The Home Service Expert Podcast - Re-Air: Buying Back Your Time with Dan Martell

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

This week we're re-airing an episode from 2023 with business LEGEND Dan Martell. Dan Martell is the founder and CEO of SaaS Academy. He is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide build successful businesses. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs achieve their goals and has consequently developed a range of resources to support them, including his podcast, "The Martell Method," and his best-selling book, "Buy Back Your Time." Don't forget to register for Tommy's event, Freedom 2025! This is the event where Tommy's billion-dollar network will break down exactly how to accelerate your business and dominate your market. For more details visit freedomevent.com

But here's the, because I'm all about mental models. The mental model is this, when you start off, you will deal with $10 mistakes. And those $10 mistakes will probably frustrate you. Cell phone comes in, ah, 90 bucks, it should be 80 bucks. Why is it over, data over, blah, blah, blah. And you call to say, hey, it's 80 bucks, not 90 bucks, I wanna refund.

Right? Or, you know, they go to a hotel and there's valet and they go, screw that, I'll park my own car. I ain't paying 15 bucks for valet or whatever. Like literally people have problems when they start off with $10 problems. And if you don't learn to elevate your size of your problems, you will always play to the level of that problem size.

So, you know, some people, if they're lucky, they graduate to a hundred dollar problems. And then eventually, hopefully thousand dollar problems. And there's at some point a level where the person cannot deal with a bigger problem. And if it's 10 grand or a hundred grand or like whatever number that is, could be a million bucks. And there are, you know these people, they're stuck.

They might be worth a lot of money to everybody else, but they'll never get to their next level because they can't graduate. I call them factors of 10 problems. So what I always invite myself to do is to be comfortable with a higher quality problem. Welcome to The Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host. The home service millionaire, Tommy Mello.

Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text, notes, N-O-T-E NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299 and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate,

please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today is going to be amazing because I have a guy that I wanted to interview for a long time I'm a big fan of yours and I always tell people His name is Dan Martell and he wrote back buy back your time and he's done a lot of other cool stuff

But I tell people Why do you do everything? I find it almost impossible to teach people how to like hire a personal assistant get away from email You know what you said listen, I got this thing called the camcorder trick that I record myself I'm like every time I book a flight and I'm training somebody I just record it and I talk out loud of what I'm doing and it's amazing that you're here because I bring up your book But it's almost like a phrase now buy back your time. Yeah, it never existed before I wrote the title Every time somebody you're like how are you with Dan Martell?

I'm like, I've always said buy back your time. So I'm going to do a little bit of an intro here. Dan Martell is an expert of sales coaching, B2B commerce, SaaS. He told me earlier at Joe Polish's event, as we were having a bit of a private lunch, that he is the number one guy in software in the world. He understands it more than anybody. So kind of a jack of all trades. He understands to buy back your time, spend time with family.

One of the things that really stood out to me as I'm doing this intro, which I normally don't do this, but we just got done listening to you, is look at your calendar. I'm going to go through and look at everything you do, and I'm going to tell you what your priorities are. Is it your family? Is it your work? What is it? Is it going out and partying? Quick bio. He's out of Kelowena.

Kelowena. Kelowena, Canada. He's the founder of SaaS Academy from 2016 to present. He's the managing partner of High Speed Ventures. Started that in May 2021. He's the managing partner of High Speed Ventures. Started that in May, 2021. He's the founder and CEO of Clarity.fm, acquired by startups.co.

Co-founder and CMO of Flowtown, acquired by DemandForce. Dan Martell is the founder and CEO of SaaS Academy, a serial entrepreneur, investor, and coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs around the world build successful businesses. He's also started and sold over several companies, including Clarity.fm, a platform that connects entrepreneurs with expert mentors, and Flowtown, a social media marketing platform. Dan is passionate about helping entrepreneurs achieve their goals and developed a range of resources

to support them, including a podcast, The Growth Stacking Show, and its coaching program, Status Academy, and its great book, Buy Back Your Time. Very excited. I got a lot of notes. I'm ready to kick some ass. Dude, let's do it, man. You ready to do this? Yeah, I'm a hardcore ass kicker just like you. I'm ready to go, man. So when did this all hit? I mean, I want you to tell me your story. I want to hear when you... I know you had issues as a teenager. And I just want to hear your story. You know, I want to hear the different phases of your life

and where you're at today. Yeah. I mean, anybody that follows me for a little bit will know that, you know, addiction plagued me as a teenager. So, I ended up in a lot of trouble as a kid. I ended up in prison twice by the time I was 17, and I had a moment that transformed my life. I ended up getting in a fight and throwing in the hole, so anybody knows about solitary confinement.

I was there for three days, and on the third day, I had a guard named Brian come and find me. He hadn't been working the day the fight happened. Brian was one of those kind of cool guards, if you can say that. Like that, you know, he looked the other way if you were wanting a second dessert, or if he knew you had some stuff you shouldn't have.

You're like 17 talking about being in the penthouse. Dude, it was literally an adult prison. So I spent, it was a cell block. It was, there was two juvenile detentions due to the kind of the severity of my progression as a, essentially a criminal. And so Brian comes and gets me out of the hole and he's just like super disappointed,

like shaking his head like just like, what are you doing? And he says, come with me and I follow him. And we're heading back to the cell unit, the cell block, and we walk past the door. Now in prison, in the hallways, like there's places you go and places you don't go. I've never been past the door. And the next door down the hall, 10 feet is the guard unit that looks over the two cell blocks. And he opens the door and he says, come in. And I'm like, I'm not supposed to be in there.

I thought it was a trick. And he brings me in there. There's to be in there. I thought it was a trick. And he brings me in there. There's nobody else in there. It's just him. And it's like the inside of the one way mirror. I've never seen it. And he sits me down in the corner and he just, um, he goes, what are you doing here? I was like, well, I got in a fight with Kirk and they put me in the hole.

He goes, no, not that. He goes, what are you doing in this place? And I was like, well, I, you know, stole some guns. I got in high speed chase. You know, I got in trouble in the hole. He goes, no, not that. He goes, what are you doing in this place? And I was like, well, I stole some guns. I got in high speed chase. You know, I got in trouble with the law. He goes, Dan, none of that, man. Like, what are you doing here? And I was like, what do you mean?

And he goes, I've seen you like, do your homework, stay out of the politics, stay to yourself. Like, I don't know if you realize this, but I've been here for 10 years, and I look at you and you don't belong here. And I don't know if it was just the way he said it, but Tommy, it just made me feel like maybe he knows something I don't know.

And it was the first time in my life that I felt like somebody believed in me way bigger than I believed in myself. I had zero belief. I felt like I was a piece of shit. I felt like I was zero. And there was something that happened in that moment when he said that. He said, I want you to understand I believe in you, man,

and you don't belong here. That I just like, kind of planted a seed, it cracked me open. Because I thought he had no reason to do this. He'd get in trouble if anybody found out I was there. So, Brian shared in that moment a vision for what he thought my life could look like. And it took a couple months to kind of work my way through.

I ended up getting released to a rehab center and I spent 11 months in therapy. Like this is a, it's a facility in the middle of the woods and they put it there because of- 11 months. 11, but I had- And this is for drugs? Yeah, hardcore.

Hardcore, like. Well, I mean, like, yeah, coke, marijuana, you know, like, just, my drug was just not feeling, right? Right. And some people. And this is 17 years old. I'm 17 when I went there, yeah. Man, I didn't know they got those kind of drugs in Canada.

Yeah, yeah, we got all the good stuff from the States. And it was, you know, at the end of this program that literally rebuilt my self-esteem, the relationship with my family, that I was helping Rick, the maintenance guy, clean out one of the cabins. It was built on an old church camp. And in one of the rooms was this old computer and this yellow book on programming. It's called Java Programming.

And I just opened it up and, you know, looked at it and I thought it would be completely foreign to me but it read like English. And I just started the computer up and followed the instructions, chapter one of this book. And then 20 minutes I got the computer to say hello world. And it sounds so crazy but like in that moment I was like, whoa, this is cool. And you're 44.

I am 43 now. 43, so we're talking. 26 years ago. Back then, I mean, when I hit elementary school, we were playing Oregon Trail on the beginning of a, it's the first Apple Macintosh. So if I, I would have been about 13. I would have been about 13 years old.

Yeah, this was 1997. So if I was 13, I was in eighth grade. I mean, we were typing on computers, not typewriters. I mean, it was... Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like, basic, QBasic, that kind of stuff. Well, what year was it? 97.

So that was Windows 95, there still was... Oh yeah, yeah, so like, the computer was in there, it was from 15 years prior. So you were using a really old like MS- It was a 486 computer. Okay. Yeah, it was just cause it was on this old church camp. So it's not like somebody brought it in 20 years prior.

So you weren't even on an operating system. You were just- No, this is like terminal. Like I followed the prompts and I mean, it was nothing special, but in that moment, I don't know, I just thought, this is cool. Like I've never built anything. You found a passion. Dude, I didn't even, I didn thought, this is cool. Like, I've never built anything. You found a passion.

Dude, I didn't even, I didn't ever create anything my whole life. I was just like a troublemaker. Like, I was, Dan is always in trouble. That was like the brand I had. And for the first time, I created something. And like, I'd heard about computers and this thing. You know, eventually I got out and discovered

this thing called the internet. Turned out kind of to be a big deal. And I just became passionate about building software. And I just allowed myself, and I didn't know it called the internet, turned out kind of to be a big deal. And I just became passionate about building software. And I just allowed myself, and I didn't know it at the time, but I just became obsessed. Like Tommy, when I say I was obsessed, I would stay up till two or three in the morning and like code. And my dad made this rule with me, he said,

if you finish the book, I will buy you the next book. You have an unlimited budget for books, computer books at the time. And then I started building software for myself, websites, you know, apps. You know, digital cameras came out. They had one megapixel cameras. So I built this app that all my friends could upload their photos to. Like it was just literally the beginning of the internet and I got to ride that wave. And it came from a place of like literally not feeling like I was worth anything

to then all of a sudden people writing about me in newspapers and talking about some of my success. So it's been a wild ride. So how many kids do you have? Two, two boys. Two boys. Where do you think something that I don't have any kids, I'm 40, I want to have kids when I grow up. But where do you think mom and dad went wrong to make you feel that way? I'm 40, I wanna have kids when I grow up. But, where do you think mom and dad went wrong to make you feel that way?

What happened? Was it your adolescence? Was it your siblings? Or was it your friends? You know, it's funny, cause like, as soon as I had kids, my first, I remember I was like driving around with my son, I called my mom and I just said, sorry.

And she's like, for what? You know, I have two younger brothers and older sister. And I said, mom. And she's like, for what? I have two younger brothers and older sister. And I said, mom, I have one. And I can't even imagine how hard this was. And we were so tough on you. Now, I grew up in an alcoholic home. My dad was in sales, wasn't home a lot. So there's all of that stuff.

And for a long time, I would say that there was a lot of frustration and anger for what I experienced as a kid. You know, there's emotional abuse and some physical abuse and all that stuff. But today I sit here, man, and I'll tell you that like they were the exact parents I needed. Maybe not the parents I wanted, but a hundred percent who I needed to become the person I'd become. And what's funny is that a lot of entrepreneurs, CEOs, whatever, anybody, they get pissed off at their parents. You gotta understand, like, if you're listening

to this podcast, you're probably cut from a different cloth. Right? Yep. Like, you probably read a book on personal development. My dad doesn't even know what personal development is. My mom was, she was adopted, both her parents were alcoholics, like she didn't grow up in any environment to teach her any good habits.

So like, I could sit here and be upset at them or just be like, no man, this happened for me. And I mean it. I think it's what drives me today to spend, the thing I'm most proud of is that like, I go back to that same rehab center two or three times a year, speak to the kids, share my story, support them in their sobriety.

And that wouldn't have happened if I didn't have the parents I had. It was tough. I don't enjoy what I went through, but I wouldn't change a thing. What they didn't know though is just how to deal with a kid like me. I was, dude, I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11. Yeah, more than a symbol.

Exactly, put on Ritalin, thinking I was broken, all that stuff, so it's like, look at our drive. Yeah, no, every single entrepreneur has a touch of ADHD. Yeah, but if you think about like- and it's not a curse by the way No, no, it's a superpower. It is and when you think of like what would you do to create a powerful person? Okay, like if we just sat here and said like okay We want to create a person that becomes really, you know, well adjusted and determine all this stuff Would you give them an easy life? No, you know, what do they say?

easy times make lazy men. Yeah. And hard times make great strong men. Exactly, so it's like, I got the privilege of going through what I did. Luckily at 17, luckily I got sober. I got through it at a young age, right? Don't have an adult criminal record.

And from that, I was able to build what I built. And I know for a long time, and I'm assuming you can relate to this, the building was from a dark energy. It was a prove my dad wrong, prove all the parents of the friends of mine wrong, like just fucking drive. And then eventually I realized like, that's hard.

How about we make it about other people? How do we heal the internal stuff, the trauma, right? The capital T, the all caps of the work. And I've just been fortunate enough to have been introduced to people along the way that have shown me a completely different way to build and create and live that just feels way lighter. And that's why I wrote this book,

it's why I sit here today. Now I love the message of buy back your time. So you were not buying back your time. You went through just working all night every night. I had one gear. You were obsessed. Yeah. And it's not a bad thing to be obsessed about success.

There's a lot of, I think you're off balance on purpose. Dan Thurman wrote a book about that. And I think it's okay to be obsessed, but you gotta get your priorities straight. So what happened when you were 27? So, you know, I started building companies when I was 17, and it took me a long time. Like, people see me today and they see the private jet

and all that stuff, and they're like, oh, you're pretty young for this success. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. I started like 26 years ago. Like, full-on attack problems, maniacal, obsessed, 100-hour weeks. And what happened was is after two failed companies that, you know, start at 17, failed around 19,

started another company at 20, failed again at 22, I almost gave up. One of the biggest gifts that I have is that my parents didn't expect shit from me. Like literally, they were like, Dan's sober and not in trouble with the law, he's good. So there was no pressure to do anything,

which meant I could try and swing for the fences and not worry about failure. And what happened at 23, I read the book, The E-Myth. Yeah, Michael Gerber. Yeah. Had him on this podcast. Dude, so crazy Michael Gerber, because he is. He is crazy.

Love him, but dude, Sarah's pies. And I decided that's what I was missing as an entrepreneur. I had no systems processes, repeatability, so I hired an E-Myth coach, real money. Okay, I think it was $1,500 a month. This guy named Bob, okay? U.S., I'm Canadian, so that's real, real money. It's not Monopoly money.

Oh, man. Yeah. That's crazy. I'm 23, dude. No business. Two failures. Like, I could barely make the payments every month. I didn't want them to know,

but like every month had to hit. And Bob taught me how business worked. And he started with simple stuff, like, begin with the end in mind. Let's write your eulogy. Let's talk about vision. All that stuff. And so I had success. And because, like, I went from failure to some success, like the first year we did almost a million in revenue, but 980,000.

And then it just kept doubling year over year. Won the awards, got features like entrepreneur of the year, all that stuff. And I was so scared of losing that, that I just worked. And I was early 20, that was like 24 when I started that company. But at 27, I was in a relationship with a woman. And she put out with it for two and a half years. Of somebody that wasn't present, wasn't there, you know, canceled on her for, you know, everything from like birthday parties with her friends to whatever. I was traveling 200 days a year. I just wasn't present.

And one day I came home. We had just got engaged about five months prior. Just bought our first home together. I was working on a Sunday and I went in the morning, I was supposed to be home for dinner because we were going to her parents' house for dinner that night and six o'clock hits and I look down, I'm supposed to be home at five.

So I like jump in my car, run home and I walk in, big smile on my face and I find her in tears. And she just decided herself, like she couldn't, you ever make a woman angry that she can't, you know what I mean her in tears. And she just decide herself. Like she couldn't, you know, you ever make a woman angry that she can't, you know what I mean? Like... I have. Yeah. Like she was emotionally drained.

And she just takes the ring off and drops it on the counter and just blurt out, I'm done. And she walks past me and goes to her parents' house and that was the last they were together. And did you, did you, did you just kind of come to terms with it or did you fight or did you? I don't know if you know this, Tommy, but when women get to that point... It's kind of hard to bring it back.

It's done. It's done, capital D-O-N-E. Like, it's done. Like, she was... There was no recovering from that. And I tried, trust me. I wrote the emails, I asked her friends, like, I did everything, promised I'm gonna change. And it was a wake-up call up call and you know, it was crazy as it was six months before I ended up selling the company.

So everything I'd been doing for our future, sacrificing ended up happening and I'm by myself in this house, waking up lonely, anxiety attacks. For a while, I was worried that because I was so driven that someday the conversation I have with myself is like, maybe I just have to admit that I'm always just going to be that fun uncle and never have a family myself.

Cause I don't want to go through that again. I don't think it's fair to the partner. And I essentially started going down that path. And then I was like, this is stupid. You know how to solve problems. Why are you giving up on a relationship in a future? And that's when I went to San Francisco and discovered a completely different way to build companies.

And that was when buying back my time really, I was good at it before. I mean, you don't build a multimillion dollar company if you don't understand how to delegate and people and all that stuff. But that's when I understood the concept of leverage and letting go and empowering people. And that's when everything, that was when I got it. Yeah, well, how did the first company do? So the first company exited for almost 10 million,

ended up becoming... The Canadian? Yeah, well, no, US, but I mean, I got paid. It gets converted into Canadian, So the first company exited for almost 10 million, ended up becoming- The Canadian? Yeah, well no, U.S., but I mean, I got paid. It gets converted into Canadian when it ends up in the bank account. But the thing to know about that is like, that was the moment where you do it all for the money

and then you realize that money doesn't change you. Like it sounds crazy, but Tommy, you know this, like people, it must be nice when you have money. It's like, here's what I've learned about money is money doesn't change anything about me. It makes me more of who I am. It multiplies you. Yeah. If you're a bad person, you're going to be a worse person.

And I was a sad person. And guess what? I was sadder because I hadn't. Cause I had to look in the mirror and go like, okay, I got to the place that I said I wanted to get and nobody wants to be around me. Like my brothers were like, you're a horrible brother, your friends are like, dude, you gotta get over yourself. Literally, what am I gonna do?

So that was like, sounds what, for a lot of people, is like the holy moment, but for me, it was like a big wake-up call. Do you ever get the question, and I doubt you get this, because you're not a workaholic anymore, you're obsessed when you need to work, you're where your workaholic anymore. You're obsessed when you need to work. You're where your feet are. If you're at home, you're at home.

If you're at work, you're at work. But do you ever get the question, I was talking to Gary Vaynerchuk, and I said, you know what my mom asks me? And she said this several times. And a lot of people say, when's enough enough? When do you stop? And it's not really, they know I relax.

I go watch movies, I go bowling, you know. Because you come off as an intense dude. You do know that. I do. All right. And I am. But at the end of the day, you know, business, I don't talk about football.

I enjoy football. I don't talk about a whole lot but business. Because I love it. This is like my passion. But do you have like this, I don't think a guy like you and me are just going to be like, okay, we've hit the top, we're good. Now it's just time to kind of roll off into the sunset and mow the lawn and retire.

So what do you tell people when they say, you know, what are you building? Because like, first you say, when I get to a million a week, then you say, you know, when I get to a million a day, whatever that looks like, typically we want a goal, we want a KPI. It's sometimes, usually that's a money driver is a good one and profit is a good one. I mean, it's okay to make a healthy profit. You should.

So how do you set your goals? It's very simple. I mean, there's a process for, you know, setting annual quarterly goals, right? You mentioned OKRs and KPIs and metrics and all that stuff. Like it's, there's a language of business, you know? It's like, if you want to lose weight, you know, it's caloric deficit. I mean, it's, it's math.

Okay. But the question that I, when people ask me that like, do you turn off, right? Why are you so intense? What they don't understand is like, I am already enough. Like Tommy, I want like everybody listening to understand there's no place for me to get to. There's zero place for me to eventually arrive at... Yeah, there's no arrival. No, there's, it's literally, and you can talk to my team,

like, I just wake up every day and try to be the best version of me for people I care about, and try to create value. And I would like to be better today than I was yesterday. And I don't think that's difficult. I think if most people understood how close they are from being great, it would fucking freak them out. Cause it's, it's literally an extra 10 or 15%.

Think about this. If you want to get healthy, most people can hold on five days a week. And then cheat meal Saturday, that turns into cheat day Saturday, that turns into cheat weekend. And then they give up all their gains. So like literally people are so close to living the dream of the life of their dreams. And it's not that much extra work.

And when you get to a place where you realize like there is no place for me to get, it's just can I be better this week than I was last week in all aspects, right? And it's not about doing more, it's about doing less. It's like, I got rid of the vices. I got rid of the bad behavior, I got rid of the vices, I got rid of the bad behavior,

I got rid of the emotional response to situations that were tough, that didn't serve me so that I could become the person that the people I care about the most, my family, my team members, my customers, they get the best version of me. So when people say like, when is enough enough? I'm like, when will you stop doing all the shit

you know that hurts other people? Yeah. And until you can get to a place where you know that you're showing up as your 10.0 version of yourself, the most empathetic, driven, giving, resourceful, creative person, which I would argue probably never. Because like if I was created in God's image, then how am I ever going to get to that place? Because his vision is way bigger than anything I could ever do on my time here on earth. So I wake up every day to do that, and while I'm doing that, I give it to other people. I share it with other people.

It's why we do this podcast, it's why we create the content we do. We are here, I think most people, every human, to become the best version of themselves. Another way to think about it, I like to say often, is become the person you needed most in your darkest days and share that process with other people. Give it to your family, give it to your community, give it to your CrossFit gym, your church,

I don't care where, but to not share that is so selfish. Yeah. When people say, well, when is enough enough? I'm like, never if that's my, this is the rules of the game. Tiger Woods won a lot of majors. Did everybody go, well, are you done yet? You've already won a lot. No, keep going.

He's like, I like to play golf. I will play golf. I enjoy what I do. And if I happen to win, game on, I'm gonna keep playing golf. That is exactly how I show up. You know, you said something interesting that I really loved. And I don't think people need to really listen to this.

How you show up as a buyer is how people show up for you. And I'll tell you this, I have two speaking coaches. I have four sales coaches. I have a trainer. I have a chef. I mean, we have, I am the epitome of buying back by the time. If I could pay somebody to go to sleep and go to the bathroom for me. That's what my wife always jokes. I could pay somebody to go to sleep and go to the bathroom for me.

That's what my wife always jokes. Dan would pay somebody to wipe his butt. Although you can get a bidet and call it a day as well. That's true. Bre's got a bidet in her bathroom. I love to pay people. I'm like, I don't want, I'm not trying to search for the discount.

I'm not trying to say how could I get, I used to be that guy. How do I make a deal? How do I negotiate? And now I'm like, my buddy owns a bar, I'm paying full price for everything. That's the way to like tell them, I appreciate what you're doing.

Totally. But why is it that people, these people, they wanna create these classes, they wanna build this business, they wanna do all these things, but they don't buy, they don't invest in themselves. Well, it's why is there fat life coaches? Why is there

business coaches that don't have businesses? Nine times out of ten. They just don't know what the fuck they're doing, right? And this is what's funny for me because I coach a lot of coaches. I coach like literally the eight-figure coaches that are like ready to give up because their life looks like hell. They I get the call. It blows my mind. These people, it's like they're charging their customer premium and then they bark at whatever the investment is to work with me and I'm like, you don't understand, like you're communicating that A, you don't value yourself.

Like the reason why you do these things is because you know what your worth is and I'd rather have a chef that takes care of my food. I'd rather have people that help me with my sales. Like I'm willing to invest in me because I'm a good investment. So here are these people that are getting paid to help other people and internally they're conflicted.

And it's a crazy epidemic, man. I like see it, that's why I'm a software guy that just happened to understand how to do this. But I've been there, done it. I'm a practitioner, I'm an operator first and foremost. I teach people because I think it's part of my calling. But when I talk to these coaches that are upset because they're like, we need more leads,

we need more sales. And I'm like, the way you're showing up right now energetically is the reason why your buyers are showing up like that for you. It's like, I think the easiest thing to sell is sales training. Because you imagine somebody's on the other line and they're a salesperson and you say that to them.

It's like, hey, what are your customers doing for you? Well, they're saying, I'll get back to you and they're doing this and then it's like, hey, what are your customers doing for you? Well, they're saying, I'll get back to you and they're doing this and then it's like, okay, well, here's the investment you wanna join. They're like, hey, let me think about it. Hey, can I challenge you on something? You know, like it'd be the easiest sale in the world because you're like, how you're showing up right now

is how your customers are showing up. You just told me they do this and you're doing it to me. So if I was in sales, sales training, I would crush it because I think it's the easiest one. But you know, you said something a second ago I wanna also double click on. It's about being cheap, right? I remember I was doing an event with my buddy Roddy.

He was running the whole operation and we were looking for a venue and we found a venue and then we wanted to negotiate the food, right? We're gonna do a dinner and a lunch. And I knew the person, I grew up in a small town and I was like, hey dude, let's try to ask for this. And he stops me, and he goes, Dan, we could. And you know what?

You have enough influence that they would probably do that for you. But here's what I know about this small town we live in, and honestly, even bigger than that, your reputation, is you don't wanna be known as the guy that nobody can make money with. And when he said that, I was like, he goes, because dude, in the moment, you're gonna need something

from somebody, if you're that guy, they're not gonna go out of their way. They're not gonna make an exception. What does that mean that nobody can make money with? If you're always trying to negotiate the least amount of money. So like, let's say you know somebody's hard cost is X and you're like, hey, I want you to do it for me for X

because I'm gonna bring you all this future potential business and they don't make money with you, right? They made revenue, but they didn't make any profit. and you're like, hey, I want you to do it for me for X because I'm going to bring you all this future potential business. And they don't make money with you, right? They made revenue, but they didn't make any profit. Then you're known as the guy that nobody can make money with. So if you're in a pickle and you need somebody to show up and do something for you, then they're not going to be, they're not going to show up the way you need them.

And again, then you look at your customer base. If you have a premium service, like you want your customers to pay a premium, but then you're trying to act like you're trying to get the best deal and then you're pissed off that your customers are always asking for a deal. It's like you go first, you show up and that is how the world works. And I'll tell you that lesson Roddy taught me. It's like when I work with somebody that's a top weather thing, whatever their prices is their price. Why would I negotiate? I'm not negotiating.

This is what it is, and if you don't want it, cool. And to me, I think that that just creates a story in your mind, a personal, like, you know, kind of what I'm worth, and it just, it aligns everything to support your dreams. I think most people work against themselves by doing stuff like that. And I think a lot of people do it,

but they don't have the experience. They don't really know that. A lot of people were raised negotiating, like not in the United States, not in Canada. But if you go to another country, professionals, that's what they have to do. And I love those type of people because I love learning about the art of negotiation, but the art of the deal, Donald Trump. You know, what's interesting is I got my number one tech in the company and he's pretty high up. Like number one tech out of almost 400 techs.

And he was in my office yesterday. And I said, Brandon, how did you double your sales in the last six weeks? You were already number one, how did you double? And I knew the answer, He started selling more doors. And I said, but why didn't you sell doors? We've been talking about this for two years. Yeah, what took you so long?

And he said, well, I bought a house six months ago, and I installed my own doors. And he says, I couldn't believe the difference. I believed. I believed in doors. Like, I couldn't believe the difference. The difference of the noise with the street, the difference of the way it felt in the garage, and just the insulation value, and just the ease of use

to open your garage from the app. And he was a customer now. And he said everything changed, so believing is half the battle. And I talked to each and every one, I wrote the book Elevate, and the whole mindset is everybody gets to win. The employees get to win, which are my coworkers.

The customer wins, my vendors win, my partnerships win. So when I sit down with somebody, I get their one, three, five year plan. I wanna get your dreams. I wanna understand what your dreams are, what your bucket list is, what your goals are. I wanna do that with every vendor. Every partnership I have when we partner

with another company, I'm getting that stuff because I need to make sure I'm helping you win. And if we can do that, you want to buy a house in two years. If let's just look at these KPIs, if you get a higher conversion rate, higher average ticket, and you can sell a little bit more, here's what we can do. And it's not sales is not a bad word, by the way. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to help you if you want to be helped.

There's one thing I know. And there's one thing you should know is you, you trust me, right? Yep. You know, I'll bleed for you. Yeah. You know, we're got your back. We know is you trust me, right? Yep. You know I'll bleed for you. Yeah. You know we've got your back. We know the Dispatcher CSR has got your back. You've got the best parts in the industry, trademarked. You've got the best tools. Management cares.

One thing I can't do for you, Dan, I can't get you to believe in yourself. I can't get you to look in the mirror. So here's what we're going to do. First, I want you to believe in yourself. We're going to get into shape. We're going to get your teeth all perfect so you feel comfortable smiling. Because when you look in the mirror, I need you to walk into yourself. We're gonna get in the shape. We're gonna get your teeth all perfect so you feel comfortable smiling. Because when you look in the mirror, I need you to walk into that garage like you're the doctor,

like you're the baddest-ass thing that ever lived. Because you are the doctor for that garage. And if we could get you to believe in you and help you accomplish these dreams. Now, there's never a PIP. A PIP is like, hey, we need to get better at this. You told me you wanted to take your wife on a 10-year renewal of your vows.

What if I could get you to Hawaii six months quicker? But they gotta want it. If they got the will, I'm gonna find a way. But it's a whole different mindset change. And I think very few people that I've met are like, most people say I took all the chances, I took all the risks, I'm the entrepreneur, you work for me.

And they hire people dumber than them because they live out of fear. What if I hire Dan and he steals my employees? What if I hire Dan and he comes in and he's just talking over my head and then I look like an idiot? So they hire these people and they hire people just like them. I literally examine my weaknesses. I'm not a good organizer. I'm not good at time management. The first thing I do, people are like, well, who do I hire first? I'm like, build an organizational chart The first thing I do, people are like, well, who do I hire first? I'm like, build an organizational chart

and put every job on there. And then you're going to hate payroll or whatever it is. You're going to effing hate it. I want you to circle that and hire for that. Because that's, if you hate going in, I love Mondays. I really do. I love Saturdays more, but I love Mondays. And if it always feels like,

oh my gosh, I'm going to work, why not make it a place that you love? So hire for your weaknesses, people that are smarter than you, that are specialists. And then I tell people, hire a personal assistant or executive assistant. You know, it's the first hire in my book. It's the most important thing. Yeah. And actually, I wanted to talk to you about this later because everybody's

asking me and I've had all my executives try to hire somebody and they have this phrase, if I don't do it myself, it won't get done right. And you know what I told everybody before I heard you at Joe's? I want you to zoom everything you do in your email, everything you do when you book a flight, when you book your hotel. Every single thing you do,

I want you to just record a zoom and talk out loud. Yeah, camcorder method. The camcorder method is what you talk about. Why is it so hard for people, because I don't look at my own email. To let go? Why is it so hard? Because they don't trust.

I feel like they've been burned. I've had an assistant still 10 grand from me. I gave her my debit card. I've been burned. I've been burned a lot. But 1% of the time, the 99% has been great. Let me share this with you, Tommy, because I think there's a lot of fears

that people have about building a team, right? And the reality of it is if you don't confront those fears and work through them, then you'll always be, you're always going to play small. It's why most businesses never crack $300,000 in revenue, because essentially a $300,000 a year business is a specialist with a bunch of minions. Nobody can think, they don't think unless you tell them what to do. That's the doctors, the lawyers, you know, plus or minus 20%, it doesn't matter. But like there's a ceiling to that person, okay?

It's them, only them, they're a specialist. People that can get to the next level in entrepreneur land at like 2 million, you know, 2 million gets really hard to break through that ceiling. They have to learn to work through people. But that's scary as heck, because all of a sudden my personal reputation is on the line,

and if somebody on my team does something that is against what we would do, then I'm embarrassed, right? And some people cannot, for the life of them, allow somebody else to make a mistake. This is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. Yes, well, here's the, because I'm all about mental models. The mental model is this.

When you start off, you will deal with $10 mistakes. And those $10 mistakes will probably frustrate you. Cell phone comes in, ah, 90 bucks, it should be 80 bucks. Why is it over, data over, blah, blah, blah. And you call, you call to say, hey, it's 80 bucks, not 90 bucks, I want a refund. Right? Or, you know, they go to a hotel and there's valet

and they go, screw that, I'll park my own car. I ain't paying 15 bucks for valet or whatever. Like literally people have problems when they start off with $10 problems. And if you don't learn to elevate your size of your problems, you will always play to the level of that problem size. So, you know, some people, if they're lucky, they graduate to a hundred dollar problems.

And then eventually, hopefully thousand dollar problems. And there's at some point a level where the person cannot deal with a bigger problem. And if it's 10 grand or a hundred grand or like whatever number that is, it could be a million bucks. And there are, you know these people, they're stuck. They might be worth a lot of money to everybody else, but they'll never get to their next level

because they can't graduate. I call them factors of 10 problems. So what I always invite myself to do is to be comfortable with a higher quality problem. You know, Oprah got sued once for the mad cow thing back in the day. And, you know, somebody was interviewing her and they said, you know, like, how are you so calm?

And she's like, I can't, you know, she's being sued for a billion dollars. Okay? That was everything she had and then some. And she said, I'm just grateful to be the kind of person that could be sued for a billion dollars. Like she gets to the place where a hundred million dollar problems were okay. And I think like that's where people need to really ask themselves, like how big of a problem

can I receive and comfortably, non-emotionally, not overreact, not fire everybody and screw this. I'm never have another assistant cause they took 10 grand from me or whatever. It's like, look, learn, move on. react, not fire everybody and screw this, I'm never having another assistant because they took 10 grand from me or whatever. It's like, look, learn, move on. Like any second you dedicate to that that isn't to learn through the problem is wasted energy and time.

So I literally coach my clients to figure out how can you figure out what your upper limit is and then work through those challenges because that is the only thing that's going to stop you from achieving more is go find higher quality problems. Higher quality problems. Higher quality problems every day, all day. You know, I listened to Jeff Bezos and he said, that wasn't with him in person, I was reading something or I don't remember

if it was a podcast, but he said, I don't make a lot of decisions before 10 a.m. I make my most important decisions. I have my morning routine and I make my decisions between 10 and 12. And- You only have to make one or two good decisions a day, he says.

So my brother-in-law was like, Tommy, you're gonna get to the point where I'm just gonna have you make it a couple decisions. Because literally, I've invested in 25 companies in last year. I've blown through $50 million, which is fine. I mean, it's all good. And I talked to my CFO, my personal CFO, he's like, we got to slow down.

I'm like, listen, what I need to do is make sure we got a good system because there's either there's no system, the wrong system, the system is not being followed. Yeah. SOPs, manuals, checklists. And I'm very, very calculated on how I produce these things. I mean, structured pay, always performance. I do an equity incentive program, always have for every company, give them a stake in the outcome.

But I'm looking at it going, I want everything in a project management tool, easy to communicate, and I want three times a day a synopsis of what's going on. By the way, I'm not gonna learn how to use all the tools. I'm not gonna learn, I don't even know how to change my price book anymore. And I don't care. People are like, don't you wanna master everything? I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna get learn. I don't even know how to change my price book anymore. Yeah. And I don't care. People are like,

don't you want to master everything? I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna get really, really good at the things I'm great at. And there's no way in hell I'm gonna get good at all this stuff. I don't want to. I could probably type way faster. I'm okay. I don't care. I'm not gonna be typing a lot more in my life. And it's okay. And a lot of people are like, don't you want to be well-rounded?

I'm like, no. Why? I want to be great with people I want to have emotional intelligence the EQ And I think that's one of the things that gets me ahead like I got a master's degree and I do garage doors But that did that means nothing what I learned in school means nothing what I've learned in the real world by reading And I just think it's crazy what people do to themselves What I've learned in the real world by reading. And I just think it's crazy what people do to themselves. And I watch them and they walk in and it's chaos. And they get the dopamine rush with the firefight. They're like, I can solve this problem.

I could do this, I could do this, I could do this. And I met a coach seven years ago and he said, when we get done, you're going to be very vanilla. There's not going to be a lot of problems. There's not going to be a lot of highs and lows. Firefighting. He goes, when we get done, he goes, and what I've done is I get so content, I get caught up, and then I refill it up.

Refill up the chaos. And then I catch up new systems, and my systems are always elevating, right? And I can't help it because, you know, there's a lot of idea people, a lot of visionaries. But my ideas are like, but they're focused on one thing. That's the smart thing, the Gary Keller, one thing book is how do I blow up this business?

My buddy once told me, I said, I like to put my eggs in a lot of baskets. I like my side hustles. He said, Tommy, this guy's much older than me. He said, what if you put all your eggs in one basket? How quick would it fill up? How quick would overflow? And I was like, yeah,

that's true. And I really lived that since then. But I think it's, what is the first step? Someone's walking in, they're like, I can barely keep up. And they're like, I'm at 5 million, you're over a couple hundred million. And I watch you and you're literally on podcasts. You don't show up on a Monday. You're literally- I don't even run my companies. And like, what's the first step? Obviously own your calendar, right?

And get- Well, the first step is to understand what your time is worth. I mean, Tommy, you just know what your time is worth. And like, you know, if you say- I know what I mean. I know what my time is worth down to the minute. Yeah.

Let's go down to pivot table. Exactly. So because you've done that simple math, right? Cause it is, I talk about it's a buyback rate. You then understand anytime you do anything that somebody else could do for you for that price or less is actually a great trade. It's called becoming a time trader.

You know, like. 100%. And that's what like, and it's so hard until you see it. But if Tommy, if people came into your universe and saw this incredible facility you've built and watch how you interact with people and realize like, oh, this is run by this person and this is run by this person. And Tommy's just the guy that is the talent

to support the people. Even if you're not physically here, it all keeps running. They'll go, oh, you mean I don't have to be the guy that spins all the plates? It's like no, and if anything you're at that level, that may be the thing you have to let go of. So what I always tell people is understand what your time is worth, then analyze your what I call time and energy audit. So in my book I teach this framework called the buyback loop and it starts with an audit. So it's ATF. Audit your time for energy and costs.

So like what lights you up and what would cost you very little to pay somebody else that doesn't light you up. Then transfer it. We talked about the camcorder method. Give it to somebody else, empower them. And a third of my book, people are like, oh man, this book was so great.

Best productivity book. But it's also a leadership book. And I'm like, yeah, because guess what? If you hire people to buy back your time and you're a crappy leader, they're gonna quit. They're gonna not be empowered. They're not gonna stick around. They're not gonna wanna see you succeed.

So that's transfer. And then the last one is Phil. And I think that's the hardest part. I mean, think about this, Tommy. If somebody, most people have 5 million that are living in chaos, and it's an addiction. It's chapter three of my book. I talk about the time assassins.

Most people grew up in chaos, so they are addicted to chaos. So if you actually gave them back, let's say pessimistically hire an executive assistant, takes over your inbox and calendar, which I teach, a day a week, most people will get back 30 hours. What do they do with it? Tell me they literally do not know what to do with it.

And it left to their own advice. They would probably go out, get into trouble, watch Netflix, like they wouldn't know strategically what to do with their time. So for me, I give very clear areas to invest in, okay? I think you should invest in the skills. You should ask yourself, what are the skills I got to develop over the next quarter to grow my business?

I should invest in my mindset, my beliefs, because your world view, how you look at the world, your money mindset, your beliefs around problem sizes is definitely the problem. And then if you've got those two on a good path, then it's ask yourself what character traits of a person that's achieved the level of success that I want to get to your next year, how do they act?

Because dude, Tommy, you know this, like people that are struggling and you watch how they act in their character and they don't show up on time and they can't keep commitments to themselves and they're lazy and they're disorganized and all these things. And it's like, you don't even trust you. You're pissed off nobody will listen to you.

Like you don't listen to you. We talk about this all the time. Dude, exactly. So like to me, figure out how to fill your calendar with things that light you up, that make you money. And if you have extra time, invest in your skills,

your beliefs, and your character traits. You look in the mirror every day and you say, I'm going to become a better dad. I'm going to become a better husband. I'm going to get into shape. Months go by, you haven't done anything. When you lie to yourself and you consistently look in the mirror and continue to lie, how do people take you seriously?

They know you plan on doing that because you told the world, and you continue to let yourself down. And if you... There's so many people that say, yeah, one day. And I would say, why can't today be day one? Yeah. What's so hard about getting started and making a commitment and holding yourself

and it's discipline and it's... Here's the hardest word for people Consistency, you know, you can brush your teeth right now for five hours. Your teeth aren't gonna get any better But five minutes a day, they'll stay pearly white forever. Yeah, and this hard part about working out I was like man I wanted to get it quickly and I did but I didn't see anything the first few weeks, but I didn't care I knew it was coming because I got a little bit stronger You know and all of a sudden it just shows up one day and you're like, it's all coming together.

Yeah. And it's the same thing with like, here's what I'm doing in December. Me and my trainer taking a picture of every profile, my chest, legs, you know, everything, and we're just going to circle parts and design our workouts. Right. We're going to say, look, and I want to move the triceps a little bit. I want to get that eight pack. And the same way I look at business, but I look at business in four things.

I can fix any business in the world. What's your average ticket? What's your conversion rate? What's your booking rate? What does it cost you to acquire a customer? And if you don't, most companies don't have the data, but I look at, then I look at your personal schedule and I say, why are we having this meeting?

You've got eight people in here. Four of them don't even belong to be here. Do you know how much this meeting is costing? Has anybody ever taught you how to give a good meeting? And great, another meeting that should have been an email and I don't like emails. Yeah. But you're smart, you do exactly,

do you know how many screenshots if you went through my pictures that get sent to my executive assistant? The majority of the pictures on this phone are screenshots. And I just, in vault, like I copy her. And when you're saying this stuff, I'm like, and I know you've done this for a long time, but I'm like, success leaves clues.

Like, I do this, I'm not gonna retype out. And I'm like, listen, the one thing I'm having a hard time with is I tend to give out my phone number way too much. Yeah, way too much. Because I want to help people, I really do. And I know mine's jumping on a call, but right now I'm trying to coordinate. How do I help a hundred people? Yeah. Well, I mean, Tommy, and I'm in the same boat, but I learned a long time ago that we teach people how to treat us. And I want to be helpful. So, for example, you know, my email, my inbox, my socials have a ton of people.

They see them in Scottsdale and they're like, I want to see, I want to see helpful. So for example, you know, my email, my inbox, my socials have a ton of people, they see them in Scottsdale and they're like, I want to see, I want to see you. Cool, tomorrow morning we're hiking Camelback. Show up, parking lot, 6.30 AM. Can you do coffee instead? Nope. It's that simple, dude. Every Tuesday I have a standing meeting on the mountain,

we hike the mountain, it's called the Tuesday morning founders hike, people fly in from all over the world, come hike. Tommy, tell them to come work out with you. Don't, dude, don't do meetings. Why do I think meetings are kind of silly? It's like, if you truly want my time, come to where I will be and we will both do something productive and we will have a conversation and it didn't take anything

from me, I call it net time, no extra time. I always compress things into groups. That's why I love social is I can come on here, share my message with you, your audience, it's like a great honor. And then grab all this content, is I can come on here, share my message with you, your audience. It's like a great honor. And then grab all this content, clip it up, post it for social for other people. And the truth is I'm gonna help way more people doing that than I ever will taking a meeting with an individual one-on-one. That's a fact. So anytime I say yes to a one-on-one meeting to help somebody in their business, I'm saying no to spending that time with my videographer, sharing a message that could be seen by millions of people.

And people don't understand when they're saying yes, they're accidentally saying no to something else. And when they say no to something else, they're saying yes to their dreams, they're saying yes to their future. And I just think it's like once you- The power of no. Yes, and just like get okay with it

as long as you understand when I get that time back that you're not wasting it. I'm not gonna sit around on a couch and do nothing. I'm literally gonna reinvest it in myself, in my business, in my team, where I'm gonna get massive leverage. You know, I do a Q&A when there's hundreds of people. It's probably the best thing I do once a month.

And I think if I had more Q&As for a month, once a week, all the questions roll in and people that respond. Dude, I call email a place where words go to die. Oh, 100%. I refuse, my DMs refuse to answer. Every Friday I do a Q&A on my Instagram. If you want to ask me a question, I will answer it, but I will record the answer and it goes to everybody.

And I think anybody that wants anything other than that is selfish and I will call them out on it. They're like, why can't you tell me what tool you use for this thing? I will tell you on Friday when you post the question and I share it for the world. Stop being selfish. You know, one of the things that the only thing

I tend to do is my, I would say my network is my net worth. My Rolodex is super powerful. Cause I've got tried and true and I've got a bunch of people that have failed that I've worked with that just didn't, they weren't effective. So people come into my office and I'm like, they're like I've got a person for everything like who do I use for this? I'm like, this is who you got to call How do I get a good COO? This is the person you got to call

Sometimes you're not ready for this. Yeah, and I'm like they didn't work for me I'm like they didn't work for me because you weren't ready. Like, you're not ready to hire a COO. You're not ready. How are you gonna pay them? Let me ask you this. What do you consider success? Show me if Dan were to come in and work today with a COO. Show me their job, how they get paid,

what their bonus looks like so they can describe it to their wife. What does your day-to-day look like? Have you even thought about that? And what are the actions you're trying to get them to do? And so many people, I look at that and I'm like, where did you spend your time today? Literally, what productivity do you have, if anything, at all? It's like working out.

So many people are doing the stupidest workout. They're not eating right. They're not taking any protein. They're literally drinking three drinks that night. The workouts are useless. You ever see a fat chick at the gym that can freaking outrun everybody? She's sprinting on the fricking thing.

She's doing, like, but she's not doing any of the other stuff right. It's crazy to me. Yeah, I heard recently that the most consistent, the most common thing is a consistent man with no results. Yeah. Think about that.

There's so many people that get up and they do the same thing. Five minutes. Day over, day over. Yeah, dude, I have a T in the case. Jeez. I know, Tommy hit me with some. All right, give me the $50 hack. Well, I call it 50 to fix it or the $50 magic.

Yeah, it's essentially saying to your team that if something comes up that you can solve for less than 50 bucks, you should just spend the money, spend it yourself, expense it. And all I ask is that afterwards, you tell me that you did it so we can have a conversation. But I never wanna stop my team, especially the frontline workers,

from solving problems for themselves or their customer because they need approval. So, and what I do that most people don't realize is it's 50 for frontline workers, it's 500 for leaders, it's 5,000 for managers, it's 50,000 for C-level. So you just figure out what you empower and trust other people to invest to solve problems

and let them know. And we do this across the organization. What do you guys do? So what I started doing is I started having people come to seminars with me, like my C-suite director level. I started to hand, I put a book on their desk. We have book clubs. Like literally we start, like I got them infatuated

with learning because they're like, dude, how did this guy go from here to here? Like it wasn't because I was born with those. No, they're looking at you and they're confused. They're like, what's going on? I know it is. How did this guy figure it out?

Yeah. So what do you do to really help your people grow? I mean, this is what, I'm gonna tell it and people are gonna be like, I never, like, so A, I pay them to read books. And now I know some people like, hey, if you're, I know they say if you're in the C-suite, you have to read books.

And that's fair, at the C level, we're reading books every month, we're sharing notes. But in my company, so like, I will have my direct reports. If they're dealing with a problem, we do learning and development plans. I will tell them the book to read, and once they're done reading it, send me some notes, and I will give you $500.

I pay my team to read books all the time. I buy courses for them. I pay for them to go to the seminars that are relevant to them. I don't invite them to mine. Although I do, but I don't. And then the thing that I do that is probably the most valuable thing, which confuses me why people don't do it, is I go and I personally curate their peer group, their mentorship group. Think about that. I have a COO, I need him to elevate himself. I go and I talk to my friends that have great operators and I invite them to get advice from that person and I teach them, I literally show them how to ask advice, how to build a relationship, how to follow up, how to get a mentor. I teach that to my direct reports

because every time, by back your time, that I teach them to bring somebody that's further along, way past where we are, they get that person to be an advisor or mentor, then I get all that person's knowledge without having to be involved. Dude, that one alone is like, it's my go-to all the time. I do it with these two people in the room.

Like, hey, who are you learning from? What do you need to get in front of them? You want me to make the introduction? I'll get you the meaning. Here's how you have it. And then now you have that relationship. You have the relationship. I don't need the relationship.

It's a bottleneck if I'm the one that keeps it. Very, very smart. That's exactly, you know, I was thinking about doing that with Ann over here, is getting her, I obviously want to have her for a few minutes too, but. Tell them. And Ann's my assistant for those listening. Ann is.

She's my executive assistant, aka just a partner. Everything, I mean, really, that's what it is. And I mean, people are like, how do you do this? Like they know the intimate, like they know what's up and break up this. Yeah, and Ann has her own assistant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like she, yeah.

Literally, like I'm hiring, I've tried to hire two assistants for my EAs. They don't work out, but it's not easy. I want to finish up with a couple of things. Real quick, over the four things that you could do for leverage. Yeah, so to me, it's 50 to fix it. It's the one, three, one rule. That's one of my favorites.

So, like, when somebody comes to you with a problem, I want you to ask them what problem are you trying to solve, what are the three options you've considered, and what is the one recommendation. Because if you always have to be the smartest person in the trying to solve? What are the three options you've considered? And what is the one recommendation? Because if you always have to be the smartest person in the room to solve problems, then you'll never have a business that grows. Because that's why they call it a bottleneck. The constraint is at the top.

And every CEO runs into this. And I probably annoy my team because like, Ann literally, look at her bouncing her head. Because I literally should be like, hey, this happened. I go, cool. What do you want to do about it? What do you want to do about it? I don't know. How long is it going to take you to figure it out? I've never done this before. I know. Take the time. Evaluate it. Tell me what your 131 is. And honestly, 90% of the time, the recommendation, it sounds great. Do that.

So like that, that is a big one. The other areas of leverage for me is like, I bring the philosophy of buy back your time into my personal life. Like I have a full-time house manager, she's the CEO of all my personal stuff, all my real estate, all my vehicles, all my, like everything. She literally, when I say everything, people don't understand it.

I just bought a new McLaren, she managed the whole fucking process. And when the sales guy from the dealership was calling me to ask me questions, and I told her, she called him up and said, you do that one more time, we're going to somebody else. Like, I literally empower my people to take care of things because I don't give a shit about paying protection

and insurance, it's not gonna change my life. And I don't wanna know. Let her make the decision, I just want the car. While I'm out there doing what I do best, which is being on here, she's making those decisions to allow me to buy back my time. So we do that in our home life, my wife and I, at a level very few people have ever seen,

and I think that's a big area. That's the one thing is a lot of people get good at business, but they don't do it in their home. Yeah, why not? That's actually the easiest thing. They don't create a process at home. Like literally, I've got a spot for my boxers, there's all my dry cleanings done.

Like everything from soup to nuts, there's a piece of floss left out. I don't pack for my travel. I literally don't pack my bags for any of my trips. No Iron Man trips. See, I'm not there yet. That's something I'm designing. I'm designing that because I'm actually,

like I just called my mentor. It's literally Camcorder mentors. Yeah, well I called one of my mentors and I go, I got all this stuff at business that's just on autopilot. I'm getting ready to design the same thing. I mean, shoot, I've got a lot of stuff that goes on. Lots. So this is fun.

This is like killer. This is one of the best podcasts I've ever been on because everybody needs to buy back their time. Everybody needs to look at where they're spending their time right now and say, is it the best use of their time? There's no way you're gonna go to a hundred percent efficiency, but the fact is you go on TikTok a lot.

You watch reality TV. Yeah. You goof off. Yep. And you, when you turn off, you turn off. Yeah. I'm, I'm a professional goofy dude. Me too.

But when I work, I know I can tell, so I like you man. But when we work dude, hey, watch out. Cause I'm incredibly effective. Yeah. And I'm unapologetic about it. And I ask people to raise themselves to the standard. When we work, we work. And when we don't, game on, man.

Let's have some fun. Somebody wants to find out more, then buy your book, buy back your time. It's unaudible, that's where I listen to it. What's another, if somebody wants to podcast, is there someplace? Yeah, here's the thing, Tommy. I love your audience. I told you before, my brother's a home builder.

Like the local service folks, they got my heart. I think they're literally the backbone of everything that we experience in our communities or based on the people that you hire and the service you offer. So if anybody wants my internal playbook, and I'll give it to you as well, my EA, my executive assistant, internal SOP,

just follow me on Instagram, that's all I ask. Find me, Dan Martell, 2Lzmartell on Instagram, go there now. Follow me and just message me, EA, but say that you heard us on the podcast. You know, mention Tommy or something, and my team's monitoring that. They will send you the direct link to the Google Doc,

sanitize obviously, but it's got everything in there, man. It's got my North Star principle for my executive assistant. It's got how I manage my life, my meetings, my structure. It's all there, that's my gift to your audience. That's awesome. Last thing I finish up with, and this will be the very last thing. We talked a lot about a lot of things. And the audience, they're blue collar.

You know, a lot of business owners, a lot of management, a lot of COOs, different things within the home service business. The podcast is growing outside of home service, but it's business related. There's probably something we didn't talk about, something important, something we didn't discuss, something that maybe a call to action, maybe something the audience needs to know about. And I like it when I give my guests an opportunity to finish us out with something

they think's important. Here's what I would share with everybody. We don't get the life that we want. We don't get the life that we desire. We don't get the life that we set goals. People, like all this stuff, right? Which I get, they're important. We get the life we focus on.

And I think the most important thing that I could share and encourage people to consider is what they allow themselves to get distracted with. What do they focus on? Some people are more worried about the news and what happened in the city next to them, that they have zero control over than their own life. But all I know is that if I focus on lack and frustration

and where I've been wronged and why it's not fair, I can tell you what your future will look like. If you decide to find, like literally go out of your way to focus on the positivity, the opportunity, the abundance, the fact that, you know, we were just talking about the American dream. I think it's a beautiful thing. Like literally it's in your control and you can understand how special that is. I can tell's a beautiful thing. Like literally, it's in your control.

And you can understand how special that is. I can tell you what your future will hold. It has nothing like all the other stuff against skills and beliefs and character traits are important. But like you said, I can't believe for you. I can't force you to focus. But if you literally just ask yourself, what am I focusing on and you go positive or negative and continue to replace it with positive Even if you don't believe the story believe the focus believe what it is. You're telling yourself I don't give a shit if you believe that's what faith is required to do So what I learned at 17 when I got sober is I had to have faith they called it blind faith

I had no proof that what they were saying was gonna work But they just asked me to have blind faith and that transformed my life. And that's what I want for everybody listening. Believe. Believe in yourself. Think about the great stuff. Dan, it's a pleasure, my man. Thank you very much. Tommy, an honor.

It's been great. Thank you. Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team

like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction head over to elevate and win.com For slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast