The School of Greatness - 575 Coffee Conversations: Top 7 Takeaways from 2017

Episode Date: December 13, 2017

"YOU HAVE A GIFT INSIDE OF YOU, SOMETHING UNIQUE TO OFFER TO THE WORLD. NO ONE ELSE WILL BE YOU." Back by popular demand, Cesar and I sat down again this week to record a third round of what we are calling "Coffee Conversations." This was a fun one because 2017 has been an incredible year for our business, the School of Greatness brand, the podcast, and much more. I thought it would be cool to go over the top takeaways and lessons I learned this year from all the experiences I've had. I also love hearing Cesar's take on what we've done and where we are headed. A few of the things we talk about might surprise you, but most of what I learned this year is confirming things that have proved true year after year in my career as an entrepreneur. The more I think about what makes businesses continue to grow and be successful, the more I realize that when I focus, commit, and execute on what I've committed to, the results come. Even when craziness is happening all around, even when things are uncertain, even when I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone, if I am clear on what I'm creating and commit to the process, good things still happen. I hope these takeaways serve you in some way in your own goals, business, or challenges you are taking on in 2018. I can't wait to see what we create next as you'll hear us discuss in Episode 575 with Coffee Conversations. In this episode you will learn: The biggest wins I achieved this year in my business (0:45) The Top 7 Takeaways from 2017 for me: Think bigger and take risks (5:18) Build an all-star team (12:51) Strategize, organize, systematize (18:53) Innovate with new products and approaches (23:10) Invest in your business and bet on you (29:35) Health (37:50) Do things that matter and bring you joy (41:20) Plus much more...

This is episode number 575, Coffee Conversations, with my top seven biggest takeaways and lessons going into 2018. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. We've got a special one today, guys. We have had a powerful, powerful year at the School of Greatness headquarters. I decided to bring Cesarado, a.k.a.

Caesar, a.k.a. the man of mystery, back on the show for part three of Coffee Conversations because so many of you guys keep saying, hey, bring on Caesar. We love Caesar. And even though I kind of dominate the conversation, he always brings in that little nugget of wisdom that just resonates to the masses. So I'm excited to bring him back on to talk about the seven big takeaways, big lessons, and really big things to think about going into next year. And if you're not implementing these seven things, I believe you're going to be missing out big time on the growth of your business and the growth of your life. So these are powerful

seven lessons going into next year. Before we dive in, shout out to the fan and the review of the week. Mariana Wild said, gosh, where do I even begin? This podcast makes me feel like I'm in a dream as I drive into my nine to five job. It gives me the foundation to believe in myself and that I am really created for a purpose. And even though my purpose might change day to day, it's up to me to take action towards those dreams. I'm a Whole30 alum.

So of course the episode with Melissa Hartwig was amazing. And to hear stories of the dark places you both have come from and how you use it to get to where you are today is so inspiring. Thank you for providing this platform and for impacting so many people's lives. So Mariana Wild, thank you for leaving your review. You are the fan of the week. And if you guys want a chance to be shouted out on the podcast, just head over to the podcast app over on iTunes or your podcast app on your phone. And it's easier now than ever to leave a review over on the podcast app. So, just go to School of Greatness, leave a review for your chance to be the fan of the week. All right, guys guys i'm pumped

without further ado let's dive into this one coffee conversations with caesar oh na na na oh na na na it's coffee conversations Coffee Conversations. Ha ha ha ha. Yes. We are back. Matt C. Zerato is in the house and it's Christmas. All right. Welcome, everyone. This is Coffee Conversations part, what is this, part three or four?

Part three. Part three. Part three. The year is coming to a close, and I thought I'd sit down with Cesar, a wise Cesar, and talk about the seven big takeaways from this year and the most important things to focus on for next year. And they're kind of both in the same when I was thinking about it.

So 2017 has been a pretty big year. It's're kind of both in the same when I was thinking about it. So 2017 has been a pretty big year. It's been our biggest year yet. We've done some amazing things. We had our second annual summit of greatness, which was twice the size of the year before. And we already sold more tickets. Uh, we already sold, uh, more tickets for next year's than we did all this year within like a couple days, which was cool. We launched our second book, The Mask of Masculinity, which was not really a wise business move necessarily, but more of a mission for us to really build a legacy to give back to people. And it's been amazing the journey that people have been going on discovering their inner pain and struggles of what's been holding them back. So that's been fun. We tried something new with the Millionaire Morning, Millionaire Morning

book. If you guys don't have that yet, you can go to themillionairemorning.com. It's a free book. I've had thousands of people sign up for it, and that's been pretty cool to test that out. It's free. All you got to do is pay for shipping. themillionairemorning.com. Podcast is almost at its five-year anniversary, and we've almost doubled in monthly downloads from a year ago,

which is pretty cool. So that continues to grow. Awesome. We launched a membership program where people get – so many people wanted to get strategies from us on how to continue to grow their audience and their brand and generate more sales online. But we have these bigger offerings that are $1,000, $2,000.

So we decided to do a monthly program for just $49 a month where you get a powerful strategy to help you generate more leads, traffic, and sales every month. And that's been amazing. We've got so many people in there who are getting big results. Yeah, we had so many people that were asking for coaching from you. So many. So many.

And the only way to really get that was through one of our high-ticket courses. That's it. So we wanted to make it more attainable to get online ongoing coaching from Lewis for business strategies. Basically implementing the top strategies we do implement for our business. That's it. And it's been a game changer. So many people getting great results. Great. We launched our Greatness Mastermind, which was just completed its 12th

month, first full year, and people got incredible results. And that's our high ticket ongoing coaching, experiential learning with, uh, we had 20, 23 powerful influencers and entrepreneurs in this year. We're adding another 25 for next year, so I'm pretty excited about that. It's going to be an amazing group. It's going to be an amazing group. We've just been doing a lot of cool stuff. We've been trying different stuff. Some stuff we do

last minute, so sometimes it's all over the place, but it always works itself out, which I like. What else did we do that was big this year? We got got an Ellen twice that was cool that was powerful yeah that was pretty fun I mean I never done that I was nervous out of my mind so that was cool get on Ellen and we we started filming a documentary that we haven't really talked about but we're in the works of that now so you're ready to talk about it here we go

well we've been filming so we're not going to talk too much about it but we'll just say that we started filming which was pretty cool so i'm excited to see the rough cut which we should be getting back in the next week or two um but what else is there anything else i'm missing that the bigger things those are all the big picture you know changes we've we've made yeah yeah we did a remake over model to our studio the greatness studio we had some unbelievable guests on the show this year which i'm super thankful for um it's just some rocket and rolling it's been a lot of fun a lot of fun this year definitely had some challenges and some some lessons share. But I thought I'd cover the top seven takeaways from this year and also the seven big things to focus on for next year.

So they're kind of one and the same. So this is the first one. Matt doesn't know what they are. For those that are curious who Matt is, Cesar, Matt is Cesar's first name. Matt doesn't know what they are, so I'm going to share with him what my seven big takeaways are from the year and also the big lessons for next year to remind myself to continue to do

these things with our team. Number one is to think bigger and take risks. Think bigger and take risks. Now, why I say that is because I had a conversation with Naveen Jain, who was a guy who was on the podcast. This guy is literally taking people to the moon. And he was talking to me about, you know, if you want to take your business from seven

to eight or eight to nine figures, he's like, you really need to think on a much bigger scale first and see. And you have to think about how you could change everything. Otherwise, you're just going to get small incremental results if you think like semi-big. But if you think like kind of outrageously big, then your mind opens up and expands of what's possible and what you could tap into other resources of abundance in the world that you could tap into to grow your business. So thinking bigger and taking risks, I think for me is more exciting than just saying,

you know, let's double our business this year. Let's do this this year, but really what's something we could do that could exponentially grow. Right. And so I talked to you about that. Yeah, this is huge because, you know, uh, ultimately what, two and a half years ago, when I came on the team, um, I came from kind of a corporate atmosphere and nothing wrong with that at all. But I found that it wasn't a place where people were really thinking absolutely huge. How were they thinking? Like, we just need to reach these next milestone for the next quarters. Yeah, let's just make sure we hit happy. That goal that is just going to make

everybody happy instead of going beyond that, going, let's blow people's minds with the results that we can create. And without doing something that at the outset, what I'm finding is that you're, you're never really going to truly get to that unbelievably crazy goal that scares the crap out of you. So, you know, when, when we started working together, I think that was something that was always so exciting. Also about our friendship. It was always like, let's go just do something that's just going to absolutely be super exciting, super fun and just go for it. That's it, man. And ultimately to bring that into your business and to see what it's done for our business. Now, listen, there are drawbacks at

times. It scares your team. It scares individuals. And it, it basically sometimes paralyzes you to not really know where to move forward to. Now, that's not something that should limit you from taking that huge risk. Yeah. But ultimately it teaches you to back into how do we get there? You know, start at that end goal and then move your way back. Reverse engineer it. That's it. That's it. Yeah. So that's the exciting part about, I mean, working in, in this entrepreneurial space where we're basically starting from a small business and trying to create a huge impact. starting from a small business and trying to create a huge impact. And ultimately the way that, you know, I've seen you create this even before I came on board is super powerful. I mean, you decided to start this podcast ultimately, from what I understand from the stories that you've

shared with me, you decided to go, I'm not going to listen to what everyone's telling me, go for something very niche, very safe, very this. You're like, no, I want to learn everything from everybody, from the biggest people out there because I'm not satisfied by just focusing on one single thing.

I want to focus on everything. I want to learn everything. I want to open myself up to all possibilities in my life. Total optimization. Yeah. Yeah. You know, spirituality. Relationships.

Relationships. All of those things. All of those quote unquote verticals that people want to, you know, create greatness in their lives. So anyways, back to, you know, what you're talking about. Think bigger and take risks. I feel like there's a lot of people who are playing safe. And even with the people we coach in the Greatness Mastermind, when we bring them on and we do our initial call with them, I ask them about, okay, what did you create in the last 12 months? And where do you want to

go in the next 12 months? And I always start with a 12-month thing. And usually people are like, I want to earn a certain amount of income in the next 12 months. I want to do this. And sometimes I feel like it's not big enough. And I'm like, okay, what would it take to do that in the next 30 days? And then there's a little bit of panic because they're like, well, I don't even know how that's possible. And I said, okay, well, if that was possible, what would need to happen? And then people start to say, oh, okay, well, maybe if it was possible, here's what I would

need to do. And they're like, okay, I would take these steps, this step, I would have urgency with these calls. I would have urgency here, I'd launch this product, whatever it may be, I'd hire that person I need to hire. And I say, well, why don't we just do that now? Why wait till the end of the year? Why don't we just do that right now? And they're like, well, I don't know. I never thought of that. And I'm like, okay, let's create a challenge. And I think people don't have enough urgency in their life. I go to the extreme with this example, and I'm not saying you need to, but I always say, well, if someone had a gun to your head and said, if you don't create this in the next 30 days, I'm going to shoot you and shoot everyone you love.

It's kind of drastic to say that. But you would figure out a way. If your life was on the line and your child's life or your wife or your husband or your family, for you to create those results, you would do whatever it took. And you would do whatever it took in 30 days to create the results you wanted in 12 months. And then your life would be transformed. Now, is it easy? No, I'm not saying it's easy, but you can simplify the process by just taking extreme action and really executing, but you got to dream bigger and you got to take those risks in that process. So that's number one, big takeaway for me and big lesson going into the next

year is to think bigger and take risks. And if you have not declared what you want to create for a 12-month goal for yourself financially, your income, and your impact, then write those down right now. Circle both of them, how much you want to make, the impact you want to make from the work you're doing. And then I want to also put like a health goal also, like what's the health you want to maintain throughout the year. Write those three things down and circle them. Get clear now. Otherwise, if you're not clear, you're going to have an the year. Write those three things down and circle them. Get clear now. Otherwise, if you're not clear, you're going to have an unclear year. Right. And I'm going to

stop you there, Lewis, just because I know while people are writing that down right now, they're probably writing down something that's still limited in their mind. So times that by two. Yes. And figure out, reverse engineer how you're going to get to that times two. Now, some people may be super unrealistic and be like, I want to make a billion dollars and you're broke on your sister's couch. Right. And that's okay. Listen, you can dream that.

Yeah, you can dream that and try to reverse engineer. If you find yourself having a real, real hard time trying to reverse engineer that, then ultimately maybe you are making that kind of, I don't know, silly goal. I mean, there's no real silly goal. Yeah. I mean, anything's possible. Listen, I don't want to limit anyone here, but I also want to say, okay, there's a billion dollars in a year, probably not going to happen. I mean, very few billionaires in a year do that, but let's get to a million first. Right. A safe, a safe thing that, I mean, I've seen you use in a lot of your coaching

is think of the 10X, right? Yeah. Think of that 10X. Exactly. You know, if you're at a thousand on your Instagram right now,

what's it going to take to get 10X that? Yeah, exactly. In X amount of time. That's it. Right. So number one, think bigger and take risks.

Number two, powerful, powerful point and lesson and takeaway, but also a point for next year, build an all-star team. And I believe we've got a really solid all-star team, but I'm always looking to optimize

and push the team to get better, to improve. But also, I'm looking for key players always to come on the team. Always. Always. People email me. You don't see this all the time, but I get this every week from people saying,

I'll come work for you for free. I want to come learn. I want to come work as an intern. I want to do this. People are like, don't even pay me. I just want to work for you and show my value. A lot of the times these people email me. I love the passion.

I love the excitement. But I need to know how you're going to help 10X our business without me having to hold your hand and having to coach you the whole time. And usually that's what I get, unfortunately. But I'm always looking for people. We did a meeting last week where I'm meeting people and seeing who could add value to the growth of our company, to our business and our brand. And sometimes you're resistant to it because you're like, all right, we don't need to do more meetings. But I'm always like, who are those players who are going to take our brand to the next level? This guy may or may not be able to, but he had some great things to say and I'm

excited to test it to see. So I'm always looking for people that can help us achieve those goals that we have over the next 12 months and beyond. So that's something to think about. And one of the things you can do, you know, our team has a lot of the people on our team have been with us for three, four years, which is really cool because in the world of startups, most people leave after like a year or two years. They like get some experience and they go somewhere else. So we really try to cultivate a growth mentality within our team as well. Some of the things that we do to support the team is we do a weekly team meeting every single Monday going over what we're grateful for, the things we want to create that week, any challenges we might be facing. So that team call, since half of us are virtual and

things like that, it's really important for us to all come on a video call once a week at least. But the team, if you don't have all-star players in your team, you can't produce professional results in the world. If you've got junior varsity, it's hard to build a successful thriving business if everyone is playing at a level that can't compete with the quote unquote professionals in the world. And that's, I think that's the beauty of our team. We really truly have a bunch of all-stars on our team in their niche. And it may not have been that way at the outset. And I got to say, including myself as someone who's learned over the past two and a half years, what it takes to operate and support a small business with a visionary like yourself and with a bunch of key players on our team. I mean, ultimately, when I first came on board, we needed to be in that startup mentality, lean and mean,

many hats being worn by many different people. And that's still how we're working. But I think at this point in time, based on what we created this year, we are starting to see that it's that time to start hiring some new people, some new support and positions. So we've beefed up customer support this year. We've beefed up our editing of our content this year.

Bringing out basically a full-time editor, someone who is dedicated to just video editing. Full-time audio editing. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, we're taking those big steps and those big growth steps, you know, with hiring are so key in any small business.

You got to have the right people in place. And once you have the right people in place, you got to make sure you really take care of the people on your team, listen to what they need, get the feedback, you make sure they feel supported. team listen to what they need get the feedback you make sure they feel supported um because the challenging thing is is losing people and then having to find new people and hire and train people that's a that's a whole challenge in itself so really cultivating a growth mindset

with people on your team is right and a healthy culture in in your program i mean whatever your business is however many people whether it's three people, creating a safe, intimate culture to get to know each other, not only personally and professionally, talk about personal goals, you know, connect rather than just being robotic and just connecting on business only. Connect on a personal level with people that creates long lasting relationships, long lasting business relationships. So ultimately, I mean, that's, I have to say again, a testament to what you've created, even with people that were on board our team long before me, you know, Christine, our podcast producer, I mean, she is absolutely been there every step of the way and been a huge support. She's got an amazing energy, an amazing spirit. Everybody on our team just has great energy and are here to make the impact.

They're here invested in the mission. They're also invested in our revenue goals, our metrics, our stuff that we have to hit. And we are setting out to hit and doing that big crazy goal you know every year but ultimately everyone is invested in the mission and the vision that you are out there to create for this business which is the impact of 100 million people to living their greatest lives so the team is everything you can't do anything on your own i remember when i started out i was trying to do everything on my own. I remember when I started out, I was trying to do everything on my own and I could only go so far

and it was exhausting. And I started gaining a ton of weight. I didn't sleep well. Just a lot was off. So you need a team if you want to scale your business or scale your income. Very few businesses, I feel,

can do it, can scale with a small team, let alone a JV team. It's hard to really be a professional, create professional results with JV players. So invest in building an all-star team. That's number two for next year. Number three, strategize, organize, systematize. Again, when we have our big dreams and we build our team, one of the things that Brendan Burchard talked about when we had him at our mastermind talking

for four or five hours teaching everyone, which was amazing, the biggest thing is strategy. A lot of times people are just on social media all day responding, responding to emails, responding to tweets and Instagram, and just trying to get sales quickly without strategizing how you're going to deliver on the bigger dream and the bigger risk that you have. So first is strategy. What's the strategy we want to create? Then how are're going to organize our plan, how we're going to organize our team, our all-star team that we have together, and how we're going to systematize the processes so people can execute on their specific roles.

Because if we don't have a strategy for the team, it's going to be disorganized. And so we get to organize a team once we have the strategy and then have systems in place. We were just talking about this today on our team call about making sure we all have systems and standard operating procedures in place so that when we do bring new people on, they can have trainings and get caught up to speed quicker

than just trying to figure it out on their own. That's right. That practice never ends. Yeah, exactly. Strategize, organize, systematize. That's why I think it's important every week to continue to do strategy sessions. Me and you even get to do more of that ourselves. Sometimes we'll go like a month or two where we're like just trying to stay caught up and up to speed because we're doing so much. You get caught in the grind. Yeah, you get caught in it. And when you've set those amazing goals, those huge goals, then you start getting caught

up in just the grind of completion throughout the course of that. Just executing, responding. You always have to give yourself a breath to tap into that overall strategy at the top level, even if it's just you and I. I mean, we did that on the flight back from New York just recently. It was great. That was a time.

We got more clarity. I know. Six hours, five or six hours on a flight, but we got clarity, started planning next year, and it was great. Right, right. It was absolutely hilarious. I was like, now you're sitting back here with me

because I couldn't get the upgrade for business class or something. And I was like, no, we need to sit next to each other that's true so god bless you for hanging in there it's good no leg room you see i had no leg room all the time so i'm used to it so strategize that's that's key though i mean if you don't have your strategy in place you're always going to be like just trying to catch up just being a rat race like we were in the subway in new york city and i was as much we were in the subway in New York City. And as much as I love the subway, I love the energy, but you're also just like I'm looking around and I'm seeing people running from place to place. And I feel like there's not much strategy in that type of mindset.

So how do we get out of that rat race mentality and really strategize the bigger dream and execute it with systems and being organized with those procedures. So those procedures, I mean, those are really key. And sometimes people think, oh, we've done this once. So the procedure is going to stay the same. It's not going to change. I mean, you have to continue to optimize those procedures as you continue to grow. The systems don't necessarily stay the same as you start to grow or bring in new courses or technology or whatever.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So that's an ever going practice in a business. Those, you know, what's the standard operating procedures, SOPs. I mean, those always have to be almost on a weekly basis. Now we're now we're starting to implement our Friday bookended call, the greatness huddle. And that greatness huddle we're stepping into every week. What is something that every person on our team is continuing to do more than once? And that way we sit, we sit down and go, well, that's another place where we can set up a procedure so that, you know, ultimately those mistakes aren't made on processes that are

handled over and over and over. Yeah. So, I mean, honestly, you can get everybody on your team creating one a week. That's it. And that's a win. That's an absolute win. It takes a little bit of time. And I know some people are like, ah, I'm stuck in the grind.

I got to get all these tasks completed. Take a breath. Take a moment. You have to give yourself permission to do it. Otherwise, it's never going to get done. That's it. So that's number three. Number four, innovate with new products and approaches.

I think a company that doesn't innovate sets themselves up for challenges in the future. Now, there's also some companies that have been around for 100 years or something that continue to do the same thing that are still thriving. I think of like In-N-Out. We just got back from the airport. In-N-Out Burger has like the same whatever, five products, burger, fries, shake, and that's it. I don't even know what else they have. Maybe cheese fries or something. What are they doing?

They're delivering the same product. Same quality of products over and over for the last however many years, right? Whereas you see a McDonald's, which has innovated every year. They bring in salads. They bring in this, chicken sim, whatever it is. Sure. They used to be like in and out, but now they're more innovative, I feel like, with their products and approaches. More variety, right?

More variety. Yeah. So, you know, I say that because I think, I personally believe if you're a small business, you've got to be innovative. If you've got a brand and that's big and you can deliver on the same product that people crave every single day, then you don't need to be innovative. Maybe you need to be innovative in your speed of delivery or in your processes or in software or systems, things like that, and keeping the products the same. But I think as a small business thriving,

trying to go from six to seven, seven to eight figures, you've got to be willing to innovate with new products approaches. That's something we've done. We've tested new products and approaches this year that have paid off big time. The Greatness Mastermind, our monthly membership called the Inner Circle, the Summit of Greatness last year was a new innovation that has taken on a whole new wave with our community, just bringing the community together. Now this new book called The Millionaire Morning, trying something different where we give away a book for free and charge shipping.

So we're innovating in ways that I believe are helping us grow our audience, make a bigger impact and bring in revenue. And let me tell you, I think at the simplest, I mean, for everybody going, well, how do you make those decisions to innovate? Honestly, to share with everybody listening, it's ultimately the customer asking for the things more than once. We've had multiple people asking for high-level coaching from Lewis. We've had multiple people asking for lower price point coaching that's attainable and affordable. We've had people asking,

what are the things that Lewis does on a daily basis? What routines has he implemented in his life to create success? That's where Millionaire Morning Booklet has come in too. And ultimately, everyone has asked for that opportunity to get together, get our community together, get our School of Greatness listeners together at one place in person. Because we all know that that personal connection,

I mean, just like you and I looking across the desk from each other, it allows us that opportunity to really connect as individuals, go deep, have an opportunity to say hey to everyone out there in the same mindset, same community who are trying to just elevate their lives in whatever way, whether it's, you know, health, wealth, relationships, spirituality, all those different things that people are looking for. So it was a great opportunity to get people together at the summit of greatness. And all those things now we're focused on absolutely crushing, optimizing, systematizing, optimizing all those things. That's exactly going back to the previous one, focus on those things.

And ultimately we're going to, we're going to hit our goals if we just have those systems in place. And even the book, the mask of Masculinity, I believe was very innovative and a new approach to our brand just because it kind of caught people off guard. It was different than what people thought I would do next or whatever. But I felt like it paid off big because of the impact it's having on people's hearts

to their relationships. And it paid off because we were innovative and sold that book two years prior to all this stuff in the media happening. It just happened to time the media perfectly, unfortunately, with all the sexual abuse scandals and everything else that's happening in the media. But I think because we've been innovative

and kind of, I want to say predicting the future, but kind of having a sense of, oh, we think the puck might be over there in a year or two or three years. I remember when the podcast launched almost five years ago, I remember saying, I think the puck's going to be over there

in a couple of years. So let me start it now. Just with this book, I was like, I think the puck is going to be over there about mental health and men tapping into their vulnerability in a couple of years. I didn't know it was going to happen the exact time the book launched, but that's what I'm always looking for is like what's happening in the space that people aren't talking about. You know, a few years ago, it was like meditation, like whoever got into meditation three, four or five years ago,

then like Headspace, it's paid off big because now everyone's overwhelmed and stressed and on their phone and constantly in anxiety and they're looking for solutions and meditation is there as a solution. So I think look for the trend of what's going to be the biggest pain point for people in your space. What are you hearing right now? And what do you see happening as it continue to happen in the future and start leaning into that space? So this is number four, innovate with new products and approaches for your business. Number five, anything else on that one? Number four? No, that's great. I mean, I mean, ultimately the last thing I'll share is,

I mean, you talked about masculine masculinity. That was something that you were so deeply passionate about. So you also, you kind of, like you said, saw the puck, but it's something that you were so deeply passionate about.

And that's where I think we found so much success with that book. Yeah. Cause it was, it wasn't like a money play. It wasn't like, Oh, let's do this to make a lot of money. It was like,

I feel like we have to do this to serve humanity. And it was like, let's do this because I'm passionate about it as well. So some things we do that don't make us money, but I feel like they're just important to do

and it's part of giving back and being a part of the bigger ecosystem. Make that impact. That's it. Yeah, make the impact. It's more fulfilling. Number five, this is one that I think is very important. I've been doing this since the beginning,

is to invest in your business and bet on you. Now, what I mean by that is investing back in your brand. For years, I was, you know, before Matt came on, Cesar came on, I was making money and then reinvesting it in as an angel investor in other brands. And part of that was strategic to build relationships and get access to things from these other companies and be a part of these other industries. But none of these investments have paid off yet. You know, Some of them I invested seven years in and I still haven't gotten a dime back

from any of these investments. I'm okay with it because it's led to other relationships and other things where I've met people at these specific events, where I've gotten to interview people on the podcast, which has led to other revenue and opportunities. So I'm okay with it.

And I even got an opportunity today from a good friend of mine who's got a company that's probably going to sell for like a billion or a billion and a half dollars in the next three to five years. It's on that trajectory. And he reached out and he was like, listen, I want you to invest. We're bringing on like a few like influencers to invest right now and I want you to be one of them. And I had to say to him, like, listen, I already know you're going to kill it. Like you're going to make a billion dollars and I think it's going to happen the next three to five years. But if I just put that same money into our business and to reinvesting in myself and my team, we would 10x faster my investment than your 3 to 5x would in 3 to 5 years for me.

And I'm sure it could open up other doors investing in that company and I would learn great things and it would pay off in multiple ways. But I'm also just like, let's use the money to invest back into our own business and bet on yourself. Put your money back into ad spend, put your money back into hiring a coach to help you like overcome any challenges you're facing. Put your money back into buying tickets to those big events where you know you can meet those influencers. Like buy a big event ticket and go spend some time meeting people. Um, you have to invest in your business. Invest in your business and invest in you. Invest in going to meetings. I take a lot of meetings with people and a lot of the time they don't pan off, but every now and then they pan off big time.

And sometimes they may pay off five years down the road, but I'm investing that time and energy into myself and into the brand more and more now as opposed to into other things. And I think as long as you bet on you, you will always be successful and you'll always win. But if you put your time and energy into investing in other things, it may or may not work out. But you are always going to work out one way or another. You're going to figure out a way. It may not happen now, but it will be investing for your future, which I think is important.

It's the best bet. I mean, I think anybody would agree. It may not, first of all, it may not always pay out for people right away. Absolutely. But ultimately, if it's something that you're passionate about, it's your own business, then the best opportunity for the best return on your investment, right, is to put it right back into the engine that you are, that you individually are focused on every single day. So some of the investments that we made back in our business this year, I don't even think we've told people this one either, but I'm going to say it.

We invested in the domain name because we wanted to be innovative for the future and really strategize, organize, and systematize our big dreams. We won't share the amount. No, we won't share the amount, but we invested in a domain named greatness.com again, because I want to continue to, we want to continue to grow the brand of greatness and kind of make a clean brand. You know, School of Greatness is the podcast, but really we're talking about the word greatness. And greatness.com is something we're invested in. It was a big purchase for us. And we haven't done anything with it yet. We've had it for what, six months? We haven't done anything with it yet because we want to make sure we strategize, organize, and systematize where the puck is going to be over the next three to five years with

online education, with content, with media, with websites, with all of that stuff. So we're talking about it now and we're strategizing with different people. So we invested in the domain name greatness.com. We also invested in this documentary we spent a lot of money on this documentary that could make us nothing but we believe is going to be pay off massive dividends for us it's going to be beautiful it's going to be powerful i know that it's going to be awesome the payoff i mean we really don't know we don't know we've never done it before so we don't know we're innovating right we're trying something new we're innovating but I like doing this because other people in our space, in the online world, I don't know anyone else who's doing this. There's a couple people in like the health and things like that world who are doing these cool documentaries.

But not many people in my space or our space are creating beautiful cinematic documentaries where they're investing heavily in them and doing them well. Some people do them like these interview style documentaries, but I feel like they're kind of skimpy on the investment. And it's like, oh, that was a cool thing, but it wasn't like, whoa, you blew my mind. I think it goes back to you and I being in college.

We just loved beautiful, epic films. Me and Matt, would we walk most of the time down in the Arena District? Yeah. Would we walk down there? No, we would drive. No, that's true. No, no, we couldn't walk down there.

We would drive in the park. There was an amazing, nice little theater in the Arena District. I wonder if it's still there in Columbus, Ohio. Actually, I think we might have walked once or twice. Maybe we did. That was a far walk, though. I don't know. We were at the music hall over there. A mile or Columbus, Ohio. Actually, I think we might have walked once or twice. Maybe we did. That was a far walk, though. I don't know.

We were at the music hall over there. A mile or two, though? Yeah, yeah. Anyways, I feel like we lived closer for some reason, but we didn't. So we would go there at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. And even now, before you had your baby, we would go once a week to the Sundance Theater down the street and watch some foreign film or some film that's not even in the mainstream theaters

just because we're fascinated, I think, with story and being moved. At least I know I am. I love beautiful storytelling, yes. Beautiful storytelling. Whether it's nonfiction, fiction. Oh, it's the best. Absolutely.

I mean, gosh, I remember the days of college. God, we'd see so many movies. I mean, I remember when Lord of the Rings came oh it was so epic we were like waiting waiting for the next one to come out what like a year or two later two years later usually when they came out it was just you know I mean just to see that epic filmmaking um was really powerful and I think that's ultimately yeah you know where a lot of that came from. I know.

And we're in Hollywood, so we're just trying to live the dream in Hollywood. A couple guys from Ohio. So what else did we invest in? We invested in the documentary we're doing. We invested in the domain name. Back to our team, growth of our team. Back into our team. We're bringing new people.

We invested in relationships with I've got an entertainment lawyer who's amazing, Todd, who is Todd and Jeff, who have been supportive and helping cultivate different TV shows and opportunities for us. We've been investing

in that time, that energy with that relationship. Investing back in our event, all these things. I mean, back end of our business. Oh, yeah, back end. Really investing in the back end of our business with software, CRM upgrades to specific platforms that we use. So we can scale for the future. Absolutely, so we can scale.

Because we were in more, I would say, intermediate level software for email marketing and things like that. And now we've kind of gone the enterprise corporate level and paid a lot more, probably like 10x more than what we were paying before. So that's been good. Invest in your business and bet on you. Again, if you don't have a coach, make sure you invest in a coach as well. That's number five. Number six, this is, I put health, health, health. Now, we went on a challenge before our Summit of Greatness where we said everyone had to work out like five or six days a week or something.

And when people on our team are working out of moving their bodies and are committed to their health i believe it's just happier more fulfilling life it was a cool energy that it created with our energy when we had a fitness health challenge you know everyone was posting every day what they did i went running i did a workout i did swimming or whatever. Right. Right. It's cool.

Yoga. And people would post photos in our like group text. And we had like some prizes. We had some like, you know, other consequences or whatever. If you didn't like fulfill your thing, just like fun stuff. Right. But beyond the team building exercise of that, I had a trainer as well for a period of time during this year. And it was the best shape

I'd been in in years. And I just felt strong, felt lean, felt confident, energized. It was very powerful. So I just, it was a big lesson and takeaway to find a consistent plan to be healthy, plan to be healthy moving your body eating well because when our bodies are optimized I believe we'll produce better results in our business in our life right I believe we'll be happier when we are moving get the endorphins going absolutely when in doubt workout but make it a consistent lifestyle thing. And, uh, I highly recommend having a trainer. If you can afford one, if not do group classes where you have an accountability person that you go to

with these classes. That's it. I mean, our team, I mean, at this point just had a baby. I'm not going to pay for a trainer to train me. That's tough.

You know? So it was cool to have the team with our fitness challenge keep each other accountable. I mean, that's essentially all you need. I mean, by yourself, nine times out of ten, most of people out there will just allow yourself to not work out when you're too tired or don't want to do it or making excuses. I did that all year.

I did that a lot this year. I mean, I work out pretty hard on my own. But even today, I would set myself up to do a high-intensity interval training where I was going to do five rounds of five for a minute each. And I was like, after the fourth round, I was like, all right, I think I'm good. And I just stopped after four rounds. And I haven't worked out in a few weeks because of Thanksgiving and everything else. And I've been eating a little too much.

But I was winded and hurting. And if I had a trainer there, I would have finished. Or if Jen, my girlfriend, was there, we would have finished. Because she would be still going. And I'd be like, okay, I got to finish. So have someone keeping you accountable. Or go to a group class where you're just in that environment. Yep, absolutely.

So again, you don't need to pay a trainer, but find a way to set yourself up to win with your health. And go listen to the Whole30 episode with Melissa Hartwig, which was a couple weeks prior. If you want to learn more about the Whole30, that was, I felt my best when I was on that kind of lifestyle nutrition food plan. So check out Whole30 with Melissa Hartwig on the podcast. Health, health, health is number six for next year. Number seven, do things that matter and bring you joy. I think at the end of the day, if you're doing things that don't matter to you and that bring you the opposite of joy, which is what? Anger, frustration. I don't know.

What's the opposite of joy? Yeah. Laziness, unfulfillment. Yeah, unhappiness. Unhappiness. Yeah. So do things that matter to you and that bring you joy. When you're not doing those things, I believe that life is just not as fun.

It's just not as fun and you're asking yourself, why am I doing what I'm doing? So figure out what brings you joy. And listen, there are going to be some things you do in your business or your job, wherever you're at right now, that may not be fun. They may not be, but there's ways around that too. There are ways around that. The first coffee conversations we talked about it. Just gamify those things for yourselves.

Have fun. I remember Grant Cardone talking about how he was a car salesman for like the first 10 years and he hated it. But he found a way to make it a game so it was fun for him. That's it. He found a way to have interesting conversations with people. He found a way to do different things that would bring him joy throughout the day. And he got great lessons and great learning from it.

So figure out a way. There's a lot of things. I remember when I was truck driving, that was not fun. Sitting by myself in a car. This is pre-iPhone. So there was no, I couldn't call anyone. There was no, like, social media. I didn't have Instagram when I was driving.

It was like I had to put a CD in to listen to music and I could only go 55 miles an hour. I wish you had the School of Greatness podcast at that time. I wish I had that, man. That would have been so motivating and inspiring. But I found ways to make it fun. I was like, okay, I'm going to stay on the right side and try to like go around people fast

and see if I can get there a little faster this time. I'm going to see if I can. I had car parts that I was moving in the back of a truck delivering to Cincinnati and then moving them and then taking other car parts up that were used for the cars in Columbus. And I was like, okay, how fast can I make this transition? I was just like making a game out of it. It sucked. I did not like it, but I found a way to bring joy to moments that I didn't

find fun. And I would also like sing like songs to myself, like sing musicals and just be as silly as I could. I was just like, all right, I'm going to do whatever I can to like find meaning and joy in this moment until I said, okay, this isn't what I want anymore. I need to think bigger and take some risks. So I left that job and I started going out and doing stuff on my own. So again, which brings us back to number one, which is to think bigger and take risks. So number seven, do things that matter and bring you joy.

And I'm, and I'm always trying to talk about that. And I know you are as well with the team where we're saying, Hey, listen, there's probably things in your role for each member of our team that they don't want to do. There's certain things they don't want to do. There's certain things I don't want to do. You know, you guys ask me to do stuff all the time. And I'm like, I really just want to sit here and chill. You know, I don't want to do this right now. You know, it's like pulling teeth sometimes with me. But I also think about the bigger vision of what we're creating. And that's why on our team calls, we always talk about like, what are the testimonials from listeners, from our book readers,

from our course buyers, from people who come to our events, what are the things they are emailing us saying that has transformed their life? What's the thing that's made a difference in their lives? And I try to bring it back to like the difference we are making and how the things we are doing matter to other people in the world. And I try to think, you know, I try to emphasize like, I think what we're doing is pretty cool. I try to emphasize, I think what we're doing is pretty cool. Even though some of the roles maybe aren't as fun as other roles and this and that, but we've got a great team we get to connect with.

We get to create meaningful content and bring inspiration to the world to people. We get to work on lots of different types of projects. And I'm like, I don't know. I feel like it's pretty cool. Those testimonials, I mean, those are huge. They're so like, I don't know. I feel like it's pretty cool. Those testimonials, I mean, they're so powerful. I don't know any other business that gets this many cool testimonials. Like every single day we get emails from people who listen to the podcast or again, read the book and find something new out about themselves. They take action on some of the insights, the stories, the lessons, the strategies, and they get results. And then they email us and tell us about it. It's, I don't know,

it's pretty cool. It's the taking action part. I mean, that's ultimately it. You have to, at some point, take action. Got to take action. That's the key. So let's, anything else on that point? Do things that matter and bring you joy? Anything else you'd add there? I mean, ultimately, even if it's just acknowledging yourself at times for completing the things at work, you know, give yourself a moment. I remember, you know, your mom, it's like every now and then

she's just got to give herself a moment to get up, even just take a walk after completing something. You know, give yourself a reward for the completion of your day. You know, and over the course of time, I mean, you continue to yourself a reward for the completion of your day you know and over over the course of time i mean you continue to create those habits for yourself and it's going to be it's going to be a lot easier process even if it's stuff that you're in that daily grind mentality that's it that's it so let's go over them again the seven big takeaways and big lessons and

insights for next year as well to go into next year. Number one, think bigger and take risks. Number two, build an all-star team because you can't build a great business with the JV squad. Number three, strategize, organize, and systematize your business and your life, your mindset, everything. Estimatize your business and your life, your mindset, everything. But constantly, every month, do check-ins with strategy and see where are we, where we're going is on the right path. Number four, innovate with new products and approaches to the way you do things in your business and in your life. Number five, invest in your business and bet on you. Five, invest in your business and bet on you.

And again, you can do that through hiring coaches or reinvesting back in your brand or your business, your team, going to events, all those different things. Number six, health, health, health. When you optimize your health, you set yourself up to win for your business and your life and your relationships. You feel more confident, you love yourself more, you appreciate things more, you have more energy. Health, health, health.

That could actually be number one, but we put it at number six. And number seven, do things that matter and bring you joy. Even though you may not be doing everything you love right now, you can always optimize and gamify it and then get back to a place of saying, okay, how can I think bigger and take some risks to start doing things on the side that bring me more joy or fulfillment or that do things that matter on the side until I can make that more of a full-time thing. But even, let's say you love to surf and you start a surfing school. You know, even though you love surfing every single day,

but if you're going to build a business around it, there's got to be things that you don't want to do. There's got to be like little things here and there that you're frustrated with or you don't want to do, even though you're teaching people how to surf. That's right. So you just got to be mindful that there are some things you're not going to want to do and that's right so you just got to be mindful that um there are some things you're

not going to want to do and that's okay but if you're working on things that make an impact and that matter to you bring you joy and you see transformation or or great results in the people who are part of that business then that's pretty sweet that's pretty sweet what did i miss anything those are the seven things that i had and I had from the things that we did this year and what I think we should continue to focus on for next year. So I'm going to get you back into health. Even though Matt never has put on any weight in his life, he cannot work out for a year and eat whatever he wants

and he's still skinny. That doesn't mean I'm healthy. That's true. Skinny fat, you know what I'm saying? Skinny fat. So those are the seven takeaways I got. You want to add one? Is there any one that you think I missed that you would add?

Or you think I... No, I think for 2017, those seven takeaways, those takeaways, lessons learned, whatever it may be. I mean, if you focus on each one of those seven, even into 2018, I'm sure we're going to find more. It's a continual search, continual growth. I'm excited about it. I mean, the bottom line is, I mean, that last one, you got to find joy in what you're doing in your business, in your life, you know, rally the relationships around you to support you by picking you up, you know, I mean, potentially find the things that are holding you back. Let those things go. You know,

that's another way of a key way I think of, of creating joy in your life. Let go of the things that are holding you back, bringing you down, limiting you, whether it's yourself or other individuals. I think that's a powerful thing as well. Yeah. And that goes right back into the team. If the team, if you feel like there's someone or an impact on the team that is holding you back, not creating that forward momentum, it's continual head against the wall or something like that.

I mean, I feel very fortunate and blessed that our team is just all in, all on board. They're awesome. Absolutely. All-stars. They are all-stars. Well, this has been a good year. Cheers to the coffee conversations. Yes.

Caesar is the man. We'll have to come back on maybe at the end of the first month of the year to do more then. So if you guys continue to like this, this is part three. You guys keep asking for more. If you continue to like the Coffee Conversations with Caesar, then just reply on social media, on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. Email us, let us know.

We'll do more of these. If you have any specific questions for Caesar, go ahead and message us as well. You can get to know the mystery of Matt Cesarato. Appreciate you guys. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this one. This was a fun one. It's been a great year. Very excited for next year.

We have some massive things coming your way. So if this is your first time here, make sure to subscribe to the podcast. Sign up for our newsletter at lewishouse.com. We've got tons of free training, resources, information. Grab our free book, themillionairemorning.com. All you have to do is pay for shipping and you can grab a physical copy of a great little book that'll help you with your morning routine to help you make more money that

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leave us a review. We've got tons of amazing reviews and we shout out the reviews of the week every single week. So go leave us a review there.

You guys are amazing. Cesar, be the man. Coffee Conversations Part 3 is complete. There you have it, guys. If you enjoyed this one,

Coffee Conversations, let me know. Tweet me at Lewis Howes. Tag me on Instagram at Lewis Howes. And share this with your friends, lewishowes.com slash 575. Again, the seven powerful lessons of the year and things to do for next year to optimize your business brand and your life. Again, if you liked Caesar coming on, you want more of him, just let me know or shoot us an email

or again, message me on Instagram and I'll make sure to share with him what you enjoy the most from that. As always, you were born for something great. You were born to do incredible things. You have a gift inside of you. You have something unique to offer to the world that no one else can offer to the world because no one else will ever be you. Make sure to discover

those unique gifts and talents that you were born with. Lean into your curiosity today. Start taking action on the things you truly love and truly love being a part of. You were born to be great. Always remember this and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.