How to Buy Back Your Time and Build a Business You Love with Dan Martell

What people don't realize is we'll do more for other people we'll ever do for ourselves for sure i wake up every day not for me so when people go like where do you get all the energy oh it ain't for me i know why i'm here.

Hey everyone welcome back to the earn youn happy podcast today's episode is another throwback one of my favorite conversations and you guys know that i've had this podcast for ages eight years so if you're newer to the podcast i have literally recorded over fourteen hundred episodes you guys so i want to make sure that you don't miss any of these super amazing juicy conversations that i have chosen just for you because i can't tell you about the wealth of knowledge that is in this freaking catalog of throwbacks i don't want you to miss it it's truly what has changed my life and and helped me on my journey of growth in entrepreneurship in relationships in personal development and i know that these messages are gonna hit you in the same kind of powerful way that they hit me so i hope that you love this one as much as i do and let's get started welcome back to the earn your happy podcast this podcast that you're about to listen to is definitely going down as one of my favorites not only because i really felt felt like this book impacted my life and the concepts in it but because it was so much fun getting to drop in with this human being who i did not even realize listened to chris and i's podcast and him and his wife came to nashville they just happened to be in nashville at the same time as me while i was filming these podcasts and we made this podcast happen so today on the earn your happy show we have dan martell he's a serial entrepreneur speaker and investor you guys if you have not seen him instagram right now not only has his career just completely exploded but he has blown up all over social because he is sharing such incredible things truly you cannot go viral this frequently without sharing incredible concepts which is what his book is all about so serial entrepreneur speaker and investor he has built and exited five software companies currently buying a software company per month you guys bestselling author of buy back your time which i think is how most people first found him he's an ironman athlete husband and father to two incredible boys he has such a powerful story of overcoming addiction as a teenager and discovering his passion for software for the first time at seventeen when he came out of rehab and if you want to feel motivated and pretty much crush any excuse that you're holding onto right now this episode is going to be a good one for you we cover everything from business and how he's made comebacks from the time he wasn't able to make payroll and you guys especially now that i have my company glossy let me just tell you when i hear these stories they like hit my heart because i can't even imagine so he also shares the funny dating story of when he questioned if his wife renee was the one he also shares nerves that he had speaking at tony robbins event and how he had to push through all of his fear and the challenges that he faced and we seriously cover everything this episode from anxiety and overcoming challenges to health and fitness and even buying companies that one was really interesting for me i'm like i don't know if that's ever on my radar but he really opened the door on that one so if you're listening to this podcast i know you have a big purpose and calling on your life let's get into the show dan welcome to the earn your happy podcast i'm so excited that you are here in.

The flesh this is cool in real.

Life yes in real life we're in nashville which is kind of random for.

Both of us yeah don't live here.

Yeah do not live here and it worked out but i was going on your stories looking at what you were doing in nashville and you went to see jelly roll last night well so.

No i didn't go see jelly i want to see andrew schultz okay so i'm a big comedy fan okay oh yeah i get like shane gillis is my top andrew's top guy named tony hinchcliffe his show kill tony like i watch comedy every night to go to bed why i think cause like i spent most of my day just being so like business seriously like sometimes i like to giggle like renee if you ask my wife she she almost like fifty percent of the time she has to like kick me or poke me to stop laughing that's how i go.

To play too by the way i got to meet her she's the best.

Yes yeah but i laugh a lot at night but yes i went to see schultz and then at the end we we're like okay there's six thousand people it's a grand old opry which was just iconic yeah i was like okay all these people are going to try to squirm their way in the same parking lot let's go and as we're walking up the aisle schultz goes you know we're in nashville i got some friends here in music it'd be kind of weird if i didn't invite them out to do a little bit of shindig and and i think to myself there's only literally there's fifteen people in the world because of his background with going to prison for five years and just has come up and fifteen years of grinding like it's just a beautiful it's literally a movie that could write itself i said if he says jelly roll we're going to turn around and sit back down there's only one name even he said dolly parton like i love her but i'm going yeah i got to get to sleep and he said jelly roll and i looked at sam my creative director and we just both had wide because we were talking about that day and we got to rock out to some jelly roll it was it was just magical why.

Do you love him so much his.

Background i mean i heard i think i really got to fall in love with his story when he was on joe rogan but even before that i saw a lot of clips at the i think it was a cma country music awards where you know he won and even his wife i think is bunny people think she's a gold digger and he laughs he goes i was broke and she took care of me like legit people are like oh yeah she's a gold digger because what he looks like and what she looks like and he just laughs and he's like you have no idea and then just like just the care you can tell he is there's people like that that i think when i think of who do i want to emulate like people that have created a massive like audience but are just still inherently great people in their hearts he's one of them and you just you see him he's so grateful i saw a clip of him meeting one of the beatles and somebody else oh elton john and you could tell like he was just in a dream he was like i cannot believe right now i'm meeting my heroes and both those guys were like no jelly we love your music and he just melted like he started getting emotional and i was just like dreams come true he's just it's it's he's proof of what can happen if you literally put your head down and say i don't know how don't know when but i know if i show up for long enough something's going to happen isn't.

That true just literally the discipline of showing up over and over and i know you know you are like really into fitness you're into wellness you're into.

Health you're disciplined i like to lift.

That'S yes you can you can lift things while we're on this that's fine yeah but fitness was the first place i learned discipline it was like the very first thing that taught me everything.

It'S like a gateway drug it is.

A gateway drug and i had this realization of wait if you just keep showing up it'll eventually happen because in fitness i the first like two years if you don't have nutrition dialed in you don't really see anything even though so much is happening underneath yeah and that helped me in business going okay i may not see a result right now but i know i've just spent a year laying groundwork or like getting my life in order trying to figure different things out but also before we talk about that you just told me you love a good cinnabon i i love cinnabon how often does that happen.

Not as much as i'd like it to honestly now that i think about it i will tell you this funny funny story when i first met renee my wife now so this would be thirteen years ago we go we might have only been together for three three months and we decided to go to bahamas yeah and in the airport in the bahamas there's a cinnabon and i go hey renee have you ever had cinema she's like no what's that well we're gonna have an experience okay so i go to the counter all excited i order the cinnabon i think i might have did like maple pecans like you got extra whatever like i'm just like this is the best one and we put on the counter i have to use the bathroom so i go to the bathroom when i come back i can't even make this up lori the center was gone just the center just the center the best part and i'm like sitting there going what happened she's like i ate it did you.

Leave her behind well this is it.

I go oh my gosh this is not this she's not the one for me there's an issue wow what kind of what what would need to be true for her to think that might be okay i'm like you clearly have had a cinnamon roll before then proof because you knew to go for the center and she was just like why are you overreacting i was like i can't even i'm just gonna go get another one and we're just gonna yeah it's so i do love i lived in you mentioned toronto earlier because i'm canadian and you enjoyed your time there on the essentially the what they call the ttc the subway system the i think it's eglinton stop has a cinnabon so it's my favorite anybody that lives there i'm like i'm coming just to smell the cinnabon and just walk by but yeah it's been a while i don't i don't have sugar as much as i yeah i used to i used to weigh two hundred sixty five pounds and now i'm like insane to eight to eight so what was the.

Biggest thing that had to shift for you mentally like what belief was that that you had kind of growing up that had to shift for you in order to have this identity now i.

Think it was a lot of things but if i think the the like the the moment i got my heart broken i think a lot of people go through that where i was in a relationship and it didn't work out you know i always tell people don't waste a good crisis it's amen like if you yeah right now i'm at that age where a lot of people are having troubles in their marriage and they're going through things and i'm like hey man you gotta you got a chance right now to pull out a clean piece of paper and write down some stuff and go for it if you want to get the best shape of your life you got time too so that's kind of what kicked it off initially but i i honestly lori like i yo yo'd up and down but it was kind of like i went up and down up and down but better and better so like two hundred and sixty five two hundred twenty five two hundred fifty so like over the last twenty years i got better and better better last eight years and it was really having my kids i put on like twenty five pounds after because they're eleven months apart so we had two boys emotional eating staying up late sleep deprived just totally running a company my wife was running a company we decided to build our dream house i mean just just bananas our life is crazy and and then yeah i just had a wake up call i was just like i can't be this dad i don't want to be tired i was too i couldn't even at the end of the day i couldn't play with my kids you know they were asking us to play and i'm laying on the couch going like i just need to relax i'm like no i don't so it's been a lot of different things over the years what changed now is just identity like it's just who i am yeah yeah but.

Did you decide that was it like.

One hundred a decision yeah yeah i think i think what's interesting about you know getting in shape is that it's not for one thing when people say i gotta lose weight i said no you don't you gotta release it because if you lose it you're gonna go find it again i did found it.

Multiple times it was really easy too.

Cinnabuns help yeah it turns out coming back to it's a lot easier than losing it and then just over the years it's funny because i do this journaling every morning and part of it is essentially like affirmations and the affirmations the best way to do them is i am so probably two years before i had any proof that i was i was writing down i'm an athlete and i wasn't even working out or running or anything so but i write it down hoping that might just be like a deposit in the potential few like i literally would write stupid stuff down like i'm a billionaire i'm an athlete i'm a epic husband none of these things i had proof for zero there's like my wife would not be like yes dan's an after husband and then then i i remember i went to a crowd my buddy marty was like hey come come to this thing it's called crossfit this is about nine eight nine years ago and i remember the first day they had this thing about compete every day and they and there's it's fascinating as a as a thing that people do cuz all of a sudden you're an athlete if you just show up cause you competed cuz every class is a workout of the day that's a compet like and i was like oh crap i'm an athlete no i'm not great at anything but there's proof now and then i think i did that for two years and then i started writing down i'm a tr i'm a triathlete and i couldn't even swim and and i just kept writing it down i'm a triathlete i'm a triathlete i think i changed it i'm an iron man which is bananas because i had no i had no interest in being anything i didn't want to wear spandex so that's you know first time i got on a bike i'm wearing like like basketball shorts oh.

Totally trying to do that oh yeah.

I'M like i don't want to be that i used to judge those guys saturday morning seven i see them on the roads full spandex and their weird little bikes this was chris yeah yeah i was just judging and i became that person really quick how much spandex do you have now i have drawers full i have multiple kits as chris would probably know yeah i have kits with different logos depending on my mood.

Yes deep gratitude for the spandy yeah.

Well it makes you fast if it turns out there's a reason it's functional but i couldn't swim and then one day my buddy says you know we did we did a bike ride twenty k bike five k run and he said you know if we would have swam six hundred meters that would have been a sprint triathlon i was like whoa so that summer we decided to commit to it and i just pulled on that string not only did we do the first try then we did two others that summer and then we committed originally we committed to an olympic size which is kind of like double and my buddy mark called me up and he says hey man i didn't think you were so weak i was like what are you talking about he goes i heard you signed up for an olympic i said yeah he goes dude half ironman or your baby i was like i'm not getting egged into this like the word iron man scared me and i think i sat on it for two weeks and then i said i'm in and we trained and.

Then covet happened wait so were you able to do it or no this.

Is such a crazy story so obviously every race across the world stopped yeah everything and i was sitting there and i'm in the heat this is like april so march was kind of like when everything started april our race was in june and i'm you know i work with a lot of incredible ceo's and at that time everybody was in this like fog like what is the future going to look like what should i brace myself for and i've i've been in you know i went through the crash dot com crash ninety nine two thousand two thousand one same yeah all of them so like i know what to do it's just forward movement a little slower course correct a bit right sides of business and then wait for the rebound because on the rebound that's where the wealth created most people don't know this so not that i got it i wasn't happy what's going on in the world but i knew if i could just get ready but the big thing was like i got to get my clients ready so in many ways because i was working with all these incredible ceo's i had to tell them i'm still racing because i needed to show them they need to still stand up and go to work and build so good so in many ways that pressure of having them watching me and listening to me i just dug my heels in i went live every day shared with them what i was thinking about what i was learning and the way we got the race done is we hired the guy who ran the chips like the the tracking okay he thought we were crazy all his stuff was in storage we were the only race and we we called it corona man because iron man you know obviously yeah like branding reasons couldn't call it and when we reached out to our rep at ironman because we were registered for the race he was so impressed he they sent us our kits so we did a seventy point three iron man was called corona man and in iron man gear it was two of you so we ended up we did five okay yeah because we we a lot of people heard and they're like how do i get in this race and we're like we didn't want to get shut down by the city right yeah because it was like bubbles you know you couldn't hang out with people and we the swim we did was like in swamp water it was so gross when we were putting the buoys in i was like guys this is this is bad like can we do it at a pool picturing leeches you you don't want to know even the smell no right and i'm not a good swimmer in the first place and i'm getting nervous i put my head underwater i'm closing my eyes i don't want to see i'm worried i'm going to look underwater and these eyes are going to like a human i was so scared i'm so slow at swimming but we got it done then the bike and then well you know is a blessing in all of it is because we ran our own race everybody and and what was going on in the world all of our family was there and my buddy's front lawn for the finish and yeah who.

Did you become from that what what shifted from that such a great question.

Because i was just thinking of my two boys watching me finish that was like i would have done i would have done three times of those races just to see their faces like see their dad do something hard what shifted was is like it was easily the hardest thing that i'd ever done in my life eight years prior it was one of those things if somebody said i'll be a billionaire i'd be like that's how distant like there was just no belief around it and to see kind of the mindset i had to where i had gotten it made me really start thinking like where else am i under indexing in my life like where else am i not allowing myself to believe in the possibility and that like that shift of being consistent you know this you like i think people that grew up in fitness like yourself man you guys you have an advantage like i'm just so like i talked to alex hormozi i'm like dude you've been like i get why you're so successful because that foundation of showing up every day every decision non stop with no visible proof today that's the key all the work under the surface until like a bamboo tree right million percent boom and then it shows up and then everybody goes like oh good for you and you're like no you don't know so i started just screaming in my head earned earned like earned like anytime people would say like i'd love to do that i would just i wouldn't say a word to them i would just go earned that's literally where.

The podcast came from earn you're happy it was like earning earning the right to the feeling that you have heck yeah like earning the right to your pride earning the right to your confidence courage because i used to think like oh that person must just have that or they grew up that way or whatever it was and that's the most disempowering belief possible it's like if you go research the work like not sitting with you hearing about all of these moments that were probably not probably we know are painful difficult isolating it's like you are literally slaying demons in your head daily it is those moments take take me to a moment where it was just like such a battle that you just felt like you were either breaking down all the time or you'd never make it through and i know there's so many of them but do you have one where you just really doubted if you'd ever get through it.

I share my story growing up because and i didn't share that for fifteen years the first time i ever shared it on stage publicly my wife renee did not know oh my god and her parents are in the audience oh wow yeah before i went on stage she goes hey my parents want to surprise you they come to see your talk i was like did you know.

You were going to share this too.

No no what happened was the morning of my talk the organizer came to me and said hey i just want you to know that we're doing a fifty thousand dollar prize to a charity of your choice for the top speaker voted by the audience well i ain't gonna win that talking about marketing right right and i knew i had a story and i shared that story and it it literally changed my life and i'll tell you why and i'll share it i grew up in just a really chaotic childhood my mom was drinking all the time hardly present my dad was traveling he was in sales so he wasn't home a lot i'm the second oldest of four i had a lot of energy you know i got diagnosed with adhd when i was eleven put on ritalin and pretty much from a young age i always thought there was something different about me or i was broken for sure i felt broken like when when you have to take a pill you're the only one in your family let alone your friend group because you're there's something wrong with you and then they like treat you different in school and then eventually i got put in a special class that just messes with you and i ended up getting introduced to drugs when i was thirteen through my buddy richard just casually and it was the first time that i didn't feel sad and i went on a thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen i went on yeah three years of just hardcore using getting in trouble with the law ended up in juvenile detention the first time when i was fifteen for two months got out said i'm cleaning up my act those friends i'm done with them sober i think i lasted twelve hours right back at it and then it was another year of just craziness like kind of when people go like was it really that bad i'm like call my dad he'll tell you it was it was almost like i don't know if you have any family members or cousins or anything where you know they don't even know where he's at and it makes me sad because i just i feel i feel like i feel guilty for i know my brothers and sisters were probably really worried about me back then anyways i ended up breaking into a house and again i'm not proud and i'm there was a lot of shame around that's why i didn't tell anybody to steal these guns which is just i mean how stupid is that you're breaking into a home where you know there's guns like it's just that's how my brain yeah.

You'Re not thinking oh zero thinking you're literally absolutely your brain is not your.

Own yeah i was taking anything somebody's like i got valium i'll take some of those well yeah you got speed let's do it all like literally it was just give me what you got and my mom found the guns in my room called the police my brother says don't come home cops are waiting for you i decided to go on the run i steal a car i'm in east coast of canada right above maine i decided to go to montreal i had a friend there and on my way there i get in a.

High speed chase you just really stacked that right there it went that is.

That went sideways it went from zero to messed up incredibly fast and what was nuts is when i stole the car i had a handgun on me from guns i stole and i said because i didn't i just didn't want to i honestly didn't want to live yeah and i said if the cops stopped me i'm going to pull the gun and let them take my life oh my god and in the chase i came into a neighborhood and there was a open garage door and i just came into that driveway going like way too fast smashed into the house wasn't wearing a seat belt yeah i was drinking like i literally had open booze in the car high hit the house the airbags go off everything i mean it was just almost like you know when you hit your head hard and there's like a ringing in your ears that noise and i just remember get the gun wow i just i started looking for it and i found it and when i started pulling on it it got stuck it was in like an old like canvas duffel bag and it got stuck between the the side of the seat and in the back and i just kept pulling on it and pulling on it and for whatever reason cops opened the door picked me off out of the car i mean i didn't even like i didn't my feet did not touch the ground it was like in the air four police holding me in the air across the front yard kind of frisked me and threw me in the back of the cop car and the next morning i woke up sober just wondering what my life was going to look like so at sixteen i'm sitting there in this jail cell in sussex new brunswick and jelly roll's got a song it's funny i didn't realize why i liked him so much but it's that song and he says i only turn to god when i need a favor i didn't believe in god at the time i didn't know i just said hey man if you're real i could really use some help and help was honestly like just i'd rather not go away for like seven years you know i know i did some bad stuff and i deserve it but if you help me get through this i'll i'll just i'll just clean up my act like this is it i'm done and i got sentenced almost two years ended up in an adult prison and it was horrendous but i had some beautiful people show up in my life and that's been my journey that like since then from brian the prison guard who told me he couldn't understand why i was in prison and that he believed in me that got me through that period i got released to a rehab center and i met some more angels i did eleven months eleven months when people say like man how did you become who you are i'm like i did i did personal therapy for eleven months at sixteen years old yeah like like i worked on my feelings my values my communication skills like basic things like real deep foundation i'm like any adult that would go through this program would just come out of superstar and i had the gift at sixteen seventeen and you know guys like mark pence and it was cool is this this place is a very special place in the world honestly all the staff rex drug addicts so i learned the concept of getting a mentor yeah at seventeen and it was at the end of that program i was helping rick the maintenance guy clean out one of the cabins because it was built in an old church camp and in one of the rooms is this old computer and a book on programming sitting right next to it never touched computer my whole life and there's just something when i opened that book i was expecting it to be like secret codes and you know almost like hieroglyphics i just expected like weird scribble stuff that nobody could you know i mean like only the smartest in the world kind of and it it was english you read it it was like if this then do this and then this and i'm like that's not like crazy and i just sat there for twenty minutes and i got tapping on the computer and within you know not too long i got the computer to say hello world and i know that's not impressive but as a seventeen year old that never touched a computer his whole life i took it as a sign i took it as like oh maybe my brain is different but it's different for that reason because that seems pretty cool i don't like i think it's pretty good and i just became obsessed it's funny when i when i went my dad forever grown i said if you could just find something you're passionate about that isn't illegal i think you'd actually do okay cuz like when i do stuff i'm in yeah and when i you are you are yeah and he goes i was doing i had two passions i had i eventually computer programming or botany okay okay yeah i grew a lot of weed interesting no no it's not it's not yeah like hydroponics like i i just loved plants and and he goes so funny he goes dan he's very careful he doesn't like give me advice he knows that i'll immediately you know back then more so way more and he goes you could i think you should do the computer thing and you have a garden as a hobby yeah and that was a beautiful advice and this is ninety seven so i get out and i discover this little thing called the internet and i became obsessed and i allowed that obsession to fuel my fire and focus and that's why when people go like how have you built and exited five software companies and you know i've invested in over one hundred companies like intercom and udemy and you know i buy i literally buy a software company a month right now wow it all started in rehab at seventeen wow so it's not impressive if you think about i've been doing it for twenty six years i'm forty four i've just been one thing every day non stop.

So how did you learn to fall in love with that journey.

I the unfair advantage i have lori that i wish everybody could discover and i think they have it because i think their number one superpower their strength is sits right next to the worst thing that's ever happened to them i believe that yep if you're willing to look what i had the gift in today is why i'm so driven to go on that journey to wait to stand back up when i get absolutely knocked down yeah like i'm talking like full flying kick through the air to the chest kind of hit is i know why i'm here.

Do you ever have the moments where you kind of go back to that dark place where you're just like you feel like a little hopeless or you lose track of that why and how do you get that back.

One hundred i mean this is this is the the it's it's kind of cool because over the years you just see your your mindset get better yeah but every you know like so so what happens is it gets better so the rebound is short so you spend less time there and the the rebound is better so like it's like how much time do you dwell when i was in my twenties for days yeah you can you can ask renee i would get into funks where i just cleared my schedule lied to everybody said i'm busy or i'm not feeling good that was a that's an easy one i got the flu got the flu and i would just lay in bed and watch stupid tv shows and she'd know yeah because she walked and she opened the door it's one in the afternoon she's like again and i'm like the netflix influenza i wish i was smart enough to call it that so good but so yeah and over the years i just i just had like the way i got out of those that could serve people because the first one that really hit me i was twenty six i failed my first two companies major way lost money and you gotta understand the two benefits i had is one nobody expected me to do anything good with my life so the fact that i just stayed sober that is a benefit like that really is oh i had no pressure the pressure is dan could you just not do any drugs or drink or anything and i was like so as that was good it was like full cheerleader from everybody but i just was so not smart about learning business or how to do it that i failed i failed my first company i started when i was eighteen failed that one at nineteen started another one shut that down at twenty one my dad's like maybe you should go get a normal job like you're clearly smart and driven you just you just may as business things and for you and i was like there's no way so i finally started my third company at twenty four hired a business coach that was like a game changer i actually hired him when i didn't have a business i was just like hey i just don't want to be insane and insanity is the definite you know it's like doing the same thing over and over again what is a meaningful difference this time i hired this dude bob you know went online didn't have the money hired him said if you're good you're gonna make me i literally he didn't know this but i had i had two months of money to pay him fifteen hundred bucks a month american i'm canadian that's real money yeah okay our money's a little monopoly money but that us dollar is real strong so i had two months of it and i figure if he's good he's gonna help me make some money you're like you got.

Two months i didn't say it to.

Him but i was like i really hope you're good because this could be awesome we're really short lived and we did almost a million in our first year wow yeah wow he taught me all the stuff i was missing i was willing to do the work like that's the thing i'm a hard worker if you just give me direction if anything sometimes when i was younger i just worried about making the wrong decision now i've learned real simple my job is to make a decision to make it right i don't worry about making the right decision i just trust that i'll learn fast enough yeah and what changed on the second one in regards to like the moment of of getting over it when you're in a funk two years in around christmas time a few things happen at christmas for me obviously christmas day my birthday is december twenty sixth it's a day to reflect and it's right by new year's which is another day to reflect and going into the holiday season kind of like december fifteenth everybody starts checking out yeah i looked at my bank account and i wasn't going to be able to make payroll and everybody's like hey have a great you know happy holidays and i'm like yeah happy holidays and i'm going i'm going to have to lay everybody off we had twenty i know and this is a third time yeah and i went into a depression like full on i never i don't i didn't feel i don't even know i couldn't even replicate it today because it would just felt like i was wearing a weight blanket and i don't like i'm just going to tell you what i did i would go in the bathtub i'm a big dude i lay in the water i put my head underwater and i just my nose above the water and i would stay in it for two or three hours and i did that for like four nights in a row and on the fourth night i said dan this is dumb you gotta do something plus this is boring yeah like what are you doing but it was because i wasn't doing drugs or anything i hadn't that was my way of numbing out totally there's just something about just it was almost like just turn my brain off stop the chatter and on the first fourth night i said okay i'm going to decide what time i literally said tomorrow you know whatever i'm done yeah and the next day out of desperation i just asked myself a simple question who in the world would care if i failed as a business and this is the best i had dan martell at twenty six years old yeah was the guy who ran the province where my my business lived all of our revenue is from the us so i thought i'm canadian they always talk about like export dollars is better because it brings money into the economy all my team was in our city yeah and i cold emailed this guy frank mckenna at like two in the morning had enough i like sat there knowing i should email him yeah you know holidays this is like probably the twenty eighth of december and the guy replies right away wow and he goes you need to talk to these three people and gave me three names.

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You did it it was it was that was one question it was that.

Came on day four of bath time.

Yeah but i just i made the decision that's good bath i made the decision just to be done with it yeah and that's like that to me when in the and then when it's happened ever since yeah all i've done is said i'm done so renee would come in the room like how long are you going to do this for i'd be like i'm done tomorrow at two she go cool and then then i prepare myself at two o' clock i'm going to start line on my team i'm going to sit down my email and work through my inbox i'm going to schedule my time i'm going to do a dump my brain like i know how to recover yeah and that's and now it's just become kind of part of the routine that when i get in those funks those are moments not days yeah and that's the difference i still get there i still try to push on something and embarrass myself or you know think i can do something and over commit and you know so like i'm one hundred percent human and i just try not to dwell on stuff the rumination i think is actually the biggest killer of happiness right now for sure it's fascinating because i coach a lot of really high level people and sometimes i'll sit back and let them and i'm listening and i should record it and transcribe it and then play it back to them because if you listen to the words they're using to describe their situation there's a there's a difference between giving somebody context to move forward versus selling yourself on why it's okay for you to feel this way and that it's almost like you're again you speak your future in existence so most people don't realize that they're literally speaking what they don't want by repeating back what happened to them that they didn't want totally so that's what i've gotten just better at is just like in those moments just make sure i don't use language to describe it too much and then start looking for the opportunity the positivity like i literally just go okay i can't control this yeah like what would have been recently oh i had a full distance ultramarathon i trained for last summer and we had a massive fire in kelowna like literally the city almost burned.

Down that doesn't go well together yeah.

Yeah no race but as anything when you train for it there's there's a taper and then there's race day yes so i was ready to race and i was like for a week i was bummed i was like i can't believe i trained for a year to do this ultra marathon and now i can't race but i had the proof from the previous iron man and i remember i was training one day at the gym and i said screw this i'm doing on sunday i messaged my buddy dave i said dude i need.

Some support was dave the same guy.

No no he was my running partner i said dave i'm racing sunday make a route go on strava go make a route through the mountains it was the exact same one of the race we were supposed to do yeah can you support me could you show up on the trail heads and just give me some water and some food and i showed up and i raced that's so much harder it was so hard like people don't realize that even when we did the first ironman yeah they're like oh dude real iron man i'm like dude when after i did i actually eventually did it because of those freaking ding dongs that were commenting that stuff and i laughed the whole time at how easy a real produce race water station ice every kind of fun thing you could possibly want to eat every you know four miles like you have no idea what we did versus that plus the energy of the crowd energy and just the excitement so yeah i mean that was that was but what i you know even though it was a super scary time when we almost lost our home and the fire is going off i just kept repeating what can i control control the controllables.

I'M hearing over and over like just to choose a date like lock something in yeah and trust that your identity is going to change from that thing and just show up no matter how much it hurts and know you'll be different on the other side it's a.

Hundred percent that let me give you the two parts because i actually break this down now for clients it's the commitment to the date and it's also a public commitment to somebody else because a lot of people make goals to themselves and they don't share them when renee comes in the room and says how long is this going on for i have to tell her yep if i didn't say tomorrow at two and i just said not much longer those are two different things yeah tomorrow at two is a commitment how much longer is maybe when i called dave up and i said i'm racing sunday i didn't just say i'm racing sunday dave i'm racing sunday so now i made a commitment to him if i decide to bail or chicken out he's gonna know what people don't realize is we'll do more for other people we'll ever do for ourselves for sure i wake up every day not for me so when people go like where do you get all the energy oh it ain't for me i know why i'm here i mean just look at people that have dogs your dog gets sick you go to the veterinarian it gives you a prescription you have a hundred percent completion of that medication for the dog yep one hundred of the people one hundred of the time same person goes gets the flu goes to the doctor that gives them a medication average person sixty five as soon as they start feeling good they stop taking the medication wow it's so it's actually fascinating to just watch how much more people do for an animal let alone other people so anybody that's struggling with a goal or trying to get out of funk you gotta you gotta flip the inward focus to the external you know one of my favorite stories this is artist oliver anthony i don't know if you know he is richmond north of richmond oh yes yeah what i love about his story if you watch it he was on joe rogan joe asked man what what changed because this guy that was a drunk living in a trailer twenty year old car barely keeping a job and he goes two things joe he said first off i started to read the bible said i gave my life to god but the second thing is i stopped making about myself and i started making other people his music stopped being about hey do you like my song and more what can i share that might help you that frame is the difference maker for a lot of people it's like when people get nervous going on stage i understand where the nerves come from i think nerves are actually a beautiful thing because it shows that you care but what i do to helps me shift it before backstage i literally meditate and i pray and i say god please use me to serve the people that's it please use me to serve the people it's not about me i did all the work i've shown up i lived the life they're my stories they work for me i can only teach what other people what i did that worked so now i just need you to use me to and all of a sudden the nerves just go away because i'm i'm like they're now going oh i'm here to pour into people that are a few steps behind me that want to get some results and that ever since i started doing it as a speaker it's like it's made speaking fun because i don't freak out you know six weeks prior or geez man i just did tony robbins oh and if.

You'Re gonna freak out that would give you a moment to do it oh.

And i would be lying if i but every time i'd start to freak out i go dan just show up and pour into people stop it just.

Pour into people when you would start to freak out what were the thoughts was it like am i gonna not say the right thing am i gonna pass out am i gonna throw up am i what were the fears no.

I i worked through luckily all of those ones the passing of the throwing up i used to get blotchy right it was so bad i used to get so nervous that i would get like nerve that will still happen to.

Me sometimes so i'm waiting to hear.

This so then you get this so when i started speaking i almost stopped speaking about six months in because this would happen one hundred of the time yeah it's not fun no and i remember one time i'm speaking and i'm like trying to find my flow and i think i'm like twenty minutes in and this woman in the front row puts her hand up and i thought oh she has a question i said yes you have a question she goes i don't have a question but i just you're you're getting really i think you might be having an allergic reaction action she says this in front of the whole room what do you think happened to my face lori i can't even i i said no it's it's a it's a thing it's a birthmark i know about it thanks for telling me and she's like oh sorry and i'm just like i cannot believe i was like you're getting on i know i'm literally you're getting on stage right now you you you just earned the right to take over from me right now you want to talk you want to do that to me you get on stage let's see your palm sweat and i almost gave up and i just kept pushing through because here's what i was thinking i was like how can i talk to you and i'm good but then when i go on stage why do i feel this way so i just i just kept working on the mindset and kind of the psychology around it and and for tony i mean the fear was very simple it's such a dynamic stage like if you've ever been to his event have you been to an event definitely okay well you don't realize how much is going on the soundtrack the music you know like literally in the middle of a talk talk he'll he'll do a energy reset yeah well as a speaker i remember i went up there and i was okay i'm going to do these different things and and i've got i'm going to talk to the there's the online people and i'm gonna just oh god yeah there's a lot yeah i'm gonna but luckily it's so cool how the way the world works i had been doing so much training online covid that that that part was like supernatural for me i understood how to ask a question leaving the comments get everybody in the audience to kind of do their thing so and i prepped i had to i was the only speaker with a digital whiteboard because i know when i draw i draw them in right and i prepped it i even got the night before i showed up and i did them again preparation is ninety of it for sure just like prepare like that one fascinates when i work with people that don't even like like you knew this was happening today did you just i'm just gonna freestyle it it's like you're not that good right yeah you should really practice it was so fun funny because i'm doing my talk and i'm starting with my first story and teaching and all of a sudden the audio video guy goes like he just hits the button and i'm like yeah i started dancing i'm like how long is this going to go on for and then i remember you know the whole like hey oh that's right yeah luckily my brain like cuz i'd been to like four or five events yeah i started doing that and i could tell that the guy changed yeah and i was like and yeah yeah so i mean that i was more nervous about like just either going too long and screwing up their schedule going too short and screwing up their skill because i mean this is the thing he tony runs a very tight ship and like there's like speakers donald miller spoke before me i mean it was it was crazy and i remember so i was super nervous and every time i got nervous i was in the green room i'd just be like pour into people pour into people it's not about you dan stop this like i would just like just sit there and a lot of breath work i do a lot of breath work what's cool is anybody can go watch this i i think we might be the only people to have recorded and videoed the whole thing so say i'm a videographer was there yeah and i said we're going for permission not forget or not going for forgiveness not permission if they tell us to stop or not we'll do it somehow he snuck his way on stage really oh it was awesome i'm i'm on the top of the stairs and scott's on the stage and he' like you know our next speaker and they created a sizzle reel for me that i'd never seen and i'm sitting in the background i'm like looking at i'm like oh i look that makes me look way too cool like now i'm even more nervous and scott's like everybody give it a turretel and i run in and sam's on the stairs and he just kind of like bumps into the stage and then kind of walks to the back of the corner yeah and i'm on stage i'm talking to everybody and i see him there and he's just like like the best cheerleader in the world and that helped a hundred percent because i was like well two parts i was like my comfort blanket and we're getting the footage yeah but that was a risk oh it's such a risk like they told us when we signed the speaker agreement like it's very clear do not anything you're not allowed to post about this like and i get it because like anybody's been doing that tony's level he has to protect his brand right and after it all went down they were so happy they said absolutely we're okay with it but you if if people want and i have like a vlog of it you'll see me come off stage and i was just trying to be cordial and nice and gracious and also i just was like i was literally just trying not to mess it up yeah i did my thing i hit my time i did it yes just get out of there you know what i mean like there's only one place to go from here totally and we're like walking through and it's just this big freaking place tony built and the staff and like wow thank you and i'm like oh it's good good we get in the uber i was like all doors closed all doors closed the doors are closed and anne's there and sam's there and the driver's like doesn't know what's going on and and then all yes the doors are closed and i freak out oh i freak out yeah did that just happen what the let's go eat sushi like i was like earned yeah it was so funny i was so hyped up the driver got excited for me and he didn't even know what was happening he's like yeah you did it what did you do and i'm like man i can't even explain it he's like yeah you did and he he said the weirdest thing he goes now you go hunt in the woods that's like what go get the tigers kill something he literally was like let's go i'm like dying i want to use that just for the rest of my life now literally all my.

Girlfriends when they do something i'm going to be like go hunt in the.

Woods go hunt in the woods right now because he was just like your energy is that ferocious yes that is.

The best story and honestly that is the measure i can literally you made me nervous just even thinking about getting that opportunity and what happens after you.

Just fire yeah well that was huge.

I did experience some of those feelings for sure yeah but i mean that's a big audience yeah that one that one made me level up that would make me do things to prepare that.

I like i've never done the like the network marketing stages those are huge.

Those are so fun though but i.

Want to do those because everybody wants to be there right like totally just they're just like big i don't know i i unlike friends we know people yeah that's on my goals list okay great one hundred let's do that yeah because i i just yeah i'm like.

How are you not there already somebody.

Needs to reach out and i'll say.

Yes great this is wonderful yeah got.

It but yeah it's kind of you know you just reminded me of this and telling the story is like sometimes the more nervous it's almost like the further you go down the more nervous you are the higher you can go like i would have never felt like that if i didn't go through that yeah so there's kind of a beautiful thing about life is that i think you know in many ways people have gone through the most had the most to give so when we're in feels so hard and dark and a challenge but i was reading a book yesterday and one of the scents and i don't even think they meant to put it in there but i think it's a bar they said in life there's either lessons or blessings.

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I was like that's so true and sometimes there's a blessing in the lesson and and it was just a sentence and i was just like lessons are blessings like that's to me again all the stuff i went through was the reason i am who i am today i really like who i am today yeah i would not change a single day period full stop it forged me.

Into who i am i developed a belief early on that was the bigger like the thing that's happening the catastrophe or the thing or the problem or the challenge that comes the bigger my life purposes so like the big things come i'm like this is because my purpose is so big i have to get through this to teach how to get through it wow and that has helped me like it helps me look forward to challenges don't get me wrong you don't want it fun but now i'm like like oh this is here so i can become the person who can then like teach this so now challenges are like oh skills skill set new skill set new skill set i.

Get an opportunity to do the work.

Because i used to just i used to like run from them like cower be like why is this happening and that that is not a belief that's.

Gonna you know no i love that so you're saying the bigger the challenge i'm presented with means my life purpose is bigger because i wouldn't be facing this if that wasn't right because what i want to do is going to require me to learn this lesson to prepare me for that look at your.

Look at how you started out like you have such a big life call on you because you can reach so many more people because that story is so understood among so many people and it wipes out excuses for everybody else and if you didn't have that you couldn't wipe out excuses no and you're like the no excuse guy i guess.

So you know it's funny when i after i did the the iron man a lot of people close friends and family members said hey dan why don't you just chill out you know what i mean like why do you have to do this race you know maybe this is my favorite one maybe this is a sign maybe god's trying to tell you something and i said yeah he's trying to tell me to go to do it and it's funny because a lot of people there's this i wish i could tell who said this but he said sometimes we're given those challenges to get ready to receive the things we've been asking for like i just believe that every time i face an adversary you know tony teaches this i got it from him he said you know to your point he he when he has a big issues and he's dude his business was all in person seminars and covet happens yeah okay and he literally has programmed his mind to go ooh worthy adversary worthy i've got a worthy opponent this is nice finally i'm like whoa that's some next level yeah i don't know if i like run into it but i can't wait to say finally yeah finally somebody worth fighting you know but but it's kind of a cool concept to think about like what if everything you're going through right now what if every setback every challenge every emotion all of it is getting you ready to receive the thing you've been asking for and i just i hold that belief i know it's a truth for me you know even with money when people say i want to be a millionaire i said no you don't because you're not a millionaire yet jim rohn used to talk about this he said you better hope nobody go gives you a million dollars because if they did you'd lose it right said go earn a million dollars so you become a millionaire and those are two different things isn't that cool i love that idea yeah he said you should go learn how to make a million dollars and if you don't want the money give it to charity right but go become the person who could do it can do it right and i'm like oh so this everything the challenges just get me ready to receive the thing i've been asking for.

Wow so let's go dan your book is like top in the world right now it's number four right now and it's just it's gonna go you know number one number four number one i.

Just want new york times i didn't get it the first round it got released a year and a few months.

Ago why do you think your book is the top in the world why do you think it's staying there well.

I mean for sure the people that are supporting it like you know we just talked about rory vaden you know yeah just there's so many people that i think there's something about when they read it they just were like oh this is a practitioner like i'm i'm a builder i'm an operator i'm not a marketer i'm not an internet guru or any of that i build companies i buy companies i love i love problems i love systems and and what's funny is people go like where did you learn how to do this as a software developer all i did for fifteen years was talk to customers about what they needed and then built it into an architecture so i didn't know at the time when i was writing code and designing database systems and front end interfaces that that was getting me ready to teach the principles that applied to my life in business but that's why the book's full of like these models like the buyback loop and i think that's what's unique about it is that every chapter i kind of know where i want people to end up i want them to build a business they don't grow to hate i was very good goal that was i was just like i have too many friends that are so frigging powerful and creative and artistic and beautiful that give up not because they couldn't the market was there the customer demand was there it's because they built the business in the wrong way and what i discovered through massive pain my third company took a lot out of me was what ended up in that book and what i learned allowed me to build the empire built so far like it's it's bananas the the the opportunities and the income and all that crazy stuff but i think that's what people gravitate towards they're like i'm willing to do the work but i'm clearly missing something and it all starts with the way we value.

Our time yeah your book was suggested to me so many times like because i always i people know that i love to read and they're like have you read this one have you read this one yet and i was like okay i'm gonna read it so so good the stuff in there like you actually have to just like listen to a chapter and pause and be like like okay i need to integrate this because there's so much info to optimize your life that even if you just take one thing from your book your life is going to change so yeah.

It was it was a labor of love most people know this because i've never shared it but when i wrote the book i wrote down thirty people's names yeah it was thirty people my wife was thinking about my wife was on there my brother was on there my best friends were on like i wrote down their names and then clients and then friends and then people on the internet that i've never met but i knew i could help yeah literally i put put thirty names and as i was writing the book oh my.

Name was on there this girl needs.

Help but it was just this question of just like did i address that person because like in thinking about what argument they would give me back that's why the five time assassins is in there because like that's all about vices and bad habits and if i don't address that i can teach you how to get your time back but then you're just going to self sabotage and implode on yourself so so each one of the chapters addressed a concern and i used a lot of the stories i heard from people and i just that's that's why the book is what it is it was just like a labor of love when i when i sit down i had a writing partner paul and every time i sat down with him we'd pray that was a really cool thing we did he'd do it because i'm not good at it so he'd pray and then i would just like look at the list and when he was asking me questions and stuff i just made sure that we were it's almost like the idea with that objection and that objection and this person's weird belief around that what a.

Great way to start it was just.

Like i i like right now i'm working on my next book i have the list of people because i don't i can't write again i can't do it if i don't know who i'm doing it for right because i ain't.

For me grabbing content that you've learned in the past that yeah i think.

This might work no and it's just not it's just i i need to have a clear here if it only ever served those thirty people this is the cr and this is why i knew i had something i didn't know it would become what it's become when it came out you know we get the five copies from the publisher you know that's all i had five i mean guys you guys are stingy like can you not send me a box or something anyway so gave me five and my wife grabs one of them and for fourteen days she sat in the chair in our bedroom every night and she read my book like i don't expect people to read my book i just never did i mean i'd love for you to read it but i know i don't read everybody's books like people send me their books all the time and i'm like i don't need to read it right now and it was so funny because she would be sitting there and i'm laying in bed and then she would go hey dan i know what my buyback rate is now so now i gotta hire somebody and then i go next chapter she's like cool and it was every night she'd be like yeah i got it okay i gotta get an assistant what do i get her to do chapter three so she's like every night she'd be like i'm in what's the next thing because that unlocked it and i think that when i'm like the most proud of it we work so hard on the sequencing of the book like what chapters go in what order yeah that i think we did a really good job on the pacing the length of it it's it's long but not too long yeah and it gives you like a very clear roadmap yeah.

It'S a book people should read yearly.

I use it all the time yeah.

Like a reference book yeah everybody i.

Hire has to read it just because.

Keep it on your desk it's a.

Reference book yeah the replacement ladder is probably chapter five it's like one of the most important even rory yesterday at his event he goes hey tell everybody about that replacement ladder because it's just like a clear am i doing these.

Things yeah you guys go grab the book it's incredible we'll do a book giveaway so you guys what we're gonna do is if you tag dan dan.

What'S your dan martell twelve and martell on instagram are we doing instagram yep we're gonna do instagram dan yeah martell.

Two ls your instagram is amazing by the way thank you so good it's all sam yes way to go sam so what we're gonna do is if you share your biggest takeaway from this podcast on instagram tag dan tag myself i'm gonna send you a book the first ten people to do that we're gonna send you a copy of dan's book so thank you so much for being on the show today it's an honor i'm not gonna i'm not gonna lie this was one of my favorites you guys definitely go check out the book it's going to change your life and we've got some bonus content with yes we do we're going to teach the one three one rule what is that just give us a little cliffhanger.

It'Ll change your whole business experience by starting to get other people to actually lead and come to you with solutions.

Not problems i need this you need this go down to the show notes to get the bonus content right away and you guys thank you again until next time earn your happy bye everyone.