Stop Playing Life on Hard Mode - 7 Cheat Codes to Achieve Anything You Want

I'm going to share with you seven cheat codes that took me from a broke addict straight out of rehab in my teens to becoming a multimillionaire in my 20s and today running a portfolio of companies that generates over a hundred million dollars a year. They're the same cheat codes that I use to build my dream life, where I speak on stages like Tony Robbins, fly around on my own jet, and mentor thousands of entrepreneurs around the world. And from all those experiences, I can tell you success is hard, but it shouldn't be. That's why you need these cheat codes to make success easier. So let's get into it, starting with cheat code number one, Talk about people behind their back. Now hear me out. I believe if somebody's name comes up when they're not around, you should give them praise. You should give them a compliment. You should talk positively about them. Because here's the thing, if you say that and the person you're talking to then later talks to that person and says, hey, I was with Dan the other day, and he said that you're one of the few people in the world that truly understands Facebook ads. That goes a massive long way. Here's how I learned this. I would spend time with people, and some people would talk shit about other people, and other folks would praise other people when they weren't around. And I just thought to myself, the ones that are talking crap, I worry, are they going to talk about me when I'm not around that way? But the people that are always positive, I'm like, man, I wonder what they say about me when I'm not around. So now I just decided I will always praise folks when they're not around. I just think it's a great way to live. I really want to give you a tactical approach to doing this, because the truth is, most people give compliments. But here's how you give a great compliment. The first thing is you have to be genuine, right? Obvious, I know, but just don't lie. I always ask myself, what is on my heart that I actually want to say about that person? And that's what comes out. The other one is make it specific. Say something detailed. Saying, great person, not detailed. You want to try to find something that's obscure, again, genuine, that comes to your mind that you could say specifically about them. Number three, compliment the effort, not the outcome. When I'm trying to give somebody a compliment, I'm always saying, like, the other day, this guy on my team, Ali, I found out from somebody else that he's showing up and putting in extra work. I made that compliment to somebody else, knowing hopefully it's going to get back to them and then. And the best part, if they're a team member, when you compliment the effort, you're essentially shining a light on the bright spot of what you want to see them do more of. Here's why it's such a powerful cheat code. The person that you're talking to, talking positively about the other person, they'll also believe that you do that about them, which is going to open up so many doors. People do business with folks they know like and trust. This creates a massive like in their mind. Cheat code number two, the zone of genius. Your zone of genius is the work that feels like play, but drives real results in many ways. I used to tell people, you should start a business doing a thing that you do when you procrastinate. You literally do this thing when you don't want to do the work, imagine if you got paid for it. Today, my life looks wildly different than the way it used to be. I used to wake up and just work and grind and honestly would hate certain days. Today I realize that when I give myself permission to focus on my zone of genius and find other people that play at the things I work at, then the group of us can do more in this world than I ever could trying to do things that I hated to do. Great way to think about it is this. Broke people get good at tasks. Rich people get good at avoiding them. Why? Because it sucks their fricking energy. When you're in your zone of genius, an hour, two hours of work feel like a third of the time. It goes by so fast when you're outside of your zone of genius, that one hour can feel like three or four hours. So here's four principles to make sure you only operate in your zone of genius. Number one is don't lean your ladder against the wrong wall. For example, you might find your zone of genius being creating videos. So you might think, okay, well, the natural thing is I got to start an agency and start editing videos for other people, and then I can be in business. But you might find out you hate agency work. Instead, ask yourself, what would it look like? Maybe it's finding one creator and you join their team and then you work with that creator to create their platform and that is actually what you want to be doing. The second is it looks like work, but feels like play. I love when people get around me and they see me work because they'll see me with my team and they'll see me doing long hours, but they don't realize internally, it feels like play. Number three, Build a life that you never have to retire from. The idea of retirement is the dumbest idea that's ever been sold. I'm a fan of saying, how do I make this week feel a little bit more like retirement? How about next month? How about next year? I'm taking nine months off to travel with my family all over the world. That sure sounds like retirement to most people, but guess what? It's just life. When you create things in a way that doesn't feel like you have to scape them, then you're not rushing to a vacation. Number four is that it's okay to say no to the dull thing to make room for the exciting. Oftentimes, a yes to something today is saying no to something more exciting in the future because you just don't have time for it. I'm a big fan of curating my calendar. I always ask myself this question. If somebody's asked me to do something in two weeks or a month or six months, I go, if I had to do it tonight, would I be excited to do it? Or is it a Met? I got to be able to create space by saying no to to the future dull things so I have room to be able to say yes to the exciting opportunities. This is such a cheat code because it makes hard work feel like play, so your energy compounds over time. That is a cheat code. Cheat code number three, Strategic silence. This one is counterintuitive. Silence is a power move. Pausing before you speak shows control. See, it makes people listen closer and it cuts out empty words. The ums, the likely, the probably. There's all this stuff that people say because they don't take a second to think. They just assume they gotta fill everything in. The truth is, they don't. That is a cheat code. For example, one of my sales guys rarely talks, but. But when he does, everyone listens. And his ability to articulate with crystal clarity a concept that helps the other salespeople make a lot of money is one of the most important reasons why we love having him on the team. But this is the thing. When he asks the team a question, he stops because he wants to get them to integrate the outcome that he's teaching, not just talk over them. Another way to think about it is is a well timed silence is louder than a poorly timed opinion. Here's how I like to use strategic silence. First, take a second before you speak if you're in a meeting, especially if You've got an emotional reaction to what was just said, do yourself a favor and just take a second to breathe. Hmm. I like to go curious. That's what I think in my head. Be curious, Dan. Be curious, Dan. Be curious, Dan from that place. Then I can speak. Second is count the seconds in your head. If you want to practice, try five seconds. You know, especially if you're in a communication role, sales role, business development role, once you present somebody an option, count to seven, I dare you. You give them the price. And usually at five seconds, when the other person leans in, if you move on too quick, you don't give them a second to give you the real reason they're thinking. The third is eliminate filler words. Those words, like literally ums, they're all fillers because you haven't given yourself time to think. Just stop. The cool part. Practice makes perfect. My favorite exercise comes from my friend Vin. What he recommends you do is record yourself talking for five minutes and then that way you can go back and look at all the times you said the likes, the, the ums, the paws, the literallys, all these filler words that don't add anything to the conversation. It'll change the way you talk. In a world addicted to noise, silence is a signal of confidence. This is why it's such a freaking cheat code, is that it builds perceived power without saying a word. Cheat code number four, the preloaded year. Most people react to their year by default. I want you to do it by design. Before doing this, my life was non stop conflict. I had somebody pissed off because I missed a birthday. I was mad at myself because I put on weight. My life was reactive, I wasn't proactive. So this is how we do the preloaded year. First off, you can click the link below in the description to download my template and the whole structure. So you have a one page document on filling it out so it makes it crystal clear. I always do my preloaded year at the end of the year for the following year. So the first thing is I'm planning the most important stuff. So at the end of my year, what I've done is I've written down all the things that I want to consider. So my buddies might invite me on a ski trip. I write that down. Somebody else might say, hey, next year we should do this. I write that down. Think of it like rocks in a jar. I've got my big rocks. I'm talking birthdays, reoccurring, trips with my family. All that stuff are the big rocks. These are the Things that are most important, the pebbles, the business stuff, the trips, those are important too. We're going to get them in there. But sand is like stuff that will just fill in between. That's like the day to day stuff that you can say yes to in real time. Doesn't take any extra space. Number two is I like to visualize and color code my template. That one page I can block in all these different things and I can use different colors based on what they are. Being able to step back, visualize it and ask myself the energy of how it would flow into is a game changer. The third is to have one place for all of it. I like to use the one page to design it. Then I have a Google Doc where I save all my ideas this year or next year for consideration to add it to my one page. The reason why it's such a cheat code is because it reduces stress. It avoids the rework, forgetting to do something, paying last minute for flights or doing something you know you need to do that you didn't plan for. And it protects your priorities. And that is the most important cheat code number five, the 95. 5 rule. Most results, if you truly analyze them. Look at your life and see what have been needle moving activities. It actually comes down to about 5% out of 100% that truly move the needle. The 95. 5 rule is the 8020 Pareto principle on steroids. The Pareto principle is essentially this guy Pareto that analyze wealth distribution and he realized that like 20% of the population had access to 80% of the wealth. But if you look at most things from a distribution point of view, it follows the same 80, 20 rule I've noticed. Within that there's actually the 95. 5 rule which means that if you focus on the right decisions or activities, you can get 95% of the results with only 5% of the effort. If you focus on the right 5% and completely ignore the rest, it's a game changer. It reminds me of this time years ago I, I hired a marketing leader and we're doing probably 3 million in revenue in the business and they jump on and they hit the ground running auditing funnels and refining all the marketing. Six months later we fired them. The reason why is they never moved the needle because they didn't stop to actually analyze and focus on the things that actually were working. Oftentimes if you just look at all the effort on a team for your own work, you'll find those key elements that are actually having the biggest Impact when you say no to everything else and double down on those, that's where the gold happens. This is why it's such a massive cheat code is you stop optimizing for problems that just don't matter. How often do you actually try to put out what I call a kitchen fire? How often do you actually try to put out a dumpster fire? When you get good at deciphering what is the 95 versus the 5, you will become lethal in your ability to produce results. Cheat code number six, the 5am Club. This one is my favorite. Now I'm going to give you permission to aim towards 5am I'm up earlier. Why? Very simple. I believe the earlier you wake up from when other people naturally wake up gives you the more time to actually do some of the most important work for the day. Because you're awake while everybody else is sleeping, which means there's no distractions. It builds momentum. So 5am, when everybody else is getting up at 6:45 or 7, gives you a couple hours to yourself. That time is where I use it to create connected to my creator, where I look for opportunities to feed my mind, to educate myself, to design and dream. Where most people are still horizontal, I've built momentum. Getting up early to start my day. Fifteen years ago, I'm talking to my dad and he's asking me those questions the dad's asked that make you feel like you're still not actually doing much with your life. Which is crazy because even at that time was a multi millionaire. But you know what? He wasn't wrong. I had convinced myself that I had made it and I was sleeping in, wasn't focused. The next day I made a commitment to just wake up earlier. I just started with 15 minutes earlier than what I was used to at the time, maybe 7:15. So they went to 7, then 6:45, then 6:30. Now it's 4:00am Sometimes I wake up at 3:23 and I'm awake. Guess what? I just get up and I start my day. Other times I will let myself sleep in. But it is rare that I can even make it past 5am anymore because it's who I've become and I look forward to it. It's my favorite part of my day. This is why this strategy is such a cheat code is because you get hours of deep work while the world sleeps, while everybody else is still trying to find themselves. In the morning you probably got more done and in that morning then they'll do their whole day. Cheat code number seven, Energy stacking. Time isn't the real limit your energy is. Sometimes you're doing something and it can feel like a lot of time and other things can feel like. It goes really quick. When you align your work with your natural energy levels throughout the day and then do batch tasks, you stop forcing motivation and start building it. The other day I was chatting with somebody on Instagram and they were like telling me how they were burnt out. Well, tell me about your day. And they're like, you know, well, this morning I had a sales call at 7:00am, blah blah, blah. And I'm like, why did you take the call at 7am? They're like, I don't know the person. That was the only time they could talk. Did you ask them if they could talk at a different time? No. Interesting. The way I like to think about it is this. If you don't set boundaries, somebody else will and they won't be for your benefit. So stop managing your time and start managing your energy. Here's how you do it. The first is schedule for energy. The way you do your mornings is completely different than your afternoons and probably your nights. So figure out what types of activities you want to do in each spot. And every person's different. So for example, not only do I like to do all my meetings in the afternoon, I like to do all my one on ones on a scooter. When I have meetings with people, when it's just them and I, I want to be on the waterfront, I want to be talking. It also puts my mind at ease so that it's more fun for me and from an energy point of view, it's actually better. The second is you have to batch your work. When I look at shooting content or doing deal reviews at Martell Ventures or sitting down and doing financial meetings, I batch that together because I want to have the focus, the context be ramped up, similar energy. So I use the batch work to manage the energy throughout the day. I do that so that I don't lose a lot of energy switching between things. So for example, if I asked you to just say out loud, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 all the way to 26 and then go ABCDEFG all the way to Z, you could probably get it done in about 27 seconds. But if I asked you to go 1A, 2B, 3C, most people, if they got it done because they get confused, will take about a minute and a half. Think about the amount of energy you save by not switching context and doing batch work instead. Number three, net time, which stands for no effort extra time. I already mentioned the scooter meetings, but I also do all outbound messages while I'm in the hot tub. Why looks like work feels like play When I'm in a hot tub doing text messaging, it does not feel like work. I like to do workouts with other friends. I like to do founders hikes where I invite anybody in the world including yourself if you want to fly to Colona every Tuesday. Although I'm going to be traveling for the next nine months, I won't be here is a great opportunity for me to say yes to people to get a workout in, have a conversation. It's just a great way to use the energy that's appropriate for that time and and not take away from something else that I need to get done. Why this is such a massive cheat code is you stop operating from a place of needing to be motivated and start operating from alignment. Your energy is just more efficient. So those are the cheat codes to achieve anything. That being said, if you have big dreams, the effort and discipline need to match. You gotta take big actions. You can't have big dreams and and take little action. You can't have big ideas and think small. You have to match the effort. So now that you've heard all these awesome cheat codes, I need you to just pick one and commit to it. 30 days. Just pick one. Leave a comment below, let me know what it is and commit to it for the next 30 days. That will integrate it into your identity, who you are and will stack the habit of success. If preloaded year is the one you want to do, then just click the link below in the description to grab your template so it makes it really easy to get it done. Now if you want to learn the 40 brutal truths I wish I knew in my 20s, click the video and I'll see you on the other side.