How I Lost Everything Twice and Kept Going (Rachel Hollis Interview) | Ep 880

26:50The second four hours is delivering what you promise to those people who find out about your stuff. And then the third four hours is figuring out what you need to do next. Now you can change those four blocks about where you do them. The figuring out what to do next is probably the first four hours. The promotion might be the second four hours and delivery might be the third four hours. But fundamentally, that's how I would divide it out if I were starting out. And then the more leverage you get, the more you can have kind of more maker time. Like Layla and I have kind of shadow images or like contrast schedules.

27:16So I would say four or five days a week for me, I have basically nothing on my calendar. And then I have two days where I just tell our team, I was like, just load me up. Just put as many things on my calendar as you can. Because if you think about the nature of management, the goal of a manager is to have no blank space on their calendar and to maximize as have as many interactions as possible to make as many decisions as they can to move things forward. That's my actual nightmare. And that but that is that is like super like, I mean, it's an effective that's how you manage. And so the problem is the alternative is makers where, you know, a manager has can have time blocks as small as five minutes on their calendar where they can move things forward.

27:58for a maker the time blocks are you have like two a day and so you're looking at four to six hour blocks is one block and like there's there's memes about this but like there's nothing worse than a 10 a.m meeting and nothing else on the calendar because it's like okay well that's my morning yeah because you're not going to like really get into what you're trying to do right and so because if you're doing maker stuff you want to lose yourself into the work absolutely flow and so the problem is when makers managers have to work together because the manager says hey, it's only five minutes. Why is this a big deal?

28:27And the maker's like, well, that's half my day. And so the you have to protect that kind of at all costs. And so if you're like, well, Alex, it must be it must be nice to not be able to have things on your calendar for many days in a row. First answer. Yes, it is nice. Second answer. It wasn't always that way. And so what I the reason I I mean, partially that I wake up so early is because I come from the fitness world. And it's just like, I think that habit dies hard. But the guy that I that I did that little mentorship with, and I came from a job that started at 10am. So it was a totally different like shift for me.

28:57And I got to the gym at four. So it was a totally different, you know, perspective. And so he worked 12 hours a day, and he had multiple kids. But he wanted he was a family man too. And so he just figured out he's like, I need to work 12 hours a day, though. And so he would work four to four. And then he'd go home, pick the girls up from school, and then have dinner with them and be president, be dad or whatever. And so I would get to the gym at four. And so I basically just would know that between 4am and noon, I would get all of my moving stuff forward done. And then afternoon, I just knew my day was shot.

29:31I was like, I'm just going to be doing fires and doing everything else. And so I think that split has worked really well for me. And like to this day now, if for whatever reason, something has to get booked on the calendar, and it's like on an empty day, they book back to front. And so it'd be like the first appointment would be at like 430 in the afternoon. So that I have uninterrupted time until then. And the second one, they'd be like at four to 4 30 and so they they they book me back to to front and so those few things have helped tremendously for getting things done the the larger so i said that was gonna be really tactical in terms of like the work bigger picture i think what's really interesting about entrepreneurship is that it is always hard and i think what makes it hard is that you don't know the nature of the sacrifice that you will have to make to get to the next level yeah and so a lot of people myself included, I always, and I still, I always like make this fallacious thinking process where I think like, Oh, whatever I have to do to get the next level is just more of what I'm currently doing.

30:27And it's just, what's hard about the next level for whatever it is, is you have to sacrifice something different. Yeah. And so the currency changes to get to the next level. So it's like, you're paying in pesos and then you're paying in dollars and you're like, Oh, I have to pay more dollars. It's like, no, no, no. Now you have to pay more rupees or you have to pay more euros. And you're like, wait, I have to pay more. I didn't think I would have to give euros up. Like I have to pay. So it's like you actually, you're the currency of the thing you pay for changes. And so like in the beginning, you know, the first person you have to conquer is you.

30:54Right. And I don't think that ever really ends, but like, you know, you have to get over yourself. And then the next one is like, you have to conquer the, you know, not being beholden to the desires of friends and family, but like, it's a different currency. You're like, I thought it was going to be all about, all about cold calls and advertising. It's like, well, you have to first get over the fact that everybody is around you, doesn't want you to do what you're doing. Yeah. Because it reminds them of the risk that they were unwilling to take. But anyways, but it's like you have that. And then it's like, okay, what's the next thing that's going to come?

31:20Then you have like the mechanics of the business. It's like, okay, now you switch into that mode. You have to learn all this new language. It's a whole new field, right? So you start learning that. You're like, okay, so I think I'm going to have to learn a new field. Well, you have to keep doing that. But then the next level is like, okay, well, now I have to deal with people. And so you have employees and you have management. You have all that stuff. And you're like, oh, my God. Okay, so this is a whole thing. And then like at another level, it's like then you have legal stuff that starts happening.

31:44You're like, oh, God. So like it just – the thing is you have to keep paying in dollars and then you start now also paying in euros. And then you start also paying. And so it's – and I think that because most people who I've seen who either quit entrepreneurship or what I would consider like stop the good fight, they're like, I'm good here, is that it gets to a level – and I want to be clear. I don't think there's anything wrong with this. They get to a level like I don't really want to pay in euros. Yeah. And I think that's fine. Yep. And I think people mistake my message. I'll talk about what it takes.

32:16You can decide whether that's worth it for you. Absolutely. Yeah. God, so good. I have distracted you from this journey many times. Oh, we're on a journey together. I know, we're on a journey together. But for those people who are building or don't know the story, I don't want to miss out on this. So how'd you go from working for that guy? Yeah, yeah. No, this is my favorite kind of conversation because we're offering these nuggets along the way. And I'm the one interrupting you. It's not your fault. But how did you go from being essentially an assistant to this guy to starting your own gym? So I'll speed run this.

32:49So I, you know, I took all the advice that I could. I found a place that was 45 minutes from his place, maybe an hour from his place in Huntington Beach, California. So do you know his to Huntington Beach? Like I'm not competing, right, for that, for anyone who's worried. And I didn't have enough money to pay for two rents. And so I slept at the gym, which seems like more hardcore than it felt. I just felt like it was like a fun adventure. I was 20-something. I was like, all right, I'll sleep at the gym. But started the gym. I found out two weeks before the gym happened. I was supposed to have a partner who's going to be 50-50 with me.

33:17He backed out. So then all of a sudden I was going to have some savings. But I had already signed the lease. So I was like, all right. So all of my savings are going into this. And so I had basically the$50 ,000 that I had went into the gym. And I had basically no money. And rent was$4 ,972 a month. And I'd never made money before. Not really. I only found this out a year later that I looked at my processing for my first month of business. and what was settled post fees, like not in payment plans, like what actual cash was processed was$4 ,972. I found it out a year later. Like I'd never pull up my processing stuff.

33:54Oh, that's amazing. Isn't that wild? Yeah. Yeah, so I slept at the gym and I went to this little thing two weeks earlier that was this new marketing thing that was cutting edge. It was 2013. It was called Facebook ads. And so I went to a two-day workshop on Facebook ads in 2013. And that is honestly like if I had not gone to that workshop, I don't know if I'd be here. Now on one level, you'd be like, well, I would have tried again. I would have maybe, but having a big, massive first loss would have sucked. And so I learned Facebook ads and I started running ads and it worked. And by month nine, I had managers and trainers and all that stuff and it worked out.

34:29And by month 15, I had my second location. And every six months after that, I opened a new location. I started, I decided I wanted to do a turnaround business. So I was like, you know, I'm really good at filling these gyms up. I could fill the gyms faster than, than I could build them. So I was like, you know, it'd be easier if I just went to gyms that already existed and just filled them up and just figured out something around that. And so I spoke on a stage for showing what I was doing with my, my gyms. And to this day, kind of weird. I've never been more bombarded afterwards, which is weird.

34:56Cause it was such a, it was like a, not a huge stage. And like, I had people for two days around me nonstop. And I got like, was it a conference for gym owners? It was like an internet marketing conference. and so and but there were fitness people there and I had 120 people give me their contact information I've never had this happen one guy gave me his credit card and just said charge me and tell me what I get later and I was like I'm a gym owner I don't like I have gyms like I don't like I just got asked to speak so and so anyways I got home and I called the guy up and I was like do you really want me to charge the card and he was like yeah so I charged the card yeah for five thousand dollars and he was like what do I get and I was like I don't know but I'll make you more than$5 ,000.

35:36And so it just so happened that he had a gym that he was about to open. I was like, perfect. I'll fly out and I'll launch a gym for you. And so that was when Jim Launch was born. Flew out to his gym and launched his gym and launched a couple others in the area while I was there. Just reached out to people and was like, hey, want me to just send more people to your gym? And the deal is I get to keep the money and you get to keep the customer free. Like that sounds like a pretty decent deal. And people said yes to that. I started doing these launches, started working out. The guy that I did that first launch with was like, Hey, man, we should do more of this stuff together.

36:08I'm a really good entrepreneur. And I was like, Oh, cool. I'm young. And I have six locations, but I am insecure. And so I don't value that. And so I was like, Yeah, I should partner with you. And he said, Yeah, but here's the deal. I have, you know, I'm a little illiquid right now. And so you know, my credits a bit weird, divorce, you know, misunderstanding, you should sign and personally guarantee all the stuff and fund all the new locations. And we'll just split it 5050. And then you can also work them. But like, I'll come behind you and you you know, operate them. So I ended up being like, okay, this launch thing works.

36:35So I sold my six, put all the cash into this new like launch and go model where he was going to come behind me. And the first gem crushed the launch that we were going to do together. And one morning I wake up and all the bank count is just empty. And I was like, hmm, that's not good. And it was just a deposit straight to him. And I was like, that's weird. And so I hit him up and I was like, hey, like what's going on? And he was like, hey, I was just taking my half. I was like, that was all of it and he was like well i figured you're just skimming and i was like so you're accusing me of stealing i was like you haven't even been here like first off you haven't been here second like what and so i was like i'd never been accused of it like i was like i can't even imagine this and so i had a i had a a mentor who i was talking to at the time and he was like might have been a misunderstanding he was like print out the bank statement go line by line and just show him where all the expenses were and i was like okay i'll do that so i printed it all out i highlighted everything i annotated it and i like went to go meet with him and i remember being like let's just figure this out i've got this stuff we'll go through it and he pushed it off that he's like i don't need to see that shit and as soon as that happened i just remember like my stomach drop i was like oh i just got robbed yeah and i was like oh fuck um because i you know i had my i had six gyms so like it was years of work that went into this new thing and then it was gone and i was like what do i do anyways uh very stressful time for me i got into a head-on uh dui uh collision Walked away.

37:5660 miles an hour. Walked away. Layla picked me up from prison or jail or whichever one it is. You were drunk. I was drunk. Oh, dang. I was drunk. I was stressed. Oh, wow. I was at a low point, you might consider. Yeah. And so she was like, hey, you know, we're dating at this time. We're six months into dating. Bless her heart. Yeah, and she came with me a month. So a month after we met, I was like, I'm going to do this launch thing. And mind you, when she met me, I have multiple gyms. Yeah, you're crushing it. I'm crushing, just got off stage. All these people want to do business with me. I'm, you know, I'm the man.

38:29And then, you know, fast forward six months, she's coming out with me to do these launches because I wanted her to learn how to do it so that we could, you know, do more of these together. Do more, yeah. And she was like, hey, we should go back to doing that thing that worked instead of this whole partner thing. And so Layla went and launched a gym in Hawaii. I had to keep this gym running, but I didn't want to sell any more customers because it was clear that he wasn't going to run it. And so I had to watch the very small amount of savings that I had left go to payroll and rent, but I couldn't do, I couldn't generate sales because if I sold, then I'd have to keep, I'd have to keep pushing out when I would close the gym.

39:03Real quick, guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast. Layla and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our scaling roadmap. It's breaking scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business. So you've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you've got customer success, you've got IT, you've got recruiting, you've got HR, you've got finance. We show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level. It's all free and you can get it personalized to you. So it's about 30-ish pages for each of the stages.

39:38Once you enter the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow. It's about 14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes. And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com forward slash roadmap. R-O-A-D map. Roadmap. I ended up closing the gym and basically losing everything else that I had at that point in paying for all like refunds and things like that. But everyone talks about how hard it is to start a business. Much harder to shut one down.

40:09Oh my God, so hard. Much harder. I had Layla write the check. So I was like, I can't do it. Like this is years of my work, like my whole everything I have. And so anyways, we're back at zero again. So you can consider that big failure number one. And so at this point, we're starting the launch business. And so we're like, we're going to go all in on this. She's like, focus, please. Because I also had a chiropractor agency, a dental agency. I had this launch business and I had my six gyms. And so when I had the DUI, my mentor was like, your stress will kill you. And so from the beginning of this, I said, I only make my decisions when confronted with apparent death.

40:44And so this was the second time that I made one of these big decisions. which is I basically ended all my partnerships. So I called up. I was partnered with a guy on a couple of the locations back home. I said, hey, I'm out. And then I talked to the people I was partnered with on the chiropractor and the dental agency, and I was like, I'm out. The problem was that I was the one that was bringing all the business in. And so they were like, what are we going to do? I was like, your half. I don't know. You know, like to figure it out. Those all failed eventually, which was sad. But I was out. We started the new launch business.

41:15And so Layla's like, okay, this is what we're doing. I'm going to get all my friends from high school to quit their jobs. And we're going to go all in on this. And so she got her six friends from high school to quit all of them to quit their jobs and join us in this like, we're going to launch gyms now. And of course, because I'm dumb, I was like, yeah, we'll go from one to six a month immediately. Because I was like, we got to make up for lost time. We would be here if I hadn't been an idiot. So we have to start there. We had one month in between when I basically lost everything. and when I'd set up these next launches and when her friends were going to quit.

41:46And in that month, one gym came up and I was like, this is perfect. Like, this will replenish the bank account so that we can fund these new launches. And so a launch for context would make about$100 ,000 in a month. A guy hits me up out of nowhere and says, hey, I saw you speak at this thing years ago. I've got a newborn baby on the way and a two-month-old. And I need a job. And do you have anything in sales? And I was like, well, I have this gym I'm thinking about launching. and he was like, I can't really travel. And I was like, okay, well, this is where it is. And he was like, that's 10 minutes from me.

42:18Oh, cool. Crazy. Like he met me at not there, like just random. I was like, all right, this actually might work because he could just, because it's all day when you're doing a launch. Like it's 12 hours, 14 hours a day of sales all day long. And so I was like, if I get the 14 hours back, I could build all the materials that I need for the real business and that could be great. And so we launched the location. It does awesome. The guy crushes it. we do a hundred thousand dollars in sales but what's weird is that all of a sudden i'm like where's the where's the money like i'm spending money on ads i'm looking at the the payment processor and the it's it's saying successful but there's nothing coming in and so i call heartland which is my processor and i was like hey like it's too my deposits come on tuesdays like i've been doing this for many years like why is it not there and they're like oh it might have just been like something i don't know it'll come in the next few days didn't come next tuesday nothing again and I was like okay it's been two weeks like what's going on so I called back up and they're like oh the person you talked to probably didn't know you're doing we're doing an annual review of accounts and I was like I've been with you for like five years like what do you mean annual review and they're like ah it's just a new policy but what I was like okay so now the next Tuesday hits and there still hasn't been anything this is now Christmas Eve and I'm now at Layla's parents house because I've lost everything and I'm a winner and I get on the phone with them and I was like, I am not getting off the phone until you send me the money.

43:45I was like, it felt weird being like, it's my money. But like, it was my money, you know, like just take your fee and deposit it, whatever. And they were like, well, we've seen some irregular activity. And the issue was, one, we'd done all those refunds at the gym that I had to shut down. The second issue was that I was processing payments for different states and areas out of my local gym processor. But I didn't know how this worked. I was 20-something, right? So like I'm processing transactions in Virginia in a gym in California and it just like didn't make any sense. And so they were like, we're going to shut your account down and we're going to hold on to all of this for six months.

44:27And I was like, how is this legal? Like I was like, this is like theft. I was like, if you need to keep some of it to cover whatever, like fine keep it but like give me like give me give me half like give me something yeah and they said no and so at this point i had 23 000 left in my bank account from the the launch that layla did to cover our asses during all the refund period i owed 22 000 in commissions to the sales to the sales guy for sales that i had not collected on yeah and so it was kind of one of these like moral like what do i do and so i sent him 22 000 because he was with the guy the kid and the baby and whatever.

45:05I just didn't want to give myself the opportunity to not I just was like, just send it. Yeah, that was the screenshot that I have$1 ,000 left in my bank account December 26. Sorry, December 2016. So I still have that screenshot because I was like, remember this. Yeah. And so that was tough. That was the second time that I kind of lost everything. Big mistake there. And then so then, you know, Layla has all of her friends quit her quit their jobs, but I have no money. So they all quit their like real jobs to do this with me. And I have nothing. And so this is when I told Layla that I thought that she should probably leave me, it would be a wise choice.

45:42I was like, this is probably not going to go well. Statistically, this is really low likelihood. Like I can appreciate like, I still have some brain power, like I don't think this is going to work. But I was like, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm going to do it, but I don't think it's going to work. And so I still had my gym credit card that had$100 ,000 limit on it. I went to go turn on the ads because it was for New Year's. So it's 26th, this is Eve, right? And I was like, we can make it all back. You know, like, come on. And so we're, so here we are. We're, so I turn on all the ads the next day after getting off the heartbreaking call on the 24th.

46:14So the 26th is when I turn all the ads on. And I was like, I'm going broke at$3 ,300 a day of money that I don't have to make this work. because I have six guys, hotels, airfare, per diems for food, and then marketing spend for the location every day. And that was shoestring. Like those guys were living in hovels. I'll just put it, I'll be honest. Like they were young dudes too. They stuck it out. But within the next month, we made exactly the amount of money that my credit card bill was. So I basically broke even, but like we had payment plans that were coming after that. So I was like, okay, this could work.

46:50The next month I made like an extra, we did like$100 ,000 the first month. the next month we did like 170 or 80 or something like that and i was like this might work i made like 30 or 40 000 profit like holy how like this will work the next month we did another a little bit more and made a little bit more profit i was like this this could be a thing but then all of a sudden layla hits me like she she taps my shoulder one morning i'm working early and she was like she just turns her laptop towards me she was like what's this and it was just it was just like this never ending waterfall of negative transactions.

47:23And I was like, what's going on? And so it turns out that the gym owners that we had sold all these people into, we had one guy get on a chair inside of his gym and just say like, this is too many people. I can't handle this. Just refund and go home. And we'd already left the gym, like we'd already launched the gym, filled it up and our guys at the next gym. But like the way business works is that you don't run 100 % margins. And so if you have to refund 100 % of your sales, you had costs, like the credit card company will take 100%. But you had costs that you spent that you don't have that money.

47:54So that happened. And then word got around and then the second gym owner did that as well. He did a little bit more cleverly. He said, Hey, I saw how much you paid that guy. I'm the one delivering the service refund with him, you can sign up for me with for half after I already paid the price of basically the cost of our customer paid the commissions pay the marketing paid the hotel for the sales guy, all that stuff. And so I learned a very important lesson, which is that you need to control the money and the delivery. And so that was my big lesson there. Yeah. I just heard, I've been listening to your stuff forever.

48:22And I just heard the story the other day because I was listening to the audio book. No, no, the audio book from the newest book. And I was like, oh my God, how many times have they been wiped out? Which is such like brutal inside of it, but such a superpower. Like if you actually look, because I think about this with you you guys, from like this was not that long ago to where you are today. And I think you have this super skill of moving fast because you've got your ass kicked so many times. And the difference is you're standing back up, you have the knowledge of why it went wrong, and you're moving forward at a quicker pace.

49:00But how the fuck do you stand back up? I don't know, millions of times you feel like you've been screwed over. Yeah. I think it's always been looking at the don't, I call it, which is like the other path. So I teach this with sales too, which is that like someone will present with some sort of obstacle. And a lot of times it's like, I mean, you can obviously overcome the obstacle, but I think it's a lot more powerful to be like, I understand this is your concern, but what about all the other things you could do that aren't this? And it's just selling against the don't. It's like, so like the biggest competitor in fitness is not the guy down the street, it's the couch.

49:34Like that's who you're competing against. For me, like in these situations, it was like, this sucks, but the alternative is what? like I stop and like that was just like not really an option. I used to repeat this stuff to myself a lot, which is like you'd be amazed what you can accomplish when you have no choice. And so it just like wasn't on my menu of things that I could do. And I was like, I'll just try again. I'll just try again. Yeah, in 2020 I had my business was based on live events, which is a brutal time. Mine was on gyms. Yeah, great. Great. Had 60 employees, had four huge events on the docket for the rest of 2020 and just slowly, yeah, just absolutely wiped out.

50:22And truly swear to God, the reason that I could stand back up and go again is for kids. I'm the person who supports my family. Like these are my kids. I got to take care of them. There is no other option because there is a sort of wounded part of me that would have loved to just been like, fuck all this. I'm going to take what I have and go, I don't know, live on a farm and just be okay. But that, that like, you gotta, you gotta find something in you. And honestly, if you don't have something that's easily accessible, create something, create something in your own mind, create an enemy, like prove the girls from middle school wrong, like prove your parent wrong, like do something to make yourself stand back up.

51:06Cause it's like, God, you might be so close to a breakthrough. And if you walk away now, you're never going to know. I see a lot of it as like chapters in a book where like, this isn't where I want the story to end. And so we just get to, it's like, I think if you continue, it's like, I'm just going to keep writing. Like, we're just going to, we're going to add another chapter. And another chapter has, and here's the interesting thing is that regression to the mean is normal. So like, if things are good, it's likely that there'll be less good in the future. Yeah. If things are bad, it's likely there'll be less bad in the future.

51:37And so I'm like, okay, well, things are, I mean, it's hard for things to get worse than this. But like, you know, I have high probability that it'll get better. Yeah. And I think Joe Rogan has this really great way of framing it. It's like a lot of video games, you kind of like wake up as a character. And then you have a backstory. But then it's like, at that point, you decide what you want to do with the character. Yeah. And so in a lot of ways, it's like, this is just my backstory. And in a very like weird, you know, weird way, it's like, the past doesn't exist. And so if I'd started at zero, I'd already started at zero before.

52:11And I've started at zero multiple times now. And so it's like I know what to do because I've been at zero before. And I was really excited the first time I was at zero. Why should I be heartbroken now? Yeah. Except now I have way more experience than the kid did in the beginning. So I probably have a way better shot than he did. And he was stoked. So why shouldn't I be stoked? Yeah, that's sick. There's a friend of mine, Brooke Castillo, you might know her. She asked a really good question on like bad situations, which is like, how could this be awesome? So it's like, I'm about to get divorced.

52:38How could this be awesome? I'm about to get sued. How could this be awesome? Like in what storyline or what timeline would this terrible thing be awesome? And what do I need to change about myself and my surroundings so that that becomes the pivotal moment to basically become the foundation for the next thing? Yeah. And so, yeah, I'll close the loop for everybody. We ended up basically having to make$150 ,000 in profit in the next 30 days. And I never made$150 ,000 in profit ever in a month. I worked 48 hours asked Layla I said you know she was had these side clients that she was doing fitness with because she had a personal training business before that and that was basically paying for the groceries um Layla was basically supporting so like Jim Lynch was making all this revenue but like no profit and like making money just losing everything making money losing everything and I was like how long does that take you and she's like I don't know four hours a month she's like why she thought I was like attacking her and she's like why like hey it pays for her food and I was like I'm not I'm not saying it's bad I was like four hours that's not bad you're making four grand a month i was like you know four hours 40 i was like if we did 40 hours we'd make 40 grand you know a week that's not bad right and so i like took a bunch of prescription stimulants and like didn't sleep for two days and banged out like one of the best sales letters yeah oh my god one of the best sales letters ever written and it was and it was it was layla's uh story of how she lost 100 pounds and then did a fitness competition she was like this is ridiculous she's like this is so heart wrenching and you don't even know my story.

53:59She's like, I would, you know, I was like, I was like, my, my thighs are rubbing together because I was overweight. And I was like, and I would always wear the coverall. Like when I was on the beach with my family, because I didn't want anyone to see it. I would always be on the edge of pictures. I just tried to think of all these like terrible moments. Anyways, I started running ads to it. She started, we just started doing sales and doing like a thousand bucks a day in sales. And I was like, okay, at this point we had eight sales guys, uh, because I had to sell more to start to, I had to keep selling more every month to cover the refunds from the month before if these gym owners were doing this because I didn't know a way out.

54:27So that was how I started doing that. And then that's when it was actually really stressful because I was like, I have to just keep selling more to cover refunds from the month before. Like this is not sustainable. And so that's when we started doing this thousand bucks a day. I was like, great. I take the eight guys, bring them in. We can do 8 ,000 a day, almost all profit. We could get$150 ,000 of profits. I got really excited. And so I ate more gyms that were supposed to launch the next month. And I was calling them up and I was like, Hey, we're out. We're changing in our model, like, you know, wish you the best.

54:53And that's when, you know, I said, I'll just, I'll, I'll, I'll show you how to do it rather than me flying out there and doing it myself. And, um, and then the guy was like, well, how much? And I said, I just picked a big number because I wanted to get him off the phone. I was like$6 ,000. And he was like, six K he was like, done. And I just remember, I just remember like, like floating out of myself being like, cause I'm used to selling memberships here. Like I'm used to making 300, 400,$500 sales, $200 supplement sales. Like that was the, so me adding a Z me 10 X or 12 X in what I'm used to collecting was like, just like an unfathomable number.

55:23And he said, yeah, I was like, holy shit, six grand. And I had seven more calls that day. So then I was like, okay, he's like, well, when do I get my login? And I was like, it was Friday, I was like, Monday. And so and he was like, okay, cool. Call the next guy, same conversation. And he was like, how much? And I was like, eight grand. And he was like, yeah, done. And I was like, holy shit. And so by the end of the day, I collected $60 ,000. And I was like, and Layla came in from doing all these sales doing weight loss sales. I was like, how's your day? So two for two. And I was like, that's awesome.

55:55I was like, I think, I think we're still in the gym business. And now she's like, you just told me, you just told me we're going all in on Queen's transformation, which we called it. Like you wrote this whole sales letter, you sold me on how we're not doing the in person thing. We're doing the online thing. And I was like, yeah, I think we were just doing it wrong. Yeah, I then called back all the 30 plus gyms that I'd done turnarounds for and was like, Hey, remember how I just made 100 grand out of your gym and you're really upset about it because I'm just some kid and you're an experienced gym owner and I still filled it up.

56:20Want me to show you how I did it? And they were like, yeah. And so I just went back at 30 more sales and I was able to cover the$150 ,000 and basically refunds I was going to have to pay for within 30 days and got like back to neutral, back to zero. I was$150 ,000 poorer than zero. Just wanted to get even. And so yeah. And so then, and then that's when, that's when Jim Lynch took off. And so that's So I'll give you the rest of the story is less fun. It's like we went from zero to four and a half million a month in like 20 months. The fact that you just said it's the less fun part. I mean, that probably says something about your psychology.

56:58But actually, this is the victorious moment is that it went on to be very successful. You guys launched a supplement brand as well. Did you sell both of those or you still retain? Yeah, okay. So you sold those together. Now you're in acquisition. Will you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah. Hopefully the audience is bored to tears yet. Are you kidding? They are peeing their pants right now. They love this conversation. Layla and I had probably taken about$40 million in distributions from gym launch during the time that we owned it. And then the sale was for$46. And so we had a decent enough amount of money to start like a family office.

57:31Well, from investing perspectives, like that's small. Like you need about$50 to like really start a true family office. Got it. Otherwise, it's like fractional. It's different. You know what I mean? We're like, I think we can do this. And so we started making investments in companies that were, when we started this, it was going to be e-learning businesses to try and basically run the same playbook that we did with G-Munch. It turned out that was not a good model for a variety of reasons. We have now just transitioned to taking larger and larger stakes in companies. And we now really just look for revenue retention, which is the only thing that we really care about.

58:05And then, because we know how to do the marketing and sales. And so it's like, we just want to find products or services that people never want to stop buying. Right. And I will tell you, for anybody who's listening to this, one of the big pieces of advice that I can give you is that instead of trying to find a product and then being like, how do I get people to not stop buying this? Just find stuff people already don't stop buying. Yeah. It's a lot easier. It's like, I promise you that there's nothing that you can do to a gym membership to get someone to stay more than their insurance or their internet.

58:37Yeah. It's just the dynamics of the service or business. And that took me probably like two years to learn that. So there's two years in one minute. Well, and I think e-learning in a lot of ways, I know this is going to feel maybe harsh for people who are in the e-learning business, tends to be trendy. So certain things will spike and become more popular. Yeah, become more popular. Something that blows up in 2020 or 2021 might not be relevant in 25. And I've heard you guys talk about that, that you're interested in businesses that are retaining profit, not just hitting a certain revenue goal, which is so crucial.

59:14So that's a big learning in the last couple of years. How long have you guys been doing it now? The first deal is 2020. Okay. Okay. So it's been a hot minute. I would say investors usually are like 10-year cycles. So I'm like halfway through a cycle, basically. I mean, learned a lot. Most of the things I learned will probably not be interesting to the audience. But yeah. Let's steal some bits from you. Let's talk about mindset, right? Yeah. No, no, no. I would love to steal a bit from your brain too because I've heard you now and I really want to encourage the audience. Your podcast is fantastic.

59:44And I feel like you guys do a great job of doing so many different types of content, which I love because it's not all going to be relevant to every type of business owner. But what are some of the biggest mistakes you see new business owners make or the most common questions you get in that from the newbies? I'm pumped for this. Great. So there are five that I see that happen on a regular basis. Great. And they come from apparently impossible choices. Overcompensation of employees, structurally. It's like, for example, I've got people at my chiropractic clinic and I pay the therapist 50 % of revenue.

1:00:20tough to scale. underpriced. my facility i'm using brick and mortar but this works for you could be digital doesn't really matter um i'm at capacity and i'm not making profit yeah that's a pricing issue yeah right million percent but and with each of them though there's an apparent rock and hard play scenario though if i pay people less i'm going to lose all my therapists and i'm gonna lose my business if i raise my prices i'm gonna lose all my customers right like and um next one is woman in the red dress so more commonly known as shiny object syndrome chasing multiple rabbits and catching none and spinning your plates because, and if you, if you, if you're at least backtracking to the story there, like I had a chiropractor agency, a dental agency, I had six gyms and I was doing a launch business.

1:01:00I made no money. I mean, I made revenue, but I didn't have enough attention to go deep enough on anything. So all I was doing was pure fires all the time, which is one, a miserable existence, but two, you just make way less money. And the guy you're competing against who's beating you is only doing that. And that's the thing. And I think it's actually, believe it or not, I actually think it's arrogant to believe that you can do multiple things and beat somebody who's only doing one. That's so real. I'm on a book tour right now and I do a Q and A at the end. And this woman stood up in, I want to say Toronto.

1:01:27And she's like, I have a business and I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I was like, can I tough love you right now? Yeah. And I said, you don't have a business. You have a bunch of side hustles. None of these things are connected. You got to pick one. You got to go all in. And a lot of people need to hear that. I've never thought about it as ego, but you're exactly right. Like, why are you the one person who can successfully navigate 10 businesses at once? Of course you can. Well, Elon does it. And it's like, well, if you were - He has a million staff members. And he, yeah, we wouldn't even talk about it because he's an alien.

1:01:58So it doesn't really matter. But like for all of those mere mortals. And this, I'll tell you this little framework. So if you're like, well, Elon did it. It's like, well, did you, you know, drop out of whatever Ivy League school that he dropped out of and then code from scratch zip to when you were 21? no you didn't do that so you're probably not elon yeah well i'm gonna be the next warren buffett did you buy your first stock at age seven did you make a huge purchase right after pearl harbor got bombed when you thought the nation like when people didn't know if america like do you are no you are not no it's like okay i'm gonna i'm gonna have a hold co and you know 30 years old it's like with love let's be real i say this with so much love and i'll take this on myself too.

1:02:43If you were a phenom, we'd know it by now. If you were a genius, we'd already know. So just assume that you're going to work hard like a lot of other people and find a way. If you were those people, we would already know. There's this great quote. I was a little nervous. I was on my run this morning. I was like, Jesus, I hope I don't accidentally quote Alex to Alex. I listen to so many podcasts, but I heard this thing the other day that was like, Like if you're the guy, you don't have to tell anybody you're the guy. Like if you're her, you don't have to tell anybody you're her. We already know.

1:03:16So yes, good advice. You're not Elon, so pick one freaking thing. The next is over expansion. I just opened my second location. And I'm just talking brick and mortar terms, but this applies for everything. And it's almost like the shiny object one, except the businesses are interrelated. And it was the correct next step, just not now. And so typically overexpansion is actually a function of being under-talented. And so, yeah. Someone just got punched in the stomach right now. Someone's just like, oh, I needed that. And so, and when I say under-talented, there's two components to that. One is there's you, right?

1:03:52The other side of it is that the talent on your team is just insufficient. And so like, could you have gone to the second location? Could you start that second product line or the second service line? Absolutely. If you had enough bandwidth for you, which you can only get back with somebody else who's good. Right? And so it's usually a who issue for over-expansion. Number five is you're serving too many different types of customers. And I want to be clear. It's super normal in the beginning for you to have one qualification for a customer, which is credit card impulse. So I guess that's two. Very normal.

1:04:21The problem is as soon as you start selling a little bit more, you're like, oh my god, I have so many different things that I have to deliver. And this guy's a little bigger. This guy's a little smaller. But my product's not that. Whatever. You have to pick. And obviously, again, these are rock and hard place scenarios. but this is half my business is this type of avatar. At some point, I'm fast forwarding a little bit, but usually it's between one and three million is where you have to start being like, I have to be narrow on my avatar. And the fear is, and for each of these, the fear is logical and also wrong.

1:04:50And that's what's really interesting. So like, so Roy Sutherland, a big marketer that I love, he's chairman of Ogilvy. He talks about psychological and logical solutions. And so like, for example, if I want people to like the elevator ride better, so people are complaining, for example, that the elevator ride is too slow. you could then think, okay, we'll have to reinstall a new elevator that has a bigger engine and make it go faster, right? And that would cost us lots and lots of money. An alternative is just to put mirrors inside the elevator so they can stare at themselves and no one notices the fact that it's slow.

1:05:19Psychological solutions. And so what's interesting is that like all logical solutions, if you have a logical problem, sometimes you have to use a psychological solution rather than logical ones because the logical ones have already been tried and don't work. And so when you have the apparent rock and hard place, there's usually a different way around it, which is that like, how could this be awesome? So what if when you change your compensation structure, your team feels more at ease because the business actually has a profit and has a chance for expanding so that they can have a career path? Yeah.

1:05:46What if that was how you positioned it, which is I've walked, I've had to do this myself, but also for other people. If you're underpriced, it's like, well, what if when I raise my prices, I attract better customers? And because I have more profit, I can attract better talent and I can ultimately provide a better service and their lower maintenance. and like all of these things cascade down from this higher price. If I focus all of my attention on one thing, I remember I met a business owner who was telling me, I don't call it all the businesses he had. And I was like, and I knew roughly, I think, how much money he was making and it was not a ton.

1:06:19And I think he had 78 things that he was involved. It was the biggest thing I've ever seen. And he couldn't name them all. And he's like, I have an Excel sheet that has them all. And I think he was doing about eight figures a year, which I know some people were listening. This is like, oh, that's a lot. I promise you between 78 businesses doing that would be unbelievably stressful and who knows what the profit is right and so then I said if I had a magic wand and I said which of these 78 is the one that you're like this is the one this is my baby this is the one that I think could go all the way I was like do you know which one it is he was like yeah I was like if I waved a magic wand and I cut the other 77 and you just did that I was like how easy would it be to double the business he's like oh my god I could do it in my sleep and I was like then why don't you do that yeah Yeah.

1:06:57That's like how you handle that one. The over expansion is and this is the tough one. You either got to and it usually happens at that that same like million two million ish level. And I have a theory around it, which is that if you think about the cost of talent, right? So let's say you have a 20 % margin business, and you're doing a million dollars a year. So you're making $200 ,000 a year in profit. You either have to work double time. Or you have to not have a profit and bring someone in who's really good. Those are basically your two choices. And they're both tough. To open a second location, yeah.

1:07:31Right. And so like that's, I mean, by the way, this is why you get compensated as a business owner at outsized returns because you take outsized risk. That's why we get paid what we do because we're willing to lose it all. Right. And so, but it's based, it's usually right at that size, one to three-ish, because your margin is almost equates to one or two good employees. And so you have to make this bet. Or you just work like crazy. It's one or the other. And so when you're in that overexpansion area, it's like you just have to work like crazy and then train someone up. Or you have to bring someone in and then obviously they can help you take it over.

1:08:06The third path is that you just accept the fact that you don't have who you need. You cut the short-term loss for the long-term gain so that you can get the one location or one product or service right. So that I like this framework called Scale Zero, which is like every business that I've had that's been exceptional has been a business that I didn't start to become a business they became they were things that I just was like I'm just gonna make some money and then and I don't want to work a lot and when I do that because you actually solve for zero ahead of time and so you're like I'm solving for something that is super profitable that doesn't take a lot of time it's like well shoot then why can't I do a ton of that and that's what ends up happening whereas every time I've been like I want to just build a huge business I was like I end up building something that doesn't like actually work.

1:08:50Yeah. And so it's just very weird that every time that I like when I look back on my life, the times that I've like, I've had to make money, or wanted, you know, to make money and not build a business is when I build a business. When I build a business, I don't make money. Yeah, yeah. Just kind of like interesting. So that's that's solving the overexpansion issue. The avatar issue you solve with data, which is you look at all the customers you've sold up to this point. And you're like, Okay, okay, look at the top 10 % and say, what did these people have in common? And so I think about it in terms of demographics, like what do they look like?

1:09:20Where are they from? I think about it in terms of psychographics, which is like, how do they think? What are their beliefs and values? And then I think about actions. So what things did they do while a customer that other people did not do that caused them to be successful? And so then I start selecting for those people in the advertising and the offer so that we just only get those people. And so if you're in that spot, my recommendation is you don't have to kill your business. Just start advertising only to the one avatar, which is usually the higher up avatar. I'll just give you the, it's probably, it's probably the guy who's, that's probably the, the one that you have fewer of, but that are better.

1:09:55It's probably that one you advertise to them. And what happens though, is that you will still get the, the minnows that are coming, but you'll get a greater proportion of the better ones by just say, I'm only working with these better ones. And you can basically slowly shift the percentage of the pie so that a smaller and smaller percentage are minnows until eventually you can, you know, maybe when you're at 80%, you just say, I'm not taking minnows anymore because it's a distraction. I just want to work with whales. And so that's the transition there. The bonus sixth problem that small business owners have is no data daddy, as I like to call it, which is that they don't know anything about their business.

1:10:31And so, I mean, if you've seen like Shark Tank or anything like that, like the thing that they always tell her was like, just know your numbers. Because you can't, if you don't know what to do, it's because you have no data. And so the actual constraint of the business isn't the action you need to take, or rather the action you need to take is to get the data. Because when you have really clean data, the next step actually is usually pretty obvious. So you look like a genius from the outside because you're making these good decisions and the business continues to grow. But you know that deep down, it's just because you collect good data.

1:10:58And so it's like, you should be able to know what happens from click to close and from close to renewal. And you should know what all of the metrics are between those steps. And I mean, at the most minute level, because that's where all the alpha, to use an investment term, that's where all the huge gains in business growth come from. It's like, okay, let's say we've got a 2 % CTR on our ads, fine. We've got a 20 % conversion on our landing page, okay, it's a little bit low, but fine. And then we've got a 7 % schedule rate. We're like, ooh, okay, well, we could probably go from 7 to 30. And if we did that, we would 4X the business.

1:11:37Ooh, that feels like that's worth tackling. Right. But you're like, I don't know how to grow. You don't even know. That's the thing. It's like, I don't know what to do because you don't know what the reality is. You don't know where the holes are. Given just to break it down to a basic level in case people don't know some of the terms that you're using. So I'm imagining like you own a small town coffee shop. Sure. And you've done your best. You're just getting things done. You're making sure there's enough coffee. Are the muffins there? You're just doing the things of running your business. But you hear you talking right now and you're like, what data?

1:12:08What would I need? So for example, what's the average tally for each customer that comes through? If you're like, oh, I have no idea. Okay, well, if you have no idea, you don't know how to improve those numbers. So if you find out that the average person who comes through spends$6 and, well, here's an easy hack. What if I train the people who are at the cash register to ask if every single customer would like a muffin to go with their coffee? What's the percentage of people who increase and suddenly it's 1050 per person and you're increasing the value of that interaction. But if you don't have those specific data points, you don't know what to push on.

1:12:43Again, I was at this mastermind this week and they would do hot seat. So people were talking about their business. And I'm not in the mastermind. I'm just there as a speaker. But every person who they'd ask questions to, they'd say, you know, how much did he make last year? And they'd say, we did between. And I'm like, you don't know your numbers. You didn't do between. That's wild. An entrepreneur knows exactly down to like, oh, man, we really wanted to do$2 million, but we did$1.73. Those are our numbers this year. There's no between. The average person pays almost. I'm like, girl, you don't.

1:13:19Like, you're stretching. so knowing that kind of information like you said helps to figure out what to actually move against like for instance if you can get if you can book 20 calls and you know for a fact that you're really good at closing you can close 50 of those customers so great if i get more calls can i close more just for anybody who didn't understand this is great and for i'll just say that for if you're if you're sub a million in revenue, the answer is almost always more. And there's a math reason behind that. And so like, improve, you know, because if you're sub million, and you are actually, you know, making dollars, you are making sales, and you are making a profit, you have priced it such that you haven't, you're not selling$5 bills for$4.

1:14:06Let's assume that that's, that's true. All right. If that's the case, I'll give the simplest example I can, which is that if I have one salesperson who works for me, and let's say that guy does outbound and he generates business for our IT services, whatever, I could probably try and take his close rate from 30 % to 40%. I could probably do that. How much time would that be? How risky is it? How likely is it to happen? We can go through all that. But it would probably be better to just hire a second sales guy to do the outbound because that would have a high likelihood of doubling my business.

1:14:37Now, later on, when you have 20 sales guys, guys, you then have to see, okay, if I'm at, you know, we're at 30 to get to 40. Okay, that would be a 33 % improvement in in in revenue, if we made if we just got everybody go from, you know, 30 to 40. Okay, that sounds reasonable. But the alternative would be to get that same increase with 20 guys that have to hire seven more sales guys. And so then you look at the risk adjuster return from each of those actions and say, Okay, well, I think there's a higher likelihood that I could just improve the sales guys from 30 to 40, then onboard hire, train, recruit seven more productive sales guys that are at the same KPI as the rest of the team.

1:15:16And so you'll actually notice that's a little bit like a pinball or like an accordion where it's like, you'll do more and then you do better and then you do more and then you do better. But in the beginning, you're usually just not doing nearly enough. And I'll give you this little ism that I end up repeating a lot, which is that volatility is a symptom of low volume. So if you're like, man, you know, it's word of mouth and I get a sale every month. I get one or two sales that come in. So the reality is that there's a certain amount of advertising that is occurring. So a certain amount of people are telling other people, a certain amount of posts on Facebook, a certain amount of outreach attempts that you make are creating one to two sales per month.

1:15:59The businesses that are doing one to two sales a day are doing that amount of advertising activity per day. Yes. And so I'll tell you the story because I think it'll resonate with the audience. So when I was younger, when I started my gym, and there was a period of time where like lead costs went up because some Facebook change, whatever. I talked to a mentor of mine. And I said, you know, how are you advertising? And he was he had 22 locations. And it was tanning stuff. And he said, I use flyers. And I was like, okay, I'll use flyers. I'll try that. And so I printed out flyers. And I put 300 flyers out on cars or whatever.

1:16:32And, you know, I waited to go collect my money. And one guy called and he said, are you the guy who put the flyer in my car? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, you dinged my Mercedes. And then I was like, oh, and I just like, and he never called again. Thank God. But anyways, I called my mentor back and I was like, hey, and he's like, hey, how'd the flyers work out? And I was like, I was ready to like give him like a talking to. I was like, it didn't work. Huh? You know, like, what are you going to say about it now? And he took it really, he was just like, really great. He gave me a lot of grace.

1:16:58He was like, well, what was your test size? And I was like, well, what do you mean? He was like, well, would you test? Like, how many did you put out that you test first? And I was like, well, I put out 300. And I was like, 300. And he was like, oh, man, we test with like 5000. And I was like, oh, he's like, and then after that, we do 5000 a day. So he was doing 150 ,000 flyers a month. And I thought that 300 was a campaign. And so a lot of times, when you're starting out, you have such a dramatic misunderstanding of the sheer volume that people who are ahead of you are doing. So like Mosey Media, us, we put out 450 pieces of content per week.

1:17:41It's a lot. It's 60 or 70 a day. I can't do the math. Somewhere in there, right? And so when people are like, well, I won't even get into the like, must be nice. But like, you're making one post a day on Instagram. And you have seven and I have 450 and I've also been doing it longer. Right. And so I have 450 a week times years. Yes. And so we like, it is a volume game. And in order to accumulate more volume, you have to allow for time to pass. Like, like, and, you know, hypothetically, could I get to 1000 a day? Probably. I'm just we're just not there yet. And I'm sure five years from now, I'll look back like, I remember when I was doing 60 a day.

1:18:21My God, I was so cute. You know, give myself a little But also just to give people a frame of reference, how much has social grown for you in the last five years? Yeah. Because you're in the millions now. Yeah. And I swear when I started following you. It's like 10K on Instagram. Yeah. That's when I started. Like you've grown so much. Yeah. I think we have like 13 or 14 million. Yeah. Yeah. No big deal. I mean, who's counting? But yeah, no. And I like to bring this up, which is that just like Rich was saying earlier with like, you'd know if you were the guy or you'd know if you were the girl. I think we're making this for everyone who's not that.

1:18:55Yeah. And so I didn't have a clip go viral and then all of a sudden become this person. Right. This was a deliberate choice that I was like, I'm going to try and do this. I started by making three. I mean, I started in July of, well, if you were on the podcast, like my, so this is actually kind of probably the coolest thing I think about my story, hopefully in the future that will be cold, is that 90 days after I had lost everything, the last time, clarity on dates 90 days after lost everything the last time is when I started my podcast and so one if you're like I'm at zero like what do I have to say well there's that number two my rule is that I only talk about things I know and so the first 300 episodes are just like how to run a gym because that's all I knew so it was called gym secrets and it was like and I had six locations so I had some stuff that I like I could talk about but I just didn't go into topics I was like I just this when someone walks in, this is how, you know, like I just talked about what I knew.

1:19:51And for years, it was at, you know, 100 downloads. And then it went to I think it took like, four years to get to like 2000 downloads an episode. Not a lot of people were listening to Jim Secrets. I bring this up because the whole thing is documented from zero to here. And I think that's like that. I think to me, that's like the coolest thing. And so, you know, a couple years ago, I started doing the YouTube that was like my next big commitment. And I was like, I'll make three YouTube videos a week. And then I had a guy randomly reach out to me and say, hey, these shorts things are going to be a thing.

1:20:22And he was like, you already have longs. I'll just take the stuff you already have and make them into shorts. And then that did really well for us. And then we started bringing it in-house. And that's pretty much what we've done ever since is just do more. Do more, do better, do more, do better. And we just keep doing it. I keep referencing this thing that I was at this week. But everyone's trying to figure out the next marketing hack. Like, what's this thing and how does it? I was there to speak about books because I've had a lot of success as a writer. And they were like, what do you do? And I was like, well, you show up for your audience every day for 15 years.

1:20:54And you just provide a shit ton of value again and again and again and again and again. And every once in a while, I'm like, hey, guys, I have a book. And then everybody buys it. That's my whole plan. That's what we do. Master plan. Exactly. I've never figured out ads. I don't know how to. I don't have a funnel. I don't have, and it was like, but what is the book a lead for? And I'm like, nope, just readers just trying to, you know, have, but I, that's don't commit to something if you aren't willing to give a decade. Cause I really don't know any other way. Yes. Could you have something go viral?

1:21:29Can something pop off unexpectedly? Can you hit a trend right when the wave is cresting? Absolutely. But I don't know how you have a long-term play if you're not actually trying to provide value in a real way. I think so. This is just something that I feel like I've seen across a lot of business owners because I talk to many of them. That's basically my full-time job. It takes about five years to figure something out. And it takes about 10 for you to probably realize the success that you were hoping for in one or two. So just as a baseline for anyone who's listening to this, it's like, you're like, okay, let's say you have some corporate job that you make$150 ,000 a year.

1:22:04you will for sure make less money for the next two three years that now you might make revenue very different than what your take home is right like you might start making sales but you imagine that it's you're going to immediately like that one that revenue is profit and it's not and that you're gonna immediately have more time you're gonna have less uh there's all these but to be fair though sometimes it's good to be ignorant of it so that you take the jump but it's it's literally just harder it takes longer and you make less for a while yeah and i say this as somebody who was a management consultant before this, like I had saved$50 ,000 when I was 22.

1:22:37And I was just because I made decent money. And I was prudent with my spending. But it took five years before like we figured out the gym launch thing. Now I had the locations that made money, but then you make mistakes, and you will lose things. And you will take back steps. And so I think, you know, I talked to a really close friend of mine last night. And he said this, and he said, you know, in my in my 20s it was all about the destination and he was a goldman sachs guy like for those who don't know it's a probably one of the most prestigious investment banks guys there make 10 20 million dollars a year at the higher levels like very smart people and very a type a driven area and he said in my 30s i realized it was about the journey right he said and in my 40s i realized it was about the company and so um i was like can't wait to see what it is when it's 50s.

1:23:25But like, I just I really liked that process. And so I think if you solve for forever, you can go for a very long time. Like when I started YouTube, I told the vendor that I was working with, I was like, I'll make a call whether I keep doing this in 10 years. Yeah. And he was like, he at six months, I was the fastest growing whatever that he'd had. And he said, I just want you to know that I've never in my whole career had anybody say that they were going to do this for 10 years. He said, everybody is always like, 30 days, 90 days, if they're like, you know long-term thinking or whatever and i was like i just figured if i do so much of it that it would be unreasonable that i suck i'll probably be better than average yeah and so there's a certain amount of volume that's required to get good and so my approach has always been like violence is the answer uh which is just just just unbelievable amounts of execution and just trying to get just get i remember i read outliers when i was in college i think which is Malcolm Gladwell's book.

1:24:21You talk about 10 ,000 hours. It was such a pivotal book for me to read because it set the bar for what I expected volume to look like. And so it's like, well, if I want to be a master at something, one, I have to start now. Like, oh my God, I'm so old. But secondly, the part that I thought was really interesting was that like Bill Gates, he considered like a genius or virtuoso coder at like six or seven years, whereas some people would take like 10 or 12. And so that one little nugget for me gave me the realization that like, oh, I can cram I can take 10 years of normal work and cram it in four or five.

1:24:55And so that's where saying like, you know, I have the rule of 100 for people who are starting out for getting their first customers. So you make, you know, 100 outreach attempts per day. You spend$100 in ads per day or you make 100 minutes. You work for 100 minutes on content and you post it. And if you do that. And you post it is the key. That is key. get it out of your draft folder and on to social media and i'll tell you why you have to do it in a second and then you do that for 100 days and i promise you if you do that you will have a customer yeah period you will have a customer and what's crazy is that i get i get these screenshots of people who are like holy shit dude i'm on day 31 and like and they show me their stats on like tiktok or instagram or whatever and they're like and look at the leads that like they just do it you know i mean and like if you actually count it out and you actually do the whole like i've never to this day had somebody do the full hundred, all three and not have customers.

1:25:50And the reason that you have to put it out and do the outreach, test the ads if you're going to do ads or just do the content is that the only, at least my favorite way to learn is to do a huge amount of effort, a lot of repetitions, and then look at the data of the last hundred and say, what were the top 10 %? What do these have in common? Okay, my next hundred are going to be just like those. Yes. And then you do a hundred more of that. And then because of variability and variety of life, you're going to have another top 10 % of those and say, what did those have in common? How do I do more of that?

1:26:22And this is the process of learning that you won't get in any course because it will also be specific to you. Can I also add something too for people who are using social media as a way to talk about their business is to make sure that you're paying attention to the right metrics. Because there's such a hustle for views. Not all views are created equal. Not all followers are created equal. And you could get a million views on something that will not be relevant to your business at all, but will create sort of vanity metrics that make you believe that your channel is really successful. But if it is not making you money in the way you want to make money, it's not the right video.

1:26:59It would be better to try a different style, different approach, long form versus short form, like change it up to get the right kind of customer because there's so much content right now telling people how to game the algorithm and it's not actually serving you. No. As a visceral example, if I go up to a stranger and slap them, and then I will probably get a lot of views. Yeah. Does that increase or decrease the likelihood that someone will purchase something from me? Probably not. Right? It just sounds like – sometimes I just like asking the simplest question. When you look at this meme that you're posting, does this increase or decrease the likelihood that someone's going to buy from you?

1:27:35Right. In all likelihood, it just does nothing. It does neither. Wasted your time. Yeah. Because you spent nine hours trying to make that one video. Right. And so that's always been our litmus test in terms of basically what we're, I think what we're really teasing out here is the difference between getting views and building a brand. And building the brand is what are the pairings and associations that I want people to associate me with? And that's the people that I appear with. That's the subject matter that I discuss. And everything else that surrounds that, what are the values that I have that come through in the content.

1:28:04And I will say that me personally, the more I just try to think like, and this is probably useful. If you have a customer that is your favorite customer, and if you don't have a customer, think about who that customer might be. Make content for them. And if you just do that, you will be already like in the top 10%. Yeah, for real. I want to talk to you forever, but I want to be conscious of your schedule and a very busy day that you have ahead of you. I just want to say one more thing to you before we wrap up. I know you talk a lot about not really caring about your legacy, which is fascinating.

1:28:38But whether or not you care about what it is, it's going to be really big and it's going to be really impactful. As someone, you don't think I'm your demographic, but I receive a lot of help from you and have for years through the books, through the podcast. I really want to encourage listeners to go check them out. So whether or not you care that you have a legacy, you do. And you help a lot of people with what you do and you don't have to help people the way that you do. So I am grateful for your time and your wisdom. And I know the audience is too. So thank you for being here. Well, I appreciate it.

1:29:09And I would love to respond if that's okay. And if it ends up sucking, you can take it out. This has been something that I think has been, so interestingly, in the last 24 hours, I had like two massive accounts try to like take attacks at me because of this. No. Yeah, no, it's fine. My worldview allows me to deal with these things. Right. But also people who create content just shitting on other people's content. it. I wholeheartedly agree. Yeah. Wholeheartedly agree. And I feel like I can actually like make this as about like, I will not make content that insults people. Yeah, same. And I think there's and it's probably useful for anyone who's listening, the difference between an insult and criticism.

1:29:44So criticism is a discrepancy between actual and desired. Hey, Sandy, you didn't show up. You haven't shown up on time three days in a row. The expectations that you set up, you show up at 9am. This is criticism. And because of that, you're a lazy piece of shit. That is an insult. And so basically making a judgment is where insults come from. Pointing out to an observable discrepancy is what criticism is. For those of you who are like, how do you deal with criticism? It's like, well, make sure that it's criticism and not insults. I had most people insult me. It's fine. I survived. About this, and I really want to take the opportunity, if you'll allow me.

1:30:20I'm just the ultimate believer in freedom of choice. And many people, there's both sides of this. On one hand, there's many people who don't start out of fear of what other people are going to say about them. And that ends up paralyzing them. And so when I talk about death and the fact that most people will move on in weeks, not years, and they're going to go from the funeral and go to a pizza place and they're all just going to have dinner and then they're going to go to school the next day, it's crazy, but it's also reality. and I think in minimizing that for me when I when I stay this message it's so that people it decreases the perceived fear around taking the action and potentially failing yeah no one's going to care anyways yeah on the other extreme I think that there are many people who want a legacy and I tend to take a universe look at it which is you know if I try to make it real I'll say, okay, do you know who your great, great, great grandfather is?

1:31:28You probably don't know their name. And they're the reason you're here today. And so that's not that long ago. Yeah. And so we have this, and I think it's just, we all have a desire to matter. We all have that. And I, in my life, that obsession handicapped me, which is why I make so much kind of countering that, which is that I was, I've, I think I've had a lot of deep seated fears around judgment of others and things like that. And so I have to constantly remind myself that these people will not even be at my funeral. Yes. And like, if they're not going to talk about me at my funeral, why should I give them the power to speak over me in my life?

1:32:10And so it's, it's, it's, that's, that's the essence of what I'm getting at. And I can understand that when I make these comments about how people at your funeral are going to argue over your belongings and that they're going to talk about the food and the venue. And some people aren't going to make it because something came up because they were busy. Some of the people that you love and care about today aren't even going to be there because they haven't even been there in 20 years in your life. And your friend's family won't even know to have invited them. And does it even matter if they're invited because you're already dead?

1:32:40A lot of people get very triggered by that. And I think it's because humans have a fear of death and that makes sense. But I think that for me, trying to use death as my ultimate motivator, insofar as if I can embrace the idea that I will die, and I will eventually be forgotten, call it 10 ,000 years, 100 ,000 years, eventually I will be forgotten. The sun will have a mega death and who knows, right? Like, whatever. And I mean, are we really paying attention to the people in the 1100s? Are we really? You know what I mean? Like, okay, there's six people who we've had, like, one book. You know what I mean?

1:33:20Like, okay, maybe, right? And that's not that long ago, right? The reason I solve for, like, or try to really look death in the face and become comfortable with it is because if I can accept that as zero, then everything that I get to do in my life is free range. It's carte blanche. I can make my own way. and I think that that has been something that has given me tremendous freedom of action and agency around being able to make up my own damn mind yeah for my own life yeah and I think that that is why I hit on that and I and I and I push on that button because that also because I have so many people who message me being like I was borderline suicidal and when I when I really thought about it the way you broke it down I was like all these people that I that I I cared so much about their opinions, like, they don't even they're not even going to remember me.

1:34:11Yeah, like, they're, they're like, they're gonna have like a couple jokes too soon about my death. Too soon, bro. Yeah, like, they're gonna say it, like, you know, like, it's gonna happen. And I think that that allows me to not take my failures as seriously, or my successes. Yeah. And I think if that idea resonates with people, yeah, take it. And if it doesn't ignore it. Like, it's so simple. I'm good with it. Yeah. If you're like, screw this idea. Then by all means, do you. Yeah. Well, I am grateful for you and your work. I appreciate it. Yeah. And thank you so much for coming on the show. Seriously.

1:34:47This was such a treat. Yeah. Instead of leaving a legacy, try living one.