powerful. I'm curious about, I want to follow up on this. Skill set, there's a lot of people who have all the degrees and credibility in the world but don't have the self-belief. so what is more important skill set actually being skilled at something the the ability to believe in yourself with the skill set and coupling the two or the ability to package your skills to transfer for money in exchange because a lot of people can't position or package and then sell. They might have the skill set, they might have the belief and confidence, but they don't know how to package it to transfer money. Which one of those threes So three are more important. I would say I used to believe.

It'S the mindset, but now I would say I'm leaning more towards a skill set and I'll explain why. Because let's say your digital marketer, I'm going to use an example, your digital marketer, you don't really believe in yourself, but let's say you know how to close, you know how to communicate your value and you're good at what you do. Well, and someone comes to you and say, Hey, Louis, you're so good at digital marketing. Let me give you 5,000 a month retainer to do my social. well, that changes your belief system very quickly, right? So I almost like to use that as an environment. It's like I teach all my students. If you have not made a dollar closing or you're not a made a dollar copywriting, whatever that you do, make the first dollar. Make the first.

That's the best. That's the best feeling. That first dollar, man.

That first dollar, man. It's like. It's like podcast. Oh, you've never made a dollar. Any money from podcast. Just make a first dollar. that's the difference. What's the difference between professional and amateur? Professional gets paid. Make your first dollar. Now it changes. Okay, maybe I could do this. Maybe I'm pretty good. Maybe I could get better. Maybe I can do this full time. Maybe I can make a career out of this. It's easier to use the environment to shift our beliefs than try to change it just within ourselves. That's what I believe in. Like our environment, it's infinItely more powerful than our willpower. Way more powerful.

Our environment in what way? If you don't want to be, if.

You want, if you want to get fit, hang around with people who are fit. You eat better, you will want to exercise. If you, you don't smoke, you hang around with all your friends and smokers, gets guarantee you will smoke. You don't do drugs, you hang around with people who do drugs, you do drugs. We can't help but influence by the environment. So I say, why not put ourselves in environment? that is supportive of our goals. I'm very, very careful with that. Very careful. And I say the same thing.

This idea of entrepreneurship has been a sexy, you know, word and, and idea, especially in the last five years with social media and everyone kind of flashing this lifestyle, Gary V, you know, talking about it a lot and everything. But as you know, it's, it's hard for a lot of entrepreneurs to, to make a lot of money and, and, and sustain it. It's hard to get there, but then it's hard to sustain. for a while, when a pandemic hits or something else, people aren't prepared for that. Do you think it's possible for people who have great skills, who are part of a great team, of a great company that never want to start their own thing and be an entrepreneur, but are valued, are part of a team, are growing with the company, making an impact in this company and the mission that they have? Do you think it's possible for people that aren't entrepreneurs to become wealthy? And if so, what are the strategies they need to be applying right now in order to start having their money work for them as opposed to only working for money?

You ever walk out of the grocery store or fill up your tank and just think, how is everything this expensive? Feels like prices are going up everywhere and how great would it be if just once something actually just went down in price? Well, at Metro, that's exactly what's happening. They've lowered their prices. and are giving you a five-year price guarantee on talk, texts, and data. One line now 20% lower. Family plans also lowered. Oh, and you also get a free 5G phone, all with no ID required and no activation fees. Stop by your neighborhood Metro store. Visit metrobyt-mobile.com or call to find out about their amazing offers. Bring your number, not available if currently at T-Mobile or with Metro in the past 180 days. Guarantee covers monthly price of on network talk, text, and 5G data for customers activating on an eligible plan. Exclusions apply. Details@metrobyt.com We all know that staying hydrated is so important, and we've heard it a million times, but let's be real. You can really feel the difference when you're hydrated properly. You're sharper, you're energized, and you're ready to go. And when you're not, well, you feel foggy, sluggish, just drained. And with the summer heat coming, staying on top of hydration isn't just a good idea, it's a must. And that's why I love Liquid IV. It's powered by LIV Hydrasience, which is clinically studied to maintain hydration better than water alone for up to four hours. And I've been loving the new sugar-free raspberry lemonade hydration multiplier. It's so refreshing. And I don't know about you, but if I'm not hydrated, it's hard to function. Whether I'm gearing up for a workout, recording a podcast, or pushing through a packed day, Liquid IV always keeps me hydrated. And if you've ever hit that mid-afternoon slump, or struggled to keep up, trust me, this is a game changer. Maximize your hydration with Liquid IV and get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to liquidiv.com and use code LEWIS at checkout. That's 20% off your first order with code LEWIS@liquidiv.com this is an advertisement from Better Help. You know, one of the biggest stigmas we still need to break, especially for men, is the idea that asking for help is weakness. In reality, it's the most courageous thing you can do. Taking care of your mental health doesn't make you soft. It makes you strong, focused, and grounded. We live in a world that puts a lot of pressure on men to man up, stay silent, and just push through. But bottling it all up only leads to burnout, anxiety, or worse. And the truth? It's okay to struggle. It's okay to not have all the answers. And there is real power in opening up. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, helping over 5 million people get the support they need without the hassle of waiting rooms or long commutes. You can talk to a therapist from wherever you are and switch anytime if needed. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/Lewis. that's betterhlp.com/lewis.

I love that question. I've never been asked that question and I have a very good answer. One thing I learned from my mentor, he said, Dan, you don't get rich on income, you get rich on equity. You don't get rich on income. So if for someone with the skill sets, think about a ship, right? There's only one captain. we're going from here to there. So you look at, look at Jack Ma, who started Alibaba. Yeah, Jack Ma is very successful. Well, but the, the initial Founders, they didn't do too, too bad either.

Right.

Right. So you, you have, you have the people who maybe you are the founding members, the founding team with a startup that is going places with the right Visionary, with the right founder and CEO, which, by the way, that's also, I think, only certain people fits that profile. That's what I believe in. Okay, that's what I believe in. And I learned it from through culture index, which is like a survey that people take to see what personality that fits. So only certain people are fit for their CEO profiles, but everybody else, they can still contribute. And if they have equity, they participate. They can still do very well financially. In fact, it's like if naturally they know they are not the CEO. personality is and materials. If they just try to be that, it doesn't work anyway. It just doesn't work. But it doesn't mean they are not valued. Yeah. I mean, to me, I play a role in my company because I have certain skill set.

Right.

But I cannot do what I do better than what, like my team, they have certain skills that are way better than me. Like just this morning, we had, we had a technical challenge. It's like, my team could fix it. I don't know how to handle it.

I just, we're trying to set up Zoom before this. Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I'm like, I have no idea. I like, I have no, I, no joke as I, I actually don't know how to turn on the camera.

There you go.

I literally do not how to turn, I don't know where the button is.

You gotta do the iPhone though, so that's easy.

That's easy. I can handle that, but like this, the XD stuff, I cannot handle. So what I'm saying is you look at that, that if they are, they participate in a vehicle, in a good market that's growing, trending, and if they could be part of their founding members, they can get equity early on, they could do very well.

And what if they can't get equity or they're not early on and they join a team after 100 employees and.

It'S- and not as good. So it's the timing of it, right? The timing of it, is it you want it to be too early, higher risk, too late, then it means you don't get as much upside. And also depends on your skill set, right? What's the skill set you bring to the table? But they could do very well. Just, it's called entrepreneurship, right?

Entrepreneurship, yeah. And what are some things that people could do if they say, oh, that's not me, but I'm making a good salary and I'm going to be making more money, what could I be doing with my money so that it earns me more?

What would you suggest? Every one of us needs to be an investor. Doesn't matter how we make the money. I teach a concept called the wealth triangle, right? Which is kind of got three parts. The first part is what I call high income skills. and high incomes. I define high income skills as skills that could make you more than ten thousand dollars a month. Okay. Ten thousand a month. Because I noticed something about human beings. Whenever we get past that six figure Mark annually, something shifts that I rarely see someone go past six figure and go back to fifty thousand a year. It becomes a new comfort. It's a very.

Like, you know, once you know how to get there, you could stay there.

It becomes. It becomes a very. It's a fascinating. you can see. So I think that ten thousand a month, one hundred twenty thousand dollars a year, high income skills. And then the second part is what I call a scalable business, a scalable business, not just any business, but a business that is scalable, such as a software business, an influencer business, right? Ecom business, a scalable business. And then you have what I call high, high return Investments. And I Define high return Investments as Investments that would give you a 10 return here. in and year out, 10% return or more. So you look at this wealth triangle. Now, here's the thing. If you have high income skills, you're already earning income. Your scalable business gives you profits and your high return investment builds your net worth, right? Wealthy people talk about net worth. They don't talk about income, right? They talk about net worth. So you look at this, now let me ask you this question, Louis. If someone who is like, I'm making $30,000 a year. I want to get into some real estate stuff.

You're like, you don't have money to put into it. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you have high income skills?

No.

Do you have a scale of business?

No.

I want to buy some properties with no money down. Kind of risky. Kind of risky, right? Because if you follow this, the first thing you got to focus on is increase your income, meaning develop skill sets that the market marketplace with value. Do that first. Now with a scalable business, you can start one or you can also invest in one. It doesn't always mean you have to start one. So you can invest in one that throws off profits. And then you've got your, your high return Investments. See, when we come to high return Investments, it's about the preservation of the capital. It's not about getting the maximum return. We, we, it's almost, we don't, we don't need it to, to. get 50%, I just want 10% because I'm making money with these two things.

Right.

This, I just don't want that sitting in a bank and not making anything.

That's right. That's right. So now the return off capital, off investment, not just on investment. Now you're making more income, you're becoming more valuable. Hopefully income increases every year. Your profit goes up, you take extra cash, you put in higher return investments, gives you more peace of mind. then this is the same wealth triangle goes a million, 10 million, 100 million is exactly the same. Yeah, it's exactly the same.

If you're looking at a 21 year old, 25 year old who's about to get started in whatever, a job, an entrepreneurship endeavor, and you're looking at them and you have a 20 minute conversation with them, what would you say is the number one sign that they would be successful. What would they have to embody, talk about, not talk about, you know, in order for you to be like, you know what? This person is in the next two, three years, I want to watch them because it's going to be a trajectory, or at least they're going to be growing in some way. What would be that sign that someone would be successful?

Someone who has a, who has the obsession to learn. to learn because I remember many years ago, I was attending a two-day workshop on digital marketing. At the time, it's funny, don't laugh at me, but it was a workshop and the instructor was teaching how to do pop-up on a website. We're talking many, many years ago when it was a big thing, adding a pop-up, right? And I remember day one he taught us, okay, if you want to get more opt-in subscribers, add a pop-up to your website and this is how you do it. Okay, great. So it's a few hundred of us in the hotel room. So then I went back to the hotel room and I talked to my coding guys, okay, let's add this piece of code, we'll capture more opt-in on the website, great. And then we were getting more opt-ins, like just that evening. So day two, the instructor comes back and say, hey, so I taught you how to add opt-in and stuff, how many people have you have done it? No one. I put on my hand, I thought everybody did it, but no one did. And I was like, this is kind of fascinating, right? And then I share, I said, yeah, actually works as we added on, added the power yesterday, we get more subscribers, it's awesome. And that's when I learned something about myself that, that I'm very eager to learn. I'm very eager to execute. Very eager to execute. And if I want to look at someone who's 21 years old, if they whatever that they, wherever they want to be, if they have that obsession to learn and execute. The action takers, action takers are moneymakers, right? That I would say you could see it in his or her eyes that they are action takers, not like, I'm making excuses, I don't know, I'm not ready, timing is not right, I'm not good enough, and no, they just execute.

Yeah, I think It's not about being afraid. It's about just being willing to take action even when you don't know what you're doing. I think a lot of people, they don't know what they're doing and it cripples them. And they say, oh, I've got to figure out what to do first. And then when I feel comfortable, then I can go do it. But I feel like when you're talking about it, it's like, I didn't know what I was doing. I was like, I just need to make some money. Let me go figure this out and.

Embarrass myself and make mistakes and make a couple bucks. I say that. you want to act as if all your dreams have come true and then you challenge your reality to catch up. It's much more powerful when you act as you're already there. Think about this. I'm going to ask you this. Think when you had the idea for the podcast. Not this, not the Lewis House today I'm talking about in the beginning. Not the followers like in the beginning. At the time, there's no credibility. There's no, you were just getting started. There's no name, right? It's like you try to get people on the show. Well, I don't know if I want to be, right? All that stuff. But now people are honored to be like, they would be like, they'll knock on your doors, Hey, Lewis, can I be on your show?

Right?

But think about all these years in the very beginning, at least from my observation, and correct me if this is wrong, I saw that you were already acting as, Hey, you know what? I'm a brand. I'm gonna, my show is gonna have tens of millions, hundreds of millions of downloads.

Absolutely. So yeah, I started investing in my design and my brand to be like, what is the example that I would wanna look at? If I would book this person, if I would go on their show, if Oprah would call me, if Ellen would call me, what would I need to look like?

And Alan did call you.

Exactly, yeah. It's like, there you go. What would I need to look like to be a New York Time bestseller before I wrote a New York Time bestseller? what would the branding need to be? What would the messaging need to be? What would the results need to be in order to get there? And I just started acting with that vision in mind. And it kind of goes into this segues into the law of attraction, which I'm curious your thoughts on the law of attraction when it comes to manifesting money, when it comes to manifesting your dreams, manifesting goals, the dream partner, whatever it may be for someone. In your opinion, how does the law of attraction work? And in what way does it work best for money, business, health, relationships? What do you, what do you feel?

I'm a very strong believer in law of attraction. I made a video on YouTube about this as well. But law of attraction, it's basically thoughts of things, right? Everything is energy and you become what you Essentially, that's what it means. But that's just one of the laws. You have law of gravity, you have laws of cause and effect. I think what, whatever we do, we need to learn and understand these other laws exist. Law of action. So it's not just law of attraction. It's like you're trying to do a math equation. You only know a plus, but there's minus, there's equal sign, there's, there's a lot of things that bracket. there are a lot of things you could use to make an equation work, but that, oh, I only know a plus sign. So when you've got, it's like when you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? And people just utilize that and they don't look at everything else. So I believe in it. I believe in having the vision board, but also believe in having other things like where you think about even the law of realism, right? Even the law of cause and effect. all these things. So yes, I believe in it, but it's just one, it's like, think of it's like one or two percented equation.

Yeah.

But that's the rest of the equations.

How have you seen it work for your life or business, the law of attraction?

So perfect example. Many years ago, I had a dream of getting my first, I was young, 20 some odd years old, right? One of my dream car was at.

The, a couple of years ago. a couple years ago.

A couple years ago. 20, 20, 20 years ago. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I hope I stay young there. Like, you know, like that. But what was my dream car? I was driving the master three at the time, the hatchback. My dream was to get a master RX8, like the rotary engine. Young guy. I want to get a sports. My first sports car. That was. So I had that on my vision board. Like, I cut out the poster, like, from an ad, and I would look at it every, every day. in front of me. And then what I would do is I would go to dealerships and test drive the car, okay? And I would go to different dealerships because you don't want to go to back the same dealership. They kick you out, right? You know, I gotta go to different dealerships. And I would drive the car and I would visualize what is it like to drive the car? So I would visualize. I'm. I'm in the car. I turn on the. The ignition. I can hear the. The engine. I I know the. I can smell the leather. I know the color of the red, like everything. I know exactly what I want. And I picture it so many times, and I test drove it so many times. So here's what happens. When I made enough money, I went to the dealership. I said, I want the RX8. These are the features, and these are what I want. And the sales guy was like, well, you know, Mr. Locke, let me take you to a test drive. I said, I don't need that. Well, let me talk to about the features. I don't need that. I don't need any of that. So I said, let's do the paperwork. He said, it's the fastest, closest he's ever done.

He's never sold a car this fast.

You knew exactly what you wanted. I know exactly, because I've seen it a gazillion times in my mind. So here's what's fascinating. I got the key, I took the paperwork, I drove the car off the parking lot. They happen to have the model right there. I drove off the parking lot of dealership, and Lewis, guess how I felt?

The exact same you thought beforehand. Calm. Yeah, the exact same before when you were imagining it in your mind. That's exactly like, because it's like, you're.

Supposed to be like you were supposed to be there.

Yeah, it's already in my car.

And I was actually months ago talking to my friend when I saw like the RX8 people like a car drove by. I said, oh, that's my car. And my friend just laughed at me. He said, that's not your car, Dan. So I said, that's my car. Like, I'm not lying. It's just in my mind. It's my car. It's done.

Like, it's done. It hasn't, it just hasn't got to me yet.

It just hasn't got to me yet. Now I've got the key, I drove it home, my pocket, I didn't feel a thing because it's already done in my mind. Yeah. And that's one example, but I did it so many times in my life. YouTube channel, when I started my YouTube channel, you know what my wife Jenny said? He's exact, she said, who's gonna watch your sh*t? Wow. Seriously, who's gonna watch you sh*t?

Who wants to watch you? She sees you every day, so she's like, who wants to watch?

She's teasing, she's teasing.

You know?

And I said, no, you don't understand. I said, I'm gonna build my YouTube channel. Who are like, no, it's saturated, it's not gonna work. Listen to me, I'm gonna get my first silver button.

100,000?

Yeah. 100,000. I cut out the silver thing, put it on my War Vision board. I said, I'm gonna get that. And then when I hit it, my wife is like, ah, that's it, man. Like, I'm gonna get to the 1 million, you know, Subs. She's like, nah, who's gonna say, who's gonna watch this? You know? And I had that goal. And the same thing happened again and again and again and again in my life. So now I have the new vision. I want to build a unicorn, right? A tech Empire. I do exactly the same thing. I have my vision. I know. and then now I'm attracting the people that can help me do that. Like now I'm looking at deals. I bought a couple deals already, like going to that direction. So I act as if I'm already there. Then everything else falls into play. The people, the context, the relationships, the capital.

They just skills, everything.

Yeah, they just come.

What's the amount of money that maybe it doesn't scare you, but let's just hypothetically, let's. What's the amount of money that you're like, man? I don't have that yet, but that's a big number that maybe your billionaire friends have or whatever. You're like, gosh, that's a big number and it's not in my net worth yet, but what is that number that scares you?

A billion.

A billion.

A billion.

What do you think it would take for you to get there in the next three years?

It would take me to do something.

Quite.

Very different from what I'm doing now. I remember when I was making six-figure income as a copywriter. Like, yeah, 20 some odd years old. I mean, that's good. Like, six figure.

It's great money.

Yeah. Like, it's good money. I was happy. But then I knew, in order to transition to the next level, I had to let go what I have, you know, like, what. What got you here won't get you there. So I actually, I fired all my cooperating clients overnight one. as it all gone, I'm gonna focus on developing my own, like, online business. Like, and I did it probably a few times in my career. Every single time I have to reinvent myself, I have to let go. What? Here's what's difficult. You have to let go of what works. So my biggest strength right now, what I have is my social media presence. That's not gonna get me to the B.

Really?

Nope.

Grant's getting pretty close.

Yeah.

What? Raising Capital. That's with the. If it's just like influencer. Right, right, right.

You know, you raised like a half.

I think he raised like 500 million, I think, from his. That's good. That's a great Model. That's a great Model. Right. And something to emulate. But am I doing software, though? Right. That's the only difference.

Right.

So I know it's not doing this.

It's leveraging. This could be okay. But I need to change what I do to get to that. You need to let go of something.

You can't make YouTube videos all day.

And expect yourself to get to a.

Billion unless you're just- and then the business cannot be just about like the just me. It needs to be something.

You gotta scale yourself.

Yeah.

Gosh, isn't that interesting? The thing that like is allowing us to build and generate more wealth and revenue and opportunities is the personal brand, but it's gonna have to like separate some or scale around, right?

And so what the, it's like this. My biggest strength is my biggest skills is my ability to close. But if I only I could close and my team can't close, I can't scale.

Can't do it.

So I need to have a closing team. So my biggest strength once I get to the next stage becomes my biggest bottleneck. In the same year, my biggest strength that got me to here will become my biggest bottleneck to go to the next level. So I'm aware of that and I'm already saying, okay, what do I need to do? What I need to shift? in order to get there. And I'm okay. I'm totally okay with that.

If you had hypothetical scenario, someone came to you and said, you know, I'm gonna. I get a little morbid at times, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna shoot you in your head and your entire. Everyone you love and everyone you know that you care about in three years, if you don't reach a billion dollar net worth, what would you. what would change your mind now to let go of certain things? Like, what would you do in the moment from now into those three years in order to make sure that happened? A force inside and out, the Range.

Rover Sport is available with a choice.

Of powerful engines, including a plug-in hybrid with an estimated range of 53 miles.

Is it just me, or is it getting really hard to figure out the best way to save for retirement? Fidelity can help you find clarity so you can save the best way for you. With a free personalized plan, goal tracking, and timely insights, you'll be set to take on retirement your way. Get started at fidelity.com/future. Expenses charged by your investments and other costs and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account apply. Fidelity Brokerage Services member NYSE SIPC.

If you had to, obviously, you can take as long as you want, but if it had to be in three.

Years, I would, I would probably, I'm already doing it, but I would speed up the, the, the pace of me letting go of, of things, the current operation, right, with the transition. And I would focus a hundred percent on the just acquisition investment side, because that's the only way to get there for my, from my perspective.

Acquisition, meaning acquiring software companies that you.

Can then acquire companies. Yeah. And then put a group and then you, and you go from there.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So you're already doing it. You're already doing it. But you would just, if you had.

A gun to your head, you do it faster. I'll do it faster.

I would do it faster.

Interesting. Yeah.

What do you think is your biggest fear over the next five to 10 years as you go for the billion dollar Mark and Beyond and everything else.

You want to do?

Not so much the fear of business, the fear of like, oh, like life stuff. I don't think I have a lot of that. Where I think I also managed the balance quite good. Not a whole lot of fears because I'm not attached. It's not like I gotta get in three years, four years, five years. I don't really care about that. It's a challenge, as you know, it's more the, hey, I set the goal. can I get there? What would. Who do I have to be to get there? And. But it's also a little bit like, can I do it? Like, what's my potential? I thought. I think I could, but could I do it? It's like YouTube. Oh, you know, I think I could hit a million, but actually doing okay, I could. But can I get to the next level? It's more like that. Yeah.

How does someone overcome the identity? of imposter syndrome once they've reached the six figure mark of copywriting and oh, but how could I get to half a million or a million? I could never do that or I could never get to 10 million or 100 million or a billion. How do we overcome that identity of imposter syndrome that so many of us put on ourselves in the transition of life?

I'll share with you what works for me. It's interesting because when I was making six figure. My Mentor, Alan, my first Mentor, he invited me to. Invited me to a Mastermind group, okay? And it was like five, six guys, and I was the youngest guy. Like, I was young. And all these guys are, like, millionaires, successful business guys, way older than me. And I. I felt you want to talk about imposter syndrome? I felt like, well, I don't belong here. I, like, I'm young. I'm not experienced. My business is doing a few 100K, like. I like, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here. So I would be like a. Like, almost like a mouse. I wouldn't speak. I would just take notes and. And they would talk and all that. And after a while, I was like, something clicked in me. I started taking notes. I started hearing the problems. I see how they solve problems. And just one day, it clicked for me. These guys are just like me. They're not 10 times smarter. they don't work 10 times harder. They're just like me. And when I had that shift, suddenly the imposter syndrome disappears. Now I'm more vocal and I'm sharing. I'm like, oh, Dan's got a good idea. Like, I'm sharing. And they naturally pull me up. They're natural. And now before you know, now looking back who are not today, looking back that mastermind group, the very first mastermind group I belong to, those guys, and they were still friends, by the way, after all these years, tears. Let's do good friends. What they have done in business, now looking back today, right? I'm looking at, okay, wow, like that to me now is a small business, right? So the same thing here, I'm looking at that next level, hang around with people at that level, and something we click for you, it's like, you know what? They're smart, but they're just people.

Right.

There's nothing they can do that I cannot to you. It's just like you met billionaires, you've met a number of them. What are your thoughts? Do you see them at first like, oh, maybe they are like super crazy intelligent, right? But after you hang out with them, what are your thoughts?

They all have fears and doubts and a lot of them are much older and so they have a lot more time to be able to get there. And so I'm just like, okay, they've had time to get to where they are. they always, you always have something that most of them don't if they're much older than you. And that is you have time. They have more money, you have more time. And they, from what I've noticed, they almost admire the ability to be kind and curious about their success. They admire and appreciate the Curiosity that someone can bring to them because they want to, they want to be able to share their story, their success, their their, their, their skills. They want to be able to give it back, like you said. So I think when you, when I come from a place of just gratitude and curiosity, I recognize, okay, these are usually older, older individuals who are 20, 30, 40 years older than me, and they don't have the time, you know, honestly, I could die tomorrow, but they don't have the youth like I do. And there's a, there's a mutual respect in the sense that, okay, I'm hungry, I'm going after something. They've done it. and as long as I have humility, they usually open up their fears and insecurities just like that I might have.

Yes. And do you find that, do they, are they like have three arms and four legs? Do they have 10 times more IQ?

They all had challenges and adversity they had to overcome.

And they all- Usually they do very well in one sector, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And they all kind of talk about what you said. They had to let go of something that was working at some point. and reinvent to get to the next level.

Yes.

And, and always be scaling up their thinking, not holding on to old beliefs, but, like, scaling up to new thoughts, new processes. And it's always been about a team of people. You know, they never did it alone. Most of them, you know, they had bigger companies with thousands of employees or hundreds of employees to get there. So it's, it's not about, whereas probably me and you in the beginning in our 20s was all about how can we develop a skill? and do it on our own. Yes. And that can only take you to so far.

That becomes a bottleneck, right?

Exactly. Exactly.

So it's exactly that. That I think that's how we kind of eliminate or cure that imposter syndrome. When you hang around with people like that, you're, oh, they're just like me. They have the doubts, they have the fears, they have the struggles. Okay. Like, it's normal. And once we normalize it, then it's like, okay, I could see. what are they doing? What are the models? What's the views of the world? I want to learn that. How they see the world, how they make decisions. And the more we do, then we'll get closer and closer. I got this from when people look at, like, let's say in our world, the influencer space. You have the friends, the colleagues we hang out with. We all know, right? That's who we hang out with. and we've been hanging out in here for a long time, right? When I joined YPO, when I hang around with executive CEOs of like massive companies, like when I have these two words collide, first of all, they don't know each other. In fact, they don't even speak the same language. It's like it's speaking two different languages. And I noticed this is fascinating. I'm kind of in the middle, like two worlds collide, right? I see their finance, I see what they do. I see the. I see like the leadership, the management, I see the marketing, the creativity, the innovation from here. Like I see these, I'm like, this is powerful. And I kind of take both world. I'm like, what if this world knows more about this world, which they don't, and this world knows more about this world, wouldn't that be more effective? And I could see the potential of that to be able to do that. Taking something, a product, but you infuse it with digital marketing, branding, social media, how powerful that would be. But they don't talk to each other. So I see an opportunity is there. That's how I see it. If I can marry the two and then do something from there.

You've been around a lot of wealthy people. What would you say are the three best habits of wealthy, rich individuals?

The myth that wealthy people are greedy. the, the wealthier they are, almost all of them. Almost all of them. They are the happiest, most humble and kindest people I have met. I've never been by people in this. I have been a lot by people in, like, with no money.

Right. Right.

Like, seriously, these guys, they don't need to. So they are like a just, they are nice. They kind. One of my, one of my, one of my right hand deskman, he lives in West Bend, which is a very wealthy neighborhood, right? He was just looking at the houses and then a guy comes in, he was talking with the guy, just chit chatting. And the guy invites very wealthy, like we're talking 20 million dollar mansions, right? The guy invited him, hey, let me give you a tour of the house. Let me, like, you know, let me have a drink. Like, it's like, these are good people. It's incredible. And so I think first one, it's they're actually very humble. They're actually not like, oh yeah, I know everything. No, they're like, oh, they have this curiosity about them. They're like, they want to learn something. Oh, tell me a little bit more what you do. Oh, that's interesting. They have this curiosity thing about them. They always want to learn more. Beginner's mind.

Beginner's mind.

Even they know they maybe they're very good at what they do, but they know like, oh, I don't know that. Tell me more about that. How do you do the podcast? What does work. Like, I remember one time I had lunch with a dinner. Dinner with someone who has had, like, 20 exits. 20 exits of color. Very successful guy.

Okay.

And I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna pick his brain. It's gonna be great. I learned a lot. You know, Louis, he. He joined the meeting, like, just you and I. The first thing he pulled out is a notebook. He wants to ask me how I do things to take notes. I'm like, no wonder he's successful. successful. No wonder he's successful. It's incredible. So humble curiosity.

Right.

And the second thing is they think big.

Yeah.

They don't think about measly little problems. They think about how to solve. Like, you solve what? A friend of mine who is the landlord of this building that we're in, he's. He has a company, a public company. that sells solo windows. So you put these windows on your, like, this panel on your windows. It's invisible, but it can, it can.

Capture solar invisible window.

Yeah, like, so you can, you can turn into electricity, right? So he's working on stuff like that. He wants, yeah, I want to put, like, I want to put this in all the buildings in North America.

Like, crazy.

You know, they think about stuff like that, right? He also has a company that's developed, skin repair, like kind of stuff. Like it's some crazy, crazy things that he's into. And I'm like, I'm not thinking about that.

Yeah.

Okay.

So they think they think big.

They think big. Okay. The third best habit.

And the third is they always, what you just said, they always put their people first. They never say, I did it. It's my team.

This.

It's, you know, they're very, very, very, very. It's one thing I learned from them. And he taught. They taught me this. Don't use the word I. Just use we. Let's say certain project went well. It's not my YouTube channel. It's our YouTube channel. It's not on my project. It's our project. We did it. So I, from a leadership perspective, I learned to eliminate the word of I did it. It's just we. Even if I finish a speaking gig, we finish a speaking game, right? It's not I finish a speaking game or I was on.

We.

We. The team is excited. We. We are going on Lewis house podcast. Oh, great. Oh, that is us. Like, the chat is blowing up, right? It's not all me. I'm going into Lewis. No, no, it's we. So I think those are the three things.

What do you believe is your greatest leadership quality and your weakest? leadership quality.

My. I'll talk about the weakest first. My weakest leadership quality is I trust people too much, too quick. And that has cost me tens of millions of dollars. No joke. Tens of millions of dollars. A lot of the people problems that we have last year, and I'm transparent, like last year, I like, I lay off a lot of people to live. company too, that because I was trusting them, oh yeah, I think they would do a good job and I don't check.

So does that mean like a lack of training or proper onboard training to make sure that everything's up to what you, your standard?

Not even training, it's, I should have delegated a little bit more systematically, not like, Hey, here you go. Like, there we go. Here's what it is. And I don't go back and check.

So check the work.

Yeah. check the work, the quality control and see if actually is it the right person, the right seat? I thought they have a good attitude. That's cool. That's great. So it's like people say, hire for attitude and train for skills. No, I don't believe in that anymore. I said you better hire for skills. You want someone with, who's done it, who come in with skills. Because if they come in with no skills, chances are you're paying for the Yeah.

So I would, I would, let's say.

If I want someone to grow my podcast, I want someone who's built, like who's done that, who's already done it.

Yeah.

Who's already done it. Like, oh, I work with so and so, I work with so and so. But I grew the podcast to this many million downloads. Okay, you're hired. I wanna, I would say, the challenge.

That I've found, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe you found something different. The challenge I've found is when it's almost like you have to hire for skills and attitude. because I've had some people come in with great qualifications, skilled, do an amazing job, but in a sense, not the right culture fit. And, you know, pulling some people away from the vision or whatever it might be. So it's like you need both, which is hard to find.

Hard to find, hard to find. And it's, I don't even want to use the word attitude because it's not exactly accurate. It's the skills that fits the culture. 'Cause when they come in, if they can be molded a bit, then it works. Some people think you cannot even do that. It just doesn't fit. It's like, it's possible to fit in the culture. I'm not looking for like, fits like a glove day one.

Perfect, but it's, hey, it's good enough.

Good enough. It's like, you know, get to know us, we work together, you know, we'll get along, right? Sure, sure.

Okay. Yeah, I would say so.

And your greatest quality?

I can coach.

I am very, in my opinion, I'm good at looking at people's talent and how to bring that out of them because as I'm a mentor to so many, so I could take someone who's, but I can groom them. So that, that, and I've done it for so many. So I could see, and I could probably see it better than they could see it for themselves. I always have someone, a young guy come in and say, did he totally lost? I said, with your talent, your personality, you should focus on copywriting or should focus on this? Like, I'm very good with that. I think that that would be my biggest skill.

How do you think we can develop the skill of self-belief more? I think a lot of people don't accomplish what they want because they doubt themselves so much that they don't take the actions that are required to accomplish what you want. What do you think we can do to build more self-belief and overcome the doubt that the conversations in our head?

It'S the, it's not just self-belief I think it's self-esteem and it's self, and it's not self-confidence they're two different things. So the self-esteem where most people actually have low self-esteem because of the way that we were brought up. For most of us, right? We don't have, have high self-esteem so, and we, when don't have high self-esteem we go into any scenario. anything that we do want to start a career in business, we go in with the mindset of, oh, I don't know if it's going to work. Maybe it doesn't work. What if it doesn't work? But then what I'm going to do, right? Like all these things that's in our head.

And.

Personally, I found the best way for me personally, at least to do it, is to get small wins. I need to recondition my mind to believe. I know my mind doesn't believe. It's like my mind is very skeptical. We all have this survival brain, right? the crocodile brain is skeptical. Like, oh, I want to get, you know, I want to make a million. I want to make 10 million. I want to get a million subscribers. I want to get a million downloads, podcasts, whatever it might be.

Right.

Well, if we set that goal and it's good, but it's like, well, how.

Am I gonna get there?

Well, let's get your first download. Let's get your first 10 downloads, your first 100 downloads. Like, I need, it's almost, I need that validations. to strengthen my belief. So then I strategically, how can they create those validations to strengthen my belief? So it's like playing a mind game with yourself. It's quite fascinating, right? How do I trick my brain to believe that I can do this? In other words, right? So how can I bench press like, you know, 200 pounds? I can't do that. Let's do 50. Oh, now I can do 60. Oh, maybe I can do 70. Who knows? Oh, my friend could do 180. What the hell? Maybe I can do 100. Right? It's this kind of tricks that we play and I love to do that because over the years it's worked so well for me. So I want to have those wins. It's not if I cannot bench press 150, I'm a failure. Now we never start.

Right?

And we don't take the time to acknowledge ourselves and say 50 is good. It's good, right? Like good. Give yourself a pat on the back. Then do once, then do a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.

How do you show up in life without comparing yourself to where everyone else is at? Where your friends are at, your successful entrepreneur friends, or people who are a certain, you know, have a six-pack, whatever it is. How do you develop the small wins but not be like, ah, but I'll never be like that, or that person's got so much more money or whatever?

I am very competitive and this used to bother me a lot. it's like a feel for me. Like it's the competitiveness. As an athlete, you get it, right? It's like, yeah, like, I'm gonna, you need almost like a target, you know what I mean? Like, I'm gonna beat that. I'm gonna be better. And I find that works to a degree as motivation and your feel, but it's actually, it's like diesel. It's not very healthy. It works, but it's not very healthy versus electricity, right?

It'll get you there, but it's not clean.

It's not clean. It's not clean energy. It truly is not clean energy. And, but it would be like it sometimes how many of us want to become more successful because we want to prove somebody wrong.

Right?

Or parents.

That was me my whole childhood.

There you go. We want to prove someone or we want to show that we, you know, we're better than you think, right?

Right.

You underestimate me or it's like a reverse thing. It's okay. Not a clean energy, right? It's okay. and I found that it could get.

You there, but it won't feel good.

It won't feel good. And it's actually very destructive because you probably self explode or self sabotage to a degree. And I found that it works. And then later on, can I be very transparent?

Yeah.

Okay, I'll be very transparent. When I set up to do YouTube, I looked at Ty, Ty Lopez, I looked at Grant, I looked at number of influencers. I said, I want my followers to be bigger than that. For YouTube. At the time, I have like, I don't know, 100,000, whatever. Not as many. I said, I'm gonna bypass that. I said, I'm gonna bypass Gary Vee. I'm gonna bypass this. That was my target. I'm just being very transparent.

Yeah.

And guess what? Now let's say, not say my YouTube, I bypass them.

Maine, where life the way it should be, transforms all who encounter its spectacular landscapes. Rugged coastlines, pine-scented trails, sandy beaches, sparkling lakes, and tranquil forests inspire you to reflect and make meaningful moments. They offer endless opportunities for adventure and exploration. Whether peddling or paddling, hiking or biking, Maine has more than enough outdoor spaces to make the most of long summer days. Relish in exquisite flavors harvested from the ocean and the rich soils of orchards and fields. Maine's makers are rooted in its heritage while boldly branching into new ways of thinking, doing, and being. Connect with its people in warm and authentic towns which beckon you to stroll art galleries and locally owned shops where generations of artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and craftspeople see the world anew. It's tempting to do it all when you visit, but take a beat and a breath. Get a feel for the time and tempo of Maine. Simple pleasures, Scenic Adventures, where every route is the scenic one. Discover more at visitmaine.com.

There'S saving for retirement, and then there's living in it. At Fidelity, we can help you make that transition and plan for whatever comes next. With a free personalized income plan, you can view and manage your cash flow across accounts. Plus, you'll get investing insights to help you make your savings last. Ready to take on retirement get started at fidelity.com slash income planning expenses charged by your investments and other costs and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account apply Fidelity Brokerage Services member NYSE sic.

So freaking what?

And how did they feel when you passed them with the energy with the not clean energy of you know I.

Felt first of all nobody gives Like dude, they don't give a shit. I don't really care. I thought I care a lot. Once it's, oh, okay. Like maybe, oh, we did it. Okay, then what? So that way, yeah. Who cares? And then I realized actually nobody cares. Your customers, your clients don't care. Your competitors probably don't even care. You kind of care a little bit, but by the time you hit it, you don't really care either. So the whole thing is just kind of a meaningless thing. so once, so once I get down, like, this is just silly. Like, why? Like, why compare? Like, it's great. If anything, I was at a clubhouse and Grant joined the call.

Right.

Some people see, oh, Grant and I are we competitors. I don't see that at all. I study Grant's materials, right? I I buy the 10x growth recordings. I got studies. I read his book. I love it. I bought probably, I don't know, 50, 60 copies, both to give.

People, right?

So I like, I don't see that at all. I admire what is done to accumulate the social capital, convert it into real estate assets. Like this, no one's ever done, no one's ever done this before. This is brilliant. I can learn something from that. I can learn something, look at what Ty is doing, what Gary V is doing, what all of them are doing. I'm like, I don't see that. And it's like, hey, we all have our own paths and it's not like, it's not ego. you have more subscribers, you have more downloads. The truth is your audience doesn't care. No one cares. It's just our own little ego cares a little bit. But when you do hit it, you don't care either. So it doesn't really matter.

Yeah.

And when we focus on what I've learned with the hard way, it's when we focus on running our own race and becoming the best version of ourselves and reaching our vision and our potential, we don't have to be constantly saying, well, how do I beat this person or that person? We're just becoming the best version that we can be with our goals.

And we will never be happy because you can always find someone who's higher. Yes. Much higher.

And there's no finish line either.

There's never a finish line. So then it's not healthy. Then we don't enjoy the moment. That's why I say it's one kind of energy, but it's not very clean. It's not very sustainable. convert it into electricity. It's better, it's cleaner, and you'll be happier. And I learned that the hard way.

Truly, I learned it the hard way.

Me too, man. It took me 30. I mean, tonight, when I turned 30, I realized, wow, I'm doing this the wrong way. I was able to get results and accomplish goals, but never felt good inside because I was always doing it to prove people wrong or to compete or.

To be the best. And the problem is because it works to degree.

It does.

It's like this is like this. Like, I know it's not clean energy, but it kind of works. I'm accomplishing stuff. I'm getting stuff done. But then long term, it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

I want to ask you about martial arts. I know it's a big part of your life.

Oh, yes. I love that.

What would you say the three biggest lessons you've learned from your entire martial arts journey, whether it be from your first lesson that you took as a, you know, young, young Buck or this morning in the dojo. What's the great three greatest lessons that you've learned?

I mean, I, I love martial arts, and a lot of my business philosophies today, I learned it from martial art. Bruce Lee, of course, I'm a huge, huge fan of Bruce Lee. And I would say the three big things that I've learned, this is going to go deep. Let's see if you can, we're gonna go deep. I'll talk about the first one. So in first one, in martial art, in anyone that's learning a style like karate, taekwondo, boxing, whatever it might be, at first we have to learn what they call the form. You gotta do the forms, right? How you do the forms, how you do a punch properly. And that's great. But then after a while we have.

To.

Learn it, master it, and then we have to forget it. Because when you learn it, when you execute, when you're in a sparring, in any kind of scenario, when you're using it, you can be, oh, he's gonna punch me this way, then I'm gonna do this, and he's gonna do this, and I'm gonna do this. It doesn't work. It doesn't flow, right? So the first lesson is flow, don't fight. How do we flow with it? with the movement and you don't come into any scenario predetermined. Oh, you're gonna throw a kick, then I'm gonna block and then I'm gonna hit this way. It's never gonna be like that. It's just like in business. Oh, what is the blueprint? Well, there's no blueprint. Because it depends on how the marketplace will react to your offer, to what you do, the customer. This is, this is dynamic by looking at for blueprint, you've already failed because by definition, it's about never ending problem solving. Yeah, adaptability. Yeah. Yeah. It's all about solving bigger and bigger, bigger problems. Right. It's. There's a blueprint. So I think that would be number two to flow. Don't fight. And the second one is this. I learned from Bruce Lee. I'm going to say it in, in his quote. I'll do my best to prove, to rephrase. He said this. Before I learned the art, a punch.

Is just a punch.

A kick is just a kick. After I learned the art. A punch is no longer a punch, a kick is no longer a kick. And now I truly understand the art. A punch is still just a punch, a kick is just a kick.

So.

So a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick. What did he say at the end?

After I truly understand the art, a punch is still just a punch, a kick is still just a kick.

Got it.

So what he's saying is that in the beginning when you don't know anything, you learn something, I don't know how to punch, now I know how to punch. And then you learn different ways, oh, I didn't, like if you don't know anything about shot, you just, I'm gonna punch like, you know, sucker punch, right? But now, you know, you put your hand this way, you know how to jab, you know how to uppercut, how to cross, how to hook, you know combination, right? You know how to bob and weave, you learn how to kick, you know how to do all this stuff, right?

Right.

But then once you learn so many things, just like in business, just like in life, you've got so many techniques. But then there's no attributes behind the techniques.

Right?

You and I can throw a same punch. We can throw a jab. Mike Tyson can throw a jab. Well, Mike Tyson's jab is a lot more deadly. Still a jab, but the power, the speed behind the punch is completely different from all of us. Normal.

People.

So what Bruce was saying is you learn all these techniques, but ultimately, how do you simplify what you do? So knowledge is daily increase, but wisdom is daily decrease. So how do you learn? You don't know nothing. You learn a lot, and then you narrow down to not knowing a whole lot. And now you know a hun. So you, from not knowing anything now, now 100 things. Now I just need to know these five things that work.

Simplify.

Simplify. And simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. That would be the second big lesson I learned martial arts. That it's like now when I close someone before, many years ago, I would have, you know, 50 ways to close a sale. I have now one. One line.

What's that line?

What would you like to do next? That's it.

So before you learned every strategy and technique.

Oh, would you like in blue and red, alternative clothes, puppy dog clothes, you name it right now. What would you like to do next? Now it's very simple, very elegant. But then there's the stuff behind this stuff.

Right.

So that's Simplicity. I love that. Like, you could, on a closing call, you could take control with just the first line. I'll demonstrate.

Yeah, please.

Yeah. So if you instead of saying, hey, how are you? That's, you know, how are you, sir? How are you? You know, I teach. When I teach it, when I do this, I said, instead of doing that, a simple line is, what can I do for you? Now, a very simple line, but that simple line, I can deliver. with different tonality. So let me demonstrate. This is fun. It's gonna be fun. So I'm gonna do it in, I'm gonna do it wrong, then I'm gonna do it the right. Let's do it in different, so first one. So imagine if you're on the phone, I'm a closer, right? So you just, Louis, tell me the feeling that you get from, like, just raw, whatever comes to mind, okay?

Okay.

First one, first one. Hey, what can I do for you?

Desperate.

Desperate. Excited.

Desperate. Passionate.

Passionate.

Anxious a little bit.

Anxious. Little bit salesman.

Yeah, very sleazy. Sleazy sales.

A little bit sleazy.

Right.

Okay, so second one. What can I do for you?

Nervous, scared, unsure, uncertain. Yeah, not believing yourself.

Okay, let's try the third one. What can I do for you?

Not credible.

Not credible.

Not credible. More like, I don't know, happy go lucky. Yeah, happy go lucky.

A little bit fake, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A little bit fake. Okay, fourth one. and I'll do a last one. Fourth one. What can I do for you?

Not caring.

Not caring.

Don't care about the job. Don't want to be here.

Don't want to be here, right?

Yeah.

Okay, last one. What can I do for you?

Certain, clear, calm, trustful, trusting. Yeah.

So it's one line.

Yeah.

It's the same punch. It's the attributes behind the punch. So we're not talking about different closing lines or scripts or even how you close. I'm just talking just the opening. I have lost or made a sale with just one line. Wow.

Right?

Just with my tonality. I haven't talked about your needs. I haven't talked about budget. I haven't talked about anything. If I say, hey, what can I do for you? I've lost a sale. I don't need to continue 45 minutes for the rest of the call. I've already, I've finished. I've lost the deal. So just that's attributes. One simple line. So that's where the death that comes in. It's a jab, but it's a Mike Tyson jab or just a regular Joe jab. Right. This is, you know, that's the difference.

That's powerful. That's a good distinction. Okay.

And then the last one.

Yep.

What would be. for so as Bruce Lee talks about that. And then I love his philosophy and his very famous, famous quote. He said, be water, my friend. Be water, my friend. It's about emptying the cup. And we notice in martial art that, and that's why I love Bruce Lee's martial art philosophy. It's the jikendo. That's his martial art style means the way of the intercepting fists. It is not about, hey, you have a Japanese karate style, Korean kicking style, or Thai boxing or whatever, it is about learning these things, accumulation, and then strip away what doesn't work, what works for you, and then you combine that together. So it's not like I'm a judo guy, I'm a kickboxing guy. No, like I can kickbox, but I can also do judo. So it's like this. I am not a copywriter. I can do copywriting. I am not a YouTuber, but I know how YouTube works. I'm not a public speaker, but I could speak. So I see those as skill sets. It's not my identity. It's just a skill set that I have, and I can combine all those. So you see how. How what I do, like martial art fits into everything I do, like that's.

Absolutely, absolutely. I want to talk about identity for a second because I think this is a topic that can hold a lot of people back or it could propel them forward. How should we be thinking about our identity in terms of the words we use, the attachments we have to a self-identity, the things we do, or how should we be unattaching to identity? What's your philosophy about identity in general?

I have an Instagram, one of my most popular Instagram graphics, a cartoon. It's a picture of a person and then with a chain ball in the back, right? And the quote is, Most people don't become who they want to become because they're too hood. You cannot become who you want to become because you're too attached to who you were. You're too attached to who you were from the past. And I think our identity changes with us. Right? So in the beginning, maybe you see yourself as a athlete, and then you see yourself as an entrepreneur, and then you see yourself as a podcaster. You see yourself as an influencer, as a celebrity influencer. Like, I think it changes with us. The key is making sure that the identity actually serves us and is who we want to be.

Right?

And I like the identity to be just a little bit a couple steps ahead of who it should be fake. Make you feel a little bit uncomfortable.

What's your current, what's your current identity?

So you've talked about branding or you're talking about my own personal personal business, a life.

What would you, how would you identify if I said, hey, who are you? What do you do? What would your identity response be?

I love that. I love that. So the, the branding wise is king of closing. I wonder, that's Cosing in person, in print, online, offline. That's what I focus. That's what people like to pitch and hold you. You need to give them something to pitch and hold you. Just like a school greatness, right? People need to pitch it. Once they get to know you, they know you're just searching much more than that. But they need something to grasp, to latch onto. In terms of self-identity is really the CEO of a tech investment firm. that's how I see my identity. But I know the gap and I know, okay, what do I need to do to become that? So who are, how I see myself, which is very different from looking at just what I do now. You can see, right?

What was the hardest, what was the identity that was the hardest to let go of at a period of your life, whether it was, I don't know, copywriter to entrepreneur to single to married or, you know, No kids to kill. Like what's been the most challenging thing to let go of identity wise? For me it was an athlete. Like that was my whole life. And then when it ended, I didn't, I was like, what do I do with the rest of my life? This is my life and now it's gone. And I had to learn to let it go and reinvent.

I would say it is from.

I.

Think it's from a marketer to CEO. That's probably the most difficult.

Yeah.

Why was that challenging?

Because it's like, this is what I'm good at. This is what I've been doing my whole life.

That'S why you make your money.

Yeah, this is why I make money. It's what I know, right? And to transition that to being a CEO where you don't actually, you don't want to be the best marketers for your company. You don't want to be the.

It's hard to find someone to replace you.

Yeah.

Like, how do I find someone? No one knows it. And especially for us, it's our personal brand.

That's even harder.

Who knows how to promote Louis House better than Louis House?

Yeah, it's so hard, man. Right?

Like, how do you do that? So I think transitioning that, that was the most difficult, but I'm glad I made a transition. But that transition was hard. And I think I'm still transitioning. Not done yet. Not done yet. But it's better.

We'll probably always be marketers in a sense. We'll always be marketing, but maybe we won't always be marketers. Yes, exactly. It's like we'll always be using marketing to, you know, generate leads and sales to build something that we want to build, whatever it might be. It's our personal brand, Tech. software or anything.

Yes.

But it's tough.

It's a good distinction.

Yeah, that's true.

Because it's such a powerful skill. And then to transition to leading, to have other people perform those skills that you know, maybe for you and I, jump in, it's easier.

It's easier.

No, I can't do that to scale. I know, man. That's a struggle.

It's how do you remove yourself and empower marketers. I have an army of marketers.

Inamo marketers. And the reality is we could only do so much. Like we cannot do create content and then optimize the content in YouTube and Instagram and Clubhouse and pay ads and funnel and hard emails. And I mean, you name it, right? It's too much.

With 10 new social media apps coming out a year, it's hard to be everywhere.

It's too much. And then we don't want to miss out. Right? We want kind of be on it. But then every single one of those things takes bandwidth. Like it just takes time and you still need to grow the business and you still need to manage the team.

And you need people and yeah, take care of your health and you know.

And you still want to be healthy and take care of your health and exercise. And the relationship where you still want to spend time with your loved ones and your family. And it's this, it's not easy. It's not easy. It's crazy. But I did learn something though. A few months ago, I had my friend, Brian Scudamore, from 1-800-Got-Junk CEO. He came to the studio, I asked him this question and I think he loved this. I said, Brian, talk to me, man. Talk to me. I want to know, right? So his company is now doing almost half a billion dollars a year in revenue. Half a billion dollars. And I said, tell me the truth. Running a company's half a billion dollars, right? Come tell me like the, what's it like? And he said on the interview, he said, Dan, running a, like, a 500 million company, it's way easier than a 50 million company.

Really?

It's a running a 50 million dollar company. It's way easier than a, you know, the 5 million. And 5 million is way easier than 500k. Wow. Because you're doing it all on your own at 500k.

That's it.

I said, no, I first I said, nah, there's no way. Like, I, it's almost like I don't, I'm a little bit skeptical. I'm like, I don't believe that. tell me a little bit more. Show me your schedule. So he showed me his schedule. So go to the office how many days a week? Come on, tell me the truth, man. You sleep in the office? No, go to the office one day a week. I said, what? One day a week. What happens to the other days? Well, you know, most days he works in Starbucks, right? Starbucks before the COVID a few hours a day. It takes like three days. two to three days off a week. He takes a two months off a year. I'm like, what the heck? He said, yeah, because you. I've got the team, I've got the people, I've got everything. It runs. I'm like, bingo, that.

It just. Yeah, it probably took him decades to train the team and find a team and build the culture and the systems and processes. I mean, that's the work.

He would say, Dan, when I was doing a million dollars a year with 100 got junk, it's him. haul the trucks and, you know, removing junk. He said, now it's like we do a million, couple million a day.

I'm not doing nothing.

Yeah, yeah, but he's not doing nothing. I'm not. He's got a very strong integrator, like, very strong, like, president running the company. So he's like, he makes all the decisions. He just. He does his Visionary work strategies. So we hang out here for half a day. He talks me to me, and then one asked me about social media. It just does its stuff. I mean, it's awesome. I learned from that. I'm like, okay. That's a goal. That's a role model. So bigger is actually easier. They have more time off. It's not a hustle, hustle, hustle kind of thing. So that's what I learned. I hope that's useful.

Yeah, it's good. What's a belief and a thought that you have in your mind? Maybe it's a little thought or a little belief. It's not strong all the time, but maybe it's still there, a thought or a belief. that holds you back. Again, maybe it's not like constantly in your mind always, but it's there. It's still there. It still lingers. It still tries to hang out with you.

Maybe it's a little bit of the I'm not ready. Oh, yeah, I'm not ready. Not the I'm not good enough. I handled that a long time ago. It's, I'm not ready. Like, am I ready? Right now, we're looking at a tech deal, right? It's pretty sizable. I'm like, we could pull the trigger. Am I ready to run that? Like, you know, because it's a tech, it's got a CTO, like, oh, you know, am I ready for that? Like, to make that leap? Like, it's like that would be the big one. I think that one is the one that's holding me back. Otherwise, I would have gone faster.

When do you think you'll know you're ready? And when should people know when they're ready for anything in their life?

I think, I don't think we'll be ready. One thing I did say that my mentor taught me, he said, Dan, you'll never be ready. You just need to be comfortable. You just need to be comfortable enough to make the decision to pull the trigger. So I'm looking and I'm like, I don't think I'll be ready until I'm in it. Just like you won't know you can have a podcast with so many listeners until you kind of do it. Until you do your first show, your 10th episodes or 100th episodes, right? Then it's like, oh, I can do this. It's that. It's like now we are setting up on the investment side, like raising capital. Am I ready for that? How would the world perceive that? What would that look like? Right now you're dealing with regulations and all that stuff, it comes with it, right? Am I ready for that? I have that. I think that would be the one that's holding me back.

And.

When you have a negative thought in your mind, whether it's that or just a limiting thought, let's say maybe it's not negative, but it's a limiting thought, How do you let it go? How do you not let it consume your mind and really hold you back in that moment or in your life?

It goes back to I need the validations from the environment. So then when I feel that little bit of, oh, am I ready? So then I would call the people like my mentors and all that, do they have colleagues, advisors? They have done it and they would be like, okay, why do you think you're not ready? Well, you know, I don't, I'm not so sure about this. What about this piece is going to run this with the product after I buy it? Would it tank? What if it's, I don't, I don't know. If it is some technological stuff that I'm not aware of, I mean, that would be a big problem. Well, just have a CTO to do the due diligence that they would kind of bear left brain and say, do this, do this and this. Are you okay? Are you comfortable with it? I'm saying, I'll be more comfortable, right? Well, what if you do the deal in a way that you do some down payment, but then you do an earn out, so you know the guy will stay for at least a year, year and a half. Would that give you more comfort? I said, yeah, that would give me more comfort. So he would teach me how to use techniques and business acumen to make me more comfortable, right?

Yeah.

So it's that kind of thing, which I may or may not be aware of, or even I know, but then they would tell me, maybe you never thought about it in this way.

Yeah.

And that helps a lot. So that's how I need to do it. Like, I'm not a guy that sits and then suddenly from not knowing or from no belief to belief, I need those micro things that move me forward. It's a little as little as I know it sounds so silly. Like I talk about the investment fund. It's as little as let me talk to a lawyer and start the paperwork. Like it's that.

It's just doing it.

Yeah, let's just, let me do the first step, right? Forget getting all registered. Let me just, let's do the favor work first. The first step of favor work. Let's do a name search of the fun. You know what I mean? Like little thing. Let me talk to someone who's running a fun that's this size. What was that like? Like that little thing. I need to do those little things for myself.

The small wins.

Small wins.

Just small, small wins.

I could do that. I won't hesitate to do that. And it's no big risk.

Right.

Let me buy the domain name. Let me get the Instagram handle.

Let me get a logo going. Let me get a logo going. Yeah, exactly.

It's that.

It's that.

I'm curious.

I know it sounds silly.

I know it sounds silly. It works, though. It works.

Yeah.

I'm curious. Who was the most important figure in your life growing up?

And what was the greatest lesson that they taught you? My mom. my mom, it would be my mom. There's no, no comparison. No comparison. Just because my mom, single mom, really being here, sacrificed so much, raising a kid who I was very rebellious.

Right.

And being entrepreneurial, not wanting to go to school, not doing well in school and say, I'm going to be entrepreneur. I'm gonna do this. And my mom is the furthest. Like, my personality in my mom is, like, the opposite. She cannot believe I'm doing what I'm doing. And she's. She's an introvert, very kind, humble. But that. That would be the.

The.

From a personal perspective, you're talking about from a business perspective, like, business figure, Jack Ma. It would be Jack Ma.

Yeah.

I see one of my dreams. Some day I can interview him on my show.

Have you met him?

No, I have not. I have not. He would be on top of my list.

He seems very inspiring. Some of the videos I've seen of him, he seems a wise human being. So what was the greatest lesson your mom taught you then?

My mom is someone that has no enemies in life. like she is like she would go to like buy groceries and she would get to be friends with everybody. Everybody see her name is May, like English. May, everybody would know her. Everybody likes her and like it's there's something about that and she has very life like long-term long-term friends and relationships. I'm like, yeah, that inspires me. Because sometimes in business we're so focused on hey, goals and all these, you know, things we're gonna accomplish and big things and build things. And we're like, maybe we don't take the time to, to nurture the, the relationships.

Yeah.

I'm guilty of that. I'm guilty of that just as everybody else.

Right.

And I think that I could do better in that. Like that. She would, she would be my role model.

And what's your advice for people that want to make money and want to build their business, but also have an intimate relationship, whether it's be married or not be married, but be with a partner and thrive in life. What are some of the questions you should ask before getting in an intimate relationship in order to know if your financial success will happen or not?

That's why you're the best. You ask the best questions. Seriously. Seriously. you will only be as successful as your spouse allows you to be.

Ooh, tell me more.

So if you are an entrepreneur, you better have that conversation day one. You better not, not like sugar coated, you better not. So one thing I, when I met my wife, Jenny, so many years ago, right, we're now together 13 years, right? first month when we were dating, I said, Jenny, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm kind of a workaholic. I'm not a typical boyfriend. Like a lot of stuff that you think a boyfriend would do, I just won't do, or I don't have time to do. This is my dream. This is my goal. I I laid it all out, like in a dinner table. But I said, what's your goal? What are your dreams? And at the time, she told me I wanted to go to Disney. I wanna. I made a whole list. I said, baby, these are all your dreams. I promise you, I'm gonna make all of them come true. That's my clothes. I'm gonna make every single one. Take care of your dad, take care of your family. I'm gonna do all that for you.

Right?

But at the same time, knowing a lot of stuff I'm just. I cannot do, or I'm. I'm not good with that. Are you okay with that? I'm not a typical boyfriend or husband, right? and Jenny did a little. Just a couple months ago at a virtual event we did for my students, she was roasting me in a funny way. She's like, yeah, I'm, like, not romantic. I forget her birthday. I forget anniversary. I like it. It says, like, that kind of stuff. But it's better to communicate that upfront because you cannot have a spouse that is not 100 on board. They would destroy. They would destroy your progress. you would self sabotage. Imagine you're doing your thing, hey, I'm growing the business, right? I'm building something. Well, you don't care, how come you don't spend as much time with me? How come you're on the computer all the time? Or how come, it just doesn't work. You know, why do we need so much? Imagine you have a spouse say, oh, Luz, it's okay, you already have a lot down on it. So you don't need to grow. It's okay, I'm happy. I don't need more. Don't get more for me. you're like, that's not helping. That's not helping me, honey. This is not helping at all. Like, I'm going through a lot of.

Yeah.

Like, don't be telling me that. It doesn't help me. Right. So if the spouse is not a hundred percent on board, it's just not gonna work.

Yeah.

Because it's hard. It's just. This is hard. This is not a 90.

This is hard, man.

This is not 90 to 5 of.

Oh.

You know, we get off work Friday, let's have a drink and Saturday.

Like, I don't need to think about what I do. No.

What's. What's a weekend? What's a weekend?

Yeah.

Like 24 7 man.

It's 20.

Like, we don't. Is it Sunday? Is it Monday? Who knows what days are.

Yeah.

Who cares? Like, no, no, no. I know what the marketplace doesn't care. So the spouse be upfront, tell them better than sugar coated. And then later on, they find. the expectations are not the same. And if you, and if you want a lot of money, like, I mean, you want to have wealth and your spouse has negative association with money or they don't like money or they don't want a lot of money, you got a problem. You will have a big problem because this would, I've seen it again and again.

What are a couple questions you should ask the other person when you know, getting ready for commitment and whether it be together as a boyfriend girlfriend or just marriage, what are two or three questions you should ask to make sure you know financially this is the right.

I don't know what is the perfect question. He's what I asked.

Yeah.

And just what I asked. I said, what's your ideal life? What would the ideal life look like?

And if she said, My ideal life is my husband being home half the time and being around and, you know, coming back at four o'clock every day a little early.

And I want you to disconnect and just spend time with the kids and don't. Okay, that's not gonna work. Yeah. It's not gonna work.

Right.

I also asked, what's your ideal, like, husband? Like, what would you expect from a perfect, ideal husband?

Right.

All that. And then I also ask her, what's your. We call that your. Your. Your. Your landmine. What's something that I won't go there and. I won't touch. And she knows mine and I know Jenny's and that's why we never go. Like there are certain things where you will never say that and she'll tell me, never say that to me. You go there, we're done. Like it's gonna be bad. So I never say certain things. Ever. We can be arguing, we could be that we don't, you just never go there. And that's why we don't argue. Because we know each we, that's your, that's the mind field. that's my line. We don't touch it. We just don't go. Like example, like, you know, example, I know a friend of mine. His thing is with a spouse, he hates when the spouse walks away. Like, it's woman's like, I don't want to argue. I just. I don't want to talk. His thing is like, when that happens, he just.

He.

He flips.

Explodes. Yeah, he just explodes. But she just doesn't want to be. She just wants some distance, but he just explodes. So when they communicate, it's like. don't ever do that. Then she doesn't do it and they're okay.

What's the thing you appreciate about her the most in your life?

Being such a supportive wife. Because I am, to me, I'm not a good husband as far as I'm concerned, quite frankly. Like, it's just Valentine's Day. Okay.

Yeah.

Nothing. No flowers. Nothing. I don't, it's, we were driving, it's like, oh, I see, what's it? Oh, it's it? Oh, February 24th. Oh, happy Valentine's Day. Oh, happy Valentine's Day. Like, she doesn't get mad. She's like, like that to me, it's, I'm really appreciative. I'm just not good with those things. It's not, but our relationship is great because she understands, like, I show my love and care in a different way. In a different way. Not the. Because my mind is occupied so much with other things that I just. I don't spend time with.

With.

I don't spend time thinking about those things. But that's, I think, one thing. And we actually, we're working a business together. So we are 24 7 together all the time. Like, 10. So we see each other, we live together, we work together 24 7 for, like, I don't know how many years now.

Right.

And we don't, we're good. Like, we don't get tired of each other.

That's good.

You know, so, so that's, I'm great.

You're, you're both aligned. You're both aligned with the expectations. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, I don't need to, oh, I need to get away from, from my spouse. I need to get away from, like, I, I, we don't have that.

And when, and when do you feel the most loved in your life?

When, because, you know, the five love language. you know, the, the, the, what's the affirmations? Gifts, touch. Yeah.

Service.

So, so service. Mining service. Mining service, active service. So that, that's when I feel most loved. So when she's supportive, when she's helping me and, and that, and then I.

Feel, feel love in the last year through. It's really been a year now since the pandemic started. When was your heart the biggest? When did you feel the most warmth, the most love, the most intensity of like your heart expanding the most?

When it would be when I made a decision to let go of some of the people on the team and the existing team members was very supportive because I thought it would disrupt the company a lot. Because we think about like the morale, the spirit, what that it's like. And then we're talking maybe 40% of people.

Well, you let them go.

Yeah, that's a big cut, right? And to be able to do that and then finding the team actually more united, better connection, happier and just like, yeah, that's just, that warms me up. Like, it's, it's incredible because, because, because with what we do, we spend, I spend more time with my team than with my family because in business all the time. So, so we're very close and to be able to, to see that and, and they because they could easily be, oh, yeah, you know, now I'm just, I'm not the demotivated. I'm this. And, like, they could go very wrong, right? But not one person. I mean, like, not one person did that. That was, that was, that was just incredible. That motivates me even more and say, okay, we got to grow because I could grow so I could be able to reward them even better.

And what's one thing that you're proud of that most people people don't know about you. Maybe it's not public information or it's not talked about that much.

One thing I'm most proud of, I'm trying to think.

It's not in your bio. It's not in your about me page.

It's, it's, I think some people know this, but the proudest moment would be, now I share with you at 17, my, my, my mom and dad got divorced, right? so then 7-16 and then my dad went bankrupt at 17. so he stopped sending us money at 17 years old when I was 17. my mom has never worked a day in her life so like we were living off of whatever little savings that we had and that's how I got into business because I wanted to make money right and I had a lot of resentment towards my dad at that time actually I didn't talk to him few years. For a few, I didn't even talk to him. He would send me faxes, fax machine, and I'll never reply because I was, I was pissed off, basically. Like, why did you, why, why you divorce my mom and you don't send us money? What's wrong with you?

Right? Right.

Like, I, at that time, I didn't know what he was going through now. I know, but at the time, I was very, I was, I was 17 years old. Sure. Teenager. Right. And afterwards, I talked to my dad again. and many years later, I was making more money. So there was this, we're talking many, many years later. I'm like way 10 years later, more than that. And I know my dad was struggling financially. So I was in Hong Kong. I remember I talked to him. So now we're okay. He saw me, he was like hugging me and kissing me. And by the way, my dad never kissed and hugged anybody. He's kind of an Asian father, like, sure.

Yeah.

Like, but he was hugging me, kissing me, crying.

I'm like, what the hell is going on?

Right?

So was that the first time you've seen him in a long time or. Many, many years. His hair is, like, great. Like, it's, like, many, many years. And I took him to, in Hong Kong, we were walking, right? And I said, hey, there. I said that. I mean, you see that window there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I said, I said window there. Right. I said, you see that? Right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

And.

I pulled out a set of keys from my pocket. I said, Dad, that's your unit. I put it on his hands.

And.

I never forget the look. His first person was shocked, but he.

Was.

Like just speechless. Because think about Dad, he wasn't supporting me. you know, he made some mistakes and now going back and now it's like to him, I'm guessing, but it's like, don't worry, your son is fine. I take care of mom. I'll take care of you. Don't worry. And then my dad, all he did, I still remember, he was right here. He put his hand on my shoulders, right? He said, my shoulders like this. He said, looking, he's looking at me, he's like, let's get lunch. that's all I need to hear. And there was. And a few years later, then, you know, fortunately, he passed away. But that was a very special moment that we had. I never forget that. That was the proudest thing. More than anything I've ever done.

Any.

Doesn't matter all the. None and none of that.

That.

That was.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. You gave me chills just hearing that. That's beautiful, man. What's the. One thing or one question you wish more people would ask you that they don't ask you?

It's not so much a question I'm trying to think is... I would wish more people.

Would.

Get to know, not get to know me more is how should I describe that? It makes me reflect. That's why I'm taking the time. It's the I wish people would see beyond and actually get to know me more. It doesn't matter if the content doesn't matter what it is. I don't know what it's a question, but I wish more people would know that.

What do you wish people would get to know more about you beyond what they see online?

That I'm teacher at heart. That I'm a teacher at heart. That's my passion. And we talk about business accomplishment, but I think at the end of the day, I'm a teacher at heart. That's my passion. And that's what I want to do. That's my purpose, right? Doesn't matter how big my company gets, I still want to allocate part of my time teaching.

Yeah.

That's that, that would be it. And if they would, be if they are, they need help and they're willing to learn. And they, I just, I wish they could see that they could, you know, doesn't matter. It's closing and skills. Doesn't matter. But there's something, because I could see what I've done for so many. There's something that I saw. Maybe something I could do, I don't see a lot of people could do. That's a little bit different. That's a little bit different. A lot of my students, they call me Sifu because Sifu is like Sensei. in Japanese martial art. Seafood is like the mentor in martial art term, right? In Asian martial art. So they all call me seafood. So it's like mentor.

And.

And I take that word very seriously. So I wish more people could see that. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.

Well, I'm learning a lot from you, man. I appreciate you sharing, and I've got a lot to. I've got a lot to learn from you for many, many years. So I'll be.

I'll be learning whenever you share it.

Man, it's. It's. It's Mentor learning from Mentor. Of course, man. Yeah. And hopefully we can hang more soon in person and can pick your brain more. Just a couple questions left for you. Before I ask them, I want to make sure people check you out on social media. I mean, you're everywhere. Millions and millions of followers, Dan Locke or Dan Locke official on different platforms, YouTube, millions of followers, Instagram, Facebook, all that. So I want people to follow you. You also have a A, what is it? The smartchallenge.com, create your personalized roadmap to an unbreakable business in five days or less. I'm assuming it's a free challenge that people can go through for five days. You want to share more?

So the smart challenge, we do this.

Live.

We just finished one, we do this maybe two to three times a year, which is a five day, I take them through everything that kind of what I am doing, to be more recession proof and pandemic proof, right? Because it's one thing to be recession proof, it's a whole other thing to be pandemic proof. So I walk through the business model, how I do social media. Basically is this, in the five days I teach, how do you use social media, combine it with a scalable business model, and how do you scale with a remote team? That's what the five days is about, right?

I love it.

And it's like, I think it's 40, 50 bucks for the challenge. So not free challenge, but 50 bucks to get it live. And every single time we do it, we get huge, huge response. Like, awesome. Just love it.

There you go. The smartchallenge.com for that to help you for your business in the future and now in recession or pandemic or anytime to really just become more bulletproof really as a business. And how else can we support you before I ask the final two questions?

I would say is if there's anyone listening to this, if they're entrepreneurs, if they're in a tech space, if they're looking for capital and looking for partners, that's what we're growing. That's the space that we're in. So they're software founders. If they feel that there's some, the same synergy, just contact us. I'd love to hear from them. Yeah.

Do you know Dan Martell?

Yes.

Should, you know, he's, he's in the SaaS world. I'm not sure if that's part of the tech SaaS world you're looking at.

Or more of a tech. It is. It is. Dan actually coaches me on two of my tasks.

Oh, there you go. He's a smart guy. So, yes. But if you're in the tech world, reach out to you. So I'll have people do that for sure. Okay. This is a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical situation that it's your last day on Earth, many, many years away. you get to live as long as you want, but eventually you got to turn the lights off, Dan. And you have created and accomplished everything, business, relationships, life, everything you've ever want to put out and make, it's happened. But for whatever reason, hypothetically, you've got to take it all with you to the next place. You've got to take this interview, your books, your content, your courses, the businesses, they go with you. So no one has access to this information anymore. or any of your written word or audio or video. But you get a piece of paper and a pen, you get to write down on the last day of the three biggest lessons that you would share with the world, or what I like to call three truths. What would you say would be those if you could only share three things?

Wow, that's a deep one. Wow. It makes me reflect my whole life, my mind, it's like spinning.

Yeah.

Wow, that's a good question. I gotta learn from that. That's such a good question. As an interviewer, holy. So I can only write down a piece of favorite to communicate to the next.

To the world. This is all they would have left to remember reminded by you as your. Your teacher at heart. So what would you share with the world? These three truths, three lessons, and this is it. They don't get anything else.

Okay, so the. The first one would be. The first one would be you are not your business. Yeah, I would say you are not your business. Okay, that's the first one.

What does that mean?

Meaning that businesses is an entity that gets you from point A to point B that shouldn't be too attached to it. That you build it, you leverage it, you work within it, but it's not you, you're not your business.

Okay, that's number one, number two.

Seek fulfillment, not accomplishment. Because that would be the biggest mistake that I made early, probably in the first 30 years, like when I hit 30 years old.

Yeah.

Seek fulfillment, not. Not achievement.

Yeah.

The third.

And the third would be. act as if there's no limit to your abilities. Act as if there's no limit to your abilities. That's what I could come up with today, but maybe when I'm 10 years older, it's something different. But my current state of mind, of course.

Of course. Those are powerful, man. I appreciate that. Well, Dan, I want to acknowledge you for a moment because it's been fun to watch your journey over the years continue to evolve and transition. and your identity and reinvent and serve people. Obviously, you're a business, successful business leader, but you're in service of helping others in your business, which I think is the greatest business to have is when you're helping people, teaching people, giving them tools, skills to improve the quality of their life. And I want to acknowledge you for being a renaissance man. I love meeting people that are interested in other things than just the main thing. you're interested in martial arts, you're interested in other areas of life, and I appreciate the qualities of learning different disciplines and acknowledge you for being a master than more than one thing and focusing then more than just business and money. And also for your joy. I think when we think of business leaders at times, we can think of these joyless, driven to succeed, money-hungry types. yeah, yeah, corporate leaders with no soul. But, you know, we've connected a few times in person and obviously online and you, you bring joy and, you know, even with the suit buttoned up and clean and sharp looking, you can still bring the joy and the humor and the, the inner child out, which I really appreciate and acknowledge. So want to share that with you and acknowledge you. And my final, I want to say.

That, I also want to say that you, you are an inspiration to me, you may or may not know, but even so many years ago, I listened to your podcast, like you inspire me. And it's just vice versa, the respect seeing you grow, seeing, I think I would resonate and understand you more because I could see the, the, what you've gone through, the brand and, and the identity and, and everything that you've gone through. So it's, this is not because I'm on your show, I'm just saying I just want to acknowledge that, like, to be able to do that from how many athletes want to transition to entrepreneurs can do it well, very few.

I appreciate it, man. Thank you.

So I just want to say, yeah.

I appreciate it, man.

Brings the greatness within me as well, so you inspired me.

Of course, man. Well, I'm excited to do more stuff together and continue building the friendship, man. I'm appreciative. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

To become more than you thought you could be.

There it is. Dan Locke. My man. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it, brother. Love you too, man. My friend, thank you so much for being here, for listening to this episode, for gaining value. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope it was powerful for you and your life right now. Is there one thing that you found interesting that you could apply, that you could use to improve the quality of your life. If so, start taking action on that right now and post a review over on Apple podcast. Let me know what part of this episode was the most valuable for you. Post a rating and review on Apple podcast and click the Subscribe button right now to stay up to date from the latest and greatest on the school of greatness with some of the world's most fascinating human beings to help you unlock your inner greatness as well. If you get on my secret texting list, my community of people that are getting updates, weekly inspirational messages, motivation and behind the scenes content, then text the word podcast right now to 614-350-3960 to get on my community texting list. And I want to leave you with this quote from Ellen DeGeneres who says, I say always follow your passion no matter what, because even if it's not the same financial success, it'll leave you to the money that'll make you the happiest.

Whoo!

It's always fun when you can make money doing something you love. And typically when you love something and have passion and enthusiasm for it, you find ways to add more value to that thing and ultimately you'll end up making more money down the road. I want to remind you today if no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter, and you know what time it is, it's time to go out there and do something great. Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here.

If you haven't heard, I have a.

Podcast that's called, literally, with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner.

Between myself and people that I admire.

Like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe please and listen wherever you get your podcasts.