WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.160 He said, I think you have a level 10 skill set 2 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:03.640 and a level two opportunity. 3 00:00:03.640 --> 00:00:06.880 And that was one of those simultaneously 4 00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:08.280 incredibly encouraging things 5 00:00:08.280 --> 00:00:10.200 and incredibly heartbreaking things for me. 6 00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:12.280 So it was a very like emotional moment for me. 7 00:00:13.600 --> 00:00:14.680 The wealthiest people in the world 8 00:00:14.680 --> 00:00:15.880 see business as a game. 9 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:17.440 This podcast, the game is my attempt 10 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:18.800 at documenting the lessons I've learned 11 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:20.360 on my way to building acquisition.com 12 00:00:20.360 --> 00:00:21.960 into a billion dollar portfolio. 13 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:23.720 My hope is that you use the lessons to grow your business 14 00:00:23.720 --> 00:00:25.120 and maybe someday soon partner with us 15 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:26.560 to get to $100 million in beyond. 16 00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:27.800 I hope you share and enjoy. 17 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:30.640 So we all have lots of conversations 18 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:32.160 that are pivotal points in our life. 19 00:00:32.160 --> 00:00:34.320 And I define learning as similar circumstance 20 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:35.240 new behavior. 21 00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:36.720 So if you have the same circumstances 22 00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:37.720 and your behavior doesn't change, 23 00:00:37.720 --> 00:00:39.120 it means you didn't learn anything. 24 00:00:39.120 --> 00:00:41.440 So these conversations changed my behavior, 25 00:00:41.440 --> 00:00:43.040 which is why they were so pivotal 26 00:00:43.040 --> 00:00:44.520 in my life direction that ultimately 27 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:46.800 made me a millionaire with 27. 28 00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:48.640 And I believe whatever path we're on, 29 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:51.720 we always pay for lessons with either time or money. 30 00:00:51.720 --> 00:00:53.920 And so we use the one we value least. 31 00:00:54.920 --> 00:00:59.000 And so for me, I always wanted to pay time and money 32 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:00.320 to get as many lessons as I could 33 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:02.040 so I could learn the lessons of my 40-year-old self, 34 00:01:02.040 --> 00:01:03.440 learn the lessons of my 50-year-old self, 35 00:01:03.440 --> 00:01:06.640 and apply them in my 20s to drag that future into the present. 36 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:08.720 These are the things that changed my life. 37 00:01:08.720 --> 00:01:10.720 The first one is about my character. 38 00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:14.320 My dad told me when I was 19 and I had a terrible reputation. 39 00:01:14.320 --> 00:01:17.040 And I was asking him, I said, hey, how do I change my reputation? 40 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:19.560 How do I get these people to think differently about me? 41 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:21.680 And I thought I needed some marketing hacker, 42 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:23.160 some repackaging hack of like 43 00:01:23.160 --> 00:01:26.360 how I needed a dress or a pure endeavor in his own words. 44 00:01:26.360 --> 00:01:28.200 He said, why don't you stop acting like an asshole 45 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:30.280 and your reputational catch up with you? 46 00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:31.840 And I discounted him at the time, 47 00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:34.800 but as it kind of marinated and I drove back to college 48 00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:37.200 and I started thinking about it, I was like, huh, 49 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:38.360 maybe he's right. 50 00:01:38.360 --> 00:01:40.200 And so what I started doing was acting the way 51 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:42.400 that I thought I wanted my reputation to be. 52 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:44.520 And in the beginning, no one cared. 53 00:01:44.520 --> 00:01:46.160 They treated me the way I used to be. 54 00:01:46.160 --> 00:01:48.240 But when the way I was behaving was different 55 00:01:48.240 --> 00:01:49.520 than what they were expecting, 56 00:01:49.520 --> 00:01:51.320 the way they saw me started to shift. 57 00:01:51.320 --> 00:01:53.640 And it took about two years from my reputation to change. 58 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:54.920 And that was a long time. 59 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:56.720 But I was really dedicated to doing it for me 60 00:01:56.720 --> 00:01:57.960 rather than doing it for them. 61 00:01:57.960 --> 00:02:00.520 And then eventually my reputation caught up. 62 00:02:00.520 --> 00:02:03.240 And one of my first jobs, a mentor of mine 63 00:02:03.240 --> 00:02:04.920 who was very, very wealthy, 64 00:02:04.920 --> 00:02:07.760 said, figure out what you want is 99 times harder 65 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:08.760 than getting it. 66 00:02:08.760 --> 00:02:11.200 And I'm pretty sure happiness is living as many days 67 00:02:11.200 --> 00:02:14.000 in a row that are good as you can. 68 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:15.600 And a lot of times when I try to think about like, 69 00:02:15.600 --> 00:02:17.840 what makes me happy, what brings me joy, 70 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:19.400 it's really hard to think about that 71 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:20.720 from a big picture perspective. 72 00:02:20.720 --> 00:02:22.440 But when I drilled down to like, 73 00:02:22.440 --> 00:02:24.760 what does a perfect day look like for me? 74 00:02:24.760 --> 00:02:28.280 And then tried to string as many of those in a row as I could. 75 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:30.120 My life started to change. 76 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:32.040 Because it wasn't this big amorphous idea, 77 00:02:32.040 --> 00:02:34.240 I just know that these are the things I like doing every day. 78 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:36.640 And so I optimized for that outcome. 79 00:02:36.640 --> 00:02:38.640 And then that extrapolated over the rest of my life, 80 00:02:38.640 --> 00:02:40.240 created a life that I desired. 81 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:43.840 Another early mentor, I was going back and forth 82 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:46.680 between quitting my job and starting a jam 83 00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:48.440 or starting my entrepreneurial journey. 84 00:02:48.440 --> 00:02:50.920 And he sat me down and said, 85 00:02:50.920 --> 00:02:52.760 you know, man, I've been listening to you waffle 86 00:02:52.760 --> 00:02:54.000 for months now. 87 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:56.040 He said at some point, you're not going to know anymore, 88 00:02:56.040 --> 00:02:58.000 you just have to jump. 89 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.360 And he said it in a way that made me feel like a pansy. 90 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:04.640 But when he said that, I realized I didn't need more information 91 00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:06.200 that I'd already done all of the research, 92 00:03:06.200 --> 00:03:09.120 I already had as much information as I was going to have, 93 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:10.880 I just needed to decide. 94 00:03:10.880 --> 00:03:13.040 And so the definition of decision 95 00:03:13.040 --> 00:03:14.400 comes from a Latin decadere, 96 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:16.440 which basically means to cut off or kill off. 97 00:03:16.480 --> 00:03:19.240 And so the question was, which future was I deciding to kill off? 98 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:20.960 Was it the future that I was in currently 99 00:03:20.960 --> 00:03:22.120 that I didn't like anymore? 100 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:23.840 Or was it the future that I had potential 101 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:25.560 to accomplish the dreams that I had? 102 00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:28.320 And so by not deciding, I was actively killing off 103 00:03:28.320 --> 00:03:29.640 the future that had my dreams. 104 00:03:29.640 --> 00:03:31.920 And then I needed to choose which one I wanted to kill. 105 00:03:31.920 --> 00:03:34.920 And that was one of the things that pushed me over the edge. 106 00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:37.040 The next conversation was about sales. 107 00:03:37.040 --> 00:03:38.600 And so in the very beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, 108 00:03:38.600 --> 00:03:40.240 I didn't know how to sell anything. 109 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:42.800 And rather than going through sales scripts 110 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:45.800 and building rapport and learning all of this stuff, 111 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:48.640 when a mentor just said, do you want to know the secret to sales? 112 00:03:48.640 --> 00:03:49.640 And I was like, I leaned in. 113 00:03:49.640 --> 00:03:51.640 I was like, yes, please, I had my notepad out. 114 00:03:51.640 --> 00:03:54.080 And he said, the secret to sales is making an offer so good 115 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:55.840 people feel stupid saying no. 116 00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:57.640 And that obviously became the subtitle 117 00:03:57.640 --> 00:03:59.160 of my 100 million dollar offers book. 118 00:03:59.160 --> 00:04:00.760 And it was because it was so pivotal in my life 119 00:04:00.760 --> 00:04:04.080 when I realized that I kept thinking that I had to learn 120 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:05.640 how to like, again, try and manipulate 121 00:04:05.640 --> 00:04:06.680 and try and persuade and share it. 122 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:08.720 Some of those skills are useful to have. 123 00:04:08.720 --> 00:04:12.240 But the big obvious one is that people didn't want the thing. 124 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:14.480 And so a lot of people spend lots of effort and time 125 00:04:14.480 --> 00:04:16.480 trying to get better at the skill of persuasion 126 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:18.280 when it's so much easier to just find things 127 00:04:18.280 --> 00:04:19.720 that people really want. 128 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:22.000 Chick-fil-A doesn't need to sell you on chicken sandwiches. 129 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:23.520 They just have amazing chicken sandwiches 130 00:04:23.520 --> 00:04:24.960 and people go buy them, right? 131 00:04:24.960 --> 00:04:26.440 And so when you make the offer so good, 132 00:04:26.440 --> 00:04:28.720 people feel stupid saying no, they usually don't. 133 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:31.280 And that forever changed how I created new products, 134 00:04:31.280 --> 00:04:33.080 created new services was I started with, 135 00:04:33.080 --> 00:04:34.360 how do I get the most people to say yes 136 00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:36.000 and then work it backwards? 137 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:39.680 One of my next mentors was a $10 billion CEO. 138 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:40.640 He's actually COO. 139 00:04:40.640 --> 00:04:43.040 So he was with a company from 100 million in revenue 140 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:45.600 to 10 billion in revenue, publicly traded. 141 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:48.480 And honestly, he came to me before I was really ready 142 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:50.000 for that kind of advice. 143 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:51.640 And one of the things he always kept telling me 144 00:04:51.640 --> 00:04:53.160 when I was starting out was he's like, 145 00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:54.600 you gotta go slow to go fast. 146 00:04:54.600 --> 00:04:56.640 And he kept repeating it to me over and over and over again. 147 00:04:56.640 --> 00:04:59.000 And the thing is, I didn't appreciate 148 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:01.000 what he was trying to tell me at the time 149 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:03.160 and I can really only appreciate it now in retrospect 150 00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:05.320 because I feel like I tell this to people all the time 151 00:05:05.320 --> 00:05:08.360 is that you only unlock the compounding 152 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:11.680 which later on grows significantly faster 153 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:13.840 than the erratic activity of smelting here, 154 00:05:13.840 --> 00:05:15.920 smelting here, new thing here, new thing here, 155 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:17.040 then just doing the same thing 156 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:18.000 for an extended period of time. 157 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.320 And so what feels slow in the micro looks fast 158 00:05:21.320 --> 00:05:23.360 in the macro when you look at the trajectory 159 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:24.640 over a long period of time. 160 00:05:24.640 --> 00:05:26.440 But what looks really fast in the micro 161 00:05:26.440 --> 00:05:28.680 is usually really slow in the macro 162 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:30.680 because people can never get that compounding 163 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:32.160 start harnessing because they're always starting 164 00:05:32.160 --> 00:05:33.480 back over a ground zero. 165 00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:34.960 So even though they go from zero to one 166 00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:37.280 over and over again, it feels really fast, 167 00:05:37.280 --> 00:05:39.080 they never get from one to 10. 168 00:05:39.080 --> 00:05:42.160 That changed how I acted within my business 169 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:45.680 and really conserving resources in terms of how few things 170 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:48.080 are we really gonna allocate time and effort towards 171 00:05:48.080 --> 00:05:50.960 in terms of new initiatives and being very sparing 172 00:05:50.960 --> 00:05:52.400 in terms of when we would do that 173 00:05:52.400 --> 00:05:54.280 because I would have to know that I was going to 174 00:05:54.280 --> 00:05:55.680 incur the cost of change. 175 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:57.160 Because whenever you change something, 176 00:05:57.160 --> 00:05:59.160 the one cost is guaranteed is that change 177 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:00.600 will have to get paid for. 178 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:02.760 And what isn't guaranteed is that it's gonna work. 179 00:06:02.760 --> 00:06:04.480 And so if you know you have this fixed cost 180 00:06:04.480 --> 00:06:05.480 which is how you should see it is that 181 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:07.600 whenever you change something you have to pay a price 182 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:08.960 and are you willing to pay the price 183 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:10.560 if it only gives you a marginal return 184 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:13.000 which oftentimes many of the small business I see 185 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:14.760 they try and optimize stuff all day long 186 00:06:14.760 --> 00:06:16.840 for these tiny little returns that don't matter 187 00:06:16.840 --> 00:06:19.800 because they never are an excess of the cost of change. 188 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:21.840 The next lesson I learned was in level of effort. 189 00:06:21.840 --> 00:06:24.760 So one of my early mentors told me about flyers. 190 00:06:24.760 --> 00:06:26.800 And so I thought I needed to go put a lot of flyers 191 00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:27.920 out to get a business. 192 00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:31.440 And so I put out 300 flyers, one guy called me back. 193 00:06:31.440 --> 00:06:33.760 He told me that I dinged his car, was very upset. 194 00:06:33.760 --> 00:06:34.880 No one else called me. 195 00:06:34.880 --> 00:06:36.080 So I called the mentor back up and I was like, 196 00:06:36.080 --> 00:06:38.200 hey, what the heck, this didn't work. 197 00:06:38.200 --> 00:06:40.360 And he's like, okay, well, what was your test size? 198 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:41.920 And I was like, what do you mean by test size? 199 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:43.480 He's like, well, what was the first test? 200 00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:45.520 I was like, well, I mean, I just put out 300 total. 201 00:06:45.520 --> 00:06:46.360 And he just laughed. 202 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:47.280 He's like, 300. 203 00:06:47.280 --> 00:06:48.560 He's like, you're not gonna know anything with 300. 204 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:49.920 He's like, we test with 5,000. 205 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:52.080 And then we do 5,000 a day after that. 206 00:06:52.080 --> 00:06:54.440 I was like, 5,000 a day. 207 00:06:54.440 --> 00:06:56.840 He's like, yeah, like 150,000 flyers a month. 208 00:06:56.840 --> 00:06:59.760 And when he said that, I had this huge realization 209 00:06:59.760 --> 00:07:02.440 that I might have been doing the right thing all along 210 00:07:02.440 --> 00:07:04.640 but I was just doing far too little of it. 211 00:07:04.640 --> 00:07:06.920 And at that point I decided that whenever someone gave me advice 212 00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:09.960 I wouldn't let the volume of activity that I'd done 213 00:07:09.960 --> 00:07:13.120 committing to a plan or committing to a project 214 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:14.520 to be the reason it failed. 215 00:07:14.520 --> 00:07:15.520 Because I wondered to myself, 216 00:07:15.520 --> 00:07:17.480 how many things had I done in the past? 217 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:18.600 That were the right things 218 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:19.840 but I just hadn't done enough of them 219 00:07:19.840 --> 00:07:21.480 or I hadn't done them long enough. 220 00:07:21.480 --> 00:07:23.440 And so whenever I do new initiative now, 221 00:07:23.440 --> 00:07:26.040 I think, okay, what is the maximum amount that I can do 222 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:26.960 that would be unreasonable 223 00:07:26.960 --> 00:07:29.600 that I don't have a large enough sample size that this works. 224 00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:31.320 And then I can draw my conclusion. 225 00:07:31.320 --> 00:07:33.680 I see so many smaller younger entrepreneurs 226 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:35.880 who do something for too short, too little time, 227 00:07:35.880 --> 00:07:38.080 not enough volume that they might have been doing the right thing. 228 00:07:38.080 --> 00:07:39.200 They just didn't wait long enough 229 00:07:39.200 --> 00:07:40.600 or they didn't do enough of it. 230 00:07:40.600 --> 00:07:42.880 And so I never wanted that to be the reason I failed. 231 00:07:42.880 --> 00:07:45.360 The next conversation I had wasn't really given a conversation. 232 00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:48.600 I was actually a mastermind and I saw a guy get up 233 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:51.680 and he seemed so disorganized 234 00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:55.880 and so not passionate at all about his business. 235 00:07:55.880 --> 00:07:57.360 And he said, yeah, you know, 236 00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.120 we're making three or four hundred thousand dollars a month. 237 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:02.280 It's like we've been stuck here for a few years, blah, blah, blah. 238 00:08:02.280 --> 00:08:04.440 And Layla and I were actually together at this point 239 00:08:04.440 --> 00:08:05.960 and we both looked at each other 240 00:08:05.960 --> 00:08:09.360 where we're like, if this guy can do it, we can do it. 241 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:11.720 And it was one of those moments 242 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:15.040 that concrete changes were beliefs are broken, right? 243 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:16.760 And I think one of the easiest ways to break a belief 244 00:08:16.760 --> 00:08:18.840 is be around people who are making significantly more than you 245 00:08:18.840 --> 00:08:20.480 because what you find out is that they are made 246 00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:24.520 of the same thing as you, same flesh, same bones, same brain. 247 00:08:24.520 --> 00:08:25.400 You meet them and you're like, 248 00:08:25.400 --> 00:08:27.440 how is this guy doing it, right? 249 00:08:27.440 --> 00:08:30.760 And rather than right off, this guy's such an idiot, 250 00:08:30.760 --> 00:08:33.080 think despite him being an idiot 251 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:36.640 or despite her being an idiot, he's still more successful than me. 252 00:08:36.640 --> 00:08:39.840 Imagine if I used my work ethic and my intelligence 253 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:43.240 on the same lessons that this guy obviously has right. 254 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:46.680 And when I shifted my perspective from that way, 255 00:08:46.680 --> 00:08:48.880 I was able to start using other people's successes 256 00:08:48.880 --> 00:08:52.160 to fuel me rather than to make me feel bad. 257 00:08:52.160 --> 00:08:53.680 It switched from wanting to cast stones 258 00:08:53.680 --> 00:08:55.240 at people to being inspired by them 259 00:08:55.240 --> 00:08:56.880 and thinking if they can do it so can I 260 00:08:56.880 --> 00:08:58.240 and really internalizing that 261 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:00.360 and that was a big turning point for me. 262 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:02.680 Within six months of seeing that conversation happen, 263 00:09:02.680 --> 00:09:04.320 we were already doing a million a month 264 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:06.960 and at the time we were doing like $20,000 worth. 265 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:09.640 At a different event, I went up and I spoke 266 00:09:09.640 --> 00:09:11.240 and I told my whole plans of how I wanted 267 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:13.360 to build this national gym chain, 268 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:16.880 be America's next gym and the guy who ran the mastermind 269 00:09:16.880 --> 00:09:20.160 said, you know what Alex, I don't think he should do that at all. 270 00:09:20.160 --> 00:09:22.600 And I was crushed, like I didn't even like, 271 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:24.560 I barely could hear what he was about to say next 272 00:09:24.560 --> 00:09:25.560 because all I could hear was like, 273 00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:27.080 this is just like my whole plan, 274 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:28.640 I've been working for years towards this, 275 00:09:28.640 --> 00:09:30.480 I have six locations, this is how I'm gonna attend, 276 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:32.280 this is how I'm gonna get 20, all this stuff 277 00:09:32.280 --> 00:09:34.560 and he said, I think you have a level 10 skill set 278 00:09:34.560 --> 00:09:36.680 and a level two opportunity. 279 00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:40.720 And that was one of those simultaneously 280 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:42.080 incredibly encouraging things 281 00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:44.680 and incredibly heartbreaking things for me. 282 00:09:44.680 --> 00:09:47.120 So it was a very like emotional moment for me 283 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:49.640 but he was both encouraging me to say like, 284 00:09:49.640 --> 00:09:52.880 you can do so much more, he was poo-pooing me 285 00:09:52.880 --> 00:09:54.720 because I could have been doing more. 286 00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:57.240 And I think one of the most terrifying lines of the Bible 287 00:09:57.240 --> 00:09:59.160 when I was a practicing Christian 288 00:09:59.160 --> 00:10:01.600 was to who much has given much is expected. 289 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:03.080 And that always terrified me 290 00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:05.280 because I was think like, man, I've been given so much 291 00:10:05.280 --> 00:10:07.400 and so a lot more was expected of me. 292 00:10:07.400 --> 00:10:09.280 And this person from the outside 293 00:10:09.280 --> 00:10:11.040 put a bar up that was significantly higher 294 00:10:11.040 --> 00:10:12.640 than what I was shooting for 295 00:10:12.640 --> 00:10:16.200 and that stretched my horizon for what I was capable of. 296 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:18.400 And I think getting around people who can do that for you 297 00:10:18.400 --> 00:10:19.720 is one of the most viable things 298 00:10:19.720 --> 00:10:21.560 you could possibly have in your life. 299 00:10:21.560 --> 00:10:24.160 And from an opportunity perspective, 300 00:10:24.160 --> 00:10:26.560 what he didn't say, which I had to later find out for myself, 301 00:10:26.560 --> 00:10:29.680 was a level two opportunity as he was defining it 302 00:10:29.680 --> 00:10:32.320 is an opportunity that has low leverage. 303 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:34.560 There wasn't a very good compounding vehicle for capital. 304 00:10:34.560 --> 00:10:36.080 There wasn't a very good compounding vehicle 305 00:10:36.080 --> 00:10:37.920 in general from a business model perspective. 306 00:10:37.920 --> 00:10:39.560 There was no limitless scale with media. 307 00:10:39.560 --> 00:10:42.360 There was no limitless scale with software code. 308 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:44.480 And so the only thing that I had to do really 309 00:10:44.480 --> 00:10:47.680 in this business model was just hire more people 310 00:10:47.680 --> 00:10:49.800 and it was also lots of low skilled labor 311 00:10:49.800 --> 00:10:52.120 which made it a very difficult opportunity to succeed in. 312 00:10:52.120 --> 00:10:53.800 And so the fact that I was successful 313 00:10:53.800 --> 00:10:56.680 and what most could consider a shitty opportunity, 314 00:10:56.680 --> 00:10:58.080 he saw as a skill sets 315 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:00.200 that would create a much bigger win later. 316 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:03.560 And so if you are in a lower level opportunity, 317 00:11:03.560 --> 00:11:05.480 I wouldn't say be upset about it. 318 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:08.440 I would say you're learning with extra resistance against you. 319 00:11:08.440 --> 00:11:09.960 So you're getting stronger now. 320 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:11.480 And then when you go onto the moon 321 00:11:11.480 --> 00:11:14.680 where gravity's lighter, you just knock it out of the park. 322 00:11:14.680 --> 00:11:16.960 The next conversation I had was actually an event. 323 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:17.800 It was a private event. 324 00:11:17.800 --> 00:11:18.640 It was 10 people. 325 00:11:18.640 --> 00:11:20.520 Everyone was doing eight figures a more year. 326 00:11:20.520 --> 00:11:22.720 And I got invited and we were doing three or four million years. 327 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:25.320 So I felt like the small dick in the locker room. 328 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:27.720 And after I went up and I explained our business model 329 00:11:27.760 --> 00:11:29.120 and this is right as things started to take off. 330 00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:30.200 This is like the second month 331 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:32.360 and things were just escalating like crazy. 332 00:11:32.360 --> 00:11:34.640 The guy came up to me and this guy had done $27 million 333 00:11:34.640 --> 00:11:36.800 in a single day and I was like, holy shit. 334 00:11:36.800 --> 00:11:37.640 This is great. 335 00:11:37.640 --> 00:11:40.040 His guy's made more than a day than I made my entire life. 336 00:11:40.040 --> 00:11:43.640 And he said if everything that you're saying is true, 337 00:11:43.640 --> 00:11:48.400 he said fat pitches in life don't come very often. 338 00:11:48.400 --> 00:11:51.080 When it gets easy is when you need to go hard. 339 00:11:51.080 --> 00:11:53.000 Because otherwise there's someone who's 10 times bigger 340 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:54.880 than you who's gonna take everything you have 341 00:11:54.880 --> 00:11:56.160 and not even think twice about it. 342 00:11:56.160 --> 00:11:59.080 You're gonna eat your lunch and cast you aside 343 00:11:59.080 --> 00:12:01.080 and take everything you have. 344 00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:02.400 Like I felt like my stomach dropped 345 00:12:02.400 --> 00:12:04.960 because all of a sudden what he did was instill fear in me. 346 00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:06.640 Because up to that point, like right at that point 347 00:12:06.640 --> 00:12:08.040 I thought I had made it. 348 00:12:08.040 --> 00:12:09.840 You know, we were taking home 300, you know, 349 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:11.000 ish a month and if you're like, wait, 350 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:12.160 how are you doing 300, 400,000 a month 351 00:12:12.160 --> 00:12:13.520 taking home 300, I had like no employees 352 00:12:13.520 --> 00:12:15.040 and I was making it all myself. 353 00:12:15.040 --> 00:12:18.520 And that renewed, probably in a bad way, 354 00:12:18.520 --> 00:12:20.520 whatever you wanna say, it renewed this huge sense 355 00:12:20.520 --> 00:12:22.640 of urgency for me that stayed for three years 356 00:12:22.640 --> 00:12:24.600 before I was able to like take my head out of the ground 357 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:26.600 and say like, is this the life I want? 358 00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:29.080 And so from like 300 to 400,000 a month 359 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:30.720 to four plus million a month, 360 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:33.520 that was literally fueled by that one conversation. 361 00:12:33.520 --> 00:12:35.640 And every day I would wake up and think 362 00:12:35.640 --> 00:12:37.680 everyone's trying to take me out. 363 00:12:37.680 --> 00:12:39.280 Everyone's trying to copy my stuff. 364 00:12:39.280 --> 00:12:41.920 Everyone is trying to do that and it pushed me. 365 00:12:41.920 --> 00:12:43.800 And I think that if you do have one of those opportunities 366 00:12:43.800 --> 00:12:46.360 that comes up in your life when things start working 367 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:49.320 really well, that's when a lot of people ease off the gas. 368 00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:50.360 That's when they go easy. 369 00:12:50.360 --> 00:12:53.040 But it's like when it gets easy is when you go hard 370 00:12:53.040 --> 00:12:55.560 because you don't have that many fat pitches in a lifetime. 371 00:12:55.560 --> 00:12:56.960 You might get two or three 372 00:12:56.960 --> 00:12:59.280 and you just gotta crack the shit out of it when it comes 373 00:12:59.280 --> 00:13:02.280 and expect that you're going to sacrifice some short term 374 00:13:02.280 --> 00:13:04.120 for some long term later. 375 00:13:04.120 --> 00:13:05.920 So at the same event, a different person 376 00:13:05.920 --> 00:13:07.000 after I had given my house, 377 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:08.600 this was a very powerful event for me. 378 00:13:08.600 --> 00:13:11.240 A different guy came up to me and he said, 379 00:13:11.240 --> 00:13:12.880 hey, because at this point I was like, 380 00:13:12.880 --> 00:13:14.320 hey, I'm doing 300,000 a month. 381 00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:15.800 I'm thinking about starting a stubborn business 382 00:13:15.800 --> 00:13:18.560 and I'm gonna start that a month or two. 383 00:13:18.560 --> 00:13:20.200 And everyone there was like, 384 00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:21.720 well, you're like doubling every month 385 00:13:21.720 --> 00:13:22.640 with this current thing. 386 00:13:22.640 --> 00:13:25.880 Like, why do you want to start a stubborn business? 387 00:13:25.880 --> 00:13:29.520 And I give my reasonings and he was like flatter me. 388 00:13:29.520 --> 00:13:31.600 He said, what if you just spent three times 389 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:34.800 as much on marketing and didn't start a stubborn business? 390 00:13:34.800 --> 00:13:36.480 And all these guys being more money than me. 391 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:39.360 So I was like, well, what's the point of asking for advice 392 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:40.400 if I don't take it? 393 00:13:40.400 --> 00:13:42.400 And so I took the advice. 394 00:13:42.400 --> 00:13:44.000 I didn't start the stubborn business. 395 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:45.600 I actually delayed it for 18 months, 396 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:47.560 which still probably wasn't the best call. 397 00:13:47.560 --> 00:13:48.840 But I delayed it. 398 00:13:48.880 --> 00:13:52.440 And in the next three months, we tripled the ad spend 399 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:56.840 and went from 400 to 780, from 780 to a million, 400 00:13:56.840 --> 00:13:58.960 from a million to one two, from one two to one five, 401 00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:01.080 one five to one eight, one eight to two million, 402 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:02.760 just the next six months. 403 00:14:02.760 --> 00:14:04.000 Because of that piece of advice. 404 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:05.880 And I think the underlying part of that advice 405 00:14:05.880 --> 00:14:08.680 is that when something is going well, 406 00:14:08.680 --> 00:14:11.120 oftentimes entrepreneurs think, great, I won, 407 00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:12.400 how can I get another win? 408 00:14:12.400 --> 00:14:15.680 But the real win is just doing 10 times more of that thing. 409 00:14:15.680 --> 00:14:17.440 The hardest part is getting product market fit. 410 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:19.200 It's getting people to want to buy the thing. 411 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:21.800 Once you have that, you don't need to innovate that anymore. 412 00:14:21.800 --> 00:14:23.040 All your innovation has to go through. 413 00:14:23.040 --> 00:14:25.040 How can we do more volume? 414 00:14:25.040 --> 00:14:28.240 The next lesson was from a guy who had a big e-commerce brand. 415 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:29.800 So he was doing like 30 million a year at the time. 416 00:14:29.800 --> 00:14:32.320 Again, I was doing three or four million at this exact moment. 417 00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:35.080 And I was like, oh, my God, this guy is God. 418 00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:36.680 And he gave this huge presentation. 419 00:14:36.680 --> 00:14:37.840 It was like two hours long. 420 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:39.960 And I basically understood none of it. 421 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:42.480 It was way high level like traffic stuff 422 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:45.360 and like intent audiences like, I don't know any of this shit. 423 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:48.320 And I just like, I wanted to take something from it. 424 00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:50.200 And at the very end, someone else, thank God, 425 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:53.440 raised their hand, was like, where did you learn all this stuff? 426 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:56.600 And he said, at this point in my career, 427 00:14:56.600 --> 00:14:58.320 I can't learn a ton from courses 428 00:14:58.320 --> 00:14:59.760 and masterminds and coaching programs. 429 00:14:59.760 --> 00:15:03.960 He said, I learn through giving myself a learning budget. 430 00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:05.840 And he said, so pick a percentage, whatever it is, 431 00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:09.000 10% 20% of your marketing spend, 432 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.120 and put that towards new ideas and expect to lose it. 433 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:15.000 But when you're losing it, you're gaining the lesson. 434 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:16.280 You're gaining the experience. 435 00:15:16.280 --> 00:15:18.320 And what happens is he's like, four out of five times 436 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:19.160 more crazy ideas fail. 437 00:15:19.160 --> 00:15:21.480 He's like, but one out of five, he's like, 438 00:15:21.480 --> 00:15:24.440 they crush and become the leading edge innovation 439 00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:26.360 that pushes us to the next level. 440 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:28.760 And him saying that, at that moment, 441 00:15:28.760 --> 00:15:30.720 I immediately took a number and I wrote down 442 00:15:30.720 --> 00:15:32.720 what my new learning budget was going to be. 443 00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:34.360 And it gave me permission to spend money 444 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:36.360 without a return immediately. 445 00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:38.160 And so what happened is if you think big picture, 446 00:15:38.160 --> 00:15:41.320 he just extended my time horizon for a return. 447 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:43.440 And so rather than saying, I have to make my money back 448 00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:45.960 immediately within 30 days of me spending this, 449 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:48.280 I said, if I extend my horizon over my lifetime, 450 00:15:48.280 --> 00:15:50.200 if I spend this money, I will learn and be better 451 00:15:50.200 --> 00:15:52.040 and I will learn faster than somebody who doesn't. 452 00:15:52.040 --> 00:15:55.240 And so that permission forever changed 453 00:15:55.240 --> 00:15:57.280 how I approached new acquisition channels, 454 00:15:57.280 --> 00:15:59.160 new sales processes, new products. 455 00:15:59.160 --> 00:16:00.960 I just gave myself a budget to say, 456 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:03.000 it is acceptable to lose this. 457 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:04.200 And then I committed to that. 458 00:16:04.200 --> 00:16:05.800 And that was a huge pivot point 459 00:16:05.800 --> 00:16:08.480 for how we were able to scale and try new things 460 00:16:08.480 --> 00:16:10.440 because it wasn't uncontrolled testing. 461 00:16:10.440 --> 00:16:12.280 It was controlled and I looked forward 462 00:16:12.280 --> 00:16:13.760 to spending on my learning budget every month. 463 00:16:13.760 --> 00:16:15.480 And it just gave me permission to be creative 464 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:17.440 knowing that it would be okay to fail. 465 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:19.240 And for somebody who doesn't like failing, 466 00:16:19.240 --> 00:16:20.600 it was a huge deal for me. 467 00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:24.400 Most of the nation real quick, 468 00:16:24.400 --> 00:16:27.440 if you are a business owner that has a big old business 469 00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:29.520 and wants to get to a much bigger business, 470 00:16:29.520 --> 00:16:33.000 going to $50, $100,000 plus we would love to talk to you. 471 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:35.200 And if you like that and would like to hear more about it, 472 00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:37.880 go to acquisition.com and you can plan anywhere on the page 473 00:16:37.880 --> 00:16:41.080 and talk to one of our team and see if we can help you get there. 474 00:16:43.280 --> 00:16:47.000 The next one I got from a pastor between Laila and I, 475 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:49.560 he gave us a single piece of marriage advice 476 00:16:49.560 --> 00:16:51.800 that we have taken today. 477 00:16:51.800 --> 00:16:53.560 We have used countless times in our lives 478 00:16:53.560 --> 00:16:55.400 both in our marriage personally 479 00:16:55.400 --> 00:16:57.120 and professionally in the business. 480 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:00.240 He said, if you don't agree, don't move forward. 481 00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:02.320 And it was such a simple piece of advice 482 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:04.440 because in some context, there's like, 483 00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:06.000 who's the alpha, who's the like, 484 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:07.760 we have always made our decisions together. 485 00:17:07.760 --> 00:17:10.720 And if we don't agree, we slow down. 486 00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:13.480 And so a lot of times we impose this false sense 487 00:17:13.480 --> 00:17:16.320 of urgency on ourselves when there's almost nothing 488 00:17:16.320 --> 00:17:17.160 that is urgent. 489 00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:18.600 Like unless you're going to die, 490 00:17:18.600 --> 00:17:19.880 which is the only real urgency, 491 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:21.080 because then you don't make any choices 492 00:17:21.080 --> 00:17:22.240 after that if you do. 493 00:17:22.240 --> 00:17:23.880 Like if there is no death, 494 00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:25.960 then a lot of times taking an extra second to think, 495 00:17:25.960 --> 00:17:28.000 okay, is there something we're missing? 496 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:29.560 Is there a frame that we're not seeing? 497 00:17:29.560 --> 00:17:31.040 And so if we don't agree, 498 00:17:31.040 --> 00:17:34.120 first question we always ask is what information are you using? 499 00:17:34.120 --> 00:17:36.480 Right? And so oftentimes one of us will have data 500 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:37.440 that the other person doesn't, 501 00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:40.120 which is why if we have the same data, 502 00:17:40.120 --> 00:17:42.000 because we have the same values and same mission, 503 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:43.520 we do ultimately come to the same decision. 504 00:17:43.520 --> 00:17:45.000 So oftentimes when we don't agree, 505 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:46.760 it's because one of us knows something 506 00:17:46.760 --> 00:17:48.640 or is emphasizing a different piece of information 507 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:49.480 than the other person. 508 00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:51.000 And then we can get down to the information 509 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:52.080 and talk about that, 510 00:17:52.080 --> 00:17:53.960 rather than hating the other person for disagreeing 511 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:54.880 and thinking that they're stupid 512 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:56.600 or that you're stupid or anything. 513 00:17:56.600 --> 00:18:00.480 That has saved me so many mistakes in my life. 514 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:02.240 Like it has been one of the most valuable pieces 515 00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:03.080 of information. 516 00:18:03.080 --> 00:18:05.200 And you can make that agreement with a business partner. 517 00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:06.720 It doesn't have to be a spouse. 518 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:07.720 You can make it with your spouse 519 00:18:07.720 --> 00:18:08.880 and it doesn't have to apply to business. 520 00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:11.520 But I think that if you are equally yoked, right? 521 00:18:11.520 --> 00:18:13.440 In your partnership with somebody, 522 00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:16.880 making that the bottom line has just served me so well. 523 00:18:18.040 --> 00:18:19.520 Much later on in my career, 524 00:18:19.520 --> 00:18:21.880 I went to a big half a billion dollar mastermind. 525 00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:23.800 So there was like 10 of us there 526 00:18:23.800 --> 00:18:25.160 and the total sales of everyone in the room 527 00:18:25.160 --> 00:18:26.160 is about half a billion dollars. 528 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:27.120 And I was like, this is pretty cool. 529 00:18:27.120 --> 00:18:29.240 So my business has been a little better at this point. 530 00:18:29.240 --> 00:18:30.680 But I was still among the smaller ones. 531 00:18:30.680 --> 00:18:33.080 I think we were doing $30, $40 million a year at the time. 532 00:18:33.080 --> 00:18:36.720 And plenty of guys there were at 100, 200, et cetera. 533 00:18:36.720 --> 00:18:39.280 And I had my goggles on. 534 00:18:39.280 --> 00:18:41.560 I was like, what do these guys have that I don't? 535 00:18:41.560 --> 00:18:42.680 That's all I was looking at. 536 00:18:42.680 --> 00:18:43.680 I was like, what do they have? 537 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:44.680 Are they smarter? 538 00:18:44.680 --> 00:18:45.680 Are they working harder? 539 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:46.680 Are they sacrificing more? 540 00:18:46.680 --> 00:18:47.800 Like, what is it? 541 00:18:47.800 --> 00:18:48.520 Like, what is it? 542 00:18:48.520 --> 00:18:50.720 And the single biggest takeaway that I had 543 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:52.880 from the entire thing was that they had 544 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:54.120 a bigger total dressable market. 545 00:18:54.120 --> 00:18:54.960 They had a bigger tab. 546 00:18:54.960 --> 00:18:58.080 They were going after just a much wider audience. 547 00:18:58.080 --> 00:19:01.120 And that was when I realized that whatever business 548 00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:03.920 you have, eventually you need to go wide. 549 00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:05.120 So you start small. 550 00:19:05.120 --> 00:19:08.120 So the riches are in the niches to a degree. 551 00:19:08.120 --> 00:19:10.600 But at a certain point, you do need to open up the aperture. 552 00:19:10.600 --> 00:19:12.640 So like Facebook started with college, right? 553 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:13.960 That was the niche. 554 00:19:13.960 --> 00:19:15.960 And then slowly they expanded over time 555 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:18.360 because it's easy to do one thing really well 556 00:19:18.360 --> 00:19:19.640 for one avatar, which is why I always say 557 00:19:19.640 --> 00:19:21.120 one avatar, one product, one channel. 558 00:19:21.120 --> 00:19:22.160 That's how you start. 559 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:24.680 But at some point, I had been so committed to that 560 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:27.400 that I had to open up my eyes and say, you know what? 561 00:19:27.400 --> 00:19:29.160 Maybe I can expand my avatar. 562 00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:30.560 Maybe I can go out market. 563 00:19:30.560 --> 00:19:32.480 Maybe I can go broader in some way. 564 00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:35.280 And seeing all these people that, you know, 565 00:19:35.280 --> 00:19:36.880 I thought we're equally intelligent 566 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:38.800 and hardworking is me doing significantly better. 567 00:19:38.800 --> 00:19:40.960 Like that was the unlock for me. 568 00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:43.000 The next one was when I talked to, 569 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:45.560 this was one of the first billionaires that I ever met. 570 00:19:45.560 --> 00:19:48.000 Again, I had been stuck at 30 to 40 million for like three years. 571 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:49.200 So like there was a lot of learning 572 00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:50.440 that I was trying to do in this period 573 00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:52.120 to break through that wall. 574 00:19:52.120 --> 00:19:54.520 And I was telling him all these things that I was doing 575 00:19:54.520 --> 00:19:55.760 to try and grow my business. 576 00:19:55.760 --> 00:19:57.480 And he just laughed. 577 00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:00.040 And I was like, hey man, I'm like, 578 00:20:00.040 --> 00:20:02.520 I'm like putting some real stuff out here. 579 00:20:02.520 --> 00:20:04.160 Like I'm suffering right now, 580 00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:05.920 which anybody who's watching this is like fuck you. 581 00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:06.760 All right, whatever. 582 00:20:06.760 --> 00:20:09.280 But, you know, if you do think that way, 583 00:20:09.280 --> 00:20:10.760 then you don't understand the entrepreneur game 584 00:20:10.760 --> 00:20:12.600 because the reason people do it is because they want to grow. 585 00:20:12.600 --> 00:20:13.920 And when you feel like you're plateauing, 586 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:15.080 it still feels terrible, 587 00:20:15.080 --> 00:20:17.640 independent of what the monetary outcome is. 588 00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:20.520 And so he said, the biggest thing that I see 589 00:20:20.520 --> 00:20:21.680 and I'm paraphrasing, he's like, 590 00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:23.240 is that you're talking about you all the time. 591 00:20:23.240 --> 00:20:24.520 He said it's not about you. 592 00:20:24.520 --> 00:20:26.280 It's about everybody else. 593 00:20:26.280 --> 00:20:27.120 And when he meant by that, 594 00:20:27.120 --> 00:20:28.960 it wasn't like me versus customers and anything like that. 595 00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:30.280 He was like, all you've been telling me 596 00:20:30.280 --> 00:20:32.560 is what you're going to do. 597 00:20:32.560 --> 00:20:35.920 He's like, you need to have a stable of stallions. 598 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:38.920 You need to give people a slice of the pie 599 00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:41.840 and let them get rich too. 600 00:20:41.840 --> 00:20:43.600 And up to that point, I had hoarded everything. 601 00:20:43.600 --> 00:20:44.800 I like never did profitures. 602 00:20:44.800 --> 00:20:47.760 I did very little, like equity interest 603 00:20:47.760 --> 00:20:49.680 for anybody who's a key leader. 604 00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:52.040 But he told me, he's like, you know what got me 605 00:20:52.040 --> 00:20:55.760 from a $100 million stop line to $500 million stop line. 606 00:20:55.760 --> 00:20:56.600 I was like, what? 607 00:20:56.600 --> 00:20:58.320 He was like doing less and getting really smart people 608 00:20:58.560 --> 00:21:01.080 to help me out and giving them a big slice. 609 00:21:01.080 --> 00:21:02.160 And it was just so simple. 610 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:03.760 And maybe it just means you have to get it 611 00:21:03.760 --> 00:21:04.960 from somebody whose way ahead of you. 612 00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:06.840 And so I don't know where you are, 613 00:21:06.840 --> 00:21:08.680 but maybe hopefully I can be that for you. 614 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:11.320 Is that at a certain point, one million, 615 00:21:11.320 --> 00:21:12.520 you need to learn the stuff. 616 00:21:12.520 --> 00:21:14.680 10 million, you still need to learn a lot, 617 00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:15.920 but you get your first level management. 618 00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:18.720 Like 10 million plus, it's about talent. 619 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:19.880 It's about people. 620 00:21:19.880 --> 00:21:22.200 You have to get other people who can make decisions 621 00:21:22.200 --> 00:21:24.080 on your behalf and you feel not only 622 00:21:24.080 --> 00:21:25.600 that they were as good as your decisions, 623 00:21:25.600 --> 00:21:26.600 but even better. 624 00:21:26.600 --> 00:21:29.560 Because the skill sets become more niched 625 00:21:29.560 --> 00:21:31.400 and more advanced, the bigger you go. 626 00:21:31.400 --> 00:21:33.040 In the beginning, most people can do their books 627 00:21:33.040 --> 00:21:33.960 when you're making a million dollars a year. 628 00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:35.000 It's not that hard. 629 00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:37.320 But when you're making $50 million a year, 630 00:21:37.320 --> 00:21:39.360 the books become significantly more complex. 631 00:21:39.360 --> 00:21:41.720 And that concept applies throughout 632 00:21:41.720 --> 00:21:43.280 every single part of the organization. 633 00:21:43.280 --> 00:21:45.200 And so in the beginning, you're a jack of all trades master 634 00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:46.840 of none, but you need to have mastery 635 00:21:46.840 --> 00:21:49.480 in every department of the business in order for it to scale. 636 00:21:49.480 --> 00:21:51.880 And you can either see that as I have to learn everything 637 00:21:51.880 --> 00:21:54.400 or the faster way, which is I can go buy it. 638 00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:56.040 So you can build it within yourself 639 00:21:56.040 --> 00:21:58.600 or you can buy it through other people 640 00:21:58.600 --> 00:22:01.040 who've already given 10 years, already given 15 years. 641 00:22:01.040 --> 00:22:02.960 And so a different way to think about that, 642 00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:05.040 I'm hidden on this because I think it's important. 643 00:22:05.040 --> 00:22:07.680 If I can get 10 people who've all spent 20 years 644 00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:09.600 in their respective departments, 645 00:22:09.600 --> 00:22:14.080 then I basically have 200 years of experience, 646 00:22:14.080 --> 00:22:17.080 which funds or flows the growth of the business. 647 00:22:17.080 --> 00:22:22.080 The business will scale to the cumulative brain power 648 00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:23.440 of the organization. 649 00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:24.720 And if every person in the organization 650 00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:25.960 has learned everything from you, 651 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:28.560 then it's only one brain and one lifetime 652 00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:30.160 that is the limit of the organization. 653 00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:32.600 If you have 10 people who have lived 10 different lives 654 00:22:32.600 --> 00:22:34.720 and achieved mastery in 10 different areas, 655 00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:38.160 then you now have 200 years of experience and mastery 656 00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:40.240 that is growing the business and is now the new cap. 657 00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:43.560 And like that was my big, that thing is what got us 658 00:22:43.560 --> 00:22:45.240 past the 30 to 40 million. 659 00:22:45.240 --> 00:22:47.400 Like that was a huge breakthrough for me. 660 00:22:47.400 --> 00:22:49.480 The next one was a podcast that I actually heard 661 00:22:49.480 --> 00:22:51.360 from a YouTuber that didn't have like, 662 00:22:51.840 --> 00:22:54.440 probably at a few hundred thousand subscribers, 663 00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:57.200 he sold kind of like some sort of tax thing or whatever. 664 00:22:57.200 --> 00:22:59.240 And he said on a podcast, 665 00:22:59.240 --> 00:23:02.360 nonchalantly that he was getting 3,000 applications a month 666 00:23:02.360 --> 00:23:05.280 from this like one or 200,000 YouTube channel. 667 00:23:06.360 --> 00:23:09.200 And it had taken him eight years to get there. 668 00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:12.600 And in my mind, I heard 3,000 inbound applications 669 00:23:12.600 --> 00:23:15.760 from a warm audience filling out a 28 page questionnaire 670 00:23:15.760 --> 00:23:18.160 for taxes as the most insane thing 671 00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:20.200 I've ever heard of my entire life. 672 00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:21.960 And the fact that he was getting paid to do that 673 00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:23.120 was insane. 674 00:23:23.120 --> 00:23:25.280 And that was the first conversation 675 00:23:25.280 --> 00:23:28.000 that I ever heard that gave me the first step towards 676 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:29.560 creating a personal brand making content. 677 00:23:29.560 --> 00:23:32.600 Like that one thing, him translating, 678 00:23:32.600 --> 00:23:34.040 all of this content that he was making 679 00:23:34.040 --> 00:23:37.080 into the business terms of like what he was getting from it. 680 00:23:37.080 --> 00:23:40.040 That link for me was when the light went on. 681 00:23:40.040 --> 00:23:41.840 I had a bunch of other things happen after that 682 00:23:41.840 --> 00:23:42.680 that pushed me over the edge, 683 00:23:42.680 --> 00:23:44.440 but that was the first time that I said 684 00:23:44.440 --> 00:23:46.640 there might be something to this. 685 00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:49.640 The next conversation I had was around, 686 00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:51.120 it was really the one that pushed me over the edge. 687 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:53.760 So the one I just talked about was me deciding 688 00:23:53.760 --> 00:23:56.600 to maybe even think about this content personal brand path. 689 00:23:56.600 --> 00:23:58.400 This one was the last conversation I had 690 00:23:58.400 --> 00:23:59.880 that made me decide to do it. 691 00:23:59.880 --> 00:24:02.080 It was of a famous friend you would know 692 00:24:02.080 --> 00:24:03.320 if I said his name. 693 00:24:03.320 --> 00:24:05.160 And I was at his house and we were sitting 694 00:24:05.160 --> 00:24:06.840 at the kitchen table and I said, 695 00:24:06.840 --> 00:24:09.080 don't you get tired of all these people, 696 00:24:09.080 --> 00:24:11.000 like all these weirdos like messaging you stuff 697 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:12.800 and like sending you threads and like three people 698 00:24:12.800 --> 00:24:14.200 a week stopping by your house, 699 00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:15.240 like trying to climb your fence? 700 00:24:15.240 --> 00:24:16.840 Like isn't that like not fun? 701 00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:19.920 He said, if that's the price I have to pay 702 00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:21.120 to make the impact I want to have 703 00:24:21.120 --> 00:24:23.440 then I would pay it every day of the week. 704 00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:26.440 And like for whatever reason it just like stab me in the heart 705 00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:30.360 and it made me feel like if I want to spread a message 706 00:24:30.360 --> 00:24:33.640 if I want to help more people that there is a cost to it. 707 00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:36.120 Now what I will say this having now been a little bit 708 00:24:36.120 --> 00:24:37.920 the other side and having more recognition and whatnot 709 00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:41.000 is that fame has pros and cons. 710 00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:44.800 There are cons, but I believe that there are more pros 711 00:24:44.800 --> 00:24:46.000 than cons. 712 00:24:46.080 --> 00:24:47.920 And so that is how I've kind of assessed. 713 00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:49.960 It's like are there things that are inconvenient now? 714 00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:52.040 Absolutely, you get stopped every time you go to dinner 715 00:24:52.040 --> 00:24:53.880 like you get disrupted, it's harder to be like private 716 00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:55.360 in public if you have a bad day you can't do it 717 00:24:55.360 --> 00:24:56.440 because someone says, hi, it's the one time 718 00:24:56.440 --> 00:24:59.360 they're gonna see you like there are things that are cons. 719 00:24:59.360 --> 00:25:00.640 But the pros outweigh the cons. 720 00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:03.280 You get amazing teammates who otherwise would never know 721 00:25:03.280 --> 00:25:05.280 you exist, you already believe in your values 722 00:25:05.280 --> 00:25:06.520 and you don't have to indoctrinate that way. 723 00:25:06.520 --> 00:25:08.400 They like they see the mission the way you do 724 00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:10.240 and they charge 10 times harder towards it 725 00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:11.440 because they believe in it. 726 00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:14.200 And you attract partners who also have the same mission 727 00:25:14.200 --> 00:25:15.240 have the same values 728 00:25:15.320 --> 00:25:16.720 and it creates significantly more alignment 729 00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:19.720 and real world value in terms of economic value 730 00:25:19.720 --> 00:25:22.440 and which money you make by having people inbound 731 00:25:22.440 --> 00:25:23.280 coming towards you. 732 00:25:23.280 --> 00:25:27.520 And for the longest time, I used to poo making content, 733 00:25:27.520 --> 00:25:29.080 I used to talk shit about people make cons. 734 00:25:29.080 --> 00:25:31.320 I was like, you know, make, do you call it outreach 735 00:25:31.320 --> 00:25:33.520 and run ads like don't talk to me. 736 00:25:33.520 --> 00:25:34.720 But now having been on the other side of it 737 00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:36.200 I could tell you that it was mistake 738 00:25:36.200 --> 00:25:37.240 and it took me a long time to learn. 739 00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:39.720 And that was the last final straw. 740 00:25:39.720 --> 00:25:41.360 Another one was a big influencer 741 00:25:41.360 --> 00:25:43.480 and I wanted this is again on this personal branding journey. 742 00:25:43.480 --> 00:25:46.120 I'm a big believer that you can either learn lessons 743 00:25:46.120 --> 00:25:47.680 with time or you can pay for them in money 744 00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:49.640 and this is me paying for it in money. 745 00:25:49.640 --> 00:25:51.480 And so I said, hey, you're way further ahead of me. 746 00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:54.240 Like how do I just shortcut this thing? 747 00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:55.680 And so he said, hey, you start making content 748 00:25:55.680 --> 00:25:56.920 every platform so I did that. 749 00:25:56.920 --> 00:25:58.000 And then I came back six months later 750 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:00.280 and I said, hey, look, we went from zero to 200,000 people 751 00:26:00.280 --> 00:26:01.760 in our audience in six months. 752 00:26:01.760 --> 00:26:03.920 And, you know, you noted the progress. 753 00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:05.360 But I was like, what's your blueprint? 754 00:26:05.360 --> 00:26:06.560 What's the, what's the model? 755 00:26:06.560 --> 00:26:07.960 How's the, you know, give me the flow chart. 756 00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:09.600 He said, dude, we don't have a flow chart. 757 00:26:09.600 --> 00:26:10.960 He said, anybody who's trying to sell it 758 00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:13.040 tell you that is trying to sell you a system. 759 00:26:13.040 --> 00:26:15.440 You just need to do so much more volume 760 00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:16.280 than you currently are. 761 00:26:16.280 --> 00:26:17.600 And he said, just pull up your Instagram 762 00:26:17.600 --> 00:26:18.440 and pull up my Instagram. 763 00:26:18.440 --> 00:26:19.600 So I pulled it up, pulled his up. 764 00:26:19.600 --> 00:26:22.320 He had posted five times, I had posted once. 765 00:26:22.320 --> 00:26:24.360 He's like, pull up your LinkedIn, pull up my LinkedIn. 766 00:26:24.360 --> 00:26:27.360 He had posted seven times, I had posted once. 767 00:26:27.360 --> 00:26:29.000 Platform by platform, you get pulling one up 768 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:31.600 and he was embarrassing me with the amount of content 769 00:26:31.600 --> 00:26:33.000 he was putting out compared to me. 770 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:34.520 And so in the next six months, 771 00:26:34.520 --> 00:26:36.640 I put 10 times the content out 772 00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:39.160 and we grew 10 times faster. 773 00:26:39.160 --> 00:26:41.680 And so the interesting lesson I learned from this 774 00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:44.400 is that there are principles that are ubiquitous. 775 00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:46.400 The more work you do, the more you get. 776 00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:47.560 The more work you do, the better you get. 777 00:26:47.560 --> 00:26:49.840 The better you get, the more you get out of it, right? 778 00:26:49.840 --> 00:26:53.000 And so the boring work applies to everything in business, 779 00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:54.640 whether it's relationships, whether it's cold calling, 780 00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:56.280 whether it's making content, the more you do, 781 00:26:56.280 --> 00:26:57.320 the more you get. 782 00:26:57.320 --> 00:26:59.360 And it's ironic, I felt silly 783 00:26:59.360 --> 00:27:01.960 that I had to learn it from someone that I paid all this money 784 00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:03.280 to teach me a lesson that I had already learned 785 00:27:03.280 --> 00:27:05.440 in a different aspect of my life, but it also applied here. 786 00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:06.680 So hopefully, you don't have to pay that money. 787 00:27:06.680 --> 00:27:09.040 I'll tell you, the more you do, the more you get. 788 00:27:09.040 --> 00:27:10.840 The next one was about investing. 789 00:27:10.840 --> 00:27:14.320 This was a big one, because my wife and I 790 00:27:14.320 --> 00:27:17.680 had already taken $43 million in dividends 791 00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:20.480 from our business before selling it for $46 million. 792 00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:22.920 And I was actually a pretty big pansy 793 00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:24.240 when it came to investing. 794 00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:27.560 And that's because that's why I have no debt to this day. 795 00:27:27.560 --> 00:27:28.880 I still don't not say I'm against it. 796 00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:31.160 I'm just a pansy about it, and I'm very upfront about it. 797 00:27:31.160 --> 00:27:32.480 Maybe someday I'll be able to take debt on, 798 00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:33.800 but up to this point, I don't. 799 00:27:33.800 --> 00:27:35.120 So everything I own, I own a cash, 800 00:27:35.120 --> 00:27:38.160 and I still have a ton of cash just stacked in treasuries, 801 00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:40.200 just bonds, just waiting there. 802 00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:42.880 And this was the breakthrough I had. 803 00:27:42.880 --> 00:27:46.640 One is that if you ever have cash in a banking account, 804 00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:48.560 you could just put it in a bond, and you'll get a higher 805 00:27:48.560 --> 00:27:50.120 percentage, and it's safer than a bank. 806 00:27:50.120 --> 00:27:52.520 That was such a simple thing. 807 00:27:52.520 --> 00:27:54.800 Banks aren't as robust as the US government. 808 00:27:54.800 --> 00:27:56.480 Banks pay you point whatever percent. 809 00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:58.280 The government pays you four to five. 810 00:27:58.280 --> 00:27:59.200 That's it. 811 00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:00.360 That's all there is to it. 812 00:28:00.360 --> 00:28:02.760 And they're almost as liquid as you can sell them in and out 813 00:28:02.760 --> 00:28:03.760 whenever you want. 814 00:28:03.760 --> 00:28:05.360 That was a huge offer for me. 815 00:28:05.360 --> 00:28:07.360 So taking all my cash in a bank account 816 00:28:07.360 --> 00:28:10.680 and putting them into bonds while I waited was step one. 817 00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:13.440 Step two that I learned from this conversation 818 00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:15.880 was investing only in what I knew. 819 00:28:15.880 --> 00:28:17.600 Because up to this point, like now I had all this money 820 00:28:17.600 --> 00:28:19.440 and people are like, I've got this real estate deal. 821 00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:20.880 I've got this crypto thing. 822 00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:22.240 I've got a mining, you know, whatever. 823 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:23.600 There's just all these crazy things. 824 00:28:23.600 --> 00:28:25.720 You know, I've got oil put in my, like when you have 825 00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:27.880 lots of money, deal flow is not a problem. 826 00:28:27.880 --> 00:28:29.640 People will ask you for money. 827 00:28:29.640 --> 00:28:32.320 But what I didn't have was like a set of rules or parameters. 828 00:28:32.320 --> 00:28:33.640 And you have to make those otherwise, 829 00:28:33.640 --> 00:28:34.760 you get too much decision fatigue. 830 00:28:34.760 --> 00:28:36.600 You waste too much time doing diligence on deals, 831 00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:37.920 reading, having multiple phone calls, 832 00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:40.440 having lawyers come in and then deciding not to do it. 833 00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:42.320 And so this is a conversation I witnessed 834 00:28:42.320 --> 00:28:43.720 and it changed my life. 835 00:28:43.720 --> 00:28:46.120 He was telling somebody who had a lot of real estate experience. 836 00:28:46.120 --> 00:28:48.480 Now mind you, I don't have a lot of real estate experience. 837 00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:51.960 He said, if you were to put a circle on this table, 838 00:28:51.960 --> 00:28:55.760 what percentage of your brain knows real estate? 839 00:28:55.760 --> 00:28:59.520 He was like, I guess 85% is like, okay. 840 00:28:59.520 --> 00:29:01.440 What percentage of your brain knows stocks and stuff? 841 00:29:01.440 --> 00:29:03.240 He's like, oh, 10 or 15%. 842 00:29:03.240 --> 00:29:07.640 He's like, that is your new capital allocation parameter. 843 00:29:07.640 --> 00:29:09.800 85% of your net worth should be in real estate, 844 00:29:09.800 --> 00:29:12.400 15% should be in stocks and stuff. 845 00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:14.400 And it was so simple for me. 846 00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:16.240 Like Warren Buffett talks about investing what you know, 847 00:29:16.240 --> 00:29:17.040 but for whatever reason, 848 00:29:17.040 --> 00:29:19.560 that conversation translated that into real world. 849 00:29:19.560 --> 00:29:20.680 For me, I know business. 850 00:29:20.680 --> 00:29:22.200 And so what do I invest in now? 851 00:29:22.200 --> 00:29:24.920 Only businesses, which most times people consider 852 00:29:24.920 --> 00:29:26.840 private equity one of the riskiest types of investment, 853 00:29:26.840 --> 00:29:29.080 but it's only risky if you don't know what you're doing. 854 00:29:29.080 --> 00:29:31.360 And this is the, like I can write a five or a $10 million 855 00:29:31.360 --> 00:29:34.520 check and be fine if I know what, like if it's a business, 856 00:29:34.520 --> 00:29:36.480 because I understand I know what pitfalls are going to come up. 857 00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:39.520 Like I get it with a real estate department building. 858 00:29:39.520 --> 00:29:42.520 No idea, never built, never built one. 859 00:29:42.520 --> 00:29:44.840 I got nothing, you know, I mean, like I'm just like, 860 00:29:44.840 --> 00:29:47.720 termites are bad, I hear, you know, like rain, you know, 861 00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:50.280 water, bad, not on the floor, not a good idea, right? 862 00:29:50.280 --> 00:29:51.240 Like I don't know. 863 00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:54.240 And so sticking with that, just forever made my life simpler 864 00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:55.800 because now when deals come, it was like, 865 00:29:55.800 --> 00:29:57.160 that's just not in my will. 866 00:29:57.160 --> 00:29:58.160 And I can just immediately say no. 867 00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:00.320 So the amount of time and effort and lawyer calls 868 00:30:00.320 --> 00:30:03.720 and conversations that that save me has paid so many dividends. 869 00:30:03.720 --> 00:30:05.560 And now I'm investing significantly better 870 00:30:05.560 --> 00:30:06.400 because it's what I know. 871 00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:09.080 And I feel comfortable with it and I can move way faster. 872 00:30:09.080 --> 00:30:12.640 The next one was about the leverage behind a product. 873 00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:15.760 So Nevala said, you only sell because you don't have a market, 874 00:30:15.760 --> 00:30:17.640 you only market because you don't have to build a product. 875 00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:20.560 And the thing is, is that an exceptional product 876 00:30:20.560 --> 00:30:24.080 is a quadratic relationship with your audience. 877 00:30:24.080 --> 00:30:26.760 Good marketing or good sales is a linear relationship, 878 00:30:26.760 --> 00:30:29.960 meaning if I spend a dollar, I get X dollars back. 879 00:30:29.960 --> 00:30:33.240 If I make X phone calls, I get Y dollars back. 880 00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:36.320 But with a product, if you make an exceptional product, 881 00:30:36.320 --> 00:30:38.360 one person buys the product and they tell two, 882 00:30:38.360 --> 00:30:39.920 two, tell four, four, tell eight. 883 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:41.600 And so if you focus on the product, 884 00:30:41.600 --> 00:30:43.200 on making something that's so unbelievable 885 00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:44.360 that people cannot help themselves 886 00:30:44.360 --> 00:30:45.360 but tell other people about it. 887 00:30:45.360 --> 00:30:46.480 And you're like, well, how do I do that? 888 00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:48.520 You work on it and you keep working on it 889 00:30:48.520 --> 00:30:51.040 and you don't make new products until the first one's right. 890 00:30:51.040 --> 00:30:53.000 And if you're like, that might take years. 891 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.120 That's why good shit takes time. 892 00:30:55.120 --> 00:30:58.280 And my first real experience with this after this 893 00:30:58.280 --> 00:31:01.000 was the book that I released, Hunter Really No Offers. 894 00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:04.440 That book continues to sell more copies every month, 895 00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:07.800 month after month, with zero advertising dollars. 896 00:31:07.800 --> 00:31:09.840 Like a lot of books. 897 00:31:09.840 --> 00:31:12.200 And as soon as I saw that happen, 898 00:31:12.200 --> 00:31:14.920 it shifted in me to like, I knew the sales stuff, 899 00:31:14.920 --> 00:31:15.800 I knew the marketing stuff, 900 00:31:15.800 --> 00:31:17.840 but now like, I would say the chapter of my life 901 00:31:17.840 --> 00:31:19.680 that I'm on is all folks around product. 902 00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:23.760 Because I realized that I could work really hard for two years 903 00:31:23.760 --> 00:31:25.720 and then not have to work at all 904 00:31:25.720 --> 00:31:27.960 or very little for the rest of my life 905 00:31:27.960 --> 00:31:30.800 or work very little bit on a product 906 00:31:30.800 --> 00:31:33.880 and then spend the rest of my life trying to market and sell it. 907 00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:37.400 And so it's actually less work in the long run 908 00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:40.680 to build a better thing than it is to build a shitty thing 909 00:31:40.680 --> 00:31:42.240 and then have to spend the rest of your time 910 00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:43.920 marketing and selling it. 911 00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:46.160 An excellent product is a form of leverage 912 00:31:46.160 --> 00:31:48.720 because you get more for your time. 913 00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:51.960 You put in X and you get out Y for the rest of your life. 914 00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:53.600 That is leverage. 915 00:31:53.600 --> 00:31:55.640 And you wanna have leverage in every aspect of your business 916 00:31:55.640 --> 00:31:57.960 and the product is the strongest one. 917 00:31:57.960 --> 00:32:00.080 Products also unlock compounding 918 00:32:00.080 --> 00:32:02.520 because of one person does two, two, two, four, four to eight. 919 00:32:02.520 --> 00:32:04.200 There's a compounding vehicle in it. 920 00:32:04.200 --> 00:32:07.240 If you have marketing or sales, there is no compounding there. 921 00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:09.000 You just have to keep putting effort in 922 00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:11.200 and you get X return on it back. 923 00:32:11.200 --> 00:32:12.640 There's no compounding. 924 00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:14.040 And you wanna have that in the vehicle 925 00:32:14.040 --> 00:32:15.440 because it means the longer you play the game, 926 00:32:15.440 --> 00:32:17.160 the bigger it gets. 927 00:32:17.160 --> 00:32:18.960 Last few I learned from Uncle Warren, 928 00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:20.560 which I didn't have a conversation with him, 929 00:32:20.560 --> 00:32:23.800 but the man changed my life in many ways. 930 00:32:23.800 --> 00:32:25.960 And he taught me the power of brand. 931 00:32:25.960 --> 00:32:27.720 And brand was always this amorous thing 932 00:32:27.720 --> 00:32:28.720 that I thought was complete BS. 933 00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:30.800 I was like, you can't quantify brand blah, blah, blah. 934 00:32:30.800 --> 00:32:32.560 But the thing is you can quantify brand. 935 00:32:32.560 --> 00:32:34.080 And that is what I learned from Uncle Warren. 936 00:32:34.080 --> 00:32:35.480 He said the amount that you can charge 937 00:32:35.480 --> 00:32:37.960 above the commoditized version of your product, 938 00:32:37.960 --> 00:32:40.760 the delta there is the power of brand. 939 00:32:40.760 --> 00:32:43.040 And what's interesting about that is if you have a t-shirt 940 00:32:43.040 --> 00:32:46.240 that can sell for $20 normally and can sell for $100 941 00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:48.120 with your brand on it, 942 00:32:48.120 --> 00:32:50.400 all of that pricing power goes to bottom line, 943 00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:52.600 which is why Warren Buffett invests in brands. 944 00:32:52.600 --> 00:32:55.640 It's one of the strongest ways to retain pricing power, 945 00:32:55.640 --> 00:32:57.840 which is a proxy for the profits that you can generate 946 00:32:57.840 --> 00:32:59.280 over an extended period of time. 947 00:32:59.280 --> 00:33:02.280 And the new markets you can get into using the brand 948 00:33:02.280 --> 00:33:05.320 to wedge yourself into the new category, 949 00:33:05.320 --> 00:33:08.760 the brand itself becomes a huge compounding vehicle 950 00:33:08.760 --> 00:33:10.720 because the audience and the awareness 951 00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:12.840 around the brand compounds. 952 00:33:12.840 --> 00:33:15.000 And by the way, I've anonymized these conversations 953 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:17.360 because I don't want the people 954 00:33:17.360 --> 00:33:18.920 that I have these conversations with 955 00:33:18.920 --> 00:33:20.080 to feel like I'm name dropping them 956 00:33:20.080 --> 00:33:23.360 or feel like conversation ahead with them in confidence, 957 00:33:23.360 --> 00:33:24.320 ever come back to them. 958 00:33:24.320 --> 00:33:27.000 And so I'm keeping this white wash of names 959 00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:29.120 because you would recognize probably 960 00:33:29.120 --> 00:33:30.720 half the list on your own.