Dan Martell (@danmartell) is a successful serial entrepreneur, author, and business coach who struggled early in life before finding his path. After a troubled childhood, Dan tried and failed multiple times in his early twenties to launch technology companies. It was at age 24 that Dan found success, building his first company, Spheric Technologies. However, despite rapid growth, Dan struggled as a solo founder to scale Spheric effectively. Through perseverance and learning from mentors, Dan could turn things around, sell Spheric profitably, and build and sell two more companies.Having learned the hard way, Dan made it his mission to shortcut the path for other entrepreneurs. He began coaching and created SaaS Academy to help SaaS founders rapidly grow their companies by avoiding common pitfalls. Dan's journey from troubled teen to successful serial entrepreneur allows him to relate to the struggles of other founders. He combines real-world experience with expert coaching to help entrepreneurs scale smarter.
Dan is also the author of the best-selling book Buy Back Your Time. In this book, Dan teaches critical strategies to install systems and develop mindsets that allow entrepreneurs to engage in high-value work and succeed in business while enjoying more freedom than they ever imagined.
What Dan and Travis discussed:
How to not grow your business painfully: Dan explains that entrepreneurs avoid pain, so trying to scale your business by doubling your workload will not be sustainable in the long-term. Instead, hire people strategically to buy back your time so you can focus on higher-level strategic work.
The importance of documenting processes and training your team: Dan emphasizes creating SOPs, checklists, and training so you can get consistent results from your team. This provides leverage through codifying your knowledge and systems.
Why you should surround yourself with people already doing what you want to do: Surrounding yourself with others ahead of you provides leverage through collaboration.
How Dan creates an environment and lifestyle for his family's long-term fulfillment: Dan makes choices thinking of the positive impact on his loved ones over decades, not just short-term gains.
The importance of becoming an emotional coach for your kids: Dan focuses on developing his kids' self-confidence and resilience. He doesn't solve all their problems or do everything for them, allowing them to learn life skills.
The standard issue of consistency without results: Dan observes that just showing up and putting in time without meaningful output won't lead to success. It's essential to evaluate if you're making real progress periodically.
Knowing yourself is vital before relationships: Dan emphasizes that you need self-awareness to have healthy relationships. Understand your flaws, triggers, and shadows to improve your interactions with others.
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Transcript
Dan Martell (0s):The reason why people don't grow businesses is because doubling their current business would mean double the pain. Yeah. Entrepreneurs will not grow into pain. They tell this like, I wanna double my business. And I'm like, I hear what you're saying, but you're scared that if you do that, your world would look doubly hard. And they go, yeah. And I go, I know. 'cause the way you are getting leverage, you're buying back your time is flawed. You're adding people for capacity. You're not adding people to Buy, Back, Your, Time, the buyback principle states, we don't hire people to grow our business. We hire people to buy back our time.
Travis Chappell (29s):Welcome back to the show. I'm Travis, Chappell and I believe that if you can connect with the best, you can become the best So after creating 800 podcast episodes about building your network of come to realize that networking is really just making friends if you're doing it the right way. Anyway, join me as I. make friends with world class athletes like Shaquille, Neal, entertainers like Rob, Dyrdek authors like Dr, Nicole, Lapera, former presidents like Vicente Fox, or even the occasional FBI hostage, negotiator, billionaire, real estate mogul, or polarizing political figures. So if you want to make more friends that help you become a better version of yourself, then subscribe to the show and keep on listening 'cause this is Travis makes friends. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to their episode of the Travis Makes Friends podcast.
Travis Chappell (1m 10s):Today I'm making friends with the one and only Dan Martell. What's up dude? Welcome dude.
Dan Martell (1m 14s):I love, I wish I I have a shirt just like that. Same color. Yeah, it's the same shirt. Oh. I mean, probably not the same brand, but I should have wore it. And then we could have been twinsies. We could
Travis Chappell (1m 21s):Have, it's pretty close now though. Missed
Dan Martell (1m 23s):Opportunity. Well,
Travis Chappell (1m 24s):You know, from our mistakes all, you know, we'll write it down. I'll just time, just text you next time. Yeah. Just text me outta the time. What are you wearing? True. Classic is the brand. Yeah. Too classic. In case you guys wanna wanna send me some more t-shirts, I'll take them. Yeah. I love these ones. And
Dan Martell (1m 35s):What did we do A shot of just now? The mind thing. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (1m 37s):Magic Mind. Alright,
Dan Martell (1m 38s):Sponsor.
Travis Chappell (1m 39s):That's the sponsor.
Dan Martell (1m 40s):Give, gimme a shout man. It was tasty stuff.
Travis Chappell (1m 41s):Thanking it to Magic Mind. I really like that. Yeah, we just had King Keto in here and he'd never had it before either. It's really good little matcha blend adaptogens. It was tasty. No, tropics. Yeah. You know what? So they sent me one, I'm sorry, magic mind if you don't want me saying this, but I got to, I gotta be honest because it's honest. The first one they sent me was like a year ago. And I took the shot and I was like, the effects work. But this is disgusting. I'm not, I'm not gonna wake up every day shot.
Dan Martell (2m 2s):But that product's not available anymore.
Travis Chappell (2m 3s):Correct. Alright,
Dan Martell (2m 4s):Perfect. So the problem's
Travis Chappell (2m 5s):Been solved? No, the problem's been solved. They iterated on the product and they sent me another package probably like three or four months ago. Cool. And I was like, all right, I'll try it again. Delicious. And it does, I find that it gives me a little bit more focus. Allows me to have a little more clarity of mind and stuff like that. So. Heck yeah. We'll see. See how it goes man. Cool. See how it goes. Well dude, you're here because you're speaking at an event. Yeah. But you're doing a major media tour right now because of this book right here. Buy Back. Your Time,
Dan Martell (2m 27s):Wall Street Journal, bestselling book.
Travis Chappell (2m 30s):Yeah. Wall Street Journals so far. And probably add a couple more
Dan Martell (2m 33s):I literally am gonna do the reverse funnel, which is bananas. 'cause when I wrote the book, I thought if I could sell a couple thousand copies, that'd be cool. I didn't know tens of thousands of people every month be buying the book.
Travis Chappell (2m 43s):Was that really like the goal?
Dan Martell (2m 45s):A thousand percent. I remember talking to my publisher, so I did the deal with the Penguin. I'm an entrepreneur. Yeah. Like I built you, you know my stuff. Like Yep. I'm a software guy. Yep. Like I didn't think I've been publishing like
Travis Chappell (2m 53s):You're a company builder.
Dan Martell (2m 54s):Yeah, yeah. I'm a very hardcore entrepreneur operator. And I put all, everything I ever knew on YouTube as that was like, after I sold my third company, I was like, I'm gonna do a YouTube channel to just like give it away. Right. Because I honestly, I mean Travis, the book's called Buy Back, Your Time. I was sick of having the same conversation with people. How do I validate my idea? How do I choose what I'm passionate about? All like all these questions. And I always joke that, you know, emails where words go to die. So I wanted to just like, I'll just do videos on how to and how I think about it and models and stuff. But, you know, I never thought I needed to write a book. And then luckily my buddy called me up one day and said, you gotta stop being an idiot and I wanna read your book and if you had some help, would you do it?
Dan Martell (3m 36s):And I said, yep. So I made him, his name's Ron. I said, Ron, I said, if I do this, you need to be the book. C e o I. Literally, it's kind of fun. It's like a, you know, a usual suspect. The movie
Travis Chappell (3m 46s):At the end, I know of the movie, but I,
Dan Martell (3m 47s):Yeah, well at the end there's like, he's telling the story about what happened and then you find out I shouldn't tell the end. But anyways, there,
Travis Chappell (3m 53s):It's been out for a while. I think it's, I think it's fine.
Dan Martell (3m 54s):Okay. So at the end you find out the witness is actually the bad guy. Okay. And so like the book, people are like, Dan wrote a book. It's a really great book. And then you find out at the end there's a team and Ron was the book, c e o, I think I heard Gary V say this once. He's like, yeah, I have a book. C e o. I'm like, if I ever write a book, I want a book ceo. That
Travis Chappell (4m 9s):Sounds good. Yeah.
Dan Martell (4m 10s):It's a neat idea. Right. So Ron became the c e o of the book. I had my agent, Lucinda, my writing partner Paul. And then we had researchers and copywriters and editors. And it was a project and yeah, I thought my, my, you know, my whatever they're called, publisher said, you know, I said, what would be a 10 outta 10? They said if 4,000 people bought it, like that would make us happy. You know, week one. Okay. And I think we sold like 16,000 copies. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And this is a cool part. Every week it sells more.
Travis Chappell (4m 37s):What was the reason to do traditional publishing versus because like coming from the space that you come from, right? Yep. Building a, you know, a bunch of SaaS companies. I know, but then also multi
Dan Martell (4m 46s):Why would I business. Yeah. Didn't need the money. Didn't need the advance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So ego, a hundred percent ego, Travis',
Travis Chappell (4m 51s):Ego status, credibility, I guess more than status. Yeah.
Dan Martell (4m 56s):Ego. I mean, it, it's nice to feel like the pretty girl at the party. Like
Travis Chappell (4m 59s):Sure, yeah.
Dan Martell (4m 59s):Yeah. And it was just to learn. I mean, well
Travis Chappell (5m 1s):It's a real question though, right? Because like,
Dan Martell (5m 2s):And that it is a hundred percent the real answer. 'cause like they gave me like, I don't know if I'm allowed to say or not, but it was like 450,000. I guess that's a lot for a first time author. Yeah. But I didn't need it. Yeah. Like I, I took the money and I kind of just invested it back into the book. Right. And I put even my own capital. I mean, at one point, and I love my team there at Penguin Random House. I shouldn't say that. There's some, I love some people. Yeah. Like they, they had some issues with the book, but I, it got to the point where even like the title, there were some challenges with the title and I almost bought out my contract and they said, we've never had an author off. Like say that. Yeah. And I go, I'm that passionate about producing a specific thing,
Travis Chappell (5m 40s):A good product that I actually want to promote. Yeah. I
Dan Martell (5m 42s):Know that you guys do like a book a week. Yeah. This is my thing, right. I'm gonna put this out there and if I'm not ridiculously proud of it and I would just rather take it back and find somebody else or do it privately. And luckily they kind of walked me off the cliff. Shout out to Lucinda. She's incredible. Yeah. That's why I went with the traditional and somebody said, you know, it's like if it could be a New York Times, it won't be if it's self-published. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I, and look, I'm friends with Chandler Bolt from self-publishing dot com and I've got I know 400 friends. I've written books and they've given me the pros and cons. Yep. You know, self published The shooting or
Travis Chappell (6m 14s):Scribe or
Dan Martell (6m 15s):Yeah, all of them. Yeah. Dude, I tried to do a book with Scribe back in the day. I don't know if you've heard about them recently. That dude, they went bankrupt. Like, dude, what? Yeah. Like, boom.
Travis Chappell (6m 24s):How recent was that?
Dan Martell (6m 25s):Three, four
Travis Chappell (6m 26s):Weeks ago. No shit.
Dan Martell (6m 27s):Yeah. Like everybody worked there just one day, came into work and they're in receivership. That's
Travis Chappell (6m 33s):Wild.
Dan Martell (6m 33s):Yeah. I don't know the whole story. I know, I knew Jev and the, the c e o and I obviously know Tucker and Zach who started it. Yeah. Tucker. I tried to do a deal with them like back in the day, but just their process wasn't aligned with my creative like desire artistically. Yeah. They were awesome about it. Like, they literally said, look, let's look at us, our hard costs and we'll send you the money back. Like, 'cause I, I sent them quite a bit, but Yeah. Huh. That's so I tried it in the past and then decided I need to book c e o. That's how it came to be.
Travis Chappell (6m 58s):Yeah, dude. Because I, I go back and forth with that stuff all the time because like I hear you don't own as much of the IP or something, but then
Dan Martell (7m 4s):Ask me if I would do it again. Now would
Travis Chappell (7m 6s):You do it again now? No.
Dan Martell (7m 7s):Okay. No way Jose. Okay. No way. No, because I knew now I would've missed my editor 'cause he was amazing. Okay. But I'm probably sure I could hire somebody that would've been Sure. You know what I mean with,
Travis Chappell (7m 20s):Especially with your skillset of knowing
Dan Martell (7m 22s):How to hire people. Yeah. I actually have met people at events that seem really talented in that space. I've worked on some pretty, you know, phenomenal books and hey, there's a lot of talent on the market right now. No shit. Not around I know. So Yeah. In hindsight actually, so I run one of the largest software, c e o coaching, mentoring, SaaS Academy or a client at one point. Yep. So the team and I are writing a new book for just that audience. Yeah. And we're doing that self-publish. I think we're gonna go with one of those traditional, like the hybrid companies, right? Yeah. That have the infrastructure. 'cause like that's what they sell you on is we'll get you in the bookstores distribution. Yeah. And it's like, turns out what
Travis Chappell (7m 53s):The distribution's shit,
Dan Martell (7m 54s):They don't sell books and they're kind of honest about it. They're like, when you do a book deal, you have to put essentially, I think our book proposal is like 65 pages. It was like a, a real Yeah. It was like, like
Travis Chappell (8m 4s):You're writing for a grant or something.
Dan Martell (8m 6s):A thousand percent. It was exact like good metaphor. And so by the time you do all that work, it's like I could just own it because if I could, I would give away bonus chapters. I would give away the audio. I would've sold for way less. Like
Travis Chappell (8m 19s):Isn't there rules too about like how you're allowed to sell it or something? Like you would not be able to do like a free plus shipping funnel.
Dan Martell (8m 25s):That's the problem. I cannot do that. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (8m 27s):You can't use it as an asset for lead
Dan Martell (8m 29s):Gen. Not the way I would've hoped to. So right now I've been toying with the team 'cause the book has gotten so much traction and the feedback, like it's having an impact way beyond I ever thought Yeah. That I'm literally gonna gift it to a thousand people. Hmm. Because I actually think that is r o i positive in the rest of my life. Yeah. So we're just literally working. I gotta go buy them at retail dude. But isn't that crazy?
Travis Chappell (8m 51s):That is insane. Awful.
Dan Martell (8m 52s):So like step one is call them up to my publisher to say, hey, if
Travis Chappell (8m 55s):They, they negotiate a bulk buy deal
Dan Martell (8m 56s):Yourself. Yeah. A bulk buy deal. Who's gonna get The Warehouse? Who's gonna ship it? A book dude. For my own book. That's right. Wild. And then once I do that, then I gotta go find the people I want to gift it to and then figure out how we get it in their hands. And if, gosh forbid I want to do like an insert or a signed copy, I mean adds complexity through the yin yang. Huh.
Travis Chappell (9m 12s):That's crazy. Dude. These
Dan Martell (9m 13s):Are champagne problems. I'm not complaining.
Travis Chappell (9m 14s):I was gonna say Yeah. But the nice thing though is like, at least this is a book that it, it's a standalone asset, right? Like it, it isn't like a lead into your SaaS Academy coaching business No. Or any other stuff that you're doing. It's literally what I love about books like this versus just like another type of coaching book that usually as a lead magnet is like, this is a book that adds to the body of knowledge
Dan Martell (9m 35s):In the world. In that, in that category. I literally read Ryan Holiday's book Perennial Seller. Okay. Okay. So here's how I, I decide like when I decide to do something. Is that new? No, he actually did that probably two books ago. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably about six, seven years old. I said, okay, I'm gonna write a book and I'm gonna like make it a thing and I want it to be like a top book. So I reread the top 20 business books in my mind. Okay. Good to great. You know, you know, seven Habits, all that stuff. Yep. Just to get myself in the head space and go revisit the old stuff and the newer stuff. Right. Atomic habits, et cetera. And then tried to figure out like what was the pattern I was seeing and how to like make it evergreen. Like make it have a unique perspective on a thing.
Dan Martell (10m 16s):Right. That wasn't, and that's why people are like, oh I thought it was more for software. It's like, no, I've been teaching this methodology to my brother who's a home builder. My wife who runs an agency. My best friend who runs a sign company, my friend's that own lawn care company. Like this is a book for Podcasts or artists because those are my friends that I've been trying to like take pieces of the frameworks that I teach. Right. And that's why like when they've, when they read it or listened to it and they go, oh my gosh, now I get it. I'm like, you've been seeing this happen for 10 years. Yeah. And they're like, yeah but I, I couldn't see the whole thing. Yeah. That's the thing that I underestimated
Travis Chappell (10m 49s):Atomic Habits is such a great example because that book's been out for five years.
Dan Martell (10m 54s):Dude. I, dude I got got two because James Yeah. Is number one still and he sells 20,000 copies a week organically still after four years. It's insane. Yeah. It's the one of the most successful books in the history. More than four Hour work week, et cetera. I remember Four Hour Work
Travis Chappell (11m 8s):Week. Oh yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. I didn't know it past that. Yep. That's crazy.
Dan Martell (11m 12s):Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those I think subtle art of not given enough. Yep. That would be another book in that category. I think maybe a little bit higher
Travis Chappell (11m 19s):Mark's
Dan Martell (11m 19s):Great. Yeah. But you gotta pick those categories and time is one of them. Productivity is one of them, but it's not as, so it's like habits. Sure.
Travis Chappell (11m 25s):Yeah. Sure. Yeah. That's a little bit more niche than that. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit smaller market. Yeah. Okay. So high level, I want to make sure we touch on this and then everybody knows if you're watching the show, you're listening to the show. You know, every time we bring somebody on who has a book, I tell you, buy the book now so they don't forget about it and just put it on your list. And this is definitely one of the books that I say like absolutely make it, it'll
Dan Martell (11m 46s):Change your life if you feel stuck. A hundred percent. I guarantee it. It will show you a completely different way of thinking about building your company. Yeah. That once you understand it, you can't not see it.
Travis Chappell (11m 57s):'cause it's so high level, right. Like the goal is not to grind 90 hours a week.
Dan Martell (12m 2s):That's wrong. You're doing it goal, you're literally doing it wrong. I wanted to teach people how to build a business that you don't grow to hate. That's a
Travis Chappell (12m 8s):Really good way to say
Dan Martell (12m 8s):It. That's the hook. And the reason why people don't grow businesses is because doubling their current business would mean double the pain. Yeah. Entrepreneurs will not grow into pain. But I mean so, so I, they say this like I wanna double my business. And I'm like, I hear what you're saying but you're scared that if you do that your world would look doubly hard. And they go Yeah. And I go I know because the way you are getting leverage, you're buying back your time is flawed. You're adding people for capacity. Yeah. You're not adding people to Buy, Back, Your, Time. Right. I the buyback principle states, we don't hire people to grow our business. We hire people to buy back our time. 'cause if I do the second one, you now have the space to go do the thing that you love to do that makes you more money that you're
Travis Chappell (12m 47s):Uniquely qualified to do. The
Dan Martell (12m 49s):Only you should be doing. Yeah. Until you have enough volume of that thing to then pay somebody else to do it. Yeah. Then you go uli your skills. Right. So I teach the buyback loop, like how do you audit, transfer and fill. So like audit your time and energy, transfer it to somebody else and then fill it with things that make you more money. Lights you up. Most people don't even know that. If I gave most entrepreneurs a day a week back and said, okay, now you have a day, a week, what are you gonna do with that? I don't know. Right. I know. You don't know. Because if you knew and you're not doing it, you would stop doing the stuff that's getting in the way of doing that thing you would probably do that day. Which is strategic thinking about how do I become better so I can grow?
Travis Chappell (13m 22s):Yeah. That's the, it changes the entire mountain that you're climbing. It immediately puts you on a different mountain. Totally. Oh I thought I was climbing this mountain, which is like grow scale, get bigger, grind, hustle, work, you know, and then it puts you on a completely different mountain that's like, you'd actually don't wanna get to the top of that mountain. 'cause there's not really a top. You're just gonna keep climbing. Yep. And you're just gonna get harder. It's
Dan Martell (13m 42s):Getting harder and you're gonna
Travis Chappell (13m 43s):Get thinner
Dan Martell (13m 43s):And, and you're gonna, and sooner later you're gonna fall. That's the pattern. And that was my truth man. I was engaged with a woman and I came home one day and she just said, I'm done. Can't do this anymore. Seven weeks before the wedding.
Travis Chappell (13m 53s):Wow. That's close.
Dan Martell (13m 55s):You wanna talk about Wake up call?
Travis Chappell (13m 57s):How long ago was that?
Dan Martell (13m 58s):I was 26, 27. Wow. Yeah, I'm 43. That's the thing is like I teach all this stuff because I've been a student of the opposite and it sucks. And here's the thing we do that we work hard for the people. We love to create a future. Yeah. They never asked us for any of that.
Travis Chappell (14m 19s):I'm laughing because you're speaking directly to me at this point.
Dan Martell (14m 22s):No, people read the book and they go, it's like you're staring at my soul. And I'm like, I know. 'cause I was that guy or I
Travis Chappell (14m 27s):Well you said you, you have two boys, right? Yeah. How old are
Dan Martell (14m 29s):They? Both 10 today. They're not twin. They're Irish twins. But this is the month really that they're the same age. Oh
Travis Chappell (14m 34s):Nice. That's
Dan Martell (14m 35s):Really, yeah, they're 11 months apart.
Travis Chappell (14m 36s):Okay. So they're both 10. Yeah. But at one point they were two. Yeah. And three. Yeah. And four. And this is when you are more like heads down? No. In your business? No.
Dan Martell (14m 46s):At that point, no. Say no. See I got lucky I was 27 when that happened to me. And then I moved to San Francisco and I went through for after that like my identity. I mean you imagine you're in a relationship, you're about to get married. You have this successful multi-million dollar company. She leaves. I wanna paint a picture like I understand some of this stuff sounds like, oh, poor Dan Company gets bought six months later I become a multi-millionaire. Just clarity. No, this was Spheric even before clarity. Clarity is the most recent one. And here I am in this new house we had just bought by myself. Hmm. Nobody cared if I woke up, I had a zero day earnout and I was having frigging anxiety attacks because my body was like, what did you do?
Dan Martell (15m 28s):So dude, I went and saw this therapist, Manu, he's such a funny dude, you know, he's always like, you know what you should do? I'm like, what? And he's like, do you like water? I'm like, yeah, I like water. He is like, you should get a boat. I was like, you're the best therapist ever. I'm like, I should get a boat. What he was trying to say is, you should get in the ocean. What he was
Travis Chappell (15m 46s):Trying to say is, take me on
Dan Martell (15m 47s):Your boat. Yeah. He's like, you should get a boat and then invite me on the boat. But
Travis Chappell (15m 52s):I'm actually free in two
Dan Martell (15m 54s):Weekends. But it was actually really good advice 'cause I, because of like all this like anxiety and pressure and like my world just got shattered. Yeah. I was just, my body was like, felt like there was a weight vest. And those are
Travis Chappell (16m 5s):Multiple huge life
Dan Martell (16m 6s):Changes, dude. Like building that company, working a hundred hour weeks for four years. Like that was me. I was the company was me losing my fiance in that whole future. And then the company were, yes, financially it was a big thing. But like personally, and I don't do this anymore and I would counsel against it. Clients I coach, I'm like, do not, your self-worth is not tied to your business. But at that point it was, I was 28 and I had to work through that. And for a while, and this is why I'm like so passionate about this topic, is I honestly thought maybe I'm gonna have to just accept the fact that I might just be the rich uncle and I have two brothers and a sister and we have nieces and nephews and like I'm the guy that shows up at Christmas.
Dan Martell (16m 48s):My work is my wife. Yeah. Because I'm, I wasn't a, I didn't see a pa a way that I could be in a relationship. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I just wanna protect people. I was like, I don't want hurt somebody the way I hurt my fiance. I don't wanna go through that again. It's just like, I
Travis Chappell (17m 2s):Don't know if I'm meant to live this
Dan Martell (17m 3s):Version of life a thousand percent. Yeah. Maybe that is not meant for me. Yeah. And luckily when I moved to San Francisco, I met these guys and mentors of mine that showed me the real way to build leverage. See like most people don't realize this, but time is a constant for every human in the world. And the output is the variable. Like how much output does a person get done that is a variable. So if times' a constant and the output's variable, well what's the missing part? It's leverage. Well, there's only four ways to get leverage. Nobody ever taught me this. Nobody ever explained it to me this way. It's the four Cs code, capital, content and collaboration. Hmm. So it's like, I call them the four master skills.
Dan Martell (17m 44s):If those are the four master skills of leverage, then I can achieve whatever I want as long as I understand how to master those skills. Hmm. Capital. How do I use money to make more money? Yeah. Right. Every real estate person knows this. Most VC backed companies know this, et cetera content. Like this piece of content we're producing right now, it could be seen by 10 million more people. Does that change our lives? If 10 million people watch it versus 10,000? Yeah. Zero. Right. Huge leverage. But in business, I would say the equivalent would be like a Playbook. Right? An s o p I could document a checklist of processes for people to follow and as long as I trained you right and you use that document, I will get the same thing from the person every time. The fourth is code's my favorite right now obviously. But like think about automation, think about ai, right?
Dan Martell (18m 27s):It's technology. Most people don't know how to use technology in their business. And then the collaboration, which is really where I, I spend most of my time, although I talk about the other three in the book is how do you work with other people? 'cause people don't quit companies, they quit bosses. And most entrepreneurs they're crazy. Yeah. Like I know. I knew I was crazy. Right? I knew I was intense detail. Yeah. Like I knew, you know, I knew that. But it's like, okay, well how do I stop creating what I call emotional shrapnel? Most of the things that take our time Travis think about this. It's sometimes it's like problems I created. Yeah.
Dan Martell (19m 7s):By not communicating clearly by overreacting. Yeah. Dude, I had one of my team members call me out like one of my direct reports 142 $2,000 mistake today. Like, like real money. Right? And I go, you know, first question, like he was beating himself up. I'm so sorry. I, he like messed up And he said it like six times. I said, I'm gonna send you a stick so you can keep beating yourself with this. He's like, ha. I go dude. Like look, do you know what the process, where the process broke to fix the process to make sure we don't have that happen again? And he goes, absolutely. I said, cool. This is a learn once. Yeah. I'm cool making mistakes. I don't love it. But at the same time, like this person's responsible for like $15 million department in my business.
Dan Martell (19m 49s):Like I'm good. Yeah. Right. Like let's get back to work man. Yep. And like I always tell people sometimes we wish we had less problems. Right. That's not how the world works. Yeah. We, what we do is we get good at dealing with bigger problems. Yeah. It's the Jim Roan thing, right? Yeah. Don't wish the world was easier. Wish you were better. Yeah. But think about this like factors of 10. So like when you start, you know, you're like a small business. You might get a cell phone bill, it's got extra a hundred bucks. I've seen people freak out as if somebody punch 'em in the face because of a hundred dollars overage on a cell phone bill. I would invite people to consider that maybe they should get better at non reacting to those a hundred dollars problems. And instead ask for a thousand dollar problems.
Dan Martell (20m 29s):Instead ask for 10,000, ask for a hundred thousand problem. Ask for a million dollar problems. When Oprah was getting sued one time, somebody said, how does it feel? She was getting sued for the mad cow stuff. I don't know if you remember she, but she was like vocal about it and then the associations of cows or whatever was suing her. And she's like, I'm just grateful to be the kind of person that could be be sued for a billion dollars.
Travis Chappell (20m 48s):Hmm. Like
Dan Martell (20m 49s):So you don't care.
Travis Chappell (20m 50s):A little reframe. People
Dan Martell (20m 52s):Show up to their team. Yeah. And if they're immature about it, that's why they have problems. Yeah. It's not their team. Like I hired that person either. I didn't train them. Right. I didn't show show up as a leader for them. I haven't been coaching them, I haven't been communicating clearly. That's my fault. Yeah. Like I told the guy today, I was like, dude, I never worked through that with you to, I could have saw that. Yeah. I could have talked to you about it beforehand and I didn't. My bad. Yeah. It's like it's not your fault. I go, it is. You report to me. Right. That's my bad,
Travis Chappell (21m 20s):That's extreme ownership. It's real leadership. Dude.
Dan Martell (21m 23s):I don't go to work to have people work for me. I go to work and I work for them to support people. Dude. I literally go to work and I say I work for you. So then my question to you is, what do you need from me to help you do your thing? Yeah. Right. And it's never, I'm the boss. I don't like that word. I find it stupid. It doesn't make sense. It's not the, it's not the it, it doesn't make sense. Nobody works for me. Right. This, we're creating a thing, it's called a company. If everybody didn't come to work today, there'd be no company. And I really love this thing that, you know, I just happen to own. So technically I work for you guys 'cause you're helping me build this thing. So how can I help you guys
Travis Chappell (21m 57s):In, in terms of managing philosophical skillsets like reaction management. That to me is something that stoics have talked,
Dan Martell (22m 5s):I've never heard called that. I like that reaction management.
Travis Chappell (22m 8s):Yeah. It's again,
Dan Martell (22m 9s):I get
Travis Chappell (22m 9s):What I, what I would say, how I would describe it. It's kind of like
Dan Martell (22m 12s):If I start using that in my social, you'll know where it came from. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (22m 16s):I, I'll I tell people I'll always give you credit the first time, but after that is mine.
Dan Martell (22m 20s):That's a good point. 'cause sometimes I'm like, if I have to credit every person who's responsible for this idea idea,
Travis Chappell (22m 24s):It's like zero things are my idea. It's
Dan Martell (22m 25s):Three times longer than the sentence.
Travis Chappell (22m 27s):Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that, that stoic philosophy has been around for thousands of years of like there are no good or bad events. There's the event and then it's how you perceive the event that makes it good or bad. Yeah. If you were going to like build almost like a hierarchy of these like core philosophies that help you live a little bit better of a life like that one, what other things would make the list besides that?
Dan Martell (22m 47s):Geez, I, well I have my manifest though.
Travis Chappell (22m 50s):Okay.
Dan Martell (22m 50s):So I sat down probably it's
Travis Chappell (22m 52s):Personal manifesto. Yeah.
Dan Martell (22m 53s):Do you ever see it's like a black and white, like words and size and it's like, it's pretty popular poster and it's got like, you only live one life or like it's got a bunch of sayings on it and it's like square whatever. I saw that, I think it was in New York City and it's pretty popular. And I found the woman who actually helped the company that came up with that. Oh. Create it. And I hired her to work with me on mine and she essentially went through like all my emails I ever sent my blog post interviews. Wow. And she like helped me, like challenge me on like, when you say this, what do you really mean? And so there's a lot of stuff on there. First one is, what if you couldn't retire? So like I talk about build your empire, which is a big word. That's a scary word for a lot of entrepreneurs. I just wanna make some money. Yeah. Right. Like I don't wanna build that part.
Dan Martell (23m 33s):I
Travis Chappell (23m 34s):Don't listen to my shitty boss anymore.
Dan Martell (23m 35s):Yeah. But because empire to them is like a big complex thing. For me, the definition of empire is a life of unlimited creation. We never have to retire from. And I think everybody should want that. That I think every podcaster, artist, creative, like, don't you wanna wake up every day and just create and never feel like there's a cap on that? Right. So that's why the book is so important to me is I just really want to unlock entrepreneurship. I wanna unlock creatorship. Right. So what if you couldn't retire has been driving my life for a long time. Pretty much ever. And I think most entrepreneurs can resonate, like real entrepreneurs can resonate with this. The idea of not retiring, it's like even in my book I talk about this is like if you sold your company to retire, you'd be poolside staring at the umbrella, looking at how dumb the design is.
Dan Martell (24m 18s):And by noon you would've started new company and hired the pool boy to be your first employee.
Travis Chappell (24m 22s):You already made a an order on Alibaba. Yeah.
Dan Martell (24m 24s):It's just like who you are. Right. So why would you stop? Like people are like, do you ever wanna retire? I go do, do you follow me on social media? Like what would I retire from?
Travis Chappell (24m 34s):Define retire. Yeah.
Dan Martell (24m 35s):It's kind of bananas, right? It's like what do you want me to stop doing? Well and
Travis Chappell (24m 38s):That's kinda what I mean by like flipping the entire narrative upside down. Because that is the goal for most people is retirement. It's like retirement's the goal. And it's like
Dan Martell (24m 46s):That, oh man, it should be about love in your life.
Travis Chappell (24m 48s):Opposite goal. Right? Yeah.
Dan Martell (24m 49s):Right. Somebody said the other day, this guy was telling, he's like, yeah, I delete social media from my phone and I reinstall it every couple days to respond to people. Wow. Okay. Why? Well I'm addicted. And I go, I think you're addicted to social media because you're not addicted to your life. Hmm. And I just have so much going on that there's no, I don't have a window to go be addicted. Like what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, I'd spend six hours on TikTok. I'm like, what? You just don't have anything going on. Yeah. Like I can't even find seven minutes reply to a text message. 'cause I'm intentional about how now it's not that I'm working, it's I'm in Croatia with my family for three weeks. Yeah. I'm trying to buy companies. I'm like, it's, you know, and I'm trying to do these Podcasts.
Dan Martell (25m 30s):I mean this is like one of four we're doing today. It's like awesome. Yeah. Right. I get to meet cool people. So that's in the top left of the manifest and there's like 13 of them. The other ones I think people resonate with that is kind of unique is become a belief collector.
Travis Chappell (25m 42s):Become a
Dan Martell (25m 43s):Belief collector. I'm a belief collector man. I'll show you Travis. I'll give, I want to give your audience the real deal. Okay. Please. So this is just like all the ideas I have for tweets, which isn't very long. Right? Like I just had this one this morning. No rain, no flowers. Yeah. I saw a tennis pro on tv. She had a tattoo and it said no rain, no flower. And I used to always say to people, I'd said, if you hate the rain, start a garden. Yeah. Right. Same. Probably more elegant way to say it. But I collect these beliefs. Check this one out. This is all the times I've talked to my buddy Brad. Okay. He's br brilliant. It's not all the time. There's a lot of like,
Travis Chappell (26m 16s):Oh wow. Damn.
Dan Martell (26m 19s):That's just conversation my buddy Brad that I goes snow biking with. Like, these are the thing, you gotta let go of negative beliefs to move forward.
Travis Chappell (26m 27s):Be a belief collector.
Dan Martell (26m 28s):Yeah. Be a belief. So I just collect belief. Right. So I think a lot of people read but they don't collect the beliefs. They don't integrate it in their minds. It's kind of like reprogramming. Like I'm a software guy so like I'm trying to reprogram my thoughts, my defaults, my focus. what I call my emotional home. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (26m 41s):Yeah. That's something I've definitely done a lot. That's why I why I asked the question. 'cause I've done a lot of thought on that. I grew up kind of in a OC cultish environment. And so a lot of my twenties, mid twenties, late twenties was spent rewiring everything about how I'd think about the world, what I believe about the world. And so spent a lot of time just like trying to think about like what, what would I, if I were gonna script, you know, a set of values to live by, what would they be? Yeah. And who informs those and who's right and who's wrong and what's most advantageous. You know? So that's why I asked the question. 'cause I have the same thing. Just my life, my life. Lessons. Lessons.
Dan Martell (27m 15s):Yeah. Dude, I think people aren't as intentional about capturing that stuff. Yeah. Right. And if you don't capture it, then it's just, you're just trusting that hopefully I remember.
Travis Chappell (27m 24s):Or you're trusting that hopefully my parents were right.
Dan Martell (27m 27s):Oh, well that's, that's fascinating, right?
Travis Chappell (27m 29s):Yeah. Because I mean like you either come up with your own or you just listen to what people tell you
Dan Martell (27m 33s):Are the things that value I know. But so the parents stuff, so like, you know, I don't know if you know my background on that front, but like I grew up in like serious chaos. Ended up in prison twice by the time I was 17. Almost took my life in a high speed chase. You know, rehab for 11 months and writing code, learning how to write code literally saved my life. And that's a big part of my life. The thing I'm most proud of, like love the business stuff. I go back two, three times a year, talk to the kids, breathe belief into them. The thing that I share with them, because again, they're like, you know, I wanna get out here and be sober, but like my dad's this, my mom's that. Like, it's tough, right? Like how do I make decisions when this is what I've always learned or been exposed to. And my role is that for the big life decisions you have to ask mentors.
Dan Martell (28m 15s):You cannot ask your parents. And I love my dad, he's my best friend. Like he's so cool we talked this morning, but if he's never done the thing I wanna to do Yeah. And I'm asking him should I go to university or not? Should I start a company or not? What do you think about this guy or girl? Yeah. What about this business partner? They're gonna gimme advice that's gonna get me the results that they got, they got.
Travis Chappell (28m 35s):Right. Right.
Dan Martell (28m 35s):Well that's just a, that's a kind of not very smart thought. Right. You know what I mean? Like that's, it's like if you actually think logically, if you ask people to help you get to an outcome that they've gotten, but you don't want that outcome. Right. Why are you asking? Totally. Why are you putting so much value into their opinion? Yeah. Their
Travis Chappell (28m 52s):Love for you does not make them correct. No.
Dan Martell (28m 54s):And you don't have to be upset about it. Some people are like, oh my bird doesn't believe in me. Why would you expect them to, they've never done this before. Like your need of them believing you is actually silly. You're speak,
Travis Chappell (29m 3s):You're literally speaking a different language to them.
Dan Martell (29m 5s):Like you don't understand don't it? Dude, if I call my dad right now and I said, Hey, you know, we call 'em Fit Vic, I like Fit Vic. I'm on a podcast. Tell people what I do. He just laughed. He goes, I still don't get it. Still don't get it man. I put my life on the internet. Right? Yeah. Right. But he still doesn't get it 'cause it's just not. And I think oftentimes I joke with though, I say, you still think I'm a 13 year old troublemaker. Yeah. Right. He goes, well it's hard not to see you that way Danielle. And he calls me Danielle 'cause I'm, you know, I can't, I grew up French and I go, I get it. You know? And then you know, we go to my event and there's 500 people in the room and he's like, how are these people here to see you? I go, I don't know. It's crazy.
Travis Chappell (29m 38s):Yeah. They know that they're here to see you. Right?
Dan Martell (29m 40s):Oh dude. But his first time he came to an event, he was at the pool and it was like the day before the event started and he saw people wearing the badges like pre-registration. Yeah. And he would stop people and he is like, do you know DAN MARTELL? And they're like, yeah, we're in his groove. And they're like, what did he tell you to get you to come? Yeah. And then they started like telling them about the impact we've had on their lives. And I remember the first time he saw me on stage, I came off and he just, he's so giggly. He's just, he goes, you figured it out. I said, what's that dad? He goes, you're not working. Like that's not working. I can't believe it, dude. You figured it out. And I'm like, I know. And he's like, that's so cool. My dad actually got to see what I try to tell people. That's awesome. It's like create a life.
Dan Martell (30m 20s):You never have to retire from.
Travis Chappell (30m 22s):Selfish question here, because I'm a dad, I
Dan Martell (30m 24s):Got, he's super selfish.
Travis Chappell (30m 25s):I got a four year old and I got a two year old. Yeah. So anytime I'm talking with somebody who either has a great relationship with their parents or is also a parent in addition to all the other things that you do, I gotta asked the questions, what do you think were a couple of things that your dad did to make sure that you guys have a great relationship now. Was that more him? Was that more you? And then what are some things that you're trying to do with your kids to make sure that kind of ends up
Dan Martell (30m 47s):The same? It's a beautiful question. Travis. Thank you. Here's the truth. I think my dad and my mom did the best with what they had. Hmm. My mom's adopted two alcoholic parents. The fact that she's a functioning adult is beautiful. My dad, same thing. You know, not adopted, but parents are alcoholics. The fact that he's an incredible parent to me and grandfather to my kids is awesome. Hmm. My dad's never read a book on personal development. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I just got to a point where I realized like I can either wait until he figures it out or I'll go work on me to get to a place where I don't need him to.
Dan Martell (31m 28s):Yeah. Right. See what I'm saying? I eventually got to a place that's powerful. Yeah. Where I didn't need
Travis Chappell (31m 34s):To change him.
Dan Martell (31m 35s):Zero. Yeah. Like I remember the first time my kid, I called her up, it was like we had, you know, max for like three months. Right. And I'm driving and he's crying, he is not falling to sleep. And he finally goes to sleep and I call my mom and the first thing I say to her is, I'm sorry. And she goes, why? And I go, I'm sitting here with Max. You had four? Yeah.
Travis Chappell (31m 54s):Oh
Dan Martell (31m 54s):My gosh. I am so sorry. Right. Totally. So I just got to a place where I didn't need her or him to become anything. And then I just kept shining my light. And what I mean by that is like my dad for a long time. And I don't know why I never asked him this. You know, he'd always punt every time I'd ask him to do like, you know, Hey, I'd love for you to come on my boat, just you and I. And he is like, oh yeah, I'll see if, if Diane is his wife, you know, I'll see if the, if Diane's available. And I'm like, no, just you dad. And he's like, yeah, I'm busy around the thing or whatever. And I didn't know why. And I remember calling my brother Pierre and I'd be like, dude, does dad ever like, do you ever hang out with dad? Just you and him? And he's like, no man. And I was like, why? He goes, I don't know, I don't know if it's something like with Die that he has like separation anxiety.
Dan Martell (32m 38s):I, he, we literally couldn't figure it out. And then finally him and I sat down, we didn't corner my dad, but we said we really like, we had an intervention. Yeah. We just said we love you. You know, you're 71 now. We would love to like spend time with just the boys. Yeah. No ladies. Yep. And dude, so we, I asked, this is like, you know, 20 years in the making and finally I got my dad to agree and we got a, you know, this crazy hotel suite. We rented E-bikes. We were, we drove around this beach community I live in and or this lake community and just like we're kids. Yeah. And my dad saw how it could be and I remember there was like a switch and he goes, I'm sorry.
Dan Martell (33m 19s):I always thought it would be different. And I don't know if he was worried I was gonna confront him about stuff. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like obviously he sees what we both, even my other brother's super successful, right? Yeah. Like I won the entrepreneur award in Canada. My other brother Pierre won it like five years later. Oh wow. And they told my dad, if your other son Mo wins it, we're gonna give you an award. Yeah. So I, and then, but like Mo's not as driven us. I was like, don't hold your breath. Like I love you Mo but you Yeah. Odds always, dad you may not we'll give it to you ourselves. And but you know, again, it took that long to just show up and I, I just say be the lighthouse. Yeah. Never give up. I never, I always want to be ready. I'm gonna go do the thing to be the example to model.
Dan Martell (34m 2s):Yeah. And when people around me, my friends, my brother was, you know, when I was halfway through finally figuring out business and had a couple hundred thousand saved in my bank account, my brother came to me for advice to start his first business. And I was in a position to write him a check to seed fund his home building company. Oh that's awesome. Because I, instead of showing up every day telling him you should start a business, start a business. And him being like, shut up. Yeah. Right. I just went and did the thing and then when he was ready can't help but see the results. Yeah. And I could just And now I had the resources because I didn't waste energy trying to get other people to do something that they weren't ready for. I just went and did the thing. It's like people go to the CrossFit once. Sure. You should, you know what I did today? I did a wa you should come to CrossFit CrossFit's the bad CrossFit.
Dan Martell (34m 42s):It's like, dude, go for a couple years and show me that you're competing a little bit. Right, right. You know what I mean? It's like you can't still be 83 pounds overweight. It's how do yous, you know, somebody's a vegan. They don't shut up about it. It's like, come on. Like just 'cause you've been vegan for three weeks. Like just go be an example and then when people are curious they're gonna lean in. That's my philosophy on, on success. So yeah. I never asked my parents to be anything. Just be themselves. And then I had to work through all this stuff. 'cause look, I still call my dad and he ask me like these questions that I'm like, why are you asking me that? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It has nothing to do with me. It has to do with him. So how do you view that in terms of your role as a parent now? Totally. So a lot of stuff, my responsibility to my kids is to become an emotional coach for my kids.
Dan Martell (35m 25s):That's it. Their success in life. This is a tough one for some parents, what they do or don't do is not a reflection of who I am as a person. Hmm. I tell my kids all the time, if you're happy with your grades, cool. I don't give a crap what they say. Like what a school that I didn't design and I didn't get involved in the testing and help them figure out if it was even made sense. Sure. Decide you are here versus there as your father. Zero. I do not care if you care. I care. 'cause I love anything you care about, I care about, that's empathy. Right. But that's not how I'm gonna decide if I'm proud of you or not. I'm gonna be proud of you for watching you do things that are hard and where everybody else might've wanted to stop.
Dan Martell (36m 8s):You got back up. Yeah. So it could be as subtle as just like going and practicing or soccer in the front yard to whatever. So I'm very intentional about the words I use, how I show up as a father. When they're ready to talk to me, everything is away. I'm here for you. I teach them like people are like, oh, your kid shouldn't be on devices. It's not, the device is not the problem. It's their self-confidence. I want my kids to have high self-confidence. I want them to be creative problem solvers. Like we have a full-time house manager and a staff at our home. And like it would be easy for them to do stuff for our kids. Yeah. Since they were little babies. I've been very clear, I got this from Shaq. Yeah. Okay. You know what I'm talking about. I'm rich. You are not. Yeah. Betty works for me.
Dan Martell (36m 48s):She does not work for you. When we hired Betty, we were very clear. You do not pick up their bags, flush the toilet when they forget, clean their rooms, nothing. Yeah. You work for Renee and I and if you choose or want to do that, you have to ask for our permission. If they ask you to do that and you know that you shouldn't be doing it, don't do it. Man. The amount of parents I see, like do everything. It's like they go pick up the kids when they're at, you know, preschool and they're like doing their shoes and zipping up their jackets. Right. And they think they do it outta love. It's like you're actually, they're cripping handicapping your kid from being well adjusted, resourceful young men. And the way I think about it is like, do you want their, like in my case, my sons, do I want their spouse, their wives or whatever to like tie their shoes?
Dan Martell (37m 33s):Do I want them to be proud of the men they become? Or do I want them to feel annoyed that we didn't let them learn how to cook for themselves? Like I've never cooked for my kids. Dude, do you know how crazy that is? If you ever meet Max Noah, ask them, has your dad ever made you breakfast? The answer is no. I've sat there while they're cooking pans, making eggs, burning toast. Yeah. And they eventually figured out themselves. I just know like, 'cause I was worried, here's what happened. I was worried that at some point I would have to like bring him in the woods and run away. Like, like a run of passage. Certainly. Yeah. Because I went through so much adversity. Right. That I was worried that they would be, they would be soft. Right. Exactly. So, you know, and I talked to Ben Greenfield who actually did this with his twin boys.
Dan Martell (38m 14s):Yeah. Like literally 21. Oh I know. Yeah. Yeah. So luckily I've learned this. The world is hard enough. Just allow the world to impact your kids. Your kids will be bullied at school. Your kids will have struggles on their sports team, their whatever. Let them deal with it. Don't tie their shoes. Yeah. Don't always be making them food. Don't clean up their rooms. Don't flush their toilet. Like make them come back. Yeah. And I think that is how I've been crazy intentional about making sure that I at least give them the tools to do what they want and at the same time, whatever they wanna do in life. Like, dude, I don't like, I'd love my kids to do whatever.
Dan Martell (38m 54s):I just want them to, to be fulfilled. I don't even want them to be happy. I think Happy's a weird word. I want them to wake up and feel productive and fulfilled and give and be good humans and be kind. What they do in their careers has nothing to do with me as a person. Yeah. And I never want them to live for me.
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Dan Martell (41m 59s):Let's go down that happiness thing for a second here, if you'll allow me to, because again, I do a lot of thinking about this types, these types of things.
Travis Chappell (42m 6s):And I've mostly found that to be true as well. Like happiness is a you know, if you ask most people what they want, I, I think most people would probably say, I just wanna be happy. But happy is such an elusive emotional state that we don't really have a ton of control over. And I find that it's mostly like a, it's like trying to shoot a moving target off of the back of a horse with an old bow and arrow. You know, it's just like, define happiness for me. You know what I mean? Like, so if what I joke with people and say sometimes, like the thing the founding fathers got wrong is the pursuit of happiness. Like, for people to have life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Like, well, if you're pursuing happiness, you're probably never gonna find it.
Travis Chappell (42m 48s):There's other more meaningful things to pursue that I think will provide more moments of happiness. But happiness is always a momentary thing. It's never a sustainable state. So what, in your opinion, if happiness isn't the goal, what are some more meaningful goals?
Dan Martell (43m 5s):I mean, you bring up a good point. 'cause like, I, I, my buddy Dr. Cashie, and every time I talk to him, I ask him a question, he goes, first off, we needed to find every word in that sentence. See what I'm saying? Like maybe the, the, the, the, the creators of the United States, their word for happiness is different than what we believe it to be. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (43m 24s):What we,
Dan Martell (43m 25s):Yeah. So it's like, I think first off, what does it mean to me? I like the word fulfillment. You can use a different word, but I wanna feel useful. Right. It's the reason why it's like people are like, I want freedom. It's like, poof. You're now on a beach in your favorite country and you gotta a place and you don't have to work and you're all day long. Six weeks in you're gonna be like, oh, if this is what I 10 years from now I'm gonna hate myself. Like, you want variety. Yeah. You want to feel creative. Don't you need problems? You need stuff to challenge you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, so let's just figure out what that looks like. And then the other thing is, is I think what, you know, happiness, fulfillment is a life of, like, you talked about reaction management.
Dan Martell (44m 6s):I think that's like, and this is why there's a lot of meditation, breath work, spirituality, conversations. It's getting to a place where it's like mind like water. Hmm. That's really what I think I want for my kids. I want my kids to go through the world to create. And if somebody like says, your shit sucks, they're like, they're
Travis Chappell (44m 23s):Confident enough to not give a shit.
Dan Martell (44m 25s):Your opinion doesn't matter. Yeah. Like I can love you as a human, but the words that came outta your mouth do not have to resonate. Sit with me, connect to me. Stay with me at all. It zero does. And I appreciate that you felt the need to vocalize that for you.
Travis Chappell (44m 37s):Yeah. Hope that did something for you.
Dan Martell (44m 39s):Yeah. But it's, it has literally no bearing on who I am. I know who I am. Right. So that's why I think that is almost like the pursuit of the world, right. Is that we're born, I would say with that as a child, your kids, they live in that place. Totally. Unlimited creativity, fun, joy, abundance. It's all this, these are called positive energetic spirals. Right. And over time, unfortunately, or fortunately, because I think that could be part of the human experience, the spiritual experience is we get that beaten out of us. Yeah. Right? Yeah. We start falling into this like construct of how the world works. And I'm supposed to do this and I sit in a desk and I do that. And you know what I mean? There's this thing called mon money and Yeah.
Dan Martell (45m 20s):Right. Whatever. And if you are fortunate enough to go on a path and journey of personal development, betterment, enlightenment, whatever you wanna call it, you'll get to the other side of that realizing that it was always there. That it required nothing. That every person could have that right now. Yeah. Right. Whether you have the money or nothing, the company or nothing relationship or nothing. If you can actually just learn to love the moment. Yeah. It's yours to have. And at the same time, I call it like, you know, gratitude and grind. Like be grateful for what you have. Want The desire of wanting more is actually like what our creator gave us. He said go out there and create.
Dan Martell (46m 1s):Well, well how could I create if I didn't want more? Yeah. Check this out. Everything we see was first existed in somebody's mind. Think about how crazy this is. All of it. Our shirts. Yep. Somebody literally had to see it in the brain to bring it to life. Yeah. Right. And if you're telling me that's not part of the human condition that you should literally wake up every day and try to do for the rest of your life. That's what we're here to do. And then what it, what that unlocks is like when I do that, when you do your art, what's the emotional reaction to the in interaction, right? The pointy edges, right? Yeah. Of like, I don't know why, but I just don't like that guy. Ooh, there. That's interesting.
Dan Martell (46m 41s):This guy, Peter Cron has a great saying. He says, the world will show you through people and circumstances where you are not free. Think about that. Don't lean away from it. Lean into it. As soon as you see somebody that triggers you go, wow. Yeah. Fascinating. Yeah. What is it about this specific scenario for me, not for everybody else that triggers me or upsets me or gets me to feel a certain way. Let's ask some questions. That's, that's, that's what I think. Like life is about to get to a place where mine like water.
Travis Chappell (47m 10s):Yeah. Learn to be a third party observer of your
Dan Martell (47m 13s):Own clients. Dude, the observer frame is just such a beautiful way to look at it.
Travis Chappell (47m 16s):Yeah. How do you view your, your relationship Stan, you obviously know a ton of people professionally and you seemingly have a good relationship with your kids, your wife, your parents. You're intentional about a lot of these things. In terms of your success in life, what percentage of that would you attribute to the people that you surround yourself with?
Dan Martell (47m 39s):93%. Okay. 93%. So a
Travis Chappell (47m 43s):Good amount.
Dan Martell (47m 43s):It's kind of like this man. It's like, you know, it just had Mr. King Keto here. Yeah. If I want to get fit and I and my buddies, the seven other friends I spend the most time with, look like him. Yeah. I don't have to like set goals and do a meal plan and hire. Right. I just gotta be around them and they will vibrate at a higher energy for that specific outcome. So when I think about the way I've learned now to attack businesses and industries, I've built multi eight figure companies in multiple different industries back to back in record time. The first thing I do is I ask myself who's already done it. I literally make a spreadsheet. I have this thing called the, you know, the a hundred people and it's like I need the 10 mentors that have been there in the past.
Dan Martell (48m 25s):Right. I want the advisors, the people that are like the supporting characters, the lawyers, the event organiz. Like what are the consultants and then who are the peers? Who are the people that are two years ahead of me? Yeah. Because the two years ahead of me are gonna gimme the innovation today. Totally. The mentors are gonna show me the possibility. Yeah. And then the advisors are gonna be the people that help me solve these like people and infrastructure and fin like whatever problems. And to me, like it's all about people now. And then this is my unique approach to it is to me, I don't believe in balance. I believe in integration. You know, scooter bro calls it harmony, right? Yeah. It's like my life is all things I invest in my friend's companies. I'll give you like how, 'cause I've been doing this for years and people are like, how integrated is it?
Dan Martell (49m 7s):Okay, let me just share this. The note file you just looked at was from my, one of my best friends Brad. Okay. Every Friday during the winter months we get together and we go snow biking, which is like if the a real dirt bike and a snowmobile had a baby. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (49m 21s):I've heard it's a
Dan Martell (49m 22s):Blast. It's one of my favorite things in the world. It's
Travis Chappell (49m 23s):Funny. I my, do you know Brent
Dan Martell (49m 26s):Ick? No.
Travis Chappell (49m 27s):He's a reality TV show producer. Yeah. In Hollywood. But he's from Canada. Okay. And he goes up to Whistler,
Dan Martell (49m 32s):Rip around as
Travis Chappell (49m 33s):As he can and he's like, he does like adventure weekends like almost every weekend. He's like my favorite activity bar none is snow.
Dan Martell (49m 39s):Snow biking. Yeah. It's like pure powder flowy mountain tree dodging. So cool. So Brad's my best friend. We go snow biking every Friday. I'm a first investor in his company Pila. Okay. Which is a biodegradable phone case also omi, which is, you know, a organic food essentially dehydrator slash compost machine. It's fascinating. A hundred million dollar revenue in one year. Okay. So I co-invested with Jay-Z, like bananas. I grew up in a small town in East coast Canada. Yeah. Who's that? Yeah. I remember when Matt and Brad, the co-founders called me and they're like, Hey, we're finally gonna raise around 'cause I asked for years. Yeah. They're like, yeah we got 5 million come from Jay-Z. I'm like, what did you just say? Am I gonna co be so, so and I sit on the board.
Dan Martell (50m 21s):Nice. And we do date nights with our couples and we spend, to me it's all one. Right? My business partners are my friends. I think a lot of times people will keep things separate because they are not stable. I don't, you know what I'm saying?
Travis Chappell (50m 35s):Well it's almost like, it's almost like there's a scarcity mentality of Yeah, be careful how I say this 'cause it's not always true. But if you do business in a shady way and you are used to dude,
Dan Martell (50m 46s):If you constantly
Travis Chappell (50m 46s):Screwing
Dan Martell (50m 47s):People over, you have, if you have shadow. Yeah. Right? Right. The freest person in the room is a person that has no secrets.
Travis Chappell (50m 51s):Right. You have a subconscious mistrust of yourself.
Dan Martell (50m 53s):You don't trust yourself.
Travis Chappell (50m 54s):So you can't get in business with your friends 'cause
Dan Martell (50m 56s):You're afraid of. 'cause what if it doesn't work out? Right. And now our families are friends. Yeah. To me because I've just always shown up a thousand percent who I am. Yeah. And when people get around me, they know what they're getting into. And I will always do good. Like I'm very rational. It's like, here's the thing, somebody messed up. I'm, I think this is fair. What do you think? Like one of my business partners, we started this whole incubator, blah blah blah. And we both got busy on other stuff and that we essentially have to wind it down and there's like this share structure thing going on and he put in like some money and I, but we gotta get like the lawyers to dissolve it and then I'm gonna, anyways, tax reason I'm gonna use it as a loss in another company. And I go, what do you, I gotta like buy your shares but technically the business isn't worth much. What do you wanna do with it?
Dan Martell (51m 37s):And he is like, what do you think is fair? I said, well, I mean the truth is there's nothing there. You put in your money. I put in my money I, we put in a lot of time it didn't work out. Lesson learned. But I mean it's not nothing. I go, what do you think? And he gave me a number and I said, done, don't care. Like ain't worth any emotional friction. That was a number he wanted. I thought it was a little bit more, didn't matter in the grand scheme of what we're trying to create over the next 25 years is nothing that
Travis Chappell (52m 6s):Timeframe what you just
Dan Martell (52m 7s):Said, timeframe. Timeframe. I know
Travis Chappell (52m 8s):That. That to me is the biggest deal. Yeah. And when, whenever I'm dealing with like interpersonal relationships or things like that or times where I feel like I'm getting the raw end of the deal or I'm swallowing, you know, the majority of the loss or like something negative happens and I'm the one that's getting kind of hit with it. That's always what I come back to is like, I'm not in this for six months from now. I'm in this for 30, 40, 50 years from now. Yeah. Like if your frame is decades, is in decades, then you're not making these weak decisions.
Dan Martell (52m 39s):That is probably one of the components of why people have a hard time with it is 'cause they're so short term. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (52m 44s):It's
Dan Martell (52m 44s):Gotta be next week, right.
Travis Chappell (52m 45s):Next month. Yeah. Right.
Dan Martell (52m 46s):How am I gonna make my numbers this quarter? Right. It's like, dude, I'm trying to build a dream team of people. I can create unlimitedly
Travis Chappell (52m 52s):Exactly where it's like the rest of my life. Yeah. This will, if you, and if you still like and trust this partner in that particular business and you're still friends and you still have like a lot of cool things you can
Dan Martell (53m 1s):Do, we're gonna build stuff together. But, but, but it's,
Travis Chappell (53m 3s):But, but it's, you could have sacrificed all of the potential future gain for something so teeny tiny right now. But
Dan Martell (53m 10s):Even sense more than that because this world is literally so flat. Like what if I don't do right by them and I'm gonna do another investment? And they knew I was partners with them and they call them and that person says, you know, he's a good guy. But when things get down Yeah. Just be careful. Sharp elbows. Yeah. Then they decide to go and take the money from somebody else. People don't realize the amount of back channeling that gets done on a daily basis. It's like if you message me and say, Hey, I saw so you're connected to this guy, what do you think? And I reply and I say, here's my number. Call me. Yeah. You don't have to call, you know what I mean. Right. I usually go read into that. You know, feel free to call or read into that as you wish. Yeah. I'll never say anything bad about somebody.
Dan Martell (53m 50s):Yeah. I just, you know, and that happens all day long and people don't understand it. If you're, if you truly wanna build something special, you gotta play the long game and your personal reputation and brand is what's gonna unlock. Dude. It's never incremental. You know, I was sharing this with my, my buddy Sam yesterday. 'cause he, he was fascinated when he, because he's hanging out with me these last few days. He's watching how I move through the world and he goes, man, it's almost like things you need to have happen. Like people bring 'em to you like an hour after you've told me, hey this needs to happen next. And then somebody's there and they come up and they're like, Hey I do this thing. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah. He goes, how does this always happen?
Dan Martell (54m 30s):I go, dude, the economy is happening whether you're conscious of it or not. Here's what I know for a fact. There is somebody out there, let's say somebody woke up and they said, I have a dream to own a $5 million business. That would just be the ultimate, I don't know how that would happen. I don't know. I just quit my job. I would, I don't even know what business I wanna be in. I'm a good operator. I worked at this company. I'm 40 years old, blah blah blah. I know that there is somebody out there that has a $600 million business and they have a division that is annoying and it's a $5 million division. And if somebody sat next to 'em on a plane and happened to show initiative, they would happily give it to that person.
Dan Martell (55m 13s):And I know that happens every day and people listening, they're gonna go, that's stupid. That doesn't happen. It happens every day. Yeah dude, I shut down shit all the time. That's half a million dollars in revenue. A million dollars. Yeah. And if somebody showed up in that moment where I'm saying, hey, like pruning, that's what great entrepreneurs do. We prune. We're like, hey, this is where the winner is. We're gonna go push on the winner and we're gonna prune this other stuff. Somebody came along and say, you know, let me take it and I'll give you 10% of the profit indefinitely. Yeah. Well that's better than me shutting it down Right. All day long. Right. So like, I just don't think people realize like there's opportunities always to just put it out there to the world to allow, when you talk about relationships, man, it is all relationship and it's energy.
Dan Martell (55m 58s):Yeah. So who you know or what you know. Then what's more important, you know what's funny? When I was 20 years old, maybe 19, I cold emailed 20 of the richest people in the United States. Bill Gates, mark Cuban, bill Ackman, like all these people. Okay. I got the list and I just found their emails and I just emailed them this, I'm a young entrepreneur, I wanna be successful. One question, is it what I know, who I know or how hard I work that is going to decide how successful I am? And Steve j I emailed them all unfortunately. But as you can imagine, I didn't get a lot of replies. Yeah. I might've gotten like three or four.
Dan Martell (56m 39s):Okay. Which is still
Travis Chappell (56m 40s):Awesome.
Dan Martell (56m 41s):Super cool, grateful and they were some of them long answers. And then Mark Cuban replied and he said, doing all three while everybody's trying to pick one now. I like the answer 'cause it's true. But if you said who you know or what, you know, I mean this is a thing. Some people know a lot of people but they don't know how to activate that. Gotta
Travis Chappell (57m 2s):Have some sort of competence skill. You
Dan Martell (57m 3s):Gotta have a skill that's valuable. Yeah. And it could be that you pull people out. Like I have a friend and he doesn't have a business or anything, but he makes me laugh every time I call him. He's like, he likes the Brian Cowen, remember I was telling you the guy earlier? Yeah. Loves Brian Cowen. Every time I call him, he always has a joke, always has a story. And I, and that's the the value relationship. Yeah. And it's just like, it's beautiful. So it doesn't have to be like a hardcore, you help people make money. It could just be like what you are passionate about. Sure. And people love that. 'cause you're a hundred percent who you are. But, so it's not just, it is really both. It's, you need to know the right people and put yourself in the right circumstances. And it's the weak ties. It's not the people you know really well. Yeah. Right. So I'm very intentional about like meeting somebody new, trying to add value to them.
Dan Martell (57m 46s):Like, you know, yesterday I never met this guy Michael Burt, do you know who Coach Burt is? Yeah. I think he's this like, his content's super fun. Okay. I've been following him for years. And then my buddy, so I think he has a jet and he's in Nashville and my other buddy Taylor was asking me about my plane and he's like, I need to figure this game out. And I was like, dude, do you know Michael? And he is like, I don't, I go, dude, he lives in Nashville and he has a plane like proximity get together. Right. So I just like, I just messaged Michael, Hey do you know Taylor? He goes I know of him. Yeah, right. He's super well known on the internet. Welch. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And he goes, I said, do you mind, I'll make an intro, he'd love to chat with you about the, your playing. And he is like, yeah, no problem. So I made a connection.
Dan Martell (58m 26s):I've never met Michael. I'm at, you know, wealth Con and Ryan's there and I was like, have you ever been, you know, I was chatting with Ryan about speak like other events. And I was like, have you ever met? He's like, no. I was like, oh wow. And then I, and Michael says to me, he goes, you're such a great connector. And I'm like, but dude, you put out so much that adds value to my life. Yeah. Yeah. I've been following for years. I love your pray drive stuff. I love the way you communicate. He's got that coachy vibe. Like he's just that little southern
Travis Chappell (58m 56s):Draw that
Dan Martell (58m 56s):Makes you feel comfortable. Dude, you're just, you seem like a really good dude man. And I don't know, I'm a sucker for a person that consistently shows. I think the most uncommon thing today is being consistent. Yeah. I think the most common thing is actually people that are consistent that don't, can't show any results. Yeah. The most common thing in the world today is somebody that's consistent that has no results. Yeah. One
Travis Chappell (59m 15s):Year of experience, 20 years in a row,
Dan Martell (59m 17s):Dude, they just show up every day. They go to the gym, they haven't gotten bigger every day. They go to the gym three times a week to go to the gym. You look the same as last year. Why are you going to the gym? Your business the same size? What are you doing? You're waking up. Like my buddy Nick asked me the other day, he goes, man, I keep, you know, hearing you and stuff and this is one of my very good friends. Like we wake surf and stuff and he's like, I know I'm supposed to have a vision but I'm just having a hard time with that. And I said, here's the deal man. You're gonna wake up for the next five years, 10 years, whatever. You're gonna work. Right. You're not gonna, you're not gonna retire. You could, but you're not gonna. Right. It goes, no, I'm gonna work. Go cool. So either you wake up with intentional intentionality, hit a target or you don't. But whether or not you work or not work, you're gonna work. And it's not any more effort.
Dan Martell (59m 59s):Hmm. There's no more effort. Like people when they get that, it's like the target and the way to get there. As long as you know what it is, it's just being intentional day by day. Yeah. It's going left instead of Right. Same effort to go left or right. But I went Right because I know that. Right. Aligns more with the target. Yeah. So that's, if anything, when people see me they're like, how do you have so much energy and all this stuff? It's like, I know what my purpose is. I know where I'm going. Last night a guy's like, Hey, I don't wanna throw people under the bus, but whatever. So like he has a, he said Yeah, so what do you do? He goes, I do E C R stuff. Employee retention. E R C. Yeah. E r c. I know what that is 'cause I'm Canadian, but we have like 60% of my companies in the US so somebody on my team knows what it is.
Dan Martell (1h 0m 41s):So he goes, yeah, we help companies make, you know, 28, $6,000. Do you have a big community love to talk to you? And I just say like, how does this become a $50 million opportunity for me? He goes, oh well it, I don't, it wouldn't be 50 but it might be a easy one or two per year. And I go, cool. Sounds awesome dude. But unfortunately it's just not for me. Yeah. Why not? I know where I'm going. Yeah, right. And I know what it looks like and I teach this stuff. Right. So like I wouldn't wanna not model for you what I write about in my book to tell you how not to get distracted. Right. Like, is there an opportunity for you that you probably shouldn't say yes to? He's like, yeah, I go cool. But I bet you still say yes 'cause you wanna be the nice guy and a friend introduced you and you scheduled the call and you get off the call.
Dan Martell (1h 1m 23s):You spent 45 minutes talking to somebody. You're like, why was I talking to that person? It's 'cause you don't understand that you don't have a, I knew he doesn't have a vision. Yeah. Because if somebody's easily takes stuff without a purpose like that and then that's just waste busy
Travis Chappell (1h 1m 37s):Versus productive.
Dan Martell (1h 1m 38s):Yeah. So it's like it doesn't require more work. That's why I wrote a whole chapter. It's called the Time Assassins. There's five time assassins that require $0 to Buy, Back, Your, Time. That is self-inflicted. Don't do those five and you will get a lot of time back. You don't have to spend a penny. Right.
Travis Chappell (1h 1m 54s):You mentioned a little bit ago, I wanna talk to you about this as well. I know you're really focused on your health these days. Yeah. Because you weren't always focused on that,
Dan Martell (1h 2m 0s):Right? No ma'am. Asking, I'm 265 pounds of pure
Travis Chappell (1h 2m 3s):Blubber 2 65. Yeah. I was two 50 couple Really? Two years ago. Yep. Have
Dan Martell (1h 2m 7s):You ever seen the photo? Very similar.
Travis Chappell (1h 2m 9s):I I would love to see
Dan Martell (1h 2m 10s):It. Yeah. My, I don't know if is is video obviously, but anybody listening to the audio, go check out the YouTube.
Travis Chappell (1h 2m 15s):Yeah, I was gonna say, if you shoot it over to us, we'll pop it up on the screen too. This
Dan Martell (1h 2m 18s):Is the programmer Dan.
Travis Chappell (1h 2m 19s):Programmer Dan. So this is you in front of a computer eating. That's hilarious. Doesn't even look like the same
Dan Martell (1h 2m 24s):Person. No. People are like, that's not you. Yeah. I go, yep, that's me. That was me learning to code. Wow.
Travis Chappell (1h 2m 29s):That's
Dan Martell (1h 2m 30s):Wild. Sitting around. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I was like that for a while. Yeah. Like I would, I'd lose a little bit of weight and little bit of weight and then probably when my kids were like two or three, I was like, you know what it was, this is the thinking. I'm the same weight. Okay. So like for maybe a year, I was the same weight, but I was heavy. Right. I was probably like 40 pounds overweight, 50 pounds overweight. And I thought to myself, if I got in shape and then I just maintained it, I could feel better about taking my shirt off. And it's the same because like I, I wasn't putting on weight. Yeah. Right. But I wasn't in shape. Right. So I literally just decided you're
Travis Chappell (1h 3m 6s):Maintaining
Dan Martell (1h 3m 7s):That thing. Yeah. Right. Which is all about identity and worth and there's a whole lot of stuff to unlayer in regards to wealth and happiness. But that was the first kind of like, you know, domino. Yeah. And then I realized like feeling confident allowed me to show up better. Absolutely. In meetings. It allowed me to have more energy, more capacity. I was more available for my kids. I wasn't being like, I'm so tired, I don't want to deal with this. And I was, and then my mind, so like for me, yeah. And then it was just like, I'm curious what I could do and like where are the limits? So the Ironman stuff started kicking in. Yeah. Which dude, I remember my first time, my buddy Nick, we did a visioning exercise and on his vision board he had an Ironman.
Dan Martell (1h 3m 49s):Okay. And I'm not one to tell people they shouldn't dream, but when I tell you like dude, I was like,
Travis Chappell (1h 3m 58s):It's like all that's kind
Dan Martell (1h 3m 59s):Of like, dude, it's so silly. Lamb
Travis Chappell (1h 4m 0s):Lamborghini is really cool. But dude,
Dan Martell (1h 4m 2s):We didn't work out. We didn't run. Like, I was like, how do you have a full an Ironman? Like when do you wanna do this? I don't know. By the time I die. And I was just, dude, we've done five together. Wow. Isn't that crazy? That's awesome. So I've learned like, shut your mouth in, like let people dream. Yeah. And I'm grateful for him for putting it on his dream. And then like I started working and he kept being like, Hey come for a swim. Like I can't swim. It's like, we'll figure it out. So yeah, I just think like the health for me it's like, it's a non-negotiable again, it's, I want my kids to, to model. Totally. Yeah. I'm gonna show up for them the way I'm not gonna tell 'em what to do. I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do. They're gonna, you know, monkey see, monkey do. Yep. Dude, their kids have been watching their parents go to, like, I used to do a lot more CrossFits.
Dan Martell (1h 4m 44s):So they like since they were babies. Yep. Put 'em on the floor. We're doing CrossFit. Yeah. They grew up in that community. Every day. Renee or I would take the boys to CrossFit, then they've been to my races. Right now I'm doing ultras now. The coal plunging man. Just like going in there with your little dude and just being like, no, this is gonna suck, but just stay with me here. And we go down and it's like, ah. It just allows you to live a more fulfilled life. What,
Travis Chappell (1h 5m 7s):What, what ultras have you done?
Dan Martell (1h 5m 8s):I've got my first ultra this year. Oh, okay. In literally a month. What's the
Travis Chappell (1h 5m 11s):Distance? 50
Dan Martell (1h 5m 12s):K in Squamish, but it's 3000 meters. It's not the 50 k I have a problem with. It's two mountains I gotta climb.
Travis Chappell (1h 5m 20s):Yeah, that's rough.
Dan Martell (1h 5m 21s):That's the dude. All I've been doing is that changes
Travis Chappell (1h 5m 23s):Literally
Dan Martell (1h 5m 24s):Going on five and six hour hikes and running down, getting dropped off on top of mountains and doing 20 kss downs.
Travis Chappell (1h 5m 31s):Have you lost your toenails yet? I've lost,
Dan Martell (1h 5m 33s):I literally, my two toenails right now are deformed. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like a time marker because usually all my races are in like July or August and it takes a year for it to grow back. Yeah. So like it's been years now. I'm just used to, and I thought maybe it was my shoes. I changed shoes. But it's just part of the long distance.
Travis Chappell (1h 5m 48s):I did my first one last year. A 38 miler. Yeah. And
Dan Martell (1h 5m 51s):Yeah, I think 38 would be 50 k. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (1h 5m 53s):I was just gonna say it's probably right about that. We're doing a 39 in like a week or two with the same friends that I did the 38 with and yeah. My toenail is like just now back to normal-ish
Dan Martell (1h 6m 4s):And it's gonna from,
Travis Chappell (1h 6m 5s):It's gonna from last year gonna drop. Yeah. But I do think that my shoes were completely incorrect. Yeah. And I, they were like three years old. You know what I mean? I was just like, oh, running shoes. You know, just put on running shoes and go for a run. It's like, that's not how it works. So I got myself a nice pair of hokas for this.
Dan Martell (1h 6m 19s):That's what I run. I moved from Asics to Hokas. Yeah. I got the speed goats. Okay. Yeah. And that's what I'm gonna be running and racing in. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (1h 6m 26s):The elevation change is gonna be the, that, that's the, that's,
Dan Martell (1h 6m 28s):I luckily live on a mountain different. So all my training is out my front door on elevation. Nice. On, up, up. Yeah. Yeah. It's like not as moist though. 'cause like Squamish is like Vancouver, like Rainforest and I live more in the desert, but you know what, it's gonna suck and it's gonna be awesome and beautiful and lovely at the same time.
Travis Chappell (1h 6m 45s):That's the nature, right? Yeah. That's the nature of it. Like while you're doing it, I'm, it's one of those things where it's like if you're doing that and you're like part, you're in the military and you're training, it's like well this is just part of what I do. Yeah. But it's like when you're a business owner and you're just running in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. And you're just continuing to run. Like why am I doing that? And every step sucks. It's like, what? Why am I doing this again? Like I could easily not be doing, I could easily be doing anything else and there are a lot of things I would rather be doing. Totally.
Dan Martell (1h 7m 12s):But
Travis Chappell (1h 7m 13s):The feeling that I got when I finished and my, because my wife came and picked me up or we stopped running and my son got outta the car and like ran and gave me a big old hug and like that feeling of like, I cannot believe I just finished this because I was not trained properly. I did not, I didn't do all the things that I should have done leading up to it.
Dan Martell (1h 7m 31s):You didn't hire
Travis Chappell (1h 7m 31s):A coach? I didn't hire a coach. I just did it. Like I decided to do it like two days before. Yeah.
Dan Martell (1h 7m 36s):You just
Travis Chappell (1h 7m 36s):Wanted to harder and I was in decent shape. Harder. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I just two
Dan Martell (1h 7m 39s):Days before
Travis Chappell (1h 7m 40s):A masochist, you know. Oh wow. Two days before I decided to go ahead and do it. And again, I was in decent shape at the time, but not,
Dan Martell (1h 7m 47s):Not 38 miles. It's different.
Travis Chappell (1h 7m 48s):Yeah. It's completely different. Yeah. Yeah. I'd never done a marathon before
Dan Martell (1h 7m 51s):That. Okay. That's fascinating.
Travis Chappell (1h 7m 53s):Yeah, it was like when I finished it, I was surprised myself that I finished
Dan Martell (1h 7m 56s):It. That's the at midnight about the body. Right? Like it can take quite a bit of abuse.
Travis Chappell (1h 8m 1s):It taught me a lot. You know, I've opened up a massive blister on my left foot mile four. And then mile 20 I got some sort of like a hairline fracture on my right foot. And it was just like, again, why am I doing this? Every step's painful. This whole thing is terrible. Why am I here? But then you do it and you accomplish something that you never thought you would even attempt let alone actually finish. Yep. And then my son comes, gives me a hug and it's just like immediate reminder of exactly what we're talking about earlier. It's like I never want to tell him, but like, you can do whatever you want and you're capable of anything they've
Dan Martell (1h 8m 35s):Got you. And they go, what about
Travis Chappell (1h 8m 35s):You dad? Yeah. It's like, well why are you 60 pounds overweight then? Dude I
Dan Martell (1h 8m 38s):Know. I I, you know, sometimes I don't know why, maybe it's God speaking to me, but I'm at an event and somebody's like talking to me about their team and like, you know, I can't find good talent and all this stuff. And I'm like, you need to go look in the mirror because those talented people, they don't wanna follow you. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (1h 8m 56s):Right.
Dan Martell (1h 8m 56s):Like let's be honest.
Travis Chappell (1h 8m 58s):That's what's wild man. I'm doing again, a lot of thinking about relationships and stuff. The name of the show is Travis makes friends, is Build Your Network. We focus a lot on building professional relationships and I was really thinking lately, 'cause you know, we have some frameworks in whatever that we teach people and at the end of the day is just like, some people will never get the results. And then it kind of dawned on me recently it was like that's because all of your relationships stem directly from how good or bad your relationship with yourself is. There's no hacks for that.
Dan Martell (1h 9m 25s):I had, somebody worked for me, her name was Stephanie and she was like personal development podcast, you know, come to the office, you need to listen to this. I just read this book. Even to the point where like she would run like internal like lunch and learns about positive and yet she was having the most issues with other people on the team. Right. And that's when I realized like self-development is always gonna be capped by her ability of self-awareness. Yeah. And you can read all the books in the world, but if you don't learn to read yourself, none of it's gonna work out. Yes.
Travis Chappell (1h 10m 1s):A real relationship with you.
Dan Martell (1h 10m 3s):Like understand you. Yes. Because none of the external stuff, that's why for me belief collecting is like, I'm trying to find stuff that resonates to my heart and my soul. Yeah. And adopt it. Right. Right. But I understand where my deficits are, where my shadow sides are, where the trauma is, where the overreaction is. Yeah. And I use those as moments to be curious to figure out what work do I need to go do. It never ends.
Travis Chappell (1h 10m 26s):And it's a complete reflection of how you interact with the people. Because if you don't know yourself, how do you go build relationships with people that are similar to you?
Dan Martell (1h 10m 37s):Boom.
Travis Chappell (1h 10m 38s):You know what I'm saying? Like you, you're
Dan Martell (1h 10m 39s):Just, yeah, I wish I had the dropping bomb or so dude, it's so good. You're
Travis Chappell (1h 10m 42s):Just not sure. Yeah.
Dan Martell (1h 10m 43s):And those people can tell. They can tell when you don't know you. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (1h 10m 46s):Right.
Dan Martell (1h 10m 47s):High level people can feel it.
Travis Chappell (1h 10m 49s):Absolutely. You have a subconscious mistrust in yourself and that will absolutely rub off on everybody else around you without you even realizing. Yeah. You know, and then you kind of go like, well why keep struggling
Dan Martell (1h 10m 59s):These
Travis Chappell (1h 10m 59s):Relationships? Why
Dan Martell (1h 10m 60s):I, why don't they, why am I not good enough to be invited to this? Or why does this person not respond to me now? Or
Travis Chappell (1h 11m 5s):Regardless of the relationship. Yeah. A parenting relationship, romantic relationship, business relationship, mentorship relationship. It's like, well how do I get good mentors? It's like, probably be a better version of you. Yeah. You know, because high level people don't like spending time with low energy people. It's not like, it's not like you won't spend time with me 'cause I haven't made as much money as you we're having a conversation right now. But the fact that you are here tells me that. Like, you see me as at least being somebody valuable enough to connect with because there's something that like I might actually do after we have a conversation. Like the mentors that I have in my life, they don't pour into me because I'm at the level that they're at. They pour into me because they see something, something about me that reminds them of them probably.
Dan Martell (1h 11m 43s):Yeah. And just inspiration. Like I was, yesterday, I was chatting with somebody and it was the same thing. They were like, how do I get people that are higher level to like, wanna support me? And I go, you just gotta do things that they, like you said, they recognize. Yeah. Right. Like the fact that you did an ultra is like inspiring. Yeah. Right. Like the fact that you've built this podcast like that you've done what you've done. These are things that, but the truth is I think everybody has those stories. Like I, I lean in all the time. Yeah. I wanna know what people's real nobody's gone through lie their life unscathed. So if I can figure out what you went through that you're willing to share that on the other end. You are the well adjusted person I'm talking to. Yeah. To the degree. Sure. Like they might criticize themselves, but you're here.
Dan Martell (1h 12m 26s):You didn't take your life and you probably went through some challenges. That's inspiring to me. Yeah. Like it isn't, people are like, oh, I've never ran five K. It's like you were a hundred pounds overweight. So it's like, again, my my Sam who's here, he's like, I'm like, yeah, share more. He is like, I, I don't have that much stuff. Like, it is, it's not that inspiring. Go, dude, you're 168 pounds, you're 210 now muscle like I know if you saw him, but like Yeah. Game. We used to call him skinny boy, Sam. Oh really? Yeah. Have a veil. I'll show
Travis Chappell (1h 12m 54s):You. Couldn't sell. You couldn't sell. Now dude,
Dan Martell (1h 12m 56s):Prop. Look. This Sam, he he deleted it. We'll put this on YouTube too. He deleted it and I told him to send it to me. 'cause I keep showing to people last, like even last night at dinner, I was like, man, you inspire me. And he's
Travis Chappell (1h 13m 8s):Like, why delete it Sam?
Dan Martell (1h 13m 9s):Because I don't know if he's embarrassed by I'm gonna make it popular. Isn't that crazy? He was just, that's
Travis Chappell (1h 13m 15s):Very
Dan Martell (1h 13m 15s):Skinny. Yeah. He just found his stride. Look at this man. Nice.
Travis Chappell (1h 13m 19s):This
Dan Martell (1h 13m 19s):Thing called dude, wait for this shot right here. There you go dude. There's another one. Yeah. Man, he there. Dang. Isn't that crazy?
Travis Chappell (1h 13m 29s):That's wild. I'm,
Dan Martell (1h 13m 30s):I don't look like that. I won't look like that. It's like, dude, you took something where a lot of people feel insecure about and you made it, you know, you, you used that pain and turned it into your thing Story. Yeah. Share it.
Travis Chappell (1h 13m 41s):Well listen man, I, I'm I know you got a bunch of other stuff to do. You got other Podcasts and everything that, that you're gonna be knocking out today. So I wanna be respectful of your time before we go. Last question here for you, typically I go like a little bit more philosophical, high level, but we've been talking about a lot of that stuff lately. So I wanna ask you something just to bring it back down here. What is something that makes you laugh all the time? Ah, like a movie TV show Comedy.
Dan Martell (1h 14m 5s):Kill Tony.
Travis Chappell (1h 14m 5s):Kill Tony if
Dan Martell (1h 14m 6s):You know, kill Tony. Yep. I am a, I'm a hardcore comedian fan.
Travis Chappell (1h 14m 9s):Okay. So
Dan Martell (1h 14m 10s):Watch it every night before I go to to bed. What
Travis Chappell (1h 14m 12s):Are like some like top five? Like
Dan Martell (1h 14m 13s):Go-to Kill Tony episodes or what?
Travis Chappell (1h 14m 15s):No, like besides Kill Tony.
Dan Martell (1h 14m 17s):Oh, things that make me laugh. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (1h 14m 18s):You said when you say you're hardcore comedy fans is like standup comedy or sitcoms. I just
Dan Martell (1h 14m 22s):Love like Yeah, just really honest. Clever, smart. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, so yeah. Definitely not sitcoms. Things that make me laugh. My friends, my buddy Keith my best friend, he makes me laugh. My friend Marty, I just like people that speak their mind. Yeah. You know Bradley makes me laugh but he's, you know Exactly. He just like, people make me laugh anytime I do something ridiculously stupid. The other day I forgot to click the protein cap shaker on my thing and I went in the bathroom. My wife's getting ready, it's all white porcelain. And I shook it like it was, my life depended on it and it went all over. And I'm talking like protein powder and athletic green. So like green diarrhea, squirts all over our bathroom.
Dan Martell (1h 15m 4s):It hits her, it hits all the white towels. And I just was like, this is crazy how dumb this is. I just have no problem laughing at myself man. Yeah. So I'd say like laugh at myself, that kind of stuff. It's
Travis Chappell (1h 15m 15s):Gotta be one of the most underrated personal development things. I think.
Dan Martell (1h 15m 18s):Just don't take yourself too seriously. Yeah. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (1h 15m 21s):Listen dude, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much for coming on. If you have not gotten a copy of Dan's book, do it now before you forget. Always do it before you forget. Buy Back Your Time
Dan Martell (1h 15m 31s):And hit me up on Instagram. A lot of people like message me, email me and I put my email in there. But Instagram's my favorite. Okay. The messaging is really easy and clear. I can tag people and if anybody wants, one of the things that I couldn't put in my editor made me cut it out, the SOPs and I'll send it to you. The standard operating procedures for actually working with my executive assistant. It's literally the one I use and we just sanitize all my personal stuff. Oh great. Somebody wants it. They just gotta message me ea on Instagram. Just gotta follow me. Okay. And then I'll send you the direct link to the Google Doc. No opt-in, no nothing. That's
Travis Chappell (1h 15m 60s):At Dan Martell. Two LSS
Dan Martell (1h 16m 1s):In MARTELL on Instagram. Just
Travis Chappell (1h 16m 3s):Send me a message. One two
Dan Martell (1h 16m 4s):Ls ea i e will figure, I'll figure it out. I'll know what you mean. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (1h 16m 9s):Dmm M eea for,
Dan Martell (1h 16m 10s):And I'll send you the SOPs.
Travis Chappell (1h 16m 11s):Yeah, that's awesome dude. Thanks so much for coming on, dude. This is a lot of fun. Buy, Back, Your, Time, Buy, Back, Your, Time. One of the only books you're gonna read this year that will actually give you more time than it takes for you to read the book. So
Dan Martell (1h 16m 20s):Boom. R Y's huge. Yeah, great one.
Travis Chappell (1h 16m 22s):Thanks Travis. Alright dude, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks you. Thank you. That's it for today's episode. Thanks for spending some time with me and my friends. If you want to be better friends with me, then head over to Travis Chappell dot com slash team to subscribe to my free newsletter, your friend Travis, where I share what's on my mind about life, building a business, raising kids, being married, and anything else I would normally share with my close circle of friends. That's Travis Chappell dot com slash team. And my biggest ask,
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