The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 512: Dan Martell - The Art Of The Cold Email, Hosting World-Class Leadership Retreats, & How To Buy Back Your Time

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of Mindful Monday. Join 10's of thousands of other Learning Leaders from all over the world to receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Dan Martell is an entrepreneur, investor and best-selling author of the book Buy Back Your Time. He founded, scaled, and exited three technology companies within a ten-year period.  In 2012 he was named Canada's top angel investor, having invested in more than 50 start-ups, such as Intercom, Udemy, and Unbounce. In 2016, Martell founded the SaaS Academy and grew it to become one of the largest coaching companies in the world. He's also an Ironman athlete, philanthropist, husband, and father of two boys. The 3 keys to a world-class leadership retreat: Do something physically hard together (hike up a mountain, Wim Hof ice bath) Do the strengths and weaknesses exercise. Be honest, vulnerable, and open. It builds trust. Be very intentional about the seating chart (in meetings, at meals, and rooming assignments) Send cold emails: Dan sent hundreds of cold emails when he moved to San Francisco Paul Graham responded and said, "Do marketing. Every startup needs help with that." It changed how Dan introduced himself to founders moving forward. Read Tim Sanders' book, Love Is The Killer App Acquire knowledge for your customer Your network is your net worth. Build relationships. Love cat -- Nice guys finish first. Be a kind person. When Dan went to jail, he met a guard named Brian. Brian pulled Dan aside and said, "What are you doing? You don't belong here." As a leader, use your power for good. Help people believe they can do more. Dan has hired a family coach and had her live with his family to help them have deeper relationships. "I want to have an epic marriage." Intentional Family Actions Dan takes: A quarterly retreat with his wife, Renee Ask: "How have I shown up as a husband for you?" Wednesday family lunch meetings Write your family core values together Have family board meetings Dan is intentional about telling his boys what he sees in them Buy Back Your Time Dan shares the secret to engineering your perfect week – and then, your perfect year – to ensure you're fully focused on what matters most. And... When to employ time hacks, such as the "Definition of Done" and the "$50 Magic Pill," to help your team work more efficiently, prevent bottlenecks, and guard your energy. Dan teaches you how to calculate your Buyback Rate so you can start buying back time immediately. And... Why playbooks need to be the foundation of your business, and how to create them. Life/Career advice: Whatever you want out of life, help others get that. The world rewards those who help others.

Whatever you want out of life, help other people get that. You only get to keep what you give away. The world rewards those who help others. Go help other people on your team be successful in their career. And watch how it comes back 100x. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here.

Text Hawk to 666866 to become part of Mindful. Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, The Pursuit of Excellence, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, Pock to 66866. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. A great one. It's Dan Martel, entrepreneur, investor, and bestselling author of the book, Buy Back Your Time. He founded Scale. and exited three technology companies within a 10-year period.

In 2012, he was named Canada's top angel investor, having invested in more than 50 startups such as Intercom, Udemy, and Unbounce during this conversation. We discuss how you can put together a world-class leadership retreat for your team. I love the specifics here. Then why you should consider hiring a family coach. Dan has one and says it's changed his life. And he shared how their family coach has helped them. This is something I'm considering doing and actually want to hire the same one that he mentioned when we talked.

And then the importance of knowing your buyback rate and how to use it to be more effective both at home and at work. Ladies and gentlemen, I think you'll find this very useful and entertaining. It's the great Dan Martel. All right, Dan Martel, this one's long time coming. We were introduced by our mutual friend Jason Gainard five or six years ago. And I think we had a phone call four years ago where Jason has said like, this dude's big time. He's going to be even bigger time. He's writing books and all this.

He lives an amazing life. So make sure you take notes. So I took tons of notes from our phone call. I don't know if you probably don't even remember the call, but they're here. And I got to reference some of them to get us started. Okay. So you told me that there was an email that changed your life from a guy named Paul Graham. Paul Graham is a legendary investor, Y Combinator, and I think one of the most impactful writers that I read on a regular basis.

His essays are insanely good. I highly recommend people read Paul Graham. But you got a response from him. You said it changed your life. What happened? Well, I was 28. I'm from Eastern Canada in a small town called Moncton. So the province of New Brunswick, it's like the top hat of Maine in Canada, way out on the ocean.

And I decided one day to move to San Francisco, didn't know a soul, and ended up getting a place in Delaware, near Dolores Park in the Mission District, and tried to make friends. Honestly, San Francisco is kind of a crazy city where if you're, if you're, not from there and you don't have a billion dollar tech company that's raised a bunch of money. You didn't go to Stanford or Berkeley. It's not an easy network to crack into. And I spent the first three weeks going to, I made a list of the top 12 coffee shops for co-working and I would rotate through them morning at one afternoon at another. And I just got kind of desperate and out of that desperation. I cold emailed, found a list. I think it was on tech crunch of

the 100 most influential people in tech. Paul Graham was obviously on that list. I co-mailed every person saying, I'm Canadian, I just sold my company. I'm trying to build relationships and add value. Here are my skills. I said like, you know, I can write code. I can do business development. I'm a strong marketer, you know, et cetera. And, and, you know, and, And, you know, how do you, how would you give me advice to kind of create value and kind of crack into this, this world? You know, the Disneyland of technology nerds is known as San Francisco in the Bay Area. And Paul Graham replied, one liner. It was very simple.

It was do marketing. Every startup needs help with that. And I took that and I went all it. Essentially, before that point, you know, I, I'd sit next to somebody and I could see on their computer they're like working on a pitch deck or writing code. And I'd introduce myself and they'd go, what do you do? And I go, you know, I just moved here. I don't really know.

And I'll tell you, Ryan, that is the worst answer to give any kind of like entrepreneur. That was the response. They were like, okay, back to my code in my pitch deck and my coffee. And as soon as I remember the next day, I went back to the coffee shop and, you know, I always tried to pick a strategic spot between two people. had a double the chance of meeting somebody. And they go, so what do you do, Dan? I go, well, I help startups with marketing. Changed everything. Wow. I'm a startup. I need help with marketing. How do you help? And I just went with it. And that began for a nine month process of me working with some of the coolest startups in the valley coming in and doing these two week,

kind of like intensive audits and strategy sessions. I wouldn't even, I didn't even get paid. Like I had just sold my company. So I was fortunate enough that I didn't need the income. But I would, I would do it for free. And it just got around to all the investors. It's where I met a ton of people. I ended up getting invited actually to the YC demo day. And I got to meet Paul in person.

So it was, it was some incredible advice. I think, you know, the big lesson I take from that is try to figure out how to create value for other people. And if you help, if you want to be successful, help other people be successful. Were you an expert in marketing or did you have to learn it? Or did you just draw from your experience from your prior company when you were able to build it up to eventually exit? Where did the marketing come from? It definitely came from the previous company because I was kind of like a jack of all trades, didn't understand how to get leverage and ran my own ad words.

This is early. I mean, I started that company in 2004, so 2004-2008, you know, basic content marketing, a bit of social. This was early days of blogging. So we had a blog. We did AdWords. So search. But there was a whole other level. And it was crazy as that was like when I met Eric Reese before he ever wrote the book, The Lean Startup. I was there when he gave his first talk on the Lean Startup at the Web 2O conference. I met a guy named Andrew Chen, who is a prolific blogger. If you know Paul Graham, they'd probably know Andrew's stuff. And just a ton of other people that this was like at the beginning of when growth hacking the term came.

And I was kind of part of that cohort of people that helped kind of communicate some of these ideas. So did I know demand gen and blogging marketing? Yes. Did I learn product led growth, which is what's called today or growth hacking 100%. So there was levels to it. But the truth is, you know, you just got to be a couple chapters ahead of somebody else to be valuable. Yeah. Why San Francisco?

What made you move there? I mean, I was in tech, but most of the stuff I'd done that previously was in enterprise. So most of my customers were in like major cities predominantly on the East Coast, New York, New Jersey, a lot of pharma up and down the East Coast. And, you know, you read the blogs, Tech Crunch. You see, you see these kids build these companies out of nothing. And I was just, you know, I grew up in a small town of. about 100,000 people. And I was, after I sold my company, I took, you know, like six months to enjoy myself, you know, started building kind of a mega mansion, built, I bought a boat,

wake surf boat, you know, a cottage, hot tub. I thought I was sorted, right? Like, this is, this is my life going forward. I work my butt off. Now I get to enjoy it. And I clearly saw a future of Dan being 50 years old with a bunch of young 20 year olds on his boat and just, I was like, that's just like, I just didn't want to be that guy. And I honestly, I remember I woke up and I bought a one way ticket to San Francisco. I'd always dreamed of this place. I wonder if any of my crazy ideas would hold water. And I moved there September 1st, 2008 with nothing.

I literally went on Craigslist and found an apartment that I, that I rented. And I didn't know how long I was going to stay. I didn't know what was the plan. I just knew that if I didn't go, I was getting pulled into this comfort zone of being a big fish in a small pond. And I just wasn't going to be happy with my life if I didn't try something else. Right. It would have been really easy to just chill out. There was a guy in my hometown named Norm who was that guy.

So I knew Norm and I was like, I don't want to be Norm. I don't want to be, you know, the guy that everybody, you know, thinks of that way. You know, he's always driving around in his fancy boat, but, you know, perpetually single, always always outlaid at the clubs, but definitely sticks out if you know what I mean. So that's why I moved to the Valley. And it was one of the most important decisions in my life because I understood how to build and think at a level that was way beyond big. Like there's like I'm a big thinker and then there's no like let's let's go to silken

out let's let's you know unless your plan is to take over the world your thinking is not at the level of every person in the Bay Area all the time it's just it's just part of the ethos. I got I asked normally at the end of these conversations about career and life advice and a few recent guests have said to somebody earlier in the. a career, I would move to a big city. Do you think that's still necessary given how more remote the world has become? Or would you say, get to New York, get to San Fran, get to wherever, what do you think about that? It's not as necessary because I have a ton of reference points today where media, especially like podcasters, have been able to leverage the medium to build the same level of

relationships you would otherwise. I still think it's required to get on a plane. I mean, we met in person at an event. So, but I do think it's important. You know, when my kids are old enough, I'm going to get them on a plane and they're not going to university right away. They're going to go live some life. They're going to go around the world. And I'm not going to even pay for. I'm just going to maybe buy them a one-way ticket and say, I hope you guys figure away home. Like now my wife hates when I say stuff like that, but it's true, right? Like there's nothing that's going to replace, you know, breaking bread, you know, handshakes, shouts. shared experiences, et cetera, to really build a level of relationship and trust that you otherwise

could never do over digital mediums. If anything, I feel that to be even more true as we were forced to go to this level. And I just see the contrast of like, you know, I have a huge team all over the world. When we get together, it does a magic there. Doesn't matter how often we do Zoom meetings. It doesn't matter how structure the meetings are. Doesn't matter how creative our questions are nothing replaces in-person shared experiences let's actually uh drill down on that let's say there is a an SVP at a fortune 500 company listening dan and that person had their team has become more remote and because of that they wisely are doing quarterly leadership retreats so they're saying 20 30 people they're all going to a cool location and they have two and a half to three days

if you were helping that person, and a lot of them, they're not used to this, so they're not good at it. They're not supposed to be good at. They do other things. So let's say that person says, Dan, I want my next quarterly leadership retreat with 30 or 40 people, whatever.

I want it to absolutely kill. What are the must-haves of those three days? Like, what must go right during those three days for that to be an excellent retreat? The beautiful question, Ryan. I obviously think abnormally, invested amount of time into that because I facilitate high-level CEOs to get together. I'm about to go to Nashville for my event.

I would say there's three things I would absolutely make sure that you do right. First thing is ensure that there's some physical activity that the group does and it's not optional. So everybody has to do it. So it could be a hike. It could be maybe renting. some off-row vehicles, like just something. I think there's something about physically enduring something tough with other people, especially if it's like some kind of team-coordinated

effort like an obstacle course race or whatnot. Wim Hof ice bath would be a really fun when we've done that. You know, just two-minute ice bath. A lot of people probably have never done it. It's incredibly difficult. After you're done, you're just, you want to high five. So that, 100% that. I wouldn't even do a retreat if there wasn't that. Period. Full stop. Like, what's the point of getting to you?

Oh, zero. Nobody gets an approved budget unless they show me. There is something that they're doing as a group. What if they're in a city that doesn't have a mountain or doesn't have good wilderness? Go for a walk. I don't care. I don't care. Go walk up some stairs.

Go find the tallest building. Hit the stairs. See you at the top. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And nobody, no, no man left behind kind of attitude. So that's one.

Okay. Dude, obstacle course, jump parks. Like, there's a lot of options in a city. I'm just thinking of all the fun stuff I do with my kids. And then second would be this exercise called strength and weaknesses that I actually teach. It's not, I'll tell you the short version. And I think, I don't think Lindsay only talks about it in his book. He may. I think E.O people do this. So if anybody's in EO or YPO ask, maybe they call it something. and different. But the idea is as a group, you just write down everybody's name in the group, and then you just write down one thing that they do well, their strength, and one thing that you wish that they would consider working on a weakness, right? Or if you want to be softer and opportunity, but I actually, by design, don't go soft. I actually call it a weakness. And I want people to learn how to say something that they're scared will hurt somebody's feelings. So why this works is there is no conversation about it. You get a group of eight people, 12 people, people together and you go one at a time. The leader goes first. I would go first. I sit there and

every person in the room goes, Dan, I love this about you. And I have this other thing that really frustrates the bejesus out of me. Like, perfect. The only response is thank you. And you go through the whole group. You write them down and then the next person. So I would pretty much start at like the most senior person that can take it or the other person and just work your way down because it'll like soften the blow. And here's the kicker. One, At the end, everybody chooses, based on what they got as feedback, one area that they're going to commit to the group over the next 90 days that they will work on. So there's a feedback loop and a commitment. The other benefit is a lot of people have internal, what I call emotional shrapnel that they have not shared with other people.

They've been on the receiving end of a call where somebody's doing something or it literally, it could be a bad habit. it. One of my sales guy, Michael, got the feedback from everybody like, when you communicate, you're not clear. And it blew his mind. He never heard that before. His whole life, 30-some-year-old man, nobody's ever told him that. He walks away going, Dan, what are the three books? What are the courses? Who are the people? I'm going to become the best communicator in the world. That's awesome, right? It wasn't his boss that told him that. It was literally the whole team that he works with. So that exercise is a must. I would say that's number two. And then three is some level of thoughtful seat assignment. So if there are shared rooms and bunk beds, I would definitely

curate that. I wouldn't let it default to the normal clicks. I would definitely do assigned seating for meals. And that's probably it. If you did assign seating for meals and rooms, I think you would probably create, you would generate the benefit that you would be hoping a retreat would create, which is a new level of relationships across functions, across individuals otherwise may not work together that much and come back with just an incredible yeah just a vibe it's trust i mean it's the speed of trust many people have written about it's just how it works in that phone call we had four years ago you mentioned tim sanders and that he had written a book that had changed your life called love is the killer app what is it about him in that book

that changed your life tim what a special man so so it's so it This is what's crazy for me is I was 23 when I got my hand on his book. It wasn't even the book. It was the audio CDs. That's how old I am. So I bought the CDs. And I had been struggling business since I was 17. You know, I share in my book that I went through some really challenging times as a kid,

got through that, started business and entrepreneurship as almost like a personal development program, but didn't read business books. I was a software guy. I read 100 software books, everything on databases and architecture and the internet and programming interface stuff. But I kept failing. I had two failed back-to-back companies that I like really like not side hustles. I think some people are like, oh, I failed in my company. It's like you had a full-time job. Like that's not, I went all in, right? And my dad, you know, even after the second one, he's like, could you please just get a normal job? Like, he begged me.

I was like, I just am not going to do well in that world. And I eventually was at a bookstore in Ottawa, Canada, the Rito Center, chapters. You know, it's our version of, you know, borders. And I was just perusing the bookstore because, you know, I'm not an idiot. I heard, you know, reading books is probably a good idea. But a lot of books at that point were written by like executives. I don't know if you remember, but like, things. Think of the top books back then. They were written for like white CEO executives. Like they weren't, they weren't like some of the, the, you know, some of the books that Mark Manson writes today or others like or even Ryan Holiday. I know you've had them on like six or some times. So I'm like perusing this business section and there's this book called Love is a Killer App. And in software parlance, that is a killer app is like this spreadsheet, right, or the browser for the internet or.

you know, maybe NFTs for Bitcoin or blockchain. And like, that resonated with me. And then he was a chief solution officer at Yahoo. All right. Like he's not a chump. Like, don't know if this is the book I should read, but I bought the audio. I figure I'll listen to it while I'm walking around. I was, I was living there consulting and didn't really have any, like, didn't have a huge social life. So I just figure I'll just use that as like audio as I walked to work and walked around the city and put it in. I remember I went back to my office and I slid it into the CD. tray and the tower of the computer and, you know, when amp loads up and then all of a sudden I start listening to this. And I got hooked, man. I didn't want to stop. I honestly, I'll be

honest, I did not do any work. I was working at this company called Nav Canada. That day was a right off. And I just binge watch. And what changed for me was these three core messages in his book, which is one to acquire knowledge, not for yourself. This is a kicker run. Check this out. you read for your customer and I thought that was fascinating right yes you could read for yourself but go level deeper think about who you serve what are the top 10 books they should have read

you read them and then you can share it with them as a value at that's that's like so anybody that's listening to this if you're a team member on a company or whatever and you don't do that I don't know what you're doing with your time That is like a no-brainer, become incredibly valuable overnight kind of thing. So that was one.

Two, was your network is your net worth. How lucky am I at 23? I learned that actually going out of your way to build relationships in and outside of work is like really important. I mean, dude, I mean that anybody knows me today. They're like, oh, Dan's a social butterfly. I was not. I used to sit my freaking office at home and just code until two or three in the morning. Right.

but I trusted Tim and he's like, hey, you have to proactively build these networks and he gave some really smart strategies for how to do that and dinners and workouts and all that stuff. So I was like, okay, cool. Then the third thing is, you know, what he called a love cat. I never got behind that language, but still a good concept, which is good guys do finish first. You know, and I think there's a mentality in business world where dog eat dogs and all that stuff. And it's like, I don't think you should be a pushover, but, you know, I'm not, I do everything through the lens that it could be published on the cover of the Wall Street Journal or New York Times. And I'm just, I'm cool. I'm playing the long game. And I do think that good people finish first. I've just, I mean, Ryan, we've seen it nonstop. It's just, it's just a true. So at 23, learning those three core keys to life. And like, learning. Learning. them as like in my soul and then i and i had enough courage you know read the book so i figure i'll email the author any replies my head explodes i'm like oh my gosh i now emailed the guy who wrote

the book that the impact of my life and i email them every year for i want to say 15 years wow and uh when the book finally came to be in person he was one of the first people i message and I said, do you have time for a quick meeting? He jumped on a Zoom call with me and I showed him. And so this is what's nuts, Ryan. This May will be exactly 20 years when I read his book to today and I asked them, would you be willing to do a joint book signing in San Francisco? Because that's where he lives. I don't want to make him come to Canada. And he said, absolutely. So we're going to do a joint book signing. It's so cool, man. It is. I'm so pumped. The other takeaway, in a addition to the knowledge there is ask like send the note pick up the phone ask so huge go for

i i'm i i love it especially when i see somebody earlier in their career send a thoughtful note that is that that has specifics in it i think specificity is very important dan especially with cold emails not like if you have an ask or you want something say it if there's a question you have ask it i just got one yesterday and it really is heartening because someone's 22 and there's I just said just the fact that you sent this note puts you so far ahead but that's just another takeaway is ask make the ask don't be afraid the worst thing that happens is he just deletes it or doesn't read it doesn't respond but then you're in the same spot you were in before so make the ask and get in the habit of I read

this book I love it so the next natural thing to do obviously is that is want to talk to the author right like I think that's that's a cool part that That was your default setting at such a young age. Well, and think about this. Fast forward to five years later, I'm in San Francisco. I would have never sent those emails. Paul Graham would have never reply, would have never given me that wisdom, would have never, you know, pushed me down that path.

But like, I mean, I think what I love what you just said is the specificity, right? Because, you know, I had somebody show up my life as a teenager that literally spoke into me what I call today my giftedness. Like they saw something in me and they just slow down specifically and said, this about you is very different. And I look at you through this lens. That to me, like what you just said like a note that's specific. If you want to compliment somebody, there's two versions. You could say like, hey, man, you're a good dude.

Okay, that's one way, which is easy. And it's, it's generally appropriate. Here's my filter. If I could say that to another person and it still works, it's not specific. think. Yep. Right. But if I say to you, Ryan, the way you research and show up prepared for your podcast interviews is why I think you are so unique in this space. Who else am I going to say that to, right? A, most people don't do any research for the podcast. Even if they're a podcast, they'll be like, I don't do research. I just saw you wrote a book. I want to talk to you. It's like,

so I think the more specific you can be even in a compliment is actually how we, we value if the person actually meant what they said. So no matter where you're at in your career, worth considering when you're sending out messages. What did the person say to you who spoke into your giftedness? What did they see in you that maybe you had not seen in yourself? Oh man. It's a it's a longer story.

I'll give the short version I talk about it in my book. But you know, I ended up in a lot of trouble as a kid. As you know from the previous conversations and what you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. gotten in a fight in prison. I was 16, got thrown in the hole for three days. You know, pretty much they lock you in a room, you know, concrete, bed, stainless sealed toilets in your underwear. You're literally staring at a, you know, a toilet and a sink, 23 and a half hours a day. Like, they let you out for 30 minutes in this kind of like room with a fence on the roof. So it is outside. Technically, you're outside. But, you know, it's a, you know, 15 by 15 square in the middle of the building. So I was there and they don't even tell you when

you're going to get out. And I was a teenager in the hole, but the rest of the inmates in there were all adults. And they do this thing called they'd rock the cells where they would like lay on their back and just like pound the door with their feet. Like, and they would go until they gas themselves out. Sometimes they would riot in their cells. And I'm just sitting there like, what's going on? Like what if the door breaks open? Like just. I mean, it. is probably the worst experience in my life. And the third day, the door opens. It's Brian, one of the guards who had been there for probably a decade. And he's super disappointed to see me there. Right. Like usually you don't get sent in a hole unless something major happens. And he was on vacation

when it happened by getting a fight with this kid, Kirk. And they sent us away. And then he came to get me. So we're walking back to the cell block. And we're walking down the hallway. And we actually past the door, which was where we go. And I've never been past the door because you just don't go anywhere as you're not supposed to go. And the next door is the guard unit, which is like it looks over the two cell blocks. So it's like this square. But it's the inside of the one way mirror, which we'd never seen. Rule number one, nobody goes in the guard unit. Like you will, they didn't say you get shot, but you probably, you probably get tasered or whatnot. And he says, come with me. And he opens the door. And I'm just like, uh, no. And he's like, it's open.

okay, you know, come inside. And I follow him. And he asked me to sit in the corner. So my back's kind of overlooking the cell block, but again, one-way mirror. And he just pulls up a chair and he sits in front of me and he looks me in the eyes and goes, what are you doing here? And I was like, well, I got in a fight with Kirk. And he goes, no, not that.

He goes, what are you doing in this place? I was like, well, I high-speed chase and guns and drugs. And he's like, I don't get it, Dan. I know, I see you do your work. I see you stay out of trouble. I see you trying to better your life. And like, I don't get why you're here. I've been here for a long time.

I've seen hundreds of kids come and go and you don't belong here. And if you've never heard anybody tell you, I want you to know that you do not belong in this place. it does not make sense to me. And I just broke down. I just, I think there was something about Brian being who he is and he didn't have to take the time to tell me this. He didn't have to pull me aside.

He'd obviously seen a lot of kids. And there was just something inside that went from, Dan, you're a piece of crap. You are worthless. Of course, you deserve to be. be here to maybe there's something more, like maybe Ryan's right. And that was the beginning of a different trajectory of my life that ended up me getting out. I think it had another three months.

I got released to a rehab center after three months and spent almost a year in this place. And just kept taking that belief and had other people show up in my life and speak into me. And eventually, you know, I rebuilt the relationship with my family that I'd obviously burned and understood myself and my emotions. What made me tick, my self-worth built all of that back up from zero, negative zero. And it was at the end of that program. I was helping Rick the maintenance guy clean out one of the cabins. It was built in an old church camp. And I figured I found an old computer with a yellow book on Java programming sitting next to it.

I just followed the chapter one and I got the computer to say hello world and that's that was the beginning of this crazy journey that I know yeah thank you for sharing I think one of the leadership lessons I take away from that story and I like reading about it and certainly it's it's even cooler to hear you tell it is when you find yourself in a position of power whether you're leading at a company or your mom or a dad or whatever your words carry more weight than you probably realize that guard cared enough about you and probably understood the weight of his words and he used that power for good and i think as leaders we all have that opportunity but we have to be mindful of that we have to

understand that there are people that don't fully realize what they're capable of and we can help them. And I sense now, like, you do that for a living, but it started because somebody did it for you. And I just think it's something to drill down on to make sure we are vividly clear on the power we have and how can we use that power to influence people, to help them, to lift them to perform at levels

that they're not sure they're capable of. That's the ultimate sign of leadership, man. it's it's one of those things that I didn't even know I had learned and then I you know one of the ways or like kind of like 12 step rules is like you know don't don't get out there and be preachy right be a lighthouse you know a lot of people you know start working out and they're like everybody's got to work out why aren't you working out you should work out and everybody get tough you know but they're like no just be be an example like just go out there and shine your light do not be what I call it tugboat. Don't be running into people trying to get them to change course. Like just be

a lighthouse. And look, my two younger brothers were also on that same. You know, they never went to prison, but they were on probation and they got in trouble with the law. And all I did was use what Brian did with me and just speak into their giftedness. You know, I have this talk I give called the power of belief because as you said, man, it's like it costs us nothing. And it's something you can do to any person. I do it on a daily basis to the person that serves me at a restaurant to, I seen a dad the other day in line up, we're at the passport,

you know, border control. And I just saw a dad deal with his son in such a beautiful way. And I just tapped him on the shoulder. I said, Hey, man, you're an incredible dad. I just want you know,

I saw the way you handled that. Amazing. And he was just, oh, oh, thanks, man. I was like, I get it. Nice work. That was it. My wife's like, why do you do that? And I was like,

because I felt it on my heart. Like see, here's my filter. If it spoke to my heart, there's a reason why it showed up there. So I'm just honoring whatever part of me felt that by expressing it. And that's literally how I run my life. If it, look, there's a lot of times I see stuff and I don't, it doesn't speak to me. That's cool. But if I felt it and I'm like, oh, wow, that's really inspiring or that's really impressive or, you know, you see this kid at a park and they're working on their, you know, whatever, they built this castle and you're just like, that is impressive. Go tell them. Yeah. Takes nothing. Slow, slow life down a little bit and go, go express that belief. And I'll tell you, man, it is. It's super fun. Because here's everybody wants to know. Have you ever found Brian? Have you ever told them? Yes. It took a while. If you imagine Ryan, it takes a while to. find a guard. They do not make it easy, okay, for obvious reasons. Sure. Yeah. Took a while.

I had to be sober for years. I think it was like eight years later, this woman, Mary Ellen, um, knew of him and asked for his permission. He said, yes, he kind of doesn't remember the moment, but I'm not surprised. That's awesome. And I think it's better because something tells me he's done. He's always doing it. He was picking kids and he would pull them aside and he would just share stuff with him. And he just saw me getting a lot of trouble and he's like, this kid is not that kid. I need to make sure I tell them, like, whatever, you know, like. And I just thought that was really beautiful because as you know, Ryan, you probably tell stuff to people and you forget. And then they tell you, hey, man, you said something to me really changed my life. You're like, uh, okay, thanks.

Like, don't, I love it. I'm, I don't say I didn't do it. But maybe you didn't think it was that impactful. So, yeah, I think that that makes even better. Speaking of your wife, Renee, very Kind. Send me some nice notes about my books and she's got your book next to her right now. Huge advocate of I love I love how big of an advocate she is for you and your work. We talked about having you on the podcast before we made this work. But I read that you hired a family coach to help you and Renee as well as your two kids have a deeper relationship. And this idea fascinated me and I want to learn more because I, this is something I might want to do. Can you share why you did it and how it's impacted your family.

Yeah. So her name's Brooke Bergman. Okay. So anybody that's interested in this, Google her, find her. She's world class. I don't even know if she calls herself a family coach.

That's what I call her for us because I, I met her because I wanted a therapist for me personally that understood the world of entrepreneurship. So one of my friends, you know Sherry Walling from MMT? Yeah. I've been on her podcast. Yeah.

Okay, perfect. So she works with Sherry. She's part of the Zen founder, yeah, community. Okay. So I reached out to Sherry and I was like, hey, here's what I'm looking for. She's like, I know the person. Her name is Brooke. So she brought Brooke into my life about three years ago. And immediately, I mean, she just, for me, like, I think you should find somebody that you vibe with. She just was incredible. And then what was beautiful is, is, you know, she offers, she's like, hey, would you be open to me working with Renee? And because the one of the, process that she does that I think is critical is she works with both people in the relationship one-on-one and then does joint sessions. Yeah, which is, duh, I don't know, that's how I would want to do.

It's how I coach my founders, right? That makes sense. Co-founder, bring them together. Hey, let's see if we can get to a place that I know of because I've talked to both yet. So there was that. We've been working with her for three years. She's like, it's awesome because of any little wrinkle of a conversation that is just tough for me to have. And I've just gotten to a place. Like recently, we got a puppy. Renee was having an issue with the puppy. I didn't have the skills to communicate what I was trying to say. And I just said to her, babes, I love you. I'm not that gifted in this area right now. I will work on it. But I think it's really valuable. Let's call Brooke. She's like, perfect. So it's kind of funny. Like, I'm just very self-aware. If I know there's a certain energy I'm bringing to a conversation,

I just go, oh, I just don't know how to have that specific conversation. So I need support. But about six months ago, you know, Renee and I like kind of look at our life in the same best practices as we do our businesses. And, you know, we both have business coaches and we understand the value of that. And we invest in our relationship and our, in our businesses, you know, business events. And, you know, we do a seminar every year for our relationship, at least one. So I just, I asked Brooke, would you be willing to come up and live with us for a few days and just kind of seeing inside of the family dynamic and just provide some like, because there's different like truth is when you talk to your therapist and you tell them like your filtered version of stuff. It's just not true. It's not that you mean to make it not true. It's just it's a hallucination about the events. Just reality. Every person is living a hallucination of their experience. So she agreed, which was super cool.

because she lives in California. I live up in Western Canada. And she lived in our house as a guest. She woke up in the morning. The boys didn't know. My boys are nine and 10. They're just like, oh, Dan and, you know, mom and dad's friend Brooke is living with us for visiting. And she was there for breakfasts and everything. She came to soccer game. She came to dinner. She just, she just washed. And then she would do different activities. There was like some work she did with Renee Solo, some work she did with me, with Renee and I, with the boys individually as a family. And it was just, I don't know. If you want to, if you want to really experience heightened levels of what, like I write down every morning my five midgeral, I want to have an epic marriage, right? Epic marriage. Epic as in like,

just I don't even understand how good it could be today. Epic. Right. So I'm always, I'm always trying to invest in it. A lot of people, they're just taking deposits in our relationships. And, you know, I've, obviously, it's a privileged thing to be able to invest in a relationship at that level, but I would do it every six months. I mean, it was just awesome to just have somebody see it. Before we recording, you mentioned, I think I heard you right. One of our family rules is we're going to take the boys, the family to two new countries a year. Yeah. Does I hear you accurately? It's a rule. I mean, it's just kind of like, like a lifestyle rule, I guess?

Yeah, I guess I ask it because I was wondering, are there like a set of rules or a set of lifestyle things to say, we want to do boom, boom, boom, boom every year and maybe this stemmed out of the work with Brooke. Are like family traditions growing up primarily revolved around playing sports, which were great?

And I have that similarly now as a dad, but I also want to even create more traditions and more, I don't, I wouldn't call them rules, but more kind of regular, occurrences like if it's go to two countries or whatever it may be. So I was just curious if you have other ones that you've come up with. Yeah. I mean, here's one of my philosophies and me and I'll be a popular one for some people. I just don't. I question everything. So I question traditional holidays. I question other people's rhythms on my life. I question seven days a week, five days on two days

off. I question weekends. I question summer vacations. Like I just, so if if you just like actually allowed yourself to just take a first principles approach to this and just like blank slate, then you can give yourself permission to design a life based on what you believe is the right way, not what the society tells you, oh, it's Thanksgiving and here's what we do on Thanksgiving, right? So from that point of view, we have a lot of things. Like, Renee and I do quarterly retreats for two or three nights where it's just her and I. And we've been doing that since the kids were babies. And some people are like, oh, must be nice. Yep, guess what? You can do it too. You just ask somebody to take care of your kids. You can do one night. You can do it

in your own home. It costs you nothing. So don't, don't people that I just have a problem. People like must be nice. You're so quick to dismiss it. Like just listen a little bit, right? But because we do that, it allows us to disconnect, reconnect every three months, right? We do a weekly family meeting every Wednesday for lunch. We have lunch together. We have a very, again, when you said rules, I have more like principles and rules. So they're like, I don't beat myself up if I miss a family meeting or whatever or a quarter of the retreat. But there are rhythms that we have designed and deliberately intentionally created because we feel they're very valuable.

And if they weren't, we just stop. And so there's that. So we do the weekly meeting, which I mean, it's so obvious. I asked the question to my wife, how have I showed up as a husband for you? And I sit there and I listen and the only appropriate response is, thank you. And guess what? She has to do the same thing. And I can share my thoughts.

I can share my feelings. She says, thank you. We move on. I mean, simple things in that agenda is like we review the weekend because so many people fight about, oh, I didn't know that the kids had this on Saturday and doubt it. It's like plan your weekend on Wednesday. You know, it's so, it's so interesting. the amount of, again, emotional shrapnel people create because they're just not as

intentional about their lives. And I always joke that people spend more time deciding what car to get than what school their kids go to. So I'm a little bit opposite. So we have a lot of traditions, right? We host people at our house for Christmas. We just have a tradition. We created our own, if that makes sense. But I also didn't, I didn't get raised in a family that had any deep tradition. So I had the, I had the opportunity to blank slate it. We have our core values on the wall in our house. Like we have family core values. There's eight of them. If I could bring my laptop over, I'd show you them. But I worked with Chris Smith at Family Brand more recently to redo them. We had them forever. And those were ones Renee and I created. And then we had kids. And then, you know,

last year, we decided to redo them with our two boys because they're older and they could participate. But yeah, I mean, if you think of things you do in your business that you think is smart, we probably, we 100% do it in our family life because it's just, they're their best practices. It doesn't matter if you're running an organization of 150 people or you want to be more intentional with the time. And family board meetings. If you haven't read that book by Jim Shields, awesome book. So I do quarterly board meetings with my boys, which is not a business thing. It's a surf thing. So they're called surfboard meetings, but they're not surf boards. It's just an analogy. So I do that. We have a lot of a lot of that stuff that I think creates the rhythms and

the routines for us to be important. And back to the power of belief in speaking that into people, I have an intentional habit when I'm traveling or when I put my kids to bed to tell my boys about them. So one on one, I'll tell Noah about Noah. And I will be very intentional. And I will speak to something I've seen or how I see him interact and I just let him know who he is and it's a big part of my life I love that I was riding the car it's maybe it's like emotional I was riding the car with my eight year old daughter charlie other day and uh a a couple times prior to that I had told her how much I loved how curious she is because she always asked so many questions and I know what as kids we were we're curious and sometimes that can you can lose that as you grow up and

badly don't want her to lose that curiosity. And like three days later she goes, Dad, do you love how curious I am? Like she was just repeating what I'd already told her. And there was, it was one of the greatest moments. Like there's nothing better than that type of thing. And I said, of course I do, Charlie. That's why I told you that a few days ago. It's one of my favorite things about you. And I think it just is a reminder to her like, this is a great quality. This curiosity will get you really far. And I love that you naturally have it. Now let's pour gasoline on that fire because it's so cool. Yeah, how many parents tell their kids and stop asking questions?

Yeah. Dude, that's amazing that you do that. Yeah, I love it. I love. Well, I've actually, I've got to see the power of it from this podcast now 500 plus episodes that where it gets you. Like where, like the stuff you could learn and how much knowledge you can gain and just how much better off you'll be and the relationships you can build by following your genuine curiosity with great rigor. I've really sensed it. And now it's like, oh, man, I want to make sure if someone has that.

Let's like tell them. I tell them it's a it's a really useful thing. And it just makes the world a lot more interesting too. Matt, I mean, I think that the, the Delta, like the amount of effort it takes to raise incredibly empowered, high self-worth. Right. People are like, oh, what about social media? I don't care if my kids aren't social media. That's not the problem. The problem is how they feel about themselves.

Yeah. And those are 100% things like you just did with your daughter to let her know that her value is not her physical appearance. It's not what she says or does to, you know what I mean? Like I just think that that's a little bit of intentionality and it could go. And I really think that we're here for like the kids is the best expression of our way of helping. the world because we're also that we have the potential to resolve some of the things that may not have served us from our parents. And it's not because they were bad. It's just they did the best they had with what information they had. So I just think it's kind of a neat idea of just like

being more thoughtful about it, right? Instead of just allowing your default emotions to surface. So we're almost an hour in. I haven't asked you about your book. And I actually, my outline has 75 to 80% of it is on your book. But I think this only happens when I'm lucky enough to talk with somebody who you can tell is very thoughtful, very intentional, and I admire the way they live their life. So their life. So I really appreciate that. I do want to touch on buyback your time because Jason Gainard, again, I did a thing for the MMT members on Zoom where I spoke about podcasting and interviewing stuff like that. and he shared with me you did something similar, I think six or seven years ago on this topic of your book of buying back your time,

which he said, I think is the most popular one that's ever been done within the MMT community. And the people that are in that community are the best of the best, I mean, at least from my experience. So amazing to you. I'm curious, there's, as we've already talked about, there are so many different topics that you, would be qualified to write a book about. What was bought why buy back your time was your because I'm sure you'll write more. But why is this your your first endeavor into this by the way, Wall Street Journal bestseller. Congrats. Thank you. Awesome. Well deserve. It's just crazy. Why had a yeah why buyback your time is is the one you said I'm tackling that first.

This book was built by a community. Let's be honest. Right. And Jason was a big, big part of that from his first event where I shared my personal story that I hadn't shared for 15 years. ever, the Brian story and all that stuff. That was a personal private thing that I didn't, at that point, I didn't even tell my fiance that I was having a baby with. Like it was crazy. So, and then he just kept like seeing and hearing me do stuff and they would ask me to do these sessions when we get together. And yeah, I just shared my life. And it just got to a point where people saw me continue to build and scale companies and also increase the quality of my life. you know like I just got back from heli skiing I'm going snow biking in two days I run two eight figure

companies as CEO I you know have 50 plus investments in tech companies like I my life is um and I'm proud of it it's just an expression of this book and the problem was is I didn't have a way to communicate the system completely per se right I have my coaching clients I would share it with and I would give them the nuance but I it's it's different I honestly now that the books out I absolutely underestimated the power of a book for certain people to learn in that modality. But it just was the number one thing that people were asking me, and I just didn't have the time to give them the process. So, I mean, it's kind of the buyback principle at its best. I wrote a book to buy back my time. That sounds crazy. But in the process of writing it,

I wrote down 25 people's names, or sorry, 25 people. There was everybody from my wife and my brothers, to my best friends, to people in my community that I love and adore, to entrepreneurs that I'm inspired by. But I always saw that they had some things that were capping their abilities. A lot of friends actually podcasters and creatives. I wrote this book for the artist to create more art. I wrote this book for the entrepreneur to create more. I wrote this book so that you don't build a business that you grow to hate and not feel like it's an either or, you know, one of the biggest compliments I got was a friend of my mic sent me a voice message on Facebook. He gave me permission to share it. I'm going to put it out on social soon. But he pretty

much said, like, I had a traumatic experience in my previous company. I sold it because I just didn't know how to deal with that. And I built a new company. And I've built this like beautiful life and it's a lifestyle and it's great and all that stuff. But he, after he read my book, He said he listened to it in a day. He's like, I've allowed myself to play small. If my true purpose is an impact, then I need to get back to doing what you shared in the book because I'm not living to that expression. So at a high level, the concept of the book is based on this thing called the buyback principle, which is we don't hire to grow our business. We hire to buy back our time. It's a calendar over capacity thing. A lot of people, they don't have experience building hiring. So they just, they just hire people because they're busy in a certain area. But the thing is it's inefficient, meaning that I teach people how to calculate their buyback rate.

And essentially, if you do anything that you could have paid anybody else that amount or less in your life, then you're working against yourself. And if you hire somebody that you're paying more than that, you're working, that you could have paid people to do other stuff, you're working against yourself. And that's, it's both ends of the spectrum because some people are like, oh, I'm so busy.

I read, I read a book and now I got to hire an integrator. It's like, you don't even have an executive assistant. You don't even have somebody cleaning your house. You don't need a COO. You need somebody to support you. So that's the core process. And then I teach this thing called the buyback loop, which is literally how I do what I do. And I run the buyback loop probably every four months in earnest where I do a time and energy.

I got it. I transfer stuff off my plate. I deploy capital to buy back my time so that I can do more, give more, be more. And I think what's happened and I think why it sold so many freaking, I mean, dude, when I found out that Wall Street Journal thing happened, I was in Nelson, B.C., about to jump on a helicopter, and I sat in the street. I could not, I didn't even know what to say it myself. My friend was like, what are you doing sitting in the street? I told him, I showed him the screenshot. And I think what it is is that people want to do more. They're just scared to do it. And I've given them a process to be able to do both. And it sounds like a pipe dream. It sounds like a freaking internet, you know, a TV infomercial. But it's true. And if you read the

book, you'll see how the math works out. I mean, you literally, you know, a million dollar companies are not built off $10 task. And you don't have to do it. And I break down literally the report. placement ladder in the 108010 rule and you know even how to even how to think about your life and create a what I call a 10x vision I think some people yesterday I was doing one-on-ones with a team member and he was in a funk and I said what's what's you're playing five years from now I don't even know man I used to know I used to do it I used to have a vision board I used to have intentions I used to do meditation and it's like yeah duh you don't anymore you knew it was a good thing to have because you don't have a future, you can't even focus on today and you're in your head.

You got to get outside your head. So even that chapter had to put in the book because I really wanted to kind of give people a new focus. So I'm excited. So what's funny is that I wrote about those 25 people in the book. So I wrote a book for the 25 people answering every objection, challenge, strategy tool. I wish I could give them if they asked. Many of them, these are people that have never asked me for help, but I seen where they've faltered or misstepped or whatever. So I use those people as the input to write this book. And I think

that's why people are resonating with it because they're like, oh, I feel seen. Like that story of Rachel, that's me. Yep. But I know who that really is. I just changed her first name. I kept the same letter. And you're right. It actually, it's not you, but it is you in the pattern that I've seen from literally the person that runs a bike shop that does my maintenance stuff to friends that own agencies to other friends like literally I wrote about every industry it's not software people like why didn't you write a software book that's you know the software stuff is very small this is this is how I personally had to overcome some major challenges in the way I looked at business and almost like literally burnt out and I was engaged before when I was in my 20s and just

totally explosion and For a fear, Ryan, I honestly thought for six months I was going to be the cool uncle, not in a serious relationship ever because I was not built that way. That was something I believed for a long time. So if I can do it, anybody can do it. What about for the person who is not building a business, someone who works at a big company? I mentioned the avatar of the senior leader within a business. and they're going to be their career they've been doing it for 20 years and they're going to do it for 20 more years i still think some of these principles apply it's 100% because like i talked to chandler bold about this

actually chandler hires for everything in his life that that costs less like he does the full same equation as you so chanler was on my ski trip yeah i shared this stuff with chandler yeah seven years about he has someone in his house doing everything i mean everything he has betty yeah we have house manager. It's the last chapter in the book. So how about for that person, this, this, they're not, they're not building a business. They're hiring. They're not paying for the hiring. Their company pays for. How about for that? No, but they could too. Like, this is the thing is, I wrote the book for everybody, even, even my executive team. Yeah. Right. I wrote a book that I hope the new person that joins a team goes and reads so they can see inside the mind. The buyback

principle in your buyback rate, dude, uh, if you take an Uber, then you understand the value of your time. If you bought a Roomba to clean your floors, you understand the value of your time. So this is applicable to everybody. And what I want to do is show the process of what does high performance value of time. See, most people just don't value their time. And look, it's when you buy it back, and I teach this in the book, you can either go do things that are going to create more value for your employer, for you and your business, or go invest it thoughtfully with your family or in your hobby. so that you can recharge so you actually have more to give when you reengage in the work, right? Like that's what's crazy. I had this woman, Susan Garrett, who's like the top dog trainer in the world.

Like Tim Ferriss interviewed her because she's like 10x. There's like the person that won three awards. She's won 55. Like she's the Drake of dog training and competition. And she, I found out that she read the book because she got on the book just came out 10 days ago. So she devoured it and then got her weekly meeting with her execs told everybody you have to get this book you have to read it and one of them messaged me on instagram to tell me and i was like so i messaged her and that that i think is what's happening this is not for entrepreneurs and ce of it's kind of like tim uh who wrote um they obsessed the coach uh tim grover yeah you know how tim grover it's like gaggans okay you don't want to be goggins like you probably don't have an aspirations to do what goggins does

David Goggins, but you read the book to understand what the tip of the spear looks like. This book is tip of the spear. So if you want to know what your CEO thinks about and you want to be a high performing executive and you want to just up level your career, you can do everything in this book. And honestly, you should. And if you're a mom, you should as well. Because I want you at the gym so you feel good about yourself so your mind is straight and show up better for your kids so you don't feel like you're short with them and screaming at them

to get in the car. Like I've coached everybody. I've seen this across the board. This is not an entrepreneur thing. But when you write a book, you pick a person. I wrote it for this guy named Rick. And I know exactly who Rick is. And I just the whole time I was thinking of Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick.

And I think because it presents that tip of the spear, a lot of people are resonating with it. I love it. One more, Dan. You're meeting with a 24-year-old. They graduated. they want to leave a dent in the world in a positive way, want to do good. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person? I mean, honestly, the best thing I could tell them to do is go get the book Love is a Killer

app. Then I would honestly say get the next book Tim Rooka, likeability factor. Likeability factor? Yeah. Incredible book as well. Kind of amplifies on one of the core concepts that Tim's known for. And then if I had to just share one message that I think would be like a universal principle, that's how my brain thinks.

I'm not like I said, I'm not a rules guy. I'm more of a principles guy. Is whatever you want out of life, help other people get that. Okay. So you only get to keep what you give away. I learn this after I get out of rehab. And it's, you'll see it in the Bible. You'll see it in CrossFit gyms.

you'll see it all around. Success leaves clues and this is one of them. The world rewards those who help others. So if you want to be successful in your career, sounds crazy. Go help other people on your team be successful in their career. And watch how it comes back 100x. It's just, it just does. I mean, Dale Carnegie wrote about this in his book.

It's just a universal principle that if you can just show up through that lens day-to-day, magical things will just start to align for you that you can't even explain. This is awesome, man. I would love to do a round two. I'm glad that we finally able to get this thing on tape. There's so much more that we can cover, but I just really appreciate your time. The book's called Buyback Your Time. I highly recommend people getting it.

It's really well written. You could tell how much care and love you put into it, man. So thanks so much for being here. And I'd like I said, love to continue this dialogue as we both progress. You're a stud, Ryan. I appreciate it, man. I just, again, I mean this sincerely, the way you, because I'm a fan of the podcast, right? And I can tell, you know, pulling up phone calls and transcripts from five years ago, six years ago.

Like, who does that? People that care about their craft and their art. And that's just super inspiring. So you've inspired me just from this conversation. So I really appreciate it, man. Thanks, man. That means a lot. I appreciate it.

It was really cool to reconnect. with Dan after so many years, and I am most impressed with how intentional he is about his family life, but certainly so much value to add on how to build an amazing career and lead companies. A few takeaways from my notes, the three keys to a leadership retreat with your team. One, do something physical together, going to hike, off-road vehicles, or maybe even the Wim Hof Ice Bath, which I'm considering for my next retreat, although it could be weird. but I love the idea. And then do the strengths and weaknesses exercise.

That is one that will build trust and also, I think, help people learn how to get better. And then he just said be very thoughtful about seed assignments in the meeting and at meals. This is something I learned many years ago from Jason Gaynard in this book, Mastermind Dinners. I try to be very intentional about where people sit, who they're sitting by uncommon commonalities, how to get people to meet who maybe don't know each other. but you should not just let people randomly sit in seats, have seat assignments for every time you're going to get together. It will make the meeting better. Then the power of asking, think about Dan's life.

It started in San Francisco when he sent that cold email to Paul Graham, one of the legendary investors and creators of Y Combinator and how that advice led to Tim Sanders in reading his book and then emailing Tim and how that changed things. And now 20 years later, they're doing a book signing together. The key learning is, make the ask. Be willing to put yourself out there, to be ignored, to be rejected.

It is so worth it to make the ask. And then third, hiring a family coach. Again, I love how intentional Dan is about having an epic marriage and being a great dad for his kids. And it's not just what he says. It's how he puts this into action. Family board meetings, quarterly retreats with his wife, doing the core value exercises, so many useful things that Dan does in order to have an epic marriage and a great family

life and he keeps the number one priority number one, which is his family. So again, I hope you enjoyed this one and found it as useful as I did. If so, I'd love it if you would tell a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Dan Martel. I think he'll help you be better both at home and at work, which is so important. And because you continue to do that and you continue to go to Ryanhawk.net, which then launches you into iTunes, Apple Podcasts, and you write reviews there. and you rate the show, hopefully five stars.

You are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk with you soon. Stay away.