College Dropout to a $75M Company: The Truth About 1% Success

Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shit happen. What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm joined by Chandler Bolt. He's the CEO of selfpublishing.com. He's a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and the author of 7 bestselling books, including his most recent one titled Published. Through his company and his content, he's helped over 7,000 people publish a book that grows their income, their impact, and their businesses. We are so excited to have you on the show today, Chandler. Chandler, I know I was just telling you there's so much that I wanna pick your brain about. So welcome to Makeshift Happen.

Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited for this conversation selfishly, and also because we have a lot of ambitious, creative entrepreneurial women who listen to this show. And as someone, you know, who's grown and scaled a company to $75 million in the last 10 years, there's so much wisdom that I know that you can share with us. But I wanna start with this idea of being a college dropout with ADHD, not a very good student. I mean, I'm curious to know what influenced your decision to drop out of school and if you think that college nowadays is a scam, because that's obviously a very big conversation. As someone who paid, you know, close to $200 grand for my college education and seeing where everything is going now, and as someone who, you know, started a business and became an entrepreneur, I'm fascinated to know how you understood at such a young age that maybe there were better opportunities and kind of had the bravery to take that different path.

Yeah, I mean, I think college is a scam for most people. What's the saying? That A students work for C students.

And so speaking of all the ADHD entrepreneurs out here, that couldn't be more true.

Exactly. I think for me it was just the epiphany moment was realizing that I'm learning how to run a business from professors who have never ran businesses. Meanwhile, I was— I ran my first 6-figure company while being a college student. It was a very boring business. It was painting houses and going door to door and selling house painting jobs and all that stuff. And so just realizing that I'm learning way more by actually doing business than learning business. And that just— that equation stopped making sense because I was never there for the degree, right? I was there for the education because you don't need a degree to be an entrepreneur. So as soon as I realized that the education was really lacking and the degree was worthless, I knew that all along. Well, then I said, hey, I'm just going to drop out and go learn by doing.

And was that an easy decision for you? It was like there was no tension, or was it hard? Did you have parents who were entrepreneurial, or were they like, wait, stop, don't.

Yeah, it was— there's definitely tension. I mean, I kind of had to convince my parents in some ways, and, and there was internal tension, like, am I making a mistake? I've got these scholarships that are paying for most of my school. So I think from an outsider's perspective, they would say, Chandler, you can finish your degree for basically 10 or 20 grand in 2 years of school. Why wouldn't you do that? But I looked at the opportunity cost versus the sunk cost, right? Sunk cost fallacy. So I looked at what's the opportunity of these next 2 years. Well, could be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in business. So I'm giving up that if I choose to take the easy path. And so luckily I had some parents who were very supportive. I mean, I think they did the right thing. They challenged me hard, and then once I kind of convinced them, they were fully supportive. So my dad is an entrepreneur, runs a small-town construction company. My mom's a real estate agent. They met working night shift at a factory. So kind of that like blue-collar, rugged individualism, you know, I saw that from them my whole life. But then when I came to them with this, it was kind of, I want your take, not your decision. And so I got their take, and, and they challenged me a lot. And then once they realized that I thought it through and this wasn't just, you know, I'm pissed at a professor or something like that, they said, all right, well, we're 100% supportive.

Wow, I love that. It sounds like you've kind of had a certain level of delusion always as a really young kid to think, you know, the next 2 years could be 6 or 7 figures of— I mean, to be fair, you know, when you pull out of the bubble of, you know, the, the founders and the type of people you surround yourself, it's not the way that most people think. So would you say that that's true? Like, have you always kind of had that level of delusional belief that like really big things are possible?

Maybe not always, but I think to be successful, you have to be delusional because you have to believe that you can do something that nobody else can do. You've got 1% goals or ambitions. Well, inherently that's saying that I am going to perform better than 99 out of 100 people. Like what we're doing in 7 and 8 figures and beyond. I mean, that's— what's that, 0.4% or less? It's just such a small percentage. The odds are so stacked against you that I think you've got to be delusional. But I don't— I think it was that— I think the delusion came from little micro confidence steps, right? It was just, hey, let me try this. Oh wow, that worked. Let me try this. Oh wow, that didn't, but I learned a lot. Oh, let me try that. And so it just kept kind of building. My brother and I had this phrase, it was like mini, mini successes, if that makes sense. So it's like mini, M-I-N-I, and then, but then a lot of them, M-A-N-Y. And so just doing that over and over again builds your confidence to take the next step and the next step and the next step. And maybe it just makes you more delusional along the way.

Well, I was going to say, once you build a six-figure business and you're like a teenager, I mean, you have to have some level of like delusion after that. You're like, This is a game that like, if I can figure out how to play it, you know, I think, I think that really changes your mindset around money. Whereas a lot of people grow up learning that you have to work really hard and you have to get a job and you have to climb the ladder. I mean, you kind of break outta that matrix really quickly when you're making 6 figures as a teenager, right? And then you're like, okay, wow, I understand that there's a lot of money to go around and I just have to be in the right flow of it and fi— you know, in the right connections and have a really great idea and, and kind of move from there. But I wanna talk about this idea of work-life balance with you because you have built something so incredible. I mean, to, to be 32 years old and be sitting on a $75 million company and, you know, have published 7 books. It's like, one, where is the time? I think most people who are listening to someone so young accomplish all of that, they're thinking, you know, what does that actually look like? What does it really take? And as you're talking about this, it's like, yeah, you wanna be in the 1%. And to be the 1%, you have to do things that 99% of people aren't willing to do. So I'd love to hear your just kind of raw and honest take on the idea of work-life balance when you are in those young years, like your 20s, early 30s, in order to build something extraordinary like you have?

Yeah, I mean, I think work-life balance is a myth, especially in your 20s and 30s. I think I believe in work-life integration instead, which is how do I integrate these things so that I have a lot of fun and we build really big companies? And so I just try to do that in every area of my life. But I think especially in your 20s and 30s, which no one likes to hear this, this is, this is not a sexy opinion, but people talk about they're burning out in their 20s. I think you can't burn out if you didn't catch fire. And in order to catch fire, I mean, just inherently, if you want to achieve something that kind of back to my, my previous point, if you want to achieve something that the 1% of the 1% achieves, well, then you either got to have 1% of the 1% effort or 1% or 1% of the 1% skill set or both. Right. And so I just think you've got to find those levers. Now, that being said, fast forward to today. I mean, I think you need to build a business that doesn't rely on you. And that you're not the bottleneck in it. So there's very few things in my business that I am ultimately responsible for. That's how we're able to do all these things and grow because, you know, you need good process and you need good people so that, you know, the business can— I could be gone for multiple weeks on vacation, come back, the business will have grown and it will at least have sustained. And so that's where I think both kind of in tandem, like especially early on, you don't have any employees, so you have no leverage unless, you know, you got a trust fund or mommy and daddy's money. Then maybe you can spend that money, but you got no leverage. So how do you create leverage? You got to create— have sweat equity and pour your heart and soul into this thing. But when it— once it starts, the revenue starts to grow, well then you can use those— that revenue to create leverage and to solve problems.

Can you tell me what it looks like, this work-life integration, realistically in your life? Is that like, you know, some of the— I don't know, leisure or joyful things are sort of woven into the hours of your working time? Is it just like work hard, play hard? Like, what does it realistically look like to have work-life integration? Yeah, I think It's two things.

Just kind of obsessed with this principle lately of just Venn diagrams of life, right? You've got your family, you've got your work, you've got your business, you know, maybe your faith, your friends, all this stuff. And as you get older, life just gets more and more complicated. How do we fit all this in? We got to go see my parents, go see your parents, see my friends, do this, these offsites for work. And so I just try to figure out ways to slowly push those circles of a Venn diagram more into a circle. And so what that looks like for me is that looks like, you know, epic trips, like we're Bronx Shots and how we're connected, right? Is it's a snowboarding trip, which is one of my favorite things to do with some of the highest level entrepreneurs that I know. And so I come back and I've learned a lot. I'm energized, I'm inspired, and I did one of my favorite things. It's going to Miami, bringing my wife, and speaking at an event, doing a bunch of podcasts while I'm there. But then also we got a weekend to kind of have a little birthday getaway for her, right? And so it's just like finding ways to integrate those things together is, is really fun. And then yeah, it's work hard, play hard. Kind of like you mentioned, where I'm just, I'm all in or I'm all out. I'm not one of those people that people might, you might hear work-life integration is like, oh, you're always on. I hate that. So if I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation. My team knows, don't, don't call me, don't text me, don't Slack me. You will not hear from me. And there is no emergency. We're not, this is, we're not doing heart surgery. You know, there's no medical emergency that's popping up in our work. So I'll get to it when I get back. And that's what I encourage my team too, is, hey, when you're here, be all here. So don't be on social media, don't be on your phone, on whatever, lock in and get your work done. But then when you're home, when you're with your family, when you're on vacation, be off. So I think that just dichotomy of, you know, when I'm here, I'm here, and when I'm not, I'm not.

Yeah, no, I love that also because I'm a person who I would rather do more work ahead of time to prepare to go on vacation to be fully unplugged and off than trying to straddle those two worlds and be like answering Slacks and doing all kinds of things when I'm trying to be, it just ruins the presence entirely. I love that. There's a lot of women that— there's a conversation that's really popular online of this, you know, soft life. And I think culture is, is shifting a lot and, and the trends are changing and we're almost like going back to a lot more traditional values. There's a lot of women that want to stay home again. They want to be wives, moms, homemakers. And so it's kind of created this conversation online around this idea of like women really living a soft life and men being the true providers again, which I think is— it's just so fascinating how we go through these like ebbs and waves of culture. Because 10 years ago it was like, you don't need no man, make your own money, like girl boss, rise to the top. And I think, you know, that narrative is still alive and well in some spaces. But the point that I'm interested in talking about here with you is like this idea of the soft life obsession. And when it comes to women who actually are building brands, personal brands, they're utilizing social media, or maybe they have coaching businesses, or they sell a service of some kind, they're receiving this message of like, you can have both of those things. You can like live this really soft, whimsical life, and you can also be this 1% founder, and you can make multi-millions of dollars only doing things that you think are fun. Like, don't do anything that's not fun. And you probably know some badass female founders in, in your space. So I'd love to hear your take on that idea that we somehow can just be soft and whimsical and only do things that are fun and also create these 1% results. I know that's I know that's not your experience because we've talked about that, but based on some of, you know, the other female founders in your circle, what have you seen? Do you think that's possible? Is it bad advice?

I think it's totally possible. They don't have to be mutually exclusive, right? And I think that's the lie that most people are sold, is that, hey, you get one or the other. You can either be a homemaker or you can be a boss babe, and there's no in-between. But I think it, to your point, it requires focus on the handful of things that you do that are really fun and provide disproportionate value. So that's where all your leverage is, right? I think you're a great example of this. I know a ton of other great female founders that are examples of this, but it's, you know, most of the work that we do just isn't needed or isn't really that helpful. And so most people, they're working 60-hour weeks. First off, they're not. They think they are, but if you just actually looked at their calendar, they're not working 60-hour weeks. But then also So 40 to 55 of those 60 hours, even if they are, are totally worthless. Meanwhile, there's a handful of hours that they actually spend in that week that provide disproportionate value.

So is this about like being in your zone of genius and delegating the rest?

I think so. And I think it's zone of genius overlapping with extreme leverage. So it's those one-to-many things that what are the things that when I do them, revenue exponentially grows. And then yeah, how do I delegate, outsource, course and hire for all the rest. And I think a lot of times that's one-to-many stuff, right? For you, it's probably this podcast, it's content creation, it's social media stuff, it's doing a launch, it's running the masterminds that you have. It's like you could look at your calendar in a year and say, however much money I made, probably 80% of it was done in this 100 hours or this, you know, 500 hours in a year. And then everything else was less productive. And so that's, that's where I think it's just figuring out where are those things that it's also life-giving, so you're— that you're not just doing this stuff and it's burning you out and you hate what you do every day.

I love that. We're so distracted also too, all the time. So to your point of like, if you're working 60-hour weeks, it's, it's not realistic to think that all 60 of those hours were productive. Like, half the time you're getting pulled off into something. There's a Slack message, and then you go— you weren't supposed to be doing that, but now you're in a rabbit hole with a team member, or you're going to post something on your stories and You got sucked in and now you're watching this reel and then you, you're 20 minutes deep into a scroll hole. And it's like, that is just a very real reality of like life right now. So yeah, a lot of the work hours aren't truly productive, but I kind of see it for women specifically that want to have both, you know, to your point of like the work-life integration and also being willing to perform at the 1% level. If you want a 1% life, I kind of think of it as moving in season. And I do think to the same point of us talking about vacation versus work, if you wanna have full presence in anything, sometimes it really is like the separation for, for a little bit. And unfortunately, I do think that we are sold a lie sometimes that like you can have all of these kids and be fully present and be the, you know, the mom that you wanna be and, and all of that and homeschool your kids and whatever, do all of that. And also, you know, be over here building this multimillion dollar company. It's almost more hurtful to tell a woman that she should be able to do all of that at once than to have this very real conversation that we're having about the compartmentalization and about getting rid of the distractions and about delegating and just being realistic about what you're able to hold at once.

Because it's not as sexy, right? And, and that's where I think it's hilarious. To your point, you have these— this, this tradwife movement and these tradwife influencers, and they're running these massive businesses. But then you look behind the curtain, you're like, oh, she's got 3 nannies, she's got a full content team. She's got like—

and the fact that if, if you're a tradwife influencer, you're influencing people on the idea that you can be a, a stay-at-home mom who's living the soft life. But that stay-at-home mom is a million-dollar, multi-million-dollar business owner content creator. Like, she's not just a tradwife, she's a business owner because you're watching her on social media and her shit's going viral and she's, you know, selling you products and doing all these things. So that's kind of the dichotomy there too of like the very people that are saying and selling you the lifestyle of don't work are actually working really hard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they got the three nannies taking care of their kids, but telling you that you could do all this without that, right? I, I don't know. I think it's kind of an interesting— to your point, it's a little bit toxic in that way where they're selling a thing that is not actually congruent with the thing that they're selling.

Yes, exactly. And I, I just think it's a relevant conversation for people in our age group because we are at that age where we're wanting to start families. And if you're— you've already been building something or you want to start out building something, it can be a really big conversation of like, is this possible? How am I gonna hold both? And just, yeah, hearing from people who have done it and have a realistic take on what it's going to require of you, I think, I think it's refreshing. So speaking of, you know, we mentioned influencers, social media, that kind of thing. I wanted to talk to you about like traditional media versus social media, because even really early on in your journey, you know, you mentioned the business of painting houses. You really figured out how to leverage traditional media. Media, like TV, newspapers, like to get in front of people and get visibility. So now, you know, having grown a company to 8 figures largely without social media, because you weren't always on social media, what are your tips around that? Like, is that still possible? How did you acquire clients? What was that like?

I grew the business to 8 figures without social media, which to a lot of people in the social media world is just crazy. Now, I had Facebook, I still do, but it was literally Facebook and LinkedIn I didn't, right? No, and that was not like a customer acquisition channel. That was mostly just me posting in public as I built here and there, and then just posting things that piss a lot of people off, these hot takes that nobody would want to say. It's proof that you don't have to have social media to grow a big business. And if that's not your thing, that doesn't have to be your thing. Like, I literally created an Instagram 6 months ago, and people look at my Instagram and they're like, oh, this guy's a total loser because I've got like 1,500 followers, and because that's just— it's new. I'm still figuring out the platform. But I think you play to your strengths and play to what works in your business, right? There's— it's not a one-size-fits-all, and most businesses aren't built by social media. It's an outlier right now. If you can do it, it's ridiculously powerful because your cost to acquire a customer is basically nothing. So then it's wildly profitable. But, but you got to kind of be the 1% of the 1% doing it at a very high level. So what we did is we just played to our strengths, which were partnerships and content. And so we used the books that I publish to feed into the business. We used partnerships. I mean, that's, that'll be about a, probably a $6 to $8 million channel for us this year. So other people's audiences, that was from the very beginning. It's how we got to a million in the first year. It's the cheat code is just borrowing other people's audiences.

And is that like features, like being featured on other people's channels or speaking? Like, is that all rolled into what you would consider partnerships?

Yeah, so I look at partnerships as there's event-based marketing, there's kind of what we're doing with, with podcasts and stuff like that, and then there's promotions. So coming in and doing webinars or virtual presentations. So we do all of the above.

And before you had Instagram, if you were doing virtual events or promotions, would you be like running ads? Like, were you guys leveraging ads to acquire people or to get leads?

Yep, we do ads. Honestly, we've always sucked at ads, which that's another The thing that people are always like, wait, hold up, how are you 8 figures and you have no social media and you barely spend any money on it? It's like, what is going on over here?

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Yeah, yeah, it's just the books. This book over my shoulder probably has brought in about $7,000. $10 million over the last year or so. So we do feed the book and everything that we do, but it's fed with, you know, event-based marketing and content. So like SEO and search, that was, it still is, that's millions a year for us. It's kind of dwindling with AI kind of tanking all the search results and all that stuff. We're now starting to get better at social media and ads, but I think there's a lesson in that. Well, there's two. One, play to your strengths and it does what others, someone else's business looks like doesn't have to be what your looks like. So it doesn't have to be social media and ads. But then the second thing is having multi-channels, like multiple channels. I think one of the most dangerous numbers in business is one, because if you got one channel and then that crashes, or Zuck says, hey, we're gonna raise ad prices, or whatever else— I mean, I've seen that movie so many times over the last decade as businesses just get flushed. And so I think that's been our biggest strength, and in some ways one of our big weaknesses, is that is that we've never had a crazy channel. We've just had a bunch. And so we've always had multiple customer acquisition channels working at once. So there's been these ebbs and flows where something will stop working, but we've got something else that is working. So we just start doubling down on that.

Yeah, I think that's a common kind of friction point for a lot of people is this idea that for something to really grow and get massive, it needs that time, attention, and effort of you like really going all in on it. And people will advise, you know, if your goal is to grow, like go all in on on one platform, master it, and then diversify. But then there's the fear of exactly what you said, if we don't own these platforms. And so if YouTube goes away tomorrow and that was your thing and you have nothing else, or TikTok, we saw that with, you know, it almost getting deleted so many times, is like, damn, if that's your major platform and that's all you went all in on, it can be really scary. But I think that's why, you know, so many people will talk about the importance of email lists and just like having contact information of your customers and stuff like that. But I think it's so fascinating to hear that you weren't very good at ads and you didn't have any like big social media channels and you still were able to grow a business to that size. Like in the way that things work now—

The dinosaur CEO.

No, but like you're not a dinosaur. Like we're the same age. So it's like, it's just, I do think a lot of people would be surprised to be like, wow. And you probably feel like, you know, sometimes, okay, it's not as cool to be like more of a beginner on Instagram, let's say. But then other people are like, no, that's so cool that you've done this and you didn't have to be this giant like face of, of a personal brand and, you know, making Instagram videos every 5 seconds. I'm curious, what was like the thing that convinced you to be like, I wanna be on YouTube now. And I, I wanna really, you know, spend some time, cuz it is, it's, it's pulling time away from the founder, 100%. You making content, filming videos. I mean, yeah, you can have support teams around it, but if you're the face, you're the face. So what was the turning point for you to decide? Yeah, I really actually do want to add this. This to the brand?

It's a great question. I think it was 3 things. One, it goes back to the question we were talking about earlier: what's the 2 or 3 highest leverage things that you can do as a CEO that will add disproportionate value? And realizing that content was actually one of them. I think it was secondly AI tanking a lot of our search results. And so what was a $3 to $5 million a year channel at some point— some points it was more than that— just started eroding really quickly. And so that that was just printing money. Because I always looked at social media as hamster wheel revenue where, okay, I've got to constantly because there's no shelf life, right? YouTube has a little bit more of a shelf life. But so we just said, okay, well, what if we just do that but then evergreen and it search, it shows up in search on Google. So we do it once and then tweak it here and there, but it just, it's like having a rental property. It just keeps paying rent every single month because it shows up in Google, it shows up in YouTube. And so it was that seeing that, okay, some of that's eroding. We need to pivot. And then I think the third thing was just seeing a buddy of mine, Dan Martell, who I've known for a really long time, go all in on media. And over the course of 24 months, going from basically zero to over $25 million in annual revenue with Martell Media. And just realizing, "Oh, hold up." I think when you see somebody else do it, you both believe that it's possible. But you also— it's— I'm a visual learner. So, I saw it and I said, "Hey." Dan and I have a lot of similar strengths. And you know, I've seen him behind the scenes for a lot of years. He did it and look what happened. So, just realizing that I'm not taking this as seriously as I should have. And I was just being dumb. You know, we would look at, "Hey, we'll pay $50 grand a month on affiliate commissions or sponsorships." Or a lot of times it's more like $100 or $150 grand a month. But then we're renting that person's audience. We'll spend $30 to $50 grand a month in ads. We're renting that platform. Well, what if we just instead had spent $30,000 to $50,000 a month investing into a content team, which sounds crazy. And I just— my, you know, frugal blue-collar nature was just like, ah, I can't do that. What is this? But then realizing this is so stupid. Like, if I did that, we would build a massive audience in a defensible moat that forever I've got a personal brand that can both grow this business but grow anything that we do into the future. So I think it was the convergence of all these things that just said, okay, I'm being really dumb. I need to invest in this area that has just significant leverage for the business.

Yeah. That's so interesting to hear you just, yeah, be like straight up, I was being dumb because like, you're right. If you build the following, if you build the audience who's there for you and isn't just rented or bought, then there's like an infinite ROI on that too. It's not just like, what is the cost to acquire this client this month by paying these ads? Or it's like, no, when you have that following, when you have a true personal brand, a cult-like following, people who love what you do, they're obsessed with your mindset, your insights, knowing the founder, seeing your face. I mean, there's so much leverage to that. That's why I'm obsessed with, with personal brands because I just think, yes, they're more of a long game. And that's probably why it's frustrating to be like, oh, are we gonna spend all this money on like content production and editing? Because it's not the immediate, it's if you go spend $30 grand on ads, you have that ROAS. Like, whereas you could spend, you could spend $30 grand on content and still have shit views and be like, damn, like, is this working yet? Like, it's something that that is more of a long game that has— it requires more patience and more building, but it's one of those things that really just like stacks, I think, and gives you so much leverage moving forward.

Yeah, I've had to reframe my beliefs around all this stuff, which is— it's a few things. One, the longer it takes to build it, the longer it lasts, but also the more of a defensible mode it is. And so I saw this way back in the day when we— and so it just kind of all converged together to this epiphany when we built The blog, which just sounds like dinosaur CEO back at it again. But when we built that back in the day, everyone was like, what are you doing? A blog? Are you kidding me? This is not gonna make any money for at least 12 months. You know, just why are you doing this? Just do this other thing. But we said, all right, no, we're gonna commit to it. And then sure enough, 6 months in, 12 months in, it started creating revenue. And then there was this hockey stick where it just started printing renting money. And I realized when I look back on that, and we're experiencing this right now in content, we've been in the content game for, let's call it, 6 to 9 months, maybe a little bit longer. And the first 9 months are just, I mean, lighting money on fire, not working well at all. But then we start to see like, okay, this is a defensible moat. So now the hiccups or the stalls are really just green lights to say, all right, this is where everyone else gives up. And so That's awesome because if we persist past this, we now have a massive defensible moat versus, hey, anybody can just fire up an ad account and spend money tomorrow. And so if there's no moat, there's no longevity. And the longevity comes from the moat and the moat comes from persisting when you just feel like you're lighting money on fire, you're beating your head against the wall, all that stuff.

It's interesting because I did like the reverse. I just, I was 100% all organic in my business until 2 months ago. I just started running my first paid ads ever. And it's funny because I, you know, I invested in video editors and, and things like that, assistants and, and stuff. And that to me never felt like lighting money on fire, but like starting to pay for ads when we're like in the discovery phase and, you know, trying to get the pixels right and everything, I'm like, we are just burning money right now. So it's like you can have, you can have like the same experience doing a totally opposite thing. I think it just depends on what you're used too. And like, what, what your belief is. Because as someone who like just grew my entire business brand and everything through being the personality online and, you know, having followers and people that just wanted to learn from me naturally, organically, to then go and be like, yeah, let's— here's the ad spend, go. And to be like, okay, yeah, ROAS, you know, we're still figuring it out. And it's like, ah. But I think you have to do both. Like, you have to go through those evolutions and push yourself to like grow into new territory as a business owner. So ours were just like reversed.

That's so funny. When I almost think like it's the difference between earned and paid media and the difference between valuing your time or valuing your money, right? At different stages of your career where it's like earned media is all this stuff, right? It's content, it's relationships, it's referrals, and then paid is just, you know, sponsorships, ads, all that. But then similarly, it's almost us as founders early on, it feels risky to invest money when— so you just invest your time in the sweat equity. But then as you grow, you start realizing, as you have obviously, is, oh well, my time is now the most expensive thing that I have, and so I'd rather spend money to save time. I don't know, it's just kind of interesting how those things kind of flip-flop as you grow.

Yeah, 100%. It's definitely the, the reevaluation of, of your time and realizing that, you know, it needs to be spent in, in other areas to your exact point of why you wanted to go all in on content, cuz you realized it was a really high leverage thing for the founder to be doing. So with this idea of personal brands, you mentioned earlier that on maybe it was Facebook and LinkedIn, like your original platforms, you were posting a lot of hot takes. I talk about this a lot because I think polarization is so important in being able to attract anyone to your message. I always say polarize to magnetize because the only reason a magnet is magnetic is because it has those polar opposite ends. So you're not gonna get that intense, like, you know, sticking of the magnet of clients coming in and loving you and being obsessed and wanting to dive into everything that you have to offer if you don't also have that side of yourself and your personality that creates that repelling feeling to, to certain people in your audience. What has been your experience with being willing to be a polarizing person or have hot takes or say, you know, what you think? Like, I've, I've obviously before this interview was looking at some of your content and you're, you know, very clearly, college is a scam, this, that, and the other. So you are out there, you know, trying to put your little hot takes on things. Was that a natural part of your personality, or you figured out early on that that was a way to get people's attention and to get people to engage? Was it a strategy? Was it naturally who you are? A little bit of both?

I think it's naturally who I am, but it's been really suppressed. And I would say even still to this day, a little bit, you know. I don't know if you know anything about the Enneagram, but I'm I'm an Enneagram 8, which is the challenger, which is kind of the just, you know, come in, come in, flip over the tables and tell everyone this is stupid and not afraid to do that. But for whatever reason, I don't know, in business, I just, I water it down and it's a little bit more vanilla. I don't know why, but then I'll, so I'm still, I'm still figuring it out and I'm realizing that, hey, I need to just actually state my stance on this. So I think early on there was nothing to lose. So I mean, we're taking shots at traditional publishers. We're taking shots at everybody because that's the strategy, right? And it's just, you know, it's how I felt. But then you start— the business starts being successful and then you start playing not to lose instead of playing to win. And so I think I wandered into the desert there for a long time and now I'm trying to refine myself to say, okay, what— I actually, I got these hot takes and I would randomly post them on my Facebook and stuff, but that was just kind of, you know, not— no strategy whatsoever. Yeah, low stakes, but also just— it was not strategic. And I would piss people off. We'd have customers or whatever being like, yo, what is this? I'm out. And it was— there was no growth strategy. It was just kind of like, hey, being who I am and just, you know, posting stupid stuff. And so now I think I'm kind of starting to— starting to figure out what I want to do and saying, all right, I need to kind to of merge these two and, and put my foot in the ground and, and to have a stance.

Yeah. So this is what I call like strategic polarization, because to your point, I think polarization just for the sake of like saying a hot take because you have one is not super relevant to moving the needle for your personal brand. But when you can be strategically polarizing, it can differentiate you from competition. It can get you more attention. It can increase engagement. And it can also create that kind of cult-like following because people only love you if there's also a flip side reason why other people are going to hate you. Like what I was talking about with the magnet, it's just so true. When you know, you're like, that's my person, like I ride or die for this dude. Like he says it like it is, like I love him. There's so many examples in pop culture, in politics, in media. I mean, we see it all the time. It's like even with like a stupid example like President Trump, like not even to be political, but just like you look at him as a brand and you're like, oh, he has a cult-like following for a reason, right? Because he has his stances. He says what he thinks. Like it's, it's very polarizing, very, very, very polarizing. And we rarely ever get someone that's that honest, that crazy, that wild, that hot take, that polarizing in the world of politics. And so It just created such a phenomenon. And so I think people can do this with their own small businesses and personal brands to just differentiate themselves because there's a million people that probably do a similar service to you or have a similar product to you. So what really makes someone decide, oh, I wanna buy from you? At the end of the day, when we're talking about personal brands, it's, it's gonna be your persona. It's gonna be, you know, who you are. It's gonna be your values. And like that kind of gets to come across in that strategic polarization.

I love that concept of strategic polarization, and it's interesting. I was just thinking as you were talking about that, if you think about all of the biggest media personalities that exist or the biggest shows that exist, I can't think of one that's not polarizing, right? You think about Dave Portnoy, Barstool Sports. You think about Tony Hinchcliffe, Kill Tony. You think about Candace Owens. You think about Diary of a CEO. Those are like the top 3 podcasts that exist right now. But then you also expand outside of that— and you think maybe in our world you think Alex Hormozi, you think Cody Sanchez, you think maybe a Dan Martell or whoever else, all polarizing in their own way with the beliefs that they have. I mean, maybe the only person that's not polarizing I can think of is Oprah.

You know, it's like she might be polarizing now with her appearances in the Epstein Files, but, um, yeah.

Oh my gosh.

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Um, well, I guess that rules that one out. Holy cow, right?

But everyone's got happen. Yeah, it's like, and I even think about this, if you knew those people behind the scenes, like if you personally knew Alex or Kody or Joe Rogan or any of these people, it would be interesting to see. Like, I'm sure that their polarization that they portray online is authentic and genuine, and also I bet you that they are nuanced humans as we all are. And so that's where like the strategic part of it comes in, is you almost have to be willing like pick your side of the fence, stake your claim, have your thing that you're super convicted around. Alex Hormozi is a great example because he talks a lot about just like the hard work, the suffering, the this, that, like everything that's required. And also like, I know I've, I've been to acquisition.com 3 times. I know him and Layla aren't like, yes, they live that lifestyle. And, and they're so, they're more nuanced than that. They, they love to go out to eat. They have ice cream. Like they're just, it's not like the 100% of the human. Is what you're going to see portrayed. But it is that like strong stake in the ground that allows you to stand for something instead of just trying to always, you know, be in the nuanced position. I think if you're caveating everything and you can see every side and you try to be very balanced online, it doesn't work. It's great to be that way as a human. And I very much am that way as an individual. Online doesn't hit as hard.

It's interesting. I heard, uh, it's almost like taking the extreme one take but then leaving out the nuance because that's what drives all the comments. I think that's kind of what you're speaking to.

Yeah, and, and, and so that creates the engagement, and then you can create another post following up the previous post that went viral with everyone commenting on it to clarify your views or to go further. Like, it is— there's strategy behind this. People don't realize that they are being rage-baited on a daily basis with the choice words that people use in their headlines, in their options in their videos, leaving out context on purpose. Because if you fill in all the blanks, then there's nothing left for the audience to do. And so there has to be a curiosity loop. There has to be unfinished business. There has to be, well, what about this and what about that? And that's what creates all the engagement. But it is a hard thing to do, to put yourself out there as the, the founder, the personal brand, the face of all of that, because there is a fear of, you know, losing business, losing customers, saying one thing that you thought was going to be strategically polarizing in a great way and it going totally south, and you being like, oh my God, that— this is a PR disaster like that was bad. It's a fine line that we walk.

This is why you're so much better at social media than me. I'm like, these are, these are things I'm thinking about for the first time.

No, well, this is, this is good because I know you're on your, on your social media journey. I also want to talk about, speaking of personal brands and, you know, bringing people into your world through these like long game strategies, obviously books has been a huge thing for you and And it's a, you know, a huge part of your whole business and what you help other people do. So I would be remiss not to ask you about how that has helped you and also like supported all the other channels. 'Cause we've talked about, you know, events, ads, promotions, all these other things, but it's like the book is so supportive to that in building your authority as a personal brand. You called it like the $7 million business card because it can be such a, such a revenue stream in the business. So for someone who is building a personal brand, maybe they're like, I got this on lock, I'm doing social media, I'm posting. Posting, what else can I do to build my authority? Sell us on the idea or the importance of having a book.

It's the highest leverage thing that you can do in your business. You do work once, you create this asset that exists forever, that brings in leads, sales, and referrals for your business, right? And to your point, it makes every channel grow. It makes every channel more effective. And so if you already, especially if you already have proof of concept and momentum with media, will you turn people from browsers to customers? I mean, if you— it's not only like we were doing, doing kind of a breakdown the other day and I realized, oh, I've launched a 5-figure book, a 6-figure book, a 7-figure book, and an 8-figure book all personally. And there were just fundamental differences that I had. So it's kind of, it was interesting in 2 ways. One, it works at any part of the journey, but then two, there's different levels to actually launching a book in a way that supports your business. And so I just think it's the ultimate leverage. And as the resident dinosaur CEO here, it's the old-school media that has become new-school because people still read books, or they still at least listen to them. And when you— and so when you look at, you know, some of those biggest media personalities we were talking about, right? Alex Hormozi, Dan Martell, Cody Sanchez— we did a whole breakdown on this on our YouTube channel— they all launched books to 8 figures, and it was, it was and is a major pillar of their media strategy. And so it's— I just, I'm not biased or anything, but of course not.

I also think books, like, they open doors for you, right? It's like, it's, it's one of those weird things where, like, back in the day— I mean, it's, that's, this is still true to a certain extent. I know we were shitting on college earlier, but like, if you worked at JP Morgan or you have, you know, you went to some a really prestigious school and you have that on your resume, like that's gonna open doors for you just because people associate that with like, oh, you must be at least this level of smart, at least this level of valuable. So like, we'll give you a chance. You know, you, you have other opportunities that someone else might not. And I think a book kind of does a similar thing of like once you become a published author, especially if that the book does well, I do think that it opens certain doors for you where people take you more seriously, whether it's for speaking opportunities or it's even just getting features on podcasts. I get pitched There's so many authors all the time because that's like the new media that's almost more powerful for people on their book tours nowadays than even like traditional media, like going on TV. Like they're doing the podcast tours. So I want to understand, like, for the average person— I know it's not going to be just, you know, a regular Joe Schmo who's like writing a book for their brand. They're building something, obviously. But, you know, you mentioned like, okay, an 8-figure book, but it's like, would that work for— I think people are thinking, would that work for someone like me? Imagine, you know, you have a service-based business or you have a product or, you know, you're building on social social media, but you're not this big name, you're not a Cody Sanchez, you're not an Alex Hormozi yet. What is the benefit of that type of person having a book, and can it be an 8-figure revenue stream?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's two benefits. There's— it gives you leverage in everything that you do. So we were talking about that earlier, of needing leverage if you want to kind of have both, if you want to grow a business and have a life. And so it just— it's leverage for all your prospects, leverage leverage for all of your customers, leverage for all of your employees. I mean, that's our onboarding, that's our sales process, that's our onboarding for both clients and employees. I mean, it gives you leverage in every facet of the business, but then it helps kind of leapfrog these, these big next levels of growth, right? So you don't have to be at 8 figures and most books won't do 8 figures, but let's say you're trying to get to 6 figures. Well, the book opens the door to get you on all the podcasts to then talk about the book, but you're obviously talking about the stuff that you do as a business. And so it just feeds into everything and it's kind of these inflection points. And there's a reason why that you don't see many one-time authors. All of these guys and gals have multiple books. I mean, it's like every 2 years Gary Vee is launching a book. You know, it's because they realize, "Hey, this is going to get us in front of everyone." And it's an excuse to talk about what will ultimately be this massive kind of, you know, tailwind for the business and bringing a ton of people in the business. And I think the thing that people don't realize is if you're already running the business, whether it's service-based business, coaching business, group coaching courses, whatever, you've already written the book. It's in the conversations or the content that you're constantly creating and the things that you're constantly talking about. So I think as a CEO, it's the ultimate thing to kind of stop those broken record conversations by just writing the book and then pointing to the book and then integrating it everywhere in what you do. To do so that you have more leverage and so that the business grows faster.

Do you think in this idea that, you know, our IP exists and everything that we've already created in terms of our courses, programs, teaching, all that, are people starting to use AI to like take all of that? Because we have it, it's like recorded, it's published, like you have actual files of these things. How relevant is AI going to be in the process of people writing books and just being able to take everything that they've taught or said and they're, that or, you know, SpeakerReal and all this other— like, you can just put all that in AI and be like, what's my book? I don't know if that's a horrible idea, but like, what is— I'm sure you guys have been thinking about how AI makes the process of writing a book easier.

Yeah, I mean, I think it can synthesize and speed up the process, right? And I think there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. I think the wrong way is to just say, hey, let me press a couple buttons and say summarize my stuff and make it into a book. And I think people have this almost delusions of grandeur that, oh, I'm just going to be able to click a couple of buttons, it's going to create a great book. The output is only as good as the input and how you use the tool. But where I get really excited, and I think there's a ton of opportunity, is how do we use this to make significantly better books and to make them in half the time? And so it's synthesis. I mean, there's NotebookLM, there's all of these tools that you can kind of pull in, say, all right, here's your source material. It's all of my podcasts, it's all of my posts, it's all of my YouTube videos. And so I can synthesize in there and then I can use that to create an outline and then I can use it to help flesh out the outline and I can use that to then maybe there's a bunch of stuff that I talk about all the time, but I got no frameworks around it. So it's really not that catchy or there's not much IP there. It's just kind of— so then I use it to create the frameworks, to distill the frameworks. And that's where I think it's really interesting. Is doing all that stuff so that at the end you have a better book and you did it a whole lot faster because then now all of a sudden you're dropping the mic in that area, but you're using this repository of content and stuff that you've created previously.

I love that. I'm almost kind of glad that I've waited to write a book. I think it's going to get even easier.

It just feels like this.

Just feels like this. Huge when you're already someone who has a thousand tabs open and you're trying to do everything. Like, I look at, you know, some of my peers, mentors, like people in, in the space building businesses, and they're also writing books. I'm like, and they're parents, and like, I'm like, wow. I mean, wow. It just, it, it seems— and, and hearing from people who have written books, they always say like, that was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Like, so rewarding, so worth it, infinite return on the investment, opens so many of course. But I think the experience that I have heard from a lot of people that like writing a book is really, really grueling. And it's almost like, you know how people say like entrepreneurship is the highest form of self-development? Like you almost don't even need to do personal growth anymore because your day-to-day life as a business owner is personal growth. I feel like writing a book is kind of a version of that where you are forced to like look within and ask yourself how you really think about things and what you want to share and what are your frameworks and what's the legacy I want to leave for the world. Like such a— it feels like it's a very big thing. I don't know what your authors' experiences have been that come and publish through you guys.

Yeah, I mean, we help people save a ton of time, money, and energy in the process, so we definitely help. But it's still— it's difficult, right? If it was easy, everybody would do it. There's a reason 81% of people want to do it and less than 1% do, is because it's, it's hard. It's a lot of hard work.

Is that real? 81% of people want to write a book?

That's what the New York Times says. We know that less than 1%, so I It depends on how much stress is in your times. But I mean, we know that less than 1% do it.

Is that a reputable news source these days?

I don't know, probably not. It's also not a reputable bestseller list, but everybody wants to hit it because it used to matter. I look at how do we make it additive or multiplicative, if that's even a word, within the things that you're already doing and not a side quest. I think that's what's really important. So if you're if you're already creating content or you're already teaching as part of your masterminds, as part of your coaching programs, as part of your, your written content, your social content, well then how do we just use that and overlap so that you're either building and writing the book in public and by the time it comes out you've already seeded and vetted all the material or vice versa, you go spend all this time to crystallize all your frameworks and then now your content for the next year is so because it's pulling from stories, from chapters, from moments, from all that stuff.

Oh, that's so true. Oh my god, once you have your book, you're probably like, I don't even need to think of a content idea for another 3 years. I'll just open the book.

100%. Every chapter is a blog post, it's a YouTube video, it's a— that's where we're even going back through this with my team right now. And I'm like, hey guys, don't reinvent the wheel. Like, if we're doing a book on— or if we're doing a YouTube video on on how to hire an editor or how to outline your book or traditional publishing versus self-publishing. It's like, I already said what I wanted to say, it's right here, so let's just use that as a script because we don't need to totally— I mean, and so we're going back through this and saying, oh, that's a carousel, that's a long-form YouTube video, there's a short form right there. And it just is, is pulling out all of these frameworks in this content. But also the book forced me to still frameworks that I didn't previously have. There's the MORE Writing Method. I never just— there's the 4 Ps of a Bestselling Book. There's the Launch Tribe. It's like all these things that I just kind of been loosely talking about. But when I wrote the second edition of this book, it forced me to sit down and say, where's the framework in here? Oh, I was 5 degrees away, you know. And so it just, it really helped in a lot of ways.

I love that. I'm here convincing me now. I'm like, maybe I should write that book. I, you know, when I was a kid, they, you know, people always ask you like, what do you want to be when you grow up? I always said author. I always said author. First I said author, then I said teacher. And now I'm kind of both because I'm writing and teaching stuff all the time. So I think the prophecy has been fulfilled, but to actually, to, to be like an actual author and fully write a book someday, for sure would be amazing. I think I'll definitely do it. And this conversation is making it feel more possible for me. And, you know, I'm sure for a lot of the women listening who also are ambitious and entrepreneurial, and they are teaching and spending so much time writing all this content and pouring out their life lessons and transformations and everything into these things that, that disappear really quickly, right? You, you post on Instagram and you pour your heart into the caption or the carousel, and it's like really good stuff that could really help people, but it's only going to be seen for 48 hours, and then it's like poof, gone, unless someone's scrolling and looking for it. So I think the permanence of having all of that documented in, in a book is a really beautiful thing and also opens so many doors. So very, very cool what you guys do. Just probably, I imagine, super fulfilling on your end to see thousands and thousands of people get their book out into the world.

It's really fun. I mean, we believe that books change lives. We're in the business of changing lives through books.

Everyone listening has probably had a book that's changed their life. So it's true, like, books definitely do change lives.

I dropped dropped out and books became my college. It was, you know, I dropped out before I got to the business classes. So I had all these insecurities that I never learned the things that I was— should have learned to how to run a business. So then I just started finding the best books on the subjects or the topics that I needed to grow in, in my business. And that's been my whole recipe for growing this business is find the biggest bottleneck or thing that I'm struggling with, find the best book on that topic, read the book, implement it, and then repeat and just keep doing that.

So, and that probably was a better business school than, you know, your classes, because again, those books are written by people that actually did the thing and now that they want to share that. And so, yeah, same. I think I've learned so much of what I know now from, from books. They definitely do change lives. So you had your first million-dollar year at 25 years old. That's really young. What and how has your identity changed in this journey? From going from a broke college dropout to millions of dollars, $75 million business, 7 published books. How has your identity had to change throughout that process, specifically when it comes to money or how you think about it?

Yeah, I mean, I think my identity changed over those years from total loser, college dropout loser. I was super self-conscious about it. I tell people I dropped out and I felt like I had to I had to give them a 5-minute speech about how I'm not an idiot. It's like, I dropped out, but I didn't flunk out. But, you know, I felt like I had to explain myself. And then you make the business successful and you don't need to explain yourself because you just point and you just say, hey, I don't need to explain who I am. Here's proof. But then I think at a certain point you realize that, at least for me, that my identity is wrapped up in the business. And so then it's almost my identity Identity shifted because of the business, but then my identity needed to shift to realize that it's not the business, which was really hard for me. You know, the business almost got taken away, and I went through this buyout with my business partner, and that was the first time I asked the question, who am I if I'm not this business? Because it might be taken away. And then I realized that the business and Chandler Bolt's identity was the same, and they shouldn't be the same. And so then I had to start decoupling that, and you know, getting back to figuring out what my own identity is. And then along the way, just kind of shedding some of those things that get you where you want to go, or maybe not still serving you, like the frugal kind of the blue— I love the blue collar stuff still. I mean, I think that's a huge part of like bring your lunch pail to work kind of mentality. But the frugality is helpful to a point. But when you start saving pennies or pinching pennies, and it was whatever the saying is, when you're, you know, tripping over pennies or tripping over quarters to pick up pennies or something. It's, it's like, oh, I'm not being smart, I'm being pennywise and pound-foolish. So I need to shed some of these frugal beliefs to invest in my quality of life or my business or growing this thing faster.

Yeah, I think it's interesting when you are someone who wants to keep a certain level of like safety, and like we were talking about the difference between how you see what's more valuable, like the money or your time, and how that shifts naturally over the course of how you're building your business. But because I know that you kind of come from the mindset that you originated from was more of like a frugal one and do-it-yourself, and you know, you can save on this, what is the bougiest thing that you've ever splurged on now at this point? Tell us. Don't lie to me.

This is really painful.

This is therapy for you.

Perfect. It is. So the private jet a few weeks ago. That was probably one of the big ones. Our wedding was nuts.

Wait, I love it! I'm getting married in 2 months. Tell me about it. Do you regret spending a bunch of money on it, or are you like, nope, it was worth it?

I don't regret spending a lot of money, but it's probably because we have money, right? Like, if I didn't have money, I would say, oh, that was so stupid. Why don't we start our marriage by getting in a ton of debt? And so we just splurged on— I mean, we had a gospel choir during our ceremony. We had a— it was like a country kind of wedding, and so it was out on this dude ranch in Texas. And so we brought in a hat company and everyone made their own custom cowboy hats. We had— so, I mean, we went— it was a multi-day thing, and, you know, we really went for it. But that's because I love creating experiences, and my whole thing has always been experiences over things. So I I still drive the '04 Nissan Altima with 240,000 miles that I drove in high school because I'm like, I don't really need a nice car. But then I'll go and I'll, you know, take my dad to the college football playoffs and we'll have crazy seats and it's like, and it's very expensive because I'm like, I've got an unlimited budget for that. I don't have a very big budget for nice things. That's just me. But that's good because the experiences give me a lot of fulfillment. So whether it's the wedding or the private jet to the snowboarding trip or the game experiences with my dad and stuff with my parents and just showing them things that they in their whole life haven't experienced, it's like, that is where I have a lot of fun. And there's unlimited budget and maybe some crazy expenses.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it though. I love it. I'm an experiences person too. I do love some nice things here and there, but the experiences, those are the stories. Like, that's the stuff that you'll talk about, and like, for, for years and years and years. I mean, those are the memories. I was saying this to my mom the other day. I'm like, I don't regret any of the money that we're spending on this wedding, because when I'm on my deathbed, that day will be one of the visions that plays on the loop in my mind. You know, they say you get like a reel of your life or whatever in the, in the minutes before you pass. I'm like, that day will be in that video that I see in my mind, and I'll never regret it. So I think it's one of the beautiful things about working hard and making money for yourself, is you again have the beauty to spend it on the things that you value. I agree. This has been so amazing. Thank you so much for this conversation. I've loved every single part of it. I know our audience is going to eat this up. Can you let them know, for all of our entrepreneurial girlies who are building businesses, personal brands, they are thinking about wanting to write a book, maybe they want to self-publish, where can they find you and what's the best ways to get in touch?

Yeah, thanks for asking, couple. We're in the social media game now, so you can find me on Instagram, selfpublishing.com on Instagram. And then we've— we're going all in on YouTube, so we drop a bunch of really good YouTube content weekly. On the selfpublishing.com side of things, it's all about writing and publishing books. And on the Chandler Bolt side of things, it's scaling to 8 figures. So those are kind of social places. And then if you want to chat with the team about your book, you can go to selfpublishing.com/apply. Be happy to chat with you about your book and how we might be able to help.

Amazing. We'll link everything for you guys in the show notes. Go give him a follow. Such a great conversation, Chandler. Thank you for coming on Makeshift Happen. If you guys love this episode, if you know someone else who would enjoy the conversation, copy the link, send it to them in a message, let them know you were thinking of them. Kill two birds with one stone. And as always, don't forget to subscribe and follow everywhere that you're listening. We'll talk to you guys next week. Bye! If you loved this episode, make sure to check out the show notes where I've linked a few similar episodes I know you're also going to love. You'll find them under the similar episodes section in the description down below with direct links so you can dive in and start listening right away, or add them to your queue for later. Binge away for even more growth, expansion, abundance, and fire motivation.