Why Your Past Doesn't Determine Your Future | Dan Martell

17:25Lewis Howes:Cause I've had those feelings when I was younger of like, what's the point of all this and why am I even here? And I never attempted anything to take my life, but I felt I shouldn't be here, you know, multiple times. And so I want to acknowledge you for being here and for making a difference in the world, because, you know, I think it's easy to, when you feel like you're not enough, when you feel like none of it matters anymore, when you feel like I've messed up so bad, I can't come back from this.

17:52Dan Martell:Yes, I can't come back.

17:53Lewis Howes:I can't, the shame I have for my family, the shame I have with my friends, the shame I have with God, I cannot come back from this. And I think you're a great example that not only can you come back, but you can transform your entire life. You can have a beautiful family. You can have beautiful kids, beautiful wife, and make a big difference in the world. And your story is what's going to help you make that difference as well, not hold you back if you step into it. And so I want to acknowledge you for that because, again, everyone hears about the money and the success and the big personal brand you have now.

18:29Lewis Howes:but I don't think people truly understand the shame you were feeling to want to take your life multiple times You have to be feeling so low self-worth and so such a negative self-identity And i'm saying that because I understand that feeling That you have to feel so bad about yourself to want to end it. And so I acknowledge you for not ending it and for It didn't happen overnight, but you've transformed consistently over time Yeah, 28 years. You said, you know, hundreds of hours of therapy and lots of other transformational work. A lot of work. When was the moment that you actually started to love yourself?

19:14Dan Martell:That's a good question.

19:15Lewis Howes:Do you remember? Because I'm assuming it didn't happen overnight, you know, after you're throwing bullets in the field and taking them out of the rifle. It probably wasn't in your early 20s. and I know you in your late 20s when you're driven to achieve and get exits and make millions and improve because I was in that space as well but when was the moment you actually said I like myself and I love myself it's like I'll be honest with you man I don't think I love myself 100 %

19:51Dan Martell:today sitting here now when i say that a hundred percent of the time because i've i you see what i'm saying like i had i hear you yeah so on a scale of one to ten

20:04Lewis Howes:yeah how much do you love yourself eight strong okay but that's i look at that as loving you no

20:09Dan Martell:no and and i'll tell you so i think we have to define what that means for me it's i love me without anything else that's that's let's talk about that i love life without my job without the resources without the money without the following and the brand dude i love my life without my kids that's a hard one so so like my definition of a 10 is can i be with myself by myself and love myself a hundred percent of the time a hundred percent well i mean no one wants to be alone i know but no but that's actually for me the criteria when you say that is is can i be on the top of a mountain by myself and be in pure bliss and joy i mean love i mean life's not about

21:01Lewis Howes:being isolated it's about being in relationship to others so it's you know sure can i can i have

21:07Dan Martell:a day by myself dude i didn't i didn't know how to do that i mean the guy that wrote buy back your time why because i was optimizing bro like or system structure people want the bomb so it's like I had to write that book to help me get through that part. And once you had all that time, could you be okay with yourself? Dude, that was the craziest process. That's like when I was working with one of my coaches, Stephanie, this is, she challenged me. She goes, I love you, Dan. And you're, but now what? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I dare you to go spend five days by yourself. Oh yeah. Have you done that yet? Yeah.

21:39Dan Martell:She made me do it. And what did you discover? I, what I discover it'd been a while since I'd taken care of myself fully that's an interesting concept because I'm not a backpacker go camping kind of guy so what I did is I went uh I did okay so I rented a van that came loaded okay so intervan loaded you can rent them luxury stuff yeah yeah cramping not ramping puns 10 so I got a van loaded and I remember like I was going to do three days she said no that's not enough five you gotta go five and i'm like well what do i do she goes that's the whole point what's the whole point you figure it out yeah no agenda no process no nothing no work yeah she called it window therapy you need to go drive windshield therapy that's what she called windshield go drive and be with you be with your thoughts be with the presence be in the woods so i when was this this was not long ago bro this is a couple years ago really Yeah.

22:35Dan Martell:Well, like there's been, like everything is, it's phasic. It's like a wave light, right? It's not, again, it's, it's, I'm just an example of every day waking up and trying to not repeat mistakes and be a little bit better. And it got to the point where I was like, okay, what's my next level? And I thought, well, okay, I gotta do meditation. Okay. Meditation's cool. But now I was like, oh, maybe I gotta do a silent retreat. And then she was talking to me and she's like, you gotta go do this. And I was like, and again, I always look at what I resist. Yeah, of course.

23:01Lewis Howes:The thing you don't want to do. Is what I got to do.

23:03Dan Martell:So that one I was like really resisting. I think I said no to her for about a year. And I finally did it. On the backside of that, it took three days. On the third day, I was walking in the ways I remember the moment where I was at. And I just dropped in, man. Just dropped into the beauty of nature, beauty of the moment, beauty of the presence, beauty of the oneness of it all. And I was like, oh. So in that moment, pure love. Really? Oh. the wildest realization that this earth has been around before I showed up and we'll be here after I leave. And it is the coolest, like the sun is the earth breathing every day.

23:46Dan Martell:Right. And just like all these, like just things. So I would challenge anybody listening because it's easy to, to, to, to stay busy. Even when we work is almost like a way to distract ourselves from trying to discover our purpose all that right so i went through all that the achievement you know challenges but there was still a part of me that could not find that in him by himself and i went to that place and and the cool part is on the back side of that i became a better person times i think my wife like she renee was like oh no dan's different so i would just challenge people even if it's for a walk no airpods no phone no podcast or nothing go for a walk by yourself and slow down and don't have a planned route and don't try to i mean do measure everything and try to compete against and how many feet of elevation just go wander but you're the optimization guy i know you're the productivity guy you're there i was i remember talking i was like where do i go she goes you'll figure it out where do i sleep no plan nothing no i was a sat phone no phone She gave me a sat phone.

24:54Dan Martell:I was allowed to bring a satellite phone in case something happened and a couple books.

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27:40Lewis Howes:Square helps you run your business more smoothly, bringing payments, operations, and insights together in one place so you're ready for whatever's next. Right now, listeners can get up to$200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com slash go slash greatness. Again, S-Q-U-A-R-E dot com slash go slash greatness. Start with Square and build a setup that grows with your business. Get started with Square and build a setup that works the way you do. One of the greatest weeks of my life is when I got on a plane without a phone or computer went to hawaii by myself was there for a week with no sorry no phone no phone on the plane i got on a plane with a print off you print off of a ticket and then i

28:23Dan Martell:said oh how do i get to the hotel you're psychotic crazy standing there just staring at the seat

28:27Lewis Howes:i'm just connecting to people just hey how's your day oh it's interesting because you'd have to talk to people. I remember when I got, I go, oh shoot, I got to get my rental car to get to the hotel, but I don't know how, how do I get directions to the hotel? I don't know how to get there. I don't have my phone, my GPS. I had to stop at a gas station, bro, like it was the nineties and be like, hey, where am I going to this place? Can you tell me? And stop. Roll the window down. Hey, where am I going? You know, back in the nineties. And it was the first couple of days, it was like stressful but then there was one day probably halfway through the week i was laying in this cave of water right next to the ocean in kawaii and i was like this is incredible i didn't want to go back you got it i was like this is and i was like oh i could be here for forever you know

29:16Dan Martell:it was just like peace that's what happened to me yeah day three on the fifth day driving i was supposed to be home at noon i didn't get back till five i didn't want to you don't want

29:26Lewis Howes:You don't want to turn the phone on again. You were like. I'm good.

29:29Dan Martell:It was also beautiful because it made me realize how little I needed to be absolutely in bliss. Happy. Nothing. I needed nothing. Happy. And that's why I think what's, okay, on the backside of that, why actually it made me more dangerous in business is that I don't need anything from anybody. Yeah. And I know that even. You don't need to accomplish. No.

29:51Lewis Howes:It's fun. You know, you're going to create to like build something.

29:55Dan Martell:Yeah. It's part of the human experience to create.

29:58Lewis Howes:You don't need it to make you happy. Here's the question then, because you've hit rock bottom. For those that might be feeling like they're in a rock bottom right now, or they're just burnt out or overwhelmed, what is the mindset that someone needs to overcome this feeling of rock bottom and overwhelm to finally step into their abundance?

30:23Dan Martell:You're here to do something. you're here to do something big. I don't even need to know you. I don't need to meet you. I don't need to ever see what you do. But you, by the fact that you are human and you have a soul, you're here to do something. I wish I understood this sooner. And you kind of alluded to it. But the things that happen to us that hurt us the most are the most powerful tools that we have to help other people. Yes. it's true dude it's so that say that one more time the thing that hurt us the most that gave us the most shame that scares us the most that somebody else might find out the thing that was most painful is the most powerful thing you have to help somebody else transform your life period full stop i get it all the time and i discovered i had to go to prue okay actually that time i saw you at Giovanni's event right after that I went to Peru and I'm hiking in the mountains and I asked the question how do I figure out my purpose and the guy that brought me there Philip McKernan okay says to me it sits right next to the worst thing that's ever happened to you

31:44and and I don't know about you man well I know you would resonate with this you know what that is

31:50Dan Martell:and you don't want to talk about it dude you put it in a box you threw it at the bottom of the ocean stuff it oh you you haven't thought but when he says that to me oh man what do you do with it and it was i needed to be in a mountain in peru to process that was good and that's why it's hard in it for somebody listening to this to go i don't even know where that would happen and good news is you don't need to know, but you do have to make a decision. And the decision right now is that tomorrow morning is a blank piece of paper. Tomorrow morning is a new day. And if you wake up and do something positive that is the opposite of whatever you're feeling, that is all you got to do just tomorrow.

32:38Dan Martell:And, and all I would invite you to consider is just make a commitment for tomorrow. That's it. One day at a time. Dude, that's one of the benefits of being, you know, somebody who's done the steps was just like the power of that i'm not making it it's not as happy the rest of your life i'm not making it heavy we're gonna make it simple tomorrow morning that's it yeah let's win the day let's let's just start there and we'll decide if the next day is something we want to continue doing but those are the two opposites it's like do the thing tomorrow morning but also realize that whatever you're going through could be the thing you need this is crazy could be the thing you needed to go through to get you ready yeah for what you've been asking for it's true man oh dude i'm i did all of it you know i think of uh oliver anthony okay so like people forget because he's kind of had a thing and he's kind of moved on but like he was this musician that was drinking and not multiple jobs struggling in life mid-30s but and he says it he just he just made a decision did two things he said this on joe rogan okay alvar anthony wrote the famous song rich man north of richmond he said i gave my life to god and then i made i started making about other people and stopped making about myself and a few months after he made that decision some person pulls out a camera and he's playing at some backyard party yeah and that song he's the first artist to ever go number one billboard as an independent in the history of mankind and music crazy one video one moment and world anybody could have that but it sits you can't pretend like it didn't happen and

34:24Lewis Howes:you have to make a decision you've probably said god five or six times now when did you allow god

34:32Dan Martell:into your life it's just again it's basic i think i thought i knew god and i didn't know god and then i like discover more and more and more and erwin mcmanus big impact i would say erwin had the biggest impact on me a decade ago. He did my wedding. It was beautiful. I didn't know that. Yeah. I'm so happy to hear that.

34:54Lewis Howes:Yeah. Great guy.

34:55Dan Martell:Yeah. And it's just like, I grew up, you know, Catholic, but like what they call it, CNE Christians, uh, New Year's Eve, Christmas, Easter, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Easter. So that was, that was my exposure. Yeah. Um, And then it was just over the years, you know, I went through the phase of like, I believe in energy and I'm spiritual and quantum and all this stuff. And then I listened to Irwin on some guy's podcast and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. You know, it's wild about this and how God works. This is crazy. And not super like today. I'm like, of course. I discover his podcast and then I get a DM on my Instagram from him, his son.

35:42Dan Martell:Oh yeah. Somehow his son was talking to a friend that said, you need to talk to Dan. So he reaches out to me and I'm like, Hey man, is it cool if I FaceTime with your dad? And he's like, yeah, for sure. And I'm sitting in the park. I remember where I was at. a year ago no it was a while ago okay years ago yeah maybe five years ago okay yeah i listened to this pod 10 years ago oh yeah so it was i listened to probably maybe it wasn't 10 maybe it was seven years ago but it wasn't it was maybe a year or two after that pre-covid or during code yeah it was pre-covid okay and and so you facetime him yeah he he agrees to it and i met the gym parking lot and he was like hey Dan and and his my video is not working his is and he's walking around his house and I can't get my freaking camera to work and we talk and I was like hey man I got some big questions for you he's like what's up hit me dude it's got real he laughed he laughed he goes would you be surprised to find out that I get asked that question 17 times a day i go now that you say it i think that was pretty ignorant of me to think that but um and i'll tell you what erwin said to me he said hey man just just read the stories

37:02Lewis Howes:studied man i mean you make your decision and that was that's the difference like you meet people

37:08Dan Martell:like and that's why like i don't even talk about god really but you ask and i i can't not because that's what my heart says because i don't want to scare people away i think that the best way to get people um introduced to faith is just by being somebody of quality that is of faith like that's like people try to make it about that it's like just be a great human people will be like hey man how do you how do you always seem to be in a good mood or how do you how did you overcome that thing tell me about that and then you're like oh now i get a chance to tell you something yeah so that's what he said he said just go study the story go get to know the person and i just i did i just i'm a i'm an avid student i read and i read his book the the genius of jesus a bunch of other stuff and yeah you know i mean like that's the thing it's like so when you say when did you just it's like

37:54Lewis Howes:i feel like i keep discovering magic how has your relationship with god been of great service and support to you personally?

38:08Dan Martell:I have the coolest new best friend. Now, he might be my best friend. I'm not his best friend, but that's cool. He's the coolest. His name is John Maxwell. Leadership goat. Wrote so many incredible books. That guy from Ohio, by the way. Okay. Pay attention, everybody. Yeah. and i share that because people come into your life to show you what's possible i know you do that for everybody that follows that is that is what you're here to do and you do it so well and and and it's always funny people like is lewis the real deal the realest of deals please get into him show up like that's and i get it because people ask me that i'm sure they do yeah get to know lewis and and john's well you know when they say don't meet your heroes yeah unless his name is John Maxwell.

38:54Dan Martell:Oh my gosh, what a great human. So I'm hanging out with him, you know, this is not long ago, maybe four years ago. And we're talking and I'm just blown away at him at his event. He's just such a Christian person. And I asked him, I said, how do you do it? You know, he goes, oh, it's, I didn't, I didn't know I'd do any of this. And then he tells me something that just shifted everything. Cause he talked about the biggest impact. He says, I have goals that are God-sized goals and they're so big they're beyond my ability to know how to do them and they're so big that it's the ceiling of his floor and he inspired me in spirit to dream knowing i don't know how that i need to and he tells me this you got to give it to him all the the stuff that you don't even know the challenges the front like he tells you to like he doesn't i'm hearing this it's not he says it but he's like you got to give it to god and let god figure it out dude let what are we doing he goes oh my god you're gonna get it going because he he kind of gets like animated frustrated it's like people say they have faith but they don't act like it i can tell by the level of worries that they have because he said give me those you go to sleep i'll work on them how did that impact my life oh i was under indexing i was thinking small i was acting scared i wasn't i didn't have god-sized goals all of it whatever faithful servant use me i i'm down down for the ride let's go wow so it's was that a was that like a turning point for you yeah conversation yes it was it was it was a core moment that i realized

41:07Dan Martell:that happened to get me to the point where I can have this conversation to then take the breaks off that if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have the appreciation of what he was saying. Really? No, no.

41:23Lewis Howes:You had the breaks on in life. What do you mean? Yeah, man, I was, I wasn't. But you were successful. You were making millions. You're impacting lives. You're selling companies. You're investing in companies. You have coaching programs. All of it. But you have breaks on.

41:35Dan Martell:I didn't have God-sized goals.

41:37Lewis Howes:So what did that feel like when you have breaks on your life, but you're also extremely successful in the eyes of so many people?

41:44Dan Martell:It's exciting and then scary. But then as soon as the scare comes in, I go, God, hey, remember that thing you told me I could do? I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you.

41:53Lewis Howes:What does that feel like? When you, okay, now I'm going to have God-sized goals. I've been playing at this level, which has been big in my mind and big to everyone else around me. And I've created a life of abundance, financial wealth, success. I've bought my time back, good people around me. But I've realized there's a massive gap of God-sized goals. How do you let go of the stress or the worry? And how does that feel to say, I give it all to you? Oh my gosh.

42:28Dan Martell:I think we, as humans, we use emotions to make us decide. You know, it's without emotion, there's no motion. So a lot of people create stress back against the wall, burn the boats. Chip on the shoulder. Chip on the shoulder. It's his dark energy to create, motivate them to do the thing. And guess what? It works. It does work. The same Dan that was like, Louise, you don't want me to let me play with Mike? I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you. You're going to beg to hang out with me. Dude, I would fantasize getting rich enough to buy the company she worked at to fire her. I'm horrible. I'm horrible.

43:11Dan Martell:But that was old Dan. But that drive works. Yes.

43:15Lewis Howes:It doesn't bring you peace.

43:16Dan Martell:No. And that's the thing is you use it to create that. And what happened was, is I was successful, but it was through this dark energy. And then when all of a sudden you realize that you're allowed to dream bigger without the emotion, without the stress, without the pressure and the noise.

43:35Lewis Howes:The dark emotion. Maybe it's more of a.

43:37Dan Martell:Yes. Because it comes from, you asked earlier, like, when did you learn to love yourself? Because that's what it is. It's the not enoughness. It's I've got a hole inside. Prove. Yeah. And I think that that next thing of achievement is going to prove it. But it was like, even processing that, I realized here's a crazy idea. you're allowed to have it all without doing anything.

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45:34Dan Martell:You have to do the thing, but you're allowed to receive. And I think people actually more, they're closer to the opportunity than they realize, but they don't allow to receive. They're blocking it. They're making out the rules where it needs to be true. You know, we all do it. When I do this, this, and this, then I'll be, I'll do this. It's like, or you could just ask for it now and see what happens. And that was like, that was the big idea is, I think I was making up rules. I would just ask everybody listening, if they could just ask themselves, what rules did I make up that has to be a certain way?

46:17Dan Martell:Have you been to Date With Destiny?

46:19Lewis Howes:Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. UPW. Okay.

46:21Dan Martell:So Tony Robbins does this exercise at Date With Destiny around values, away values and toward values. And it's to this concept where he says, we make these rules of what needs to be true for us to allow ourself to feel good. and we make these rules that are easy for them to happen to feel bad. Hard to feel good, easy to feel bad. How about we flip it? How about we make the rules to feel good simple? So I'm allowed to feel healthy because I drank some water today. Not went to the gym, dialed my macros, blah, blah, blah. I can feel healthy and I'm taking care of my body if I just had some water today.

47:05Dan Martell:Make it easy. And then rejection, not they didn't reply to my email right away it's they said no called me up screaming no make it hard to feel the rejection and i just i think of it like when you asked me how did that feel once i brought the god-sized goals into my life it just i felt like i found this superpower of opportunity that didn't need to be hard anymore why aren't you talking about this stuff more nobody asked me about it i appreciate it man Nobody asking about it.

47:36Lewis Howes:But you and I both know this is more valuable than which apps to use on AI. Not to say that you shouldn't be doing this, but I'm empowering you and giving you permission to start talking about this more on all your content. Thank you. You know, kind of like how I've seen Gary go from talking about social media to gratitude, appreciation, all these other life skills. you have so much wisdom and this is not to shame you by not doing this i'm just giving you the permission uh to to continue to do more of this in your content you know the story i was telling myself as you say this tell me that's what lewis does and yeah but you know i know i know because

48:23Dan Martell:we've been doing this for a while i know that in that comment is but that's we all have our own version of it that people are going to resonate with.

48:31Lewis Howes:You don't have to do it the way I do it, but you can do it in your way. Yeah. I just, yeah. It's like, I just need to just add it. Yeah. What is your conversation with God like on a daily basis?

48:46Dan Martell:It's an interesting one. Again, I'm, I can only speak, it's, I'm still learning. Like, I mean, that was my favorite thing that Erwin said to me. He says, the more questions you ask the more questions you'll have or the more answers you get the more questions you'll have yeah and recently is just the the reminder of appreciation to listen when this like we even said before we started you're like i i want to spend more time so it's like that that that intuition that that guidance i'm just those are the conversations like like talk to me more i'm listening i'll you know where where where do i need to consider who do i need to pour into where can i slow down where can where can i speed up i don't know just those you know i'm i'm um when you doubt yourself how do you overcome that doubt i just i do this i just you literally do that i have to dude i'm i'm i'm so human i wish people could literally spend some time in my mind so they can see it because it's easy for people to see guys like us and we know what we look like and think oh yeah but you don't struggle with this you don't struggle with that you don't get you don't understand no i do the difference is is where i think a lot of people suffer they suffer for days yeah i don't suffer for days i used to weeks months oh my gosh you know renee they will tell you 15 years ago, my first day that she would come home and for three, four days in a row, she'd find me in bed, just binging some dumb show on the ice cream.

50:25Lewis Howes:Yeah.

50:26Dan Martell:I just, I was not, I just, and it was these, these almost like these moments where I would just allow myself to get into it. And I just couldn't be good for anybody else. I would just like pretend I was, I was sick and I wasn't sick. And, and what happened over the years is I realized like, oh, what, what am I going to do and this is what changed is i just made that commitment kind of like the 12 steps i said okay well and i give her credit because she would say this to me when's the day if you need this i'll give you the time i want the day and i want the time you're gonna switch around to change the mood yeah have it tell me and what would you say depend on how long i was in it i could have been give me two more days give me till five o 'clock give me whatever man yeah this is not

51:12Lewis Howes:back in san francisco back in the day yeah i remember when you guys met you came to my place i know i remember when you guys did you guys meet at south by no you guys met in san francisco toronto and then she came down yeah yeah then she moved down huh yeah but i think i came up to the office like float was a flow town yeah yeah i think in yeah yeah that was crazy 2009 2009 yeah

51:32Dan Martell:yeah i was like 16 years ago 16 man so i was doing it then for sure yeah because i was well i remember I was binge watching house and she's like how long I was like okay tomorrow five o 'clock she's like cool mine was weeds that's what I remember her I went through like same five seasons of through depression for like two weeks just watching it the insanity of her life well this is the thing it's like we just need to not feel yeah so it was just like my my new way of not feeling and what happened and this is where I hope everybody could learn from that because this what I had to learn is that I had a choice to make those not weeks or days, but moments.

52:12Dan Martell:And today when you ask that, that's it. Do you literally make that move in my head and maybe in like, sometimes just like, yeah, just like you might need that as a trigger to be like, I see it come in. I know it's not, it's not him.

52:33Dan Martell:not it's thank you not need like give it to me he said give it to i that's what i heard i hope that's what it says in the scripture yeah i'm pretty sure that's what it does yeah if not that's what i think erwin told me wow or at least john maxwell told me god-sized goals and when when the doubt comes in he says give them to me i'm curious about this for those that are looking

52:53Lewis Howes:to create wealth and generate more money when was the time you had the most money but were the least fulfilled do you remember i know you know this but you're really good because like i

53:07Dan Martell:the way you asked that got me to a place that i've never shared before um i was 28 years old and what happened was this was when i was i didn't know like i didn't know how to win so when i started to win i didn't know why i was winning so i just kept doing everything because i didn't know what it is keep doing everything i'm doing what if it stops what it stops so i'm this is from 26 to 28 and this is when i finally found some stride in my company the third company the first two completely failed my dad's like you should just get a job i'm I can't do it. And I just had this gear. And I'm working Sunday, 6 o 'clock.

54:00Dan Martell:I'm supposed to be at my girlfriend's parents' house for dinner. And I leave the office. And I run back because we were supposed to be there at 5.30. It's 6 o 'clock. I get back. I walk in. And she was just done. Done. Done with you. Done. Done. Just done. Walks past me, goes to her parents, done. But what most people don't like is two and a half months later, I sell the company. Multimillionaire, cash in the bank, zero day earn out. Zero day. Zero day. That's the next day. I know. It's nice and it also made me realize how much I allowed my work to keep me distracted. and then the morning I woke up and I didn't have to go to work and I had a bank account that was full of money and I was depressed and nobody cared if I get out of bed dude I think two days after that moment I had a massive panic attack where it felt like an elephant was standing like you know what I mean yeah I had to go to the hospital they introduced like you know I ended up getting a psychiatrist this guy named manuel and you had millions of dollars oh dude it was you made it made it and and this is the part i did it all for her for the girl and guess what she never asked me for it she didn't want that people listening need to hear what i just said yeah because we all get up to do the thing for the person and sacrifice for the kids for your wife or your it doesn't matter they don't want that they never asked you for it so why do we think that we're doing it for it's just our bull crap to give us permission to do it to be distracted from connection from intimacy from so when you say when's the moment you made the most money and was the loneliest saddest depressed it was that i remember where the i it's like and it was a blue sky sun's coming through my thing and i'm laying there and i just was like you should be happy yeah what happened what where did i miss the calculation there was a error on the software guy so the error in the formula how did i not catch the mug what was the formula you had before then

56:31Lewis Howes:that

56:35Dan Martell:that sacrifice was required to it to create a life that i could have lived without the sacrifice And like, if I want to be like right now, you know, when I talk to Renee, okay, because I'm God-sized goals, I'm all in, okay? Like, yeah, I have a great family office team and they protect me from myself. But I also like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, okay, you can't put all that into this, okay? You got to diversify a portfolio. But I also let them know like, hey, I don't want you, I want you to challenge me, but I'm making my calls, okay? Yes. and only thing i now that i've gone through that the blessing the gift is that i know because i've asked her if i make a decision and i lose it all everything is that okay and you know the only thing she says to me don't be mean to me and as long as you didn't take advantage of anybody that's it bro bro i could lose it all tomorrow she'll still be with you i don't care

57:44Lewis Howes:martha says the same thing to me i was kind of telling you beforehand when we started really getting serious in kind of dating and commitment and engagement she was like i'll follow you anywhere and it's like the most powerful thing to hear is a woman say to you i will follow you anywhere and it's also the biggest responsibility to not want to blow it all up so that she She has to follow you down some dark path or some path of like, oh, now we're struggling. But it's such a gift for a woman to say that.

58:15Dan Martell:She took the pressure off of me to have to be. That's what, when you said, what was the difference? Before I thought I had to be and do something for her to love me. And now I've got a person that says, as long as you're loving and you didn't do something to take advantage of, I'm good. well then I can push and I can create because it's a I'm playing to win not playing not to lose yeah that's a different energy yeah at the end of the day you'll probably keep a few million safe in case it all blows up the insurance said like dude it would be really hard for me to mess it up yeah but at the same time I know that you know if I ever wanted to hit the injection button and shut down my social medias and reset my life and move to another country she's good yeah you could do it with me yeah like and i think that's the beauty of it and and also i think what we essentially want in asking that question is are you with me for me yes are you with me because i can create this yeah that's probably a little this is nice yeah i mean like look i want this too but you know can we be good without it because then I'm able to create from a place of contribution and not fear you know a lot of wealthy people

59:39Lewis Howes:what happens to someone if they chase money but they don't have a spiritual foundation to hold it up

59:46Dan Martell:hmm

59:51Dan Martell:It's kind of like addicts. In addiction, they say the addiction is patient. It can wait.

1:00:00Lewis Howes:What does that mean?

1:00:01Dan Martell:It can wait seven months, 17 years. Like addiction, it's waiting for you to mess up. To come back. Oh, yeah.

1:00:11Lewis Howes:Oh, man. It can wait. Any moment, you could go back. Dude, I had a counselor at the rehab center that saved my life.

1:00:19Dan Martell:it's called portage he was sober for 30 28 years and relapsed on heroin 28 years 28 years man he was the one he was 10 when i was there and this was not too long bro and um

1:00:38Dan Martell:it's patient yeah so when you say success without faith here's what i know you can get the money but it's you you will do something to self-sabotage it because it's empty it's not and it doesn't matter who you are it's it there's no amount of money that that can that hole is this this this endless place that you could pour everything it's kind of like this bottomless you just the billions and the homes and the jets and the stuff and you're right i these are people that i run into and ask me for advice and i sit there and i feel i feel it it's a for me at this level it's it's an energetic my team actually feels it because sometimes we like you know they're around and they're like oh and i'm like yeah um and i really you know but i also hold faith or bet that god's gonna show up have that conversation and then and then that person with those resources are gonna do beautiful things but that's that's what happens is you You can have all the money in the world and you're giving that long enough time.

1:01:44Dan Martell:Patient is patient. It's that, that not enoughness never goes away. You can mask it. You can protect yourself from it. You can pretend like you're not self-sabotaging, but it will show up and it will get you. And we can, we, the history is littered with people that had it all and self imploded on themselves. Dude, I, I love MGK. Have you ever met MGK? I've never met him, but I've never met him either. Another Ohio guy, by the way. I know. That I do know. But here's a great example of an artist. Tell me. That is so talented that deserves the accolades. And it just seems like he continues to go through this pattern.

1:02:27Dan Martell:Almost like he feels like that has to be true for him to do his art. When I suffer, you may not go through a discussion. Yeah. Yeah. No amount of this. And I'm assuming because he's been doing it for so long that he's seen his peers. take off and i just don't know what it is but that i just i think of it because i'm like a big fan and um yeah and i've just i've seen those that pattern just show up and when you said without faith that's what it is because

1:03:00Dan Martell:faith is the it's you know you could have all the pieces but then it fills it in to hold it in place you know what i mean it's kind of like like i see this board with these like you know core pieces of life and then you need to you need the water around to like stabilize the glue to glue yeah fill it in when you say god-sized goals what does that mean for you how do you measure these

1:03:24Lewis Howes:like do you have clear goals in mind and do these goals have monetary results tied to them because you invest in businesses and you want them to grow and do well. So how do you track and focus on making money because you run businesses and you invest in companies that need to do well, while also focus on the impact these companies and the money will do on people's lives as well?

1:03:51Dan Martell:So our mutual friend, Rob Dyrdek, having dinner with him last night, he asked me that question because he's made a lot of money a lot of money beaucoup beaucoup he's very rich and he has a lot of fun and he's the he literally lives life to the max he lives it yes and he asked me that because i don't even though people know i have my own talk about money and i think he was curious in my philosophy on this here's how i know i have a god-sized goal it scares me and i have no idea how I'm going to pull it off. Yeah. Those are like the two things. It's, if you know the how, it's not big enough. Okay.

1:04:31Dan Martell:And if it doesn't scare you, it's not the right one. I literally go, oh shoot, I got to do that. You know, I don't want to write a book. Oh God, I got to write a book. I don't want to be a guy on YouTube. I got to be a guy. Oh geez. You know, you've been such an inspiration. I told you this earlier, like watching you and I'm like, I don't, I should, but I'm not going to. It's like a lot, man. You put yourself out there all the time.

1:04:55Lewis Howes:Yeah.

1:04:56Dan Martell:But that's how I know it's a God-sized goal because I, I know that I need him to help me push through. When you asked the question, you, you said, you know, and then you have these businesses that need to make money or be, I know you know that we know that, but that was interesting because I, it kind of got me because that's the part that I'm also incredibly okay with is that if it doesn't, it's good.

1:05:23Lewis Howes:I hear that because you have money and you've got investments and you're going to be fine. You don't need that investment to make you money. But in order for that to succeed, it's got to thrive.

1:05:34Dan Martell:Yeah, so this is where that's the question I gave to Rob was, or my answer to Rob was, the infrastructure that I have for businesses making money and dude nobody operates like i do you know this you've met my team i've literally put them with your team because we my background in software and and systems thinking all that stuff i do that for the people i do it for the the world we live in we live in this world where people need money they need money they need targets they need a ladder to climb they need a north star principle they need culture they need vision they they need that i get that i can provide that but the way you create it starts with it's got to be scares me and i don't know how then the way you you make that happen is you have to like like do the basics which i think if you don't measure it won't happen like it's the measurement side and and then then it goes to the habits which you write about so awesomely in your books.

1:06:43Dan Martell:It's can you design the habits, the daily rhythms, where it makes the goal inevitable? That's always my question, Lewis. When I'm building a company, we have a big goal. If we want to take it public or make a billion dollars, but regardless, I always have to break it down for my team to make it, if we do this at this level of volume, then it wouldn't be inevitable. It would be, it'd be ridiculous not to assume that this would happen, which would unlock the outcome. And that's when you ask like, how do I create, like, what is it? How do I define it? How do I create it? And then how do we do it?

1:07:22Dan Martell:That's the process. So measure then the daily habits, the daily rhythm. It always goes, it always starts with, it has to be scary because that's how you know it's the right one. You can't know how to do it. So that's counterintuitive because people are like, well, how do you build a rhythm to achieve it? You break it down and you say, what's the most logical next step? So it's like big goal goals for me. Goals have to be something, you know, like going to the Olympic.

1:07:48Lewis Howes:I'm chasing the Olympic dream. I know. And I don't know how to do it. I mean, I have an idea, but I don't know how it's, if it's going to happen or not. No, there's no guarantees. No, I have to show up every single day, giving my best, improving every single day. And I've got two and a half more years to see if this will happen or not.

1:08:05Dan Martell:If that's called faith.

1:08:07Lewis Howes:And you don't know.

1:08:08Dan Martell:Yeah. It's the step when you can't see the step, trusting that it'll be there. Yeah. That is probably the biggest opportunity for people is that's why you have to start small is people don't trust themselves enough. So it makes it feel like it's too big. Just start small.

1:08:28Lewis Howes:Yeah. Even if the dream is five, 10 years away, start with what's... Go to the gym tomorrow morning. Yeah, that's it.

1:08:34Dan Martell:Drink a glass of water. Let's get a glass of water. Let's call ourselves healthy.

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1:09:59Lewis Howes:And I know how easy it is to get pulled away from the work that actually moves the mission forward. That is where JustWorks comes in. It's an HR platform built for small businesses that care about growth and their people. Payroll, benefits, compliance, hiring, all handled in one place so you can stay focused on what matters most. Go to JustWorks.com to learn more. They do your human resources right, so you can do right by your people. JustWorks for your people. What do you think are the beliefs and behaviors that keep people stuck in a scarcity or limiting mindset then?

1:10:34Dan Martell:There's only two things that hold people back, my opinion. One, believing like they don't deserve it. And the not deserving it comes from some kind of unhealed thing they they experience or happen to them or they made a decision around that they have shame around that makes them feel not worthy simple example for years i was speaking traveling i don't know if you ever did this but somebody asked you to speak you always say yes you want to show up you want to help out i never asked for money never and then i remember i was at an event and a guy who was just like me speaking doing his thing tells me the event organizer paid him 25 000 to speak and you were like well what was the difference yeah he asked i didn't and i think that's sounds like a lot like i would love to get paid i'm talking little things like asking for travel expenses i'm talking i'm just ask, right?

1:11:42Dan Martell:I have another friend that is the most value added person in my life. And I get that we have to be a value giver. Never in 15 years has he ever asked me for anything to a fault. And I know where that comes from. So I think that's the one thing is people don't feel worthy. They don't deserve it. They don't deserve it. The second thing is that they think it's bigger than they're capable to do. It's too big of a step. And I'll tell you why they do this. It's because they compare their chapter two to somebody else's chapter 17. I've been building companies for 28, almost 29 years. If you just started and you're mad because you don't get a lot of views on your YouTube or whatever it is, like it's such a fascinating, because what I see with young people today, they literally think they should be a millionaire at 20 crazy you don't understand that the guy that you know that's 18 that's a millionaire started when he was eight i'm not even joking they started when they he's got 10 years you just didn't see those 10 you might have just started last year and because the gap's so big they just give up and that's to me the best thing that we could ever do for ourselves is just ask ourselves am i getting better like we know this because we hear it all the time but i'm only competing against me from yesterday i got one dude i don't that's why i don't compare and when people try to compare me i go i appreciate you saying that oh you're you're going to be the next this i'm going to be the first dan because that's the only thing i actually can do so if somebody's listening to this this is the most powerful thing they could probably hear be the best insert your name be the first insert your name be the most expressive be the the most the the just the most authentic version of you and if you do this is what happens because that's what we admire you've met some of the I haven't had the privilege I know what made them great yeah they were who they were they weren't trying to be somebody else yep the best musicians they just were like this is who I am I really hope people like it because I don't know how to do anything else yeah and that is what

1:13:55Lewis Howes:makes us attracted to them so i think those are the two things i think a lot of people hear that and they think of this idea of like that sounds great to step into my most authentic self but with so much uncertainty coming in the future how do i actually do that when i'm so uncertain about about AI, financial crisis, wars, political uncertainty? Can I afford rent in a few years, let alone buy a property? When there's so much uncertainty financially of the future, how can someone step into their most authentic selves knowing it might all fail for them?

1:14:36Dan Martell:Hmm. When you ask me that question, this is where I go. Certainty is currency. What does that mean? It means when people come into commerce or into moments or decisions or anything, the person who is most certain about the future usually creates the future. So all the people that people are watching online, that's all that those people have. They had the most certainty in the moment, whatever moment that was. It could have been the certainty I'm getting up and going to the gym tomorrow. And my husband or wife says, I don't think you will. Well, I am certain I will watch me. or a sales conversation or whatever.

1:15:17Dan Martell:And even in this world with things like AI that is creating so much change and turmoil and uncertainty, I choose to be certain about the optimism. You know, even Elon Musk recently, he's on stage and somebody's asking about something and he goes, here's where I've gotten to. I could be pessimistic and right, or I can be optimistic and wrong. And it's better for me to be optimistic and wrong for my mental health. So he just chose. Right. Certainty about the future. Certainty about hope. Certainty about abundance. Certainty about, you know, nobody's going to have to work and everybody's going to have better healthcare than the president.

1:16:01Dan Martell:Whatever it is. He just, and he's creating that. And that's kind of where I've gotten to. It's like every moment, that we delay the decision is just, you just live in this, you live in this like, yeah, these, this, these questioning everything.

1:16:27Lewis Howes:So many people wait to launch their book or to create the project or chase the dream or get into the relationship, whatever it is there. They live in fear of it needing to be the right time or needing to have the right skill sets and whatever it might be, whatever it might be. They wait so long. And they keep thinking about wanting to do this thing. And then they live with like more resentment towards themselves, regret, shame that they're not taking action. And they're just living in that fear. And it's really, yeah, for me, it's sad to see because I want everyone to thrive. But a lot of people sabotage themselves from what they really want or at least giving it a shot.

1:17:07Lewis Howes:It doesn't mean it's going to work out, but like at least do it. If it fails, at least you can move on. to the next thing. And you learn. And you learn, right? I feel like everyone is failing at AI right now. That's the feeling you get because a lot of people, unless you're an AI expert and you're building AI tech, you're in the AI world, you're a programmer, it feels like everyone else is still in the dark of how to actually use AI to benefit their life, to help their career, to make money. for someone watching or listening who is not an AI wizard, what is the one thing that they could create certainty around and how could they use AI today that will make sure that they have a more certain future tomorrow?

1:17:55Lewis Howes:100%.

1:17:56Dan Martell:Number one thing people get wrong about AI. It's the only technology that's completely different from previous technologies. The press came out and we had scribes and scribes had to retool and had to learn what is that going to mean and the ones that did ended up owning the publishing companies the internet comes out if you were writing for a newspaper if you're willing to learn you did all the work and you showed up you became a web developer right if you you saw this thing called mobile and you decided to like take a boot camp When you learn to code, you can become an app developer. AI is the only technology in the history of mankind that's ever come out that will teach you how to use it.

1:18:41Lewis Howes:If you ask yourself a question. Let's make this simple because I understand.

1:18:47Dan Martell:So here's what we're going to do. What type of person do you think might be struggling with this right now?

1:18:52Lewis Howes:Someone who's got self-doubt, someone who's insecure, someone who's not physically or emotionally healthy, somebody someone who's uh living with debt yeah living month to month who's got two or three jobs they don't have time to breathe yeah they feel i don't have time to think and i have all these responsibilities weighing on me i've got kids i don't have time to be there for my kids got it

1:19:15Dan Martell:so all i'm doing is i've got an app called clawed open you choose your ai the cool part is it works with all of them i'm not even going to type because i don't i don't type i'm going to teach everybody a pro move right now you hit that little icon it's going to dictate what i say okay so i'm going to stop and start it over and i'm going to say i feel absolutely overwhelmed with ai i have no time i'm stressed out i see the changes in the world but i need to figure out how do i create certainty in my future and i know that ai has the opportunity to support me in that build me a plan that I can do with a busy schedule with 15 minutes once a day that's all I got but I can commit to you for 15 minutes once a day I'm going to show up I'm going to sit down and I'm going to learn whatever you tell me how to do build me a plan for the next 90 days and and make it simple because I'm not a tech person send and you will watch again it's the only technology in the history of mankind that can teach you how to use itself and the number one question if you look under all my ai videos as simple as i make it as clear as i make it as black and white as i make it the number one question list you know what it is how do i use it how do i learn it how do i learn it how do i learn it how do i learn it ask it to teach you how to learn it is building let me read you what it's saying creating a polished apple style 90 day ai year it's building a full 50 minutes a day 90 days researching it's saying you have no time we're doing this don't worry about it it's doing its thing dan is that free this is free it doesn't cost anything you can do it in any ai don't there's all these like the the negative voices show up they see but he's a tech guy he's a software guy no i just i don't know i don't have a phone use go to the library and get on a computer i don't know what to say but it's this is how powerful it is it's still thinking because i gave it some constraints lewis i told it i'm stressed i'm sad i don't right so it's like oh this isn't an easy one i gotta do some like deep what are we doing here and um i should have probably used the different uh ai yeah well just i use faster one yeah opus 4-6 is the most powerful And that's with Claude.

1:21:44Dan Martell:Yeah, Claude. Open 4.6 or Opus 4.6, but Sonic.

1:21:47Lewis Howes:So this is, I could already see someone saying, oh, well, I'm using ChatGPT. So now I need to learn a new one because it's more powerful. Gemini and blah, blah, blah. Now I don't know what to do. No. Because there's too many to use and you're telling me this one's the best one. No. This one's going to give me a wrong answer.

1:22:01Dan Martell:No, they'll all do the same. There is no wrong answer. Okay. The answer is, this is how you learn AI. Okay. Every day, come back to it and say, here's what I've learned so far. I'm still confused. Make it simpler. I was trying to teach my kids basic math. They're 10 and 11. We were traveling the world. Oh, I couldn't teach that. It's not the math I like. I couldn't teach that. And I was asking AI, teach me the math. And I was explaining the work. And then it was explaining it. I go, simpler, simpler. Easier. Please use a diagram.

1:22:32Lewis Howes:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:22:33Dan Martell:You know, tell me a story to illustrate it. And guess what? It just did. Wow. It's still going. That's how. It's still thinking. Yeah. It's going to build the most beautiful visual plan. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'll show it to you. You can put it up on the screen.

1:22:47Lewis Howes:Yeah, we'll show it up on the screen. If someone's thinking, okay, everyone's talking about AI for making money. We're hearing experts say there's going to be ways you can build and scale your business. And you can have zero employees. And it'll be every employee for you. What is the real way that someone can use AI to actually make money in the future?

1:23:08Dan Martell:You're going to love this. It doesn't even make sense. It doesn't make sense, Lewis.

1:23:14Lewis Howes:Oh, it gives you day by day. It doesn't make sense. It's got a whole. They built an app. Tip, just read this. Here's a screenshot. Yeah.

1:23:20Dan Martell:They built a whole app.

1:23:22Lewis Howes:Wow. 90 day AI plan. It's like a course. It's given you the whole course.

1:23:29Dan Martell:That's what I asked.

1:23:30Lewis Howes:From overwhelmed to operational. No tech skills required. Let's do this. Progress. Zero to 90 days. So it asked you to build a course, essentially. I just gave it what I gave it.

1:23:38Dan Martell:It's going to give you 90 days. It goes, you know what? If I'm hearing what you're saying, this is what I'm going to do. It's the only technology in history of mankind that will do that. Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

1:23:47Lewis Howes:Is there a way you can actually use AI to make money right now? 100%. How? Do you have to have a certain business already? Do you have to have a brand already? Do you have to have a following already? No. Can you teach someone how to make money with AI in 24 hours where they could actually earn money in 24 hours?

1:24:07Dan Martell:Yep. Come on. I would do it right now with you in 12 minutes. I'll tell everybody how to do it. What happens in the world right now is we have some people that are like me that are in it. Then there's a bunch of people that are not in it. Let's call it the 60 % that are just dabbling a little bit or not even in it at all. There's only 5 % of the world that use AI. So they're of the world, 8 billion people. There's only a couple hundred million that use AI. And of that couple hundred million, there's only 5 % that pay for AI. Wow. Who are actually, and then. to pay for a pro account. I'm just talking about a pro account.

1:24:44Dan Martell:Just because you're paying doesn't mean you're using it. No, and I'm just saying 20 bucks a month. So we all think everybody's doing it. They're not. So there's a 60 % audience of people that if all you did was show up and said, hey, what part of your business or your life are you frustrated with that if you could automate, you would be really excited about it? And they'd say, well, I don't know. I don't have time to answer my phone calls lately. If I could automate that for you, how would that look? How would you want it to work? I could do that for$1 ,000 a month. would you like me to set that up now again people hear this and they go yeah but how do i don't even know how to do that we just did the demo use the ai to say create this for me yeah oh i've done this with 12 year old kids my son noah did this to he literally asked me the same question i walked him through the same answer where we created the offer he decided to help people with their content marketing he went do you want to create do you want somebody else to take care of your twitter your podcast, your Facebook posts, your LinkedIn posts, all that.

1:25:42Dan Martell:I would love to. Cool. What would that, what would you, what would that mean to your business? And I, and guess where he learned the sales script? From AI. Wow. I know, but it sounds like, no, Dan is your son. You taught him. No, I didn't. You taught him how to use it. How do you ask him how to use it? I said, ask the AI to write you a script, to call my friend, to ask the questions. And he did. And then he grabbed my phone. He started calling my friends.

1:26:05Lewis Howes:Let me ask you another question. This is going to scare people. I'm in LA, Hollywood's the main, you know, kind of industry people hear about here. A lot of people are getting laid off because of AI. A lot of producers and writers and all these companies are laying off tons of employees because AI has got to automate it or optimize it or save time, whatever it might be. If you had to, I know your team and you would never do this, but how many employees do you have? Or how many people working with you? Part-time, full-time?

1:26:36Dan Martell:I've got a hundred and then a ton of people outside.

1:26:38Lewis Howes:So you got 100, 200 people you're paying every month that rely on you. Hypothetically, if you had to let them all go, you had zero employees. How would you use AI to be even more efficient and make more money and have a greater impact in the world with zero employees?

1:26:59Dan Martell:That's a fun question.

1:27:00Lewis Howes:Well, I guess you'd have to ask the AI.

1:27:02Dan Martell:I would ask the AI.

1:27:04Lewis Howes:But if you had zero employees. Yeah. And you had to let go of your whole team. But you said impact the world, which is cool. And make money. Okay. Make more money, be more efficient, and impact more people. What's interesting is I actually think leaders have an opportunity right now

1:27:25Dan Martell:to not have to replace their team. So we've seen it. Meta just announced there's a rumor 20 % of their staff on Facebook. Gone. Gone. Really? Jack Dorsey, founder of Square and Twitter, he has a company called Block, just laid off 40 % of their whole company. 4 ,000 people out of 10 ,000 and his stock went up 25%. Not fair. And he says because of AI. So it's happening. i actually think that as a leader if i had to do that it's because i didn't see and upskill everybody so i could and all i would do this is what i would do is i'd use my platform so i have a product called apex which is an agent platform for execution i don't want to scare people but AI is way more than just chat.

1:28:13Dan Martell:We've now gone to autonomous AI agents that can do functions. I would use that to do all the functions my team, those hundred people do. Because I consider myself a fairly decent leader, what I decided to do a while ago was shut down my company for two whole days and retrain my whole team. No meetings, no structure, no nothing. and we did an old-fashioned AI hackathon. And I taught every one of them how to code. Claude code is what I taught them. Finance, HR, marketing, didn't matter what level, interns to the CEOs of my companies, everybody's going to learn to code. Now, Louis, I know you hear this and you go, but I don't know anything about code.

1:29:02Dan Martell:You don't need to. It's not the same thing anymore. Do you know how to speak English? Yes. it's literally that simple you're not gonna give instructions that's how we code today i wrote

1:29:13Lewis Howes:i actually now these apps actually work if you're saying build me this app you know if you say a 60 second voice note say build me a full app that can be up on the apple store that can start making money and processing and yes and you can do that through ai right now claude can do this for you and i'll tell you but is it effect is it look nice is it quality is there bugs that you need a whole team to enhance it really lewis this is what i wanted to make an app right now how long would it take to use claude i could put it up on the app store to start making money how many days

1:29:47Dan Martell:hours no no it's not days it would it would be the only thing that would slow us down i could we could do it together in three minutes by prompting like we just did to build an app the only thing that would slow us down is creating the Apple developer account and waiting for our app to be approved. How long does that take? Depends on Apple. Might take a day. Might take 12 hours. Oh, but it could be in a few days. Oh yeah, for sure. Really? The first thing, there's two things that AI did when it got good. Okay. It's called GPT. That's why it's called chat GPT. Okay. The GPT started writing copy and it started writing code.

1:30:27Dan Martell:Those Those are the two - Game changer. Yes. So here's how I know it can do that is, for example, Cloud Code, Anthropic's the company, Cloud's the product. The team at Anthropic hasn't written a line of code in six months. That's better than the programmers. Because they use Cloud Code to create the code. Nobody's writing code and everybody's using Cloud Code to create the code at the other AI companies. this is this is not dan's wild uh guess this is so are people still hiring programmers to build

1:31:01Lewis Howes:out apps yes why because if you don't need them anymore what you need is somebody that can direct

1:31:07Dan Martell:yeah but you don't need a full team of developers no the productivity that's why i'm assuming jack dorsey at block laid off 40 of his team he's like we don't need people manually writing code when

1:31:19Lewis Howes:they can do this a thousand times faster and better.

1:31:22Dan Martell:Yeah. And his philosophy, and he wrote it in his post, he said, look, I'd rather just do 40 % now, not 15 % now, 20 % next year. From a cultural point of view, we're going to be able to create 10X more efficiency. So let me let people move on with their lives, retrain everybody and move on to that 10X productivity. The good news is if you're listening to this, you could be that person for yourself in your business. You could be that person on your team before your boss asks you to do it because maybe you don't have somebody like me that's willing to shut down their company for two days bring in external programmers to be available for us to do a hackathon and teach everybody how to do cloud code but everybody walked away from that two-day experience being minimum five times more productive i don't have five times less stuff i want to do i have a capacity problem now i've got unlocked wow so when you say hey we're going to fire everybody and then what are you going to do i go i could and I would get my AI agents to do it.

1:32:20Dan Martell:But personally, I'd rather empower my team to use the AI agents to write the code. And that's what I did.

1:32:26Lewis Howes:Of the two-day hackathon you did in your company, what was the greatest idea that came out of that from someone that wasn't you?

1:32:35Dan Martell:None of the ideas were mine, just that's the way the hackathon works. Everybody built their own teams, looked at problems, just told them what they were going to work on. And the way we did it is after the two days, everybody had to shoot a three-minute video explaining what they built, real code real working and that everybody voted and i put three thousand dollars up for the prize yep so what won it's not what i would have picked but again the the meritocracy yeah i'll tell you two things one the thing that surprised me lewis that in hindsight it shouldn't have but it did is everybody worked on a solution that made their job obsolete that surprised me that's leadership though i guess but i didn't tell them what to build yeah yeah they just chose to they they built the tool to not have to do the work they were doing of course because they want to do different stuff what a crazy concept and that's why we try to tell this to our team too like

1:33:30Lewis Howes:create processes systems so you can either give it to someone else or it automates it so you can

1:33:36Dan Martell:do the next thing that's it and then people are like scared to do that and then guess what i'm They wake up and they got fired because they didn't want to take up the technology. If they're not willing to level up, then it's like. Dude, if somebody's willing to do that in your life, they're invaluable. You pay them more. Let's go. What are we doing? How much money do you want to make? Yeah. And so that really surprised me. Mm-hmm. And. So what was the tool that won or the app or the process? It was a tool that literally did the conversation in one of my companies for the sales process that used to be a person and they call it qualify.

1:34:13Dan Martell:They named it and everything. It's called qualify. And Lewis, the voice - There's no salesperson anymore.

1:34:19Lewis Howes:It's a voice, AI voice.

1:34:20Dan Martell:Well, so what's funny is we didn't lay everybody off once they built it. We just have them managing it. And doing other things. So then the marketing team increased the leads because the - It can do unlimited now. And it's guided. It's not like it can do, it can do 100%, but somebody still needs to watch it. Of course, quality control and optimist. So this is the world we're in. I'm hoping your audience wants to hear kind of where the world's going because I will give them the answer to the test. Go ahead. The internet came out, created the World Wide Web, created this new role, okay? And that's all that happens.

1:34:55Dan Martell:At every new innovation, from the printing press to the internet to mobile, there's new jobs created, right? Old jobs are eliminated. Yeah, they go down, the new one gets created. And if you're early, you make the most money, of course. So the journalist that used to work for the newspaper, if he was quick, he learns HTML and an app called Front Page. I don't know. Yeah, I understand. Okay. And then now he becomes a web developer. If you're a web developer in 2000, you're making 200 ,000 a year. You might have been making 70 grand writing for a newspaper. Now you're making 200 grand. The new equivalent of that is called an agent operator.

1:35:34Dan Martell:it's the person that monitors the code that monitors the marketing that monitor it doesn't need to know how to do it but it needs to know common sense yes you know i need to get this result and it's not working yeah you look at the output of the app and you're like oh well no our brand color is blue and it made the button red hey can you update it to blue and it goes okay and it just doesn't or it looks at the copy and say oh we don't say things like that can you do this but they don't do it they're the i call it the director not the doer and that is the agent operator and that is the new role and that's essentially what i did is i shut down my company and i said all the roles are going away there's a focus now on workflows and the cool part is is i can teach you how to do the workflows and you're going to use the ai to do the workflows yeah but you're just going to be the operator kind of the manager yeah you just nobody hated that so the qualify that won the ai hackathon the team there is just using qualify to now 5x their productivity instead of manually doing it so there's no more bottling guess what qualify doesn't take vacation qualify doesn't complain qualify works weekends it gets better it doesn't have an off day no it doesn't say something that's gonna hurt the brand give one coaching to one qualify everybody gets a benefit yeah it's that so that's why i'm an optimist i just i worry that people are pretending not to hear this yeah and and or making it feel like it's above i don't know it's too big i don't have the time yeah what was the thing that you would have picked well i know what i worked on i and i and i thought we should have won i mean that's i'm a very competitive person You lost?

1:37:19Dan Martell:Dude, I built an AI that runs my whole company from ideation to validation to scale. The team doesn't see the value of that. They see like, how's it going to save my time? I think they just thought it wasn't real. Like I literally thought they might've thought I made up it was fake. I built an app that we called Agent Forge that searched for ideas, looked at trends, came up with problems and solutions, launched the website, launched the Facebook ads, ran the ads to do the pre-launch wait list. It did the ads itself? I'm not done. This is crazy. Then had in one of them, it came out with the idea.

1:38:01Dan Martell:The one it built was a security tool, ran the ads, had somebody opt in, built a follow-up sequence in the email from the wait list to get, it was a$50 to bump at the top of the list to get early access and actually had a sale by the time Monday rolled video.

1:38:18Lewis Howes:With you not posting anything on social media? And built the prototype. You didn't post anything on social media? Nope. It ran the ads. With the ads? The ads. Wow. Agent Forge. How much did it spend on the ads though? A few hundred bucks.

1:38:30Dan Martell:I think it had 50 bucks. Wow. So it broke even? Yeah. It was getting leads for like three bucks or something. Wow. It was just like one out of the 10 opt-ins paid the 50 to go up. Now, did I have a Stripe account? it could use the API to create the link. Yeah. So I had some infrastructure, but it did my job as a venture studio. And that's, that's when I realized like, I'm optimistic, man. I'm optimistic. I think, I think, I think there's going to be unfortunately a challenge over the next few years and it's going to come back. But I'm really hoping if I can keep sharing the optimism and I can share the tools and I can show people how simple it is.

1:39:12Dan Martell:And, you know, and that's all I do. My, I think today's YouTube video was like, here's how you can use this AI to do every part of your business so that you can have more time with your family. And I show, and I, and I show it, I show it the whole thing, the prompt, the whole thing. And it does it. I, it's not my business. It's very, I think it was a marketing agency, which is a lot of them, the marketing, the leads, the sales, the delivery, the follow-up, the operations. Auto-magically done.

1:39:40Lewis Howes:So I'm going to get a couple final questions here. Before I do, I want to make sure people follow you. Dan Martell on social media, your YouTube channel, buyback time, make sure you guys get the book. Instagram's my fave. Yes, at Dan Martell.

1:39:56Dan Martell:Yeah, and if anybody wants my AI stuff, like I've got an AI implementation guide. Where is that at? Just message me. lewisai on my instagram okay if they do that i'll know they came from here yeah i'll send it to them okay it is the i built it so that people could understand how to apply it if it's marketing or sales or because it's how about we do this can we create a website for an opt-in that'll

1:40:20Lewis Howes:automatically send it to people right now and then someone on your team could actually create a prompt with this to show people how we did this this won't come this won't come out yeah so you know

1:40:32Dan Martell:So we're going to do this. Let's come up with a domain name. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to do danmartell.com forward slash Lewis. And not only can they go get what I just offered, I will have my team show the prompts that created the page. That's what I'm saying. And delivered it and the emails. Yes. So they can see the words that created what they're experiencing.

1:40:52Lewis Howes:Yeah. So danmartell.com forward slash Lewis. You'll get this AI reports. The AI implementation guide. And you'll also get a quick little video that AI will show you how we build this. Yes. So it'll be, you know.

1:41:10Dan Martell:Elevated. Elevated. Inception, meta level, all that stuff.

1:41:14Lewis Howes:So DanMartell.com forward slash Lewis. Check that out. Check out Dan's book as well, Instagram and everything else. And again, I want to acknowledge you for powerful conversation, man. It's been fun. And hopefully you continue to speak more about this in your content. because as people get overwhelmed and confused with AI, the more new apps come out, the more people talk about it, the more it's in the headlines, the more there's good and bad around it being talked about in the news to create fear. I think they need to continue to be grounded in learning how to love and accept and enjoy your life with the time you're creating, with the chaos that might be happening around you in the news.

1:41:56Lewis Howes:So I think you are perfectly positioned to speak into this based on your past.

1:42:01Dan Martell:Thank you.

1:42:01Lewis Howes:So hopefully you continue to do more of it. If you can imagine, you know, 40, 50, 60 years from now, the end of your life, what are you going to be most proud of?

1:42:12Dan Martell:I believe every person's here to be an example of possibility. You've done that for me. I hope I can do that for others. The example I would love to leave people on after this wild journey, bro, wild journey, is this philosophy that I, you know, I don't have any tattoos and I probably should get this one. It's the philosophy of being wildly involved in the creation of life and the detachment of the desire of needing it to be any certain way. Involved unattached, involved unattached. I think I first heard Wayne Dyer talk about this philosophy and he might've got it from a Buddhist Yeah, yeah. But I just like, I would love to be that for people.

1:42:55Dan Martell:I would love for people to be like, man, he built, but he did it in a way that he didn't care, but he cared. Cause that's what, that is the, that when we talk about the God size goals, that's kind of what it is. It's like, I'm not creating from a place of not enoughness. I'm creating from a place of possibility. and if it happens, gravy, and if it doesn't, also gravy. That would be the message. That would be like the permission I would love to give people to lean into is let's stop making it so hard on ourselves, but at the same time, let's hold ourselves to a higher level.

1:43:34Lewis Howes:Dichotomy. My coach talks, says high engagement, low attachment. There we go. Be fully engaged, but not attached. Low attachment. Beautiful. You know what I mean? High engagement, low attachment. it. Uh, final question, Dan, what is your definition of greatness?

1:43:50Dan Martell:Having the courage to do the work.

1:43:56Dan Martell:You could be, you could be somebody that everybody knows, win all the championships, win all the races, win the medals. You could still not have done the work. And I, again, I just go back to the most powerful thing that we have is that story of doing that work and then sharing it to help other people. And I just, I think when I think of like the people I admire and their greatness, I'm, and even with you, I've said this, I'm just grateful that you, you did that. You showed it, you, you had the courage to do it. That's my definition of greatness. Dan Martell, my man. Appreciate it. Amazing. Thank you, man.

1:44:35Dan Martell:Thanks brother.

1:44:36Lewis Howes:I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.

1:45:14Lewis Howes:And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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