The School of Greatness - Why Your Past Doesn't Determine Your Future | Dan Martell

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

WARNING: This episode includes sensitive discussions that may be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, support is available anytime by calling or texting the number 988. Most people see Dan Martell's highlight reel: the private jet, the millions, the AI mastery. But they don't know about the angry, ashamed teenager who felt worthless and unlovable, who attempted suicide and spent time in jail. In this episode, Lewis goes deep into Dan's journey from rock bottom to extraordinary success, unpacking the exact moment he decided not to take his own life and what shifted in his mind to make him believe he deserved love and greatness. You'll discover that redemption isn't about forgetting your past, it's about extracting the lesson and becoming someone new. Dan shares his journey of transformation, explaining that his foundation is built on faith and how he moved from repeating errors to making new ones. He emphasizes the core principle that the pain one endures ultimately shapes the purpose they are meant to serve. If you're stuck in shame or fighting to believe in yourself again, this conversation will prove that your past does not determine your future. Dan's AI Resources Dan’s books: Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire Software as a Science: Unlock Limitless Recurring Revenue Without Losing Control Dan on Instagram Dan on TikTok In this episode you will: Understand the exact moment that pulled Dan back from suicide and gave him a reason to choose life Learn why making new mistakes instead of repeating old ones is the secret to actual growth and transformation Discover how to separate your identity from your past and stop believing the shame narrative you've been told Uncover the specific conversation with God that became the turning point in Dan's entire life trajectory Explore how vulnerability, faith, and the willingness to do the hard work on yourself unlocks the life you're actually meant to live For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1915 For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone] Follow The Daily Motivation for essential highlights from The School of Greatness More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Lewis Howes Solo [Never Be Broke Again] Myron Golden Jim Curtis 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.

This episode includes sensitive discussions that may be distressing for some listeners. So if you or someone you know is struggling, support is always available anytime by calling or texting the number 988 in the U.S. and Canada or contact your local support. I was so scared, bro. I was like sitting on the ground with the gun under my chin. My thumb was on the trigger and I just couldn't push it. Yeah, man. I just wanted to stop. He is a serial entrepreneur, an investor, and a best-selling author of the book, Buy Back Your Time. We have the inspiring Dan Martel in the house. The things that happen to us that hurt us the most powerful tools that we have to help other people.

I think sometimes when we're in the thick of it, that bottom is a great foundation to build from. But it's also proof that God is the rock at the bottom. What is the mindset that someone needs to overcome this feeling of rock bottom and overwhelm? to finally step into their abundance. I wish I understood this soon, and you kind of alluded to it. But... Dan, I'm excited about this because I've known you for, I think, a decade and a half now, 2008, 2009.

Yeah. I don't think a lot of people know who just see the highlight reels of you and just see the short content of your success and the private jet and the millions of dollars and the, you know, the AI mastery that you have. the back in your teens in your early 20s, you were a drug addict, you were alcoholic, you went to jail,

you had a lot of issues, a lot of mental issues that consumed you to thinking that you weren't lovable, that you weren't enough, that you'd never amount to anything, to the point where you almost took your life. And it's hard for people, it's hard for me to know that

because I've known you for so long and I know the positive attitude you have, the discipline you have now, the habits you have, and the love for life you have. But for those that don't know about that, why do you think you got to such a dark place in your life where drugs, alcohol, attempted suicide,

became the norm, and going to jail, became the norm, rather than living a life of, I'm deserving of love, I'm deserving of peace, I'm deserving of a beautiful life. You got to, dude, you got me going already. with the benefit of perspective because God knew I could do it. You know, I think sometimes when we're in it, in the thick of it, and we hit, we can call it rock bottom. You know, you've heard this.

It's just like that bottom is a great foundation to build from, but it's also proof that God is the rock at the bottom. You know, all these things you just said about me feels kind of like, who is he talking about? But it's like, bro, because I go back to Dan who's 14, 15, I was angry. I had a lot of shame, made a lot of bad decisions. I didn't feel worthy of any affection, love. And when I look at that kid, and the life I live now, it's like, I feel so blessed, bro. Yeah.

Like, dude, this is what, I hope everybody hears this, that no matter what you go through, if you choose, and it sounds cliche, if you choose, and that's what you write about it. And that's what I love your books, is to grow through it, not just go through it, and just pull out the lesson. I'm just, this is all I am,

and you've seen me for 15 years. I'm just an example of making mistakes because I am human, so human. But at 17, I learned that as long as you take a lesson from that moment and then just try never to repeat it, that's the like, hey, let's just, I call it new mistakes. Yeah, repeat. Make new mistakes.

Just like, yeah. I get on, I'm going to make more. Let's just make new. But I know that I went through that. So I could be the dad for my kid. Really? Oh, yeah, dude. I am, I, I'm not emotional because it's sad.

I'm emotional because I'm grateful. I am grateful that, that Mike's mom wouldn't let me play with him and made me stand at the end of their long driveway. And not every time I called, she would pick up, hang up, pick up, hang up. Because you wanted to hang out with a kid. And she knew that you were not a good, you were not a good, you know, and rightfully she should have. I would honor, I would, you, of course.

But that and other examples of people that didn't believe in me, that was, that's what, again, God doesn't put us through stuff that he doesn't know we can handle. He just won't do it. Now, you might not realize this should be your rock bottom and you need to dig a little deeper until you feel like that's a challenge i get the call the parents are dealing with the kid like hey you you got to let him feel right now like nobody wants to call me when their kids in it no because like you don't want to hear what i think no i think you should let him stay in jail and don't bail him out this time because if not here's my and that's what i tell the parents if not you're going to get him out

and he's going to make a bigger mistake yeah and he might end up taking somebody else's life and it's your fault. Ooh. Mom, dad. Yeah. I remember I was a gas station the other day and a friend of mine asked me to talk to his buddy because his kid was going through stuff and I went off on his dad. He said, if you go get him.

This is a third time he's been arrested. If you go get him, I'm holding you accountable. Wow. What do you feel like was the root of you going down that destructive path in your teens? So it's funny. people hear the story, they read my book and they might have heard me tell a more kind of like detailed version. And they go, well, I didn't go through that but. And I always, I get it. It's, but it's not the thing you went through. It's how you felt about what it was. It's how you interpreted it. Yeah. So when you ask that question, yes, yes, yes, yes. And everything. So I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11. So immediately I told myself a story. You're broken. Now my parents didn't mean to make me.

feel that way, but that's what I told myself because I was given this pill that if I didn't take, I acted at school and they'd have to come get me. And then, then I learned just through circumstances that, you know, my dad wasn't around a lot because he was trying to provide for a family at four. So he was in sales and he was traveling. He was on the road a lot. You know, I couldn't appreciate that until I was an adult and have my own kids. And I learned that if I acted up at home, my mom had to call my dad. So as a kid that missed his dad, I correlated that if I just acted up,

dad shows up. Now, it might not have been the attention I wanted, but it got the attention. And then, you know, that's like 1113. Then, you know, I end up making some bad decisions and get taken out of my home and put into a group home. And then I got spending time with people that were twice my age. And now I'm exposed.

to concepts and ideas that no 13 year old, at the time I was 12, I learned, I turned 13 in a group home with people like Shane who was, I kind of look at back then as a big brother, was 17. And he'd been to juvenile detention three times by 17 teaching me about life. Probably not a good role model. So it was just a lot of that, man. But when was the most of moment that you felt like you wanted to end it all. Like was there a moment you were like, I don't want to live anymore? And this life is not for me. And I'll never amount to anything.

Yeah. Well, there's the one I wrote about in my book that, you know, where I, I stole a car and got high speed chasing. Did you run into your house or something? I ended up crashing into a house and I went for the gun. That's actually not. That was the byproduct of what happened. been. You went for the gun, but it didn't go off. Yes. But what nobody knows, I never shared this version. You asked, I've known

15 years, so I'm going to tell you stuff that I don't talk about. Because you, you, you asked very specifically that you wanted to end it all. Two weeks prior, um, what happened was I essentially, you know, again, I'm not like massive shame. I didn't tell anybody this story. You were there the first time I ever told it for 15 years. But I end up, um, doing a break and enter, stole a bunch of guns. My mom found the gun. My mom found the gun. and called the cops. So my brother says, hey, don't come home.

The cops are waiting for you. So I go on the run. How do you? 15, 16. And the only place I knew to go is my buddy Scott, his parents had a cabin. We'd been to it in the summer. And I knew where it was.

It was the middle of nowhere is he's not there. Yeah. And there's food and there's stuff. You know, it's just like hunting camp. So I went there and there was a gun there. And I was probably there for three days. And I just remember on the four days. day. I grabbed the rifle, some bullets. I went for a walk. And I was like, it was, it was next to a

national park. So it was like super quiet, super majestic. And I walked down this line, long hill and I just sat in the field. And I loaded the gun. I was so scared, bro. I was like sitting on the ground with the gun under my chin. My thumb was on the trigger and I just couldn't push it. Really? Yeah, man. I just wanted to stop. And I just remember thinking, like, who would find me? Mm. How much pain it would cost? And the truth, I didn't want to die, man.

I just wanted it to stop. I wish there was, like, a button I could hit them and just, like, reset everything. And what did you want to stop? Was it the shame, man. I just wanted to just not, like, I just, I just, I had a pattern of making bad decisions. Like, it was almost comical. My family would make fun. It's like you go do something and you always get caught.

Your brother does the same thing. Never gets caught. It's a weird. Like my parents would see it all the time. And, um, I just wanted a reset. I didn't know if I needed to move countries or whatever. And, but unfortunately at that point, it just was too far. I'd already been, I went to juvenile attention the first time when I was 14.

And I mean, dude, it's the worst thing you can ever experience as a kid. And now I get out and I'm like, tell them. the guard, you know, nice meeting. Yeah, but never see you again. He's like, I'll see you soon. Wow. I said, bro, that's not cool. He goes, we always do. Ooh. I didn't know at the time, 80% of the kids that come and go come back. Yeah. And he wasn't wrong. So yeah, man, I almost ended it all. So in that moment, what made you not pull the trigger in the field? I believe. I will, I really hope everybody hears this because this is like the most cool. thing in the world. I believe we have angels. I believe we have people looking out for us and I can

prove it. There are people that got in their car today and they didn't come home. And if you did, you have people. Like, I believe that when it's my time, it'll be my time. Yeah. But it wasn't then. Did you send something? Did it something that was there a voice inside of you that said, not now? Was there like one more day? Yes, it was. It was, this is this is this. This is, is why like it it was it was literally a it was a scream no was it was it was a voice you heard an internal scream it was it was inside and it was no like no your voice no no it was a voice okay and it was like it was and it wasn't even a voice it was a feeling not not no it's not Not today.

Yeah, wow. Just. What did you think? And it freaked me out, dude. I threw the gun, through the bullets, ran away trying to forget where they were, because I didn't trust myself, just, didn't want to remember where I, because I didn't want to get down to a low point because I was, I was drinking and doing drugs.

I was like. And dude, it wasn't until years later because everybody knows about the high speed chase when nobody knew about that. I didn't want to talk about that. I don't want to. But that's the truth. I didn't want my parents to know that that's how I, got one of my first memories is being sexually abused when I was five uh you know one of the

first members I have my life can I tell you how proud I'm you nice appreciate it because I remember you shared that with me you didn't nobody knew yeah it's before I opened up even about your brother yeah because you share because you knew that story of me because I didn't tell it but you and you said hey man I want to tell you about my brother nobody knows this yeah and I remember thinking man that's such a powerful yeah because I didn't know it about you no yeah so I was like what you went to jail my brother was I know. I had two uncles pull the trigger, two different uncles from ages five to seven, separate

sides of the family, one of my dad's younger brother and then my mom's brother-in-law. And so I went to two funerals back to back when I was six and seven from two separate uncles who didn't know how to deal with the pressure, the weight of life, different causes. One was on drugs. One was an accountant and couldn't handle. the pressure and both shot themselves. And so I know I've experienced that close to me. And I know, you know, how much it takes to not pull the trigger also for you, for you, when you're feeling that way, because I've had those feelings when I was younger of like, what's the point of all

this and why am I being here? And I never attempted anything to take my life, but I felt I shouldn't be here, you know, multiple times. And so I want to acknowledge you for, being here and for making a difference in the world because, you know, I think it's easy to, when you feel like you're not enough, when you feel like none of it matters anymore, when you feel like I've messed up so bad, I can't come back from this. Yes, I can't come back. I can't, the shame I have from my family, the shame I have with my friends, the shame I have with God, I cannot come back from this.

And I think you're a great example that not only can you come back, but you can transform your entire life, you can have a beautiful family, you can have beautiful kids, beautiful wife, and make a big difference in the world. And your story is what's going to help you make that difference as well, not hold you back if you step into it. And so I'll acknowledge you for that because, again, everyone hears about the money and the success and the big personal brand you have now, but I don't think people truly understand the shame you were feeling to want to take your life multiple times, you have to be feeling so low self-worth and so, such a negative self-identity. And I'm saying that because I understand that feeling that you have to feel so bad about yourself

to want to end it. And so I acknowledge you for not ending it and for it didn't happen overnight, but you've transformed consistently over time. Yeah, 20 years. You said, you know, hundreds of hours of therapy and lots of other transformational work. A lot of work. One was the moment that you actually started to love yourself. I have a good question. Do you remember? Because I'm assuming it didn't happen overnight, you know, after you're throwing bullets in the field and taking them out of the rifle, it probably wasn't in your early 20s.

And I know you in your late 20s when you're driven to achieve and get exits and make millions and improve because I was in that space as well. but when was the moment you actually said, I like myself and I love myself? It's like, I'll be honest with you, man, I don't think I love myself 100% today. Sitting here.

And when I say that, 100% of the time. Because I, I, you see what I'm saying? Like, I had. I hear you. Yeah. On a scale of 1 to 10.

Yeah. How much do you love yourself? Eight. strong. Okay. But that's, I look at that as loving your. No, no. And I'll tell you, so I think we have to define what that means. For me, it's I love me without anything else. That's, that's, let's talk about that. I love life without my job, without the resources, without the money, without the recognition. Following the brand. Dude, I love my life without my kids. That's, the hard one. So like my definition of a 10 is can I be with myself by myself and love myself?

100% of the time. Well, I mean, no one wants to be alone. I know. Well, but no, but that's actually for me, the criteria when you say that is, is can I be on the top of a mountain by myself and being pure bliss and joy? I mean, life's not about being isolated. It's about being in relationship to others. So it's, you know, sure, can I, can I have a day by myself? Dude, I didn't, I didn't know how to do that. I mean, the guy that wrote Bybacker time, why? Because I was optimizing, like, or system, structure, people. So it's like, I had to write that book to help me get through that part.

Once you had all that time, could you be okay with yourself? Dude, that was the craziest process. That's like when I was working with one of my coaches, Stephanie, this is, she challenged me. She goes, I love you, Dan. And you're, but now what? Yeah, yeah. I dare you to go spend five days by yourself. Oh, yeah.

Have you done that yet? Yeah, she made me do it. And what did you discover? I, what I discovered, it'd been a while since I had taken care of myself fully. That's an interesting concept because I'm not a backpacker go camping kind of guy. So what I did is I went, uh, I did. Okay, so I rented a van that came loaded. Okay.

Oh, intervan loaded. You can rent them. Luxury star. Yeah, yeah. Gramping. Plamping Pondas 10. So I got a ban loaded. And I remember like I was going to do three days.

She said, no, that's not enough. Five. You got to go five. And I'm like, well, what do I do? She goes, that's the whole point. What's the whole point? You figure it out. Yeah.

No agenda, no process, no nothing. No work. Yeah, she called it window therapy. You need to go drive windshield therapy. That's what she called. Windshield, go drive and be with you. Be with your thoughts. Be with the presence.

Be in the woods. So I, do you know. When was this? This isn't that long ago, bro. This is a couple years ago. Really? Yeah. Well, like there's been like everything is, it's phasic.

It's like a wave, light, right? It's not, again, it's, it's, it's, I'm just an example of every day waking up and trying to not repeat mistakes and be a little bit better. And it got to the point where I was like, okay, what's my next level? And I thought, okay, I got to do meditation. Okay, meditation's cool. But now I was like, oh, maybe I got to do a silent retreat. And then she was talking to me and she's like, you go do this. And I was like, and again, I always look at what I resist.

Yeah, of course. The thing you don't want to do is what I got to do. So that one I was like really resistant. I think I said no to her for about a year. And I finally did it on the backside that it took three days. On the third day, I was walking in the ways I remember the moment where I was at. And I just dropped in, man,

just dropped into the beauty of nature, beauty of the moment, beauty of the presence, beauty of the, the oneness of it all. And I was like, oh. So in that moment, pure love. Really? Oh. the wildest realization that this earth has been around before I showed up and we'll be here after I leave.

And it is the coolest like the sun is the earth breathing every day. Right. And just like all these like just things. So I would challenge anybody listening because it's easy to stay busy. Even when we work is almost like a way to distract ourselves from trying to discreet. cover our purpose, all that, right? So I went through all that, the achievement, you know, challenges, but there was still a part of me that could not find that in him, by himself. And I went to that place. And, and the cool part is on the backside of that, I became a better

person times, I think my wife, like, she, Renee, was like, oh, no, Dan's different. So I would just challenge people, even if it's for a walk, no AirPods, no, no podcast, nothing, go for a walk by yourself and slow down and don't have a planned route and don't try to, I mean, do measure everything and try to compete against and how many feet of elevation, just go wander. But you're the optimization guy. I know, that's why I was for a while. I was, I remember talking about, I was like, where do I go? She goes, you'll figure it out. Where do I sleep? No plan? Nothing. No, I was a sat phone. No phone. She gave me a sat phone. I was allowed to bring a satellite phone, please something happened, and a couple books.

One of the greatest weeks of my life is when I got on a plane without a phone or computer, went to Hawaii by myself and was there for a week with no... Sorry, no phone? No phone on the plane. I got on a plane with a printoff, a printoff of a ticket. And then I said, oh, how do I get to a hotel? Everybody thing you're psychotic. We're just standing there just staring at the seat.

I'm just connecting to people. Just, hey, how's your day? Oh, it's interesting because you'd have to talk to people. You have to? I remember when I got, I go, oh, shoot. I got to get my rental car to get to the hotel, but I don't know how do I get directions to the hotel? I don't know how to get there.

I don't know my phone, my GPS. I had to stop at a gas station, bro, like it was in the 90s and be like, hey, where am I going to this place? Can you tell me and stop a lot? Did they not have thought you were in life? Hey, where am I going? You know, back in the 90s. And it was the first couple of days,

it was like stressful. But then there was one day, probably halfway through the week. I was laying in this cave of water right next to the ocean. in Kauai and I was just like this is incredible I didn't want to go back you got it I was like this is it and I was like oh I could be here forever you know it was just like peace that's what happened to me yeah day three on the fifth day driving house was to be home at noon I didn't get back till five I didn't want to you don't want to go you don't want to turn the phone on again you're like I'm good it was also beautiful because it made me realize how little I needed to be absolutely in bliss

Happy. Nothing. I needed nothing. Happy. And that's why I think what's, okay, on the backside of that, why actually it made me more dangerous in business is that I don't need anything from anybody. Yeah. And I know that even. You don't need to accomplish.

No. It's fun. You know, you're going to create to like build something. Yeah. It's part of the human experience to create. But you don't need it to make you happy. Here's the question then, because you've hit rock bottom. for those that might be feeling like they're in a rock bottom right now or they're just burnt out or overwhelmed

what is the mindset that someone needs to overcome this feeling of rock bottom and overwhelm to finally step into their abundance you're here to do something you're here to do something big i don't even need to know you i don't need to meet you i don't need to ever see what you do but you by the fact that you are human and you have a soul you're here to do you're here to something. I wish I understood this sooner and you kind of alluded to it, but the things that happened to us that hurt us the most are the most powerful tools that we have to help other people. Yes. It's true. Dude. It's so that. Say that one more time. The thing that hurt us the most, that gave us the most shame that scares us the most that somebody else might find out,

the thing that was most painful is the most powerful thing you have to help somebody else transform your life, period, full stop. I get it all the time and I discovered that I had to go to Peru. Okay. Actually, that time I saw you at Giovanni's event, right after that, I went to Peru, I went to Peru and I'm hiking in the mountains and I asked a question, how do I figure out my purpose? And the guy that brought me there, Philip McCurnin, okay? says to me, it sits right next to the worst thing that's ever happened to you. And I don't know about you, man. Well, I know you would rather say with this. You know what that is. And you don't want to talk about it. Dude, you put it in a box. You threw it at the bottom of the ocean. Stuff it. Oh, you, you haven't thought. But when he says that to me, oh, man. What do you do with it? And it was, I needed to be in a mountain in Peru to process. That was good. And that's why it's hard in it for somebody listening to this to go, I don't even know where that would happen. And good news is you don't need to know, but you do have to make a decision.

And the decision right now is that tomorrow morning is a blank piece of paper. Tomorrow morning is a new day. And if you wake up and do something positive that is the opposite of whatever you're feeling, that is all you've got to do. Just tomorrow. and all I would invite you to consider is just make a commitment for tomorrow. That's it, one day to time. Dude, one of the benefits of being, you know, somebody's done the steps was just like the power of that.

I'm not making it. It's not as heavy. It's not for the rest of your lives. We're not making it heavy. We're going to make it simple. Tomorrow morning. That's it. Let's win the day.

Let's just start there. We'll decide if the next day is something we want to continue doing. But those are the two opposites. It's just like do the thing tomorrow morning, but also realize that whatever you're going through could be the thing you need. This is crazy. Could be the thing you needed to go through to get you ready for what you've been asking for. That's true, man.

Oh, dude, all of it, you know, I think of Oliver Anthony. Okay, so like people forget because it's kind of had a thing and that he's kind of moved on. But like, he was this musician that was. drinking and not multiple jobs struggling in life, mid-30s. But, and he says it. He just, he just made a decision. Did two things. He said this on Joe Rogan, okay?

Oliver Anthony wrote the famous song, Richmond, North of Richmond. He said, I gave my life to God. And then I started making about other people and stopped making about myself. Mm. And a few months after he made that decision, some person pulls out a camera and he's playing at some backyard party. Yeah. In that song, he's the first artist to ever go number one billboard as an independent in the history of mankind and music.

Crazy. One video, one moment, and we're, anybody could have that, but it sits, you can't pretend like it didn't happen and you have to make a decision. You've probably said God five or six times now. When did you allow God into your life? It's just, again, it's phasing. I think I thought I knew God and I did. didn't know God and then I like discover more and more and more and Erwin McManus. Big impact. I would say Irwin had the biggest impact on me a decade ago.

He did my wedding. It was beautiful. I didn't know that. I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah, great guy. Yeah. And it's just like I grew up, you know, Catholic, but like what they call it, C&E Christians, New Year's Eve, Christmas Easter. Yeah, Christmas, New Year's Eve Easter. That was my exposure. And then it was just over the years, you know, I went through the phase of like, I believe in energy and spiritual and quantum and all this stuff. And then I listened to Irwin on some guy's podcast and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. You know, it's wild about this and how God works.

This is crazy. And not super. Like today I'm like, of course. I'd discover his podcast. And then I get a DM on my Instagram. From him. His son. Oh, yeah.

Somehow his son was talking to a friend that said, you need to talk to Dan Mark Lale. So he reaches out to me. And I'm like, hey, man, is it cool if I FaceTime with your dad? And he's like, yeah, for sure. And I'm sitting in the park. I remember where I was at. A year ago?

No, it was a while ago. Okay. Years ago. Yeah. Maybe five years ago. Oh, okay. Yeah, I listened to this pod 10 years ago. Oh, yeah.

So it was, I listened to, maybe it wasn't 10, maybe it was seven years ago. Uh-huh. But it was maybe a year or two after that. Pre-COVID or during COVID? Yeah, it was pre-COVID. Okay. And so you FaceTime him? Yeah, he agrees to it.

And I met in the gym parking lot. And he was like, hey, Dan. And my video's not working his is. And he's walking around his house. And I can't get my freaking camera to work. And we talk. And I was like, hey, man, I got some big questions. for you. He's like, what's up? Hit me.

He's got real. He laughed. He laughed. He goes, would you need surprise to find out that I could ask that question 17 times a day? I go, now that you say it, I think that was pretty ignorant of me to think that. But, um, and I'll tell you what Irwin said to me. He said, hey, man, just, just read the story, study the man. I mean, you make your decision. And that was, that's a difference. Like, you meet people like, and that's why like, I don't even talk about God really,

but you ask and I can't not because that's what my heart says. Because I don't want to scare people away. I think that the best way to get people introduced to faith is just by being somebody of quality that is of faith. Like, that's like, people try to make it about that. It's like, just be a great human. People will be like, hey, man, how do you always seem to be in a good mood? How did you overcome that thing?

Tell me about that. And then you're like, oh, now I get a chance to tell you something. Yeah. So that's what he said. He said, just go study the story. Go get to know the person. I did. I just, I'm an avid student.

I read and I read his book, The Genius of Jesus, a bunch of other stuff. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, that's the thing. It's like, so when you say, when you just, it's like, I feel like I keep discovering magic. How has your relationship with God been of great service and support to you? you personally. I have the coolest new best friend.

Now, he might be my best friend. I'm not his best friend, but that's cool. He's the coolest. His name is John Maxwell. Leadership goat wrote so many incredible books. Big guy from Ohio, by the way. Okay? Pay attention, everybody.

And I share that because people come into your life to show you what's possible. I know you do that for everybody that follows. That is what you're here to do and you do it so well. And it's always funny. People like, is Lewis the real deal? The realest of deals. Please get into him. Show up like that's.

And I get it because people ask me that. I'm sure they do. Get to know Lewis. And John's well as you know when they say don't meet your heroes. Unless his name is John Max. Oh my gosh. What a great human. So I'm hanging out with them.

You know, this is not long ago, maybe four years ago. And we're talking. And I'm just blown away. I'm at his event. He's just such a Christian person. And I asked him, I said, how do you do it? You know, he goes, oh, it's, I didn't, I didn't know I'd do any of this. And then he tells me something that just shifted everything. And he talked about the biggest impact. He says, I have goals that are God-sized goals. And they're so big, they're beyond my ability to know how to do them. And they're so big that it's the ceiling of his floor. And he's, you know, he's, you know, and he's, you

He inspired me in spirit to dream, knowing I don't know how, that I need to, and he tells me this, you got to give it to him. All the stuff that you don't even know that challenges the front, like, he tells you to. Like, I'm hearing this. It's not he, he says it, but he's like, you got to give it to God. Let God figure it out. Dude, what are we doing? He goes, oh my God, you're going to get a goal because he kind of gets like animated,

frustrated. It's like people say they have faith, but they don't act like it. I can tell by the level of worries that they have because he said, give me those. You go to sleep. I'll work on them. How did that impact my life? Oh, I was under indexing. I was thinking small.

I was acting scared. I wasn't, I didn't have God-size goals. Mm. All of it. Whatever. Faithful servant. Use me. I'm down, down for the ride.

Let's go. Wow. So it's. Was that a, was that like a turning point for you? Yes. Yes. It was, it was, it was a core moment that I realized. Hmm.

That happened. to get me to the point where I can have this conversation to then take the breaks off. That if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have the appreciation of what he was saying. Really? No. No. You had the breaks on in life?

What do you mean? Yeah, man. I was, I wasn't. But you were successfully. You were making millions. You're impacting lives. You're selling companies. You're investing in companies.

You have coaching programs. All of it. But you have breaks on. I didn't have God-size goals. So what did that feel like when you have breaks on your life? But you're also extremely successful in the eyes of so many people. It's exciting and then scary, but then as soon as the scare comes in, I go, God, hey, remember that thing you told me I can do?

I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you. What does that feel like? When you, okay, now I'm going to have God-sized goals. I've been playing at this level, which has been big in my mind and big to everyone else around me. And I've created a life of abundance, financial wealth, success. I've bought my time back, good people around me.

But I've realized there's a massive gap of God-sized goals. How do you let go of the stress or the worry? And how does that feel to say, I give it all to you? Oh, my gosh. I think we, as humans, we use emotions to make us decide. You know, it's without emotion, there's no motion. So a lot of people create stress back against the wall, burn the boats. Chip on the shoulder.

Chip on the shoulder. It's his dark energy to create. Motivate them to do the thing. And guess what? It works. The same Dan that was like, Louise, you don't want me to let me play with Mike? I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you.

I'm going to beg to hang out on me. Dude, I would fantasize getting rich enough to buy the company she worked out to fire her. I'm horrible. I'm horrible. But that was old damn. But that drive works. Yes. It doesn't bring you peace.

No. And that's the thing is you use it to create that. And what happened was is I was successful, but it was through this dark energy. And then when all of a sudden you realize that you're allowed to dream bigger without the emotion, without the stress, without the pressure and the noise. The dark emotion. Maybe it's more of a. Yes.

Because it comes from, you asked earlier, like, when did you learn to love yourself? because that's what it is. It's the not enoughness. It's I've got a hole inside. Prove. Yeah. And I think that that next thing of achievement is going to prove it. But it was like even processing that, I realized here's a crazy idea.

You're allowed to have it all without doing anything. What does that mean? You have to take action. You have to show up. You have to commit. You have to do the thing. But you're allowed to receive. And I think people actually more, they're closer to.

the opportunity then they realize, but they don't allow to receive. They're blocking it. They're making out the rules where it needs to be true. You know, we all do it. When I do this, this and this, then I'll be, I'll do this. It's like, or you could just ask for it now and see what happens. And that was like, that was the big idea is I think I was making up rule. I would just ask everybody listening, if they could just ask themselves, what rules did I make up has to be a certain way. Have you been to date with destiny? Yeah.

Oh, no, no, no. UPW. Okay. So Tony Robbins does this exercise at date with destiny around values, away values, away values and toward values. And it's to this concept where he says, we make these rules of what needs to be true for us to allow ourselves to feel good. And we make these rules that are easy for them to happen to feel bad.

Hard to feel good, easy to feel bad. How about we flip it? How about we make the rules to feel good simple? So I'm allowed to feel healthy because I drank some water today. Not went to the gym, dialed my macros, blah, blah, blah. I can feel healthy and I'm taking care of my body if I just had some water today. Make it easy. And then rejection, not they didn't reply to my email right away.

It's they said no, called me up screaming no. make it hard to feel the rejection. And I just, I think of it like when you ask me, how did that feel once I brought the God-size goals into my life? It's just, I felt like I found this superpower of opportunity that didn't need to be hard anymore. Why aren't you talking about this stuff more? Nobody asked me about it.

I appreciate it, man. Nobody asked me about it. But you and I both know, this is more valuable than which apps to use on AI. Not to say that you shouldn't be doing this, but I'm empowering you and giving you permission to start talking about this more on all your content. Thank you. You know, kind of like how I've seen Gary go from talking about social media to gratitude, appreciation, all these other life skills.

You have so much wisdom, and this is not to shame you by not doing this, I'm just giving you the permission to continue to deuce more of this. In your content. You know the story I was telling myself as you say this. Tell me. That's what Lewis does. And yeah, but you have, I know, I know, I know, because we've been doing this for a while. I know that in that comment is, but that's, we all have our own version of it that

that people are going to resonate with. You don't have to do it the way I do it, but you can do it in your way. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I just need to just add it. Yeah. What is your conversation with Godlike on a daily basis? it's an interesting one again i can only speak it's i'm still learning like i mean that was my favorite

thing that irwin said to me he says the more questions you ask the more questions you'll have or the more answers you get the more questions you'll have yeah and recently is just the the the reminder of appreciation to listen when this like we even said before we started you're like i i want to spend more time so it's like that that that intuition that that guidance i'm just those are the conversations like like talk to me more i'm listening i'll you know where where where where do i need to consider who do i need to pour into where can i slow down where can i where can i speed up i don't know just those you know i'm um when you doubt yourself how do you overcome that doubt i just i do this thing i just you literally do that

that. I have to. Dude, I'm, I'm, I'm so human. I wish people could literally spend some time in my mind so they can see it. Because it's easy for people to see guys like us. And we know what we look like. Yeah, yeah. And think, oh yeah, but you don't struggle with this. You don't struggle with that. You don't get, you don't understand. No, I do. The differences is where I think a lot of people suffer. They suffer for days. Yeah. I don't suffer for days. I used to. We expect you. Oh my gosh. You know, Renee will tell you 15 years ago, my first day that she would come home. And for three, four days in a row, she'd find me in bed, just binging some dumb show on. Yeah, I just, I was not, I just, and it was these, these almost like these moments where I would just allow myself to get into it.

And I just couldn't be good for anybody else. I would just like pretend I was, I was sick. And I wasn't sick. And, and what happened over the years is I realized like, oh, what, what am I going to do? do and this is what change is I just made that commitment, kind of like the 12 steps. I said, okay, and I give her credit because she would say this to me, when's the day? If you need this, I'll give you the time. I want the day and I want the time. You're going to switch your out to change the mood.

Have it. Tell me. And what would you say? Depend to how long I was in it. I could have been, give me two more days. Give me till five o'clock. Give me whatever. Yeah. This is not long ago. Back in San Francisco back in the day. Yeah.

I remember when you guys met. You came to my place, though. I know. I remember when you guys, did you guys meet at Southbite? No, you guys met in San Francisco. Toronto. And then she came down. Yeah, yeah.

Then she moved down, huh? Yeah. But I think I came up to the office, like, float was a flow town? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was crazy. 2009, 2009. Yeah, yeah.

I was like. 16 years ago. 16, man. So I was doing it then for sure. Yeah, because I remember I was binge watching house. And she's like, how long? I was like, okay, tomorrow five o'clock. She's like, cool.

, mine was weeds. that's what I did watch. I went through like five seasons of depression for like two weeks. Just watching it. The insanity of her life. Well, this is a thing. It's like we just need to not feel.

So it was just like my new way of not feeling. And what happened and this is where I hope everybody could learn from that because this is what I had to learn is that I had a choice to make those not weeks or days, but moments. And today, when you ask that, that's it. Do you literally make that move? In my head and maybe in like, sometimes it's just like. Yeah, just like.

You might need that as a trigger to be like, hey, give it away. I see it come in. I know it's not, it's not him. Not, it's thank you, not neat. Like, give it to me. He said give it to it. That's what I heard. I hope that's what it says in the scripture.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's what it does. Yeah. If not, that's what I think Erwin told me. Or at least John Maxwell told me, God-sized goals. And when the doubt comes in, he says, give them to me. I'm curious about this. For those that are looking to create wealth and generate more money,

when was the time you had the most money but were the least fulfilled? Do you remember? I know you know this, but you're really good because, like, I, the way you asked that got me to a place that I've never shared before. I was 28 years old and what happened was this was when I was I didn't know like I didn't know how to win. So when I started to win, I didn't know why I was winning. So I just kept doing everything because I didn't know what it is. Keep doing everything.

What if it stops. What it stops. So this is from 20. 26 to 28 and this is when I finally found some stride in my company. The third company, the first two completely failed. My dad's like, you should just get a job. I'm like, I can't do it. And I just had this gear and I'm working Sunday. 6 o'clock. I'm supposed to be at my girlfriend's parents' house for dinner. And I leave the office and I run back because we were supposed to be there at 5.30 at 6 o'clock. I get back. I walk in.

and she was just done, done. Done with you. Done. Done. Done. Just done. Walks past me. Goes their parents.

Done. But what most people dealt like is two and a half months later I sell the company, multimillionaire, cash in the bank, zero day earn out. Zero day. Zero day. That's the next day. I know. And it's nice and it also made me realize how much I allowed my work to keep me distracted.

And then the morning I woke up and I didn't have to go to work and I had a bank account that was full of money. And I was depressed and nobody cared if I get out of bed. Dude, I think two days after that moment, I had a massive panic attack where it felt like an elephant was standing. Like, Capric, you know what I mean? Yeah, I had to go to the hospital. They introduced, like, you know, I ended up getting a psychiatrist, this guy named Manuel.

And you had millions of dollars. Oh, dude. It was. You made it. Made it. And, and this is the part. I did it all for her. For the girl.

And guess what? She never asked me for it. She didn't want that. People listening need to hear what I just said. Yeah. Because we all get up to do the thing for the person and sacrifice for the kids, for your wife, it doesn't matter. They don't want that. They never asked you for it.

So why do we think that we're doing it for? It's just our bull crap to give us permission to do it. To be distracted from connection, from intimacy, from. So when you say when's the moment you made the most money and was the lonely, saddest, depressed? It was that, I remember where the, I, it's like. And it was a blue sky, sun's coming through my thing and I'm laying there and I just was like, you should be happy. Yeah.

What happened? What, where did I miss the calculation? There was an error. I'm a software guy. So the error in the formula. How did I not catch the mug? What was the formula you had before then? That, that sacrifice was required to it to create a life that I, that I,

could have lived without the sacrifice. Like, if I want to be, like, right now, you know what I talk to Renee? Okay. Because I'm, I'm God's eyes goals. I'm all in. Okay. Like, yeah, I have a great family office team and they protect me from myself. But I also like, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. They're like, okay, you can't put all that into this. Okay. You got to diversify a portfolio. But I also let them know, like, hey, I don't want you. I want you to challenge. challenge me, but I'm making my calls. Okay.

Yes. And the only thing I, now that I've gone through that, the blessing, the gift, is that I know, because I've asked her, if I make a decision and I lose it all, everything, is that okay? And you know, the only thing she says to me, don't be mean to me. And as long as you didn't take advantage of anybody. Oh, that's good. That's it. Bro.

Bro. I can lose it all tomorrow. She'll still be with you. I don't care. Martha says the same thing to me. I was kind of telling you beforehand, when we started really getting serious in kind of dating and commitment and engagement,

she was like, I'll follow you anywhere. And it's like the most powerful thing to hear is a woman say to you, I will follow you anywhere. And it's also the biggest responsibility to not want to blow it all up so that she has to follow you down some dark path or some path of like, oh, now we're struggling.

But it's such a gift for a woman to say that. She took the pressure off of me to have to be. That's what, when you said, what was the difference? Before I thought I had to be and do something for her to love me. And now I've got a person that says, as long as you're loving and you didn't do something to take advantage of, I'm good. Well, then I can push and I can create. Because it's a, I'm playing to win, not playing not to lose.

Yeah. That's a different energy. Yeah. At the end of the day, you'll probably keep a few million safe in case it'll blows up. The insurance said, like, dude, it would be really hard for me to mess it up at this point. Yeah. But at the same time, I know that, you know, if I ever ever wanted to hit the injection button and shut down my social media and reset my life and move to another country, she's good.

Yeah, you can do it. Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of it. And also I think what we essentially want in asking that question is, are you with me for me? Yes. Are you with me because I can create this? Yeah. That's probably a little.

This is nice? Yeah. Look, I want this too. But, you know, can we be good without it? Because then I'm able to create from a place of contribution and not fear. You know a lot of wealthy people. what happens to someone if they chase money, but they don't have a spiritual foundation to hold it up?

It's kind of like addicts. In addiction, they say the addiction is patient. It can wait. What does that mean? It can wait seven months, 17 years. Like addiction, it's waiting for you to mess up. To come back. Oh, yeah.

Oh, man. It can wait. Any moment. I had a counselor at the rehab center that saved my life. It's called Portage. He was sober for 30, 28 years and relapse on heroin. 28 years. 28 years, man. He was the one. He was 10 when I was there and this was not too long, bro. And it's patient. Yeah. So when you say success without faith, here's what I know. You can get the money.

but it's you you will do something to self-sabotage it because it's empty it's not and it doesn't matter who you are it's it there's no amount of money that they can that whole is this this this endless place that you could pour everything it's kind of like this bottomless you're just the billions and the homes and the jets and the stuff and you're right I these are people that I run into and ask me for advice and I sit there and I feel I feel it it's a for me at this level it's it's an energetic my team actually feels it because sometimes we like you know they're around and they're like oh and I'm like yeah and I really you know but I also hold faith or that that that God's going to show up have that conversation and then and then that person with those

resources are going to do beautiful things but that's that's what happens is you can have all the money in the world and you're giving a long enough time patient It's patient. It's that not enoughness never goes away. You can mask it. You can protect yourself from it. You can pretend like you're not self-sabotaging, but it will show up and it will get you.

And we can, the history is littered with people that had it all and self- imploded on themselves. Dude, I love MGK. Have you ever met MGK? I've never met him, but. I never met him either. Another Ohio guy, by the way.

I never thought I do know. But here's a great example of an artist. Tell me. That is so talented that deserves the accolades. And it just seems like he continues to go through this pattern. Almost like he feels like that has to be true for him to do his art. Well, he suffer. You may not go through destruction.

Yeah. Yeah. No amount of this. And I'm assuming because he's been doing it for so long that he's seen his peers take off. And I just don't know what it is. But that I just I think of it because I'm like a big fan. And yeah, and I've just, I've seen those, that pattern just show up. And when you said without faith, that's what it is.

Because faith is the, it's, you know, you could have all the pieces, but then it fills it in to hold it in place. You know what I mean? It's kind of like, like I see this board with these like, you know, core pieces of life. And then you need the, you need the water around to like stabilize. Yeah, the glue. The DeBoo, yeah, fill it in. When you say God-sized goals, what does that mean for you? How do you measure these?

Like, do you have clear goals in mind? And do these goals have monetary results tied to them because you invest in businesses and you want them to grow and do well? So how do you track and focus on making money because you run businesses and you invest in companies that need to do well? while also focused on the impact these companies and the money will do on people's lives as well. So our mutual friend, Rob Deerick, having dinner with him last night, he asked me that question. Because he's made a lot of money.

A lot of money. Boku, Boku, Boku, he's very rich. And he has a lot of fun. He literally lives life to the max. He lives it. Yes. And he asked me that because I don't, even though people know I have my own. don't talk about money. And I think he was curious of my philosophy on this. Here's how I know I

have a God-size goal. It scares me and I have no idea how I'm going to pull it off. Those are like the two things. If you know the how, it's not big enough. Okay. And if it doesn't scare you, it's not the right one. I literally go, oh, shoot, I got to do that. You know, I don't want to write a book. Oh, God, I got to write a book. I don't want to be a guy on YouTube. I got to. I gotta be a guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, geez. You know, you've been such an inspiration.

I told you this earlier, like watching you and I'm like, I don't. I should, but I'm not going to do that. It's a lot, bad. You put yourself out there all the time. Yeah. But that's how I know it's a God-size goal because I know that I need him to help me push through. When you ask the question, you said, you know, and then you have these businesses that need to make money or be. I know you know that.

We know that. Yeah. But that was interesting because I, it comes. kind of got me because that's the part that I'm also incredibly okay with is that if it doesn't, it's good. I hear that because you have money and you've got investments and you're going to be fine. You don't need that investment to make you money. But in order for that to succeed, it's got to thrive. Yeah. So this is where that, that's the question I gave to Rob was, or my answer to Rob was the, the infrastructure.

structure that I have for businesses making money and dude nobody operates like I do you know this you've met my team I've literally put them with your team because we my background in software and and systems thinking all that stuff I do that for the people I do it for the the world we live in we live in this world where people need money they need money they need targets they need a ladder to climb they need a north star principle they need culture they need vision they They need that. I get that. I can provide that. But the way you create it starts with, it's got to be scares me and I don't know how. Then the way you make that happen is you have to like do the basics, which I think if you don't measure, it won't happen. Like it's the measurement side. And and then then it goes to the habits, which you write about so awesomely in your books. It's, Can you design the habits, the daily rhythms where it makes the goal inevitable? That's always my question, Lewis.

When I'm building the company, we have a big goal if we want to take it public or make a billion dollars. But regardless, I always have to break it down for my team. Yes. To make it, if we do this at this level of volume, then it wouldn't be inevitable. It would be, it'd be ridiculous not to assume that this would happen, which would unlock the outcome. And that's when you ask like, how do I create like what is it? How do I define it? How do I create it? And then how do we do it? That's the process. So measure then the daily habits,

the daily rhythm. It always goes, it always starts with it has to be scary because that's how you know it's the right one. You can't know how to do it. So that's counterintuitive because people are like, well, how do you build a rhythm to achieve it? You break it down and you say what's the most logical next step. So it's like big goal. For me, goals have to be something, you know, like going to the Olympic. I'm chasing the Olympic dream. I know. And I don't know how to do it. I mean, I have an idea, but I don't know how it's, if it's going to happen or not. No. There's no guarantees. No. I have to show up every single day, giving my best, improving. Every single day. And I've got two and a half more years to see if this will happen or not. If that's called faith.

And you don't know. Yeah. It's the step when you can't see the step. trusting that it'll be there. Yeah. That is probably the biggest opportunity for people is that's why you have to start small is people don't trust themselves enough. So it makes it feel like it's too big, just start small. Yeah. Even if the dream is five, 10 years away, start with what.

Yeah, that's it. Let's get a glass of water. Jim, let's go a glass of water. Let's call ourselves healthy. What do you think are the beliefs and behaviors that keep people stuck in a scarcity or limiting mindset then? There's only two things to hold people back, my opinion. One, believing like they don't deserve it.

And the not deserving it comes from some kind of unheeled thing. They experience or happened to them or they made the decision around that they have shame around that makes them feel not worthy. Simple example. For years, I was speaking, traveling. I don't know if you ever did this, but somebody asked you speak, you always say, yes, you wanna show up, you wanna help out? I never asked for money, never.

And then I remember I was at an event and a guy who was just like me speaking, doing his thing tells me the event organizer paid him $25,000 to speak. And you were like, well, what was the difference? Yeah. He asked for it.

I didn't. And I think that sounds like a lot. Like I would love to get paid. I'm talking little things like asking for travel expenses. I'm talking. I'm just, just ask, right? I have another friend that is the most value added person in my life.

And I get that we have to be a value giver. Never in 15 years has he ever asked me for anything to a fault. And I know where that comes from. So I think that's the one thing. is people don't feel worthy. They don't deserve it. Yeah. They don't deserve it.

The second thing is that they think it's bigger than they're capable to do. It's too big of a step. And I'll tell you why they do this is because they compare their chapter two to somebody else's chapter 17. I've been building companies for 28, almost 29 years. If you just started and you're mad because you don't get a lot of views on your YouTube or whatever it is, like it's, it's, It's such a fascinating, because what I see with young people today, they literally think they should be a millionaire at 20. Crazy.

You don't understand that the guy that you know that's 18 that's a millionaire started when he was eight. I'm not even joking. He's got 10 years. You just didn't see those 10. You might have just started last year. And because the gap's so big, they just give up. And that's, to me, the best thing that we could ever do for ourselves is just ask ourselves,

am I getting better? like we know this because we hear it all the time but I'm only competing against me from yesterday I got one dude I don't that's why I don't compare and when people try to compare me I go I appreciate you saying that oh you're going to be the next this I'm going to be the first Dan

because that's the only thing I actually can do so if somebody's listening to this this is the most powerful thing they could probably hear be the best insert your name be the first insert your name be the most expressive be the the most, just the most authentic version of you. And if you do, this is what happens.

Because that's what we admire. You've met some of the grades. I haven't had the privilege. I know what made them great. They were who they were. They weren't trying to be somebody else. The best musicians, they just were like, this is who I am.

I really hope people like it. Because I don't know how to do anything else. Yeah. And that is what makes us attracted to them. So I think those are the two things. I think a lot of people hear that and they think of this idea of like, that sounds great to step into my most authentic self. But with so much uncertainty coming in the future, how do I actually do that when I'm so

uncertain about AI, financial crisis, wars, political uncertainty, can I afford rent in a few years, let them buy a property? when there's so much uncertainty financially of the future, how can someone step into their most authentic selves knowing it might all fail for them? When you ask me that question, this is where I go. Certainty is currency. What does that mean?

It means when people come into commerce or into moments or decisions or anything, the person who is most certain about the future usually creates the future. So all the people that people are watching online, that's all that those people have. They had the most certainty in the moment, whatever moment that was. It could have been the certainty I'm getting up and going to the gym tomorrow. And my husband or wife says, I don't think you will.

Well, I am certain. I will watch me. Or a sales conversation or whatever. And even in this world with things like AI that is creating so much change in turmoil and uncertainty, I choose to be certain about the optimism. You know, even Elon Musk recently, he's on stage and somebody's asking about something and he goes, here's where I've gotten to. I could be pessimistic and right or I can be optimistic and wrong.

And it's better for me to be optimistic and wrong for my mental health. So he just chose. Certainty about the future. Certainty about hope. Certainty about abundance. certainty about, you know, nobody's going to have to work and everybody's going to have better health care than the president. Whatever it is. He just, he just, and he's creating that. And that's kind of where I've gotten to. It's like every moment that we delay the decision is just, you just live in this,

you live in this like, yeah, these, these questioning everything. So many people wait. to launch their book or to create the project or chase the dream or get into the relationship, whatever it is. They live in fear of it needing to be the right time or needing to have the right skill sets and whatever it might be. They wait so long and they keep thinking about wanting to do this thing. And then they live with like more resentment towards themselves, regret, shame that they're not taking action and they're just living in that fear.

And it's really, yeah, for me, it's It's sad to see because I want everyone to thrive. But a lot of people sabotage themselves and what they really want, or at least giving it a shot. It doesn't mean it's going to work out. But like, at least do it. If it fails, at least you can move on to the next thing. And you learn. And you learn, right?

I feel like everyone is failing at AI right now. You know, that's the feeling you get because a lot of people, unless you're an AI expert and you're building AI tech, you're in the AI world, you're a program. it feels like everyone else is still in the dark of how to actually use AI to benefit their life, to help their career, to make money. For someone watching or listening, who is not an AI wizard, what is the one thing that they could create certainty around? And how could they use AI today that will make sure that they have a more certain future tomorrow? 100%.

number one thing people get wrong about AI. It's the only technology that's completely different from previous technologies. The press came out and we had scribes and scribes had to retooled and had to learn what is that going to mean. And the ones that did ended up owning the publishing companies. The internet comes out. If you were writing for a newspaper, if you're willing to learn, you did all the work and you showed up, you became a web developer. right? If you saw this thing called mobile and you decided to like take a boot camp and you learn the code, you could become an app developer. AI is the only technology in the history of mankind

that's ever come out. They will teach you how to use it. If you ask you to self a question. Let's let's make this simple. I understand. So here's what we're going to do. What type of person you think might be struggling with this right now? Someone who's got self-doubt, someone who's insecure, someone who's not physically or emotionally healthy, someone who's living with debt, living month-a-month, who's got two or three jobs, they don't have time to breathe.

They feel I don't have time to think and I have all these responsibilities weighing on me. I've got kids, I don't have time to be there for my kids. Got it. So all I'm doing is I've got an app called Clawed Open. You choose your AI. the cool part is it works with all of them. I'm not even going to type because I don't type.

I'm going to teach everybody a pro move right now. You hit that little icon. It's going to dictate what I say. Okay. So I'm going to stop and start it over. And I'm going to say, I feel absolutely overwhelmed with AI. I have no time. I'm stressed out.

I see the changes in the world. But I need to figure out how do I create certainty in my future? and I know that AI has the opportunity to support me in that. Build me a plan that I can do with a busy schedule with 15 minutes once a day. That's all I got. But I can commit to you for 15 minutes once a day. I'm going to show up. I'm going to sit down and I'm going to learn whatever you tell me how to do.

Build me a plan for the next 90 days and make it simple because I'm not a tech person. Send. And you will watch. again, it's the only technology in the history of mankind that can teach you how to use itself. And the number one question, if you look under all my AI videos,

as simple as I make it, as clear as I make it, as black and white as I make it, the number one question list, you know what it is? How do I use it? How do I learn it? How do I learn it? How do I learn it?

How do I learn it? Ask it to teach you how to learn it. It is building. Let me read you what it's saying. Creating a Polish, Apple style, a 90-day AI year. It's building a full 50 minutes a day, 90-day. It's researching.

It's saying you have no time. We're doing this. Don't worry about it. It's doing its thing. Dan, is that free? This is free. It doesn't cost anything. You can do it in any AI.

There's all these, like, the negative voices show up. They see, but he's a tech guy. He's a software guy. No, I just, I don't know. I don't have a phone. Go to the library and get on a computer. I don't know what to say. but it's this is how powerful it's it's still thinking because i gave it some constraints louis i told

it i'm stressed i'm sad i don't right so it's like oh this isn't an easy one i got to do some like deep what are we doing here and um i should have probably used the different uh ai so yeah well just i used a faster one yeah opus four six is the most powerful and that's with claude yeah clod open four six or opus four six but son this is this is a faster one this is a I could already see someone saying, oh, well, I'm using ChatupT. So now I need to learn a new one because it's more powerful. Gemini and Nana and blah blah. Now I don't know what to do.

No. Because there's too many to use and you're telling me this one's the best one. Nope. This one's going to give me a wrong answer. Nope. They'll all do the same. There is no wrong answer. Okay.

The answer is this is how you learn AI. Okay. Every day. Come back to it and say, here's what I've learned so far. I'm still confused. Make it simpler. I was trying to teach my kids basic math. They're 10 and 11.

We were traveling the world. Oh, I couldn't teach that. It's not the math I like. I could teach that. And I was asking AI, teach me the math, and I was explaining the work. And then it was explaining it. I go, simpler. Simpler.

Easier. Please use a diagram. Yeah, yeah. You know, tell me a story to illustrate it. And guess what? It just did. Wow. It's still going.

It's going to build the most beautiful visual plan. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'll show it to you. And you can put it up on the screen. Yeah, we'll show up on the screen. If someone's thinking, okay, everyone's talking about AI for making money, like we're hearing experts say there's going to be ways you can build and scale your business and you can have zero employees and it'll be every employee for you.

What is the real way that someone can use AI to actually make money in the future? You're going to love this. It doesn't even make sense. It doesn't make sense, Lewis. Oh, it gives you day by day. It doesn't make sense. It's got a whole. They built an app.

Tip, just read this. Here's a screenshot. It built a whole app. Wow. 90-day AI plan. It's like a course. It's given you the whole course. That's what I asked.

From overwhelmed to operational, no tech skills required. Let's do this. Progress, zero to 90 days. So it asked you to build a course, essentially. I just gave it what I gave it. It's going to give you 90-8 plan. And it goes, you know what? If I'm hearing what you're saying, this is what I'm going to do it.

It's the only technology of history of mankind that will do that. Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Is there a way you can actually use AI to make money right now? 100%. How? Do you have to have a certain business already? Do you have to have a brand already?

No. Do you have to have a following already? No. Can you teach someone how to make money with AI in 24 hours where they could actually earn money in 24 hours? Yep. Come on. I would do it right now with you in 12 minutes.

I'll tell everybody how to do it. Okay. What happens in the world right now, is we have some people that are like me that are in it. Then there's a bunch of people that are not in it. Let's call it the 60% that are just... Dabbling a little bit or not even in it at all? There's only 5% of the world that use AI.

So there are of the world, 8 billion people, there's only a couple hundred million that use AI. And of that couple hundred million, there's only 5% that pay for AI. Wow. Who are actually... And then... They pay for a pro account.

Just because you're paying. 20 bucks a month. No, and I'm just saying 20 bucks a month. So we all think everybody's doing it. No. They're not. So there's a 60% audience of people that if all you did was show up and said, hey, what part of your business or your life are you frustrated with that if you could automate,

you would be really excited about it. And they'd say, well, I don't know. I don't have time to answer my phone calls lately. If I could automate that for you, you know, how would that look? How would you want it to work? I could do that for $1,000 a month. Would you like me to set that up? Now, again, people hear this.

And they go, yeah, but how do I don't even know. to do that. We just did the demo. Use the AI to say create this for me. Yeah. Oh, I've done this with 12 year old kids. My son Noah did this to he literally asked me the same question. I walked him through the same answer where we created the offer. He decided to help people with their content marketing. He went, do you want to create, do you want somebody else to take care of your Twitter, your podcast, your Facebook posts, your LinkedIn post, all that? I would love to. Cool. what would that, what would that mean to your business? And guess where you learned a sales script?

From AI. Wow. I know, but it sounds like, no, Dan, is your son? You taught him. No, I didn't. You taught them how to use it. How do you ask it how to use it? I said, ask the AI to write you a script to call my friend, to ask the questions.

And he did. And then he grabbed my phone. He started calling my friends. Let me ask you another question. This is going to scare people. I'm in L.A. Hollywood's the main kind of industry people hear about here. A lot of people are getting laid off because of AI.

A lot of producers and writers and all these companies are laying off tons of employees because AI is going to automate it or optimize it or save time, whatever it might be. If you had to, I know your team and you would never do this, but how many employees do you have or how many people working with you part time, full time? I'm a whole time. A hundred and then a ton of people outside of that. So you got 100, 200 people you're paying every month that rely on you. hypothetically, if you had to let them all go, you had zero employees, how would you use AI to be even more efficient and make more money and have a greater impact in the world with zero employees? That's a fun question. Well, I guess you'd have to ask the AI.

I would ask the AI. But if you had zero employees and you had to let go over your whole team. But you said impact the world, which is cool. And make money. Okay, I got to make money. be more efficient and impact more people. What's interesting is I actually think leaders have an opportunity right now to not have to replace their team.

So we've seen it. Meta just announced there's a rumor 20% of their staff Facebook. Gone. Gone. Really? Jack Dorsey, founder of Square and Twitter, he has a company called Block, just laid off 40% of their whole company. 4,000 people out of 10,000 and his stock went up 25%.

Not fair. And he says because of AI. So it's happening. I actually think that as a leader, if I had to do that, it's because I didn't see and upskill everybody. So I could, and all I would do, this is what I would do, is I'd use my platform. So I have a product called Apex, which is an agent platform for execution.

I don't want to scare people, but AI is way more than just chat. We've now gone to autonomous AI agents that can do functions. I would use that to do all the functions my team, those 100 people do. Because I consider myself a fairly decent leader, what I decided to do a while ago was shut down my company for two whole days and retrain my whole team. No meetings, no structure, no nothing. And we did an old-fashioned AI hackathon. And I taught every one of them how to code. Claude code is what I taught them.

Finance, HR, marketing, didn't matter what level interns to the CEOs of my companies. Everybody's going to learn to code. Now, Lewis, I know you hear this and you go, but I don't know anything about code. You don't need to. It's not the same thing anymore. Do you know how to speak English? Yes. It's literally that simple.

You know how to give instructions. That's how we code today. I wrote, I actually... Now, do these apps actually work? If you're saying, build me this app, you know, if you say a 60 second voice note, say, build me a full app that can be up on the Apple store, that can start making money and processing.

Yes. And you can do that through AI right now. Claude can do this for you, and I'll tell you... But is it a fact, is it look nice? Is it quality? Is there bugs that you need a whole team to enhance it? Really? Lewis, this is what I...

If I wanted to make an app right now, how long it takes? to use Claude to put it up on the App Store to start making money. How many days, hours? No, no, it's not days. It would be the only thing that would slow us down, we could do it together in three minutes by prompting like we just did to build an app. The only thing that would slow us down is creating the Apple developer account and waiting

for our app to be approved. How long does that take? Depends on Apple. It might take a day. Might take 12 hours. Oh, but it could be in a few days. Oh, yeah, for sure. Really?

The first thing, there's two things that AI did when it got good. It's called GPT. That's why it's called ChatGPT. The GPT started writing copy and it started writing code. Those are the two. Game changer. Yes. So here's how I know it can do that is, for example, Claude Code, Anthropics, the company,

Claude's the product. The team at Anthropic hasn't written a line of code in six months. That's better than the programmers. Because they use cloud code to create the code. Nobody's writing code and everybody's using cloud code to create the code at the other AI companies. This is not Dan's wild guess. So are people still hiring programmers to build out apps? Yes.

Why? Because if you don't need them anymore. What you need is somebody that can direct. Yeah. But you don't need a full team of developers. No, the productivity, that's why I'm assuming Jack Dorsey at Block laid off 40% of his team. He's like, we don't need people manually writing code when they can do this a thousand times faster and better. Yeah. And he's philosophy and he wrote it in his post. He said, look, I'd rather just do 40% now, not 15% now, 20% next year. From a cultural point of view, we're going to be able to create 10x more efficiency.

so let me let people move on with their lives, retrain everybody, and move on to that 10x productivity. The good news is if you're listening to this, you could be that person for yourself in your business. You could be that person on your team before your boss asks you to do it because maybe you don't have somebody like me that's willing to shut down their company for two days, bring in external programmers to be available for us to do a hackathon and teach everybody how to do cloud code. But everybody walked away from that two-day experience being minimum five times more productive. I don't have five times less stuff I want to do. I have a capacity problem. Now I got unlocked.

So when you say, hey, we're going to fire everybody and then what are you going to do? I go, I could and I would get my AI agents to do it. But personally, I'd rather empower my team to use the AI agents to write the code. And that's what I did. Of the two-day hackathon you did in your company, what was the greatest? idea that came out of that from someone that wasn't you. None of the ideas were mine. Just that's the way the hackathon works.

Everybody built their own teams, looked at problems, pitch, just told them what they were going to work on. And the way we did is after the two days, everybody had to shoot a three-minute video explaining what they built, real code, real working. And everybody voted, and I put $3,000 up for the prize. Yep. So what won?

It's not what I would have picked, but again, the meritocracy. Yeah. I'll tell you two things. One, the thing that surprised me, Lewis, that in hindsight it shouldn't have, but it did, is everybody worked on a solution that made their job obsolete. That surprised me. That's leadership, though. I guess, but I didn't tell them what to build.

Yeah, yeah. They just chose to, they built the tool to not have to do the work they were doing. Of course. Because they want to do different stuff. What a crazy concept. And that's why I, I, I, I'm trying to tell you. start team two like create processes systems so you can either give it to someone else or it automates it so you can do the next thing that's it and then people are like scared to do that and then guess what

they're not going to they got they got fired because they didn't want to take up the technology if they're not willing to level up it's like dude if somebody's willing to do that in your life they're invaluable you pay them more let's go what are we doing how much money you want to make yeah and so that really surprised me mm-hmm so what was the tool that won or the app or the It was a tool that literally did the conversation

in one of my companies for the sales process that used to be a person. And they call it qualify. They named it and everything. It's called qualify.

And Lewis, there's no salesperson anymore. It's a voice, AI voice. Well, so it's funny is we didn't lay

everybody off once they built it. We just have them managing it. And doing other things. So then the marketing team increased the leads

because the unlimited now and it's guided it's not like it can do it can do 100% but somebody still needs to watch it course quality control

and optimise so this is the world we're in if every I'm hoping your audience wants to hear kind of where the world's going because I will give them the answer to the test

go ahead the internet came out created WWW like the World Wide Web created this new role okay and that's all that happens at every new innovation

from the printing press to the internet to mobile there's new jobs created right new new old jobs are eliminated yeah they go down the new one gets created and if you're early you make the most mining of course so the journalist that used to work for the the newspaper if he was quick he learns

HTML and an app called front page I don't know yeah I understand I'm not okay yeah and then now he becomes a web developer if you're a web developer in 2000 you're making 200,000 a year you might have been making 70 grand writing for newspaper. Now you're making $200 grand. The new equivalent of that is called an agent operator. It's the person that monitors the code, that monitors the marketing, that monitor. It doesn't need to know how to do it. But it needs to know common sense. Yes. You need. Oh, I need to get this result and it's

not working yet. Yeah. You look at the output of the app and you're like, oh, well, no, our brand color is blue and it made the button red. Hey, can you update it to blue? And it goes, okay. And it just does it. Or it looks at the copy and say, oh, we don't say things like that. Can you do this? But they don't do it. I call it the director, not the doer. And that is the agent operator, and that is the new role. And that's essentially what I did. I shut down my company and I said, all the roles are going away. There's a focus now on workflows. And the cool part is, is I can teach you how to do the workflows. And you're going to use the AI to do the workflows. But you're just going to be the operator. Kind of the manager. You just, nobody hated that.

So the Qualify that won the AI hackathon, the team there is just using Qualify to now 5X their productivity instead of manually doing it. So there's no more bombing. Guess what? Qualify doesn't take vacation. Qualify doesn't complain. Qualify works weekends. It gets better. It doesn't have an off-dry?

No. It doesn't say something that's going to hurt the brand. You give one coaching to one qualify. Everybody gets a benefit. Yeah. It's that. So that's why I'm an optimist. miss, I just, I worry that people are pretending not to hear this.

Yeah. And or making it feel like it's above, I don't know, it's too big. I don't have the time. Yeah. What was the thing that you would have picked? Well, I know what I worked on. I, and I thought we should have won. I mean, I'm a very competitive person.

You lost. Dude, I built an AI that runs my whole company. From ideation to validation to the team doesn't see the value of that. They see, like, how it's going to save my time? I think they just thought it wasn't real. Like, I literally thought they might have thought it. I made up it was fake. I built an app that we called Agent Forge that search for ideas, looked at trends,

came up with problems and solutions, launched the website, launched the Facebook ads, ran the ads to do the pre-launch wait list. It did the ads itself. I'm not done. This is crazy. Then had in one of them, it came out with the idea. The one it built was a security tool. Ran the ads, had somebody opt in, built a follow-up sequence in the email from the wait list.

It was a $50 to bump at the top of the list to get early access and actually had a sale by the time Monday rolled on the video. With you not posting anything on social media? And built the prototype. You didn't post anything on social media? No, it ran the ads. With the ads. The ads. Wow.

Agent Forge. How much did it spend on the ads, though? Few hundred bucks. I think it had 50 bucks. Wow. So it broke even? Yeah. It was getting leads for like three bucks or something.

Wow. It was just like one out of the 10 opt-ins paid the 50 to go up. Now, did I have a Stripe account? It could use the API to create the link, yeah. So I had some infrastructure, but it did my job as a venture studio. Wow. And that's when I realized, like, I'm optimistic, man. I'm optimistic.

I think, I think there's going to be, unfortunately, a challenge over the next few years and it's going to come back. But I'm really hoping if I can keep sharing the optimism and I can share the tools and I can show people how simple it is and, you know, and that's all I do. I think today's YouTube video was like, here's how you can use this AI to do every part of your business so that you can have more time with your family. And I show and I show it. I show it. The whole thing. The prompt, the whole thing. And it does it. It's not my business. It's very, I think it was a marketing agency, which is a lot of them.

The marketing, the leads, the sales, the delivery, the follow up, the operations. Automagically done. So I'm going to get a couple final questions here. Before I do, I want to make sure people follow you, Dan Martel on social media, your YouTube channel, buyback time. Make sure you guys get the book. Instagram's my favorite. Yes, at Dan Martel. Yeah, and if anybody wants my AI stuff, like I've got an AI implementation guide.

Where is that at? Just messer me, Lewis AI on my Instagram. Okay. If they do that, I'll know they came from here. Yeah. I'll send it to them. Okay. It is the, I built it so that people could understand how to apply it if it's marketing or sales or.

Because it's the prompts. How about we do this? Can we create a website for an opt-in that will automatically send it to people right now? And then someone on your team could actually create a prompt. with this to show people how we did this. This won't come out. Yeah. So we're going to do this. Let's come up with a domain name.

Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to do Damartel.com forward slash Lewis. And not only can they go get what I just offered, I will have my team show the prompts that created the page. That's what I'm saying. And delivered it and the email. So they can see the words that created what they're experiencing. Yeah.

So damartel.com slash Lewis. Um, you'll get this AI reports. Yeah, the AI implementation guide. And you'll also get a quick little video that AI will show you how we did this. Yes. So it'll be a, you know. Elevated. Elevated.

Inception meta level. Yeah. All that stuff. So Dan Martel.com forward slash Lewis. Check that out. Check out Dan's book as well, uh, Instagram and everything else. And again, I want to acknowledge you for powerful conversation, man. It's been fun.

And hopefully you continue to speak more about this in your content. Because as people get overwhelmed and confused with AI, the more new apps come out, the more people talk about it, the more it's in the headlines, the more there's good and bad around it being talked about in the news to create fear. I think they need to continue to be grounded in learning how to love and accept and enjoy your life with the time you're creating, with the chaos that might be grounded. happening around you in the news. So I think you are perfectly positioned to speak into this based on your past. Thank you. So hopefully you continue to do more of it. If you can imagine, you know, 40, 50, 60 years from now, the end of your life, what

are you going to be most proud of? I believe every person's here to be an example of possibility. You've done that for me. I hope I can do that for others. The example I would love to leave people on after this wild journey, bro, wild journey. is this philosophy that I, you know, I don't have any tattoos and I probably should get this one. It's the philosophy of being wildly involved in the creation of life and the detachment of the desire of needing it to be any certain way.

Involved unattached. I think I first heard Wayne Dyer talk about this philosophy and it might, you might have got it from a Buddhist model. But I just like, I would love to be that for people. I would love for people to be like, man, he built. But he did in a way that he didn't care, but he cared. Because that's what that is the, that when we talk about the God size goals, that's kind of what it is. It's like, I'm not creating from a place of not enoughness.

I'm creating from a place of possibility. And if it happens gravy and if it doesn't, also gravy. That would be the message. That would be like the permission I would love to give people. feeling into is let's stop making it so hard on ourselves, but at the same time, let's hold ourselves so high level. Dichotomy. My coach talks says high engagement, low attachment.

There we go. Be fully engaged, but not attached, low attachment. Beautiful. You know what I mean? High engagement, low attachment. Final question, Dan, what is your definition of greatness? Having the courage to do the work. You could be, you can be somebody that everybody knows,

win all the championships, win all the races, win the medals. You could still not have done the work. And I, again, I just go back to the most powerful thing that we have is that story of doing that work and then sharing it to help other people. And I just, I think when I think of like the people I admire and their greatness, I'm, and even with you, I said this, I'm just grateful that you, you did that. You showed it. You had the courage to do it. That's my definition of greatness. Dan Martel, my minute.

Appreciate it. Amazing. I mean, man. Thanks, brother. 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.

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