Kickoff Sessions

#316 Dan Martell - How to Build a $10M Business from $0

• Darren Lee • Episode 316

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Guest: Dan Martell
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@danmartell
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danmartell


0:00 — Preview & Intro
3:06 — How to Start a Business Properly
5:51 — Free Models and Validation
8:35 — Bootstrapping vs VC Funding
12:00 — Building Products People Actually Need
14:46 — Prioritization and Systems
20:25 — The Shift That Unlocked Content Growth
29:01 — Consistency and Long-Term Success
32:10 — Storytelling and Personality in Content
41:20 — Rapid-Fire Business Beliefs
45:39 — Selling Ideas the Right Way
47:54 — Choosing What Content to Publish
51:40 — Communicating Simply at Scale
55:04 — Improving Through Feedback
58:58 — Health and High Performance

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Darren:

In software as a science, you mentioned most businesses die from indigestion, not from starvation.

Dan:

What does that mean? If most entrepreneurs knew what it took to win, they would say no more often. When you say, well, I've got a company doing 5 million, it's bootstrapped, and it generates 3 million a year in profit, you're living a better life than most of these venture back founders.

Darren:

It's almost like do you want to go through 10 years of pain for that big payoff or almost get mini exits every single year to yourself?

Dan:

Content can't just be educational, it has to be entertaining. It also has to be inspirational.

Darren:

You want to keep the rough around the edges in your brand and your personality so people have something to cling to.

Dan:

The ability to distill something into a model, circle, square, triangle, philosophies, North Star principles, etc., that somebody else could take, not telling them what to do, but tell them which way to look. That was a skill set that would help me scale companies. Winners literally have to lose more than losers. And by definition of not stopping, they win.

Darren:

Tell me about why you should sell the chocolate over the broccoli. Well, in Solver as a Science, you mentioned most businesses die from indigestion, not from starvation. What does that mean?

Dan:

If most entrepreneurs knew what it took to win, they would say no more often. Because it truly is an activity of focus. And I love the acronym, focus stands for follow one course until successful. Because it's so hard to even win doing one thing when people do too many things. And then they're like, it's kind of like playing a game of whack-a-mole where you're trying to solve a problem, but every time you like knock one down, another one pops up. And the only way to win, especially if you're just starting off, is to focus. And I think most founders, when I've seen them start and try and like, you know, push and then it not work out, it wasn't because the opportunity wasn't there, it's because they tried to chase too many. So that's why it's always an indigestion problem, too many things, heartburn, not a starvation. It's not there. Like if you focus on the core of that.

Darren:

What's the core root of that?

Dan:

Because if it's a product their fear of being wrong, it's why people start multiple companies. Okay, if you truly believe this company could be the right business, why did you start a second one and a third one? And every time somebody's like, Yeah, I have four companies, I'm like, no, you have one company that makes money and four or three that lose that take the profit from that company. And it all comes down to just uncertainty or lack of trust in their ability to actually perform. So they think I got to diversify. Diversification is diversification. It is not the right way to succeed. Like wealth creation is hyper focus, wealth preservation is diversification. Most people are trying to diverse before they have anything too diverse. So that's why it always comes on the belief that, well, if it doesn't work out, at least I'll have this, or maybe I should try this, or I'm gonna sell this to this market and this to this market, and you know, they just you know wake up one day and they look down, they've got 17 things they sell to 17 different people and they have a team of three. Not a winning strategy.

Darren:

When you look at it from a software perspective, and you've worked with you know thousands of SaaS founders, should that focus in the beginning be building a world-class amazing product, or should that focus be validating it with users and going out with a scrappy MVP?

Dan:

So most people know me as like the software AI guy. I've you know built and exited three software companies, um, you know, written best-selling book. I think last month we had 200 million views on my content. And even today, having learned everything, I learned the hard way, you know, growing up with addiction and um ADHD and failed my first two companies. When I start a company today, I start with the scrappy MVP. Like my whole philosophy is very simple. What is the minimum economic viable offer you can make and bring that to market? Because most businesses will fail not because they couldn't build it, it's because they shouldn't have built it. And the only way you can figure out if you should build it is to see if anybody wants it. So the world has proven itself out that you can pre-sell anything that you've developed before you have it built. Crowdfunding is a multi-billion dollar market, consulting's a multi-billion dollar market, you know, Facebook ads, a multi-billion dollar market, and they're all selling projects, products, services, software without any product being given to the customer at the point of purchase to validate, right? Most people end up spending a ton of money to try to build something to then find out the hard part was the thing they should have started with.

Darren:

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Dan:

Yeah.

Darren:

Were you were you kind of always against that model, or was there a case where you thought, okay, maybe that's valuable?

Dan:

So freemium is a distribution decision, not a business model decision. So when you look at products, like I remember in the early days, MailChip was a big one, right? In the email marketing space, and they went free when everybody else was just paid. And what they did is they ran the numbers and said, look, we have this product that people love. If we give the product to this percentage of our customer base, let's say the 10% that are currently paying us X, but we make it free. Our bet is that those people that are using the product that is free will talk about it enough to justify the free usage to get more customers. So all they did was take their cost to acquire customer, their CAC, and say, can we put it outside the purchase paywall and then trust that that audience of people is going to bring more customers in the cost to just pay using paid channels? That only works if you have a product that has product market fit. And it means the product has to be good enough. So it's a very advanced move. Most people that do free today is because they're too scared to find out nobody wants to buy. They would rather push off the um the validation because it's fun to just come up with stuff. I'll tell you the funnest thing is to stay up late with your buddies and just talk about what if, what if it did this, what if it did that? Yeah, let's build it, let's build it. And then you wake up a prop with a product that has featuritis, right? That you can't figure out how to even communicate certain features. Like there's some cool products out there that do some cool things and nobody uses like nobody knows it uses the product. Not because it doesn't do it, it's because they don't use it. So I just want to say this like back in the day, the reason why VCs invested is because there was real cost to build. There was real infrastructure, there was real labor costs, there was real distribution cost. All of those things have gone near zero. Like I can start without any product, sell it to thousands of people through the right partnership networks to get them to pre-buy, to then take that capital and then hire one or two engineers that use agentic programming platforms to write code and deploy what I sold within a week. Like I was showing you a prototype of a tool. I came up with that idea yesterday. That's a mobile app, completely done, AI powered. It's called Lasso, it's not available to anybody, but it's something I use and I showed it to you earlier. Yesterday, while I was sleeping, because we're in Australia and woke up this morning to a test flight install and used it all morning.

Darren:

What's the fear from venture back companies? So and venture for back uh operations and family offices, are they, would you say that they're more fearful now that great ideas are not going towards there? People are not venturing towards VC money. If you look at Clulea's example, Clule heavily raised and now they're doing you know quite well, obviously for themselves. When does it make sense to go down that route?

Dan:

I think when you have the unit economics figured out and you made a decision that there is a market and there's a strong argument for uh like winner takes all, you know, if you think of like products like Asana or you know, other project management software where like there is an argument for a lot of users is how you win. Um the truth is I don't know, it all depends what kind of future you want to live into, right? Like most companies that go public, the CEO only owns seven to eight percent of the company. And then you have a company like Atlassian, who's based out of Australia and Sydney, that probably got to 100 million in revenue without raising any capital. And the founders, who I know very well, just have a different lifestyle than other founders that even when the founder went public with 8% didn't actually like most people think because oh, the company sold for 500 million that the founder made anything close to that. If they're on their fourth round of funding, they've been diluted with, you know, some kind of acceleration clauses and all these other things that that you know, when you say, Well, I've got a company doing 5 million, it's bootstrapped and it generates 3 million a year in profit, you're living a better life than most of these venture back founders.

Darren:

100%. It's almost like, do you want to go through 10 years of pain for that big payoff or almost get mini exits every single year to yourself? Because how much money can you spend anyway?

Dan:

And and that's the thing, it's like you and for some founders, that is their decision. I want to build something, I want to at least attempt to build something that could change the world, think Elon Musk. And other people are like, I'm cool if I make a million dollars a month in profit and get to have the freedom today in my 20s. And that's also an option. But if the person that's trying to do that really wants to change the world, they're gonna wake up miserable. And the person that wants to change the world that really doesn't want to change the world, they're gonna wake up miserable. So it's like always begin with the end. It's like, what are you trying to optimize for? And then that should dictate your funding process, not I could raise, so I should raise. It's following someone else's dreams. It's just, it's, it's oftentimes people do things because it feels cool to other people. Like I always find it funny when people do things to impress people they don't even like. Like happens all the time. It's like, why are you doing that? I don't know, just to show them that I'm successful. It's like, who, the people you don't like? They're like, Yeah, I guess. I'm like, how about just do what you feel good about? So yeah, I think a lot of the fundraising versus bootstrapped really should come down to whatever you want. Because like Basecamp has been around for 20 some years, and they, you know, DHH and Jason and the founders at that company live an incredible life and have an incredible team and build very opinionated products in a very competitive space. And they did raise once by Jeff Bezos, and they say today they probably didn't need it or didn't ever use the money, but I think they just probably got enamored with the idea of having their idol invest in their company. Um, but it's it's a decision and it's just whatever you want to optimize for.

Darren:

I'd like to discuss your changes and opinions over the years. You've been producing content for a long time, and I went back to 2016 videos, so 10 years ago, coming into 10 years to next month. You mentioned about like how to build out really effective SaaS companies, the sales process, and you mentioned around that most people try to tackle a huge problem in the market, but you tackle a customer with a huge pain point. Has your opinion changed on something like that? Or is it something cool?

Dan:

Yeah, my whole philosophy for identifying products to build is I work backwards from the problem. And I'd rather solve a painful problem for a small community. And I only build stuff that I would use. Like that's my other filter. Why would I if I'm the only customer that ever uses the product but it makes my business or life better, then that's good enough. That's like the core filter. If I can build it in a way that other people like me find it valuable, then that's a winner. And if I can then extend the product roadmap where it can be applicable to other industries, then that's cool as well. But I don't ever start with that premise because personally I think the energy that goes into a product is felt by the users. And if I'm not energetically interested in creating it, then I'm not gonna do it.

Darren:

So when do you stop at that? Because let's say something is an annoyance to you and you fix it for yourself. When is there like, okay, this is just a me problem versus a world problem that we can try to solve? Because that's why internal tools are helpful if you build an internal tool for your company.

Dan:

Yeah, it's a great question. So today we have a we've launched a dozen companies in the last year. So pretty much a new AI product every month. Most of them got to a million in revenue in like four months. So many of them have gotten to two million in revenue in the last year. And all of them were incubated and launched essentially from pains that we've had. And we have a lab section where we're still building stuff that might never see the light of day. There is this really interesting point where the products have to be then customer driven, not team driven. And it's interesting because I have one of my CEOs, it's a customer of one of our products, and he wants a call, and I'm pretty sure I know what's gonna happen on that call. He's gonna ask me to influence the roadmap of the product that they're using because it's not doing the thing that they want. Now he's not gonna like my answer because essentially the product is no longer us, it's the market. And a good CEO goes, I need to create a future where the product is relevant. I can't be building custom features for one customer because then I just become a really low-paid custom dev shop.

Darren:

Does that make sense? Yeah. So do you look at like CSAT, um, different customer reports? Like it's more like aggregate customers.

Dan:

So I use this framework called Rice. So Rice stands for reach, impact, confidence, and ease. So every product feature request should go through that lens from a prioritization point of view so that you only build things from a reach point of view that impact a lot of your customer base. So it's not essentially like customer satisfaction. It's more here's all the things we could build. If I built it, would it have impact to everybody or a small set? That's reach, in impact to the business, financials, confidence. Do we feel confident we could actually build if we start building it? And ease, what's the effort to build the feature? And that's the problem is is the truth is is to solve the problem that I'm talking about is that the API becomes your business development. So the founder who built the product hasn't built an API yet that his customers can use to extend the product the way they need to. And right now they feel a little held back because they're waiting for the roadmap to deliver the feature. When the right way for the founder to solve that problem is to have an API that his customer can use to extend that doesn't create complexity in the code base.

Darren:

Before we move any further, I have one short question to ask you. Have you been enjoying these episodes so far? Because if you have, I would truly appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel to help more business owners grow their online business today. How do you personally distill this down to people? Because you're running a venture studio, you obviously have experience and competency out your ears, but how do you distill this down into your day-to-day so that the people that you're working with are able to delineate and actually implement this shit today in general? Because you because it's not like you've done this one in the world.

Dan:

There's 4.6 billion people on social media. Um, the cost of a million token generation three years ago when ChatGPT launched essentially was $60. Today it's six cents. And AI has brought a level of innovation to the world that you know, honestly, most people are using two to three percent of it, not even close to 97, 98% of it. So when you ask me that question, and I'll show it to you later, it's Dan AI. So I have an AI. Now people are like, oh, that's like a wrapper on GPT. No, it's a custom language model. I literally have my own LLM that was trained and like tuned for Dan's wisdom. I call it generative wisdom. And that tool, when I show it to you, answers questions better than Dan ever could because it has 100% recall, 100% context, 100% everything. It literally builds a relationship with the person asking in the first place. It knows who you are. So when you ask, it actually remembers what you've asked in the past. And that's what the founders that I partner with or I build companies with, they use as a first line of defense to get my wisdom into their team. My own, like my customer success team uses everybody in my life uses Dan AI before they ever talk to Dan AI, you know, or to Dan. So that's how I do it today. Before AI, I'm really good at building frameworks. Like I learned a long time ago that the ability to distill something into a model, circle, square, triangle, philosophies, North Star principles, et cetera, that somebody else could take, not telling them what to do, but tell them which way to look, that was a skill set that would help me scale companies. The cool part was is all that development of intellectual property, that's what people call it, into framework design, is what ended up training my AI. So if you read my book, Buy Back Your Time, and you go through each chapter has a model. Well, my AI knows those models better than I know them.

Darren:

It was easier for you to plug in because of the 15 years of building out these frameworks. Documenting documenting. Yeah. Because it's not like you're SOPing, it's more that you're creating a simpler framework for people to implement. Both. So like I'm a big fan of systems, right?

Dan:

Systems stand for save yourself, stress, time, energy, and money. And the whole point of a system is to have a process that somebody else can follow to almost guarantee or at least create repeatability or predictability into a result. So, like, I would say the first level of this when Dan's 24 and he finally has success in business, took me a while. It took me seven years. What's called a wiki. Okay. And it was actually Atlassian Confluence is their product. Confluence was a wiki software. Yeah. This is before any current tools. And all we did is every department lead in that company would just document the process that they used to train their teams. Well, when I built my next company, after I sold the first company, I took the wiki and I brought it with me. Well, the second company was a lot easier and faster to scale because I didn't have to repeat myself. So in software, we call that dry. Don't repeat yourself. So I documented all the best practices for recruiting, training, financials, operations, everything, like tech, even how to name software, namespaces, like all this nerdy stuff. The next company took all that and kind of kept going with it. So then build that company, exit that, do another one. And it just so then by the time I started coaching people or creating content, I was pulling from that. And then when I started working on my own language model for Dan, I use all of that. And the crazy part in the last three years. We have added uh in the last year, we've added 5 million followers on social media, 200 million a month, as I mentioned. But um, all of that is on the back end of all the content I've created and trained against companies and CEOs that I partner with or build with. And that's what fed the AI. And that's why it's better than me because it it knows me better than I know myself. It's wild. It's wild to watch the world we live in right now.

Darren:

Good point to go into content because that was something I really wanted to touch on. So everyone, everyone knows the Dan Martell now and how you have a book, everything's great, it's always blue, but there was a time where no one knew what Dan Martell did or how you approached it. And I'm looking at some of your social blade stats, and your line is flat, sir, all the way up to the 31st of December 2023. You had 111,000 subscribers. Now you have 2.18 million subscribers. How long were you creating content for before that, before the hockey stick growth? And what was going through your head during that period of time? So there's kind of two parts to this.

Dan:

There was the starting, which I didn't want to do. My buddy uh Travis, I was in San Diego. I just sold my company Clarity about 11 years ago, 2000, 13 years ago, it was 2012. And he's the one that knew my background in building and scaling software companies. He was interested in starting a software company and he was working with a bunch of YouTube people at the time. And he says, Why don't you do YouTube? And I said, Because I am at the time I would have been 32. I said, Because I'm I'm a grown man, bro. I'm not, I'm not doing this YouTube thing. And he says to me, I'd watch. Now that wasn't enough for me. What changed was finding out that one of my best friends had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He had three young girls. And I remember when I he first called me to tell me and I asked him, Well, how do you eat? Like, bro, I what do you say? I was like, How do you how are you processing this? And his his response was I already shot the videos. I shot the video for their first dance, their graduation, their marriage, their first baby, like he shot every for every one of that. I was just like, I don't have any of that. And that was what started me because at the time my boys were essentially one and newborn. That was the beginning of doing content, and when I started, I committed to doing it for a decade. Like I know enough about being consistent and the power of repetition and how to do it. So I started on YouTube 11 years ago and I committed to a decade. The problem was that I was being an amateur. I was doing, I was bragging, and people listening to this that are entrepreneurs that brag about how little they work to make a lot of money. It's not the way to do it. And that's why content doesn't work like that. So I would brag with people that I would spend two days a quarter creating the content for the whole 90 days. And I would, I would batch it. I would shoot eight videos a day, 16 videos, and then I would just publish every week for the following 90 days. But it didn't create anything great. You know what I mean? So yeah. Like you said, all those stats. Uh eight years, and I think I had 100,000 followers. And then in the following three years, since I made the decision, and this is what happened is that the book came out, Buy Back Your Time. And I, you know, I think most people hope to have an impact on other people's lives in their life. And, you know, I'm a person of faith, and I ask God, like, give me direction. And I realized when the book came out, he gave me the tool to do that. And I almost made the mistake of just going back to building companies and staying busy because, like, my life was good, man. I wrote the book because my friend Ron said I should write a book. And I kind of fought with him for a bit and eventually convinced me to do it. I mentioned him in the book at the very end because like he I said, I'll do it if you're the book CEO. So he took the reign of being the book CEO. I showed up for writing sessions and we worked together and he was my partner in the book. And when the book came out, my publisher asked me, you know, what's your goal? I said, You, what's your goal? And they said, Well, it'd be nice if you sold 4,000 copies. And in the first week, we sold 20,000. How big was your audience for context? Small, like nothing. 20,000 followers, like 20,000 emails, 100,000 followers. What? Dude, the book caught fire. There was just something about the message and I think the title. And to this day, it's one of the top books on Amazon. And I'm not tooting my own horn, it's just facts. Go on Amazon. Everybody can go look, buy back your time, and go look at entrepreneurship time management, and you'll see my book in top five. And it's been there since its launch three years ago.

Darren:

Are you an agency owner, coach, or consultant looking to scale your online business? At Vogue, we help business owners scale their online business with content. We help them specifically build a high-ticket offer, create content that turns into clients, and also help them with the sales process to make sure every single call that's booked in your calendar turns into a client. If you want to see more about exactly how we do this, hit the first link down below and watch a full free training on how smart entrepreneurs are building a business in 2025. And why I like kind of diving into those moments is because a lot of people will think like it's not attainable for me. That's the biggest thing. If they're looking at you, you're like, oh, it's not attainable. But you were in that position for a long time. And dude, full transparency, I've been in that position for years. If you go back and watch my first YouTube video, I was a nerd on Zoom and I leave it there and I show people all the time in our coaching program. I'm like, look at this video, look at me. And it's like that shit's important. Do you think you can skip that shit phase?

Dan:

No, I mean, everybody that you see win, if you ask them, they've been at it for a decade. Like, even a 22-year-old that makes a million dollars in a month, when did you start? At 11. Yes. Like you didn't people don't realize this. My son has been editing videos, he's 13 now, since he was nine. So by the time he has some breakout, you guys are gonna be like, oh, he's a prodigy. No, he's got a decade of doing the thing you're talking about. So when the book came out and it did so well, I had to make a decision because God gave me the thing I've been asking for my whole life to have an impact. And I almost got busy doing what I was doing. And that's that's the difference. What happened in the last three years? I'll tell you, I decided to go pro. You know, Stephen Pressfield wrote an incredible book about the concept of going pro. I'm not a slouch. I know how to build companies and the success stuff. I just pretended like I didn't know. And I did eight years of bragging at how little work I put into it. And then I decided to make it my primary thing. And I only focus on two things, which everybody should focus on calendar and capital. Show me your calendar. If it's really truly important to you, show me your calendar and show me your bank account. Show me how much you're devoting to it. Because don't brag like I was doing, I only spent five grand a month on my content. I used to tell, like, brag, five grand a month. They're like, that's a lot. And I'm like, I don't think it's a lot. That's pretty good for me. And then I was like, why am I holding back? And that's that was the decision is to go pro. And it was hard and it was tough. And honestly, I almost didn't do it. If I have uh my creative director and partner on this whole media thing is Sam, who's here and like he knows, man. We went when we started, okay. Now, when we started, I literally said unlimited budget. I trust you, we've been working together for like five, six years at the time. Go go build this, okay? You have my calendar, you have whatever you need, go get it. So we got a studio, hired people. We went seven months and got stuck in that jail of five, three, four thousand views on YouTube, right?

Darren:

Building more demoralizing soul tree companies, and then no one likes you on YouTube.

Dan:

Nothing.

Darren:

And I'm trying, bro. We're editing videos.

Dan:

We hired the coaches, we've we've modeled the best, we're studying the people, and we're going to set two videos a week. We're publishing, we're doing the thing. And I remember it was December at the end of the year, and I go, bro, I just want a hundred K view video. Like, I don't think I'm asking too much. I'm showing up. You say, you know, bring the energy and bring your best stuff. It's all there. We're doing it. And he's a little stoic. He's a little, you know, Sam. He's quiet. And he just goes, Give me some time. Two more months. Two more months. Because I thought we'd had to delete the channel. Like, that's how bad it got. I thought maybe YouTube hates me. I actually heard that. Yeah. I thought YouTube doesn't like me because I've been publishing crowded for eight years. And no joke, because my birthday is at the end of December, the 26th. And this was December 2nd or something. Um, two weeks later, I got my birthday gift. And it and then it just the momentum went. But it was the desire to stick with it for a long period of time. The going pro is the decision that people don't want to make. And it's the only decision that's going to be a separate. You can ask me the tactics, the strategies, and I'll give them all to you. Without that decision, no results.

Darren:

I guess all the tactics and so on, they this is why sometimes I think sometimes content is harder than growing a business. Growing a content channel is harder than a business because a business is like inputs, put some ad spend in, build a product, manage the back door. Content is like you're always at the mercy of everything. So it's more, as you said, it's a commitment. And then yeah, like something comes up, thumbnails change, it is what it is. But it's more it's more an attitude. I feel like a big thing that maybe is not talked about as much for you for you is is your attitude towards things. Like you have a really strong mindset. It sounds like you could almost pick up anything, stick with it long enough, and chew glass and stick with it. Like, would you say like that's a big differentiating factor?

Dan:

Or maybe I mean, I don't like I'm not here to say, if anything, somebody asked me today, they're like, when you look at the body of your work and your life so far, I'm 45, right? What are you most proud of? That was a really cool question. And my answer is very clear. I'm proud of myself for never giving up. And what happens if you just choose to never stop? Like, dude, winners lose more than losers. That's the craziest part. And everybody that's a loser just sits on the sideline, waiting, get ready to start, bro. Like, winners literally have to lose more than losers. And by definition of not stopping, they win. And when you learn that and you realize that winners win, like anybody you know that's successful, I grab them, take everything away from them, drop them in a completely different country. I will tell you what you'll find if you come back in three or five years. Success. Yes, it's a mindset. Is it a work ethic? Is it a habit? Yes, all those things, right? I can't tell you when I'll win. I'll just tell you I know the process for winning, which is, like I just said, being consistent. Dude, most people can't even be consistent. The average podcast only has seven episodes. If you get to eight, you've just separated yourself from 98% of all other podcasts. That's crazy. You know, everybody's like, there's so many podcasts out there. There are, but there's a lot that people stop. So if you just by definition of being in business and competing against people, just never quit, you will win by long by just pure being around while everybody else decides I want to go do something else, or I think this is so I just made the commitment to mastery. And I will tell you personally, I had no idea how powerful of a decision that was because it's occurred to me since then that everything I ever wanted, the big stuff, the crazy goals, the massive opportunities that were like definitely dream for me exist on the backside of region reputation. Period, full stop. I have my idols that follow me on Instagram and message me this way, not that way, this way. That they come across my content, like my content, follow, and message me and say, Here's my cell number. Like professional athletes, movie stars, you name it. It's wild. I didn't I'll be honest with you, man. I did I didn't dream that big. I thought it was a big dreamer. Nope.

Darren:

Big up tell me about since you made that shift in your content, why does emotion emotion create motion and content? This is this is such an interesting topic.

Dan:

Okay. If you have a piece of content and you take all the story out of it or all the emotion out of it, all you have left is about.com. You have facts. Yeah. Right? You have like Wikipedia. Like it's just it's it's yes. Facts don't travel. Stories do. The reason why there's stories 2,000 years old that are still being told today isn't because of the facts of the story, it's because of the emotion of the story. So if you can't emotionally connect with the person watching the video, they won't make a decision. There's no motion. And a lot of content creators are scared to share that side of them, the real side, the side that they maybe have shame around or worried if somebody figured out they would judge them or whatever it is. There's something there that they only show their friends. Right. I always say, like, if you really want to say you're authentic, invite me to your college reunion or show me that group chat that you're in. And then I'll know the person that you put on the social media versus the person I meet there, how close you are, because that's the separator. It's a delta in the two. Yep. And I think that if you're able to share your heart, you will impact other people's heart. It's that simple. And nobody has ever decided to go on a journey of transformation unless they felt the motion from what they were watching. And that's just how it's always been. And that's why story is the glue to transformation, the glue to longevity. The the better you can tell and craft a story with emotion, you will get somebody to make motion.

Darren:

That's the beautiful part about if everything is becoming more AI driven. If you can bring in your weirdness, your quirkiness, and just stop being beige and vanilla.

Dan:

Well, this is the interesting part. Everybody's like, oh, everybody's got these same tools. So everybody's going to create all these bangers. And the truth is, is they won't because everybody's banger will look like everybody else's. So it's not differentiated. The niche is you, bro. Like people always ask me, okay, Dan, I have a business and I have a personal brand. Which one should I focus on? And I always ask the same question. Do you plan on changing your legal name at any point in the future? Well, no. Then focus on your personal brand. You will be you, and you'll bring you with you to every interaction for the rest of your life. So the ROI of you building your brand is a hundred X better than building the brand of a business. That when I ask you that same question, is there a likelihood in the next 10 years you're going to sell the business or shut the business or do something else? The answer is probably. Why would you spend the same cycles on building the brand of the business? I'm not saying don't do marketing in the business. I'm saying building the brand. Those are two different things. And the best way to build a great brand is like a fingerprint, and it's unique, is for you to allow the world to meet you, to see you, to like here's something crazy, Darren. I don't approve anything that goes live. I have never approved anything. Every time you've seen something from me, I saw it the same time you saw it. Never in 11 years. I don't care. I know what I said, I said it. I trust my team. If for whatever reason they happen to put something that had sensitive information, I just hit archive. And because of that, I hope when people meet me, they're like, oh, you're just like the person on the internet. Well, that's because I I don't curate. Like, dude, I'm just this is who I am. Yeah. So I just think like the most unique thing you could ever be is you.

Darren:

Like one of my partners says to me, Um, you want to keep the rough around the edges in your brand and your personality so people have something to cling to.

Dan:

Dude, it's it's that's that is when somebody is vulnerable or has like a thing that makes them them, that's what people love. So you take like what are like name a top personality brand in the world right now, like a like a business influencer, Hermosy. Yeah, you take a Hermosy, you take a Rogan, you take an Oprah, you take a rock, you take all these people, and I'll tell you who you'll meet on the other side of that content is the person, them, the content, like that. That's how they are.

Darren:

That's how they attract to people, and so they got people to come to them.

Dan:

That's what makes them interesting. When people look at me, they're like, You're so authentic. You know what they're saying? I don't trust me to be like you, and you surprise me because I could never do that. I could never like they just couldn't, they would never say those things. And I'm saying that the best thing you could ever do is to be you. What what a weird world where you could actually create an audience that thinks you're a certain way that you're not, and then you have anxiety going on in public because you wouldn't want to be caught not being the person they think you are. Dude, you've got for every, you know, uh this person like a rock, you have an Emma Chamberlain, you have a Hermozy, you have a Dan Martel, you have a whoever. And the one thing that I believe, because I've gotten to know a lot of these people, is they what makes them um attractive is that they're very comfortable being who they are.

Darren:

I completely agree. Play devil's advocate for someone who's just starting. Would they would you consider a world where someone says, well, it's easy for Hermosy because he's making 250 million a year, so he can go through the craft and say, Oh, I was once in my in my car. They feel insecure to be open about that in the beginning. So because they don't have the skill or the experience, so they're in like a tough position to say, hey, here's all my faults. I don't have a benefit. Or how would you approach that?

Dan:

Well, if you want to stick on with Hermosy, and it's funny because in the software world, everybody talks about Facebook. I'm gonna launch, I'm gonna do this just like Facebook, dude. You don't know anything about Facebook. Facebook didn't do this big launch, they didn't raise 27 million. They started as a tool at Harvard that was called the Facebook.com, not Meta. So you don't even know the origin story. Okay. What I love about Alex that most people don't know is that while he ran gym launch, I may be getting the data a little wrong, he went live every day in an internal Facebook community answering questions to his community. Dude's crazy. Okay, until essentially all the questions were answered every day for five or six years. So what and zero problem showing anybody who he was, how he was that he drove an old car that had a crack in a window or blah blah blah. So when you say that must be easy for him, it bugs me so much because he did it even when he had nothing, because for that's how he got good. And and that is that is what you will always find. So if you're starting off and you're not an expert, then maybe the the content isn't how to content, it's how I see the difference? Are you gonna fault me, Darren? If I start um playing cricket, I've never played a game of cricket. Start surfing. I've never surfed well, I've tried a few times. But let's say I go out there and I post a video of me surfing, and the next week you see another video of me surfing, get a little bit better and I get another video. Like, are you gonna judge me hard and say, Dan, you stuck at anything athletic? Or will you go like, oh, it's cool that he's consistent. And then in maybe six weeks, eight weeks, three months, six months, you're like, oh shit, Dan surfing. You're impressed. Why? Because you saw where I started. Most people want to hide the beginning. And the problem is that the beginning is the anchor for the inspiration without. Without me showing you where I started, no matter what I've accomplished, if you don't know what I had to go through, you won't be inspired. That's why a lot of people that wait till they sell their company for 500 million and then start trying to teach people stuff, dude. Shut up, man. I can't connect with you. You're not real. But if you would have started building in public from the beginning and showing the journey and talking about it, and then all those are artifacts of who you are in the myth and the stories, then when you exit, everybody wants to cheer and see you because you're like them. They remember, I remember when 12 years ago. That's why I leave all my videos up. Anybody wants to feel good about themselves, go to YouTube, search oldest video, and hit play. You're welcome. You won't even do you won't even recognize me. I don't recognize myself. My wife goes, ew. You got a lot leaner, bro. Dude, ew. She goes, ew, ew.

Darren:

I'm like, ouch, that hurts. And and the irony is like, most people are not going to be even looking at you in the beginning. So you're nobody's cares. You're worried about it. Dude, they people still don't care. They still it's spotlight effect. Dude, it's zero care.

Dan:

I am not cool. I have two kids, they keep me super humble, and nobody knows who I am. Yeah. And I think people that think they're a big deal, they're a nobody. And the fact that they think that they're a big deal is hilarious to me. And I'm talking to people that have a tenth of the audience I have. Nobody knows. And and that's actually really comforting.

Darren:

Yeah, that's that's the whole point, right? That's freeing to do whatever the fuck you want in this world and try it. I want to take a little segue into a quick fire rent. Fast response. Ready to go? College or no college?

Dan:

No college.

Darren:

Four years at a startup or starting your own business. Start your own business. Solo founder or partner.

Dan:

Partner.

Darren:

Raise venture capital or customer financed.

Dan:

Customer finance.

Darren:

Broad market with lots of opportunity. One narrow niche.

Dan:

Narrow niche.

Darren:

Figure it out yourself or pay for a mentor.

Dan:

Pay for a mentor.

Darren:

Keep scaling for cash flow or exit. Depends on your goals. Have to give an answer. Come on, man.

Dan:

Cash flow.

Darren:

Cash flow. It'll teach you more. Being understood and approved by everyone or wildly misunderstood? Wildly.

Dan:

Wildly misunderstood. Who fucking cares? When did you ever feel like you were misunderstood? Right now, man. Like right now, it's so funny. If people want a good time, go read my comments. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the comments are wild. People are like, oh, he just wants to show me a $10 course, bro. I don't have anything to sell. Like, you can't, there ain't nothing for you to buy.

Darren:

Get the book. Yeah, exactly.

Dan:

The book. You know, like, oh, and I'm and I make no money off that book. I decided to deal with a publisher, right? Zero changes my life. Um and that's the thing. It's like, no matter who you are, you will be misunderstood. Like people, if you think of whoever you think is an angel, think Gandhi, think Mother Teresa, think you know, whoever, they had haters. They literally had people, unfortunately, in many of the cases, that wanted to like hurt them. And yeah, a lot of them died. Yeah. And, you know, when I see people like really famous people try to do good in the world and then get absolutely attacked, it makes me go, oh you could be the coolest, kindest, biggest hearted, caring person, but it's just the law of large numbers that by sure the factor of audience size, there are people that are gonna not like your brand or style of communicating. And that's their story. And I think it's important for you to normalize leaving people in the reality they've created for themselves. And you could totally misunderstand me. My center is me knowing me, my center is me um knowing that the people that know me best like me best, the people closest to me love me. Like whether a random person with a fake profile on social media says nice things about me, it shouldn't shake your core unless they're showing you a part of yourself you don't like. And that is actually a hard part for a lot of people on social media. Newspin. Yeah, most people are scared because the comments people make actually echo a part of themselves they actually don't like. When here's my favorite example: people like, I don't care about haters. If you didn't care about haters, you wouldn't even acknowledge you have haters. Okay. Just like I have never uh watched, I'm not gonna say that, but there's like certain sporting events I don't watch, I don't care about them, so I don't watch them, so I can't even make a comment. So the fact that you say you you don't care about your haters is a lie because you actually acknowledge them. The person that doesn't care about their haters actually wouldn't even know they got them because when they read stuff, there's no emotional shrapnel with it, right? So, like when somebody's like, I can't believe this person said this about me, that's because there's a part of you, maybe a small part, that actually believes there's some truth in it. And it resonates. And anytime I believe that the world will show you where you're not free. If somebody leaves a comment and it hurts, then you should ask yourself why. And what is it about that comment? And maybe you do have a part of you that feels selfish and you know you got to be less selfish, or maybe you do have a part where you're not as supportive and they're attacking you for whatever reason, or like I just think be honest with yourself. But for me, my center is I know who I am and I like who I am, and I have friends, and you know, I want to help people, and if they want that help, game on. And if they don't, I leave them in the reality they've created for themselves.

Darren:

Let's divert back into some product. Tell me about why you should sell the chocolate over the broccoli.

Dan:

Well, it's interesting because everybody wants to solve problems for people, but if the person doesn't have if they don't self-identify as having the problem, then they're not gonna buy anything, right? So it's like the chocolate is what they want. The broccoli might be what they need, but they're not buying the broccoli. So, you know, I've seen a lot of technical founders specifically that are like, look at this new whiz bang AI, blah, blah, blah. And I go, cool, it does a really neat thing. You think people need it and they might need it, but they don't even see it that way because you're selling the broccoli, not the chocolate. And it's funny because as a guy that builds innovation, packaging, and this is true for content as well, the packaging, the positioning, the words, right? I call it product message fit. If you can't get the messaging right for your product, that one tweak on a home page, you know, high-level hero copy can change the success of a sign-up and a flow and what people expect the product to do that makes it work. So, yeah, the chocolate is the thing you're selling, not the broccoli.

Darren:

What's that famous Ogil V quote? It's like 80% of your ad budget is on the headline.

Dan:

Yeah, and I think it's no, I think it's 80% of your ad budget is wasted. No, something like that, maybe it's also another Ogil V quote, but essentially it's like you just don't know which percentage it is or something.

Darren:

Yeah, but it's just basically just the top one line. That's your subject line. You could have the best product in the entire world, and if it's muddy as hell explaining it, or what they're buying, it kind of goes back to feature debt, what you explained, right? If you just have way too much features, how is this ever going to work? Does that make sense? Yeah, confused mind never buys, and a confused mind never uses a product. So you took a lot of those lessons from product over into content because packaging, titles, thumbnails is the same shit.

Dan:

100%.

Darren:

Would you say the quality of the content that you've created is also extremely uh detailed beyond the titles? Like, how do you translate the title and thumbnail into the body of the content? Into the content itself?

Dan:

Well, there's this framework that the media team talks about often. I believe they got it from Patty Galloway, who's like a YouTube legend. Irish guy. Yeah, yeah. Irish guy. You know them all. It's like I know all the Canadians. I know just saying with me, Canadians. So it's CCN, right? So it's casual. So it's core, casual, and new. So the way you package and deliver the content, if you only make it for your core customer, which if you look in my early days, a lot of the software stuff, very core. It was not approachable to new. It wasn't even approachable to casual, it wasn't interesting, right? Content can't just be educational, it has to be entertaining. It also has to be inspirational, right? And you can do that in different ways. But at the end of the day, even if I want, like it again, it all depends on your goals. If you're in most people creating business content should start from like, how do I get a customer? How to get beats? Yeah, what a crazy idea. Yeah. And then from there, you know, understand that there is stuff that could be incredibly valuable, but it's so core that it's going to cause the algorithm not to find an audience. And you might be better off saying, okay, well, how do I step into that? So what we do, I think incredibly well, and you can go verify it on my content, is in the first 30 seconds, 60 seconds, we get people a quick win that's broad so that the new audience goes, Oh, I like this. This guy just gave me some value. And they keep watching. The core uh customer goes, I like that, and I expect more and they'll get more. And then the the casual customer that kind of like they're like, you know, sometimes they plug in, sometimes they're not. But then the core one, you know, as we get into the middle of the video and we could pull everybody else forward, that core customer gets the payoff because the stuff I teach is very it's it's business. But I can't be like, if I went too technical, for example, like teaching people the business side, like got into the settings of a software, lose people. And that's what happens. A lot of people are like, I find this interesting. It's like, cool. There's this Venn diagram between validated and interested. So validated is that the the algorithm, which we call the audience, because we don't like that term algorithm, but the audience has shown us through its current consumption of other content. This is a topic and an idea that's validated. Then there's what is Dan interested in, right? And the team and I sit down, we try to figure out what's the intersection that is validated. The market's proven in the last four months, there's interest for this topic, and I personally want to talk about it. And then how do we present that outside of packaging and thumbnails and titles inside the content is how do we present it? Which is how do we get them a quick win? How do we introduce the concept? How do we make it approachable? And then if we want to get into some deeper technical stuff, we will, but I'm not getting into like, like I said, code and settings of a page.

Darren:

Yeah, because that's not going to work for the audience I want to serve. I think if when I look at your content back in the day and now, I always think about the content as a where are you on your competency and where are you on the warmth? So you have competency out your ears. However, that only goes, you can't become more competent to go from 80 percentile to 80 fifth percentile. It's just it's just a huge uplift, and you don't need it, as you said, the no.js stuff, it's just not necessary. Whereas the warmth is like a y-axis, and you can add that in and dial that up, and as a result, hit a better time and and basically impact more people, which is your mission. Was that a conscious decision to be more um warm effectively in your content or did it happen over time?

Dan:

If by that you mean um, in a sense approachable, then a yes, because the biggest challenge and everything that I do today was not something I was born with. I don't have innate skill around, I had to work at it.

Darren:

Yeah, 100%.

Dan:

And I could sit here and tell you all of the different communication skills that I literally hired people to work with me, to teach me. Okay. One of them was to communicate to a seventh grade level because I wanted to, and because I spent so much time in Silicon Valley, when I talked to my entrepreneurial software friends, there's almost like this game of like lingo language creation that is it's almost like inside baseball that we do and we don't even know we're doing it. And I didn't know I was doing it until I started creating content and wasn't connecting because nobody knew the inside baseball except for those people, and that wasn't the audience I was trying to serve, right? Very clicky. Yeah, it's just like instead of saying um, you know, subscription revenue, you just say, you know, money. No, but it sounds so funny, but like literally language matters. So true. So instead of saying retention, I just say keep a customer. Fuck, that's so smart. Oh, yeah. So it's like so simple. Yeah, and and that's the whole point is that gets me the new customer. It could get me the casual customer, and I still get to deliver for the core. But if I if I use very technical, like the other day, dude, we spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how we could explain um CAC payback period. Even in the book, man, it's explained very technically. I know the growth seal and everything. So it's very technically, and I'm like, and and also some of these other technical terms because a video is a was a deep analysis of the financial models. And I like that because it was a really interesting exercise in simplicity. You know, one of my philosophies is simple scales. And the craft as a communicator is being able to explain things in a simple way. The person who's actually the best at this, and if you haven't paid attention, please do, is Elon Musk. He is the world's smartest human being that communicates in a level that is approachable to everybody in the pursuit of accomplishing things that have never existed in the the humanity ever. But he can distill these complicated concepts like the economy, like space travel, like uh data, tax fraud, everything into these like simple metaphors, simple analogies that makes you feel like, duh, why didn't they fix that before? And that is not something that I think a lot of people innately learn. So you have to almost unlearn the way you used to talk so that you can communicate and connect with people in a way. Now it doesn't mean it's not who I am because I have a deep desire to be clear. I'm just lucky enough to have people in my life that say, Hey, you gotta stop saying this because you're losing people. Have you done much speaking on stage? I would say to most people's standards, yes.

Darren:

Yeah. Have you found that visually looking at people in the crowd, seeing them kind of drop off, and thinking, oh, I gotta improve this for next speech? Because that's a very good live data feed I found myself personally.

Dan:

Yeah, I mean, I think because I've been uh speaking on stages for over 15 years, I and I've worked with speaking coaches and stuff. That part is not as interesting to me than digital. So it's kind of like if you okay, so to most people, public speaking is the scariest thing they can even consider. Most people would rather be dead in the casket than the one giving the eulogy as a funeral. Yeah. Okay. Now, if you can get comfortable on stage, the thing with a stage is you do have a live feedback. So it's kind of a cheat mode because if you're saying things where you lose people, it's instant. Harder than that, I would say, is a Zoom call. If you've ever had to do a Zoom call with 300 people and try to keep all of them interested and learn all the way to the end, it is a masterclass and pacing and storytelling and energy and callbacks and engagement and all that stuff. Harder than that is YouTube. Because YouTube, that audience has no patience. And they'll rip you in the comments. Dude, they don't care. They won't even comment, they'll just bounce. They won't, they'll click and bounce. And at the end of the day, the audience dictates if YouTube says, I think more people should see this. So the problem is there's no feedback. Like a live audience, I can look and I could go, oh, when I said this, I saw that person check out, but I can't see that other than retention graphs and spikes, which we look at. But it's just a lot harder to decipher. Whereas with a Zoom call, I can do a call, I can do a prompt to say leave this in the chat, and I can see if the chat lights up. So I can I can test, right? Where the the iteration cycles for YouTube is just it takes volume and there's no way around it. The big idea for people listening is that it's an iteration game, not a repetition game. See, the reason why I didn't grow for eight years is I was just repeating the same playbook every time I went to shoot. It's madness, right? Yeah, I just did it. Dude, I was bragging, doing it every two, you know, two days a quarter and create all my content, it was just formulaic. That didn't teach me because I wasn't looking at getting better. There was no feedback. There was not enough like uh proximity and cycle times. See if you only do if I only surf once a year, I'll never get better. But if I so like you could go surf for three days once a year, probably not get better. But if you actually surfed half a day every couple months, or even like with some time to sleep, your brain can process. And then when you go back out, you try it again. And I think that's what's been interesting with the new world I live in. When I first started three years ago, it was iterations, iterations, iterations, not repetition. And that's that's the difference maker.

Darren:

There's an amazing podcast for you to listen to with um Rick Rubin and Roy Soderunt. Uh it's an amazing podcast to go through the process of learning and preparation, like what's going on, like neuroplasticity when you're like preparing for this podcast. You didn't prepare for it. You prepare for 15 years, and it's all those like micro moments, and it just shows you like your ability to learn. It's an amazing podcast, but he he talks about this over time, which is yes, you need to fucking get better 100%. But if you're making these small changes, you become irrecognizable six months later. I'd love to ask you about live events or live just in real life stuff. Um, I think my observation of you over the past like 18 months, you were definitely one of the first coming out of the the lockdown to do stuff, and I could see you visibly on a street doing street interviews, and it's just a huge edge because like a show is like one, you're not a potato, and two, you're gonna say potato, yeah. Let's go, not a potato. I'm getting a teacher that says that you can like actually engage with people. Have you seen more of a shift towards in real life now, especially with founder-led stuff, right? Like working with people. You're you met uh Frank Reef yesterday. Frank was telling me that he cooks for people, you know, it's very unique things that they do, but it's all in person, right?

Dan:

Yeah, I just think here's here's the the idea behind that. The energy felt in the creation is felt by the audience. So if you think about Frank and cooking for people, and if you record that as content, well, of course that's gonna be compelling content because Frank is connected to the desire to feed. Feeding people is like the ultimate form of uh taking care of somebody. So if you want to show care, inviting them into your home and cooking for them, I just can't think of something more um, you know, as a display of like appreciation for somebody. The work I do with youth. Now, I've been doing that even before I created content. We just used the container uh to showcase it because it was part of my life. And I think that's actually a great opportunity for people to find formats to create content, is just look at what you're currently doing in your life. When other people are part of that content and it's organic, and you have a deep desire to actually Actually help people. That's why podcast content's gonna go a lot more viral than in studio by yourself content because I'm here connected to you and you're questioning that in that you have a genuine curiosity and I'm like leaning into that. Those things create back to the emotion. And when the emotion is felt and it's conveyed in the teaching, that's what is felt by the audience. Like passion is passion, bro. If you I'm not like I really like content, yeah. I'm it's infectious. You can tell. Dude, it's it's it's energetics. It's just in that I think when you ask about like the in-person, that's what happens in person, is that you feed off of the energy. Now, I want to be clear because I I promise I give you like the best of the best of the best. Anyone that doesn't prep is just not a pro. So I want you to know I prepped for this before I drove here. We have production notes, and in the car with Sam, he went through everything. Talk about this, talk about this, talk about this, background in this, lot. And I think he'd be proud of me. I I think I've hit all three. Right. And the reason why is because the whole point of prep is to do the reps and then crumple it all up and throw it away. Agreed. Right? And then to be present. But obviously, if you prompt the question and I'm like ding ding ding, that's something that Sam would like me to talk about because he knows the audience back to validated, enjoys it here. I'm gonna hit it again. And I think that's what you don't see sometimes when you see people think he's like, Oh, that's so natural for them. Dude, not natural, not natural. I've just built the system to put me in the right uh head space so that it could feel great because I have a desire for it to work.

Darren:

My speaking coach says to me, talent is practice in disguise. Oh in 90 seconds, I would love to know your health protocol.

Dan:

Well, I appreciate you asking. Um, if anybody wants to go on my Instagram Damn Martel to L Martell, uh, you'll see a pin post, I believe it's there because there's been phases of my health, and I think that's why social media is such a great tool. And two years ago, I decided to like stop lying to myself and make it a priority. And essentially I went through a transformation. I've documented, you can go Google it, Project Visible abs. Again, I'm 45, I have two young kids. I wanted to be an example for them. I want to be strong, I want to be healthy, I want to have the energy. And I was just, I was full of shit. I literally was like, I dude, I was doing Iron Man's, but I didn't look like it. So I was like, and essentially today I keep it really simple. Track my macros, hit my, you know, if I'm on a cut or a bulk, hit the gym every day, push, pull legs, try to rest, but I like the gym so much. Sometimes I just I'll go anyways. I'll just do some fasted cardio or something. Because for me, exhaust the body, tame the mind. That's like for me, I work out, I'd say, as a primary factor for my mind, as a secondary my body. And I just keep it simple. Like I'm a I'm a OD on protein first, you know, get in like try to keep the fats in control and then fill in with the carbs. And I don't even do like TRT or peptides or anything. I'm really, yeah, I know. People are like, oh yeah, dude. It's like, come fucking test me, bro. Like, I don't this is the thing is chicken. What's that?

Darren:

To get your blood stuff, yeah. Yeah, have like normal testosterone. And and you've never had like dips or oh, what I mean is like have you observed changes and like your yeah, I eat whole food.

Dan:

Like, dude, you know this macro is for how you look, micro is for how you feel. Yeah, like so I just make sure I eat good quality food and I feel good. And I, you know, I hydrate and I I just do, I think, you know, I take you know, NMN for my brain. Like I do like have uh vitamins, shit like that. Totally. But I um, you know, in many ways, is it a placebo effect? I don't know, don't care, feel good taking them. But yeah, my health protocol, I try, I think everything in my life, I try to simplify it, right? Simple scales. So for me, simple is eat the same thing. When I travel, I do meal prep. Like I've been traveling the world now. I've done nine 12 countries meal prep, never missed a workout. I think I missed in the last, let's call it 75 days, three days of working out. Um, when I go to eat for the most part, I don't even order when I'm eating because I look at it as fuel, not mouth comfort. So I let yeah, I don't care. I'm not there to eat at a restaurant, I'm there to enjoy the conversation. And it's just it just shifts, right? The identity went to you know, lean and mean, and like, you know, and I talk about the bicep vein, people get going with that because like I think it's the McLaren of the body, bro. Like if you're and that's the big difference maker is like if you're not lean enough and you're carrying extra fat around, it could even be 15 pounds. You just know it's very simple. I used even though I was like doing Iron Man's, I would go to the beach and take my shirt off and still feel uncomfortable. And in that moment, I was like, I just have to do a little bit more work to maintain what I was maintaining before. I just have to do the cut. So, as you know, I just did the cut. And then once I get the cut, then the the body was like, Oh, okay. And then I maintained the macros. Adaptation. Yeah, and the body actually like it liked it better. I felt better, I felt stronger, I was more creative. And yeah, it's it's it's simple, not easy.

Darren:

I've seen as well a lot of runners, they'll overcompensate on calories and curbs.

Dan:

That's the problem when you use racing as a diet mechanism. Exactly. And that's what I did. I was a diet racer. I would I would train for these crazy endurance 50k races because it allowed me to eat what I want because I was in a caloric deficit by training. And then after the race, boom, because the training goes down. And then I was like, okay, I don't like this yo-yo, it's not good for my body. I'm just gonna maintain so pretty much like two or three pounds. That's where I'm at.

Darren:

When I was running, I was like long distance running. I was probably eating 5,000 calories a day and no it's no issues to me. And I look fucking terrible. It's just not gonna be as intuitive for your body and your sleep as well.

Dan:

Yeah, yeah. The body doesn't like that much processing of the indigestion, like it's a lot of calories to process. Well, dude, thank you so much for today.

Darren:

You're absolutely a legend. Huge inspiration of myself.

Dan:

I I wanted, I do want to say everything because like I feel I didn't give any value. Um you didn't give any value. Well, in the sense that I want to give something internal. Okay, so a lot of people who follow me know buy back your time in my book. Um, and people typically ask me about like Anne, my assistant. Like, where did you find her? What does she do for you? How do I get my time back? If anybody wants my, and I'll give is my internal playbook. You have to message me on Instagram, follow me, and then message me Darren EA. They don't mention Darren, I'm not sending it. And I'll send you a direct link to my Google Doc. It's 42 pages, has the North Star Principles, it has the agenda, it has the meeting structure, has my templates. Because I want people to see all the things that she does for me. Because most entrepreneurs that want their time back don't give up enough. Okay. And I want to let people see what tip of the spear looks like. For example, I haven't packed my luggage in years. I know it's crazy. The stuff that is in there would blow people's minds. So if you find me on Instagram and follow me and send me that message, I'll send them that doc.

Darren:

From interacting with Anne online as well. I can vouch that she's a dream.

Dan:

Next level. I don't get to do what I do without her, and that's true for everybody in my life. And I try to shine the light on my team as often as I can because 100%. You know, they allow me to do the thing I love, and hopefully they do the thing they love, and we help a lot of people. You're as one a genius, man. Thanks, bro. Big thank you, sir. You're an absolute legend. It's an honor. Thanks, Darren.