EP201: I've Lost Everything—Now What? The Harsh Truth No One Talks About...

Welcome to the Making of a dm. I've lost everything. Now what? This show today is going to change someone's life. Is that person you? We're about to find out. So with that said, let's get started.

What I know and how I did 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 with another Making of the DM podcast show. That's right, you are deal maker, dream maker of your life. As I'm sitting here talking to you from the Gold coast in Australia on the 36th floor overlooking the ocean. Absolutely amazing. If you follow me on social media, you've seen some of the videos and pictures I've shot of where we're at here. It's, it is a very, very pretty, it's kind of a mixture of like Miami slash Hawaii ish vibe to it. A lot of very pretty buildings, a lot of cool things happening here and definitely a good vibe here in this city. Anyways, I just want to say thank you guys to everyone is following us on the journey. I think today's day 30 ish of something somewhere around there that we've been on the road. We've done Honolulu, we've done Tokyo, we've done Kyoto, we've done Melbourne and now we're in Gold coast and we have about another 30 days or so to go. And as I've talked about, we don't really schedule this or like we don't have tickets until like three or four days before we travel. And that worked out really well because Gold coast is where we were going to go initially from Tokyo but they had a cyclone which in America is a hurricane, pretty rough one. So we decided to bounce down to Melbourne which worked out really well because it was perfect weather. It's about a two hour flight, give or take. So we hung out down to Melbourne and now we bounce here. It's beautiful. And then we head to Sydney after this which will be over there by the Opera House and just making memories and doing stuff. But I've been thinking about you guys a lot as I'm sitting here. Very blessed that you know, I don't need to send emails, I don't need to be on conference calls, I don't need to make sales calls, I don't need to close deals, to pay my bills today. And that hasn't how it's always been. So I want to talk about that because like the subject line in today's show is I've lost everything now what? I've lost everything now what? And we'll talk about that because it's something that I've almost lost everything. And we'll specify what that means here shortly. Two times in my career, so. And not to say there's not crazy moments as is today. Right. There's a lot going on, a lot of moving parts to my world and your world. And, you know, I just want to share openly and let you know you are not alone. And I don't care where you're at in the journey, you are not alone. Before I get started though, again, thank you guys so much for following. Thank you so much for sharing the show. I didn't realize I've hit 200 shows here at the making of the DM. I think this is show 201 or 202. Truth is, I don't even know what day it is. I'm like 16 hours ahead, 15, 16 hours ahead of East Coast. So I'm messaging people at 6am or call my parents at 6am which is like 2 at 2pm the day before. So it's pretty wild and it's very interesting for sure. But sharing the show, leaving five star reviews means a lot to me. I read them. It gets me excited. When I'm having a bad day, I read them. We all have bad days, so it's good to be positive and share good stuff. So let's jump into the show. I've lost everything. Now what? So as I've been on this journey for almost 29 years as an entrepreneur, June 2, 1996 is when I started my adult true entrepreneur journey. I was willing to do work 80 hours a week, make way less because I wanted a bigger life and I was willing to sacrifice and do what I had to do to learn that. And it's not for everybody, but it's for somebody. And that somebody might be you listening to me? There are going to be some very dark days on the journey. There will be a lot of doubt on the journey. And what's interesting about this game, as you get deeper into the game, it actually gets more. It messes with your mind even more because now once you start getting a little bit of success, everyone thinks everything you touch turns to gold. And that's actually not the case. The truth is, oftentimes when you get bigger, if You're a great business owner, not a great investor. A lot of the shit you touch actually gets worse because you're so unfocused. You're kind of just handing it off and trusting other people around you. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just that's what tends to happen. And I've seen this many, many times. Guys, keep in mind, I work with 33amazing business owner entrepreneur guys in the dealmaker family. And I also have 162 people in the Dealmaker alliance that I get to get behind the scenes insights of what's working and what's not, where the struggles are, where the opportunities are, and everything in between. So. But as I'm sitting here, you know, I do thought auditing every day. It's interesting to me, a lot of people, and this is why I chose the words, I've lost everything. Now what? Well, we understand that our thoughts drive our actions and our actions create our outcomes, right? Our thoughts start everything. You know, minds. Me as a kid, like, I can't afford that. They stop thinking about how to afford it because they said I can't afford it. They never asked how or what can I create to afford that? That's a way different question to ask your brain. But where did your thoughts come from? Seriously, where did your thoughts come from? I've lost everything. You've lost everything? What does everything mean? Everything to me by the way, is you're dead. Everything you've dreamt about, everything you cared about, everything you left on the table is dead. That's everything. That is everything to me. But we're really good at beating ourselves up and really, really using words that actually hold us back from progressing. I've lost everything, Mark. Okay, well, do you have your health? Can you see? Can you talk? Can you walk? Yeah. You've lost money. Yeah, you lost some relationships, but did you lose everything? Because everything. There's nothing else to get. It's scary, it's overwhelming, it's frustrating. Everything, Mark. I'm starting from zero. Huh? Zero how? What do you mean? No one's starting from zero. It might feel like that sometimes, but you're not starting from zero ever. Words matter. Thoughts matter. How you think about these thoughts massively matter. I was doing a post yesterday about my daily thought audits, and again, I want you to think about this. Have you ever thought about where your thoughts come from? A lot of you are talking like grandma, grandpa, mentors, parents, tire kickers, shit talkers, negative nellies, a lot of you. But I want you to ask yourself some of these questions. And again, this is something to think about if you're driving or walking or working out or whatever you're doing right now. But when people come to me and they say, mark, you don't understand, it's hard. Okay, what does hard mean to you? Hard. What does the word hard mean to you? Because hard is very relative. I know some people that they stub their toe and it's a hard life. And then I know some people have one arm and one finger and they have an easy life. Huh? Wonder why. And not only that, have you ever asked yourself a question like maybe hard is good? If you ask my son right now, mark, if you want an easy life, what do you got to do? Dad. Hard stuff. Mark, if you want a hard life, what do you got to do? Easy stuff. Maybe hard is the opportunity for where you're going. And not only that, whoever said it was easy? Who? You watch all this social media stuff and it's easy because you see a fucking picture. A nana's second picture. Let me ask you a real question. When's the last time you put a shitty picture or a shitty video of you lying, cheating, stealing, looking fat, looking stupid, saying something stupid, having a burger, hang out of your nose, having your underwear practically hanging down to your ankle? Like seriously, when's the last time you've done that? I. E? Probably never. So do you think anybody else is? No. So when you see this, the guys on the jet, or a gals on the jet, or they're hanging out on this amazing 30 something day vacation, that is me. I'm not on vacation. It's my life. There's anxiety, there's struggles, there's frustrations, there's opportunities, there's obstacles, there's amazing moments all in an Anna second. I don't have everything figured out, but I do understand a little bit about time, freedom. I've used my money to buy me time with my family. That's the season I'm in. When my kids get 18, 19, 20, 22, I'm going to be in a different season. That doesn't mean I won't spend experiences with them. It would just look different. It won't be every day. It might be once a month, once a quarter, I don't know. I hope a lot, but who knows? What does rich mean to you, Mark? I just want to be rich. I've never met someone in my world that doesn't say they don't want to be rich. But what the Hell, does it mean a lot of people I talk to are rich? It's just I might have a different definition of what rich means. What does rich mean to you in dollars? What does rich mean to you in life? What does rich mean? See, the thing is, you might want to be a $10 million person, I might want to be a billion dollar person. We might know people want to be hundred million dollar persons, et cetera. There's no right or wrong, just a different definition of what it means to one. Maybe you don't want the headaches that comes with X, but you're cool with this cool. But guess what? The person that wants to make 10 million, the person that wants to make 50 million, the person wants to make 100 million, can all fit in the billion dollar guy or gals person like world, the rich world, everyone can win. It's always funny to me. Everyone's like dude, I want to be big. Or they say the other thing, Mark, I'm the biggest in my market. Okay, I've never heard that before. You're the biggest. Maybe you and I drastically have a difference in biggest for sure. Because if you're the biggest, X, Y and Z, I don't care if it's H Vac, lawyer, title, company, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, I'm going to call your top 10 competitors and ask them if they know who you are. I'm going to ask vendors in that industry if they know who you are. The majority will always say no, I have no clue who that individual is and I don't care who you are. So your ego is not your amigo, as my boy Bobby would say. So what does big mean though? Because I know a lot of big shots that can't pay their bills. I know a lot of big shots that literally laying in bed right now stressing and scared. Scared that they're going to get exposed. One bad situation, they're wiped out financially, but they're the biggest liar. See these stupid thoughts? These thoughts, where did they come from? Where did they come from? Johnny, you're the biggest, you're the best, you're the greatest. Johnny can't pay his bills. He is not focused and he never does anything big. But he still believes he's doing big stuff because grandma, grandpa, mommy, Daddy, Uncle Billy, etc. Etc. Etc. Told him he's a big time. Stay focused. What do your thoughts mean to you, Mark? I just want to be happy. Huh? What does happy mean to you? Because I know people that are miserably happy for Real, they're not happy unless they're miserable. I swear on my life. You know, people like this shit. You might be that person. It's always got to be hard. It's always got to be a problem. It's always got to be you against the world to make you happy. Makes you heard, makes you seen. Oh, there's Jill. Look at that guy. Yeah, he's got it so hard over there, man. He's a good guy though. That makes you happy. As I'm traveling, I'm very conscious of my emotions, my thoughts even deeper, right? I literally could wake up whenever I want, go to bed whenever I want, hang out with whoever I want and do all this crazy stuff. And I'm doing some of that, but I'm paying attention. Anxiety is real. What makes me happy is having a big goal with my team. It's not more money, it's more vision, more direction, more drive, more growth. That's what drives me. Guess what? Money follows that, by the way. But I'm not waking up saying, man, I can't wait to make more money today. I can't wait to drive with the team. I can't wait to have a conversation of how metrics are looking. KPIs, are we hitting them targets? Are we growing? Are we shrinking? Where do you need my help? See, they don't work for me. I work for them. I'm not self made. I'm teammate. I want them to succeed. I need them to succeed. Actually, that makes me happy. Makes me happy to do this show to you. You, the listener, makes me happy when you share this show. It makes me happy when you give a five star review and you leave a cool comment. Because I'm not always happy, just like you're not always happy. I have bad days, bad weeks, bad moments, just like you. What do you do when you get out of it? You get out of it. That's the secret. How long do you stay in the unhappiness zone and how quickly can you get out? And what I do, like I said, is I literally go read the five star reviews, I go look at the comments and the people that we've helped over the years. I talked to my team. I just wanted. I wanna be connected with great people every day, every second of my life, it fuels me. Cause we all together as a collective can accomplish so much more. What's a challenge to you? What's a challenge to you? Cause I know some of you sending an email's a challenge. Some of you are cash flow challenged, some of you are like, no one wants to work. Challenged. Some of you don't have enough clients. Challenged. Some of you getting out of bed is a challenge. It's not about what I think it is. What does it mean to you? And what is your perspective on challenge? Because again, I look at challenges as opportunities. I think most people listening to my voice have too many small challenges and not enough big ones. Because if you have big ones, you would forget about these Mickey Mouse fucking challenges and. And get to work on the real stuff. The stuff that changes lives, not the stuff that gets you by life. Change your life. Change other people's life. I need big challenges to do that. Huge obstacles. Huge, huge challenges. Most of you are too afraid of a challenge. You're dealing with the same challenge over and over and over. Don't act like you're not. I've done it for years back in the day. I get won't serve you. It never will. Let go of it and move on. It's just a challenge. See, your brain doesn't know if it's big or small. It's just a challenge. Therefore, you address it. Challenge. Address it. Truth is, unfortunately, some of you don't even address it. You avoid it. Now the challenge becomes a problem. A real problem. Have you ever asked yourself, what's your unique ability? Do you know? And this isn't bragging, this is the truth. I have a unique ability where I can connect two people, make a lot of money. Not working. I do it every day. I've been doing it for many years. I didn't even know is a unique ability. I'm very conscious of when I'm talking to people, if there's an opportunity to connect, I hear what their problem is, I dissect it with them, and I help them find the who to do the how. And by the who. It's probably someone else in my network and I ping them and say, yo, you should connect with this person. That person should connect with this person. And then I get paid, by the way. I'm not doing it to get paid. That's just how it works. Just like if you walk into a grocery store and you need a bottle of water and there's water in the grocery store, and you grab that bottle of water and you pay for it. Everyone makes money on it and you get a. You get problem solved. You get a drink of water. That sounds silly, but that's a massive unique ability. It's a unique ability. Actually, it messes with you sometimes because some of this money I get sometimes is Massive amounts of money. Like I'm talking more money than I wanted to make in an entire year. Comes in in a day just by a referral. A referral? Sending a text to two people, that takes me seven seconds. Could equate to lots and lots and lots of money. But what is your unique ability? Maybe it's systems, operations, procedures, marketing, advertising, sales, vision. What is it? Writing. We all have unique abilities. And the thing is, what's interesting about unique abilities, it's really hard for us to understand what it is. Why? Because it's easy to us. And by the way, a unique ability typically is not something you can teach. Because it sounds so. You're like, dude, it's so easy. What are you talking about? I send a fucking text and I make a lot of money. What don't you understand about that? They look at you like you're crazy. What do you mean I can send a text and make money? Yes. Well, how do you do that? Simple, you send a text. But to who? To people that could solve their problem. But how do I find them? In rooms and masterminds. Who solved your problems over the years? Who's made your life easier? These become resources, connections, opportunities. Again, same thing with sales. I've never taken a great sales individual and made him a great sales manager. Because a great sales individual doesn't know how to manage people. It's a different mindset. Trust me. I am terrible at managing people. I can sell, but I don't. My mind doesn't think about managing people like that. And I've seen that happened many, many times over. What does opera mean? Opera meaning opportunity mean to you. See, a lot of you are so unfocused, very unfocused, because you're chasing opportunity. But what does it mean to you? Not all opportunities are created equal. You have to set a dollar value. It's either a cash flow value, I need cash today, opportunity value, or enterprise long term value. And then set a timeline on this stuff. 1 year, 2 year, 3 year, 4 year, 5 year, 10 year. What is it? What is the play? What is the opportunity value? I see a lot of you chasing so many small opportunities. And you're frustrated because you're wondering why you're not getting big results. Well, you can't get big results in small opportunities, just not how it works. What does fun mean to you? What does fun. Because at the end of the day we're doing all this crazy stuff. We gotta have fun with this game of life. But I think a lot of you are just so Overwhelmed with things. Truth is, you're overwhelmed with these thoughts. That's why it's very important to understand where your thoughts are coming from. And I recommend all of you take a piece of paper and write down your thoughts and ask yourself, where did this thought come from? And is it serving me or hurting me? If it's hurting you, we got to adjust it. We got to change the way we see things or think about things. We got to change our thoughts. But fun's very important. Fun to me doesn't mean you're not working, by the way. I have fun doing what I get to do. I don't have to do it. I get to do it. I remember when I was in the trenches and I used to. I'm very allergic to insulation. And I was putting insulation in a ceiling in about 140 degree temperature in a metal ceiling in a church. This is young in my career. I had to make some money. And I'm up there. My truth is, I might have been making seven bucks an hour. I don't remember. It was not a lot. It was definitely under 10. And I was 18, 19 years old. I just need to make some cash to pay my team. But I remember I was like, dude, I turned. I turned it into a game. I made it fun. While everyone's out playing, I'm working. That's fun to me because I'm going to be able to live a life that they can't live because they're not willing to do what I'm willing to do. That's fun to me. It's all perspective. How do you frame it? Where did the thoughts come from? What does your ideal day look like? A lot of you don't even have a picture of, like, what, you know, a lot of you guys like, dude, I'm a visionary. Cool. What's your vision of your life? You don't know how you a visionary? You don't have a vision of your perfect day, let alone your perfect life, let alone your business. What is your vision of your perfect day? Share that with yourself. Keep that in front of you. It won't be exact today, but you can start getting on the right path. You can start making decisions based off of your perfect day. What does your perfect day look like? The reason I'm sharing this is because every single person is capable of so much more. This includes me. And I'm conscious of this shit. I still get stuck in some of this stuff sometimes. And I go back to the, I've lost everything. It's so hard today. What if it was easy? What if hard was the play, the next step for the new easy? What if that hard became my norm? Right. It's like going to the gym. It's hard to bench press £300 a day. But if you do it for the next 12 months and you're bench pressing 350, doing 300 now is easy. It's normal. I'll share a couple more things here. As I was sitting there taking my notes yesterday, I really. It really breaks down to two things. Most people lack vision and vehicle. Gain vision of what you want your life to look like. And then let's work backwards. Let's work backwards. Example, if you want the $10 million life per year life, you can't be dealing with small every single day like you're doing. It's not going to come to fruition. You're going to wake up frustrated, overwhelmed. Constantly wonder why you're not getting, you can't get closer to 10 million dollar your life if everything you're doing is a $10 activity. You have to choose your vehicle wisely. There's lots and lots and lots and lots of ways to make money. Lots of of ways to make money. I'm sitting here, I was at the pool before I jumped on this podcast show, and I'm hanging out with the kids in the hot tub. And I see these guys 50 stories up going down these windows outside, cleaning the glass on these buildings. There's glass and window washers everywhere. There's money in anything, anything. But it starts with the vision of what do you want? What do you. Not me. Not. What does your mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, wife, husband, sister, brother, uncle, whoever. What do you want? So when you check out of this world, you know that you gave it your all. You know that you showed up, you dug deep, you had obstacles, but you overcame them. What do you want? What do you want? And I want to finish with this because I think this is very important. Do you know how much shit you've been through to get to this point? Listening to my voice right now, seriously, like whatever your age is, do you understand how many things you've overcome to make it to this point right now? And you've made it. You've made it. So I want you to take a second and take a step back and acknowledge what you've done to date with the obstacles you've had in front of you many times over. And you're still here. You're still ready to run through a wall. You're still ready to show up, even Though you got punched in the face, throat punched multiple times, you're still showing up and you're ready. Give yourself some grace. You've won battles that most have never even thought about in life. So I just want to say stop being so hard on yourself. And I want you to think about this because, you know, a lot of people are like in their 20s, 30s, 40, 50s, whatever age. We put a lot of pressure on us on an age date. Five years. If I don't make 10 million, 100 million, 50 million, whatever the number is, you stress out. I want you to ask yourself, who set that timeline? What timeline are you playing against? Who are you competing or comparing to? The truth is you're stronger than you give yourself credit for. That's why I do this podcast. Show your courage to keep pushing on. It's an amazing thing for me. And you may be the lone wolf right now, but really understand that this is just a moment in time. And the truth is, you're going to look back years from now and realize that this is part of the process. This is why we do not quit. When I meet people that I'm talking, like, massive real challenges in their life, they're always like, yeah, that was, you know, 2000 or 2003 somewhere around there. But when they were in the moment, they knew exactly what moment and day and time and minute and second it was that storm will pass. Allow yourself. Allow yourself some grace in this process. No one has it all figured out. No one. Not one person. I don't care how cool the pictures look. I don't care how cool their life looks. No one has it all figured out. And maybe today they might, and tomorrow it might not be. That's called life. But I want you to give yourself some grace in the process. Fall in love with the journey. This isn't a destination game. This is a checkpoint game. Checkpoint game. Because you're going to realize when you get to your destination that you created in your head that, that that's all it is. There's more to life than this. I was just talking to a guy today via social media. He's like, mark, I've kind of lost my drive. I'm like, what do you mean? Cause I hear this all the time, by the way. I make 3 million a year. Passive. I don't have to work. Comes in residually every single month. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm just. It's like, whatever to me. I'm overweight. I don't care about that. I just, I don't have Drive. I said, you need a bigger vision, my man. I get it. See, he thought making 3 million a year was the destination. Now it's become his biggest obstacle that he's facing right now. Could literally take him out. He's overeating, he's overthinking, and he's not executing. And he knows better, but he's stuck. Thank God he reached out. Thank God he's messaging. Thank God he's aware that this is a real thing. Because $3 million. Listening to my voice, you're like, yeah, man, if I just had 3 million a year, my life would be, yeah, it might be different, but would it be different good or different bad? It depends where you're at, depends where you want to go. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to go get that kind of money, if not way more. But the question is, what are you going to do with it? What are you going to do when you get there to that checkpoint? That's not the destination. That's a part of the journey. Yes, it's a good goal, but it ain't the last goal. So as you're trekking towards that number, paint a bigger vision, paint a bigger picture. Get excited about more about life. Who can I help? Who can I impact? What charities can I give to? What schools, churches, hospitals, whatever you're into, make it about others, not just about you. And when you start doing that, this journey starts getting very, very fun. So I want you to say and understand this. You're right where you need to be in this moment. We've all messed up in the past. We're all going to do great things in the future. The question is, are you going to give yourself permission to move on? Are you going to give yourself permission to change your thoughts? Find and change the thoughts that serve you. Get them on board in your brain and start serving yourself to help others. This is not for everybody. It's for somebody. And you're here at this moment listening to this. It's either resonating with you or it's not. I'm cool either way. This is a message to myself, to my children listening in the future because we're all deal with this multiple times throughout our life. You got this. Do not fucking quit. You hunker down. I don't care how hard it is or how easy you think it might be. The storm is coming. The storm is near. It's clearing. You have to stay focused, get in the game. Stay in the game of life and enjoy the process. Smile more, have more Fun, Connect with better people. And this is what we do at the Dealmaker alliance, the Dealmaker family. We connect with great humans. We push each other. Positive peer pressure. We solve problems quicker. We create solutions for people that want to solve their problems. Some of you just like to talk about them. We're there to solve them. Get in the right rooms, connect with the right people and trust the process. You got this thinking about you guys. Appreciate you and I'll be talking to you from Sydney next time. So with that said, make your 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 downtown 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 breath and see no one making more than that Graduated high school with a 1.8 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 ch 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 guess where we at Is it gonna get us where we wanna go? It's time to push time to learn time to grow I'm over Kevin's deal 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 Tell me 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.

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