Speaker 1: Most people that are wealthy didn't get wealthy diversified. They
Speaker 1: got there with one single focus, and they diversified as
Speaker 1: a risk mitigation to not completely lose everything in three
Speaker 1: or four years. You can build a million dollar business
Speaker 1: offt ten dollars task.
Speaker 2: You can do it.
Speaker 1: If you want to build anything meaningful, it requires other people,
Speaker 1: which means you're going to have to get.
Speaker 2: Some time over here.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to dive into the mindset and the
Speaker 1: strategies to create true financial freedom, and we have a
Speaker 1: powerhouse in the building to break it all down. My
Speaker 1: guest is Dan Martel. Now he's just not any entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: He's a multimillionaire investor, a coach of over one thousand founders.
Speaker 1: Dan's investments have contributed to growth of over fifty startups
Speaker 1: through his own Martel Ventures fund, supportfolio of companies generating
Speaker 1: over one hundred million dollars in revenue, and his journey
Speaker 1: from troubled beginnings to founding and exiting multiple tech companies
Speaker 1: is nothing short of incredible. So today we're going to
Speaker 1: break down his blueprint so you can steal it so
Speaker 1: you can apply it to your own life. So if
Speaker 1: you're serious about financial independence and ready to make your
Speaker 1: money work for you.
Speaker 2: Then you're in the right place.
Speaker 1: I think of three different forms of capital. So you
Speaker 1: have like financial capital, but then you have like mental capital,
Speaker 1: like skills, and then like relationship capital. And so most
Speaker 1: people are chasing the financial capital, not realizing it's a
Speaker 1: byproduct of the skills and the relationships that I had.
Speaker 1: That's such a good insight. If people think success is money,
Speaker 1: I can prove that it's not because nobody would trade
Speaker 1: their life right now for Warren Buffett. You wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you do it? Well? Because that best you
Speaker 1: might give them five, seven, ten years. If someone would
Speaker 1: give you a billion dollars and you would lose your
Speaker 1: eyesight in your hearing, would you take that? You wouldn't
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, So right off the bat, that's just
Speaker 1: proof that it's not about the money. What it's about
Speaker 1: is a all right, Dan Martel, Hey Mark, thanks for
Speaker 1: joining and Honor.
Speaker 2: It's fun.
Speaker 1: Like I was saying, Man, so many mutual friends and
Speaker 1: some overlap on what we're talking about. So I'm super
Speaker 1: excited to talk to you today, so appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Let's just jump right in and talk about your book,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a lot of overlaps between you know,
Speaker 1: what your book is about, what you talk about sort
Speaker 1: of my world, which is more traditional investing. But ultimately
Speaker 1: why right, we're trying to get to the same goal,
Speaker 1: which is time. Time freedom. All economics is based on time.
Speaker 2: That's the most scarce thing.
Speaker 1: So when I think of your book, and maybe it's
Speaker 1: just my mindset, but I think of it from like
Speaker 1: an investing standpoint, Right, if I'm going to buy back
Speaker 1: my time, then I'm investing into my time, which means
Speaker 1: I get more back return, I get a higher return.
Speaker 1: And I think about like a poor mentality versus a
Speaker 1: wealthy mentality, So poor think always about spending time.
Speaker 2: I'm spending my time doing this, and I'm spending my.
Speaker 1: Money versus like a wealthy mentality. Is like I'm investing
Speaker 1: to get more time back or investing to get more
Speaker 1: money back. I'm curious, do you think about it from
Speaker 1: that way in this book? Yeah? The way I like
Speaker 1: to think about it is broke people spend time to
Speaker 1: save money, and enrich people spend money to save time.
Speaker 1: And you see it all the time. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: actually quite interesting if you even break it up from
Speaker 1: like broke people's spend money on distractions. I'd say middle
Speaker 1: class people spend money on improving their credit score, and
Speaker 1: then rich people spend money on things they're going to
Speaker 1: make the money. Right, And if you're going to buy
Speaker 1: back your time, then it means that that time you've
Speaker 1: gotten back, hopefully you reinvest it in things that are
Speaker 1: going to generate a better future for you, right. And
Speaker 1: that's why I like a lot of people have heard
Speaker 1: time because investing like going to the gym. You don't
Speaker 1: like go to the gym once and wake up buff right,
Speaker 1: Like you got to like be consistent, show up. I know,
Speaker 1: and I think that's the same thing when you start
Speaker 1: buying back your time. A lot of people they don't
Speaker 1: see the results immediately and they don't have the faith
Speaker 1: that over time that's actually a better trade. But you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm a byproduct of twenty seven years of just
Speaker 1: doing this, so I'm not that impressive. I've literally been
Speaker 1: doing it that long. I just think of it as
Speaker 1: every time I've hired somebody to buy back time to
Speaker 1: then go not do anything productive with it, while it
Speaker 1: usually slides backwards. I didn't get the trade I was
Speaker 1: supposed to get. And anytime I've been deliberate about saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: well this is what I want my life to look like,
Speaker 1: and these are the things I need to achieve I have,
Speaker 1: there's no way I can outwork to get there.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I like to tell people, like, you
Speaker 1: can't build a million dollar business soft ten dollars tasks.
Speaker 1: There's not enough hours in the week period full stop,
Speaker 1: Like there's you just you can't do it. If you
Speaker 1: want to build anything meaningful, it requires other people, which
Speaker 1: means you're gonna have to get some time leverage. But
Speaker 1: even like personal stuff, uh, food ordering tools or like,
Speaker 1: you can out task things is what I like to
Speaker 1: call it today in a world where that was impossible
Speaker 1: back in the day. Literally apps on your phone where
Speaker 1: you can just like pay people fractional costs to get
Speaker 1: the time back to then go work on yourself, say
Speaker 1: have better mental health, go make better investments for your time.
Speaker 1: But that's that's always been how it works. It's just
Speaker 1: nobody's ever really I think unpacked it from the lens
Speaker 1: I have because of my software background. Yeah, you said
Speaker 1: something really important in there, and I think it really
Speaker 1: breaks down the distinction that we were making about the
Speaker 1: investor or the wealthy mindset versus the poor mindset. And
Speaker 1: you said, if I hire someone to buy back my time,
Speaker 1: but I don't go reinvest that time, then it backsides
Speaker 1: on me, I think, is what you say every time.
Speaker 1: And so that's the difference of the mindset of the investor.
Speaker 1: So I'm in if I'm investing, I'm buying back my time,
Speaker 1: but then I have to go reinvest that time, and
Speaker 1: it has to be something that gets a return. So here,
Speaker 1: like I know, I know rich people that mess it up.
Speaker 1: So this isn't even a broker poor person. So what
Speaker 1: does a rich person messing it up look like? Well,
Speaker 1: they're busy in their business. They let's say they're a
Speaker 1: logo designer and they go hire another logo designer. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: you if you're charging fifty bucks an hour and you're
Speaker 1: gonna pay somebody else forty bucks an hour you bought
Speaker 1: an hour back of your time, you're not making a
Speaker 1: big return on that investment. So like you wouldn't buy
Speaker 1: a million dollar real estate property to make you know,
Speaker 1: two percent right, because the risk to reward ratio isn't
Speaker 1: there a lot of people do that with their time.
Speaker 1: My rule is four times ROI minimum. So if I'm
Speaker 1: spending you know, twenty five dollars an hour to buy
Speaker 1: back my time, I get to go find investments or
Speaker 1: activities that are going to generate one hundred because then
Speaker 1: I've got leverage, I've got margin because the truth is,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be that efficient the first time
Speaker 1: you do it, and if it does slide back, at
Speaker 1: least you're still ahead. Yeah. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: think they can just invest and buy back their time,
Speaker 1: but then they don't reinvest the time, so they're not
Speaker 1: actually making more money, no return, It's just an expense.
Speaker 1: At that point, it literally sucks your profit out of
Speaker 1: your life. I'm curious how you think about it. You know.
Speaker 1: For me, I don't like doing like handyman products around
Speaker 1: the house. I don't want to work on my own
Speaker 1: dirt filth takea I have my mechanic pick it up
Speaker 1: and do the service for me, you know, And I
Speaker 1: think like, I mean, it's Saturday, I want to go
Speaker 1: surfing with my kids. I could work on my dirt bike.
Speaker 1: I'd rather not. So how do you think about valuing
Speaker 1: that free time? So I just look at time as time,
Speaker 1: and I break it into professional and personal, and then
Speaker 1: I ask myself, it's kind of like think of like Tetris, right,
Speaker 1: So we play Tetris, the blocks drop from the top.
Speaker 1: Life you could say, a day, a week or whatever
Speaker 1: is essentially a Tetris you know, playing field, and our
Speaker 1: ability to take those blocks personal, professional and put them
Speaker 1: in a structure that gets them so that if the
Speaker 1: you know, that area is whatever size you get, it
Speaker 1: is full with the most you know, optimal use of
Speaker 1: your time. And the thing is is I'm also okay
Speaker 1: sitting down on the couch with my wife and scrolling
Speaker 1: on TikTok for an hour and a half, Like that's
Speaker 1: also part of the the you know, the board game.
Speaker 1: And I think people just don't think about their time
Speaker 1: through that lens. So either they're working too much and
Speaker 1: trying to be too efficient and then personal stuff falls
Speaker 1: to the wayside, or they try to do balance, which
Speaker 1: is not key. Nobody's done anything incredible, has had balance,
Speaker 1: and they just don't consider like some people just buy
Speaker 1: back their time in the professional world and not in
Speaker 1: their personal So I look at it as just time.
Speaker 1: So like free time, I just asked myself, what are
Speaker 1: the what are the rhythms of life that I know
Speaker 1: if I follow I'm going to feel good about my day,
Speaker 1: my week, my month, my quarter, my year. So we
Speaker 1: were talking about mountain bike in I have two mountain
Speaker 1: bike trips every year. I've been doing them for four
Speaker 1: or five years, and those are rhythms. I have snowboard trips.
Speaker 1: I have vacations with my family. I have all these things.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I don't want to be doing
Speaker 1: is cleaning my garage, right, you know, doing doing mechanic
Speaker 1: work on my toys, or even managing a portfolio of
Speaker 1: assets like in my personal life. So I have a
Speaker 1: house manager that deals with that. I have somebody that
Speaker 1: is the CEO of our personal life. And people go,
Speaker 1: what is what is a house manager? What does Betty do?
Speaker 1: Managing passports, managing credit cards, managing vehicles, gas maintenance, washing
Speaker 1: all real estate, all vehicles we have, we have toys, uh,
Speaker 1: family staff, coordination, travel, et cetera. Everything personal is managed
Speaker 1: by them. Why cause I all want to spend time
Speaker 1: with my kids like one on one, dedicated doing stuff
Speaker 1: they want to do. They don't want to wash, they
Speaker 1: don't want to watch me wash my car, they want
Speaker 1: me to go mountain biking with them, or they want
Speaker 1: you know, I have my son here. Like every trip
Speaker 1: I do, it goes. I alternate between my two boys,
Speaker 1: so I get some solo time, they get to come
Speaker 1: hang out. I don't want them to feel like they're
Speaker 1: doing stuff that they don't. You know that I'm not
Speaker 1: even interested in doing so. To me, personal time is
Speaker 1: still part of the same bucket of time, and I
Speaker 1: treat that hour as the same value. And if I
Speaker 1: can spend some money to buy it back so I'm
Speaker 1: not distracted, I'm not I'm not wasting that time, then
Speaker 1: I one hundred percent will do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: And to your point earlier, with an age of technology
Speaker 1: and apps and stuff, it's never been easier to automate
Speaker 1: those tasks. I think about it. Sort of My productivity
Speaker 1: guru is David Alley with the book Getting Things Done
Speaker 1: is one of my.
Speaker 2: Favorites c TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was twenty three and went to a seminar
Speaker 1: in New York City. Yeah yeah, I've probably read it
Speaker 1: like a dozen times. It's site so much my memory now.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so because that's sort of what my my
Speaker 1: framework is built off of but he said, he said
Speaker 1: something that you know, you have to capture every idea
Speaker 1: because you can't afford to have the same idea or
Speaker 1: thought twice.
Speaker 2: And so like I like to also think about.
Speaker 1: Like for lunch every day, I can't afford to think
Speaker 1: about what I want to have for lunch every day.
Speaker 1: So just I have prepackers meals every day. Right, I
Speaker 1: can't think about when I need to get my haircut.
Speaker 1: So it's just like every time at the same month,
Speaker 1: someone comes and does it, right, And so like freeing
Speaker 1: up that mental space, it's also a buy back, right,
Speaker 1: buying back that mental space, you can think about higher
Speaker 1: value things, especially as we move into the creative world,
Speaker 1: we really need to have that mental space a lot more.
Speaker 1: I want to jump into a bunch of topics, but
Speaker 1: let's just stick on this sort of investing thing for
Speaker 1: a while. So, I mean, you're obviously a very accomplished entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: but you're also an accomplished investor. So you have your Martels,
Speaker 1: Martel Ventures, fifty plus startups, some notable ones Intercom you
Speaker 1: to me, hoot Sweet, so some good companies there. When
Speaker 1: you think about investing in these other companies, like what
Speaker 1: kind of framework do you have?
Speaker 2: Do you have like a deal.
Speaker 1: Box like Warren Buffett talks about. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: try to invest across a diverse set of industries. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you how you lose your money as an investor.
Speaker 1: And it's first off, thinking that you can spot the outliers.
Speaker 1: So that's like the first thing is when I started
Speaker 1: angel investing, specifically buying equity in other companies. I was
Speaker 1: twenty six twenty seven when I started, and I thought,
Speaker 1: meet the entrepreneur, great idea, I can spot a winner.
Speaker 1: And then I would you know, I'd be like, how
Speaker 1: much you need He's like quarter million, okay, how much
Speaker 1: you need one hundred thousand okay? And I just I
Speaker 1: my first dozen deals was Dan thinking that he has
Speaker 1: the Midas touch, and I would put different amount of
Speaker 1: capital in different companies because every situation was different. I
Speaker 1: probably deployed almost two and a half million dollars in
Speaker 1: three or four years when I started, and probably lost
Speaker 1: seventy percent of it. The reason why is I didn't
Speaker 1: understand portfolio theory. And I moved to San Francisco and
Speaker 1: I'm twenty eight at the time, and I just sold
Speaker 1: my company, so I had a bit of extra dry
Speaker 1: powder and luckily I met a guy named Naval Raba
Speaker 1: kon So Naval. Today everybody knows him for angel lists,
Speaker 1: but back in the day, angelist was actually an email list.
Speaker 1: It was like he was based on Craigslist. I was
Speaker 1: where he got the inspiration and I was one of
Speaker 1: the Canadian angel investors on there. That's how I got
Speaker 1: in the Hootsuite deal and many others. And I remember
Speaker 1: talking to Evolve because today you know early in Uber
Speaker 1: Early and like you know, he's incredibly wealthy, incredibly smart.
Speaker 1: A lot of people now I see him as a philosopher.
Speaker 1: I have full of his theater. Yeah, he's just that guy.
Speaker 1: But I asked him about this. I said, what's your
Speaker 1: philosophy on investing? And this is what he said to me.
Speaker 1: He says, there's a lot of different things. One, you
Speaker 1: should have a thesis of some sort, like what is
Speaker 1: the parameter of deals? You say, even a first meeting
Speaker 1: or no to And then he said, two, you always
Speaker 1: have to be investing over at least a four year
Speaker 1: period because if not, then you're trying to time markets.
Speaker 1: And then you want to be essentially dollar cost averaging
Speaker 1: into private equity aka angel VC kind of as an
Speaker 1: investment portfolio. And he said, the other thing is you
Speaker 1: got to write the same check on everyone because if not,
Speaker 1: then you're trying to pick winners.
Speaker 2: And you can.
Speaker 1: And he said, look, I've invested at that point, he
Speaker 1: probably invested in seventy five companies.
Speaker 2: He goes, I.
Speaker 1: Can't tell you which ones work, I can tell you
Speaker 1: the essence of the founder, And yes, I invest in
Speaker 1: things where I'm inspired by the person's vision. I feel
Speaker 1: like they have grit, I feel like they have product
Speaker 1: market fit like, yes, all those things. But man, over
Speaker 1: a five, seven, ten year period, which is how long
Speaker 1: it takes to actually have an exit for most tech startups,
Speaker 1: there's so much that could happen. So I would say
Speaker 1: that's where I ended up on my angel investing is
Speaker 1: I've decided an allocation. I find great portunities. The truth
Speaker 1: is also just portfolio and opportunity. Like I used to
Speaker 1: only invest in Eastern Canada because that's where I grew up. Well, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the best tech entrepreneurs are probably not going to be there.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're going to invest in media, I
Speaker 1: think LA's probably going to a higher pool of talent
Speaker 1: than you know, Madison, Wisconsin, So choosing even the geography
Speaker 1: you invest in. And then also do you have access
Speaker 1: to proprietary pipeline? And that to me was you know
Speaker 1: how I started doing better angel investments. Also, I started
Speaker 1: Big Band where I buy software company, same thing, proprietary pipeline.
Speaker 1: Now Martel Ventures where we co create same thing. I
Speaker 1: have access to founders that nobody else does because of
Speaker 1: my personal brand, and it's just the deal box. Yes,
Speaker 1: every one of those asset classes and not really asset class,
Speaker 1: but let's say revenue rhythms or like types of deals
Speaker 1: I do. I have a criteria that because I also
Speaker 1: have team members that helped me put these together, and
Speaker 1: we review it through those lens. So we have essentially
Speaker 1: a scorecard for each every bucket of come means if
Speaker 1: I'm an angel investing versus buying, versus co creating, we
Speaker 1: have a criteria that we've identified and we great everybody,
Speaker 1: and we don't do anything. We don't move it forward
Speaker 1: past kind of investment committee until they're like eighty you know,
Speaker 1: eight out of ten qualified, and that's I'm a systems guy,
Speaker 1: So to me, that just makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: and I give all credit to Naval to teach me
Speaker 1: that because part of that I lost most of my
Speaker 1: money as an angel investor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like the same familiar story.
Speaker 1: Like most people who have a big exit all of
Speaker 1: a sudden want to become this angel VC in size.
Speaker 1: But hey, I'm successful. I guess I'm a king maker.
Speaker 1: I can go like put money in and most likely.
Speaker 2: It ends up pretty bad. That seems to be the story.
Speaker 2: I'm curious.
Speaker 1: You're overall investing theory and where the angel venture sits
Speaker 1: inside of that. So you're obviously very successful, had multiple exits,
Speaker 1: so you have money saved and then that's invested. I'm
Speaker 1: curious how you think about that? Like in buckets, so like, hey,
Speaker 1: a big chunk in just like SMP index because it's safe,
Speaker 1: and then I have a bunch of cash flow real estate,
Speaker 1: but then I have a little bit over here of
Speaker 1: adventure or how do you think about that? I again,
Speaker 1: I'm not getting I don't give people financial advice, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to caveat with that. What works for me
Speaker 1: is what works for me. I also don't care if
Speaker 1: I had nothing, so I'm kind of a weird cat
Speaker 1: where I'm incredibly blessed at the same time, none of
Speaker 1: that I require. For Dan, Well, you're a mountain biker,
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and a snowboarder. See, your risk tolerance is very Oh,
Speaker 1: my risk tolerance is high, and I don't care about money.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of a weird cat because I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like, I know a guy that was so
Speaker 1: poor all you had was money, And I think people
Speaker 1: that measure themselves on personal net worth are completely flawed.
Speaker 1: Now is that is that a tool to know if
Speaker 1: you're creating more value? One hundred percent? Do I care
Speaker 1: if I have money or not? I flew a out
Speaker 1: of my plane, if I lost a plane tomorrow, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna I'm literally not gonna cry. I'm not even
Speaker 1: feel boud. I'm gonna feel grateful that I had it
Speaker 1: for the time I had, and I'm gonna get back
Speaker 1: to doing what I did today. So my philosophy is
Speaker 1: not if you use the lens of optimizing it for
Speaker 1: risk adjusted best returns diversification. Zero part of what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say makes sense to anybody. First off, one of
Speaker 1: my early mentors gave me some great advice said, making
Speaker 1: money is easy, keeping.
Speaker 2: It as hard.
Speaker 1: So they've learned that. One yes, first time I had
Speaker 1: a big payday when I sold my first company, half
Speaker 1: of it went into low cost index fund Vanguard Bolt
Speaker 1: like literally nothing exciting SMP five hundred. There's a portfolio
Speaker 1: now that we manage, and I kind of do that
Speaker 1: with every new trash of capital I get in half
Speaker 1: goes to stuff that's low risk, and then the other
Speaker 1: half I build.
Speaker 2: I'm a builder.
Speaker 1: I build, but I build machines that build machine. I
Speaker 1: don't some people just put their money like the Angel stuff, right,
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, what's your idea? Oh you're my friend, Bob,
Speaker 1: Bob's my cousin. I'm going to invest in Bob's idea.
Speaker 1: Hey when you got Mark? Okay, cool, complete CpG real
Speaker 1: estate agency. Like there's no thesis. I only do B
Speaker 1: to B SaaS okay, business a business, software as a service, period,
Speaker 1: full stop. It's all I've ever done. It's what I know.
Speaker 1: I have a disproportionate amount of information networking. When you
Speaker 1: think of the four levels of luck and devolve, Ravikon's
Speaker 1: concept on that and like Warren Buffett, like people talk
Speaker 1: about diversification As you know, most people that are wealthy
Speaker 1: didn't get wealthy diversified. They got there with one single
Speaker 1: focus and they diversified as a risk mitigation to not
Speaker 1: completely lose everything in three or four years. That's that bucket.
Speaker 1: The fifty percent which is in the market, and what
Speaker 1: I'm world class at is scaling software. So I own
Speaker 1: the largest software CEO coaching organization called SAS Academy. I
Speaker 1: have my angel investing stuff where I invest in incredibly
Speaker 1: talented and growing as a VCA portfolio. I have my
Speaker 1: big Band Software. We have one hundred million dollars hold code.
Speaker 1: We buy a company every month software B to B SaaS.
Speaker 1: And I've got Martell Ventures where I co create with
Speaker 1: the CEOs that I coach that have exited that want
Speaker 1: to do another business with me as a partner. We
Speaker 1: co create businesses that we start with very little capital
Speaker 1: that I own a large percentage of, using the media
Speaker 1: company to get distribution. Yeah, it's not diversified. I don't
Speaker 1: do real estate. I literally do two things. Put my
Speaker 1: money in the market in low cost index funds because
Speaker 1: I don't like paying people fees because they don't do
Speaker 1: anything anyway. And I manage my portfolio and have an
Speaker 1: incredible team where we do that. That's my strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of it.
Speaker 1: It's it sounds complicated, but it's so not complicated because
Speaker 1: my brother's a real estate guy. He has one he's
Speaker 1: one of the largest home builders in the East Coast.
Speaker 1: He does multi unit and all that stuff. If I
Speaker 1: was going to do anything, it'd be with him, and
Speaker 1: I did early in my career. But honestly, the whole
Speaker 1: thing about passive income, it's so funny. Passive income. So
Speaker 1: you talk to these real estate guys who's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a real estate portfolio. It's passive. And then
Speaker 1: I I walk in and I see a room of
Speaker 1: eighteen people. Yeah, well, how passive can it be? What
Speaker 1: are those eighteen people doing. Well, they're managing the property
Speaker 1: managers and the deal they're looking for deals. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, no, it's not very passive. My index
Speaker 1: funds are legit passive, but they're not gonna make me
Speaker 1: the wealth that I want.
Speaker 2: That's this machine.
Speaker 1: So I have a wealth managed a wealth creation machine,
Speaker 1: and I have a wealth preservation machine and those are
Speaker 1: completely separate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: I kind of say the same thing. You can't invest
Speaker 1: your way to wealth. You have to earn it, you
Speaker 1: have to create it. And then I was just on
Speaker 1: a coaching call before you got here, and I was
Speaker 1: telling them that I think of my investments as savings.
Speaker 1: So I save my money in real estate and I
Speaker 1: save my money in bitcoin. That's where I saved most
Speaker 1: of my money. And the reason why I call it
Speaker 1: that is because then it's passive. It's there, it's just
Speaker 1: park that's where it's going to be. But it's not
Speaker 1: like active. Yeah, and and you're not looking for liquidity.
Speaker 1: The other problem is sometimes people invest in things where
Speaker 1: they need liquidity and then they burn themselves as they
Speaker 1: pull the money out of the wrong times, right, And
Speaker 1: I don't do that. I remember when my mentor told
Speaker 1: me that. I said, half in like, you're not going
Speaker 1: to use and it's the wealth creation side or the
Speaker 1: wealth the wealth preservation side. He goes, that's your foundation.
Speaker 1: This is where you go swing as hard as you want.
Speaker 1: But guess what, there's a constraint because you are never
Speaker 1: to use that capital. If that business is going to
Speaker 1: die because you can't fund it, guess what, it dies.
Speaker 1: You do not expose yourself to the other side. So
Speaker 1: that's like, you know, I see Elon take all of
Speaker 1: this personal net worth and put it into this company
Speaker 1: that and I'm like, I wouldn't do that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that he's the kind of person that would do that,
Speaker 1: but it's not my philosophy. Yeah, a small business owner,
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Speaker 2: Well I love how you say.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what your philosophy is you stick
Speaker 1: to that. You're a builder and you want to build,
Speaker 1: and so I mean being a dirtbiker and a snowboarder.
Speaker 1: I just see a mountain and I just want to
Speaker 1: climb it one hundred percent. I don't know why, but
Speaker 1: I just have this urge to climb. And I think
Speaker 1: about businesses the same way. I'm trying to get this.
Speaker 1: I have a contract on a big piece of land
Speaker 1: down in Mexico.
Speaker 2: I love Mexico.
Speaker 1: I'm building in Mexico now and I want to build
Speaker 1: this development down there. And I was telling my wife
Speaker 1: the other day, It's like, I'll probably make way more
Speaker 1: money just focusing on what I'm doing. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: I just want to do that this and.
Speaker 2: It's just a mountain for me. And it's not an
Speaker 2: ROI thing.
Speaker 1: This is what people don't understand. If I was optimizing
Speaker 1: for money, that would be a good Like when people
Speaker 1: give me advice. It's like I have one of my
Speaker 1: pet peeves. I'm at the gym and I'm working out
Speaker 1: and some guy comes up to me. They might know
Speaker 1: me whatever, but I don't know them, and they start
Speaker 1: spotting me. You know, you're doing curls and they walk
Speaker 1: on next to you and they go three more, two more,
Speaker 1: and you're sitting there headphones on. I'm like, why what
Speaker 1: are you doing? And I look at them and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be rude, but I'm not taking
Speaker 1: advice from somebody that's smaller than me. My coach, Allen
Speaker 1: is a superman. I have be like, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like yeah, And it's the same thing with
Speaker 1: the money. It's like, if you're trying to give me
Speaker 1: advice to optimize returns, then you're flawed because you think
Speaker 1: that's what I'm optimizing for. Where you're saying I'm optimizing
Speaker 1: for exposure of creative projects to speak to my soul.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, if you truly
Speaker 1: believe that everything is a gift, and that's why we
Speaker 1: call it the present, we've already won, Like Mark an
Speaker 1: extra whatever million bucks is going to change your life
Speaker 1: zero right then, And if it's not, to choose projects
Speaker 1: that speak to our soul, that just sound fun and
Speaker 1: expose us a new opportunities. Most of my angel investing,
Speaker 1: one of the big criterias is will I learn something
Speaker 1: from that founder? All things being equal, can this person
Speaker 1: teach me new things because I value that over a
Speaker 1: financial return. I love that, And that's going to take
Speaker 1: me into my next topic I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: But I would want to say I have a bitcoin
Speaker 1: focused VC hedge fund and we invest through the bitcoin
Speaker 1: ecosystems of companies that are building on and around Yeah,
Speaker 1: on the blockchain, on bitcoin specifically, Okay, but that's very broad.
Speaker 1: So there's energy companies, it's changing the grid infrastructure. For example,
Speaker 1: we have this one deal that came through the day
Speaker 1: where they're going to take trash and they're going to
Speaker 1: turn the trash into energy. But it's like, I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about the trash market. Does trash really need
Speaker 1: to be burned for energy? Like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the demand of that, right, And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to my partners. I'm like, listen, we don't
Speaker 1: know about this. We get the bitcoin side, but I
Speaker 1: don't know about trash.
Speaker 2: I don't know about energy. And so I.
Speaker 1: Deal with that all the time, trying to stay with
Speaker 1: where not only do I have some expertise, but am
Speaker 1: I able to even affect and help that. Well, that's
Speaker 1: how disproportionate returns have always worked, is when the person
Speaker 1: investing like a bill ackman, like he just knows things,
Speaker 1: like if he can get a board seat like the
Speaker 1: like there's is That's why I have a problem with
Speaker 1: old mutual fund industry because the only people getting rich
Speaker 1: is the managers, right right, And like, you know, the
Speaker 1: market did what it did, and you're giving points and
Speaker 1: you're giving credit to a person to actively manage to
Speaker 1: fund the numbers. Don't back out that thesis at all.
Speaker 1: Yet it feels safe, it feels predictable. And the truth
Speaker 1: is is the thing that you know better than anybody else.
Speaker 1: Like that's what I actually think Warren Buffet's philosophy of Like,
Speaker 1: if you're a customer of a product and you think
Speaker 1: it's a diehard great product, like a dairy queen, like
Speaker 1: a Coca Cola, you're better off buying the stock of
Speaker 1: the companies that you spend your money with, so you
Speaker 1: get a double whammy. You get the benefit of the product,
Speaker 1: but you're also helping the company of the stock you own.
Speaker 1: Right if you're trying to create some actively managed portfolio
Speaker 1: of things, because maybe then you'll be paying attention to
Speaker 1: the business more. You'll be you know, if you're a
Speaker 1: tesla stock owner and a customer, and you notice their
Speaker 1: product lines are starting to kind of go sideways because
Speaker 1: you've been a customer for seven years and you don't
Speaker 1: feel like they're innovating anymore. Then you can then you
Speaker 1: have some insight into going maybe I don't want to
Speaker 1: own this stock. I just think like people don't realize
Speaker 1: that money's made when when you decide to go deep
Speaker 1: and learn about something, and to do that it takes
Speaker 1: a decade. Like, dude, it sounds like you've been in
Speaker 1: bitcoin for a while, Like I don't. I don't have
Speaker 1: the time to learn. I don't have the time to
Speaker 1: learn what you forget every day, right, Like, think about
Speaker 1: how much you probably just forget. I'm gonna it's gonna
Speaker 1: take me longer to learn what you forget every day
Speaker 1: than trying to learn it. So I just stick what
Speaker 1: I do, like B to B SaaS I just came
Speaker 1: out with the number one book in the space, Like
Speaker 1: I do one thing, I'll do the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: It feels awesome, exposes me to new opportunities, and it's
Speaker 1: made me incredibly wealthy. And I just don't see a
Speaker 1: world where that's not a good strategy. No, it's a
Speaker 1: great strategy. You talked about a couple things that you
Speaker 1: were thrown out there was making me think about like
Speaker 1: three different I think of three different forms of capital.
Speaker 1: So you have like financial capital, but then you have
Speaker 1: like mental capital, like skills, and then like relationship capital.
Speaker 1: And so most people are chasing the financial capital not
Speaker 1: realizing it's a byproduct of the skills and the relationships
Speaker 1: that I had. That's such a good insight, right, And
Speaker 1: so if we spend time to invest in our relationships
Speaker 1: and our skills, the money, the money comes. And you
Speaker 1: had said just earlier that a lot of these deals
Speaker 1: you get into with some of these founders, maybe it's
Speaker 1: not even about the deal, but it's about working with
Speaker 1: the founder.
Speaker 2: What can I learn from this?
Speaker 1: So I think about investing in relationships and skills in
Speaker 1: that regard. So you said, let's go. I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: sort of resonates export sort of how you look at
Speaker 1: I mean, when you said the you said the entered
Speaker 1: the mindset. You said skills, relationships, skills, and money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the money is a byproduct of the other two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's one of those because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different capital because even on the skills side,
Speaker 1: I would mindset. Mindset is energy, like you know, think
Speaker 1: about health.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I was just talking to my friend on my plane
Speaker 1: when we flew down here, because we were talking about
Speaker 1: kids and titlement and like you know, when you have
Speaker 1: an affluent life, you know, your kids sometimes have the
Speaker 1: bad end of the stick, especially if they interact with
Speaker 1: folks that don't understand it. They call them the rich
Speaker 1: kids or whatever. And the truth is is, you know,
Speaker 1: if people think success is money, I can prove that
Speaker 1: it's not because nobody would trade their life right now
Speaker 1: for Warren Buffett. Right, you wouldn't do it. Why wouldn't
Speaker 1: you do it? Well? Because that best you might give
Speaker 1: them five, seven, ten years. If someone would give you
Speaker 1: a billion dollars and you would lose your eyesight in
Speaker 1: your hearing, would you take that? You wouldn't do it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I so right off the bat, that's just proof
Speaker 1: that it's not about the money. What it's about is
Speaker 1: a feeling. And the crazy part if people actually ask
Speaker 1: themselves what would need to be true for you to
Speaker 1: feel that? It's nothing it's a decision, it's a remapping
Speaker 1: of your stories. So when you talk about these the relationships. Yes,
Speaker 1: having incredible relationships, especially people that can solve big problems
Speaker 1: for you very quickly. That's the way I think about
Speaker 1: a lot of my like you know, strategic relationships. When
Speaker 1: I look at my life and where I want to
Speaker 1: go and what I need to learn and who has
Speaker 1: that information? And you know, as I go on this journey,
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to run into three, four or five problems.
Speaker 1: Is there somebody's best in class in the world. Can
Speaker 1: I start that relationship today so they'll take my call
Speaker 1: when I call? Yes, all those things are true, But
Speaker 1: I also look at my energy. I optimize, if anything,
Speaker 1: by back your time, Yes, by back your time to
Speaker 1: invest to be to get a better return. But at
Speaker 1: a certain point, more money is not going to change
Speaker 1: your situation better health, better energy. And we talk about relationships.
Speaker 1: I have zero space in my life for anybody that
Speaker 1: has a negative mindset, that complains, that talks about other
Speaker 1: people that aren't responsible for themselves to blame it. Like
Speaker 1: there's there's certain things that are on an energetic vibe
Speaker 1: level that I think think people should spend more money
Speaker 1: on that. And if that means moving cities, Mark, I'm
Speaker 1: all for it too. If you live in a neighborhood
Speaker 1: and it'say, oh yeah, but my cousin's not very positive.
Speaker 1: My neighbors are kind of a pain in the butt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to move, and countries you can move. Countries
Speaker 1: you can, you can. I think that's actually a more
Speaker 1: interesting investment in many ways, the energetic side, the health side,
Speaker 1: and that's yes, skills and relationships are also part of it.
Speaker 1: But even the relationship stuff like well, I don't know
Speaker 1: people like that. Okay, we'll spend some money. Mark. Do
Speaker 1: you have a community people can join? Yeah, yeah, okay, perfect.
Speaker 1: People should listening. This should go. I should invest in
Speaker 1: that so I get around other people. Because here's what
Speaker 1: I've learned is and it can be through back in
Speaker 1: the day. Let's call it the golf membership, the golf club,
Speaker 1: the private golf clubs. I never I'm not a golfer,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's places where you can pay to
Speaker 1: be part of a community. Those people are typically folks
Speaker 1: that are gonna vibe with the same energy that you have.
Speaker 1: And the price is not the price because of what
Speaker 1: it's worth as costs. It's it's there as a filter
Speaker 1: whether you like that or not. It's no different than
Speaker 1: a certain city or a country. If you want to
Speaker 1: live in a certain city, a certain country, a certain neighborhood,
Speaker 1: that dollar amount that you have to create creates the
Speaker 1: investment in your energy. And then you want to talk
Speaker 1: about access to people, relationship, skill acquisition. I mean you
Speaker 1: can live next to a neighbor that One of the
Speaker 1: person people I've learned the most from is a guy
Speaker 1: that plays is the dad of a soccer player that
Speaker 1: my son plays soccer with, and we go on soccer tournaments.
Speaker 1: We hang out and he teaches me about stuff that
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, he has no idea. I would pay
Speaker 1: one hundred grand just to talk to him every year
Speaker 1: because it's but it's just what we do because our
Speaker 1: kids play soccer together. And I just think people don't
Speaker 1: really they'll like invest in their business, no problem, you
Speaker 1: hire people, Okay, I got that one, No problem. They'll
Speaker 1: invest in the health, We'll get a trainer, no problem.
Speaker 1: I don't think they think about their environment, or their
Speaker 1: energy or the.
Speaker 2: Headspace. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: I want to take a second, just real quick, to
Speaker 1: just give you a reminder. The reminder is take control
Speaker 1: of your bitcoin. Look for the first time in history,
Speaker 1: we have a way to preserve our property, take custody
Speaker 1: of our property, and protect it with no cost.
Speaker 2: You can't do that with gold, you can't do it
Speaker 2: with your stocks.
Speaker 1: And so we can do it with bitcoin, and you
Speaker 1: should now don't store it on an app on your
Speaker 1: phone that can get hacked. What you want to do
Speaker 1: is use a hardware device something like this Treasure right here.
Speaker 1: So basically your private key sits here. When you want
Speaker 1: to do a transaction, you plug it into your computer,
Speaker 1: sign the transaction. When you're done, you unplug it and
Speaker 1: put it back into your safe. I've used Treasure for now,
Speaker 1: I don't know six seven years, because I think it's
Speaker 1: the easiest one to use. I've tried I think pretty
Speaker 1: much all of them. And it's also open source, so
Speaker 1: you can trust the code. And again it's easy. Why easy,
Speaker 1: Because if it's too complex, it makes me think of
Speaker 1: how many potential holes and risk there could be, not
Speaker 1: just in the device itself, but even in my own
Speaker 1: ability to secure it. So I want something fast, I
Speaker 1: want something easy, and I want something safe.
Speaker 2: That's why I use Treasure. And if you don't use Treasure.
Speaker 1: Use something Please get your bitcoin off the exchange, use
Speaker 1: a hardware device to secure your private key, and if
Speaker 1: you like treasure, check out the link down below.
Speaker 2: I got a first hand glimpse of that.
Speaker 1: I've always lived right here at the beach, and my
Speaker 1: kids grew up surfing and going to school and playing sports,
Speaker 1: and so all my friends we do that and we
Speaker 1: talk about barbecues and going to the beach and things
Speaker 1: like that. In twenty twenty one, California was trying to
Speaker 1: compete with maybe Canada for being how strict they could
Speaker 1: be independent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were like, we're out of here.
Speaker 1: We went to Puerto Rico and moving to a new environment,
Speaker 1: I had to meet new people, and then I was
Speaker 1: able to choose the people as opposed to them sort
Speaker 1: of being legacy friends. And all of a sudden I
Speaker 1: met these people. My daughter's like Mark, dad, dad. These
Speaker 1: guys are nerds, you know, and they kind of work
Speaker 1: because they weren't my surfer friends, right, but they were
Speaker 1: like really smart and intelligent. I learned so much from him,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I was like, I had
Speaker 1: this epiphany, like maybe people should move because it gives
Speaker 1: you a chance to meet new people. Coming out of
Speaker 1: your shell, and I'm like, I'm sure those people are also.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in southern California. There's plenty of wealthy
Speaker 1: people here. But I haven't left that environ I've moved
Speaker 1: every six years my whole life. Oh really, every six years.
Speaker 1: I might have towns, well you said cities, full on cities, Yeah,
Speaker 1: even countries. I lived in the States for a long time.
Speaker 1: My wife and I, you know, probably in the next
Speaker 1: two years, will probably make another move. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: I like the opportunity to pull out a blank piece
Speaker 1: of paper. Because you talked about the legacy friends, It's
Speaker 1: actually a beautiful language. I like that language. It's the default,
Speaker 1: not designed. You know, sometimes we're friends with people not
Speaker 1: because we chose them, but because it was a default
Speaker 1: response to somebody sat next to us twenty six years
Speaker 1: ago in a class.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: How crazy is that? Why am I still friends with
Speaker 1: somebody on Facebook that if I saw them in the
Speaker 1: mall today, I'd pretend like I didn't see them, And
Speaker 1: yet that person's post affects my mood, my headspace, my focus.
Speaker 2: Oh that's that's heavy, dude.
Speaker 1: I use my feed to feed my mind, and I
Speaker 1: protect that and I have no problem using the mute
Speaker 1: button or the unfollow button. And the idea of moving
Speaker 1: to a new city for me, and it always been
Speaker 1: this way is an opportunity to just reset. It's like
Speaker 1: you've probably had some friends that have gone to divorces
Speaker 1: and they're in like this massive, like tail spin of
Speaker 1: depression and like what is my life going to mean?
Speaker 1: And I get I I not that I'm not sad
Speaker 1: for them, especially if they have kids involved. I'm also
Speaker 1: really excited because you now get to pull out a
Speaker 1: piece of paper. I always think of printer paper. Most
Speaker 1: people don't have printers anymore. But you go grab a
Speaker 1: printer paper and you put on the table and you go, Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you want to look like? Like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean? I go, whatever you want. You're you just
Speaker 1: broke up and are in you know, you're in this
Speaker 1: divorce and you can choose to move to Italy. You
Speaker 1: can choose to sell your business, start a new thing.
Speaker 1: You can choose you can choose to go travel the
Speaker 1: world for a year and and nobody's gonna judge you
Speaker 1: for it because you're kind of like, hey, he's going
Speaker 1: through something, I say go through it. Use that as
Speaker 1: like a drawing board of like what do you want
Speaker 1: to look like? Go live in New York for six months?
Speaker 1: Who knows what you'll discover? But grow through it, don't
Speaker 1: just go through it. And moving cities for me is
Speaker 1: it's kind of like an expansion reaction. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you land summers, you really don't know anybody. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: who do I want to know? What are they? What
Speaker 1: are what is the best neighborhood to live in this city?
Speaker 1: What are the activities? And what are who are the
Speaker 1: potentially new friends right season lifetime or a reason? Like
Speaker 1: sometimes these people are going to come into our life
Speaker 1: to teach us stuff. I don't. I think it's the
Speaker 1: neatest thing. Yeah, it's a reset, like you said, and
Speaker 1: and building into relationships. Being a content creator on that
Speaker 1: side has opened up a lot of doors for me.
Speaker 1: I was I was at a barbecue at Michael Saylor's
Speaker 1: house and I got to sit down with the ball
Speaker 1: for a while and just talk to him Like that.
Speaker 2: Was really cool.
Speaker 1: And really, when I think about going in speaking, it's
Speaker 1: like my videos are geting hundreds of thousands of views,
Speaker 1: why don't go speak to two thousand people. But this
Speaker 1: is the part that people don't realize. It's the ROI
Speaker 1: of the other speakers or organizers that are there. It's
Speaker 1: the speaker dinner, the speaker dinner, right, and so it's like, uh, now,
Speaker 1: there's so much of that, the traveling and things like that. Man,
Speaker 1: I really wanted to talk to you about scaling Team
Speaker 1: Martel Media because that's something that I'm kind of going through,
Speaker 1: but we don't have time to into that. So let's
Speaker 1: get into the next topic what I want to really
Speaker 1: talk about, which is the legacy piece, because I really
Speaker 1: wanted to get to that. You're a family guy. You have,
Speaker 1: like you said, your kids with you. I've been married
Speaker 1: twenty two years. I got my kids, Like I love that,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of where I'm thinking. I was just
Speaker 1: I told you, I just filmed the show right in
Speaker 1: Dirtbikes in Mexico, and then I went to Sydney. I
Speaker 1: spoke at this event called cheat Code, and so I
Speaker 1: gave a talk about the cheat code in life, and
Speaker 1: I talked about how sort of the game is rigged
Speaker 1: against you, taxes, inflation, and debt, and it's meant to
Speaker 1: kind of keep you in the system, but you can
Speaker 1: get out of the system. And what I said is,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know the hero's two journey. You know
Speaker 1: the template that you tell a story on, right, the
Speaker 1: two journeys is that when the hero achieves what they
Speaker 1: think they wanted, they realized that's not what they wanted
Speaker 1: all along.
Speaker 2: There was something different.
Speaker 1: And so I said that the real cheat code is
Speaker 1: realizing that once you break out of that and you
Speaker 1: get the money, it wasn't the money that you wanted.
Speaker 2: It was an illusion.
Speaker 1: And really what we want is we want to provide
Speaker 1: value to the world. That's really what we want. That's
Speaker 1: where we get the fulfillment from. Yeah, and so that's
Speaker 1: what I think about the legacy piece. And so you
Speaker 1: mentioned like blockchain, I think of sort of my life.
Speaker 1: So bitcoin uses a proof of work, you know, consensus making.
Speaker 1: So like whatever I do in this world is my
Speaker 1: proof of my work that I was here, and then
Speaker 1: my life is one block and then hopefully those come
Speaker 1: after me and my kids are the next block and the
Speaker 1: next block. So I'm thinking about pushing value into the future.
Speaker 1: We talked quickly before we recording about a book of
Speaker 1: Diewa zero. But like the Fiat monetary system is a
Speaker 1: debt based system, So debt is pulling value, stealing value
Speaker 1: from the future, and I want to push value into
Speaker 1: the future, into my kids and my hopefully future generations.
Speaker 1: So one talking about that with your kids, how do
Speaker 1: you think through generational wealth? A lot of people think
Speaker 1: today that it's bad to give your kids something because
Speaker 1: then you'll disadvantage them. I think that maybe what that's
Speaker 1: disadvantage if you don't train them properly. But if we
Speaker 1: train them, probably why wouldn't I want them to have
Speaker 1: a higher pedestal than I had? So how do you
Speaker 1: think about the generational wealth that's on that level? I
Speaker 1: think what I'm going to share is nuanced, and I
Speaker 1: understand that anytime you share an idea, the words used
Speaker 1: to communicate the idea have to be understood by both
Speaker 1: parties for it to actually land the way you wanted to.
Speaker 1: So I say that as a caveat knowing that some
Speaker 1: people misunderstand what I'm saying, and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: I'm always available if you want to message me on
Speaker 1: Instagram or whatever, We'll have that chat. But I was
Speaker 1: the same way I started. I mean, Mike, life is
Speaker 1: this arc of like building to prove to other people
Speaker 1: that I was worthy. Funny part is is I didn't
Speaker 1: even like those people, right, that's crazy. Then I got
Speaker 1: to a place financially that I thought, once I got
Speaker 1: to i'd feel this bliss, you know, the thing would
Speaker 1: you know, the skies would part in, the trumpets would trumpet,
Speaker 1: and I would just feel absolutely complete. Never happened. Turned out,
Speaker 1: then I went on this journey of impact, which you know,
Speaker 1: for me, I grew up in really challenging environment, so
Speaker 1: troubled youth, at risk, youth youth programs, et cetera. So
Speaker 1: I did that, and then I had kids. And here's
Speaker 1: where I've gotten to because I think legacy can sometimes
Speaker 1: be used as much as a crutch to drive decisions
Speaker 1: as wealth. And personally, I believe as a person of
Speaker 1: faith that I'm here to do two things. And if
Speaker 1: you understand those two things, and everything else might make
Speaker 1: sense or not, it's cool. One is God created me
Speaker 1: in his image and he had a purpose for who
Speaker 1: I could become. And in many ways I like to
Speaker 1: say to people, and I heard this quote. I don't
Speaker 1: know who said it, but it's you know, you want
Speaker 1: to become the person you needed most in your darkest days.
Speaker 1: And I knew in my darkest days I wasn't listening
Speaker 1: to anybody, So for me to think of who that
Speaker 1: person would have to be, I'm talking energetically, physically appearanced success, language,
Speaker 1: the ability to break through to a fourteen fifteen year
Speaker 1: old Dan. I hope someday I become that person. But
Speaker 1: that person would almost have to be godlike, Okay, So
Speaker 1: I wake up every day to try to be that
Speaker 1: and I believe that. And I love your word fulfillment
Speaker 1: because happiness is a fleeting moment. Fulfillment is an experience
Speaker 1: for me. A life of fulfillment is getting to a
Speaker 1: place where everything I learned that works for me teach
Speaker 1: it to other people. And we've been doing this since
Speaker 1: humans were humans, because that's why we have kids. Every
Speaker 1: human that has kids says to themselves, I want to
Speaker 1: create a better future than the one I experience. Hence,
Speaker 1: we try to create a better situation for ourselves so
Speaker 1: that we have more resources in an environment to support
Speaker 1: our children. I just think people don't realize that it's
Speaker 1: bigger than just their kids, or their family, or their community,
Speaker 1: or their church or their CrossFit gym, or their city,
Speaker 1: or their or their Today we live in this beautiful
Speaker 1: world where with the help of the device that we
Speaker 1: all have in our back pockets, we can share the
Speaker 1: things that work best for us with the world. So
Speaker 1: my philosophy is to wake up every day to be
Speaker 1: the best version of myself, and anything that works for me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to share it with the world, share myself
Speaker 1: with the world. And I've gotten away from legacy for
Speaker 1: my kids. And here's why. People somebody asked me yesterday,
Speaker 1: Actually they go, Dan, are you going to leave your
Speaker 1: kids any money? And the answer is no, they don't
Speaker 1: need me to leave the money. They need me to
Speaker 1: teach them their lessons, which is what you said. And
Speaker 1: some people wouldn't you want them to have more resources
Speaker 1: to do more and have legacy financially. I understand. It's
Speaker 1: just like I'm a big fan of the fact that
Speaker 1: I grew up in a country that has free medical Right,
Speaker 1: let's just put all the other crap to the side
Speaker 1: on the political system, but I do have and the
Speaker 1: quality of the medical system, we won't judge that too much.
Speaker 1: But you know, like when you're born into a country,
Speaker 1: there's benefits just like if you're born into a family,
Speaker 1: there's benefits. But at the same time, you know, Buffett says,
Speaker 1: he says, I'm going to leave them some money so
Speaker 1: they can do anything, but not so much that they
Speaker 1: can do nothing. I just personally decided that I'm not
Speaker 1: optimizing for the traditional definition of legacy. My definition of
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to do is just those two things.
Speaker 1: So I would much rather overinvest in. And you asked
Speaker 1: about the media briefly, and to understand me, now you
Speaker 1: understand why media is such a It is a decision.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a financial decision. It was if my goal
Speaker 1: is to become the best version of myself. It turns
Speaker 1: out if you create content that work actually does more
Speaker 1: work on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like that's the crazy part. If anybody, if anybody wants
Speaker 1: like a fast track to therapy, go start talking to
Speaker 1: your phone. Yeah, because I will tell you will confront
Speaker 1: your demons, all of them. The insecurity. I don't like
Speaker 1: my voice. I didn't say anything smart. Nobody's watching my stuff.
Speaker 1: Why is this person leaving a negative comment that work
Speaker 1: will work on you more than the work is. And
Speaker 1: also I also know that at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: If I over optimize me personally for legacy, I'm doing
Speaker 1: it for this future that I won't even experience. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. So if I am going to leave people money,
Speaker 1: I'd rather give it to them at the right time.
Speaker 1: And if you look statistically, the best time to give
Speaker 1: somebody money for your kids, it's between twenty seven and
Speaker 1: thirty four years of eight. Money deployed to your kids
Speaker 1: when you died at one hundred, they're eighty.
Speaker 2: Well, good as a do.
Speaker 1: That's what I call my dad. After I learned this,
Speaker 1: I said, are you going to leave my sister any money?
Speaker 1: He goes, probably, I said you should give it to
Speaker 1: her now, Yeah, he goes. Why I go because anything
Speaker 1: that you give her when she's literally seventy five is
Speaker 1: going to have zero impact on her life. We're talking
Speaker 1: one hundred grand. Yet right now she's struggling. Maybe she
Speaker 1: has a mortgage payoff, she's got her student or her
Speaker 1: kids a student school stuff she's stressing about. That's actually,
Speaker 1: you know, talk about compound returns. Better to do it
Speaker 1: early now than later. So when I started thinking about that,
Speaker 1: and that's why we talked about Bill Perkins book died
Speaker 1: with zero and He makes a lot of strong arguments,
Speaker 1: so again I can't paraphrase his book in thirteen seconds,
Speaker 1: but essentially net fulfillment over net worth. The goal of
Speaker 1: life for him and I tend to agree is create
Speaker 1: as much value for the world financially up to a
Speaker 1: point where you feel that over time you have the
Speaker 1: ability to deploy it to people while you're here, because
Speaker 1: I think if you give money to people when you're
Speaker 1: not here, is it really your choice? And then have
Speaker 1: as much fun. Yeah, and that's if you understand now
Speaker 1: that you hear that, that's why you see me, you know,
Speaker 1: not only try to build the empire and the business side,
Speaker 1: but also, you know, be totally cool doing the family
Speaker 1: stuff and travel the world stuff and the extreme sports
Speaker 1: stuff and the media stuff because I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: be the best version of myself and my legacy hopefully
Speaker 1: will be whatever that leads to the world. And if
Speaker 1: it's nothing, that's cool too, because I don't need anything
Speaker 1: for any like That's that's the other thing. I don't
Speaker 1: need anything to feel enough. Well, I think there's to
Speaker 1: the point that you made before you started going into
Speaker 1: that was that there's a lot of nuance to that
Speaker 1: and so I already referenced that there's money, but there's
Speaker 1: relationships and skills and so really when you think about legacy,
Speaker 1: it's really those three forms of capital. And so for
Speaker 1: my kids, and I want to talk about your King's
Speaker 1: Club as well, but for your kids, giving them the education.
Speaker 1: Like my oldest daughter, she's not going to college, but
Speaker 1: she's going to like this trade school to get a
Speaker 1: holistic health coaching certification. She wants to be a all
Speaker 1: one health coach and was help people with health. And
Speaker 1: both of my kids are really into that. And like
Speaker 1: you know, people that are fat and out of shape
Speaker 1: typically unfortunately have kids that are fat and out of shape.
Speaker 1: And I was just thinking, one of the greatest gifts
Speaker 1: I could give my kids was the gift of health.
Speaker 1: So both my daughters were super into sports and health
Speaker 1: and nutrition and all those things. And so that's that
Speaker 1: legacy piece, the education piece. So the legacy the education
Speaker 1: of how to make money, how to provide value. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just as good. What if you didn't well, what
Speaker 1: if you didn't I mean, but like, how would you
Speaker 1: feel if you didn't well? I mean, hopefully, if I'm
Speaker 1: living the life, then they're learning it whether I sit
Speaker 1: down and teach them the lessons anyway. So that's I
Speaker 1: guess that's the conversation that you know, if we had
Speaker 1: more time, I would just be curious, and not that
Speaker 1: it's bad.
Speaker 2: It's just if you didn't give your kids the education.
Speaker 1: What if what if your kids just were what they were?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Because you know the extreme.
Speaker 1: Let's think a parent that like their kid has to
Speaker 1: go to Pepperdine. If not, they feel like the worst
Speaker 1: parents in the world, right, and the kid doesn't want
Speaker 1: to go to Pepperdine, But they're like, if my kid
Speaker 1: was super fat and out of shape and had diabetes,
Speaker 1: I might feel like a pretty bad parent exactly. But
Speaker 1: is that your fault?
Speaker 2: I would say, so. I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, once a person becomes an adult, they also
Speaker 1: gotta be responsible to.
Speaker 2: Be as an adult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you just woke up every day and
Speaker 1: tried to be the best example, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: they didn't pick that up and they got fat, That's
Speaker 1: that's like the part where I I I questioned the
Speaker 1: drive for legacy around what am I? What am I
Speaker 1: trying to feel? And can I get to a place
Speaker 1: where I don't need any persons my kid's doing well,
Speaker 1: not do like I tell my kids all the time,
Speaker 1: you don't have to do anything. I just want you
Speaker 1: to know, like you don't have to be anything, do anything.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna love you because you know I created you
Speaker 1: and I know you wouldn't I know. I just call
Speaker 1: it like a thought experiment.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So like my oldest daughter, I'm not for college at all.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go to college, but I didn't
Speaker 1: want to tell her that. I want her letter to
Speaker 1: decide what she wanted to do, so she knows kind
Speaker 1: of how I feel.
Speaker 2: But I didn't say, hey.
Speaker 1: They see, you don't have to tell her. But I'm
Speaker 1: sure you talk to somebody here, but you know.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, she started going through
Speaker 2: this thing where she wanted to go.
Speaker 1: All her friends were going. She felt like she's missing out.
Speaker 1: She wants to go, and finally I sat, I did
Speaker 1: sit down with her. I said, look, babe, if you
Speaker 1: want to go, of course, I'm going to help you
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do. I'm your father. Like but
Speaker 1: there was no pre If she did or didn't like whatever,
Speaker 1: didn't matter to me.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. I want my kids to be
Speaker 2: good people.
Speaker 1: But what if you didn't leave them anything. Well, when
Speaker 1: we think about leaving something so money. So you know,
Speaker 1: I work with Garrett Gunderson on some things. So we
Speaker 1: work on like the trust and the family constitution. So
Speaker 1: I have this family constitution in place where the kids
Speaker 1: don't just get money. You can't just sit on the count.
Speaker 1: I love his philosophy and all that. Yeah, So it's
Speaker 1: like we have this constitution and for example, if you
Speaker 1: have this great business idea, then it gets vetted and
Speaker 1: if we it's gonna do you.
Speaker 2: Get the money?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the part of like you want to
Speaker 1: benefit of being in the family and having that name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's there and it gives you an opportunity. It doesn't
Speaker 1: give you a handout, right, And I want you.
Speaker 2: Want to buy a house.
Speaker 1: If you can qualify for the house and you can
Speaker 1: afford it, then we'll give you the money for the house.
Speaker 1: But there's no free handouse. It's just help handouts, not handouts.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the way that I think about
Speaker 1: the generation wealth. It's more about education and then there's
Speaker 1: help if you need. I guess my what the way
Speaker 1: I think about it is even if I didn't pull
Speaker 1: that off. Can I still be content? Sure? You know.
Speaker 1: So that's where like, am I optimizing for something? Well,
Speaker 1: our contenment doesn't come from that from exact sources. I
Speaker 1: mean we're both men of faith, Christians as you say
Speaker 1: or whatever, so our contentment doesn't come from that. I
Speaker 1: love what you said about being made in God's image,
Speaker 1: and I think, uh, Genesis one tells us who God
Speaker 1: is and God was a creator. Hey, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: we're meant to be creators. And that's why I try
Speaker 1: to tell my kids, like, we're not got simmers, we're creators.
Speaker 1: We literally wake up and just try to create my
Speaker 1: more in some of my buddy this morning, flying out
Speaker 1: and he goes, what do you do you get up
Speaker 1: at four o'clock? You ask my son? Does your dad
Speaker 1: really get up that early?
Speaker 2: And my son's like.
Speaker 1: Yes, because what do you do early in the morning?
Speaker 1: I said, I create connected to my Creator. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't even I can't tell you what tomorrow morning
Speaker 1: is going to hold because I try to get quiet
Speaker 1: and ask God what you got for me? Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: talk like man, when I when I give it to
Speaker 1: you and listen, My life is pretty spectacular it seems
Speaker 1: to be a winning recipe and when I try to
Speaker 1: control it and manufacture it and strategically and it's kind
Speaker 1: Funnyuse I wrote a book and like agenda, I no agenda,
Speaker 1: no attend to kind of craziness. I just I just
Speaker 1: I'm like, really, I'm always trying to question beliefs and
Speaker 1: philosophies to see is their opportunities to do more because
Speaker 1: it's hard to know. You can't split test life right.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get the end of the day and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I did it this way. I can go back and
Speaker 1: try it a different way. But we can try.
Speaker 2: These thought experiments.
Speaker 1: So that's that would be my invitation anybody listening is like, again,
Speaker 1: the word legacy is so fully loaded. Sure we'd have
Speaker 1: to sit down and define what does legacy mean for you?
Speaker 1: For you? Yeah, for you? And do you and and
Speaker 1: do you need this or is it like where does
Speaker 1: it fit? And if it doesn't happen, you can feel
Speaker 1: horrible because then I just I'm just always worried that
Speaker 1: people have these things they feel need to be true
Speaker 1: for them to feel a certain way. And if you
Speaker 1: if you do have a faith, the truth is no,
Speaker 1: but from that place you create, right, it's the absolutely
Speaker 1: grateful for everything you have and also realize that you're
Speaker 1: here to create more and if it works out, cool,
Speaker 1: if it doesn't, cool, And that's the that's kind of
Speaker 1: where I've gotten to And guess what often wrong, never
Speaker 1: in doubt. I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow.
Speaker 2: That's the thing I.
Speaker 1: Love about like Anvall or a lot of the philosophers,
Speaker 1: is that you know, it's almost like, if you don't
Speaker 1: contradict yourself, are you really growing? Yeah, because the definition
Speaker 1: of growth is new beliefs, new mindset, which means that
Speaker 1: you have to change the things you used to believe.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people that have never contradicted themselves
Speaker 1: for fifteen twenty years, I questioned their growth. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: zero based accunting, and I call it zero based thinking.
Speaker 1: And I learned that from Brian Tracy and he said
Speaker 1: that knowing Einstein said, the answers changed. So knowing what
Speaker 1: I now know what it's been different. So I made
Speaker 1: the best decision I could at the time. But knowing
Speaker 1: what I now know, I think that's a great place
Speaker 1: to end your a legend.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I just think the one word I think is so powerful,
Speaker 1: and I think it just sums up maybe the book
Speaker 1: and everything we talk about. It is just intention, living with intention,
Speaker 1: figuring out what you want, going to get it, Dan Martel,
Speaker 1: you're prolific online, so everyone can find you their willing
Speaker 1: to your staff if you don't mind me, Mark, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of people read the book and they get
Speaker 1: stuck on the first hire. I don't know, chapter five,
Speaker 1: I talk about this. If anybody wants my internal sop
Speaker 1: for my you met and my executive assistant, just follow
Speaker 1: me on Instagram. You know everybody's on Instagram. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram, message me Mark EA, and I'll send them
Speaker 1: that direct link. No opton, no nothing. It's my gift
Speaker 1: to them. And it's literally a forty page document with
Speaker 1: everything my assistant does for me. Yeah, and they can
Speaker 1: pick and choose the parts that might make sense for
Speaker 1: their life and just my gift for your audience.
Speaker 2: Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 1: We're going to link to that and the notes down below,
Speaker 1: and I when do that. Thanks awesome, Thanks Mark,