EP 171: How we raised over $750,000 in an hour and The BIGGEST Question from Nashville that will transform YOUR Life ....

Welcome to the making of a DM. We gave away $750,000 and the biggest question of the day is who do you have to become to get what you want?

We're going to deep dive into what just happened in Nashville, Tennessee. 2024, baby.

So with that said, let's get started.

I'm more Kevin Steel. I'm more Kevin Steel. I'm here and teach him what I know and how I did it to discover freedom.

There ain't no question mark.

Kevin's when he stepping the doubt, he's closing deals.

Time to tell him what the DM stand for.

I'm a deal maker. A deal maker. But I'm not just a deal maker. I'm a dream maker.

Hey there, it's your boy, Mark Evans, DM dream maker. Deal maker.

That's right. You are the dream maker and deal maker of your life. And today we have a show. I'm sitting here at the office in Mentor, Ohio, by myself, as I pretty much always am. But the event is done. The last Dealmaker experience has concluded. And today I want to share a lot about that with you and a lot of my listeners here on the Dealmaker podcast show. I just want to say thank you so much for being in Nashville, Tennessee. It was an absolutely epic, over the top, down to the details event that we've ever done. This is my last event, as I said, paid event. The DM family and the DM alliance, we will continue to do fulfillment events is what we call those, where we meet two or three times a year in a specified location. We talk shop, we forge relationships and we help each other grow profitably with time, energy, health, money, all of it, but most importantly, the giving muscle. We'll talk about that today. I'm sitting here, what are we, four days off of the event. And I literally feel like I've drank out of fire hose for the last, you know, for six days. You see, I got into Nashville, Tennessee on a Sunday, Saturday. On Sunday. We had Sunday afternoon, I met up with the DM family guys. These are the guys that all invest $50,000 a year, the family guys and their wives and kids. We hung out Monday, we sit in the room from 9am to 2pm and we just talked about what's working, what's not, what the wife's fears are, because that room's specifically male only. And we brought the wife's in to kind of get contrast to understand what we're really building here. Guys, again, right? We're all building these things and we say we're doing it for the family. But oftentimes the family feels left out, not aware of what's going on. But what was really neat about the DM family guys, a lot of cool communication going on. Bring, you know, fold them into the conversation, have conversations and just be open and transparent. Really, really powerful. And then the guys all got up, we went to the cigar bar for three hours, downtown Nashville, which was awesome. Smoked some sticks, had some conversations, talking about buying businesses, selling businesses, hiring people, letting go of people, shifting in the economical times we're in, what we're doing, how we're making the moves and all that. And then we go over to Garth Brooks's place for four hours and just hang out, have dinner with the families, the kids, and just connect. You know, a lot of times people go to events thinking it's all the opportunities, just sitting in the room listening. Well, that's partially it. That's actually probably the smallest part of it. The biggest part is making the connections and the conversations at the bar, at the restaurant, at the cigar joint, connecting with the spouses and realizing that you're not alone in this ever world of game of entrepreneurship. There's so many moving parts. There's so many pieces. There's so many seasons. You might be in a winning season right now, and someone that you really like might be just going through the struggle season. It's not the end of the world. It's okay. It's kind of part of the world, right? Like, you know, in the world we have summer, spring, fall, and winter. Right? Maybe they're in winter, maybe you're in spring. It's blossoming, it's beautiful. And they're like, hunkered down. Depending what niche they're in, depending on how they've built their business or how they haven't built their business. You know, there's a lot of variables to this stuff, and that's what's cool about a cool support system, is a lot of you guys get together and connect. So it's so valuable. And I'm not here to sell you the DM family or DM alliance, even though I think everyone should be in a group. I'm in multiple. I run multiple. And there's a reason, because they work. Picking up your life and leaving somewhere for three or four days in your business is a very powerful stress test. It allows you to. To see where you're weak. It allows you to get out your daily routines so you can get a knowledge up. You know, I'm always amazed that people, you know the tickets were $1,000 to come to Nashville. I've shared this before. Openly cost me $1,700 to have you there. That's my cost. 1,700 bucks. You pay a thousand. And so I lose money at these events. I'm not complaining. I'm just sharing. And I don't have anything to sell at these events. I just want to connect with great people. I like to win with winners and create relationship capital. And most importantly, the biggest thing that we're doing there is giving money to an amazing cause and charity. During the birthday party, you know, at the second night, we have a very cool party. This year's theme was Cowboys and Cash Flow, which was really neat. In Nashville, if you've never been to the Gaylord, it's a beautiful facility. It worked out really perfect for what we were doing. Everything was self contained. We did the events, the rooms and the parties and the dinners, and everything's pretty much in that room. Excuse me, in that hotel. So it's really neat to see all these amazing people get together. You know what's cool about people that invest in themselves? They show up invested. And, you know, I know some people like, well, man, you know what? Why not for free? It's like, dude, I don't want to hang out with fucking freebie seekers. Do you? Why? Like, first of all, think about that. Why would you want to be in a room full of free people if.

You'Re trying to make money?

Do you hang out with people that don't want to spend money on themselves?

The best asset, the best investment they could ever invest in themselves?

Why would you want to hang out These dipshits, Straight up, these are questions you need to be thinking about. I would literally ask you to do this. Start investing more money in bigger events and put yourself in the position to succeed.

I.

Quicker, easier, better. Now, listen, not every event is created equal, but when you pay, you pay attention. When you pay, you get in the right rooms. You get around good people. You get around people that are investing in themselves. You catch them on a cycle in their journey where they're like, dude, I don't know everything. So it's a really cool way to justify investing in yourself and getting in the right room. Because that's where opportunity exists, right? You go to the freebie event, you're like convincing someone to do business with you. When you go in these environments, you're looking for who's the best partner, there's no convincing. The opportunities are abundant. Everyone's there to learn, to grow to expand. During the two days I was on stage, I brought my son up, which was really cool. He got to speak for five minutes and share, you know, some conversations that him and I have. And, you know, I had these, you know, financial conversations with my kids pretty much every day. What does piano mean? What does ROI mean? What's your best investment? What's like, we talk about these things and, you know, I've been talking to them since they were three years old about this stuff. They don't even know what I'm saying. But they're also around these conversations, right? So they have law of exposure in their, in their hands, but they might not even know. And as, you know, as parents, kids don't really want to listen to their parents or that's why I hang out with a community of guys that literally are smart as me or smarter about certain topics. And my kids can learn from them and they'll hear it differently. So we all have to understand, like, with our children, with people around us in life, it's not what's taught, it's what's caught. Right? They're catching this information real time. Watching me talk to my friends, watching my conversations with different people, my friends talking around my kids, it's caught, not taught. You don't have to believe me. Just look around. Look how you were raised. You caught a lot of stuff, Caught a lot of bad habits, you caught a lot of negative energy, caught a lot of. But you also, you might have caught a lot of positive stuff. You might have caught a lot of funny things. Like, I, I, I got a great personality for my dad. I just always watch my dad, like, work the room, talk to people, laugh, be silly. You know, got the emotional side. I caught that side from my mother. I'm very emotional. So we have to realize, like, your kids are watching, your friends are watching. A lot of times, especially depending where you're at in the journey, in the beginning, a lot of you, you got to understand, like, they might think you're crazy. They don't realize how big your dreams is. Which brings me to a thing like we, we do a survey right after the event, and we ask people a lot of questions sent out and they get to share. But a lot of people is saying, man, like, listen, connecting with the DM family guys and talking high level made me realize how big we can go. Because the circle I'm hanging out, I am the biggest, and I need to change that. Think about that. Think about that. Another guy said, dude, I thought I was being audacious. In giving and leading. I thought I had big dreams until I was around big doers. See, dreaming and doing are two drastically different things. Not only that, if you're sharing your.

Big dreams with small minded people, how.

Do you think that works out? In our world? We call it borrowing belief. You know, there was a study done, I was listening to a podcast recently and there was a study done where there's like 5,000 people in a room. You know, Simon says, and they say.

Simon says, stand up, blah, blah, blah.

Anyways, so they go through this whole.

Thing and within five minutes they had a winner.

Right? Because people don't listen, they don't follow directions, whatever. But what was also interesting about that, besides Simon says, is the guy literally said, keep in mind there's 5,000 people in this room. And he said, hey, out of you 5,000, how many of you actually thought you would win? Like 500 people raised our hand. 500. So you're sitting there thinking, in your life, in your business, in the game, that you're against 5,000 people, you realize only 90% of them aren't in the game to win it.

That's called life too.

And I actually would probably say it's way higher than that.

Majority of the world is not in.

The game of life to win it. They're in the game of life to survive in it. Winning and surviving are drastically different game plans. So I want to think about, I want you to think about next time you're sitting here wondering, man, I don't know, my competition, my competition? Dude, there is no competition. You've made this competition thing way bigger than you think it is. You're giving people way too much credit. But the thing is, the true competitor is right in front of you, in front of that mirror. It's you. And I always think about this because when I was in the audience, when I was on stage, the first thing I asked people, and there's like 300 people in this room, who in here has money to invest today? At least 100,000. Lots of hands went up. Who in here at least 250,000. Still a lot of hands are up. Who in here at least has a half a million dollars? Okay, probably about 40 hands still up. Who in here at least has at.

Least $1 million today, liquid cash, to.

Invest in deals and opportunities. There's at least 20 hands in the up in the air. I'm telling you all, and I told you this prior, I know for a fact, because I know some of the guys in that room and gals pretty Much. I know everybody. There was over a hundred million dollars.

Of liquid cash sitting in accounts for.

Accessibility to do a real estate deal or a business transaction in that room. Ready, willing, and able.

And yet you're sitting here listening to my fucking voice say, man, I'll come next year. I should have came. I should have came.

That's your fucking problem. You shoulda, woulda, coulda.

When do you get so sick and tired of that bullshit conversation in your head? Look at your fucking bank account, for God's sakes. Look at your life. And if you're happy with it, cool. But as I sit on stage, I was thinking about, there's people I talk to. There's people Gino talked to, my guy that should have been in the room. That room would have changed their life forever. And their kids and their spouses and their families and their charity, everything they cared about. But yet $1,000 separated them from winning versus losing. I get fired up about this because I know lives can be changed in the right room. But you have to have the balls to step up to get in the right room. And if $1,000 is a step up to you, it is what it is. But a thousand dollars is fucking nothing on the grand scheme of things. Your fucking phone. You're probably listening to me on costs. More than that, you've wasted more money. Why are you not putting yourself in the opportunity zone to win? Why do you continuously let your friends, your spouse, your colleagues, people around you talk you out of it? Well, dude, if it's such a good deal, why don't they do it for free? If he has so much money, why does he charge you if the dude get out of the way? Do you understand what I'm saying?

Sean Whalen come up on stage and he said something, and this was the theme of the whole thing. So it was pretty cool because we start off the event with this amazing blind individual. She's blind. Very powerful story. We won't go into details, but she's there and she sings the national anthem. That's how we open the event. I don't know about you, but I love America, even though we're in a clusterfuck right now. But we. I will stand up and I will fight until the death. I'm in the game of life for myself and my family and everyone I care about, and I hope you are, too. But also, entrepreneurship is what built America and what will save America. And we all are in that room to build a better life, not just for us, but for everything we stand for. But as Sean standing on stage and I'm watching all these amazing people, I'm thinking, I used to be in that audience 28 years ago. Truth is, I'm still in these audiences today. 28 years in the game of business. I still go to the right events. The truth is, straight up, I would never go to a thousand dollar event. I spend five, ten grand minimum. Actually, it's usually like ten grand minimum to go to an event. Why wouldn't I?

But wherever you're at in the journey, invest at least a thousand dollars. The room is qualified, they're qualifying the room for you.

And if you have no clue what I'm talking about, you should definitely unfollow me.

I am not your guy at all.

Now, can you get in good rooms where people are free?

Yeah, if the main guy or gal is qualifying him at a very deep level.

But when you're going to these mass events like this, there's a dollar value qualifier in there. These things cost money if you've ever hosted an event. That event was 300 and almost $400,000 for me to host. And 100% of the net proceeds go to charity, which is what I'm most proud about. We raised over $750,000 for charity in two hours. Over 750. I want you to chew on that for a minute.

Over $750,000 for charity.

See, the thing is, I want to give back hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, ideally. Right. It doesn't necessarily have to be with me. It could be through me.

We talked a lot about the conduit of opportunity. I'm a conduit.

I don't need to know all these pieces. I don't need to know. I just need to know the who to help accomplish the how. But Sean's theme.

Who do I need to become.

To have what I want, to get what I want?

Who do I need to become? Do you think you become an athlete.

If you sit on the couch six hours a day watching tv, eating bon bons and drinking beer? No.

Do you think you become a fucking.

Business master by not going to business events? By working by yourself, by thinking solopreneur is the only way, by bitching and complaining and hanging out with dipshits? Do you think you become this business individual you want to become? No.

What do you need to do? Who do you need to become to accomplish what you want to do? I'm amazed at the delusional thoughts most people have.

Truth is, entrepreneurs are the worst at this.

They lie to Themselves like crazy. Dude, I got it made. I'm making tons of money. You ain't even got 10 grand in the bank. What are you talking about? You haven't made. You make a lot of money. When do you get down to reality.

And realize you don't know dick? I don't.

The truth is, the more I learn, the more I realize I know nothing. But I seek strategic people to help me grow. The truth is, right after this podcast show, I paid a guy $10,000 for 90 minutes of his time to help me with the challenge I'm facing in business. He's highly qualified to give me the insights that I'm seeking. He's built a multi billion dollar business. Not fake, not flake, but factual. His job is to give me insights. My job is to listen, take notes. Most importantly, go to fucking work.

Got to do the work.

No one's going to save you.

No one's going to do it for you.

Not Mommy, not Daddy. No one gives two about you. And until you really understand this, and.

I'm talking really understand this, nothing's going to change. You're going to get punched in the face, kicked in the teeth, cut off at the knees. You're going to get lied, cheated, stolen from.

Everything's going to happen.

But you ain't gonna quit. You're gonna learn from it. You're gonna grow from it, and you're gonna adjust accordingly. Like, if I ask you, what's your biggest asset? What's your biggest, you understand time is the biggest commodity we all have that does not replenish these moments. We're talking right now or you're listening. Literally. You could never get back. Number one, I take that very serious. And number two, be conscious of where you're investing your time. Now, I'm not saying you have to be working 24 7, learning 24 7, but we kind of are always learning. Learning what we want, what we don't want, what we like, don't like, et cetera. Right? But who do you need to become to get what you want? See, I bet you deep down inside, most you've listened to my voice, want to be stupid, filthy rich. But you'll never say that because you'll get judged. See, the thing is, most people hear that statement, don't hear the full story. I want to get stupid, filthy rich because I watch my family, my mom, my dad, struggle so deeply. No money, hard work, barely pay the bills, if they could pay the bills, barely put food on the table, but always figure out a way to get Something on the table. Charities, maybe. You have a big purpose to tell people that can't help themselves for whatever reason, takes money. See, the thing in the room of entrepreneurs, true entrepreneurs aren't there just to get rich, to be stupid rich like Scrooge McGug, have a bunk full of money and not do anything with it. The people I roll with want to make a lot to give a lot away. And if you think having a lot of money is a problem, but, well, my friend, you have not given enough money away. I've never felt more alive, more connected with the world than giving. And this is why when I do these events, I don't congratulate you on how much money you made. We all make money. That's what we do. But I know most people suck ass at giving. They don't give. And if they give, well, I'm a big giver. Show me what you gave last year then, big giver. And it's like 200 bucks, 300 bucks even 3,000. But yet they're making millions.

See, the thing is, the truth is.

Giving is a muscle. And we must be expanding it. We must be putting pressure on it. It's real. And if you ain't in the gym working the giving muscle, I truly believe you're hurting your growth muscle for getting the money too. And everyone believes in tithing until they set, you know, the 10x blah blah blah, until they have to give. I call it the tap. You know when you see a GoFundMe page or your friend ask you for money to help them out, like for whatever reason, if they're cancer or this, that you hear a number pops up.

A thousand dollars, I'll give a TH000.

You don't say it out loud. This what pops up in your brain. And then you give a hundred bucks if that. See, the man upstairs doesn't give you this. These cues and go unnoticed. He's giving you cues to see what you do. Everything is on the other side of fear. We know that. So why do you constantly avoid it? Why are you constantly avoiding fear of giving, fear of growing fear of expanding, fear of winning? We know growth is on the other side of fear. From my experience, it's because you hang out with people. As you've heard me talk about this on many times. The king of the dipshits. You're probably the biggest dog and the biggest game in the biggest town, and you think you're crushing it. Maybe you are, but maybe you are. Some other things is like people were sharing, like I'M not alone in all my struggles. I've realized by you guys sharing and sitting in the room and meeting all these amazing people, we all have struggles and I'm not alone. It's unlocked something for me. And I can't wait to get home to work.

Huh?

Huh? This is interesting. Coming to this event was a breath of fresh air. Connecting in real life, not online with amazingly new people that want more out of life has created massive opportunities in the millions. I can't tell you how grateful I am. Huh? So you're saying you invest in yourself, you get in the right room, you show up, you connect with good people and opportunities happen. That's weird. What are you doing to put yourself in the right rooms with the right people? That's what the DM alliance is. That's what the DM family is. I can't speak of anybody else's. I'm too busy handling ours. But I can tell you right now, the DM family and the DM alliance are badass mofos. Diem alliance is a thousand a month. The DM family is 50,000amonth. But there's a lot of qualifications to get in that room. The DM alliance, you got to be a full time business owner. You got to be willing to grow and expand. You got to be willing to push yourself. We meet once a week, every Wednesday at noon, live. We have a, we have a private Facebook group. A lot of conversations are happening in there. We have badasses in there. We have high, big, high high end lawyers, high end HR department guy, people that build HR companies, marketing. I mean, anything you need or want is inside the DM alliance straight up. I utilize it all the time as well as a resource.

It's a thousand a month.

Forget the money. What is the opportunity to not be in that room? All these struggles you deal with by yourself. Why you think you're tough? You think you'll figure it out? Okay, cool. You clearly don't value your time. Like I know as a true entrepreneur, when you're going through that, the people you care most about are struggling way harder than you because you're not attentive. You're not, you're not present. Very rarely would you be present. You're too busy trying to sort things out in your mind. Your little kids are watching.

Daddy, Mommy, Daddy, Mommy.

You don't even know they're talking to you. You know I'm right. Why not have a sounding board? Why not be able to have a place where you can conversate, solve a three Month problem in three minutes. You know why? Most of you are addicted to struggle. Most of you are addicted to struggle. It's wild to me. It's almost like you wear it with a badge of honor. Recently, I got ripped off a decent amount of money, and I was thinking about this. One, could have been a lot more. And two, there's this weird thing called karma. It works both ways. But why are we addicted? And when people lose money back to this addicted to struggle, they'll literally let it ruin their life for the rest of their life. They'll use it as an anchor to keep them from growing. They'll put so much pressure. I should have known. Okay, we didn't. You know, man, that was a lot of money. Okay, compared to what?

Compared to.

Because where you're going is going to be nothing if you keep going. See on the way to the office today about the podcast show, I was thinking about this. There's not one person you would love to be. Michael Jordan. Baseball, whoever. Baseball, basketball, football, anybody that doesn't have more losses than wins, they just don't quit. They improve. Michael Jordan has coaches when he's playing. All these athletes have coaches, many different coaches. I have a financial coach. I have a health coach. I have a tax coach. I have a business coach. I have a tech coach. I have a team coach. Why wouldn't you? It's the ultimate cheat code. It's the hack. Now, again, not all are created equal. You got to get in the right room, find the right people, connect with the right people, kiss a couple frogs to get to the where you're trying to go. But I'm telling you, I sit here and I like, I got my eyes closed, and I'm just. I'm just. Look, if I'm sitting across from you, I'd have my eyes open, number one, if I sit across from you. But like, I'm just picturing us talking about the moment you invested in yourself and made the big move. A thousand bucks. Unknowing, scary. But you leaned into fate. You know, you're worth a thousand bucks a month. And by getting in the right room, you connect with the right people. You can solve your problems faster. There's no solution. You got to do the work. You got to know what work to do. See, a lot of you showed up to build the house with a pencil. You need a lot more tools. But you showed up. But that's a given. You got to show up. Now we got to get to work. I would tell you to lean into yourself. Trust yourself. Right now, when I'm doing that event, I'm watching the room. The energy has never been more electric in my entire life. I'm telling you, I got up at four, I went to bed at midnight, to one o'. Clock. Actually, that's a lie. First night I did, I got up before, went to bed at like 12:30, 1 o', clock, back at it again at the gym. You don't have to believe me. All these people at the gym, the gym's packed with fucking DM people. It's amazing. Very proud and honored of that. The second day up before at the gym, meeting everyone at 6. I didn't get to bed that night till 2:30 in the morning. See, I told you guys this. And you know if you were there, this isn't the room where the speakers run off to the back of the room and hide from you, don't talk to you. Actually, we did the roundtables where all the DM family, all the speakers, like we're in the room working and talking with you, right? The truth is, is me, Sean, Cody, tj, pretty much all the speakers, Tim, were hanging out back smoking cigars until 2:00 in the morning, talking to many people about life, business growth, development, etc. You know what's amazing about this business growth stuff? Your problem is not business. Your problem is you. Your childhood trauma, your PTSD of whatever. You have all these weird anchors that are holding you back from creating the life you want. And there's people willing to help you, but they can't help you if you don't help yourself. It's the old chicken before the egg, egg before the chicken. If this is something that even interests you, the DM alliance, or you came to the event and you want to share something with me, please do. So all you got to do is message me on Instagram, arkevansdm and say, DM Alliance Podcast. DM alliance podcast. I'm the only one that responds to those. I'm the only one that sees them. I will connect with you over the next two years. I'm going to give everything I got to the DM family and the Diem Alliance. There will be millions and millions and millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in business transacting in these environments. I just turned 46. There's a lot of opportunity, more than I've ever seen in my life right now. To the ones that are bold enough to do it. The question is, is that you, who do you need to become to get what you want? That's what I want to leave you with today. Shoot me a message if you're interested in the DM FAM or DM alliance. Arkevansdm on Instagram, just say DMAlliance podcast. We'll connect. Have an amazing day and for everyone that came out to Nashville, Tennessee, from the bottom of my heart, I want to tell you I love you, I appreciate you and I can't wait to absolutely fucking crush the game of life with you. So with that said, make the day count.

I'm here to help and teach him what I know and how I did it to discover freedom There ain't no.

Question mark Kevin's when he stepping the.

Doubt he's closing deals Time to tell.

Him what the DM stand for I'm.

A deal maker, a deal maker But I'm not just a deal maker I'm a dream maker. The journey's where it's at.

It's all about the process.

Time to get over to the DM project from a small town in Ohio so I know how it is. Can I come from a lot of money. I remember as a kid wanted to make a honey rack didn't see no one making more than that. Graduated high school with a 1.8 probably should have held me back.

I hope my principals and teachers are alive just to witness this.

I'm a own boss I'm out here running two way figure businesses I can.

Walk away from it all and I'll be good But I've been called to help people just like y' all learn the game.

It's time to ball everybody chasing the money But I'm not chasing the money I'm out here chasing the purpose Yo.

I've been working my whole life Got.

Us where we at Is it gonna get us where we wanna go? It's time to push time to learn Time to grow Kevin's DM I'm here to help and teach him what I what I know and how I did it to discover freedom There ain't no.

Question more Kevin's when he stepping to.

Doubt he's closing deals Time to tell.

Them what the DM stand for.

I'm a deal maker, a deal maker But I'm not just a deal maker I'm a dream maker. The journey's where it's at.

It's all about the process.

Time to get over to the DM project. Deal maker. Deal maker. Deal maker Maker. Deal maker. Deal maker.

Deal maker DL Project this is the podcastfactory.

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