The School of Greatness - How To Shift Your Frequency From Lack To Abundance & Attract Wealth

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Dan Martell didn't just escape a destructive path that led him to juvenile detention twice—he completely rewired his relationship with worth, value, and time. Now he coaches some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, and what he's learned might surprise you: the biggest thing holding people back isn't lack of opportunity or talent. It's their money story, their unwillingness to invest in themselves, and their inability to buy back their time. In this raw conversation, Dan breaks down why wealth isn't about working harder, it's about becoming more valuable. He shares the exact three-step framework (audit, transfer, fill) that allows you to reclaim your calendar and scale without burning out. You'll walk away understanding that your bank account is simply a reflection of your beliefs, and that the work you do today instills the worth you feel tomorrow.Buy Dan’s book Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your EmpireBuy Dan’s book Software as a Science: Unlock Limitless Recurring Revenue Without Losing ControlIn this episode you will:Discover why most entrepreneurs hit a "pain line" where more growth means more suffering, and the exact framework to break free so you can scale without losing your life.Transform your relationship with money by identifying the limiting beliefs and negative stories that keep you broke, even if you're working incredibly hard.Break through the worthiness barrier that prevents you from charging what you're actually worth and receiving the abundance you've been blocking.Master the Buyback Loop - a three-step system (audit, transfer, fill) that allows you to hire strategically, reclaim your time, and focus only on what makes you more valuable.Understand why the work instills the worth and how showing up consistently builds the self-confidence and proof you need to level up in every area of life.For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1832For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Jaspreet Singh – greatness.lnk.to/1644SCDave Ramsey  – greatness.lnk.to/1758SCCodie Sanchez – greatness.lnk.to/1823SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier. You want to make it flow. You want to feel abundant. Then make sure to go to make moneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward.

have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to this episode on The School of Greatness. If you became the person who could become rich, when you say what should they do first, it's they got to focus on the abundances all around them because your frequency, your energy is what you frequently see. Dan Martel. Dan is the author of the Wall Street Journal, bestselling book. Buy Back Your Time has taken the world by storm.

Dan has founded, scaled, and successfully exited three technology companies. I'm Dan Martell. I don't think we create success. We attract success. Why is it people that seem to work extremely hard don't make that much money? Because they're not working on the right things. They're working hard on the work. They're not working hard on themselves.

When I think wealth, I think time and just the freedom. And when we think about value of the time, it's not how much you get paid for your hour. It's what do you think you're worth? So I learned a long time ago is nobody's going to be. get paid a penny more than they think they're worth. What's negative beliefs that keeps people broke? The rich people are evil. I think a lot of people that think, well, if I was rich, I would just hang out on a beach

and do nothing, drink my tithes. The reason why you'll never be rich is because... How does someone identify what their current money story is from their past? And then how do you rewrite your money story to create more abundance versus scarcity? So good. It was a great question. I've never told anybody this. Welcome back, everyone in the School of Greatness.

Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring Dan Martel in the house. My man, good to see your brother. We have known each other for 15 years. We're here in my home studio in Los Angeles in the basement. I'm still trying to figure out what this is going to be called. The basement of greatness or something. The downstairs studio, you know, just trying to upgrade our life in the downstairs studio.

No, let's see. I think greatness something sounds better. Greatness basement, greatness. Greatness basement, greatness something. We're not there, yeah. We'll figure it out. It'll come to us. But I've seen you evolve over the last 15 years as an entrepreneur, as a leader, as a father,

as a husband, and transform in so many different ways. And a lot of people know you for the SaaS stuff that you do. But your newest book, which is all about buying back your time, has really helped people rethink what it means to be a human being in life and not just towards entrepreneurship or as a freelancer or business, but also anyone in a career, how they can reimagine their life to optimize their life with time. And the first thing I want to dive into, because you coach and work with a lot of nine-figure entrepreneurs, and my community, I think people that are coming to this are really going to want

to understand about the three principles of building wealth first before we get into time. So I'm curious with all the people you coach and work with, what are the three, keys that they all have in order to build wealth sustainably and exponentially. What would you say those three things are? Yeah. I mean, the first thing I'd say is most entrepreneurs, unfortunately, because they've never been taught different, end up building companies they grow to hate. Think about that. It's not the economy that takes a business down or an entrepreneur. It's usually the fact that they wake up one day and they look around and they hit what I call

the pain line, which is essentially they have opportunity to grow, but the more they grow, the more they grow, the more pain they're going to feel. So what is the thing they're, they have the most pain around? Is it their teams, their customers, the clients? Is it the industry they're in? It's the calendar. It's their schedule. Yeah. And it's maybe the way they hired where they don't have the right people or the thing they're selling is too complicated. And the more they do, the more their calendar

explodes. So imagine you get an email where you could double your capacity, double your revenue, and you can't take that business on because that would mean more pain in your life and you're already trying to get more time for the weekends for your kids or whatever it is. I mean, it's tough. And you're exhausted. You're burnt out. And it's not the dream that you were sold. You sold yourself a vision of a future where the bigger this gets, the more time you're going to have and the more freedom. And unfortunately, if you're not taught to do it properly, that's what ends up happening. That's what happened to me. The three things that I would say that people who've created wealth and when I think wealth, I think of like time and just like the freedom is first off,

they understand the value of their time. So, and when we think about the value of the time, it's not how much you get paid for your hour. It's what do you think you're worth? So what I learned a long time ago is nobody's going to get paid a penny more than they think they're worth. So wait, what's the difference between how much you get paid per hour versus how much you're worth?

I think there's one that materializes in the minute. How much did somebody just pay me for what I just offered? And there's, what do you think you're worth? What's your value? But some people might say, well, I'm worth $1,000 an hour. Yeah. But they're not getting paid that. No.

And is that delusional to think, oh, I'm worth this? But if the market's not willing to pay it, are you worth it? Dude, it's such a good question. Here's why it's a great question is because there has to be a belief you're worth more than what you're currently getting paid so you make better trades. See, if you think you're worth a thousand, but you're only getting paid 100, then you're going to start thinking about your time differently, where you'll say no to things that don't even look remotely close to a $200, maybe a $300 an hour opportunity, or you might decide

to spend some money. See, most people spend time to save money. I encourage them to spend money to save time. Yes. This is kind of how I grew up. You know, this is what people do. It's like, you know, we're cutting coupons. We're going to discount. We're waiting in a line for an hour to like save money. Whatever might be, it's like you wait where you spend time to try to save money. But why is that the wrong way to look at it? Because if we're talking about creating wealth, the only ways we can create wealth is by making that hour worth more. And this is what's interesting is, so the first part is worthiness. But the second part is increasing your value. So if you think you're worth a thousand, but you're only charging a hundred or people aren't willing to pay you more

than that, then you can say, well, how can I become more valuable? For me, the three areas I always look at is the character traits that I have, right? Like, you're not valuable if you're not somebody that can deliver on the commitments you've made. Right. And so then are you worthy if you're not valuable? Exactly. So I think that you have to start with the belief you're worthy, but then you got to back it up by action. And by creating value within what developing skills. Yeah. So it's character traits first off, right? Like just being somebody that shows up that honors their word, right? Be impeccable with your language. Second would be skills. Like what what skill do you currently have this creating value? And is there a way to upgrade that skill, right? Marketing, sales, et cetera. And then the third part I think is belief systems. Right? So what are the belief systems that keep people bankrupt or broke? I always look at two things. Whatever the, let's say the goal is becoming rich. There's two parts of this.

There's the negative, there's this limiting beliefs you have about yourself about being rich. And then there's the negative beliefs you have about the achievement. So both of those are in the mind. So the thing about like limiting beliefs is like, well, I can't do this. I've never done this before. And I know the person has this belief if I hear the language.

And you know what I'm talking about. This language like could, should, it be nice. All right, one, two. Yeah, that language has the expectation of failure built into it. So that's the limitation beliefs. And then on the other side of the coin of the outcome is the negative belief. So what's negative beliefs that keeps people broke? The rich people are evil.

There's no chance you're going to wake up to try to be rich if you believe rich people are evil. Or rich people don't pay taxes or rich people took advantage of somebody or rich people are unhappy. Because if you believe rich people are evil, you don't want to become that belief of evil. If I held a knife to your throat and said step forward, you'd be like, well, I don't want to step forward because I'll hurt myself. It's like, yeah, so you'll never push for the goal if you think the outcome is negative. So until we work through those beliefs, I see, and that's what I call self-sabotage. The biggest work I do with entrepreneurs is understanding what are the unconscious beliefs they have that are literally self-sabotaging their progress to winning.

what are the beliefs that most people have around money that are holding them back then is it that money's bad or people with money or takers or what is it yeah i think it's it's anything negative so i mean i know i had money beliefs around i used to i had this crazy belief that everybody had to go bankrupt that everyone had to if you want to be successful really it was this weird belief that i i read donald trump's book and i read a bunch of other people's books and when you look at the history they all talk about like you know if you're really trying you're taking risk and at some point you'll probably go bankrupt so get used to it so like well if i have that belief how hard am i going to push to try to be successful if i've got a young family and i'm trying

not to create pain in their life yes so that one kept me playing small for a long time wow yeah the other belief is you know what will other people my family say if i have money oh my gosh do you ever feel guilty about the money you have i i felt so guilty louis you even know me for a long time i didn't tell anybody I had money. I was quiet about it. I didn't allow myself to buy anything nice until I was 30. I made my first million at 27, multi-millionaire at 28 and it wasn't until I was 36 I allowed myself to buy a McLaren. Dude, it's so funny you say this. Isn't that crazy? Well, so funny you say this because I still don't really buy myself anything. I mean, I bought a nice home. Yeah, you bought a beautiful. I'm buying like, you know, I'm not buying things to like show off that I have money though.

Like, I don't showcase my home. I'm not like taking photos of it and posting it online and like, look at me. My friend got me at Rolex for my 40th birthday last year. I think I'm worn it like seven times. Because part of me is still kind of like, should I be wearing this? Talk to me about that. You know, it's, well, part of it is not my style. Yeah.

You know, I don't like, you know, part of it's like I just wear the same black thing. Just like you're wearing a blue shirt. Yeah. Exactly. So that's part of it. The other part of this is, you know, I don't want to reject. money coming my way by by not wearing it but it's also like how are people going to are they going to judge me or they don't want more from me or they're going to be thinking I should be doing

more it's just like do you also do I want to attract some type of judgment that is unnecessary I don't know it's like it's kind of a lot of that well and that is it so you said a few things that I just want to kind of pull up to the surfaces one of them is I'm worried if they expect me to do more. A lot of people don't want to call their shot or live a bigger life because then that becomes the new floor they got to live into. So that's a fascinating one. It's like, well, I don't want to create wealth because then I have to maintain that. And if I lose and people will visually publicly see me rise and fall. Yeah. That holds a lot of people back. I'm not afraid of the rise and fall because I'm being the bottom. But it's the judgment around. Yes, 100%. And like for me,

it was what would my family say? Like, oh, you're too cool for us? now? Why did you get that kind of car? I remember, dude, I got the car. Especially Canadian. Oh, you guys don't. It was the only McLaren in the province I lived in. And you said I have to go to Montreal to get service. Wow. And I remember the first time I had it for almost two weeks. I didn't want anybody to know. It was in the garage. I was, I wasn't even sure how it was going to like, like be with it. That was really weird. And I remember the first time I wanted to go to the gym and drive it with my wife. We went and worked out every day. You know, Renee. And she wouldn't come with me. She took her car. Why? She didn't want to.

have to deal with what people are going to say. Interesting. So it's fascinating that like when people just kind of try on these, these ideas, like what would it mean to say, even a lot of my clients, I say, can you say I am ultra rich? They can't say it. Nope. Why not? I mean, everybody's got a personal story, but what does that mean?

Why does saying the word ultra rich scare you, frustrate you, like you're the judgment? What is it? What does it mean to you? It's just words. What do most ultra rich people say around why they can't own that they're Uber wealthy by speaking about it? I think there's a part of it that is if I acknowledge it, then I'm different than other people and they don't want anybody to think that they think they're better.

Really? Yeah. I mean, I'm that way, man. I don't want anybody to think that because I drive a certain car or fly around in my jet that I think I'm better than you because that's, and you're the same way. Like, we don't. Right? I don't.

The reason I don't wear watches because I don't like it to get in the way. I appreciate beautiful things in design. Yes. But yeah, I'm definitely when I first got the McLaren, I was worried that people would treat me different. And guess what? They did.

They look at you differently. Dude, I remember the first, it was awesome. I mean, I showed up, I went and did a talk at a rehab center. I'll tell you why.

So I pull up to go, I do a lot of work with troubled youth. And every kid immediately, the, like they want to know what I have to say. Whereas before I'd show up in whatever car, and then they'd be like, who is this guy?

Is that fascinating? So, you know, perception is reality. But yeah, people do treat you different. And sometimes if you are comfortable with it, you can use that to fast track conversations. And if you're not okay with it, then it can be a source of a lot of pain. And I think that's, that's the mindset. Who are the wealthiest people that you know that you respect based on how they live their life? And what are the things that they do that you respect the most about them? Yeah, I'm going to say Gary V for sure. I just interviewed. him yesterday. Yeah. I mean, Gary's... What are the characteristics about the wealthy like Gary that you respect? That he uses his money to create and to help other people.

And I would, and I would aspire to always be that. And that's what it is. And I think that if you truly, it's like when people say, well, I don't need to be rich. And I'm like, cool, why don't you become rich? And then if you want to do good with it, then you can. Like, why wouldn't you accumulate the resources? If you think somebody else, the government, this other entrepreneur, or the CEO isn't going to do right by having that money, go get it. And once you got it, decide what you want to do with it. That's the way I think about it. So when I watch Gary, you know, create his empire and then reinvest it into content and helping other people and running these big events and building companies and inspire entrepreneurship and really

like help other people around them become wealthy. I mean, we've seen Gary over the years make concessions for his career for other people. Yeah. I mean, dude, even the fact that he helped build his dad's wine shop. Like, no, like most people don't know this. He built it to 60 million. He owned none of it. Yeah. And was paying himself maybe 100k a year. Dude, I don't pay my CEO's 100k a year. Dude, that's not how the math works. Sure. So, um, he inspires me just the way he shows up. I think, uh, you know, Alex and Laylor Hermose, friends of ours, like they, they do the same thing. They're, they're very much like, how do I use this to create more. How do I buy back my time? Because I really think it's about an experience and a

leverage thing. Like wealth should be an opportunity to live a more fully developed life. Right. Like I think the word empire subtitle my book, I believe an empire is a life of unlimited creation you never have to retire from. And I think everybody should want to aspire to do that. Interesting. Just be a creator. That's why I talk a lot about artists and creators in the book. The book's really meant for people that are starting off. Because I don't. want them to get the wrong headspace for what it means to be successful and i try to teach them how to value their time the math behind it the value of it the worthiness and then allow yourself to if you have a desire to drive a supercar don't tame it if you have a desire to own a jet don't tame

it there's nothing wrong with that live in a beautiful home i think the number one thing you could ever do for somebody else has inspire them to live a bigger life and you don't inspire people by playing small. And to add to that, though, what is the difference between inspiring people and showing off? It's the intent. Think about it.

Money is an amplifier. That's it. It's not good or bad. It's like a fork. A fork can be used to hurt somebody. It could be used to nourish somebody. It's a tool. That's it.

So some people buy the Rolex because they're trying to fill a hole that says I'm not enough. Maybe this will make me feel worthy of that affection. Other people get it because they understand the history and from an engineering point of view and a story, maybe if their grandfather had one, they want to wear it as a reminder of that. Or, and it could be, like, this is the cool part,

is that it's not necessarily the thing. It's the story behind the thing. It's not fun. Like, that's why I help people kind of rewrite their money stories because then if we say, okay, like I had a client, he was worth like, you know, 50 million and he couldn't bring himself. to he had a car he wanted to get i think it was um it wasn't it was like the the new corvette okay

the c8 brand new rear engine corvette and he and he couldn't bring himself okay guys worth 50 million cars like 100 and some thousand and i said why is that and his mindset was always about well if i do that then i'm taken away from something else i could help somebody with and i said cool i totally honored that i appreciate it i said but what if you got the car to help inspire other kids that were just like you and I could see the light bulb and he goes oh I said so talk to me about what just you just I saw the math click and he goes well if I got the car then I could use it for charity rallies and I could do it I could go to schools and I could like go to car shows and I go now we're talking see if you have a thing a house and you don't host people there right you have a company

but you don't allow the resources to be leveraged by your team do good you have money, but you just try to hoard it and keep it in one spot and not use it to create experiences for yourself, that's, that's where I think people get prisoner of money. And here's the thing, and I got this from one of my friends, I really like the way he framed that he said, it doesn't matter how much money you have 100,000 or 100 million. He said, if money is the primary decision, you make a decision, you're a prisoner. So money needs to be a consideration, but it can't be the primary reason. Why you do something, why you create something, make something, start a business. It has to be a consideration. It has to be. You can't just say, I want to do this, but I may make no

money. You have to be thinking about the money as well. How much do you think about the money versus the impact when you're making a decision? Exactly. How much should how much should you weigh them? I think impact should be at least 50%. Uh-huh. I think the money should almost be, let's not be wasteful. But I think we should listen to our heart and say, that's what I feel called to do. If you feel called to, you know, charter a boat and invite all your friends on it to create a magical experience, you know, I think that is a beautiful thing. And economically, it might make no sense. You know, calling my dad and sharing with him some of my travel stuff I'm doing, he for sure would go wasteful, makes no sense. Why would you do that? But again, different mindset. Right. He had a belief

that money didn't grow on trees and there was a limited supply. I have a belief that to the level I'm creative and resourceful. It's unlimited. Let's go. I like that. I like that. But that's true because you've experienced it. Yes. Right? To the degree that I can create opportunities for people or feel a certain way, then all of a sudden I attract it into my life. Then I need to show up and always, that's why the desire to help other people should be at least 50% of every decision because it's actually a better way to live. You mentioned money story. How does someone identify what their current money story is from their past, and then how do you rewrite your money story to create more abundance versus

scarcity? So good. It was a great question. So what I do with people is I ask them to sit down and say, as it pertains to money, being rich, and let's call it, like being rich, what are all the negative beliefs that you have around that language? And really sit with that for 15 minutes. Don't move on it. Well, and I've had people say the craziest things. And crazy to me, but maybe obvious to a lot of people listening. The first one, I remember one time they said that rich people don't pay taxes. That's fascinating. I've paid a lot of taxes, man.

I know how much I write. And I want to pay taxes. The more taxes I pay, it means that I've obviously created more well. Like, I have no problem paying. I don't want to pay one penny more and I have to, but I have no, I have zero problem. And it's funny how that belief, well, what is that? Why does that matter to you? Well, I don't want to make, I want to give a penny more to the government.

I have to. Interesting. So you have an anger issue against your government that's stopping you from being wealthy because you don't want to pay more. So you don't want to make more because you don't want to give more. Dude, it's so fascinating. When people literally say like, well, I don't want more because I might make, you know, if I'm wealthy or rich, my sister might be upset with me. Talk to me about that. Well, last time I got a raise and I told her all of a sudden she didn't talk to me for three weeks because she thought I was better than her. That's interesting. Let's talk about that. So I always go to three questions when this stuff comes up is number one, is it true? So first off right off all the beliefs. Write all the beliefs on your money story. Yep. Yeah. Then for each one of them,

the first question, is it true? What if they believe it's true? Well, is it really true? Is it true? Is it true? Is it true? Is there a scenario where that's not true? And for most people, if I say, is it really true, they're like, well, no, it's not really true. It's like, cool. Let's start there. Second question is, what would need to be true for that not to be true? Because that's another great question. It's like, well, I don't want to pay taxes. It's like, perfect. So what if you had a tax expert that specialized in making sure that you didn't pay a penny more to the government you had to? Would that solve the problem? Cool. Because again, it's, it's not about overcoming that they don't believe it anymore. It's resolving the belief. So if I then found a firm that I knew

would help me not pay the government one penny more, then I could push harder. Right. Because again, people don't want to grow if they have a negative belief of achievement. So once we resolve that, then we move it forward. Now, the third question is how old is that belief? How long have you been thinking about it? Or how old are you when you came up with that? When did that start? You know what I'm talking about it?

I was seven. I was 10. I was nine. I saw, you know, I saw my dad, you know, upset and he made a comment. And that stuck with me. Or my dad, my dad used to say that it's fascinating. he used to always say to me that it's not what you make, it's what you spend, okay, which is good advice. On the surface, it's not what you make, it's what you spend. So you could make a million

dollars a year, but if you spend a million and one, then you're no worse off than somebody that didn't make any money. But what I took that and internalized it for my 20s and my 20s when I started in business was every dollar I was an expense was I was taking it away from me. So think about the concept of buying back your time. My belief, if I spent a dollar, then I was taking away profit. So I tried to do as much as I could to save. To save. Dude, I was like, I was making like, you know, hundreds of thousands a year.

And instead of investing in the business, I was constraining it. I was choking it from its potential because I wouldn't, I wouldn't let a dollar go if it was an absolutely necessary. And the challenge is if you understand business is that it requires an investment. And what happens if you make good investments, you get a return on that investment. And if you get really good in business, then the more investments you make, like when I ask somebody like, how much do you pay for a customer? Well, I pay $10 a customer. How much is that customer worth you? $100. How quick do you get that $100 within the first month? How many $10 bills do you

want to trade for $100 bill? Right. So what's your marketing budget? But originally they'll say, well, my budget's $10,000 a month. I go, no, it's unlimited to the degree that you get that $100 dollar bill for every 10 that you put in. It took me six years of being in business and choking the potential of the business till I flip the mindset of, oh, no, it's not what you make. It's not what you keep is literally what's the return on the growth. Because the real value in a lot of businesses, yes, it's the profit. But even more importantly, it's what's the business worth to somebody else. Because to the degree that, and this is what I talk about in the book, to the degree that I can build a business that doesn't need me to grow. And that it has a, it has,

has predictable revenue, predictable profits, those two equations equals how much it's worth to somebody else. And this is what happened to me at 28 when my company got bought, my first company I sold, that was when the flow town spirit, even before that. That one, that was the one that really set me up to then do a bunch of other stuff. But that's when I learned that, yes, you can't be not profitable, but at the same time, don't constrain the business from its potential growth, because if you can build a business that doesn't require you to run and is predictable profit, then it's going to be incredibly valuable to somebody else. Or for something like you where the business requires some of you to grow, your personality,

your likeness, your knowledge, your wisdom, your content creation, all of it might be. How do you justify that when it's a personality driven business or expertise driven? There's a lot of creators who are watching, a lot of solo entrepreneurs. It's my favorite question. They're the experts, they're the face, and they feel like they need more of them in order to grow. Here's the way I would think about it is we've got to reframe the problem we're trying to solve because I think the problem, you know, I call them puzzles, not no problems. But the puzzle is what is true about the business.

So do you need to be the person that creates? Yes. But what parts of it? So I have this framework I teach in the book called the 108010 rule. The 108010 rule, I saw Steve Jobs do this, Gary V do this. this. And honestly, most massive creators at scale, Jimmy Donaldson, Mr. Bees talks about this, is they'll be involved in the first 10%, the ideation, the creative, and then they'll hand it off to a team that executes. And then at the very end, they'll come back for the integration.

So what I do and what a lot of people do is I resolve to be the talent. And by design, in my company where I am the talent, that is my role. I have a general manager that runs that company. So I don't do one-on-ones. I don't do strategic planning. I don't manage finance. I don't with the whole team. You're just talent. I am literally talent. When I wake up, the team says, I need this for me, this for me, this for you. I negotiate. And then I try to figure out, like, do you really need me to do that part? Negotiate your time? 100%. And then also like, hey, we've got revenue. Can you spend some, invest some to go get 80% of this project done that I'm not going to do. So for example, a lot of the creative projects, we have like writers that help us

with it, that come with the ideation, that go research all the videos I might have done. And they present the solutions. So it's really about just looking at your calendar and saying, okay, I want to be the person on camera. That's the thing. I can't until AI and maybe neural ink or whatever, it gets good enough. I'm doing that. But anything that isn't that, I'm not doing it. So create a forcing function, a decision to say, I'm the talent team, you guys want to grow the revenue, try to come up with ideas that don't require more of my time. Right. So that's the puzzle. That's big. That's the question you ask. But then you got to figure out how to hire the right people and people, you know, all that stuff. That's the business stuff. That's challenging. Yeah. No, and that's

why I talk about in the book, test first hiring method. Like, what's that? So the test first hiring method is the idea that, you know, I got this from Seth Godin. You know, a long time ago, you know, Clay Bear, He introduced me to Seth. I'm in New York and we go to his favorite ice cream place. That was when I was doing Clarity.fm. And I was just so excited to meet the legend marketer, Seth Godin. And we're talking about Clarity, which is a marketplace for entrepreneurs to get paid over the phone. And that was cool.

It was like kind of LinkedIn had a call button. But in our conversation with Seth, we were talking about people and talent because we had just raised a bunch of capital and we're hiring. And he goes, yeah, I have a rule. I just, I can't work with you until I work with you. And I said, what, what does that mean? And he was just like, he was ready to move on. I was like, I can't move on. What does that mean?

And he essentially says, before I work with anybody, I do a project with them. And I'm like, I don't do that. And that was a big aha. And I said, tell me more. And he tells me about the whole process. So over the years, I've developed kind of a three part way of how I hire. And the first part is people have to submit a video. answering questions that are very clear

and they have to figure how they upload the video to give me the video. And why do I do that? Well, first off, I want to make sure they can read the instructions and they can shoot a video and talk to a camera, which is really important

from a communication point of view. And they can technically, they're advanced because, I mean, we're doing distributed teams. I don't have time to teach you how to use Google Docs, right? Right. So can you record a video and upload it and get a link

and then put it in the submission for the application? So that's step one. Step two, we do a profile assessment so a lot of people hire folks and they're like man this person just isn't like the lights aren't on you know you're talking to them is like what's going on did you hear what I said turns out you can test for a lot of this cognitive intelligence yeah yeah so we have a profile assessment that not only does it do their kind of the cognitive side it also does just their their default behaviors see I think their personality style too dude it's all that because

the best hire is somebody that selfishly has a desire to be better better at the thing you hired them for. My favorite question is to ask somebody in five years, we can't be working together. You wake up and you're living your dream life. What does that look like? And they explain to you exactly what they want to do is what you need them to become in your company.

Game on. So that's step two. Step three is the test project. Here's what's different about the way I do test project. A lot of people are like, oh, yeah, we do test projects. No. We simulate.

So whatever the role they're going to do is what they do for the test project. So I just hired a CEO to run one of my companies. His test project amongst the four other candidates was to create a 90-day plan. Because that's the first thing. You know what I mean? So whatever they're going to do when they start working for you is 100% what the project should be. And that's why it's called the test first hiring method. So before somebody ever gets to the end, the other rule I have is I always have to have three really good candidates, which it sounds like a lot of work.

And it is. But the chances of you not hiring somebody that can hit the ground running and add a lot. lot of value to your business is very, it's limited. What happens when you hire fast and you don't have three potential candidates to make a decision from? It happens sometimes, especially if it's like a key role, a specialized role. I mean, we'll look for it and just manage the expectations. The big thing that we do that's quite different is we document everything. So if the person comes in and they don't pan out, at least we have a process. So we're not left hanging. Sure. But it's never usually a good And it also, think about what it communicates to the person that you're hiring, right?

If they go through this process, they're thinking to themselves, I'm joining a killer team. Right. So like a lot of times really senior director level above hires we're making, they're so impressed with their process that they almost want to come work for us as they're going through it. Because they're thinking, if I had to go through this, right. Imagine the other people I get to work with. Yeah. You know, so I think that's the business part is always interesting because yes, you have to figure out how to be the talent. but then it's always about the people.

I think we build the people, the people build the business. Exactly. So our job, and I call it teach not tell. So this is a very, you're going to love this. So when I have people that work for me,

I don't tell them what to do. If I see something they're doing wrong, I write it down, I create a training, I teach it, and now I have a standard. So essentially when I'm coaching people and they say,

you know, my team's not figuring it out or they're too slow or I don't feel like the risk takers. I hear it all. I go, cool, make a list. What's on your list? And they're like, well, they don't, they don't, they don't collaborate in meetings or they don't take notes in meetings or they're, they're slow on email replies or whatever

it is. Make a list, all of them, 13, 14 complaints about their team. I said, cool. Now show me where you've done a training on how those things should be done right. Well, I don't. Right, right. That's the problem. Right.

Or maybe they said, well, I told them one time or twice, but they didn't do it. Yeah, yeah. Not tell. You have to show them. Teach. Do you need to show me? where there's a video that if I watch that video and I follow what you told me are the five ways that I need to collaborate in a meeting that when I show up in a meeting and I don't do it,

you pull out that video and say, hey, remember this video you watched? Let's talk about the way you showed up in that last meeting. Right. And see, what's cool about that is just so simple is great leaders. And you know this. Look at the people they've led to the degree those people have developed and grown. That says, you know, if you look at any organization that's performing, I will show you a world class leader. It's impossible for you. Boy Scouts. You know, organization, businesses, media companies, if you point to this company is doing awesome, I will introduce you to a world-class leader. Right.

And that leader is really good at developing people. Wow. That's a skill set. How important is creating bulletproof processes for your teams in order to grow and scale? If you have an issue on your team, you have two options. It's either a people problem or a process problem. So I default to assuming positive intent. I call it API, assume positive intent.

If there's a mistake, I assume somebody wasn't properly trained. So I always go to the process is broken. It's the process. So I always ask, before I get upset, I go, can you show me the process that led you to create this outcome? And sometimes it'll be like, well, I don't have one. It's missing. So I don't get upset at the person.

And then if they have it, I look at it and there might be a step missing that cause the issue. Cool. Let's add it together. Well, just be like, can you add that steps? You're right there. Enter. Boom, boom, boom. It's done. Then now I have something I can hold them accountable to. But I think as a default, people, especially entrepreneurs, we're kind of crazy. CEOs are crazy in case they didn't know that. Like, I'm very self-aware. I always want to go to the process. But once the process, that's why. But once the process is in place, and then there's a breakdown continually, then they're not following a process. Yep. And then it's their decision if they want to not step up to the standards. Right. I think people,

at the end of the day, if you don't have a process, a system, they'll fall to the level of your systems. So you need to train them. They have to exist. And then that's how you build a company that doesn't require you to run. And people, some people are like, well, I don't ever want to sell this company. Cool. I would still encourage you to build it in a way that you could sell it because a company that could be sold is a great company to own. Right? And that's there's less breakdowns. And you can hire more people and put them into the process. And think about just what's fun in life. Like my whole philosophy is I want to wake up every day and go back to back awesome stuff.

Yes. Fixing a problem that keeps happening is not fun. It's not fun. Hence why a lot of people build companies that grow to hate. It's the way they built it. Yes. So as soon as you get to a place where you resolve a problem and that's why I teach the framework, the camcorder method in the book, this is how we create processes in my life

is when a problem happens, I solve it. I never want to have to revisit that. and then every time it's new problems like most entrepreneurs i know you're this way louis it's i'm addicted to my expansion i don't want to revisit something i've already overcome yes and having new team members sometimes it feels like oh i got to teach them again and here's what crazy is whenever you feel that way is why you might not want to grow the business because if i grew it it would probably that person wouldn't be able to grow with me right so i'd have to let them go which means i have to hire somebody new, which means I got to train them.

So that's a lot of people because they don't have those systems in place, they actually will stunt their growth. Wow. Isn't that fascinating? It's really cool. Like when you sit down with an entrepreneur who's got a business and you're like, okay, where are the opportunities? And they're like, well, I can't do that because of this.

It's like, let's talk about that thing, that person. Yeah. So when someone starts to develop their, and get to be aware of their money story and they start to identify their story, is that true? Is that really true? and they go through these steps, would you say that when they're clear on their money story, they then have a money personality or identity? I think it definitely is identity.

Identity. Yeah. And we've all heard, you know, one of my coaches, Ed Milet talks about this a lot, right? The whole idea that, you know, whatever our identity is around our wealth, our love, our relationships, it's like a thermostat, right? If this room has got a thermostat set at 80 and it gets hot, the cooling is going to kick in, it's going to cool us down. If it gets cool, the heater is going to kick in, it's going to heat it up.

And everybody has an identity around money and especially worth. And, you know, some people, it's fascinating to watch. They can just go look at their bank account. Usually it oscillates between the floor and the high, right? And some people, it's overdraft is cool. And it is like, no problem. Other people, if they don't have $5,000 in their bank account and savings, they freak out. So it's interesting from a working through the beliefs

is trying to figure out how do I make the old high, the new low. How does someone break through then? You got to do the belief work. You have to understand what beliefs you have about breaking through. Because if the low happened, if you looked in your bank count, or you stepped on a scale, you step on a scale and you thought it was going to read a number and it read 20 pounds heavier, you're going to make a completely different set of decisions that day, right, about what you have for breakfast.

Right. Do you go to the gym? Of course you're going to the gym. You're like, what am I to have a 20 pounds heavier? I didn't know that was going to be there. So what happens is you need to trick yourself into making the old high, the new low and act as if it was. The best way to fix your identity is get around other people.

Yes. We know this. I mean, the environment, it doesn't matter how motivated or how much positive motivation you have about being warm if you're sitting inside a commercial freezer, you're going to be cold. Eventually you're going to get cold. Yeah, you're going to be cold. So it's like, how about we move you out of the freezer into a warm room and all of a sudden

that warm room is your peer group, right? And I always say, if you're the big dog in your city, you might want to look around, right? If you're the smartest person on your street, find another street. Yes. So what would you say is the process then from shifting out of a belief system of scarcity or lack around money into abundance and prosperity, would it be around the story first, than shifting your environment around people you're with so that your identity starts to shift. How do we shift our identity to become wealthier, minded and wealthier materially?

Yeah, this beautiful question. I love it because oftentimes I'll talk about the chocolate and the broccoli. You know, people, sometimes you have to communicate the chocolate because that's what people really want, but what they need is the broccoli. So the chocolate for a lot of people is success. It's rich. It's money. It's accolades. It's recognition. It's all that. And put a note on that. What is the thing that people usually want? Is it they want financial freedom? Is they want status? They want options. What is it people really want when they think around wanting more money? I think it's, I think the word that comes to most entrepreneurs when I ask in this question. And I do. I run big events and I say, okay, why do we start the business? One word,

write it down go it's freedom freedom it's freedom freedom means the ability to do what you want with who you want anytime you want which is a is interesting because it's a bit of a fallacy right i can actually your work ethic is a byproduct of your gratitude think about that i think a lot of people that think well if i was rich i would just hang out on a beach and do nothing drink my tides the reason why you'll never be rich is because that's all you would do with that resource. If you became the person who could become rich, you would have a different character trait that would, you would not be like, I don't want to waste my day. Yeah. I've done this for 14 days in a row. How many more days am I going to just hang out on a beach and do nothing? You get

bored. So it's fascinating that some people that are broke have a belief about what they would do and they're rich. And it's the reason they'll never be rich because that energy will never bring that to them. Right. So when you say what should they do first, it's they got to focus on the abundance is all around them. So start paying attention to abundance around you. It's you can wake up and you can decide that the world has scarcity and negativity and lack and you will find evidence of that. Or you wake up and you decide that the world is abundant and there's positivity and there

is so much opportunity around me. And my job is to just keep my eyes open for the rest of the day and not let. Yeah, because your frequency, your energy is what you frequently see. want people to hear that your frequency my energy is what i frequently see you know and that was i was excited my boys came in here i wanted them to meet you because you're one of those people where i'm like lewis is such a good and positive like you need to feel that energy so it's i'm never surprised when i meet somebody that's successful that's positive because of course they are because look at the way they they look at life so i think the first thing any person no matter where they're at doesn't matter

how much money they have or have nothing, they can decide, hey, in the last hour, did I focus on opportunity? Did I focus on gratitude? Did I focus on abundance? Or was I complaining? Was I seeing the downside of my situation? Like one question I asked myself a dozen times a day, Lewis. I've never told anybody this. Anytime I feel any lack and it happens all the time or frustration. You know, I meant to be somewhere on time. I'm running late. Or, you know, So my driver, something happened. I always go to this question. How can I appreciate even more God's grace and guidance in this moment?

That's cool. Any time, it's like a cleanser. I could be sitting here and I'd be like, oh, man, I wish I would have had something to drink before I started or whatever. And I'd just be like, in my mind, I just asked myself, how can I appreciate even more God's grace and guidance in this moment? And immediately, see how it just changes the scanning of the world? All of a sudden, I'm like,

Oh, I'm warm. Yeah. That's cool. Or, hey, I'm here with my buddy. That's cool. I'm healthy. I'm healthy. Oh my gosh, I'm breathing clean air.

That's cool. I have resources. I have friends. I have rich relations. I just got back from vacation. Like, there's as soon as you, and that's why I think questions are probably one of the most powerful tools we have. Because if you ask a more powerful question, you'll live a more powerful life.

And that is my, that is my question. It's my primary question that I use to try to reset it. So it's not about like go get another skill or character. trade or change your belief, it's really about like, can you decide right now to see opportunity all around you? It's there. Yes. It's right there. You mentioned frequency. How important is it for us to shift the frequency of our thoughts and our emotions in order to draw in more financial opportunities? And is money attracted to a certain type of frequency? If so, what is that frequency?

It is. I think the number is like 433 hertz or something. I think I saw it at times like the money frequency is 433 hertz. I don't know. I do know this. In my kids playroom in our house, there's a chart. And it's essentially a spiral energy chart. And there's a downward spiral and an upward spiral.

So the feelings on the downward spiral are all the things you would assume, you know, anger, frustration, sadness or whatever. The upward spiral is things like gratitude and joy and laughter. So when we think of our frequency attracting, because I don't think we create success, we attract success. And Jim Rohn says this often, right? We attract success by becoming an attractive character. So an attractive identity.

Yes. I mean, I hope people can resonate with this. People want to do business with people they like that are positive, that make problem slash puzzles not an issue. Easier. Yeah, yeah. And oftentimes it's not even, do you have the skill to solve the problem is when you work on a problem,

are you jovial? Are you kind? Are you funny about it? Do you take yourself seriously? Or do you just, do you crack a joke from time to time? Yes. Because that's what people want.

I want to be around people that make life lighter, not make them harder for me. So I think that energy, that's why I tell the kids, because check this out, if you woke up today and you don't feel proud of where you're at, I can guarantee there was a day back in your past, six months ago, six years ago, doesn't matter when,

where you went from an upward spiral to a downward spiral. And that one day, that one decision, it was little where you got upset at somebody when you knew you knew better. You didn't apologize. You should have been quicker to apologize. Something happened to you, you assumed that they were trying to be malicious. You should assume to positive intent.

and you started a downward spiral. Isn't that interesting? Like, if you wake up and you're 20 pounds overweight, there was a day where you ate a little bit more than you should have and you didn't go to the gym. It's never like the one day. It's the multiple days. That's why for me, that upward spiral,

downward spiral and the energy and that frequency, it's something I've been teaching my kids since they could understand language. Wow. Oh, yeah. It's because, again, it's who you are attracts things into your world. The world isn't as it is, it's as you are. But how come people watching and listening and what I'd say, that sounds great, Dan, and I understand that, but why are there so many wealthy or rich people who are nasty and

are mean and treat people poorly? How do they have money still? Because money is not, and Tony Robbins talks about this. He said there's a science of success and then there's the art of fulfillment. So there is a science of being successful, just like there's a science for being healthy. And if you go into a chloric deficit and you do hypertrophy training, you will be ripped. If you sell something for way more

than it costs you to make and you can scale it up, you're rich. The art of fulfillment is completely different. And that's the world we live in. But we're talking about frequencies also. Yeah. Like personality and frequency and identity

and beliefs and attitude, which I believe, also when someone when I'm at a restaurant and someone is like just got the most positive attitude who's waiting on us I'm like I want to overtip right I want to give more because I appreciate and I value positive energy so I value that but there's a lot of wealthy people also who are mean and angry short exactly and all those things and just like you know the least amount of tip or whatever it might be and so how do they get away with it or how do they succeed in spite of a lower energy frequency in some way. Yeah, it's such a great question because I'm not saying

you can't be successful or rich without it. Uh-huh. It's just then you don't have the fulfillment. Right, right. So you can be that, but then you don't have good relationships and you might be sick inside. Let's talk about what they have that the people that are looking to create and have impact and have more fulfillment should consider it's the worthiness. See, that person that used what I call dark energy to create. And I use it, dude, in my early 20s, proven all those people that second guess me. I'm going to show them. I'm going to win so big that it's going to be undeniable that they were wrong. Like that was a very dark, like kind of diesel. It drives you. It was powerful. It's got a lot of torque. Problem is it also, it eats at you. It's dirty. It is. It feels

hard. And I think that's why you see a lot of billionaires want to be Buddhists, but you don't any Buddhists who want to be billion because they got the fulfillment they don't need the money to feel good they don't realize that I could have felt good the whole time yeah that's a beautiful place to come from right and so what I would encourage people that want to be more um full of positive energy and be successful to consider is just know that you're worthy of it because it doesn't matter how great and we all know these people they're so kind they're so giving but almost to a fault right they create opportunities for people all the time but they don't feel worthy of getting a piece of it or being participating it or collaborating around it wow so they lack yeah i have a friend that mutual friend that i know he's given to me for 15 years and i continuously ask him every year when can i help you and he's just like oh it's all good man i don't want to bug you wow dude that's not cool like for real man like i really want you know and now i'm like kind of upset it's like hey man like do you think my help ain't good

you know what I mean like what's going on right right right so I do think some people can be financially successful but when it comes to the art of fulfillment that that takes a different process so I want to get back to this process from identifying your money story and then realizing that's your money identity and personality once you've created identified that story and once you've realized okay this is my identity this is my personality, and this is how I make decisions day to day, or this is how when money comes in my bank account, I feel something. I either feel excited, I feel anxious, I feel avoidance, I have this attachment style to money. How do we break free of an attachment style to money that is harming us so that when money comes and goes, it flows. It feels good as opposed to anxious, avoidant,

or stressed emotions because growing up, I had a lot of anxiety around money. Same, yeah. And now when money comes to me, I say thank you. I appreciate it. I don't care if it's a penny or $100,000 that comes in the bank. I'm like, thank you. And I learned this from my friend Ken Honda.

He said, when money comes to you, ask it where it wants to go. He said, where do you want to go? Do you want to go towards food? Do you want to go towards giving it to people for free? Do you want to go towards investing in something? Where do you want it to go? And I like that philosophy of like, Just paying attention of where you want it to go.

What else would you say that we should be considering around when money enters our account or comes in our hands? What should we think and what should we do with the next steps? Yeah, you kind of touched on it. I think that one belief I would encourage people to consider that would help with the receiving is the belief that you're a steward of it. Oh, okay. Some people can't receive money that well, right?

It's hard for them to let someone pay for them for a meal or to take money. Not only that, they stress themselves out. If I put a million dollars in a lot of people's bank accounts, they'd be worried that somebody's going to rob them tomorrow. They'd be worried that they're going to mess it up and the government's going to say, you now almost $2 million. Like there's so much angst around receiving. And one of the big ideas that I learned.

Is that a worthiness conversation? Is that a value conversation? Why is there an angst around receiving? I think it's a fear of not knowing. right because it's new a lot of people you know i call them factor of 10 problems most people start with 10 dollar problems and those are those are meaningful back then right cell phone bills a little extra and you're like whoa and you're calling up and you're spending three hours trying to get that 10 dollars back yeah and then and then we go to 100 dollar problems right and then thousand dollar problems

and if you think about the mindset to the degree that we can become comfortable with bigger quality problems. I remember Oprah one time she was being sued by the mad cow people because it's something she said on the show for a billion dollars. And somebody interviewed her and said, Oprah, like how do you sleep at night? You're being sued for your whole life's work, your whole net worth. And she said, I'm just grateful to be the kind of person that could be sued for a billion dollars. Wow. Huh. She got really comfortable with receiving and being. So, So I think that the first idea is to understand that we, it's not ours. Money is not ours.

It's nothing's ours. I mean, I love that you bought a new house. Eventually, when I leave, it's not mine. It will. And there could be, exactly. So if we actually just get into the headspace that everything we've created in our life, there's a lot of, like it's not permanent, then all of a sudden, like you said, it's where does it want to go?

How do we want to use to shape it? How do we use it to help other people, right? we're stewards of it. If you see other people that are rich and you're upset, that evil people, you're like, they're rich, then go be rich. Take, take that resource and deploy it the way you want. So I think the way I look at it is money coming into my life is a byproduct of the value that I created. Right.

So if I want to have a bigger impact, I want to do more good. I want to create more. even as an artist in the book, I talk about Andy Warhol and how he created the factory and he had, he had teams of people supporting his art. He decided I'm going to use this resource to do more. And I think that when you correlate that and I think that's why tithing for a lot of religion is really important. Like I follow the same process and I believe you do as well. Like when you get money and you know that that money is going to help people. For example, my buddy Mark, he came to my house one day And he's like, dude, I have money mindset problems.

I just can't charge, you know, $5,000 for what I do. And we're sitting in my son room. I said, interesting. I knew he was a person of faith. And I said, what? I think he was charging two. And he knew he should be charging five. Everybody else charged five.

He just felt guilty about it. I said, well, what if you knew that every dollar you made 10% of your income went to your church? Dude, I saw his whole body. Meaning shifted, yeah. He lit up. I want to charge 10. Of course you do. Right. Because he aligned his desire to serve.

Wow. And I just thought that was just a beautiful way to think about what beliefs I have around money. Now, it doesn't solve it. It doesn't fix the skill problem. You've got to become more skillful and more valuable. But it helps you receive because you know that as I receive, it's not mine anyways. I don't have to protect it.

I don't have to worry about losing it. And it's now a resource that I get to use to then go create other things. things I want to see in the world. And ideally, hopefully, it's to help people. When someone hoards their money, what are they saying? They're saying to the universe that it's fixed, that I won't get any more, and I better protect it. Wow. And typically those people cannot live a fulfilled life. Wow. Yeah. How much should we, I mean, we live in a material world and there's, there could be challenges in the future. So how much money should we be putting aside of the money we're bringing in for paying our bills and expenses in the future?

and making sure that we're not day to day. This is the stats, because I always, I'm a data numbers guy. If you look at the worst case scenario, and we kind of went through it with the global pandemic, it may be a year at most. Most financial experts will say you should have six months of overhead expenses set aside available liquid. That way, if you ever had to restructure your business

or you got laid off or whatever happened, and you could weather that storm, because it takes, that's about it. And some experts will say in the business side, it's about three months of operating expenses, six months. Some say a year, I think that's a lot. But let's say worst case, everything else above that is really about, okay, what's the allocation? Do you want to invest for the future?

Do you want to set budgets aside for creating experiences? And I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer because I think depending on the situation, how old somebody is, they might want to, you know, I love the book Die With Zero. I think you've had the author on. Yeah, super cool book because the philosophy of actually designing the leverage, because he talks about the go-go years, a slow-go years, and the no-go years, right? So, like, if I have money, especially if you have kids, there's two concepts from the book

that I thought were phenomenal. One is if you want to bless your children, bless them when they're younger. When, like, for example, I call my, as soon I read the book, I called my dad, I said, dad, do you have any desire to leave money to my sister? And he goes, yes, I said, you should give it to her now. Why? It'll have way more value to her now when the kids are teenagers in regards to the life decision she can make and experiences than when she's 60.

Think about an extra 100 grand or whatever the number is. At 27 years old, we'll have a completely different impact on your life than at 57 years old. And unfortunately, a lot of parents that want to give their children, they wait until the end of their life and they don't do it. And he talks about it that you want to do this when they're around the perfect age like 27, 28. So that was one big idea. The other one is, you know, people and the memory dividend of it, right? Like you get to experience it and you get to have those memories for the rest of your life. And you're alive. Yes. What a crazy idea. It's like you can actually see it in their eyes.

Like, oh my gosh. And you see the impact it had, not after you're not here anymore. Right. And the other one was that when you, whatever age you want to say you retire, I'm not a big fan of retirement, but that there's the go-go years, right? You know, 50. to 60 or 65 and then there's the slow go years so a lot of and then there's the no go years no goes years is like 75 plus you're not moving much no so most people don't realize that the amount of money they save for retirement you can buy insurance in case you're worried that it's going to run out so that protects you on the upside that you live to 100 but you're not doing a whole lot of back country skiing yeah yeah for most people everyone's maybe on a cruise or something yeah yeah

I'm like, wow, you're 82 on the back mountains. But I just think that a lot of people worry about accumulating for, again, it's anything to extremities. It goes back to if the primary reason you're making this decision is only for money, then that's where you feel a prisoner of your money. And it doesn't matter if you have 10 bucks in your pockets or 100. It's a big idea. I know a lot of really wealthy people and they are prisoners of their wealth. Really?

Yes. That unfortunately is the norm. What will make someone a prisoner of their wealth? If every time they make a decision, they're always thinking about what it costs. It's not what it's cost. It's what it's worth. So what does it break that down to me?

How should we be thinking about it? Cost versus worth? I mean, think about, okay, I could go on this trip and it would cost me $10,000. Right. And they're thinking, man, that's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. but the experience of bringing your children,

especially if they're like 17, 18, you don't have a lot of, like most people don't realize this, it's so important. Like the life is, I think that if everybody just got really comfortable about how they're not going to be here forever, and that this time,

like, dude, today I don't get today back, I plan my life in five year increments. I think it's enough time to do something meaningful, not too little time to be wasteful. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like if every, every year I sit down,

I reset for another five years and I try to figure out like okay so we do for example we just got finished doing a vacation with 18 of my siblings and are my my my nieces and nephews that's a trip that my brother and I finance for the whole family yeah we do it on ski hill all of else yeah one house 18 of us side of a mountain yeah we do it once every two years and and and and it is the best so cost wise big number big worth do take everything take the McLaren't you know what I mean like I don't that's not important wow that one week together is like if you ask somebody they had two weeks to live yeah and you couldn't tell anybody else what would you do at your time sure they would get on in a one house of course with their family members pour into them to the degree they could

wow and then the last day they'd have to say goodbye yeah you're not taking anything with you nothing it goes back into the pool wow like you played the game of life and you put all the chips in, and at the end of it, it's somebody else. It just, it's crazy. Everybody gets a bag. And I think that if people use that perception or perspective in making decisions, especially money decisions, they would live a richer life. This is why I love Ramit Sethi's work around living a rich life,

because he's not about, you know, scrimping and saving your way to wealth, right? He's about like, hey, let's set it up, automate it so that your mindset doesn't even become part of it. Let's take care of like where things should go. And then now let's talk about how do you increase your value. Yes. So that you have more to then live a life. We were talking earlier about like, you know, travel and expenses. One of the ways I had to overcome this is put money aside that had to be spent for trips. Really? Yeah. Because if not, then every, man, that's a $20,000 trip. Dude, this is the problem. Every time I was making it as to a money lens or just this or should I go this hotel you're like uh yeah should i took that should i take that 20 grand and put it into my

business exactly look like i can do with this money yeah so because i said laptops with this a lot of stuff i always think about iPhones i'm always like and it's like five iPhones i can you know that's so awesome but i thought that was a good way for me when i remember somebody talking about this like set the budget aside yes because then you can't you have to spend it and if you don't spend it, you lose it next year. Right? And then what does it do? It forces you to prioritize. If I know I've got 20 grand a year for trips, whatever the number is, and I'm not looking at the cost of the thing. I'm looking at the worth. And then I'm prioritizing because if I don't use it, I lose it. You're scheduling the dates for it. You're doing all that. Yeah, you're

making it a priority. You know, when people say like my family's important to me and my health's important to me, I go, show me your calendar. Show me where you're investing your time for your health. account and calendar. Yeah. It does not lie. Wow. And people that say that important to them and they haven't, they don't have day night in there. They don't have family trips. They don't have investments in their relationship like seminars where they can do together. They don't have any money spent on it. Do you know, like the entrepreneurs that will spend 50 grand to hire a consultant to come in to help them with their marketing, but won't spend $500 on buying a book or a course for their marriage? Wow. That's unfortunate. But that's the norm. Yes. Right? Because, again,

Again, what do you think you're worth? Yeah. What is the biggest money problem you have today? Such a great question. You know, it's funny, man, is I don't think I take advantage of the biggest opportunity in front of me. What do you take advantage of instead?

Smaller, safe. I know, and I'm a guy that buys a company a month. What's the biggest opportunity in front of you? I don't know. That's my biggest worry. I when I think of where the like because I don't think about money I think about value creation it's the same thing for me so when I when you say money I just rewrite value creation when you say what's the biggest value creation block or things stopping you I think I bet there's something I don't see that is bigger than what I'm doing that I don't want to see because it would mean having to renegotiate some things like what just my time and my commitment and my my success whatever they did. But essentially for me to go for something bigger, that's scarier, that's unknown, that's usually the thing. And it could be, it potentially could be just doing more of what I'm doing now, but giving it even more resources. That is the, that's probably the thing that I think about the most. Yeah. Yeah. I love the power of questions. And I love that question of what's a opportunity that is right in front of you that you're not taking advantage of? That's a beautiful question. And that's kind of. And that's kind of, of the one I kind of keep thinking and it's like, is it this? Is it this? On the money side,

I would say in the last few months that I've gotten world class up, but it was really bugging me is I had so many open loops. What do you mean? Dude, I had and still have in certain cases 26 credit cards. Oh. I have three banks that I deal with and spreadsheets of accounts. Just the complexity of my business empire. Yeah, yeah. I've got travel points. Like we're talking millions of points. I'm a hoarder when it comes to points. Dude,

you got the jet now. You want some. I'll send them to you. But it's so funny because the other day I was like, and I have different reward points, programs, right? Because I remember I decided one day, I was like, I want status on everything.

So I like did the whole credit card thing. I don't know if you've heard of this. It's a thing. But it added complexity. And so here's what I know about going forward. You can't move forward until you clean up the past. Think about that. Isn't that true in relationships also?

It's in everything. Wow. And when I think of, I remember I sat down, opened up a Google Doc, and I just wrote down, I think I called it like a money cleanup. And it was just like a list of all these loose ends I knew were there. It's so funny you're saying this right now because in the last two months, I have cleaned up so many energy, I guess, open loops in relationships. and I've been, and it takes a lot of courage because you have to use your voice, you have to

speak up, you have to take actions, you have to disrupt situations and relationships, and things are going to shift and move. And so I've been using my voice in every different relationship that I have when there's something I feel like, that just feels off to me. Whereas I used to just say, I'm going to be the nice guy, I'm going to take the high road, I'm going to, you know, not ruffle any feathers, but now I'm just like there's too much energy that's seeping everywhere that I need to reclaim yeah it's almost like the holes in the dam you had to go like plug them yes right because you're it was all that energy in the backside the dam was

leaking out and the more I do it the more powerful I feel and it's not doing it in a in a mean aggressive way it's being conscious as being considerate it's being you know communicating with kindness I guess but being firm in your communication of what you need or the boundary you're creating or closing a And I think it's interesting you're doing that with kind of all these credit cards and points and things that are out there. It got silly. Just these things are just out there and you haven't. And they're just open loops that need to be closed.

Yes. Right. A friend of mine said it once recently, it's so good. It's hard to do your homework until you clean a room, you know? Yeah. He said, he goes, I bet all the potential in your business is on the other side of unexpressed conversations. Oh, man.

I was like, dude. Isn't that fascinating? Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, yeah. That the conversations you've been avoiding is where your potential sits. Then I feel that. Literally, Gary said this yesterday on the interview with him. He's like, I've got 2,000 employees, and my biggest flaw is my lack of candidness.

Directness. Yeah. He's like, I'm very candid and honest with my audience. He's like, I can say whatever I need to, but it's when someone's been with me for a year or three years and I really like them and I know about their family and their life, but they're drastically underperforming. I haven't been able to be candid and say, here's the action plan you need and or you can't be here anymore, you know?

So he's like, I've carried people on my back by doing more speaking, by doing these things because I don't want to be candid with them. And I was like, man, isn't that interesting? But he was like, if I just was candid more frequently and have those uncomfortable conversations, they would either step up or they would move on and then somebody better would come in and free up his time we would grow and expand right and I was just like man it's so challenging need that it's challenging yeah it's interesting because I like that damn metaphor as you shared that because when you said the more I do it the more I plug the holes the more powerful I become yes

think about it the more energy because the water builds up it's like a geyser now boom it's yeah and it's I mean that's the you know energy will flow where attention goes and if you've got those people taking your attention just like little thoughts throughout the day ah this is frustrating me are a little resentments man that's why people don't sleep well I know when I say when they're like when clients of mine are not sleeping well it's very simple have a journal write it out yeah because if not you think that that process is going to resolve itself you just have to write it out okay I did um have you um heard about the 12 hour walk what's his name that did that he has a it's called the 12 hour walk challenge forget the guy's name but um amazing

explorer he's just like a world class explorer he wrote a book so i decided it's it just it's literally you wake up and you decide to walk for 12 hours holy go so i was like i do iron man's like i can do this yeah yeah that's hard though i did not realize how hard it is it was the most it it it was like doing it was like between a half and a full distance ironman it was legit and i started it. I did it January 1st. And I started in the morning. And it was 6 a.m. because 12 hours, I wanted to be finished by dinner. And I went walking. And luckily, somebody gave me some advice on how to have the best experience. Because some people have had horrible experience. So do some research. But like, for example, somebody suggested, have a series of questions that you, that you meditate.

Because you're walking by yourself. There's no devices. There's nothing. It's just you and yourself. Oh, no. Zero. So one of the questions. was a quote. It wasn't even a question. It was a quote, Joseph Campbell quote that said, the cave you fear to enter holds the secret or the key of the secret you're looking for.

The treasure you've been looking for. So I'm walking in the woods, Lewis, and I'm screaming. It's just me. What's the cave? I'm willing to look at it. I just tell me what it is. And as I had my journal,

I had something write in, and I would just get these, these, what you just said, this open, conversations. Things that have been just left unsaid. And I remember this, like, one of them, it wasn't even a big deal. It was just a group that I was in that I didn't want to do anymore. Dude.

I just had to call him up. Dude. And I told him. And he goes, man, I didn't even know you were still in it. Oh my gosh, man. Dude, that was one of the things I did last week. I removed myself from a group. And you think it's like the biggest thing.

And they're like, I can't believe you stayed. And so like, I just thought that that question of the cave you fear to enter, holds the treasure that you seek and if you're willing to go in there were some crazy stuff I was like oh no I can't do that I must do that that was my to do list when I come back

but that 12 hour walk I thought was one of the most fascinating experiences I mean talk about therapy wow right just you and physically oh my gosh seized up I was all ambitious I'm going for a stake after this I fell in the parking lot like I got out of the car meet my buddy

like yeah yeah got out i just fell to the ground i was like anybody see that no okay cool let's get to the bar i got i got to sit down wow man yeah but it was it was i think like meditating against questions of like again just open loops man right into the because what are you telling yourself it's and in many ways it's helping you build that worthiness yes because if you ask yourself why have you not had it's like well i just don't want to create issues or disruptions or friction or it's like well why well I'd rather take it myself I'd rather be maybe the martyr you know what I mean it's interesting because I love Gary's stuff I think Gary he's the compliment to me because I am too direct sometimes and that's literally I went from yeah being the person was too quick to hire

too quick to give feedback to now when I I hear Gary and he is a world class operator that I don't think people give him enough credit to thousand employees is it's it's even the way he operates people don't understand like his philosophy is continuity is this is a competitive advantage. He's like, and again, it's funny because it's a double-edged sword. He's like, I keep people around so I have a competitive advantage, but I don't, I'm not quick to upgrade the talent. So it means I deal with the downside of that. Yes. But all things said and done, there's no other leader that I can point to that I feel truly care about the people he cares about the things they care about. That's leadership. Yeah. You need to care about the people you care

about things that they care about. Yes. He does that at a world class level. Yeah. And I think he's a photographic memory. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. He remembers when he met you, how he met you the conversation he had with you 10 years ago, where you were. He was telling me this in the end of people a year. It's amazing. Yeah, so he's got to have a photographic memory. We meant 2009. And he goes, I remember exactly where we were aware. We were in World Market and St. Louis and this and that. And then I went in your car. I drove him somewhere. We were like connected on Twitter. And I was like, how do you remember World Market? I can't remember where I was last week. I know. It's crazy, man. It's a gift. Yeah. We all have our talents.

Speaking of talents and what people lack, what do you think is the three habits that keep people poor? There's so many. The first habit that keeps people. Because you talked about a lack of worthiness. You're talking about talents here. I've got the habits. Okay.

The first habit that keeps people poor is blame. It's not being accountable for their life. Gosh, man. So many people love to stay in victim blame mode as opposed to your responsibility. feels so good. Dude, I would love to say that it's like being on a beach in the sun. Like, how good would that feel when nothing that I'm experiencing that's negative is my fault? That's awesome.

That feels great. Like, I get it. It's just it'll keep you poor. Right? Step one is understanding you are 100% accountable for your life and nobody's coming to save you. If you don't believe that, then you'll never create. Yes. So I think that's the first habit is just that.

negative belief around blaming other people. The other one is the habit of not investing in their skills, right? The habit of, and it can come from, I don't feel I'm worthy, but it's really simple because it's not about working hard. I know a lot of people that work hard that really struggle will make ends mean. And I know other people that on the surface, you look at them, they go, they hardly work. And they are wealthy AF. Right. Why is it people that seem to some people that work extremely hard don't make that much money because they're not working on the right things they're they're working hard on the work they're not working hard on themselves what do they need to be working harder on in order to break through to the next financial level

they got to find out what does the market value uh-huh right what is your boss value if you've never talked to your boss or never talk to your customers and say here's what I'm doing for you today, what could I do that you would find more valuable that I should consider learning how to do? That conversation has, then you're missing the boat because the world rewards people that creates value. Like there's a reason why there's hedge funds managers making a billion dollars a year. Crazy. Some people hear that and they go, that's, that's, that's not fair. Okay, he made a billion, but he made a hundred billion for people. Right. That's value. Do you know how to do that? I don't know how to do that.

And if I did, I think that's pretty awesome. So again, that's the extreme. There's people at that level. But if you're making $50 an hour, $25 an hour, you could ask yourself, what's the next level of value that I can create? So that belief that the habit of not feeding their mind, I mean, Lewis, there's people that are in troubling situations that don't even read books. Like, I don't know about you, man.

Yeah, the answers are out there. am shaped by books. I've read 1600, continue to read every day. Why? Because for $30, six hours of my time, maybe it takes me a month, maybe it takes me a week, depending on how much I'm reading, I can learn a person's perspective on a topic that took them 25 years. And when I read, I'm looking for one nugget that's going to add value to my life to make me more valuable. And if I can do that, then the market will reward that. So one of my mentors says, he goes, don't read, this is a big, this is, this might shift everybody's perspective. Don't read for yourself, read for your customers.

What does that mean? It means acquire knowledge to be helpful to other people. See, most people, when they start reading, they're like, okay, I need to be more. Yeah, it's all for themselves. Money management, productivity, time management. No, no, no. What business are you in? You're in solar?

Cool. Go read the, like read the books that your customer should be reading, right? About home maintenance, whatever it is. And then that way you're- You're valuable to them. You're differentiated amongst all your peers to that customer. So that was like when my mentor Tim said that to me, I was like, oh, I had a different lens on even just reading and invest in myself. The third habit I would say is they don't understand money. It's really just the they they don't have the knowledge about what money is. They're wasteful. They don't spend. It's it's literally that. of like show me your bank account and I'll show your money beliefs yeah like like what people don't realize is the environment definitely is a reflection of your beliefs your bank

account is environment your body's an environment your house is environment the city you live in environment's country you live in these are all containers what you eat all these things all of it and it it says something but the words you use is your environment like the language people don't audit themselves so I think that that's a big part of it is the the the money people say I'm not good at math yet saying it can we add a comma yet to this you're going to believe it yeah and I think that's why language matters so I think those are the three things is just make sure that you focus on them and then wow that's good you'll overcome what is the I mean we haven't really talked about buying back time but I'm curious about

but have we have yeah but I'm curious about um if people can get one thing from your book buy back time, what is the main thing we need to understand about how to do this, why we need to do this? And is there a simple framework that we should think about when it comes with time and money? Yeah, 100%. And it's in chapter three, it's called the buyback loop. And it's kind of the core framework. The unique part about this book, the perspective, is that we don't hire people to grow our business. We hire people to buy back our time. Because if we do the second, we get the first. But if we do the first, we definitely don't get the second.

Interesting. Think about it. How many times do you like, I got to hire six people? And all of a sudden, I don't have any time to do what I was supposed to do. Right. So it's really about how we look at the, what I call the sequences and the steps, what's the right step? So the buyback loop states that whenever you feel pain in your life, okay? And you don't even have to be an entrepreneur.

You can be just a person working on a team. First off, you do a time and energy audit. And that's a two-week review of your calendar. Really? Yes. Because, dude, this is what's crazy. What does that look like? Is there a process?

Yeah, it's in there. Yeah, yeah. The Chapter 3 is the buyback loop and the time and energy audit. Yeah, there it is. That's the buyback loop. Okay. So I teach the whole like calendar review and you highlight things. But here's the philosophy is right off the bat.

There's probably things that really suck your energy that would cost very little to have somebody else to do. Yes. Like even in your home. Like have a cleaner come in and clean for you. Hire somebody to do meal prep. We have meal prep, even though we have somebody in our home. So like there's all these relatively low cost things and it frees up your energy.

So it's not even about being more productive in time. It's being able to go from thing to thing to thing with things that light you up. So time isn't created to say, I know about you, Lewis. But when I was in math class and I looked up at the clock, it took forever. Forever, man. School. It was like the hour class felt like three hours. It was exhausting.

Go to math class. clock clock rings for you for me oh matt or sorry every every subject for me oh yeah gym was the only thing okay so take that one you go to gym the bell rings and all of a sudden an hour is 17 minutes and you're like oh i don't want to leave yet yeah so time is not created equal in the sense that the energy that we feel within that time matter so in the the time and energy audit we look at what we're doing with our time and what things would cost very little to pay somebody else to do that that we don't want to do and then we go to the next episode which is transfer.

So audit's the first one. Transfer is the next step. Once we transfer that stuff the right way, right? Transfer what? The task. How do you, people talk about delegation. You're doing it to someone else doing it.

Yes. So I teach the camcorder method and I teach the process for documenting things and how to do what I call transformational leadership. The camcorder method is you filming something. Everything's recorded. Yeah. I don't even create the SOPs. Dude, on your phone, you can actually pull down your control panel and add screen

in voice recording. Most of my transfers are, yeah, you're going to add it. So it's in your control panel. Scroll down. Yeah, so I have it right here. It's this button right here. Yeah. Does that record audio there?

Dude, there that button right there. Oh, shoot. Next level. So it records on the screen. On the screen. So I'll hit start recording like that and then I'll pull up the app and I'll show someone step by step and it's getting in place. And I just talk.

I say I'm going to take the next 26 minutes. I'm going to walk you through how I process my inbox and I go through it or how I think about scheduling my flights, or how I want you to maintain my road bike or whatever the thing is. And then when I'm done, I hit save, right? I hit stop and I upload it to a shared ICloud folder. It synchronizes in the background, sends them a notification,

and then they create the SOP. They create the process. That's the key. Why? Because then I can see based on what they created if they watched the video and did they get what I was saying. And if you taught it well. Yes.

And then if they didn't, I can either train them up or I can add some stuff to the process. So that's how we transfer. so audit for time and energy transferred other people and then fill ATF what's Phil Phil is the most beautiful part Phil is what we've been talking about you're gonna fill your time with Phil is literally what we've been talking from the beginning that's why I was loving that we were having this conversation Phil is who do I need to become to be able to deal with bigger problems oh what do I need to learn what value do I need to create how

it was skills it literally don't wish the world is easier as Jim Rohn says wish that you were better yes who do I need to become to go from 10 problems to $100 problems, $1,000 problems. I want billion dollar problems. Louis, I want you to have billion dollars, dude. And they shouldn't be daunting at that level. No, because you've developed yourselves. Like it's funny. One day I called my brother, I was hiking and we were talking and he goes, how's things? I said, things are incredible and I'm a little worried. And it was, why is that? I go, it's not normal. Like usually at my scale, there's always a thing, like a meaningful puzzle. I got to deal with. And he goes, well, what's going on your life?

I said, well, there's this, this, this. And he laughs. He goes, dude, last year, those things would be big things. He goes, have you ever considered that maybe you've just evolved where those are now little things? I was like, oh, snap, that's what happens is over time, the problems, puzzles, challenges are still there. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, they just don't, they don't resonate. The first time somebody quits on you on your team, it's like somebody just, you know, gut you in the heart. Yeah. And then it happens. You're like, okay. And then it happens. A hundred times, and the hundredth time, you're like, I didn't even, like, there's no losing

sleep. It's just, yeah, they quit or the whatever. So I think that's what happens. So the fill part for me is the ladder of success. And I think of it through, you know, skills, how do I become more valuable? Beliefs? What are the worldviews, the money beliefs I have? And then what are the character traits that I need to develop, right? The mental fortitude, toughness, consistency, productivity. Like, there's there's character traits and that's how we evolve to become better and anytime we feel the pain line and we're we need to scale we go audit transfer fill the coolest part about this framework louis is it works with our team so you ever have a team member come to you and they say I feel overwhelmed yeah give them the book yeah do the process and by the time they go through it

they'll be like I'm good okay I could see where I was spending time on stuff I shouldn't need to be yeah yeah or things I said yes to I needed to say no to or I need to renegotiate timelines or I just felt overwhelmed because I didn't have clarity. Most people feel overwhelmed because they don't have clear direction. This gives them the roadmap and the process to overcome it. And then that's where we spiral up. That's why it's the buyback loop. Wow. Yeah. Speaking of team, you know, a lot of people struggle with meetings and I've heard you talk about meetings are a waste of time. Big waste. Why do you think, do you think people should have meetings with their teams? If so, how should those look like or should we eliminate meetings

altogether. I think for most people, if the meeting isn't a scheduled, reoccurring meeting, then it's usually a byproduct of poor communication and leadership. So I can almost correlate the amount of meetings a company has to their performance as a team and the more meetings is bad. Wow. Yeah, because if you have a good process, for example, to review the strategy, decide, communicate it to the team, review it on a quarterly basis and a cadence, have the measurements in place, right? The goals, the metrics, all that stuff, yeah. Yep, I have the mission vision values.

I've got my metrics. I've got my project management. Like, to the degree you have that built in, then the meetings are not really needed. They're there if you have to collaborate, which is fine, new project. Communicate something. Hey, I need this thing. Ideation phase. When I talk about the 108010 rule, for sure you need a meeting to do that.

ideation. But it's not in response to lack or response to something went wrong. And I think for a lot of people, their default tool, they have one tool in their chest, and it's a meeting. And again, meetings for me are an indication of poor leadership. My whole philosophy on leadership. Do you do weekly meeting, like check-in meetings or like scheduled meetings, I mean, like with the team though? Yeah. So there's different levels. At the bottom level, let's pretend I was the CEO. I have, I don't believe anybody should have more than five to seven direct reports. And those five to seven people are the people you've decided that if I want anything more to happen in my business, I must work through them.

It's a big idea. So a lot of people, they're like, I want to do this. I want to do that. It's not can you do it, Lewis. Does your team have the bandwidth to do it? It's called management bandwidth. So I can only have five to seven. So when Gary is like, hey, I have a hard time letting people go, if he created that

constraint, I bet it would create a forcing function for him to go like, but I want to go do this other thing, but I don't have the person. So it's, you don't want to add more because what happens is people get overwhelmed when they have 15, 20 people reporting to this. So my rule is five to seven. I work through those people, those I have weekly one-on-ones. So anytime I see anything where it's like I saw an email and something happened, I want to give you feedback, I just write it in a Google doc. So I have a notes, your name, and I just write it down. My weekly meeting, I sit down, and we have a format, and I just review it with you. Yeah, yeah. that's where we do.

So you are doing weekly meetings with certain people. Yeah, yeah. Your direct reports. Yeah, yeah. But that's it. And then if you lead a department, you'll have a weekly meeting to review that department's progress. Got it.

Right? And if there's a project that you're involved in from an ideation point, you might be in that project. Sure, sure. But what I encourage people to do is get the planning done at the beginning of the year for the year. And ideally you have a 10-year focus. Then you do quarterly kind of iterations.

Wow. And then everything's measured. I mean, the big difference about how I lead is, again, I don't tell people what to do. I teach them. And then I do what's called transformational leadership versus transactional leadership. So this is, this is all the entrepreneurs are going to be like, oh, no, I do that. Here's what it looks like. Most people do a tell check next loop.

Tell them what to do. Check they got done. Tell them what to do next. Problem with that is that about 12 employees, you hit a ceiling and it hurts. Yeah. Because you wake up in the morning and you spend your whole day just trying to make sure everybody else is pulling on the rope in the right direction. What I do instead is the transformational leadership, which is I'm very clear on the outcomes.

Let's say we're going to hike a mountain. I'm going to talk about the top. I'm going to talk about it's going to feel. I'm going to talk about where we're going. I'm going to give you a GPS coordinate. Then I'm going to do a measurement. Okay, so outcome, then measure. Here's how I'm going to measure your progress.

Every day you need to report back how many feet of elevation gain you've made that day. We're hiking a mountain. At the end of every day, each person reports back how far they've gone. Yeah. How many feet? Wow. And that's the feedback loop. Why?

Because it lets them know if they're making progress. They know, do I do better today than yesterday? Cool. You have one day. Like, I think most businesses just don't have a measurement for each person on the team. Yeah. So now you're going to report. And if there's a huge deficit, the third step is coach.

See, what I find fascinating is the amount of coaches that I work with that have training companies that are, that are, you know, really good at teaching that don't coach their team. Wow. It's fascinating. They'll spend 98% of their time in their calendar with clients. zero working on actually developing the scale. So the coach framework I teach, yeah, it's any time, like if somebody made 100 feet

elevation, 100 feet, and then they had two, I'd write that down. I'd sit down and be like, hey, I noticed you only did two feet of elevation and what going on. Well, I got off track and ended up down a ravine. Interesting. Then I use a one-three-one rule, which is what's the one problem, the three solutions, potential solutions, and what's the one recommendation you have? Not what you want me to give you?

Never. Lewis, I heard once the guy said, if you want to be rich, be lazy. if you want to be wealthy, be incompetent. My job is to not give people answers to the test. Wow. Because I robbed them from the opportunity to learn. Yes. So when I coached them,

I asked them, hey, I noticed you only went two feet yesterday. What do you think happened? Well, I ended up going off track. Cool. What are three options of not going off track?

Well, I probably could have followed somebody. I probably could have bought a map. I could have done this. And I said, sounds great. Those are all good options. They're all good.

Which one do you want to do? I'm going to probably buy a map. Sounds like a good idea. Go for it. Yeah, yeah. So what happens is over time, over time, that transformational leadership approach allows you to develop people so that you don't become the bottleneck. The reason they call it a bottleneck is because it's at the top. Again,

most people build businesses they grow to hate because they don't know a different way of leading in creating and training so that the bigger they grow, the more time it takes. My philosophy is the bigger it gets, the more time you get back. Wow. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's the funest thing to show people because once they see it, it's like so logical. If I'm always hiring people to buy back time out of my calendar, it's impossible for me to get to a place where I feel overwhelmed. You should have more time every time you hire. Every time you hire, the rule is start with the calendar, audit it. Okay, here's the bucket of things. That's the only people I'm going to hire to buy back that time, things that I didn't want to do in the first place that don't make me a lot

of money. Then I transfer it. Then I fill my calendar with things that make me money I enjoy doing that develop me so that I become more. Wow. It's kind of awesome. And you've seen me do it for a decade. This is literally how I do it. I love it, man. This is awesome.

I could ask you a lot more questions around this, but I want people to get the book, buy back your time, get unstuck, reclaim your freedom, and build your empire by my man, Dan Martel. Make sure you guys check this out. Get a few copies for some friends also. This will be a game changer for anyone. And I think, again, people want to feel free. They want to feel light.

And it's hard to feel free if you're stuck doing too many things you don't want to do. And you're not evolving beyond that. And there's always going to be a season, maybe this is a limiting belief, but I've been through many seasons of like, oh, I don't have the skills. I've got to go do something that's going to take time and energy at a rate that I wish I was making more at to go develop skills until I get to the next level. You know, I was a truck driver. I was mowing lawns.

I was doing all these different things. I was like, that's not what I want to be doing, but I've got to keep developing. the value within me, the skill set, filling up my time, wherever I can get it to get more skills to then go showcase my value and exchange it for some type of money that I want, right? So I think this has been a beautiful conversation. I love this concept of kind of knowing your worth, but also understanding your value. Because everyone can say, I'm worth this. But unless the market, agrees.

Once that value and is willing to pay for that value, you're worth what you're getting, I guess, right? yeah so there's a difference there um where can we follow and support you the most instagram is my favorite is you know it's just like i give away every my my plan is to die empty right i want to die give it all away um a lot of people that read the book are always asking about like how to manage your executive assistant uh-huh so i'll do something for your audience only louis if they if you guys message me follow me on instagram message me louis i'll send them direct link no opt-in no nothing to my Google Doc sanitized for my internal standard operating procedure for working with my

assistant. I think it's like 42 page. Ask and to clean it up. So just for this audience, message me, Lewis, EA, I'll then know and I'll send it to you. Over on Instagram, Dan Martel, Dan Martel on Instagram, and Dan Martel on YouTube and all platforms. And yeah, I mean, the big thing I want people to understand, I kind of call them the three universal truths is I think the biggest way, for us to become more values we talk about worthiness is first off realize that we become what we talk about. People talk about visualization. The problem is visualization is that a lot of people visualize big dreams. They don't tell anybody about. So you talk your future in existence. That's a big,

that's a big like for me, that's why I've always shared. These are my goals. Is my vision. what I'm doing. Number two is I think that we will receive what we desire for others. Think about that. When we talk about money, if you want to be wealthy, I know how to do it. Go help other people become rich. Right. Right. If you don't want your boss to become rich, you might have a money mindset problem. Because you will receive what you desire for others. And the third one, especially as it pertains about worth and the concepts in the book, is that the work instills the work. The work instills the worth. When I had no self-worth, when I was a teenager trying to figure out my way in life,

all I knew is that if I could just show up and do the work, be consistent, right? Because I think confidence is eaten away when we're not keeping the commitments we make to ourselves in private. So the work instills the self-worth. Yes. And you can't think your way to that. It's a doing. It's proof when I show up and I, and I'm consistent for, 45 days 60 days

Lewis when you've done this podcast for so long the work instills the worth like the release there every week for 11 years those are the three universal truths I think that if people would consider it would just transform their whole mindset and perspective and weren't you in jail

for a period of time I didn't man I got to try on Juvie well I know that's what we connected earlier with your brother's story yeah I ended up how old were you I was 15 the first time 16 the second time I'm laughing, but it's not funny, really. But it's crazy, dude.

I'm just curious, what is the, you know, what I love about your story and my brother as well, the cool thing, my brother went to prison for four and a half years. Yeah, I think when you were eight, right? Yeah, eight to 12. Yeah. And one of the coolest things and the thing that I'm really happy for him is last month, after 27 years of him being out, he got pardoned by the state of Ohio. The governor gave him like a full forgiveness pardon and everything.

And it's cool to see that, you know, we can make mistakes or go through dark times and still have a life of success and fulfillment if we put in the work, if we're willing to reshape our story, our identities, our actions. So I just want to acknowledge you for the constant journey you've been on because, you know, you could have gone down a much darker path twice in Juvie. I don't know how long you were there for a few months each time. Yeah. You could have kept making those decisions.

is based on a belief and a story that you were worthless or not good enough or bad or wrong or whatever it was, but you have decided continually to upgrade those beliefs and be of service to others. So I want to acknowledge you for that, my man. It's beautiful to watch. I wish you lived in L.A. So we can hang out more, but now you got your jets. You can come down anytime.

So I just want to acknowledge you for the service, man. It's cool to watch you put yourself out there more and share this wisdom with the world in such a way where you understand processes and also you can teach it so people can consume it and understand it and make it easier. Because some of these concepts can seem daunting to understand and to implement. But with your book, you give people the tools, the processes, the frameworks and the stories on how to take these kind of baby steps and grow beyond these old beliefs. So I acknowledge you for that.

Appreciate you. Final question for you because you shared my three truths question already. My final question, you just went right into it, which is great. Great. What is your definition of greatness? Such a great question. You know, I still remember the call when you'd bought greatness.com. Really? I do. I remember where I was at. What did I say? I was asking what was new and you were all excited. There was a bunch of stuff. I think he just finished doing a big photo shoot with Nick. And he said, hey, dude, and I also bought greatness.com.

And I said, I remember thinking, oh, that's a big dog move. That's a big move. You know what I mean? That was a, nobody in our space was doing. kind of stuff and I was just so proud of you I was just like yeah Lewis like let's go I remember Noah Kagan got like sumo.com yeah before that I think and I was like I need to do something I need to own like more than my name a word more than just my name which I was like I can't really can't go so far with that and it's limited by me but owning a word is like and did you ever do that the book I mean it's awesome yeah like I read your last book and it was I love that book. You wrote an incredible book.

Thank you. I think greatness is very simple, is that are people better after having you around them? Like, if you look around the people you spend time with, are they better for having you in their life? If that's true, that's greatness. My man. Dan, appreciate your brother. Oh, honor. Thanks, man.

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

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