MBA2228 Extended Interview: Dan Martell – How to Buy Back Your Time

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Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show where your business gets better every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is a special extended interview episode with Dan Martell. If you're listening to the show, you know that from time to time we like to change things up from the lesson format to a deep dive with an expert. And today's expert, Dan Martell happens to be one of the coaches and mentors I've had over the years. He's an entrepreneur, he's an angel Investor, he's exited three companies in a span of 10 years and is the founder of SaaS Academy, the world's best SaaS coaching program.

How do I know?

I'm an alumni of SaaS Academy, but today I'm going to you a conversation a deep dive I had with Dan on how to buy back your time. Buying back your time in your business, no matter where you are in your business journey, is actually the key to scaling and growing your business. This is something that Dan's been teaching for years, but now has formalized in his newly released book, Buy Back youk Time. It's all about getting unstuck, reclaiming your freedom and building your empire. So excited for today's episode because time is our greatest asset and Dan is here to show us how to get more of it back so that we can have a more fulfilled life. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Like I mentioned at the top of the episode, I worked with Dan for years. He's one of my favorite coaches and for good reason, because he's no fluff. He teaches really practical things that you can apply immediately to your business, to your life, to see results quickly. So I sat down with Dan because I wanted to know why he decided to write a book. Why? On this talk, Buy Back youk Time. And what are some ways that us as entrepreneurs can implement his methodology to grow our business, but also to improve our quality of life? Let's jump into that conversation with Dan Martell right now. But I'll be back to wrap up today's episode and give my takeaways. But for now, let's jump into that convo with Dan Martell and buy back our time.

Dan Martell. It's been too long, man. I'm so glad that we got a chance to catch up and have this conversation, man.

Omar, it's a. It's a pleasure, man. It's been too long, and I just really appreciate you. So I'm excited to.

To share everything I've got.

Go wherever you want to go and just make this one of the best conversations you've had so far. That's my intention.

Love it. And. And we've had so many good experiences together. I've learned a ton from you. I'll kind of, you know, throw in a couple things that I've learned from you along in the conversation, but we want to start a little bit way back. We're going to go into the origin story of Dan and a question I like to ask people and entrepreneurs, great minds that come on the show is I want to learn a little bit more about what was Dan like as a kid? Like, what was your favorite TV show, movie, books that you used to read? Like, what kind of kid were you?

Well, I had a lot of energy.

I actually got, you know, diagnosed with ADHD hyperactive disorder when I was 11. But, you know, I've been exhibiting those things before. Um, favorite show, Growing up, Astro Boy. It was a cartoon. I don't know if it was available. I grew up in Canada.

Favorite movie Growing up, Ninja Turtles.

I remember when that came out. It was great rap song.

Yeah, dude. I had. I bought the cassette on a Walkman, and I would. And this is before I even got.

To see the movie because my parents made me earn it.

And I memorized the whole cassette, all.

The songs, and I, you know, I could sing all them. Still to this day, I remember all the words.

And, you know, I was just somebody that like. Like, played around with in the woods.

And, you know, we grew up kind.

Of like in a neighborhood but like, far from, you know, the city. You know, our neighbors for the most.

Part were like farmers and stuff. So, like, I spent a lot of time building tree forts in the summer, building snow forts in the winter.

And then I got into like board.

Sports, skateboarding when I was probably 12, snowboarding.

So that was like, that's what my.

Childhood kind of smelled like, you know. And then there's this whole other crazy side of like, growing up in a chaotic family.

But yeah, that was, that was the.

Childhood side of things. So there's some of my favorite stuff.

I love it. I remember in the States, I grew up in New York and Pizza Hut was giving away that cassette tape with, with any, like, something like.

That's probably where I got it from.

Yeah.

So my mom is a dietitian, so she. Pizza Hut was like a. No, no. But my cousins got to go to Pizza Hut. So I got the tape from them and copied down one of those, you know, two deck tape.

That's how we did it back in the day.

It was great. It was great, man. Awesome. And I know that you're super active and you really prioritize your health and your wellness and your fitness and you do Ironmans. Um, you've been an inspiration to me to kind of like make it a priority to go to the gym, to have regular exercise in my day. Um, I just want to touch a little bit about that and. And what are the things you've learned about how having a healthy body has helped you become a better entrepreneur?

Yeah, I mean, I learned a long.

Time ago that, like, energy flows where attention goes.

And I gotta give a lot of.

Credit to, like, having children. My boys are 9 and 10, 11 months apart. You know, at the time my wife Renee got pregnant, she was running a company. I just started a new company, Clarity. And it was like, not the best timing, but I don't think there is a good time to have kids. And then like, we went through this, like, traumatic, like, build a new summer home, have the birth of our oldest son, and a lot of like, things had to slide. And my health was one of those.

And then when I had my first.

Son, literally three months later, my wife got pregnant with the second. Like, it's. It's kind of a crazy thing to have happen. And for me, what happened was, is like I started to feel lethargic. I was working so much and like, trying to be present. And then I don't know why, we decided to build a dream house. Like, just stupid timing. Like, two companies, two years, two babies. Two houses like you just not recommended.

And there's this like moment I had.

Where I was like, I never want to say no to my kids, to play with them.

Like, I never want to be in a place where I don't have the energy. I don't care how. You know, my day was like, I do days where I'll do like 13.

Podcast interviews or like shoot 16 videos.

Or like, you know, mentally draining, physically.

Challenging, you know, two workouts a day, 75 hard style. And like I just remembered, like, I want to always be the dad that has the energy to say yes and like it.

And I've been tested.

Like probably six months ago I came home and I was just spent, like done.

Like, didn't feel good, kind of had a cold, just like, just like Woke.

Up at 4am like, just went hard all day. And my, my boy, I was like, you know, how you doing? He goes, I want to bike downtown for dinner tonight, just you and me.

And like I live at the top.

Of a huge mountain and when we go downtown it means I have to pull them up with a tether.

Yeah.

And I just remember the moment back a decade ago when I made that commitment to myself to never say no. And I was like, I'm being tested in my brain. I ask myself this often. Like, these are the moments you're being.

Tested to find a new level. And I just said, absolutely, let's go. And the whole time I was just like, all right, you're being tested, like you gotta show up.

And it's just like for me, I just, I wanna have the energy to produce and create in the world. And it's a capacity muscle. Like, I think a lot of people don't realize like every aspect of their life. The ability to deal with uncertainty, the.

Ability to deal with risk, the be.

Able to deal with anxiety, stress, depression.

Like all of these are capacity muscles.

That you can actually do mental physical exercises to create.

I mean, I learned that when I started doing triathlon in Ironman. Like, you know, I was somebody who couldn't swim.

And you know, a year later I'm.

Doing a full distance Ironman, right? Like, could not swim now I just did 4km this past summer I did 7km straight across the lake.

Like just things that growing up didn't even know you could do as a human. So it's like I've just had all.

These proof points that capacity is something.

You can develop and you know, unfortunately.

Or fortunately, like I just have a desire to create and produce at its highest level. And I'm always trying to figure out what that level is, and I haven't found the ceiling. And for me, health is just part of that equation.

Like, there's just no way I can.

Show up for the people I've made commitments to at the level I've made those commitments to without having the energy to produce.

That's such a solid, you know, philosophy you have on, on health and wellness and just, you have such a strong reason why to do it. I think most people just don't have a strong enough reason why, you know, or it's.

Or it's inward, it's. It's egotistical, it's physical, it's appearance, it's identity, it's.

It's shallow. Right?

Like, you know, I also know that I've got a lot of, like, teenage boys. Like, I used to be, like, broken, challenged, facing adversity.

And they watch what I do.

And, you know, when I'm talking about.

Being motivated and getting up and doing.

The reps, even when you don't want to, or putting in the work or whatever.

And if I showed up on camera.

And I was 50 pounds overweight, like, you know, as a kid, I knew, I judged those people, like, how can you be an overweight life coach?

Like, it always, it always felt inauthentic or, like, wrong.

So it's like I have this, like, I don't know, just this, like, aspect of my identity that's about being congruent and honest. And, you know, those kids watching, that's like another big why for me, like, huge, huge purpose over. Over pain. Like, I have a higher purpose.

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And I want to just go in a little bit about, you know, that has to come from somewhere. And can you think back at when was, like, the first moment, maybe in your. Because you started companies and you're in your teens, where you thought, like, I can do good things. I could do great things. I can do this entrepreneurship thing. Like, when. When was that kind of moment where it's like, maybe I'm capable.

I. I know the moment, but I'll.

Preface it by saying I did not think I could do great things or even business, but I know exactly the moment. What happened for me, you know, there's. There's a deeper backstory, but I ended up, you know, addicted to drugs at 13. Group homes, foster homes, put in the system, ended up in jail, juvenile detention when I was 15. And. And then just continued this, like, really dark side and chaos. And, like, I just had a lot of trauma from, like, an alcoholic mother and just, like, a father that wasn't around, and, you know, just anger issues, hyperactive aspects, just deep rage. And what happened was that 17, just. I just. I took things to a level that I couldn't come back from, and I ended up in a stolen car, high and drunk, with a handgun in a backpack next to me. And I told myself when I stole the car that if the cops caught me, I was just gonna point the gun and let them take my life. And what happened was, is I ended up, you know, on this highway, pulled over to get some gas, and it was a routine roadblock, and initially lied to the police, told me it was my mom's car and didn't have my driver's license. I didn't have a driver's license. And when they asked me to pull over, I. I just gunned it and took off.

And, like, didn't know what I was going to do. And, you know, maybe if I can get close to the woods, I can.

Like, you know, run in and try.

To hide and get away or whatever.

And I ended up in this neighborhood, and there was a garage that was open. I was a bit further ahead from the police, and I thought, I'll just, like, hide in the garage and then, like, sneak out the backyard. And I ended up coming in really fast and smashed into the corner of the garage in the house, and airbags go off and everything just explodes. I wasn't even wearing a Seatbelt. And as soon as I kind of came to my senses, I just went for the gun and started yanking on it. And for whatever reason it got stuck. There was like a lace on the backpack in the, in the kind of the armrest and kept pulling on it and pulling on it. And before I knew it, the police opened the door and just like grabbed me and violently dragged me across. Like, I didn't even touch the ground. They just like threw me in the back of the cop car. They were obviously pretty upset, but what I just did. And the next morning I remember waking up sober in the jail cell, just like in shock, like, what's my life gonna look like? Like, am I gonna get five years for this? Like, I had some other things. I was on the run from the police initially anyways, and.

But there's another part of me that.

Just realized I was alive and I shouldn't have been. And I just started to think about like a higher power and somebody looking out for me. And I kind of made an agreement with that person, God, whatever you want.

To call it, that if you just.

Help me get through this, like, I just promise to be good. There was no grand plan. There was nothing. I just was like, okay, I'm not dead. There must be a reason. I'm going to honor that. I'm going to show up, I'm going to change my friends, I'm going to do the work now.

I ended up going to prison for.

Six months, adult prison, because of the severity of my crime.

And then I ended up in 11.

Months in a stay in therapeutic community rehab center.

And that's the place that literally made.

Me do the work, work on my self esteem. I had no self worth. I felt absolutely worthless.

I had, you know, bouts of depression.

And anger and you know, I work through like my feelings management and learning how to kind of tell my story and have a new connection to like, you know, my past and more accountability. And it was at the end of this 11 month, you know, transformation as a teenager. I was 16, 17 when I went in that I was helping Rick the maintenance guy clean out one of the cabins on property because it was an old church camp. And there's this cabin, he kind of like put a bunch of stuff in storage, gym equipment, all that stuff. And we were cleaning it out and in one of the rooms was this old 46 computer and a yellow book on Java programming sitting right next to it. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. Computer programming. And like opened it up and like read the book and it Was like.

It read like English. It was like, if this, then that.

And I always thought, like, computer programming was, like, super technical and hieroglyphics of ones and zeros. And for whatever reason, I just thought, huh, I wonder what would happen. And I, like, power up this old computer and I had the DOS window pop up and, like, the Java X. I just literally just started reading and doing whatever chapter one told me. And, like, in 20 minutes, you know, I had the computer say, hello, world. And I thought.

And not rightfully so, I literally thought.

To myself, maybe I'm a good programmer.

And, like, I'm so messed up in these other areas of my life because.

This is my skill.

This is my unique ability in the world.

I just didn't.

Didn't know it.

Like, maybe my brain's wired this way.

And it literally just became this, like, thing that I did that was unique, that I was good at that. I told myself I was good at that. I just kept doing and then get positing, reinforcement. And when I got out, like, writing code became my new addiction. There's no other way to say it. Like, I became obsessed.

Like, I would stay up till two or three in the morning, my dad would come into the apartment, like, into the living room apartment we lived in, and be like, hey, enough's enough. Go to bed. You got school in the morning. And, you know, he made this deal with me where he said, you know.

I'll buy any book at the bookstore.

On computers and programming, the Internet and.

Stuff, as long as you finish them. And then when you finish it, tell.

Me and I'll buy a new one.

So, like, that was such a crazy. Had just momentum building.

And then I discovered this little thing called the Internet. It's 1997, and turned out to be kind of a big deal and became the foundation for a few failed companies, but my first success, and then eventually some big successes and investments in my life that I live today. And it's just all started because of that little seed of belief that there.

Could be something more. That's why I say there was no big plan. It was just this string I kept.

Pulling on throughout the years and working on myself because entrepreneurship for me became this, like, personal development program.

I just didn't even know to call it that then. Yeah, because every time I hit a.

Roadblock in my business, I asked myself the question, like, what skill do I need to learn?

Or, like, what. What do I not see? Or why do other people have success and I don't. Like, what is the thing that they.

Understand that I haven't. And how do I go potentially learn this? Because, like, I had a desire to build, but there was no grand plan for probably a decade. I mean, I started pretty young.

Dan, thanks so much for sharing that story. I know that that was quite personal, and I. I resonated with it because I think we all have struggles in life. We all have challenges, you know, at some point. I also think, you know, my parents grew, are immigrants. They were from Egypt and they migrated to the States, and they had to learn a new language. They had to learn a life, make new friends, no family, nothing. So they really didn't have time to spend with their kids, you know, so, like, I didn't. We kind of parented ourselves as kids, and we had to kind of raise ourselves in a lot of ways. And of course they made mistakes and all that kind of stuff. But as an adult, you start to realize, you know, you know, they didn't have the tools that maybe I have today to kind of navigate life and. And ask right. The right questions and things like that. And what I love about your story is you had, like, a growth mindset, kind of like, you know, let me just say yes to this and see where it goes. Let me just figure this out. And I look back at my own life, my own career. You know, for those who follow the show, they know that I was a teacher for 13 years, and one of the things I was craving as a teacher is that personal growth and just getting better and just being better. And that's what I was attracted to with entrepreneurship, is that it forces you to become a better person. It forces you to improve and to grow and to. To say, I'm not good enough. You know, like, the things I want in life, the things I want in my business, you know, those things are reserved for people that can do certain things that I can't do yet. Right. So I got to figure this out. And those are. One of the things that you taught me, you know, through SAS Academy, through your coaching, is you're going to hit ceilings. You know, you're going to hit limits. And that kind of leads me to a few concepts that you talk about in your book.

Buyback your time.

Yeah. Buy back your time. And one of those principles is the. The buyback principle, Correct? Yep. Yeah.

And it talks a little bit about.

Like, how at some point you're going to hit a ceiling. Correct.

Yep.

Pain line.

I want you to talk a little bit about that pain line because I think a lot of entrepreneurs that are perfectionists that don't understand really the value of their time, that feel like, oh, I could do it better, or it's going to take me just as much time to do myself and all that kind of stuff. Walk me through what that principle is all about and how do people break that cycle?

Totally. I mean, my mission in life, as much as I like, love software and.

You know, SaaS, which stands for software as a service, if people, I've never.

Been told that is truly entrepreneurs. And I know you have that same passion, right? You help people teach what they learn.

And help entrepreneurs kind of help their customers and monetize their knowledge.

And for me, the reason why is because my life has been just so dramatically impacted by entrepreneurship. People have written books, seminars, coaches, business.

Leaders that inspired me, local business leaders in my community that inspired me.

And the truth is entrepreneurship entrepreneurs wake up every day to create a better.

World for every other person to live in.

That is the definition of entrepreneurship. You don't have a business if you don't solve a problem and create value. So just through the fact that you do that is beautiful. And what always, like, frustrated me and saddened me, honestly, was like seeing friends.

Hit the pain line. And the pain line is this place.

Where I've learned that entrepreneurs will not grow into pain.

It's a fundamental truth. It's like holding a knife to their throat and say, step forward. Like, they just won't do it.

Which means that their art, their gift.

Their magic doesn't get expressed fuller to the world, right?

Their inability to understand how to grow.

Past the pain line or avoid it.

At 100% doesn't allow them to create more. Not because the market's not there, not.

Because, you know the opportunity is not there. It's just they themselves haven't the discomfort, this skill set, they haven't figured it out. The discomfort and then like, how to.

Break through it or how to avoid it.

Like, the whole purpose of the buyback principle is to help people build a business that they don't grow to hate, right?

Because when you hit the pain line, what happens is you should do one.

Of three things, call them the three S's, right? You either decide to stall.

I don't want to grow anymore.

I'm good here. Problem with that is your customers will never stop demanding more from you. Your market doesn't stop growing. GDP growth happens whether you decide to grow business or not.

So deciding to stay the same is.

Actually slowly dying just through natural, like, economics.

And the one that hurts people the.

Most is like your team Members, the.

Best people, like, they will not accept a lack of opportunity of a future, right? Like, if you don't create a compelling.

Future for your highest performers, they will go find somebody else that will. And my philosophy is that we want.

To create dream big enough that their.

Dreams fit inside of.

That's how you attract great people.

If not, you just end up feeling more pain because you don't have those people.

And like, Sabotage is funny because like, you know, it, it's. They don't know they're doing it, right. Sabotage looks like an email that comes.

From a friend that introduces you to a person that says that they can triple the size of your business in 60 days. And instead of replying enthusiastically, you drag your feet and like 10 days later you finally reply and the person's like, yeah, no, we already found somebody else to fill that opportunity, right? So you like sabotage yourself. And then the third is sell, which is like, I get that call. As you can imagine, like people hit these pain lines and like, I get the call, like, Dan, I think I'm gonna sell. Dan, I think I'm gonna sell. And I asked them why and it's.

Just because it got so hard.

Sell their business.

And yeah, they're just done. It's like, I think if I go.

Do this other thing, it's gonna be easier. And what I tell them is like.

You are the only constant, right?

You're bringing yourself to every interaction opportunities in the world and like, you're going to hit the ceiling in the next thing. That's not going to go away.

Your ability and capacity and capability to.

Deal with challenges is not going to go away and you've just hit a ceiling.

So why don't we restructure the way you're attacking problems so that the more you grow, the higher the quality of life you have. So the buyback principle states you don't.

Hire to grow your business, you hire to buy back your time.

Meaning you don't hire for capacity, you hire for calendar. And when we do that, we end up being able to redeploy that time into higher value, higher energy producing activities.

Which allows us to avoid the pain line.

Now people are like, okay, well that sounds great, Dan, but I can't afford to do it. My argument would be like, you can. You just don't realize you can. So you know, I talk about the.

Buyback loop in the book and it's these three components of audit, right?

First off, you hit the pain line.

Let's audit.

Okay?

So audit means do a time and.

Energy audit document every 15 minutes what.

You do for two weeks.

Highlight after that two weeks the things in red that take energy from you.

In green, the things that light you.

Up and $1 sign to $4 signs.

If things that you could pay somebody else to do that are tasks that you're currently doing.

Once you do that audit, you then have a bucket of things that are $1 sign energy sucking activities that you can then figure out how to get off your plate.

Right.

But everybody's got them.

Even I have them today.

Right.

The game is to continue to go.

Through the buyback loop. The transfer is a skill. You need to learn the skill of.

Transferring tasks off your plate to somebody.

Else in a way that you feel comfortable. And a lot of that is just.

Beliefs and mindsets that aren't true.

But there is, there is real like pain in not knowing how to do.

That skill, which I talk about in the book and like give you very specific procedures and processes for that.

And then the third is fill. And this is actually the funniest one because most entrepreneurs, if they're like super.

Slammed working five days, six days a week, and I just said okay, poof.

Magically you have an extra two days in your week back. What are you gonna do with that time? And most people don't know what to do. Yeah, they don't. They actually are addicted to the chaos of their inbox telling them what they should do. They're very reactive, they're zero proactive. And so what I talk to people about and I say, you know, the first thing is go do more of the thing that immediately makes you more.

Money, whatever that is.

If that's, you know, sales calls, marketing activities, coaching calls, deliver, like delivering stuff, shipping boxes, making more widgets, whatever. The thing is that you can immediately monetize for more than you would pay.

Somebody to take those red items and $1 type tasks off.

And then once you get to that capacity of that, then you gotta look.

At skills and you gotta ask yourself.

Like, what's the next level skill that I need to discover to then trade up that's gonna produce more income if I buy back more time. And then usually the third thing is mindset and beliefs. I always put skill first cause that's more tactical and you can transfer it quickly.

Like the rubber meets the road. And like I'm making more money because.

The whole point is to generate a higher buyback rate. Like what's the value creation per hour of output that I produce individually?

Every person has this.

And then once I work on the mindset and beliefs that are stopping me from getting to that next level that.

Are just not serving me, and that could be through seminars and personal development.

And networks and whatever, then the fourth.

One kind of speaks to network but.

Is really important is relationships, right? Because at the end of the day, your environment is the number one.

Area.

Where you can quickly upload level. We are, we are a, we're a environmental species, right? People, communities, households. So like, if, you know, people might positively mindset themselves, you know, to a higher body temperature, but if you're in a freezer, like, there's no amount of.

Like visualizations that's going to get you warm, right?

I put you in a sauna, you're immediately going to increase your temperature. So like when you, whether you like it or not, surround yourself, whether you like it or not, like, it's like if you're not fit and you come to my house and you hang out with me, I don't even have to say anything, you will feel uncomfortable being.

Around me and my friends, right?

You will, you will want to make, you know, when we go out for lunch and we all order, you know, proteins and greens and you were about to order some wings, pizza, pasta, whatever, you just are not going to do that. So it's like environment matters so much and that's the relationship side. So it's like as we audit, transfer, fill, we continue to increase our capacity and move up that buyback rate and just get more. And we're trying to buy back time out of our calendar and redeploy it.

In things that make us more money and lights us up. And that's the game.

And I get excited because on the other end of that, in a very short amount of time, you get to a place where your life is transformed, your energy is up, the quality of your work goes up, your team feels.

That, your relationships, your family feels it.

And it's just like such a beautiful place to get to and it punts and it pushes out that pain line so that you can create more and.

Give more to the world.

This is incredible. And I'm going to tell you why buyback your time is going to be a bestseller. Just because I know this works. Because you taught this to me in SAS Academy. You taught me how to buy back my time, you taught me to plan. What are you going to do with this time? You know, and the last few years we made some key hires so that I can offload my $10 tasks, my $100 tasks, the things that you taught me and we're at the point now where I now offloading $1,000 tasks, and all I do is focus on $10,000 tasks. And what that means is I get to focus on the things, like you said, that light me up. So I only focus on two things in my business. It's actually three. Three things, I got to be honest. Three things that focus on my business. And one, I love to teach. This is what I've been doing all my life. I teach. That's what I love to do. I do my workshops, I do my webinars, I do my podcast, which allows me to do things that light me up, that give me energy, and that brings in all the $10,000 tasks because that's my superpower. No one in my company can do it as well as I can. And I don't say that Bragg. I say that because I've identified that over time. The second thing is I love to coach and lead people, and that includes my team. And that's what I really focus on, is how can I coach my team up so that they can produce better results. And again, those are people.

People build the business.

Yeah, exactly. And I, I realized that in order for me to build a strong business, I gotta leverage that labor like I gotta leverage what I got. And what I got are people. Instead of me trying to hire more people, let me just improve the quality of my people. Right? And that's something that I, I unlocked was incredible. And the third thing was what you mentioned, networking. I made a real effort in the last couple years to say, hey, I can't do this alone. For the long term, I can probably hustle my way for the next few years and be okay. But in the long term, I need to build. Entrepreneurship is a small world. I probably can name any entrepreneur from Bezos to Elon Musk, and probably one or two connections of people that I know that we can, can reach out to these people. Right. And it also, like you said, it levels up my game by being around these people. That's why I started oscon, which is our A conference here in Australia. It's a skiing and snowboarding conference that we do for founders here in Australia. And it just allows me to be the connector, allows me to build that network. And also it gives me an opportunity to, to learn what's working in different industries and see if I can experiment and see how I can help, how they can help us, all that kind of stuff. But all those tasks, it's like, when.

You think about it, that's exciting.

That's fun that actually makes money, right? And all the other stuff that I used to do, like my emails, my calendars, the social media, the feeling of obligation of being on that hamster wheel that. Let me check this notification. Like you mentioned, all that kind of stuff. It's just actually horrible for your mental health because you don't feel like you're producing anything. And this is why I'm so excited about this book because you're actually putting it in a volume of work and you're handing it to people and saying, just do this and you're going to thank me later. And I want to get into that.

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What was the deciding factor? Why did you say, hey, I, you know, you sold two companies. You have SaaS Academy, which is incredible. You, you're an investor in all amazing businesses. You're an advisor.

Why write a book?

Like, why did you decide to write a book?

I mean, it's a great question. Because like, the endeavor of writing a book is just such a big commitment. And I knew that because I'm like.

Friends with so many incredible authors, bestseller friends.

But what happened was when I started reading books, and I think anybody that.

Reads a book thinks to themselves like.

And because that's what life is, personal development is literally taking control of the pen and saying, I'm going to write my life. I'm going to be the author of my life. I'm not going to be a bystander.

And passive about this or an npc. I'm going to need this.

And for me, I knew someday I would write a book. And I had attempted little things in the past and whatnot, but again, I didn't need to do it. There Was never an economic need to do it. I didn't even need to do it for marketing reasons.

Like, honestly, like, I decided to do.

YouTube instead and just like teach that way.

And that was like my way of.

And you dominate.

I, I mean, that's.

You do something for seven years and.

Never miss a week and just put everything, you know, out there. I mean, that's, that's kind of the recipe. So.

And then what happened was one day my buddy Ron Friedman calls me.

He's written two books. He's an incredible person.

And he goes, dan, I. You're the only guy. I watch their YouTube video religiously. And like, I listen to your frameworks and it's, it's like so unique and different. And you, you can tell, like, you're really thoughtful. He's like, how do you not have a book yet?

And I'm like, it's a great question, Ron.

But like, truth is, is like, I'm busy. I don't need a book. I don't feel compelled to write a book.

So it's not a now thing.

I'll do it. And I, and I, and I used to write down. I am a prolific writer in my five minute journal, like, wrote it down like I knew I was going to write like 40, 50 books just like.

Maybe when I was going to start later.

And he goes, no, man, you need a book. And I was like, here's the deal. If you help me, I'll do it. And he's like, well, what would that look like? And I was like, you become the book CEO. I heard, I think it was Gary Vee once said, my book CEO, one.

Day, six years ago, and I was.

Like, oh, that's neat. I want somebody else to own the outcome. And that's actually how I run my businesses. I delegate outcomes. So I delegated the book to Ron. And then Ron built the team. Listen to my agent and they worked with me with the writer, Lisa. Now, it wasn't ghost. A lot of people, like, think like, a lot of people, like, like get interviewed for books or other people write books. I didn't. I leverage a writer to fix my writing.

Right.

The good news is, as you know, I produce so much content. The book outline and the book proposal was literally. So the, the. My, my writing partner at the time, Lisa, interviewed me, created an outline for me, and then I sat down with my videographer Sam, and we pulled clips of all the stories and all the content and matched it to all the outline. So the book is me. It's me.

My stories My words.

And then a ton of research, a ton of diagrams. I work with my designer, Rich, you know, and. And then found a partner in Penguin Random House, like, did a whole book proposal process and a competitive bid and, like, sign with a traditional publisher again. Ron team bought back my time. Like, I literally use the same framework I teach in the book to create the book. And that's actually. Yeah, it's like just this, like, circular.

Reference that it's really fun for me.

And so I got to give a lot of credit to Ron pushing me.

And probing me and supporting that.

But the reason why I wrote this book and not like a software business.

Book, because that would be the most obvious one to really support my current.

Endeavors was this is what was on my heart, period.

Full stop.

Like, it's the thing I teach the most that I'm most passionate about, that I wish the whole world knew about, that I could show them inside my life that I think would have the biggest impact. And it was a mission and a movement.

I was willing to put my head through all four. Like, it's that simple. Like, sometimes I have to ask myself.

Like, do I care enough to fight for this when it gets hard? Am I willing to fight to stand back up when I get knocked down? Am I going to keep pushing? And if I knew, I didn't say.

Absolutely Effie out of that.

I couldn't write a book. It couldn't be just a to do.

List that got done.

And this has been my life's work.

For the last two and a half years.

Literally three full rewrites of this book to make sure it absolutely landed the way I intended it to. You know, editing it with my copywriter, Chris.

We spent five days in a cabin in the mountains, literally 16 hours a day.

Like, we would wake up 6:00am Edit, break, 10:00 clock workout, come back, edit it, break lunch, come back, edit right up till 8pm, pass out five days. And Chris is like, I can't believe this is how you work. I go, I can't believe this is not how people work.

Right?

Like, what else do people do? Like, I'm away from my family. I want this thing to be the best thing I've ever created. There's nothing else I'm working on that's more important than this project. You flew in, Chris flew in from.

From Cyprus, right?

To work with me on this. Like, you're you. You flew across the world. Like, we are going to write the best book that we are capable of doing with that energy, right? And it was like, we fought over words and sentences and stories and structure and layouts and everything to finally come.

Out with what we. We produce. And that's. That's the. That's the short version of the story of the book. Yeah.

That's great, man. And there's a hidden lesson in your story here that I want to kind of just expose for the listeners. That conversation, that relationship you had with Ron. We've been talking about networking. We're talking about making friends, getting out there, meeting people. There's a similar story that I know a buddy of mine, Azul Torones, who is a book coach, but before he was a book coach, he was a teacher, and he was trying to get into entrepreneurship. He wrote a book and he published his own book about, you know, his. His area of expertise. And he went to a Pat Flynn one day, kind of intensive, okay? And this guy's beginning. He never started a business. He's just getting started, whatever. But he's putting himself in a position where he can meet people and know people. And Pat knows that. He's.

He's.

He's a writer.

He knows.

He just published a book. In that conference, Pat says, I'm thinking about writing another book. Can you help me? It's almost identical conversation you just had right now with Ron, right? And Pat, the Pat was just like, you're in front of me right now. You're insight in mind. You just wrote a book. Can you help me write my book? And he was just like, yeah, I could do that. He became his first client, and he helped him publish Will It Fly? Which became a Wall Street Journal.

I read it. It was awesome.

Yeah. So the moral of your story and the story I just shared is this can't happen if you're not willing to get out of your shell, meet people, network, be in environments that maybe you feel like maybe a little bit of an imposter. Maybe they're, like, out of your league. It's okay. It's better for you to be around people that are doing things you want to do or be at the places you're going to be in five years. Something I learned from Neil Kagan is like, hey, you want to learn something? You want to get somewhere? You want to get somewhere in your business, you know, hang out with people that are already there, like where you want to go in five years. So I. I love that story because Ron was just like, okay, I'll help you out. And he helped you out, and you. And you are busy, and like, you're like, I need. I need some, somebody to put my feet to the fire. And you understand the value of a coach, you understand the value of collaboration. And I just love this little lesson inside because it, it comes to show that even people that are successful, that are established, that have worked hard and have everything, you would consider any modicum of success. Right? At any level. Right. They don't do it alone. Right. They don't just say, I'm just going to do this myself. You know, like they say, hey, let me, let me increase the odds of success by getting some help. And I think that's brilliant, man.

You know what's crazy is in the.

Book there's a section called the 10x vision map.

And I added that because I realized if I didn't create a strategy for readers to understand how to have clarity about the future, then the necessity of today would show up for them to do the work. Right. Most people don't do the things they need to do today because they don't have a clear vision of what their future should look like. So they don't know what is a good or bad decision. So the 10x vision map has these four quadrants and my favorite, and that's why it's the subtitle of the book. It's like get unstuck, reclaim your freedom and build your empire. It's the empire quadrant, right? So I talk about the one business you're going to build and be successful at, but I also talk about the empire, even though it's premature for a lot of entrepreneurs. And the reason why, and I tell, I talk about this is to your point, there's this magic about visualizing that empire of like, where's this destination 25 years into the future? Jim Collins calls it a BHAG. But this is even for your personal life. Like a lot of, you know, SaaS founders, they like, well, I'm going to exit my company and then start a fund and then invest in companies or.

Buy companies or start another company or whatever.

Like, but they know, like, this is what I feel called to do in the future. And when you have that clarity and intentionality, then I believe the activities for creating that empire are actually not more work, they're conversations and relationships. And when I look at High Speed Ventures, I actually run two eight figure.

Companies today as a CEO.

SaaS Academy, high speed Ventures. High Speed Ventures is just as successful as SaaS Academy, if not more in the near future because we're buying companies.

We'Re investing in companies.

And when I think of like how even that came to be. Those are relationships. And that's the cool thing about the 10x vision is focus on the what and disconnect from the how. Don't worry because like I will tell you from proof in my life and so many of my coaching clients how it comes to be, you will not.

Be able to predict it.

Yeah, how I sold my companies, how I ended up hiring key people, how I ended up finding business partners or investments or Ron. Like I knew I was going to write a book. Did I even have it in my potential? I didn't even know partnering with somebody could be the book CEO was a thing until I got that call. And it just happened to be the.

Perfect time in Ron's life.

Perfect time in Lucinda's life. And for us to collaborate.

Right?

And for me too, like having the capacity to learn how to structure a deal, that's win, win for all of us, right? Like maybe three years earlier, I wouldn't have had the know how. I wouldn't have had the, the experience to put that together. The emotional intelligence to like be okay with a loss of some level of.

Control in the process.

Right? Because some people can't let go. So to me, what's cool about the Empire side is like, the more you become world class at your thing and Naval Ravikant calls it the three levels of luck, right? Level one is I'm lucky because I work. Like, I'm just, I'm just lucky because.

I won the lottery. Like, there is luck in the universe. Some people strike lightning.

Level two is I work hard and therefore I am lucky.

The harder I work, the luckier I get, which everybody has heard.

Level 3 is your tip of the.

Spear at what you do.

And because of that, you actually attract other people's luck to collaborate with you. So Warren Buffett has a level three luck because he has other people's luck that they're bringing to Warren because Warren's Warren. And that's true for Elon, that's true for so many people, right? Because they decided to be tip to the spear, which to me in the 10x vision map is that that quadrant.

Of the one business, like, be world.

Class at one thing and you attract that and that's where the empire can actually be created way faster and in a unique way than you ever thought possible. The destination will be the same, but how you got there, you can't predict.

I love it. I love it. I know Naval teaches this concept as well, where he talks about, like, if you're a great deep sea diver, you're Going to get people looking for you because, like, hey, we got some buried treasure over here. We'll give you half. Just help us out, you know, and it's just such a good example of, like, you know, think about if I.

Didn'T become world class at my YouTube channel and perfect the skill of teaching, which I had to work at to communicate.

Adult learning theory, model design frameworks, just.

Like all this stuff were things that I worked at in a studio for almost a decade. Ron wouldn't have resonated with that to think of making that phone call to make the suggestion.

Yeah, right.

It requires that investment in a, in a skill.

And you wouldn't have the time to cultivate that skill if you didn't, you know, buy back your time. Yeah. So that's perfect. Before we wrap up, Dan, I. I'm gonna ask some selfish questions. We've known each other for years, and there's so many things I have, like, in the back of my mind, I.

Gotta ask Dan these questions.

So one of the questions is I really love how you prioritize fun in your life. Like you having fun traveling, enjoying activities with your family is important to you. You do a lot of travel and you have great experiences for a busy entrepreneur. For myself, even, like, you know, I'm planning a holiday with Nicole for three weeks. How do you manage? Like, okay, am I in holiday mode now? And I'm only going to look at my email or do you actually schedule time to work or do you just totally shut off? What is your holiday work balance look like?

I'll tell you where I've come to today, and this is.

Has not always been the case, but.

Definitely for the last decade is I like momentum. And I realized that daily focus on an outcome creates momentum and even taking a weekend off can lose momentum. So just like your physical health, you know, there's routines and rituals.

You create that. It's a daily thing.

I do the same thing for work. And the way I avoid it having an impact on other people in my life, my family, my vacations, et cetera, is I just wake up early, I do that, and then when the rest of the family wakes up, they don't even.

There's no impact. Yeah, zero.

Like there's never been a moment where I had to work on vacation that.

Took away from anything we were doing, ever. Right.

I have to have the discipline to.

Obviously get to bed at a certain time and wake up and have my projects ready to go.

But I'm really, during that time, I'm just, you know, Checking things, pushing things, helping people. But I'm not doing any deep work. I'm just, like, creating forward momentum. So I definitely, absolutely work while on vacation, but I also work every weekend. Like, I wake up, I get my sweat on, I get some. Some projects pushed forward because I, like, I understand the.

The compound effect of momentum is this, like 2 hours, usually 90 minutes, 60 minutes, 9 minutes.

I. I go to.

Usually I go to a cafe and have breakfast and just get some stuff done on my laptop and then come back and everybody's good. Sometimes Renee comes with me.

My wife, like, no big deal. Like, she likes it, you know?

Yeah. I love this concept because I am like you. I. I like the idea of momentum. I have, like, this concept in my head that, like, if you turn your back on your business for one day, it turns its back on you for a week. So, like, you gotta. You gotta really. I like to keep my foot on the gas, and this allows me to kind of do that, your concept. And at the same time know that I have gotten it done. And now I can focus on enjoying Paris. I can enjoy the culture.

And you're doing something, you know, most people wouldn't do. So, like, in the book, I actually have a story. This one of my clients, Trevor, you know, I taught him how to buy back his time. And, like, he literally built an executive.

Team and all this stuff. And he, like, texts me something like.

I'm about to take five weeks off.

On vacation, Disconnected, can't wait to see how the team performs.

And my reply to him was, hand grenade, question mark. He literally thought that he was testing his team and he had built the right structure. And I'm like, dude, there's no world where the CEO of a company takes five weeks off and doesn't check in with their team. What you're doing is you inadvertently are sabotaging yourself to create challenges in your business to stop yourself from moving forward.

Yeah.

And he didn't even see it. That's. That's my role as a coach. Right. Is to identify the hand grenades that founders are about to lob into their business. Major rewrites or.

You know what it is, man?

Like, people just wake up. Entrepreneurs are okay with chaos, but they don't realize that at a certain level and things are actually working. We actually have to stop creating chaos. We have to enable throughput through our teams. We can't be, you know, but we can set the standard, we can set the momentum.

Right.

But we should stop creating chaos for our teams.

So, yeah, I'm a Big fan of momentum.

Especially because we don't realize as our business grows, what worked in the beginning. This is, you know, I, I learned this through some of your sessions as well. Like, you know, in the beginning you're kicking up dust and you're trying to make things happen and you're hustling, you're working hard and that's fine.

But when you're spaghetti, you're like, what's gonna.

Yeah, it's fine in the beginning, but then as your team starts to grow, like is, you're, you're kicking dust in their face, you know, like you're starting to realize that, oh, okay, I need to focus my efforts. I need to really like just support them so they can get the job done faster, easier, you know, and, and enjoy it as well in the process. Second, the number one.

Oh good, go ahead, share this. This one thing is your number one.

Strength becomes your Achilles heel to growth.

Oof.

So a lot of founders are so good at that. The a startup and like testing and moving quick and breaking things, et cetera. And that works. But eventually it stops. So I just want people to be aware. It could be sales, it could be marketing, could be product, could be whatever thing you are number one at, it will be your Achilles heel to getting.

To the next level until you learn.

To let it go.

Because like it's the thing you're going.

To be most critical about. It's the thing you're going to give away the last. And for the company to grow, you need to grow and you gotta eventually move on.

Second, selfish question. In your experience, because you've bought back your time, you have cleared your calendar by making hires and finding the right talent. What are like your top three red flags? When you're, when you're hiring, when you're interviewing that you kind of like a.

Non negotiable no hire on the hiring people to buy back my time red flags. I always hire people that are opposite to me, right? Because like I don't need another Dan.

I need somebody that can fill the gaps in my defaults. So like when I'm hiring an assistant, I use Colby A and I look for somebody that's the opposite of my score. So if I'm a high quick start, I need somebody's a high follow through.

So I would say like that the other one is, is somebody that knows how to communicate expectations clearly. And we, we do test projects with every candidate.

We always have three qualified candidates, three test projects. They present those test projects. They're always the same.

I Talk about this in the book, like the talent pipeline and how to do this. So I would say clear communication is.

A big one, especially in a distributed.

World that I live in. Especially if you want to travel the world, you need to build the team, regardless if you have an office that can communicate in a remote structure. And then I would say third, you know, and this is the X factor. But I try to test it. Like I'm looking for high potential entry level people. Typically not. Like, sometimes you hire people that have.

The playbooks and they come with the playbooks.

But what I'm looking for is people that are, that have no, they're just willing to do the work. Like we live in this world where people are so entitled and they want, they want to, you know, like I.

Was interviewing somebody in a bookkeeping role and I was like, what's your expectations in three years? Where's the salary? And they're like 250,000.

And I was like, well I, you know, I love that aspiration.

It's super cool.

But like for you to make 250, you got to make me 2.5. And I don't see a world where you scale up your skills fast enough to be able to create 2.5 million in my life.

Right.

Because that would mean you'd have a team and you'd be managing and leading.

And strategizing, et cetera.

So like, you know, so it's just funny how like those people, and then there's others that are like, look, I'm going to show up and do the work and be your top performer and.

I'm going to prove you with action, not words.

And I'm like that. Right, so. And like people have gone through adversity. Like adversity shapes you. So people that have never had anything challenging in their life or I look for musicians sometimes people that have like.

A background in like learning and mastering.

A skill to like give me some.

Insights into how they're going to react when things tough. Because that's the only thing I guarantee is going to happen.

We are going to hit a level where it will get tough. And if you've never experienced that and your default is to run, that's not.

The kind of person I want in the foxhole with me. Yep, right.

And the people that are my direct reports, my inner circle, they're, they're, they're like the best of the best. I mean these people individually could each.

Run and grow their own companies. Many did, they exited. And now they work with me, you know, as Partners, and I'm grateful for.

Them, but, like, that's what I look for.

I love that. We're going to get to the partners in a second. That was my third personal question, but a quick story about what you just mentioned. Our first hire for the $100 MBA was an EA. We needed an EA to kind of help us schedule all our podcast episodes, WordPress, all that stuff. And Nicole and I were going through the interview process, and we were doing a whole bunch of interviews, and we landed on Cindy. Cindy. We're having an interview with her. She's telling us about her skills, her experience. And there was, like, a pause in the conversation between questions. And Cindy just looked straight at us on camera. It was a zoom call. And she said, guys, I got five kids. I need this job. I'll. I'll learn whatever I need to do. I'll work hard for you. At that moment, I was just like, I need somebody hungry like this. Like, you need. You need people that just want it, you know? Yeah. And she's just like, listen, you know, I'll. I'll figure it out, you know? And that's what we need. We need people that figure it out who are not gonna ask me Googleable.

Questions, you know, and we'll send me on $10,000 training.

Yeah.

Like, no, hit Google, YouTube. How I learned it, you can do.

It is a great. And it's a great one. And the other story I want to share is something I learned from Encore. Ankor, who is the founder of Teachable, he said some of the best hires he's ever made are people that have tried to start a business and failed. These people, they have experience. They know what it takes. They understand the big picture of who they're trying to serve. And it's not just about, like, I'm trying to develop some code here. I'm actually trying solve a problem for customers and give a great service, and they just want another at bat. So they're super hungry. They're super. And a lot of people look at.

That and they say, oh, and they're.

Humble because they've been humbled.

So good. So good. And some. Some of the best advice I got from Encore, he's built an incredible business and sold it. It was a great, great job on his side. My third.

Super inspiring.

Yeah. My third question is, I know that you partner with people to kind of grow your team to amplify your business. Talk me. Talk to me a little bit about what that looks like and what's. How is it a win, win. For the partner in you.

I, I mean, it's very simple. Like, I call it the jockey principle. So, like, whenever, let's say I have like, a business idea, but I know I'm, I, I need somebody else to own it. Like, I'm all about, like, creating ownership and then supporting them in my gift, usually capital and advice and relationships.

Right.

And like, really setting the expectations up front. So, like, I months with this entrepreneur and I saw this opportunity in the market and I was like, okay, here's the deal. I want you to own majority of the business because I need you to, like. And it's different every time, right. But in this specific situation, we were starting at zero. So it's like, okay, you own 51%, I own 49%. I'm going to give you the seed capital and I'm going to sit on the board, the advisory board, and I'm going to recruit other people that are going to contribute to the seed capital that are going to be like, the gaps in areas that you're going to need support on. And like, together we're going to try.

To figure this out.

And that's the jockey principle, right? Like, you find the person, back the person, and, like, don't put too much at risk because, like, people are like, you know, it's really tough to know. And because I've done, I've done 50.

Plus angel investments, and I'll tell you.

The ones that I thought were going to be winners, the ones that I was, like, mediocre about.

Right?

Because tenacity and staying power and willingness to win no matter what, you can't.

Tell until somebody's tested.

There's that.

I have a partner that I started.

Another company with, and I just asked them, what do you want to accomplish.

Out of this venture?

And they'll be like, well, I'd like to walk away with 10 million liquid net to me in 10 years. Okay, cool.

So here's how the economics will work.

Here's the effort, here's the risk capital I'm putting in. Here's what you're putting in sweat equity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's the equity you're gonna have. Here's a realistic timeline for some level of liquidity, and at that level, you'll.

Get your 10 million after taxes, and.

We just do it.

Now.

There's risk on both parts, but, you know, I think a lot of people just aren't willing to give up any pieces of the pie.

Right, Right.

And at the end of the day, as long as the expectations upfront in regards to what you're putting into it.

Right? I'm not saying I'm working 20 hours a week.

I'm saying I will give you an hour a week and it's going to.

Look like this and it's going to be this structure.

Sometimes my hour week is wake surfing on my boat. I've done this, I've done deals where it's like the only time you have with me is at 6am in the morning on my boat. We will go wake surf and while we're hanging out, you will ask me questions to get feedback. And that's my interface for connecting into this project. If that doesn't work, then I'm not going to be involved. But that's, that's where I'm going to slot you in. Why? Because I'm not going to take another hour from other parts of my day.

Right.

I'm going to call net time. No extra time, Right. It's like listening to audiobooks in the hot tub. It's like you're on vacation and you're feeding your mind. Or like my founders hikes where people want to pick my brain or take me out for coffee and I'm like.

How about a 6:30am hike?

And they show up and we talk or they try to talk on the way up and then on the way down I switch with somebody else and we get our meetings done. Right? No extra time. So I'm a big fan of that.

And that's, that's kind of how I think about partnerships.

Huge man. Huge guys. I. If you listen to the show, you know that I read like close to 60 books a year. I read a lot of these books I wouldn't recommend, but I still don't regret reading the book. I got something out of it, a couple gems here or there. Then there's the books that I'm like, you gotta read these books because they're gonna change your life. And I got an advanced copy of Buy Back youk Time. And this is one of those books, you have to pick up this book and when I say pick up this book, like pick it up, wait for Amazon to come deliver to you, read it immediately because it's going to rearrange the way you think about your business. It's going to rearrange the way you think about really your life and how to spend your greatest asset, which is your time. You know, if I ask my mother who's 75, I've asked my mother in law who's 80, would you rather have $200,000 or three extra years, or go back three extra years in your life. They would, with a heartbeat, say three years. The money doesn't really mean anything, right? And a lot of us, we've gotten to the point where we've grown a business. We know how to make money, we know how to sustain ourselves. It's the time that really matters so that we can enjoy the life and enjoy the fruits of our labor. So I want to first thank you, Dan, not only for being here, but actually giving us this gift of this book. This book is really something that can help a lot of people get out of their own way and, and really prioritize what, what's important in their life and what's important in their business. So I highly recommend everybody who's listening pick this book up, buy back your time. Where is it available, Dan?

Buybackyourtime.com Best place to go. It'll redirect you to the retailer of your choice. But. But once you do that, come back to the site because I've got a bunch of templates and tools and strategies and I'm really going to be creating movement around this and I would love people to support that. One of the best ways, if I've ever done anything for you at any point in your life and you get the book, could you please leave me.

A review on Amazon?

That's like all I've ever asked and.

I'm going to ask.

The reviews will drive more discovery and more adoption and that would mean the world to me. I want to get the message out there.

I'm doing everything I personally can and.

That would be the best place for people to go and tell their friends.

Love it. Thanks so much, Dan, for being on the show. And we gotta not wait this long to catch up.

Totally agree. Incredible honor, Omar. Thank you.

Wow.

What a conversation with Dan Martell, the author of Buy Back youk Time. One of my favorite points he makes in this conversation as well as in the book is I got a preview copy of the book.

It's fantastic.

You should go buy it right now. Wherever you buy books, Amazon's probably the easiest. We'll put a link, the description of today's episode, but the point of not building a business you eventually hate. Now, this may sound strange to some people, but this could happen because sometimes we go into autopilot. We do the motions we have to do to grow the business, to build the product, to get the customers. And if we are not conscious of what kind of business we're building and how we're running it. Who's doing what, what task I'm doing every day. If you're not actively trying to make sure it's an enjoyable experience for you and your team, you're gonna hit that pain line he talks about and full transparency. I've hit that pain line in the past in my businesses before, and it's really a moment of truth. You can either decide that's just how it is and just to give up and to give in to the pain, or you could decide to say, hey, I have the power to change things. So this is not painful. This is not a business that I'm frustrated with anymore because it's a really bad place to be when you don't wake up in the morning and absolutely be excited, ecstatic, to get to work and grow your business with your team. In my experience, actually, there's no middle ground. You usually are excited or you're kind of dreading it, and everybody knows it. Everybody on your team is going to feel it. You're going to start making different decisions that are going to be based on not wanting to move into that pain. Your business will plateau, sales will plateau, they'll even decline because your heart's not in it. So therefore the effort's not in it. You're not as hungry as you used to be. And a lot of it, in my experience, has to do with what you actually do in the business every day and not the business itself. A lot of people make the mistake where they're like, oh, this business is not for me. I need to change it up. I need to sell it. When actually what you need is probably a few hires or a few systems in place to get you those hires. You need to make a few tweaks and changes that Dan recommends in his book Buy Back youk Time so they have more time to think about your company, work on your business instead of in your business. Plan to strategize, to dream, really for the team, to lead, to have a vision and to take your team on that ride. Big thank you to Dan Martell for being part of today's show. If you want to learn more about Buying Back youk time, go to buybackyourtime.com if you want to learn more about Dan, what he does, how he does it. Check him out on Instagram, on YouTube, on LinkedIn.

Martell, he does a lot of really.

Interesting things like Ironman events, personal challenges. He shares a lot about his life and how he juggles it all with his business. So if you're interested in that as well. Check him out on social and of course, don't forget, pick up a copy of Buy back your time. It's probably one of the best investments you can make in 2023 because time is priceless and if you can find ways to get more of it, then this book is priceless. If you love today's episode, hit subscribe, hit follow on your favorite podcast app. Just go to the triple dots in the right hand corner of Apple Podcasts of Spotify. Hit that follow button so that you.

Get our next episodes automatically and you.

Have access to our over 2200 episodes in our back catalog. Go ahead and follow us right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. When books like this come along, Buy back your time. These are no brainer purchases. And I'm not saying this because Dan's a friend and he's helped me over the years. I'm saying this because this book, or any other book that required years and years of experimentation, of work, of research, of perfection, and then taking another couple of years to compile all that into a easy to read volume of knowledge. A book so that you can have it on a silver platter and you can understand it and put it into action immediately. That's incredible value for 15 $20. Are you kidding me? Most of us spent that on lunch. Don't even think twice and it's gone forever. It's a real gift. We live in a world where we can get this kind of knowledge and get this kind of insight for so little investment. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode where I share a short lesson on how to get your first fat Email Subscribers the first thousand is the hardest and I'm going to show you how to do it the fastest way possible. See you then. Take care.

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